Joe Rogan Experience #2067 - Dave Smith

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience. (drumbeats)

   3. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Hello, Dave Smith.

   5. DSDave Smith0:14

      Hello, Joe Rogan.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you, my friend.

   7. DSDave Smith0:16

      You too. Always good to be here.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      (laughs) You have an air of seriousness about you, like you pre- prepared yourself for this conversation.

   9. DSDave Smith0:25

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       We've been fucking around all night last night.

   11. DSDave Smith0:27

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Having a good time.

   13. DSDave Smith0:29

       Now I have to transition.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       Now, you, you, like, you, there was an immediate shift. I can see, you're like...

   15. DSDave Smith0:33

       (sighs) All right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Here it is.

   17. DSDave Smith0:35

       Well, you know.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:36

       There's a lot of shit going on.

   19. DSDave Smith0:37

       Well, we got a, a brand-new war to end, so, uh...

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah.

   21. DSDave Smith0:40

       It's, you know, gotta be a... So, what, uh, when, when I first started coming on your podcast, what was, I, I just measure it in how many wars ago that was? Like then, what was that? How many wars ago was that?

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       We were still in Afghanistan back then.

   23. DSDave Smith0:50

       Uh-huh.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       So we did get out of one.

   25. DSDave Smith0:52

       We did get out of one.

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Sorta.

   27. DSDave Smith0:54

       We did it in flawless fashion. Um, but, uh, that's, uh... But yeah, no, that is true, we did end one. And then I think we took, like, a two-week break before we, uh, got into Ukraine. And then, uh... (exhales) And now, now there's thi- this one is pretty serious. And, uh, the, there's a, a big possibility of, like, a wider war, uh, being started. So, pretty bad. Not great.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       No. Not great. It scares the shit out of me. I've brought it up many times, but when, when I really get, uh, anxiety is, like, late at night when I'm alone and I think about the world like that, at any moment, it could just go haywire. Like, think about October 7th, right? It happens out of nowhere. M- in one, one day, everything changes, right? That can happen anywhere. That can happen right here. And people thinking that it can't, and then, people that are just not even inquisitive about anything that interferes with their narrative, not even thinking, "Okay, what, what is the big picture here? What is actually going on? I know this side says one thing, and the other side says another thing. So, someone's gotta be wrong. So what is happening? Either Israel is evil, or Hamas is totally evil." You can't be, "There's a lot going on," right?

   29. DSDave Smith2:21

       For sure.

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:22

       "There's a lot going on."
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. DSDave Smith15:00

      provoke a reaction. Like this is why Osama bin Laden did 9/11, is that he knew he couldn't like militarily defeat the United States of America, but he thought he could pull the same trick on us that we taught him to play on the Russians and get us to invade Afghanistan and bankrupt ourselves. And so what, do you think Hamas ... Look, uh, Hamas pulled off a fairly sophisticated attack. I mean, they came by like land, sea, and air. They took out the Israeli surveillance which is supposed to be the big, you know, the greatest surveillance system in, in the world. Um, and they pulled this off. Does anyone think that they didn't expect an Israeli response from this?

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:37

      Right.

   3. DSDave Smith15:37

      It's like no, of course they knew exactly what Israel would do. And this is what they were trying to provoke them to do. 'Cause Hamas doesn't care about innocent Palestinians dying. But what they wanted was to turn, you know, the world against Israel, and particularly turn the, the Muslim world. I mean, not that it takes much to turn them against it, but to really put pressure on some of these other governments who had, you know, signed onto the Abraham Accords, um, which basically was y- using US tax dollars to buy off these other Arab countries to sell out the Palestinians. So wha- the, basically for, for years, the, uh, these other Arab countries w- like wouldn't recognize Israel, wouldn't normalize relations with Israel because they were sitting there saying like, "Hey, this is totally unfair. Like you, you kicked all of these people out and you don't really have a right to this land. And they a- are, they need to be, you know, treated with whatever, the, given independence or, or something like that. And so we won't normalize relations with you." And then basically Trump's plan and Israel's plan was like, "Well how about we just bribe you to normalize relations with Israel even though we're not giving the Palestinians their freedom?" And he got a bunch of them to sign onto it. And so for the Palestinians, this was like, I mean you can almost imagine the hopelessness, 'cause now this was kinda your only hope that someone else was gonna catch your back. And now everybody's basically agreed like, "Yeah look, you're never getting your state, you're never getting your independence. We're never going back to '67 borders. You're just, this is life forever." And like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:14

      Like an open air prison.

   5. DSDave Smith17:16

      Yeah. I mean, you know, people get, people like get upset about that characterization and it's not perfect.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:22

      I think it's-

   7. DSDave Smith17:22

      But it's-

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:22

      It's not perfect, but it's-

   9. DSDave Smith17:23

      It's close.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:24

       It's containment.

   11. DSDave Smith17:26

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:26

       It's some kind of containment.

   13. DSDave Smith17:28

       Yeah. Well I mean look, it's, it's imagine, you know, if you, the all you gotta do with all of these things, this is why I would, like Ron Paul is the greatest American hero t- in, in my opinion, 'cause like this was his whole central point on foreign policy, was always like you just have to try, just try a little bit to put yourself in their shoes. And how would you feel-

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:48

       Yeah.

   15. DSDave Smith17:48

       ... if you were like occupied by a foreign government, which essentially isn't really a foreign government. It's really your government because they're the ones who run, who really run the place. And then how would you feel about that? You know the, in the, in the West Bank where they're still under, uh, military occupation, you know these guys, the, the IDF run in and scream, "Curfew." And you gotta run inside your house when they do that. I mean just like that, even just that-... level of like-

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       That's crazy.

   17. DSDave Smith18:15

       ... being controlled-

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       Yeah.

   19. DSDave Smith18:16

       ... by a group of people who are not your people, you know? Um-

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:20

       I- isn't the most crazy thing that pe- that human beings still behave in these patterns, where we have groups of people that don't know at all, that have no personal interaction whatsoever, with other groups of people and they're willing to murder them?

   21. DSDave Smith18:33

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       Like, and this, it's, it's sort of like a default mechanism of the, the default part of the human system. L- human beings, when they have control of massive amounts of property and, and, and resources, they, they default into that mode. And that's just what's really insane about all this, is that I would've thought by now we'd have figured that out. And moved past some of the most ridiculous ideas, but we haven't. Still, battles over religion, battles over territory, like holy shit, it could be the end of us over the dumbest battles.

   23. DSDave Smith19:13

       And, and you just, y- y- yeah, it seems like you would think that just with what we have, you know, like the level of civilization that we have, the level of technology and medical innovation, like all these-

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:23

       Yeah.

   25. DSDave Smith19:24

       ... things that you'd be like ... You would almost think, if you didn't already know what the truth was, you'd be like, "Well, war? We don't do war anymore. There's, what, big mass-

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:32

       Exactly.

   27. DSDave Smith19:32

       ... murder campaigns with giant machines of death? We don't do that, that's like a thing we did three f- thousand years ago, we've moved past that. We have other ways of like resolving these disputes." But-

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:44

       But they still do it.

   29. DSDave Smith19:44

       But we still do it.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:45

       Do you think that Israel believes they can dismantle Hamas and install a government that they can reasonably discuss things with?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   So, this is, uh,…

   1. DSDave Smith30:00

      little bit hyperbolic or not, but they certainly felt that way. And he was under enormous, uh, political pressure. And in a, in a, kinda tragic sense, he was somewhat rescued, politically, by October 7th.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      So, this is, uh, th- so, whatever this overhaul was, it actually, it says, "Netanyahu..."... postpone the final vote of the legislation-

   3. DSDave Smith30:24

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:24

      ... that he had been slated for Monday. In a national address lasting around seven minutes, he said he would hold discussions and bring the legislation up for a vote sometime after lawmakers return from a recess at the end of April. So, he knew it was horrifically unpopular with people, obviously.

   5. DSDave Smith30:40

      Yes. And then this was, uh-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:41

      Three months of protests.

   7. DSDave Smith30:43

      Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, this was a big deal, and, and in huge, huge numbers. Um, and so he n- now, uh, Netanyahu, in response to this, for, for his own political survival, has allied now with people who are even to the right of the, the Likud party, 'cause they were basically the only ones who supported this. And so it's, it's, in effect, made him even more of a right-winger.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:05

      Well, isn't that just always what happens? (sighs) Goddamn.

   9. DSDave Smith31:16

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       It's just what always... People ov- Are... They're always trying to get more control over the people. They're, they're always.

   11. DSDave Smith31:23

       That's... Yep, that's the nature of, of governments.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:24

       It seems like he came, like, to the brink of signing that.

   13. DSDave Smith31:28

       Oh, oh, there's no question I think he wanted to, he wanted to sign it. I think it's just that there was so much enormous pressure-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       Yeah.

   15. DSDave Smith31:34

       ... that he ha- backed out of it. But then again, there's like the white pill, which is like the, the ho- the case for optimism.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       Right.

   17. DSDave Smith31:41

       Is that, uh-

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:42

       Protests work.

   19. DSDave Smith31:42

       Well, and not just protests but just... I mean, protests can work at times, but also just if the percentage of the population r- is so against something, then many times, it doesn't get done. Like, the, the thing that I think gives me the most, the most cause for optimism and hope, is that th- there's a reason why the gov- governments use propaganda on their own people. There's a reason why they propagandize us, and it's because at least they believe, and I think they're correct in this, that they can't do what they wanna do unless we, at least tacitly, support it-

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:20

       Yeah.

   21. DSDave Smith32:20

       ... or will accept it. And that you've seen this several times before. I've talked about it before on the show with you, where there are these, these instances where they try to push something and it's just there's so much resistance to it that they're just like... They kinda dip their, their toe in the water to see if maybe... They float an idea, and then everybody's just like, "No, we're not doing this," and then they go, "Okay, we're not gonna do that now." And, and at the same time, while we have that dynamic, um, there's... We now... W- we're in a, like, a revolution in terms of the way people get ideas and stuff like that. I mean, you're a, a pretty gigantic part of that. But there is no longer this kind of monopoly control on the means of information that the American people, or people of the world, can receive now. And so we kind of like... I do think we have a tremendous opportunity. I mean, you can look around at everything that's, like, going on that's really bad. And I know I, you know, focus on that a lot. But we have, like, a tremendous opportunity now, unlike ever before, to kind of counter the propaganda of governments. And so I actually think there's a lotta hope, uh, for humanity. Um, and then, you know, AI will kill us all in a few years, but-

   22. JRJoe Rogan33:32

       What was this?

   23. DSDave Smith33:32

       ... in the meantime.

   24. JRJoe Rogan33:33

       There, there's... The government is trying to, in some way, control things on social media. And what was the latest with the Biden administration? 'Cause I know they've instituted some shit in Canada that freaks people out. And, you know, they're clearly trying to get regulatory power over internet content.

   25. DSDave Smith33:55

       Yeah. Well, they're, uh-

   26. JRJoe Rogan33:56

       Because it's against their narrative too often.

   27. DSDave Smith33:58

       Yeah. Well, they're... And they're pretty furious with your boy, Elon, for, uh, for-

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:01

       For buying X.

   29. DSDave Smith34:02

       Yeah. He did a-

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:03

       Yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. DSDave Smith45:00

      I basically stole your day. Like I almost retroactively enslaved you-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      Yeah.

   3. DSDave Smith45:05

      ... for a day, that you just worked for me against your will. So those, but outside of that, outside of like property crimes and violent crimes, there's just like, I just think there's no moral case that we should throw human beings in, in a cage over, right? No matter how much you don't like their, their behavior or their actions.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:23

      Well, there's, there's a lot of problems, right? One of the problems is that it's profitable to put people in cages.

   5. DSDave Smith45:28

      That's for sure.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:28

      And that's with everything in this world. When it becomes profitable, they figure out a way to justify whatever the fuck they have to do, whether it's lie about side effects or lie about the dangers of certain food additives or lie about the effect of pesticides or herbicides. Whatever the fuck it is, they've always shown that they will find a way to justify what... Even if they, if it's the sugar industry bribing scientists to pretend that saturated fat is the problem.

   7. DSDave Smith45:55

      Yep.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:55

      It will find, they'll find a way if money's involved. So if money's involved in that, why would it be any different? And it's not.

   9. DSDave Smith46:03

      Well, right. So, and this is basically kind of the beauty of free market capitalism, which we have so distorted with this kind of giant crony capitalist system that we live under, is that in, uh, in a free market, um, you're, i- i- if there's no government, um, involvement and you're in a free market, there's still all of those incentives that you're talking about. The, all these companies wanna make as much money as possible, but what it kind of does is channel that into something where like, "All right, how do we make as much money as possible?" Well, you gotta make something that people really wanna buy.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Yeah.

   11. DSDave Smith46:36

       You gotta make something that they really want. You know what I mean? And that, I'm not suggesting there can't be any corruption in that type of system, but once you get the government involved in it, now the way, the, the way to make the most money is to force things on people. You get the government to write a rule and now the people have no choice. And so these incentives that can s- somewhat exist in harmony with doing good for society in some conditions is now totally corrupted, right? Like it's-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       Right.

   13. DSDave Smith47:04

       ... totally. So even if you think about something with like, let's say there's, uh, you have like the vaccine or, or s- a vaccine or something like that. And theoretically there's no collusion between the government and pharmaceutical companies, and you wanna get people to take, uh, your vaccine. Well, you're gonna have to like convince them that it's really good for them. You're gonna have to sell them on like, "No, look at, look at this data. Look at how many pe- how much this reduced the, you know, the rate of death from this. Look at all this great information about the vaccine." But if you have the government involved, then you're like, "Well, you know what? Just go lobby the government to make it mandatory."

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:37

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DSDave Smith47:38

       "Then, then we'll rake in profits." That's, the, that's so much more of a profitable direction-

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       Yeah.

   17. DSDave Smith47:43

       ... to go. And so, you know, there's all these things get corrupted and particularly i- i- today, we just, um, you know, the size of the US federal government is that's the biggest organization in the history of the world.

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:56

       (laughs)

   19. DSDave Smith47:56

       It's, there's nothing, e- there's not even a close second.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:58

       And it's, uh, got survival instincts.

   21. DSDave Smith48:00

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:01

       It doesn't wanna give up ground. It doesn't wanna give up power.

   23. DSDave Smith48:03

       Well, this is-

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:04

       It wants to keep expanding. It wants more funding for its projects. It wants to hire more people to deal with something in an incompetent way. And it's not like the free market where it, like if it's incompetent, like there's gonna be a competitor that comes along and does a better job and you're gonna lose the market.

   25. DSDave Smith48:18

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       No.

   27. DSDave Smith48:18

       No, you ever look at the, um, if you look at like the, uh, the list of the richest counties in, in America, and they're like, I forget the exact numbers. It's like-

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:27

       It's all lobbyists. (laughs)

   29. DSDave Smith48:27

       Well, it's like ten of the f- they're all, not all, but the vast majority of them are right outside Washington DC-

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:33

       (laughs)
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:50

   Yeah. And you realize,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      (laughs)

   2. DSDave Smith1:00:00

      Yeah. And you realize, and then you realize how much-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      Y- You've experienced that before, right?

   4. DSDave Smith1:00:03

      Well, oh, yeah, yeah, I have. D- dude, even just, uh, the other, uh, like a week ago, I was on a, a flight where the, uh, just, like, the wifi was out.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DSDave Smith1:00:12

      And so just, like, your phone's useless now, you know.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Yeah.

   8. DSDave Smith1:00:15

      And it's just, it is such a weird feeling when you're just like, you're like, "I, I guess I'll look on this TV thing now."

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      Yeah, disconnected.

   10. DSDave Smith1:00:23

       Like, it's, like, it's like you're almost instantly zoomed into, like, 15 years ago or something like that.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:29

       And if it came back on, you'd be excited. "Let me check what I got."

   12. DSDave Smith1:00:31

       Yeah, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

       "What's my texts?"

   14. DSDave Smith1:00:32

       But it's... But there was something kind of... You know, there is something kinda nice about it-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:36

       Hmm.

   16. DSDave Smith1:00:36

       ... about putting your phone away for a little bit and just doing the old thing.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

       Oh, yeah. No, something very nice about it. It's unfortunate, but we're moving in that direction further and further, and we're not coming back.

   18. DSDave Smith1:00:46

       Oh, and you just got... Y- there's no fighting it. Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       You know, when we were talking earlier about the gun control argument, I think that is one of those other red and blue discussions, where if you are on one side, you're like, "We gotta take all the guns away." And l- it's, which is so crazy shortsighted. It's the... I mean, it sounds like a fucked up thing to say. But i- uh, if things got way worse, it could protect you from tyranny. Like, it, it's happened in the past. It's a, it's a real issue. And to think it's not a real issue is so crazy. It might not be a real issue with the current administration, but to give people more and more power, as they acquire more and more power... And then you see what happens in other countries. That can happen here, kids.

   20. DSDave Smith1:01:27

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       It can happen anywhere. It is a, uh, a way human beings behave. But one, one of the things that is always stunning to me is this...... willingness, this desire to ignore the fact that almost all these shooters are on psychiatric medications.

   22. DSDave Smith1:01:46

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       And if you bring that up, somehow or another, you're a conspiracy theorist. We are literally talking about chemicals that alter the way your mind works, and there seems to be some connection, whether it's because only a crazy person would wind up being a mass shooter, maybe.

   24. DSDave Smith1:02:07

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:08

       Maybe that's it. But the fact that there's no discussion of maybe there's a connection.

   26. DSDave Smith1:02:12

       Can it be ... It, it, it also might be, uh, because I don't know if, if we actually know this or, like, if you're drug testing these shooters after, but it could be also, like, being on this medication and then suddenly going off of the medication. Uh, you know, like, it's hard to tell.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

       Sure.

   28. DSDave Smith1:02:25

       But that's still a concern about the medication itself, is that like-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:27

       It's also-

   30. DSDave Smith1:02:27

       ... how are you gonna make sure this person isn't going off it? If that's the issue.

Episode duration: 2:50:34