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Joe Rogan Experience #1768 - Dr. Robert Epstein

Dr. Robert Epstein is an author, professor, and Senior Research Psychologist at American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology: a non-profit, non-partisan organization that offers data regarding the power of Google and other Big Tech companies to censor dissenting opinions online and sway the outcome of elections.

Joe RoganhostDr. Robert Epsteinguest
Jun 27, 20242h 41mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:37

    Search results as “mind control”: why Epstein says Google should be avoided

    1. JR

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. RE

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Uh, first of all, thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. This is, uh, uh, a very interesting subject, because I think, um, search engine results, uh, have, uh, always been a thing that people kind of take for granted, that the search engine results is gonna give you the most significant results at the top. And they don't really think about the fact that this is kind of curated. And, uh, you know, we found that many times, because we use two different search engines. We'll use Google, and then we'll say, "Well, if we can't find it on Google, use DuckDuckGo." And oftentimes, when you're looking for something very specific, you'll find that you can't find it on Google. Like, they're, uh, if it's in there, it's deep, deep, deep, you know, many pages in. Whereas, DuckDuckGo will give you the relati- you know, the relevant search results very quickly. So something's going on with search engines, and from your research, what you have found is that it can significantly affect the results of elections.

    4. RE

      Well, not, not just that. It can affect (clears throat) how people think. It can affect, um, your opinions, attitudes, the purchases that you make, uh, pretty much... It's, it's, it's a mind control machine. It's, it's the most powerful mind control machine that's ever been invented. Uh, and by the way, you should never use the Google search engine. Never.

    5. JR

      Never?

    6. RE

      Never.

    7. JR

      Why is that?

  2. 1:37 – 5:30

    Surveillance & Manipulation (S&M) platforms: phones, assistants, and always-on tracking

    1. RE

      Because it, this is what I call, um... And this isn't, this is an S&M platform, and I'm, I'm not sure what S&M means to you. I don't wanna pry into your personal life, but, uh, point is that, uh, but I... Well, what I mean by S&M is it, this is a surveillance and manipulation, um, platform. Uh, on the surface, there are always two, two levels to everything with Google. On the surface, it's a, it's like a free public library kind of thing, right?

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. RE

      That's always on the surface. Beneath the surface, it's something different. From a business perspective, it's an S&M platform. It exists for two purposes only, and that is to trick people into giving up lots and lots of personal information. Notice your public librarian doesn't do that. Did you notice that? They don't actually do that (laughs) , you know?

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. RE

      And then it's also used for manipulation, because they discovered quite a few years ago that if they control the ranking of the search results, they can control people's opinions, purchases, votes. Now, they can't control everyone's opinions, because a lot of people already have strong opinions, so the people they're going after are the people who are undecided, the people who are vulnerable, and they know exactly who those people are. And they literally... Your, your mind is putty in their hands. Uh, so you should never, ever use Google or any, any other S&M product. Like, Amazon Alexa is an S&M product. Um, or the Google Home device or Android phones. Uh-

    6. JR

      Android phones are bad?

    7. RE

      An Android phone is an S&M device. It's, it's always listening. It's always recording.

    8. JR

      Android phones are always recording you?

    9. RE

      (laughs) Are you serious?

    10. JR

      Yeah, I mean, uh, just, I'm, I'm questioning this. I mean, I believe you, but uh-

    11. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JR

      ... I just want you to elaborate.

    13. RE

      Oh, yeah. There have been court cases in which the recordings have been subpoenaed, uh, from, uh, whoever's controlling that per- you know, that so-called personal assistant or that, that device, and courts have recovered recordings and transcripts, uh, when people are not even aware that they're, that they're being monitored.

    14. JR

      I know that's the case with Alexa, right?

    15. RE

      Yes.

    16. JR

      But that's the case with Android phones as well?

    17. RE

      Yes. In fact, And- Android phones, uh, uh, uh, the equipment to, to, to prove this, which I didn't bring but... Um, it's so cheap now that literally anyone can confirm this. Android phones, even if they're disconnected from your, uh, your mobile service provider, even if you pull out the SIM card, okay, as long as the power is on, it is recording, tracking every single thing that you do. So if you use it to read things, if you use it to listen to music, you use it to shop, whatever it is, it's, it... And of course, your location is always tracked. Then when you go back online, the moment you're, you're reconnected, it, it uploads all that information. So, some people wonder why their batteries run down sometimes even when you're not really doing anything with your phone. That's because, uh, with Android phones, it's, I think it's 50 to 60 times per hour it's uploading. Uh, it's uploading about 12 megabytes of data per hour, so that's a lot of, a lot of energy. That, that, that requires energy. Uh, so it... I mean, the kind of phone I have is completely different. It doesn't do anything like that.

  3. 5:30 – 9:39

    Practical privacy stack: de-Googled devices, Brave browser, and the limits of alternatives

    1. JR

      What do you have, like a no agenda type phone? Do you know that show No Agenda?

    2. RE

      No.

    3. JR

      It's, uh, uh, my friend Adam Curry who's the original Podfather, he's the guy who invented podcasting, and he, uh, his company develops these de-Googled phones where they take out all the tracking stuff, all, everything, and it's, uh, it's, it's basically running on a different operating system.

    4. RE

      Right. So I have a phone that runs on a differ- different operating system. It's completely de-Googled, and, um, and-

    5. JR

      What do you got? Can you show it to me?

    6. RE

      Yeah, I can show it to you (laughs) .

    7. JR

      I'm just interested.

    8. RE

      It's looks, just looks like any old regular phone.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. RE

      But it's not.

    11. JR

      Does it run on Linux? What's it running?

    12. RE

      No. It's a, it's a different operating system. (laughs)

    13. JR

      Can you not tell me?

    14. RE

      Well, I can tell-

    15. JR

      It seems you're very cryptic.

    16. RE

      I, uh, well-

    17. JR

      It sounds like you're trying to hide this, Robert.

    18. RE

      Well, the point is I, uh, look-

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. RE

      If, if you go, if you go to, uh, a website, it says myprivacytips.com.

    21. JR

      Okay.

    22. RE

      Okay? That's an article. You'll get to an article of mine.

    23. JR

      Okay.

    24. RE

      And that article begins, "I have not received a targeted ad on my mobile phone or my computer since 2014."

    25. JR

      Wow.

    26. RE

      So, there is a different way to use all the technology that's out there so that you, you are not the product. Okay? So they're actually, uh, you know, a user making use of services, but you're not the product. And it can be done. And it, uh, uh, uh, yeah. Is there a little inconvenience involved? Yes, very little. Uh, is there some expense involved? Very, very little. All these services that you get for free, quote-unquote, they're not free. (laughs) You pay for them with your freedom. Uh, if you wanna get them in a paid form so that you're not being tracked, we're talking $10 to $15 a month.

    27. JR

      Mm.

    28. RE

      Literally, all of those so-called free services, uh, that are really, again, these S&M services, all of them together are worth $10 or $15 a month.

    29. JR

      And how do you d- how do you use your phone, though? If you wanna have a search engine, are you using, uh, a different search engine? Like, what are you using?

    30. RE

      Well, that's, that's changed for me over time. But right now, I'm using, uh, the Brave browser.

  4. 9:39 – 25:15

    How Epstein got pulled in: hacked website, “New Censorship,” and Google’s blacklists

    1. JR

      So, when did you first become interested in digital surveillance and privacy and, like, what you're giving up by using these free services-

    2. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      ... like Google?

    4. RE

      Mm-hmm. I wasn't interested at all. I've, I've been a researcher for 40 years, and I had a lot of research underway. I've done research on, on teenagers, on creativity, on stress management, all kinds of things. I'm still doing all that stuff. But on January 1st of the year 2012, I got a, I don't know, eight or nine messages from Google, uh, telling me that my website had been hacked and that they were blocking access. So, I thought, the first thing I thought was, "Why, why am I getting these notices from Google? Who made Google the sheriff of the internet? Why am I, why is this coming from the government? Why isn't it coming from some non-profit organization?" So that got my attention. Mm, and then, 'cause I'm a, I'm, I'm, I'm a coder, I've been a programmer since I was a teenager, and then I started wondering, "Wait a minute. Okay, they're blocking me on the Google search engine. I get that. That's th- that's them, right?" So they, so, so they have these crawlers, you know, that, that look at all the websites every day. And their crawler found some malware on my website. That happens all the day too. Everyone gets hacked. I'm sure you've been hacked and Google has, itself has been hacked. So, I get that they're blocking me on Google, google.com, the search engine. I get it. Okay. But I notice they're also blocking me on Firefox, which is owned by a non-profit. They're blocking me on Safari, which is owned by Apple. I, I thought, "But that's, how could that be? These are, these are completely separate companies." Took me a while, took me a while (laughs) to figure this out. I finally, uh, published a piece in US News & World Report, uh, an investigative piece called The New Censorship. And I (clears throat) described nine of Google's blacklists. This was 2016, so this was a while ago. In detail, I described nine of Google's blacklists, I explained how the blacklists work, I explained Google can literally block access on multiple platforms that aren't even theirs. They can block access-... to any website that Google, at one point in time, uh, 2009, I think it was, I don't know, I might get the date wrong. Let's just say January, whatever, 30th, uh, Google blocked access to the entire internet for 40 minutes. Google, (laughs) Google ... A- anyway, in this article I-

    5. JR

      When you s- when you say that, did, uh, if... With all browsers? When you say blocked access to the entire internet, it's like if you used the Brave browser back then. Did, did it even exist back then? Probably didn't exist back then, right?

    6. RE

      Brave didn't e- exist.

    7. JR

      No.

    8. RE

      But no, there were, uh, uh, well, there were lots of search engines. Google was not the first search engine. It was the 21st search engine.

    9. JR

      So, but, what I'm saying is, with all web browsers, it blocked access to the internet?

    10. RE

      It blocked access to virtually the entire internet, to virtually everyone in the entire world for 40 minutes.

    11. JR

      What?

    12. RE

      And this b- this was reported in the news.

    13. JR

      So is... What's happening with their, their system is because so many people are searching for things, because they're monitoring so many different things to add to their search engine, do they have some sort of ultimate control over the internet in some weird way? Here it is, right here. "Google blacklists entire internet. Glitch causes world's most popular search engine to classify all web pages as (laughs) dangerous." Wow. "Google placed the internet on a blacklist today after a mistake caused every site in the search engine's result page to be marked as potentially harmful and dangerous." Holy shit. The fact that they can even do this... I like how it gives you like a, at the top, "This article is more than 12 years old."

    14. RE

      Okay.

    15. JR

      Imagine that, like 12 years means like it's ancient, like they wrote it on stone tablets 12 years ago and-

    16. RE

      Yeah, but, but, you know, this is nonsense. This report is nonsense.

    17. JR

      Is it?

    18. RE

      Of course. They, they, this is... Google is full of geeks, okay? I'm part geek, so I, I can relate.

    19. JR

      You speak geek?

    20. RE

      I c- I can speak geek if you want.

    21. JR

      (laughs)

    22. RE

      Uh, and, and, and geeks, for fun, okay, and sometimes for profit, but most of the time it's just for fun, just to be cool and to h- get their kicks and show the, how powerful they are.

    23. JR

      To be elite?

    24. RE

      Yeah. So they do, so they do crazy things. So they shut down the internet. I, I guarantee you it was a geek thing because you know, you know why I figured that out? Because I kept wondering, "Why did they shut it down on this early, super early morning on a Saturday? Why? What's so special about that little period of time?" And I... (sighs) It took a while and I figured it out. It's because that is one of the only (laughs) intervals of time in the entire week when every single stock market in the world is closed.

    25. JR

      Oh.

    26. RE

      So they, they did it to show that they could do it and have their fun, but they didn't wanna get attention. And if they'd, if they'd interfered with, with financial transactions, they would have gotten a lot of attention.

    27. JR

      So no one was ever caught?

    28. RE

      No one was ever caught, but they never denied that this happened either.

    29. JR

      So this was done through Google, for sure. They know this how?

    30. RE

      They, they... It's, it's... It's reported in the news reports and the, and Q- Google was queried and Google said, "Yeah, yeah, that did happen. Yeah, we fixed it."

  5. 25:15 – 1:33:19

    “Google shut down the internet”: the blacklist mechanism across browsers and services

    1. JR

      Mm. Now, I'm still confused as to how Google can blacklist websites, and how they can shut down the entire internet for 40 minutes. Because, uh, d- do they have a switch? I mean, like, is there a connection that all websites go through Google? Like, how is that possible?

    2. RE

      (clears throat) About three years ago, they shut down all of Japan.

    3. JR

      Accidentally?

    4. RE

      Uh, well, that's, you know ... that would take a whistleblower to figure that one out. Um, they, uh ... I- it was in the news at one point that the guy who was in charge of these, making these decisions, he actually has left Google. Uh, he, he once shut down an entire domain name which had 11 million websites on it, 'cause he thought it was, uh, kinda poor quality.

    5. JR

      Poor quality?

    6. RE

      Yes.

    7. JR

      Poor quality, like how- uh, how so? Like-

    8. RE

      I don't know.

    9. JR

      He ... This is just his, his take, that it was poor quality?

    10. RE

      I have a copy of the internal manual, I'd happy to send it to you, fr- from Google, that - showing the criteria they use in deciding, you know, which content to suppress. And, and some of the criteria are pretty straightforward, having to do with pornography and things like that. Uh, and then there's this, like, wide-open area that, that says, um, "Or anything else."

    11. JR

      "Or anything else"?

    12. RE

      Pretty much, yeah.

    13. JR

      So, you ... It's up to the discretion of the engineer?

    14. RE

      There's a lot of discretion involved in making these decisions. And a lot of the decisions that get made in very recent years, since, since Trump was elected, uh, they happen to be decisions, for the most part, that suppress, uh, conservative content. But not always. Not always. Now, now I'm gonna go ... now I'm gonna circle back-

    15. JR

      But could you please-

    16. RE

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      ... explain again-

    18. RE

      Sure.

    19. JR

      H- w- you ... I still don't know. How do they shut down the internet? Like, how does Google have that ability?

    20. RE

      Uh ... I don't ... Let's see. I don't ... Let's see. (clears throat) I can answer the question, but it's not, it's not a s- ... it's not a simple answer. It's not like they, they have a switch, okay?

    21. JR

      Okay.

    22. RE

      But, uh, I'll give you a coup- couple of clues here.

    23. JR

      Okay.

    24. RE

      Okay, first of all, what's the most popular browser right now? It's Chrome, by far. Well, Chrome is their browser, so obviously anyone using their browser, it's a simple matter for them to, uh, to, to block anything, to block access to anything through Chrome. So, that one's easy, right?

    25. JR

      Okay.

    26. RE

      They can block access to anything through their search engine, which is used f- ... or 92% of all search around the world, so that's takes care of a lot right there.

    27. JR

      Okay.

    28. RE

      Um, then we get to, uh, let's say, Siri. Do you use an iPhone, or Apple?

    29. JR

      I use iO- ... Well, I, I use both.

    30. RE

      Both?

  6. 48:15 – 1:33:19

    Measuring manipulation: SEEM, Search Suggestion Effect, and why ‘4 suggestions’ matters

    1. JR

      Yeah. So Google has this ability that they've proclaimed that they can cor- sort of shift culture and direct the, the opinion of things and direct p- public consciousness.... what percent, like, how much of a percentage do you, do you think they have in shifting? Do they have, like, a 30% swing?

    2. RE

      (laughs)

    3. JR

      Like, what?

    4. RE

      Well, see, this is what I do. Now you're getting, now you're, now you're getting close to what I actually do, what I've been doing for, for now for over nine years. I quantify, this is exactly what I do every single day, that's what I do. My, that's my, my team, my staff, that's what we do, and it's, and it, and it's cool.

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. RE

      And talk about cool. We're, we're w- we're doing the cool stuff now, okay? Google is not. We're doing the cool stuff, because we are l- we have discovered a number of different tools that Google, and to a lesser extent other companies, use to shift thinking and behavior. And what we do in randomized controlled experiments, which are also counterbalanced and double-blind and all that stuff, we measure the ability that these tools have to shift thinking and behavior, and we, we pin it down to numbers, percentages, proportions. Uh, uh, we, we can make predictions in a, in an election about how many votes can be shifted if they're using this technique or these three techniques or ... And, uh, and so we, yeah, that's what we do. So we've, we started with the search engine, and, uh, and we, it, it took years and years of work, but we, we, we really, I think at this point, uh, have a good understanding of what the search engine can do. Uh, but then along the way, we discovered other tools that they have and which they are definitely using, and how do we know they're using these tools? Well, we can get to that, but-

    7. JR

      What are the tools?

    8. RE

      Well, the first one we called SEEM, search engine manipulation effect, and that means they're either allowing, uh, you know, one candidate or one party to rise to the top, you know, in search rankings, or they're making it happen, and you don't know for sure whether, you know, which is, which is occurring unless there's a whistleblower or there's a leak. Okay, but the fact that it's occurring at all, that's important.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. RE

      I mean, we don't, in a way, we don't care, because if it's just the algorithm that's doing it, well, that's horrible. That means that, that means literally a computer program is deciding who's gonna be the next president, who's gonna be the next senator. Do, do we want that (laughs) decision made by an algorithm? So anyway, we, we, we spent a lot of time on that. We're still studying SEEM. Uh, then we went, we, we learned about SSE, which is search suggestion effect. When you start to type ... Oh, in fact, if you have your phone handy, this will be fun. If you, if you start to type, uh, a search term into the box-

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RE

      ... the search box, you're, you're, there are, uh, suggestions flashed at you.

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. RE

      As fast as you're typing, that's how fast those suggestions come.

    15. JR

      Right.

    16. RE

      Well, guess what? We learned in controlled experiments that (clears throat) by manipulating the suggestions that are being flashed at people, we could turn a 50/50 split in a group of undecided voters into nearly a 90/10 split.

    17. JR

      Wow.

    18. RE

      Without anyone having the slightest idea that they're being manipulated.

    19. JR

      Whoo.

    20. RE

      Just, just by manipulating search suggestions.

    21. JR

      Just by suggesting.

    22. RE

      Yes, and the, uh, and the reason why, um, we started that work, because in June of 2016, uh, a, a news organization, a small news organization released a video which went viral on YouTube and then got blocked on YouTube, frozen, still frozen. Uh, but then it continued to go viral on Facebook, so 25 million views. In this little video, th- they're, this news organization is saying, "We've made a discovery." Uh, when you go to google.com and you look for information about, um, Hillary Clinton, you can't get any negative search suggestions.

    23. JR

      Really?

    24. RE

      Really. So if you, and they showed this, and there were-

    25. JR

      What if you googled, like, Clinton body count?

    26. RE

      You, you, you, you could not get negatives. It, it-

    27. JR

      Really?

    28. RE

      Yeah. It would, it, it would give you nothing probably for Clinton body count, but as you're typing, you go, "Clinton b," it would go, you know, "Clinton, um, um, buys the best clothes." I don't know.

    29. JR

      Right.

    30. RE

      It would give you something like that. It would not give you something negative. So for example, Hillary, Hillary Clinto- or Hillary Clinton is ... You do it on, uh, and they showed this, you do it on Yahoo, uh, you do it on Bing, and you get, "Hillary Clinton is the devil."

  7. 1:11:49 – 1:20:46

    YouTube & opinion-matching quizzes: new manipulation channels beyond search

    1. JR

      But knowing that you're creating turmoil is ... Here's my thought on that. It's like-

    2. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      Is it just human nature? Because you ... were you saying before about the, like, negative, negativity bias, that people gravitate towards things that are negative. And that's one of the things that you'll find if you, uh, use YouHoo- uh, uh, YouTube rather. When, when you go on YouTube, if you're a person who likes to get upset at things and you're a person who likes to, you know, look for things that are, you know, disturbing or upsetting or the, you know, uh, political arguments, whatever, you'll get those in your suggestions over and over and over again.

    4. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      But if you're not interested in that, if you're only interested in airplanes and you start googling airplanes or, or cars or watches or ... that's what it'll suggest to you. It doesn't have to suggest to you negativity. You gravitate towards that naturally. And so the algorithm represents what you're actually interested in. So is it Facebook's fault that everyone ... well, not everyone ... most people generally-... interact more with things that are negative, or things that upset them.

    6. RE

      That's not their fault, but it is their fault that they take advantage of that to manipulate people. That's entirely their fault.

    7. JR

      But if their business model is to engage with people and to keep people engaged by giving them content that makes them stay engaged and click on links and read more and spend more time on the platform, and the only thing that it's doing is highlighting what you're actually-

    8. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      ... interested in, why is ... What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to make less money and then have no suggestions and have no algorithm, and just leave it all up to chance? Just leave it all up to, "You go find what you're interested in and then keep finding what you're interested in through a direct search." Like, to ... Through you trying to find these things directly with no suggestion whatsoever, because that's better for the human race?

    10. RE

      For the past year or so, we have been doing controlled experiments on YouTube. Uh, we have a YouTube simulator. It's a perfect YouTube simulator, and we have control. We're using real content from YouTube, real videos from YouTube. All the titles, everything comes from YouTube, except we have control over the ordering and we have control over the Up Next algorithm. That's where the power lies, the Up Next algorithm. So, one of the things we learned recently, not from Frances Haugen, but it was someone else who left Facebook, is that 70% of the videos that people watch on YouTube now around the world are suggested by YouTube's Up Next algorithm.

    11. JR

      70%.

    12. RE

      70%.

    13. JR

      Whoa.

    14. RE

      Yeah. And that's (laughs) their algorithm, and just like us in our lab, okay, we have control over what the Up Next algorithm suggests. And guess what we can do with our Up Next algorithm?

    15. JR

      What?

    16. RE

      Well, it should be obvious. (laughs)

    17. JR

      You can manipulate people.

    18. RE

      Yeah, we manipulate people.

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. RE

      We randomly assign them to this group or that group, and we just push people any old way we wanna push them.

    21. JR

      And when you're doing these tests and studies, like, how are you doing this? Like, are you doing ... How many people are involved in this? Are they students? Like, what ... How are you, how are you doing this?

    22. RE

      Okay, we- we- we never do the, you know, subject pool at the university where you get, you know, 50 students from your- your college to take, you know, to be your research.

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RE

      We never do that. So we're- we're always reaching out, uh, to the community or we're doing things online. So we do big studies online, and we are getting very deg- diverse groups of people. We're getting, uh ... Literally, we're getting people from, uh, lists of registered voters, so we're getting people, you know, who- who- who look like the American population, and we are ... We- we can mess with them. Can I say "we can fuck with them"?

    25. JR

      You just did.

    26. RE

      Oh. I guess I just did.

    27. JR

      (laughs)

    28. RE

      Oh, this is definitely not Fox. This is not Fox.

    29. JR

      No.

    30. RE

      No. No.

  8. 1:20:46 – 1:28:58

    Congress, partisanship, and the “perfect storm” that blocks regulation

    1. JR

      Yeah. And when you ... Y- so you spoke to Congress about this? You spoke in front of Congress, or was it-

    2. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      Now, w-

    4. RE

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And when you did, was there any sort of urgency that was ... Uh, d- did anybody understand, like, what the implications of this are? Did anybody understand, like, this is ... We're l- literally looking at these massive technologies that are used throughout the world that, uh, that can completely change the way policy is directed-

    6. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      ... the way people are elected, who's in charge, what the public narrative is on a variety of subjects?

    8. RE

      Well, uh, there, (laughs) there are some people. There's a g- a guy named Blumenthal, he's a senator from Connecticut. He gets it. He understands. He, he's kind of disgusted, I would say-

    9. JR

      (laughs)

    10. RE

      ... with all this stuff. But, you know, I said to Cruz, I said, "Why don't you work with Blumenthal?" And he said, "Well, no, I don't think that'll work out."

    11. JR

      'Cause he's a Democrat?

    12. RE

      'Cause he's a Democrat. So-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. RE

      ... they can't ... Here, here's the ... So, the Democrats, even the ones who understand this stuff, they won't do anything. Because, why? Because these tech companies support Democrats very lavishly with donations. So, for example, Google was Hillary Clinton's biggest donor in 2016. And they're supporting them in these more subtle ways as well, so the Democrats will not, will do nothing. If they even say something, like if they, if they, they rattle their swords, they don't actually do anything. And the Republicans hate regulation.

    15. JR

      Mm.

    16. RE

      This is a perfect storm for these companies to do what they have done, which is they have already taken over. You're, you're thinking 20 years from now? No, they've already done it.

    17. JR

      Well, I'm not thinking, um, that they haven't already taken over. But I'm thinking, like, how much more control can they have in 20 years if 20 years ago they didn't have any? Like, it ... As technology advances, do you think that this is going to be a deeper and deeper part of our world?

    18. RE

      Well, look at, look at, uh, Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg's trying to-

    19. JR

      Yes.

    20. RE

      ... get us all into the metaverse.

    21. JR

      Exactly.

    22. RE

      Okay? So, yeah, you have even more control if you get people into virtual realities. Yes, you have more control. Uh, uh, every single thing they're doing is moving us farther and farther and farther down the rabbit hole.

    23. JR

      Well, not just that. I'm thinking, like, there was a time where Zuckerberg, at least, was, uh, publicly considering cryptocurrencies.

    24. RE

      Right.

    25. JR

      Like, some sort of a Facebook cryptocurrency. Imagine if Facebook cryptocurrency-

    26. RE

      (laughs) Right.

    27. JR

      ... became the number one currency worldwide, or maybe it, maybe it was the number one crypto, like Bitcoin is today.

    28. RE

      Sure.

    29. JR

      What the fuck? You know, so you're in the metaverse. In order to e- exist and compete-

    30. RE

      Yep.

  9. 1:28:58 – 1:36:42

    Personal toll and intimidation: warning of an ‘accident,’ wife’s death, and being smeared

    1. RE

      Uh, well, in 2019, um, one of the things I did arou- around the same time I did the testimony is I did a, a private briefing for, uh, state attorneys general. And, uh, so I s- did my thing and I, you know, I can scare people, um, pretty well with my, my data. We haven't got to my monitoring, uh, projects yet, but we will.

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. RE

      But I g- uh ... So I, you know, I did my thing, and then I went out into the, uh, uh, kind of the waiting room there and just waited because I was done, and they started filing out, and one of them came up to me, I knew exactly who it was, I know what state he was from, and he says, uh, "Dr. Epstein, I, I, I hate to tell you this, but," he said, "I think you're gonna die in an accident, uh, within the next few months." And then he walked away. Now, I did not die in an accident in the next few months, but my wife did.

    4. JR

      Really?

    5. RE

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      So, when this person said that to you, what, what does this person do? What-

    7. RE

      He's an attorney general of a state.

    8. JR

      And why did he say that to you?

    9. RE

      Because he was concerned. He thought I was pissing people off who had a lot of power and that, um, they wouldn't like that.

    10. JR

      And how did your wife die in that accident? What were the circumstances?

    11. RE

      Um, she (clears throat) lost control of her little pickup truck that I had bought her, and, uh, got broadsided by a, uh, a massive, um, truck that was towing two loads of cement. Uh, but her pickup truck was never examined forensically, and, um, it disappeared. Uh, I was told that it, that it had been sold to someone in Mexico, and it just disappeared from-

    12. JR

      Sold to someone in Mexico. O- Obviously, it was totaled?

    13. RE

      It was totaled, and the, the wreck, uh, which I suppose was technically my property, uh, disappeared. Was never examined and disappeared and went to Mexico.

    14. JR

      Now, was this a older truck? Was it a newer truck?

    15. RE

      Uh, it was an older truck, but you know-

    16. JR

      Oh, older as in like how, how old?

    17. RE

      Uh...... like, 2002 but we kept in very good shape, had low mileage, uh, new tires.

    18. JR

      The reason why I ask is, like, what kind of, uh, computer systems were involved in cars-

    19. RE

      Oh.

    20. JR

      ... from 2002 as opposed to... Do you remember the, um, (smacks lips) the story of the journalist who, uh- Michael Hastings, who, uh, wrote a story about, uh, a general in, um, uh... during th- during the time of, um, (smacks lips) Obama's administration, there was, uh, a volcano that erupted in Iceland and, uh, he was stuck overseas. I believe it was Af- Afghanistan or Iraq? I think it was Afghanistan. So, he was over there writing a story for Rolling Stone and because he was over there for so long, because he was trapped, because no flights were going, because of the, uh, air cover was so bad because of this volcano, they got real comfortable with him. And these soldiers started saying things, not even thinking this guy is like... you know, he's not one of them. He is a journalist and he's gonna write all these things about... So, he wrote this very damning article. Uh, the general in question got fired, and then this guy, Michael Hast- Hastings, started talking about how he was in- fearing for his own life. And, uh, cut to sometime in the future, he sped up, there's actually a video of it, sped up on Sunset Boulevard, uh, towards the west side and slammed into a tree going, like, 120 miles an hour. There was an explosion. The- the car's engine was, you know, m- many yards from the- the car itself and there was a lot of speculation that not only did the government have the ability to manipulate, that intelligence agencies had the ability to manipulate people's cars, but it's something they've actively done.

Episode duration: 2:41:56

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