Joe Rogan Experience #1911 - Mark Boal

Mark Boal 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

Narrator 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience. (rock music) Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan 0:12 Tell me why. Tell me.

Mark Boal 0:13 I mean, I can give you some theories.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Okay. Just keep this, like, a fist from your face and we're good to go.

Mark Boal 0:19 Okay.

Joe Rogan 0:19 What's your theory?

Mark Boal 0:21 Okay. Wow. Do I need these? These-

Joe Rogan 0:24 Yeah, they're better. Keeps us from talking over each other, locks you in.

Mark Boal 0:27 Holy shit.

Joe Rogan 0:28 You get used to it.

Mark Boal 0:30 Okay.

Joe Rogan 0:31 (laughs)

Mark Boal 0:31 My ... It's a little trippy.

Joe Rogan 0:34 Hearing your own voice? Yeah.

Mark Boal 0:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:36 I did so many radio shows back in the day-

Mark Boal 0:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:39 ... I just ... It's normal to me.

Mark Boal 0:40 I, I'll get into it, but my theory is, um, has to do with authenticity, and what you represent, and how rare that is. And it's not that you're, what you're doing isn't, um, isn't, like, covered in other ways in the culture, but you as an individual and what you bring feels, and I think is, it's not, like, an illusion, very authentic, and that's super rare. And so there's-

Joe Rogan 1:16 It shouldn't be super rare though, right? That's what's confusing. Like, y- people should just be able to be themselves.

Mark Boal 1:22 I, I wonder why ... I mean, there's big commercial interests in it not being-

Joe Rogan 1:25 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:25 I mean, it's hard for me.

Joe Rogan 1:26 There's also, people read a lot of social media and they read comments about themselves. They, they, they, they, like, think about what people are saying and then they, like, self-analyze too much and self-censor and self-correct and, you know. I do all that stuff on my own enough where I, I'm pretty introspective and I, uh, analyze myself and I'm probably my harshest critic, so I don't need a, a lot of other people's input on that. And when you do get a lot of people's input on that, I think people start leaning in certain directions politically and socially, and they start saying things 'cause they think it'll gain them favor with certain groups and-

Mark Boal 2:04 Yeah. I mean, the t- the temptation when you're doing media is to sell something.

Joe Rogan 2:07 Yeah.

Mark Boal 2:08 So as soon as you're trying to sell something, you're gonna get into crafting it a certain way, crafting a persona that you never come across, so-

Joe Rogan 2:15 Do you, do you have, uh, those considerations when you're putting together, uh, like, like, The Hurt Locker, for instance? Which is one of my all time favorite movies.

Mark Boal 2:23 Thank you.

Joe Rogan 2:25 It's such a good movie.

Mark Boal 2:26 Thank you. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:27 It's so good 'cause it's so, like, you can see how he would be like that. You could see how he would be drawn to go back there. You could see how the pull of it a- and the chaos of it all. And then there's a scene where he's, I believe he's in a supermarket?

Mark Boal 2:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:44 And it's just fucking boring.

Mark Boal 2:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:46 Life is just ... The mundane, normal life, and he just wants to go back to war.

Mark Boal 2:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:53 It's, it ... And I'm like, I'm ... I buy it all in. You know? It's like, it's very rare that, you know, you see someone, but there's, like, no suspension of disbelief. You buy ... Y- you're watching that film and you're like, "Whoa." Like, I could see-

Mark Boal 3:06 Well, that was a big part of what we were trying to do, was to c- was to ... So I had been in, I had been in Baghdad as a reporter in 2004, I guess. And, um, I had seen some of what, what's depicted in the, in the film. That's when I witnessed the bomb squad going out and diffusing bombs. And then, and I wrote an article about it, and then, um, the idea came along for a screenplay. I had the idea to write a screenplay, put it that way. And my whole thing is, uh, over the course of a year, I didn't know how to write a screenplay, but my whole thing as I was learning how to do it and doing rewrites was to try to replicate the experience that I had, that I felt when I was there. Okay? So to do that, there was a lot of craft and whatnot involved in how to ... In, in creating that, that I had to learn. But it also meant breaking a lot of rules of narrative and storytelling that you normally would do to make a movie effective, but then in this case may, would have made it less authentic to the experience. Like one, for example, is that most war movies are organized around a mission. It's like in the beginning of the movie you're told, "Hey, this is what we gotta do," and then the rest of the movie plays out like Saving Private Ryan or what have you. Uh, when I was in Baghdad, one of the things I was struck by was the, this ceaseless, like, hamster wheel repetition of the war. That it wasn't organized around a single mission. It was this futile attempt to try to find all these bombs that had been dispersed throughout the country by the counter-insurgency. So, I couldn't organize it around a mission. I had, uh, at least in my mind, to keep it authentic, I had to kind of make the story similar enough to the reality, which was like, every day a new mission. Like, a kinda, you know, um, episodic structure, they call it. So, there were all these decisions along the way that get made to create that feeling that you have where you go, "Oh, I can suspend, I can suspend my disbelief because this feels, this feels real." And then there's the point at which, like, you

Mark Boal 5:37 do all this research, I did all that research of actually going there, hanging out with these guys, talking to them, witnessing what they were doing, trying to get deep inside of it, learning about IEDs and how they work and really getting inside their mentality, hanging out with them. And then there's another point at which you kinda put yourself into the piece too, and it's funny that you mention the scene at the end-... and it's, it's been really instructive to me because, uh, uh, when I was doing screenings for The Hurt Locker, a lot of times at the end of the screening, like, a, a vet would come up and that scene in the grocery store where... Sergeant James, that's the character name, was like kinda first time back from the war and he's, he's like overwhelmed by the commercialism of the supermarket and all the choices of cereal. And it's not just that it's boring, it's that it's, like, so meaningless compared to what he'd just been doing and he can't, he can't function. And you've seen this guy operate on such a high level for the past, whatever it is, hour and a half.

Joe Rogan 6:49 Yeah, there's a scene right there.

Mark Boal 6:50 Oh. And he can't choose, you know? All this, like, uh, consumer shit.

Joe Rogan 7:01 It was such a good representation of what these guys have to go through.

Mark Boal 7:05 But my-

Narrator 7:07 Sorry.

Mark Boal 7:10 And Renner is so good there too.

Joe Rogan 7:11 He's amazing.

Mark Boal 7:12 But that, that actual thing had happened to me coming back. I felt this sense of dislocation, and I was only there for, like, a couple of weeks. But I felt this sense of, like, how surreally grotesque, like, certain parts of our wealth are after you're in- after you see this poverty and you see the hardship of the war. So that was, like, my thing. That wasn't, like, a research thing.

Joe Rogan 7:38 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 7:39 And it's just interesting. It was, like, totally from my heart. And I remember putting it in and thinking, "This is one of the rare things in the movie that, like, I didn't get from reporting." And it actually turned out to be one of the things that translated the most to other people and it kinda taught me about like, well, sometimes if you just dig deep enough, probably there's a chance anyway that, like, your experiences or my experiences, if you're really being honest about them, and this goes back to where we started this conversation, will translate to other people.

Joe Rogan 8:13 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 8:14 Even if you don't, even if you think they're super hyper fucking specific to you.

Joe Rogan 8:20 Yeah, it's-

Mark Boal 8:21 Does that make sense?

Joe Rogan 8:21 Yes. It might be hyper-specific-

Mark Boal 8:23 So, so that's what I'm... So-

Joe Rogan 8:24 ... but it's very relatable. It's relatable because-

Mark Boal 8:28 It is in retrospect, but at the time I was like, "This is just a weird thing that happened to me."

Joe Rogan 8:31 No, but you nailed it because you-

Mark Boal 8:33 I-

Joe Rogan 8:33 ... because in the context of the movie, you know, you see that this guy is... I mean, every time he's diffusing a bomb, this could be it, and he's over there in this, this chaos-ridden war zone and then he comes back and he's wandering through a supermarket aisle. It was perfect. It was the perfect juxtaposition and it really do- I mean, and you, you, you do relate to it because I think all of us are aware that you kinda get accustomed to whatever you're around, you know? You get accustomed to a chaotic home life or a peaceful home life, you get, you know-

Mark Boal 9:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:09 ... a very busy workplace where things and people are yelling at each other and everything's constantly moving fast-

Mark Boal 9:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:14 ... or boring, droning cubicle life.

Mark Boal 9:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:18 Like, people understand that there's, like, certain ways of living and existing that you can get accustomed to and they kind of make sense when you've adju- adjusted and adapted to them, but then th- to have such a clear difference between being in a war zone and being in a supermarket-

Mark Boal 9:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:38 ... it was, it was perfect.

Mark Boal 9:40 Well, thanks. I'll take that.

Joe Rogan 9:42 Yeah, no, it was really good man. It's like, what, uh... What does it feel like to have the responsibility of trying to relay one of the most complex aspects of human life, which is war?

Mark Boal 9:57 It's funny when you said perfect I just flashed on, not to not answer your question, but I, I remember there was some reviewer at the time that called it a near perfect movie.

Joe Rogan 10:07 Oh.

Mark Boal 10:08 And I remember calling him up and being like, "Near perfect? What?"

Joe Rogan 10:12 (laughs)

Mark Boal 10:12 "What the fuck? Like, is that near really necessary?"

Joe Rogan 10:14 (laughs) Well, it's-

Mark Boal 10:15 'Cause I wanna put it on the... I, I, I wanted to put it on the DVD. Anyway, we did. We left it on there.

Joe Rogan 10:20 It's still... I mean, you know-

Mark Boal 10:22 Uh, but-

Joe Rogan 10:22 ... it's hard for someone to say something's absolutely perfect.

Mark Boal 10:24 No, of course, and it's re- it's stupid-

Joe Rogan 10:26 Yeah. (laughs)

Mark Boal 10:26 ... not that it was perfect, but-

Joe Rogan 10:27 It's funny though that you called him up-

Mark Boal 10:29 But I just... I just... When you said perfect though-

Joe Rogan 10:29 "What the fuck bro?"

Mark Boal 10:31 ... I was like, "Near perfect?"

Joe Rogan 10:31 "What's near?" (laughs)

Mark Boal 10:33 (laughs) Yeah. What more do you want?

Joe Rogan 10:35 Yeah.

Mark Boal 10:35 No, I do feel a sense of responsibility. I mean, I think that, uh... I think we're all responsible. I think, uh, whether you're doing a topic like that where I tend to do real life stuff, although the, this m- most recent thing is fictional, I, I think that anybody in the media has a huge sense of responsibility that comes with the territory. Whether they feel it or not or take it on, I don't know. I, I think it would be nice if we lived in a world where people felt more responsible 'cause I think a lot of what is put out there is very irresponsible. And I'm not even talking about, like, with true stories of, like, history where you're distorting history. That's obviously irresponsible. But there's so much of our cultural production, the corporate production that is, in my view, irresponsible. I take the responsibility seriously just because I know, in that case, there, there are people, um... The, there were people that were still down range and in harms way. So, there were all kinds of things that I d- I was careful to not depict 'cause I didn't want to put anybody... Like, that's the most basic level of responsibility, right? Nobody should get hurt because you burned some classified thing.

Joe Rogan 11:51 So, like, in terms of, like, tactics that are used?

Mark Boal 11:54 Tactics or, like, there was, um... At the time in the war, there was, there was a, um... (clicks tongue) There, there was this, like, jamming system that was u- that was, um, used to help, um, prevent, like, remote detonation.... of, of these IEDs, electronic jamming systems. And I didn't depict that at all.

Joe Rogan 12:16 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 12:16 And then after the movie came out, a bunch of army guys were like, "That wasn't realistic." I'm like-

Joe Rogan 12:20 Right.

Mark Boal 12:21 ... (laughs) yeah, I mean, it w- it is super realistic, but yes, I left some things out.

Joe Rogan 12:25 'Cause y- yeah, that makes sense, though.

Mark Boal 12:26 Because people called me and they were like, "Dude, you can't put that in."

Joe Rogan 12:29 Right.

Mark Boal 12:29 That would, that would be bad.

Joe Rogan 12:30 Yeah.

Mark Boal 12:31 So there's that level of responsibility, but then there's another responsibility to, to more, like, mystical things like truth and history-

Joe Rogan 12:40 Hm.

Mark Boal 12:40 ... um, which I also feel pretty acutely.

Joe Rogan 12:43 What d- when you talk about irresponsible depictions, like, what, what do you mean by that?

Mark Boal 12:53 I, I mean, I think that, like, I think that media's really important, like, to our culture, to our, to our civilization. And one way to think about it is, like, there's more responsibility now around, let's say, portraying diversity. We've, we've gotten a lot better at at least trying to make movies and television shows that are more reflective of, like, what the country really looks like. But there's other areas where I don't see that same l- uh, level of responsibility. One is, like, the obvious one that, that the right talks about all the time is, like, depiction of guns and violence, where there's just so much... And I, I mean, I have violence in this show. I'm not, I'm not, like, saying, like... And I, and I, I'm not, like, anti-firearm or anything. But, but, but there's so much irresponsible kind of... Taking heavy shit that has real consequences and aestheticizing it is irresponsible, to me.

Joe Rogan 14:04 Hm.

Mark Boal 14:05 It's fucked. And, um, and per- and there's al- uh, that's a kind of abuse of, I think, of, like, the responsibility that, that, that comes with the power of telling stories. When you're telling a story, like, in a way, it's, it's a kind of, like, remote teaching. You're kinda putting something out in the world and saying, like, "This is how it is." So that's, that s- w- another one is, like, plot. People abuse plot all the time, which, which kinda bugs me because if I'm telling you a story and I ... and the plot is so radically disconnected from how things really work... I'm not talking about science fiction. But even within science fiction, if I posit to you, like, "Here's, here are the set of rules of this story," and then I break them, I think that's really irresponsible. 'Cause it's fucking with people's heads.

Joe Rogan 14:52 Hm.

Mark Boal 14:52 It's like making them dumber in a certain way that, I mean, it would take me a while to explain. But these are the kinds of things that I think about sometimes. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:59 No, it makes sense. Like, you're trying to m- do a film that's impactful but it's also y- y- it's, it's easy to follow because you understand that this is how people behave and this is how it w- really goes down. So here's a-

Mark Boal 15:14 Here's an example. Like, if I made a movie about Iraq where you ended up feeling, like, really good about the war.

Joe Rogan 15:29 Hm.

Mark Boal 15:31 Like, a feel-good movie about the war.

Joe Rogan 15:33 Yeah.

Mark Boal 15:34 Happens all the time.

Joe Rogan 15:35 Yeah.

Mark Boal 15:36 You know? I think that's irresponsible. Not that there aren't, like, amazing stories of heroism and not that there aren't moments about that war to feel good about, but the overall gist of it is it, uh, uh, it, like, was, um, a, a catastrophe.

Joe Rogan 15:50 How is it managing that when you're dealing with studios and executives and all these different people and they, you know, like, they... Uh, is it difficult to get people on board with what you're trying to, to do? R- you're really trying to make it authentic and...

Mark Boal 16:07 I don't really... I d- uh, typically I haven't really messed with any of that stuff.

Joe Rogan 16:12 That's good.

Mark Boal 16:12 Like, w- we made those movies, uh, Kathryn Bigelow and I made those movies, like, independently.

Joe Rogan 16:17 Oh, that's nice.

Mark Boal 16:19 So we had-

Joe Rogan 16:22 Well, that makes sense.

Mark Boal 16:22 It was, like, very cowboy-ish, you know?

Joe Rogan 16:23 Yeah.

Mark Boal 16:23 I mean, we had financing from, from a whole bunch of different places. Like, we pre-sold the foreign rights. I mean, this is getting inside baseball. But we never had to deal with, like, a Fox or a Universal-

Joe Rogan 16:38 Hm.

Mark Boal 16:38 ... or a Sony. And even when we made Zero Dark Thirty, that was financed by one person, Megane Ellison, who just wrote a check.

Joe Rogan 16:47 Jesus. What a gangster. (laughs)

Mark Boal 16:50 (laughs) Yeah. I love Megane.

Joe Rogan 16:53 Shout out to Megane.

Mark Boal 16:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:54 That's a crazy move. How much did that movie cost?

Mark Boal 16:57 Uh, it depends how you... I- it depends if you include the... Production budget, I think, was around 40-

Joe Rogan 17:06 Wow.

Mark Boal 17:06 ... million dollars. And then promotion, I think she put up another 20-something.

Joe Rogan 17:15 Phew.

Mark Boal 17:15 Yeah, it's a pretty big money.

Joe Rogan 17:15 Luckily, it worked. (laughs)

Mark Boal 17:17 I know. I lost some money. I lost a lot of her money on Detroit, so.

Joe Rogan 17:21 Oh, did you?

Mark Boal 17:21 But, but she made a lot on, um, on Zero Dark Thirty.

Joe Rogan 17:24 It's, yeah, it's, it's interesting, like, what catches and what doesn't catch in the movie world, you know? We were, uh, talking the other day about The Northman, about how, uh, it's probably one of the most realistic depictions of what it must've been like to be living as a Viking. There's no, like, traditional, like, normal, modern day superhero type people.

Mark Boal 17:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:47 There's no... Y- you know, everyone is, like, this chaotic person from history w- filled with flaws, filled with-

Mark Boal 17:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:56 It's, it's, it's so realistic but yet it didn't really do that well.

Mark Boal 18:00 It didn't.

Joe Rogan 18:01 Supposedly. That's what I've been told. I don't know if they actually-

Mark Boal 18:03 He's a good filmmaker, that guy.

Joe Rogan 18:05 Yes, yeah.

Mark Boal 18:06 He's a serious filmmaker.

Joe Rogan 18:08 Yeah.

Mark Boal 18:08 I mean, sometimes it comes down to scale. I don't know what the budget of that movie was, but I know that it was big.

Joe Rogan 18:14 Hm.

Mark Boal 18:15 So sometimes it's, like-... I think about this a lot. It's like, you wanna, you wanna spend ... You wanna be able to get back what you spent. And the temptation is always to go bigger, but then that puts a higher expectation on the movie's performance.

Joe Rogan 18:29 When you've had a series of successful films, is there, um, is there ever a moment where they come to you and say, "Listen, what do you think about doing, like, a big blockbuster action movie and kinda bring in some of that to-"

Mark Boal 18:46 Nobody ever fucking asked me that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:48 No?

Mark Boal 18:49 No. (laughs) They never do. I mean, I did, I, I did some, like, script doctoring for a while, which is kind of the closest I've come to that, which was great 'cause it was crazy good money, where you come in and they're like, "Okay, you have a week." They pay you by the week. Or two weeks. "Can you, like, give the bad guys some different lines of dialogue?"

Joe Rogan 19:11 Hm.

Mark Boal 19:11 Or something like that. Or like, "Can you fix the third act?" So I've done that, but, um, nobody's ever said, "Here's our prized piece of IP, here's, like, Spider-Man or whatever you want to-"

Joe Rogan 19:25 Right.

Mark Boal 19:25 ... you know, we want you to shepherd it through." No.

Joe Rogan 19:27 Well, the thing is, that would be a great story for, like, the media. Like, "We've taken this guy who does these very authentic films and we've applied him to, you know-"

Mark Boal 19:37 Yeah, it'd be a good story-

Joe Rogan 19:38 "... blockbuster."

Mark Boal 19:39 ... but they don't, they don't need that. They don't want that. Like, eh, you know what I mean? If I'm running one of those companies, I wouldn't hire me.

Joe Rogan 19:46 (laughs)

Mark Boal 19:46 Like, you don't wanna have that conversation. You're just like, "Dude, here's how we do it."

Joe Rogan 19:49 (laughs)

Mark Boal 19:49 "We have a, (laughs) we have a playbook-"

Joe Rogan 19:51 Yeah.

Mark Boal 19:51 ... okay? It's worked every fucking time, and we're gonna do the same playbook again."

Joe Rogan 19:58 Yeah.

Mark Boal 19:58 And I'd, and I'd be like, "Well, yeah, but can't we change it up? And what if we made it more realistic? And what if we tried to, like, make it more authentic?" They'd be like, "Bro, we're selling toys-"

Joe Rogan 20:07 Yeah.

Mark Boal 20:08 "... for kids."

Joe Rogan 20:09 They, they are, but l- adults watch it too. That would be the temptation.

Mark Boal 20:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:13 The temptation would be like-

Mark Boal 20:14 Well, every once in a while, you get, like, a Chris Nolan or somebody that has the ins- th- the, like, insane artistic chops and also, like, the marketplace power, uh, with a number of, like, to, to change it up.

Joe Rogan 20:28 Like the Watchmen.

Mark Boal 20:29 Yeah, or, like, the Watchmen's a good example too.

Joe Rogan 20:31 Yeah.

Mark Boal 20:32 But, like, he did it with Dark Knight.

Joe Rogan 20:33 Yes.

Mark Boal 20:34 But that's unusual.

Joe Rogan 20:36 Yeah.

Mark Boal 20:36 And those, and those systems, I mean, they're, they're factories.

Joe Rogan 20:41 Hm.

Mark Boal 20:41 You know? So, I had a hard enough time just making this at Apple, so I don't ... I mean, not that they weren't great, not to talk any shit about them, but, um, those are really industrial products when you go and watch a, a Marvel movie.

Joe Rogan 20:56 Yeah.

Mark Boal 20:57 And, um, there's a limit to how much any one pers- any one filmmaker can, or writer, can really change what they're trying to do with their product. So, it's ultimately ... I mean, the money is great, but it's ultimately not that.

Joe Rogan 21:16 It's a different thing.

Mark Boal 21:16 It's, it's not that int- yeah, it's, it's just-

Joe Rogan 21:17 It's just a totally different thing than what you do.

Mark Boal 21:19 It's a totally diff- kinda, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:20 Yeah. It'd be like asking a comedian to write a song.

Mark Boal 21:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:24 It's just they're both entertainment, but it's just, like, one of them is-

Mark Boal 21:28 It would be asking you to be like, "Hey, why don't we just ... I'll give you, like, double what you're making now, triple what you're making now, but we gotta, you gotta just, like, condense this shit up, right? You gotta just get to the good stuff, and you're gonna have 15 minutes with each guest-"

Joe Rogan 21:42 Hm.

Mark Boal 21:42 "... 10 minutes with each guest. We're gonna put you on NBC." You'd be like, "Ugh." I don't know if you could do that.

Joe Rogan 21:50 You'd be like, "How much money?"

Mark Boal 21:51 You'd be like, you'd be like, "I'll do it." Just take-

Joe Rogan 21:52 "I might be able to do this." (laughs)

Mark Boal 21:53 You could figure it out. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:56 (laughs) No. Yeah, it's, um, it is interesting that-

Mark Boal 22:00 You might be able to do it, but you might not-

Joe Rogan 22:02 Nah.

Mark Boal 22:02 ... be as good at it. That's the other thing-

Joe Rogan 22:04 No, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be-

Mark Boal 22:04 ... you know?

Joe Rogan 22:04 ... the same thing.

Mark Boal 22:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:06 There's a, there's a thing that people like at a podcast, that it's a hang. It's a conversation. That's, that's what they ... Like, the people that are listening right now, they feel like they're here with you, and that's what they like about it.

Mark Boal 22:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:16 It's like, if I was in the room, things wouldn't be any different. It would be the same th- sort of thing. It's not like there's a lot of people standing by with bated breath, staring at clipboards, making sure notes get hit, and-

Mark Boal 22:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:28 ... you know, all that kinda shit will ... you know, that'll ruin the final experience for the people that are listening to it. The more cooks you have in the kitchen, the more influence, the more different ideas, the more commercialized it becomes, you know? The beautiful thing about this show is, is there's no inf- no one has any influence. Zero. So, it's just conversations. That's, that's what, like, I think resonates with people. The- they're just listening to people talk and just two guys having a conversation about his art.

Mark Boal 22:57 Yeah. Well, and it's also because, I think, you, you, you're so comfortable in your skin that you don't, you don't modulate to, like, hit a note-

Joe Rogan 23:10 Hm.

Mark Boal 23:10 ... which is, which is what is so much of the culture right now.

Joe Rogan 23:13 Y- I don't think you can because people know it. They know when you're doing that. Like, they feel it.

Mark Boal 23:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:18 They feel what you, "Oh, he's kinda bullshitting here."

Mark Boal 23:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:20 You know? Like, you can get it ... But the thing is, like, that's the format if you're on late night television. That's like you have to do that.

Mark Boal 23:25 People love it.

Joe Rogan 23:26 Yeah.

Mark Boal 23:26 So, it does work.

Joe Rogan 23:28 Yeah, it-

Mark Boal 23:28 It's just, it's just, like, unfortunate, I think-

Joe Rogan 23:31 Yeah.

Mark Boal 23:31 ... how big it is.

Joe Rogan 23:32 It i- ... But it's, uh, it's interesting that there's these new ve- Like, that's one of the things that's interesting about the success of your work. It's like there's something about authenticity and something about ... There, there's an audience for everything. There's an audience for the, the selling toys, Marvel movies. I love those movies. They're fun.

Mark Boal 23:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:49 I like to watch the Hulk smash shit.

Mark Boal 23:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:51 That's exciting.

Mark Boal 23:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:52 But there's a giant difference between the way you feel about that versus Zero Dark Thirty or versus The Hurt Locker or this new thing, Echoed Truth, which I haven't had a chance to see 'cause it comes out Friday, right? It comes out-

Mark Boal 24:04 It's, it's, uh, uh, on Friday, the fifth episode will be out. It's on Apple TV.

Joe Rogan 24:09 So, it's out now?

Mark Boal 24:10 It's out on Apple TV.

Joe Rogan 24:11 And why did you decide to-

Mark Boal 24:13 You have to, you have to actually have Apple TV.

Joe Rogan 24:17 Yeah.

Mark Boal 24:17 Or ...... you could sign up for a free trial-

Joe Rogan 24:21 Huh.

Mark Boal 24:21 ... and watch my show, for, for-

Joe Rogan 24:23 Oh, you could do that?

Mark Boal 24:23 ... you could wa- you can, you can, there's a seven-day free. It's, it's like, six bucks to, or seven bucks a month. I can't believe I'm shilling right now for the Apple Corporation, they clearly need me to do it.

Joe Rogan 24:33 (laughs)

Mark Boal 24:33 (laughs) It's like, we're two and a half trill-

Joe Rogan 24:35 Well, they need help.

Mark Boal 24:35 They do. Eh, they have two and a half trillion d-

Joe Rogan 24:36 They're not doing that well.

Mark Boal 24:38 No.

Joe Rogan 24:38 They're n- only in everyone's pocket.

Mark Boal 24:40 So if you could just give them six or seven... I think it's $6.99.

Joe Rogan 24:43 For the trial? Or for the month?

Mark Boal 24:45 No, the trial is free.

Joe Rogan 24:46 For every month, it's $6.99. I've had it forever. It's the best. I love Apple TV.

Mark Boal 24:51 I-

Joe Rogan 24:51 I'll shill for them.

Mark Boal 24:52 Just-

Joe Rogan 24:52 'Cause it's fucking so convenient.

Mark Boal 24:53 ... just fucking sign up for the trial. Here's my proposition, if you haven't. Sign up for the trial, you'll watch, you'll get the first six episodes if you sign up today. And then you, and then you can decide if you wanna go f- pay the $6.99 for the last f-

Joe Rogan 25:09 So watch it for six hours, and then cancel it.

Mark Boal 25:11 No, then pay seven bucks and watch the last four hours.

Joe Rogan 25:14 (laughs)

Mark Boal 25:15 Then do whatever the fuck you want.

Joe Rogan 25:17 (laughs) There it is, right there.

Mark Boal 25:19 And just th-

Joe Rogan 25:19 So, tell me how this came about. And what, what are you trying to do with this?

Mark Boal 25:25 Well, the biggest thing about this is it's, um, it's, um, 10 hours. It's a TV sh- it's a TV show, but I was trying to think of it a, more like a movie. So it's like a... Everybody says this, everybody says, "10-hou-" like, they're making a 10-hour movie.

Joe Rogan 25:40 Hm.

Mark Boal 25:41 That's like a thing right now. People say, like-

Joe Rogan 25:42 Like Ozark.

Mark Boal 25:43 Yeah. This really is a 10-hour movie.

Joe Rogan 25:46 Hm.

Mark Boal 25:46 In the sense that the way most TV is structured is, um, it's just designed to get you to cli- every hour or half-hour is designed to get you to click on the next hour, obviously, right? So, um, that entails all kinds of things with plot and with how you have to, like, set things up and resolve them-

Joe Rogan 26:09 Hm.

Mark Boal 26:09 ... within the hour, and then leave other things hanging. And what I like about movies is it's just, like, one thing. So the idea here was, like, maybe audiences are ready for something where, in the first hour, you're getting into the story. I mean, there's crazy action, it's not like it's boring, but you're getting into the story. It's not, it's not, like, meant to resolve something in that first hour. And then in the second hour, you're getting a little bit deeper and you're learning a little bit more, and then in the third hour. And it keeps changing over the course. And where you end up, I guarantee you, where you end up in the last hour is not where you would have ever imagined in the first hour, even though there's a lot about this that seems like it's about a woman that is kidnapped. So it's like a high-pressure situation, she's kidnapped, and I kinda was thinking like, "How would I tell this story?" Which is a fictional story. I mean, it does happen, right? Like today.

Joe Rogan 27:16 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 27:16 What's her name? Brittney-

Joe Rogan 27:17 Brittney Griner? Yeah.

Mark Boal 27:17 Yeah, Brittney Griner. Um, but how, how would that really go down if somebody was, was held in a, um, in a foreign country, in this case, in Venezuela? What would really happen if ... as a couple, like, complicating factors, the woman who is kidnapped, who's a brilliant scientist, she's, she's interested in, she does research into psychedelics, she's a psychopharmacologist, she's down in the Amazon looking for, you know, psychoactive compounds for research, for addiction research, but she also has, like, this relationship with the CIA, which is a little bit unclear what the depth of the relationship is. So that's who gets kidnapped. How would she go through that in real life? Like, if we take that as a hypothesis, that something like that could happen, which clearly it could, it's not like every day, but Americans do get rolled up in foreign countries. How would she move through that experience and what would the experience be like for her? And then what would happen if the two people closest to her, her brother and her husband, were both in Special Forces?

Joe Rogan 28:40 Hm.

Mark Boal 28:41 And how would they deal with it? In real life, not in Taken, not, uh, and I, well, I like Taken-

Joe Rogan 28:46 Right.

Mark Boal 28:46 ... but not that version, but like-

Joe Rogan 28:47 Right.

Mark Boal 28:47 ... how would they actually deal with it? And, um, the idea was to s- to, to make like a 10-hour movie with that as the, as the, as the, like the plot engine, and then put inside of it pretty much everything else I've been thinking about for the last 10 years. Like, all my other interests, like, slammed into that plot, which is, which is, uh, kind of a capacious enough story and a clear enough story, 'cause it's like obvious, like what you want to see happen, you want them to get her out.

Joe Rogan 29:21 Right. When you say all your other interests, what do you mean by that?

Mark Boal 29:24 Well, just whatever else I've been thinking. Like, I've been thinking a lot about other shit besides kidnapping, so. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:32 (laughs)

Mark Boal 29:32 I mean, it's a story about family, okay? It's a story about their relationship, the relationship between husband and wife. It's a story about honesty. It's a story about love. It's a story about how couples lie to each other and what the price of, of lying is. It's a story about men and how men relate to each other, um, i- i- i- in that, you know, these two guys, um, know each other well 'cause they're in the same unit together but they also have like a somewhat complicated past. And they have this, this mission that they have to deal with that's, that's not like a, it's not like a, um...... it's not like a mission that has been given to them by the government, so it's not like their job. So it has a different quality to it because it's their, it's their, the person they love the most in the world. And, and so it's about how these two guys interact with each other. It's about representations of masculinity, which is something we can talk about. Um, it's about how the fucking world works. How would the CIA respond to a situation like that? One of the things was, like, there, there was always these conversations as I was writing the script like, "Who are the bad guys? Who are the bad guys?" You always need a bad guy, particularly in a kidnapping story. The bad guys are obviously gonna be the kidnappers. But, you know, I think a little bit about kind of trying to, when we talked about responsibility, trying to, trying to, like, get rid of some of that black and white thinking and give people something that has a little more gray in it. And so one of the things we do in the show is like, "I'll put you inside the room of the rebels who were involved in the kidnapping. I'll, I, I want, I want you to understand who they are and where they're coming from." 'Cause just making them, like, mustached, twirly bad guys isn't really... It's not really gonna be that helpful to my final ultimate goal, which is to put you, at the end of this 10 hours, in a place that you didn't see coming and give you an experience that you didn't really think you were gonna have and a series of thoughts and emotions that probably you haven't had in exactly this way before, right? But if I give you the same shit you've always seen, and I'm like, "Oh, here's the bad guy. This is how the bad guy behaves. You know that. You've seen a million bad guys," then it's very hard for me to, like, at the end of it, give you a new emotional response. And that's, like, or a new ps- or a new thought process. And so, I don't know, that's all the shit (laughs) . That's some of the shit I've been thinking about.

Joe Rogan 32:28 What, what is the difference in the challenge of putting together a 10-hour film, essentially, that's broken into one-hour increments, versus a traditional film format? Like, how, how much different is your process? And how much more planning is involved and, uh, how much more time?

Mark Boal 32:46 It's five times as long, obviously, and, and that's just like an insa- uh, I didn't really know, 'cause when I started I just thought, "Oh, it's just five times." But it's, it's like five times as long but like 100 times harder because-

Joe Rogan 32:59 And connected.

Mark Boal 33:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:00 Yeah.

Mark Boal 33:01 It, it's, it's, um... I mean, the biggest thing is the delivery system, I would say, is the b- I don't know that my process changes that much. But, see, in a movie, I have you. If you pay the money, if I can get you to pay the money and you go into a theater... Okay, this is dating back before people just stayed home, but let's say back in the day when people still went to theaters, I have you. You're not likely to walk out unless it's fucking terrible, 'cause you paid the money, you've parked your car, you're gonna sit. Now, the fact that I have you somewhat as a captive audience is a huge advantage to me because it means I can, like, disperse out effects in a much more calibrated way. I don't have to give you, like, a dopamine hit every 30 seconds, 'cause I'm not trying to keep you in your seat. And I can tell a much more complicated story and challenge you a lot more. When it's TV, I don't fucking have anything of your attention, right? Like, you're, you could be streaming it in the kitchen, making eggs. You could be, like, on your, it could be on your phone. I could be spending, like, weeks building the most bitching special effects, realistic action sequence ever committed (laughs) to television, which I think we've done here and there in terms of the realism of the combat. Like, in the beginning of the, of this, of, of episode one, there's like a 15-minute action sequence that takes place on a snowy mountain, Afghanistan, meant to be Afghanistan. And it's guys fighting in the snow, which we really haven't seen that much of. And there's Black Hawk helicopters and .50 caliber machine guns, and it's beautifully shot, the best sound mixing in the world. Like, the sound of the bullets ricocheting off the mountains are sick. A- and an enormous amount of energy went into making sure, like this, all the snow matched, like the snow that we got on that day matched the visual effects of the fake snow for the days we weren't there. If you're watching that shit on your phone-

Joe Rogan 34:52 Right.

Mark Boal 34:52 ... it, it's just like, you're just gonna be like, "Oh, what's this?"

Joe Rogan 34:55 How frustrating is that, that, that that's how people consume films?

Mark Boal 34:59 Well, that's the advantage of a film like that. So to me it's like, I work the same way, but, but the audience is like, like openness when you're in a movie because you're... Is totally different when you're in TV. So TV tends to be a lot more pushy and salesy in terms of how the storytelling goes because they're like... It's not like you have somebody for two hours. You have somebody for two minutes before they decide to get up and go to the fridge.

Joe Rogan 35:23 Yeah.

Mark Boal 35:24 Um, or s- change the chan- Like, how easy is it just to change the channel?

Joe Rogan 35:28 Yeah, or stare at your phone while you're at home.

Mark Boal 35:31 Whatever. It's fucked.

Joe Rogan 35:32 Yeah.

Mark Boal 35:32 It's so hard.

Joe Rogan 35:33 Yeah.

Mark Boal 35:34 I kinda blew all that off, like, maybe stupidly, but I kind of was thinking to place the bet that there are audiences out there that want something really dope and that are willing to hang in there and give their attention to it.

Joe Rogan 35:48 Most certainly.

Mark Boal 35:49 I, I-

Joe Rogan 35:49 And it's also, like, you can't play to the people that are not gonna pay attention, right? You have to kind of create it for the, the, the person that's gonna be deeply embedded in the experience.

Mark Boal 36:01 Yeah, you just don't know how big that audience really is until you go out there.

Joe Rogan 36:04 Yeah. What, what, what did you mean when you were talking about, um, masculinity, when you were talking about, like, depictions of masculinity?

Mark Boal 36:14 Um, it's just something that I was thinking about because, um, the, the characters in this... I mean, I've been interested in that for a long time. I mean, the, the, the-... the character in The Hurt Locker is very ... Has a lot of, like, very classically masculine traits. Sergeant James, you know, he's very, like, incredibly brave and stoic. And, in a way, one of the themes of The Hurt Locker was, like, deconstructing that and showing that some of his heroism was, like, a flight from intimacy. 'Cause in the end he, like, leaves his wife and child to go back to fight. And then Zero Dark Thirty was a little different 'cause that had a fe- a very strong female lead. But this, this show has these two guys who are, like, hyper-masculine 'cause they're, they're in, they're meant to be, you know, in CAG and Delta. They're meant to be, like, the, among the best of the best of America's fighting force. So, a- as an opener you look, most people will look at that and be like, "These are, these are real fucking men." And then the question is, like, you probably know this because you have, like, it seems like you have, like, some team guys in your life or, you know, around the office. Most mo- usually depictions of, of, um, soldiers or operators are pretty often pretty, like, cartoony. And I think that right now in the culture there's a lot of talk about, like, a crisis of masculinity. I don't know if any of your guests have ever talked about that. But there's this idea in the culture right now that, um, you know, post 'Me Too', um, men, particularly white men, are, are like kind of adrift in this, like, feminist environment where they feel like they can't be themselves. Like, there's this term 'toxic masculinity'. And we can talk about whether or not that's true and how big of a problem that is, but what I don't think is really debatable is if you look at, like, the net amount of, like, images in the culture, there really aren't that many i- portrayals of men right now that are, that both, where the, where the men both embody, like, classical masculine traits and are also prosocial, like they're not assholes.

Joe Rogan 38:52 Right.

Mark Boal 38:54 And then you-

Joe Rogan 38:54 They're not mutually exclusive.

Mark Boal 38:56 They're ... No, but they are, they're not mutually exclusive, right.

Joe Rogan 38:58 Right. But they are often in-

Mark Boal 38:59 But-

Joe Rogan 38:59 ... media depictions.

Mark Boal 39:00 In media depictions they are, unless it's, like, a superhero.

Joe Rogan 39:03 Yeah.

Mark Boal 39:04 So unless you have, like, blue lightning coming out of your, out of your ass, it's hard to find ... You know, and that wasn't always the case. Like, if you look back in, in the history of movies you see all kinds of portraits of, of men who are, who are, um ... Have a more, like, nuanced kind of portrayal.

Joe Rogan 39:27 Mm.

Mark Boal 39:28 So that, that's something that I was thinking about here, like, these guys in the sh- in the sh- the characters in the show, like, relate to each other emotionally. But they also, like, th- are very handy with, like, an M4. That's not something you really see very often and I think that there's an interest in that, I think there's a hunger for that. It's sort of what I think is part of why you're ... Again, this is not to take anything away from, like, your intellect or your humor or anything, but I think it's part of why, like, people gravitate to you, is because you represent, I think, a certain kind of masculinity which is rare. I don't, I don't know that it's rare, like, in the world, but it's, like, rare in the cl- in the media culture, in that you're, like, you're, like very ... You know, you're not ... Like, one of the big differentia- ... I think men and women, by the way, are, like, more the same than they are different. Like, there's, what makes a good man and what makes a good woman are, like, the same things, right? Like, we want men and women to be kind and, like, compassionate and curious and responsible. Those are all ... But there are certain traits that are, you know, modulated by testosterone that are m- much more inherently male than female. Like violence is one of them.

Joe Rogan 40:43 Yeah.

Mark Boal 40:44 And, I mean, if you look at, like, any social metric around the world, like, 95% of the heavy, heavy, like, murder-type crimes, they're, like, committed by men.

Joe Rogan 40:55 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 40:55 But the other one is, like, um, an appetite for risk and danger is also, like, i- I think I'm not a scientist but my understanding is also associated with that molecule, testosterone, that men have that women just don't have as much of.

Joe Rogan 41:12 Right.

Mark Boal 41:12 It acts on your brain. It acts on your behavior. So, you know, and that's something, like violence is something that's, like, a kind of a part of your, like, public persona. I mean, i- within the context of a sport, obviously.

Joe Rogan 41:28 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 41:29 And it's just rare that you see that coupled with vulnerability, coupled with intelligence. And so when it g- you know, or, or any kind of, like, imagination, let's say. I'm ta- again, I'm talking about portraits in the media. So for me it wa- as I was thinking about these guys it w- and I have 10 hours so there's plenty of time to get them to, like, to show them in different ways. It was like, what would it be like to show not only what these guys would really do in terms of tactics, but how would they actually behave? How would they actually talk to each other? So anyway, that was the idea.

Joe Rogan 42:10 Yeah, that's a-

Mark Boal 42:12 (sniffs)

Joe Rogan 42:12 ... an interesting dance. And I would imagine that you have more room to do that in a t- 10-hour thing than you would in a two-hour thing. Like you, you can, you have more room for nuance.

Mark Boal 42:28 You have more room for nuance and you have more room for ... I wouldn't say you have more room for nuance. I would say-... you have more room for, like, more characters too.

Joe Rogan 42:37 Hm.

Mark Boal 42:38 Like, in ten hours.

Joe Rogan 42:39 Right. Yeah.

Mark Boal 42:39 Which is great because that... I mean, a- allows you to pre- present a more complicated picture of the world.

Joe Rogan 42:51 Yeah.

Mark Boal 42:51 So, that's cool. Like, we- I can go off and take you inside the CIA. I can go take you in the- i- you know, behind the scenes of how Venezuelan military intelligence is thinking about XYZ part of the plot. And a lot of that would f- and I can... A lot of the show is in Spanish. I mean-

Joe Rogan 43:10 Hm.

Mark Boal 43:10 ... it takes place in Colombia, and I can bring you into these, like, Colombian characters, Colombian journalists, and all- a- a lot of that stuff would not survive in a two-hour movie. So, it is nuance, but I don't... I- I think it's- it's more, like, scope is, like, the great advantage of TV if you take advantage of it.

Joe Rogan 43:30 Well, you have so much room-

Mark Boal 43:31 You have room.

Joe Rogan 43:31 ... for complexity-

Mark Boal 43:32 Yeah, for complexity.

Joe Rogan 43:34 Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Boal 43:34 It's like this conversation.

Joe Rogan 43:35 Yeah. It's gotta be, like, very satisfying in that regard to have that kind of a palate as- as opposed to the- the traditional format of a film.

Mark Boal 43:44 It is. It's cool. It's cool. It's interesting.

Joe Rogan 43:47 Do you find- do you think you'll be doing more of that?

Mark Boal 43:51 I mean, I- I wanna do both, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:53 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 43:53 Hopefully I'm not... Hopefully they don't take away my-

Joe Rogan 43:56 They're not taking shit.

Mark Boal 43:57 ... they don't take away my-

Joe Rogan 43:58 (laughs)

Mark Boal 43:58 ... my bus pass and fucking make me walk.

Joe Rogan 44:01 (laughs) No, no.

Mark Boal 44:02 You know? I wanna be able to do both. They each have their virtues. I mean, in a way, the distinctions are- are becoming less and less meaningful, you know, 'cause now, like, movies come out and then they go straight to Netflix and vice versa. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 44:18 Hm.

Mark Boal 44:18 It's all just a big soup. I'm just more focused on, like, what's good-

Joe Rogan 44:21 (laughs)

Mark Boal 44:21 ... whatever the format is.

Joe Rogan 44:22 It's a big soup, but I feel like what's good gets discussed, and that's one of the great things about today with social media-

Mark Boal 44:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:30 ... is that things don't even have to get promoted in a traditional sense. They get promoted by the people that actually enjoy it. People start talking about things on Twitter and Facebook, and next thing-

Mark Boal 44:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:41 ... you know, you know, people are watching it-

Mark Boal 44:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:42 ... just by word of mouth.

Mark Boal 44:44 Yeah. That's, like, a whole part of this... I don't understand that stuff at all.

Joe Rogan 44:48 Hm. You don't have to. (laughs)

Mark Boal 44:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:50 I don't understand it either.

Mark Boal 44:50 I mean, I know it ex- no. I mean, I know- I know it exists.

Joe Rogan 44:53 Yeah.

Mark Boal 44:53 I'm just, like, I don't have that, like, Facebook, Twitter...

Joe Rogan 44:58 You don't have any of those things?

Mark Boal 44:59 I- no. Like, Instagram too.

Joe Rogan 45:00 Good for you.

Mark Boal 45:00 I just- I just went on TikTok recently.

Joe Rogan 45:02 Oh, no.

Mark Boal 45:03 And I'm- I was like-

Joe Rogan 45:04 That's the worst.

Mark Boal 45:04 ... "Oh, my God." No, it's amazing. Uh.

Joe Rogan 45:05 That's Chinese spyware.

Mark Boal 45:07 I know it is, but, like, there-

Joe Rogan 45:08 I mean, it really is.

Mark Boal 45:09 I know it really is.

Joe Rogan 45:09 Like, it really should be illegal.

Mark Boal 45:11 They're- they're... I mean, everyone's already so up in my shit. I did- I spent two years investigating, preparing a piece on Trump and Russia where I, like, went to Ukraine. Like, my- my- my- that's- dude, that- that horse left the barn a while ago.

Joe Rogan 45:25 What was that like?

Mark Boal 45:26 The Chinese can have what they want.

Joe Rogan 45:27 (laughs)

Mark Boal 45:27 It's getting fucking late. There's nothing in there anyway.

Joe Rogan 45:30 What was that like? You- you spent two years?

Mark Boal 45:33 Yeah. I was trying to make... I wanted to... After 2016, after Trump was elected, I- I did a, uh... It didn't get made, but I did a lot of research into, like, his whole- the whole Russia story. And, um... And then, um, wrote a script and sold it to Showtime, and at the last minute they killed it when Showtime got bought by Viacom.

Joe Rogan 45:54 Damn.

Mark Boal 45:55 Um, that was a... (sighs) Yeah. That hurt.

Joe Rogan 45:57 What was- what was your take on that? Like, 'cause, like, I have the most cursory understanding of Trump and Ukraine and Russia and the Biden laptop and Burisma and all that shit. I- I just, I'll watch a few YouTube commentators talking about it or I'll read a few articles in The Atlantic, and I don't know what's real.

Mark Boal 46:16 Yeah. I mean, I think- I don't- I don't think anybody really got it, um, really got it right. I mean, the- the... It's kinda the problem with the media today. The narrative that started about collusion, um, that- that the left just, like, fucking doubled down on and tripled down on was kinda not really right in the beginning. And then when- when it didn't- when the evidence didn't bear fruit to what they had been proposing, people said, "Well, then there's, like, nothing here." So, I... It's a super complicated story, but- but it's not- it hasn't really been told.

Joe Rogan 46:55 Hm.

Mark Boal 46:56 It's... I mean, that's- that's definitely for sure.

Joe Rogan 46:58 Why did they kill that? That seems like a fascinating take. I would love to see your take on that.

Mark Boal 47:02 I think that, uh, they thought it was, like, probably bad business.

Joe Rogan 47:06 Why?

Mark Boal 47:08 Well, I thought it would be cool to, like, you know, fuck with the sitting president on TV.

Joe Rogan 47:12 (laughs)

Mark Boal 47:14 You know? I was like, "Television's never done this before. This can be, like, ama-" And they were like, "Yeah, that's not a- that's not a smart idea."

Joe Rogan 47:21 Bad for regulation, bad for- yeah.

Mark Boal 47:22 Just, like, you're a multinational company with business before the fucking government. Just no.

Joe Rogan 47:27 Have you thought about doing that independently?

Mark Boal 47:30 Yeah. I mean, I should've-

Joe Rogan 47:31 Because you still have it, right?

Mark Boal 47:32 ... I should've done... I sh- yeah. I should've done it independently.

Joe Rogan 47:34 Hm.

Mark Boal 47:34 I should've done it independently.

Joe Rogan 47:36 Maybe it'd be good now because time has passed.

Mark Boal 47:39 The thing is that every day something else crazier happens-

Joe Rogan 47:43 Hm.

Mark Boal 47:43 ... on that story.

Joe Rogan 47:44 Right.

Mark Boal 47:45 On the Trump story. Like, every week he's doing something else where you're just like, "That's even fucking crazier than the shit I wrote down."

Joe Rogan 47:50 Right.

Mark Boal 47:51 So, it's hard to keep up with it. But, you know, Russia isn't going anywhere, obviously. Their- their- their- people are starting to realize now some of the stuff that- that was even pretty obvious in 2016 about how, um, about how much they're committed to, like, security and adventurism and, like, pushing out.

Joe Rogan 48:15 Hm.

Mark Boal 48:15 That's not gonna change any time soon.

Joe Rogan 48:17 Adventurism?

Mark Boal 48:19 It's just, like, a... I just mean, like, military, like, trying- trying to use their military to, like, get shit.

Joe Rogan 48:27 Hm.

Mark Boal 48:28 It's, like, a historical term, but, like, it just... They're- that's what they're- that's what- that... Putin has- has- has been... And I'm by no means, like, an expert, so I'm really talking out of my ass right now. But Putin has... What I understand is that Putin has, like, basically failed at a lot of other typical things that people do. Like- like, Russia has not been able to build a technology sector.... we don't have one, like, we're not driving Russian cars. We're not, like-

Joe Rogan 48:54 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 48:55 ... like, Russian computers. They don't have, like, a, a I... The energy sector is good, but they haven't really built... He hasn't really been able to build that much.

Joe Rogan 49:04 What do you attribute that to?

Mark Boal 49:06 I don't think he's very good at it, but he's good at security.

Joe Rogan 49:09 Mm.

Mark Boal 49:10 So he puts, like, a lot of energy into, like, military, military, intelligence, like propaganda, security, fucking with other people's elections-

Joe Rogan 49:17 Mm.

Mark Boal 49:18 ... which they are pretty good at.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Yeah, they're pretty good at that.

Mark Boal 49:18 Like, they definitely... Yeah, they're really good at it. They kind of are the best in the world at it.

Joe Rogan 49:23 That's the most fascinating aspect of it, yeah.

Mark Boal 49:25 I mean, they fucked with ours, like, pretty heavily and especially on social media.

Joe Rogan 49:29 Yeah. Well, they, what they d... And people are like, "Oh, they're in Trump's pocket." Well, well, this is what they do. They undermine democracy. They get people fighting.

Mark Boal 49:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:37 And th- they consistently, um, go into all these places where people communicate and debate ideas, and they do it with bots.

Mark Boal 49:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:46 And they, they make some points outrageous 'cause they connect them to preposterous points. They, they, they do something where they undermine our trust, and that's the overall long game goal-

Mark Boal 50:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:01 ... is to undermine democracy. It's not simply to get a puppet in office, like, that was the simplistic version-

Mark Boal 50:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:07 ... of what they're trying to do. But when you... You know, we, uh, we did a story, uh, we covered a story recently where they found out that 19 of the top 20 Facebook Christian pages were run by troll farms in-

Mark Boal 50:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:21 ... in, in Russia. And it's like, "Wow, that's cra-" So-

Mark Boal 50:25 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 50:26 ... they're just trying to get people radicalized and trying to get people to be polarized to the opposite side and trying to divide up as... Divide us as much as possible, and undermine any faith that we might have in the way we have our elections and the way the government is run. It's like a consistent effort to undermine our faith in the way our democracy works.

Mark Boal 50:51 Yeah, and they would argue that it's pretty easy to do because we're already at each other's throats.

Joe Rogan 50:56 And it's all accentuated by things like TikTok, and Facebook, and social media and the algorithms.

Mark Boal 51:01 I mean, so far, my TikTok is pretty innocent. I just-

Joe Rogan 51:04 What do you get?

Mark Boal 51:04 I, well, I, you know, I, I clicked on the stupidest shit, so I... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:08 (laughs) But d... Are you comfortable with them, like, fully having access to all of your passwords and every keystroke you make on your phone and...

Mark Boal 51:16 No, that freaks me out. I mean, I was... I... One of my earliest interests as a journalist was privacy.

Joe Rogan 51:23 Hm.

Mark Boal 51:24 I was writing about internet privacy in, like, 1990, like, 7.

Joe Rogan 51:30 Oh, wow.

Mark Boal 51:31 Okay? And I, I, I re-... I realized that this whole thing that was coming for our convenience was gonna be, uh, a giant system that, that really, in the name of convenience, took away our privacy.

Joe Rogan 51:50 Hm.

Mark Boal 51:51 Like, you can, you can go through the internet without, without giving all your privacy. It's just not... It's just a huge, hugely inconvenient thing to do, and that troubles me a lot. I mean, I think privacy is really, really important, but it's weird because I... At that time I was really concerned about, like, corporations spying on people, pull... Gathering people's information and using that to, to target them with products. And the reason that's ba-... It's not that I care if, like, you get targeted with a product, but the reason that's bad, I think, just socially is, like, it leads to this winnowing of like what your, like, worldview is, 'cause you're always just getting pumped the same shit you already believe in.

Joe Rogan 52:32 Right.

Mark Boal 52:33 And you don't go out there and hunt and gather anymore.

Joe Rogan 52:35 Hm.

Mark Boal 52:36 So that... So I was like, "Oh, that's really concerning," 'cause it's gonna, 'cause it's gonna, it's gonna, like, diminish, like, our ability to, like, have, like, diverse opinions. But then what I didn't really anticipate, I don't think anybody really anticipated this, was how many people were willing to just give their privacy away, like, just throw it away.

Joe Rogan 52:55 Yeah.

Mark Boal 52:56 And so it's like, yeah, it's fuck to be spied on, but the truth is, like, they're... Most people are dying to have their lives shared with the world, at least the, the, the young ladies I see on TikTok. Um, and there's this, there's this tremendous amount of ex- exhibitionism and this tremendous, like, desire to, like, share every aspect of the self or every, like, or at least like a persona of the self, and that is kind of unprecedented in human history.

Joe Rogan 53:25 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 53:25 That's never happened before. It's like a giant social experiment.

Joe Rogan 53:28 Yeah.

Mark Boal 53:29 And, um, I guess I'm... I'll sound old by saying that I think it's probably might not end well, but, um, I don't think anybody really saw that, saw that piece of it coming, the ex-

Joe Rogan 53:42 My-

Mark Boal 53:42 ... the exhibitionism.

Joe Rogan 53:44 My hope is that it, it does have negative aspects to it and it does lead to a lot of mental health problems. It does lead to rampant narcissism. It does lead to a distortion of what is actually important in life, um, but that we'll adjust and that people will recognize it for what it is, and it'll become a thing where people understand the pitfalls of it, like we understand the pitfalls of alcohol and drugs and all sorts of other things. It's like we, we'll kind of get a sense of what it is and what it does, and I think it kinda snuck up on people, where it didn't exist before, it... There's no...... playbook, right? It's like f- in all of human history, there's never been a time where you could be, uh, a TikTok star or a YouTube star, or whatever, and have all of your life exposed to the world. And also, reap tremendous financial benefit from that and maybe even more significantly, tremendous amounts of attention and capture, audience capture, which is you're- you're being molded and influenced constantly by the people that you interact with. And I've been able to see that from the difference between people who read comments and- and interact with fans and- and are- are deeply embedded in their own, you know, air quotes, "community," versus people that are just kind of independent and they just do- they just are interested in what they're interested in and they just talk. And they've maintained some sort of personal sovereignty through it all.

Mark Boal 55:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:15 You see a very different trajectory in the way their- their- their content goes, and the people that are constantly, uh, interacting and constantly reading comments and responding to comments and taking in those- those comments, they become more homogenized.

Mark Boal 55:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:34 You become more, uh, in line with whatever the zeitgeist is telling you.

Mark Boal 55:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:38 It's very difficult to have independent, individual perspectives that are unique.

Mark Boal 55:45 Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's one of the obvious downsides. But what about the people who are not even making it? I mean, you're ta- I think you're talking about people that are, like, successful and that have, like, careers out of it.

Joe Rogan 55:56 Sort of, but even people that have, like-

Mark Boal 55:58 What about just someone that has-

Joe Rogan 55:59 ... minor communities.

Mark Boal 56:00 ... like, yeah, like 2,000 whatever.

Joe Rogan 56:01 It's all the same. I really think it's the same.

Mark Boal 56:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:03 'Cause even someone who has 2,000 followers, it's like you're interacting with 200 people, uh, in the comments versus 20,000.

Mark Boal 56:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:10 But it's the same thing. You're interacting with all these people that are also connected to this web-

Mark Boal 56:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:16 ... of people that are thinking and behaving a certain way because there's reward for that. And-

Mark Boal 56:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:22 ... it's-

Mark Boal 56:22 So how are we gonna grow out of that? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:23 Well, that's what's crazy is 'cause it's also being influenced by China.

Mark Boal 56:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:27 It's being influenced by these Russian troll farms. And also, I guarantee the United States is doing it as well.

Mark Boal 56:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:33 Why would they not? Like, we know they do because there's a- a bunch of bots that, uh, retreated and reposted rather, without reposting it, by just posting it individually, the very same message about Elon Musk when he took over Twitter.

Mark Boal 56:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:48 "Should one man have all this power?" And it was, like, the same exact quote over and over and over and over and over and over in these accounts that looked like they were just regular people, but they clearly weren't. They were bots. And, you know, that was one of the big points of contention when Elon purchased Twitter, w- tell me how you know how many bots you have.

Mark Boal 57:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:08 And they were saying it's probably five thou- uh, 5% or less.

Mark Boal 57:11 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:11 And he was like, "It might be..." There's people that have analyzed it and say it might be 80%.

Mark Boal 57:16 Wow.

Joe Rogan 57:16 Yeah.

Mark Boal 57:17 That's wild.

Joe Rogan 57:17 That was some guy from the FBI, correct?

Mark Boal 57:18 That's a high number.

Joe Rogan 57:19 The guy who formerly worked for the FBI? Do you remember that?

Narrator 57:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:23 Yeah. So, this is the guy, I believe he's a- a- a data la- data analyst who was looking over the numbers and how this works. And it's obviously effective. It's- it's something that we know the other countries are doing. Like, why wouldn't we do it?

Mark Boal 57:38 Well, there's the Voice of America, which is- which is our version of propaganda, but I think that's directed outwards. So I-

Joe Rogan 57:45 What is that?

Mark Boal 57:46 The Voice of America is this giant f- uh, I think it's- comes out of the State Department, and it's this giant broadcasting system that the US government owns that's available all around the world that puts out our propaganda.

Joe Rogan 58:04 Hm, I'm not even aware of that.

Mark Boal 58:06 Yeah, like if you...

Narrator 58:07 It's 'cause they don't play it here. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:08 (laughs) Yeah.

Mark Boal 58:08 Yeah, if it-

Joe Rogan 58:08 "The state-owned international radio broadcaster in the United States."

Mark Boal 58:11 It's- it's really big.

Joe Rogan 58:12 "Largest and oldest US-funded international broadcaster, Voice of America produces digital TV and radio content in 48 languages, which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe." The problem with that is, like, if you know that it's coming from the Voice of America, you can kind of interpret that with a filter. The more effective version is either trolls or bots or people that are paid to say certain things-

Mark Boal 58:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:37 ... where they look like normal people.

Mark Boal 58:39 And this dovetails in with what you were saying about the- the mistrust of authority.

Joe Rogan 58:46 Yeah.

Mark Boal 58:46 The mistrust of information, the mistrust of government.

Joe Rogan 58:50 Yeah.

Mark Boal 58:50 It all kind of is in the same, uh, part of the same phenomenon of, like, this breakdown of- of the older hierarchies of this is true and this is false and you know it because it's on the news.

Joe Rogan 59:05 Yeah.

Mark Boal 59:05 And we're still living that way.

Joe Rogan 59:05 But there's no real Walter Cronkite anymore. There's no real objective source of information where you can watch them and say, "That- that is what's going on in the world."

Mark Boal 59:16 Dude, the job is open.

Joe Rogan 59:17 (laughs) I don't want that fucking job. No, I mean, I think there's-

Mark Boal 59:22 You could take it.

Joe Rogan 59:23 I think there's people that are doing that work, the Go- the Matt Taibis of the world-

Mark Boal 59:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:26 ... the people that are th- independent journalists who are actual journalists.

Mark Boal 59:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:31 Uh, there's Glenn Greenwald. There's a few of them-

Mark Boal 59:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:33 ... out there, but there's just not that many. It's just- it's very difficult to be successful independent of a system.

Mark Boal 59:40 Yeah, they're also n- they're also talking to a very specific slice of the population.

Joe Rogan 59:45 Right.

Mark Boal 59:45 What's- what's- it's not that there aren't truth tellers out there. There are a lot of them. But- but th- nobody has that- that- that, like, kinda fatherly position anymore.

Joe Rogan 59:57 Right.

Mark Boal 59:58 That a lot of people are listening to.

Joe Rogan 59:59 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:00:00 Like, I don't know how many people read Taibi's stuff, but he's good. But it's not like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 Right.

Mark Boal 1:00:04 ... it's- it's not like America-

Joe Rogan 1:00:05 It's not Walter Cronkite.

Mark Boal 1:00:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:07 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:00:07 And that's- that's a big change.

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 Yeah, it is a big change.

Mark Boal 1:00:09 That's a big change. And- and, um, nobody has the answer for that, or that I've ever talked to. That- that fracturing of- of, um, of how n- of, like, social consensus...... like, we can't agree on anything.

Joe Rogan 1:00:26 Right.

Mark Boal 1:00:27 That's a fucking problem.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 It is a problem.

Mark Boal 1:00:29 It, it's a really big problem because it means that ... I mean, you need some level of cohesion and agreement to problem solve.

Joe Rogan 1:00:37 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:00:38 Especially when the problems are intricate.

Joe Rogan 1:00:40 You also need some trust in the facts that are being distributed.

Mark Boal 1:00:44 Yeah. So, like, like, global warming's, like, an issue. It's a problem and it's, it's like, a real problem. And people can't even agree on, like, the facts of that, which is just so, um ... It just makes you wonder, like, where, where ... I'm, I don't, I don't know that I'm as optimistic as you are, like, where all this goes, 'cause to me it looks like some of these indicators look like what happens when a culture is, like, in decay.

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 Oh, we're in decay.

Mark Boal 1:01:15 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 There's no question about that.

Mark Boal 1:01:17 Okay. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 I just don't think it necessarily has to end terribly. Um, I am, uh ... I'm very optimistic about human beings 'cause I think ultimately even things that I disagree with, like, like woke ideology, I think ultimately what they're trying to do is make the world a better place.

Mark Boal 1:01:34 What is that? What is, wh- wh- what is woke ideology to you?

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Woke ideology-

Mark Boal 1:01:38 I mean, I just-

Joe Rogan 1:01:39 ... I think-

Mark Boal 1:01:39 ... I think we need to define it 'cause before-

Joe Rogan 1:01:41 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:01:41 ... I jump in and ...

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 Well, I think one of the best ways to describe it is, a, a group of ideas that are also ta- attached to ideas that are ridiculous. And I think that's the case with right-wing ideology as well. I think we have an inherent problem where we're very tribal and we're looking for a team, and ultimately in this country there's only-

Mark Boal 1:02:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 ... two teams.

Mark Boal 1:02:03 Yeah, that's right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 There's team right and team left. I have a whole bit about ... It's like, kind of, ..........................

Mark Boal 1:02:07 It's like the Crips and the- it's like the Crips and the Bloods.

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 Yeah. (laughs)

Mark Boal 1:02:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 It is.

Mark Boal 1:02:10 You know, and if you're not-

Joe Rogan 1:02:11 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:02:11 ... on one, the other one-

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:02:13 Yeah. It's hard not to be on one.

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 And things get captivated, you know, like, well, there's certain things that cannot be questioned, there's certain things, like a man can be pregnant and, you know, what, uh, you could ... You should have, uh, drag queen shows in kindergarten 'cause it's not a problem. And then people go, "But, but what about children? What about the ... But, but you're talking about queer issues." Okay, we gotta leave it alone 'cause this is a, a, you know, in the woke world everything, LBGTQ, is, you know, beyond reproach and you have to leave it alone. In the right-wing world you have preposterous notions about a woman's right to choose, you have, uh, radical control over people's bodies that is based on religious ideology, you know, conception begin- or life begins at the moment of conception, and even in cases of rape, abortion should be illegal. Like, so we're so polarized with preposterous ideas on both the l- the right and on the left where you can't be ... you can't question things because if you do it's, it's against the tribe, and then you'll be a person without a country or a person without a, a group to be a part of. That's what gets me. It's not even the ideology, it's the, the mechanisms involved are so inherent to the human condition that we, we will adopt a predetermined pattern of thinking and behavior because it's more convenient than formulating our own ideas and, and thinking about things on their own.

Mark Boal 1:03:36 Yeah, and there's a lot of enforcement on both sides.

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Yes.

Mark Boal 1:03:38 There's a lot of police work. It's not-

Joe Rogan 1:03:40 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:03:40 I mean, I think people have always been into their opinions but, but what's really new is how, is how, um, how policed it all is.

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 Yes, and attacking people who-

Mark Boal 1:03:49 That's what I mean.

Joe Rogan 1:03:50 ... differ from the convention, yes. And also virtue signaling which is a completely new thing, where you can publicly display your disdain for someone who steps outside the lines and therefore you supposedly boost your social cred. But it doesn't really work that well. It's kind of akin to, um, name-dropping.

Mark Boal 1:04:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 Like, people think, "Oh, I was at Leonardo DiCaprio's and it was amazing." People think, "Wow, they're gonna think I'm amazing. I was at Leonardo DiCaprio's."

Mark Boal 1:04:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:17 But really they're thinking, "Look at this fucking idiot name-dropping." Like, it's so obvious to everyone else but yet name-dropping is still a thing.

Mark Boal 1:04:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:26 You know, it doesn't work but yet it's, like, almost people can't help but say it. Or when people brag about something that they've done, or brag about how much money they have, or brag about their accomplishments. You know, they think, "Well, I'm not even bragging, I'm just saying what I've been able to do ..." And-

Mark Boal 1:04:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:41 ... you know, and they, they just rattle off facts that may or m- may not be important to what they're talking about because they want you to know that they've got this thing and they think that that's gonna help them socially with you. You're gonna look at them in, in a, a higher class of human being now. But it doesn't work and I think that's the same thing with cancel culture and with virtue signaling. It doesn't really work. Even if people repeat and chime in-

Mark Boal 1:05:06 I don't know-

Joe Rogan 1:05:06 ... cancel culture works.

Mark Boal 1:05:07 ... I don't know if ... Yeah, I don't know what you mean, like, it doesn't work.

Joe Rogan 1:05:10 I mean it doesn't work-

Mark Boal 1:05:11 It's-

Joe Rogan 1:05:11 ... in the sense of it doesn't elevate the person who thinks it's elevating them.

Mark Boal 1:05:15 Oh. Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:05:15 You know, the pers- the person who virtue signals and, you know, a- attacks-

Mark Boal 1:05:21 It does within that group though probably. I mean, I ... This is way outside my-

Joe Rogan 1:05:25 Yeah, ............................

Mark Boal 1:05:26 ... my pay grade but I, I mean, I think it's working. I- to me when you say it doesn't work that means it would, like, be failing. It- it's clearly working on some level because it's so big, all of it.

Joe Rogan 1:05:39 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:05:39 And we're so at each other's throats that, that, that there's-

Joe Rogan 1:05:43 It's definitely happening.

Mark Boal 1:05:43 Yeah, which means it works on some level.

Joe Rogan 1:05:45 What I'm saying is, like, the, the, the motivation for it is to create a benefit for the person that is-

Mark Boal 1:05:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:53 ... doing the canceling-

Mark Boal 1:05:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:54 ... and the person that's doing the virtue signaling, and the person that is espousing these, these beliefs that are in line with the ideology without regar- regardless of facts, and w- ... I don't think that works and I think there's an inclination to do that. And I ... That's why I relate it to name-dropping. I think it's one of those things that-

Mark Boal 1:06:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:13 ... everybody knows what you're doing when you do it but yet people still do it.

Mark Boal 1:06:16 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it ... To me it's just, like, it's all part of the same rush to get a single ...... to get a single narrative.

Joe Rogan 1:06:28 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:06:29 And like, gotta find out what the deal with this thing is.

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 1:06:33 Gotta come to your opinion on it, gotta have your story on it, gotta- gotta like- gotta come to that narrative, and then n- a- and then usually there's two, like one narrative on each side, right?

Joe Rogan 1:06:43 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 1:06:43 And then they're i- and then they're in conflict, obviously. Designed to be that way because, I mean, you can sell more tickets with a fight than you can-

Joe Rogan 1:06:53 Right.

Mark Boal 1:06:53 ... with like people agreeing.

Joe Rogan 1:06:54 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:06:54 So there's th- there's this commercial interest in that, if you're talking about like CNN and Fox, there's like no- there's really no upside for either of those places to be like, "We really agreed with what they said the other night." That's like bad and dumb business-wise. But there's this rush for like a single narrative, and you see it in- you see it in- in- in, just to take it back to entertainment too, you see it in entertainment all the time, where it's like, "Let's- let's make this as simple as possible."

Joe Rogan 1:07:20 Let's tie it up nice.

Mark Boal 1:07:21 Yeah. Let's-

Joe Rogan 1:07:22 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:07:23 And- and- and that's- the world doesn't really work that way, but our world is increasingly working that way.

Joe Rogan 1:07:29 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:07:30 And, um, there's- like the concept that I think about a lot is ambiguity in my like when I'm- when I'm making a- a- a- a- a work of art, okay? Ambiguity just means something that has more than one meaning. People say like, "Well what'd you- what'd you mean? What were you trying to say?" It's like, well, not one thing, for starters. Not one thing. Saying one thing, there's a word for that. Like if I'm making a- if I'm making a movie and I'm trying to tell you one thing, one idea, like about how the war works or something, we usually call that propaganda.

Joe Rogan 1:08:05 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 1:08:06 Like if I'm trying to just convince you of something.

Joe Rogan 1:08:08 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:08:09 But- but ambiguity is like I'm trying to show you a couple of different things that could all co-exist that in some ways might seem on the surface to be mutually exclusive, like a guy who's a killer but also has like a- an emotional life or a woman who's like- like- like deeply dishonest but also has this like tremendous sense of integrity. It's possible for more than one thing to be true at the same time.

Joe Rogan 1:08:31 Yes.

Mark Boal 1:08:32 But that is what's being lost in everything that you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 1:08:37 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:08:37 That sense of like multiple explanations, multiple factors. And- and that is- it's part of the politics, which is very black and white, it's part of all this online stuff that I don't know anything about that's also super black and white, right? It's what you're talking about with the virtue signaling, it's like good or bad. It's never like, hey, how can we step back and have a more nuanced view?

Joe Rogan 1:09:03 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:09:04 And how can we kinda find like a synthesis that- that includes all of it, and how can we- how can we come to this conversation from a place of love, and a place of like humility? It's always just like, how can we fuck this guy and get-

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 Right.

Mark Boal 1:09:20 ... the narrative e- But that's all like a simplification thing, and I think that's why I said like culture and decay because the simpler shit gets, and the less like nuanced it gets, the harder it is to see like the bogeys behind the trees.

Joe Rogan 1:09:35 Mm. I think human beings have a natural inclination to try to tie things up nice so they make sense so they don't have to think about it as much anymore. They could define it in their head, now I know what it is. But in this world, there's such a massive influx of information, there's so much data to take in, there's so many opinions, there's so many perspectives, there's so many facts, it's so hard to find where the facts are coming from, whether they've been filtered or distorted, and I think people get real scared by that, and then they really try to adhere towards an ideological perspective. They really try to adhere towards whatever the rules of their tribe are.

Mark Boal 1:10:12 Yeah, but you gotta resist that.

Joe Rogan 1:10:13 Yes, you do.

Mark Boal 1:10:14 Because if- when you do that, you're- you're gonna be missing out. Like there's no ideology that can cover everything.

Joe Rogan 1:10:21 Right.

Mark Boal 1:10:22 I mean except for like the- i- like, you know, maybe like a scientific law. But like once you get past like the laws of gravity-

Joe Rogan 1:10:29 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:10:29 ... and some of the more basic stuff, like any ideology that seeks to explain how the world works is gonna be missing all kinds of things on the edges of it.

Joe Rogan 1:10:38 Where I think this is going, um, I mean this is all technologically driven, right?

Mark Boal 1:10:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 The- the access to this information, the build to distribute this information, the way people are communicating and the fact that there's so much data out there that you have to go through is all because of technology, it's all because of social media, it's all because the internet, it's all because anyone at any point in time can put something on their phone or put them on a computer and put it out there in the world and you're dealing with more data on a daily basis than a human- the human race has, uh, accumulated over the entire course of hi- written history every day. It's just constant masses- mass amounts of data, and you don't know what's right and what's wrong. And you wanna be a good person...

Mark Boal 1:11:19 But what's all- what's all the data you're talking about?

Joe Rogan 1:11:21 Just, well n- just communication. Just, uh, whether it's, uh, d- t- Twitter-

Mark Boal 1:11:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:26 ... Facebook, YouTube, you're dealing with videos, you're dealing with text, you're dealing with b- people writing paragraphs and stories and blogs. Just the sheer raw amount of information that is being distributed and the communication that's going back and forth between human beings, it's unprecedented.

Mark Boal 1:11:46 Right. Like in the old days, if you were, let's say if it was 1970... '72, and you were 22 years old and you hadn't been drafted into Vietnam, and you wanted to know like what was going on in Vietnam-

Joe Rogan 1:12:01 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:12:01 ... you were curious, right? You would see it on the news and you'd see like, uh, uh, because back then the press corps had a lot more freedom and they were actually allowed to go where they wanted to in the war. But if you were really looking for like your- your like, um, the conceptual framework that would- that would ground you and orient you, you probably wait until the December issue of Esquire Magazine came out.

Joe Rogan 1:12:25 Mm-hmm.

Mark Boal 1:12:26 And you'd read this like giant 15,000-word article by Michael Herr or something. And then you'd know...... and all your friends would read that too, and then they would know. And that's what I'm talking about. That, that sort of, like, centralization of, of, um, of opinion is what's, is what has, has been, like, kinda blown into a million million people.

Joe Rogan 1:12:49 But even back then-

Mark Boal 1:12:50 It's not just, like, the qua- quantity of information. It's the fact that there's no hierarchy of, like ... I mean, there is. You can, you can still select what you want, but, um, I don't know. That's very different from today where if you were trying to figure out what was really going on the, in, in the Ukraine, for example, and unless you really knew which journals to dig into, it'd be, it'd be kinda hard.

Joe Rogan 1:13:13 I think it was even, uh, uh, I think it's very hard now, but I think maybe it might be easier now if you're objective. I think back then, it was just as hard. During the Vietnam War, have you ever seen William F. Buckley debate Noam Chomsky?

Mark Boal 1:13:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:13:26 Fascinating.

Mark Boal 1:13:27 I mean, that's something that's gone too, right?

Joe Rogan 1:13:29 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:13:30 Where's, where's that level of public intellectual-

Joe Rogan 1:13:33 Discourse.

Mark Boal 1:13:33 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:33 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:13:34 Those guys were, like ... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:36 It's amazing conversation, watching them go back and forth. And then there's, you know, um, Gore Vidal-

Mark Boal 1:13:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:13:42 ... and William F. Buckley and those classic series of debates they did on television-

Mark Boal 1:13:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:13:46 ... which is that great book, uh, uh, great, uh, film rather. What is it called? Something Enemies, Best of Enemies or something like that? What was ...

Mark Boal 1:13:54 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:13:54 What?

Mark Boal 1:13:54 The doc you're talking about?

Joe Rogan 1:13:55 Yes.

Mark Boal 1:13:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:56 About-

Mark Boal 1:13:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:13:57 ... the, that, that series of debates that they did on television. They were trying to, you know, display both the left and the right and, and have them have some sort of a, a discourse about it on television, and it turned out to be riveting.

Mark Boal 1:14:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:14:11 And they did it just because they were failing. They're like, "Fucking throw anything up there. Let's get these guys to talk."

Mark Boal 1:14:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:16 And it turned out to work very, very well. It's, um, it's always been hard to figure out who's right and who's wrong. And, you know, when there's these compelling speakers that are, uh, great orators and they're, they're saying things with such eloquence and such art- articulation.

Mark Boal 1:14:33 Right. But my point is not whe- that it, uh ... I'm not saying it used to be easier, but I'm saying that, that the level of thought, of complexity, the amount of ambiguity in their statements, that's also changed, right? Like, you don't have that level of thought or that level of complexity in the public discourse today.

Joe Rogan 1:14:56 Well, I think it was much more difficult-

Mark Boal 1:14:58 By and large. By and large.

Joe Rogan 1:14:58 ... to be a public intellectual back then. You had to really have proven your mettle. You were ... It was a different ... They, they wouldn't just let any fucking kid off of TikTok-

Mark Boal 1:15:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:15:07 ... o- on, you know, ABC News to talk about-

Mark Boal 1:15:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:10 ... the way the world works.

Mark Boal 1:15:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:12 But now we're getting that from-

Mark Boal 1:15:13 Is that true? Or, like, just some random dude on TikTok is talking about how the, the way the world works on ABC?

Joe Rogan 1:15:18 Oh, well, they ... If you go to Fox News or if you go to, um, MSNBC, there, there will be on a regular basis very young people w- that are talking about very important issues.

Mark Boal 1:15:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:33 And they may be a YouTube i- influencer. They may be-

Mark Boal 1:15:38 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:15:38 ... a person who r- recently graduated from a university and has some info- information about things. You're ... You know-

Mark Boal 1:15:47 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:15:48 ... Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal or Noam Chomsky and, um, William F. Buckley, I mean, that's, those are two, like, rock solid intellectuals.

Mark Boal 1:15:57 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:57 You know?

Mark Boal 1:15:57 Chomsky, like, in- like, invented new kinds of, new, like, lines of thought in linguistics.

Joe Rogan 1:16:02 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:16:02 He's like a legit ...

Joe Rogan 1:16:04 Yeah. He's a legit linguist.

Mark Boal 1:16:05 Genius.

Joe Rogan 1:16:06 Yes. No doubt.

Mark Boal 1:16:07 And Buckley too, like, in his own way.

Joe Rogan 1:16:09 Yeah. Yeah. Well, Buckley's ... Yeah. I mean, he was a little bit more problematic, but it's ... They're, they're very, very intelligent people that, that have sort of earned their right to get to that position to debate things, whereas today it's just, "Wah!"

Mark Boal 1:16:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:16:24 Um, but what, what I think is going to happen, and this is, um, this is neither good nor bad 'cause I think it's inevitable, I think technology is going to ... There's going to be a new technology that emerges that changes things as radically, if not more, than what the internet has done. And I think most likely it's gonna be human neural interfaces.

Mark Boal 1:16:48 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:16:48 And those are around the corner, and they're going to be here before you know it, and they're gonna sneak up on us just like the internet snuck up on us.

Mark Boal 1:16:55 What, what is that exactly?

Joe Rogan 1:16:56 A neuro link.

Mark Boal 1:16:56 That's a chip in your, a chip in your head or something?

Joe Rogan 1:16:59 Yeah. Yes. They're gonna use it initially for people with ALS and various, uh, injuries and diseases and where they, they, you know, they can't control their muscles anymore, and it's gonna rewire the way the human mind interacts with the physical body. But I think ultimately it's going to remap the way people communicate with each other. In, in Elon's words on this podcast, he said, "You're gonna be able to talk without using words."

Mark Boal 1:17:23 Are we gonna miss this?

Joe Rogan 1:17:25 No.

Mark Boal 1:17:25 I'm happy to miss it, by the way.

Joe Rogan 1:17:26 It's gonna happen. We're gonna be old. They're gonna drill into our head. We're gonna be like late adopters, like when grandpa got email. (laughs)

Mark Boal 1:17:32 Okay. When grandpa got the Neuralink. 80 years old.

Joe Rogan 1:17:36 I think, I think it's going to be-

Mark Boal 1:17:37 I'm happy to miss it. I'm, like, that doesn't sound ...

Joe Rogan 1:17:40 Well, in, in Elon's perspective, we're already cyborgs, right? 'Cause we already have these things in our pockets. It's just not physically embedded into your actual body. But one day it will be.

Mark Boal 1:17:50 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:17:50 And it will be because it will be better than not having it in there. Wh- when the technology sufficiently advances to the point where you know it's safe, you know it's everywhere, you know that everyone has it, you're missing out, and all these people are gaining some sort of a- an advantage either in the workplace or an industry or whatever it is or socially from using that, you're gonna use it.

Mark Boal 1:18:14 Well, maybe there'll be, like, a whole tribe of people that are, like, primitives that just-

Joe Rogan 1:18:19 Oh, yeah.

Mark Boal 1:18:20 ... reject this shit-

Joe Rogan 1:18:21 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:18:21 ... and just continue to hunt and, like, not get the Neuralink.

Joe Rogan 1:18:25 That's always been the case. I mean, that's the, one of the things that Graham Hancock points out when, uh ... You know, he has this, uh, amazing show, Ancient Catastrophe. Or Ancient Apocalypse?

Mark Boal 1:18:34 ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:34 Ancient Apocalypse, that's on Netflix. It's talking about, um, evidence that, uh, there's a, a very advanced human civilization that lived a long time ago that was, uh, destroyed by, uh, impacts, by comet impacts.

Mark Boal 1:18:49 Okay. Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:18:49 When it went through a comet storm. And this is, like, what caused the end of the Ice Age. Th- this is actually, like, legitimate scientific inquiry into this, called the Younger Dryas impact theory.

Mark Boal 1:18:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:18:58 And it's based on actual real data that they get from soil. Like, when they do, um, uh, core samples of the Earth, they can find out that at this point when the Ice Age ended, around 12,800 years ago, there's a, a lot of iridium in the soil.

Mark Boal 1:19:15 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:19:15 And that's very common in space and very rare on Earth. And it also coincides with when Earth was passing through these comet storms. And they think that this is probably why there's all these ancient structures that are unexplained, like Gobekli Tepe and some of the stuff in, uh, an-

Mark Boal 1:19:34 Are, are, is this, like, a ... Are we... Is this, like, a UFO thing?

Joe Rogan 1:19:36 No.

Mark Boal 1:19:36 Or this a different thing? Okay. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:19:37 No, it's not a UFO thing. No, not at all.

Mark Boal 1:19:39 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:19:40 No, it's, it's, um-

Mark Boal 1:19:41 So it's like-

Joe Rogan 1:19:42 ... uh-

Mark Boal 1:19:42 ... it's a catastrophe thing.

Joe Rogan 1:19:43 ... pre, pre-

Mark Boal 1:19:43 Natural catastrophe.

Joe Rogan 1:19:44 ... uh, a civilization that i- Pre-Babylonia.

Mark Boal 1:19:47 ... Pre-Babylonia that was-

Joe Rogan 1:19:48 Yeah.

Mark Boal 1:19:49 ... advanced.

Joe Rogan 1:19:50 Advanced to the point where they could build things like the pyramids.

Mark Boal 1:19:52 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:19:53 Advanced to the point where they, they could build these immense structures that are unexplainable today, like things in, in-

Mark Boal 1:19:58 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:19:58 ... Lebanon where they have these, uh, en- enormous stone blocks that were carved, there were thousands of tons. They have zero idea how they did it, like, what are, what are they doing with it? How are they gonna move it? They did this so long ago, no one even knows who did it or why they did it.

Mark Boal 1:20:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:20:12 What they believe is that at one point in time, m- whether ... You know, if anatomically similar human beings, they used to think, like when I was in high school, they thought, well, you know, human beings like us have only been around for, like, 50,000 years, 100,000 years. Now they've taken that way back to almost a million years. So that gives so much more time for people to evolve and for technology to advance. And the, the concept is that there was an advanced human culture that existed thousands and thousands of years before we thought it did. So instead of 6,000 years ago being the birth of civilization, agriculture, written language, they think it was way before that, like maybe even 30,000 years ago, and that these people had reached a very high level of sophistication. And then massive natural disasters all over the world knocked people down to almost the Stone Age and then they rebuilt again. And that's what we're experiencing now. But one of his points is-

Mark Boal 1:21:09 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:21:09 ... uh, they talk about, like, these ancient hunter-gatherer tribes that are ... that existed for thousands and thousands of years, and how could it be possible that they existed as well