Joe Rogan Experience #2133 - Brendan O'Neill

1. 0:01 – 0:48

   Meeting Brendan O’Neill & a revived fear of World War III

   1. NANarrator0:01

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Brent, what's up?

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill0:14

      Joe, how you doing?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      It is my goal-

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill0:16

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      ... before the end of the world to talk to as many interesting people as possible, and it feels like that's kind of ramped up lately. So, uh, I saw you on Trigonometry, and I was introduced to your stuff through that, and then I watched a bunch of your conversations online. So I'm excited to talk to you, man. Thanks for being here.

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill0:31

      I'm so happy to be here. You wouldn't believe it. So thank you for having me, Joe.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      My- my pleasure, yeah, 'cause it did- does seem like I really do want to talk to as many people as I can before-

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill0:39

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       ... you can't talk to anybody anymore (laughs) .

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill0:41

       Yeah. Well, exactly. H- who knows, you know, how long before talking to people is outlawed or suddenly talking to people like me and people like you?

2. 0:48 – 2:25

   1980s apocalypse culture: nuclear war, acid rain, ozone—and learning to separate real vs manufactured panic

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:48

      Well, I- I don't think that's gonna happen likely anytime in the future. I think too many people push back against it. But I think it- it certainly could make it increasingly more difficult, and my- my real fear is that we do something so stupid that we lose all communication, period. I have a real fear of World War III, the like I've n-... I haven't had since I was a kid. When I- when I was a kid, I was grow- growing up in the '80s-

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill1:11

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:11

      ... we were re- legitimately worried that we were gonna get in a nuclear war with Russia.

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill1:14

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15

      It was a real fear. And I remember when the fall... (sigh) The fall of the Soviet Union, it was like a weight had been lifted off the shoulders of the Earth.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill1:24

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:24

      Like, we were like, "Oh my God."

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill1:25

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:25

      "Thank God it's over." So...

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill1:26

       I remem- I remember those days in the '80s. Uh, we watched a film at school called The Day After. Wh- did you see that? Which is a film about-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       I think we've talked about that.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill1:35

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       Did we talk about that before? A film about after nuclear war?

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill1:38

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:39

       Yeah.

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill1:39

       It's a film about Russia bombing America. It's very depressing, but it- we watched it at school, and we had numerous discussions about what wou- would we do in the event of a nuclear holocaust, how would we try to survive it. But it was on our minds all the time.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:52

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill1:52

       And there was also other apocalyptic scenarios, if you recall, like acid rain-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:56

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill1:56

       ... was a big one. The ozone layer was another one.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       Yep.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill1:58

       W- w- ... My childhood was full of fears that the end of the world was nigh, and I think people feel that again today for different reasons, and my approach to it is always to think, well, where are the real problems in terms of civilization really grinding to a halt, and what are the unreal problems that are just designed to whip up fear and make us panic-

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       (laughs)

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill2:20

       ... and make us fret about the future? So I think distinguishing between those two things is probably quite important.

3. 2:25 – 7:39

   Fear as business and status: media incentives, climate catastrophe branding, and celebrity activists

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:25

      It is very important. It's also very important to recognize that when there's a thing that is getting people whipped up and is in the news constantly, for sure someone's making money.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill2:35

      (laughs) Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:36

      That's why it's doing... Y- y- ... I used to think they were warning us about the real dangers-

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill2:40

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:40

      ... of this or that. I don't think that anymore. Now, I think they can justify the fearmongering by saying it's a legitimate concern because it has the opinions of a few people attached to it, but ultimately what they're doing is they're somehow or another using it to make money.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill2:57

      Yeah. Well, they're- they're either making money, or they're making moral mileage, or both.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:01

      Yeah.

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill3:02

      So if you look at... Global warming is the perfect example, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:04

      Right.

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill3:04

       The climate change catast-... Or the climate catastrophe as we now have to call it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:08

       Yeah.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill3:08

       There are a lot of people invested in this end-of-the-world scenario who are making a lot of money from alternative sources of energy, but just as important as that, I think, they're making moral mileage. It's the issue through which they can pose as the saviors of humanity.

   13. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       Right.

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill3:24

       And it gives them a real sense of purpose. I mean, Al Gore is a classic example. He both makes money from climate change fearmongering.

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:31

       Yeah.

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill3:31

       And he also, uh, positions himself as a global authority on how to save humankind from the next apocalypse. So I think it's a combination of financial reward and moral reward that draws people to these apocalyptic scenarios.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:45

       A- absolutely and also audience capture in the case of, like, Greta Thunberg.

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill3:49

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:49

       Right? Here's this young lady who's become a celebrity by saying, "How dare you?" That was it. That's all it took.

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill3:56

       That's all it took.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       We're like we're in the Catch Me Outside Girl-

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill3:59

       That... (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:59

       ... phase of... (laughs) All you need is like a good slogan. You know, let's get-

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill4:03

       She's the-

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:03

       ... ready to rumble, whatever it is.

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill4:05

       She's the green version of the Catch Me Outside Girl. That's what she is.

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:08

       It's the same thing. It's the same thing.

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill4:09

       But it's like with, you know, with someone like Greta, it's... I- I think it was funny for a while that you had this 16-year-old kid saying, "How dare you?" having a temper tantrum in public essentially.

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:18

       Yeah.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill4:19

       And all these politicians in America and Britain and across Europe were f- falling at her feet and staring at her in this wide-eyed fashion like she was some messia- messianic figure-
4. 7:39 – 15:13

   Climate debate as ideology: heresy, censorship pressure, and selective statistics

   1. JRJoe Rogan7:39

      It's very creepy. And h- here's something to consider too. At what- what level are people immune to the bullshit that they're talking about? Like, here's- here's, like, an example about Hollywood. These people, uh, when I- when I would talk to people that didn't work in, like, television, and they had these ideas of what they're doing with television shows, you know, "Oh, they're- they're pushing this," or, "They're creating that. They're trying to, uh, sedate America with nonsense, and they're being told to do it by the government." Like, no, no, no, listen, the people making these shows watch these shows.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill8:15

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:16

      They like making them. This is what they're trying to do. They like watching sitcoms. They like making game shows, which are ... If there's n- That's not aggr- So they're as trapped in it as you. Yeah, it is dumbing down the world, 100%.

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill8:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:28

      Reality shows are dumbing down the world.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill8:30

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:30

      Th- but the people that are watching the reality shows are the same as the people making them. They all watch them. Like, they're- they're making dumb shit because people consume dumb shit. And that's not a conspiracy. That's just a market decision. And I th- I wonder, when it gets to, like, climate change, when it gets to some of these, like, contentious issues, particularly the climate is a big one, because any scientist, regardless of how wise they are and how well-read they are and how much they understand about their field of study, if they have anything that deviates from the narrative-

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill9:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:05

      ... they're, like, automatically dismissed, even ones that will talk about long-term temperatures of the Earth. Like, it's almost like they don't want you to talk about long-term temperatures of the Earth. "No, no, no."

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill9:16

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:16

       "We c- w- but there has never been a time in our lifetime," blah. That's the- All these things are true, but we- w- if you look at long-term, you recognize, oh, it's never static.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill9:27

       Mm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:27

       Even when humans didn't exist.

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill9:29

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:29

       It does all this ... It's- it's ... There's a lot of factors going on constantly. And to not consider that and to only consider what's happening dur- during our lifetime, not take into account volcanic activity, not take into account ... You're blaming cow farts? And-

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill9:45

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:45

       You- you know what I mean? I- Like, there's- there's so many weird things that we do when we attach an ideology to a science. So the science-

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill9:54

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:54

       ... of climate change is fascinating, right? It really is. It's like taking into account all these factors, CO2 in the atmosphere and solar flares and wha- what- what's going on with, uh, volcanic activity and cloud cover and pollution and all these different factors. But if you don't, like, toe the line-

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill10:14

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan10:15

       ... and say this is a catastrophe, if you just want to look at it objectively, you're a heretic.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill10:20

       Yeah. W-

   23. JRJoe Rogan10:20

       You're cast out of the kingdom.

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill10:22

       Yeah. That's precisely the problem. I think, uh, I think there are probably more climate change skeptics out there than we realize, but there is a cost to saying what you think.

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:31

       Yeah.

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill10:31

       There is a social cost. There is a professional cost. If you say, "Listen, climate change might well be happening. There may be a human contributory factor, but it's not the end of the world. A billion people are not going to die," that's con- That's bullshit. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. And we will probably be fine if we focus on it and fix it. If you say anything like that, even something quite moderate, you will be denounced as a climate change denier.

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:56

       Yes.

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill10:56

       You will be ... People will say, "Get them off the BBC. Get them off the airwaves. No platform them from universities. We can't have these, uh, heretics speaking in the public sphere." So all of that instinct for cancellation trickles down through society. And the message it sends to ordinary people is, "Listen, you might be skeptical of this stuff, but the price of speaking out is too high, so don't even bother."

   29. JRJoe Rogan11:19

       Yeah. Yeah.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill11:20

       So I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people out there than we realize who think to themselves, "Okay, pollution's a problem. Climate change may well be a big issue, but it's not the end of the world."
5. 15:13 – 17:56

   Gender ideology and children: medicalization, puberty blockers, and the ‘no-scrutiny’ problem

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      It's so bizarre. And it's, it's so bizarre that it goes all the way down to gender experiments on children.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill15:22

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:22

      That's how far... Which you would think would be the, the people that we would protect the most from bad decisions.

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill15:29

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:29

      The people that we protect the most historically. Children.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill15:32

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:32

      Little kids. Little kids that are confused and may have insane parents that are-

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill15:37

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:37

      ... trying to talk them into something, which is a real thing.

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill15:40

       Yeah. Little kids who have now been sacrificed at the altar of gender ideology.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       God.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill15:44

       That's what's happening. This is child sacrifice in a modern form. That's what's happening. And their bodies are being used to prove an ideological point.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       Oof.

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill15:52

       Which is this ideological point that gender ideal- gender identity is innate. We're born with it. You'll, you have it from birth. And in order to prove this hocus pocus idea, which has absolutely no basis in evidence or proof whatsoever, they have to experiment on children. They have to give them drugs. They have to start performing surgeries on them when they reach a certain age. They have to cut off their breasts if they're a confused girl. Castrate them if they're a confused boy. And what you have here in this grotesque manipulation of children's bodies is literally the sacrifice of children to an ideological crusade, and the ideological crusade of gender ideology. And in order for adults who want to... Men who want to pretend to be women, primarily, and women who want to pretend to be men, in order to justify their existence, they have to pull children into the equation and say, "Well, it's an innate experience. You're born with it. And we're gonna prove this by giving them puberty blockers, by putting them on a conveyor belt towards surgery, by screwing them up for life," which is what this essentially does. Uh, uh, uh, that is a very good example of how problematic ideological, uh, obsessions can be. Because what you end up with is a situation where children's lives are fucked up in the name of an ideological crusade, and that's really bad.

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:14

       Mm-hmm. And it's real, and it's happening.

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill17:16

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:16

       And it's so bizarre to watch people slide into this cult-like thinking en masse. And you see millions of people that support this. But I think it's enough of a mind fuck to wake up the people that aren't in the haze of it all-

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill17:33

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       ... and go, "Hey, this is something you actually have to fight back against."

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill17:35

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:36

       'Cause this is insane.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill17:37

       I think, um... The optimist in me thinks that in the future, in 20 years or so, people will look back at this period and they will say, "Hold on. You gave kids puberty-blocking drugs? You..."

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:48

       Well, they've already stopped doing that in the UK.

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill17:50

       Yeah, they've stopped doing that in the UK. We have stopped doing that. I mean, you can still get them privately, but the National Health Service has stopped, um, prescribing puberty blockers.

6. 17:56 – 22:48

   Boundary cases and media normalization: ‘both-sex’ demands and male lactation controversies

   1. JRJoe Rogan17:56

      Did you hear about the guy in Canada? There's a guy in Canada that's suing the government because-

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill18:00

      Oh, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:01

      ... he wants a vagina.

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill18:02

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:02

      He, he, so he has a penis. He wants to keep it in.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill18:04

      He wants a penis and a vagina.

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:05

      Yeah, he just wants to be a whatever. He wants to-

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill18:08

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan18:08

      ... be nonbinary.

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill18:09

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan18:09

       Like, literally.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill18:10

       Yeah. Someone wrote-

   13. JRJoe Rogan18:10

       So he's-

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill18:11

       Someone wrote an article for, for Spiked where I work saying, "Well, this n- means he can go fuck himself," right? (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       (laughs)

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill18:16

       "If he's got both."

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       But also, here's the question. Where do you put it?... I mean, you're running out of space there, fella.

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill18:24

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:24

       Like, if you want both, I mean, this might be a bullshit lawsuit. We might be able to just, like, stop this with a biologist.

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill18:30

       (laughs) Yeah. Right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:31

       'Cause where are you gonna put it?

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill18:32

       Right? Where is it gonna go?

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       There's no room, buddy.

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill18:35

       No. It's, um, uh, I mean, it, it's... Who could have guessed we would be having this conversation? If you went back ten years, even five years-

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:43

       Yeah, yeah.

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill18:44

       ... you would never have imagined that we'd be having a conversation like this, where someone wants a dick and a vagina at the same time. But it's not-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       Is that more offensive than the guy who wants to make breast f- milk for his baby?

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill18:55

       That's really bad. That's, there, there was, yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:57

       That's uber bizarre.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill18:58

       There, so there's this, yeah, this case in Britain of the breastfeeding...
7. 22:48 – 40:07

   Women’s spaces and sports: bathrooms, prisons, Title IX, and Lia Thomas as a flashpoint

   1. JRJoe Rogan22:48

      But it's crazy because there are people that identify with being a woman, and I have no problem with them living their life as a woman. But the problem is without any scrutiny, if you can't scrutinize each person as an individual and if they're in a protected class, if they're automatically, you know, if they say that they're a woman, like instantaneously you have to absolve them of their, all their sex offender record.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill23:11

      Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:11

      Like, you let them walk around the women's room-

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill23:13

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:13

      ... with a hard on, no one can say anything.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill23:15

      No.

   7. JRJoe Rogan23:16

      It's, it, it... That's just crazy. Like now you, now you've crossed this line into cult thinking.

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill23:22

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:22

      And I know you don't want to give up any ground because if you give up ground, then you think the bigots are winning.

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill23:27

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:28

       So it, it's like this thing where this battle between open-minded people that believe in people's freedom to live their life however they want and the acknowledgement that perverts and psychos are real things. There's psychos. There's people that want to wear your skin. And if they can-

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill23:46

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:46

       If they can hang out in the women's room with you, these are the same kind of people that would do that. Understand that if you just say that any man who says he's a woman, you have to just take them at their word. You are enabling psychos-

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill23:59

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:59

       ... like real full-on-

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill24:00

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:01

       ... serial killers to just go into the women's room, and you're hoping that they don't have a knife in their bag. You're hoping they're not gonna do something crazy. You're hoping they're not gonna attack someone. You're hoping they're not gonna just start masturbating in front of everybody. Like you, you're e- you're enabling someone who could be completely schizophrenic-

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill24:21

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:21

       ... absolutely out of their mind, should be in mental healthcare, but you're allowing them to just wander around the women's room-

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill24:28

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:28

       ... with their pants off.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill24:29

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:30

       And that's...... that's a real thing.

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill24:32

       Yeah. It's really happening.

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:34

       This doesn't, doesn't change this concept of people that are trans. I've met people that are trans, like Blaire White, who's this famous YouTuber who's trans ... She's been on this... You- you'd think... This is a woman. I'm around a woman. She seems like a woman, lives like a woman, looks like a woman, acts like a woman. You wanna be a woman? You wanna be Blaire? Yeah, you're a woman. I don't even think that's a guy. But then there's also perverts.

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill24:56

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:56

       And if we don't look at people individually, if we lump everyone into this one group, we've gone haywire. In this age of information, when we have so much of an understanding of the human psyche, for us to ignore vast swaths-

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill25:10

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan25:10

       ... of everything that we've accumulated in the, under the se- sanctum of gender ideology, that's crazy.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill25:17

       Yeah. I mean-
8. 40:07 – 1:02:01

   COVID as a compliance stress test: censorship, Twitter Files, and lockdown amnesia

   1. JRJoe Rogan40:07

      It's also indicative of a condition that takes place when people are under extreme duress where they sort of just, they give into ideologies much easier.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill40:17

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan40:18

      And, uh, you know, we really saw that during COVID. COVID, people just gave in, and all the sudden, like, here's another one. Trust the pharmaceutical drug companies to not lie, which was never the case. Nobody trusted them before that. If you had polled people in 2017, like after the Vioxx scandal and after we knew about the opioid crisis and the Sackler family and all that, if you polled people back then and asked them what, what their faith in the pharmaceutical drug companies was and how much, how many of them do you think are lying, oh my God, it'd be off the charts. It'd be most people distrust them. Most people wouldn't think they'd be telling the truth. And then it switched over to if you don't trust them, you're a Nazi.

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill40:56

      (laughs) Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan40:56

      You're a fascist. You should die. We hope you get the disease and die.

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill41:01

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan41:01

      You're a plague rat. And that is just immediately going into climate change, and a lot of the same hysterical people who were up in arms about people's non-willingness to participate in experimental medication now are like, if you don't 100% support climate change, you don't drive-

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill41:20

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan41:20

      ... an electric car, you're not doing all the things that you're supposed to be doing, you, you're on the wrong side of everything. You're on the wrong side of history. And if you try to corner those people and ask them for something as, like, so interesting and fascinating about climate, it's so bizarre that that one got attached so, like, rigorously to ideology, because it's such- it's a fascinating conversation. Like, what makes, like, what is the difference between us surviving and not surviving? Like, what degrees hotter would it get where we'd be fucked? What degrees colder would it get we'd be fucked? Like, how lucky are we that we're on this planet that's protected by a moon-

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill41:57

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan41:57

       ... that's the perfect distance from the sun? Like, holy shit.

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill42:01

       But, you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan42:01

       Like, this is fragile.

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill42:02

       ... but what's interesting about both of those issues, COVID and, um, climate change, is that what people will say is that in a time of crisis, we can't afford the luxury of dissent.

   15. JRJoe Rogan42:13

       Or we can't aff- what do you, but you don't even understand it. That was my point, is like-

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill42:17

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan42:17

       ... these people that will a- argue, like, violently that you should adhere to cli- when you start asking them questions like, "What percentage of carbon is in the atmosphere?"

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill42:26

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan42:26

       Like, "What is the consequences of it raising or lowering? What's the, what's the negative consequences of it lowering?"

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill42:31

       But they, and they can't answer that stuff.

   21. JRJoe Rogan42:33

       They don't know.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill42:33

       And, and, and the thing is that, you know, my retort to those people on both of those issues, COVID and climate change, is that it's precisely in a time of crisis or a challenge to society or some problem, external problem that could cause problems for us, it's precisely in that time that freedom of speech and the right to dissent and the right to express alternative views becomes more important, not less important.

   23. JRJoe Rogan42:57

       Yes.

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill42:57

       And what happened with the outbreak of COVID in March 2020 is that the opposite position was taken by governments across the world, and what they essentially said was, "This is a serious virus. This is ser- it's a, it's a modern day plague. We can't afford any form of dissent. We can't afford any form of questioning or any deviance from the lockdown narrative, and therefore we will punish it severely as and when it arises." That was entirely the wrong approach, because if you're going to lock down a whole society... In the UK, we were, we were put under house arrest. We were allowed to leave our homes once a day. A hotline was set up by the cops so that you could report your neighbors if they left their house more than once a day.

   25. JRJoe Rogan43:38

       (laughs)

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill43:39

       Uh, a- and is- and this, it was a completely surreal situation where we had the utter decimation of civil liberty in a way that had not happened ever before in the history of our country, and yet we were told, "This is not the time to raise questions. This is not the time for debate. Debate is a luxury that we can't afford until we go back to normal." That is utterly wrong. It's precisely when there is an issue facing our society, a real confronting problem that we need to have as free a discussion as possible in order that we might have made the right decision in March 2020, in my view, which is that rather than locking down, we should've had a S- a Swedish-style scenario where people were given advice, you know, "You might not wanna go here. You might not wanna go there, but we're gonna leave schools open. We're gonna let you make your own decisions."... trusting people to make their own decisions, galvanizing people to come together as a community in order to help those who might be affected by COVID, that would have been a far better alternative to this, uh, brutish locking down of the entire society so that people's freedom was completely and utterly crushed. But it's a good example of how when you sideline debate, when you restrict freedom of speech and freedom of dissent, you end up with really tyrannical situations. Puberty blockers, the cli- the net zero hysteria, the COVID lockdowns, all of those, in some ways, are a product of crushing dissent, crushing freedom of speech, restricting people's right to put their hand in the air and say, "Hold on. Is this the right thing to do?" So freedom of speech, I think, is essential to all of these questions and the right of our society to do the right thing, rather than making these terrible mistakes.

   27. JRJoe Rogan45:18

       Without a doubt. And that was one of the most terrifying things about the Twitter files, was finding out that our own government was involved in limiting the freedom of speech of experts, of people from Stanford and Harvard-

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill45:33

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan45:33

       ... who were dissenting about the- what- the way things were handled during the pandemic, that you're- you're literally deciding that some of the smartest people on Earth shouldn't be allowed to talk because they don't fit this narrative that we all need to follow in order to survive. I'm hoping that most people woke the fuck up after that. And even if you went along with it in the beginning, and you haven't apologized, or you haven't consented to the fact that you were incorrect, even- even if you haven't- you haven't just accepted it entirely, you- there's a part of you that knows the world got fucked over.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill46:08

       Yeah.
9. 1:02:01 – 1:20:36

   Social media, TikTok, and the fragility economy: narcissism, self-diagnosis, and mental health identities

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

      Unquestionably. Th- and well-said. I, I think it's also a function of what's going on today with the access to the internet and social media, and the addiction that almost everyone has to both of those things, that participates in them. You, you're, you're getting so much information, and you're getting it in a way that human beings have never experienced before.

   2. BOBrendan O'Neill1:02:24

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:02:24

      And, and it's easily manipulated. And I think that's the argument for what they're doing on TikTok in America versus what they're doing on TikTok in China.... but I think it's also being manipulated because that's what we like. We l- we like, we gravitate towards those things that they show us, and it upsets us that they know what we like. (laughs)

   4. BOBrendan O'Neill1:02:42

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:02:43

      You know? This is part of it. But in China, they have a TikTok that kids aren't allowed on after 10:00 PM. It, uh, accentuates, uh, athletic accomplishments, martial arts, uh, science projects, and it's designed to foster this sense of, uh, self-worth and, and performance. And that's how you wanna... If you wanna build a stronger society-

   6. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:05

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:03:05

      ... that's what you would encourage. And if you want to diminish the society that is run by your enemies, you would, uh, show them the, the problem with freedom. Here, you're gonna have, uh, men with beards and long fingernails-

   8. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:16

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:03:16

      ... teaching your kids about gender, and you're gonna be a... You're a plumber, and you're like, "What the fuck?"

   10. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:21

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:03:21

       "What are they doing to my kid over there?"

   12. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:22

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:03:23

       And that, that's, that's real too, and we're all, like, battling this in real time in a way that's never happened before in the entire human race as far as we know.

   14. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:33

       I think the, the, the, you know, the, the issue with social media, which is a real issue, and Jonathan Haidt was talking about this, uh, with you and, and in his new book, there is a problem, I think, with kids hanging around on social media all day long.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:03:44

       Yeah.

   16. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:44

       And especially something like TikTok, and if you look at, um... I, I, I limit my social media use as much as possible. I'm only on Instagram, which is nicer than all the other platforms because it's just recipes and pictures of people's-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:03:57

       Yeah.

   18. BOBrendan O'Neill1:03:58

       ... holidays. It's, it's a bit more of a bearable experience. So I don't use Twitter. I certainly (laughs) don't use TikTok. I'm way too old for that. Um, but lots of young people do, and I think what's interesting about it is that, uh, I, I, I fear... One worry I have, you may disagree with me on this, but I fear that an anti-technology view is creeping in amongst those of us who might be broadly described as reasonable or anti-woke or on the favor of, uh, on the side of, of, of, um, rationality. I do feel that an anti-technology view is creeping in because I, uh, the problem as I see it with the internet and with social media is not so much the existence of these things but the fact that they've molded themselves around a preexisting culture.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:41

       Mm.

   20. BOBrendan O'Neill1:04:41

       So social media in a different era could have been one of the most wonderful things imaginable. It could have been a forum for spreading ideas or for, um, proving to the world what a big man you are, what a strong woman you are, and saying, "Look, I'm taking control of my life." It could have had a different impact entirely. But what's happened is that social media has emerged in an era in which young people, in particular, are encouraged to be hyperfragile, to mess around with their gender in a way that they shouldn't, to f- cons- conceive of themselves as mentally ill when they're not mentally ill. So you have on TikTok now, kids self-diagnosing themselves. They will literally be, um, videos on TikTok saying, "Do you have these four different symptoms? If you do, you have ADHD."

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:05:24

       Mm.

   22. BOBrendan O'Neill1:05:25

       "You have clinical depression. You're bipolar." And it's, it's four things that everyone has. Do you occasionally feel unhappy? Do you occasionally struggle to meet deadlines? And so, what I think the problem with social media is not the technology itself, not the ability of people to communicate as freely as social media allows, not even necessarily the fact that kids are on there all day long, although that is a problem. It's that it's molded itself around preexisting cultural trends towards hyperfragility, self-obsession, a culture of narcissism, a culture of brittleness, and that, I think, has exacerbated the problems in society by allowing kids to engage with that stuff all day long.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:06:04

       And what is the root of all that thinking and behavior? What is the root of all the fragility? What's, what's the root of all the victim mentality? Where does it begin?

   24. BOBrendan O'Neill1:06:15

       I think, uh, i- it's down to a culture of narcissism. Christopher Lash wrote about this in 1979, so that's a long time ago. So, uh, a- and I think when you say, when you say the word narcissism, people think it just means self-love.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:06:28

       Right.

   26. BOBrendan O'Neill1:06:29

       Self-involvement. And people will talk about the problem of kids taking selfies all day long and putting them online. There's more to narcissism than self-love. In fact, s- narcissism is usually triggered by self-doubt. And I think one of the, uh, one of the problems with the culture of narcissism is people's expectation that the world should always reflect their image back to them.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:06:51

       Yeah.

   28. BOBrendan O'Neill1:06:52

       So they cannot accept the idea that the world is a tough place. It's a difficult place. People aren't going to buy into your gender identity. People aren't going to accept that you're a wonderful person. You have to prove yourself. You have to use your mettle and your strength and your will and your perseverance to demonstrate what your virtues are and to prove yourself in your community and in your society. And the problem with narcissism is that it does away with all those traditional expectations of having to demonstrate who you are as a person, and it just has this instant expectation of validation. Validate my identity, validate my pain, validate my mental illness.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:07:32

       Right.

   30. BOBrendan O'Neill1:07:32

       Prove to me that I am right to be self-obsessed in the way that I am. So what the culture of narcissism does is it forces people into themselves in a very destructive and dangerous way, and at the moment, that's taking the form of kids saying, "I'm fragile. I'm mentally unbalanced. I have ADHD. I have bipolar disorder." They don't have any of these things. It's not true. Uh, ADHD is, to a large extent, a myth. It's being massively overdiagnosed. Bipolar disorder is being massively o- overdiagnosed. I think what's happened is that people covet these, uh, uh, uh, these identities, these mental health identities as a way of explaining everything that's wrong in their lives. There was a really interesting interview with a mental health expert on the BBC a few years ago, and she said that people come to her surgery and say, "Please diagnose me with bipolar disorder. I'm convinced I've got it." People covet these kind of, uh, diagnoses as a way of explaining every difficulty that they c-... encounter.

Episode duration: 2:33:43