Joe Rogan Experience #1795 - Antonio Garcia Martinez

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. AMAntonio García Martínez0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. NANarrator0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Joe Rogan. So what's up, man? How are you?

   4. AMAntonio García Martínez0:15

      Thanks for having me, Joe. I'm very excited to be here.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      My pleasure. It's always interesting to meet somebody that you only know from their tweets.

   6. AMAntonio García Martínez0:20

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      You know, I only know you from your tweets, which I found very interesting, and then I started reading your book or listening to your book, or another person reads it, and, uh, I've seen some interviews with you, so I thought it'd be fun to have you in there.

   8. AMAntonio García Martínez0:31

      Cool. Thank you.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:31

      Have a little chitchat.

   10. AMAntonio García Martínez0:33

       Great. Thanks for having me, Joe.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       (laughs) My pleasure. So you just got back from Ukraine?

   12. AMAntonio García Martínez0:37

       Y- I know. I'm, I'm totally throwing a wrench in the agenda.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       No, there was no agenda.

   14. AMAntonio García Martínez0:39

       We're supposed to talk about cancellation or whatever, but, yeah, I, for a bunch of reasons, I just up and went to Poland and Ukraine to see what was going on there.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       So this was just your own idea to just take a trip?

   16. AMAntonio García Martínez0:51

       N- not totally. One of the gigs I have, I, I have a gig at a, at a DC think tank, and one of my colleagues who's done like real in the field correspondent work before proposed a trip, and a bunch of people expressed interest, and I'm basically the only one who didn't wimp out and (laughs) and went with him. Uh-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       So it was just you and this one guy?

   18. AMAntonio García Martínez1:08

       And we had, you know, drivers and fixers and stuff, 'cause I, I don't speak any Slavic languages, and y- you basically need it to sort of navigate that world. A- and also, in a, in a wartime economy, regular transport doesn't work, so y- you need to get around somehow, and so w- we did have, we, we tended to have a driver usually.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       So what is that conversation like? So when someone says, "Hey, let's go to Ukraine"-

   20. AMAntonio García Martínez1:29

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:30

       ... y- w- like, w- what was the goal? Was it just to see it firsthand? Was it to get... Is there any information that you can get when you're on the ground that would sort of g- clarify the situation for you?

   22. AMAntonio García Martínez1:43

       Yeah. I mean, we can get into this, but I think th- the view that you see of Ukraine from the United States I think is so blinded by both American domestic political, you know, priorities and the whole, the whole kaleidoscope that is the Twitter experience, I felt you have to go there to see the real thing. And, um, you know, it's, it's history with a capital H in the sort of, you know, Francis Fukuyama sense of, you know, th- this is, this is a real, this is a real invasion, th- the likes of which we haven't seen in Europe in, whatever, 70 plus years. And it's just something that... I've lived in Europe, I, I have an EU passport, so I, I feel a little bit European in, in that regard, so I think I engage with the story a little bit differently than maybe than Americans do, and so I felt I just had to go there and, and see it for myself.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:24

       So when you went there, w- was this idea related at all to business, to your-

   24. AMAntonio García Martínez2:31

       Oh, no, no, no.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:32

       So this was just for your own edification?

   26. AMAntonio García Martínez2:34

       W- well, I did... I, I, I am doing a story. So there's, um, there's a publication that I occasionally pitch stories to called Tablets, a Jewish magazine. Um, the Israelis are doing a bunch of stuff on the Polish border to get Jews out, and so there's, there's a whole Jewish angle to the story. And then also just for... So I have a Substack, which I should probably plug, I guess, The Pull Request. Um-

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:52

       What is it?

   28. AMAntonio García Martínez2:53

       The, The Pull Request.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:54

       Pull? P-O-L-E?

   30. AMAntonio García Martínez2:55

       Yeah. P- PUL. I- it's, it's like a nerdy term.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah, yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      it was you that I read a quote about, you were talking about Sebastian Junger's book.

   2. AMAntonio García Martínez15:04

      Yeah, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Tribe, yeah-

   4. AMAntonio García Martínez15:04

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      ... which I loved. It's an amazing book.

   6. AMAntonio García Martínez15:06

      It is.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      But you were talking about which conflict was it where the people-

   8. AMAntonio García Martínez15:10

      Sarajevo.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      ... Sarajevo.

   10. AMAntonio García Martínez15:11

       B- Bosnia.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:11

       Right, yeah. Bosnia and Sarajevo, where they missed it.

   12. AMAntonio García Martínez15:14

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:15

       'Cause, and, and I've talked to guys who've served overseas and they have similar stories, where there's something about coming back here, and Hurt Locker kind of has touched on that a little bit, it's, like, th- there's something about those experiences of heightened existence-

   14. AMAntonio García Martínez15:30

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       ... where every day is, like, legitimate life or death. And then you come back to the dull, gray drone of corporate life and traffic and, and they legitimately miss conflict zones.

   16. AMAntonio García Martínez15:44

       Yeah. It's like that scene in Hurt Locker when he goes to buy cereal and he just has a meltdown because he can't deal with-

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:48

       Yeah.

   18. AMAntonio García Martínez15:48

       ... what cereal to choose. I, I know it's weird. I, I'll, I'll paint you another scene. Uh, on Sunday, I was there, again, walking around. Life seems normal, but then it gets weird fast. Bunch of high school kids kinda horsing around, you know, Sunday, sunny, you're like, "What are they doing?" Just, like, a pile of dirt. They're filling up sandbags and piling up sandbags around these statues of lions. L- the lion is a symbol of the city. And so they were, like, singing patriotic songs, everyone's doom-scrolling Telegram to see the most recent news, like, "Oh, Czech Republic promises more aid, uh, in the war against the Russians or whatever." Everyone cheers, and then they go back to, like, filling sandbags and piling up around these statues. And it's like, man, it's kinda weird (laughs) to have high school kids who can't join, you can't volunteer, you have to be 18, and so instead they're doing other things, like filling sandbags, and it's just... yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:33

       D- the, the strangest part about this is not just that it's all playing out on social media, but it's playing out on social media and it's in, it's in a country that used to be connected to Russia-

   20. AMAntonio García Martínez16:45

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       ... just a few decades ago. The- they all used to be together in the Soviet Union-

   22. AMAntonio García Martínez16:50

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       ... you know, 40 years ago or whatever it was. 30 years ago? So, it's, like, to, to watch this all happen on the news and then to be there live, what was different about the coverage that you're seeing on mainstream media in, in the United States-

   24. AMAntonio García Martínez17:08

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       ... versus being there live? Is there anything, any distortions that, like-

   26. AMAntonio García Martínez17:12

       Oh, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       ... clear distortions that we're being, that we're seeing here?

   28. AMAntonio García Martínez17:18

       Yeah. Uh ... And it's funny, coming back at, like, it really pisses me off (laughs) , I told myself I wouldn't get angry on your show about it, 'cause a, a lot of the Twitter rhetoric around the supposed bio-weapons labs or, you know, the Ghost of Kiev, or some of the early memes that happened in the war that were proven to be, you know, like many online memes, not true or exaggerated or whatever-

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:38

       Right.

   30. AMAntonio García Martínez17:38

       ... or, like, w- you know, what, what would have Trump done or not done or how does Hunter Biden's laptop play into all this? And it, I know those are terribly important signifiers in the American political conversation. They're completely meaningless (laughs) on the ground in Ukraine.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. AMAntonio García Martínez30:00

      it's a symbol, it's a signifier in a domestic... You know, it's like all these Hollywood stars that threatened to move to Canada but never did-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:05

      Yeah.

   3. AMAntonio García Martínez30:05

      ... after Trump got elected. It's like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      It's a romantic narrative.

   5. AMAntonio García Martínez30:07

      It's, it's a romantic narrative that's just, it's kind of fake. And normally I'd be like, who cares? But again, if you realize the level of human catastrophe that's going on in Ukraine, in my opinion, polluting the discourse around that, in a country that, that could impact that, um... I'm disappointed by it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      Well, there's a thing that happens with the right and with the left where they look at whatever position that the opposite is taking-

   7. AMAntonio García Martínez30:31

      Correct.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:31

      ... whatever the opposition is taking, and they find some way to justify-

   9. AMAntonio García Martínez30:35

      Right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:35

       ... the, you know, the opposition of that. They, they tr-

   11. AMAntonio García Martínez30:39

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       They tr- It's blind faith in the ideology. And, you know, they use it to ju... And they, they have these narratives that they all stick to that they know aren't accurate. And to say that the other side has a point about anything is to concede some ground-

   13. AMAntonio García Martínez30:54

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       ... to what they think is the enemy.

   15. AMAntonio García Martínez30:56

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       And it's fucking wild tribalism. It's, and so strange to watch play out because it's not... As soon as you...... withhold information or distort information because it doesn't suit your narrative, then you're living in fantasy land.

   17. AMAntonio García Martínez31:12

       Correct.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       And this is one thing that I've seen from both parties, from the far left and the far right.

   19. AMAntonio García Martínez31:18

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       And it's, it's bizarre to behold because we live in a day where there's unprecedented access to information-

   21. AMAntonio García Martínez31:26

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:26

       ... and yet people are willing to put themselves inside these narrow blinders and adhere to whatever these ideologies subscribe, whatever these ideolo- ideologies prescribe and whatever they, whatever the thing is that you have to say-

   23. AMAntonio García Martínez31:41

       Right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       ... in order to signal to the tribe that you are one of the, you know, absolutists. You're, you're, they're on board. You're, you're an asset. You're, you're a part of the right team. It's bizarre to see because it's, it, it's really just an advanced form of tribalism-

   25. AMAntonio García Martínez31:58

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       ... enhan- enhanced by echo chambers.

   27. AMAntonio García Martínez32:00

       Right. And it's anti-tribalism. You have to be against certain things, right? So there's this whole meme about the current thing being Ukraine, 'cause a lot of the people who are part of the kind of liberal Borg that supported CRT or BLM or choose your-

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AMAntonio García Martínez32:12

       ... your woke thing that you hate, right, are now flying the Ukrainian flags and being pro- pro-Ukraine.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:16

       Right.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      you know, his wife and his kid are there, and he's playing bongos and they're cooking and he's like, everyone's dancing and fun. And I go, "You're so happy." And I go, "I meet so many Israelis that are, like, so ... They love to, like, sing and dance and party." It's like a real-life version of the Zohan, you know? I go, "What is it?" And he goes, "When you're in Israel," he goes, "every day you could die." He goes, "You don't know what's gonna happen." Like, Palestine and Israel have been at this constant conflict. You're surrounded by all these Arab states. And he's like, "When you ... Any day you can die. Everybody just party, party, party." He goes, "When you're alive, you're happy." And I'm like, that's a strange state that seems like ... We have this yin and yang of life. And it sounds so cliche to say, but without some sort of antagonist-

   2. AMAntonio García Martínez45:49

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:49

      ... without some sort of problem, some sort of real thing to rise against, people find nonsense to squabble over.

   4. AMAntonio García Martínez45:58

      Correct.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:59

      And his thing was like, "This is all bullshit. Fucking party, party, party." Like, life and death is the real issue.

   6. AMAntonio García Martínez46:06

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:06

      And his p- his thoughts about Israel was, "When you're over there, man, it's real life and real death. And the shit you're dealing with here is traffic. I hate my job, you know? I hate being fat, you know? I hate ..." You know what I mean? It's like these nonsense problems.

   8. AMAntonio García Martínez46:21

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:22

      It's like, God, I wish we were wiser. I, I wish ... But I mean, I don't think we're really fully there yet. I mean, if you wanted to look at the human race as, uh, like a graph of progress, there's not that much time from the Vikings to us.

   10. AMAntonio García Martínez46:40

       That's right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:41

       From killing people with axes, from the time when someone showed up on your shore with a boat, it was a fucking disaster.

   12. AMAntonio García Martínez46:49

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:49

       It wasn't like, "Oh, tourists. They're hopping off the cruise ship." No, it was fucking maniacs.

   14. AMAntonio García Martínez46:53

       Or call the UN. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. AMAntonio García Martínez46:54

       It's like, no, it's murder and rape, is what it is. That's what's on the menu.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:57

       That's all that's on the menu.

   18. AMAntonio García Martínez46:58

       Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:59

       And that's what people did forever. That's all they did. God. Didn't-

   20. AMAntonio García Martínez47:05

       We're in the ... Yeah, and here we are with too much food and too much time on our hands.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Yeah. I mean, that's our, one of our biggest problems. We have too much food. People eat too much.

   22. AMAntonio García Martínez47:11

       I know.

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       It's crazy. That is one of the biggest pro- The biggest health problems in our country is obesity, which comes directly because of poor food choices and too much food. (sighs)

   24. AMAntonio García Martínez47:23

       How do we get on diet from Ukraine? Or-

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:25

       I don't know.

   26. AMAntonio García Martínez47:25

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:25

       But it's, it's, it's a conflict thing.

   28. AMAntonio García Martínez47:27

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       It's, it's all of, like, of lack of con- Like, with, and an absence of ... You know, idle hands are the devil's playground.

   30. AMAntonio García Martínez47:33

       Right.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:06

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      unpeeling it, you get a better sense of what it is. And over the many, many, many hours that I've done this, I've gotten better at it. But I don't understand. We've had this conversation too recently. Why the fuck hasn't anybody else done it like this? That doesn't make any sense to me. Like, what I'm doing is not that crazy. Like, why is it so popular? I don't, I really don't know. I genuinely don't know. And I, it's shocking to me. Like, when, back in the day when we first started, when it first started getting big, I remember, um, me and, um, I think it was Brian Redband, he goes, "Do you know how many downloads that last episode got?"

   2. AMAntonio García Martínez1:00:39

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

      And I'm like, "How many?" And he's like, "It was two million." And there was, like, this pause in the room. I go, "What?" I go, "Two million? What the fuck?" And we were laughing-

   4. AMAntonio García Martínez1:00:50

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

      ... 'cause we were basically at the time, especially the early days, we would, uh, fill his volcano bag up with pot vapor. You know what a volcano is?

   6. AMAntonio García Martínez1:00:58

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:58

      Do you know what a volcano is?

   8. AMAntonio García Martínez1:00:59

      (laughs) No.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

      A volcano is this machine- Jamie, show him a volcano. A vul- a volcano's a machine for people who think joints are too mild. And it's this preposterous machine-

   10. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:09

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:09

       ... that fills up this giant plastic bag with THC mist. And then you pop it off the machine and you have this-

   12. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:15

       Oh, I've done that before, like the big plastic bag that you just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Yes. It's a gray plastic bag.

   14. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:18

       Yeah, yeah, I've done that. I've done that.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       It's like that's it right there.

   16. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:21

       Got it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       And then you suck all the fucking THC vapor-

   18. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:26

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:26

       ... out of that plastic bag. We would just be obliterated. I'd be in the middle of a conversation, forget exactly what I was talking about. I di- didn't r- had no idea what we were talking about.

   20. AMAntonio García Martínez1:01:35

       That was my experience with that too. I, I got stung out of my mind when I did that.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:38

       That, that was what we were doing. And then, you know, started having conversations with different people. Like, I had Graham Hancock on and I was like, "This is great." Me and Duncan were talking to Graham Hancock. I'm like, "Wow, this is amazing." I can't believe, you know, I'm meeting him and we're talking about ancient civilizations and all of his research and... And then, once it became more popular, people started seeking it out in terms of like, "I'd like to be a guest." Like, "Okay." You know? But it was totally organic, like the whole thing happened organ-... Like, there's no way I would have ever said, "I know one day this is gonna be something that, like, Fox News supports and CNN hates and the, the fucking, the world talks about the, the nonsense ramblings of a comedian/cage fighting commentator. Like, this is gonna be a real, real fucking cog in the wheel." Like, what? No. Never. Not a fucking chance. Never thought about it.

   22. AMAntonio García Martínez1:02:29

       You never go further than when you don't, when you don't know where you're going to (laughs) .

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       Sometimes. Well, I, I do have this thing where I'd like to keep doing things and get better at them. I get obsessed with stuff. And i- in a sense, I've sort of applied a lot of that that I've done other aspects of my life, whether it's martial arts or comedy and I've sort of applied that to this thing in some weird way. So it sort- it naturally fits within my personality because I've always been curious as to why I think the way I think, why I behave the way I behave, and what, what I can optimize, what I can make better about who I am and how I, how I ru- make my way through life. And then, when that gets applied to this, I sort of just sort of took the same pattern of thinking about the way I think about all kinds of things and applied it to conversations, and applied it to, like, why do people think the way they think? Like, what, like you, like what's it like for you when you cram? I'm a genuinely curious person. So when I have these conversations with people, I think that's one thing that does help the listener out, is that they, they really do understand that I'm not asking you this question because it's my job.

   24. AMAntonio García Martínez1:03:36

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:37

       Like, uh, we could quit right now. We already did an hour. We could just go home. I'm curious. I'd like to keep talking to you.

   26. AMAntonio García Martínez1:03:42

       Sure.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:42

       I, I enjoy it, genuinely. And when... I think when someone has a genuine enthusiasm for anything, whether it's making pottery, you know, whatever. If you watch a YouTube video about someone who makes hand-blown glass, if someone's really into it, I'm fascinated. I'm, I'm fascinated by people that are genuinely into things.

   28. AMAntonio García Martínez1:04:02

       Well, I think that's what comes across, Joe. I mean, you make it look easy, but it's, um... You know, I, I host a small podcast and it's hard interviewing people and you make it look so seamless and perfect. And I think that it's-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:11

       But I don't... It's, it is easy. It's just my personality.

   30. AMAntonio García Martínez1:04:15

       For you. (laughs)

Episode duration: 2:49:17