Joe Rogan Experience #2193 - Jack Symes

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

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) What's up, Joe? How are you, man?

Jack Symes 0:13 How's it going, Joe? Yeah, I'm very well.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Nice to meet you.

Jack Symes 0:14 Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:16 So I got the r- request to be on when, when it said multiverse and new atheism.

Jack Symes 0:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 I'm like, what a combination that is. Let's talk.

Jack Symes 0:24 Nice.

Joe Rogan 0:25 (laughs)

Jack Symes 0:25 Yeah, so I think, like, it's interesting to think why philosophers need to think about the multiverse, right? Uh, it tends to be, like, a theory thrown about by physicists and, and stuff. But I think there's a... At the moment, we don't wanna be talking about philosophy as a society. We're, like, stuck in this idea of scientism, the view that science can solve all of these problems and questions. So you've probably heard people like Lawrence Krauss or Dawkins, um, Stephen Hawking, uh, Brian Cox, they all say something along the lines of, like, "Philosophy is dead." So just before we get into the multiverse, it's probably best to say, like, what philosophy is and sort of-

Joe Rogan 1:01 Yeah, let- please.

Jack Symes 1:02 ... what the point of, of-

Joe Rogan 1:03 Yeah.

Jack Symes 1:03 ... talking about the multiverse is. So this is something I ask every philosopher I speak to, like, what they take philosophy to be 'cause it's really interesting to see how all the ideas they discuss fall into their wider projects. And one of the ideas that I love is this one by, uh, the late great British philosopher, Mary Midgley. She likens philosophy to a kind of plumbing, right? So, like, we have these conversations in our societies, and, like, these conversations are flowing around. And likewise, we have these pipes l- running underneath our houses, keeping the water flowing. But occasionally, it gets clogged, and so the philosopher needs to pull up the floorboards, see what the clog is, and help the conversation move along again. So these are things like what it is to be a woman, or what it is to have free speech, or what it means to say that a gene is selfish. So that's, I see, like the primary job of the philosopher, something we're all doing every day, like, trying to understand the concepts we're using. But then also there's this bigger aspect to philosophy, which is, like, how it all hangs together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Like, let's put all of the pieces of the puzzle together from physics, biology, and, and the arts, and let's try and get a big picture of the world. And if we're missing a piece of the puzzle, let's have our best guess about what that piece could be. So I take that to be the project. And so the questions that come out of that, the questions that philosophy asks are things like, why is there something, a universe, rather than nothing, no universe? Like, why are, are the laws of nature fine-tuned for the existence of life? Where does consciousness come from? Like, when I make a moral statement like, "The Holocaust is bad," is it the same as me saying that Jonah Hill's movies are bad? Like, are they the same kind of statement? Is that the same bad I'm using?

Joe Rogan 2:45 Right.

Jack Symes 2:45 But the big question, and to get to the multiverse now, is... The big question for me and how all of my work seems to explore this fundamental question, the French Algerian al- uh, the French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus said, "The fundamental question of philosophy is whether life is or is not worth living." Like, so my question is-

Joe Rogan 3:05 (laughs) .

Jack Symes 3:05 ... what's the point of all this?

Joe Rogan 3:07 Right.

Jack Symes 3:07 Is existence on the whole a good thing? Should we be happy and pleased to be alive? And what's the purpose of life? And so that's where the multiverse, new atheism, and, um, these arguments for, for theism all come in, in, into the project.

Joe Rogan 3:21 I think it's ridiculous to dismiss philosophy because you are a proponent of science. (laughs)

Jack Symes 3:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 3:27 Like just that reductionist perspective, the idea that thinking about things and developing, for lack of a better term, a philosophy, dev- dev- developing your own personal philosophy, uh, t- taking from the accounts of others and their perspectives and their interesting unique view of the world that we live in, the idea that that's not significant or important-

Jack Symes 3:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:48 ... to me seems pretty silly.

Jack Symes 3:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:50 It's silly. Like, we use it-

Jack Symes 3:51 But, uh, I don't know how they get away with saying these things, uh, like... I think... Y- you get it though, right? Like, science splits the atom. It puts the man on the moon.

Joe Rogan 3:58 Sure.

Jack Symes 3:58 Like... So it seems like it's gonna solve all these problems, but...

Joe Rogan 4:01 Right. But the human beings that took place in the experiments that led to the splitting of the atom all had to have some sort of a philosophy that they managed their life by.

Jack Symes 4:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:12 They had to have something that allowed them to have the discipline, the discipline to commit, to commit to their schooling-

Jack Symes 4:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:19 ... to follow through with the project. Their, uh, e- especially, think about Oppenheimer's struggle that he had-

Jack Symes 4:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:26 ... with this thing that he had created that was ultimately gonna lead to destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives, if not the entire human race itself.

Jack Symes 4:35 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:35 Which was very deeply based-

Jack Symes 4:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:38 ... in philosophy, like his perspective and his struggles with it. I mean, if he was just, like, an automaton, like some, you know, sociopathic, just super Alzheimer's guy-

Jack Symes 4:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:49 ... or, you know, that di- didn't... Not Alz- uh, aut- autism guy, rather, that didn't think at all about, uh, no concept at all about empathy, no concept at all about our perspective-

Jack Symes 5:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:02 ... and, and, you know, he would just plow forth ahead and just launch bombs.

Jack Symes 5:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:06 Like, that's...

Jack Symes 5:07 But the-

Joe Rogan 5:07 Science depends on human beings that have a unique way of thinking.

Jack Symes 5:12 Mm-hmm. And how does that not come out of philosophy? Well, that seems to be, like, the failure of new atheism fundamentally, right? We've got this movement in the early 2000s, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, uh, Hitchens, who were all being critical of religion in the light of, like, the September 11th terrorist attack. And people thinking that religion thinks as if it's though it's beyond, like, criticism.

Joe Rogan 5:35 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 5:36 But then once that project em- Like, once they embark on that project and they criticize religion, there isn't really anything left there. Like, they don't do the project of philosophy of finding the meaning and the ethics. And when they try to do it, it's lacking, something's missing. So I, I see that as, like, the reason why new atheism is going out of favor, why it's becoming unfashionable, because it can't answer those questions.

Joe Rogan 5:57 Well, I think it becomes almost as dogmatic as-

Jack Symes 6:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:01 ... th- uh, as religion itself. Like, atheism in a lot of ways is kind of re- They're committed to this idea that there is nothing else.

Jack Symes 6:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:09 You know, I just don't understand how you could do that without enough... If you're a person who...... you view the world based in... He is so fucking loud, dude.

Kenneth Copeland 6:19 Yeah, I'll cut off the microphone.

Joe Rogan 6:20 (laughs) He, he, he just like, he d-

Jack Symes 6:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:22 ... Marshall and, uh, and Carl were having a wrestling match for about 15 minutes, and poor little Carl over there, panting.

Jack Symes 6:29 It's, it's also one of the hottest days of the year without air con, so the-

Joe Rogan 6:32 Yeah, our air conditioning's fucked in here too.

Jack Symes 6:34 ... his hair is really going, uh, really going hard for the panting.

Joe Rogan 6:35 Um, I was, where I was I before I got distracted. Uh, so I just think that the, these people sort of looked at this as religion is all this superstitious nonsense that these people have concocted and, and put together over years to keep people in line.

Jack Symes 6:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:52 And science is something that we can prove and see, and, you know, there is no God, there is no... Which is, how do you know? You do not know.

Jack Symes 7:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:00 It's a crazy thing to say. You have such a limited perspective just in terms of the universe itself. We only see what we see on our planet, and the tiny amount that we can reach out into the... And, you know, they can look back 13 billion years, but like, what are they looking at?

Jack Symes 7:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:15 They're looking at like bright lights, like little dots, and they understand this is the galaxy, and-

Jack Symes 7:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:19 But it's like, how big is this fucking thing? Where did it come from? What's going on?

Jack Symes 7:23 Yeah, because-

Joe Rogan 7:24 You don't know. What is the purpo- is this a grand test? Are you a part of some very bizarre journey that the soul has to go through in this environment before it expands and goes into the next dimension, the next phase of existence? Who fucking knows? You don't know.

Jack Symes 7:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:42 We do know that people die, we do know that people have near-death experiences, and these very bizarre, uh, moments where they come back from the dead and have very similar accounts of something happening, about encountering... Like I, I had Sebastian Junger, uh, on the, the podcast the other day, and he was, uh, Sebastian Junger, and he was explaining, um, how when he almost died, he had a, an internal bleeding.

Jack Symes 8:10 Mm.

Joe Rogan 8:10 And, uh, he saw his father. His father came to the bed with him and was talking to him.

Jack Symes 8:15 Wow.

Joe Rogan 8:15 It was like this very bizarre thing, like-

Jack Symes 8:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:17 ... we don't really know, we, we really don't know what life is. We don't know what consciousness is. We don't-

Jack Symes 8:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:24 So, we're being arrogant. And I think, unfortunately, brilliant people that are so used to schooling people in debates-

Jack Symes 8:32 Mm.

Joe Rogan 8:32 ... like Christopher Hitchens, like Sam Harris. These guys are so good at making religious zealots look like buffoons.

Jack Symes 8:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:39 Right? And you get real good at that, and you just sort of think that, "Look, I got it down. These fucking religious people, they don't know what the fuck is going on."

Jack Symes 8:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:47 But you're, you're involved in a religion, as bizarre as it seems. Just like wokeism is a religion, just like far-right ideology is a religion.

Jack Symes 8:56 Mm. I'm, I'm not sure about putting, like, religion on those things in particular, but-

Joe Rogan 9:00 Cult.

Jack Symes 9:00 Like, yeah, cult. Like, they might be cult. They might have some aspects which are cult-like.

Joe Rogan 9:04 They're ideological-

Jack Symes 9:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:05 ... captured p- people.

Jack Symes 9:07 But I think to have a religion, you do need to have like a belief in what Christians or Jews or Muslims take to be the perfect being. Like, God has to be, by definition, perfect. And if you think that being exists, then I think you certainly qualify for, for having a religion.

Joe Rogan 9:22 But what about Scientology?

Jack Symes 9:24 I guess that's a cult. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:26 But in our country, it's, they, they-

Jack Symes 9:28 Yeah, I just think it's-

Joe Rogan 9:28 ... actually won a lawsuit.

Jack Symes 9:29 ... it's bad, uh, it's a bad classification. I, I just think-

Joe Rogan 9:32 I used to have a joke about it where I said that, uh, a cult is created by one guy, and that guy knows it's bullshit. In a religion, that guy is dead. (laughs)

Jack Symes 9:42 (laughs) That's good. Well, okay. The, let's say this, though, on behalf of religion, right? I think the two best things going for it aren't the... Like, for me, I, the, the sense of community and the cultural aspects, they don't appeal to me. I couldn't think of anything more-

Joe Rogan 9:56 Really?

Jack Symes 9:56 ... boring than spending my Sunday singing hymns and doing that. No, that's, that's not for me. There's so many other things that, that you can do to find community, to find fulfillment, to just be happy.

Joe Rogan 10:04 Well, but you could recognize how some people would find great engagement-

Jack Symes 10:06 Yeah, sure, that's fine.

Joe Rogan 10:08 ... with it and enjoyment from it.

Jack Symes 10:09 That's fine. But I think in terms of like philosophical arguments for thinking it's true, like the one you mentioned a moment ago, like where this all came from, like science can't get to that question.

Joe Rogan 10:19 Right.

Jack Symes 10:20 Like the, the Kalam cosmological argument in philosophy is really popular. It just goes everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it needs a cause. And then you do this deduction to figure out what kind of cause that could be, and it would have to be something outside of time and space with power and knowledge to bring this into being. And that, that might not be... That might not get you all the way to God. That's a really strong reason for believing in God, and the answers the atheists give in place of it are nowhere near as strong. And likewise, like the argument from fine-tuning, which is gaining traction again. Uh, the physicist Sir Roger Penrose said that the fundamental laws of nature, like 26 of them, they have to be delicately balanced perfectly to allow planets and, uh, intelligent life to form. He calculates that the initial low entropy point of the universe had to be one in 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123, which means if you sat there writing out that number for the law of entropy and the condition when the universe first started expanding, and you wrote down one digit every second, you'd still be writing out that number now. Like, that number is so astronomically huge-

Joe Rogan 11:28 Yeah.

Jack Symes 11:28 ... that the odds of us being here are incredible. And when we're thinking of probability theory, if we're looking at the best explanation for that, then I think, you know, those that posit the existence of God have the better hand. Like, I'm not religious, but I think we have to put our hands up and go, "No, to those two problems, they've got really strong arguments for believing in God." But, you know, people like, like Dawkins, uh, people like Hitchens and the like, uh, even Dennett. I think Harris is a little bit more, uh, I guess sympathetic to those arguments than the other three. But, you know, they're not serious about following the arguments. They're not serious about going wherever they take them. Like you say, there, there's a, there's a, there is a dogmatism there.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Yeah.

Jack Symes 12:13 Th- th- they're, they're not open-minded enough on these points.

Joe Rogan 12:15 Well, I think the dogmatism...... a lot of it is, like the, the, all the public discourse that we've seen that you can watch on YouTube between, um, atheists and religious scholars, it generally turns into a debate.

Jack Symes 12:28 Mm.

Joe Rogan 12:29 They're, they're almost all debates, and almost all of these debates are, in a sense, intellectual competitions.

Jack Symes 12:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:34 Right? And so it's like, if you give a cop an incentive to arrest people, he's gonna find reasons to arrest people.

Jack Symes 12:41 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:41 Right? And if you have a person that is getting, uh, social credit, you're getting notoriety, ad- adulation from schooling-

Jack Symes 12:54 Mm.

Joe Rogan 12:54 ... these religious people, from mocking what you think are ridiculous ideas that are superstitious, you, you ... that, that de- part- it becomes a part of yourself.

Jack Symes 13:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:05 Right? It becomes a part of your identity. And then I think your unwillingness to engage in the mystery of all this, it speaks to that.

Jack Symes 13:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:14 I think that's, that's the origin of it. I think it becomes a competition with people, that their ideas are correct, and that these ideas that they've held for a long time, they wanna defend those ideas.

Jack Symes 13:23 Mm.

Joe Rogan 13:23 Instead of going, "Huh." I, I am of the opinion that I am not my ideas, and I think it's a really important thing to say, because I think more people should try this out. Uh, m- m- maybe it's not for you, but it's m- my personal philosophy.

Jack Symes 13:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:36 I am not married to my ideas.

Jack Symes 13:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:37 They are just ideas.

Jack Symes 13:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:38 And they come in my head and they go, and a lot of times, while I'm saying them ... I do it on the podcast all the time, I go, "Wait a minute. That doesn't make sense, because of this."

Jack Symes 13:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:45 I don't want to be that buffoon that's connected-

Jack Symes 13:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:49 ... to the first shit that comes out of my mouth.

Jack Symes 13:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:51 And I think that happens with a lot of people. Um, I, I also think the idea that there's no God, that there's nothing, I think the universe might be God.

Jack Symes 14:02 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:03 I, and I, and I don't think it was born. I think it's probably always been here.

Jack Symes 14:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:07 And I think Sir Roger Penrose's latest work, uh, he, he seems to think that the Big Bang is just one of a series of these events.

Jack Symes 14:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:17 I mean, I don't wanna paraphrase, 'cause I know I'll fuck it up, but his position is not that that was the beginning.

Jack Symes 14:22 Mm.

Joe Rogan 14:23 That there's prob- this is probably a series of these things that have gone on in eternity.

Jack Symes 14:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:28 And that there ... the inf- the infinite nature of the universe is probably something that even mathematically, even if you get the most genius people, they're probably going to struggle to understand something that has no boundaries.

Jack Symes 14:43 Mm.

Joe Rogan 14:43 That has never been. We have biological limitations. We are born and we die, and I think we try to impose those upon things.

Jack Symes 14:49 Mm.

Joe Rogan 14:49 And I ... and there's some things you can, like, "Oh, we know this tree grew 2,000 years ago. How crazy." You know?

Jack Symes 14:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:55 "Oh, we know this planet formed, you know, four billion years ago." But there's some things we, we really just ... we don't have the capacity to really put it into perspective. We don't, we don't know.

Jack Symes 15:08 Mm.

Joe Rogan 15:08 There's just too much we don't know.

Jack Symes 15:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:10 They're, they're starting to think now that the universe is quite a bit older than in, they thought it was before, because of the observations of these galaxies by the James Webb, uh, Telescope.

Jack Symes 15:17 Mm.

Joe Rogan 15:18 So that now, there's, there's certain, uh, p- people that are, uh, these controversial ideas they're throwing around about, like, 22 billion years old or 23 billion years old.

Jack Symes 15:30 23. Oh, wow. No, it, it's interesting what you say, first of all, like, about, uh, us being, like, so involved with our egos in terms of these arguments. I've always baffled me that people can care about their, like, their views or their philosophies to such an extent that they're, like, they're willing to die on these hills.

Joe Rogan 15:45 Yeah.

Jack Symes 15:45 And refusing to ... they're counting their, their wins and not their losses. I just had a two-and-a-half-hour conversation with, uh, Jordan Peterson on his podcast about, you know, his motivations for being religious. You know, I ... and so, you know, I basically sketched out the, my broad argument, which is atheism's shortcomings are it can't answer the two problems we just spoke about, why there's something rather than nothing, fine tuning. But then the problem with theism is that no perfectly good god would allow for evolution by natural selection. Like, what a wicked thing to do, to-

Joe Rogan 16:17 Yeah.

Jack Symes 16:17 ... cre- create the rules of the game to be that to have intelligent life, it necessitates the pain and suffering of countless sentient creatures over billions of years.

Joe Rogan 16:26 Mm.

Jack Symes 16:27 Like, if God exists, then, like, God's a psychopath, right?

Joe Rogan 16:30 Yeah.

Jack Symes 16:30 If, if that's what ... God didn't have to do that. It's logically and metaphysically possible for God to create it as the Christians thought God did, in the Garden of Eden 5,000 years ago. That is way more compatible with the perfectly good god hypothesis, right?

Joe Rogan 16:44 Then what we're currently experiencing.

Jack Symes 16:45 Yeah, but then when I asked Jordan about this, again, I, I don't think he's, he's serious, again, about, you know, following the evidence and argument. You know, he, he, he just digs down. He, he, he builds a trench. He, uh, he says ... Like I said, "What do you think of the, what's called the systemic problem of evil?"

Joe Rogan 17:01 Right.

Jack Symes 17:01 "Why would God create this system?" And he goes, "We just need to keep working on it." It's like, no, you need to suspend belief in something.

Joe Rogan 17:07 What, what did he mean by that?

Jack Symes 17:08 If you don't have the evidence.

Joe Rogan 17:08 You need to keep working on it?

Jack Symes 17:09 Like, we just need to crack on with the problem.

Joe Rogan 17:12 Oh, and try to solve it?

Jack Symes 17:14 Yeah, but like-

Joe Rogan 17:14 (laughs)

Jack Symes 17:14 ... you know, we've been trying to solve it ... I- in between 1960 and 1998, 3,600 articles and books were published on the problem of evil. Like, people are working on it, and it's not going anywhere.

Joe Rogan 17:26 Right. (laughs)

Jack Symes 17:26 (laughs) Like, the systemic problem of evil-

Joe Rogan 17:28 Yeah.

Jack Symes 17:28 ... undercuts the god hypothesis. But then it's this weird place, right? 'Cause you've got these strong arguments that an atheistic view can't solve, but then you've got this big problem for belief in God. And like you say, this is moving philosophers of religion to this really interesting space where they ask, "Well, maybe we need a different concept of God, like the universe."

Joe Rogan 17:47 Yeah.

Jack Symes 17:47 So this is, uh, pantheism, the idea that God and the universe are identical.

Joe Rogan 17:51 Okay.

Jack Symes 17:51 And panentheism is the view where the universe is in God, but there's this extra layer of God which is like heaven, or the thing that brought it into being.

Joe Rogan 17:59 I'm glad there's a word for it, 'cause I'd just been saying the universe is God.

Jack Symes 18:02 Yeah. Pantheism.

Joe Rogan 18:03 So pantheism.

Jack Symes 18:03 So-

Joe Rogan 18:03 I'll go with that now.

Jack Symes 18:04 You know, the interesting thing about pantheism is, like, is it worthy of the name God, like the universe? 'Cause if it's just nature-loving atheism, then that doesn't get you far. But I think if you believe that the universe is fundamentally conscious, like there is some will or agency underlying the, the things that we interact with, then I think that gets you pretty close to a, a concept of God.

Joe Rogan 18:29 Do you think, uh, there's ...... we have an egocentric perspective of consciousness that it only applies to things that move, and that things-

Jack Symes 18:37 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:37 ... that can express themselves.

Jack Symes 18:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:39 Like perha- like, there's a reason why I think people don't want to buy houses where people were murdered. Right? Like-

Jack Symes 18:45 Because, because they think the consciousness is still like lingering.

Joe Rogan 18:47 Yeah. Like, there's something there. There's something there.

Jack Symes 18:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:49 There's a memory in that house of a horrible thing. Like, if you bought a house from a horrible person, when you kind of... Like, I almost bought a, um, a building that was run by a cult.

Jack Symes 19:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:00 And, uh, I did, I knew it was run by a cult be- because my friend told me about it.

Jack Symes 19:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:05 It was like y- My friend Ron... I was building a comedy club and, uh, my friend Ron White, who's a hilarious comedian, he told me about this great theater that was for sale, I should buy that theater.

Jack Symes 19:16 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:16 And so I went, "Oh, okay." And I look into it, yeah, it used to be owned by a cult. Oh, great. I go sign all this paperwork, and then my friend Adam calls me up, he goes, "Hey, did you watch the documentary on that cult?" I'm like, "Oh, God."

Jack Symes 19:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:27 There was a documentary? And in watching the documentary, it was so sad to me to watch these people that for decades were deceived-

Jack Symes 19:35 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:35 ... and led-

Jack Symes 19:36 Of course, yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:36 ... by this person, and at the end of it, they're weeping and crying. They've lost their life. Their life, like 20 plus-

Jack Symes 19:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:41 ... years of their life have been dedicated to this charlatan who was, uh, he was a hypnotist and a gay porn star-

Jack Symes 19:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:48 ... who was teaching yoga in West Hollywood and convinced all these people to do this. I had to get out of that building.

Jack Symes 19:53 Jesus Christ.

Joe Rogan 19:53 I'm like, there is no way. There's not enough sage in the world that I can like s- s- get rid-

Jack Symes 19:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:58 ... of all the demons. I mean, how much-

Jack Symes 19:59 You need all the vicars around.

Joe Rogan 20:00 I felt like there-

Jack Symes 20:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:01 Like, The Comedy Store in Hollywood used to be Ciro's Nightclub-

Jack Symes 20:04 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:04 ... which was Bugsy Siegel's nightclub, and a bunch of people were murdered there, like provable. Definitely.

Jack Symes 20:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:10 And it kind of feels like it there.

Jack Symes 20:13 But th- this, the idea though that probably everywhere in the whole world-

Joe Rogan 20:17 Right.

Jack Symes 20:17 ... there's been some creature that's died, right?

Joe Rogan 20:19 Sure.

Jack Symes 20:19 I don't feel weird sat here. Or like when you get like a, you know, you get a record or something, or you're listening to it on like Spotify or something, like a, a song, but you know the person who's made that song has done something dreadful.

Joe Rogan 20:31 Right.

Jack Symes 20:31 Like, you get that same kind of feeling then.

Joe Rogan 20:33 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 20:33 So, maybe it is like a, like maybe the simpler explanation is something like, you know, it's your association with these things, it's just a, like these connections in your brain going, "Bad thing, this building." Right?

Joe Rogan 20:45 Sure.

Jack Symes 20:45 And your brai- it's shortcut evolutionarily speaking.

Joe Rogan 20:47 Oh, I think both, I think both things.

Jack Symes 20:50 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:50 But I think there's places that do have, like my stepfather went to Gettysburg, and he, he's not a, a religious person, and he's not woo-woo, he's a very intelligent, hard-lined person who believes in facts-

Jack Symes 21:03 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:03 ... and he was like, "There's something there." He goes, "The sadness," he's like-

Jack Symes 21:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:07 ... "You feel it, the death of all those people in this place," like it-

Jack Symes 21:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:11 ... it stained the place. But my, my point is not that, my point is that perhaps everything has some sort of a consciousness.

Jack Symes 21:20 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:20 We just have this egocentric perspective of what consciousness means, because to living things it re- it has ego, it has biological needs, human reward systems-

Jack Symes 21:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:30 ... they're all in play, social structures and the, the value of status-

Jack Symes 21:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:35 ... that we're moving around through this g- grid of other beings, and we call that consciousness because that is our experience with it. But maybe this table has consciousness, maybe cloth has conscious, maybe rocks have consciousness. They just don't have an ability to express themselves, and they don't have this language and the culture and all this other stuff that we connect to consciousness-

Jack Symes 21:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:58 ... but that it is an integral part of everything in the universe.

Jack Symes 22:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:01 And if the universe is God, the universe creating all these things, it is essentially a creation machine, right? It creates stars, it creates galaxies-

Jack Symes 22:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:10 ... it creates supernovas, it create carbon-based life, it, all these different things that happen-

Jack Symes 22:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:15 ... they are all created by this process, it's just not a guy in the sky in a robe.

Jack Symes 22:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:21 And I think the dogmatic perspective that a lot of religious zealots put to these ancient texts is-

Jack Symes 22:29 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:29 ... look, we don't trust what people in the 1950s thought about dentistry.

Jack Symes 22:33 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:33 Why, why the fuck do we trust people from 2,000 years ago, what they thought about God?

Jack Symes 22:39 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:39 It's k- it's kind of a crazy thing, because either one, one of two things is either true. Either this is God's word and God is a psychopath-

Jack Symes 22:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:47 ... or this is the, the hand of human beings that is writing down an oral tradition of over a thousand years and trying to put in perspective what steps that we have to apply to our civilization in order to move towards a more loving and prosperous place, which is what God wants.

Jack Symes 23:08 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:08 But-

Jack Symes 23:08 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:09 I, I think all those things about evil, like I think maybe the evil is what we need to see to respond to become better.

Jack Symes 23:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:18 And maybe there's this, this grand evolutionary process that's going on with the human spirit and the human psyche.

Jack Symes 23:24 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:24 If you look at trends, like if you study Pinker's work, if you go back to, you know, a- any time in recorded history versus today, today is less violent, less discriminatory, less racist-

Jack Symes 23:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:35 ... more, more open to y- you know, uh, b- equal rights amongst the sexes and-

Jack Symes 23:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:40 ... genders and sexual orientation. We're way better now than we were. Like, Alan Turing from the Turing test w- went to, he, he got arrested for being gay.

Jack Symes 23:49 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:50 They put him on hormone blockers, he wound up killing himself, because it was illegal to be gay. The, the man who invented the ability, or he came up with the, the concept of the ability to detect whether or not artificial intelligence is real.

Jack Symes 24:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:02 That guy was tortured by human philosophy-

Jack Symes 24:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:06 ... and human perspective.

Jack Symes 24:08 Yeah. And I, I think Pinker's right on all of these metrics, everything's better now than it was. And if you want to combine that with like a process theology in which God is identical to the world and the world's getting better, and it's better to like start a business, go broke, pull yourself up again, and then succeed, than it is just to have the best thing to begin with.

Joe Rogan 24:26 Than to win the lottery when you're 10.

Jack Symes 24:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:28 Yeah.

Jack Symes 24:28 Right, so that, that taps into our intuitions about what it is to develop a great character and have, you know, a better world you might think. But I, I suppose like pre-1859, before the or- On the Origin of Species and Darwin, I think actually theism was-... the reasonable world view to have, like this idea of this God outside of time and space. And you can run all of these, they call them, like, theodicies and defenses, like reasons why God allows evil to exist.

Joe Rogan 24:56 Right.

Jack Symes 24:56 Like, I think when you think about, like, the evils that, like, events, um, like, you know, like the wars and, uh, or the diseases that are in our country, in, in our world, you sort of go, "Well, I can see how some of these defenses," like you need hurricanes for hurricane relief funds, or you need to go broke to appreciate money or something, right?

Joe Rogan 25:17 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 25:17 All of these, I think they probably work for humans. But then, I don't think since then, and maybe this is a part of the reason why people or Christians especially in this country are fearful of evolution by natural selection. Maybe it's not because they just care so much about the history of the world, which would seem a little bit weird to me that they, that that's the hill they want to die on-

Joe Rogan 25:38 Right.

Jack Symes 25:38 ... like how old the earth is. But actually if God is responsible for this process, that seems like a, a bigger stain on God's record. So you can see why they're reluctant to accept something like that.

Joe Rogan 25:48 Maybe it's the only way. Maybe this process of natural selection and- of constant improvement in what we call evolution maybe is the only way.

Jack Symes 25:57 Do you think it... I- I would w- worry though that like when you do the maths, whether it can be justified. We're talking like trillions of uncountable animals. Like if you-

Joe Rogan 26:07 Forever.

Jack Symes 26:08 Y- yeah, well-

Joe Rogan 26:08 Into time.

Jack Symes 26:09 Well, especially in-

Joe Rogan 26:09 And eventually it sorts itself out.

Jack Symes 26:10 Well, it s- it's kind of getting better, right? But like if I was to say to you, like, you know, "I can, I can spawn a person here next to us now, but to do it I'm going to execute 50 chimpanzees right there." Like if you said yes, I think, uh, I'd k- I'd say that that was a stupid choice too, like you're a maniac.

Joe Rogan 26:26 It's a weird choice 'cause we've definitely done that.

Jack Symes 26:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:28 We've definitely done that for makeup.

Jack Symes 26:30 Well, yeah, precisely.

Joe Rogan 26:30 With testing, yeah. You know? I mean-

Jack Symes 26:32 Uh-

Joe Rogan 26:32 ... they've done some wild shit with animals, unfortunately.

Jack Symes 26:35 Yeah. Well, this ties in. Like I think people think this though, that the problem cuts deep. Like when you ask people, like 90% of people in the UK think that keeping animals in cages is cruel, 50% of people in the US think that. Yet 98.5% of chickens, turkeys, and pigs are kept in factory farms.

Joe Rogan 26:54 Is that r- that's the real number?

Jack Symes 26:55 70% of cows.

Joe Rogan 26:56 It's 98%?

Jack Symes 26:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:58 Wow.

Jack Symes 26:58 90- it's 99% of chickens and, um-

Joe Rogan 27:01 Holy shit.

Jack Symes 27:01 ... and 98% of turkeys. Um, and it's about the same for pigs. Like people, people are... But y- you see the juxtaposition there, right? You've got people that think it's wrong, but they're doing otherwise.

Joe Rogan 27:13 Well, it's not that they're doing otherwise, they can compartmentalize because factory farming, we- we talked about this yesterday, they have ag-gag laws-

Jack Symes 27:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:21 ... well, a couple days ago with Russell Crowe, rather. Um, ag-gag laws prevent people from detailing the horrific conditions-

Jack Symes 27:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:28 ... which these animals live in. If you film it, if you're a worker there and you're like, "This is horrific, I'm gonna film this-"

Jack Symes 27:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:33 "... and out this place," you'll go to jail.

Jack Symes 27:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:35 Which is insane.

Jack Symes 27:36 Yeah, it's-

Joe Rogan 27:36 'Cause it should, it should be a crime. It should be like animal cruelty. Like Russell Crowe was in here the other day and he keeps 200 head of cattle-

Jack Symes 27:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:44 ... on his, he has a ranch in the, the bush in Australia. And the way he described the way he takes care of these animals-

Jack Symes 27:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:50 ... the way, you know, they gently move them into new pastures-

Jack Symes 27:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:53 ... they live this b- idyllic life until... And he's like, "And the meat is better, you feel better about the whole thing."

Jack Symes 28:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:00 It's like-

Jack Symes 28:00 I've heard him say something about this before where he goes, like, "But ultimately, it's because it tastes better." So although, like, I'm happy he's doing it, right? This is a, this is no comparison to factory farming. And if all the farming that was out there in the world was like Russell Crowe's, then I-

Joe Rogan 28:15 It's not just because it tastes better. That's not his-

Jack Symes 28:17 Yeah, do you think he, do you think he's got like the-

Joe Rogan 28:19 Yes. He cares about them. He does.

Jack Symes 28:21 Did he talk about how he, like, ends their lives?

Joe Rogan 28:23 He didn't. I didn't ask. I should have, but it w- it, he was going on a rant.

Jack Symes 28:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:26 I didn't want to interrupt.

Jack Symes 28:27 Yeah, so-

Joe Rogan 28:27 I wanted to know if they did the, you know, No Country for Old Men, bolt to the head.

Jack Symes 28:32 (laughs) Well, right, that, that-

Joe Rogan 28:33 'Cause apparently that's instantaneous.

Jack Symes 28:34 Like take, yeah, take the comparison, right?

Joe Rogan 28:36 Yeah.

Jack Symes 28:36 If like would you rather have your nose cut off, your children taken away from you, be stuffed in a cage for your life, and pumped full of hormones, and then be electrocuted or have your throat slit?

Joe Rogan 28:46 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 28:46 Or would you rather run around in the field with your, your family and then one day the lights just go out?

Joe Rogan 28:52 Well, one day the lights are gonna go out anyway.

Jack Symes 28:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:54 It's-

Jack Symes 28:54 It's not too different, right?

Joe Rogan 28:55 It's part of the thing.

Jack Symes 28:55 But there is a question-

Joe Rogan 28:56 They don't, they don't live very long on their own. Like-

Jack Symes 28:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:59 ... they're kind of like dogs. Like I don't know what a, a cow's maximum age is.

Jack Symes 29:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:02 What's a, what's the maximum age of a cow? Let's guess. I'm gonna say 18. What do you think? 'Cause that's like a golden retriever if you give him all the right food, apparently.

Jack Symes 29:10 18, yeah. I- I want, I'm skeptical because if it goes average age of cow, if it's gonna be like wild cow, might be 15, 16 years, yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:17 Yeah, but wild cows, where are they? So wild cows are an interesting thing because domestic cattle are a completely different strain of cattle.

Jack Symes 29:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:24 And when we let them go wild, they become what we call scrub bulls.

Jack Symes 29:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:28 And scrub bulls are the most dangerous animal you can encounter in the Australian bush.

Jack Symes 29:34 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 29:35 Yeah. Asian buffaloes are dangerous, but scrub bulls will fuck you up.

Jack Symes 29:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:40 They're like those bulls that people ride, except they're wild.

Jack Symes 29:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:43 So they're completely feral, and they're there to breed and to protect their cows and-

Jack Symes 29:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:48 ... and anything that comes in. I've heard countless stories of men, you know, camping in the bush getting gored by scrub bulls.

Jack Symes 29:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:55 They're crazy looking too. They develop all these weird colors and they look really cool.

Jack Symes 30:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:00 You ever see... They, they kind of... Like you know how pigs, they go through a metamorphosis-

Jack Symes 30:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:04 ... when they go feral? Do you know that process?

Jack Symes 30:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:06 It's really quick. It's like six weeks.

Jack Symes 30:08 Oh, that's-

Joe Rogan 30:08 Once a pig is feral for six weeks and just running wild in the woods, they start changing. Their snout extends-

Jack Symes 30:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:15 ... their, their tusks grow, their hair gets thicker. They become boars.

Jack Symes 30:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:19 They become what we think of as a classic wild boar.

Jack Symes 30:22 Yeah, to-

Joe Rogan 30:22 And those are-

Jack Symes 30:22 ... defend themselves.

Joe Rogan 30:23 ... the same species of animal, which is very bizarre.

Jack Symes 30:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:26 That happens with bulls too.

Jack Symes 30:27 Well, especially in the factory farms as well. They're n- they're definitely not gonna live much longer there, are they? 'Cause of the-

Joe Rogan 30:33 No.

Jack Symes 30:33 ... out, outdoors. They just-

Joe Rogan 30:33 Well, they kill them quicker too because they plump them up fast with antibiotics-

Jack Symes 30:38 Yeah, they just-

Joe Rogan 30:38 ... and they get them fat with grain.

Jack Symes 30:38 Just more, like, chronically obese basically, aren't they?

Joe Rogan 30:41 Yep. It totally ill, and that's the best stuff. The best stuff is the super ill cow.

Jack Symes 30:45 You got, uh-

Joe Rogan 30:45 What does it say? 15 to 20 years.

Jack Symes 30:47 Oh, there you go.

Joe Rogan 30:48 There you go. So-

Jack Symes 30:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:49 ... the dairy industry rarely, rarely allows cows to live past five. They're sent to slaughter soon after production level drops. Yikes.

Jack Symes 30:56 Well, the, it- it's interesting. So I wo- I don't know like wh- when he's obviously killing the- these cows, right? Um, but if, i- if, is he doing it right towards the end of the life? Then it seems like there's, it's, it might still be...... wrong in a sense, though, right? There's a reason why when we take our, our dogs to the vet's to be euthanized, that you don't get there and the, the vet pulls out a fucking crossbow or a gun or something, right?

Joe Rogan 31:21 Right.

Jack Symes 31:21 'Cause you go, "No, there's a better way you can do this." Like, have yous not ... Have you ... You've run out of injections or something. Like, the, the Greek for, for euthanasia means good death.

Joe Rogan 31:30 Wait a minute.

Jack Symes 31:30 There are better ways of doing it.

Joe Rogan 31:31 Do you think it's better to use a poison that you inject into their veins than a bolt to the brain?

Jack Symes 31:38 My suspicion is, is yes.

Joe Rogan 31:39 Why?

Jack Symes 31:40 It slows down the hearts. They-

Joe Rogan 31:42 Right, but-

Jack Symes 31:43 You can't see them struggling in a, in a sense of like, they, they don't exhibit features that look like they're, they're in pain or they're fighting. The, the, the hearts-

Joe Rogan 31:52 So it's better for you?

Jack Symes 31:52 ... slows down. The brain slowly shuts down. Well, you, you'd expect them to, you know, to, to resist in some certain way. Maybe there's not much difference between them.

Joe Rogan 32:00 I don't think there's any difference. The bolt to the brain is instantaneous.

Jack Symes 32:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:03 The ... Our, our concern is blood.

Jack Symes 32:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:05 Our concern is s- seeing trauma. And so we're not seeing it. It's all internal.

Jack Symes 32:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:09 You know, poison kills you in a horrible way. I mean-

Jack Symes 32:12 Yeah, it's-

Joe Rogan 32:13 ... the, the ... Probably the last moments are probably deeply painful and very confusing while your body's shutting down and you're dying.

Jack Symes 32:18 So you think it, it's more of like a cultural thing that we don't want our pets shot rather than-

Joe Rogan 32:22 Yeah.

Jack Symes 32:23 ... have injections?

Joe Rogan 32:23 Yeah.

Jack Symes 32:24 I mean, we see it less dignifiable.

Joe Rogan 32:25 Look, I don't wanna shoot my pet.

Jack Symes 32:26 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:27 I w- I don't wanna see your pet shot. I mean-

Jack Symes 32:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:29 God, imagine seeing Carl get shot. That'd be horrific.

Jack Symes 32:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:33 But there's n- I mean, there's no difference between Carl getting an injection that kills him either. It's-

Jack Symes 32:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:38 It's, it's just our own sensibilities. It's an ending of life, and the most effective, quickest way that causes the least amount of pain-

Jack Symes 32:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:46 ... should be what we strive for.

Jack Symes 32:47 Yeah. No, definitely. But that, uh, still, uh, uh, I think we both agree on this, right? That the factory farming is the, like, the overwhelming amount of meat we're consuming is that.

Joe Rogan 32:57 Yeah.

Jack Symes 32:58 And people feel, and, and we think this, we know that non-human animals, like, are morally valuable.

Joe Rogan 33:03 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 33:04 I love this, uh, thought experiment by the philosopher Tom Regan. He, he asks you, like, imagine you're on a lifeboat with, uh, let's say, uh, let's say a golden retriever and another human being. And you've gotta throw one out, and you get to keep the other one in.

Joe Rogan 33:16 Right.

Jack Symes 33:16 And so y- everyone throws out the, uh, the golden retriever.

Joe Rogan 33:19 Depends on who the person is.

Jack Symes 33:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:21 What if it's Hitler?

Jack Symes 33:21 I haven't, I haven't, I haven't met any ... Yeah, there's all-

Joe Rogan 33:23 If it's Hitler and my dog, Hitler's going for a swim.

Jack Symes 33:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:26 You know?

Jack Symes 33:26 Well, it's just, uh ... It's-

Joe Rogan 33:27 But, like, I would do that, right?

Jack Symes 33:28 It's random default, you know-

Joe Rogan 33:29 But wouldn't you do that?

Jack Symes 33:30 ... Joe Blokes.

Joe Rogan 33:30 But let, but s- let's be real. Yeah, I'd throw H- I'd throw Hitler in.

Jack Symes 33:33 100%.

Joe Rogan 33:34 Yeah. (laughs)

Jack Symes 33:34 I'm gonna kill Hitler with my bare hands, then I'm gonna throw him in the water. 100%.

Joe Rogan 33:37 Well, all right. It's not, it's not Hitler.

Jack Symes 33:39 I might eat him.

Joe Rogan 33:39 Y- y- you don't, you don't know who this guy is.

Jack Symes 33:40 Me and the dog might eat him.

Joe Rogan 33:41 It's not, it's not your ... It's not Marshall. It's some random golden retriever.

Jack Symes 33:45 I love all golden retrievers.

Joe Rogan 33:46 (laughs)

Jack Symes 33:46 I'm killing Th- Hitler over every fucking-

Joe Rogan 33:49 But what if it's a default-

Jack Symes 33:49 ... golden retriever that's ever been born?

Joe Rogan 33:50 If it's a default person, you don't know who this is.

Jack Symes 33:52 Okay. Well, then it becomes a problem.

Joe Rogan 33:54 Yeah.

Jack Symes 33:54 Yeah. Then I-

Joe Rogan 33:55 And then-

Jack Symes 33:55 I mean, I want that person to live too.

Joe Rogan 33:57 And then ... Tom, I went on a, a date with this, this girl in, in London once, and I asked her this thought experiment. I said, "What would you do?" And then she said, "I'd, I'd kill the golden retriever." And then I did the Tom Regan thought experiment and said, "Well, how about if it was five golden retrievers? 10? 100? 1,000?" Tom Regan goes, "I'll kill a million of them." And you kinda go like, "That's not, that's not cool." Like, you don't- And that one person starts disappointing you and lies to you, and you're like, "Oh, I should've fuckin' kept those dogs alive." Yeah. Well, this, uh ... (laughs)

Jack Symes 34:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:27 Well, it's just you and this dude, and you lo- ... I mean, you have a bond with that guy forever. Yeah. You killed your dog for him.

Jack Symes 34:32 Exactly. Well, this, this girl I was on a date with, she said she'd kill an infinite number of golden retrievers because she was Catholic.

Joe Rogan 34:39 Hm.

Jack Symes 34:39 And I think an infinite number of, of suffering in the ending of life-

Joe Rogan 34:43 Yeah, you sa- you say that. You say that.

Jack Symes 34:44 Yeah, I think-

Joe Rogan 34:44 You'd probably kill yourself.

Jack Symes 34:45 ... once you get through like 50, you've gone-

Joe Rogan 34:46 You'd probably kill yourself.

Jack Symes 34:46 ... made a real mistake, uh ...

Joe Rogan 34:47 Yeah, you'd probably shoot yourself. You watch them whimper on the ground in pain?

Jack Symes 34:50 But-

Joe Rogan 34:50 You'd probably shoot yourself.

Jack Symes 34:52 The interesting thing is as soon as you pick a number, as long as it's not infinite, then you recognize that non-human animals have a comparable value to human beings.

Joe Rogan 35:00 Mm.

Jack Symes 35:01 And you have to draw the line somewhere.

Joe Rogan 35:02 Right.

Jack Symes 35:02 There's gonna be a rough, like, number. It's like how many leaves make a pile of leaves, or water droplets make a cloud. It's not gonna be clear exactly how many.

Joe Rogan 35:10 But it's something.

Jack Symes 35:11 But as long as you pick something.

Joe Rogan 35:12 It's not zero.

Jack Symes 35:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:13 Yeah.

Jack Symes 35:13 So I think everyone, well, minus a few people ... I think if someone says infinite, something's gone wrong in their thinking.

Joe Rogan 35:18 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 35:18 I think that's absurd.

Joe Rogan 35:19 Well, I think that's just them talking.

Jack Symes 35:22 (laughs) Yeah, I reckon they're serious.

Joe Rogan 35:23 You don't really care, really. Yeah, there's no way you believe that.

Jack Symes 35:25 Well-

Joe Rogan 35:25 There's no way. You know what infinite golden retrievers look like? That's fucking crazy.

Jack Symes 35:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:29 Kill that guy.

Jack Symes 35:30 Well, there, there ... You know, I've got great sympathy for people who, like, you've probably heard this before, people give, like, health reasons for why they still consume non-human animals.

Joe Rogan 35:39 Yeah.

Jack Symes 35:40 Um, and, you know, they, they say, "I have to eat this much meat," or maybe they just eat meat and nothing else. And-

Joe Rogan 35:46 That's me.

Jack Symes 35:46 And you sort ... You, you just eat meat?

Joe Rogan 35:48 Yeah.

Jack Symes 35:49 You d- you don't eat anything apart from meat?

Joe Rogan 35:50 E- very little other than meat.

Jack Symes 35:52 Okay, so this is good. Right.

Joe Rogan 35:53 Yeah.

Jack Symes 35:53 S-

Joe Rogan 35:53 I eat fruit and I eat meat.

Jack Symes 35:56 Okay. S- so you-

Joe Rogan 35:56 And occasionally I'll eat something else. I'll have spaghetti or a sandwich every now and then. But for the most part, I eat mostly meat.

Jack Symes 36:02 So tho- those people who, uh, like yourself, who m- maybe it's, uh, like, health, whatever health reason it is, they still ... You know, it ... Some people use that argument as if it gets them off the hook, uh, like as if they ... Because their value as a human being outweighs so many cows and pigs and the like.

Joe Rogan 36:20 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 36:20 But I think onc- again, once you run this thought experiment and you have to kind of put a rough number on it, you sort of have to ask yourself an honest question and go, like, "Is what I'm doing, like, morally right? Is this something I should, uh, reconsider?" And I think given the, uh, if you pick a number, then you have to, you have to make a call on that.

Joe Rogan 36:38 I think it's not a zero-sum game.

Jack Symes 36:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:40 Uh, I, I d- I don't think it's, uh, morally reprehensible to eat meat, but I do know that an animal has to die.

Jack Symes 36:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:50 Um, what I pref- uh, there was a few years back, in 2012, that I decided that I was either gonna become a vegetarian or I was gonna become a hunter.

Jack Symes 36:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:58 And, uh, so I'd, I'd watched too many of these PETA documentaries. I'd seen too many things about factory farming.

Jack Symes 37:05 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:05 I was like, "This is disgusting." It would freak me out.

Jack Symes 37:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:07 And I was like, "Okay, I either have to come to grips with what it means to kill an animal and eat it, and if I can't handle that, if I don't like that-"

Jack Symes 37:16 Mm.

Joe Rogan 37:16 ... then I'll just become a vegetarian. I tried being a vegetarian for a brief amount of time in my life when I was, like, uh, (sighs) I guess I was 18. I w- when I was fighting, I was, I was having a really hard time ma- 'cause I was still growing.

Jack Symes 37:31 Mm.

Joe Rogan 37:31 I was having a really hard time making a lower weight class that I was competing in. And there was other people on my team that were competing in the higher weight class, and it was a, it was a real problem. So I tried being a vegetarian for a while. I don't think I did it the best way.

Jack Symes 37:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:44 I don't think I was really intelligent about it. Again, I was 18, and this was, like, 1985? Somewhere around there?

Jack Symes 37:52 A different vegetarian world.

Joe Rogan 37:53 No one knew shit.

Jack Symes 37:54 (laughs) For sure.

Joe Rogan 37:54 So I was just eating salads, and I felt l- I felt terrible.

Jack Symes 37:57 Yeah, I bet.

Joe Rogan 37:57 I felt terrible. And then, uh, I had a conversation with my instructor, and he was just like, "You're just getting bigger. You need to move up."

Jack Symes 38:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:04 And I started eating meat immediately. I gained 10 pounds in, like, three weeks. I felt like a completely different human being.

Jack Symes 38:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:11 I felt like I had all this energy. I was just... I think I was malnourished before, and I was just going on drive.

Jack Symes 38:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:18 But I do think that there are very different body types, and there's very different requirements that certain people have when it comes to protein, and I think animal protein is the most dense, most nutrient-packed protein and food-

Jack Symes 38:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:31 ... that's available for human beings. And I think it probably has something to do why we became human beings in the first place.

Jack Symes 38:37 Yeah. Um, this is-

Joe Rogan 38:39 But I think of hunting as I am dipping my toe into the natural world, and I'm going out into the wild where these things live. They're, they're not in a cage.

Jack Symes 38:51 What are you hunting with?

Joe Rogan 38:51 They're untamed. What's that?

Jack Symes 38:52 Is it a bow, a crossbow?

Joe Rogan 38:53 I use a bow. Uh, when I first started, I started using a rifle. I shot that mule deer that sits on the table. That was the first deer that I ever shot.

Jack Symes 39:00 Oh, Jesus.

Joe Rogan 39:01 That was in 2012.

Jack Symes 39:03 (laughs) I'll, I'll look this way. Um, okay.

Joe Rogan 39:04 And I decided when I was eating that mule deer... It's all on film. We did it for a television show called Meat Eater my friend Steven Rinella hosts. And, um, when I was eating that deer-

Jack Symes 39:16 Mm.

Joe Rogan 39:16 ... by the fire, I was like, "This is what I'm doing forever. I'm doing this." It was, it, like, it ignited parts of my DNA. It gave me an understanding of the cycle of life instantaneously in a way that was... Like, fishing does that a little bit.

Jack Symes 39:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:31 But this is like that times 1,000, which is why people don't have a problem with you showing dead fish on your Instagram. If you hold, like, a dead bass, "Look at the bass I caught," everybody's like, "Good job. Nice fish. You gonna eat that fish?" You hold up a dead deer, people kind of freak out.

Jack Symes 39:44 Yeah, I bet.

Joe Rogan 39:45 Hold up a dead bear, people go fucking crazy.

Jack Symes 39:48 Well, okay, here's, here's a couple of things, right? So, I, I think you're probably... Well, y- it speaks to your own experience, right, that you feel like maybe it's spiritual or it taps into our histories when you, uh, when you hunt, especially with a bow. Like, 10,000 years ago, the first bows come about and, you know, there's... I imagine it was thrilling for them now, and it's, it's then, and it's thrilling still now to do it. Same reason, like, paintball or, like, laser tag and, and war can be fun, right? People enjoy it. People going off to the First World War thought it was a great sport.

Joe Rogan 40:18 Sure.

Jack Symes 40:19 Um, maybe it, it taps even deeper than that because it's the food we were eating in, in the early days. I think the, the worry... Okay, let's think about the ethics though, right?

Joe Rogan 40:28 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 40:29 So, I, I think it's, it's not comparable to factory farming again. Like, this, this, this is, this is splitting hairs really in comparison to factory farming.

Joe Rogan 40:36 Well, I don't think we even have to compare these things.

Jack Symes 40:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:38 We just talk about the merits of or the, the, the ethics of what we're doing.

Jack Symes 40:42 Good. So t- two things come to mind, right? The first is it depends on the kind of killing that you're doing when you do the hunting. Like, if I hunt with a spear, and you'll know more about this than me-

Joe Rogan 40:52 Yeah.

Jack Symes 40:52 ... a spear is probably not gonna knock the animal out like a, a bullet to the back of the head.

Joe Rogan 40:56 Right.

Jack Symes 40:56 A crossbow and a, and a bow are going to be somewhere between them.

Joe Rogan 41:00 Right.

Jack Symes 41:00 And so there are gonna be better ways to hunt than not.

Joe Rogan 41:03 Yeah.

Jack Symes 41:03 So maybe, perhaps, I wonder what you think of this, on the whole, when you run the numbers on, in terms of probability, that hunting with guns is gonna be significantly better than hunting with spears or even bows.

Joe Rogan 41:16 Yes.

Jack Symes 41:16 Would you agr- would you agree with that?

Joe Rogan 41:16 Yeah, hunting with guns is absolutely the most effective way.

Jack Symes 41:19 Okay.

Joe Rogan 41:20 Yeah.

Jack Symes 41:20 Good.

Joe Rogan 41:20 In, in order for you to be equally effective hunting with a bow, it requires a lot more work.

Jack Symes 41:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:26 It requires intense amount of practice, hours and hours every day. I practice at 74 yards every day.

Jack Symes 41:34 Do you-

Joe Rogan 41:34 Hundreds of arrows at 74 yards just grouping into this small area about the size of a grapefruit.

Jack Symes 41:40 Are you good? Are you pretty accurate?

Joe Rogan 41:41 Yeah, I'm very good. Yeah.

Jack Symes 41:42 Do you-

Joe Rogan 41:42 I practice a lot.

Jack Symes 41:43 When you, when you hunt, uh, is it like elk?

Joe Rogan 41:45 Yeah.

Jack Symes 41:45 When you hunt elk, do you, you, you, no... Do you, do you kill the animal without much suffering, would you say?

Joe Rogan 41:52 Well, the last one that I killed died in 10 seconds.

Jack Symes 41:54 Okay.

Joe Rogan 41:54 He was dead in 10 seconds. He w- literally ran up to the top of a hill. It took, like, not even 10 seconds.

Jack Symes 42:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:01 It was like, whack, the arrow hits, run, run, run, boom, dead-

Jack Symes 42:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:06 ... because of an accurate shot placement. If you shoot an animal accurately, they die instantaneously. They die very quickly. They, they... You either hit them in the heart-

Jack Symes 42:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:15 ... or you hit them through both lungs. If they're alive for 30 seconds, it's a lot-

Jack Symes 42:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:19 ... generally. But there's been times where it might take 30 minutes for them to die. They just lay down, and you see them moving a little bit, and you sneak in, and you try to get a second arrow into them to take them out. Any way they die by a hunter is infinitely more humane than how they will die in the wild.

Jack Symes 42:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:35 And they will all die in the wild. They will all get old, and they will either die of starvation, they'll freeze to death, or more likely, they'll get eaten by cats.

Jack Symes 42:43 Well, okay, so here's, here's where I agree with you, right, is that when people eat... Again, uh, you say don't draw the comparison between factory farming, but I, I think this is... You know, the, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer-

Joe Rogan 42:56 Sure.

Jack Symes 42:56 ... said that, um, on earth-... humans are the devils and animals are the tortured souls, right? And, and that, that rings true for me, right?

Joe Rogan 43:03 Right.

Jack Symes 43:04 This, this is the worst thing we could've done in terms of, like, production of our food, in terms of the amount of suffering we're creating.

Joe Rogan 43:10 Yes.

Jack Symes 43:10 So, I think when the person says to you, "You're a bad person for hunting," if that person is engaging in buying these products from factory farms, which the overwhelming majority of people are, then they don't have a leg to stand on. What they're doing is way worse.

Joe Rogan 43:24 Right. I think people just say that because they wanna have a moral high ground and they haven't looked into it enough. If they did, they would have to come to grips with the fact that this is ... You're paying a supermarket hitman, okay?

Jack Symes 43:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:36 Is it ... Are you not a murderer if you hire someone to get murdered?

Jack Symes 43:38 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:39 It seems like you're a murderer.

Jack Symes 43:40 Same reason, uh-

Joe Rogan 43:40 It seems like you'd go to jail as a murderer. It's the same thing. If you go to the grocery store and you buy a, a T-bone steak-

Jack Symes 43:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:47 ... you paid a supermarket hitman. He just assumed you were gonna pay him, so he did the work before he got the money from you.

Jack Symes 43:52 Yeah. It's, and so s-

Joe Rogan 43:53 And so you wanted that cow dead, right?

Jack Symes 43:55 It's a psychological, like-

Joe Rogan 43:55 And you're like, "Yes, I did. Thank you."

Jack Symes 43:56 ... explanation. Or, like, it's the same reason why RAF bombers will drop a bomb on a clouded city, but not go down there and shoot a, a mother and a child, right?

Joe Rogan 44:05 But, but even though, like-

Jack Symes 44:06 Or hire the RAF to fight a-

Joe Rogan 44:07 Even drone pilots have severe PTSD.

Jack Symes 44:11 Do they?

Joe Rogan 44:11 Yes. Yeah, there's a very specific kind of it, because it's like this ... You're not-

Jack Symes 44:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:16 ... totally connected to the act, but you know what you did.

Jack Symes 44:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:20 And then you'll be haunted. Like, if you're just operating a little PS4 or PS5 controller and you're zooming some drone ... I mean, that's kinda how, what they do it with, right? Don't they use, like, game controllers? They use game controllers, which is-

Jack Symes 44:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:33 ... so fucking wild, 'cause that's the best way to do it. You get these kids that are ... You're playing Call of Duty eight hours a day and then that kid goes and becomes a part of the drone program. That's your assassins, that's your ultimate killers.

Jack Symes 44:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:45 And these guys are doing it for real. They're using ... They're playing a video game, but real human beings are dying.

Jack Symes 44:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:50 And in their head, when they lay in bed at night, they know that.

Jack Symes 44:54 Well, it seems like ... And it's an interesting one, right? We just did a, a big podcast series on the philosophy of war and the history of it, and how it's trying to move the person that's killing another person further away from the act, so-

Joe Rogan 45:05 Yeah.

Jack Symes 45:06 ... more killings when using guns than when it's hand-to-hand combat.

Joe Rogan 45:09 Right.

Jack Symes 45:09 And even in the Second World War, like, um, the fieldwork showed that it was about-

Narrator 45:13 It's a little more complicated.

Jack Symes 45:14 ... 20 or 30% of people were actually-

Joe Rogan 45:16 Oh, so it's got a little joystick.

Jack Symes 45:16 ... firing the weapons.

Joe Rogan 45:17 So it's a little more complicated than a PS4 or a PS5 thing, but it does have-

Narrator 45:22 A lot, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:22 ... like, a joystick, just like a simulator.

Jack Symes 45:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:24 Like a flight simulator is what it looks like.

Jack Symes 45:27 But there's a-

Joe Rogan 45:28 That's the view.

Jack Symes 45:29 Intensive-

Joe Rogan 45:29 And how, but how nutty is that? What, what does that feel like when you're in Nevada and you're operating something that's in Iraq or wherever, in Yemen, and you're, you've got a drone flying over some compound and you're just shooting hellfire missiles into human beings-

Jack Symes 45:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:45 ... based on metadata?

Jack Symes 45:46 Yeah. I'd be interested to know how much, like, how severe their PTSD is in comparison.

Joe Rogan 45:50 See if you can find an article on it, because there was something that I read about it really recently.

Jack Symes 45:54 'Cause there's a thought, right, which is w- we seem to be outraged at the use of drones, but it takes one less person out of the fight. And so it seems, if you're doing, like, a utilitarian calculation, that it's gonna be better on the whole.

Joe Rogan 46:08 No. No, it's not, because the amount of civilians that die are very high. It's, uh, it's-

Jack Symes 46:13 In comparison to not using a drone?

Joe Rogan 46:14 Yeah. It's somewhere in compare ... It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-plus percent, some estimations-

Jack Symes 46:19 Right, okay.

Joe Rogan 46:19 ... are 90% of civi- ... It's hard to tell-

Jack Symes 46:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:21 ... 'cause what's been explained to me by people in the military is that the people ... First of all, the government will undercut the number.

Jack Symes 46:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:29 They'll, they'll give you a, a l- a lower number than probably is real.

Jack Symes 46:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:32 And then the people that were attacked will give you a higher number than is real. And so you have to sort this out.

Jack Symes 46:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:39 Like, like a p- a good example is, um, remember The New York Times reported that the, um, Israelis had blew up a hospital.

Jack Symes 46:46 Mm.

Joe Rogan 46:47 And it was on the front page of The News Time, New York Times.

Jack Symes 46:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:50 And they'd been told that, you know, 500 people were dead or 5,000. I forget the number.

Jack Symes 46:53 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:54 The reality was the bomb hit the parking lot and 50 people died.

Jack Symes 46:58 Mm.

Joe Rogan 46:58 But they had been told it was a much worse scenario. They reported it not knowing-

Jack Symes 47:04 Yeah. The, the numbers, though, according, according to, like, the UN and stuff are pretty damn high, the ones that-

Joe Rogan 47:07 Oh, they're horrible.

Jack Symes 47:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:08 No, no, no. The, n- um-

Jack Symes 47:09 But yeah, but in this, in this specific example.

Joe Rogan 47:11 Just in this one specific example.

Jack Symes 47:12 Okay, good.

Joe Rogan 47:12 The numbers are hor- atroc-

Jack Symes 47:13 That's right.

Joe Rogan 47:13 The numbers are terrifying.

Jack Symes 47:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:14 It's ... But just looking at ...

Narrator 47:16 I saw an article, um, in New York Times about their, like, PTSD and whatnot. This was, like, just like six different events.

Joe Rogan 47:22 'Cause they're not deployed, they seldom got the same recovery periods or mental health screenings as other fighters.

Jack Symes 47:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:26 Instead they were treated as office workers expected to show up for endless shifts in a forever war. Under unrelenting stress, several former crew members said people broke down. Drinking and divorce became common. Some of the, uh, some left the operations floor in tears. Others attempted suicide and the military failed to realize the full impact. Despite hundreds of missions, Captain Larson's personal file, under the heading Combat Service, only offers a single word, none. Drone crew members said in interviews that while killing remotely is different from killing on the ground, it still carves deep scars.

Jack Symes 47:58 Mm.

Joe Rogan 47:58 "In many ways, it's more intense," said Neil Schueneman, a drone sensor operator who retired as a master sergeant from the Air Force in 2019. Uh, "A fighter jet might see a target for 20 minutes. We had to watch a target for days, weeks, and even months. We saw him play with his kids. We saw him interact with his family. We watched his whole life unfold. You are remote, but also very much connected. Then one day, when all parameters are met, you kill him. Then you watch the death. You see the remorse and the burial. People often think this job is going to be like a video game, and I have to warn them, there is no reset button."

Narrator 48:34 Mm.

Joe Rogan 48:35 Yeah. So it's-

Jack Symes 48:36 Yeah, it's awful.

Joe Rogan 48:37 ... ve- horrific-

Jack Symes 48:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:39 ... very intense thing.

Jack Symes 48:40 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I-

Joe Rogan 48:42 But it s- l- it's, it's akin to buying a steak in the store.

Jack Symes 48:46 (laughs) Well, I think, like-

Joe Rogan 48:47 In a weird way.

Jack Symes 48:48 The things that are, are relevant, morally speaking, are, are the same things there. Yeah, like it's a-

Joe Rogan 48:52 Do you eat only vegetables?

Jack Symes 48:54 Yeah. Uh, it, like, uh, it's a, it, it's a vegan diet. Well, it's a, you know, it's like a 98 or 97%, especially when traveling and stuff, when you can't seem to find s- seem to find things. I think the perception is ... And there's a lot of gotcha stuff, right? In terms of-... um, when people say they've got vegetarian or vegan diets. The idea that they're going to be eliminating suffering entirely from their diets? It's impossible. That's not what-

Joe Rogan 49:18 Right.

Jack Symes 49:18 ... anyone thinks is happening. Uh, you hear, like, crop death arguments and stuff like this, right?

Joe Rogan 49:22 Sure.

Jack Symes 49:23 Which, which don't tread much water.

Joe Rogan 49:24 Monocrop agriculture, which is a horrific loss of life.

Jack Symes 49:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:28 Like if you're buying corn or grain, most likely you're getting it from monocrop agriculture, and they kill thousands of animals to do that. They poison the ground, they poison bugs.

Jack Symes 49:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:38 If you consider insects life forms, they kill millions. They kill groundhogs, gophers, anything that gets in the way.

Jack Symes 49:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:46 And then the monocrop agriculture kills the environment, because it destroys the top soil.

Jack Symes 49:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:52 The top soil is destroyed. And like most farms in this country, we have to pour shit on the ground in order for it to be able to sustain life.

Jack Symes 50:00 Well, the vegan needs to be... Or the utilitarian or, you know, there's all of these brilliant philosophers at the moment talking about this. I don't know any, um, serious, like, philosopher of, of, of moral philosophy or ethics that runs a good argument which says that the lives of non-human animals, their pain, pleasure, happiness, suffering doesn't matter. So the vegan needs to be concerned about this loss of life as well, or the pain and suffering that goes into it.

Joe Rogan 50:23 There's-

Jack Symes 50:23 There are gonna be better ways to do it than not, but, you know, I o- often get asked about, like, tofu, um, so ... Or like, uh, our soy production. So 77% of global soy production goes towards feeding non-human animals that are fed and we end up killing and eating. Uh, a bunch of it's used for, like, biofuels and stuff, but only 7% of all the soy that we're growing actually is consumed by human beings. So if we look at, like, the vegan's contribution to that, right, it's marginal even then in comparison to what the factory farming industries, they're responsible for.

Joe Rogan 50:59 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 50:59 But here, here's, I think, an interesting point which sort of leaves that all to aside, 'cause you hear loads of different arguments, like ecological arguments, human nature arguments, all of this stuff, as if it's gonna get ... And often get the Christian or the person who thinks that non-animal rights, such as the Catholic I was mentioning a moment ago, don't matter. But think of this, like, if it was the case that we're forced to do these things, and we can't do otherwise, to sustain the people we have, we have to kill animals. Let's just give the person the benefit of the doubt and say that's the case. That wouldn't get God off the hook, if God's forcing us to do that. Like, here's life. To enjoy it you need to kill, what is it, like, um, 70 billion land animals and seven trillion sea animals each year?

Joe Rogan 51:44 Well, let's assume that God didn't conceive of factory farming, and this is, like, a loophole created by human beings.

Jack Symes 51:50 W-

Joe Rogan 51:50 Because I think it is.

Jack Symes 51:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:52 I think it's just like, it's like money and politics.

Jack Symes 51:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:55 Like, the Founding Fathers didn't see that coming. They didn't see social media coming. They didn't see a lot of things that are interfering with this concept of self-government, right?

Jack Symes 52:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:03 And I think God probably like, "They're never gonna do that. They'll never stick all their chickens in a fucking warehouse and stack them up." I said, "Yep, we will-"

Jack Symes 52:10 No, we won't.

Joe Rogan 52:10 "... if you let us get away with it." And then we develop laws which say that you can't film those things.

Jack Symes 52:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:15 Yeah. I, there's a problem with animal intelligence, right? Animals are sentient. They're, they're, they, they have instincts, they, they love their young. There is also a problem with plant intelligence. And plant intelligence, I think, the emergent science of plant intelligence is fascinating. I don't want to say they're the same thing as people, just like I don't want to say a golden retriever is the same thing as a person in a boat.

Jack Symes 52:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:38 It's not.

Jack Symes 52:39 Do- how many ... Out of interest, how many did you pick in terms of, like, how many golden retrievers you were gonna chuck out the boat until you chucked the human being out?

Joe Rogan 52:46 Depends on the person. I can't say.

Jack Symes 52:48 But if it's, if it's just some random person, you don't know them, any person walking down the street in Austin today. Are you talking, like, tens, hundreds?

Joe Rogan 52:54 No.

Jack Symes 52:54 Thousands?

Joe Rogan 52:56 No.

Jack Symes 52:56 You're talking thousands?

Joe Rogan 52:57 No. No.

Jack Symes 52:58 Like fewer?

Joe Rogan 52:59 Yeah.

Jack Symes 53:00 Like less than 10?

Joe Rogan 53:01 I'm not gonna kill 20 dogs for some dude I don't know.

Jack Symes 53:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:05 (laughs)

Jack Symes 53:05 You and me both. Depends on the-

Joe Rogan 53:07 I don't know, man. I love my dog so much, I-

Jack Symes 53:09 Yeah, shouldn't pick a golden retriever. That's a-

Joe Rogan 53:11 It's, you can't. It's like I can't.

Jack Symes 53:12 That's cheating.

Joe Rogan 53:13 Even if I get upset at him, I feel bad.

Jack Symes 53:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:15 Um, it's, it's ... You can't just say a random person.

Jack Symes 53:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:20 Like I said, if it was Hitler, I'd kill Hitler for sure. I'd kill Hitler over a snake.

Jack Symes 53:25 Yeah. But we're talking like, um-

Joe Rogan 53:26 I'd probably just kill him anyway.

Jack Symes 53:27 We, we think of-

Joe Rogan 53:28 No, I probably wouldn't. I'd probably bring him back so people could study him.

Jack Symes 53:31 (laughs) I think if you-

Joe Rogan 53:31 If I could, was sure that I could capture him alive and, and get him in front of the press.

Jack Symes 53:37 Just to see, to, to avoid-

Joe Rogan 53:38 "What the fuck happened?"

Jack Symes 53:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:40 Yeah. "How the fuck did you do this?"

Jack Symes 53:42 Yeah. Wow.

Joe Rogan 53:43 Like, what, what comp- ... I mean, I don't know. Goddamn Norman, he should give me money for this. Norman Ohler, we've been talking about his book, uh, over and over again for the past couple weeks.

Jack Symes 53:51 What's that, Drugs from the Third Reich?

Joe Rogan 53:51 Yes, since he's been here. But Hitler was cranked up on all kinds of shit.

Jack Symes 53:55 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:55 And so were the Nazis. They were all on methamphetamines. Hitler was on oxycodone apparently.

Jack Symes 54:00 Yeah, thinking he could live long ... He was worried he was gonna die, right? A vegetarian diet to make sure he could.

Joe Rogan 54:04 Yeah.

Jack Symes 54:04 I just finished the-

Joe Rogan 54:05 Not just vegetarian, but a terrible vegetarian diet. He ate mostly bread and sugar.

Jack Symes 54:08 Yeah, yeah. Y- you've got to do it right, but h- he certainly didn't. I've just finished, uh, Ian Kershaw's book on Hitler. It's, like, a- over 1,000 pages. It's a real good read. Like 40-hour read. Um, so if you're interested in, like-

Joe Rogan 54:20 You got to be careful leaving those around your house.

Jack Symes 54:22 I know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:23 (laughs)

Jack Symes 54:23 I got- I bought, I bought it my dad for his birthday, and he was there in the restaurant showing everyone, and I was like ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:27 I didn't ... It's a real problem. Like, you, you can't do that.

Jack Symes 54:29 No, you can't do that.

Joe Rogan 54:30 But, you know, um, what we were talking about with the animal intelligence and, and, and plant intelligence and human intelligence, like ...

Jack Symes 54:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:37 For, for sure the way we're doing it now is wrong. I think we would all agree to that. Um, if, if you could wave a magic wand and let all the animals be free and no one eats them anymore, you're gonna have chaos.

Jack Symes 54:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:52 You're gonna have real chaos. First of all, you're gonna have massive overpopulation, and you're gonna have predators everywhere. And, 'cause unless you do have predators everywhere, you're gonna have car accidents that you would never imagine. Train accidents. You, you're ...

Jack Symes 55:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:07 There's a guy named, um, uh-... C- why am I blanking on his name? Uh, American Coyote ... Dan Flores. Dan Flores, uh, this ... I forget where he's a professor out of. Uh, he studies the history of animals, and-

Jack Symes 55:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:22 ... uh, Dan Flores ha- he wrote a, a paper called, I think it's called Buffalo Ecology something. What was it? Buffalo Diplomacy? Buffalo Ecology? He thinks ... That's it. Genius guy. He thinks the reason why, when they came across the Great Plains and there was millions and millions of buffalo-

Jack Symes 55:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:42 ... I think the reason why is 'cause 90% of the Native Americans were killed by the plague.

Jack Symes 55:45 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 55:46 This is his, his thought. Like, because the earliest settlers-

Jack Symes 55:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:50 ... in the 1400s, the 1500s, they didn't see that many buffalo.

Jack Symes 55:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:54 It wasn't like ... They didn't even report them. There were many accounts where they didn't even report them.

Jack Symes 55:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:58 Why? Because the Native Americans lived off them, and they kept their population in check. The buffalo have a very long gestation period.

Jack Symes 56:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:04 Right? They're, they're an, an enormous animal. And if you can kill one, it takes a long time to replace that one, so they would travel around, f- track the buffalo, kill them, live off them, use their skins, f- e- eat their meat, and then nomadically travel with them, and they kept their population in check. When 90% of Native Americans were dead, Dan Flores believes, that led to this insane overpopulation problem of buffalo, where you see millions of them i- in fields-

Jack Symes 56:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:33 ... 'cause that doesn't exist anywhere in nature, th- unless there's a problem.

Jack Symes 56:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:37 A- and that problem is a lack of predators, and the predators at that time being the Native American hunter.

Jack Symes 56:42 Yeah. I think if you, if you go f- like, if you take it to its logical conclusion, then we can't, even on the view which, which I hold, which is, like, hedonistic utilitarianism, the idea that the moral r- morall- morally relevant facts are pain, pleasure, happiness, suffering, right? If you can't then just let all of the animals free to run around, that's gonna, as you say, create, like, a sort of mayhem.

Joe Rogan 57:05 Well, it's not just that. You would have to control their population somehow. You'd have to give them birth control.

Jack Symes 57:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:09 You'd have to-

Jack Symes 57:10 That seems ... I mean, that's ... In my view, that's okay to give them birth control and the like.

Joe Rogan 57:14 Right, but, uh, t- to what length? When do ... How many do you let breed?

Jack Symes 57:18 So-

Joe Rogan 57:18 How many do you ... You have to have population control, right?

Jack Symes 57:20 Yeah, you can have population c-

Joe Rogan 57:21 Wildlife biologists. Let me, like, explain something-

Jack Symes 57:23 Go on.

Joe Rogan 57:23 ... about hunting areas, right?

Jack Symes 57:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:25 So, like, if you're gonna go to this place in Montana where we went and hunted, hunted mule deer, wildlife biologists do surveys on the areas, and they know, roughly, the exact amount of deer that are in this area.

Jack Symes 57:37 Right. Okay.

Joe Rogan 57:37 And they know the m- they, they have a less accurate number of predators, particularly stealthy predators like mountain lions.

Jack Symes 57:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:44 Pretty good with wolves, but even then, in, in high density areas, very difficult to really fill o- f- figure it out. But they get the numbers of the deer, and then based on some very exact science, they calculate the amount of hunters who will be allotted tags.

Jack Symes 58:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:01 So, like, say if you, um, apply for a limited draw entry place. So, limited draw entry is like, say, maybe you have an allocated piece of land that's, you know, X amount of thousands of acres, and in that, there are X amount of thousands of deer-

Jack Symes 58:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:16 ... and you will allow 100 hunters into that area. And out of those 100 hunters, there'll be maybe a 10 to 15% success rate.

Jack Symes 58:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 58:26 So, you are thinking that these hunters will trim 10 deer, 20 deer, whatever it is for this partic- ... And there's a bunch of different areas like this all over the country-

Jack Symes 58:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:35 ... but they're all tightly managed. And the wildlife biologists that do that in the United States, it's a beautiful and incredible thing, because it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world-

Jack Symes 58:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:46 ... where you have public land, where people ... The, the, the United States and all the people living in the United States own this land. This is our land. And you can go out on that land, and in some places, you don't even have to have a tag. You get what's called an over-the-counter tag.

Jack Symes 59:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:00 'Cause these are areas which they're difficult to get to.

Jack Symes 59:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:04 There's, there's, you know, plentiful deer. They don't have to worry about you depopulating. And so, you get a tag, and you go out. You go five, six, ten miles in.

Jack Symes 59:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:12 You camp out. You live under the stars, and you f- get your food.

Jack Symes 59:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:15 And you can do that in this country, and you can do that because these wildlife biologists have a very keen understanding of the amount of animals that are sustainable in the area and the amount-

Jack Symes 59:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:23 ... of hunters they can allow to hunt in these areas. That's how it's done. If you don't do that, and if you just have animals run free-

Jack Symes 59:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:31 ... you get the buffalo when there's millions of them on the fields, and-

Jack Symes 59:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:34 ... you're gonna have to kill some of them, because they're gonna get disease, because they don't have any food.

Jack Symes 59:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:39 They're gonna starve to death. It's gonna be ru- ... Or you're gonna bring in mountain lions, and mountain lions can't kill buffalo, so you're gonna have to bring in wolves. You're gonna have to bring in big cats.

Jack Symes 59:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:47 You're gonna have to bring in all kinds of things that eat things to keep them in line. Then you've got fucking wild nature taking place everywhere in the world that there's not a city. And even in cities, you're gonna have it. You have coyotes in New York City right now.

Jack Symes 1:00:00 Well, th- d- ... Okay, this is good. I think, uh, Martha Nussbaum, in, like, her new book, Justice for Animals, she, she argues that, like, these things, as you say, are a problem. You can't avoid suffering in these cases, 'cause you need to keep populations in control. And she thinks that we need to embark on a research project which simulates hunting, and, and keeps down populations in, like, animal sanctuaries, if you like. And I was thinking recently, like, there's a lot of arguments for human, like, reparations. Like, when a full group is harmed by another group, that we think that they're owed something, um, w- whether it's, like, people who were subject to slavery in, uh, in Northwest Africa, you know, we think that those communities have been harmed in the past, and that we should right that wrong. Uh, just not ... I don't know the, you know, the details. I don't consider myself, like, a r- reparations philosopher, but let's say that's a view that people hold is they do. Well, if you take non-human animals to be, like, these subjects which you can stop their flourishing, cause them harm, bring them pleasure or happiness, then it seems that they also are a part of a group. And so, you might run an argument to say that if all of these creatures were-... subject to such suffering and torture and death for so long for the benefit of this other group, then that group owes them-

Joe Rogan 1:01:18 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 1:01:18 ... some, like, the research, the time, the money, to make their lives as good as possible. Now it might be, just like in our lives, we can't avoid pain and suffering in the day-to-day of it. It's not something we can eliminate entirely. But we should be doing everything we can, says the argument, to reduce it as much as possible. If that ends up being, like having to add predators so, to a sort of, um, you know, into that situation, then, then so be it. But i- perhaps there's a, you know, with the right time and money, you can find a way of doing it without as much suffering, so to speak.

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 So if the goal is just completely to eliminate suffering, why don't we kill all the predators?

Jack Symes 1:01:54 Yeah. So it doesn't-

Joe Rogan 1:01:55 'Cause they're, they're gonna make all these animals suffer. And if you get killed by wolves-

Jack Symes 1:01:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:59 Oh, that's a rough one. That's a rough... The worst is killed by bears 'cause they just eat you. They just hold you down and start pulling you apart like a salmon.

Jack Symes 1:02:07 (laughs) That's it. So-

Joe Rogan 1:02:08 So if we wanna really eliminate suffering, perhaps we should eliminate all of the predators or just put them in zoos, where they'll suffer-

Jack Symes 1:02:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 ... but they're evil, and then, 'cause they just kill and eat. That's all they do.

Jack Symes 1:02:19 Well, there's a, there's a question of, like, what's wrong with death, which is at the heart of this. So it might not just be, like, the hedonistic properties I've just listed. But it might be that when you stop some conscious creature from fulfilling their ends, from fulfilling their project-

Joe Rogan 1:02:35 Right.

Jack Symes 1:02:35 ... you're somehow wronging them. So, like, if I was to, hypothetically, you know, if th- we had this random person again that we had on the boat earlier, and I put a bullet in the back of their head, this person had no friends, family, no one will remember them, and I can erase the thing I did from my memory, you might still think what I did was wrong because that person saw themselves as having a future, had projects they were working on, and I stopped their flourishing in some sense, like that.

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 Unless they're Hitler.

Jack Symes 1:03:01 Unless they're Hitler.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 (laughs)

Jack Symes 1:03:02 Then it's a good one to stop.

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 But again, you probably would want to bring them back.

Jack Symes 1:03:06 And, and then when it comes to non-human animals, the same is true, right? The dog looks forward to their dinner in the evening.

Joe Rogan 1:03:11 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 1:03:12 They look forward to the walk. They bury their bone.

Joe Rogan 1:03:14 Yep.

Jack Symes 1:03:14 These are creatures with complex inner lives which see their futures or know that they will exist in the future. I think the same is true of the creatures which are hunted or in the farms. And so simply painless killing might not be everything there. Removing the potential for future happiness and pleasure also seems to be morally relevant.

Joe Rogan 1:03:35 Well, you know, when you hunt animals, you hunt mature animals. One, one of the things that-

Jack Symes 1:03:39 Yeah. So you check the a- like how do you know the age of like a-

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 You can see, you can tell by the way they look.

Jack Symes 1:03:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 They, they get bigger. Their, their head looks different. Their, their face looks different.

Jack Symes 1:03:47 How long does an elk live for? What's the, like in the wild?

Joe Rogan 1:03:49 Uh, re- I've killed them that are 11 years old. That's really old.

Jack Symes 1:03:53 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:03:53 Really old. He probab- his teeth were all worn down to almost nothing.

Jack Symes 1:03:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 He probably had another year or two left if he was lucky.

Jack Symes 1:04:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 And again, their death is horrific. The death that they have from wild predators is terrifying.

Jack Symes 1:04:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:07 There's not too many... I hunt in, uh, Utah every year and, you know, we see cats there. I saw the biggest cat I've ever seen in my life there. It was a huge mountain lion.

Jack Symes 1:04:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:16 Uh, but I've seen other predators. You see a lot of coyotes, and they do spot wolves there too. There's bears there. We see bears. But that death is so much worse than a hunter's death.

Jack Symes 1:04:28 Yeah, most probably, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:29 And o- 100%, and it's gonna happen. They're not living forever, and what I'm doing is I'm dipping my toe into the wild world-

Jack Symes 1:04:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 ... and through considerable effort, bringing back meat.

Jack Symes 1:04:40 Yeah. Uh, to bring this back to like, uh, you know, that fundamental question we began with, like, on the whole, is existence a good thing? Should we be happy and pleased with this world, and-

Joe Rogan 1:04:50 Right.

Jack Symes 1:04:50 ... it seems like the perfectly good god hypothesis goes out the window or, you know, especially if we're forced to do these things. Like, if we have to introduce predators to maintain populations and things like that, again, like, this doesn't seem like the thing a perfectly good god would do. So if you're an atheist and you l-

Joe Rogan 1:05:06 But why not? Isn't that th- this is the process. The reason why the elk is so fast and strong is 'cause it's been avoiding mountain lions for hundreds of thousands of years.

Jack Symes 1:05:14 But it's the process which, according to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, that God created, and-

Joe Rogan 1:05:20 Yes.

Jack Symes 1:05:20 ... God can do anything with the following qualifier. It has to be logically or metaphysically possible. So there are possible worlds without evolution by natural selection. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:05:29 Sure.

Jack Symes 1:05:29 ... those things-

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 It's possible.

Jack Symes 1:05:30 ... are entirely possible.

Joe Rogan 1:05:32 Right.

Jack Symes 1:05:32 And a perfectly good god would have to bring about the best possible state of affairs.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 But maybe this is the best possible state of affairs-

Jack Symes 1:05:39 I certainly hope not.

Joe Rogan 1:05:40 ... to achieve a desired goal.

Jack Symes 1:05:41 What's it they say? That the optimist says this is the best possible world and the pessimist hopes it's not the case.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 Yeah, I think e- even the evils of this world exist to incite outrage and for us to do better. I, I think this constant struggle of good and evil is maybe even necessary for us to keep moving in the right general direction through rigorous debate and deceit and lies and propaganda-

Jack Symes 1:06:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:07 ... and having your dreams shattered and figuring it out and-

Jack Symes 1:06:10 Yeah. But that's the, that's us, right? Not the-

Joe Rogan 1:06:12 But that's us and animals. That's the reason why the fucking elk is 900 pounds and built like a super athlete.

Jack Symes 1:06:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 It's 'cause it has to get the fuck away from mountain lions. If it didn't, it would never look like that.

Jack Symes 1:06:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:23 It would never become an elk. It would not become this majestic thing with horns growing out of its fucking head. It's got literal weapons growing out of its head, and they're competing with each other with these weapons and killing each other. We find dead elk all the time. They find them every year. Th- They're stabbed in the ribcage by other elk and they die a horrible death-

Jack Symes 1:06:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:44 ... and they get torn apart by coyotes and bears when they're down. W- You find th- their bones scattered all over the place where they've been killed and ripped apart.

Jack Symes 1:06:53 Yeah, I mean, I th- there's still a sense in which they're, like, doing good, like when a, a non-human animal, like, sacrifices themself or their young or something.

Joe Rogan 1:07:01 Uh-huh.

Jack Symes 1:07:01 Like it, like, there has to be something they're going towards in order for it to be good. In the same way we freely choose-

Joe Rogan 1:07:07 And they're getting better at being elk to avoid that, and that would, that's what leads to their natural selection.

Jack Symes 1:07:13 But they don't seem to have, like, a, like, there's gonna be a significant number of non-human animals that don't have what we call free will, which is the power and freedom to do otherwise, the power and choice to do A rather than B.

Joe Rogan 1:07:24 Right.

Jack Symes 1:07:24 There are some non-human animals that just act. The...... raindrop lands on the bird's beak, it just instinct. It turns, sees what's there. It doesn't think, "What was that?" It doesn't have this inner chat.

Joe Rogan 1:07:34 Mm-hmm.

Jack Symes 1:07:34 It doesn't choose, reflect. And there's gonna be a lot of non-human animals which that's the case for. So that sort of, like, character development theodicy or defense won't work for them. Like, especially if they're, you know, they're... It doesn't, uh, bring about a, a better, uh, entity at the end of it. For all these creatures that die painfully and miserably and don't have the opportunity to, to develop, like their individual lives seem like they're, again, cases of gratuitous, i.e. unnecessary evil. But the point fundamentally is this, right? God could have made it so that these creatures that don't have free will and that can't develop their characters don't suffer. He could have made that, he could have made that the case. But-

Joe Rogan 1:08:19 Unless God-

Jack Symes 1:08:20 ... He didn't.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 ... is truly all-knowing, and us with our primate minds are trying to make sense out of this thing that-

Jack Symes 1:08:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:08:27 ... ultimately will make sense when we reach the end of our journey. And that this whole process, as complicated and vicious and evil as it seems to be with predator and prey and natural selection-

Jack Symes 1:08:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:08:38 And what you were just talking about, like with birds and-

Jack Symes 1:08:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:41 ... different animal... Well, they, they don't have to... They've figured out a niche. They can fly. They move around.

Jack Symes 1:08:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 They basically got it nailed, right? To keep their populations high.

Jack Symes 1:08:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:49 Not that difficult, unless people come along with shotguns. That's when it really becomes a problem, like the passenger pigeon disappeared. Why? 'Cause we ate 'em all.

Jack Symes 1:08:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:56 You know? And we shot 'em all. But when you look at animals in the wild, when they have a very successful model, they don't change.

Jack Symes 1:09:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 That's crocodiles. They have a very successful model. The model is, this thing doesn't need to eat for a year. It can go underwater for hours. It can stay perfectly still in four inches of water, knows exactly where the animals are and explodes-

Jack Symes 1:09:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:18 ... and eats them, and kills them. And it's been in that same form for millions and millions of years, 'cause it's a successful form.

Jack Symes 1:09:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:24 Same as sharks. Successful form. Doesn't need to evolve. Human beings live in the most comprehensive and bizarre environment. First of all, we figured out how to shelter, and once we did that, we became weak. We figured out agriculture, we became weaker. We developed-

Jack Symes 1:09:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:39 ... cities. We completely separated ourself from the natural world. So we're... We think of ourselves as different than all these other processes that are happening because we've elevated, in our own eyes, beyond this, beyond the natural realm-

Jack Symes 1:09:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:52 ... into