Joe Rogan Experience #1769 - Jordan Peterson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast.…

   1. JPJordan Peterson0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) That state of intense concentration on that-

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JPJordan Peterson0:15

      ... before you can really manage it, so.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      I think there's mental endurance involved too, 'cause I think that... Are we up?

   5. NANarrator0:21

      We're good.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      I think there's mental endurance that comes with, uh, anything that you do on a day-to-day basis, whether it's writing, whether it's, uh, doing podcasts, whether it's, uh, doing stand-up comedy. I think anything where you have to think and, and manage, like, complex ideas and manipulate your language and your... the way you're speaking, and, and be able to e- e- engage in the dance between two people, I think you gotta do it all the time. Uh, uh, I think if you just do it every now and again, like especially, like, if you took time off of speaking to people, like if you hadn't talked to anybody in a long time and then you talk... Have you ever done that, where you haven't talked to anybody in a long time, then you talk to them? It feels odd.

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:05

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:05

      It feels awkward.

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:06

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       'Cause I think there's, like, a thing where you have to get used to it. You gotta get used to it.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:10

       See, all I found that was particularly the case with the podcasts, is that it's hard to do that sporadically.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       Yeah.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:16

       Um, you also g- lose that rhythm of preparation-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:19

       ... because you get... Well, I, I did. I- I'm not sure. How do you prepare for your podcasts? Like, if you have an author come on-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:25

       I usually read their book. It depends on-

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:27

       When?

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       ... um, with- like, I'm on... I have two books that I'm reading right now that are future, uh, people that are coming in February.

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:35

       Hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       So, they're-

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:35

       So a lot ahead.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:36

       Yeah. They'll be... Well, you know, it's like one of them is a climate change book, and it's, it's intense. And so, it's requiring a lot of thinking, and then I have to, like, look at the criticisms of this guy and criticisms of the work and, you know, you know, who believes that in 10 years Miami's gonna be underwater, who believes that this is probably hyperbole and that it's a, a gross exaggeration, and the reality is, you know, the world sort of always goes through these cycles of change, but human beings are definitely having an effect on it, but a small effect compared to cows and other, other things. It's like, it's hard to sort out. The climate change one is a weird one, so that one, I'm-

   23. JPJordan Peterson2:18

       Well, that's 'cause there's no such thing as climate, right? Climate and everything are the same word. And I... That's what bothers me about the climate change types. It's like... This is something that bothers me about it, technically. It's like climate is about everything. So, okay. But your models aren't based on everything. Your models are based on a set-

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:41

       Warming.

   25. JPJordan Peterson2:41

       ... number of variables.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:42

       Yeah.

   27. JPJordan Peterson2:43

       So, that means you've reduced the variables, which are everything, to that set. Well, how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation if it's about everything? And that's not just a criticism. That's like, if it's about everything, your models aren't right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       Hmm.

   29. JPJordan Peterson2:59

       Because your models do not and cannot model everything.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:02

       What do you mean by everything when you say models-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   And what would that…

   1. JPJordan Peterson15:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      And what would that be? Nuclear?

   3. JPJordan Peterson15:02

      No. Well, I would say ultimately, likely nuclear and not- probably not fusion because it's so... you know, fusion has always been a year away, 10 years away for the last 50 years. We haven't man- managed it. Nuclear, likely. France managed that very effectively. We can do it. And-

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:21

      And we still have a weird idea of nuclear because of the several, you know, whether it's, uh, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, there's been a few disasters.

   5. JPJordan Peterson15:31

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      You know, Fukushima.

   7. JPJordan Peterson15:31

      More people die every year from solar energy than die from nuclear.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:35

      Who dies from solar?

   9. JPJordan Peterson15:36

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       Well, of course because-

   11. JPJordan Peterson15:38

       Guess, guess, guess how you die from solar?

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:40

       S- uh, sunburn?

   13. JPJordan Peterson15:41

       No. You fall off the roofs when you're installing it.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Oh.

   15. JPJordan Peterson15:44

       Yeah. Oh.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       That's gravity, right?

   17. JPJordan Peterson15:46

       Yeah, gravity. Gravity.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       Yeah.

   19. JPJordan Peterson15:47

       And, you know, that's a good example of unintended consequences. Because systems are complex and when you change them, you think only good things will happen. It's like, well, you know... Oh, so I was gonna... You asked about energy.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Yeah.

   21. JPJordan Peterson16:00

       There's also a environmental progression towards clean energy.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:04

       Yeah.

   23. JPJordan Peterson16:04

       And so poor- the poorest people burn wood. Well, that's not so good because first of all, they cut down the trees and burn the trees. And second, if you're concerned about pollution, especially particulate pollution, especially indoors, which kills I think seven million children a year. Seven million children a year are killed by indoor particulate pollution.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:27

       What?

   25. JPJordan Peterson16:28

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well-

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       How is that possible?

   27. JPJordan Peterson16:30

       Well, the- pe-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       Seven million?

   29. JPJordan Peterson16:32

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:32

       Indoor particulate pollution, you meaning from starting fires in homes like to keep warm?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JPJordan Peterson30:00

      and that actually takes a lot of capital.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Yeah.

   3. JPJordan Peterson30:02

      You know and the other thing that there's a couple of other things about capitalism that are worth thinking about. One is...... all the evidence suggests that relatively f- free markets are the best way to make the absolutely poor richer. That's not an inequality-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JPJordan Peterson30:17

      ... issue. It's just that, well, they're not starving, and that's something. We've lifted more people out of poverty in the last 15 years than in the entire course of human history.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:26

      Can I pause you for a second there?

   7. JPJordan Peterson30:27

      Yep.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      Um, oh, one point that I forgot that, uh, we need, uh, I, I, I read this the other day that where Karl Marx is buried, they have to charge money because they have to maintain it.

   9. JPJordan Peterson30:38

      Uh-huh. Very funny.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:38

       And they need money to maintain it-

   11. JPJordan Peterson30:39

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:40

       ... which is ... Make sure that's true.

   13. JPJordan Peterson30:41

       Yeah, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:41

       'Cause it's hilari-

   15. JPJordan Peterson30:42

       (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:42

       I read that, and it was, like, a meme, and I was like, "Is that real?" 'Cause-

   17. JPJordan Peterson30:45

       My daughter once-

   18. JRJoe Rogan30:45

       ... it is kinda funny.

   19. JPJordan Peterson30:46

       My daughter once bought me a 50%-off Karl Marx doll-

   20. JRJoe Rogan30:50

       (laughs)

   21. JPJordan Peterson30:50

       ... which I thought was just ridiculous, and she bought it for that reason.

   22. JRJoe Rogan30:52

       That's adorable.

   23. JPJordan Peterson30:53

       She told me. It's so funny. It was-

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:54

       Now-

   25. JPJordan Peterson30:54

       ... so funny.

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       Capitalism.

   27. JPJordan Peterson30:55

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       Th- th- here's when, when people start talking about capitalism-

   29. JPJordan Peterson30:59

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       ... and we talk about capitalism uplifting poor people-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      take these rat ... uh, that w- you were doing this, you're taking these rats in these highly stressed out environments, you're putting them in cages, nothing's natural.

   2. JPJordan Peterson45:06

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      And if you take these rats and you put them in a far larger environment-

   4. JPJordan Peterson45:10

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      ... with trees and everything that a rat normally has, and then-

   6. JPJordan Peterson45:13

      Like other rats, for example.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      Yeah, like s- real, well, normal.

   8. JPJordan Peterson45:16

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:16

      Like a normal rat environment.

   10. JPJordan Peterson45:17

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:17

       And then you give them cocaine, they're not interested.

   12. JPJordan Peterson45:20

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:20

       They're only interested in it if you stress them out by putting them in cages.

   14. JPJordan Peterson45:24

       Okay, so imagine-

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:24

       Now, is that the same with these monkeys?

   16. JPJordan Peterson45:26

       If you ... Imagine the, the natural rat environment there.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:29

       Yes.

   18. JPJordan Peterson45:29

       Okay, so now you have your rats in your na- in the natural environment. Now, imagine you gave them access to cocaine and you stressed them. So what would happen is a certain percentage of the rats would start using cocaine in proportion to the amount of stress.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       Like if you let a bunch of cats loose.

   20. JPJordan Peterson45:44

       But not all the rats. Yeah, exactly.

   21. JRJoe Rogan45:45

       Okay.

   22. JPJordan Peterson45:45

       Exactly. And maybe the ... in that case, maybe they'd prefer alcohol or benzodiazepines, because that would s- specifically alleviate anxiety.

   23. JRJoe Rogan45:51

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JPJordan Peterson45:52

       And so it is, it is the case, and this was brilliant research showing that ... See, a lab rat is not ... A lab rat's actually a pretty good model of a human being, for reasons we can go into later, but an isolated lab rat who's been genetically bred is not that much like an actual rat. And when Skinner done all his studies on lab rats, not only were they isolated, which rats never are in the r- in the real world, because they're communal and social. They play, they laugh, they wrestle.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       Yeah.

   26. JPJordan Peterson46:23

       They have very complex social environments. They're not that interested in artificial forms of psychomotor stimulation if they're in a natural environment, but some of them will still be more interested than others. There's still that variability that's lurking-

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Hmm.

   28. JPJordan Peterson46:36

       ... in the background. And with these monkeys, most of them wouldn't take alcohol repeatedly, but a small percentage of them would. And you see very much the same in ... And all I'm saying, I'm not saying anything r- revolutionary here. I'm saying, I'm saying, for example, if you experiment with 20 different drugs, you'll probably find the one for you.

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:55

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JPJordan Peterson46:56

       Right? And people react differently to pharmacological substances, and a huge part of the variation in that reactivity is genetically determined or genetically influenced. So that's not a surprise. It's no mo- it's not that m- it's not any much more ... it's not much more surprising than saying some people are born more anxious than other people.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Like a Hendrix song.…

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:00:00

      That's the zone of proximal development. Vygotsky discovered that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      Like a Hendrix song.

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:00:05

      Yeah, yeah, like a Hendrix song. Well, any great music does that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      Yeah, but I mean-

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:00:08

      I- I think it's-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      ... Hendrix has so much creativity inside the structure of the song-

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:00:12

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      ... 'cause of his riffs that he'll do.

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:00:13

      Right, right, right, and everyone loves-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

       Right.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:00:15

       Oh, man, I went to this-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

       Yeah.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:00:16

       ... bar in Nashville. Uh, this band was playing, Kelley's Heroes, a great guitarist, best guitarist I've ever seen, and they were playing old country music with a heavy blues rock-... uh, twist. So they do this great version of, uh, Ghost Riders in the Sky. It's 15 minutes long-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:31

       Yeah.

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:00:31

       ... and this brilliant guitarist just goes way out on a limb, and everybody in the crowd, it's so, was so fun to be there. They're just thrilled to death because they're watching this man doing the same thing that surfers do. He's like dancing on the edge of chaos and order in this virtuosic manner, and everyone is so taken by that, that it just lifts them out of the normality of their existence, you know? They see this joy just transfuse them, and that's because they got an intimation of genuine meaning. And it's u- and it's, it's, it's not amenable to rational criticism, which is w- the thing that I thought, that struck me as so miraculous about music and why it has this element of salvation. It's like, it puts you directly in touch with the m- meaning that sustains you in life, directly, and it shows you what that would be, which is something like to observe the harmonious interplay of the patterns of being stacked on top of one another, and then to bring yourself into alignment with that, which is what yogis strive to do, and what disciplined athletes strive to do, and what we celebrate in athletics. And it's all a reflection of the same thing, and that's real. It's real, that meaning. It's-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

       It's real also in what it imparts on other people. It's not just, it's, e- it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Like, even though people can play beautiful music when no one's around, it's not the same as playing beautiful music in front of people, because there's a thing that happens when people interact with that music.

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:02:03

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, you see that in, you know, if you get lucky, you go to a mu- I went to a Leonard Cohen concert, one of the ones he put on when he went on tour when he was old. He lost all his money when he was in a Buddhist monastery. Dangers of being in a Buddhist monastery, by the way. (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:16

       Did he really?

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:02:17

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:17

       He lost all his money?

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:02:17

       His manager, manager, uh, shanghaied him.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:20

       Stole his money?

   23. JPJordan Peterson1:02:20

       Yeah, and so he had to go back on tour, which turned out to be a great thing because he made way more money on that tour than he did, I think, in his whole life.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:26

       Did he get a new manager?

   25. JPJordan Peterson1:02:27

       Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, it was an old friend of his as well.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:29

       Oh, boring.

   27. JPJordan Peterson1:02:29

       It was really a catastrophe, but he, he got better and better as he got old, kinda like Johnny Cash, you know? 'Cause Cash got damn near transcendent just before he died. He put out some songs like The Man Comes Around that are just-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:41

       Yeah.

   29. JPJordan Peterson1:02:41

       ... they're just unbelievable. He wrote a book on Saint Paul, by the way.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:45

       He did?
6. 1:15:00 – 1:17:51

   What, what qualms would…

   1. JPJordan Peterson1:15:00

      m- when my son was about two, his sister was about three and had a little gaggle of, of friends, and they used to dress him up like a fairy princess. And this didn't happen for, like, years. It happened for a couple of weeks, you know, and he was playing along, and I went down there, and I'm a northern Albertan, you know, and so their gender roles there were fairly finely de- defined. And I was watching this, and I thought, "Is it really a good thing that he's, like, got wings on, a little fairy hat, and a wand and a dress?" It's like, is that okay? And I talked to Tammy about it. I said, "The girls are dressing Julian up like a princess," um, and it kinda ... I have qualms about it, and, but I, but I, I'm not sure what to do 'cause he was having a good time, and he was playing with the girls, and, well-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:47

      What, what qualms would you possibly have about that? 'Cause that, th- i- f- from my personal experience-

   3. JPJordan Peterson1:15:52

      Oh, there are probably-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:53

      ... of having daughters-

   5. JPJordan Peterson1:15:53

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:54

      ... they, they think it's funny to put me in a dress. Like-

   7. JPJordan Peterson1:15:57

      It is funny, yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:58

      Yeah, well, there's, uh-

   9. JPJordan Peterson1:15:59

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:59

       There was a dress that my wife was throwing out, and my daughters made me put it on.

   11. JPJordan Peterson1:16:03

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:03

       They forced me to, and they took pictures of me.

   13. JPJordan Peterson1:16:05

       Yeah, I bet you that was-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:06

       'Cause they thought it was hilarious.

   15. JPJordan Peterson1:16:06

       Yeah, yeah, my wi- my, my daughter decorated me up like a woman one day in her makeup class, and it was-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:12

       Right. So what's wrong with that? Nothing, right?

   17. JPJordan Peterson1:16:13

       Well, that's what I-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:14

       That's fun.

   19. JPJordan Peterson1:16:14

       No. Well, that's it. Uh, that's what-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:16:16

       Right?

   21. JPJordan Peterson1:16:16

       ... I concluded. You know, I thought, well-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:16:17

       But why would you w- worry about anything else other than it being fun?

   23. JPJordan Peterson1:16:21

       Well, probably because I had ... Why was I worried about it? (pause) I suppose because I hoped that his pathway towards adulthood would be-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:16:37

       Normal?

   25. JPJordan Peterson1:16:38

       Yeah, sure, sure.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

       Normal biological male-

   27. JPJordan Peterson1:16:41

       Normal.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:16:41

       ... progression to-

   29. JPJordan Peterson1:16:42

       Yeah, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:16:43

       ... you know, marriage and children-

Episode duration: 4:13:01