Joe Rogan Experience #1767 - James Lindsay

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Hello, James.

James Lindsay 0:13 Hello, Joe.

Joe Rogan 0:13 Good to see you, you heterodox individual, you.

James Lindsay 0:16 I am very heterodox.

Joe Rogan 0:18 I like to use that word, 'cause I never use that word.

James Lindsay 0:20 Well, you used it properly.

Joe Rogan 0:21 I just did.

James Lindsay 0:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 I think it's the first time I've ever used it on the podcast, so-

James Lindsay 0:25 Yeah, definitely not orthodox.

Joe Rogan 0:26 (laughs) So tell me what you were just telling me about, uh, a conference. W- w- w- we were having a conversation where I was saying I wonder how many undercover feds have either gotten on the podcast or tried to get on the podcast.

James Lindsay 0:37 Yeah, it's like, I've had a couple places. One, I had this guy come up to me, and we were, like, just in the crowd, right? W- it wasn't like I just got off stage or anything like that. And he comes up to me and he's like, "You know, if we had to narrow it down to like, you know, the top 10, 12 individuals pulling all this crazy stuff that's going on in the world, could you name who they are? Like, who are they?" And the question is, you know, "What are we gonna do about them?" You know? "Are we gonna have to take them out?" You know? "Are we gonna have to go off? When do we get to go off?" It was like this statement, "When do we get to go off on them?" Like, that violence is-

Joe Rogan 1:08 "Are we gonna have to take them out?"

James Lindsay 1:09 ... gonna have to take them out. Like, I'm looking at this guy thinking, "You're not taking anybody out," but, uh ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14 But what are you doing? Like, what is this?

James Lindsay 1:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16 Yes, he says.

James Lindsay 1:16 Yeah, like, "Why are you asking me this question?" I had another guy I did a talk, and this was totally awesome, uh, event. Like, there was a mechanical bull in the venue, like, it was nuts, and I'm doing this, like, professional talk and everything. It was nuts. And this guy's drunk afterwards. I don't know, probably just drunk, maybe he's not, and he's like, "I wanted to ask you one question, man." And I was like, "What is it?" after I talked, and he was like, "When do we get to start shooting them?" And I was like, "Holy shit, dude, no." You know? We don't.

Joe Rogan 1:41 (laughs)

James Lindsay 1:41 Like, that's the trap, if anything. Like, you don't start-

Joe Rogan 1:44 Do you think that guy was just crazy or do you think that guy was a fed? And how do you know the difference?

James Lindsay 1:49 That's the question. I don't know. I actually suspect that guy was just drunk and-

Joe Rogan 1:53 Wow.

James Lindsay 1:53 ... shooting off at the mouth and frustrated, but I don't know. And then the weirdo guy that was like, "If we could narrow it down to who are the-" 'cause that guy wouldn't leave me alone. The f- the guy I told you about first?

Joe Rogan 2:02 Yeah.

James Lindsay 2:03 Like, he wouldn't leave me alone. It's like he just kept asking questions and, like, trying to talk to me, and I was like, "Huh."

Joe Rogan 2:08 That Epps guy that everyone-

James Lindsay 2:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:10 ... has decided was an agent provocateur that was at the January 6th thing, they still haven't found that guy.

James Lindsay 2:16 Yeah, they're-

Joe Rogan 2:16 Or the, or the, or excuse me, they still haven't charged that guy.

James Lindsay 2:18 Haven't charged that guy. Very suspicious circumstances around that.

Joe Rogan 2:21 The weirdest, right?

James Lindsay 2:22 Right. Like let's just, you know, we'll have him on the list of people we're interested in and then people are gonna say, you know, we're all screaming, "He's a fed, he's a fed." And then there's all this video of him doing weird stuff and people saying, "Fed, fed, fed."

Joe Rogan 2:34 Yeah.

James Lindsay 2:34 And then all of a sudden they're like (swoosh sound) off the list. He's n- not on the, the wanted list anymore.

Joe Rogan 2:39 Yeah. Not wanted, not being charged. It's so odd. And then when-

James Lindsay 2:42 While other people are rotting in jail.

Joe Rogan 2:44 Yeah.

James Lindsay 2:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:46 And then when Ted Cruz grills the FBI lady-

James Lindsay 2:50 Oh.

Joe Rogan 2:50 ... and, and she's like, "I can't answer that. I can't answer that."

James Lindsay 2:53 The answer to those questions is very simple, no, no, no. And she's like, "I can't answer that question." It's like-

Joe Rogan 3:00 Yeah. "Did you inci- did the FBI or any agents incite violence?"

James Lindsay 3:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 3:04 "I can't answer that." What?

James Lindsay 3:06 I mean, I understand the Fifth Amendment. Nobody can, you know, be-

Joe Rogan 3:09 Right.

James Lindsay 3:09 ... compelled to, to incriminate themselves, but, man-

Joe Rogan 3:13 But does the Fifth Amendment even apply when you're a representative of an organization? 'Cause it's a different scenario. Y- y- she's a representative of the FBI. It's not like she's incriminating herself.

James Lindsay 3:23 Right, yeah. I don't, I don't, you know, I don't even know in that case, but that looked bad.

Joe Rogan 3:29 (laughs) It looked strange.

James Lindsay 3:30 It looked bad.

Joe Rogan 3:31 It's like, what are you doing? Like all those questions, "W- did they incite violence?" Like, you should never be inciting violence. You're the FBI.

James Lindsay 3:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:40 You're the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

James Lindsay 3:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:43 You shouldn't be inciting violence ever. That should be, we didn't never do that.

James Lindsay 3:47 Yeah. W- that's something, you know, no, that's the opposite of what we do, right?

Joe Rogan 3:50 Yeah.

James Lindsay 3:50 That's literally the opposite of what we exist to do.

Joe Rogan 3:52 We're completely not interested in that.

James Lindsay 3:54 Yeah, but no. That's-

Joe Rogan 3:55 Yeah.

James Lindsay 3:55 Not the answer is no. "I, I'm sorry, I can't answer that question." I can't answer that question either.

Joe Rogan 3:59 I-

James Lindsay 3:59 I'm just gonna give that answer to all of your hard questions.

Joe Rogan 4:01 (laughs) "I can't answer that." I, I have been trying really hard not to, uh, go down a Klaus Schwab rabbit hole.

James Lindsay 4:09 Oh, buddy, we're probably gonna do that.

Joe Rogan 4:10 Oh my God. Someone sent me a video of Klaus Schwab introducing, uh, Xi Jinping the other day.

James Lindsay 4:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:16 Have you seen that?

James Lindsay 4:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:18 Jamie, p- pull that up 'cause Klaus Schwab ... Now I do not know, I know very little about Klaus Schwab.

James Lindsay 4:23 I read his book.

Joe Rogan 4:24 But he seems like a bad guy in a Batman movie.

James Lindsay 4:29 He came straight out of central casting or something.

Joe Rogan 4:31 Yes.

James Lindsay 4:31 It's like, it's not even James Bond though. It's like a spoof.

Joe Rogan 4:34 It's so over the top.

James Lindsay 4:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:36 It's, it's like-

James Lindsay 4:36 He's wearing, like, a spacesuit when he's not wearing, like, his, uh, you know, business suit or whatever.

Joe Rogan 4:40 (laughs)

James Lindsay 4:40 It's like, "What is this guy?"

Joe Rogan 4:41 He wears a spacesuit?

James Lindsay 4:42 Have you not seen the spacesuit?

Joe Rogan 4:44 No.

James Lindsay 4:44 Oh, man. It's like this leather thing with like a triangle O. It's really-

Joe Rogan 4:48 Really?

James Lindsay 4:48 Yeah, it's freaky.

Joe Rogan 4:49 Now what does he do?

James Lindsay 4:51 He is the, I would guess Chairman, CEO of this thing called the World Economic Forum, which is like a billionaires club where fancy pants people like, you know, titans of industry, government officials, NGO people, all the big philanthropists can show up and, like, rub elbows at Davos and, and chill out. And basically it's like, it's like a big country club for, like, the biggest players in government and-

Joe Rogan 5:17 What?

James Lindsay 5:17 You should see the spacesuit.

Joe Rogan 5:18 What the fuck? What is that?

James Lindsay 5:20 He's so weird.

Joe Rogan 5:21 He wears that all the time?

James Lindsay 5:23 No, uh, well, I mean he's got a suit and tie other p- at other times. I don't know how often he wears ... I don't know the guy, but look at that.

Joe Rogan 5:28 What is that?

James Lindsay 5:29 Like, I wouldn't even wear that on Halloween.

Joe Rogan 5:31 What does the, uh, the, the, the caption say there?

Narrator 5:34 Uh, someone's ... It was just someone's tweet.

Joe Rogan 5:35 Oh.

Narrator 5:35 Didn't, didn't say anything.

Joe Rogan 5:36 Um, see if you can find the video of him introducing Xi Jinping, 'cause he gives this, uh, bizarrely glowing introduction-

James Lindsay 5:45 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:46 ... to the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Listen to this.

Narrator 5:48 (singing)

James Lindsay 5:52 Look at it, it's a Bond villain.

Joe Rogan 5:53 Yeah.

Narrator 5:54 Human destiny. ..........................

Joe Rogan 5:56 So give it, can we, can we, give it to me from the beginning?

Narrator 5:58 Sorry.

Joe Rogan 5:58 I wanna hear the whole thing from the beginning.

Narrator 5:59 This is what I did at first started.

6:00 Human destiny.

Joe Rogan 6:01 Oh, okay.

Narrator 6:02 In the last five years, the world has become more interconnected than ever, but in many ways it's becoming even more fragmented and polarized.

Joe Rogan 6:13 (laughs) Polarized.

Narrator 6:14 China has made significant economic and social achievements under your leadership. In the first three quarters of 2021, China's economy grew by over 9%. You have achieved a historic goal to become a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Mr. President, I strongly echo your remarks in 2017, that mankind has made progress by surmounting difficulties, and when encountering difficulties, we should join hands and rise to the challenge. I believe this is the best time for leaders to come together and work jointly for the world to become more inclusive, more sustainable, and more prosperous. We now welcome His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China. Professor Klaus Schwab, ladies and gentlemen, friends. Greetings.

Joe Rogan 7:32 (exhales) .

James Lindsay 7:32 Is that not-

Joe Rogan 7:32 So weird.

James Lindsay 7:33 ... an- and you know who spoke, like, right after that, right?

Joe Rogan 7:35 Who?

James Lindsay 7:36 Fauci.

Joe Rogan 7:37 No.

James Lindsay 7:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:39 Really?

James Lindsay 7:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:41 Whoa.

James Lindsay 7:41 And then if you listen, actually w- I don't think we should try to deal with the, the listening to all of what Xi says, but he's like, he's like, you know... He goes into this whole thing, it, it's like a paraphrase of Lenin. He's all like, you know... Well, there's an old Chinese saying that, uh, everything contains its contradictions. Uh, that's, it's actually an old Marxist saying, is that everything contains its ch- its contradictions. The Daoists don't... I mean, they have that with the yin-yang thing, but they don't really have everything contains its own contradiction. They say things contain their opposites, which is different. And so Marx was like, everything contains its own contradiction, which, you know, capitalism makes a lot of wealth, but then it makes a lot of poor people, so it's got its own contradiction. And he says, "We got to lean into the..." Xi says, you know, paraphrasing, "We gotta lean into the contradictions." What Lenin said when people were starving, like, he's like literally starving people and killing people, he's like, "Accelerate the contradictions," because if you make them see how terrible life is by showing them the contradictions, "Oh, we're supposed to have this great society and look, you're suffering, you're starving," then they'll want to have a revolution. And so it's like, that's the thing that Schwab there just introduced, was his speech about that. He also says we can't think of ourselves anymore as like 190 little boats, like the different countries of the world, to solve problems like climate change or I guess COVID, like that went real well. And we got to think of ourselves as one big boat, like one world government or something. And then Xi is the guy that's the model for this. Like... And then we see, you know, Mr. Spacesuit there saying, "I strongly echo your comments," you know.

Joe Rogan 9:14 Prosperous.

James Lindsay 9:15 Yeah, it's-

Joe Rogan 9:16 Prosperous.

James Lindsay 9:17 The guy's weird. I read his book. He's got a book called COVID-19: The Great Reset. He's got a few books actually. I, I've read some of, some of his other ones, but I read all of that one. And it's just corporate gobbledygook. But what he says is that COVID-19 is the ideal window of opportunity, a very narrow window of opportunity to reset the whole world's economy. And he wants to create this whole new, like, world economy he calls stakeholder capitalism, through what he calls a public-private partnership where he gets these government guys to sign up with his corporate dudes at Davos and make a partnership. The UN is actually usually the public thing, and then he's the corporate guy bringing them together in a world economic forum to make public-private partnership. But if we go back to Mussolini, you know, what, what was his definition of, of fascism? It's corporatism. It is a fusion of the state-

Joe Rogan 10:04 Yeah.

James Lindsay 10:05 ... and corporation. And you're like, "Huh, what's going on here?"

Joe Rogan 10:09 Well, this great reset thing is the big tinfoil hat conspiracy theory conversation.

James Lindsay 10:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:15 That we're experiencing the great reset, and the, that they crashed the economy on purpose.

James Lindsay 10:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:21 You know, I, I don't think that's true in terms of like what they did to Los Angeles. I think it's incompetence, and I think there's a bunch of people that wanted to do something that showed that they were trying to enact measures to protect people. And in doing that, they crippled a lot of these restaurants and bars and small businesses, and they did it because it didn't affect them at all financially. Like, if it had any effect on them financially, like if-

James Lindsay 10:48 But it did in a lot of cases. Like, look at w- how, uh, the, the billionaires are all way richer now. Like-

Joe Rogan 10:54 Right. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the politicians.

James Lindsay 10:56 Oh, okay.

Joe Rogan 10:57 If it, it affected the politicians financially, then they would have never enacted those measures. Like, if the politicians got paid based on how well the economy did in their city.

James Lindsay 11:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 11:07 Let's say if you're a mayor, and if your economy crashes, you lose all your money. You would never see lockdowns. You would never see... Like, I have a friend, she lives in Mexico, and she was telling me that in Mexico, nothing's shutting down because the cartels won't allow it.

James Lindsay 11:22 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 11:22 Because the cartels make a percentage of the money that these businesses get. So they get paid. So if the businesses go under-

Narrator 11:30 (coughs) .

Joe Rogan 11:30 ... the cartels don't make any money.

James Lindsay 11:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 11:32 J- Jamie, you have COOVID? Do you got the co- fuck?

James Lindsay 11:34 COOF?

Joe Rogan 11:35 You don't have to breathe?

James Lindsay 11:35 It's everything. No, it's, everything is COOF.

Joe Rogan 11:37 You got... Bro, jeez. Did you say you can't even, can't be coughing?

Narrator 11:38 She was going, "I got water going on my throat."

Joe Rogan 11:39 Can't be coughing? Can't be coughing in front of us?

James Lindsay 11:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:41 It's dangerous times to just be out, out and about coughing.

James Lindsay 11:43 That's almost, it's attempted murder.

Joe Rogan 11:45 But she was telling me that when (laughs) when they are in, uh, Mexico that nothing shut down. Everything's wide open.

James Lindsay 11:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 11:51 All the restaurants, all the bars, nothing ever shut down. And the reason why she said we're free is because of the cartel. She was like LOLing when she said this, but...

James Lindsay 11:59 Right. Well, I mean, what that tells you then is that, you know, there's either absolute disconnect...... with the politicians or that they're, you know, being taken care of some other way. The, the, and that's a conspiratorial side, that there's money coming in some other way. So, their paycheck is not dependent upon the economy locally, but it's dependent on some other factor. And-

Joe Rogan 12:19 Well, in local government, it's dependent upon taxes. Like, my friend, his brother works for the, whatever COVID response thing in California. And there was a conversation when they were shutting down outdoor dining at one point in time, and he protested, and he said, "There's no evidence that there's any spread that's because of outdoor dining or any outdoor-"

James Lindsay 12:42 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:42 " ... activities." And she said, "It's about optics."

James Lindsay 12:45 Oh, yeah, well.

Joe Rogan 12:46 So, this was a conversation he had with a real public official who's in st- in charge-

James Lindsay 12:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:51 ... of making these decisions. So, this is, like, this idea that it's all, m- like, motivated by some conspiracy to reset the economy, I don't think that's the case. I think what's going on is that it's a lot of incompetence and a lot of really dumb people, a lot of foolish people that are running some aspects of government, then you have people that are taking advantage of that.

James Lindsay 13:11 Sure, yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:11 And the billionaires are most certainly getting richer.

James Lindsay 13:13 Right.

Joe Rogan 13:13 And just b- by definition, if you close mom and pop stores, where are people gonna buy their stuff? Well, they're gonna have to go to Target.

James Lindsay 13:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:19 They're gonna have to go to the big places.

James Lindsay 13:20 Yes. And then if you're, you, you make, you can loot at Targ- you can loot Targets, and you can, you can shoplift at Walgreens or whatever, where are they gonna go? Online, Amazon.

Joe Rogan 13:29 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 13:29 And, you know, you can kind of see how all of these, you know, really crooked business practices can kind of multiply in this kind of an environment.

Joe Rogan 13:37 So, do you think that, like, places like San Francisco and areas of California, where they've enacted these really fucking stupid laws, where you can steal up to 900 and something dollars worth of stuff, and they don't arrest you at all. So, people just grab stuff, they throw it in a bag, and they walk right out the door, and no one does anything to stop it. Do you think that those laws are enacted knowing that they're gonna kill these businesses, knowing that this is gonna prop up online businesses like Amazon and larger places that have the ability to, to do that?

James Lindsay 14:11 Well, and took me to protect ... You know, I'm in my 40s, which means that I never underestimate any longer the depths of human stupidity. Uh, so it is possible that they're just stupid and don't realize the extraordinarily obvious thing that, literally, everybody yells at them. Uh, but, no, I actually, I- I- I'm inclined to believe that they know, to some degree, what they're doing. And I wouldn't even be surprised to find out that there's some kind of weird backroom deals. And that's what this new economy is supposed to be. It's like, we go back to Schwab, his thing is he calls it stakeholder capitalism. You don't care about the shareholder anymore 'cause the profit is a too dangerous of a motive. You care about these people c- that are called stakeholders, who're gonna tell you, you know, they're experts in environmental policy. They're experts in, in health policy. They're experts in, uh, trust the experts, in social policy. You know how I feel about that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:59 Yeah.

James Lindsay 15:00 It's these, these critical theories or whatever. Uh, they're experts in, in best practices and governance. And they've created these whole, these, these whole, like, investment metrics called ESG metrics, environmental, social, governance metrics. And they score your company based on how high up and down you are, but it's only really big companies that get to play in that game. And so, the people who are the experts get to be the stakeholders who are gonna speak on behalf of everybody else, and say, "Well, that's bad environmental policy. So, your company is gonna get a bad score, so maybe we won't carry you in our, you know, mutual fund or whatever else. We're not gonna trade your stock, we're not gonna manage your assets." Whether it's BlackRock or Vanguard or any of these huge entities, or the World Economic Forum. "And we're not gonna give you the favors anymore." And so, there's this perverse scoring system that's worked its way in, and the goal is to shift out of that. Now, what are the politicians doing? You know, well, I mean, we see s- obviously, there's corruption somewhere. We got insider trading happening in Washington that's, like, coming out all over the place, um-

Joe Rogan 15:58 No, no, no, no, that's fine. That should be allowed, the co-

James Lindsay 16:01 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:02 ... the participating in the economy.

James Lindsay 16:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:05 Eh.

James Lindsay 16:05 Yeah. It's like, we should start letting, like, we should start letting the MMA guys, like, the UFC guys bet on their own fights. Like-

Joe Rogan 16:11 Right. (laughs)

James Lindsay 16:12 ... why not, you know?

Joe Rogan 16:12 You know, they used to have, uh, pool was, uh, something that you could bet on at casinos. They did it once, and when they did it, the guy who was the lowest seed won the tournament. And, uh, it was embarrassing. Like, guys were, like, missing balls, dead in a hole. They were doing it on purpose 'cause they bet against themselves.

James Lindsay 16:29 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:29 And they bet on this one guy.

James Lindsay 16:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 16:31 And then they all chopped up the money.

James Lindsay 16:32 How about that? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:34 How crazy?

James Lindsay 16:34 How wild-

Joe Rogan 16:35 Yeah.

James Lindsay 16:35 ... that they might game a bad incentive structure?

Joe Rogan 16:37 Who's 15 to 1? Interesting. Hmm.

James Lindsay 16:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:41 What do you think would happen if he won?

James Lindsay 16:43 Yeah. Ka-ching.

Joe Rogan 16:44 So, they stopped, 'cause pool players are, like, kind of notoriously shady folks.

James Lindsay 16:49 A little bit.

Joe Rogan 16:49 So, they ... Yeah. Well, so they stopped doing that. But yeah, that would, that would definitely happen if fighters were allowed to bet on themselves. But fighters do bet on themselves because there's more money for them if they win-

James Lindsay 17:01 Right. Right. Well-

Joe Rogan 17:02 ... in the long term of their career.

James Lindsay 17:03 Correct. Correct. But there's, there's not a whole lot of incentive, like, you don't have some bookie over here who's gonna make it up to you if you, you know, get your face messed up, uh, kind of on purpose. But you should-

Joe Rogan 17:13 People w- worried about that, though. There's, there is concern. Like, I'm sure the FBI has investigated boxing matches and stuff along those lines. I guarantee they have.

James Lindsay 17:21 Well, you know, they investigate a lot of things. The, the Department of Justice is investigating moms and dads, you know, for showing up to school boards, and-

Joe Rogan 17:30 Yeah.

James Lindsay 17:30 They're also investigating maybe some real crime, but not the guy that came here to Texas from, from Britain, who shouldn't have been able to even get in.

Joe Rogan 17:37 What's that?

James Lindsay 17:38 That guy that just shot ... uh, that, that took the hostages at the synagogue.

Joe Rogan 17:42 Right. Yeah. Um, I forgot about that because there's so many of these goddamn things happening.

James Lindsay 17:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:46 This is really recent, right?

James Lindsay 17:47 There's a million things that ... It was, like, last week. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:49 Yeah.

James Lindsay 17:50 Just like the other day, actually.

Joe Rogan 17:51 So, where did he come from?

James Lindsay 17:53 He was, he's British, but he's got a name that would indicate that he's Islamic. Um, but he's a, got a British accent as well. And he came in from the UK, and he was like, eyeballs on him from MI5 or something like this, you know, they knew he was a problem. And he comes over to the, to the US. Somehow, ma- manages to get a firearm. Next thing you know, he's at a synagogue, taking hostages, doing whatever they do.... they deal with the situation and the FBI and the president come out and they're like, "Well, we don't know the motive," the guy's screaming his motive while he's doing it. Uh, and, you know, "We have no idea why this happened," and, you know, "We have to do an investi-" It's just the, the, the weirdest farcical thing. And then meanwhile, you know, the big joke that was going on on the internet with it was, well, they didn't have time to catch this guy coming into the country because they were too busy, you know, investigating parents at school board meetings who were showing up. Because of that l- you know about that letter, right?

Joe Rogan 18:48 Which letter?

James Lindsay 18:49 So, somewhere in the Bi- It, it's now been shown, like actual journalists, Azar Namani for example, I think it was leading on this, dug up proof that the, somebody in the Biden administration, maybe at the, uh, Department of Education, maybe it was Cardona himself, uh, gets this letter, this memo, and it goes to the National School Board Association, uh, NSBA. And so th- they actually just send it back to the Biden administration and say, "Parents are showing up at school boards. There's all this violence and danger." But it came from inside the house. Send it to the School Board Association, which most of its members didn't even know that this was happening and a lot of them have disavowed it, and then they send it back to the DOJ and then Merrick Garland comes out and says that they're going to start watching parents at school board meetings like they're domestic terrorists. And they have.

Joe Rogan 19:38 Now, I did hear about that. But this ... Is it because they're worried that there's gonna come a time where a parent crosses a line and shows up armed and does something insane?

James Lindsay 19:51 I mean, it's, they, th- that's the perpetual, you know, justification-

Joe Rogan 19:55 Right.

James Lindsay 19:55 ... for that kind of thing. But, at the same time, it's, you know, they, they literally sent out a memo to treat parents showing up at school board meetings as though they are, uh, domestic-

Joe Rogan 20:05 Not, not all parents.

James Lindsay 20:06 ... domestic threats.

Joe Rogan 20:06 I mean, th- they can't thin- I mean, obviously they want some parents to show up at school board meetings because they, they want to be active in-

James Lindsay 20:14 I'm not sure that's the case anymore. I mean, that's-

Joe Rogan 20:16 You don't think they want any parents showing up at school board meetings? You think they think that it's all negative, and that-

James Lindsay 20:21 I mean, th- they is too big to say-

Joe Rogan 20:23 Right.

James Lindsay 20:23 ... you know, everybody everywhere. But, uh, y- you actually saw that attitude, you know, in the governor's race in, in Virginia last year when, you know, Youngkin beat McAuliffe and, uh, is it ... Did he beat McAuliffe or ... I forget how it works out. Terry McAuliffe, yeah. And so, uh, 'cause Northam was the previous governor. 'Cause gov- Virginia has this weird rule where you can't be governor twice in a row, and-

Joe Rogan 20:46 Oh, really?

James Lindsay 20:46 Yeah. So they have to have two people each time. And so, anyway, McAuliffe came out and he said that they don't want ... That parents shouldn't have a role in shaping curriculum and that they don't want that going on, amid these huge scandals. You know, they have this, this ... exactly what people said would happen a number of years ago, this kid claiming to be ... that is clearly disturbed, claiming to be non-binary, wearing a skirt, goes in and rapes a nine, ninth grade girl in the bathroom. Exactly what people said ... You remember back in like 2015 people were like, "If we do the trans bathroom thing that way, more gonna see sexual assaults." Well, that's exactly what happened. And then the schools c- like, the school district covers it up and it was-

Joe Rogan 21:24 They tried to tell the parents to keep their mouths shut about it.

James Lindsay 21:27 Yeah. And they, they, they, the, they ... All these activists showed up when the dad of the girl comes to this meeting or whatever, and they provoke him and he like, flipped out. I don't remember if he hit somebody or if he just started screaming at 'em. He might have hit somebody. And then he becomes like, you know, the worst thing ever. And then ... I mean, there's a lot of stuff right now going on where they don't actually want parents involved. They want to control the kids. They think that the school is the professionals, the experts, and that they know the best policies for masks, they know the best policies for curriculum. That's where they're getting all this social/emotional learning and critical race theory and the queer theory, gender theory stuff rammed into the schools. And they're like, "No. You know, parents, if you don't like this ... You're not the experts. You don't understand." And you're seeing school boards where, you know, they're not taking public comments or they're, they're limiting those rather significantly now, because I don't think they do want parents speaking up. I don't think they want parents involved at this point.

Joe Rogan 22:28 The thing about it is, if you look at it reasonably, like, if there was any other time in history, you know, in the history of like, my life, a- and you thought of parents coming in to tell teachers how they, their kids should be taught, you're like, "Well, what do the parents know?" But then when you see the, some of the ridiculous shit that kids are getting taught in school today, and then if you follow like, Libs of TikTok-

James Lindsay 22:51 No kidding.

Joe Rogan 22:51 ... and you see some of these crazy groomer teachers-

James Lindsay 22:54 Groomer teachers, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:55 ... th- it is so bizarre. It's so bizarre to see these people making these videos because they're doing it like, out in the open. They're like, "We are gonna teach your kids the right things. We are gonna teach your kids to respect us. We are gonna teach your kids-"

James Lindsay 23:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:10 ... to, you know, like, whatever theories-

James Lindsay 23:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:12 ... that they want. Like, and it's, they're doing it in this weird, arrogant assertion that they're gonna indoctrinate these children into their ideology, and they're literally like mocking or taunting the parents that, "We're gonna do this to your kids."

James Lindsay 23:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:25 And it's, I don't understand the motivation. I don't understand why they would make those videos. I don't understand why anybody would hire those people to be teachers af- and why they wouldn't fire them immediately upon seeing those videos. I know they did fire that one teacher. Uh, she was, I g- I think it was a professor who was talking about, um, people who are attracted to, uh, underage people, that we shouldn't call them pedophiles.

James Lindsay 23:49 Yeah, that was a professor, that's right.

Joe Rogan 23:51 Right.

James Lindsay 23:51 Yeah, I'd forgotten about that.

Joe Rogan 23:52 She, she said we shouldn't call them pedophiles-

James Lindsay 23:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:54 ... we, we should call them minor-attracted-

James Lindsay 23:57 Mi- minor-attracted persons.

Joe Rogan 23:59 Yeah.

James Lindsay 23:59 Which the, M-A-P, but the P in M-A-P should just stand for pedophile, because that's what-

Joe Rogan 24:04 Right. (laughs)

James Lindsay 24:04 ... minor-attracted means. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:05 Well, this idea that, like, you can be a pedophile but not act on it, which I guess is true. I guess for some reason you could be attracted to children and not act on it. The question is like, what is hap- wh- how does that happen? Like, what is it about a human that would-... have that sick inclination to want to have a sexual interaction with a child. Like, what is that?

James Lindsay 24:33 Yeah, I have no idea. It's gotta be, like, some cycle of abuse, like abuse generates abuse, generates abuse.

Joe Rogan 24:38 Right.

James Lindsay 24:38 Like, that's not a healthy thing. Like, that's not good.

Joe Rogan 24:41 Has there ever ha- I mean, I wonder if there's like, in the literature, if there's ever any instances of that happening without abuse.

James Lindsay 24:49 Yeah, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 24:50 You know?

James Lindsay 24:50 I, I do know how it got into schools. I... That, I've researched, you know?

Joe Rogan 24:54 Well, tell me, please tell me how.

James Lindsay 24:55 Well, I mean, a lot of people don't know that the radicals of the '60s... There's this book, it's called The Critical Turn in Education, and I- I've been doing a podcast series on this book. Uh, it's written by a guy named Isaac Guzman. He's a Marxist education theorist from Iowa State. And at the very beginning, it's like literally the first sentence of the book, he says, you know, "Well, where did all the radicals from the '60s go? Well, it's, they didn't go to yuppiedom, they didn't go to..." I forget what, he lists a couple of things. He says, "No, they went to the classroom." And so a lot of those radicals, those violent radicals, 68, 69, early 70s, you know, we can name Angela Davis, for example, as a key figure, literally went to K through 12 activism. And through the 70s, they kind of prepared the ground. By about 1985, though, what- this so called critical turn in education, which means critical theory, or as this Guzman says, he says, "We shouldn't call it critical theory. We should call it what it is. We'd call it critical Marxism." By about '85, these guys had basically become dominant in terms of setting teacher college training. So if you're gonna go to teacher college somewhere, Marxists are teaching you how, and they bring in this guy from Brazil, his name's Paulo Freire, uh, straight up Marxist educator. I've read his books. He's, like, quotes Mao or Marx, he quotes Lenin. He's like, "This is how it should be." He's got this total weird idea, like, teachers and, and students, the kids shouldn't ha- adults and children shouldn't have like a differential in power. They should be like equals with one another, th- which is a terrible idea, because kids need structure and boundaries and... Especially in a learning environment.

Joe Rogan 26:23 But why would anybody... What is the, what's the motivation behind that?

James Lindsay 26:26 The goal is to train them in what he calls conscientization. I didn't say that right. It's a hard word to say, and here we are.

Joe Rogan 26:33 (laughs)

James Lindsay 26:33 But to, to raise in them a, what's called a critical consciousness, which is a Marxist consciousness of, of oppression in society. Basically, he's looking around and he says, "People are going to realize that they're dependent based on the society that they live in." And rather than saying, "Okay, maybe you are, you know, maybe you're working a shit job, maybe you're stuck, let's teach you responsibility, how to take control of your own life and, you know, raise yourself up and work hard and put your head down," or whatever, he says, "No, we're gonna go the collective route instead of the individual route, and we're gonna, we're gonna try to have a revolution." Freire famously says in this book from '85, which brought him into the US, uh, the book's called The Politics of Education, he says that the revolution, meaning the communist revolution, has to be perpetual. He says if, if a revolution ceases to be a revolutionary, it becomes a status quo. And so he says, as you, as you awaken to this critical consciousness, this conscientization, which I still can't say.

Joe Rogan 27:30 (laughs)

James Lindsay 27:30 (laughs) Uh, it's, well, I've even got it stuck in Portuguese in my head beca- I don't read Portuguese, but he, it's usually not translated, and I can, I can say that worse. Like, that's way bad if I try that one. Consciencia de Chao or something like that, and anyway, it means to awaken to consciousness. And so their goal by the mid-80s in education was to start turning education more and more and more along this erase all power differentials, awaken a consciousness, and, uh, this queer theory stuff fits right within that. So you're doing that at the identity level by breaking down the barriers between gay and straight, male and female, et cetera. So it latches right into that. In fact, the communists have been using techniques in sexual liberation, et cetera, back to the 1920s. This dude, Georg Lukacs, that overthrew Hungary or helped overthrow Hungary in their communist revolution in 1919 was, um, he, he, he was... He became like their deputy commissar of education. And his whole thing was like, "Let's sexualize the kids because it'll break them away from their religion. It'll break them away from their parents. They'll hate their parents because they won't understand," you know? And so he's like, "Let's sexual- let's sexualize the kids." This has been a thing that they've done throughout a lot of communist attempts, whether in the, the 20s and 30s and then again in the 60s with, you know, Herbert Marcuse leading like the sexual liberation kind of side of Marxism through the 60s, and they're doing it again. And so these people are Marxists. They started to take over education schools, and they're not going to say no to this stuff when it comes knocking on the door. So this book, again, Critical Turn in Education, says it went in three stages. First, there was Marxist critiques in education. Then by the mid-80s and early 90s, the post-structuralist feminists took over the critique of education, and that's where they brought the queer stuff in. And I mean queer with like official queer theory, I'm not doing the... Just be clear for the people who hate us.

Joe Rogan 29:22 Welcome the queer stuff.

James Lindsay 29:24 Yeah, the queer stuff.

Joe Rogan 29:25 Like that, yeah.

James Lindsay 29:25 Yeah, and which, by the way, the definition of that is an identity without an essence. I did this podcast about this paper by Hannah Dyers. Uh, she wrote a paper in 2016 about queer futurity in education, something, something, early childhood education. And she says in there explicitly that the point of queer theory is not to create a stable LGBTQ identity. It's in fact to not have stable identities at all, because those become the status quo, and that would be the problem. So you have to be constantly overturning that. I don't know if you know who Dan Savage is?

Joe Rogan 29:54 Yeah.

James Lindsay 29:55 Yeah, It Gets Better? That guy?

Joe Rogan 29:56 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 29:56 The whole last third of the paper is criticizing It Gets Better, saying, "Well, that means he's just admitting that it's bad for kids." Like, it's this message of hope that was super effective at curbing-

Joe Rogan 30:08 And It Gets Be- It Gets Better means reaching out to young gay kids to tell them that there's gonna come a point in time where it's gonna feel okay.

James Lindsay 30:16 Yeah, like, listen. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 30:17 It's gonna be better. You'll find your community. There's a lot of us out there.

James Lindsay 30:20 Yeah, it's awkward now.

Joe Rogan 30:20 Yeah.

James Lindsay 30:21 Like, life's weird. It's hard.

Joe Rogan 30:22 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 30:23 It's, maybe it's harder for you because of some stuff you didn't sign up for, and-It gets better, man.

Joe Rogan 30:28 Yeah.

James Lindsay 30:28 Don't, don't give up. It gets better. And he even has this messaging in there, like, "It's going to make you stronger." You know, it's super positive, actually.

Joe Rogan 30:35 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 30:35 And so she just takes him to task for this. So this is the, the post-structural feminil- feminists turned into the queer theorists.

Joe Rogan 30:42 Hmm.

James Lindsay 30:42 They got eaten up by Judith Butler coming along and saying, "Well, if gender is a social construct, well maybe sex is a social construct too." That, that's a-

Joe Rogan 30:48 Have you heard Douglas Murray talk about this?

James Lindsay 30:50 Uh, a little bit, yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:51 Well, he talks about the end of civilizations.

James Lindsay 30:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:54 Yeah, that-

James Lindsay 30:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:54 ... at the end when civilizations start to crumble, they become obsessed with gender.

James Lindsay 30:57 Ge- and, yeah, androgyny and-

Joe Rogan 30:59 Yeah.

James Lindsay 31:00 ... yeah, the whole thing. And, and h- homo-normativity over hetero-normativity, he's got a whole thing about that, like they're trying to normalize that which is abnormal. And that's really the definition of queer theory.

Joe Rogan 31:09 But what's funny i- it's fascinating that ... See, Douglas has a free pass 'cause he's gay, 'cause he, he ... and he's brilliant.

James Lindsay 31:15 Right.

Joe Rogan 31:15 So when he, when he talks about these things, they don't know what to do.

James Lindsay 31:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:17 Like, when he s- starts talking about the, these, uh, you know, s- considerable issues when it comes to, like, trying to figure out what's what, you know, he can kind of get away with stuff. And when, when he expla- explains that at the end of all these civilizations, with the Roman civilization, the, the Greek empire, they, they all started falling into this thing where they wanted to redefine gender.

James Lindsay 31:40 They do, yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:40 Which is really fascinating.

James Lindsay 31:41 You can actually see it in, like, the statues and stuff.

Joe Rogan 31:42 Yeah. It's real-

James Lindsay 31:43 It's r-

Joe Rogan 31:43 It's really interesting.

James Lindsay 31:44 They go from being, like, these s- super buff dudes and, like-

Joe Rogan 31:47 Yeah.

James Lindsay 31:48 ... sexy babes, and then, you know, all of a sudden they all look like, you know, an anime character or something. I don't know, the-

Joe Rogan 31:53 (laughs)

James Lindsay 31:53 They look like NPCs eventually-

Joe Rogan 31:55 (laughs)

James Lindsay 31:55 ... is what they look like.

Joe Rogan 31:56 It's, uh, a- a- it's such a weird time because everything has happened so rapidly. Like, i- if you go back ... And it really is from the onset of social media. If you go back to pre-social media to what the world was like to today, the change has been so radical.

James Lindsay 32:15 Oh, yeah. It's crazy how fast it is. I mean, it ... Think about it, we're totally connected to one another.

Joe Rogan 32:20 Yeah.

James Lindsay 32:20 We can form our alliances now worldwide based on what we think, what we agree with, what we think is funny, what we don't, rather than, "Oh yeah, we all happen to be in Texas so we've got to get along."

Joe Rogan 32:32 Also, the amount of people that are interacting on social media is not th- l- like ... You know, I did a bit about it last night. It's not the b- the large percentage of the population. It's a small percentage-

James Lindsay 32:45 That's right.

Joe Rogan 32:45 ... of the population that's shaping the way the culture r- thinks about things because they're the ones that are talking-

James Lindsay 32:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:53 ... the most.

James Lindsay 32:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:53 And so these are people that are obsessed people.

James Lindsay 32:56 Obsessed.

Joe Rogan 32:57 Obsessive.

James Lindsay 32:57 That's right, obsessives.

Joe Rogan 32:58 Yeah.

James Lindsay 32:58 And socially awkward ones too.

Joe Rogan 33:00 Yeah, a lot of them.

James Lindsay 33:01 Like ... I-

Joe Rogan 33:01 Yeah.

James Lindsay 33:01 You know, i- we don't ... I know I'm going to sound like Jordan Peterson with the whole, you know, "We don't know the effects that this'll br-"

Joe Rogan 33:07 Ugh.

James Lindsay 33:07 You know, but really we don't. We suddenly went from ... With the advent of social media, we went from an era where extroverts, by kind of definition, kind of ruled the public sphere. Introverts did a lot of important work, we're not ... to discount that, but once you get them online, now introverts have this hugely expanded voice while extroverts are out doing cool stuff and they're not on the internet. And then you add in people with, like, social anxiety issues. Well, they're not out hanging out and, like, going to the bar, 'cause they have social anxiety. What are they doing? They're on the internet yelling at people.

Joe Rogan 33:38 Yeah.

James Lindsay 33:38 And then you get certain ones of these people who are absolute obsessives, and I'll tell you about this fanatic thing, this obsessives. So the military ... Turns out Eisenhower, after World War II, was like, "All right, these Black soldiers fought like hell for us. We're gonna desegregate the military." This is way before, like, the schools or any other thing, he's like, "We're gonna do this." And so they're like, "How do we integrate the units," right? "How do we do this?" And so they started this thing with these different approaches to diversity training, what we would recognize as so-called diversity training now. In the first program they had, they called it putting them on the hot seat. And what they would do is they would basically do what diversity training in workplaces does now. You know, they'd put, like, some guy down there and make him confess all of his different racist ideas and, you know, then have, like, a lesson about it and, like, everybody would have to confess their racist stuff and they'd put the Black people there and like, "Oh, I've always thought this bad stuff about you." And what they found out was that for a small percentage of the- of the group, it worked. It made them more aware of these attitudes and biases and what a jerk they're being, and it worked. And then for most of the people, they actually had way less of a problem with race than anybody was assuming, and it didn't really do anything. Plus it's all just kind of a waste of time, and nobody likes administrative BS anyway, they just want to do the stuff. But then for another small segment, maybe about ... I don't know what percentage so I don't want to make some number up, but some small percentage, they literally became fanatics. That's the word in, in the report. They became fanatics who wouldn't do anything except go around and call everybody racist all the time for everything.

Joe Rogan 35:05 (laughs)

James Lindsay 35:05 And-

Joe Rogan 35:05 Twitter. (laughs)

James Lindsay 35:06 Yeah, it was so bad that they had to cancel the program. And that's right, it's exactly right.

Joe Rogan 35:10 Ugh.

James Lindsay 35:10 It's, it's Twitter. And so, you know, these obsessives w- I just mentioned, you know, post-structural feminism working into the critical turn in education or whatever. Critical race theory, by the way, is the third step, Gottesman says is the turn to education. But, um, uh, you know, I just mentioned that but they were the bloggers, man. Back in like '08, '09, it was like every blog in the universe was some feminist woman bitching about something.

Joe Rogan 35:34 Hmm.

James Lindsay 35:35 And, like, bitching about somebody and bitching about, you know, "Can we, why can't we grow out our armpit hair? Why can't we stink? Why do we have-"

Joe Rogan 35:41 (laughs)

James Lindsay 35:41 "... Why can't we wear, you know, w- whatever clothes we want? Why can't we do this? Why can't we do that?" And then it's patriarchy, patriarchy. These people, there's your obsessives, right?

Joe Rogan 35:50 Yeah.

James Lindsay 35:50 They ... And they totally dominated that blogosphere when before, like, even ... Like, that was, like, pre-s- social media, or barely social media time, and th- that's where everybody was, like, sharing these ideas. And so these obsessives gained an extraordinarily outsized voice. Now, have you heard of renormalization?

Joe Rogan 36:08 No.

James Lindsay 36:08 Okay, this is, this is a big idea, 'cause it- I- it's the idea that a very small group of in- extremely intolerant people can change a very large number of normal people, so 3 or 4% being just absolutely intolerant can move the entire needle. And the way it works, y- the example, I saw this video on, on YouTube so I'm stealing this. The way it works though is, like, you can imagine, like, a family of four and you got, like-... you know, the daughter or whatever decides she's vegan. My teenage daughter, she's like, "I am vegan now." And so like the... whoever's cooking, the parents are like, "Oh, I can cook two meals or I can, you know, get in a fight every night at dinner, or I can just cook some vegan stuff," right? And all of your options are basically, unless you're gonna go kind of, like, hard-nosed, all of your options are kind of bad except just keep the peace and that's it. It's be soft, be nice, keep the peace, no struggle, no, no, uh, uh... don't offend anybody, right? And so now, your, your whole family is cooking vegan meals. So now, the neighborhood has a barbecue. You got one girl who's actually vegan. The whole family is eating vegan, and they're like, "Well, we need vegan options." And so now, the barbecue at the neighborhood is like, "Well, we gotta do something for the Johnsons down the street now. They're vegans now."

Joe Rogan 37:23 Mm.

James Lindsay 37:23 And so what can happen is, like, the whole neighborhood now has to accommodate vegans, but there's one vegan, right? And you can just see how this expands. Uh, this process is called renormalization. So, when you have this small contingent of obsessives, which these people who are in these Marxist ideologies, woke Marxism is what... I don't even call it woke anymore, I call it woke Marxism. Woke Marxists are completely obsessives, and they're completely intolerant. Anything but their way is, you know, sexist, racist, probably capitalist, patriarchal, and you are the worst kind of person and the dumbest person, and probably crazy for not going along with them.

Joe Rogan 38:00 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 38:00 And they can renormalize an entire, say, social media platform, at which point they have this massive amount of dominance over the national discourse.

Joe Rogan 38:08 Well, especially if that kind of ideology gets into the administration of that social media platform, which it has-

James Lindsay 38:16 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:17 ... on basically all of them.

James Lindsay 38:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:19 My friend, Yiannis Pappas, just got a strike against his account on YouTube, and I'm gonna read you the transcript of what they, they struck, 'cause this is wild shit. 'Cause it's, it's gotten to the point where it, it doesn't have to have anything to do with... there's n- it has nothing to do with bullying, nothing to do with hate, nothing to do with any... Like, he's just joking around about stuff, and he makes a, uh, a point, or he makes a joke that is, uh, it's- it's essentially, you know, I mean, he's just being silly about the gay pride parade. And he said, "I support gay rights, but can we move the gay parade tonight so I can explain gay rights to my daughter without having to see your asshole before noon?"

James Lindsay 39:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:07 That's a joke.

James Lindsay 39:08 It's a joke.

Joe Rogan 39:09 It's just a joke. They gave him a strike on his account for that.

James Lindsay 39:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:12 I mean, this is wild shit. And then there was another one that he had that was, um, about, uh... There was another one that he had about, I think it was about, uh, Justin Bieber or something like that, um, which was even more... Yeah, here it is. Uh, "Bieber's, uh, old N-word..."

James Lindsay 39:33 Yeah, this is what he posted.

Joe Rogan 39:35 Yeah, that's it. But look, go down below. Well, here, uh... It was one, duh-duh-duh-duh. Yeah, that's it. It's the top one. Um, "Jared, I like to hum myself. I like melodies, I like to sing. That's my thing, son. But I don't discriminate against any music. You know, play Hootie, play Lynyrd Skynyrd, play whatever. I'm down for it." What- what the fuck is that?

James Lindsay 39:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:58 How is that in any way... Like, h- how is that the thing that they highlighted as something that, that YouTube is gonna ban? Like, that doesn't make any sense.

James Lindsay 40:08 That's insane. That's nuts. I mean, I thought I had like-

Joe Rogan 40:09 "Play Hootie, play Lynyrd Skynyrd, play whatever. I'm down for it." What the fuck is that? How could anybody think that that is offensive?

James Lindsay 40:18 I mean-

Joe Rogan 40:19 Like, that doesn't make... That makes no sense.

James Lindsay 40:22 That- that does- that makes no sense.

Joe Rogan 40:23 But what-

James Lindsay 40:23 I thought my example was, like, crazy. I got, uh, dinged for saying that onion rings cure COVID.

Joe Rogan 40:29 Blah. (laughs)

James Lindsay 40:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:31 That should be so over- obviously parody. But J- Yiannis, the thing is, is he's a male comedian.

James Lindsay 40:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:38 And, you know, he jokes around about shit. He's a very open-minded guy, he's very progressive, he's very intelligent. And they're somehow or another lumping him in with, like, a bad person, or with the alt-right or whatever. I mean-

James Lindsay 40:51 That's the game, man. That's the game.

Joe Rogan 40:52 That is the game. I mean, uh, it's like, it happens... I mean, it happens with fucking smart people.

James Lindsay 40:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:56 You know, smart people make that dis- they use that pejorative. They t- you know, "Oh, h- these alt-right people." I'm like, "Stop." You're talking about people that aren't even remotely alt-right. Like, don't do that.

James Lindsay 41:07 Yeah. Yeah, exact-... I mean, that was a whole thing, like, you know, we had just the other day here on the show, you had the, you know, Tim Pool's alt-right or whatever it was.

Joe Rogan 41:14 Josh Zepps, yeah, he s-

James Lindsay 41:15 It wasn't, wasn't quite that, but-

Joe Rogan 41:15 He said that to try to diminish what Josh Zepps been saying about Australia because he works for-

James Lindsay 41:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:20 ... Australian media, and he's trying to be nice-nice over there.

James Lindsay 41:23 No, I hear you.

Joe Rogan 41:24 Yeah.

James Lindsay 41:24 Australia is scaring the shit out of me, though, I'll tell you that.

Joe Rogan 41:26 Well, it should. You know, and it did to Josh when he lives there. And I think, you know, sometimes people, when they work for an organization that is going along with the government's rules and guidelines, and they think everything's good and fine, and you don't live in Australia, so you don't know.

James Lindsay 41:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:41 We're all vaccinated, so we're free, and you're wrong, and this is right, like... Like, you- you're- you're, you're not convincing me by telling me that people like Maajid Nawaz are alt-right.

James Lindsay 41:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:51 That is fucking nonsense.

James Lindsay 41:53 Right, totally.

Joe Rogan 41:54 That's so dumb.

James Lindsay 41:55 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:56 It's so crazy to call him-

James Lindsay 41:57 It's absolutely.

Joe Rogan 41:57 ... alt-right.

James Lindsay 41:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:58 And they called Tim Pool alt-right as well.

James Lindsay 41:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:00 Tim is, if anything, he's a centrist. He's-

James Lindsay 42:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:02 He's just a guy who... He's a fucking... He was like an on-the-boot, uh, boots-on-the-ground journalist for Vice.

James Lindsay 42:08 Yeah. Yeah, he, it was like all up in Occupy.

Joe Rogan 42:10 Yeah. He was an Occupy Wall Street guy.

James Lindsay 42:12 Yeah, he-

Joe Rogan 42:13 Yeah.

James Lindsay 42:13 He was, like, right there.

Joe Rogan 42:14 I know Tim very well. He's not alt-right at all.

James Lindsay 42:17 No.

Joe Rogan 42:17 But he'll entertain a conversation with anybody.

James Lindsay 42:19 He will.

Joe Rogan 42:19 And, like, he had, um... Okay, he had O'Keefe from Project Veritas on the other day.

James Lindsay 42:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:24 And that's like, "That- that guy is the boogeyman to the left."

James Lindsay 42:27 Oh, no. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:27 You can't... Like, even if what he's saying is a fucking threat, he's exposing threats to democracy.

James Lindsay 42:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:34 He's exposing real live corruption. He's exposing real live conspiracies.

James Lindsay 42:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:41 And they're like, "Oh no, but it's Veritas." Like-

James Lindsay 42:44 But it's Veritas, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:45 They've f-... somehow or another decided that an individual can be, like, you could... Uh, it's almost like a cure to the reality of whatever he's exposing. Like, you could say, "Oh, it doesn't matter because it's James O'Keefe," and then you can put-

James Lindsay 42:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:59 ... that on top of the thing, and it all goes away.

James Lindsay 43:01 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 43:02 It's wild.

James Lindsay 43:03 It's- it's extremely wild. I mean, that's the... But, I mean, that's again, your show, Blue Open Mass Formation Psychosis.

Joe Rogan 43:10 Well, that's not a thing.

James Lindsay 43:11 Right?

Joe Rogan 43:11 Don't you know that's not even a thing?

James Lindsay 43:12 Well, yeah, I saw this stuff.

Joe Rogan 43:12 It's not even a real thing.

James Lindsay 43:13 I mean, there's books, like, back to the 1800s about it, but it's not a thing.

Joe Rogan 43:16 But it's not a thing.

James Lindsay 43:16 But it's not real.

Joe Rogan 43:17 It's not real.

James Lindsay 43:17 It's not real, it's fake.

Joe Rogan 43:18 Well, I've ta-... There's a certain psychologist who went to a college and he told me it's not a thing.

James Lindsay 43:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:22 So there's that.

James Lindsay 43:23 Yeah. The, uh... You know-

Joe Rogan 43:25 It's f- for sure, whatever you want to call it.

James Lindsay 43:28 Like, something's going on-

Joe Rogan 43:29 Yeah.

James Lindsay 43:29 ... where people get to feel morally superior, whether they're-

Joe Rogan 43:32 Yes.

James Lindsay 43:32 ... they're execs at Instagram who are going to knock down, or i-interns or whoever, knocks down that account.

Joe Rogan 43:37 Yeah.

James Lindsay 43:37 And they get to be mor- morally super, or, you know, look at this drop Veritas just did, like, I don't know if that thing that they just did with the COVID is, like, panned out or not, but if it did, that's, like, somebody should probably be looking into that, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:52 What's fascinating is how it is completely, 100% ignored by the left-wing media.

James Lindsay 43:58 It's like it doesn't exist.

Joe Rogan 43:59 FOX is the only people covering it, and how much, is FOX covering it quite a bit? I know Tucker-

James Lindsay 44:03 I don't, I don't watch TV so I don't know. Tucker's talked about it.

Joe Rogan 44:05 Tucker's talked about it, but if you look on left-wing media, Rachel Maddow and all of-

James Lindsay 44:10 Oh, it doesn't exist.

Joe Rogan 44:10 It doesn't exist. It's, it's not, y- you, e- even if you think it's a lie, you have to cover it. It's a significant issue. We need to get to the bottom of it.

James Lindsay 44:22 No.

Joe Rogan 44:22 Are these documents true? Are they correct?

James Lindsay 44:26 Yeah, exactly. Is, is, is it true that this leaked, according to the document, that this leaked, COVID-19? It leaked actually not in November, December, whatever it was, but in August.

Joe Rogan 44:37 Yes.

James Lindsay 44:37 Is it true that it was created and there's, there are these patents? Is it true that they knew that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and the other things you're not allowed to say anywhere, could work as curatives? Because that's in, I don't know all the facts, I don't even claim to, but I know that's in the document. I read the document.

Joe Rogan 44:54 Not only that, this concerted effort by a group of these people, Francis Collins and Fauci and all these people, to try to demonize these distinguished intellectuals from-

James Lindsay 45:06 The Great Barrington?

Joe Rogan 45:07 Yeah.

James Lindsay 45:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:08 Oxford, Harvard, I mean, it's-

James Lindsay 45:10 There's lots of, lots of lunatic extremists there, right?

Joe Rogan 45:13 Gu- guys who are experts in their field.

James Lindsay 45:15 Total fringe guys. Oxford. Who's ever heard of that crap hole?

Joe Rogan 45:18 It's, it's so strange and meanwhile left-wing media ignores, ignore, ignore-

James Lindsay 45:23 Yeah. Ignore, ignore.

Joe Rogan 45:23 ... it didn't happen, didn't happen.

James Lindsay 45:25 Absolutely didn't happen.

Joe Rogan 45:26 Like, it's so, the only people that you can trust that are left wing are the independent people. And that's why it's so strange. It's the strangest time ever.

James Lindsay 45:33 It really is. Um-

Joe Rogan 45:34 It's wonderful for independent people.

James Lindsay 45:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:36 Because for people like Crystal and Saagar from Breaking Points, it's opening the door. For people like The Hill, like Kim Iverson-

James Lindsay 45:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:43 ... it's opening the door for people to expose these things.

James Lindsay 45:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:46 So we, you get a chance to see these independent people rise and then more people go, "Hey, you got to listen to this lady talk about this. She explains it in very rational, factual terms." Like-

James Lindsay 45:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:56 And now, now people will pay attention to Kim Iverson. Now people pay attention-

James Lindsay 46:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:00 ... to Crystal and Saagar.

James Lindsay 46:01 I watched Kim this morning as a matter of fact, as a matter, as a matter of fact. She did a thing th- I don't know when she did it because it's on the internet, so who the hell knows when the actual video was. A YouTube video got sent to me and it's Kim Iverson and they were like, "What's on your mind, Kim?" She has like a little segment on her show and she was like, "The Great Reset," and she's like, "Here's some key things to know about it," and it's like, has like bullet points on the screen and it's like number one, it's real. (laughs) And I was like, okay. Th- just to kind of like tie that knot a little bit tighter though, we're talking about CNN, the media won't talk about these, these things, just vanishes. So do you know Klaus Schwab has a new book after COVID-19: The Great Reset?

Joe Rogan 46:34 Yeah.

James Lindsay 46:34 You know what it's called?

Joe Rogan 46:34 What?

James Lindsay 46:35 I shit you not, it's called The Great Narrative.

Joe Rogan 46:38 Oof.

James Lindsay 46:38 (laughs) Yeah, right?

Joe Rogan 46:40 But who is this guy?

James Lindsay 46:41 I haven't read that yet.

Joe Rogan 46:42 What is, where's his background? Like I never heard of him until like a month ago.

James Lindsay 46:44 It's very hard to find out about his background, actually.

Joe Rogan 46:48 Oh, no.

James Lindsay 46:48 If you look him up, it's all shadowy.

Joe Rogan 46:49 "I was born in a cave."

James Lindsay 46:52 Yeah, something like that. Uh, I've heard stories about his parentage that probably shouldn't be repeated on air because we don't know what they are.

Joe Rogan 46:57 "Some- somewhere in the middle of the Earth is a secret laboratory where I was born."

James Lindsay 47:03 Yeah. He's, um, but he's been doing this since the '70s. Like, he started, it wasn't called the World Economic Forum in '71, but that's when he wrote his first thing to try to come up with this stakeholder capitalism scam that he, he's worked out and tried to foist on the world. And so The Great Reset, obviously people are like, "Wait, what is this bullshit?" It's like it's not going well for them. So now, he comes out with a book, The Great Narrative. And then you look at like what CNN's doing, you look at, like all the left-wing media-

Joe Rogan 47:29 Yeah.

James Lindsay 47:29 ... MSNBC, you're like... And that's been the hot word of the year, right? The narrative, the narrative, the, what is it? January 6th has a narrative. Everything has a narrative. Um-

Joe Rogan 47:37 What do you think the people that are on the talking heads, that are on these networks, how do you think that works? Do you think they get informed as to what the narrative is? What they're allowed to and not allowed to discuss?

James Lindsay 47:50 I know they're getting lists of things they're not allowed to discuss. I-

Joe Rogan 47:53 How do you know this?

James Lindsay 47:54 Because I know somebody who went on TV and got yelled at for it, uh, and he, well, I don't, I can't verify it. He, the guy told me in person. So-

Joe Rogan 48:01 What did he say he got yelled at for?

James Lindsay 48:02 I'll even tell you who the guy is so it gets-

Joe Rogan 48:04 Okay.

James Lindsay 48:04 We're gonna name one of those names you're not allowed to name.

Joe Rogan 48:06 (sighs)

James Lindsay 48:06 Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy.

Joe Rogan 48:09 Oh.

James Lindsay 48:09 I met him at Mar-a-Lago last year.

Joe Rogan 48:11 You met him... He's a little silly.

James Lindsay 48:13 He is, but he said that what got hi- he is, in fact, um-

Joe Rogan 48:16 He's quite a bit silly.

James Lindsay 48:17 Yeah. Um, apparently if you get the pillows you have to put them in the dryer to activate them. I don't know what that's about.

Joe Rogan 48:22 Activate them?

James Lindsay 48:22 I don't know what this is about.

Joe Rogan 48:24 Wait a minute. What are you saying?

James Lindsay 48:25 I've heard that the pillows, if you, I'm not supposed to like, I don't want to like piss on the guy's business, but I heard the pillows suck and then if you put them in the dryer they're really good.

Joe Rogan 48:32 What are you talking about? Like what-

James Lindsay 48:33 They're just pillows.

Joe Rogan 48:33 There's a pillow? Is there anything-

James Lindsay 48:34 It's just a pillow. No, it's just a, just-

Joe Rogan 48:36 How could it change when you put it in a dryer?

James Lindsay 48:38 Who knows? It probably gets hot and like, I don't know. I don't have one so I don't-

Joe Rogan 48:41 Like a hot pillow?

James Lindsay 48:42 I don't have, like all these other people I know have these like coupon codes to like go get your MyPillow.

Joe Rogan 48:46 Hold... What is this? "The patented fill will lock into place when laying on your back. Bunch MyPillow," registered, "under the curve of your neck to get the right amount of support for you as an individual." What does that mean?

James Lindsay 49:00 (scoffs)

Joe Rogan 49:00 As opposed to what? You as a group?

James Lindsay 49:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:02 "Before first use, place in a dryer for 10 to 15 minutes with a damp washcloth to activate the patented-"

James Lindsay 49:10 That's what I'm telling you.

Joe Rogan 49:10 "... interlocking fill."

James Lindsay 49:11 I have no idea how it works.

Joe Rogan 49:12 What is in there?

James Lindsay 49:13 All I know is that he got r- I saw him at Mar-a-Lago-

Joe Rogan 49:16 Let me see a picture of one of these fucking things. What's the deal? Is it just a foam pillow?

James Lindsay 49:21 Holy shit, it's like in a little bo- little bag.

Joe Rogan 49:22 What? It comes in a bag?

James Lindsay 49:23 It's like a, it- it's let all the air sucked out of it.

Joe Rogan 49:26 Look at this! "Place pillow in a dryer for 15 minutes before first use." It says it in the bag?

James Lindsay 49:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:32 Have you ever seen one of these, Jamie?

James Lindsay 49:33 I have not needed- purchased a My Pillow. I have gone other routes. He has the slippers.

Joe Rogan 49:38 What kind- what you got?

James Lindsay 49:39 Other pillows. I don't fucking know.

Joe Rogan 49:41 I got one of these groovy, uh, foam ones that's like sh- it's like a hole for your head and your head sits in there, and it-

James Lindsay 49:47 Yeah, dude.

Joe Rogan 49:47 ... locks it in place.

James Lindsay 49:48 Mine's like memory foam on one side-

Joe Rogan 49:50 Yeah.

James Lindsay 49:50 ... and like soft shit on top.

Joe Rogan 49:51 Mm.

James Lindsay 49:52 Oh, I love it.

Joe Rogan 49:52 Yeah.

James Lindsay 49:53 It's the best.

Joe Rogan 49:53 Mine's like some kind of memory foam, too, but it's memory foam, but it's like contoured to your head.

James Lindsay 49:56 Yeah, it's gotta be contoured-

Joe Rogan 49:57 And I enjoy it. Yeah.

James Lindsay 49:57 ... or it'll ruin your life.

Joe Rogan 49:59 I fucked my neck up. I got a really stiff, thick pillow, and I was sleeping on it for like a couple of weeks. But like I was sleeping with my head kind of bent-

James Lindsay 50:08 Because-

Joe Rogan 50:08 ... because it's so thick.

James Lindsay 50:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:09 And I got a kink on the left side-

James Lindsay 50:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:11 ... of my neck and I've been fucking rubbing it out every day. So, every day-

James Lindsay 50:14 I'll str- nope, I'll work that out for you later.

Joe Rogan 50:16 What are you? A massage therapist?

James Lindsay 50:17 I was for 10 years, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:17 Wait, really?

James Lindsay 50:18 I just re- I just retired my license this year, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:20 No shit.

James Lindsay 50:20 Or last year. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:21 Okay. Uh, 'cause what I've been doing is I use like, uh, we have this, uh, company that was a sponsor, Hyperice, and they have this ball, it's called the Hypersphere. It's the shit. You press a button, it goes (vibration sound) .

James Lindsay 50:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:34 And you press another button, and- and you press it again, it goes (vibration sound) .

James Lindsay 50:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:37 And another button, it goes (vibration sound) . Like, the same button, you just keep pressing over and over again.

James Lindsay 50:41 Yeah, I got you.

Joe Rogan 50:41 It's different levels of vibration.

James Lindsay 50:42 That was like- that was exactly that Spaceballs thing, by the way, that scene with the radar.

Joe Rogan 50:45 Oh, really?

James Lindsay 50:46 Yeah, you did the sounds good.

Joe Rogan 50:47 Thank you. Um, so anyway, I get this vibrating ball and I put it under my neck, and then I bridge on it. So, I get on there and really-

James Lindsay 50:54 That's intense.

Joe Rogan 50:54 ... dig into it. Yeah.

James Lindsay 50:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:56 I'm a- I'm an intense kind of guy.

James Lindsay 50:56 Does it work?

Joe Rogan 50:57 Yeah, it does work.

James Lindsay 50:58 You can be.

Joe Rogan 50:58 Yes.

James Lindsay 50:59 You're pretty chill too, though.

Joe Rogan 51:00 Most of the time.

James Lindsay 51:00 Most of the time.

Joe Rogan 51:01 Most of the time. I have a switch.

James Lindsay 51:02 Do you want-

Joe Rogan 51:03 I like to keep it under wraps.

James Lindsay 51:04 I think most people do.

Joe Rogan 51:05 Yes, most people do too.

James Lindsay 51:07 So, speaking of the switch though-

Joe Rogan 51:08 So, My Pillow guy.

James Lindsay 51:09 My Pillow guy was flipping out. Like, he's just- like, I tried to just go up, like I thought, "Okay, let's go meet the guy, say hi, we're- we're- we're like-"

Joe Rogan 51:16 Right.

James Lindsay 51:16 "Trump's over there, like, let's talk." And, uh, like, he's just mad, and he's like ranting about his experience on the media. And I don't know if it was on like Hannity or one of these guys. He went on one of these Fox guys, and they literally on their desk had a list of stuff that if the guest goes there, take it away. And he went like just- this was about the election fraud stuff that he got all hooked up.

Joe Rogan 51:37 Oh, yeah.

James Lindsay 51:37 And he went like balls to the wall into it, and they like took his microphone from him and everything. So, there was a list of stuff they're not supposed to talk about.

Joe Rogan 51:45 Yeah, but that actually kind of makes sense because like if you're running around saying that the election was a fraud, that Donald Trump is the true president, like they can get in trouble for that. Like, that's a- that's a real problem 'cause you're promoting propaganda. You're- you- like if you have that person on your network and you're putting it out on the airwaves, there's a faction of our country that really does believe the- the- that the true president is Donald Trump and that JFK Jr.'s alive and he's gonna meet Donald Trump in the middle of fucking Dealey Plaza and-

James Lindsay 52:17 That's a bit thick there.

Joe Rogan 52:18 Yeah. But you know what I mean?

James Lindsay 52:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:19 Like these- a lot of those QAnon dorks, they believe that stuff.

James Lindsay 52:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 52:22 So, if you go and start spouting out that kind of shit on TV, on Fox, that's bad for business.

James Lindsay 52:28 Well, I mean, he had this whole-

Joe Rogan 52:29 Because w- because people have this thing about Fox already.

James Lindsay 52:32 Right, of course.

Joe Rogan 52:32 Is that it's the home for like less than a... Sorry, Fox. Is the home for less educated, loony people that are more inclined to believe in Pizzagate, right?

James Lindsay 52:41 Yeah. Yeah, like Texans.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Yeah. What?

James Lindsay 52:43 No, I'm just kidding.

Joe Rogan 52:44 Hey.

James Lindsay 52:44 Hey.

Joe Rogan 52:45 Son of a bitch.

James Lindsay 52:46 That'll teach you to move.

Joe Rogan 52:47 So, when a guy like (laughs) ... So, when a guy like, uh, Mike Lindell, is that his name?

James Lindsay 52:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:51 So, when he goes on a network and he says a lot of wacky shit like that... He- he's said some wacky shit before, right?

James Lindsay 52:56 Right. He has, but so has, I- I said last night, our friend, but I haven't met him yet, Alex Jones has said a lot of wacky stuff.

Joe Rogan 53:04 You haven't met Alex yet?

James Lindsay 53:04 No.

Joe Rogan 53:05 Oh, you need to meet Alex.

James Lindsay 53:05 Yeah, we gotta get together.

Joe Rogan 53:06 Yeah, we need to make that happen.

James Lindsay 53:07 Yeah, it'll be fun.

Joe Rogan 53:08 Um, so-

James Lindsay 53:10 So, y- anyway, I think that we- I- I actually believe that we should be having... And what- this is what the internet's causing, is a lot of open dialogue about things, some of which is gonna be wacky. I actually no longer worry about misinformation. I actually don't worry about it anymore. I worry about propaganda, but I don't worry about misinformation. And the reason I don't worry about misinformation is because if the ideas are out there and people are discussing them, one thing you find out is that stupid stuff gets shot down fast. How do you know? Look at the official narratives that got spun around COVID and look how fast internet sleuths were like, "Nope."

Joe Rogan 53:40 Like what?

James Lindsay 53:40 Well, like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin being things that you can take that might help. Like, people were figuring that out in like March of 2020 before it was even like a thing.

Joe Rogan 53:49 Right, but there are a lot of people that don't believe in it, including doctors.

James Lindsay 53:53 No, I know.

Joe Rogan 53:54 There's a lot of doctors... Look, I- my doctor prescribed it. I have several friends who have doctors that prescribe it, but now they're having a- a really hard time finding it-

James Lindsay 54:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:04 ... even though it's an incredibly common medication. They're trying to actively stop people from taking it.

James Lindsay 54:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:10 And there's certain doctors that they won't prescribe it for you. You ask for it, they'll say, "Well, who- what are you? Paying attention to Joe Rogan or something?" Like, they literally get upset about it and say-

James Lindsay 54:21 Yeah, he's a Texan.

Joe Rogan 54:21 But there's- the- like, there's a long history of use of that stuff.

James Lindsay 54:25 Yeah. It- it-

Joe Rogan 54:26 But there isn't- there's a large chunk of our cult- of our country that believes that it's horse medication and that it's dangerous.

James Lindsay 54:35 Yeah, I know.

Joe Rogan 54:35 And that there was a line of people waiting to get into an emergency room in Oklahoma for gunshot wounds because there were so many people there that were overdosing on ivermectin. Rolling Stone said it.

James Lindsay 54:46 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:46 Rachel Maddow said it. It's 100% full of shit. It never happened. I mean, by the way, how many people are getting shot in Oklahoma? What do you- what is this, the Wild West?

James Lindsay 54:54 Yeah, like-

Joe Rogan 54:54 You got a line of people with like gunshot wounds on their hands?

James Lindsay 54:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:57 Like-

James Lindsay 54:57 Unlikely.

Joe Rogan 54:58 ... what the fuck are you talking about?

James Lindsay 54:59 Yeah, Oklahoma.

Joe Rogan 54:59 It doesn't even make sense.

James Lindsay 55:00 I've been to Oklahoma City. It's nice.

Joe Rogan 55:01 It's a great place.

James Lindsay 55:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:02 Yeah.

James Lindsay 55:03 No, what- that's what I'm saying though, is like, so they've got the official narratives that they can put out-

Joe Rogan 55:07 Yeah.

James Lindsay 55:07 ... and then I think that... I'm not worried about misinformation. In fact, I think that more information is generally better.

Joe Rogan 55:13 But-

James Lindsay 55:13 And then we have this ability for these ideas to compete and for ones, not necessarily that are better, but often ones that are better, but also ones that are, you know, the danger is the ones that are more, um, sticky or salient or interesting or that they get people's emotions going or whatever. The- there are processes though, there, that the selection processes is like ideas rise up to the top. And-

Joe Rogan 55:34 If they're not censored.

James Lindsay 55:36 Ex- that's what I'm saying, right?

Joe Rogan 55:38 Right.

James Lindsay 55:38 So, that's what I'm saying, is I don't think they- that we should be censoring these things. Like, if Mike Lindell, for example, is doing this gigantic thing, and maybe it's all complete horseshit, but he's got, like, the statistics and he's done all this thing and the voting machines and the Dominion, and he's- he's done all... Like, he's got all this shit. And like, he's put millions... Like, this maybe is a newsworthy thing if for no other reason so that it gets more eyeballs on it, so people can say, "This is where it's bullshit. This is where that falls apart." If it's kind of like... It's where this stuff gets caught up in these little corners where it can fester that I worry more about bad info. I want to see it as open as possible. I'm not saying that Fox has to, like, do whatever with its programming, but I'm saying that it's, you know, better that we're having kind of a free information economy, if you will, than one that's... We've got the official gatekeepers of that, whether they're stupid per- I almost said the F word... professors. I'm really mad at professors, by the way.

Joe Rogan 56:33 These fucking professors.

James Lindsay 56:34 Yeah. The other day, I gave this talk.

Joe Rogan 56:35 I said it for you.

James Lindsay 56:36 For... With these, like, very nice people, and, you know, some of them are quite religious, and they were like, "Just don't say the F word during your talk." And I was like, "Okay, but, uh, what if it's like, 'fucking commies'?" And they're like, "Well, you can say 'fucking communist', but no other way."

Joe Rogan 56:48 What?

James Lindsay 56:48 And... Yeah. "If you say these-"

Joe Rogan 56:49 You cannot...

James Lindsay 56:50 "... 'fucking communist'..."

Joe Rogan 56:50 You can't say "fuck you"?

James Lindsay 56:51 Well-

Joe Rogan 56:51 You can say, "Fucking communist"?

James Lindsay 56:52 Well, I mean, they would... I could have said it. It's, like, free speech.

Joe Rogan 56:54 Right.

James Lindsay 56:55 But they-

Joe Rogan 56:56 They- they asked you not swear.

James Lindsay 56:57 They were like, "Don't swear," but if "communist" is the next word. So, I'm like that with professors right now in- in- in many regards, but also these media heads. Like, I don't need an aristocracy telling me how ideas... which ideas are going to be true and false. Now, as you know, we talked about postmodernism last time I was here with you. I'm not exactly a postmodernist, but I listened. I read that shit, right? And I didn't just read it to, like, "Oh, this is why these guys are wrong." I read it, right? I read Michel Foucault, for example, and he talks about how power works. And he's got a lot of crazy shit in there 'cause he's ultimately, at the bottom, a Marxist, and so capitalism has to be the problem of everything. But he's got a lot of stuff that we should be listening to right now. What he's saying is if you have the official power... He's saying it's always this, but I don't think that's true. But if you have the official power of, like, the state and the media or whatever, and they get to decide what's true, they impose, like, a narrative of truth. Like, there's these aristocrats, professors, media personalities, et cetera, they get to decide what's true for everybody, and that's what we all have to nod our heads and go along with. Uh-uh, I don't like that. I think that the aristocracy that we had in the 19th century was not a great thing, and 17th century. I don't... And 18th century, I don't think that was a great thing, the serfs, you know, getting abused and whatever else. I think we've got the exact same scenario going on in the information world right now. And it's br- the internet's breaking it free, so guys like Alex Jones breaking it free, and what do they do? Turns out he was, like, right about 93 and a half percent of everything he said, except for maybe the Satan stuff, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 58:23 (laughs)

James Lindsay 58:23 But then... (laughs) Right?

Joe Rogan 58:25 Interdimensional child molesters.

James Lindsay 58:26 I- interdimensional child. So, but he was right about-

Joe Rogan 58:29 A lot.

James Lindsay 58:29 ... an uncanny amount of stuff.

Joe Rogan 58:30 An uncanny amount of stuff.

James Lindsay 58:31 And what did they do? He was the first guy. They sliced him off everything. They shut him down off of all of the social media first.

Joe Rogan 58:38 That was the beginning of this. He was the beginning of this, and that was a guy that they felt they could justify because of Sandy Hook.

James Lindsay 58:43 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 58:44 And so they used that, and then they used that to silence him, and then they moved forward from there and just started silencing all kinds of different people.

James Lindsay 58:52 Right. And so, like, I look at that, and I think, "No, I want the opposite of that." So, I'd rather have, you know, occasionally, you end up with Mike Lindell on Fox News talking... Like, if Hannity wants or whoever it was, I don't know, wants to have him on the show, like, let it freewheel. Let his idea get out there, and then i- like, let's say it's 100% bullshit, let all these geniuses on the internet, 'cause they're everywhere and they don't have anything else to do, start crunching the numbers and be like, "Here's where he made his mistake."

Joe Rogan 59:17 The problem is that it dismisses the credibility of Fox News. It diminishes the credibility of Fox News.

James Lindsay 59:22 I don't think that they have any a-

Joe Rogan 59:23 And-

James Lindsay 59:23 any... Fox New-

Joe Rogan 59:24 They do to- to people that like Fox News.

James Lindsay 59:25 I know, but that's the problem.

Joe Rogan 59:26 You don't think the Tucker Carlson Show has credibility?

James Lindsay 59:28 No, it- it does actually, but what I'm saying is that in general, I don't like this. He's got a huge plat- you also have a huge platform. I'm getting a platform. Uh...

Joe Rogan 59:37 You're platformed right now.

James Lindsay 59:38 I am... Uh, thank you for platforming me.

Joe Rogan 59:40 (laughs)

James Lindsay 59:40 I feel so platformed. No, uh, but it's like, I feel like, like, we don't want to have a very relatively small number of characters that head these things up getting to determine what is going to be credible, true.

Joe Rogan 59:55 I agree with you. However, when you're a person who's looking at this from the outside, you say, "This guy is on TV in front of millions of people, and he's saying things that are absolutely not true, that are, in fact, dangerous to democracy, because he's saying that our elections are... uh, they're invalid, they're- they're rigged, they're fake, Donald Trump should be the president." And that allows all these other people that are doing... wh- whether it's, uh, the people that are censoring folks on YouTube, the people that are f- censoring folks on Twitter, they look at this and go, "See, this is why we have to do this."

James Lindsay 1:00:28 No, I get that.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 "Because this kind of shit can get out, and we have to stop this shit from getting out." So, if Hannity or whate- whatever these guys ca- they can stop the most egregiously silly ideas, or the, uh, provably untrue ideas.

James Lindsay 1:00:41 Yeah, but so can-

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 If they can stop that.

James Lindsay 1:00:43 But we don't want, like, Rachel Maddow deciding that she can't-

Joe Rogan 1:00:45 No.

James Lindsay 1:00:45 ... take Horse Dewormer-

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 No.

James Lindsay 1:00:46 Or that Joe Rogan's gray on CNN, and-

Joe Rogan 1:00:49 No, I'm not saying we do, but I'm saying that the reason why they feel like they have to do this-

James Lindsay 1:00:53 No, you're right.

Joe Rogan 1:00:54 ... is because of the fact that it's so easy to dismiss them right now.

James Lindsay 1:00:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Also, if you look at it from a perspective like strategy, there's one versus many. Like, they're, uh, they're kind of surrounded.

James Lindsay 1:01:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 If you looked at Fox News, and I'm not saying, like... it's not value judgment, like one's wrong or one's right. I'm- I'm just saying, if you looked at, like, the way their perspective on the right is represented in the news, there's fucking no one left. O1- OAN, that- that wacky news network?

James Lindsay 1:01:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 They just got kicked off of DirecTV.

James Lindsay 1:01:23 Yeah, they just got kicked off TV, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:24 Yeah. Well, they're still on... Verizon-

James Lindsay 1:01:27 Right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 ... and- and a few other of those cable, but DirecTV is huge.

James Lindsay 1:01:31 Right. Well, speaking... We mentioned... Speaking of kicking people off, Mike Lindell just got, like, his ability to bank shut down.

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Tell me what you were saying earlier because you were- you glossed over it, but then you stopped.

James Lindsay 1:01:41 Oh, I'm sorry.

Joe Rogan 1:01:41 You said he spent millions of dollars on this shit. Like-

James Lindsay 1:01:44 Oh, oh, no sh-

Joe Rogan 1:01:44 What is it?

James Lindsay 1:01:45 He was trying... He's utterly convinced, and we'll come... This is actually important about the democracy point you raised. Um, he's utterly convinced that there was...... you know, misfeasance with regard to-

Joe Rogan 1:01:56 Malfeasance, is that what it is?

James Lindsay 1:01:57 Well, it's probably mal, actually, instead of mis. Both are words. But it-

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 I've never heard of mis.

James Lindsay 1:02:02 It's less bad.

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 Oh.

James Lindsay 1:02:03 So we'll say malfe- malfeasance.

Joe Rogan 1:02:05 Okay.

James Lindsay 1:02:05 It's really bad. So he thinks that, he thinks that they use the Dominion machines that had shady programming, etc., and I don't know the details of his, of his hypothesis, but that they were changing the numbers in a particular way to move votes from one guy, from, from Trump to Biden, etc.

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 Right.

James Lindsay 1:02:20 And so he, he spent millions of dollars on some kind of a statistical analysis to dig into this, right? And-

Joe Rogan 1:02:27 Really?

James Lindsay 1:02:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:28 Nice.

James Lindsay 1:02:28 And so that's, like he had this whole conference, like in South Dakota or something about it over, like the summer last year. Like there's a whole thing. And so he's trying to make this point. And what, there are, like it or not, millions upon millions of Americans who are looking at the 2020 election and they're kind of squinting one eye and they're like, okay, maybe something, like I mean like maybe as many as 50 or 80 million Americans are like, "I think something shady went on there." And so he's got this hypothesis, right? So the distrust in the democratic process in the country is already shaken. So when you, my, my view is when somebody's bringing up a point like this, it, the only way, like if something happens where people are suspicious enough or there's a guy that's going to devote millions of dollars to something like that, you've really, and it's, of course you could just have a crazy guy with a lot of money. That's always possible. But the way that you recover what's dangerous to democracy is not tying off those loose ends, right?

Joe Rogan 1:03:21 Mm-hmm.

James Lindsay 1:03:22 So if you leave that open, like the, the trust is already shattered.

Joe Rogan 1:03:25 Right.

James Lindsay 1:03:25 And it, so what you want is this... So he comes up with this hypothesis and okay, and he spent all this money and he presents his evidence. And then people, you know, as ideally transparently as possible, analyze the evidence that he presents and says, "This is, oh my God, this is an emergency." Or, "Eh, there might be something here." Or you know, "This is total bullshit, you're a crazy person and we're never going to hear from you again in any significant way. Go, go home." That is what's missing, is that transparency. So what's dangerous for me to democracy is the idea that there are going to be people, whether it's Sean Hannity on Fox, whether it's Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, whether it's Don Lemon on CNN, whether it's, you know, an- Anthony Fauci at whatever the hell he is, uh, whether it's Joe Biden, you know, back in 1989 because he doesn't know where he is. Whatever it happens to be, I don't think it's good for, for anything if those people get to delimit what we're going to see as officially true and that's what we have to go with, because that's the mess that we're in with why you got attacked for taking horse medicine even though you took the human version obviously, and you took a Nobel Prize winning medicine with decades of, uh, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:04:40 Human use.

James Lindsay 1:04:40 ... science, human use and science and success behind it.

Joe Rogan 1:04:44 Yeah.

James Lindsay 1:04:44 And that was a decision made between yourself to take it and your doctor as the consultant who recommended and, and was able to get you the prescription to get it. That wasn't, you didn't, Anthony Fauci didn't need to intervene in that discussion. You could have taken the, these pills which have a long time of human use and it could have done nothing. It could have just given you diarrhea or it, you know, it could have made you sick or whatever. And then your doctor could have reacted accordingly to try to create a treatment protocol for you tailored to what's actually going on in your individual body as you dealt with the coof. Uh, you don't need a bureaucrat, I think, deciding, no, no, no, these are the official things that we're going to say work and don't work, because that's where you get yourself in these really dangerous positions.

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 I agree with everything you said. Have you ever listened to what Mike Lindell says and did, did you ever look at his evidence?

James Lindsay 1:05:29 Oh, I think is a bit nutty.

Joe Rogan 1:05:31 But did you ever look at his evidence about the stolen election?

James Lindsay 1:05:33 I did not. I did not. It's, but I-

Joe Rogan 1:05:35 What do you think he's nutty about?

James Lindsay 1:05:36 I mean-

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 I think he's nutty too, but I don't have, like if you cornered me and go, "Why is he nutty?" I'm like, ah, I saw him in an interview once, he looked wacky.

James Lindsay 1:05:43 Well, I mean, yeah, there's that. It's like-

Joe Rogan 1:05:45 There's probably people who have that opinion of me.

James Lindsay 1:05:46 I mean, he, when I met him, he actually, what did he say? He said something really funny because he used to be on crack, right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 Really?

James Lindsay 1:05:51 Yeah. He used to be like a crackhead.

Joe Rogan 1:05:53 For real?

James Lindsay 1:05:53 I'm not making that up. Yeah, totally. And so he made some joke about how, you know, he said something and he was like, I didn't even have to smoke crack to say that or whatever. You know, some kind of a joke like that. And it's like-

Joe Rogan 1:06:04 Okay.

James Lindsay 1:06:05 Anyway, I, I don't have the skill in fact to parse his evidence, but such people do or cer- certain people do and I would-

Joe Rogan 1:06:12 Look at this. How this entrepreneur went from a crack addict to self-made millionaire.

James Lindsay 1:06:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:19 So this is before he was nutty.

James Lindsay 1:06:20 Ex-

Joe Rogan 1:06:21 This is 2017. He was like a, just a self-made millionaire. It's like he wasn't a nut back then. 2017 he was allowed to be nutty.

James Lindsay 1:06:29 So I don't-

Joe Rogan 1:06:29 He claimed he'd been sober for over eight years.

James Lindsay 1:06:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 Oh, so 2011 smoking that rock.

James Lindsay 1:06:34 Oh, yeah, maybe, maybe he got a really good idea why he was... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:37 Yeah, really good idea where he's cracked out.

James Lindsay 1:06:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:39 When did he start the company? Let's find out when the company got started.

James Lindsay 1:06:43 I would bet 2012.

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 I mean, are these fucking pillows worth buying? I don't own one.

James Lindsay 1:06:47 I'm very curious. I, I, I don't have one.

Joe Rogan 1:06:49 I feel like I'm very curious.

James Lindsay 1:06:51 I mean, 2004.

Joe Rogan 1:06:56 2004, wow.

James Lindsay 1:06:57 2004.

Joe Rogan 1:06:57 So he started the company cracked out.

James Lindsay 1:06:59 Cracked out, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:00 Cracked out making pillows.

James Lindsay 1:07:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:02 So you know...

James Lindsay 1:07:03 Did better than the kid from Harvard that was trying to make pillows to compete with them. That didn't go so good.

Joe Rogan 1:07:08 Was there a kid from Harvard that made pillows?

James Lindsay 1:07:08 Yeah, David Hogg. We, we...

Joe Rogan 1:07:10 Oh, that kid?

James Lindsay 1:07:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:11 He made pillows?

James Lindsay 1:07:12 Yeah, he called them, I think he called them like OurPillow or some shit.

Joe Rogan 1:07:14 Oh.

James Lindsay 1:07:14 Communist shit.

Joe Rogan 1:07:15 Silly. Na- oh my God, that's so silly. Now his, does anybody analyze his stuff?

James Lindsay 1:07:22 Yeah. Well-

Joe Rogan 1:07:23 And say, the MyPillow guy's got a point?

James Lindsay 1:07:25 I don't know, but people could. And I would rather it be out there and have that transparency to the maximum degree with people who are weighing in on this and saying, no, actually he's totally nuts.

Joe Rogan 1:07:36 I agree. I think there should be platforms in terms of, you know, whether it's, uh, like a YouTube or a Twitter and Facebook and, all these fall into this thing, that are accessible to all Americans.

James Lindsay 1:07:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 Because they're, uh, I think they're a basic human right, because the right to express yourself when we live in this very strange time of misinformation, disinformation, the, the counter to that should be more communication.

James Lindsay 1:08:02 I think so. And I, like, like I said, I think we're actually, I think like truth... I actually do, this is sort of spiritual sounding, but I think of truth like a flame, like it burns its way out of-... boxes of lies that it gets put into.

Joe Rogan 1:08:12 That sounds like a Bette Midler song.

James Lindsay 1:08:14 Is it?

Joe Rogan 1:08:14 (sings) Some say love ...

James Lindsay 1:08:16 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 (sings) ... it is a river.

James Lindsay 1:08:18 No, that's something else, Joe. According to the headlines-

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 Rap tra-

James Lindsay 1:08:21 ... when I Google what ev- the evidence he has for voter fraud.

Joe Rogan 1:08:25 Yes. (laughs)

James Lindsay 1:08:26 Um, from last week, there's, he has claims that ... (clears throat) He has evidence that'll put up to 300 million Americans in jail, for-

Joe Rogan 1:08:33 That's us.

James Lindsay 1:08:33 ... up to life.

Joe Rogan 1:08:33 We're going to jail.

James Lindsay 1:08:34 Tha- that's a lot of people.

Joe Rogan 1:08:35 For life?

James Lindsay 1:08:36 Yeah, that's amazing.

Joe Rogan 1:08:36 See-

James Lindsay 1:08:36 So that's nutty.

Joe Rogan 1:08:38 ... that's wacky. That's as wacky as it gets.

James Lindsay 1:08:39 See, I s- these are the headlines, so-

Joe Rogan 1:08:39 Right, but there are only 330 million-

James Lindsay 1:08:41 And you see ... Well, maybe he was doing a Biden thing. He's old, he fucked his brain up on crack, and ... You remember when Biden said, like, "S- over one billion Americans have been vaccinated. Get vaccinated."

Joe Rogan 1:08:52 No.

James Lindsay 1:08:52 Remember when he did that? Three hundred million people-

Joe Rogan 1:08:56 300 million people belong in jail for voter fraud.

James Lindsay 1:08:57 That's unlikely to be true, unless you're talking globally.

Joe Rogan 1:09:00 That's- Listen.

James Lindsay 1:09:00 In which case, it's still unlikely to be true.

Joe Rogan 1:09:02 He's an entrepreneur. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

James Lindsay 1:09:05 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 This guy is a genius, but-

James Lindsay 1:09:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:08 ... that's wacky.

James Lindsay 1:09:09 I would love to see that shot down through robust public debate.

Joe Rogan 1:09:13 I would too, but if you're Hannity and you get a seven-minute segment with this fucking loon, you don't want this guy spouting this kinda crazy shit on your show, because it could dim-

James Lindsay 1:09:21 Why does he call him in the first place?

Joe Rogan 1:09:22 ... diminish