Joe Rogan Experience #1738 - Ben O'Brien

1. 0:00 – 2:45

   Rye Brain cocktails, knives, and old hunting-trip chaos

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. (energetic music) Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Oh, hi, Ben O'Brien.

   4. BOBen O'Brien0:13

      Hey, Joe Rogan.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Good to see you, my friend. This, been a while.

   6. BOBen O'Brien0:15

      God, it feels really comfortable in here. I know. I missed you.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Oh, this is, uh, so appropriate that I'm mixing this with a nice little Benchmade knife.

   8. BOBen O'Brien0:22

      Oh.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      We're- we're making rye brains. We-

   10. BOBen O'Brien0:25

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       This is a, uh-

   12. BOBen O'Brien0:27

       Yeah. We are.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Well, we figured out a couple of different drinks one time on a hunting trip in Lanai, and one of them was the Cat Lady.

   14. BOBen O'Brien0:33

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       That was John Dudley's creation. (laughs)

   16. BOBen O'Brien0:37

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       The Cat Lady.

   18. BOBen O'Brien0:38

       Remember that? I, there's no way to know. Do you remember what was in the Cat Lady?

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       The Cat Lady had red bull, red wine, and I think it was tequila?

   20. BOBen O'Brien0:46

       Tequila.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Yeah.

   22. BOBen O'Brien0:47

       For sure.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Yeah. And, uh-

   24. BOBen O'Brien0:49

       There's no way, there's no way to really-

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       That John Dudley.

   26. BOBen O'Brien0:52

       ... recreate that. John Dudley's everybody's uncle.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       He can put them away.

   28. BOBen O'Brien0:56

       Who can... Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       Yeah, he knows how to put them away and we did a podcast and-

   30. BOBen O'Brien0:59

       Podcasts in Paradise?
2. 2:45 – 6:00

   Fanny packs, TSA blind spots, and concealed-carry practicality

   1. BOBen O'Brien2:45

      Just don't fly on a plane. Oh, you probably fly private. Don't fly on a plane with that. They'll take it away from you.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:49

      No, dude. Jocko gave me a big ass fucking knife-

   3. BOBen O'Brien2:52

      (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:53

      ... and, uh, I had it in my fanny pack. I went straight through security, no problem, and then I sent him a photo of it from my-

   5. BOBen O'Brien3:00

      In the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:00

      ... hotel room. I go, "Hey." I go, "Look who's protecting your air."

   7. BOBen O'Brien3:03

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:03

      "Fucking TSA letting me fly straight through."

   9. BOBen O'Brien3:05

      I think if it's in a fanny pack, though.

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:07

       Oh, yeah. They figure this guy's safe.

   11. BOBen O'Brien3:09

       He's not gonna do anything. He's wearing a fanny pack.

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:10

       He's a good guy.

   13. BOBen O'Brien3:12

       It's leather, it's, you know, it's shiny.

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:14

       Well, don't a lot of people use fanny packs for concealed carry?

   15. BOBen O'Brien3:17

       Yeah, that is popular in a concealed carry world.

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:19

       Have you seen those Velcro ones that they have? Do you just, like, pull a tab or... (swooshing noise)

   17. BOBen O'Brien3:23

       That's, let's... No offense, concealed carry world, but it's not the most fashion-forward, you know...

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:28

       Whatever.

   19. BOBen O'Brien3:28

       It isn't.

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:29

       If you're not worried about getting laid, just, it's a pract-

   21. BOBen O'Brien3:32

       But you can defend yourself.

   22. JRJoe Rogan3:34

       Oh, mine's in my-

   23. BOBen O'Brien3:34

       You can defend yourself.

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:35

       ... truck. Um, or-

   25. BOBen O'Brien3:36

       What do you need?

   26. JRJoe Rogan3:36

       ... in my car rather. My fanny pack.

   27. BOBen O'Brien3:38

       Oh. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Carry it everywhere. I don't carry one on me.

   29. BOBen O'Brien3:40

       No, I mean, the first time I met you, you had one on.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:42

       I f- I fucking really wear one.
3. 6:00 – 8:19

   Podcasting as a life skill: early days, influence, and information overload

   1. BOBen O'Brien6:00

      Well, I tell people, like, my biggest regret in life-... although there are many. One of them is, when I first met you when we went moose hunting-

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:07

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BOBen O'Brien6:07

      ... the whole, the time, we had a, a fucking hell of a time. I didn't laugh more in a truck my whole life. Like, that was-

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:13

      You had fun? (laughs)

   5. BOBen O'Brien6:13

      ... fucking fun. And you said, "You should do a podcast, man. Do a podca- I'll help you out. Do a podcast." And I was thinking, "I work for a magazine. That's the real media."

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:23

      (laughs)

   7. BOBen O'Brien6:23

      Joe Rogan's over there in his basement with his buddies doing live stuff.

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:26

      But Rogan said, everybody said, everybody said that.

   9. BOBen O'Brien6:28

      And I didn't listen to you. It took me a while to get there.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:30

       Yeah.

   11. BOBen O'Brien6:30

       But if I'd have listened to you when you first told me, I think it was seven years ago this month. It might've been, this might be, like, the seven-year week anniversary of that hunt, or seven or eight years ago.

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:38

       Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

   13. BOBen O'Brien6:40

       So how long has this been going?

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:42

       12 years.

   15. BOBen O'Brien6:43

       12 years.

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:44

       Yeah. This is a 12-year-old podcast now.

   17. BOBen O'Brien6:46

       Oh, shit.

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:47

       Yeah. The only ones who were doing it before me were Corolla, uh, Marin, um, there was a couple guys that were doing it before me.

   19. BOBen O'Brien6:54

       Wh- yeah. You had the guy on that was the Podfather. What was that guy's name? Lives here.

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:58

       Oh, yeah. Adam Curry. He's the-

   21. BOBen O'Brien6:59

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan6:59

       ... OG. He's the, he's definitely been doing it longer. I mean, he fucking invented this shit. And he's, I love that guy. He's awesome. He's so fucking smart and so tuned in, and he does everything-

   23. BOBen O'Brien7:12

       Good for you for watching him.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:12

       ... like, completely independent. You know, he's got one of them fucking Linux phones. Like, he only uses Signal. You know, like, everything's blockchain.

   25. BOBen O'Brien7:21

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan7:21

       He's one of them guys, you know? He's t- mm.

   27. BOBen O'Brien7:28

       I don't know how to smoke a cigar, so for the people watching, you probably-

   28. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       You just do it.

   29. BOBen O'Brien7:31

       Just fucking go.

   30. JRJoe Rogan7:32

       You figure it out along the way.
4. 8:19 – 10:25

   Many interests, shallow expertise, and why hunting becomes an obsession

   1. BOBen O'Brien8:19

      I'll tell you though, I always, I'm, I'm terrible like that. When you think of the important points of history and things that you wanna, ideas you wanna articulate to people about things that are very important to you.

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:29

      Yeah.

   3. BOBen O'Brien8:29

      And you almost invariably fuck it up. And we could all just do a little bit better to, to acknowledge that with each other, because it's hard.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:35

      Well, you know what it is also? It's like, we have many interests, and that is, uh-

   5. BOBen O'Brien8:40

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:40

      ... that's my m- main problem. I have so many interests. If you want to talk to me about very specific things that I've studied for most of my life-

   7. BOBen O'Brien8:48

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:48

      ... I can give you a very detailed, like if, you could wake me up at 2:00 in the morning and ask me, uh, uh, "What martial art's the best martial art?" And I go, "Okay, well, this is what we know." And then I can give you, like, a very detailed, nuanced perspective-

   9. BOBen O'Brien9:03

      Right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:03

       ... on what we've learned about, you know, hand-to-hand combat. But-

   11. BOBen O'Brien9:06

       Yeah. And, and everybody has, like, one or two of those subjects-

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       Yeah.

   13. BOBen O'Brien9:09

       ... that they know really well.

   14. JRJoe Rogan9:10

       Definitely.

   15. BOBen O'Brien9:10

       And that's when you get into, like, public speaking or doing-

   16. JRJoe Rogan9:12

       Yeah.

   17. BOBen O'Brien9:12

       ... stuff like this, where you can go all day about that stuff.

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:15

       Mm-hmm.

   19. BOBen O'Brien9:15

       The rest of it, you have, at best, ancillary knowledge of what you're talking about.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:18

       Right.

   21. BOBen O'Brien9:18

       At best.

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:19

       Exactly.

   23. BOBen O'Brien9:19

       Secondhand knowledge.

   24. JRJoe Rogan9:20

       Especially if you're a person that has many interests.

   25. BOBen O'Brien9:23

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan9:23

       'Cause the, there might be multiple things that you're really fascinated by. You know, I, I always say that I wish I had many lives that I could live simultaneously, 'cause-

   27. BOBen O'Brien9:33

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan9:33

       ... I, I would have a bunch of different occupations.

   29. BOBen O'Brien9:35

       And you've gone deep on many things just in your life. Like pool, when I first met you-

   30. JRJoe Rogan9:40

       Still addicted to pool.
5. 10:25 – 15:24

   Ben’s DIY elk-hunting transformation: from guided success to earned skill

   1. BOBen O'Brien10:25

      Bro, I tell you a story. I, when I moved to Bozeman, I, I had killed big elk, right? I had killed, if you came to my house, you might say, "This is a big elk killing guy. This guy has the, the bona fides to tell me how to kill elk." But I had never really done it on my own.

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:39

      Done it all with guides?

   3. BOBen O'Brien10:41

      Yeah. Most of it. I did, had one, I killed one big elk on public land, but again, it was a rifle hunt, and-

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:46

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BOBen O'Brien10:46

      ... I had a buddy helping me. And I didn't really, I didn't gather the intellectual property in a way that I felt was appropriate to say, "This is my, this is the thing that I did."

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:54

      Right.

   7. BOBen O'Brien10:54

      "This is a craft that I can now say I'm a part of. I'm a craftsman in this thing." And so, that, that idea stuck with me. And so I went to, when I moved to Bozeman, I thought, "I have to understand the, the most difficult version of this elk hunting. I'm gonna go fi- figure that out." And that's by yourself, on your own, find where elk live, learn their habits, learn how they talk, and then be proficient enough with a bow, in this case-

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:19

      To get close enough.

   9. BOBen O'Brien11:20

      ... to get close enough and kill one.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:21

       Did you do scouting online?

   11. BOBen O'Brien11:24

       I did.

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:24

       Did you use, like, onX Maps?

   13. BOBen O'Brien11:25

       I used onX Maps for e-scouting, I went deep. And I, and I'm also a young father. I got a lot going on. So I'm like, "I wanna, I want it to be close to my house."

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:32

       Right.

   15. BOBen O'Brien11:33

       One, I wanna be able to include my friends in this. There's a lot of things I wanna be able to do. And, and that, so I wanted to, to just understand the craft deeper. Because you, I'm sure you know, with hunting especially, there's no bottom to how deep you can go in terms of learning.

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:49

       Yeah. No.

   17. BOBen O'Brien11:49

       There's no, you could never get to a full breadth of knowledge. Ever.

   18. JRJoe Rogan11:52

       Just so many layers.

   19. BOBen O'Brien11:53

       It's impossible. So I said, "I'm gonna go on public land in Montana. I'm gonna learn to call. I'm gonna be, I'm already proficient with a bow, but I'm gonna learn everything. I don't want anybody telling me their spot. I don't want anybody telling me where the elk hang out."... and it took me two years.

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:07

       Wow.

   21. BOBen O'Brien12:08

       I had a lot of shitty days in the woods where I thought I was an idiot.

   22. JRJoe Rogan12:11

       (laughs)

   23. BOBen O'Brien12:12

       (laughs) I was like walking around going, "Maybe this will never happen."

   24. JRJoe Rogan12:15

       Did you... Like, when, when you started out, did you remember anything that you'd learned hunting with guides? Like, d- you weren't starting from scratch, right? So you probably-

   25. BOBen O'Brien12:24

       No. No, I wasn't starting from scratch. I had, uh, a lifetime of hunting knowledge.

   26. JRJoe Rogan12:29

       Right.

   27. BOBen O'Brien12:29

       A lifetime of understanding how to, to... So, I don't want to understate my abilities, but understanding kind of how to work a landscape, how to understand where animals want to be. It's pretty simple a lot of times.

   28. JRJoe Rogan12:39

       Right.

   29. BOBen O'Brien12:39

       So, I had all this knowledge in my head, but I didn't... What I didn't really have was the application of that knowledge.

   30. JRJoe Rogan12:45

       Right.
6. 15:24 – 19:34

   Predators in the elk woods: wolves, carcasses, and a grizzly encounter setup

   1. BOBen O'Brien15:24

      And I'm f- I'm looking this way and the bottom of the drainage is behind me. And I knew... This longer story is that I knew a buddy of mine had killed... His brother-in-law had killed an elk in the drainage too the day before. I had a trail camera in that spot. That trail camera had picked up wolves literally probably 500 yards from where we were standing at that moment. I had a trail camera that only weeks before had picked up wolves killing cattle.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:51

      Wow.

   3. BOBen O'Brien15:52

      Chasing cattle. Ki- I got videos on my phone, wolves killing cattle. And so I had talked to the game warden and I said, "Hey man, just wanna let you know," (laughs) "you should tell the landowner his cows are getting whacked up here." And he said, "Listen." I said, "Well..." He said, "Are you gonna hunt the carcass of the cow that was killed?" I said, "No. I'm not necessarily interested in that." He said, "Well, good, because there's a grizzly bear in this... There's a big boar grizzly bear, male grizzly bear in this zone. And you know how they are, they can smell, smell a carcass from five, seven miles away." He said, "He'll probably be over." I said, "Okay, noted." And he said, "If, if you kill an elk, get it outta here."

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:31

      Oof.

   5. BOBen O'Brien16:31

      So my buddy kills an elk. It snows when he kills this elk. This is the day before we were there. He said there were wolf tracks on his tracks. He had one pack out to the truck with half the elk, went back to get the other half. There were wolf prints on his tracks in the time it took for him to go back to the truck and then come back for the rest of the meat.

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:48

      How, how long is the, the hike out?

   7. BOBen O'Brien16:50

      I, I can't imagine it was more than 45 minutes.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:53

      Exhales so they were waiting.

   9. BOBen O'Brien16:54

      They were waiting.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       They probably l- did, did he rifle hunt or bow hunt?

   11. BOBen O'Brien16:58

       It was bow hunt.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:59

       They, they probably know-

   13. BOBen O'Brien17:00

       They know.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       ... when they see you-

   15. BOBen O'Brien17:02

       They know.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:02

       ... they're like, "Oh, this guy's gonna go shoot an elk."

   17. BOBen O'Brien17:03

       "That guy over there?"

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:04

       Yeah.

   19. BOBen O'Brien17:04

       "Look at that little, look at that silly little bitch."

   20. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       Yeah.

   21. BOBen O'Brien17:06

       "Just prancing around his camo."

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:07

       Not only that, they leave behind the best part for a wolf, the liver.

   23. BOBen O'Brien17:12

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       Like a lot of people, liv- leave behind the guts.

   25. BOBen O'Brien17:14

       You've been taking livers like that?

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       Oh yeah.

   27. BOBen O'Brien17:16

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:16

       Dude, I eat it all the time.

   29. BOBen O'Brien17:17

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       It makes you feel good. Like you-
7. 19:34 – 23:32

   Moose-hunt flashback: giant animals, wolf kills, and first big-game awe

   1. BOBen O'Brien19:34

      There it is. I got it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan19:35

      (laughs)

   3. BOBen O'Brien19:35

      I don't know... It's on... This is gonna be shitty audio, right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:39

      30 seconds, go.

   5. BOBen O'Brien19:40

      All right, we were hammering.

   6. UFUnknown hunting friend19:41

      We're having a good time, laughing, joking. All of a sudden, Mike goes, "Holy shit, two bulls!" We stopped the truck. You jump out. Within 10 seconds, the first shot goes off. Boom!

   7. BOBen O'Brien19:51

      Boom! Boom!

   8. UFUnknown hunting friend19:51

      The moose drops. I, I don't know, I might have yelled, "Shoot him again," or something. Who knows what happened? The moose dropped. You're... you've got this-

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:59

      I have an Elvis T-shirt on.

   10. BOBen O'Brien20:00

       (laughs) Yeah.

   11. UFUnknown hunting friend20:01

       ... just going bang, bang, bang.

   12. JRJoe Rogan20:02

       Elvis doing karate.

   13. BOBen O'Brien20:03

       It's the worst podcast audio.

   14. UFUnknown hunting friend20:05

       I base three times, shot about four shots. And then-

   15. BOBen O'Brien20:07

       This is my favorite part.

   16. UFUnknown hunting friend20:08

       I didn't realize I'm running. I'm halfway to the bull. It's down, it's kicking. And I'm halfway there and I'm like, "I guess I'm running."

   17. BOBen O'Brien20:16

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan20:16

       (laughs)

   19. UFUnknown hunting friend20:16

       I must be running. And so, I get there. I don't know why I was... I guess I wanted to be there when it died? I don't know why. So, I get there and this enormous fucking horse on steroids is lying there.

   20. JRJoe Rogan20:26

       It was so big, dude.

   21. BOBen O'Brien20:27

       Oh, dude.

   22. JRJoe Rogan20:27

       You... When we saw those... Let me tell... Let me explain the first time I saw a moose live. It was like Jeff Goldblum in, uh, Jurassic Park.

   23. BOBen O'Brien20:35

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan20:35

       Where he, like, pops his head out of the Jeep. Like, what the fuck?

   25. BOBen O'Brien20:38

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan20:39

       I'd never seen-

   27. BOBen O'Brien20:39

       They do move in herds, yeah. I mean-

   28. JRJoe Rogan20:40

       They're so big.

   29. BOBen O'Brien20:42

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:43

       They're so big. When you've first seen... I had seen deer before but when you see a moose on the hoof... I mean, back then, I'd never seen an elk. I saw it on-
8. 23:32 – 25:55

   Why people hunt: game theory, transformation, and the byproduct of meat

   1. BOBen O'Brien23:32

      ... where, wh- you try to describe it as... There's a bunch of topics here all mixed together but one of them is that why do we hunt in the modern sense, right? What are we out there doing? We'll get back to the elk story in a minute.

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:39

      We're doing two things. We're getting meat and we're also having a, like a transformative experience.

   3. BOBen O'Brien23:45

      Yeah. But what... Like, bring that back a little bit. I- think about game theory. This is the most immersive, real... in the... in a real sense, game that you can play.

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:55

      Yes.

   5. BOBen O'Brien23:55

      And it, it's a three-dimensional game because it has... You go play a video game and what do you get at the end? You get the dopamine kick, you get the kind of critical thinking that it takes, you get the muscle memory, whatever. You get all those things that are beneficial.

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:08

      Yeah.

   7. BOBen O'Brien24:09

      But in the sense of hunting, and we tend to focus on one part of the game or the other, but the, the game itself...... is outs- u- understanding an animal, understanding the landscape it uses, understanding its psychology and biology and the history of the landscape-

   8. JRJoe Rogan24:22

      And catching it while it's horny.

   9. BOBen O'Brien24:23

      Catching it while it's horny.

   10. JRJoe Rogan24:24

       (laughs)

   11. BOBen O'Brien24:24

       It's weak. It's weak.

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       It's so dirty.

   13. BOBen O'Brien24:26

       It's weak as fuck. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:27

       (laughs) It's such a dirty game-

   15. BOBen O'Brien24:28

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan24:28

       ... because you catch them in the rut while they're making bad mistakes 'cause they're trying to get some, some-

   17. BOBen O'Brien24:32

       And then-

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:33

       ... hooza.

   19. BOBen O'Brien24:33

       ... there was probably some pleistocene hunter thinking about when do mammoths fuck.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:38

       Yeah.

   21. BOBen O'Brien24:38

       You know-

   22. JRJoe Rogan24:38

       Yeah.

   23. BOBen O'Brien24:38

       ... when do the mammoths in the rut, and when can I take advantage in the very similar sense to what we do, whitetailed deer and elk, and the things that we pursue? So you're like, "Well, I'm gonna take advantage of this thing." But the game theory, I think, is, in a modern sense, because we could just get meat at the store, game theory is what draws us in. But what keeps us there, and what becomes kind of, like... what I always think of as a side benefit of hunting, not the reason we go, is, is the meat and what that provides for you.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:05

       Yes.

   25. BOBen O'Brien25:05

       'Cause if you were... you think about the, the, the activity of hunting, you would do it holistically different if you were just after meat.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:11

       Right.

   27. BOBen O'Brien25:11

       You would ho- do it holistically different if you were just after antlers or horns.

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:14

       Right.

   29. BOBen O'Brien25:15

       You would do it holistically different if you were just out there for exercise.

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:18

       Yeah.
9. 25:55 – 38:55

   Wild game, nutrition, and even jaw strength: from backstraps to ‘mewing’

   1. BOBen O'Brien25:55

      I have a picture of my dad. I was just down yesterday. I'm, like, fresh out of the woods. W- we were Sika deer hunting in Maryland with my, with my dad. He shoots this hind, which is a female Sika deer, and we hung it up, had a few beers, went to sleep, woke up next morning, skinned it, cut it up, and ate the backstraps. And I did the French cut backstraps. You remember on the lanai?

   2. JRJoe Rogan26:16

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   3. BOBen O'Brien26:17

      With the bone in.

   4. JRJoe Rogan26:18

      Yeah.

   5. BOBen O'Brien26:19

      And you... as you're going through this process, you get to see the transformation from a thing that walks around to a thing that's on the plate. And in that case, it was like microwave. You... boom, done. It's on the plate. And you see it, and you can see the redness of the meat. We're used to this, like, bullshit marbling that we've created in beef.

   6. JRJoe Rogan26:36

      Yeah.

   7. BOBen O'Brien26:36

      But this is just, just flesh, straight up.

   8. JRJoe Rogan26:38

      It's the difference between LeBron James and a gamer.

   9. BOBen O'Brien26:42

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan26:43

       Like, a, a fat Twitch gamer.

   11. BOBen O'Brien26:45

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan26:46

       (laughs) That's the difference. It's like the-

   13. BOBen O'Brien26:48

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan26:48

       ... difference between, like, a, a super athlete, a Brock Lesnar-

   15. BOBen O'Brien26:52

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan26:52

       ... thigh steak.

   17. BOBen O'Brien26:53

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan26:53

       You know? You know what I mean?

   19. BOBen O'Brien26:54

       Yeah, I'm, I-

   20. JRJoe Rogan26:55

       That's what it is.

   21. BOBen O'Brien26:56

       I... it's pure, and it's, you know-

   22. JRJoe Rogan26:58

       Thick.

   23. BOBen O'Brien26:58

       It's thick and pure.

   24. JRJoe Rogan27:00

       Dense.

   25. BOBen O'Brien27:00

       And it's just, it's just... the redness, the richness of it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan27:03

       Nutrient rich.

   27. BOBen O'Brien27:04

       Dense. And even if... even the muscles that are used quite often in the animal, like, if you think of, uh, shank meat or things that are muscles that are, that are used a lot, so they become-

   28. JRJoe Rogan27:14

       Tough.

   29. BOBen O'Brien27:14

       ... really tough. They got a lot of sinew, a lot of tendons, a lot of things you gotta work through to get the meat out. When you slow cook them, you still get to... you almost get to taste the effort of the animal.

   30. JRJoe Rogan27:23

       Yeah.
10. 38:55 – 50:16

    Hunters, vegans, and the ethics gap: shared values, conservation funding, and activism

    1. BOBen O'Brien38:55

       And if you're lucky, it helps structure your life in a better way, you know? And so then you get I... To the point where I can say for sure that I know... I've, I've sussed it all out. I understand exactly what hunting does for my life. And then I can then understand there's a structure for why this matters for society, and there's a structure for how we pay for this, and there's clear evidence that it has done good for wildlife in this... on this continent, let alone this country. And it's, it's... All that is very clear when you look at the evidence. I have... I know you know this, spent some time with vegans. Like, I've had podcasted with vegans and-

    2. JRJoe Rogan39:32

       Yeah.

    3. BOBen O'Brien39:32

       ... not just your regular run-of-the-mill vegan. I'm talking activist vegans, people that are probably in federal prison right now. Um, I went to the Dingo Den one time. There's a group called Direct Action Everywhere, I believe. DxE. And I went to, um, Berkeley and had lunch with a couple of the activists. I won't say what their names, but I had lunch with them at a vegan restaurant and, and just asked, like, "What's it like? Where are you from? Who are you? How'd you get here?"

    4. JRJoe Rogan40:01

       Right.

    5. BOBen O'Brien40:01

       'Cause it... One guy was, like, from a farm in Kansas.

    6. JRJoe Rogan40:04

       Those are good podcasts, by the way. And tell-

    7. BOBen O'Brien40:06

       Oh, thank you.

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:06

       Tell people wh- how to get those, just so-

    9. BOBen O'Brien40:08

       The Hunting Collective is a podcast that... I don't do it anymore, but I did it for MeatEater. You can go to MeatEater's website and listen to The Hunting Collective.

    10. JRJoe Rogan40:13

        And what, what episodes are those with th- those vegan guys? 'Cause I really enjoyed them.

    11. BOBen O'Brien40:16

        There's a bunch of them. I'd have to look. Um, if you look for, uh, Direct Action Everywhere, I did one. Um, I have a good friend who I'm hoping to start a podcast with at some point soon. His name is Dr. Robert C. Jones. He's a, uh, animal ethicist and he's a professor in California. He used to be at Chico State. I think now he's at a different college. But he te- He's a, uh, animal rights guy and a vegan. Good friend. I've been talking to him about how do we do a show together and just take these issues on together, 'cause we... Him and I have the best conversations. So if you look for... The best example of this is Dr. Robert C. Jones. So if you look for that podcast and look for Dr. Robert, you'll, you'll get some good discord. And it's healthy. Uh, he takes... He's a philosopher, so he takes me on some of these philosophical journeys and tries to convince me that animal rights has some validity, which I often say... I, I've always said to him, I said, "Listen, imagine if, if we... Animal rights and veganism and animal... And hunting. You, you're a vegan. I'm an, I'm a hunter. We start back to back. We start at the exact same place. And over time, we walk away from each other. After a while, we forget where we started. And all we are is... We're separated and we're yelling back at each other." And that's what veganism and hunting is to me, because I think vegans and hunters start from the same place.

    12. JRJoe Rogan41:32

        Vegans and hunters, ethical hunters, are way closer than people that just eat meat-

    13. BOBen O'Brien41:38

        Yeah.

    14. JRJoe Rogan41:39

        ... and people that have no thought whatsoever about it.

    15. BOBen O'Brien41:42

        Right. I feel more connection to, to somebody that actively looks at how they consume-

    16. JRJoe Rogan41:46

        Yes.

    17. BOBen O'Brien41:46

        ... than someone that actively avoids the topic.

    18. JRJoe Rogan41:48

        Right, someone who just is willfully ignorant.

    19. BOBen O'Brien41:51

        Yeah.

    20. JRJoe Rogan41:51

        Yeah.

    21. BOBen O'Brien41:51

        So I always tell them. I'm like, "We're..." And this is many, many, many issues in our country right now. We talk past each other.

    22. JRJoe Rogan41:57

        Yeah.

    23. BOBen O'Brien41:57

        We don't have to, because we start with the same idea. We just get to a different place. And by the time we're so separated in this, this walk away from each other, we're just yelling back at each other with, with no context of how we started.

    24. JRJoe Rogan42:08

        There's also this lack of appreciation for survival itself.

    25. BOBen O'Brien42:13

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan42:13

        Because we've gotten to this point where it's so easy to consume food. Consuming food is like... We're, we're, like, one of the rare moments in history where poor people are fat.

    27. BOBen O'Brien42:26

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan42:26

        It's so strange.

    29. BOBen O'Brien42:27

        Cellphones.

    30. JRJoe Rogan42:28

        But it's just food, just-
11. 50:16 – 1:31:22

    Guns, fear, and narratives: pandemic shortages, Rittenhouse trial optics, and skepticism

    1. JRJoe Rogan50:16

       They cover hunting. That are really interesting. Um, and then the pandemic. The pandemic opened a lot of people's eyes to the op- the possibility that, like... My friend Duncan sent me a picture of his grocery store and the meat shelf was completely bare.

    2. BOBen O'Brien50:28

       Completely.

    3. JRJoe Rogan50:29

       Completely bare. He's like, "Dude, there's no meat." And, and I'm like, "Whoa." You know, this is... And he was in North Carolina at the time.

    4. BOBen O'Brien50:35

       Yeah. And you've talked about this before. It just took away the thin veneer of safety.

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:39

       Yes.

    6. BOBen O'Brien50:39

       That, that we are sometime... Like, we are somehow beholden to the people that put the meat on the shelves.

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:45

       Right.

    8. BOBen O'Brien50:45

       The proxy executioner that will wax the cow on the head, and the industry that goes and creates that cellophane-wrapped beautiful piece of meat for you to, to purchase.

    9. JRJoe Rogan50:52

       And these people that don't have this understanding of our place-

    10. BOBen O'Brien50:57

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:57

        ... in the, in the actual ecosystem, these Beto O'Rourke type of in- individuals-

    12. BOBen O'Brien51:02

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan51:02

        ... that don't have-

    14. BOBen O'Brien51:02

        Get hot on Beto.

    15. JRJoe Rogan51:03

        Yeah. Yeah. It's... This, these humans that are protected-

    16. BOBen O'Brien51:08

        Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan51:09

        ... i- in this way, that they have this undue confidence in the system.

    18. BOBen O'Brien51:14

        Yeah. And, and the system itself is made up of individuals, right? So, and then, and when you have a toilet paper shortage or a meat shortage, it's... I don't think it's that a certain subset of individuals are buying it all. I think that's it's that every single person buys more than they need, right? And then you, then you have a shortage, you have a shortage of meat.

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:31

        Well, the toilet paper thing is, it takes up so much space.

    20. BOBen O'Brien51:34

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:34

        If you have 1,000 people, y- and they need to buy these giant fucking things of Charmin. Like, there's a lot of fucking space that those big toilet paper packages take up.

    22. BOBen O'Brien51:46

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan51:47

        And you only have, like, one aisle that's toilet paper. That shit gets filled up really quick.

    24. BOBen O'Brien51:51

        Quickly.

    25. JRJoe Rogan51:52

        Yeah.

    26. BOBen O'Brien51:52

        Yeah, but I... That's, that's where I, and a lot of people I know came to you, it came to me, like, "What do I do?"

    27. JRJoe Rogan51:57

        Right.

    28. BOBen O'Brien51:57

        "I need some meat. Can I borrow some meat?" "Sure."

    29. JRJoe Rogan51:59

        Did friends ask to borrow guns?

    30. BOBen O'Brien52:00

        Yes.

Episode duration: 3:29:48