Joe Rogan Experience #2102 - Will Storr

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Um, CNN at one point in time, when Bourdain had a show on, they were doing some very interesting things. They were trying to, uh, do shows, not just the news. Right? So they had No, No Reservations was the best one of them, where they had, you know, they just told Anthony Bourdain, "Just be you and just do what you, d- do your b- best version of your show." And they really just got out of the way, and it was fucking amazing.

   4. WSWill Storr0:37

      Yeah. Yeah, so they got out of his way. They let him be-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:39

      Yeah.

   6. WSWill Storr0:39

      ... the best of himself. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:40

      They figured out how to do that, you know? Kamau Bell had a really good show too. Is that show still on?

   8. NANarrator0:46

      I don't think so.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:47

      What was that show called? I'm sorry, I'm f- forget the name of these shows, but, uh, w- Kamau Bell was really good at being, like, calm. He, he's a-

   10. NANarrator0:58

       United Shades of America.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       Shades of a- United Shades of America. Really good at being calm, like, talking to, like, KKK people.

   12. WSWill Storr1:04

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       And he's Black and he's a comic.

   14. WSWill Storr1:07

       Okay.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:07

       But he's just, like, a very nice guy.

   16. WSWill Storr1:09

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       He's a very nice guy, like, a genuinely nice guy in, in real life. And so when he's doing a show, even when he's confronted by the most ignorant racists, uh, he, he can have conversations with them and then... and, you know, they're like, "Well, you're not like the others." You know? (laughs)

   18. WSWill Storr1:24

       (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

   19. NANarrator1:24

       (laughs)

   20. WSWill Storr1:24

       But that's the best kind of journalism, you know? You, you've got to-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:26

       Yes.

   22. WSWill Storr1:27

       You, you c- you can properly immerse yourself in those worlds.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:29

       Yeah, and CNN did that for a while, you know? They had that other show, what was it, Radical, with, uh, that one gentleman who, um... Reza Aslan, is that his name? That was another good show. They did some interesting stuff. They did, like, quite a few interesting shows, where they were just shows. It wasn't what it is now, which is this, like, bizarre version of news TikTok-

   24. WSWill Storr1:57

       Oh, right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:57

       ... just grabbing you with everything that's gonna terrify you every day.

   26. WSWill Storr2:01

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:01

       And there's so much to terrify you f- about today, you know?

   28. WSWill Storr2:08

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's that they, they seem to have lost the art of storytelling in, in a way.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:11

       Yeah, it's very unfortunate. So ladies and gentlemen, we started this podcast after a long conversation about Anthony Bourdain.

   30. WSWill Storr2:18

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. WSWill Storr15:00

      really believe it's true.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Right.

   3. WSWill Storr15:01

      I mean, you know, I've been as a b- ... When I ... Before I was an author, I was a journalist, I've been meeting kinda crazy people, including Nazis, um, as part of my journalistic career, and that's one of the things that always strikes me is that they, they really believe it, this crazy stuff.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      Oh, they believe it. They believe it.

   5. WSWill Storr15:16

      So, so it's not even in the sense that, um, they, that they're doing anything calculating by talking their children into being suicide bombers. They think they're doing something heroic.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      Yes.

   7. WSWill Storr15:24

      They think they're doing something amazing.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:26

      Yes.

   9. WSWill Storr15:26

      As did the Nazis.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:27

       Yeah.

   11. WSWill Storr15:27

       As did the communists.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       As ... Yeah. As did the KKK.

   13. WSWill Storr15:31

       Yeah. Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:31

       There's people, they can fall into belief structures, and they, they don't necessarily have to make sense. But if they find enough supportive people around them that also believe that, then it becomes part of their tribe identity.

   15. WSWill Storr15:42

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       And it can get ... It can be really stupid.

   17. WSWill Storr15:45

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       It can get really stupid.

   19. WSWill Storr15:47

       Yeah. Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       We're fucking way more vulnerable than we like to believe. That's one of the things that I was saying, like, when I watch those cult documentaries. Part of me is like, "Thank God I didn't run into those people. Thank God."

   21. WSWill Storr15:58

       Yeah. Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       They woulda got me.

   23. WSWill Storr15:58

       And whe- and when they look at the psychology of people that are vulnerable to falling into cults, it's very often people that have struggled to fit into the status games of ordinary life.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Yeah.

   25. WSWill Storr16:06

       So, they've got ... The family hasn't worked. The job hasn't worked.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       Exactly.

   27. WSWill Storr16:10

       The hobbies haven't worked, so they've got no identity. They've got no tribe, so they're really vulnerable to these cults, which ... Because what cults offer is absolute certainty.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       Yeah.

   29. WSWill Storr16:19

       If you cook your scrambled eggs this way, if you, uh, only put two inches of water in your bath, you're gonna ... The, the, the, you know, the, um, the UFOs will come down-

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       (laughs)
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

   2. WSWill Storr30:00

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:01

      Four years later, you're like, "What the fuck happened?"

   4. WSWill Storr30:03

      Yeah, yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      And I think with us, though, there's hope that we'll eventually get to some place of normalcy, and, uh, and, and, uh, some semblance of peace. But what, what happened in the 1960s is fucking bananas.

   6. WSWill Storr30:20

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      I mean, they, they basically turned this counterculture, hippie love movement-... into Charles Manson, and the Manson family, and the fucking CIA was dosing people with-

   8. WSWill Storr30:31

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:31

      ... LSD, and-

   10. WSWill Storr30:32

       Yeah. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:33

       ... they were doing anything they can to stop the antiwar movement-

   12. WSWill Storr30:36

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       ... anything they can to stop these hippies, and made everything illegal. They made marijuana... Well, marijuana's already illegal, but all the Schedule I substances. That's all the sweeping part of the 1970 Psychedelic Act-

   14. WSWill Storr30:47

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       ... that was all about the Civil Rights Movement. It was all about g- or just arresting people for any kind of protests, any anti-government, antiwar. "Let's find these hippies. Everything's illegal. Fuck you, go to jail," and they put water on it. They just put the fire out.

   16. WSWill Storr31:03

       Wow, I didn't know that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:04

       They pulled the... put the fire out-

   18. WSWill Storr31:06

       Wow.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       ... on this psychedelic counterculture that was the 1960s, and we paid for it, artistically. (laughs)

   20. WSWill Storr31:11

       (laughs) Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:12

       If you look at the 1980s-

   22. WSWill Storr31:13

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       ... it's a fucking disaster.

   24. WSWill Storr31:14

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       What happened in the 1980s?

   26. WSWill Storr31:16

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       It's like these people, all they had was cocaine.

   28. WSWill Storr31:19

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:19

       They're just doing cocaine and alcohol, and the movies are f- out of control.

   30. WSWill Storr31:23

       Yeah, I mean, the, uh, the, the 1980s, uh, uh, uh, y-... The other thing that changed was, of course, was the economy in the 1980s, and that was the... for me, that's the big thing that, that changed.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Where, where... It comes…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      will coexist with it.

   2. WSWill Storr45:02

      Where, where... It comes from... Yeah, I mean, it... And it comes from the tribe. It comes from... Well, it comes from before we were human. We've been competing for status since before we were human-

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      Yes.

   4. WSWill Storr45:10

      ... since we were animals. Well, we're still are animals, but since before we were human animals. And in the, in the, in the tribes in which we evolved, the more status that you earned, the more food you got, the better food you got-

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:19

      Right.

   6. WSWill Storr45:19

      ... the safer your sleeping sites, the greater your access to your choice of mates. So, basically, every th-... Uh, the more status that you get in your group, e- everything gets better.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:28

      And wouldn't that motivate you to make the most complex thing a human being has ever made?

   8. WSWill Storr45:33

      100% it will, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:33

      An artificial human. 100%, right?

   10. WSWill Storr45:35

       Yeah. And it's not about the money or the bling or the...

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:38

       No. No.

   12. WSWill Storr45:38

       It's about, "I wanna be better than you."

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:40

       Yeah.

   14. WSWill Storr45:40

       "And I wanna be the best inventor of artificial life form there is in the world."

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:44

       Yeah.

   16. WSWill Storr45:44

       "Better than that dude and that person." And, and, yeah. And that's what motivates people, that's what pushes people to create amazing things.

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:51

       Uh, we have this distorted idea of what is, like, a fiercely competitive person.

   18. WSWill Storr45:55

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:56

       When we think of fiercely competitive people, we only, for whatever reason, consider basketball players, football players-

   20. WSWill Storr46:02

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       ... baseball players-

   22. WSWill Storr46:03

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:03

       ... fighters-

   24. WSWill Storr46:03

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       ... athletes, r- race car drivers. We consider fiercely competitive people the people that are engaged in sports and activities every day.

   26. WSWill Storr46:10

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       But no, no. There's fiercely competitive people that are involved in business and government-

   28. WSWill Storr46:15

       Yeah. Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:15

       ... and all sorts of other things. And they're, they're fucking psycho about this game that they're playing, whatever it is.

   30. WSWill Storr46:21

       Absolutely. Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:07:49

   Wow. …

   1. WSWill Storr1:00:00

      You were former people.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      Wow.

   3. WSWill Storr1:00:02

      And that's how... You know, when you think about how especially, you know, men, especially white men, especially straight white men are treated at the moment.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      Yeah. Talk. Preach, brother. (laughs)

   5. WSWill Storr1:00:11

      They're, they're, they're, they're, they're form-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      (laughs)

   7. WSWill Storr1:00:13

      They're former... You know, they're, they're, they're made to feel like former people.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Yeah.

   9. WSWill Storr1:00:15

      Like, there's a whole generation of guys who are being raised in a culture where they're being made to feel, "You've had your turn. Sit down. Shut up. The future is not for you. The future is for people who don't look like you or think like you."

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

       100%.

   11. WSWill Storr1:00:27

       And so, so, so that, that, that former people really resonated with me. It's like, "You, you straight white men, you're former people. You're yesterday's people. You're not the future. You're not tomorrow, so sit down and shut up."

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

       I was watching an argument on Twitter-

   13. WSWill Storr1:00:39

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       ... where this man and this woman were going at it. And the man said something that was factually correct-

   15. WSWill Storr1:00:45

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

       ... and the woman said, "If you think that I'm going to take information from a straight white man..."

   17. WSWill Storr1:00:53

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

       (laughs) That was their comeback.

   19. WSWill Storr1:00:57

       Yeah. God.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       That was their comeback. "I'm not taking that information coming from a straight white man."

   21. WSWill Storr1:01:00

       Yeah, yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       Like, the last thing we need right now is straight white men speaking.

   23. WSWill Storr1:01:03

       Well, I- I've had that.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       "Don't speak, just listen."

   25. WSWill Storr1:01:06

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

       "It's time to listen," that's my favorite. "Just please be quiet and listen."

   27. WSWill Storr1:01:11

       Uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

       Like, hey, sometimes that's good advice and sometimes you're just telling people you wanna talk.

   29. WSWill Storr1:01:16

       Yeah, (laughs) exa- yeah, it, it, it's so ignorant.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:36:17