Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games

Christian Angermayer 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Gentlemen, good to see you.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:13 Good to see you.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Please introduce yourselves.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:16 Uh, I'm Dr. Aaron de Souza, president of the Enhanced Games. And I'm Christian Angermayer, co-founder of the Enhanced Games.

Joe Rogan 0:22 And, uh, this is a very exciting idea. And how did this come about? What, what was the impetus behind this?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:30 I've been studying the Olympics and the Olympic movement my en- entire life. You know, I'm 39 years old. When I was a undergraduate at university, it was just after the Sydney Olympics and, you know, it was always something that inspired me. And I thought to myself, you know... I l- I learned some key statistics. 44% of Olympians admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs within the last year, according to research commissioned by the World Anti-Doping-

Joe Rogan 0:53 44%.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:54 44%.

Joe Rogan 0:55 And the other, you know, probably lying.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:57 Are losing. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:59 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 0:59 Exactly. Uh, and, and so, you know, and then I learned that the average American Olympian only earns thir- $30,000 a year. And I thought to myself, "There's something really wrong in the system." And instead of, you know, trying to reform it, let's take a blank slate, uh, slate of paper and invent the third Olympiad from scratch.

Joe Rogan 1:19 Mm. Well, the Olympics is kind of a scam because it generates billions of dollars in revenue and the people that are there to perform make almost none of that.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:30 That's correct. The i- actually the International Olympic Committee doesn't pay any of the athletes, uh, in... Incidentally, they may get some money in sponsorship or from their National Olympic Committee-

Joe Rogan 1:39 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:40 ... but ultimately, the billions in dollar- billions of dollars in revenue come into the Olympics and none of that goes to the athletes. It gets wasted building stadiums. It gets wasted paying officials. And we thought there was a way to do a better, more honest model that inspires us to believe in the future of science and technology in the 21st century.

Joe Rogan 1:58 And you could do apolitically too if you chose to.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:02 Uh-

Joe Rogan 2:02 You know, are you, are you guys doing it by nation or are you doing it just, like, human beings?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:07 Human beings. Uh-

Joe Rogan 2:08 Better.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:09 I th- yeah. I think the era of nationalism, uh, is, is over, right? Look at the Eurovision Song Competition recently. Um-

Joe Rogan 2:15 What is that? (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:16 Oh, it was when, you know, Israel was performing and there were huge protests out front of the competition. It's a very Eu-

Joe Rogan 2:23 What was the competition?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:24 It's a very European thing. It's called European Song Contest. I'm European.

Joe Rogan 2:27 Song Contest.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:28 A song contest.

Joe Rogan 2:29 Oh, Song Contest. Okay.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:29 Yes. It's every country, every year, makes a very cheesy song.

Joe Rogan 2:33 Oh, God. (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:34 And I actually like it.

Joe Rogan 2:35 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:37 So let's, uh, yes. (laughs) Let's not go there. I'm kind of a fan, um, being German, um, it's a big thing in Europe. But unfortunately, it's g- it was super fun and campy. There's actually a Netflix movie about it. Like, not a documentary, but a fun movie about it.

Joe Rogan 2:51 Is this it right here, Jamie?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:53 Uh, well that is one of the winners, yes.

Joe Rogan 2:54 Most, 10 recent winners of the Eurovision-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:55 Yes. Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 2:55 Oh, God yeah. (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 2:56 And she's amazing. She's amazing. It's Loreen.

Joe Rogan 2:59 "She's amazing." Okay.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:01 Uh, yeah. It's very catchy songs. I don't know what your song-

Joe Rogan 3:03 She's crawling around with her butt up in the air.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:05 Well, it's very campy. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:07 I guess.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:08 Yes. But there is even a cool Netflix movie about it. But long story short, unfortunately, this was the first year where it became really political, which I think music shouldn't be. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:17 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:17 Uh, and, which was sad.

Joe Rogan 3:19 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:20 But we will not be political. That's the short version. We're not gonna go per country, yeah, it's the best human being, the fastest one, highest jumper, whatever.

Joe Rogan 3:28 Yeah. We- Yeah. It's just so many countries use it as a political tool, you know. Uh, and they g- they cheat. Like, I'm, I'm sure you guys have seen Icarus, right?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 3:39 Oh yeah. I was with Bryan Fogel a couple of days ago.

Joe Rogan 3:41 He's great. And that documentary is amazing. And the, the, what it, I mean, what incredible, like, circumstances, like the way it all played out, where he's in the middle of doing this documentary about doing a race naturally and then doing a race enhanced. And the guy he contacts in the middle of all the Sochi Olympics crap, that guy winds up fleeing the country, spilling the beans-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 4:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:04 ... and now he's hiding. He's-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 4:05 He's in witness protection, yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:06 Yeah. Still, in this country, hiding from Russian killers.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 4:11 Yeah. And that's right. And I think, you know, the reality is that performance enhancements are everywhere. Uh, 6.3% of men, um, in the Western world have used anabolic steroids at some point in their life. 75% of men who regularly go to the gym are interested in using steroids. And so instead of doing it underground, in secret, let's do it out in the open with clinical supervision and, and, and safety.

Joe Rogan 4:37 But what is, what are the legal ramifications of this? Because, uh, we were talking about this in the pod- we were talking about the different drug schedules on the podcast yesterday. And steroids are scheduled, right? It's like Schedule III.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 4:52 It's a Sc- yeah. It's a Schedule III substance in the United States. There are 23 countries where steroids, anabolics are legal, including in the United Kingdom for personal use. And so let's first distinguish between what is legal and what is banned. So in Olympic competition they always say, "Oh, these drugs are illegal." But actually, they're, they're banned in Olympic competition. So-

Joe Rogan 5:13 'Cause there's a lot of things that are, you know, like peptides and things along those lines that are illegal in the Olympics.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:19 That are banned in the Olympics, but they're not banned in Schedule Substances.

Joe Rogan 5:21 Yeah. Banned Schedule Substances.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:21 Yeah. It's really important because it means the Olympics decided as a, as a sort of private organization, "We don't want that."

Joe Rogan 5:28 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:28 "But you can take it."

Joe Rogan 5:29 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:30 So legally you can take it.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:31 So like TRT, for example, is a perfectly legal substance. It's FDA approved. It's delivered under clinical supervision. But if you used it, you would be banned from Olympic competition.

Joe Rogan 5:41 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:41 Right. So the vast majority of compounds that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency are actually perfectly legal.

Joe Rogan 5:47 Mm. He, you know, the UFC had a guy that accidentally took something that had DHEA in it.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 5:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:54 A real high level guy, Khalil Rountree, and he was supposed to be fighting Jamal Hill, uh, in three weeks. And b- he found out that there was DHEA in it. He informed the UFC, told them. And DHEA isn't even performance-enhancing.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:10 And they banned him for two months. So he had a two months... And so he missed out on, like, the biggest opportunity-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:14 It's, it's-

Joe Rogan 6:14 ... of his career.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:15 So if you go into your local GNC-... 25% of the goods will contain substances that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Joe Rogan 6:23 25%?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:23 Yeah. So these are just off the shelf, you know.

Joe Rogan 6:25 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:25 This is not black market. This is what you can buy in your local shop, mall.

Joe Rogan 6:28 And then, of course, there's tainted supplements, which is a real problem, because a lot of these supplements, they use, uh, another party that puts them together for them, generally in other countries and a lot of them in China. And these people are also making different things with these vats. They don't clean them properly, and then they mix the new stuff in it and you easily get chem contamination. It happens all the time.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:49 Exactly. And well, that's the excuse that the Chinese government used about the 23 swimmers. Are you aware of this situation?

Joe Rogan 6:54 Which... What's this?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 6:56 So 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive TMZ, which is a heart medication, and they claimed that this was because of a-

Joe Rogan 7:03 When was this? How long ago?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:05 Oh, uh, just six weeks ago it was.

Joe Rogan 7:06 Oh, really? And, uh-

Christian Angermayer 7:07 It came out six weeks ago.

Joe Rogan 7:08 Oh.

Christian Angermayer 7:09 The, the incident was, was earlier.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:11 Yeah. So, uh, 2021. But yeah, the New York Times reported it.

Joe Rogan 7:15 Received no sanctions.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:16 "13 of these athletes won all the years' Olympic Games in Tokyo, won six medals, three of them gold." Huh. Well, they, they definitely did something during Beijing too.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:25 Yeah. Well, the, the, the Chinese clearly were doing this intentionally and the World Anti-Doping Authority, because of pressure from the Chinese state, covered it all up. And that's not my accusation.

Joe Rogan 7:36 Oh.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:36 That's the accusation made by Travis Tygart, who's the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency.

Joe Rogan 7:40 Okay. So the premise is let's cut the shit.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:44 You guys are... There's been people that do... It's like the argument for Tour de France, right?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:49 Like Tour de France, when they stripped Lance Armstrong, the next person that had not ever tested positive was 18th place.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:58 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 7:58 And if you look at the, uh, at the, at the 100-meter time, so the fastest man in the world, seven of the top 10 fastest 100-meter runners in history have had a doping violation.

Joe Rogan 8:09 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:10 And the only one that's not in the top five is Usain Bolt.

Joe Rogan 8:13 Wow. So it's just a scam.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:16 It's a scam. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:16 And the... We've been hearing that for years about sprinters, particularly sprinters in other countries-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:21 ... that they're, they're enhanced. And especially if you're like, your national pride is involved and they know that there's ways that you can kind of finagle things and get around them, and you hire doctors to test people and use masking agents or whatever the hell you do.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:36 In the UFC, they don't even let them rehydrate with, um, IVs anymore.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:40 Yeah, same thing in cycling. So if you take more than 100 milliliters of IV within 12 hours, that's considered a banned substance.

Joe Rogan 8:46 Well, you can't do any-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:47 ... IVs in the UFC.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:48 Really?

Joe Rogan 8:49 Yeah. They won't let you because... Just because of the fear of masking, uh, performance-enhancing drugs, because you could flush your system.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 8:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:58 But, uh, the problem with that is like IVs are good for you. Like this is really stupid. Like if, if, uh, if you can make sure that a person is just doing IV vitamins, I mean, if your random testing is effective, you should just do that. Like d- don't stop someone from doing something that's going to make them healthier while they're in a business that's about as dangerous as you can get without people shooting at you.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 9:21 Yeah. And so the solution is not to do, um, drug testing, it's to do health testing. Like we want to make sure that our athletes are healthy and safe to compete. So we do cardiac screenings, MRIs, blood work, um, to measure their biomarkers to ensure that they're within healthy ranges. And that's the core difference, right? The drug testing apparatus at the Olympics is about fairness and competition. It's not about the health and safety of athletes.

Joe Rogan 9:45 Here's the question. If you open up the gates and say you're allowed to take whatever substances you want at whatever levels you want in order to compete at your very best, how close to redlining does a person get? You know, especially if you're involved in something that requires strength and explosive energy like we've had f-... One of the things... The UFC at one point in time had, uh, testosterone use exemptions. And you were allowed to get those if your testosterone was at a low enough level. The problem with that was that was not thought out at all.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 10:20 You can, you can beat that test in a heartbeat. Just stay up all night-

Joe Rogan 10:22 Stay up all night, eat 15 cheeseburgers, and jerk off three times, and you're good. (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 10:29 (laughs) You know, you're gonna be, you're gonna be at like 200. Ugh. Like, "Oh my God, you're sick, Bob." (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 10:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:35 But it's j-... Also, there's another problem, is that people that have a history of anabolic steroid use, generally they've wrecked their endocrine system.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 10:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:45 And particularly back in the day, the early days of MMA was all enhanced. And if you go and watch Pride, for instance, like Pride, which was the big show in Japan, it was this enormous organization in Japan that kind of fell apart because the Yakuza was involved with it-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 11:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:03 ... and they went bankrupt. There's a lot of, a lot of craziness involved. But at one point in time, they were selling out like these 90,000-seat arenas in Tokyo. It was nuts.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 11:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:14 And everybody looked like a superhero. I mean, just fucking jacked, just giant, jacked guys beating the shit out of each other. And everybody who went over there will tell you, like the contract literally specifically stated in capital letters, "We do not test for steroids." They will encourage you to do steroids over there. They want you to look good.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 11:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:34 They want you to fight at your best. Like we don't care what you take, just go over there and go ham.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 11:38 But it comes down to a fundamental philosophical question. Shouldn't an individual with free and informed consent, an adult, be able to make choices about their own body?

Joe Rogan 11:49 They should. But the question is, when is it not fair, right?

Christian Angermayer 11:53 But it's the epitome of fairness if it's very transparent.

Joe Rogan 11:57 Right.

Christian Angermayer 11:57 What is unfair... Think about it like you winning silver in the current Olympics. And I talked to so many athletes, they kind of know who's cheating or not. Because if you are very like into sports, you know what is kind of, let's call it unnatural or enhanced.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Right.

Christian Angermayer 12:12 So... But they cannot say it. There is a lot of politics, as you say, whatever.

Joe Rogan 12:15 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 12:15 So you win silver, you stand next to the person who won gold, and you have a deep hunch that this person is enhanced.

Joe Rogan 12:23 Right.

Christian Angermayer 12:23 That is the worst-

Joe Rogan 12:25 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 12:25 ... because you're betrayed of your performance, uh, because the people on the screen cannot contextualize it.

Joe Rogan 12:31 Right.

Christian Angermayer 12:31 What we are saying is like... By the way, we're also not anti-Olympics. We're like, the Olympics should be really clean. Then it's interesting because then I have a, a framework I can judge performance. But in our case-... people will know that people take enhancements. We actually will endorse people to even say what they're doing because it's completely open.

Joe Rogan 12:49 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 12:50 And then again, you can contextualize, so both is about either zero or completely free slate in the medical framework is the, is the real definition of fairness.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 12:59 And, and from 1896 until 1992, the Olympics banned professional athletes from competing. And so the Olympics were amateur and there were professional sports leagues elsewhere. And I think the same thing is gonna happen in the 21st century. The Olympics are going to be the natural sports competition where we're gonna see what the best of a human 1.0 can do. And at the Enhanced Games, there will be what can the best unleashed human, superhuman can do.

Joe Rogan 13:25 But here's the question. If you guys are successful, what, what athlete would want... If you guys are successful and it becomes a huge household name and people watch it and it becomes exciting w- and you make money, what athletes are gonna wanna do the Olympics for free, and get a microscope up your ass and people constantly testing you for this and that, and knowing that other countries are probably pulling off some shenanigans like China allegedly did?

Christian Angermayer 13:55 Not our problem-

Joe Rogan 13:56 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 13:56 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 13:56 ... but I agree with... (laughs) Yeah. I agree with you. Like, by the way, the same question is-

Joe Rogan 14:00 It's a good answer. (laughs) Not our problem.

Christian Angermayer 14:01 Not our problem.

Joe Rogan 14:02 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 14:02 Like, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna not wish them well. Like, it's just, like, I think we're gonna do better. And, and the other thing is, by the way, what I deeply believe, humans are wired, we want the best and we wanna also watch the best.

Joe Rogan 14:12 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 14:13 Like, you're not gonna watch something where the best natural player... No, you wanna see the best absolute player, even if this player or person is enhanced. Like, but again, the future will tell and the consumer will tell, but we are super confident.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 14:26 But it's like the, the rise of the UFC. So the UFC was unbridled by the traditional rules of boxing and other combat sports. And, you know, the simple premise that Rorion Gracie had was how do we find the very best fighter?

Joe Rogan 14:39 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 14:39 Right? And that's just a very simple question, and at the Enhanced Games, it's how can we find the fastest human being, or what is the total potentiality of the human spirit and, and all of humanity?

Joe Rogan 14:52 So how do you get... Well, it's, there, there's a lot of factors, right? You need people that have already competed, you know, you know, you don't wanna get someone who's just starting out at a sport, right? So you have people that have a, a deep history in the sport where they wanna, and they can, they're capable of competing at an elite level. And then if they're gonna do your games, they have to kind of make this decision 'cause they're never gonna be able in the Olympics again after that, right?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 15:17 Well, th- they actually could go back to the Olympic system.

Joe Rogan 15:19 But they would get so tested. And if they do, I mean, if they do start taking testosterone, do start taking a bunch of other things, it's gonna inhibit their natural ability to produce hormones.

Christian Angermayer 15:32 Technically, most likely it comes back, but I would say it's a decision of the Olympics and other sports leagues, how they wanna handle athletes who also at a certain time have participated in our games. Maybe they say there is a cooling off period. So I d- it's not that we will exclude them going back, it might be that other sports leagues say, "Look, once, if you're in the Enhanced Games, you can't come back to us."

Joe Rogan 15:54 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 15:54 And, and it's fundamentally an economic question too. So your average Olympian is earning $30,000 a year. You know, the best performing track and field athletes might be making couple 100,000 bucks a year. Um, and, you know, we're offering a million dollar prize for, to break significant world records. And basically what I'm saying-

Joe Rogan 16:10 So it's a million dollars just to break the world record.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 16:13 Yeah, so a mill- a million bucks to break 100 meter world record on the track, a million bucks to break the 50 meter freestyle world record in the pool.

Joe Rogan 16:21 So the qu- the question is like, how can you ensure that you're gonna get elite level athletes that are capable of performing at, like, an Olympic level? And they're gonna, they're, they'll be risking... It's a big, it's a significant risk to them because they'll be openly admitting they're part of the Enhanced Games, they're openly admitting that they're taking these substances in order to, to compete at this level, and they don't know if you guys are gonna be around, like-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 16:47 Well, so number one, you don't have to take enhancements to be at the Enhanced Games. You can just be-

Joe Rogan 16:51 You can just be a regular person with awesome genes.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 16:52 ... a regular person with awesome genes. Yeah, yeah. You could say, "Hey, I'm, I'm-"

Joe Rogan 16:54 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 16:55 "... I won the genetic lottery."

Joe Rogan 16:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 16:56 Right? And I think I can beat all the enhanced athletes and make for great television. Right?

Joe Rogan 17:00 Yeah, that's fun too, right?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:02 Yeah. And so, you know, if you're, if y- if you've believed you've won the genetic lottery and you think you can show up and break a world record and get a million bucks, they'll, they'll come and do it.

Joe Rogan 17:11 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:11 Right? And do it naturally. Uh, and then some athletes say, "You know, I did not win the genetic lottery, and I want the chance to be the Neil Armstrong of our generation." To, to, to-

Joe Rogan 17:21 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:21 ... to, to... You know, this is how I think of it. I think we're, we're building the Apollo mission for the 21st century. Uh, you know, what did the Apollo mission do? It showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species, right? We, we hit a new threshold going to the moon using science and technology to-

Joe Rogan 17:37 Hm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:37 ... overcome our limits. This is exactly what the Enhanced Games is about.

Joe Rogan 17:41 Sort of, you're not going to the moon. Let's be serious.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:44 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 17:44 It's gonna be cool. Like-

Joe Rogan 17:45 Yeah. (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 17:45 ... 3:45.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 17:45 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 17:45 It's pretty bad.

Joe Rogan 17:46 You're just getting a bunch of guys juiced up running really fast. Big difference. But, uh, still interesting.

Christian Angermayer 17:51 But it'll make history. Still-

Joe Rogan 17:52 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 17:53 ... I would say breaking a world record is, is a thing. Maybe not going to the moon-

Joe Rogan 17:57 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 17:58 ... I agree, but, like, it's a, it's something people aspire to do.

Joe Rogan 18:01 Well, uh, it, it is, but it's also, we'll know for sure that these people are doing something, whereas before we just suspect it. You know, I, I remember when Ben Johnson got popped and everybody's like, "Oh, I can't believe he cheated." But then you find out that Carl Lewis was taking stuff too.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 18:19 I think everyone on the starting line in the 1988 100 meter final was, uh, eventually accused. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:23 They probably all were. You know, Bruce Jenner took 'em famously. I mean, he talked about it, like, taking 'em when he won the decathlon. But-

Christian Angermayer 18:29 And by the way, one thing is that we don't even need to speculate if athletes wanna do it, because we did a ca- so-called casting call. So we're doing a documentary about the way to the Enhanced Games together with Ridley Scott. So we made a big casting call-... and we have more than thousand professional athletes, many of them who are in the Summer Olympics-

Joe Rogan 18:48 Mm.

Christian Angermayer 18:49 ... who applied to be in the documentary and hence in the Enhanced Games. So, the question, if this is an appealing proposition, is answered. S- more than 1,000.

Joe Rogan 18:59 So, what about the pressure from countries, like different countries that have elite athletes that compete in sprinting and, and whatever, boxing?

Christian Angermayer 19:08 I spoke to two head of states about it. One is a very close friend, and he texting me every week. He's like, "I can't wait for this to happen." He's one of our early fans, like, uh-

Joe Rogan 19:17 (laughs) So, they're in too? Wow.

Christian Angermayer 19:19 Uh, I... Well, at least the ones I spoke to. I don't think there will be a lot of pressure, because again, what do countries want? What is sports for them is a way to show their national pride.

Joe Rogan 19:29 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 19:29 And if you have national pride, you want your person to be the fastest person in the world.

Joe Rogan 19:34 Right.

Christian Angermayer 19:35 If that's with enhancements, like-

Joe Rogan 19:36 Right.

Christian Angermayer 19:36 ... so be it.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 19:37 And it's a- also a point of national pride. It w- will be a point of national pride to be the most technologically and scientifically advanced society-

Joe Rogan 19:45 Yes.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 19:45 ... that has the engineering and intellectual capability-

Joe Rogan 19:49 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 19:50 ... to develop and manufacture and clinically supervise these products.

Christian Angermayer 19:54 It... It's actually... What is interesting, like when we teamed up, um, Aaron had the idea. We talked earlier. Uh, I have my own investment firm, so I'm both the investor and, uh, and his co-founder. We both were actually calculating with much more negativity, in actually a good way, because it's driving our recognition. So, but, I'm always jokingly saying, it's almost going too smooth because people love it.

Joe Rogan 20:18 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 20:19 Like, the only (laughs) people who don't love it is the Olympics. But like-

Joe Rogan 20:21 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 20:21 ... like, the, the feedback we're getting from my 14-year-old godson to a head of state is like, "That's fucking awesome." Like, uh...

Joe Rogan 20:29 (laughs) Well, it's also everybody knows that athletes are taking things. They've been doing it forever. You know, before USADA came into the UFC, there's a, it's a, there's an actual, um... A lot of people studied the difference between certain fighters that were competing at an incredibly high level before USADA came, and then they, their, their physiques melted.

Christian Angermayer 20:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:52 I mean, you could see the, the difference. It's a giant difference. But they were all passing drug tests before, but they were passing drug tests by the athletic commissions on the day of the fight-

Christian Angermayer 21:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:02 ... which, by all accounts, is an intelligence test. It's just whether or not you're taking the proper steps to-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:07 Yep.

Joe Rogan 21:08 ... cover your tracks.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:09 Yeah, you just gotta know the half-lives-

Joe Rogan 21:10 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:10 ... of the products that you're taking and-

Joe Rogan 21:12 And everybody knew that that was the case.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:14 And so, instead of going your way, they went the way of just crawling up everybody's ass with a microscope, and they do it... USADA was doing it in a very intrusive way, where they were waking up fighters on the day of a weigh-in, early in the morning-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:29 ... 'cause they, they'll, they'll show up at 6:00 in the morning, but-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:31 It i- i- and it's because USADA is not accountable-

Joe Rogan 21:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:34 ... to anyone. The International Olympic Committee is not accountable to anyone. You know, it's like, it's a really important question about how the structure of sports internationally works. Do you know who appoints the members of the International Olympic Committee?

Joe Rogan 21:48 No.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:49 Right, so you, logically, it should be like, member countries, like the UN?

Joe Rogan 21:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 21:53 Or maybe the athletes should elect the members of the IOC? No, the IOC is a club of European aristocrats that was formed in 1896 that just elects itself, and so it has no external accountability. It's not regulated by anyone. It's not accountable to any governments. And so that means that they can just set the rules however they want, and this is how th- they've gotten away with not paying athletes-

Joe Rogan 22:16 Mm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:16 ... for over 100 years.

Joe Rogan 22:18 Yeah. That makes sense. Um, what are the sports that you guys are going to showcase, and will you have combat sports?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:26 Yeah, so there are five key sports: track, swimming, combat, gymnastics, and strength.

Joe Rogan 22:34 And for combat sports, you can have boxing, wrestling. What are you gonna have?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:38 So, boxing and MMA are definitely in.

Joe Rogan 22:41 MMA?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:43 Really?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:45 Hmm. That's interesting. So, MMA, um, if you're gonna have people being enhanced in MMA, that will severely limit their ability to compete in other organizations.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 22:58 Fair.

Joe Rogan 22:59 So, how are you gonna get high-level fighters that are not gonna compete in Bellator or not gonna compete in the UFC, or how are you gonna do that?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:08 Well, I think the entire MMA community is clearly moving away from the dr- the traditional drug testing apparatus, and look at what UFC has done, moving away from USADA.

Joe Rogan 23:16 No, no, they just moved to drug-free sport-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:19 ... which is just a better organization, does the exact same thing. They're doing the exact same things. The exact same things are banned, including peptides like BPC-157, which people argued, they're like, "This is ridiculous. This shouldn't be legal." But what they said is the problem is state athletic commissions test for BPC-157, and as long as they test, some of them do at least-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:39 ... as long as they deem it illegal, we have to-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:42 ... make it illegal.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:43 Even though, yeah, I mean, soft tissue injuries, it's really great for recovery.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 23:47 Yeah, and so, you know, in terms of athlete recruitment, there's such a wide pipeline. You know, the, the, the difference in terms of, um, with, uh, MMA and combat sports is there's no objective world records.

Joe Rogan 23:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:00 So, you know, the, it's solving for a fame question-

Joe Rogan 24:03 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:03 ... not a performance question.

Joe Rogan 24:04 Right, it's to be one of the people that does it. So, have you talked to athletes about that, combat sports athletes?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:11 We've had, uh, in, in the casting call that we did, we had, uh, maybe about 15% of the athletes were in the, uh, combat disciplines-

Joe Rogan 24:19 Real?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:19 ... um, including ex-UFC athletes, yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:21 Ex-UFC athletes?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:23 So, guys at the end of their run?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:24 Yeah, you know, that's, that's where performance-enhancing drugs are very appealing.

Joe Rogan 24:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:29 Right? You know, you've been-

Joe Rogan 24:29 Sure.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:30 ... you've been in your career, you know, you're sort of 30, 35 years old, and people say, "You know, you're out of it. You should be retired." And they're saying, this is, uh, now with the emotional maturity that you have in your 30s-

Joe Rogan 24:41 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 24:42 ... to regain the body in your 20s and to come back to compete at a high level.

Joe Rogan 24:45 It's also the wisdom. It's, it's not just emotional maturity. It's like accumulated time sparring, accumulated time in d- different scenarios where you just, you know what's coming next. It's, you don't have to think about it. It's programmed into your system.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 25:00 Mm.

Joe Rogan 25:01 ... um, so they're all kind of be- w- that is interesting, because, like, I don't know how much you guys follow MMA, but one of the- the great errors of MMA was Vitor Belfort when they let him take testosterone.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 25:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:14 So do you know about this?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 25:15 Okay.

Joe Rogan 25:15 It's legendary in MMA, because he is the best example of a veteran, a guy who is- was an older guy, first fought in the UFC at 19 years old in 1997. And in the 2000s, this was like 2004 or '5, that's when they allowed the testosterone use exemptions.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 25:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:35 And Vitor looked like an alien. He would come... Luke Rockhold saw him in- in- in the- at like the weigh-ins and he's like, "My first thought was what the fuck is this guy on?"

Dr. Aron D’Souza 25:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:45 'Cause he just l- He had a mohawk, and he just looked insanely jacked, and he was knocking everybody out. I mean, fearless. But, um, because of the testosterone use exemptions, and then there was some controversy about it, they had tested him one time when he was... He lives in Brazil, and they had tested him one time when he was in the United States, and he was off the charts.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 26:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:05 Like, you're not supposed to have that much testosterone in your system. This is fucking insane. And so then it started this controversy, and then ultimately, they got rid of testosterone use exemptions. But he was the perfect example of a really elite fighter who, you know, is getting older. His body was kind of failing him, and just he did a lot of steroids when he was younger, allegedly, and so his physique looked kind of soft, and then all of a sudden, he looked like a fucking freak, just a real freak. And he was just wheel-kicking people and knocking everybody out, and it was like he went on a run for a few years where he was just unstoppable. It was terrifying, and everybody knew he was enhanced. You'd look at him, you're just like, "Good Lord." So then he gets off of it, 2006- '16, '17 rather is him off of it, so 2012 is Vitor high on the sauce. I mean, look at him, and then 2017 he doesn't.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 27:01 He doesn't even look like the same person.

Joe Rogan 27:01 He doesn't. All of his muscle went away, and all of his endurance went away. His endocrine system is shot from years of doing TRT, and, you know, and just whatever else he was doing.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 27:12 And- and what I would caution about that is having the highest quality clinical and scientific supervision. So the problem about the current environment is that it's largely done underground. Very few athletes have access to high-quality doctors. Most of the information's what I call bro science-

Joe Rogan 27:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 27:29 ... on bodybuilding.com forums.

Joe Rogan 27:31 Yeah, or gym guys that tell you, "I got you, bro."

Dr. Aron D’Souza 27:33 Yeah. I saw someone on Instagram. So, you know, what we're trying to do is a very rigorous scientific, uh, and medical process to ensure that we gather high-quality con- clinical data, and we share it. We're gonna publish it in the top journals, and we have a scientific advisory board. We have doctors from, you know, previously at FIFA, um, you know, the chairman of genetics at Harvard, Professor George Church, is on our advisory board. And we've really built up a serious scientific and medical establishment to make the Enhanced Games a very serious endeavor.

Joe Rogan 28:06 And when you do this, so you're gonna have combat sports, so you'll have MMA. You'll have wrestling? Not sure?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 28:13 Not sure about wrestling. Well, you know, we're- we're still open to ideas in terms of the pool of athletes that we can recruit. Wrestling is, you know, increasingly a niche sport. Um, the participation numbers are down. The television numbers are down, you know, so it's an- an economic decision because one of the core challenges of the Olympic Games is they've expanded to so many sports. It's so much content. It's so expensive to run, and so in our analysis of sports, it's always, what can be delivered with the highest television and social media impact, with the lowest infrastructural cost?

Joe Rogan 28:45 Hmm. But you're having sprinting in all these other games too, right? E- uh, uh, don't you think that wrestling is like a... I mean, wasn't it the original game in- in the Olympic Games? It was the original sport?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 28:57 Yeah, but, you know, the- we are inspired in some ways by the Olympic Games, but we don't want to be held back in history like the IOC is.

Joe Rogan 29:07 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 29:07 Right? They're- they're like, "Oh, it must be every four years," right?

Joe Rogan 29:11 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 29:11 "We must have these certain sports in." Um, our games are gonna be every year because that gives an athlete, uh, athletes greater opportunities to monetize and engage with their fans. Um, and w- we believe that we are the Olympics not of reinventing ancient Greece, but of the future.

Joe Rogan 29:27 So you'll have boxing?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 29:29 Boxing, certainly.

Joe Rogan 29:30 Hmm. The only worry that pe- I think people would have is that giving someone some s- substances would allow them to hurt someone more. It's like, it's different, and I- I know what you're saying, like the other person gets them too, and so... But it's a discussion, right? It's... If someone runs faster because you gave them something, like, no one's getting hurt there, you know? Maybe reputations are getting hurt, whatever, but if- if you give someone something and it allows someone to beat someone more, you know...

Christian Angermayer 30:04 But isn't that the wrong moral discussion because then we shouldn't-

Joe Rogan 30:07 Pull up to that mic real quick.

Christian Angermayer 30:08 ... then we sh- Isn't it the wrong discussion because we shouldn't then do boxing if we-

Joe Rogan 30:13 Right.

Christian Angermayer 30:13 ... don't want to allow people to hurt other people? Let's be-

Joe Rogan 30:15 Well, ultimately, that's the real discussion, right?

Christian Angermayer 30:16 That's real- exactly.

Joe Rogan 30:17 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 30:17 But I think a lot of discussions are always pseudo-discussions, where we can have a real discussion, should we have boxing?

Joe Rogan 30:22 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 30:22 But, like-

Joe Rogan 30:23 Right.

Christian Angermayer 30:24 ... it's the same ethical...

Joe Rogan 30:26 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 30:26 Yeah, like power slap, right?

Joe Rogan 30:27 But d- well, the... Don't get me started.

Christian Angermayer 30:29 Oh, my God.

Joe Rogan 30:29 And then but the other one is that maybe it's actually safer for the athletes if they're enhanced-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 30:37 Because we cover better.

Joe Rogan 30:37 ... because maybe they can recover better. Maybe they can take more punishment, you know? Maybe if, you know, they do get hurt in a fight, they'll recover better from the fight than they would naturally. There's a good argument there as well.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 30:49 Yeah, the- certainly what is appealing, particularly to older athletes, is reducing recovery time.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a significant thing for guys just in, as they get into their 30s, if- if they're still competing as a professional, they realize, like, "I don't recover as well at 34, even though I'm still in my athletic prime in terms of ability to perform." Their ability to put in work in the gym is not quite the same, and the way they feel the next day is not quite the same.

Christian Angermayer 31:17 ... I can tell you, I started the whole process. Like, I always, when I start a company, I wanna feel it myself, what is really ... what I'm talking about. It's not just like ... So I'm going through the enhancement process of an athlete myself.

Joe Rogan 31:29 Mm.

Christian Angermayer 31:29 Um, and it's unbelievable. Like, you feel 20 years younger, in like recovery, I can train every day. I wake up in the morning and don't feel stiff anymore. I'm like, "Oh, shit. This is how it felt when I was in my 20s."

Joe Rogan 31:42 Yeah. It's really strange that that's looked down upon. (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 31:46 Yeah. I can't really understand it. No, I can't really understand it. It's like, I think it's, it's a natural right, like you wanna be at your best at any time in your life. And it should be your decision, by the way.

Joe Rogan 31:56 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 31:56 What is your best? I'm not saying that people should be jacked, that this is aspirational. It should be every single person's decision.

Joe Rogan 32:03 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 32:04 What makes you happy? What is aspirational for you? But what, whatever you define, you should be allowed to do, if you're a grown-up. And if you do it, that is always my, sort of, not limiting factor, but I'm really adamant. I, I also, I don't know if you're aware, I'm also working on bringing psychedelics back. That's the same sort of discussion into the medical world. It's always, you have to do it with a doctor in a sort of informed environment. But then, it should be up to you. The same with performance enhancements.

Joe Rogan 32:31 Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I think another aspect of this whole thing i- is what you said initially. We all know that the Olympics are dirty. We all know that we, we s- anyone who's seen Icarus, and if you haven't seen it, I really recommend it, it's amazing. Y- this, these state-funded, state-sponsored programs have existed forever, and they've just been doing weasely things to try to avoid detection, and they get caught all the time. And it's not as simple as like, everyone just really wants to find out who the best is, and they're on their honor system, and everybody is honorable. No. It's like, they're taking things. Everyone's taking things. They're all hiding things.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:12 But, but imagine the scientific potential of all of that research ...

Joe Rogan 33:16 Mm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:17 ... if it came out into the open, in terms of anti-aging, in particular.

Joe Rogan 33:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:21 The same compounds that allow, uh, individual athletes to run faster and jump higher are the ones that will allow us to be younger, faster, and stronger for longer. And, and, you know, I think that's a very admirable, um, aspiration. You know, look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr., you know, he's doing pull-ups when Joe Biden and Donald Trump can hardly walk up a flight of stairs.

Joe Rogan 33:43 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:44 And he's very openly enhanced.

Joe Rogan 33:46 Yeah. Openly enhanced and works out with jeans on.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:49 Which is odd, right? (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:50 (laughs) Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 33:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:50 The g- g- jeans thing is so weird, like, what are you doing, man?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 33:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:54 But-

Christian Angermayer 33:54 But also, by the way, what, what ... It's an important point, and I think some- ... A lot of people always put enhancements into just the vanity pocket, yeah? Which is, by the way, I, and I think it's a very legit pocket, because, for example, I'm doing it more for vanity. But like, if you look at older people, like sarcopenia, like a rapid muscle loss, whatever-

Joe Rogan 34:11 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 34:11 ... it is a problem for many people, and we take it as normal. We're like-

Joe Rogan 34:15 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 34:15 ... "Oh, it is normal that you're losing muscle mass." And I was like, "No, we can do something." And the life of a 70, 80-year-old will, would be completely changed if they have a functioning muscle system again.

Joe Rogan 34:28 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 34:28 Which is, by the way, easy to produce, but like, we're shying away, because it all got commingled in that '80s and '90s doping debate. There are extremely good anabolic steroids with a very good medical use case. Take Anavar, yeah, or these kind of compounds, like they are very good for older people with muscle loss, with, uh, osteoporosis, but we don't give it to them. So, I spoke to so many doctors, it, it, they're still there, but the doctor's like, "Oh, like, I have this reputational risk giving an 80-year-old an anabolic steroid," because the word became so bad, despite they all agree this would make the life of millions of older people much more livable. By the way, small doses, but like ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:12 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 35:12 Anyway, so I'm very passionate, not just about like ... Enhance Games, we hope, will be a, a crystallization factor for a whole societal change on how we look at body autonomy, how we give, how we give d- decision back to people, again, what they wanna be with their body, with their mind, and all of that. And-

Joe Rogan 35:33 And with the current state-of-the-art science, too, it's like, what is the point of having all this knowledge and i- uh, functional ways. There's, there's absolute ways to enhance the way your mind performs, your body performs, and to chalk it off to vanity is so crazy. Like, well, what about fashion? Should we get rid of that, too?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 35:50 Exactly. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:51 Should we? (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 35:52 No, 100%.

Joe Rogan 35:53 What the fuck you talking about?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 35:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:53 What, that's vanity?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 35:54 Do you know what the legal definition of medicine is?

Joe Rogan 35:56 No, I do not.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 35:57 So, it's a fascinating thing. I only learned it a couple weeks ago. So, in the 1920s, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned a sociologist from, uh, Johns Hopkins University, Professor Albert Flexner, to go and study medical education. And so it used to be, back then, that anyone could call themselves a doctor.

Joe Rogan 36:15 Really?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 36:16 Yeah. Yeah. Anyone could come-

Joe Rogan 36:17 Damn, I missed the boat. (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 36:18 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 36:18 Yeah. Anyone could ... they read some books and you call yourself a doctor.

Joe Rogan 36:21 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 36:21 And after the Flexner report, it was, uh, decided by state legislatures that we had to regulate what it meant to be a doctor and what, um, medical e- ed- education was required. And the definition of medicine, as a result of that, is that medicine is about the treatment and cure of disease. It's making sick people less sick.

Joe Rogan 36:42 Hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 36:43 Right? And if you walk into your doctor and you say, "I'm a healthy 39-year-old, but I'd like to be extraordinary," he would say, "I'm sorry, medicine legally cannot help you."

Joe Rogan 36:56 Well, wasn't this the reason why, um, Provigil and Nuvigil, when they first came up with those, I believe they came up with them with the idea of them being a performance-enhancing substance, but then they didn't have a way to prescribe them, so they used narcolepsy.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 37:13 Yeah, so-

Christian Angermayer 37:13 You mean, modhef- ... there's no dep- modafinil?

Joe Rogan 37:15 Mod- modafinil.

Christian Angermayer 37:16 Modafinil. Yeah, I love it.

Joe Rogan 37:16 Yeah, the, the other ... Yeah, it's, it's interesting stuff, right? Because it doesn't make you speedy.

Christian Angermayer 37:22 Y-

Joe Rogan 37:22 But-

Christian Angermayer 37:22 No, it's like, I think it's like ... By the way, I always tell it at universities when I give a speak, that's the real mind or intellectual enhancement drugs-

Joe Rogan 37:29 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 37:29 ... because it doesn't make you jittery, whatever. By the way-

Joe Rogan 37:32 Do you stack it?

Christian Angermayer 37:33 ... uh, with-

Joe Rogan 37:34 Nootropics?

Christian Angermayer 37:36 We, yes. We, I do a lot of things. (laughs) Yes, uh-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 37:38 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 37:38 But anyway, it's like-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 37:39 He's the one that's more enhanced.

Joe Rogan 37:40 Oh, okay.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 37:40 So ask him about his stack.

Joe Rogan 37:41 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 37:41 But, like, I think, again, but, but it's a good example. Like, why do we say for students or whatever, "Oh, it's bad-"

Joe Rogan 37:49 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 37:49 "... if you try to be the best?" Like, and why is a, is a substance, modafinil, which is by the way, wildly studied, which is there since decades. Every single neuroscientist in my team, in the, my biotech sector I talk to is like, "This can be taken safely in moderate amounts," like, and all of that. Why are we, like, shying away to discussing that this is a good thing? Like, I don't even understand it. Like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:12 Is there a large body of research on long-term use of-

Christian Angermayer 38:15 Yes.

Joe Rogan 38:15 ... modafinil? Yeah?

Christian Angermayer 38:17 Enormous. Like, everybody, trust me, because I take it. Yeah. I, I looked at it. I-

Joe Rogan 38:21 Are you on it right now?

Christian Angermayer 38:22 Yes.

Joe Rogan 38:23 How do you feel?

Christian Angermayer 38:23 Great. Like, when it's like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:25 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 38:25 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 38:26 Uh, so, but, um, but really, like, because, like, we have this whole... So the lucky thing in my life is I have these resources. Like, and we are one of... We are the largest investor, one of the largest investor in neuroscience globally. So I have all these colleagues at hand. And I went to everybody because, um, people always mix it up. They're like, when they hear me talking, like, "Oh my God, Christian is so adventurous." Like, I'm actually a huge hypochondriac, and I'm always worried I do the wrong thing, so meaning I put in a lot of effort before I take something.

Joe Rogan 38:54 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 38:54 So I went to some of the biggest neuroscientists in the world and discussed modafinil. And everybody just had good things to say. I really mean it. Like it's not... Now- and not only modafinil. (laughs) I'm not doing a marketing session about it.

Joe Rogan 39:06 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 39:06 But it, it's a good example where I really don't understand how we could not at least give people the choice again.

Joe Rogan 39:13 Right.

Christian Angermayer 39:13 Some people might not want to do it. Yeah, um...

Joe Rogan 39:15 Right. They should have the choice. Just like they have the choice to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

Christian Angermayer 39:18 Yeah. By the way, which is way worse. I mean-

Joe Rogan 39:20 Of course.

Christian Angermayer 39:20 ... he might, he might have even been on the show. Like, a good friend is Professor David Nutt. Do you know the name?

Joe Rogan 39:26 (smacks lips) Uh, where's he from?

Christian Angermayer 39:27 Uh, from, from the UK.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 39:28 Imperial College.

Christian Angermayer 39:28 And if you, if, if we can pull it up, like, he made... He, he wrote a whole book that's my favorite sort of take on how fucked our society is in terms of drugs. He wrote a whole book about the risk of drugs. The, because the interesting thing is, we all throwing around the word risk without definition. When I sit at dinner and talk with people about modafinil, for example, or psychedelics, and they're sipping a glass of wine, look at me, and like-

Joe Rogan 39:54 Right.

Christian Angermayer 39:55 ... "Oh, this is very risky." And then, like, "Tell me, what do you mean? What is risk?" And people don't have an answer for that. So what David did, he defined what actually risk is. He made a real risk score. Simplified said, can you die when you take it? Can you die when you take too much? Can you become disabled? Can you have long-term damages? Can you become addicted? All of that. So he, for the very first time, defined a proper, by the way, never tested, undisputed risk score for substances you can take. And then he applied this risk score to most, he forgot sugar, but, like, most legal and illegal drugs, from alcohol, to heroin, to psychedelics. So the outcome is that in a comprehensive risk assessment, the most risk, risky, riskful drug of all, the number one is alcohol, full stop. And by the way, it was never sort of disputed. The number two is heroin.

Joe Rogan 40:52 Wow.

Christian Angermayer 40:52 And then comes everything else, with-

Joe Rogan 40:54 That's per user, so they just-

Christian Angermayer 40:56 Yeah. They-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 40:57 On a total societal risk analysis.

Joe Rogan 40:58 Wow.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 40:58 So the paper is, uh, published in The Lancet, which is the top medical journal. And if, Jamie, you want to pull it up, it's called Drug Harm in the UK: A Multi-Criteria, Criteria Decision Analysis, published in The Lancet in 2010 by Professor David Nutt. And it has this amazing chart, which I'm looking at on-

Joe Rogan 41:15 By the way, I like your little logo. It's pretty dope.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 41:17 Oh, thank you. Um, and, and yes, on the one side, on the most extreme, um, are the highest individual and social risk is alcohol and heroin, and on the other side-

Christian Angermayer 41:28 Is psychedelics. So by the way, I urge every, every listener, because that's a little bit my passion is like to make people at least aware. And then you can decide, by the way, that you drink alcohol. I'm not saying I would ban alcohol-

Joe Rogan 41:38 Right.

Christian Angermayer 41:38 ... but I think people should be aware...

Joe Rogan 41:41 Isn't it crazy that alco-

Christian Angermayer 41:41 ... what they're doing. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:43 Totally.

Christian Angermayer 41:43 So it's all about education and awareness.

Joe Rogan 41:45 Look at the drop between alcohol and heroin.

Christian Angermayer 41:47 Yeah. So, but-

Joe Rogan 41:47 Heroin's way less bad for you than alcohol. (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 41:50 But, so, by the way, but I want to be clear because that actually what got him in political trouble because one magazine wrote, which is, by the way, the wrong takeaway. They said, oh, the drug advisor of the UK government said, uh, "Heroin, take heroin or, or alcohol, whatever." Heroin is the second worst.

Joe Rogan 42:04 So mushrooms?

Christian Angermayer 42:06 So, and-

Joe Rogan 42:07 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 42:08 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 42:08 ... and by the way, that chart has a very emotional, emotional thing for me.

Joe Rogan 42:12 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 42:12 Because I was presented that chart in 2013. And guess it or not, I have never drank alcohol in my whole life.

Joe Rogan 42:19 Really?

Christian Angermayer 42:19 I'm from Bavaria, and I decided when I was 14 I'm never gonna touch it ever.

Joe Rogan 42:24 Wow.

Christian Angermayer 42:24 Uh, for societal reasons, because I was gay in a village where it was not cool to be gay. And I was like, "If I get drunk, I'm gonna spill it, and my life is ruined."

Joe Rogan 42:31 Right, right, right.

Christian Angermayer 42:32 And I stayed on that track. But, like, so friends in 2013 showed me that chart, uh, and we talked a lot about it, and the outcome of it was like, "You should try mushrooms." And I was like, "You're completely insane." Like, it's a Schedule I drug, whatever. And then it took me a year when I was reading up... And by the way, this was a different time. Like, people didn't talk about psychedelics and all of that. So, um, I was reading up all about psychedelics from 2013 to 2014, and then had my first psychedelic trip in 2014, which was hands-down the single most meaningful and important thing I've ever done in my whole life. Nothing comes close. And I was always a very happy, happy, lucky person, so I didn't think it's doing that much to me. So I came out of this trip, and that was the point when I decided that psychedelics, in generally, should be medically available again, and then sort of restarted the whole psychedelic renaissance.

Joe Rogan 43:24 Well, I'm glad. Tha- that's something that we've been discussing forever. It's, uh, I mean, it's something that got squashed in 1970 by the Sweeping Psychedelics Act.

Christian Angermayer 43:33 Yep.

Joe Rogan 43:33 And it didn't make any sense.

Christian Angermayer 43:35 I think it was the biggest crime.... one of the biggest crime the government back then did, because if you think about it,-

Joe Rogan 43:40 I think so, too.

Christian Angermayer 43:40 ... like, all the data we're producing, it has the potential to heal, really ... I'm using the word "healing" with- deliberately, um, to heal mental health issues like depression, anxiety, addiction.

Joe Rogan 43:52 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 43:53 So if you think about it that a government scam in 1970, which was a pure political scam-

Joe Rogan 43:59 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 43:59 ... to discredit the hippie community because they were going against the Vietnam War, um, that that took away one of the most potent groups of drugs, medical drugs, for mental health issues, and then you look at our time, how prevalent mental health issues are. They are actually, as a whole, you could say, the number one problem we have, from- from opioid addiction, uh, to depression, to youth suicidality, uh, and it all was taken away for no reason. These drugs, as you saw on the chart, and by the way, we're- that's what we're showing with my two companies, Compass and Atai, um, they don't have a little downside. I mean, everything has a downside, but, like, there is no big downside if taken properly with a therapist together. But the- the data we're producing shows an enormous upside, again, to cure and- and, uh, alleviate mental health issues.

Joe Rogan 44:49 And I think one of the best, um, paths that MAPS has put forth is helping, uh, soldiers, helping soldiers with PTSD, and that's been a- a great way to get through the door. Because, you know, the veteran community's been dealing with it for a long time, and I think it's shifted the perspective from a lot of these people that are more conservative, that would normally think of "drugs" as being for losers and bad for society, and they have a different perspective on it now. Like, you're- you're calling it drugs. It's the wrong word.

Christian Angermayer 45:22 No, it's a medication.

Joe Rogan 45:23 Yeah. Well, it's- it's really entheogens.

Christian Angermayer 45:25 Yes.

Joe Rogan 45:26 You know, what they are is when you- when you experience it, anybody who experiences it would not want it to be illegal. The people that are ... the problem is the people that are adamant about it- it being illegal are the ones who aren't experiencing it. It's-

Christian Angermayer 45:38 Yes, I-

Joe Rogan 45:38 ... it's really ridiculous.

Christian Angermayer 45:39 I agree, and, uh, you might have seen that was one of the problem of the advisory board meeting of the FDA some days ago when MAPS presented their data. I don't know if you followed it. Like-

Joe Rogan 45:48 I did not.

Christian Angermayer 45:49 ... unfortunately, it was a very sad moment. The, uh- it's not a decision yet, because the FDA is gonna decide on August the 11th on MDMA, but the advisory committee hearing, which was public, recommended not to approve MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Joe Rogan 46:06 Oh, Jesus.

Christian Angermayer 46:06 It was a big outcry. But the reason is also, I wanna be a little bit self-critical, like, for the psychedelic industry, because I'm a huge believer. Like, you're sitting next to maybe the biggest believer in psychedelics, but I also realize that 95%, I would guess, because we live in our bubble. You have met a lot of people who take psychedelics. I'm always very open. Like, in a country where it's legal, I do my psychedelic therapy sort of life-enhancing thing twice a year. Like, I'm very open with that. But, like, I also realized, we are a bubble. Like, and 95% of whatever, like, a vast majority of- of people have not done psychedelics yet, and are unfortunately, we can like it or not, and we can blame the Nixon government or not, but, like, are stuck in this misinformation. So the only way to ... This was sort of what some people say, I'm too conservative, because they're like, "Oh my God, you're taking it, like, you should, like, be more like liberal," whatever, but my decision was the only way to move psychedelics back into the medical world is to do it like I would do it, and we have a biotech portfolio, 50 biotech companies, like I do it with every other medical substance and produce in clinical data. In a very rigorous, very scientific way, um, to show and prove it, what I personally believe, but we have to prove it. And that was a little bit the weakness of the MAPS data, because, uh, you know, MAPS was, uh, a nonprofit, so they never had a huge funding, so all the data was actually always done with a minimum effort. We ... Not because they wanted it, but, like, it was kind of limited in terms of funding. Give you an example. Like, MAPS did 200 people in the phase III PDST study. Uh, in our treatment-resistant depression study with psilocybin, the active, uh, ingredient in magic mushrooms, we treated around hun- 800 people. Why ... People said that, "But you know, it's a lot, you need to spend all that money," because it cost hundreds of millions, but I was like, "People will try to poke holes in it because it's magic mushrooms." Yeah, so because I'm dealing with psychedelics, and because I have this personal conviction, but I cannot take my personal conviction and say, "Oh, everybody should just follow me," because like, "I know really." I need to be especially rigorous and need to do it sort of very scientific, very broad. So- so, yeah, long story short, I think psychedelics are coming back. Yeah? I think we're gonna deliver really good data over the next years, and, uh, I also think, uh, I- I still hope that the FDA will actually still approve MDMA, because they can, so they need- don't need to follow that advisory board's recommendation, and I think the political pressure of the veterans is there, so I really hope. But if not, it's also not lost, because the advisory board didn't push back on MDMA per se, they pushed back on that specific dataset and said, "Okay, there are holes we can poke into it." So-

Joe Rogan 48:54 Mm.

Christian Angermayer 48:54 Yeah, nothing lost.

Joe Rogan 48:55 Nothing lost. Um, th- th- what's going on with marijuana is interesting in this country, because at this point, 24 states ... Is it 24? 24 states, we talked about it yesterday. 24 states have it legal for recreational use, so it's literally half the country. And then you have more that have it available for medical use, yet the government still has it as a Schedule I. They've made moves to turn it to a Schedule III, but as of w- this discussion, it's a Schedule I drug. Which is ... You have 24 ... You have half the country, literally, in states that are saying, "You can take it here, you could buy it here, you could sell it here. We'll tax it." And the federal government is still not on board with that. And then ...... the move next would be psilocybin. So some states have decriminalized that, right? Like Portland, kind of. Portland or Oregon, I think, has done a reverse. They've- they've- they've made like a- I think they've hit the brakes, because-

Christian Angermayer 49:49 Yes. I- I want to make a big sort of plea that psilocybin or, in general, psychedelics and cannabis should not be mixed together. People instinctively do that because it's kind of the same history. It's- it's so-called illegal drugs which now becoming in one way or the other legal again.

Joe Rogan 50:05 Uh-huh.

Christian Angermayer 50:06 But if I look at it, I have a very sort of strong opinion. Psychedelics are very strong substances, in a very good way. So they have a very good outcome. But if I look at human history, and you had Brian here, Muraresku, who I love.

Joe Rogan 50:19 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 50:19 Yeah. So if you look at Brian's work, he has shown that over 10,000 years humans have used psychedelics in a very actually rigid setting. If you think about the Cult of Demeter-

Joe Rogan 50:31 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 50:31 ... the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Joe Rogan 50:33 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 50:33 Or the Cult of Osiris. Yeah, all of these psychedelic cults, they all actually said you can just do psychedelics once or twice a year with a shaman together. It was actually forbidden by death to take the kykeon, the drink which we believe was ergot, the natural version of LSD, in the Eleusinian Mysteries outside of the very strong framework of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Joe Rogan 50:59 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 51:00 So psychedelics were never consumer drugs. They were always there for enlightenment and for becoming a better human being. But the people understood that it has to be done in a certain framework to really unfold their power.

Joe Rogan 51:14 Okay. Let-

Christian Angermayer 51:15 So that's what I wanted... So that's why I'm really have- I mean, my personal opinion is, so psychedelics should be medically used but they should be limited. It's not consumer drugs. They should be limited to be used with a therapist together who also sh- sort of gives you a sort of a full sort of therapy session around it, and that's how they can unfold freely.

Joe Rogan 51:36 I understand. I understand where you're coming from, but here- here's where I would say about that. First of all, two things. One, you can take psychedelics in microdoses and it's very effective. It's very helpful. And to limit people from having the ability to do that I don't think makes any sense. There's great benefits to microdosing psilocybin. A lot of people have had great benefits microdosing LSD, like tremendous benefits, and they talk about it very openly. And I think if we are going to act under the idea of body autonomy, that falls under that. Also, to say that s- marijuana is not a psychedelic, all that would say to me is you haven't taken enough or you haven't taken edibles, 'cause d- are you aware of the process of what happens when you eat, um, cannabis? You know the difference?

Christian Angermayer 52:24 What do you mean? To- compared to psychedelics or...

Joe Rogan 52:26 No, the difference between THC and 11-hydroxy metabolite.

Christian Angermayer 52:30 No.

Joe Rogan 52:30 Okay. When you eat marijuana, it doesn't, it's- it produces a completely different chemical when it gets processed by your liver, l- your liver. And it's called 11-hydroxy metabolite. 11-hydroxy metabolite is five times more psychoactive than THC. And I used to do a joke about it where I said, "And it lets you talk to dolphins."

Christian Angermayer 52:47 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 52:48 Because it's very psychedelic. E- edible pot, like in high doses, is extremely psychedelic, especially if you close your eyes. Like if you lie somewhere in silent darkness and close your eyes on edible marijuana, it- it rivals a lot of different drugs. It rivals m- psilocybin, a lot of them, especially in the tank that I showed you guys.

Christian Angermayer 53:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:12 Psychedelic drugs, you know, mushrooms, like there's a great history of people using them in those tanks. We talked about John Lilly, who took ketamine. But I know a lot of people who do high levels of edibles and they get in the tank and they have crazy psychedelic experiences. I don't think it's the- I think that's also part of the problem with people recreationally taking edibles, is you really probably shouldn't do that all the time, especially at high doses.

Christian Angermayer 53:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:41 Because I think it causes schizophrenia, and I- I think it has in some people. I think it- it causes fragile minds to shatter. And especially if you have some underlying conditions or propensity or family history of schizophrenia, it's probably not a good idea for you. But I don't think we should just like dismiss marijuana as being different than the other drugs. It's just a drug that is more likely to be consumed microdosed.

Christian Angermayer 54:09 Okay. So I- I just want to be mindful that we're not mixing things here. So I didn't want to oppose marijuana. I was just saying you-

Joe Rogan 54:14 No, no, no. I didn't think you were.

Christian Angermayer 54:15 It's something different.

Joe Rogan 54:16 But you were talking about it the same way. You- you were opposed to talking about it the way you talk about mushrooms.

Christian Angermayer 54:21 Well, it- it- because mushrooms are, I mean, it's technically a different mechanism of action.

Joe Rogan 54:25 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 54:25 So- so it's- it's- it might have the same or similar feelings, but I think it's- it's a different mechanism of action. If you, by the way, pull up the- the chart again of- of David Nutt.

Joe Rogan 54:36 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 54:37 So the amazing thing with, uh, mushrooms is that the only risk which you saw with the small pinkish sort of thing is that you fall down the stairs and hurt yourself while you take it.

Joe Rogan 54:47 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 54:47 Otherwise, psilocybin has no toxicity, cannabis has. Yeah. As you said, like it could trigger-

Joe Rogan 54:52 Yeah, but you-

Christian Angermayer 54:53 So-

Joe Rogan 54:53 ... th- that's, cannabis is way less... But I think...

Christian Angermayer 54:56 I just want to say it- it just, I think it's...

Joe Rogan 54:57 But I know people that have blown their brains out, like with psilocybin and with LSD as well.

Christian Angermayer 55:02 I cannot imagine. Well, like we have a whole team which is following up that sentence, if somebody says that.

Joe Rogan 55:08 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 55:08 And literally for like, since when are we doing that? Since 2018, every single person we could find online, in chat boards, whatever, whom we contacted, who said, "Oh, I have any side effects?" Our first question is always-... what have you taken? And 100% of the people who had negative things said, "Oh, I've taken mushrooms and I drank a lot of alcohol and I took a lot of cocaine." Can already stop there.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Hmm.

Christian Angermayer 55:31 Never mix these things because we don't know. What I'm arguing for, by the way, the same going back to microdosing, we need to find, or we need to create the scientific basis for all of that.

Joe Rogan 55:42 Right.

Christian Angermayer 55:42 There will never be a scientific study which tells you, you can happily mix alcohol, psilocybin, and cannabis. I really don't know what's happening in your brain. Yeah. So don't do it.

Joe Rogan 55:52 Right.

Christian Angermayer 55:52 But I can give you a lot of studies, what is happening standalone when you take psilocybin, I can give you a lot of studies what is happening when you take cannabis. Yeah. So I always tell people, "Why mix?" (laughs) That is one of my first recommendations because I'm a... Remember, I'm a hypochondriac.

Joe Rogan 56:06 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 56:06 I just wanna do things what I really know what's happening in my body because life is awesome. I think I'm very okay up there. I'm happy, like da, da, da. Why should I risk it?

Joe Rogan 56:18 Right.

Christian Angermayer 56:18 Yeah. So I want... So microdosing is my favorite example to, um, push back a bit because you said it actually, you said there are people who say they were helped by microdosing.

Joe Rogan 56:29 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 56:29 Yeah. That is not how science works because, like, I can give you a lot of people who have one experience, but, like, science is take thousand of them and see if there is a real statistic significance in whatever we wanna prove. There are, not from us, because I think microdosing will always be not a commercial endeavor, but there are a few really good studies from, I don't wanna say, we can look it up. I think it was the University of Chicago, but I don't know, about microdosing, and they could not reproduce the positive factors individual people were saying on a large scale. Second, um, the-

Joe Rogan 57:08 What positive factors were they searching for?

Christian Angermayer 57:11 Increasing concentration, increasing creativity, like all sort of the anecdotal evidence of-

Joe Rogan 57:17 Did they try skills games? Study of LSD micro- microdosing doesn't show a therapeutic effect. Damn, who wrote, who-

Christian Angermayer 57:24 But look, I-

Joe Rogan 57:25 ... how is this performed?

Christian Angermayer 57:26 What I'm saying is like-

Joe Rogan 57:27 I bet they're not doing it right.

Christian Angermayer 57:27 ... we need more work.

Joe Rogan 57:28 (laughs) I'm just saying microdosing- (laughs) I want, I wanna hang out with these people.

Christian Angermayer 57:31 But h- h- I give you the positive-

Joe Rogan 57:33 Ask questions.

Christian Angermayer 57:33 I give you the positive ending you're gonna like, but like what I'm saying is like, by the way, think about again, Brian's work. People never microdose psychedelics. People macrodose psychedelics.

Joe Rogan 57:42 Right. But it doesn't mean that there's not a benefit to microdosing.

Christian Angermayer 57:45 Yeah. But I would say macro- macrodose, do your one trip a year.

Joe Rogan 57:48 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 57:48 You get all the benefits, by the way, because there we know you get neuroplasticity. There we know you get all the positive effects of it. But second, what you need to be just mindful is like, there was a study some days ago, um, if we can pull it up. If you look microdosing and heart. So the... All these psychedelics stuck at the 5-H2A receptor, but also have an effect on your heart. So hopefully I'm, I'm not using the technically right terms, but I always describe it to my friends, it's like psychedelics are a little bit poking your heart. So if you do that once a year, we've shown it zero problem. Zero. We don't know what psychedelics microdosing does to your heart.

Joe Rogan 58:33 Right. But isn't the poking the heart effect due to the large doses of stunning experiences that you're having when you're really tripping on like seven grams?

Christian Angermayer 58:43 The answer is we don't know.

Joe Rogan 58:43 We don't know. So we don't have the data.

Christian Angermayer 58:45 So, and, and I... The only thing I'm putting out there is that we... Everything I'm saying is like what is really important. And I'm saying that (laughs) as, as really like one of the most passionate people about psychedelics that we cannot or we shouldn't abandon the, um, uh-

Joe Rogan 59:02 Microdosing chocolate bars.

Christian Angermayer 59:03 No, stop. That is-

Joe Rogan 59:05 I know that one. I know that one.

Christian Angermayer 59:05 I know that study.

Joe Rogan 59:06 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 59:06 That study is about, um, a polluted chocolate bar-

Joe Rogan 59:09 Okay. I was gonna say I'm sure there was a brand that was problematic.

Christian Angermayer 59:10 ... which, uh, it's another thing. There was a brand which put in stuff, which is not what they say.

Joe Rogan 59:15 How do you microdose a chocolate bar?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 59:16 Well, which is also really important point about all drug use, right? It's a wonderful book by Professor Carl Hart from Columbia University, Drug Use for Grown-Ups.

Joe Rogan 59:26 Yeah, we were talking about him yesterday.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 59:27 Yeah. And it's like, you know, America's drug problem is a dosage and an adulteration problem, right? And so we wanna think about the issues that we have at hand in our society. It is almost always about adulteration. Like, no one goes out to seek out fentanyl. Right?

Joe Rogan 59:45 Right.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 59:45 It's adulterated into other products. And in the correct dosage and with high quality products, it... In most circumstances, most products can be used safely.

Joe Rogan 59:57 Hmm. Um, the, the... I swear there was something about psych- psilocybin microdosing and skills. The LSD thing, it says that they were not told what drug they were on, and then here's the results, said no performance on cognitive tests.

Christian Angermayer 1:00:12 It's from microdosing. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:14 This is the microdosing either during drug sessions or did they use, uh, like some sort of IQ test, puzzles? What did they do? It says cognitive test. I mean... Yeah. I'm, I'm just wondering what did they did... I wonder what they did for cognitive tests. There were also some neurobiological reasons to expect LSD might, might improve mood because LSD acts through serotonin receptors where traditional antidepressants are known to act.

Christian Angermayer 1:00:37 (coughs) Um, the, the main thing I'm saying is about... So microdosing could be... The only plea I make is like let's treat psychedelics with the same sort of rigorous scientific-

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:00:48 ... lens. Like we treat anything else. By the way, that's my whole like... How I marry my libertarian view and sort of my scientific view is let's just prove things. Science is awesome. Like we have-

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:00:58 ... learned over the last hundreds of years how to prove things or dismiss things. Let's prove it. And that's, by the way, how we, we, I mean here in the room because we all love psychedelics, like how we convince the 95%, how we convince those people who were sitting on the advisory panel and said no to MDMA. It was very clear when they were talking that none of them had tried it.

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 Right.

Christian Angermayer 1:01:19 So, but the answer can't be, come on, try MDMA and then please approve it. The answer must be, I, I put in front of you a data set-

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:01:27 ... where it doesn't matter that it's called MDMA and it doesn't matter that it has a history because the data speaks for itself.

Joe Rogan 1:01:34 Right. Yeah. It's just...... it's body autonomy is what we're really talking about in science.

Christian Angermayer 1:01:38 Once we have proven it, exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:01:40 But you want body autonomy-

Joe Rogan 1:01:41 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:01:42 ... well, you want to have people that data to decide on body autonomy.

Joe Rogan 1:01:46 Sure, yes, be informed.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:01:47 Yeah. So I always make the point that individuals with free and informed consent, adults, should be able to make decisions for themselves. But that free and informed consent comes from data. And like a good example, I assume you've used creatine at some point in your life-

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:01 ... just like virtually all athletes have. When creatine was, first came out on the scene after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, like you should read the headlines. It was like, "New Super Steroid Infecting Our Sports."

Joe Rogan 1:02:14 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:14 Like headline from The Independent Newspaper, "Creatine Is Cheating, No Matter How You Look At It."

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 What year was this?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:21 1992.

Joe Rogan 1:02:22 Wow.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:22 Right? And-

Christian Angermayer 1:02:23 Now we take it all. Now you can't-

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 Yeah, I-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 ... I take gummies, I take creatine gummies every day.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:27 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:27 And, and, and it was banned in the Irish and French Rugby Federations.

Joe Rogan 1:02:32 Wow.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:32 It, it was seen as, um-

Joe Rogan 1:02:34 Cheating.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:34 It was ch- it wa- worse than cheating, it was morally reprehensible, like think of the children. You might encourage children-

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:43 ... to use creatine.

Joe Rogan 1:02:45 Wow.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:45 And, and the headlines were just unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 1:02:48 That's crazy that was just 30 plus years ago.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:51 Nuts.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:51 And, and thankfully, creatine didn't fall into the black zone, uh, like steroids or psychedelics, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:58 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:02:59 Where moralizing got in the way of scientific data.

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 Now let's talk about the Enhanced Games in terms of long-term plans. Like, uh, how are you guys funded and how long can you stay open? Like if, d- do you have a long-term strategy?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:03:18 Yes. Well, we, we've raised millions of dollars in the world's top venture capitalists, Christian included, Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan. And let's, you know, we're reinventing the Olympic Games not just in terms of adding, uh, performance enhancements, adding payments to athlete, but we're also removing the core waste. So the core problem with the Olympics is that they build a dozen stadiums and then they throw them away after two weeks. It is literally the most financially wasteful exercise in human history. You know, um, hun- you know, between $30 and $100 billion it costs to put on an Olympic Games, and it is just disastrous for the host city. So by reducing the number of sports and focusing on the ones that have the highest television and social media impact, we can have a very, very low infrastructural cost and operate the whole thing profitably.

Joe Rogan 1:04:07 Right. But how, uh, d- do you have a plan as to like how long to do it?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:12 Oh, this is a century long project for us.

Joe Rogan 1:04:14 So, so d'you wanna-

Christian Angermayer 1:04:16 It's not a pop-up event, like it's gonna be forever.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:18 Right.

Christian Angermayer 1:04:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:18 I understand.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 But what if it's not successful? Like what if the first one comes out of the gate, like how are you gonna make the money? Are you gonna use sponsorships? Are you gonna charge pay-per-view?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:27 So-

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 How are you gonna do it? Are you gonna sell it to a network?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:29 So, uh, number one, we will raise enough equity capital so that we can run the games for at least three years without any, uh, media rights, corporate sponsorship, or ticket sales. Of course, we will grab all those revenue drivers and that will make us a profitable endeavor. But fundamentally, we have enough equity capital to make sure this thing really works and is delivered for a long period of time.

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 So for three years-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:04:55 We-

Joe Rogan 1:04:55 ... you just run it till the bricks fall off?

Christian Angermayer 1:04:56 Even if we don't. So, but what I can tell you, what I was actually a- a little bit surprised positively is like we got inbounded by big brands. We were actually calculating in the early days, we said, "Ah, it's gonna be controversial." Um, "We don't think a big," uh, whatever, uh, outdoor brand or whatever, a big, uh, sportswear brand will sponsor us in the first year. So we really, as Aaron said, we planned we're gonna be, we are venture funded and we can do it three years without those major revenues, which we obviously somewhat want to have. But then surprisingly, major brands inbounded us and said, "Can we work with you early?" Which again, showed us like we sort of hit the zeitgeist a bit-

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 Mm.

Christian Angermayer 1:05:38 ... uh, with the thing, so.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:05:38 Yeah. And so in terms of brand sponsorship, so Nike, their core mythology is that the fastest people in the world wear their shoes.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 I like how you say their core mythology.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:05:47 Yeah, the core mythology, right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:49 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:05:50 And then, uh, this is very simple. Eventually, the fastest people in the world will be at the Enhanced Games.

Joe Rogan 1:05:56 Mm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:05:56 And then, and if, and if they're not wearing Nike shoes, that can undermine that $100 billion brand. And so if you're a challenger shoe company out there and you say, "Ooh, come sponsor this Enhanced Games thing," right? We can capture Nike's core mo- is it, brand is just a myth.

Joe Rogan 1:06:14 Hmm. That's an interesting way to phrase it, the core mythology. Now when you guys, when, when is going to be the first Enhanced Games?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:25 At the, uh, we're targeting for the end of 2025.

Joe Rogan 1:06:29 And do you know where you're going to do it?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:31 So this is a question journalists always ask me.

Joe Rogan 1:06:33 You need to do it at the Sphere.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:35 Uh, it is, the Sphere is, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:06:38 Come on.

Christian Angermayer 1:06:39 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:39 Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 1:06:39 Not an uneducated guess.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:41 Not an uneducated guess.

Joe Rogan 1:06:42 Oh, really? Hey, I like it.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:06:44 So, so, so the journalists always ask, "Well, where's the Enhanced Games going to be?" Because they think of it like the Olympic Games. They think, "Oh, you need a host city where you have 12 stadiums," and there are very few cities like that. But we live in the era of television and social media. We don't need all of our infrastructure in the same place. The swimming could be in Sydney, the track and field could be in Los Angeles, the weightlifting could be in Las Vegas, right?

Joe Rogan 1:07:10 Mm, interesting.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:07:10 And all united through the magic of television. Therefore, we are not dependent on infrastructure in one city. We're not dependent on having 10,000 hotel rooms available. And this is really the technological innovation that we're bringing to the design of the Olympic Games. Because like why do the Olympics need to be in one city?

Joe Rogan 1:07:30 Mm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:07:31 Right? Why does the Paris Metro system need to be upgraded sta- for just two weeks at a cost of billions and billions of dollars? No, we live in a world where 99.9% of sports is consumed-... either on television or on our phones.

Joe Rogan 1:07:47 Has the Olympics, have they responded to you guys?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:07:52 Yes. Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 What did they say? I can't wait to hear this.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:07:54 Oh.

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:07:55 Uh, so, uh, you know, they ... It, it, it's interesting. So publicly, they don't like us, obviously.

Joe Rogan 1:08:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:01 Um, but, uh, the fact that we are paying the athletes has really changed the dynamics of Olympic sports. So Lord Sebastian Coe, who is the president of World Athletics, came out and said that athletics will pay $50,000 for a gold medal at the Paris Olympics. And read the coverage. Journalists all attribute this because of the pressure we put on-

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 Hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:21 ... because we're offering payment for athletes. Obviously, we're offering a million for a gold medal. They're offering 50 grand.

Joe Rogan 1:08:26 So gold medals in the enhanced games are a million. Breaking a world record-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:30 No.

Joe Rogan 1:08:30 ... is an additional million?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:31 No, no, no. The world records are, uh, a million, and the, uh, you know, there'll be base compensation negotiated with each athlete, probably around 100 grand apiece.

Joe Rogan 1:08:39 But you just said gold medals of million.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:42 No, no, no. Uh, a world record is a million at the enhanced games. A gold medal in track and field at the Olympics is 50,000.

Joe Rogan 1:08:47 Right. You, you m- I think, I think, pretty sure you said a million.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:08:50 I think you just scrambled it.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:52 Um, so, so what is first place in, like, boxing?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:56 Uh, to be determined.

Joe Rogan 1:08:58 To be determined?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:08:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:59 Can't figure it out. So you're gonna negotiate-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:00 That's, that's weird.

Joe Rogan 1:09:00 ... it with different athletes of-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:01 Yeah, it depends, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:03 If someone has a big social media following or someone's famous.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:06 Yeah, yeah, and, and-

Joe Rogan 1:09:07 If LeBron wants to play basketball for you guys.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:09 Exactly, exactly. So, um, and some sports are, uh, more compelling, uh, because of, of the larger viewership or that they have, um, you know, multiple disciplines, so.

Joe Rogan 1:09:22 Are you planning... Do you have a plan as to how to stream it? Do, are you guys gonna do YouTube? Are you gonna have your own platform?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:29 So we have been approached by every major broadcaster in the world, uh, and, and-

Joe Rogan 1:09:35 Interesting.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:35 And the overarching message is they're like, "This is gonna be exciting television." So the three most watched sports event in the world, number one is the FIFA World Cup final, number two is the UEFA Champions League final, and number three is the Olympic 100-meter final. And if you think about it, the first enhanced games should be a lot more interesting than an Olympic 100-meter final.

Joe Rogan 1:09:57 Hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:09:58 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:09:59 Well, it's, it's definitely ... I mean, if you guys can really come out of the gate guns blazing and put on a tremendous show and captivate people, I think you're in.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:10:09 Yeah, and, you know, that's why we've raised-

Joe Rogan 1:10:10 Just-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:10:10 ... millions and millions of dollars from the world's top venture capital funds so we can deliver an amazing broadcast experience, um, recruit the best athletes, and ensure that, you know, we make a television package that's really, really compelling. Um, and for the networks, they, they wanna buy a five, 10-year deal because they're effectively taking a bet. The Olympic television rights are worth four billion per games.

Joe Rogan 1:10:37 Wow.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:10:37 And we're, and we're ... We live in the era of peak television rights right now, you know, like Amazon, ABC-

Joe Rogan 1:10:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:10:43 ... TNT, they're all, you know, bidding for the NBA rights. And, you know, two NBA games on Christmas Day are worth a billion dollars.

Joe Rogan 1:10:49 Hmm.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:10:49 Right? And, and, and this is an absolute sweet spot, right? I mean, you see this with college football and college basketball, the NIL rights, you know. 18-year-olds in college are now driving Lamborghinis, yet Olympic athletes have been so screwed financially.

Joe Rogan 1:11:06 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:11:06 Um, and that we're just gonna deliver a better economic system, uh, that is a more compelling television package because of enhancements. And then ultimately, uh, television rights are about what commercials can be sold, and traditional sports markets' three things: processed food, alcohol, and gambling. Yet the enhanced games opens up broadcast partnerships, um, commercial sponsorships in a whole new way, because we present a scientifically and technologically optimistic view of the world, right? We believe that science helps us overcome our limits, and what pharma company wouldn't want to be putting ads against that?

Joe Rogan 1:11:47 Hmm. It's good, b- ... Well, I mean, it's really interesting because if it does take off, it might legitimately change the way pharma companies interface with these particular substances if they realize they're gonna be extremely popular once they see how well people do, especially if you get athletes that are in their 30s that may be washed out of MMA organizations, and they start competing at an elite level again.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:12:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:15 If you start seeing people breaking the world records in sprinting, they might go, "Hey, um, I should revisit this."

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:12:21 Yeah, and, and, and think about it, like the whole world is abuzz talking about artificial intelligence. The total value of all the generative AI startups, including OpenAI, is $200 billion. Ozempic and the GLP-1 drugs have added $1 trillion to the market capitalization of Novo Nordisk and e-li- Eli Lilly.

Joe Rogan 1:12:40 (laughs)

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:12:40 So one enhancement drug is worth 5X all of artificial intelligence.

Joe Rogan 1:12:45 And it's a dumb one.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:12:46 Yes.

Christian Angermayer 1:12:47 But it's a, it, it's a progress, by the way. I use that always as a, the same example, like, uh, I think pharma ... And that's my core industry, biotech and pharma, is going through a fundamental change because of GLP-1s because they realized that enhancement, they're not using that word, but they're all thinking about it, because, like, if you look, by the way, at data, so, you know, like, take Ozempic or Mounjaro, they are technically not ... I'm taking it. So, but they are not ma-

Joe Rogan 1:13:16 Are you really?

Christian Angermayer 1:13:17 Yeah, but they don't make-

Joe Rogan 1:13:17 Why are you taking it?

Christian Angermayer 1:13:18 Because it's outsourced discipline.

Joe Rogan 1:13:20 (laughs)

Christian Angermayer 1:13:20 That's it. Yeah. It's like I eating a little bit less. I don't need to think about it that much, yeah, uh, because of all the other stuff.

Joe Rogan 1:13:27 But, but the consequences, the negative side effects. I, I've had good friends that have had very bad side effects, gastrointestinal issues.

Christian Angermayer 1:13:34 So I don't have it. By the way, that is again ... My answer's always like, everything has side effects. The coffee you just gave me has side effects, the Diet Coke, the whatever actually always come back. Psychedelics have maybe the least. Like, but, like, we need ... It's all about then educating it so I can look at ...... Ozempic, yeah? There is a whole list of side effects and I can look at myself, by the way, I'm also, it's very important to measure yourself, like from the, the basic stuff, like-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:01 Detroit scans.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:01 ... have Oura ring or whatever.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:02 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:02 That's already more complicated, but like, or more advanced. But like take an Oura ring, like-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:06 Whoop strap. Yeah.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:07 ... I do a blood test every two weeks because I'm obviously at the moment going through an enhancement process. And because people react different on different stuff. Like there might be people who say, "Look, I don't like Ozempic," then don't take it or like it. They have so, but like, it worked for me, which is great. So but it's outsourced discipline, but I'm not the person which w- it was made for because it was obviously originally made for diabetes and then for clinically obese people.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:30 And-

Christian Angermayer 1:14:31 Right?

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:31 And you know that Ozempic and the GLP-1s are prescribed in the United States off label 83% of the time.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:38 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:38 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:38 So there's 83% of all people don't take it for the original use, they take it for vanity-

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:43 Right.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:44 ... whatsoever. And that really changed the way pharma CEOs are looking at medications.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:14:50 Mm-hmm.

Christian Angermayer 1:14:50 It's exactly coming back to what, what Aaron said, it's we, we are in these, in this zeitgeist shift where suddenly the whole industry looks at health. By the way, I think looks at health, how we should look at health, not like how we just give people something once the damage is there, but how we can keep and keep people more healthy for longer and help them to enhance themselves as they want to.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:15:17 Yeah. I couldn't agree more.

Christian Angermayer 1:15:18 Yeah.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:15:18 I think-

Christian Angermayer 1:15:19 And, and I come from the view that aging is a disease that we should be able to treat, cure, and eventually solve. And but that's not what medicine is about. So legally, aging is not a disease. So a doctor cannot prescribe you medication, uh, against the clinical indicator of aging. Aging is a normal biological process and is just accepted by the field of medicine. And it wasn't until 1997 that osteoporosis was considered a disease. It was prior to that just considered a natural part of the aging process.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:15:54 Mm.

Christian Angermayer 1:15:54 And so I think we need a revolution here where we say medicine is not about making just the sick people less sick. It's about fundamentally improving the quality of all human life so that we can become superhuman. And at the time in which, you know, we live, uh, an era of artificial intelligence where the machines are upgrading, we need to upgrade our own biology to be competitive.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:16:19 Well, I think th- in that case, I mean, especially looking at Ozempic and th- these, these drugs that are used off label, the fact that they're s- they're incredibly profitable and the fact that they are being used mostly for people who just want to lose some weight and look better, that's really probably a good sign for the future of how these substances are, are at least allowed to be used.

Christian Angermayer 1:16:41 100%.

Dr. Aron D’Souza 1:16:42 And, and, and at the first Enhanced Games, athletes will break world records. You think so? I think so. And I'll, I'll park that up for a second. But the, when, when that happens, everyone's going to say, "What is he on and how do I get it?" Yeah. Because it's no longer going to be scary, it's no longer going to be unknown. Right. It's like if Lance Armstrong, after coming back from cancer and winning the Tour de France, went out and said, "You know what? I'd like to thank my sponsor, EPO. EPO made it possible for me to go from being a cancer patient to the best cyclist in the world." Everyone in the world would go talk to their doctor about EPO.