Joe Rogan Experience #2172 - Sebastian Junger

1. 0:00 – 2:53

   Flip phone life vs. algorithm addiction

   1. SJSebastian Junger0:00

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

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

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

   3. SJSebastian Junger0:12

      Joe Rogan.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      As I was saying, you're one of the last of the Mohicans, rocking that flip phone.

   5. SJSebastian Junger0:18

      Yeah. That's right. I'm proud of it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      D- do you text people?

   7. SJSebastian Junger0:21

      Yeah, yeah, I text.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Do you do the (beeping) where it takes a bunch of times to...

   9. SJSebastian Junger0:24

      Well, it's T- something called T9.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       Yeah.

   11. SJSebastian Junger0:26

       It's predictive texting so, you know, it gives you a bunch of alternatives. You just have to do it all on a keypad with your thumb rather than with an iPhone which you have the full alphabet.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       But I bet that battery lasts, like, a week.

   13. SJSebastian Junger0:38

       I don't even travel with a charger, man.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Really?

   15. SJSebastian Junger0:40

       Yeah, I mean, unless I'm gone for a week. But, uh, if I'm just gone for a couple days and I don't have any long conversations planned, I- I don't even bother.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Wow.

   17. SJSebastian Junger0:48

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       All email, everything's handled at home?

   19. SJSebastian Junger0:51

       Yeah. Plus-

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       All on the laptop, right?

   21. SJSebastian Junger0:53

       Yeah, plus chicks they get bit and it's crazy.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       They do?

   23. SJSebastian Junger0:55

       No. (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       (laughs) Like what kind of chicks are you hanging around with?

   25. SJSebastian Junger0:59

       (laughs) Yeah. Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       Savages.

   27. SJSebastian Junger1:00

       No. No, at one point I was- I was at CNN waiting for a, um, to go on and- and these two young women, they kept looking at me. And this was like 10 years ago, so I plausi- plausibly could say to myself, "Well, maybe I still got it," right? Like, who knew, right? Right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       (laughs)

   29. SJSebastian Junger1:14

       And then one of them noticed that I had noticed them looking at me and she goes, "Oh, excuse me sir, we were just... We can't believe that you have a p- flip phone." So I was like, "Well, that's the end of an era." (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       10 years ago?
2. 2:53 – 4:08

   Parenting in the phone era: attention, safety, and presence

   1. SJSebastian Junger2:53

      Even if nothing bad happens, you're still... I mean, listen man, I have two, I have young children. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl, and we're at the playground and I swear there are kids who fall and I, and I gotta go... Kids I don't know. I gotta go over and, like, dust them off and comfort them because the mom or dad doesn't even know 'cause they're on their phone.

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:11

      Yeah.

   3. SJSebastian Junger3:12

      Right? That's not parenting. I mean, like, what- what are you doing... What- what do you have kids for?

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:14

      Especially playgrounds, man. Playgrounds are still a little sketchy. You know, my daughter, when she was six, she broke her arm at school on a playground.

   5. SJSebastian Junger3:22

      Really? Wow.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:22

      Actually, she was a little older than six. She might've been eight. But yeah, it's, uh... Playgrounds are fucking scary, man.

   7. SJSebastian Junger3:29

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:29

      You know, you're- you're swinging around and you're playing and kids fall the wrong way and...

   9. SJSebastian Junger3:34

      And we're on the Lower East Side in New York City, so it's sketchy in some other ways too, like you gotta-

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Oh, yeah.

   11. SJSebastian Junger3:39

       You gotta be w- uh, awake, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:41

       Yeah.

   13. SJSebastian Junger3:41

       You gotta be alert and just, like... And not only that, but you had kids. Like, what are you doing? Like...

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:47

       Right.

   15. SJSebastian Junger3:47

       Just en- enjoy this while you can, 'cause...

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:49

       Right.

   17. SJSebastian Junger3:49

       Right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:50

       Is a TikTok video more interesting than your-

   19. SJSebastian Junger3:52

       Yeah, exactly.

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:53

       ... th- the human that you made?

   21. SJSebastian Junger3:55

       Yeah, exactly.

   22. JRJoe Rogan3:55

       You guys made humans.

   23. SJSebastian Junger3:57

       Yeah, yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:57

       They're the re-... I mean, that a- still freaks me out to this day, even when they're mad at me.

   25. SJSebastian Junger4:01

       You know... Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan4:01

       I'm like, "I just can't believe you," you know.

   27. SJSebastian Junger4:03

       (laughs) No.

   28. JRJoe Rogan4:03

       "I made you." (laughs)

   29. SJSebastian Junger4:04

       I've, I made you and now you're mad at me. Like, well, how does that work?

   30. JRJoe Rogan4:07

       Yeah. (laughs)
3. 4:08 – 7:09

   Raising daughters and how kids reshape your capacity for love

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:08

      I have all girls, so they're mad at you for stuff like doesn't even make sense. Like, you're like, "Okay."

   2. SJSebastian Junger4:12

      How- how- how old are they?

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:14

      Uh, the youngest right now is 14.

   4. SJSebastian Junger4:16

      Oh, wow. So I got seven and four, so... Right. So that thing's coming. Okay, got it.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:20

      Yeah.

   6. SJSebastian Junger4:21

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:21

      I got a 14, a 16, and then a grown one, a 27-year-old.

   8. SJSebastian Junger4:24

      'Cause I, you know, I've had girlfriends that didn't... Were mad at me for things that I didn't think made sense. And I was like, "Okay, well that's... All right, that's 'cause you're crazy and, you know, whatever." But actually, like, that might be in my future.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:36

      Yeah, it's... It... They're just different. It's just women and girls are just different. And me, you know, I- I think the universe, uh, did me a solid by giving me only daughters.

   10. SJSebastian Junger4:48

       Yeah, me too, me too.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:49

       Because you, you have a different perspective-

   12. SJSebastian Junger4:52

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:52

       ... hanging... Like, if I had a son, I'd be like, "I gotta keep this fucking savage out of jail."

   14. SJSebastian Junger4:57

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:57

       I gotta... 'Cause I'm passing my genes.

   16. SJSebastian Junger5:01

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:01

       That kid's gotta go to the gym. I mean, I gotta get you into a jujitsu gym early.

   18. SJSebastian Junger5:06

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:06

       Like, you- you- uh, you gotta start doing challenging things early.

   20. SJSebastian Junger5:09

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:09

       And then also you have to deal with the fact that you have a successful father and that-

   22. SJSebastian Junger5:13

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:13

       ... puts a lot of pressure on a kid 'cause they-

   24. SJSebastian Junger5:15

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:15

       You know, a lot of kids, they f- they try to measure up to their parents or compete with their fathers in some sort of-

   26. SJSebastian Junger5:21

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:21

       ... strange way so you have to-

   28. SJSebastian Junger5:21

       Of course.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:22

       ... mitigate that in advance and tell them that you're there for them, you're on their side. You know, it's like...

   30. SJSebastian Junger5:27

       Yeah.
4. 7:09 – 8:48

   Conflict styles in relationships: ‘flatlining’ emotions and escalation traps

   1. SJSebastian Junger7:09

      Well, what I do, um, I, for a variety of family reasons, I flat line. Like, if someone's coming at me with something that doesn't make sense and they're really upset, I just go, I just sort of emotionally flat line. I get super rational and, and just zero Kelvin, like nothing, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:25

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SJSebastian Junger7:25

      And, which is a, a kind of a good place to be 'cause it's not escalatory.

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:30

      Yeah.

   5. SJSebastian Junger7:30

      But it's al- but I've come to find out that's also exceedingly provocative to do to someone who's upset.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:36

      Oh, so they try to, like, get-

   7. SJSebastian Junger7:38

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:38

      ... an, a response out of you.

   9. SJSebastian Junger7:39

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:39

       Some-

   11. SJSebastian Junger7:39

       And they think that your non-response means you don't care.

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:43

       Ooh, that's a problem.

   13. SJSebastian Junger7:44

       And then you're just so screwed.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:46

       That's also a problem with emotional manipulation, where the, the-

   15. SJSebastian Junger7:48

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:49

       ... you realize that this escalation of emotions is really just to incite a reaction. It's not the real feelings.

   17. SJSebastian Junger7:55

       Right.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:56

       Yeah.

   19. SJSebastian Junger7:56

       That's right. That's right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:57

       Which is why it's so exaggerated.

   21. SJSebastian Junger7:58

       And I think I'm doing the relationship a favor by, yeah, I was like, "Somebody's gotta stay sa- sane in this room."

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:05

       (laughs)

   23. SJSebastian Junger8:06

       Right? Right? Or it's gonna, the cops are getting ca- you know, whatever.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:08

       Right, right, right.

   25. SJSebastian Junger8:08

       Like, so I'm like, "All right, I'm gonna flat line... The only way to do this, 'cause you're making me really angry right now, is to flat line and feel nothing."

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:14

       Yeah.

   27. SJSebastian Junger8:14

       Now, I'm gonna do us a favor by doing that. I'll be super rational and calm and blah, blah, blah. But I didn't realize, like, that's completely inflammatory also, in a different way. So, you're, there really isn't a good choice until that person figures out how to emotionally regulate.

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:29

       Yeah, the good choice is get the fuck outta dodge.

   29. SJSebastian Junger8:32

       (laughs) That's right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:32

       (laughs) That's the good choice.
5. 8:48 – 11:40

   Fleeing bad relationships and the mental/physical cost of chronic stress

   1. SJSebastian Junger8:48

      I knew a guy who was, um, I won't name him. His older brother... They, they're both sort of pretty well-known writers, and his older brother was in a, you know, bad, a bad relationship of that sort. And they were walking through, I think it was Paris, they were visiting Paris and they, all their stuff was at the hotel. This is before smart- uh, cell phones. This is in, like, the early '90s, late '80s, something like that. And they're walking through Paris and they stopped to look... She stopped to look at th- at some clothing in a st- you know, in a, in a shop front, you know, the window, through the window. And he, it took him some steps to realize that she had stopped and he had kept going. And he looked at her and he looked down the street and he was like, "This is my chance." And he just started sprinting.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:28

      Oh my God.

   3. SJSebastian Junger9:29

      And he sprinted all the way to the hotel, paid the bill, left 500 bucks on the bed, threw his stuff in his suitcase, outta there, straight to the airport. And that was-

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:39

      Whoa.

   5. SJSebastian Junger9:39

      ... (laughs) the last time they ever saw each other.

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:42

      Wow.

   7. SJSebastian Junger9:43

      That's intense.

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:43

      It was that bad?

   9. SJSebastian Junger9:44

      It was that bad. Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:45

       The pressure that he must have been feeling that allowed him to make that decision.

   11. SJSebastian Junger9:51

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:51

       Like, he must have just been in hell.

   13. SJSebastian Junger9:53

       I don't think he was just a dick. He might have also been a dick, but I think one, one of the things that was going on, 'cause I've, you know, I've been in relationships that were pretty tough, is that you can't even have the breakup conversation because it goes full nuclear.

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:03

       Ugh.

   15. SJSebastian Junger10:03

       Right? So you don't, you don't know what to do.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:06

       Right.

   17. SJSebastian Junger10:06

       And-

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:06

       You gotta flee. (laughs)

   19. SJSebastian Junger10:08

       (laughs) Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:09

       I support him.

   21. SJSebastian Junger10:10

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:10

       I support him in that... Just, I mean, if he's a rational guy and he's never done that before-

   23. SJSebastian Junger10:14

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:14

       ... that seems like-

   25. SJSebastian Junger10:15

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan10:15

       ... if that's his move, that maybe-

   27. SJSebastian Junger10:17

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:17

       ... maybe you're... You know, maybe it's you.

   29. SJSebastian Junger10:19

       And then he-

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:19

       (laughs)
6. 11:40 – 16:40

   Bipolar disorder, trauma links, and the limits of psychiatric diagnosis

   1. SJSebastian Junger11:40

      I have a couple of buddies who I love, um, who are bipolar. And I lost one of them, he killed himself, and it's tragic, but the other guy is okay. And they're bipolar, and you know, having a relationship with someone who's bipolar is almost impossible. No matter how much you love them, like, it, it really presents a complicated challenge. And if you're having a romantic relationship with someone who's bipolar, which I've done, it's like, uh, it's 1,000 times harder from, like, a buddy, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:07

      Right.

   3. SJSebastian Junger12:08

      And, and that was... You know, the... You know, I, I've had a couple of those, and it is, uh, uh, really, in some ways, the most painful...... experiences of my life. Like, and, and I've been ... So that was the, you know, sort of sprinting from the shop front window ki- ... I didn't do quite that, but close. Like, 'cause that ... If someone's bipolar, that's like, it's all so volatile, that's sometimes your only, your only choice.

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:29

      Yeah. Yeah, the bipolar thing is wild, because if your mind works well, you think, "Well, get, tell that person to get it together." You know? But they don't-

   5. SJSebastian Junger12:37

      Right. Makes no sense. Right. You're not, not making sense on it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan12:39

      Right.

   7. SJSebastian Junger12:39

      It doesn't make sense. What? (laughs) It's like ...

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:41

      But you don't understand. Like, their brains-

   9. SJSebastian Junger12:43

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan12:43

       ... it's like the chemicals in their brain are all fucked up.

   11. SJSebastian Junger12:46

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan12:46

       Everything's all fucked up. It's, they can't ... It's almost impossible to get it together. It's like you being on fire and someone saying, "Stay calm." Like how the fuck-

   13. SJSebastian Junger12:55

       Yeah. That's like-

   14. JRJoe Rogan12:55

       ... are you gonna stay calm while you're on fire?

   15. SJSebastian Junger12:57

       E- exactly right. Uh, with lithium.

   16. JRJoe Rogan12:59

       (laughs) Is that it? Is that the move?

   17. SJSebastian Junger13:02

       That's it. And it saved-

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:02

       Is there anything else that works for those folks?

   19. SJSebastian Junger13:04

       I, it saved two people that I know of, that I really loved-

   20. JRJoe Rogan13:07

       Wow.

   21. SJSebastian Junger13:07

       ... that I'm really close to. Um, one, one guy and, and a woman that I dated, who I later found out she stabilized on lithium.

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:13

       What is the downside of taking the lithium?

   23. SJSebastian Junger13:16

       Oh, I don't know. You, you're, you're emotionally flat.

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:19

       Ooh.

   25. SJSebastian Junger13:19

       You, you put on weight, you know, all kinds of stuff.

   26. JRJoe Rogan13:21

       Oh. Yeah.

   27. SJSebastian Junger13:21

       All kinds of stuff that's better than suicide.

   28. JRJoe Rogan13:23

       That's true.

   29. SJSebastian Junger13:23

       But, you know, it's not, it's not good. And, and, and, you know, bipolar, um, you know, it destroys, it's destroys relationships. I mean, it's like, it really ... It's a d- it's a very, very tough deal.

   30. JRJoe Rogan13:34

       Yeah. Eh-
7. 16:40 – 21:11

   Suicide, creativity, and ancient PTSD: from comedians to Ajax in the Iliad

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:40

      (exhales loudly) It's crazy when someone's, um, weakness is actually like their strength like in their career.

   2. SJSebastian Junger16:48

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:48

      You know? Which is, uh, a thing with some creative types. Like, there's this guy, Richard Jeni. He's like one of my all-time favorite comedians, and he killed himself. And everyone who didn't know him was baffled. They were like, "That guy's at the top of his game. That guy is everything we all wanna be."

   4. SJSebastian Junger17:07

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan17:07

      He was so good that, uh, I went to this club in New York, in Upstate New York, or in, uh, Long Island rather, East Side Comedy Club. And this dude, uh, Peter, who was the, uh, emcee, was depressed 'cause he worked with Richard Jeni all weekend. And he was like, he did a new hour every night. He did a, new hou- two hours Friday, two different hours, two different hours Saturday.

   6. SJSebastian Junger17:33

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan17:33

      For most of us, we have one hour.

   8. SJSebastian Junger17:35

      You're right. (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan17:36

      Like while we're on the road-

   10. SJSebastian Junger17:37

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:37

       ... we have one hour, we tone that thing down-

   12. SJSebastian Junger17:39

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       ... we tighten it up.

   14. SJSebastian Junger17:40

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:40

       We fucking, we, we, we edit it. We get it to, it's like a rock in one hour. This motherfucker destroyed with four different hours on a weekend. And Peter was like, "I should quit comedy." Like, I-

   16. SJSebastian Junger17:53

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:53

       ... this, this is a real, that's a real comedian."

   18. SJSebastian Junger17:54

       Yeah, right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:54

       "I'm a fucking poser. This fuck ..."

   20. SJSebastian Junger17:56

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:56

       And that guy killed himself.

   22. SJSebastian Junger17:57

       Yeah. Well, my j- uh, my buddy, like he, I mean, he, he wasn't a professional comedian, but, uh, b- he could've been, right? I mean, he had that sort o- uh, unbelievable brilliance, and just devastating humor, and just, it, uh, crazy. I mean, his, he, he could just, he could just sort of sit there and just riff, right? I mean, he'd just like ... And he would go for an hour, and everyone would be like pissing themselves on the floor.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:22

       (laughs)

   24. SJSebastian Junger18:22

       And he just, on and on he went, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:23

       (laughs)

   26. SJSebastian Junger18:23

       Just this brilliant riff that had never been heard before, would never be heard again. And it just flowed through him. And, and ... But he was a, you know, life ... I mean, as an, as a teenager, he-... he said, you know, um, he said to his mom, he said, "I know eventually I'm going to kill myself." He knew that as a teenager.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:39

       Oh, my God.

   28. SJSebastian Junger18:41

       Yeah. And he held it off a long time. He had a family, two little-

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:45

       (sighs)

   30. SJSebastian Junger18:45

       ... two, two little girls, and he was like-
8. 21:11 – 24:09

   War across eras: from sword-fight horror to Ukraine’s smartphone footage

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:11

      Also, when you're talking about childhood trauma, imagine childhood trauma in a time where people fought with swords.

   2. SJSebastian Junger21:18

      (laughs) Oh my God.

   3. JRJoe Rogan21:19

      What did you see?

   4. SJSebastian Junger21:20

      Absolutely.

   5. JRJoe Rogan21:21

      You know, what did you see when you were-

   6. SJSebastian Junger21:22

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan21:22

      ... a baby?

   8. SJSebastian Junger21:23

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan21:24

      What did you see your whole life?

   10. SJSebastian Junger21:25

       Right. Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan21:25

       People getting beheaded and gutted and-

   12. SJSebastian Junger21:27

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan21:27

       ... you know, and then you're off at war, and just-

   14. SJSebastian Junger21:29

       Yeah, and when you come back from war, you know, you're not coming back from, like, landing grounds at 500 meters against an enemy position, right? You're, I mean, you're coming back with, you know, people's blood on your ... yeah, I mean, covered in other men's blood, right, and entrails and whatever else.

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:43

       Yeah.

   16. SJSebastian Junger21:43

       I mean, the Iliad is, uh, it, it's like a medical textbook. It's like, "Then he sliced his abdomen open, and his entrails fell out, and he staggered away holding his entrails," and then this and then that. I mean, it's completely bloody, right, visceral in the literal sense, a viscera, right, like, completely bloody. If that's what combat was like, and I'm sure for the, you know, Native Americans in, you know, here as well, like, it must have been (laughs) unbelievably traumatizing to the guys who did it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       Unbelievably, yeah. I mean, one-on-one combat with swords must be so insane.

   18. SJSebastian Junger22:15

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan22:16

       And arrows flying and-

   20. SJSebastian Junger22:18

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan22:18

       ... cannonballs and (mimics arrow firing) .

   22. SJSebastian Junger22:20

       Yeah, yeah. Now, they were hunting cultures, like in, in s- for example, North America, they were hunting cultures, and they were used to, you know, gutting animals and the guts spilling out and, you know, beheading, you know, whatever. Like, I mean they were used, they, they were used to that ki- uh, you know, with animals, with hunting, they were used to blood-

   23. JRJoe Rogan22:37

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SJSebastian Junger22:37

       ... and guts, literally blood and guts. So it may be the transition to warfare is a l- is less of a distance to cross than it is for a kid who grew up in a suburb of Boston and then suddenly is in Afghanistan, and, you know, it gets-

   25. JRJoe Rogan22:51

       Right.

   26. SJSebastian Junger22:51

       ... intimate and bloody. You can, the, you know, the, the tr- the psychic distance that that person has to travel is, is quite far and maybe not quite doable.

   27. JRJoe Rogan23:01

       That's a way to, that's a good way to put it, the psychic distance that one has to travel, right. Which is, I, I, I think you get accustomed to what's normal, right? But I think every human being that existed back then was probably in this, like, heightened state-

   28. SJSebastian Junger23:15

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan23:15

       ... of urgency and fear because-

   30. SJSebastian Junger23:18

       Right.
9. 24:09 – 32:31

   Why war persists: pacifism, defense, democracies, and AI-era first-strike fears

   1. JRJoe Rogan24:09

      Yeah. You know, as a person who's been there, um, you know, like when you did Restrepo, and you know, you've been to wars, what is it like for you to see these new ones emerge and ... I mean, I've always hoped that there's gonna become a time in our culture, in my life, where we're not gonna be involved in any of this shit anymore.

   2. SJSebastian Junger24:31

      We, we the human race or the US?

   3. JRJoe Rogan24:32

      Yeah. We the human race-

   4. SJSebastian Junger24:33

      The human race.

   5. JRJoe Rogan24:33

      ... and particularly the US.

   6. SJSebastian Junger24:35

      Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Like, I have, um, you know, I have some sort of, like, peace-oriented friends, pacifist friends, uh-... um, I mean, there's a- there's a sort of two different flavors, right? There's a sort of a conservative isolationism and a liberal pacifism. And they wind up ironically in sort of the same place. It's like, war is bad. We don't want any part of it. You know, like the- it's interesting. The convergence is sort of interesting politically. But the- so the- the sort of left-wing people that I know are sort of Vietnam era, um, pa- pacifists, right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan25:04

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SJSebastian Junger25:05

      And- and, um ... so in my mind, I'm like, listen, you know, if war is bad, avoiding it isn't the only ... you know, there- there is a moral case to be made for, say, in Bosnia, which was stopped by a very brief NATO intervention. And you know, you could make a moral case for, you know, drop a few bombs, the war stops, and then the human life is preserved. Yeah, you can make, you can make that case. But- but, you know, basically the- the- for- I think for- for- say, for Ukraine, peacefulness works, and it's a wonderful thing to aspire to, sort of as long as no one invades you, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan25:45

      Right.

   10. SJSebastian Junger25:45

       And- and if you- if you knew that no one would invade you and- and you're warlike anyway, you're an asshole, right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan25:51

       Right.

   12. SJSebastian Junger25:52

       But what you have to do, any society, from a- a- you know, a group of, like, Comanche warriors in- in, you know, the hill country around Austin in 1840 or Ukraine or the US or Israel or any- any nation, right? You have to figure out how to be a peace-loving society that can also defend itself. And that's really ... and then if you're going to defend yourself, what is your obligation to defend your- your- your allies or your friends, or even just on a strategic level, um, countries where if they fall, then eventually the dominoes wind up with ... you know, and I don't know the answers to that, but that to me is like the- the- the strategic and moral question, is like where is that- where is that line where you have to defend something because eventually you're going to be- end up defending yourselves?

   13. JRJoe Rogan26:44

       Yeah, it's just, when does the human race ever get out of this cycle? It's just, individuals as human beings are capable of coexisting in harmony. But when we get into groups-

   14. SJSebastian Junger26:56

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:56

       ... there's always something. It's like, it's unavoida- and if any- if you ... I mean, we've talked about this a bunch of times, but if you ever ask people, "In your lifetime, do you think there'll be no war?" No one says yes.

   16. SJSebastian Junger27:07

       Right. Well, there's always the possibility of a bad actor that's like, "You know what?"

   17. JRJoe Rogan27:10

       Right.

   18. SJSebastian Junger27:10

       "I want those oil fields. I want those diamond mines. I want whatever." Like, there's all ... and, you know, we've been that- that guy too sometimes, right? And, um, you know, you're- you're a strong, jacked-up guy who knows how to fight. And if the world contained only peaceful men, you wouldn't need to be. You might want to be, but you wouldn't need to be, right? But you're walking down the street. You know in your mind, like, I- becomes, I can defend my family and myself with my hands. Like, be- and I need to know that I can ... I'm just reading into your mind. Like, I don't- obviously I don't know how you think, but I'm guessing that somewhere in your mind you're like, I can take care of business if my family's threatened. And- and there's a- there's a security in that. And if you just knew for a fact that there were no predatory people out there, not one, you wouldn't need to be, right? But that's not ... we're social primates, and that's not the world that we evolved in, and it's not- it's never gonna happen.

   19. JRJoe Rogan28:06

       Yeah. Um, yeah, unless something changes, something really big.

   20. SJSebastian Junger28:14

       Right. And it's not going to change overnight.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:16

       No.

   22. SJSebastian Junger28:16

       Right? I mean, we have the DNA we have. We have the cultural wiring that we ha- you know, it's- it's a, um ... so in all the democracies which are, you know, tend towards sort of fairness and- and peacefulness because it's frankly good for business, right?

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:31

       Right.

   24. SJSebastian Junger28:31

       War is not particularly good for the stock market.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:33

       Unless you are Raytheon.

   26. SJSebastian Junger28:37

       Right. For- for some bus-

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:37

       Yeah.

   28. SJSebastian Junger28:38

       Some- some businesses, absolutely. But for the- the array of economic enterprise in the world, like war- you know war doesn't- war doesn't do the economies much good overall. And, um, the, uh, um ... so the- the- the question is, like, how do you ... so democracies are invested in stability, in market stability. They're invested in it because they disproportionately benefit from it, right? Iraq under Hussein was not disproportionately benefiting from market stability because it was an oppressive- it was a dictatorship, right? And the- the- the economy sucked, and there was a ton of corruption, right? But democracies are quite- they really do benefit from stability. But all those democracies are defended by really robust militaries, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan29:24

       Yeah.

   30. SJSebastian Junger29:24

       And if- and if they weren't, right? They would get overrun, like, in half a generation.
10. 32:31 – 41:12

    The aneurysm: an internal bleed, rural logistics, and a race to the hospital

    1. JRJoe Rogan32:31

       Yeah. So you're... The, what I, when I got reached out to, uh, about you was that you had gotten through a near-death experience. And, uh, I really didn't want to read into it at all. I just wanted to ask you about it.

    2. SJSebastian Junger32:47

       Sure.

    3. JRJoe Rogan32:49

       So y- something happened. You had an aneurysm that burst inside, internally?

    4. SJSebastian Junger32:54

       Yeah. (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan32:54

       Is that what it is?

    6. SJSebastian Junger32:56

       Yeah. So, I mean, the short, you know, the, the medical description is I had an undiagnosed aneurysm, which is a ballooning of an artery, um, and a weak spot. Like, so, I mean, arteries can dilate to get more blood flow, but an aneurysm is like one specific spot that, for one reason or another, uh, is weak and it starts to sort of give way, and it'll bubble outwards. And as that bubble grows bigger, and this takes decades, it's a very slow process, right? I have a, basically, I have a ligament in the wrong place, and that set in motion a sort of vascular problem that r-resultted in an aneurysm. And they, they don't, they don't hurt. There's no way to diagnose them. I mean, unless you scan someone's abdomen. I'm always been super healthy, and so throughout my life, I just never had any reason for an abdominal scan, right? I'm fifth, fit, healthy male, right? Uh, fit, healthy person. And so I just never needed that, that look inside me. So no one saw the aneurysm growing, right? And, um, so at, at s- at some point, the wa- artery wall gets stretched so far that it will rupture. It'll, it'll just burst. And now you have an arterial bleed. So you know what that... You know, if someone shoots you in the femoral or stabs you in the abdomen and you have an arterial bleed, you know your life is measured in minutes or whatever, or hours. And if someone does you the favor of stabbing you in the abdomen and severing your pancreatic artery, which is the artery that ruptured on me, you know, it's a little artery. This, you know, thickness of a number two pencil. It's not a big deal, but if you're... It's arterial blood, right? I mean, even, you know, don't stop that shit, you're gonna die, right?

    7. JRJoe Rogan34:37

       Right.

    8. SJSebastian Junger34:37

       And so if someone just, like, stabbed you in the abdomen and you rush to the hospital, the doc- it's no problem. The doc- if you're still alive, they'll transfuse you. The doctors know exactly where to sort of put their finger to plug the leak. It's no problem. The problem with the internal hemorrhage, an abdominal hemorrhage, is the doctors have no idea where it is.

    9. JRJoe Rogan34:56

       (laughs)

    10. SJSebastian Junger34:56

        And your abdomen is basically a big bowl of spaghetti, right?

    11. JRJoe Rogan34:59

        Oof.

    12. SJSebastian Junger34:59

        I mean, right? And it's filling up with blood.

    13. JRJoe Rogan35:02

        And they have to find what, where it's leaking.

    14. SJSebastian Junger35:04

        Yeah. 'Cause the blood... You know, if you're stabbed, the blood's going out of your body onto the kitchen floor. With an internal hemorrhage, it all stays in your abdomen. So I, um, it happened... We were in a, it was during COVID, and we were in a remote area, uh, um, um, old house that we own at the end of a dead-end dirt road in Massachusetts, and it's so remote. There's no cellphone service. The phone lines are old, and they short out when it rains. And we had a, my wife and I had a little bit of babysitting, uh, at the time, a three-year-old and a six-month-old, and we had a little baby, little bit of babysitting from the teenage girls that lived, uh, lived down the road that we knew the family, and this, so they came over to give us a few hours. And my wife and I went out to this cabin that's even deeper in the woods, and, and, you know, paradise basically, right? And, um, so we're out there, and in mid-sentence, I felt this sort of pain in my abdomen like, "Ooh, what was that?" Right? Like, not kidney stone pain, but worse than indigestion, right? And so I sort of twisted and turned to see if I could work it out, you know, and then nothing helped. And then I, and then I finally stood up, said, "Maybe I can walk it out." And as soon as I stood up, uh, the floor just reeled away from me, and I almost fell over. My, what was happening is my blood pressure was just, like, tanking 'cause I was losing all my blood into my abdomen, and my body hadn't compensated yet. So I was just like, li- like, my head was reeling, right? So I sat back down and I said what- something I never thought I'd ever have reason to say to my wife. I said, um, "Something's wrong, I'm gonna need help." Right? And you don't wanna ever have to say those words, right? And you're fit, I'm fit, it never crossed my mind that I would ever have to say that unless someone shoots me or something, right?

    15. JRJoe Rogan36:54

        Right.

    16. SJSebastian Junger36:54

        Like...... but not in my life. I stopped war reporting. I, you know, I gave all that gamble, you know, gambling with your life, I gave it all up. I had a family. We're in this beautiful spot. Like, are you kidding? It can come after you here too, right?

    17. JRJoe Rogan37:07

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SJSebastian Junger37:08

        Who knew, right? So, um, she dragged me through the woods. You know, I have my, uh, arm around her shoulder and I'm sorta stun- like a stumbling drunk, right? And she started dragging me through the woods, and she gets me to the car, and, um, puts me in the passenger seat of the car and, um... And you know, we're a one-hour transport to the hospital-

    19. JRJoe Rogan37:29

        Exhales deeply.

    20. SJSebastian Junger37:31

        ... right? And I'm bleeding. I'm losing a pint of blood every 10 or 15 minutes. You know, is it, my wife didn't know this and thank God I didn't either, but I was literally a human hourglass, right? And she ran, she put me in the passenger seat of the car and I'm lying there and now I'm starting to go blind-

    21. JRJoe Rogan37:46

        Exhales deeply.

    22. SJSebastian Junger37:46

        ... right? Which is one of the things that happens when you lose too much blood, is you go, you go blind. She ran into the house. This sorta electric white just took over the world and that's all I could see. Electric white. That's the la- if you bleed out, that's the last thing you'll see. (laughs) And, um, and then darkness, which is what I finally got to, was the darkness. But, um, so she ran into the house, told the girls, the teenage girls. One of 'em ran out. The phone line didn't work, but the girl, one of them, uh, was able to get one bar of signal, like in one spot on the driveway, like one bar, and she called the ambulance. And the ambulance guys came, and, um, you go into something called compensatory shock if you're bleeding out. And the body senses in its, in its miraculous way, it senses that, um, you know, there's a five alarm fire going on here and we gotta tighten our, tighten our game, right? So it shut, literally shuts down vascular, like, f- blood flow to parts of the body you don't need, like your legs and your arms, your skin, and it sorta hoards the blood in your chest, your abdomen, your chest, and your brain, around your heart, right? The, you know, those things go, you're dead. So it, it collects the blood around there and keeps it there through muscular tension, right? And you don't know you're doing this. But what happens is, your blood pressure goes back up, and suddenly you're sort of back in the world. And I was no longer going in and out of consciousness. I was, suddenly I could see again. The ambulance guys get there and they're like, "How you doing?" I'm like, "Well, you know, belly pain, but I don't wanna be a complainer here. I'm feeling a little better, you know, maybe..." Blah, blah, blah. My wife (laughs) ... And this is why there's a famous statistic, married men live longer. My wife is like, "You know what?" 'Cause they were gonna leave me. They were like, "Oh, it's a hot day. Drink some water. You're probably just dehydrated."

    23. JRJoe Rogan39:27

        Exhales deeply ] Oh, shit.

    24. SJSebastian Junger39:28

        Yeah. (laughs) My wife is like, "No. He's going to the hospital." I watched him, he was, he was in and out of consciousness. He c- he couldn't stand up. He was going blind. Like, what's it take-

    25. JRJoe Rogan39:40

        Yeah.

    26. SJSebastian Junger39:40

        ... guys? What's it take (laughs) to get a guy to the emergency room? So anyway, they took me, and my body stayed in compensatory shock for that hour, uh, that it took. And, um, but I was losing blood, losing blood, losing blood. And then I got to the hospital and my body couldn't hold compensatory shock anymore and it, I went straight into end stage hemorrhagic shock, which is you're dead in 10 or 15 minutes, right? And I went off a fucking cliff right as we got to the hospital. And I, they estimate my blood pressure was 60 over 40, which is like rock bottom. I, they estimated I'd lost like two-thirds of my blood. If you lose more than two-thirds, even if they transfuse you and fill, top you off with, you know, full complement of blood, they pump it into you, if you lose that much blood, there's complications that happen with coagulants and all kinds of things like that, that will kill you. So you can, people can die of blood loss with all, with a full complement of blood that they've gotten from transfusions just because this chemical process gets initiated and they can't reverse it, right? And that starts to happen when you've lost two-thirds of your blood, which is right where I was at, right? Exhales deeply ] 10 minutes later, I'd have been dead. And, um, so, um, they rushed me into the trauma bay and, um, the doctors knew immediately what was going on. And, uh, they...

11. 41:12 – 42:18

    Trauma bay to interventional radiology: the procedure that saved his life

    1. SJSebastian Junger41:12

       One doctor had this sorta large gauge needle and he, and he started and he asked my permission. I had no idea I was dying, right? And he asked my permission to stick it through my neck into my jugular, which didn't look like a lot of fun. And I was like, "Really? Is this ne- is this totally (laughs) necessary?" Like, "Do we really need to do this?" I, I was like, "Why? Uh, in case there's an emergency?" And he was like, "No, this is the emergency." Like, I had no idea, right? I'm, I'm 10 minutes from dead, I have no idea I'm dying. Zero, right? Thank God, 'cause I would've been terrified and I would've been thinking of my, my, my family and I wouldn't... You know, I, I mean, ple- you know, like...

    2. JRJoe Rogan41:47

       Yeah.

    3. SJSebastian Junger41:48

       You don't want that, right? And, um, so he said, "This is the emergency." Well, I was like, "Well, if you say so (laughs) you know, go a- go ahead. Have at it." Right? So while he's working on prepping my neck, um, uh, and it didn't, actually it didn't hurt at all, right? So if you ever have to have this done, don't worry about it. But, um, (clears throat) they, uh, while I'm lying there and he's sort of working on my neck, getting... It took long- it, it, it, i- it felt like it took longer than it probably actually did. But, um, while I'm there, all of a sudden... And

12. 42:18 – 1:02:38

    Near-death experience: the pit, his father’s presence, and the shock of survival

    1. SJSebastian Junger42:18

       I have to stop and say I'm an atheist. I'm a lifelong atheist. I'm a rationalist. I'm not spiritual. I'm not myst- a mystic. I'm not woo-woo. I, like, I'm nothing, right? And my dad was an atheist and a physicist. I have to say all this because of what's coming. And I'm still an atheist, by the way. But, so all of a sudden, I sensed below me and to my left, this black pit open up, this black abyss. Like, this infinite black void. And I was getting pulled into it. And it's not like darkness had taken over the world. The world was here. I could see the doctors. I could see, I was talking to them, right? I'm, here I am. But...... the darkness was contained in this hole that was underneath- underneath me, and I was getting pulled into it, right? I didn't know I was dying, but I had this, like, this instincts of, like, a wounded animal. Like, if I go into the pit, the infinitely dark pit, I'm not coming out. Right? Like, I just sensed, like, "Don't go in there 'cause you're not coming back." Right? And I started to panic 'cause I felt myself getting drawn in, right? And then my father, my dead father, appeared above me and to my left. Now, there's a whole body of inquiry of NDEs, near-death experiences, and all... I didn't know anything about this stuff, right? I didn't know anything about it. It didn't interest me. I'm not culturally prepped for anything like that. I'm not Christian. I didn't see angels. Like, I'm just... I'm a zero in that regard, right? There's my dead father above me, right? He'd been dead eight years. I love him. Uh, but I was not happy to see him, right? I was like... I was shocked. I mean, liter- I was, "Dad? Wh- what, what are you doing here?" Like... And there he was, and he was... and he communicated to me. And so what I saw... "See" isn't quite the right verb. I don't know if there, there... doesn't exist, the right verb. I sensed/saw him, and it was his essence, his energy, his presence, right? It's not like I see you, right? It's like, "Oh, there he i-" Right? It wasn't with that clarity. In some ways, it was with a deeper clarity because it was this essence, right? And there he was. His presence was right there. And above me and to my left. It was, like, quite specific. And he communicated to me, again, not with words, but with some manner that I understood that I can't e- quite explain what it was. But basically, the idea was, "You don't have to fight it. You can come with me. I'll take care of you. It's okay. It's okay. Don't be scared." Right? "I'll take care of you." I was horrified. I was appalled. I was offended. I was like, "You're dead. Why would I wanna go with you? You're dead. You're the opposite of what I am. Why would, why would I possibly wanna go with you and be dead with you? Because I'm alive with my family right n-" Like, "I'm not going anywhere with you. Like, get out of here." And I said to the doctor, "You have to hurry. I'm going right now." I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I was sort of outbound. And once that happened, I was... there's no inbounds. And I sensed that. I said, "You gotta hurry. You're losing me right now." (exhales)

    2. JRJoe Rogan45:40

       So what'd they do?

    3. SJSebastian Junger45:42

       Well, they transfused me. They stabilized me with three units of blood, and eventually I needed 10 units, which is a full complement of blood. Like... And so let me just pause for a moment and say, please donate blood. Like, everybody who's listening, I'm alive, my daughters have a father because 10 people who I'll never know donated their blood. And i- when you donate blood, you are literally allowing another person to live. And one day, you might live because someone else donated blood. And it's, it... You know, doctors can't manufacture that shit. Like, if you donate blood, it takes an hour, it doesn't hurt, and your body will replace it in a couple weeks. It's the ultimate free lunch. And-

    4. JRJoe Rogan46:21

       I think it's quicker than a couple weeks. I think it's pretty quick.

    5. SJSebastian Junger46:23

       It's pretty quick, yeah. It- it, um... Yeah, I mean, to get a wh- up to 100%, it's, I think it's a little long, but whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't matter, right? It's like, we're talking about human life here.

    6. JRJoe Rogan46:33

       Right.

    7. SJSebastian Junger46:33

       And if you wanna be part of something greater than yourself, it's blah, blah, blah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Right.

    9. SJSebastian Junger46:36

       All these things that we all kinda want. Like, "How do I participate?" You know? Like, "No, um, nobody needs me. I'm not part of anything. I feel lonely." Give blood, man. Then you'll be part of something amazing, right? And you might... So I give blood regularly. So at any rate, there's my pitch. But, um... So they, they, they, they sta- (laughs) stuffed some blood in me through my jugular. I stabilized, and they brought me to the interventional ri- the cath la- lab, the interventional radiology suite. And what interventional radiology is, it's a freaking miracle, right? Like, 20 years ago, I'd have been dead, right? I mean, even... The advances are so fast and so miraculous. So what they do is they put you on something called a fluoroscope, which is basically... Sees into you with X-rays, but it's X-ray video, right? So they can see in real time what's going on in your body, and then they pop a hole into your femoral from your right groin, and they insert a catheter into it, which is a flexible rubber tube or wire. And because of the way these, the heads of these catheters are designed, they can... They have little shepherd's crooks and little curves and all this stuff, and they can navigate through your venous system, through the twists and turns, and they can get that thing almost anywhere in your body. And then once they're there, they can pop a coil and plug a leak, or they can inflate and put in a stent or whatever. They can do miraculous things. They can inject radioactive dye, and then they see where it goes, and they turn on the fluoroscope, and then they can see, ah, the, the dye is leaking into the abdomen from here. Here's where the leak is. It's amazing what they can do, right? And so they, they popped a... They popped a entering into my femoral and then threaded a catheter and the, uh... Threaded the catheter up through my venous system, and because of this ligament that's in the wrong place, the, my, my, uh, the arteries in my abdomen are d- very distorted, right? And they're tortuous. They're called tortuous. And they couldn't get the catheter through these twists and turns, right? And, um, they couldn't get it to the site of the bleed, which they knew where it was, right? And they couldn't get the catheter there. The alternative, if you can't fix it with a catheter, is you pull your gear out, and you send the guy to the OR...... and you do this crazy, like, race against time. And you cut him open, and then all the... One of the reasons the blood loss slows down is that there's so much blood in your abdomen that there's back pressure. And it keeps... It slows down the blood loss from your artery, because now it's trying to flow into a full container-

    10. JRJoe Rogan49:22

        Right.

    11. SJSebastian Junger49:23

        ... and it doesn't leak as fast, right? So as soon as you open up the abdomen, you can imagine what happens.

    12. JRJoe Rogan49:28

        Mm-hmm.

    13. SJSebastian Junger49:29

        I mean, you geyser blood. And, you know, you gotta, like, push the organs aside and it's this desperate search for the bleed-

    14. JRJoe Rogan49:36

        Exhales sharply ] Whew.

    15. SJSebastian Junger49:36

        ... before you bleed out. And as you can probably guess, it doesn't go well very often, right? So, it's not quite a death sentence, but if you go into the OR with an abdominal bleed, whew, you know, y- y- they, they bring your wife in to say goodbye to you, basically, before you do that. They don't tell you or her that, but that's what they're doing. And that's what they would have done with my wife, who fin- who, who got to the hospital. The, the ER doctor was like, "You better come now." And, uh, so, so at one point I'm in agonizing pain 'cause I've got all this free-floating blood against my kidneys and my liver and my spleen, and just a- a- agonizing, it's like kidney stones, right? It's just, I'm in agony and they can't sedate me 'cause my vitals are too low, right? So I'm conscious through all this and I'm watching the doctors. And at one point, I watch one of the doctors just sorta give, sh- shake his head and shrug, and was basically like, "Well, we tried. This isn't working." And the other doctor sh- nodded and he was like, "Yeah, we tried." And it was the first moment where I realized, "Oh my God, I didn't realize, this is, we're playing for keeps right now. This might not turn, uh, turn out well. I might not be going home." I couldn't believe what I'd seen. And then the first doctor, who's this brilliant interventional radiologist named Dr. Phil Dombrowski, he saved my life, um... You have in your mind a special relationship with someone, a man who, or else, anyone who has saved your life. It's a very particular relationship and that's... I've never been in that position before. And, uh, so Dombrowski said, "La- we- we can try one last thing. Let's try going through his left wrist." And so what f- because of your vasculature, like, their left wrist allows a different point of attack. You come down from above instead of coming up from below, and you don't have to go through all those twists and turns. And, um, he had to get through a problematic spot in my celiac artery w- that was impeded by the ligament that's in the wrong place. Well, it was a lot of problems, right? And you had to be, like, a super high-level IR guy to even think of this, much less do it. Like, v- I was told that very, very few, few interventional radiologists would even think of doing this, right? But he was, he was a genius, right? So the other doctor said, "I like the way you think." And I watched them put a, um, catheter into my, into my left, uh, in my left wrist. I still... I no longer have a pulse in that wrist 'cause it messes up the artery, and, um, and they did it. They got the thing to the place. Like, they got-

    16. JRJoe Rogan52:14

        Wow.

    17. SJSebastian Junger52:14

        ... they got the catheter to the bleed. They popped a coil in there. It blocked the l- it, uh, uh, blocked the artery, blocked the leak, and, um, then they sent me to the ICU. They knocked me out and sent me to the ICU. I remember seeing my wife very briefly afterwards and I held her hand, and, and, um, that sent me off. And I woke up in the ICU the next morning.

    18. JRJoe Rogan52:36

        And so the blood in your abdomen, do they drain it? Does your body absorb it?

    19. SJSebastian Junger52:40

        No, no, they, uh, uh, I guess maybe they do sometimes. Uh, no, your body absorbs it.

    20. JRJoe Rogan52:44

        Wow.

    21. SJSebastian Junger52:45

        Yup, six pints of blood. Like, and you know, I could feel it in me. I mean, it didn't feel good, right? You know?

    22. JRJoe Rogan52:50

        Yeah.

    23. SJSebastian Junger52:51

        And, and you're sort of discolored. I mean, it's like, it's awful. Not a good look.

    24. JRJoe Rogan52:54

        Right. Now, the... Y- y- you keep, uh, saying you're an atheist. What does, what exactly, how do you... Everybody sort of defines that differently. I f-

    25. SJSebastian Junger53:07

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan53:08

        ... I feel like a lot of atheists are actually agnostic more than they're atheist, 'cause an atheist is someone who just doesn't believe. I don't believe. What do you think the experience with your father was, the, his presence?

    27. SJSebastian Junger53:21

        Well, that's, right, the, the billion-dollar question, right? So-

    28. JRJoe Rogan53:24

        Yeah.

    29. SJSebastian Junger53:26

        ... I'm an atheist, in part because I, I respect the, um, the highest intentions of religion too much to take them lightly. Now, there's, uh, plenty of ex- religious expression which is not at a very high level which I find even offensive and destructive. But at its, at its best, like journalism, like psychology, like everything, at its best-

    30. JRJoe Rogan53:55

        Right.
13. 1:02:38 – 1:19:50

    Interpreting NDEs: brain chemistry vs. consistent patterns and hospice accounts

    1. SJSebastian Junger1:02:38

       some shit because we're so friggin' scared?" And the sy- (laughs) you know, the synapses are shorting out and it's going haywire, and that's what you get. You see some weird stuff, right? Like, which is it? And so I started researching NDEs, near death experiences. And there's a whole body of literature, a whole body of knowledge. And frankly, a whole cottage industry, somewhat shameless cottage industry around that. You know, proof of heaven, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the flakiness aside, there's some legi- you know, there's a- it's very, very common, and the ex- NDEs that people have had, thousands of cases of them from all over the world, different societies, different cultures, even different ages. Um, there are historical accounts of this, and one- the interesting thing about them, you know, if you give a room full of people LSD, they'll all- they'll have a wide variety of hallucinations. And we know how that works, right? We know what happens in the brain when you take LSD. No big mystery there. And they'll hallucinate a whole bunch of crazy stuff, right? With NDEs, what's sort of strange is that the experiences are- they- there aren't infinite number of them, right? It's not like some people see ham sandwiches and other people see kangaroos, right? It's like they fall into some v- some, like, three or four basic buckets, right? And that's across culture, throughout- you know, throughout the a- you know, through history, and- which sort of argues for a sort of seminal- a- a seminal human experience rather than just a sort of function of brain chemistry and dru- and essentially dr- uh, drugs, right? Um, endogenous drugs being released in your brain in your final moments. Um, and so there are a lot of people, very well credentialed, smart people who are like, "Listen, th- these accounts amount to evidence of an afterlife," right? "Sorry." Like, th- there's so many of them, they're so consistent. How do you explain this shit? Like, come on, right? And then there's other people, well credentialed, equally smart, et cetera, et cetera, like, "Nonsense. I'm a neuroscientist. I'm a neurochemist." You know? Like, "We can explain all this through- you know, you put f- fighter pilots in a human centrifuge, spin them to 5 Gs, they will see a tunnel of light, they will see God, they will have s- experience their entire life in one moment," blah, blah, blah. The- you know, epileptics, same thing when- brain seizures. Like, "We can reproduce all of this in the lab." Like, "This isn't evidence of anything," right?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:04:53

       But isn't the problem with that that you're actually killing a person when you're s- spinning them in the centrifuge?

    3. SJSebastian Junger1:04:57

       No, no, no. They do this w- with fighter pilots.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:04:59

       Right.

    5. SJSebastian Junger1:04:59

       Yeah.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:04:59

       But you know if you keep doing that, you'll die.

    7. SJSebastian Junger1:05:01

       Oh, absolutely.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:05:02

       And your body knows that-

    9. SJSebastian Junger1:05:03

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:05:03

        ... too. So you are in a near death experience.

    11. SJSebastian Junger1:05:06

        Um-

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:05:06

        You're near death.

    13. SJSebastian Junger1:05:07

        Well, you're near death because blood's not getting to your brain.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:05:09

        Yes.

    15. SJSebastian Junger1:05:09

        Right, right.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:05:09

        And your body knows that.

    17. SJSebastian Junger1:05:10

        Right.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:05:10

        I- I mean, you are opening that door.

    19. SJSebastian Junger1:05:13

        Right.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:05:13

        Whether you're opening that door in a safe manner-

    21. SJSebastian Junger1:05:15

        Yeah, sure.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:05:15

        ... you're still opening that door.

    23. SJSebastian Junger1:05:16

        Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But the argument for- uh, you're absolutely right and I never thought of it that way, but the argument by the scientists, the rationalists is, "Look, we can- we can reproduce all of this in the- in the lab." Right, yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:26

        Yeah, but it's a dumb argument-

    25. SJSebastian Junger1:05:27

        Right.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:27

        ... because what you're doing in reproducing it is bringing someone close to death.

    27. SJSebastian Junger1:05:31

        Right, right. Well, another thing they can do is stimulate the brain in- during brain surgery, and they do that to make sure that they're not scooping out- they're scooping out tumor, not, you know, your piano-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:40

        Right.

    29. SJSebastian Junger1:05:41

        ... your piano lessons or whatever, right? And one of the things they can do is they stimulate certain parts of the brain, they can give people a s- a sensation that they're floating or that they- "Oh my god, my- my grandfather." You know, whatever. They can do weird shit with the brain with, you know, a tooth- basically a toothpick and a- and a- and a- and a bone saw, right? And- and so- and anyway, just- just suffice it to say, there's a- there's the sort of slightly mystical argument of this is proof of an afterlife, and then there's the sort of rationalist argument, "No, no, no. We c- we, uh- we understand the physiology of all this." And so what- there was a guy in, I think it was Estonia, an older guy who fell and hit his head, he had a hematoma. They put electrodes on his scalp to t- um, see what the brain activity was 'cause he was having seizures. Other stuff happened to him that the- the family said, "You know, he doesn't have a chance of recuperating." Pulled the- he basically pulled the pl- plug, let him die. He had the, um, e- the electrodes on his- on his brain, monitoring brain activity before the decision to pull the plug. So they did something that would otherwise not be ethical. If someone's going to die and you're like, "Hey, let's hook him up to see what his brain does," that's not ethical, right? This guy already had that stuff in place as part of the life-saving measures, so they were able to see what happened at the moment of death, right? So what happened in the human brain- in his brain was that there was a flood of- I think it was, um, gamma in his brain that, um, uh, that is associated with long-term memory. A flood of gamma in his brain, right? And, uh, and that was- uh, and one other frequency, I can't remember. At- at any rate, there was- this f- the brain did- basically did what brains do when they're r- remembering very, very old stuff, right? And that they even found that in- in rats that they ethically...... are able to kill. Like, hook 'em up, kill them, what happens in the brain, right? And so the, the an- most ancient sort of mem- memory source centers of the brain are activated at the moment of death, while there's a sort of lingering, dying consciousness. So, boom, all of a sudden, you're five and you're talking to your grandfather. You know, whatever it, whatever it is, we don't know the specific things that that man saw, but we know that, that, that the, his brain was activated in ways that suggest memory retrieval, right?

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:08:05

        Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 2:17:35