Joe Rogan Experience #2174 - Annie Jacobsen

1. 0:00 – 0:55

   Intro

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:14

      Good to see you again. (laughs) Hi, Joe. Thanks for-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      What's happening?

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:17

      Thanks for having me back. A lot's happening.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      My pleasure. I've, I've heard a lot about your book. I haven't read it, but I've heard a lot about your book from a lot of people that you freaked out.

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:26

      Okay. Well, hopefully you can read it-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      (laughs)

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:28

       ... and then you can decide if you're of the freaked-out crowd or of the really freaked-out crowd.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       Oh, there's only two options? (laughs)

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:36

       I think so. It doesn't end well. That's the spoiler alert.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Okay. But hold the book up. It's called, uh, Nuclear War?

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:42

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Um, what motivated you?

   16. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:44

       Nuclear War: A Scenario.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:48

       And a very plausible scenario from what I understand from all the defense officials I interviewed.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       Um,

2. 0:55 – 1:50

   Why write this book

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:55

      what motivated you to write this?

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen0:57

      Well, six previous books on war, weapons, US national security secrets, imagine how many people told me they dedicated their lives to preventing nuclear World War III. And so during the previous administration, fire and fury rhetoric, I began to think, "What happens if deterrence fails, that idea of prevention? What happens?" And I took that question to the people who advise the president, who work at STRATCOM, who, you know, command the nuclear sub forces, and learned that it doesn't end well. Not only does it not end well, five billion people are dead at the end of 72 minutes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:47

      Jesus.

3. 1:50 – 3:00

   Animal humor

   1. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:50

      You begin to realize when you, or you quickly realize as you read the book that, you know, there are-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:56

      Jamie, your mic's on or something? Something just made a weird noise.

   3. JVJamie Vernon2:01

      Oh, you're mic'd.

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:02

      Oh, yeah.

   5. AJAnnie Jacobsen2:02

      It's Carl.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:03

      Oh, it's Carl. (laughs)

   7. AJAnnie Jacobsen2:04

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:04

      I was like, "What is going on?"

   9. AJAnnie Jacobsen2:06

      It's the animal humor in a-

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:08

       Yeah.

   11. AJAnnie Jacobsen2:08

       ... in a difficult subject. Um, you know, you, there're, there's, you know, literally hundreds of thousands of people in nuclear command and control who practice 24/7, 365 what would happen if deterrents failed and we had a nuclear war. They are practicing this, Joe. And it's like, talk about being behind the veil. No one knows it's why I think the response to this book, it's been out for three months, has been so extraordinary, and from both sides of the aisle, because people now are beginning to realize, if nuclear war begins, it doesn't end until there is a nuclear holocaust. And it happens so fast. There's no quickly going to your secret bunker you have.

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       Yeah. The, all that's nonsense.

4. 3:00 – 6:30

   Nuclear holocaust

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:00

      These people think, like, Zuckerberg's building a bunker in Hawaii, he's gonna survive. He's building a har- a hurricane shelter. Yeah.

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen3:07

      And also-

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:08

      E- even that might work. It might work.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen3:08

      ... unless he happened to be there in the exact moment-

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:11

      Yeah.

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen3:11

      ... when all of this went down.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:12

      Yeah. You'd have to know in advance that we're about to launch. The, the whole thing is terrifying. It's, it's also, I don't see a way that it... Like, if you think about the timeline between 1945 and today, um, it's kind of extraordinary that no one has launched a nuke, no one's b- but it almost seems like a matter of time. Like, it'll be a blip in history. Like, we look at it now, "Oh, because of mutually assured self-destruction, or mutually assured destruction, that's what's prevented people from using nuclear weapons." Like, unt- but, uh, when? Now? Until now? Like, what, what is 80 years in, in terms of human history? It's nothing. It's a tiny little blink. It's a little nothing. And it could go sideways at any moment, and then we're back to the cave era.

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen4:02

      We are hunter-gatherers again. In the world's- words of Carl Sagan-

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:06

      Yeah.

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen4:06

       ... who is the author of Nuclear Winter. But I think what's also crazy, to your point about 1945, is like, when this was all set up, when the nuclear arsenals were beginning, and I take the reader through it really quickly, 'cause I want them to just get to what happens at nuclear launch. I mean, the book is really about nuclear launch to nuclear winter. But the buildup is fascinating, because first of all, it happened so incredibly fast, and it happened under incredibly secret classified terms, so there was no, like, outside opinion. And originally, nuclear war was set up to be fought and won, which itself is absurd, and we know that now. So the rules of the game have fundamentally changed, and yet the systems are all the same. That's what's, I think, the most dangerous component of today versus, let's say, 1952 when the thermonuclears began.

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:07

       And when you say the systems are the same, what do you mean exactly?

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen5:11

       So the system of nuclear war, this idea that well, for... Okay, so to, let's start with some basic facts. There's a nuclear triad. You know what that-

   13. JVJamie Vernon5:22

       I don't know.

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen5:23

       Okay, so triad, really simple, three. So we have missile silos, they're called ICBMs inside of them, 400 of them. Then we have nuclear-powered nuclear submarines that launch nuclear missiles. There are 14 of them. Then we have the bomber force, 66 nuclear-capable bombers. Triad. The president chooses what com- what elements of that triad he's going to use when he launches a counterattack if we ever are attacked. That system essentially exists, that was what was being developed in the '50s. The only difference was, in the old days, it was, "We're gonna actually use these and fight and win a nuclear war." And now it's, "We're gonna have these all sitting around ready to launch."We have 1,770 nuclear weapons on ready for launch status, Joe. They can be launched, some of them, in 60 seconds.

   15. JRJoe Rogan6:27

       Jesus.

5. 6:30 – 9:25

   UFOs

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:30

      And they're all pointed? Are they all, do they need a coordinate? Do they need... Or are they all, like, aimed at a specific area already?

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen6:40

      Important question. They're technically p-... l-... targeted to sea, out at sea, so they don't have a specific target. But when-

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:50

      Oh.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen6:50

      ... when the command goes, when the l-

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:52

      So is that... If they accidentally go off, they go to the sea?

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen6:56

      I would-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:56

      Jesus Christ. Imagine you're out there on a sailboat (laughs) just enjoying your time and what a beautiful place to be, in the middle of the ocean, and you just see (imitates explosion) . Um, what do you think about the stories of UFOs hovering over nuclear bases and shutting down their weapons? I know you've done a lot of research on this stuff. How much of that is bullshit?

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen7:30

      You know, I actually haven't done a lot of research on that specific narrative.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:34

      We... Yeah, I'm- I'm-

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen7:34

       I know of it. I know of it for sure, and it's... I think... I mean, I always approach the UFO phenomena with, or I try to at least, with, like, the eye of, or the point of view of Carl Jung. This idea that it's... that what leads here is our perception of things and our sort of deep shadow self of fear. And once the nuclear weapon was invented, Man, I mean, our grandparents, had to confront this new, fundamental new reality that just simply didn't exist before. And then it was... That's with the atomic weapons. And then in the '50s, once thermonuclear weapons were invented, and the thermonuclear weapon is, uh, essentially an atomic... A thermonuclear weapon is so powerful, it uses an atomic bomb, like from Hiroshima, as its triggering mechanism.

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Jesus.

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen8:36

       And so the order of magnitude of destruction of, of... in an instant, according to Carl Jung, who looked at the UFO phenomena and the nuclear weapons phenomena hand-in-hand, encourage anyone to read his stuff about it, because he has a much sort of, you know, bird's eye view of it all, about why that's so terrifying to people. So the narratives, to my eye, the narratives of nuclear... of, you know, alien ships hovering over nuclear bases, I don't... I have never spoken to a firsthand witness who experienced that, but I would, I would see that in terms of the narrative of Carl Jung.

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:23

       So C- Carl Jung's perception

6. 9:25 – 10:30

   Carl Jung

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:25

      was that he believed that it was essentially people perceiving these things or hallucinating these things, and it was a, a, a f-... a, a, uh, like almost like a mass hallucination, part of the...

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen9:39

      I, I, I don't know if he went that far. I think he left a lot more open to interpretation. I think his... My read of his analogy was more like the way that hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago when Christianity was first being developed, um, people saw existential threats as part of the narrative of God.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:03

      Hmm.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:03

      So his... My read of Carl Jung is that he's saying now, in the mechanized modern world, the existential threats, the sort of damnation is tied to machines, which is tied to, uh, uh... You know, is easily tied to little machines from... or big machines from outer space. That was his take on it, which I think is interesting.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:29

      It's interesting, but

7. 10:30 – 11:20

   Young

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:30

      also, Jung wrote this when?

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:32

      The '60s.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:33

      The '60s?

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:33

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:34

      Yeah. So I think we know a lot more now-

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:37

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:37

      ... than we knew then. I mean, this, uh... Like, the, the way I'm... The reason why I'm bringing this up is, like, the people that have hope, one of the hopes is that aliens are observing us, and they're gonna wait until we-

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:49

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:49

      ... are about to do something really stupid, and then they're gonna come down and shut everything down.

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen10:54

       That is, that is an interesting narrative too, and that sort of... But again, that's a bit, to my eye, like the Deus ex machina idea. That God would intervene and, you know, save the, save the faithful, and... or rather the... You know, and in this situation, it might be that, that he's gonna save those people that are paying attention.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:15

       Hmm. Well, just save the human race from

8. 11:20 – 17:00

   Carl

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:20

      its folly. What is Carl doing, bro?

   2. AJAnnie Jacobsen11:22

      (laughing)

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:22

      Get that thing away from me and go... You can't let that little fucker roll around.

   4. AJAnnie Jacobsen11:25

      I think Carl likes my shoes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:26

      Oh yeah, he likes to play. Carl didn't get enough exercise this morning. Marshall wasn't here. He's not worn out yet. Um, so the, the Jung thing is interesting, but, like, we know more now. We know more now about possible other dimensions that we can access. We know n-... more now about planets in the Goldilocks zone. We know more now about all of these, uh, whistleblowers that have come out and talked about crashed retrievement programs, where they're re-eng-... back engineering these things and trying to understand what these things are. And Diana Pasolka's work, where she's talking about how they're essentially, uh, donations, that these crafts are donations, that the people are being given these things so that they could see this extraordinary technology and try to figure out how to make it. Um, but-... the like- that's one of the only ways that I s- like, if we did get to a point that we launch nuclear weapons at each other, it- everything is over so fast, if I was an alien species, an- an intelligent species from somewhere else, and I recognize that this is a real possibility and that the Earth has all these different forms of life, other than human beings, that are gonna get destroyed as well, you know-

   6. AJAnnie Jacobsen12:47

      Hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan12:47

      ... it's gonna wipe out, uh, who knows how many different species. I mean, it's- it's gonna kill everything. And even the people that are left over, what are you left with? Any- what- whatever 2 billion people that still survive, where and what? What do you have left? What is the environment like? Like how polluted is everything? How- what kind of mutations are gonna come-

   8. AJAnnie Jacobsen13:11

      Well-

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:11

      ... from their offspring?

   10. AJAnnie Jacobsen13:12

       I get into that in the end of the book. So I write the book in essentially three acts, like the first 24 minutes, the next 24 minutes, the last 24 minutes, and then nuclear winter. So nuclear winter is very well-described by a fellow called Professor Brian Toon, who I interview in the book. He was one of the original five authors of- do you remember the nuclear winter theory of our sort of high school years?

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:40

       Yes.

   12. AJAnnie Jacobsen13:40

       Right? So that was- Carl Sagan was the lead author on the paper. Toon was the young student. And he's dedicated decades to s- looking at nuclear winter now. Originally, it was very pawpawed by the Defense Department. It was said, "This is Soviet propaganda, this is never gonna happen." And the computer systems and climate modeling have changed to the degree where we can see not only is nuclear winter what was thought in the '80s, it's actually much worse. So whereby originally they thought there would be a year of ice sheets across large bodies of water in- from Iowa to Ukraine, across the mid-latitudes of the globe. Now that could be up to seven or 10 years. So think about that much frozen land for that long. You have the fa- the death of agriculture. You have a comp- like you are talking about, you have the complete disruption of the ability for people to grow food and eat food. And so man reverts to his hunter-gatherer state, and this is all-

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:47

       Burr, but hunting and gathering what?

   14. AJAnnie Jacobsen14:49

       It- well, exactly.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:50

       That's the real problem.

   16. AJAnnie Jacobsen14:50

       Well, exactly. And also you have, you know, man has to go underground. Um, I take you through th- w- what this is like in- in detail because it's so bizarre to think about that you have a man-made problem, nuclear weapons, and yet this is- n- people are not paying attention to the fact that whatever is created by man essentially would theoretically have a man-made solution. Like there is a solution to the nuclear weapons threat. It's not... although the results of a nuclear war would be very much like an asteroid striking the United States, or the world anywhere, there's a solution to nuclear war. There's a solution called disarmament. You could redu- we have a total of 12,200 and some odd nuclear weapons.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:42

       And is the concern that if we did that other countries would not do that, we would be-

   18. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:47

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       ... defenseless?

   20. AJAnnie Jacobsen15:48

       Absolutely. But, you know, things happen in sort of inches and feet. They don't have to happen overnight. Once upon a time, there were 70,000 nuclear warheads, in 1986.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:01

       Oh, so we're making progress.

   22. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:02

       (laughs) We are making pr- well, we were making progress until this past year, and these treaties are all, you know, at risk, and people are just very busy seeing everybody else as the enemy.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       This past year specifically because of what?

   24. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:17

       Well, you know, Putin's saying he's not going to be involved in the treaty anymore, Donald Trump said he was- pulled us out of the treaty. So there's like- leaders are threatening, this is all on the table right now, it could and should be looked at, but when gr- do you remember back when we were in high school when, uh, Reagan and Gorbachev got together for the Reykjavik Summit?

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       Yes.

   26. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:40

       Do you remember that?

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:40

       Yes.

   28. AJAnnie Jacobsen16:41

       That was the beginning of a movement toward disarmament. There was- that was the beginning of this idea of, wait a minute, 70,000 nuclear weapons is just an accident waiting to happen. And so we are at 12,500

9. 17:00 – 20:30

   Petro

   1. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:00

      today because of that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan17:01

      And we should also say that there have been some very close calls.

   3. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:07

      The Secretary-General said last year or something, "We are one misunderstanding, one miscommunication away from nuclear annihilation." He's not kidding.

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:18

      You know, there was this one incident where the Soviet Union thought that we were attacking them, and there was one guy who resisted launching a counterstrike, and that one guy prevented nuclear annihilation. One guy said, "I think this is an error. This doesn't make sense. I'm- I'm not doing this."

   5. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:39

      Hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:39

      And that one guy saved us. I don't remember-

   7. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:42

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:42

      ... what the incident was, like what... do you remember?

   9. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:45

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:45

       What was the exact issue?

   11. AJAnnie Jacobsen17:47

       So he- his name was Petrov, and he was... and it was in 1983, so what's even more remarkable about him is this was at a time of, you know, absolute animosity, enmity between the two nations. It was a really precarious time in the world. And Petrov s- was in a, um, early warning radar system, like out- outside of Moscow, that reads data of possible incoming nuclear missiles, and he saw what he f- what the- the radar screen, the radar scope was reading as five ICBMs coming from Wyoming.... five. He knew that we would send a thousand missiles if we were going to launch, and so he questioned the data, which is just so remarkable in its own w- conception, when you think about that. He questioned it and he didn't send it up the chain of command as a p- as an, as a missile attack.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:49

       So what was it?

   13. AJAnnie Jacobsen18:51

       Well, I get into this in the book, which is, which is terrifying. So, okay, let me back up for a second-

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:56

       Yeah.

   15. AJAnnie Jacobsen18:56

       ... of how good our technology is. So we have a system in space, a satellite system called sp- SBIRS, Space-based Infrared Satellite System. It's like the Paul Revere of the 21st century. It is parked over our en- enemies that have nuclear weapons, and it can see and detect a nuclear launch of an ICBM in a fraction of a second, Joe. Confirmed fact. That's why nuclear war begins and ends in 72 minutes, because the SBIR satellite system sees the launch and then the US Nuclear Command and Control goes into, into... b- begins. And by the way, an ICBM cannot be redirected and it cannot be recalled. (breathes deeply)

   16. JRJoe Rogan19:45

       What about these hypersonic weapons that can adjust their trajectory? They can go... They can m- move to different places, like they... It looks like it's going to Arizona and it goes to Chicago.

   17. AJAnnie Jacobsen19:57

       Yeah. So ballistic missiles are hypersonic, so a little bit of a misnomer there, like... And also, a hypersonic missile, let's just say it went from Russia to the United States, it might take an hour. A ballistic missile launched from a launchpad outside Moscow takes 26 minutes and 40 seconds to get to Washington DC. That number's not gonna change. That's gravity, that's physics. That's what it was in 1958, '59, and that's what it is today.

   18. JRJoe Rogan20:23

       But isn't the new technology that it can alter its course?

   19. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:27

       Yes, but our... Okay, so

10. 20:30 – 24:00

    Ballistic Missiles

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:30

       if you, if you go with that logic-

    2. JRJoe Rogan20:32

       (sniffs)

    3. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:32

       ... and you say, "Well, it can move around-"

    4. JRJoe Rogan20:33

       Mm-hmm.

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:33

       "... so it's, would be harder to shoot down."

    6. JRJoe Rogan20:35

       Right.

    7. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:36

       As I explain in the book, and again, as was relayed to me by defense officials, we can't shoot down ballistic missiles, long-range ballistic missiles, with any kind of certainty or accuracy.

    8. JRJoe Rogan20:49

       It's not like the Iron Dome or anything like that?

    9. AJAnnie Jacobsen20:51

       That is... The Iron Dome is almost, like, terrible for nuclear war, you know, um, f- for, for people to understand how dangerous nuclear war is, because the Iron Dome can shoot down short-range missiles and mid-range missiles. So even the US Aegis systems out on the sea, the Navy systems, shot down some of those Iranian drones. But they can't shoot down ballistic missiles. You want, like, the five-minute or the 30-second ballistic missile-

    10. JRJoe Rogan21:23

        Sure.

    11. AJAnnie Jacobsen21:23

        ... lesson? Because this is what I need. I write for the layman, you know? I think part of the reason why nuclear war is not spoken about in the general public is because it's set up to be intimidating, you know? You'll hear a lot of defense people and analysts using very esoteric language, and, and it kind of excludes the average Joe or Jane, Joe or Annie. So I ask really basic questions like, "How does a ballistic missile work?" And it's very simple. That 26 minutes and 40 seconds I told you about? So there's three phases of a ballistic missile. It launches, it has boost phase, first five minutes. Imagine a rocket. You've seen launches. That fire coming out the bottom, that boosts the rocket for five minutes. That's when it's detectable from space. Then it enters mid-course phase, which is gonna be 20 minutes, arcing across the globe to its target. That is the only place where the interceptor m- missile can get it, if it can. And it's 500 miles up, and it's traveling at something like Mach 23, 14,000 miles an hour. Okay? So that's 20 minutes. And then the last phase is called terminal phase, appropriately so, 100 seconds, when the warhead, the nuclear warhead reenters the atmosphere, boom, hits its... explodes over its target. The interceptor system is designed to take out the missile in mid-course phase. So we have 44 interceptors. Remember I told you we have thou- we have a thou... 1,700, let's say, nuclear w- missiles on, on ready for launch status? Russia has about the same. We have 44 interceptor missiles. How are 44 interceptor missiles gonna go up against more than a thousand Russian nuclear weapons coming at us? Never mind the fact that each interceptor has a 50% shoot-down rate, and that's by the Missile Defense Agency's spokesperson. So there's this perception that we have a system like the Iron Dome that could take out these incoming missiles, and we simply don't, which is why when nuclear war begins, it only ends in nuclear Armageddon.

    12. JRJoe Rogan23:58

        Jesus.

11. 24:00 – 27:20

    Writing the book

    1. JRJoe Rogan24:00

       Woo. How disturbing was it for you to write this, just do all this research and to come to these conclusions and realize that we're in-

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen24:11

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan24:11

       ... a lot worse shape than anybody thinks we are?

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen24:15

       I mean, y- uh, you know, you take your... When you're reporting or writing, you kinda take your hat off of the emotional or the sentimental part of things, where you... You know, the mother in me... (laughs) You know, you, you, you can't think like that. You just have to tell the story, I believe.

    5. JRJoe Rogan24:32

       Right.

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen24:32

       I also believe that if I can be as...... factual and dramatic as possible, then I, then I will have the most readers, which is th- the point. Uh, you know, I am actually not trying to save the world as a journalist. I'm trying to get you to read what I write because I found it super interesting reporting it and learning about it. And also, the whole process for me that I think is the most interesting is going to some of these people who are truly some of the smartest scientists in the world and getting them to explain it in the most basic... Like I say, "You have to tell it to me like I'm a kid-"

    7. JRJoe Rogan25:10

       Mm-hmm.

    8. AJAnnie Jacobsen25:10

       "... because I don't have a science mind." And that part is su- so that excitement part of it balances out with the terror of it, because I, I do also understand why most people don't wanna know about this. It's too dreadful. But they also don't wanna know because they end up feeling sort of looked down upon, I think, if they ask basic questions, like, "Wait a minute, how does a missile work?" Or-

    9. JRJoe Rogan25:36

       Right.

    10. AJAnnie Jacobsen25:36

        ... like you said, "What's, wha- can't the hypersonics... Shouldn't we invest in hypers..." Well, who really w- wants to be lectured? And so, what I try to do is condense the lectures that I receive about how it all works into this dramatic form, which is how I landed on this format for this book, which I think is really effective, which is giving it to you like a scenario. Like, this is what would happen.

    11. JRJoe Rogan26:04

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AJAnnie Jacobsen26:05

        And then going back to all my sources. I mean, like, okay, here's an example. We haven't even talked about submarines, but the submarines are completely... You cannot find them in the, in the sea. They are stealth beyond stealth. I interviewed the, uh, comman- former commander of the Nuclear Sub Forces, a guy called Admiral Conner. Never given an interview like this before. And I said, like, "How hard is it to find a nuclear armed sub?" And he said, "Annie, it's easier to find a grapefruit-sized object in space than a nuclear sub under the sea."

    13. JRJoe Rogan26:46

        Jesus.

    14. AJAnnie Jacobsen26:47

        And these things are... By the way, I have a map in the back of the book that shows you how close our adv- our enem- y- adversaries, enemies, call them what you will, China and Russia, how close they come to the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States regularly, which means it reduces that launch time I told you about of 26 minutes, 40 seconds, that reduces it down to sort of o- 10 minutes or less.

    15. JRJoe Rogan27:18

        Oof.

12. 27:20 – 28:10

    Soviet subs

    1. JRJoe Rogan27:21

       What did you think when you saw the Soviet subs that were outside of Cuba?

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen27:25

       I thought, "Wow." I mean, when I began reporting this book a couple years ago, never did I think that I would see that while I was talking about my book with people like you, um, after publication. Never... But in the same manner, I never thought I would hear the President of Russia threatening to use a nuclear weapon. I mean, he said he's not kidding that he might use WMD. That was, that was his paraphrased quote.

    3. JRJoe Rogan27:57

       Did he speci- specify, like, in what way?

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:00

       He just said WMD.

    5. JRJoe Rogan28:03

       Against America?

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:04

       Yeah. Well, you know, having to do with intervention in Ukraine.

    7. JRJoe Rogan28:08

       Yeah.

13. 28:10 – 31:45

    Cluster bombs

    1. JRJoe Rogan28:10

       I'm sure you saw the, the drones that blew up on a beach, um, the bombs that were, uh, launched that killed civilians in Russia. They were-

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:21

       No.

    3. JRJoe Rogan28:21

       ... US. You didn't see this?

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:22

       Was this, like, recently, yesterday? No, I did not.

    5. JRJoe Rogan28:24

       Yeah. Jim, see if you could find that. Um, but Russian civilians-

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:30

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JRJoe Rogan28:30

       ... including one young girl, they were showing in this, uh, article, were killed by th- these cluster bombs that were launched by drones that are ours.

    8. AJAnnie Jacobsen28:42

       Right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan28:43

       You know, that Ukraine has, and now they've, they've launched them on Russian civilians. And it's like... Here it is. Ca- Crimea video shows Russian tourists flee beach, as... What is that word? A-T-A-C-M-S?

    10. AJAnnie Jacobsen29:00

        Mm-hmm.

    11. JRJoe Rogan29:00

        Bomblets rain down. What does that mean? Do you know what that means, A-T-A-C-M-S?

    12. AJAnnie Jacobsen29:05

        Well, I'm guessing they're small cluster bombs that are in the nose cone of the warhead.

    13. JRJoe Rogan29:13

        M- make that larger so I can read the whole thing, Jimmy?

    14. NANarrator29:15

        Oh, okay.

    15. That's it.

    16. JRJoe Rogan29:16

        Um, the video shows the beach in, uh, Sevastopol, Crimea, which was struck by a series of explosions on June 23rd. The footage captured by a security camera shows hundreds of people beginning to run away from the water before the impact of cluster warheads starts.

    17. AJAnnie Jacobsen29:31

        What's happening in Ukraine is so profoundly dangerous for everyone.

    18. JRJoe Rogan29:37

        So this is, uh, the scene right here. So these things just drop down on the water. I mean, it's just pure terrorism.

    19. AJAnnie Jacobsen29:52

        Well, it's also remarkable that we have so much f- available footage and so much citizen journalism that people can see these events and discuss them and-

    20. JRJoe Rogan30:06

        So it says here, "The, the event was caused by Russian air defenses shooting down a series of cluster warhead missiles, one of which altered course as a result. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that four of the five missiles launched were shot down, adding another missile as a result of the impact of air defense systems at the final stage deviated from the flight path with the warhead exploding in the air over the city. The detonation of the fragmentation warhead of the fifth American missile in the air led to numerous casualties among civilians in Sevastopol." (sighs) Um, what was, do you, do we know what this was about? Where they were launching them towards?

    21. AJAnnie Jacobsen30:50

        Uh, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not following the ground war in Ukraine right now, as, with my focus on this.

    22. JRJoe Rogan30:57

        Yeah.

    23. AJAnnie Jacobsen30:57

        But what I do know is that the ratcheting up of the, of the rhetoric, and the use of third-party weapons systems is complicating an already incredibly volatile situation.

    24. JRJoe Rogan31:13

        It says, "A spokesperson for the US State Department denied the accusation, saying that the claims were ridiculous and hyperbolic. The US supplies weapons to Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia, and recognizes Crimea as a part of Ukraine despite Russia's annexation. Ukraine has previously outlined plans to use long-range weapons supplied by America in Crimea, specifically to target infrastructure supporting the Russian invasion." (sighs) Oof. Th- this is just terrifying

14. 31:45 – 34:37

    The Reagan Reversal

    1. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       stuff. It's just, it's terrifying because it can all be happening while you're just going about your business, walking your dog. You have no idea that the, the entire world is in grave danger.

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen31:57

       You mean, when, if things suddenly go nuclear?

    3. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       Yeah. Well even-

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:00

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       ... just this, just like these escalations.

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen32:03

       Well, I think the big picture that frightens me most is that when we see the President of Russia going to the President of North Korea, our two, air quotes, "arch enemies" right now, having a new alliance, and then I consider that the current President of the United States hasn't spoken to the President of Russia in two years, and I think back to that time in history, what's known as the Reagan Reversal, where Reagan went from this incredible hawk to learning about nuclear weapons in, of all things, an ABC television movie called The Day After. Having the crap scared out of him, and then realizing, this is the President of the United States, realizing, "We cannot continue on this path. It is too dangerous." And that is why Reagan reached out to Gorbachev, and that's why we have the Rekovik Summit. It was called the Reagan Reversal. So in other words, my point is, Reagan, who, you know, the axis of evil speech, like this idea of seeing your enemy as the, as the arch evil villain had to change for him when he understood nuclear war, by seeing a film. And so when I look to today and I consider that the current president hasn't, isn't speaking to the president of Russia, it doesn't make any sense to someone like me. That's probably why I wrote this book. Like, please understand this. And I, one has to imagine that the current president, with all his decades in office, understands all of this.

    7. JRJoe Rogan33:46

       Mm-hmm.

    8. AJAnnie Jacobsen33:46

       And so I don't fundamentally understand why there is no communication. It is way too dangerous. Hence, your, the kind, what you just showed us, and, you know, the facts will come in of whose weapon systems those are, but either way, the perception, to your point, the fact that the perception, a misperception could ignite nuclear war, could ignite that situation that is irreversible. That should be astonishing to all of us.

    9. JRJoe Rogan34:23

       That's terrifying.

    10. AJAnnie Jacobsen34:25

        Well, it's terrifying, but the one hopeful part of it would be, again, going back to the Reagan re- The Reagan Reversal, by the way, is the only glimmer of hope I ever found in all of this.

    11. JRJoe Rogan34:36

        Don't

15. 34:37 – 43:15

    Political Compromise

    1. JRJoe Rogan34:37

       you think, though, that politics in general, and certainly world leadership, especially United States leadership, is much more compromised today than it was then?

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen34:47

       T- sp-

    3. JRJoe Rogan34:47

       And a guy like Reagan doesn't really exist today.

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen34:49

       Mm-hmm. Tell me what you mean when you say compromised.

    5. JRJoe Rogan34:52

       I mean the military defense contractors are making so much money, and they wanna continue making so much money, and they have great influence over the politicians and over policy and over what gets done.

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen35:08

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JRJoe Rogan35:09

       And this money that they don't wanna stop making is completely dependent upon the continuing to build-

    8. AJAnnie Jacobsen35:19

       Right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan35:20

       ... continuing to sell, continuing to, to, to have these weapons and future systems, and more advanced systems, and better systems, and there's so much money and momentum behind this that I don't know if there's a, a Reagan available now. I don't know if that's an option, if there's a person that can have some sense-

    10. AJAnnie Jacobsen35:42

        Right.

    11. JRJoe Rogan35:42

        ... that can say, "Th- we are on a path to self-destruction, and we need to stop, and we need to reverse this path." You know, you're gonna have people in, in the military, in the Defense Department, and that are being influenced by these contractors, that are like, "Listen, (babbles) there's plenty of places we can move things around and get things done. And don't you know about these guys? These guys are bad guys. We need to get over there. We need to do something about this. We need to do something about that." And this escalation is motivated by the fact that they're making fucking ungodly amounts of money by making and selling these weapons, and this is a massive part of our economy. It's a massive part of the structure that runs the, the government itself.

    12. AJAnnie Jacobsen36:31

        Absolutely. So then you have to ask yourself, what is also going to happen now that these big contracting organizations, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed, are now being threatened by Silicon Valley?... by the new defense contractors that are coming into the pipeline, that are threatening their contracts 'cause they can do it faster and cheaper. And so I fear that you will see even more of that entrenchment that you're talking about, even more of the, you know, the bureaucracy churning out more weapons in, under the guise of defense.

    13. JRJoe Rogan37:08

        'Cause they'll have to ramp it up.

    14. AJAnnie Jacobsen37:09

        Yeah, because there's a competition.

    15. JRJoe Rogan37:11

        (laughs) .

    16. AJAnnie Jacobsen37:11

        You know, so, which is that double-edged sword, because competition is what makes America great.

    17. JRJoe Rogan37:15

        Right.

    18. AJAnnie Jacobsen37:15

        I believe in that tru-, you know.

    19. JRJoe Rogan37:17

        Yeah.

    20. AJAnnie Jacobsen37:17

        But, um, but I, I do also think what's interesting is, like, someone I interviewed here in the book was Leon Panetta. So not only was he a former SecDef, but he was former CIA chief, and he was former White House Chief of Staff under Clinton. And in our interview, I learned a lot from him about those three kind of elements of the national security, advising the president, you know, being SecDef, being in charge of all of this, and, uh, being CIA chief, the, from the intelligence point of view. But what was even more interesting about interviewing Panetta was that he said to me at the end of our interview, "It's good that you're doing this. The American people need to know." That's a direct quote from him. So here's a guy who has spent his entire life entrenched in that system that you're talking about, and then outside of it, once he retires, puts on his, shall we say, grandfather's hat, the human hat, and is suddenly like, "This is really going in the wrong direction." I would hope that that would lead to more people thinking wisely about what it is they're doing when they're in office, as far as nuclear war is concerned.

    21. JRJoe Rogan38:48

        Yeah, but the, the, the thing that concerns me is they're not good at anything.

    22. AJAnnie Jacobsen38:52

        (laughs) .

    23. JRJoe Rogan38:52

        Why would they be good at this?

    24. AJAnnie Jacobsen38:53

        But tell me more.

    25. JRJoe Rogan38:54

        But, well, it brings me back to Eisenhower's speech when he left, left office. You know, the-

    26. AJAnnie Jacobsen39:00

        Mm-hmm.

    27. JRJoe Rogan39:00

        ... the threat of the military-industrial complex, warning the United States that there is an entire system that is now in place that profits off of war and wants war and wants to keep creating these weapons and wants to keep escalating things 'cause that's their, that's their business. That's the business. We're not good at regulating any businesses. We're not good at anything that's detrimental.

    28. AJAnnie Jacobsen39:27

        (laughs) .

    29. JRJoe Rogan39:27

        We're not good at regulating overfishing of the oceans. We're not good at environment. We're not good at energy. We're not good at manufacturing. We're not, we're not good at regulating anything. Everything we've done has been a for-profit thing. When we allowed jobs to go overseas and decimated American manufacturing, that, there was no regulation of that. They, they didn't think that out. They didn't do a good job of managing that. No, they completely devastated manufacturing here, and we saw it during the COVID crisis, during the lockdowns, "Oh my God, we can't get anything-"

    30. AJAnnie Jacobsen40:02

        Right.
16. 43:15 – 45:45

    Celebrity Obsession

    1. JRJoe Rogan43:15

       and nonsense. And whether it's the president who's a celebrity or congressperson who's become a celebrity, you know? AOC, it's not about her policies, it's about her saying stupid shit. It's like, that's all p- people care about. It's a reality show. And we're kind of conditioned by reality shows, right?

    2. AJAnnie Jacobsen43:30

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan43:30

       We have so many that we watch and so many things that we pay attention to that are nonsense, that distract us, that we like to sort of apply those same viewing habits to the whole world.

    4. AJAnnie Jacobsen43:41

       But I'm amazed by the phenomena of podcasts, I must say, 'cause I'm old enough to remember when they weren't around. And so... (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan43:49

       Me too. (laughs)

    6. AJAnnie Jacobsen43:49

       Sorry. (laughs) Right? So, um, you know, and I do have, I have o- one foot in publishing obviously, author of seven books, but I also write television. And so I exist in these two different worlds of media that are, you could say, traditional media forms. And w- when you consider how, how radically these different forms of communication are changing, that we d- we did... I sell as many e-books and audiobooks as I do hardcovers.

    7. JRJoe Rogan44:20

       Mm.

    8. AJAnnie Jacobsen44:20

       And I have a feeling that if those markets didn't exist, I would sell half as many books, if that makes sense.

    9. JRJoe Rogan44:25

       Yes.

    10. AJAnnie Jacobsen44:27

        And so then when you throw the podcast into the mix, I cannot tell you how many people know about my work as a journalist, as a national security reporter because of podcasts. That is remarkable to me. It makes things so much more accessible to so many more people.

    11. JRJoe Rogan44:49

        Yeah.

    12. AJAnnie Jacobsen44:49

        Everybody's listening to a podcast driving around, listening, you know, when they're at the gym, when they're on a hike. And if someone who cares about an alert and knowledgeable citizenry as a fundamental... First of all, 'cause I think if people, people that are curious tend to be less furious.

    13. JRJoe Rogan45:08

        Mm.

    14. AJAnnie Jacobsen45:09

        You know, if you can get your curiosity sacie- satiated, you don't become so angry.

    15. JRJoe Rogan45:15

        Mm.

    16. AJAnnie Jacobsen45:15

        And so I, and again, I have to be an eternal optimist, particularly writing the kind of books that I do, or I would just be, you know, it would be... I, my m- my thinking would, would take a negative turn. And so I am an eternal optimist, and I do look to conversation and new media as a means to a better way, or a means to a way out of this kind of... I, I think the... I believe the tide will turn.

17. 45:45 – 47:05

    Mainstream Media

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen45:45

    2. JRJoe Rogan45:45

       Well, it's certainly one of the only uncompromised conversations that's available, and it happens to be the biggest. You know, that's the wildest thing, is mainstream media's just falling apart. No one cares anymore. No one believes them. The faith in mainstream media and the trust in mainstream media is at an all-time low. And podcasts are at an all-time high. There's... How many of them are there, Jamie? Pff, like five million?

    3. JVJamie Vernon46:11

       I think there's something like that out, like monthly, you know? Yeah.

    4. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       Yeah.

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen46:14

       But also what's remarkable is you hear people often say, like, "People have lost their attention spans. They watch TikTok." Well, I mean, people listen to your podcast for three hours. That is a very long attention span. And I find that kind of, like, brain conditioning really valuable, because I will listen to a podcast for three hours and also in a conti- you know, I'm, it might be on an airplane and then, oh, the, uh, my phone tells me I have this much time left on the podcast, so I continue listening it on a hike. And I think that it is a very different kind of mental stimulus, curiosity, in a new way forward than the old days of reading a newspaper. You know, it takes you this amount of time to read and then you p- I mean, the newspapers barely exist

18. 47:05 – 50:25

    Attention spans

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:05

       anymore.

    2. JRJoe Rogan47:05

       Right. And then the other problem with television shows is that they're on a specific time, and people don't want to be locked into having to watch something at a very specific time. And now, because of things like, you know, YouTube and Spotify, you could just watch it anytime you want, and just stop it when you go to the bathroom, stop it when someone calls you, stop it when you have to go somewhere, restart it again when you're at the gym. And it's just a different thing. It's a different way to communicate. This idea that people don't have attention spans anymore or... How is that possible? They're just people. People didn't change.

    3. AJAnnie Jacobsen47:40

       (laughs)

    4. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       That's so stupid. If people always had attention spans and all of a sudden they don't, maybe they're just getting distracted by things that are very easy to absorb and very addictive, like TikTok videos. It doesn't mean that the human mind is different. It's been altered forever and then now no longer people are interested in long-term conversations. That's just stupid. I've, I've rejected that from the beginning. Like, one of the first things this podcast is... Even my good friends were telling me, like, "You have to edit it." I'm like, "I'm not editing that shit." Like, "You have to make it shorter." Like, "Why?" "No one's gonna listen to something for three hours." "Then don't listen." That was my take. I was like, "I don't care. I listen to things."

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen48:18

       Yeah.

    6. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       I've always listened to, like, lectures and old Alan Watts speeches. Like, I listen to things.

    7. AJAnnie Jacobsen48:25

       Who's Alan Watts?

    8. JRJoe Rogan48:27

       Alan Watts is, um, I guess you could call him a psychedelic philosopher. Very fascinating Englishman who said some very wise things, but just a b- a brilliant person, very interested in Buddhism and just a very, very wise person, who still today, people send me clips of things that he said and quotes and thing- of things that he said. But I've always listened to fascinating people have conversations. Terence McKenna, I listened to a lot of his speeches and a lot of the different lectures that he gave. Uh-... I don't think people have changed. I think that's nonsense. I get hooked on YouTube reels or Instagram reels. I get hooked on 'em. I'll be sitting there, if I have nothing to do, I'll be like, "What is that? Why is he doing that? What's that? Oh, look at that guy." Uh, th- it's just-

    9. AJAnnie Jacobsen49:15

       Hmm.

    10. JRJoe Rogan49:15

        ... a part of being a human being. We're easily distracted. It doesn't mean we don't have an attention span anymore. That's stupid. That's ridiculous. There's still people that are graduating from universities with PhDs. There's still people right now that are in the residency in medical school. There's still people that are learning how to engineer fighter jets. Like-

    11. AJAnnie Jacobsen49:33

        Mm-hmm.

    12. JRJoe Rogan49:34

        ... there's people that have attention. This is nonsense. The idea that human beings have radically changed because of this one medium that's addictive is just so stupid.

    13. AJAnnie Jacobsen49:42

        Well, I also think there's something to be said as an individual when you can see... when you start to be a little bit conscious of your own habits in viewing and thinking and reading and information, so you get absorbed in the TikTok. And you, then you get to say to yourself, like, "What am I doing? I wanna actually change this habit."

    14. JRJoe Rogan50:01

        Right.

    15. AJAnnie Jacobsen50:02

        And we all benefit from seeing how easy it is to develop a habit-

    16. JRJoe Rogan50:06

        Yes.

    17. AJAnnie Jacobsen50:07

        ... and how hard it is to sort of move yourself away from a habit-

    18. JRJoe Rogan50:12

        Mm-hmm.

    19. AJAnnie Jacobsen50:13

        ... as you, as you become entrenched in it. And so, I think there's complete value in that. People suddenly realize, "I gotta stop watching TikTok videos and I gotta go to the gym." As... which is another,

19. 50:25 – 56:25

    People dont like difficult things

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen50:25

       you know, age-

    2. JRJoe Rogan50:25

       Right. But that's a difficult sort of an adjustment, and most people don't like difficult things. So, if you, if you get 100 people addicted to TikTok, what number outta those 100 people are gonna go, "You know what? I'm gonna change my life"? It's probably, like, three or four.

    3. AJAnnie Jacobsen50:39

       Hmm.

    4. JRJoe Rogan50:39

       And those people are extraordinary. And you hear about them and you get inspired by them. Like, "Wow, you, you got a flip phone? That's crazy, Bob. Why'd you do that?" Like, "You know what? I realized my mind was getting taken up by these things and now I have my mind back. I like it. If people wanna call me, they can call me. But, uh, I'm not watching things and reading things and absorbing things." But then there's the argument, like, okay, but now you're out of the cultural conversation. Like, there's... I have friends that have, uh, flip phones and I'll try to ask them, "Did you see this new thing about the new quantum computer that's, like, 100 billion times better?"

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen51:11

       (coughs)

    6. JRJoe Rogan51:11

       Or 100 million times better than the last one they released in 2019? You know, and they're like, "No. What?" So, they're missing some things too. So, the key is, like, (smacks lips) mitigation. Like, you have to figure out, like, how much information makes you anxious and, and, uh, how much information just, y- y- where you just s- sit there and you scroll and you waste your time, and then you're like, "What did I do with my life? I'm wasting hours." And then you look at your screen time at the end of the day and it's six hours. Like, "What? Six hours of looking at my phone? Is that real?" So, you have to do that, but then also you don't wanna miss out on things.

    7. AJAnnie Jacobsen51:47

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JRJoe Rogan51:47

       So, you do wanna kind of be informed and part of my job is to be informed. I can't be the guy who people have to tell things about 'cause I don't know anything. Like, "What? What's going on? Crimea? Where's that?"

    9. AJAnnie Jacobsen52:01

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JRJoe Rogan52:01

        I can't. Like, so I have to have some... I have to have some involvement. I have to have some input, where, where I'm getting input from social media and from all these different things. As a comedian, I have to know the temperature of the country. I have to know, like, what to make fun of, like, what's ridiculous, what people are accepting that doesn't make any sense. You just have to know, like, when you're getting sucked in to the point where it's becoming detrimental, and I think that's where people struggle. People really struggle with that, like, figuring out what's... how m-... like, you can eat a cookie.

    11. AJAnnie Jacobsen52:35

        (laughs)

    12. JRJoe Rogan52:36

        Nothing wrong with eating a cookie, but you shouldn't eat a whole bag of cookies, you know? You shouldn't eat cookies every day. That's not good. But if you have dinner and you wanna get dessert, yeah, I'll get a piece of tiramisu. Okay. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. You eat tiramisu every day, you're gonna die, you know? And that's what social media is. It's dessert. It's candy. It's things that are kind of fun up to a point. But you just gotta know what that point is and how to manage your own attention span. And just also have sovereignty over your mind. You have to control your mind. You have to be able... like, if your mind starts getting anxious, "Okay, I know we're getting weird. It's time to work out. Okay, I know maybe we should meditate. Maybe we should do this. Maybe we should do that." Don't just keep scrolling. You gotta know when and when... But most people don't have that kind of self-control and discipline. They don't have to. All most people have to do is when the alarm goes off, get up, wash yourself, brush your teeth, eat something, go to work, do whatever minimal amount you have to do to keep that job. And then... and the bathroom breaks and whenever no one's looking, look through your phone, be distracted, come home, watch Netflix, go to sleep, repeat. That's most people. So, they don't have to do anything because they haven't set up their life in a way that requires serious attention and e- an objective sense of your perspective and your, your, your interaction with humans and the way the world is working. They don't have the time. They don't. They have family problems, job problems, their car is fucked, something's wrong with their house they gotta fix, they got bills, everything's piling up. People are immensely distracted. So, what social media does for them is it gives them a brief rest from their own problems-

    13. AJAnnie Jacobsen54:37

        Mm-hmm.

    14. JRJoe Rogan54:37

        ... to just look at some fucking drag queen reading stories to kids and get outraged, or some new thing that's going on with some girl that, that made some crazy video and now everybody's talking about it. Like, it's just... Most people don't have much discipline, and they don't have to. And they've gotten through life being overweight and eating processed foods and drinking too much and smoking too much and...... taking all kinds of pills to mitigate all these problems that they have because they've-

    15. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:09

        (sighs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan55:09

        ... not taken care of themselves. So, they're on anti-anxiety medication, anti-depression medication, and anti this and that. And they're trying to lose weight, so they're on Ozempic. And that's most people. That's most people. You know the number one drug in America is a, is a peptide that helps you lose weight?

    17. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:27

        What is that?

    18. JRJoe Rogan55:28

        Ozempic.

    19. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:29

        Oof. That's the num-

    20. JRJoe Rogan55:29

        It's the most profitable drug in the country. It's maybe the most profitle drug, profitable drug ever. They can't sell enough of it. They re-... They estimate that by (sighs) ... What is the num-... I think they're saying within five years, 30% of the population is gonna be on Ozempic.

    21. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:48

        (sighs) They can't make it fast enough, you're saying?

    22. JRJoe Rogan55:49

        Can't make it fast enough.

    23. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:50

        Well, h-... Uh-

    24. JRJoe Rogan55:51

        It's flying off the shelves.

    25. AJAnnie Jacobsen55:52

        Okay. Here's a strange parallel thought for that, which is that Raytheon has gotten rid of its marketing department. It doesn't need it anymore. They can't make enough missiles fast enough. (laughs) So, what you're telling me-

    26. JRJoe Rogan56:07

        (laughs) Imag-... Imagine having a marketing department for missiles.

    27. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:09

        Right? But what you're-

    28. JRJoe Rogan56:10

        That is so crazy.

    29. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:10

        ... What, what you just told me is like, people's physical being and their existential defense threats are aligned in terms of that there's no need. There's just, there's too many orders to fill.

20. 56:25 – 57:11

    I have to change things

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:25

    2. JRJoe Rogan56:25

       (clicks tongue) If you can get-

    3. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:25

       What does that say?

    4. JRJoe Rogan56:25

       ... people to believe bullshit and keep feeding them bullshit, you turn them into infants. And if they just, just accept the fact that you're feeding them bullshit, and they don't employ any critical thinking, and they don't look at outside sources of information and really try to assess what's actually going on, 'cause they generally-

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:44

       Mm-hmm.

    6. JRJoe Rogan56:45

       ... generally don't have the time.

    7. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:47

       Interesting.

    8. JRJoe Rogan56:48

       You, you create a nation of infants. And that's... There's a lot of us in this country that exist almost like children, that are hoping Daddy's gonna take care of everything.

    9. AJAnnie Jacobsen56:57

       But I'm always interested in the people that have, um... that are those 3% you talked about, that suddenly have that moment, the catalyst where they realize, "Oh my goodness, I have to change. Things have to change."

    10. JRJoe Rogan57:09

        Yeah.

    11. AJAnnie Jacobsen57:09

        That becomes... You know, m- maybe not

21. 57:11 – 1:30:31

    Social media

    1. AJAnnie Jacobsen57:11

       everybody changes.

    2. JRJoe Rogan57:11

       There's more of us now, I think, than ever before. And I think-

    3. AJAnnie Jacobsen57:15

       That change-

    4. JRJoe Rogan57:15

       ... Yes.

    5. AJAnnie Jacobsen57:16

       ... that suddenly realize-

    6. JRJoe Rogan57:17

       Th- that realize-

    7. AJAnnie Jacobsen57:17

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan57:17

       ... something's going on. And I think that's also because of social media, the good aspects of social media, real honest discussions, revelations, things being released on Twitter, and, you know, the, the Twitter files with Elon Musk, where they found out the FBI was trying to suppress information, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and then going through the COVID disinformation, and now seeing the congressional hearings where Fauci's lying in front of Congress about gain-of-function research and whether or not they deleted emails, all that stuff. I think more people are now awa-... like, going, "What the fuck is actually going on?" than have ever before. I think there was a... You know, there was always people, like during the Vietnam War, there was always people that distrusted the government and didn't want... But they didn't have the kind of access to information that we have-

    9. AJAnnie Jacobsen58:01

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JRJoe Rogan58:01

        ... today.

    11. AJAnnie Jacobsen58:02

        Yeah. I mean, I'm interested in the, in the individual stories of people who change, always. Because I think that it's too... I don't want to say depressing for me, but it, it's too n-... Like, if I can on-... If I think of America as this big giant situation with problems, it becomes overwhelming. Um, I just try to focus on people's really interesting cool stories. I'll tell you one that comes to mind with a guy who was my Uber driver the other day. And we're chatting away, and he tells me that he used to be, like, 350 pounds. And he was, like, this thin dude. And he was talking to me about driving an Uber at night so he could save money for one of his kids to go to college. And I was like, "Wow, how did you suddenly lose weight?" And he told me that he was a security guard at a military base. And, you know, he was g-... He said, "I was giant," and the dudes in the military were totally fit. And one of them said to me one time, "Dude, you gotta lose some weight." And I listened to him, and he let me go into the-

    12. JRJoe Rogan59:02

        Wow.

    13. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:02

        ... military gym.

    14. JRJoe Rogan59:03

        Wow. One guy?

    15. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:05

        One guy.

    16. JRJoe Rogan59:06

        Sometimes you just need to hear it.

    17. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:08

        Be that guy.

    18. JRJoe Rogan59:09

        Yeah.

    19. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:09

        Be that guy. And, and... But that, to our point of, like, well, if you're not allowed to say, like, "Dude, you're overweight," or... He didn't... You know, essentially, like, by saying, "Dude, you should come to the gym," he's... The subtext there is, "Dude, you're overweight."

    20. JRJoe Rogan59:23

        Yeah.

    21. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:23

        Like, "You're, you know, unhealthily overweight." That's that fine line of stuff I find really interesting, is talking about things that make people uncomfortable. I- I don't think-

    22. JRJoe Rogan59:33

        Yeah.

    23. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:33

        ... that should be so taboo.

    24. JRJoe Rogan59:35

        No, it shouldn't be.

    25. AJAnnie Jacobsen59:35

        I think you should be able to be honest, assertive, and direct.

    26. JRJoe Rogan59:40

        Especially if you could do it and be kind. You know, the... Just telling someone they need to lose weight doesn't mean you're mean. And this whole body positivity thing is not good for anybody. It's not good for anybody. There's no one who benefits from that. You benefit in the short term, where you don't feel as bad about the fact that you're obese. But you know you're obese. Everyone knows you're obese. You're just not dealing with this very obvious problem. When someone says, "You need to lose weight," like, I was, I was watching this TikTok video, where there was this lady who was upset because she was going to her, uh, doctor. And, uh, she has all these autoimmune problems, and she was severely o- morbidly obese, like giant. And she said that the doctor started body-shaming her, and she was so upset that she felt uncomfortable-

    27. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:23

        (laughs)

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

        ... that the doctor was telling her that she needed to do something about her weight loss and recommended perhaps bariatric surgery or Ozempic or any of these things. And this person was talking about this as like what a betrayal that their-

    29. AJAnnie Jacobsen1:00:36

        Hmm.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:00:36

        ... healthcare provider was calling them obese and that they did not feel safe with them anymore, and... The comments were interesting because almost everyone in the comments was like, "That fucking person is trying to save your life."

Episode duration: 2:50:41