The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #1875 - Dave Smith
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,014 words- 0:00 – 1:22
Epistemic humility and stress-testing libertarian ideas
- NANarrator
(drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)
- DSDave Smith
But that's good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
I think that's what makes you so good at what you do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the last thing you wanna do is be like, super confident and wrong. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, right, exactly. You wanna at least be always questioning. Like, always maintaining that possibility. "I could be wrong about everything."
- JRJoe Rogan
When you start... When you, when you go over stuff, like when you talk about like, libertarian ideas, and you, you, you look at like, the way the government is run now, do you, do you run through that thought process, like, "Maybe the only way to do it is the way that we're doing it right now"?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, I, I try my best to always do that. I mean, I'm guilty of not doing it. But I try my best to always be like, "Okay, well maybe, theoretically, uh, they know something I don't know," which kinda means like, "This is the best way to do it." Or maybe I'm just wrong, and my theoretical model couldn't work, and this is the best. But that... Try to give like, the toughest arguments against it, and then go like, "Okay, but we still didn't need to kill a million Iraqis." You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Like, we still didn't need to do this, or we still at least didn't need a... But I try my best. I use... It's dangerous, 'cause the more, the further into it I get, the more convinced I am that I'm right, and then that's also dangerous. 'Cause I'm not as insecure about it as I used to be.
- 1:22 – 3:07
Reforming a broken system: Ron Paul’s “end the worst stuff first” roadmap
- JRJoe Rogan
It feels like the only way... Like, the system is broken. Everyone sort of agrees that. The... And the only way to do it right would be to create a more ethical, moral, logical system that's actually based on Constitutional rights, and how the government is supposed to be, in terms of like, the kinda power they're supposed to have versus what they're always constantly trying to acquire. But if you did that, how much would you have to blow the system up? And how would we run things? Like, what, what period of vulnerability would we have while we're trying to reestablish a new system? And how would we know if the system could even work correctly without being influenced by money and power, and all the shit that's fucked it up-
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for, for what we've got right now?
- DSDave Smith
It's, it's a daunting challenge. I think that... Like, what, what Ron Paul used to always say was basically... I mean, these are my words, not his, but there was... Basically his plan was, he goes, "End all the worst shit first."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DSDave Smith
Like, end all the most evil shit first. So the first thing is like, stop bombing third-world countries.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Stop locking people in jail for victimless crimes. Stop doing, like... Stop bailing out-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... billionaires and corporations and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Like, stop that first. You know, you don't, you don't start with like, "Well, okay, if there's a vulnerable population that's, like, dependent on this government program, get rid of it tomorrow."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
You know, so like, try, you try to do that. And then the more of the corruption that you roll back, you're gonna see le-... You know, like, less wealth being extracted from regular American people and going to special interests, kind of build that up over time. But it's a challenging thing to go ba-... To go from this insane system to something less insane-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... is tough. And throughout human history, usually it's a... There's a pretty rough period in between there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DSDave Smith
It's usually not a smooth transition.
- 3:07 – 4:03
From republic to empire—and the quality of leaders who seek power
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's kinda fascinating when you think that this is the only country that has been really established as, like, a colony that went on to take over the world. And it did it inside of 300 years-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is pretty fucking wild.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, that's the most wild part, is the time, the time span, 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's pretty crazy.
- DSDave Smith
'Cause going from being a republic to an empire has happened before, but we're the most powerful empire in world history. At, at, at least in terms of, like, raw power.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Like, the, the technology, the level of wealth, all that shit. And we, we did it in a very short time.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some of the most unexceptional people are the ones who want to run it, which is so weird. When you see like, the Squad... Did you see that, that debate that she was having with those bankers, where they were talking about eliminating fossil fuels? Uh-
- DSDave Smith
She made me root for the bankers, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was rooting for the bankers.
- DSDave Smith
Ju-... It is quite a feat to get me to say-
- JRJoe Rogan
And also-
- DSDave Smith
... "You know, I think the head of Goldman Sachs is making a good point."
- 4:03 – 6:39
Student loan debt: forgiveness politics, predatory terms, and the university ‘Ponzi scheme’
- JRJoe Rogan
Imagine that she was dangling the carrot of the $10,000 we gave back in student loan debt forgiveness-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that those people are gonna have bank accounts, and those people that got that free money are gonna take that free money outta your bank account. Like, that was the immediate thing that she dangled, which lets you know some of the incentive involved in giving student loan debt.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not really that we wanna help these people. It's that now we will have influence over those people for voting.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, it... This was clearly like, just throwing a carrot, like pre-mid-term elections.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. So how about, how come only $10,000? How about all of it?
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you're gonna really absolve student loan debt, if someone's $700,000 in the hole or whatever their... What's like, worst-case scenario if someone goes to med school, someone gets a PhD?
- DSDave Smith
Oh, yeah, if they do all of that, probably 3, 400 at least, probably-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, and then it compounds with interest-
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... over the decades. Like, I was reading this story about this woman who took out $150,000 in student loans and she hasn't been able to pay them back, and now she's 250,000 in the hole.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, jeez. And they're the most vicious type of loans, too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course, 'cause you never pay it back.
- DSDave Smith
Like, it's easier to get out of credit card debt, you know? It's, uh... You can't even get out through bankruptcy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, it's the only one you can't get out of.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
People are having their Social Security docked, people who've made it to the end of life. They're, they're rel- relying on government assistance, right? It's essentially government assistance that we pay for, and they're getting that docked to pay for student loan debt.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, it's such a, it's such a fucked-up system. Like, I'm completely against student loan debt, just 'ca-... I, I, uh, um, you know, forgiving the debt, just 'cause I think it's like... It's, it's just... You're just punishing the taxpayers for the, the debt of a, in many cases, a more privileged group. It's like, the, the people who didn't go to college now have to bail out the people who did, you know? But man, it is such a fucked-up system that they trap these 18-year-old kids-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's ruthless.
- DSDave Smith
... into signing up for... And that no one at the colleges even... Like, the fact... I mean, obviously the politicians are, like, soulless and the bankers are just trying to make money, but that none of... No one in the university...... ever has the, the h- basic human decency to look at one of these kids who goes, "Hey, you know you're spending 150 grand on a gender studies major? Just think about that. Think about whether or not this is really a good idea." They just go, "Oh, okay. We'll take the money."
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, all they're-
- DSDave Smith
"No problem."
- JRJoe Rogan
... hoping is they're gonna get a job in university.
- DSDave Smith
Right. It's a Ponzi scheme, basically.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you... yeah.
- DSDave Smith
You'll teach this to other people until no one's signing up for this anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
You'll s- you'll learn useless shit that isn't even true, and then you'll teach it to other people who wanna use- learn this useless shit to teach it to other people. And let's just hope we keep getting new investors into this thing until it all goes belly up.
- 6:39 – 8:54
Woke pipeline into tech and the rise of platform censorship
- JRJoe Rogan
And what's really wild is then most, especially tech companies, they're so progressive and so liberal. And they're kind of trapped in that ideology, which can hamper what they want to do and what they're, what they're allowed to do with their company. Because you get activists who are employees. So your employees become ac- And they go straight from universities, where they're indoctrinated into this ideology, and then they permeate these tech companies. And some of 'em are fucked.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some of, some of 'em are realizing it and they're pushing back and they go, "Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Stop, stop, stop. You guys are killing our stock. You're fucking up the bus-" Like it's a, it's a giant loss in terms of like whether or not it's good for the overall company. It's a giant loss for some of 'em, like Netflix.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Netflix took a giant hit after all that Ch- Chappelle shit.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. Well, it... I mean, it just... And, and if you think about like with the tech censorship stuff, uh, um, if you think about like in like 2014, 2015, this basically didn't exist. This isn't that long ago that y- you kind of could say whatever you wanted to. Yeah, I'll have a little bit. Thank you. You could say whatever you wanted to on, on Twitter, more or l- I mean, I remember-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
... like really wild people saying crazy shit on Twitter. And there was never even a thought like, "Oh, you're gonna get kicked off for saying this."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
It was just like, it's, it's the internet.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's Twitter.
- DSDave Smith
That's Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
YouTube. You could say what you wanted to.
- JRJoe Rogan
Twitter has hardcore porn.
- DSDave Smith
Well, that's the other thing that's very weird about what is, is allowed and what's not allowed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which I'm for. I don't think sh- I'm not saying th- they should censor hardcore porn. If you wanna follow a porn star, if they wanna post pictures of them fucking and videos of them fucking-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, I don't care.
- JRJoe Rogan
... who cares?
- DSDave Smith
Well, I just... I also ju- Yeah, I'm completely against any of the censorship. I think it's an awful slippery slope to go down.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a giant slippery slope.
- DSDave Smith
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it shouldn't be navigated by people who are, again, indoctrinated into this system that they get straight out of universities and they're, they're locked into these progressive ideas.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, but the oth- I, I agree with all that. But I mean, th- so the point I was just making is when you talk about like the bottom line. So you could see why originally back then why they weren't kicking people off of their platforms is 'cause like, well, there's no incentive for them to kick people off the platform. The whole point is they want people to be on their platform. There'd certainly be no incentive to kick like really popular people off of their platform.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 8:54 – 13:15
Government pressure on Big Tech: Trump, ‘fake news,’ and the Berenson case
- DSDave Smith
That's w- That's how they get people in, onto their platform. And it is, there is a lot of truth to the fact that a lot of these kids coming out of the universities came in with this woke ideology. But there was also like tremendous pressure from the top coming down. So like what really, really sparked all of it was in 2016 once Trump won.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
And then Congress hauled all the heads of the, uh, the, the big tech companies in front of Congress and basically threatened the shit out of 'em that like, "Look, Donald Trump won and here's why he won. He won because of fake news and Russian interference in social media. And so you guys gotta do something to crack down on them." And you see that to this day. Did you see, uh, Alex Berenson like shared the evidence? I mean, he was able to get back on Twitter through that lawsuit. But he shared that, that the White House specifically asked about Alex Berenson.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. We read it.
- DSDave Smith
And said, "Why are they still on Twitter?"
- JRJoe Rogan
We read it. Uh, we read the-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... quotes and who quoted them on the podcast.
- DSDave Smith
Now, technically speaking, they didn't say, "Kick Alex Berenson off of Twitter."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. What are you doing about it?
- DSDave Smith
But they, but they did go, "What are you doing?" It's like this mafia shit almost. So that's, you know... I guess you could kind of say it's not exactly a violation of the First Amendment 'cause they just asked. But it's kind of like someone robbing you by just asking for your money-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, here's, here's-
- DSDave Smith
... in an aggressive way.
- JRJoe Rogan
... another more important point. He was right.
- DSDave Smith
That is pretty important.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is a very important point, which is why he's back on.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He was cit- he was citing studies. He was using the Israeli data. He was talking to scientists-
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that were willing to go outside of the company line. And there's quite a few of them. These are legit people. So what he was getting in trouble for with the government was being correct.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really crazy 'cause you're talking about a health pandemic. So you're talking about decisions that could possibly either save people's lives, ruin people's lives, save people's health, ruin people's health. The only way you're gonna know what's what is if you get accurate data. So if there's a guy who's talking about data, but the data's inconvenient to whatever the narrative is, if it's because it's inconvenient because the pharmaceutical companies fund 75% of all the ads on television and how many campaigns and how much, how much money do they have invested in this? And does the government actually have a piece of the Moderna vaccine? Isn't that-
- DSDave Smith
Well, there was... So, uh, Rand Paul, I don't know if you saw one of these moments where he w- It, it was, uh, months ago now, but where he was, uh, grilling Fauci in one of those-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... Rand Paul versus Fauci moments. And he said that they found out through a freedom, uh, Freedom of Information Act that it was something like $135 million in royalties had been paid out to scientists on the NIH, uh, at the NIH from pharmaceutical companies. And he asks Fauci straight up, he goes, "Have you received any money? Will you disclose all the money you've received?" And Fauci, in a roundabout way, you know, was like, "Well, Doc- Dr. Paul, I think I may have had one royalty for very small money, but no, I don't n- I... The law doesn't require me to reveal that." So like, hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- DSDave Smith
Don't you think like, shouldn't we know that? Shouldn't we at least be able to know like, how much money does Fauci make-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
... from Pfizer and Moderna? 'Cause that seems like a tiny conflict of interest.
- JRJoe Rogan
A giant conflict of interest.
- 13:15 – 1:08:08
Hunter Biden laptop and the ‘impossible job’ of content moderation under intelligence signals
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. And they also affected that Hunter Biden story. They-
- DSDave Smith
Well, that's the other thing. What... and... What... I mean, wasn't that pretty incredible, dude, what Zuckerberg said to you?
- JRJoe Rogan
It was-
- DSDave Smith
I mean, that was... Look, it... he... You asked him about the Hunter Biden story.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And his first response to you was, "Well, here's what happened. The FBI told us there was gonna be this, this misinformation, this Russian"-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... "misinformation coming." Now, I'm not saying the FBI told him specifically, "You have to turn down the Hunter Biden story." But when you asked him about the Hunter Biden story, the first thing he said was, "Well, the FBI..." So clearly, at least he took it that way, and then when the story came out, the FBI and the CIA and all these intelligence, uh, people are saying, "This has all the earmarks of Russian disinformation."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And Joe Biden's bragging about this at the time. So if nothing else, they at least clearly sent a signal to these companies that like, "This is the one. This is what we were"-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... "talking about."
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, could you imagine if you're these people at Facebook, what do you do? Like, what, what... If you get that phone call or whatever it is, email, probably a fucking person-to-person meeting when they put your phone in a basket.
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really. What is it... what is it like and what do you do? And do you go into a deep dive and try to find out what's legit and what's not legit? Do you go and interview the people from the New York Post that wrote the article? What do you do?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. It's, it's, it's a weird situation where they're kind of asking you to have this level of expertise in a thing that is not your area of expertise.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Or do you just have some faith in the system and go, "Well, I mean, this is the FBI telling me this, and if they're saying it's Russian, uh, misinformation, then I don't wanna put it out there if that could affect the results of an election."
- JRJoe Rogan
Imagine if it is.
- DSDave Smith
And so maybe you err on that side.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, imagine if it is.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Imagine if you've been warned and then it is Russian d- Russian disinformation, but you also allow people to share it and it turns out to actually affect the election.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, swings the election the other way, Trump wins again, and then we find out it's a hoax, and we find out he really is in cahoots with Russia. That was the big fear, right? And that's, that's not a narrative that you didn't hear. Like you, you heard constantly he was in bed with Russia. You heard-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... constantly Russia had stuff on him. Russia has this, Russia has that, he did this, people peed on him.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, there was-
- DSDave Smith
Yes.
- 31:24 – 40:14
Lockdowns and public health tradeoffs: ventilators, vitamin D, and downstream damage
- JRJoe Rogan
Look, whenever there's a pandemic or ever there's a new thing, there's a crisis, there's always going to be mistakes made. And it's whether or not we learn from those mistakes and whether or not you have a healthy distrust for narratives that are being pushed by people who have a financial incentive for these narratives to be correct. Here's another one we don't talk about, respirators. Do you know how many people died because they were on respirators? And the, is it a correlation or is it a causation? Well, they don't fucking use them as much anymore. That's a fact. And 88% of the people in New York who they put on a re- something like that. Find out what percentage of people who got put on respirators who wound up dying.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then you could say, "Well, they were gonna die anyway, and that's why." There's some people-
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that disagree with that and they say, "No, you blew out these people's lungs."
- DSDave Smith
Well, the reason I tend to, uh, I think that you're right to disagree with that is 'cause what you said at the b- is that the... So at the beginning, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
This is when, uh, Cuomo, when he was still, uh, governor there, was demanding that Trump send in 50,000 more respirators-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... 'cause we needed them or people are gonna die. And then the doctors, basically all from the bottom up, determined like, "We're not gonna be putting these people on respirators anymore 'cause they're, so many of them are dying."
- JRJoe Rogan
Most New York COVID patients on ventilators died. Yeah. Rose to 88% of those who received mechanical ventilation. Among the 2,634 patients whom outcomes were known, the overall death rate was 21%, but it rose to 88% for the ones who were ventilated. Jesus Christ. So even just that. So let's just pretend it's only, what is that? 67%? Imagine that.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just that. 67%? What, what... That's a lot of fucking people dying.
- DSDave Smith
And, and this one, to your point though, I would say, I don't think there was anything like malicious about this. I, I do-
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- DSDave Smith
... think doctors were trying to save people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
And then they quickly started realizing, "Our patients are doing really bad when we put them on these ventilators."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And then they backed off and they were like, "Let's not do this anymore." So to your point, yeah, like mistakes will be made. And I think that one was like an honest, uh, mistake. But the point is that at least the doctors then corrected that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And they went, "Okay, we're not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna wait until we absolutely need to, to put them on these ventilators." But there seems to be with all of these other, like, m- like major policies from the federal government and from a lot of these state governments, that there's just kind of... You know, there's like no admission, no recognition. And y- I, I mean, I remember like when, when Texas here, when, when you guys first opened back up and just ended all of the, the COVID restrictions. All the blue state governors were saying, "This is so reckless and insane and people are gonna die." And then the, the death rate was no worse than in any of these other blue states, and now they all stopped.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, everyone wants to point-
- DSDave Smith
And they don't even acknowledge it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everyone who wants a point to Florida, like Florida, what they did, they had the highest rate of death in COVID. Yeah, but they have the oldest people. And, and if you age adjust, it's no different than California.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, yeah. That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you age adjust, that, that was the right way to do it. He was right. Like it's not... No, no one's saying that COVID's good. It was not good. But these people that did things that were not good for society, were not good for small businesses, were not good for people's mental health, were not good for the development of children's language skills, like all these things were wrong, man.
- DSDave Smith
Well, look, I mean, there's so much stuff. The, the, we're... It's gonna be, like, a generation before we even see the damage from the lockdowns.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And we won't even be able to know for sure what exactly, like trace it back to what exactly was the damage from the lockdowns. But just think about what a nightmare, you know, 2020, I mean, there were riots in that year that were obviously about the George Floyd thing, but were very related to the lockdowns as well. Like it's, it wasn't a coincidence that after three months of being locked in your home with no bar, no sports, no friends' house-
- 40:14 – 49:40
Media trust collapse and the culture-war distraction machine
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's fucking, it's wild, man. Or the people that spread that story about, uh, folks that were, uh, they were having overdoses of ivermectin, and so they were being rushed into the hospitals. They had no room for gunshot patients 'cause so many people were taking ivermectin.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
A total 100% fabrication and lie that was in Rolling Stone, that Rachel Maddow tweeted, and then she doubled down on it afterwards-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... after it was proven. We looked at the photo. We were like, "Why are those people wearing coats?" It's August-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in Oklahoma.
- DSDave Smith
Well, it also just, i- i- ... If you would just had anyone who knew anything, I'm not a doctor or anything, but if you know anyone who knows anything about it, you would just look at that, like I did the second I read that story, and go, "That doesn't sound right." Because ivermectin is known for being a very safe drug. N- whether the argument is that it, it helps with COVID or not, it's n- ... The reason why, at the beginning, doctors were giving it to people is 'cause they were kind of like, (clicks tongue) "Well, this may help or it may not, but it's definitely not a dangerous drug to take."
- JRJoe Rogan
It's one, it's on the World Health Organization's-
- DSDave Smith
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
... list of most important medicines.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Like, so that ... So it just made no sense. You'd at least go in being skeptical of this. By the way-
- JRJoe Rogan
Billions of prescriptions.
- DSDave Smith
... didn't it just get added-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
It just got added as a COVID treatment, I believe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
So, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know what the ... Find out what that is, 'cause what I've heard is it's just, they just put it on there because, just to give people information about it, whether or not-
- DSDave Smith
You know-
- JRJoe Rogan
... they're admitting that it's, uh, it's, it's def-
- DSDave Smith
But why do they even call it ivermectin? Why don't they call it horse paste?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Like, why do they even, why would they even refer to it like this?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, see, the, that, n- ... Here's the crazy thing. That might have worked on some people at the moment, where people are like, "Oh my God, these idiots are taking horse paste."But now, given the amount of time that's gone on, what it's done, really, is it's eroded significantly people's respect and people's trust in mainstream news.
- DSDave Smith
Which I think is good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is fucking very good.
- DSDave Smith
'Cause, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
We, we got to find out what CNN really is.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, well that's-
- 49:40 – 56:25
Wokeism’s institutional surge: Occupy/Tea Party, corporate capture, and top-down coordination
- DSDave Smith
... "No. (laughs) I'm sorry. At this point, no." Um, but anyway with all ... do, do you ever see, to the point of the culture wars as a distraction, do you ever see like a ... You know one of those like Nexus charts-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
... um, where you can chart like words that are used in, in mainstream like big-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
... newspapers and stuff? So you could chart like a word in the New York Times and how many times it's used.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And if you ... so, you know, or Washington Post or whatever. If you take any of these like woke t- you know, you take the term racism and you put it in a Nexus chart and they'll show you throughout the years how many times the term racism is used in the New York Times. And it's like this and then around like 2011, 2012, sh- goes way up. And oh, social justice, way up. Toxic masculinity, way up. Like all ... And this isn't coming from like the, the young kids. This isn't coming from 20-year-olds. This isn't coming from the college universities. These are the biggest corporate, you know, media, uh, platforms in the country. All at this time, like flooded the market with this woke shit. Now I'm not saying it didn't exist in, in college universities. I'm not saying that that wasn't already going on. I'm just saying that what changed around that time, and it was right toward Obama's second term, what changed was that all the sudden the woke shit went from being shit that was taught, like critical race theory and this stuff was taught in college universities, but all the sudden it had the backing of all of the biggest, most powerful corporations in the world. And all of the political class and all of it just got pumped in. And the theory kind of is that what had happened right then in 2010 was you had these huge ... th- these, this big left wing populist movement and this big right wing populist movement. You had the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party Movement. And they were kind of started over the same thing, which were the banker bailouts. Like the first tea party l- like things were started over the Ron Paul campaigns and the TARP. That was like when the first tea parties broke out. And then the Occupy thing was in direct response to the banker bailouts and all of this stuff. And you had these big movements and the lefties back then were standing outside of the big banks screaming, "We are the 99%." And when they were saying 99%, they didn't mean 99%. They meant 99.9%. They were like, "We're the people who don't own banks."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Like the people who own banks versus the people who don't own banks. That's who we represent. That was like the leftist populist movement. And then all of these huge publications, I'm not talking about mom and pop newspapers. I'm saying the New York Times and the Washington Post. Do you know what I mean? All they wanted to talk about all day was what divides all of them. It was like, "No, no, no. You're not the 99%. You're the whites versus the blacks, the gays versus the straights, the trans versus the cis." And it does ... If ... And now you look at it and you see like the gay pride parade floats and there's like a Bank of America float. And it just seems to me like these big banks essentially bought off the left with all this woke shit, completely distracted them from where their eyes were on the prize, and then turned the left and right against each other, where now they're all fighting. So like to your point, it's not that what they're fighting about doesn't necessarily mean anything. Some of them are very important issues, but none of them affect the bottom line for the most powerful people in our society. And what are the bankers doing now, since those banker ballots? They got a whole new round of ballots in 2020. They, they've like ... Th- they are, they're raking in profit still. Nothing was ever addressed about th- that whole corrupt system.
- JRJoe Rogan
So do you think that there was a concerted effort to do this? Like was there a conversation? Like how do you think something like that happens? If you think that there's this ramp up and it's been proven by these studies that if you look at the words, like is it a function of people graduating from these universities and taking these jobs in these, these companies and deciding to push this agenda because they think that social justice is important? Because they do see, you know, these opponents of Obama's being these racist people that are like, uh, this, this like underbelly of society that we weren't totally aware of and what ... it needs to be addressed? Or do you think that there is really like a concerted effort from corporations to get people to divide? And if, if that's the case, how was it discussed?
- DSDave Smith
Well, I can ... Um, so, uh, uh, look, the thing is b- essentially the answer is I don't know, um, 'ca- you know, I don't ha- like factually, I don't know for sure. But there's a ... I think it was either ... I can't remember if it was Michael Tracy or if it was, uh, uh, Matt Taibbi.One of 'em said it, but he goes, "I'm not saying wokeism is a CIA operation, but if it was-"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) .
- DSDave Smith
"... everything makes perfect sense." You know? So I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... like, I don't know. I ... And, and a- again, those nexus charts, they're not even, like, studies. They're just mapping the words-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... and how many times it's used. But there is no question that amongst the most powerful, you know, like, forces in media, there was a concerted effort to do this. And my guess is that it's much less likely that that came from the 20-year-old interns than that that came from some power source up at the top.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- DSDave Smith
And I think there was an effort to do this. I ... Like, I think ... And I think it came from the very top. And I think it ... And this has been going on, by the way, for a long time. Like, back in the day, there was, uh ... This is what they did to the right wing in this country. This is what National Review did when they turned the right wing into culture warriors when they never were before. Like the old right, the, the old, um, you know, like Robert Taft, who was known as Mr. Republican, his whole thing was like, non-interventionist foreign policy, sound money, like some protectionism, so you protect, like, American, uh, uh, jobs and stuff like that. It was all, like, this old school right wing thing, and then National Review and all this, like, new right rose up in, in, like, the, the '60s. And they were like, "No, no, no, no, no. Listen. What really matters is, like, there's homos out there."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
"All right? Like, that's really what us right-wingers care about."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
"What we really care about is abortion. What we really care about is the ..."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Again, not saying abortion is not an important issue. I'm just saying, but they, they used that and then they were like, "Oh, and by the way, that non-interventionist foreign policy thing? Yeah, we're not doing that anymore. We're called warriors now, and we're gonna fight communism all throughout the world. Get on board."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
And so it just ... It seems like this is, this is a, a tried and true tactic to, like, break up these, these movements that can actually threa- threaten where, like, the real gravy train is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And where is that? That's, like, in the military-industrial complex and the banking complex, the pharmaceutical industrial complex. That's where, like ... That's where the real American fascism lies, not in some, like ... Not in some people who, you know, trespassed on government property on January 6th, who ha- had nothing, was completely powerless, and then is now sitting in solitary confinement for how many hundreds of days. That's not, like, the face of fascism in America. If you wanna talk about fascism in America, look at, like, the Patriot Act. Look at vaccine passports. Look at, like, you know, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. That, that's where the fascism lies.
- 56:25 – 1:02:01
January 6, fed questions, and how ‘conspiracy theory’ became a stigma
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, the January 6th thing is not a small thing. Like when people entered the Capitol with zip ties, that's not a small thing. You know? And I don't think dismissing how fucked up that was is ... I, I, I understand what you're saying.
- DSDave Smith
No, I'm not, I'm not even saying that it wasn't fucked up or the guy who had zip ties ... And I heard ... I don't know exactly what the story was with that guy with the zip ties. I ... I'm not downplaying it.
- JRJoe Rogan
But there were ... There was people-
- DSDave Smith
I'm saying-
- JRJoe Rogan
... in there that were 100% unhinged.
- DSDave Smith
I think there were some people in there that had they gotten their hands on Mike Pence or something like that, like something very ugly could have happened. So I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
100%.
- DSDave Smith
I don't mean to downplay that aspect of it. I'm just saying that, like, those people, even had they done something to Mike Pence or something like that, would have been shut down by ... L- I mean, the military would have come in. The National Guard would have come in. They were never a real threat to take over the United States of America and implement fascism. My point is that these people that I'm talking about are really powerful and actually affecting the lives of everyday Americans. And my other thing is that a lot of those people in January 6th weren't that guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And were just people kind of in the crowd who entered the building.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can't believe we're inside. Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And also what the hell was going on with Mike Epps, and how does it make any sense that he is being-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ray Epps.
- DSDave Smith
Ray Epps. I'm sorry. My f- (laughs) Not Mike Epps.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mike Epps the comedian. Sorry, Mike.
- DSDave Smith
That's a, that's a great, great comedian. (laughs) Mike ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Sorry, Mike.
- DSDave Smith
By the way, for the record, Mike Epps was not in January 6th.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) .
- DSDave Smith
I'd like to correct the record and apologize to Mike Epps.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
So sorry. Ray Epps, who Democrats are now defending as, like, some guy who's being villainized ... Uh, vilified. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Who's defending him?
- DSDave Smith
Well, there was some Democrat in Congress the other day who was like, "Just leave the guy alone. I mean, he wasn't a fed."
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, we should be concerned.
- DSDave Smith
Well, look-
- JRJoe Rogan
You should be concerned if he's not a fed, then he's on the other team. So why would you be defending him if he's literally inciting violence?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. You would be calling him-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... an insurrectionist or a domestic terrorist.
- 1:02:01 – 1:17:30
Ukraine war and nuclear brinkmanship: NATO expansion, 2014 coup claims, and failed negotiations
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... and defending it, this isn't gonna trend, because it's just we're not in that right now, but right ... But then you see with, with the Russia thing, when that first starts, then all of a sudden if ... That's what's hot now. And this is how they always do this. Like in the moment, they try to really make it ... They try to make you intimidated to say the important thing in the moment. But man, dude, this thing with Russia is just like the craziest thing in the world. Like the idea that we're actually flirting with a nuclear conflict with Russia is the most important priority in the history of humanity is that America and Russia do not go to war. There's nothing more important than that. That's, that's it. We'll destroy h- the, the human species if we do this. And yet there's this war right on Russia's border and there's no effort to negotiate going on. There's a, like no effort. In fact, wh- from th- from very, uh, solid reporting that actually America through Boris Johnson in, in U- told Ukraine not to negotiate with Russia at the very beginning of the war when they had a deal worked out.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- DSDave Smith
They had a, they had a deal worked out, it's been reported in multiple sources, that they had a deal worked out and the deal was basically that Vladimir Putin would pull back, he would pull back his troops and leave Ukraine under the condition that th- the very simple conditions that Ukraine, uh, uh, guaranteed, um, autonomy for the Donbas region and agreed to never join NATO. And like that was the deal. Like okay, I'm not saying everyone thinks that's the perfect deal, but it's better than what we got right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Better than nuclear war.
- DSDave Smith
And, and right now just the other day ... Dude, the official narrative on this, this whole war, it's just like it makes no sense. A- and again, like I said, remember, the same people who are pushing this are the ones who were telling you Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and stuff. But the official narrative, Joe, is basically that, um, okay so uh, uh, Vladimir Putin is a, a madman, a crazy war criminal who's hellbent on, um, reforming the Soviet Union and this is a real threat that he could do this, but also he's, he's getting humiliated in this war in Ukraine. It's like he's j- he's losing to the poorest country in Europe and he's just getting humiliated and beat back, but he's still a real threat to take over all of Europe. And he's a complete madman, by the way, Joe. But when he says he's gonna use nuclear weapons, don't listen to that. He'd never actually do that even though he's a complete madman. And as everyone says this, this war, the word they use over and over and over again, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, all of them, unprovoked. Vladimir Putin led an unprovoked war in Ukraine. But then it's just like with Osama bin Laden, what they did with him then. Don't listen to him. Whatever you do, don't listen to what he's actually saying 'cause none of that's his motivations. Like what, his motivations are what we tell you. Osama bin Laden hates us, uh, 'cause we're free. And then like Ron Paul would just go like, "Yeah, but that's not what he's saying at all." Like o- he, h- Osama bin Laden was so clear about why he hated America. I mean he's like, "Look, I hate you because you murder innocent civilians in the Muslim world, you prop up brutal dictators in the Muslim world, you prop up Israel who mistreats the Palestinian people, and you have our, your, uh, your bases in our holy land in the Arabian Peninsula." And then they're like, "No, he hates us 'cause we're free." He didn't mention anything about freedom there. And then if you say that they're like, "Well are you defending Osama bin Laden?" And you're like, "No, I'm just saying listen to your enemies. There's a reason why he hates us." And if you listen to Vladimir Putin and what he's saying, I mean look, he's wrong for invading, uh, Ukraine. And y- I mean you know me, Joe, I'm the most antiwar fuck- fucking person there is and there's no excuse for that. I'm like tens of thousands of people have died. It's horrible. A- and a lot of them are soldiers but a lot of them are civilians. And um, but to say he was unprovoked is like insane. It's just only people who know nothing about the history of this conflict would say there was no provocation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you see the conversation that Roger Waters had with that CNN guy?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, and Ro- 'cause Roger-
- JRJoe Rogan
Amazing.
- DSDave Smith
... Waters was awesome on that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
'Cause he knows what he's talking about, dude.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And he's, he's right about all of that shit. He's a ... Look, the, the prom- and this is what he was saying, and he's absolutely right, is that the promise when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and this was, uh, like verbally promised and put in writing, was that NATO would not expand one inch to the east. And NATO at that point, the line then was through Germany, right? Like the J- the, the western half of Germany was in the west and the eastern half was with the Soviet Union. And they were like, "We'll let all of these nations, you know, secede and the Soviet Union will collapse and we're giving up on communism," which is one of the greatest things that ever happened. And the deal was, "Okay, you do that then we won't move NATO, we won't move our military alliance into your area that used to be your realm of influence." And every single president since then has moved NATO east to the point that NATO is now on Russia's border.And in Ukraine, even though they didn't officially join NATO, there was always talk of it. Kamala Harris, very... right before the start of the war, said, "We're looking to put Y- uh, Ukraine into NATO." And the, the, um... you know, they, they put... under George W. Bush, they put in, um... in, uh, Poland these dual-use rocket launchers. There's a big complaint that Vladimir Putin has. That he's like, "These laun- these can be used to get nukes here in a matter of minutes." Like, "This is a th- this is like, a threat to us that we cannot tolerate." And then in 2014, there was a coup in Ukraine that was (laughs) completely led by the West. Th- th- it... I, I don't know if you've ever heard, but like... uh, uh, like, I think I sent you actually once the, uh, the tape of Gideon Rose, who was the editor for Foreign Affairs Magazine, on the old Stephen Colbert Report, uh, show, back when Colbert was hilarious. And he was just openly bragging about what the game is here. And then he was like, "Well, Ukraine is kinda like the Robin to Russia's Batman, and so our job is to steal Robin away from Batman and make him come over here and join us. And aha, Vladimir Putin's so stupid that he won't do anything." And then Colbert's in his old character, so he's like, "Well, shouldn't Obama be spiking the football and saying, 'Yeah, in your face, Putin'" And Gideon Rose is like, "Well, no, no, 'cause then Putin might invade Ukraine (laughs) . So, we wouldn't wanna spike the ball." But they... there, there's these... Oh yeah, here it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's play it, let's play it, let's play it. Go from the beginning, please?
Episode duration: 3:15:29
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Transcript of episode oRT-bxjY7So
