Skip to content
The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #2000 - Duncan Trussell

Duncan Trussell is a stand-up comic, writer, actor, host of the "Duncan Trussell Family Hour" podcast, and creator of "The Midnight Gospel" on Netflix. www.duncantrussell.com

Joe RoganhostDuncan Trussellguest
Jun 27, 20243h 37mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 4:43

    Furry cold open: breathing, sweating, and why costumes change behavior

    1. NA

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

    2. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (energetic music plays) Hi, Meow-Meow.

    3. DT

      Hi, Ruff-Nuff.

    4. JR

      Um, I'm so excited to be here with you today.

    5. DT

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      This is our first podcast coming out as our true selves.

    7. DT

      We're furries!

    8. JR

      Yeah, we've been holding it in forever.

    9. DT

      This is my true identity, uh, and you know what? It just eats me alive to not tell how we met at a furry con.

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. DT

      (laughs)

    12. JR

      Well, we didn't know that we met there. Remember?

    13. DT

      Well, yeah. I didn't know who you were for a long time.

    14. JR

      Yeah, we didn't know. I'm like, "Oh my God, you're Meow-Meow?"

    15. DT

      Dude, it blew my mind. I mean, to me, that is proof we're in a simulation.

    16. JR

      Hmm.

    17. DT

      'Cause what are the odds?

    18. JR

      They're not good.

    19. DT

      What are the odds, man, that I would be-

    20. JR

      The odds are also not good that I'm gonna keep this fucking helmet on.

    21. DT

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      Oh my God, I'm sweating.

    23. DT

      This is, like, not good for me. I'm not keeping this on, dude. It's a fuck-

    24. JR

      I can barely breathe!

    25. DT

      How do they do it?

    26. JR

      I don't know. They fuck with these things on.

    27. DT

      How do you fuck with this on? I mean-

    28. JR

      They're heroes.

    29. DT

      N- Total respect.

    30. JR

      Those people are heroes.

  2. 4:43 – 6:35

    From furry jokes to human weirdness: porn, loneliness, and the gap between “ideal” life and reality

    1. DT

      Dude, I've seen some really hot furry porn. Like, I've seen some incredible furry porn.

    2. JR

      What's the worst furry porn? Have you ever seen some? Like, God, you guys aren't even trying.

    3. DT

      I, y- Those, those are still shots usually.

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DT

      Like weird Polaroids and stuff of, like, like, so- and, and generally those are, like, solo furries who are banging a stuffed animal.

    6. JR

      Oh Jesus. (laughs)

    7. DT

      Like, you know- (laughs)

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. DT

      That sucks. That's not cool.

    10. JR

      Ugh.

    11. DT

      That's not cool, but some-

    12. JR

      What do they do? Like, put a flashlight in a stuffed animal?

    13. DT

      No. They don't, they're not that advanced. They just rip a hole in the-

    14. JR

      Oh.

    15. DT

      ... poor, in the fucking thing's butt, and just, like-

    16. JR

      Oh.

    17. DT

      ... leave their crusted jizz on it as some mark of achievement or something.

    18. JR

      Ugh.

    19. DT

      Really bad.

    20. JR

      Ugh. Dude.

    21. DT

      Really bad.

    22. JR

      Human beings are so weird in so many ways.

    23. DT

      Yes.

    24. JR

      In so many ways. But it's like, it's so funny. It's like media, like Norman Rockwell paintings. There's this, like, image of us that we are when we're at our best.

    25. DT

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      The family dinner table in a 1980s movie.

    27. DT

      Yeah. Yeah.

    28. JR

      You know? That's us when we're, we're at our best.

    29. DT

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      Everyone's getting along. "How's school going, Junior?"

  3. 6:35 – 8:44

    Kids, the singularity, and self-driving cars as a freedom/surveillance issue

    1. DT

      This is ... Having kids right now, and like, just having, like, a- a- a- a- a vague understanding of Kurzweil's predictions for-

    2. JR

      Mm.

    3. DT

      ... the singularity.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. DT

      And i- i- just, like, considering, like ... You know, with- with my kid, I- y- I will tell him, like, with the car, I'm like, "You know, probably when you're old enough to drive, they won't have steering wheels anymore. You're probably not gonna be driving the way I do."

    6. JR

      Mm.

    7. DT

      Because, definitely, don't you think, like, by-

    8. JR

      If they can just prove ... See, there's- there's meatheads like me that'd be like, "Fuck that, bro. I wanna drive my own fucking car."

    9. DT

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      But if they can eliminate all deaths, you're gonna have to take cars like that to a track. You're gonna have to do ... You're gonna have to take the cars that I enjoy-

    11. DT

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      You're gonna have to take them to a track and drive them around.

    13. DT

      Sure.

    14. JR

      They're gonna be rides. It's not gonna be your transportation.

    15. DT

      You don't think, in 10 years, that it's going to-

    16. JR

      It's very possible. Very possible.

    17. DT

      I-

    18. JR

      It'll be, it'll be a civ- like a- a rule fight. Like, with, there'll- there'll be some dispute about whether or not people accept that.

    19. DT

      Oh, yeah.

    20. JR

      That's- This- this- it's gonna be a freedom issue with a lot of folks. It's gonna be-

    21. DT

      It is a freedom issue.

    22. JR

      It is. It ... Well, it certainly is if you have a totalitarian government, because there's only one way that a- a car can drive itself autonomously. It has to be connected to, like, insane technology-

    23. DT

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      ... that allows all sorts of things, like, uh, like what a Tesla does. Like, you get updates online on your Tesla. They just send you an update.

    25. DT

      Sure.

    26. JR

      They fix things. They make things better. They make the- the auto driving feature better. In the f- e- if that's the case, like if somebody just decides to shut your car off-

    27. DT

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      "You're not allowed to drive, Duncan. We don't like your views on COVID vaccines."

    29. DT

      No, yeah.

    30. JR

      Bam.

  4. 8:44 – 10:13

    “Cops in the head”: how empires and institutions get people to police themselves

    1. DT

      You know what that's called? Cops in the head.

    2. JR

      Ooh.

    3. DT

      That's a name for it, cops in the head. It's like ... This is when I was in college. They were ... I don't remember what the s- who- who, like, came up with it. But basically, they're studying, like, neighborhoods that had, like, huge police presences, you know? Like, bad areas, like, s- hyper low-income areas that, like ... Just, like ... That- that, um ... Well, I mean, you could do the math.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. DT

      And like th- so basically, w- the cops realized, like, they didn't have to patrol anymore after a certain amount of time because people assimilate the police state inside of them. And just like you're saying, now you're policing yourself.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. DT

      And that is the ultimate, when you think about, like, trying to save money, when you think about controlling populations, or when you think about, like, you know, the huge problem of, um, of like, empire, is like, once you spread out too far, it's incredibly expensive to keep everything supplied and everything in control and to keep your, like, commanders doing what you say. And so, you know, the best thing for an empire is for people to not even know that they're there, but to be, like, following the general prescription of the emperor, you know?

    8. JR

      Ooh.

    9. DT

      You know? That's the ultimate empire. You don't-

    10. JR

      Mm.

    11. DT

      Don't put up statues of yourself.

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. DT

      Don't, like, put your fucking face on the coin. What you wanna do is get your philosophy into the brain of the people that you have conquered.

  5. 10:13 – 13:54

    Official narratives vs. interesting realities: Eisenhower, intel agencies, and drug pipelines

    1. JR

      I think the problem today is that there's- there's so many more interesting narratives than the official narrative. There's s-

    2. DT

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Like it used to be that you had a president that would stand up and talk to people, and, you know, he would give these speeches that everyone would listen to.

    4. DT

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And that's Eisenhower at the end of his terms when he's saying ... Y- he's warning A- America about the military-industrial complex.

    6. DT

      Yeah. That's so creepy.

    7. JR

      That there's a machine ... He's warning us, you know? That there's a machine that wants to go to war.

    8. DT

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      And you have to be very careful of that. He's warning us about that. And this is like ... You could tell the next president to not ever say that, and everybody else sort of steps in line. So you tell the next president, "Don't talk about that." You talk about the conflicts overseas. You talk about the- the desire to spread democracy.

    10. DT

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      You're, you're talking about these people that are a threat to everyone 'cause they have weapons of mass destruction. Like you gotta-

    12. DT

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... you gotta follow a very, very, very specific narrative.

    14. DT

      Right.

    15. JR

      And that's all we had forever.

    16. DT

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      Forever. And so there was all these people that would have cocktail parties and they would meet at coffee shops-

    18. DT

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... and then they'd go, "Do you know what's really going on?"

    20. DT

      Right.

    21. JR

      "'Cause this is what I think. I think the CIA is giving people LSD."

    22. DT

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Like, "What? What the fuck are you talking about?"

    24. DT

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      You know those meetings where people in South Central were like, "I think the government's bringing drugs in here," and everybody was like, "No fucking way."

    26. DT

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      "No way. They wouldn't do that."

    28. DT

      Right.

    29. JR

      "They wouldn't do that." But if you were ... I mean, look, let's- let's pretend you're a really good guy and you're a government agent.

    30. DT

      Right.

  6. 13:54 – 16:04

    CIA cocaine, festival math, and the ‘lifetime pile’ of substances

    1. DT

      Yeah. And th- there's a precedent for this. I mean, this isn't-

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DT

      ... conspiracy. Like, that was proven, that, like, th- this shit is... Remember that CIA plane that crashed-

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DT

      ... with all the cocaine in it?

    6. JR

      Yeah, tons of fucking shit ton of cocaine in it.

    7. DT

      (laughs) Tons of cocaine.

    8. JR

      It was over- it was overweight. That's why it crashed, 'cause it had so much coke in it.

    9. DT

      Greed took him down.

    10. JR

      I think it had something crazy like 1,000 pounds of coke.

    11. DT

      That is so much coke. I can't even imagine how much coke that is.

    12. JR

      How much was it? How many pounds was it?

    13. NA

      3.3 tons.

    14. DT

      Oh, my God. That's- 3.3... How much does an elephant weigh?

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. NA

      (laughs)

    17. DT

      Is, how many elephants worth of coke is that?

    18. JR

      Oh.

    19. DT

      Dude, that's crazy. That's CIA coke, too. You know that's not bad coke.

    20. JR

      No.

    21. DT

      That's like f-... like, something incredible in there.

    22. JR

      Oh, my God. It's pure.

    23. DT

      Pure.

    24. JR

      It's rock flake.

    25. DT

      Ugh.

    26. JR

      The stuff that Eric Clapton used to get.

    27. DT

      Jesus Christ.

    28. JR

      (laughs)

    29. DT

      It just makes your entire body go numb. I don't like coke, though. But-

    30. JR

      << Do, do, do, do. >> Look at all the coke that he had.

  7. 16:04 – 27:52

    Karma, reincarnation, and epigenetics: does cause-and-effect really ‘balance out’?

    1. DT

      Absolutely, man. Yeah. You do, you do have to... I mean, there's just no way around it. This is why I think karma is a wonderful and perfect way to articulate this. It's just, like, where you're at, everything around you, that's your karma.

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. DT

      Like, that's you. This is your karma. And then I love that, 'cause it keeps me from, like, going, "Victim." You know? When I loo-... You look around at everything, and you're like, "Whatever it is. Good? You did that for yourself. Bad? You did that to yourself, and you just have to deal with it."

    4. JR

      Hmm.

    5. DT

      But, you know, there's enou-

    6. JR

      But not necessarily, right? C- babies get shot in drive-bys.

    7. DT

      Well, yeah. Okay, yes. The baby thing, I mean, I'd, I, I've he-... Uh, there's some, like, theoretical... There's two ways to look at it. One, Occam's razor. It's the same problem like theists face in trying to explain why awful things happen to babies.

    8. JR

      Y- you know what I think?

    9. DT

      What?

    10. JR

      I think karma's an element.

    11. DT

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      It's an element of existence. But it's not, it's not a rule. It's like th- evil people live to be 100 and get away with it.

    13. DT

      Well, for karma to really work, you need reincarnation.

    14. JR

      Oh.

    15. DT

      That's where the math goes into the unquantifiable.

    16. JR

      Okay.

    17. DT

      So, like, so for karma to really work th-... I mean, it c- it could work in a very simple, mechanistic way with just one life. But the idea is that there's different types of karma. So, there's the karma that's happening right now. This is, like, f- flowering karma. But there's karma, like seeds of shit that you did a while ago. Like, when all of a sudden, like, someone calls you up and is like, "Hey, I'm your son." And you're like, "What?" Like, "Yeah. I'm your kid." That's, that's like a... That seed has been in you, and then it grows into the present moment.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. DT

      That's... And then there's karma that's the same idea but from past lives. So, that's where it gets really fucking weird. And I guess there's some, like, very blurry way you could connect that to epigenetics.

    20. JR

      Hmm.

    21. DT

      You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's... Like, epigenetics is sort of the, the, the r- way, like, you get reincarnation into biology.

    22. JR

      Hmm.

    23. DT

      Except it's obviously not reincarnation. It's your ancestors.

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. DT

      But it's essentially the same concept, except one is quantifiable. The other is mystical.

    26. JR

      I wonder if, if, if epigenetics is-... if you're, if you're imparting-

    27. DT

      Well-

    28. JR

      ... some of your mind, some of your thinking to a child-

    29. DT

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      ... would, uh, I wonder what effect it would have at the age you were when you had the child.

  8. 27:52 – 33:48

    Ancient megastructures and lost history: Borobudur, Longyou Caves, and survival-bunker theories

    1. JR

      Did you see that one I posted on Instagram the other day?

    2. DT

      No.

    3. JR

      Oh my God, this is fucking insane.

    4. DT

      What is it?

    5. JR

      Um, oh, shit.

    6. NA

      (laughs)

    7. DT

      What?

    8. JR

      Where'd I leave my phone?

    9. DT

      You've got... There's a phone right there.

    10. JR

      Where? Oh. Wha- s-... It was hidden by my mic. Sorry. I'll f- I'm gonna send it to Jamie right now, 'cause... You got it? Yeah. So check this out. Pro- give me some volume on this.

    11. NA

      ... central Java's lush Kedu Plains in pursuit of this mythical peak near the little settlement of Borobudur. They chopped and burned the strangling vegetation for six weeks and removed tons of volcanic ash. What they discovered were marvelous figures cut in stone, thousands of them hidden beneath the volcanic jungle.

    12. DT

      Buddha.

    13. NA

      Believed to have been built in the 8th and 9th century, the Borobudur temple is an uncontested marvel whose intricate architecture continues to confound scholars. Despite being one of the most important sites on Java, there is no written record of who erected it or what its intended purpose was. Because there are no inscriptions or dates on the monument, historians must make educated guesses as to when it was most likely created. The dating estimates are based purely off of architectural comparisons found elsewhere in Indonesia. Given the magnitude of the construction, it appears remarkable that no ruler or dynasty took credit for it. Borobudur is the world's biggest Buddhist temple, and yet nobody knows who built it.

    14. DT

      Whoa.

    15. NA

      On the Indonesian-

    16. DT

      That's cool.

    17. JR

      Yeah. Jamie, I'm sending you another one right now. I mean, there's a bunch of these things. There's a bunch of things like that. They d- they're just like, "I don't know." Like-

    18. DT

      So-

    19. JR

      ... who made this?

    20. DT

      ... okay. What are your thoughts on mudflood?

    21. JR

      What's mudflood?

    22. DT

      Mudflood theory.

    23. JR

      Oh.

    24. DT

      The, the, the, like-

    25. JR

      Well, I think that goes along with the Younger Dryas impact theory, right?

    26. DT

      Yeah, but m- mudh-

    27. JR

      But check this out though real quick. I want you to watch this 'cause this is fucking bananas. Same account.

    28. NA

      They were set out to empty ponds the residents said were bottomless, the Longyou Caves located in the village of Xinbaishun in Zhejiang Province, China are a massive and majestic ancient underground world. The Longyou Caves, also known as the Xiaonanhai stone chambers, are thought to date back to at least 2,000 years and represent one of the largest underground excavations-

    29. DT

      Wow.

    30. NA

      ... of ancient times, as well as an ongoing mystery that has confounded scientists from every discipline that has researched them. Scientists from archeology, architecture, engineering, and geology around the world have no understanding who or why the Longyou Caves were carved into the earth. Currently, 24 hand-carved caves encompassing a staggering 30,000 square meters have been found so far.

  9. 33:48 – 1:18:47

    Impermanence, pandemic psychology, and self-deception: booze, weight gain, and why we ignore the obvious

    1. DT

      Assimilates everything. The... You know, there's like this... Humans have this interesting, like, temporal blindness. Like, the, the way that we... the way time passes for us-

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DT

      ... produces the illusion of solidity. And so-

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DT

      ... that makes... That confuses people, because they think that there's permanence here, when if we could just see... If we lived longer and we could see time faster, we would feel-

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. DT

      ... like we were in some kind of, like, ocean of, like, undulating matter with these voids in it that we hang out in, like little bubbles in the ocean.

    8. JR

      Hmm.

    9. DT

      That's what we build our houses in. We wouldn't look at this place as solid. We wouldn't think of it as, like, permanent. This is why everyone was so, like, fucked up by the pandemic. It's 'cause, you know, you watch enough TV, you buy into the permanence of civilization. Suddenly, civilization, like, has a little, little rumble, like a little rat-... Like a, a house that needs some kind of serious repair. It shifts on its... It shifts a little bit.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. DT

      And, and everyone was, like, reminded, yeah, this, this doesn't last any more than any of that shit lasted. And I think that's very disturbing for people who've really anchored themselves in some notion of permanence here.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. DT

      Freaks people out.

    14. JR

      Well, I think that was a great ad for psilocybin.

    15. DT

      Yes.

    16. JR

      (laughs)

    17. DT

      (laughs) Psilocybin.

    18. JR

      That's what that was. That was an awesome ad for psilocybin.

    19. DT

      Ozempic now has psilocybin in it, which is incredible.

    20. JR

      That's better. That's better. You realize why you're fat.

    21. DT

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      (laughs) It'll show you everything.

    23. DT

      (gasps)

    24. JR

      It'll show you all the wires-

    25. DT

      You need it.

    26. JR

      ... underneath the board.

    27. DT

      Dude-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. DT

      ... the, the whole thing... Like, this, this is what I... one of the really funny things about humans. We are capable of ignoring internal realities.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  10. 1:12:47 – 1:40:46

    Censorship, pharma influence, and narrative control: RFK Jr takedowns, ad-funded media, and Canadian Bill C-11

    1. JR

      Well, it's not when it comes to RFK Jr. They're- they're deleting his old podcasts. They deleted one from Theo Von from a year ago, and they deleted one from Hot Boxin' with Mike Tyson, which is more than a year ago too.

    2. DT

      Weird. I did not know that.

    3. JR

      They just did it.

    4. DT

      What the fuck?

    5. JR

      They just started doing that.

    6. DT

      That- isn't that illegal if someone's running for president to- you can't do that, right? You can't-

    7. JR

      I don't know what... You could say that it's because of misinformation, and this is, you know- because he talks about vaccines, and, you know, he talks about- uh, he was an environmental attorney before he, you know, was anything. And, you know, his whole thing was trying to hold...... companies accountable for what they're doing by ruining the environment and lying about it. And for them to take that guy and say, "You can't do that with other stuff. You can't talk about other stuff." Like, how come no one wants to hear him out? How come no one wants to hear him out with, with...

    8. DT

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      That book, The Real Anthony Fauci, is fucking terrifying. And if it's not true, why isn't he getting sued? You know, if that book is true, if all the things that he's saying, and he has references for everything, if it's all accurate, we should all read that book. Everyone should read that book.

    10. DT

      Right.

    11. JR

      Because if it's true, it's terrifying.

    12. DT

      I-

    13. JR

      Y- you've been captured by an industry that's forced you into, into becoming a source of income for them.

    14. DT

      Dude, censorship is ... has this component of condescension in it-

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DT

      ... that is really ... Like, that to me is the, the worst part, is, essentially you're saying, "You're too dumb to parse this information in a rational way."

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. DT

      "So we're gonna protect you from it because it's like a poison, it's gonna infect your brain and we have to protect you."

    19. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    20. DT

      That is really, like ... Like, first of all, if you do th- ... Like, that's bad parenting-

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. DT

      ... in general. You know what I mean? Like, the idea would be that you, like, teach your kid to confront false things.

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. DT

      Learn why they're not real, and then instead of, like, trying to prevent your kid from seeing, like, everything.

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. DT

      You know? Obvi- ... I mean, I don't ... Obviously, like, I'm not letting my kid watch Blade Runner or some shit like that. But just that if you get too overprotective with your kids, like try to hide death from them, for example.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. DT

      That sort of thing. Like, you gotta trust we can deal with it, that it's, it's safe for us to encounter all forms of information.

    29. JR

      Well, the problem is-

    30. DT

      What?

Episode duration: 3:37:58

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode FqMsJZ2SRHo

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

iOSAndroidClaudeChrome