Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps

1. 0:00 – 1:44

   Omicron hits Australia as borders reopen: “prison colony” vs reality

   1. JSJosh Szeps0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JSJosh Szeps0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Hello, Josh.

   5. JSJosh Szeps0:13

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs)

   7. JSJosh Szeps0:15

      Hi, mate. I'm free.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you, man.

   9. JSJosh Szeps0:16

      They let me out. They- they let us out-

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:18

       They- they let you out of your prison colony.

   11. JSJosh Szeps0:19

       Oh, my goodness.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:19

       Isn't it strange how Australia's reverting back to what it originally was?

   13. JSJosh Szeps0:23

       Well, (laughs) sort of, supposedly.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       (laughs)

   15. JSJosh Szeps0:25

       But now they're, now, I mean, Omicron's going crazy there now.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       (sighs)

   17. JSJosh Szeps0:27

       Now we're, now we're open. I mean-

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       But it's a cold.

   19. JSJosh Szeps0:30

       It's, um, yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       Omicron is a cold.

   21. JSJosh Szeps0:32

       Yeah, yeah, it is now.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       It's not the Delta, it's not this dangerous one?

   23. JSJosh Szeps0:35

       Well, we're- we're embracing it wholeheartedly.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Good.

   25. JSJosh Szeps0:38

       We got, we got, uh, like, um, and we can talk about all the numbers and stuff, but, uh, like, this whole, this whole, like, kind of theory that Australia has become a prison colony and there were definite excesses over the past couple of years-

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       (laughs)

   27. JSJosh Szeps0:49

       ... in the way that some Australian states-

   28. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       Yes.

   29. JSJosh Szeps0:50

       ... dealt with it. Uh, but since the first of November, when the biggest state, New South Wales, where Sydney is, where I'm from basically was like, "All right, we're open. We're letting people, you know, come in from abroad. We're not gonna have ha- quarantine anymore. You're allowed to do whatever you want. We're not gonna have-"

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Oh, that's beautiful.
2. 1:44 – 6:22

   Do vaccines ‘work’ for Omicron? Infection vs hospitalization vs death

   1. JSJosh Szeps1:44

      But also, I mean, timing wise, like, we, a lot of people are vaccinated, you know? I mean, like, uh, New South Wales is 95 plus percent vaccinated, so.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:50

      But the vaccine isn't working for Omicron. If you look at the numbers-

   3. JSJosh Szeps1:53

      Well, for hospitalization and death it is. It's not-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:55

      Well, ho- no, no, no. hospitalization and death.

   5. JSJosh Szeps1:57

      You still, you still test positive.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:57

      There's, people aren't getting hospitalized and dying off Omicron.

   7. JSJosh Szeps2:00

      Well-

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:01

      It's not the same disease.

   9. JSJosh Szeps2:03

      It's not the same, but it would still be a very different situation if no one in Australia was vaccinated than if 95% of them were vaccinated.

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       If it's an escape variant, which is what some biologists believe-

   11. JSJosh Szeps2:12

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:12

       ... then no, because it doesn't have the protection. The vaccine doesn't provide the protection from this particular variant.

   13. JSJosh Szeps2:19

       Yes, it does.

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       From Omicron?

   15. JSJosh Szeps2:20

       Yeah, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan2:21

       In what way?

   17. JSJosh Szeps2:21

       In terms of hospitalization and death, it does.

   18. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       Hospitalization and death is not an issue with this variant. It's not causing people to be hospitalized and dying on large scale.

   19. JSJosh Szeps2:31

       It i- well, not the same. It is, though. It is. I mean, it, like, if it's half as... The, the way the epidemiologists put it is, like, if it's half as bad, but 10 times as many people get it, then you've still got five times as many people in hospital.

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       It depends on who we- what you're talking about. If you're talking about people with massive comorbidities, yeah.

   21. JSJosh Szeps2:52

       Well, yeah. I mean-

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:52

       But then any cold could do that to people.

   23. JSJosh Szeps2:54

       Yeah, I mean, part of the-

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:54

       So are we gonna vaccinate for colds?

   25. JSJosh Szeps2:57

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:57

       'Cause that's literally what this is. Like, my friend who just got it had no idea he had it. He had a scratchy throat-

   27. JSJosh Szeps3:02

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:02

       ... and then he got tested. Turned out that he had it, and he said, "I felt nothing the next day."

   29. JSJosh Szeps3:08

       I mean-

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:08

       He goes, "But I'm still positive for a couple days and I have to lay low." But this is not like the Delta. This is not even like the original version.
3. 6:22 – 15:48

   Australia’s state-by-state COVID regimes: Western Australia and ‘hermit kingdom’ logic

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:22

      What is the state in T- in Australia that has the most ridiculous rules?

   2. JSJosh Szeps6:26

      Western Australia.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:27

      Yeah. So they have rules where you can't even go to work now, right?

   4. JSJosh Szeps6:32

      Oh.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:32

      Unless you're vaccinated.

   6. JSJosh Szeps6:33

      Oh. So there, there are a couple of things that could be perceived as crazy. One is, uh, like, different rules for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:41

      Yes.

   8. JSJosh Szeps6:42

      But the other is also just, like, being a hermit kingdom. I mean-

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:46

      Is that what it is out there?

   10. JSJosh Szeps6:47

       (laughs) Well, so Western Australia-

   11. JRJoe Rogan6:50

       (laughs)

   12. JSJosh Szeps6:50

       I should probably put... Look, I'll, I'll back, I'll backtrack and give, I can give some context to this in a sec. But just to finish my thought about, like, jumping across borders. So I'd been going to... Uh, I was, I was in Europe and, uh, I sent my partner Shaun and, uh, and, and our kids to his parents in New England to see the grandparents 'cause, you know, the grandparents haven't seen them in two years. The, you know, it's the big pandemic reunion. And I was like, "I've got to do a little bit more work in, in Sydney, so you take the kids, uh, by yourself." Thank you, Shaun. "I'll go to Europe and meet up with some old mates and some family in, in Europe." And this is, like, in sort of September, October, so sort of pre-Omicron. And I'm like, "It's gonna be sweet. Pandemic's basically over."

   13. JRJoe Rogan7:29

       Right.

   14. JSJosh Szeps7:29

       The Delta wave has, uh, you know-

   15. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       (laughs)

   16. JSJosh Szeps7:30

       ... subsided. (laughs) I'm being let out of the box. We're gonna go and have fun. I'm booking, like, nine-hour train rides from France to Switzerland. I'm hitting up my mate in Rome. We're gonna go to Sicily, we're gonna do all this stuff. And then Omicron just starts coming and I've spent, like, the past four weeks, I feel like, like Indiana Jones with a burning bridge and I'm, like, running across it-

   17. JRJoe Rogan7:51

       (laughs)

   18. JSJosh Szeps7:51

       ... (laughs) and the bridge is just falling apart behind. As, like, the borders are clanging closed behind me.

   19. JRJoe Rogan7:56

       Oh, my God.

   20. JSJosh Szeps7:56

       And I'm, I'm just like, new rules, new testing. Do I need an antigen test to get into Switzerland? Do I need a new piece of paper to say that I haven't been a close contact? Do I need this, do I need that? And all this stuff has been... And, like, then the, the final night before coming here to the States, and you know you need a, uh, a, you need a negative test to come into the United States.

   21. JRJoe Rogan8:14

       Right.

   22. JSJosh Szeps8:14

       You can't... They won't let you board the plane unless you have a, a test one day before.

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:18

       Do you have to have a test when you land or do you have... Oh, one day before?

   24. JSJosh Szeps8:21

       Yeah. You can't get on the plane to even come here.

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       One day before is kind of funny, though 'cause you could easily be positive and get on that plane.

   26. JSJosh Szeps8:26

       Well, true, but I mean, it's also a pain in the ass 'cause, like, it used to be three days before and then Biden was like, "We've got to really crack down on this and make it one day before." I'm like, "Dude-

   27. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Well, that's way more logical.

   28. JSJosh Szeps8:34

       ... you've got a million cases a day in America anyway.

   29. JRJoe Rogan8:37

       (laughs)

   30. JSJosh Szeps8:37

       Like, "Just let me in. I promise I'll isolate. Like, I'm not gonna infect anybody." But, so I find myself in Milan and, uh, it's my last night and this is just before Christmas. And my kids and my partner and my in-laws and everybody are, are all preparing for Christmas in New Hampshire. It's gonna be beautiful, snowy. The kids haven't had Christmas with their grandparents for three years. And, uh, I get to this, uh, this little hotel in Milan the night before I need to do the test and fly out to, to Australia. And the, uh, the guy at reception, he's like (coughs) .
4. 15:48 – 21:03

   Vaccine injuries, myocarditis, and the limits of public data (VAERS skepticism)

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:48

      What is it like over there in terms of the recognition and the discussion of vaccine injuries? Is there suppression of it?

   2. JSJosh Szeps15:56

      Well, I've been thinking about this like in what is suppression and what is just the sort of habit of the media elite to find certain sources credible and certain sources non-credible? So like, uh, we've given nine billion doses of this, of the vaccine so far, right? Almost four-

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:17

      Nine, oh, because multiple-

   4. JSJosh Szeps16:18

      Yeah, al- yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:18

      Yeah.

   6. JSJosh Szeps16:19

      Almost four billion people have been fully vaxed. There's no widespread incidents of worrying disease. That doesn't mean that there aren't-

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:27

      Worrying disease?

   8. JSJosh Szeps16:28

      Well, yeah. People aren't dropping, drop- dropping dead from the vaccine in those five billion double doses. But that doesn't mean that there aren't side effects and-

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:36

      Yeah.

   10. JSJosh Szeps16:36

       ... so I mean, I've, I've tried to do a good job of not-

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:38

       But some people are dropping dead, right?

   12. JSJosh Szeps16:41

       Yeah, just not as many as you would if you infected all those people with COVID.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       Well, it depends on who the people are. Like if you're talking about the young soccer players that are dropping dead, I don't think they would have died from COVID.

   14. JSJosh Szeps16:51

       So I mean, I think the... Well, it's, again, it's a numbers game, isn't it? I mean-

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       It is.

   16. JSJosh Szeps16:55

       ... you only need a one in, even if there's only a one in 100,000 chance or a one in a million chance that someone with a p- a particular risk profile is gonna die of COVID, then you're right, that the, the balance becomes different when you're talking about, let's say, a 15-year-old male's risk of COVID and a 15-year-old male's risk of, uh, of some side effect from the vaccine than if you're-

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:14

       Yeah.

   18. JSJosh Szeps17:14

       ... talking about an 82-year-old person who's got, you know-

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:16

       Right. Very different. Right.

   20. JSJosh Szeps17:17

       ... some pulmonary disease or whatever.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       Well, that was a lot of people's, um, impression that what- what we should have done early on is protect the vulnerable and- and concentrate on protecting the vulnerable, and not mandate it for everybody, particularly for people that may have like, for young boys in particular, there's an adverse risk associated with the vaccine. It's like-

   22. JSJosh Szeps17:36

       Yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:37

       ... a two to fourfold increase in the instances of myocarditis-

   24. JSJosh Szeps17:41

       Yes. But you know what the-

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:42

       ... versus hospitalization for COVID.

   26. JSJosh Szeps17:43

       You know that there's an increased risk of myocarditis in, among that age cohort from getting COVID as well, which exceeds the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:51

       I don't think that's true. I don't think-

   28. JSJosh Szeps17:52

       It is.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:53

       ... it's true. I don't... No, no, no. I don't think it's true that there's an increased risk of myocarditis from people catching COVID that are young versus increased risk of myocarditis from the vaccine.

   30. JSJosh Szeps18:02

       No, there is.There's both.
5. 21:03 – 28:24

   Mandates, government power, and tone-deaf pandemic messaging

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:03

      Who is that one lady who is, uh, she's like some health minister over there, is like saying, "Everyone's just gonna have to get used to taking vaccines. You're gonna get, have to get used to boosters."

   2. JSJosh Szeps21:13

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan21:13

      "Used to COVID vaccines." She was like real terse and-

   4. JSJosh Szeps21:15

      I didn't see that, but I love your face when you do that-

   5. JRJoe Rogan21:17

      Bitchy. Well, that's what she was doing.

   6. JSJosh Szeps21:20

      ... bitchy Australian accent. (Austrian accent) Na-na-na.

   7. JRJoe Rogan21:20

      That's what she was doing.

   8. JSJosh Szeps21:20

      Have you seen-

   9. JRJoe Rogan21:20

      "We're all gonna have to get used to vaccines." Like-

   10. JSJosh Szeps21:22

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan21:22

       ... fuck you. We're not gonna have to... Who the fuck are you, lady?

   12. JSJosh Szeps21:25

       (laughs) Have you seen the Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand, uh, prime minister-

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:29

       Yes.

   14. JSJosh Szeps21:29

       ... uh, her like telling people that she's, that they're gonna have to get used to living with COVID or something?

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:33

       Yes. Yes.

   16. JSJosh Szeps21:33

       They're gonna open up, and she's, it's literally like she's a school parent.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:36

       Yeah. Exactly.

   18. JSJosh Szeps21:37

       I mean, I have no political agenda against her or anything, but the manner-

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:40

       Exactly.

   20. JSJosh Szeps21:40

       ... like the sort of, this officious kind of very, like-

   21. JRJoe Rogan21:43

       Exactly.

   22. JSJosh Szeps21:43

       ... "What am I, a baby?"

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:44

       Exactly.

   24. JSJosh Szeps21:44

       "What are you, my, like my mommy?"

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:46

       Exactly. Well, this is the problem that with, with government, right? With people that have power over other people. It's why we restrict power. Because if you give people a, an enormous amount of power to control whether people come and go, whether they can work or not, what schools they can go to, what sh- stores they can shop in, they exert that power.

   26. JSJosh Szeps22:04

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan22:04

       The, the kind of people that run for office enjoy power.

   28. JSJosh Szeps22:08

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       They're fucking weirdos.

   30. JSJosh Szeps22:10

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
6. 28:24 – 31:28

   Australia lockdown enforcement and the ‘concentration camp’ controversy (Djokovic & quarantine)

   1. JSJosh Szeps28:24

      So the ... I mean, so what's ... You know, when you close the border and you keep the virus out, then the, uh, you know, the consequence is not that life gets more, uh, oppressive. The consequence is that you're able to maintain this little fantasy land of continuing life at- life as normal. So there have been these sort of weird kind of brutalizing overreaches of some state police enacting, like, local laws about like ... I interviewed this woman f-... uh, on my radio show in December and she ... So in South Australia, which is, uh, one of the states, they were continuing to insist that if you were a close contact of a ... I don't think they do this anymore but, uh, th- they were continuing to insist that if you were a close contact of someone who has, uh, COVID then you have to isolate for a week. Right? And if you can't isolate for a week by yourself, then they might just force you to go into one of these quarantine hotels that used ... that were init- initially set up-

   2. JRJoe Rogan29:17

      Right.

   3. JSJosh Szeps29:17

      ... for people coming in from abroad.

   4. JRJoe Rogan29:18

      Yeah.

   5. JSJosh Szeps29:18

      That was a wh- a whole part of the system, like people coming in from abroad, two weeks in a hotel or you might have seen, uh, like images of these concentration camps in Australia, like, you know, these dum-dums like Tim Pohl will go like, "It's a concentration camp," uh, when they're ... there's this like, uh, large facility which was originally just sort of bungalows for workers who worked in the mining industry or something-

   6. JRJoe Rogan29:37

      Right. But you use-

   7. JSJosh Szeps29:38

      ... but got repurposed into-

   8. JRJoe Rogan29:39

      You realize that they have to stay on the porch and they can't go anywhere.

   9. JSJosh Szeps29:42

      Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. I just seen that video, like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan29:43

       They're stuck there. That's a little bizarre.

   11. JSJosh Szeps29:44

       Yeah. I mean, it's-

   12. JRJoe Rogan29:45

       Right? It's a little overreachy.

   13. JSJosh Szeps29:46

       There's als- ... It's a little overreachy. They've also got Netflix, they've got free wifi, they get three-

   14. JRJoe Rogan29:51

       Yeah. But you're stuck in a fucking house.

   15. JSJosh Szeps29:53

       ... apparently nice meals a day. Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan29:53

       Like, you can't go anywhere because someone told you you can't go outside.

   17. JSJosh Szeps29:56

       Mate, that's the price you pay for coming into our great country.

   18. JRJoe Rogan29:58

       But that's nonsense. There's-

   19. JSJosh Szeps29:59

       So we don't have to wear masks.

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:00

       There's no, no transmission out- outside. It doesn't, doesn't get transmitted outside.

   21. JSJosh Szeps30:04

       I mean, any time a government imposes rules, there are always gonna be like edge cases where the rule gets stupid. You know what I mean?

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:10

       Right.

   23. JSJosh Szeps30:10

       It's like Djokovic coming into Australia, it's like, "Well, his visa wasn't like technically correct and they put him in a-"

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:14

       They're gonna let him play now, right? In-

   25. JSJosh Szeps30:15

       I think so.

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       Yeah. I think there's a-

   27. JSJosh Szeps30:16

       But don't they have ... They put him in a hotel for ... Well, he needs to be in this ro- hotel, you think he's a flight risk or something? I mean, it's like, you know, rules everywhere are, are silly once you start-

   28. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       Yeah.

   29. JSJosh Szeps30:24

       ... trying to enforce them and trying to look at the edge cases.

   30. JRJoe Rogan30:26

       What do you guys do i- in terms of early treatment if someone catches COVID over there?
7. 31:28 – 47:08

   Indigenous communities relocation claims: misinformation, context, and human-rights tradeoffs

   1. JRJoe Rogan31:28

      I wanted to ask you about. There was, there was some awful reports about them taking the Aborigines and forcing them against their will-

   2. JSJosh Szeps31:35

      Yeah. Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan31:36

      ... to go hundreds of kilometers to some other places.

   4. JSJosh Szeps31:38

      I'm glad you raised that.

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:39

      Is that real?

   6. JSJosh Szeps31:40

      Uh, not really.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:41

      Not really?

   8. JSJosh Szeps31:41

      Um, not really. So what happened was there are these communities out in Katherine, which is this really remote part of the Northern Territory. If people think of the Northern Territory, think like Crocodile Dundee, like really, really, really, really seriously remote. Like you just mentioned that Australia's-

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:57

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JSJosh Szeps31:57

       ... the same size as the contiguous United States and has-

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       Right.

   12. JSJosh Szeps31:59

       ... the population of, you know, n- not even the population of California. Uh, so everyone's huddled on essentially the ... 80, 80% of the population lives on the East Coast, and then a bit on the West Coast, and then you've got Tasmania. And everything in between is like just ... You can fly over it for four hours and it's just red desert with nothing there. And there are indigenous communities who live out there and they'll often live ... You know, there'll be 50 people who all live in the same sort of area. There are, you know, grandparents sleeping with kids, there are ... It's not a situation in which anyone can realistically isolate. Uh, they don't have air conditioning, they often have comorbidities, their life expectancy is low. Uh, it's a really, really tricky situation and since the start of the pandemic, like health experts have been like, "Shit, what happens when it gets into those communities?" I mean, that is just gonna ... That's gonna be like dropping a match on a tinderbox, it's just gonna explode. It's gonna be horribly ... Hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nearest healthcare. Uh, what are you gonna do? So they enlisted the assistance of the local indigenous leaders to be like, "Okay, if there's an outbreak then, um, what do you wanna do?" The local leaders were like, "We'll send them to Howard Springs and we'll put them in the air conditioned, you know, bungalows where you can't cross the line outside," and, you know, they, they actually spend their two weeks in quarantine so that these people, these indigenous communities don't get ravaged by coronavirus. They're also fairly vaccine hesitant, so there's been a lot of attempts to get vaccination rates up among indigenous Australians but it's slower. And-

   13. JRJoe Rogan33:31

       So do they grab them and take them-

   14. JSJosh Szeps33:33

       No.

   15. JRJoe Rogan33:33

       ... to these places?

   16. JSJosh Szeps33:34

       Uh-

   17. JRJoe Rogan33:35

       So these stories are lies?

   18. JSJosh Szeps33:36

       Well, what do you mean by grab? So there was like ... So, there's this bloke who ... There were a couple of people in the Northern Territory who claim to be like indigenous leaders. I don't know if you saw the video of like that bloke-

   19. JRJoe Rogan33:47

       That woman?

   20. JSJosh Szeps33:47

       Well, there was a woman and then there was like a bloke with some other indigenous looking people around him with like a flag behind them who were all like saying, uh ... This went viral.

   21. JRJoe Rogan33:56

       I didn't see that one.

   22. JSJosh Szeps33:56

       Oh. Uh, I think Maajid Nawaz retweeted it in, um, in the UK. Uh, and he ... And he was like, you know, "Amnesty needs to look into this. They're crash tackling us and vaccinating us on the ground. They're forcibly vaccinating us. It's like a, you know, a denial of human rights." And I saw that and I was like, oh my God, how have I not ... Like, how have I failed as a journalist in Australia to understand that this is happening? So I looked into it and looked into it. This guy is like ... I- I-

   23. JRJoe Rogan34:22

       You got notes?

   24. JSJosh Szeps34:23

       I got, I got notes, mate.

   25. JRJoe Rogan34:24

       Did you come in with notes?

   26. JSJosh Szeps34:25

       I didn't wanna get anything ... I didn't wanna get anything wrong. I've got the ... I mean-

   27. JRJoe Rogan34:27

       (laughs)

   28. JSJosh Szeps34:27

       ... it's mostly data. It's mostly like the number of cases each day and all that sort of stuff.

   29. JRJoe Rogan34:30

       Data.

   30. JSJosh Szeps34:31

       So ... Data. Data.
8. 47:08 – 55:26

   Mask wars and identity politics: practical risk reduction vs ‘facial decorations’

   1. JRJoe Rogan47:08

      But do you think the masks really stop Omicron? Because they've been publicly stating that it doesn't.

   2. JSJosh Szeps47:12

      Well, I mean-

   3. JRJoe Rogan47:13

      I mean, Lena Nguyen was on, uh, CNN saying that masks are essentially just facial decorations.

   4. JSJosh Szeps47:18

      I mean, the Prime Minister of Australia recently said, like, he's not gonna... When people were calling for him to extend mask mandates and things like that, he was like, "Look, masks are like sunscreen. I'm not gonna make you put it on, but, like, just do the right thing and wear it-"

   5. JRJoe Rogan47:33

      Right, but if it doesn't work-

   6. JSJosh Szeps47:35

      "... if you can." Well, I mean-

   7. JRJoe Rogan47:35

      ... is it doing the right thing or is it posturing? We have this weird thing going on in America where people used to be able to wear bandanas and they said-

   8. JSJosh Szeps47:41

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan47:41

      ... "Hey, that's not doing shit. You got this big open sputum," but sometimes people still wear face shields.

   10. JSJosh Szeps47:46

       Well, it's not... I mean, like here-

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:47

       And you can get your hand under it, like, you're like a child.

   12. JSJosh Szeps47:50

       (laughs) That's why I don't want to come across as if I'm dismissing all of the concerns about, about-

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:55

       Too late.

   14. JSJosh Szeps47:55

       ... about Australia. Because one of the things, like, I'd never seen a double masked person until last week-

   15. JRJoe Rogan48:03

       Take him to America.

   16. JSJosh Szeps48:03

       ... here.

   17. JRJoe Rogan48:04

       Or go to San Francisco.

   18. JSJosh Szeps48:05

       In America.

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:05

       They're triple masking.

   20. JSJosh Szeps48:06

       Unbelievable.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:07

       (laughs)

   22. JSJosh Szeps48:07

       Like on the plane next to me there was this, like, very-

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:10

       Yeah.

   24. JSJosh Szeps48:10

       ... like, clean cut, like, gay couple who were sort of sitting there. No offense to the gays, I'm a gay myself. Uh-

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:15

       (laughs)

   26. JSJosh Szeps48:15

       And they're sitting across from me and they've got, like, uh... And I was like, I had to, like, sort of look at them, like, a few times before I... And I've been traveling through Italy, France-

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:24

       Yeah.

   28. JSJosh Szeps48:24

       ... Switzerland, like, I went through the United Arab Emirates on my way here. All over the place where there are huge infection rates, but people are moderately sensible about things. And I think what, part of what happens in the States is you guys go big on everything and, like, there's a lot of partisanship and a lot of, like, it becomes an identity thing. It's like the mask-

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       Yes.

   30. JSJosh Szeps48:43

       ... is, like, I'm not just gonna wear one mask, I'm gonna wear two-
9. 55:26 – 1:11:44

   Trust collapse: institutions, media incentives, and censorship fears (Hunter laptop)

   1. JRJoe Rogan55:26

      This is a great meme. I'm gonna show you this meme, Jamie. I'm gonna send you this meme because it's fucking adorable. This is my favorite new meme. (laughs)

   2. JSJosh Szeps55:36

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan55:37

      Uh, here, Jamie. I'll send you this insider trading meme. The fact that... I don't know how they work it in Australia, but the fact that, um, sitting members of Congress have information about deals that are gonna affect, positively or negatively, these companies and Tra- this one. (laughs) No one... It's Warren Buffett saying-

   4. JSJosh Szeps56:00

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan56:00

      "No one can say when a stock will go up or down." And then Nancy Pelosi says, "That's cute."

   6. JSJosh Szeps56:05

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan56:06

      (laughs) She's made $200 million.

   8. JSJosh Szeps56:07

      It's incredible, isn't it?

   9. JRJoe Rogan56:08

      It's, it, it's disgusting.

   10. JSJosh Szeps56:09

       Has she?

   11. JRJoe Rogan56:10

       Yes.

   12. JSJosh Szeps56:10

       Has she?

   13. JRJoe Rogan56:10

       Some crazy number like that.

   14. JSJosh Szeps56:11

       This has passed me by, yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan56:12

       No, she... I believe she makes $200,000 a year, something like that, and she's worth close to $200 million.

   16. JSJosh Szeps56:21

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan56:22

       Which is all from stocks. And it's like-

   18. JSJosh Szeps56:24

       The amount of stock that-

   19. JRJoe Rogan56:24

       "It's not me, it's my husband-"

   20. JSJosh Szeps56:26

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan56:26

       "... is the one who's trading." Like, how does he know what to do?

   22. JSJosh Szeps56:29

       She has the same face as the bossy Australian health woman.

   23. JRJoe Rogan56:32

       Well, they... (laughs) The same human, in my mind.

   24. JSJosh Szeps56:35

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan56:35

       There, uh, there was a list, uh, that was just released of, uh, all the people from Congress and the ones that beat the stock market this year. And it's-

   26. JSJosh Szeps56:43

       Oh, yeah, right, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan56:44

       It's terrifying.

   28. JSJosh Szeps56:45

       Yeah, no, it's unbelievable. I mean-

   29. JRJoe Rogan56:46

       It's like, how the fuck do you guys all know what to buy?

   30. JSJosh Szeps56:49

       It's all the circles they swim in, man.

Episode duration: 3:05:15