Joe Rogan Experience #1792 - Daryl Davis & Bill Ottman

1. 0:00 – 0:19

   Intro

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night! All day. (instrumental music plays) And we're up.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Gentlemen, what's happening? Good to see you.

   3. DDDaryl Davis0:14

      Hey, you're happening, man. Good to see you again.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Good to see you.

   5. DDDaryl Davis0:16

      Thank you for having me back.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      You have a beautiful purple shirt, I love it.

   7. BOBill Ottman0:18

      Uh, thanks for having us.

2. 0:19 – 3:17

   Minds’ free-speech pitch: open source, transparency, and decentralization goals

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      And, um, thank you. And Bill, tell... So, first of all, tell me what's going on with Minds. Minds is one of the first, that I was aware of, like alternative social media networks that was committed to free speech.

   2. BOBill Ottman0:32

      Yep.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:32

      What, how- how's it going?

   4. BOBill Ottman0:34

      It's going. I mean, there's sort of a whole landscape of alternative networks emerging. And so you've got this spectrum of apps where you've s-... Like, I think of... I put everything through a litmus test when I'm thinking of an alternative network. Basically, is it transparent? Does it publish their source code? Most of these alternative apps, I don't need to name names, but I could, they're, they don't publish their source code, so you can't look at the algorithms to see what's happening. You can't see if there's spyware in there, if they have Google Analytics little nasty-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:06

      Right.

   6. BOBill Ottman1:06

      ... stuff that's, that-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:07

      So you're talking about Gettr.

   8. BOBill Ottman1:08

      Gettr.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:09

      Yeah.

   10. BOBill Ottman1:09

       Um...

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Uh, 'cause I found out that, like-

   12. BOBill Ottman1:12

       Parler, Rumble and now, and now, I'm not-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       All of them?

   14. BOBill Ottman1:15

       I'm not trying to trash these people. I think that the free speech stuff is good, like the more... But some of their terms aren't even free speech. So, you know, free speech policy is essential. So I absolutely respect any network that is putting forward a free speech policy. But if, you can't have free speech policy with sketchy algorithms-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       Mm-hmm.

   16. BOBill Ottman1:37

       ... and closed source code, because then we don't know if you're soft, uh, censoring, shadow banning. We don't know what's happening in the news feed behind the scenes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:47

       Right. Which we definitely know Facebook does, Instagram does, Twitter does, that's all real.

   18. BOBill Ottman1:52

       Right. So then you've got, are they privacy focused? End-to-end encrypted? Do they have access to the content of your messages?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       Mm.

   20. BOBill Ottman1:59

       Um, like, so we use a end-to-end encrypted messenger protocol called Matrix, so that we don't even have access to people's conversations. Like, I don't want access.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       Right.

   22. BOBill Ottman2:09

       And then you've also got, um, you know, do they pay creators fairly? So you've got these check marks that you go through with e-... But open source is key. The future, there is nothing without open source. Any app, if they're claiming to be an alternative and they're not open source, they're not in the same conversation. It's a completely different animal, and they should not be taken seriously, because they're not being transparent with the world. So, and then you get into decentralization and actually building an app that... So, Google says, "Don't be evil." But it's really, "Can't be evil." Make it, we wanna make it impossible for us to even take down our network at all, and that's why the, like immutable distributed systems, like blockchains and, uh, you know, Tor and all of the... IPFS, all of these different decentralized systems are emerging, and we're inter- we're interacting with them. We're not fully decentralized yet, so... But that's, there- there's like a progression that a lot of apps in the Web3/decentralized web space are moving towards. So... (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:16

       Okay.

   24. BOBill Ottman3:17

       End. (laughs)

3. 3:17 – 5:51

   Daryl Davis’ framework: dialogue as conflict resolution and the five core human values

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:17

      And so, Daryl, to fill people in on you, you've been on the podcast before and you have an incredible history, you're a brilliant musician, and you have p- personally converted... What's the number now, it's more than 200 Ku Klux Klan members-

   2. DDDaryl Davis3:32

      Most of them. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:32

      ... neo-Nazis, I mean, we talked about, uh, these guys giving you their, their Klan outfits and retiring because they met you.

   4. BOBill Ottman3:41

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:41

      And just because you had reasonable conversations with them made them realize how stupid these ideologies that they had somehow or another been captivated by.

   6. DDDaryl Davis3:52

      I mean, at the end of the day, you know, a missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed opportunity for conflict resolution. It's as simple as that. But it's not just having a dialogue or a conversation or debate, it's the way that we have it, how we communicate, you know, that makes it effective. Like, for example, you know, I've been to 61 countries on six continents. I've played in all 50 states. So all that is to say that I've been exposed to a multitude of skin colors, ethnicities, religions, cultures, ideologies, etc., and all of that has shaped who I've become. Now, all that travel does not make me a better human being than somebody else, it just gives me a- a better perspective of mass humanity.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:32

      Mm.

   8. DDDaryl Davis4:32

      And what I've learned is that no matter how far I've gone from our own country, right next door to Canada or Mexico or halfway around the globe, no matter how different the people I encounter may be, they don't look like me, they don't speak my language, they don't worship as I do or whatever, I always conclude at the end of the day that we all are human beings. And as such, we all want these same five core values in our lives. Everybody wants to be loved, everybody wants to be respected, everybody wants to be heard. We all wanna be treated fairly, and we all basically want the same things for our family as anybody else wants for their family. And if we learn to apply those five core values when we find ourselves in an, uh, an adversarial situation or a culture or society in which we're unfamiliar, I can guarantee that the navigation will be a lot more smoother. And essentially, that's what's happening here at Minds, we're allowing people to be heard, we're showing them that kind of respect. We don't have to respect what they're saying, but respect their right to say it, and we provide that platform, because, you know, when you, when you don't do that, you're driving people to a platform that will embrace them, and then it becomes a- an echo chamber and essentially it could become a- a breeding ground for a cesspool of- of nefarious activities, whether it's extremism or violence or conspiracy theories or what have you.

4. 5:51 – 10:46

   The ‘Censorship Effect’: deplatforming, radicalization, and big tech incentives

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:51

      So, it seems like there's an issue with many social media companies where they want to censor bad ideas. And it seems to me that part of that is because the work involved in taking a person who's a neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan member and showing them the error of their ways, l- allowing them to spread their nonsense, and then slowly but surely introducing them to better ideas, it's...... exhausting. And-

   2. BOBill Ottman6:20

      They're not willing to do the work.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:21

      Ri- exactly.

   4. BOBill Ottman6:22

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:22

      So, what Twitter does is, like, "Fuck you. Get out of here."

   6. BOBill Ottman6:24

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:24

      What... Instagram does the same thing with all these people. But the problem with that is then it goes further, and further, and further, and further down where you're getting rid of people for just not agreeing with you.

   8. BOBill Ottman6:34

      So, this is empirical now. So- so Daryl and I just wrote this paper called The Censorship Effect, along with Jesse Morton, um, j- uh, Justin Lane, LeRon Schultz, and, uh, my brother Jack. And th- multiple PhDs, like, serious research has gone into this, even the left out of outlets like Vox are now admitting that deplatforming causes more severe radicalization. This is being admitted across the board. So, the fact that big tech apps are not looking at this data and applying it to their policy, it makes, it makes you almost have to speculate that they're intentionally causing it. I mean, because they- th- these are very smart people that work at big tech sites. They know about data science. They know the spread of- of information. (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:29

      I don't think they're intentionally causing it. I think there... First of all, there's an ideology that is attached to all the big tech companies, whether it's Google, or Facebook, or Twitter, you have to be what they think is woke, right? You have to- you have to subscribe to a certain line of thinking. And anybody that deviates from that line of thinking should be suppressed, minimized, or banned. And-

   10. BOBill Ottman7:54

       So, how is that not intentional?

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:55

       But it's not intentional, meaning they don't tr- they're not trying to radicalize people. That's not what they're trying to do.

   12. BOBill Ottman8:00

       No, but they... I don't... And- so, fir-

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:02

       They're just foolish in their approach.

   14. BOBill Ottman8:04

       I think some of their data science researchers do know.

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:08

       Yeah. But they're not getting to the people-

   16. BOBill Ottman8:10

       No.

   17. JRJoe Rogan8:10

       ...that are the CEOs.

   18. BOBill Ottman8:10

       No, they're not.

   19. JRJoe Rogan8:11

       The CEOs have to virtue signal.

   20. BOBill Ottman8:12

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan8:12

       All the people that are executives have to virtue signal. And they have to say, "We are doing our best to stop harmful talk and harm..." But- but what they call harmful, like, a lot of it is, like, disagreeing with pharmaceutical companies, which is just fucking crazy. Like, these are the lying-est liars that ever lied.

   22. BOBill Ottman8:30

       Did you see Zuck on Lex's show?

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:32

       Yes, I did.

   24. BOBill Ottman8:34

       What did you think?

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Well, e- you know, it's hard. It's hard because, like, that guy has an enormous responsibility. He has- he's the- the head of this insanely huge platform that covers the entire planet Earth, and everything he says has to be measured. It's like, you ever see him drink water? He drinks water like this. Like a weird way of drinking water. He doesn't fucking drink the water. He, like, sips it. It touches his lips, and then he's done. He's like, everything is, like, measured, measured. Like, I can't imagine trying to speak freely when you're the CEO of Facebook. I think it's almost, like, pointless to talk to him in that sort of circumstance.

   26. DDDaryl Davis9:09

       Well, you know, to- to your point about, you know, people doing this, and- and defending it, and so forth and so on, I mean, I think the quote by Upton Sinclair comes into play. I think he said something to the effect of, "It's difficult for- for a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it." (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan9:27

       Yes. Yes, yes, yeah. And if you live in that world, if you live in that tech world, and I have many friends who have- you know, they're executives at these places, that is just the fucking doctrine. You have to fu- like, you have so many employees that they have these, like, radical ideas about what you're supposed to do and not supposed to do-

   28. DDDaryl Davis9:46

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan9:46

       ... and what you're supposed to platform and not platform. And this idea of platforming people, you know, like- l- I have people on this podcast all the time that I don't agree with at all. And I have them on, or I agree with them very little, and I want to see what's going on in their head. And I'll get that, like, "You're platforming these people."

   30. DDDaryl Davis10:03

       Right.
5. 10:46 – 19:02

   From Galileo to Unity 2020: when ‘dangerous ideas’ get suppressed

   1. DDDaryl Davis10:46

      And look, you know, this goes all the way back, I mean, centuries, even- even back to BC, as in before Christ, right? I mean, let's- let- we- we can go back as far, let's just say Copernicus, the- the astronomer-

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:58

      Yes. Yes.

   3. DDDaryl Davis10:58

      ... who passed away in 1543. Okay. He s- u- up until then, the belief was that we are a geocentric model universe, meaning-

   4. BOBill Ottman11:09

      Disinfo.

   5. DDDaryl Davis11:10

      Huh?

   6. BOBill Ottman11:11

      Sorry. No, I was- I was saying that it would have been called disinfo.

   7. DDDaryl Davis11:14

      Okay. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, even the Catholic Church endorsed that we are a geocentric, uh, model universe, meaning that the Earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around us, right? And Copernicus said, "No, we're just another planet." The sun is the ce- is the center of the universe and- and everything revolves around the sun, which makes it a heliocentric, uh, model. And, uh, everybody scorned him, ridiculed him. A hundred years later, uh, Galileo came along and built upon Copernicus's, uh, theory and developed it even further and said, "Yes, you know, we- we are a, uh, heliocentric, uh, model." And he got- he got arrested, arrested for heresy against the Catholic Church. All right? But guess what? He was right. He was right.... so, you know, sometimes, you know, we have to stand up to the masses, not just join in because everybody else thinks this way.

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:09

      And it's also the problem with the walled garden, right? There's a lot of people that are- that get booted from these social media platforms, whether it's Twitter or Facebook, and then they look at that, and they look at those people with further and further disdain, and it separates them from whoever's there. And we're not even just talking about radical people. Like, one of the things that, that really alerted me to how crazy the censorship shit was, was Bret Weinstein had a, uh, a group that he put together called Unity 2020. And the idea was to bring people that were from the left that were really reasonable and from the right that were really reasonable, that weren't captured by corporate greed, and to have them as an alternative candidate. Like, instead of saying, like, you have to be a Republican or you have to be a Democrat, let's say you get reasonable left wing and right wing people that can agree on a lot of stuff and have them work together, and maybe have a candidate that's w- like, a vice president and president, one's right wing, one-

   9. DDDaryl Davis13:04

      Colleague.

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:04

       Yeah. Like, it'd be a great way to sort of, like, come together in the middle. Twitter banned the account. Twitter banned an alternative account. Like, the i- and there was nothing unreasonable about what they were saying. It was all just conversations with people that are brilliant that happen to be left wing and brilliant that happen to be right wing. Let's get them together and see if we can lead this country in a better direction than having this polarization of right versus left where people get super tribal about it. Like, this would be a great way to meet in the middle, and Twitter was like, "Fuck you," and they banned the account.

   11. BOBill Ottman13:37

       They, they had such good intentions.

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:39

       Yes.

   13. BOBill Ottman13:39

       And still do, and-

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:39

       But then the idea that you can get banned for trying to come up with another political party, are you saying that this-

   15. BOBill Ottman13:46

       Unity ca-

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:46

       ... system is infallible, this right versus left system of blue and red is infallible? That's so crazy. We, we are here because someone didn't like what was going on in Europe in the 1700s, and they took a chance on starting a new system, a system of self-government that was a complete experiment, and it had never been done before in the world, and that created the United States. And the idea that you, the fucking tech dorks, are gonna step in and say, "No, this is dangerous thinking."

   17. BOBill Ottman14:17

       Yeah, they ... Oh, the battle-tested First Amendment, hundreds of years-

   18. JRJoe Rogan14:21

       Yeah.

   19. BOBill Ottman14:21

       ... of precedent, legal precedent. We ... Like, talk about a good content policy, the First Amendment. I mean-

   20. JRJoe Rogan14:27

       But it doesn't apply. They say it doesn't apply because this is a private company.

   21. BOBill Ottman14:30

       They think that their lawyers are better at drafting healthy conversation than the First Amendment, and that's just not, that's not true.

   22. JRJoe Rogan14:37

       I think, um, you know, there was a real concern in the early days of Twitter and of social media, where a lot of these people that were, like, outrageous right wing people, were starting to get a lot of attention, like Milo Yiannopoulos was a big one, Gavin McInnes-

   23. BOBill Ottman14:55

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan14:55

       ... and a lot of these guys, they were getting a lot of attention, and the response from the left was like, "No, no, no, no, silence them." Like, I, I heard this one woman talking about her kid is listening to Ben Shapiro, and I would love to get Ben Shapiro removed from all platforms. Like-

   25. BOBill Ottman15:10

       Oh, Kara Swisher.

   26. JRJoe Rogan15:12

       Yeah, that's her.

   27. BOBill Ottman15:12

       I think, I think that's who it was. She's the Vox reporter.

   28. JRJoe Rogan15:14

       Yeah.

   29. BOBill Ottman15:14

       And Vox is interesting 'cause they're, like, smart people-

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       Yeah.
6. 19:02 – 21:04

   What ‘free speech’ means in practice: moderation boundaries, tagging, and community juries

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:02

      Let me ask you this. Like, for Minds, like say if someone starts, like, a neo-Nazi group-

   2. BOBill Ottman19:07

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:08

      ... and they start posting on Minds, and they start talking about the master race and eliminating Jews-

   4. BOBill Ottman19:14

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:14

      ... and cr- crazy, Nazi-type shit-

   6. BOBill Ottman19:16

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:16

      ... what do you do?

   8. BOBill Ottman19:17

      Oh, I mean, as long as it's not calling for violence or cre- having true threats of violence, then it will be go ... It will go under an NSFW filter. So it will go under sort of a ... You know, it'll have a sensitive kind of click-through, so you'll be warned before you're seeing that.

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:33

      So it's like one of those Instagram videos. Like, if you see a car accident or something like that, there's Instagram videos-

   10. BOBill Ottman19:38

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:38

       ... you- you have to, like, say that you're willing to see this offensive thing.

   12. BOBill Ottman19:43

       Exactly. So- so, you know, we have tags so that people ... We don't want anyone to see stuff they don't wanna see.

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:48

       So how ... But what if someone doesn't use the tags? Like, so what if someone just-

   14. BOBill Ottman19:51

       Then it'll get reported and get tagged.

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:53

       Okay.

   16. BOBill Ottman19:53

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:53

       So it's like if someone starts posting Nazi propaganda, they just immediately ... Like, someone reports it?

   18. BOBill Ottman20:00

       Yep. Yeah, and we also have a jury system. So we're- we're rolling out this system where the community can sort of help create consensus around tags on different content, and you know, if we make a mistake, it can get appealed. And the community actually votes, not us.

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:14

       And Daryl, your- your take on this is like ... H- how do you think that a social media company like Twitter, something that's really huge, can pivot from the model that they have now where they just ban people?

   20. DDDaryl Davis20:29

       Because, you know, y- y- ... That- that points to them assuming that the majority of people out here are stupid, and that these companies need to tell you what to believe.

   21. JRJoe Rogan20:40

       Right, right.

   22. DDDaryl Davis20:40

       Okay? Which, to me, is offensive.

   23. JRJoe Rogan20:42

       It is offensive.

   24. DDDaryl Davis20:43

       You know?

   25. JRJoe Rogan20:43

       Yeah.

   26. DDDaryl Davis20:43

       So I believe, you know, yes, there's a lot of bad information out there, and you know, the more liberal you make your- your platform, allowing anybody and everybody to come in, yeah, you're gonna have some bad actors, sure. But the way you address it is you- you combat bad information by providing more good information.

   27. JRJoe Rogan21:01

       Mm. Yeah, well, that's the age-old idea.

7. 21:04 – 23:08

   Common-carrier debates and ‘Bluesky’: can big platforms be required to stay neutral?

   1. BOBill Ottman21:04

      So Clarence Thomas, uh, Supreme Court Justice, came out and he said that he thinks networks above a certain size should be considered common carriers.

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:14

      Yeah.

   3. BOBill Ottman21:14

      Now common carriers ... So there's this whole debate about Section 230 and, you know, whether networks have a right to take things down. It's- it's pretty definitive that big social networks, private companies do have the right to moderate. That's a fact. Section 230 doesn't say you have to keep up everything. But the common carrier, like a phone company, can't ban you for your views. And th- so they're common carriers, and that's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:35

      Right.

   5. BOBill Ottman21:35

      ... that's a, that's an important distinction. I think that's a rational suggestion from Thomas, that, you know, once you reach a certain size, you cannot just be going and playing favorites.

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:44

      Yeah. Yeah, I know Jack Dorsey had an idea of two versions of Twitter, a curated, moderated version of Twitter and then a Wild West version. And he was trying to pitch that, and I think they shot him down. But his idea was like, we should have some Twitter that's like got some sort of decentralized control where it's not up to the moderators to decide what's on it, and people can just put on whatever they want.

   7. BOBill Ottman22:11

      Yeah. He r- he launched a project called Bluesky, which is sort of a research initiative into decentralized social media, kind of very much in our- in our space.

   8. JRJoe Rogan22:19

      Is it before or after he left?

   9. BOBill Ottman22:20

      Before he left, and then he left un- Uh, like two days after he left, there was this huge censorship issue where they said, "Oh, you can ... If it's a private image, it can get taken down on Twitter." So like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:30

       Yeah.

   11. BOBill Ottman22:30

       ... any private image of anybody, and he-

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:32

       Oh, after they left, after he left, rather, they ramped up censorship-

   13. BOBill Ottman22:35

       Oh, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:35

       ... in a big way.

   15. BOBill Ottman22:36

       Yeah, and it seems like ... I mean, it's- it's a hard position to be in because, you know, it's like your baby. He's, uh, it's- it's a company he's been working on forever, and he doesn't want to badmouth it. But I would not be at all surprised if there were some internal wars happening about ... I mean, there- there's a huge Wired piece about internal free speech wars at- in Twitter management. So the ... It's a fact that it's not- it's not, um, you know, one single ideology in these companies. There's definitely overwhelming ideology, but I think that there is starting to be pushback. So that's positive.

   16. JRJoe Rogan23:06

       Yeah, there's some intelligent people that-

   17. BOBill Ottman23:07

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan23:07

       ... realize the error of their ways-

   19. BOBill Ottman23:08

       Yeah.

8. 23:08 – 28:07

   How Daryl joined Minds—and the ‘unity’ event that drew Antifa protests

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:08

      ... and that this- this whole thing is going in a- a negative direction. And Daryl, how did you get involved with- with Bill and Minds and like what ... What was your idea going into this?

   2. DDDaryl Davis23:18

      Well, uh, Bill had contacted me after seeing me on some interview or reading about me or something to participate in a- in a- an event he was originally gonna have in New Jersey. Then it got moved to Philadelphia.

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:29

      How long ago was this?

   4. DDDaryl Davis23:30

      Oh, about- about five, six years ago maybe?

   5. BOBill Ottman23:31

      Three- I think now like 2019.

   6. DDDaryl Davis23:34

      That was around?

   7. BOBill Ottman23:34

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan23:35

      Before the pandemic?

   9. DDDaryl Davis23:36

      Oh, it was before that pandemic?

   10. BOBill Ottman23:36

       Before pandemic, yeah.

   11. DDDaryl Davis23:37

       Yeah, pre-pandemic, so 2019. Um, and I- I liked what he was talking about, all different people from different political backgrounds, you know, stations in life, whatever, coming together-And, uh, so I said, "Yeah, I," you know, "count me in." And, um, and I went and did it, and he had everybody there from all different walks of life. We all got along. We had different views. We talked together. Uh, we listened to each other's presentations, and then we had an after-party together, where everybody just kind of let their hair down, all that kind of stuff. The only people who were not supportive were the protestors across the street, uh, some who, of whom called me a white supremacist.

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       (laughs)

   13. BOBill Ottman24:17

       Yeah, I think, uh, Melissa Chen talked about this on your show a while back, but-

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:21

       Yeah.

   15. BOBill Ottman24:21

       ... basically, ANTIFA was, like, protesting the event. You know, we had all these big YouTubers, uh, Tim, and, uh, you know, people on the left, right, uh, ƒe-

   16. DDDaryl Davis24:30

       Andy was there, right?

   17. BOBill Ottman24:30

       Andy was there, yeah. And th- there were, there were some progressives-

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:33

       And who were ... Tim and Andy? Is ... s- say their last names.

   19. BOBill Ottman24:35

       Andy, sorry. Andy, no. Tim Pool.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:36

       Okay.

   21. BOBill Ottman24:37

       But we also had, um, some... Th- there were some leftists there as well. And we really were ... did our best to make it as balanced as possible and, and, you know, communists and capitalists and d-

   22. JRJoe Rogan24:50

       And the protestors were like, "You shouldn't-"

   23. BOBill Ottman24:52

       They don't care.

   24. JRJoe Rogan24:52

       "... be communicating with each other."

   25. BOBill Ottman24:54

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan24:54

       But the, uh, the ANTIFA proto- ... I mean, it's like, are they even real people? It's like, I guess they are. I'm, and I'm joking. But it's like, what are we doing when you're allowing these people to dictate? They're so crazy.

   27. BOBill Ottman25:07

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:07

       And they're ... We're allowing them to dictate what is and isn't said based on the threats of violence and lighting buildings on fire and shit?

   29. BOBill Ottman25:15

       They got us de-platformt from, from the original theater that we were gonna have it in, so we had to move to Philly.

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:20

       How is that possible?
9. 28:07 – 35:13

   Privacy and surveillance capitalism: contact scraping, ‘are they listening?’, and why open source matters

   1. BOBill Ottman28:07

      Yeah, he just ... He signed up. Uh, and so, you know, it's all just longterm, like, thinking where are we actually headed? Where are we gonna be in 10, 20 years? Like, i- you don't c- y- y- ... And also, it makes it harder to grow for what you said, people are just stuck in their ways, but also Facebook and Google use the dirtiest tricks in the book to grow. I mean, they literally latched their tentacles into everybody's phones, grabbed all their contacts, like, y- you know, followed you and your browser history. Like, every surveillance tactic they could get to grow-

   2. JRJoe Rogan28:40

      Let's ex- explain that. What do you mean?

   3. BOBill Ottman28:42

      So, there are these sort of dark growth-hacking tricks that a lot of apps will use to increase their user base, and it's ver- basically, like, manipulative growth techniques to get people to give you ... give them more information than you otherwise would.

   4. JRJoe Rogan28:59

      So, say l- let's, let's just say I'm a person who's never used Facebook before, and, uh, I just got a new phone, and I said, "You know what? I'm gonna download Facebook." What happens?

   5. BOBill Ottman29:09

      Oh, you know, they take you through their nice onboarding flow, s- super slick UX because they have brilliant designers there.

   6. JRJoe Rogan29:14

      What's UX?

   7. BOBill Ottman29:15

      User experience.

   8. JRJoe Rogan29:16

      Okay.

   9. BOBill Ottman29:16

      So, you know, you just keep lis- pressing that, pressing that big blue button. Yep-

   10. JRJoe Rogan29:20

       Mm-hmm.

   11. BOBill Ottman29:21

       ... yep, yep, yep. (laughs) Oh, yeah. Agreed to terms, yep. (laughs) And so, they just put it ... You know, they make it very subtle, what you're doing, and there are benefits, and-

   12. JRJoe Rogan29:33

       But what is happening?

   13. BOBill Ottman29:34

       They're grabbing your ... all of your contact book. They're, they're grabbing your location.

   14. JRJoe Rogan29:38

       The gr- so they grab all your phone numbers?

   15. BOBill Ottman29:40

       All your phone numbers.

   16. JRJoe Rogan29:41

       So, when you sign up for Facebook, it has access to all of the ph-

   17. BOBill Ottman29:44

       Your entire ... Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan29:45

       Like, Mom-

   19. BOBill Ottman29:45

       If you give it to them. If you-

   20. JRJoe Rogan29:47

       Yeah.

   21. BOBill Ottman29:47

       ... give it to them. You can say no. Twitter is doing the s- they, they won't, you know-... stop it. Like, y- you say no, and then, you know, it shows up in your feed, another prompt to, to do it.

   22. JRJoe Rogan29:56

       So are they getting the full contact with the names and everything-

   23. BOBill Ottman30:00

       I... It really depends.

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:01

       ... or are they just getting the phone numbers?

   25. BOBill Ottman30:02

       It depends on the specific app. And they all kind of have different, uh, you know, kind of levels of invasiveness.

   26. DDDaryl Davis30:09

       And how many people read the entire policy agreement?

   27. JRJoe Rogan30:11

       Mm-hmm. How about zero? Right?

   28. DDDaryl Davis30:12

       Exactly.

   29. BOBill Ottman30:12

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan30:12

       Who the fuck's reading that?
10. 35:13 – 48:43

    Hands-on with privacy hardware: Librem 5, PinePhone, de-Googled phones, and tradeoffs

    1. BOBill Ottman35:13

       Yeah. Um, so just quickly to show you. Uh, so these-

    2. JRJoe Rogan35:16

       So you got phones?

    3. BOBill Ottman35:16

       So, these are ... This is called a Librem. This is made in the US. So this is, like, trying to get rid of conflict minerals. And, um-

    4. JRJoe Rogan35:23

       Really?

    5. BOBill Ottman35:23

       It's very heavy.

    6. JRJoe Rogan35:24

       Is it good?

    7. BOBill Ottman35:24

       It's, it's a tank. Um ...

    8. JRJoe Rogan35:26

       Does it suck?

    9. BOBill Ottman35:27

       It-

    10. JRJoe Rogan35:27

        Don't lie.

    11. BOBill Ottman35:27

        ... kind of sucks.

    12. JRJoe Rogan35:28

        (laughs)

    13. BOBill Ottman35:28

        Uh, no, no. It's, it ... They're, they're a great team, honestly. It's, it's n- not an easy project. It's, it's amazing for, uh, how hard of a project it is. It does not suck. It's, it's, it's, it's a legitimate effort. This is called a Pinephone.

    14. JRJoe Rogan35:41

        What are all these things on the back, these, like, switches?

    15. BOBill Ottman35:44

        Yeah, don't switch those, 'cause I don't know what they do yet. (laughs)

    16. DDDaryl Davis35:48

        They listen. They listen in.

    17. BOBill Ottman35:48

        I just got, I just got it, like, two days ago. (laughs) Um ...

    18. JRJoe Rogan35:51

        Does it charge? Is it charged up?

    19. BOBill Ottman35:52

        It's not ... Uh, yeah, I'll have to charge it later.

    20. JRJoe Rogan35:54

        Okay, that's the Librem 5.

    21. BOBill Ottman35:55

        Yeah, yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan35:56

        Security and privacy focused phone.

    23. BOBill Ottman35:58

        Go ... You gotta go to the USA one. Um, because the ... I think the important ... Made in the USA does matter, 'cause y- you know, you talk a lot about the conflict mineral situation with phones.

    24. JRJoe Rogan36:07

        Yeah, it's, it's an issue.

    25. BOBill Ottman36:07

        And I've seen you bring up other phones. There was, like, the Fairphone. There was, like, some other attempts at it.

    26. JRJoe Rogan36:11

        Mm-hmm.

    27. BOBill Ottman36:11

        And, um, I think-

    28. JRJoe Rogan36:12

        What happened, Jamie?

    29. DDDaryl Davis36:13

        I was going with the US version of the website.

    30. BOBill Ottman36:15

        Um, so this one ... Oh.
11. 48:43 – 54:59

    Decentralized communication: Briar, Tor, mesh networking, and off-grid resilience

    1. BOBill Ottman48:43

       Yeah. Let me, uh, let me just go through... Uh, so on my actual phone, I'll just name a few apps which I think are a huge part of, like, privacy future, 'cause, like, it's not all about... M- you know, mines is a part of a bigger network. It's, like, the, uh, the ultimate place where things are going is not, there's not gonna be some new replacement that, for Google, that's centralized. It's gonna be protocols that apps are all inter-operating on, so, like, Briar is this amazing app that's currently going viral in Ukraine, um, and Julian Assange actually posted about this app from prison. He was able to communicate to his people. So Briar is fully decentralized. It runs over Tor and it can even run offline, so you can... I, we could chat over Bluetooth. I could be in a burning building and you're across the street. In Ukraine, we're getting bombed, internet is down and we're chatting. Like, unbelievable mesh networking technology.

    2. JRJoe Rogan49:35

       Is Briar like B-R-I-A-R?

    3. BOBill Ottman49:37

       B-R-I-A-R.

    4. JRJoe Rogan49:38

       Okay.

    5. BOBill Ottman49:38

       Yeah. So the, it's, it's been a long time coming for them. We're looking at integrating with, uh, the Bramble protocol, which is kinda the base protocol of Briar, but, you know, there are a handful of fully decentralized options also. Uh, Secure Scuttlebutt and, and, and some others, but it's, it's really cool. I, I, I recommend checking it out. And I think that off-grid technology that's not reliant on internet service providers is just a... I mean, that's crazy. The fact that that's even possible?

    6. JRJoe Rogan50:12

       Mm-hmm.

    7. BOBill Ottman50:12

       (laughs) To, to chat with no internet?

    8. JRJoe Rogan50:14

       Yeah, it is crazy.

    9. BOBill Ottman50:15

       Yeah.

    10. DDDaryl Davis50:15

        So- And then, you know, and sometimes, you know, when you go to a different country with your phone, you know, you are... You have to be compliant with that country's internet laws. I mean, they can get into your phone, where maybe the US can't.

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:27

        Right. Do you think, like, uh, in terms of privacy, would you recommend Google or Apple? 'Cause like when you-

    12. BOBill Ottman50:33

        I would... That, that's a, that question is not a question. (laughs)

    13. JRJoe Rogan50:36

        Really?

    14. BOBill Ottman50:37

        No.

    15. JRJoe Rogan50:37

        It doesn't matter? But isn't, doesn't Apple at least give you the option to block advertisers from, uh, being access, access your information, block cross-platform or cross-application-

    16. BOBill Ottman50:52

        Yes.

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:52

        ... sharing of data?

    18. BOBill Ottman50:53

        They've been locking down their app store, which has taken, like, billions of dollars away from Google and Facebook advertising, because they don't allow apps to do what they used to be able to do.

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:01

        Right. Isn't that good?

    20. BOBill Ottman51:02

        That is good. That is good.

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:03

        So would... So Apple would be a better choice?

    22. BOBill Ottman51:05

        I don't-

    23. DDDaryl Davis51:06

        No?

    24. BOBill Ottman51:06

        ... know. I think that, yes, that is a good thing, in sort of cost-benefit. So... But Apple is the mother of closed systems. I mean, Steve Jobs literally said-

    25. DDDaryl Davis51:18

        Privacy.

    26. BOBill Ottman51:18

        ... propriety. It's like, we have a closed walled garden.

    27. JRJoe Rogan51:22

        Yes.

    28. BOBill Ottman51:22

        And that was his whole thing. Like, "We do not want anyone seeing what we're doing." Hyper competitive. Apple does very, you know, relatively little open source, compared to a lot of other companies and-

    29. JRJoe Rogan51:33

        Well, I remember the days of clones, where you could buy a fake Apple machine that runs MacOS and they shut them all down.

    30. BOBill Ottman51:42

        Mm-hmm.
12. 54:59 – 1:03:06

    Diet, health, and the pandemic: when ‘misinformation’ labels silence legitimate debate

    1. BOBill Ottman54:59

       Yeah. I actually switched from, uh, vegan.

    2. JRJoe Rogan55:02

       To what?

    3. DDDaryl Davis55:03

       Yeah.

    4. BOBill Ottman55:03

       To what? I was vegan for like four years.

    5. JRJoe Rogan55:04

       Which, to what?

    6. BOBill Ottman55:05

       And switched, switched back. Um-

    7. JRJoe Rogan55:07

       Switched back? Meaning you eat meat?

    8. BOBill Ottman55:08

       Yeah, I switched back. I wa- I was a meat eater. Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan55:10

       Yeah.

    10. BOBill Ottman55:10

        Well, my wife actually, uh, so has a, uh, autoimmune issue. Uh, not to (laughs) overshare.

    11. JRJoe Rogan55:19

        Mm-hmm.

    12. BOBill Ottman55:19

        But, uh, so she... When we were vegan together. Have you heard of Weston Price?

    13. JRJoe Rogan55:23

        No.

    14. BOBill Ottman55:24

        He's a really famous, uh, nutritionist and, uh, has this diet. Very, like, heavy into organ meats.

    15. JRJoe Rogan55:30

        Mm-hmm.

    16. BOBill Ottman55:31

        And, uh-

    17. JRJoe Rogan55:31

        Nose to tail, that kind of thing.

    18. BOBill Ottman55:33

        Yeah. Fermented foods.

    19. JRJoe Rogan55:34

        Mm-hmm.

    20. BOBill Ottman55:35

        And probiotics and stuff. And so she was being told by her doctor that, "You have to go on this drug called REMICADE every six weeks IV for the rest of your life."

    21. JRJoe Rogan55:46

        And what is it for?

    22. BOBill Ottman55:47

        It's for Crohn's.

    23. JRJoe Rogan55:48

        Okay.

    24. BOBill Ottman55:49

        And sh- she was like, "What? Life? Like, every six weeks? You're kidding me." And so she was just like, "No, I'm not. I'm, I..."

    25. JRJoe Rogan56:00

        Okay, so she switched her diet?

    26. BOBill Ottman56:02

        So she switched her diet and is in remission.

    27. JRJoe Rogan56:05

        Really?

    28. BOBill Ottman56:05

        And she... And, and like, there-

    29. JRJoe Rogan56:06

        And what... And her diet consists of what now?

    30. BOBill Ottman56:08

        Um, it's pretty m- much, uh, I mean, if you look up Weston Price, but, you know, meats, uh, fermented foods, um...
13. 1:03:06 – 1:13:24

    Reputation and credibility online: citations, decentralized identity, and a surprise Minds account issue

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:03:06

       What do you do on Minds for that stuff?

    2. BOBill Ottman1:03:08

       Well, we're, we're building out a sort of citation tool to kind of show the citations on both sides of various arguments and, you know, have more crowdsourced... Uh, this really gets into the realm of decentralized identity and where we're moving in terms of, like, reputation and credibility on the internet. And, like, right now, you've got all these different logins, what we, what we were talking about. Where things are going with, with crypto and with, like, the web standards, there's... Really, we're moving towards a place where you have these credentials associated with your core identity, which can be generated from, like, a crypto wallet or something like that. And you'll have all these badges that you're earning everywhere you go, and you can decide to s- disclose those or not disclose those, like NFTs. I mean, right now, a-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:03:55

       W- I'm confused.

    4. BOBill Ottman1:03:56

       Okay. (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:03:57

       What are you earning badges for? Can we see the interface? Would you pull up Mines so we can see the interface?

    6. BOBill Ottman1:04:02

       Yeah. So, um, ultimately, credibility on the internet, it's like, how do you measure that? How do you trust-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:04:09

       I try to go-

    8. BOBill Ottman1:04:09

       ... users? Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:04:10

       So, it's like if, if I say, "Oh, Bill is, uh, a very good guy. He says a lot of true things. He's very reasonable." So, you get a badge for that?

    10. BOBill Ottman1:04:19

        There could be any infinite number of, you know, badges that you could potentially earn. But, like, you could be trusted by... Say someone in martial arts trusts you and they gi- they give you a, a sig- signal of trust-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:04:34

        Mm-hmm.

    12. BOBill Ottman1:04:35

        ... then that would add to your credibility in martial arts in your decentralized identity on the internet, which would be interoperable between social networks.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:04:44

        Mm-hmm.

    14. BOBill Ottman1:04:45

        So, that there's sort of this w- this web of-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:47

        Oh, look, I got a page.

    16. BOBill Ottman1:04:48

        (laughs) You got a page.

    17. DDDaryl Davis1:04:49

        Who put my picture up there?

    18. BOBill Ottman1:04:50

        Your YouTube, your YouTube. You took over the account. You just asked me for the, the creds.

    19. DDDaryl Davis1:04:54

        I know.

    20. BOBill Ottman1:04:54

        Yeah.

    21. DDDaryl Davis1:04:54

        I mean, I'm just saying, who put, who took my picture up there?

    22. BOBill Ottman1:04:56

        I don't know. Some fan or something.

    23. DDDaryl Davis1:04:57

        I don't know who put my picture there. Someone... Fan can just put my picture up there?

    24. BOBill Ottman1:05:00

        I don't know someone-

    25. DDDaryl Davis1:05:01

        Maybe I did.

    26. BOBill Ottman1:05:01

        I mean, people create fan pages and-

    27. DDDaryl Davis1:05:03

        Okay, so, like, in 2020-

    28. BOBill Ottman1:05:05

        So-

    29. DDDaryl Davis1:05:05

        ... I posted something, it says. (laughs)

    30. BOBill Ottman1:05:08

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 1:54:14