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Joe Rogan Experience #2201 - Robert Epstein

Robert Epstein is an author, editor, and psychology researcher. He is a former editor-in-chief of "Psychology Today" and currently serves as Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He also founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. https://www.drrobertepstein.com/ https://americasdigitalshield.com/ This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Get 50% off your first box by heading to http://thefarmersdog.com/rogan today!

Robert EpsteinguestJoe RoganhostGuest (unidentified, brief clip)guest
Sep 11, 20242h 38mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:14

    Epstein’s on-air “meltdown”: burnout, blacklisting, and reputational ruin

    1. NA

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) And we're up. Hello, Robert. Good to see you.

    2. RE

      Hello, Joe.

    3. NA

      You look a little stressed out.

    4. RE

      Uh, I am stressed out. In fact, are, are we recording?

    5. NA

      Yes.

    6. RE

      Okay. Then, uh, then I want to make a special request.

    7. NA

      Okay.

    8. RE

      You can kick me out if you like. Uh, but I wanna-

    9. NA

      Why would I do that?

    10. RE

      (laughs) Well, because I, uh, I need to have a meltdown. I would like to have a meltdown right now on your show.

    11. NA

      You wanna have a personal meltdown?

    12. RE

      Yes.

    13. NA

      Okay, go ahead.

    14. RE

      Okay. Uh...

    15. NA

      I've never heard anybody plan for a meltdown before.

    16. RE

      Well, I, I, I've, I, I need to do this and, uh, I think this is the right opportunity.

    17. NA

      Okay.

    18. RE

      Mm. And I don't know, uh, what I'm gonna say.

    19. NA

      Okay.

    20. RE

      But I am definitely going to melt down.

    21. NA

      Okay.

    22. RE

      Uh, okay. So I am completely fed up. I have worked day and night, I work about 80 hours a week, I'm directing, uh, almost 40 research projects. Uh, mm, I've been working really hard for maybe 45 years and the last 12 years where I've turned my eye to Google and other tech companies have turned into, for me personally, a disaster. So before I started studying Google, I had published 15 books with major publishers. Since I've started s- studying Google and other companies, I can't publish anymore. Uh, I used to write for and actually work for mainstream

  2. 2:14 – 5:10

    Congress testimony, Trump/Clinton blowback, and being labeled a “fraud”

    1. RE

      news organizations and media organizations. I was editor-in-chief of Psychology Today for four years, I was an editor for Scientific American. I wrote for USA Today and US News and World Report and Time Magazine. (clears throat) But in 2019, after I testified before Congress about some of my research on Google, uh, President Trump s- tweeted to his, whatever, millions of, gazillions of followers, uh, basically some praise for my research. H- he got the details wrong. But then Hillary Clinton, whom I had always admired, chose to tweet back to her 80 million Twitter followers and she tweeted that my work had been completely debunked and was based on data from 21 undecided voters. I still have no idea where any of that came from. Probably someone from Google, because Google was her biggest supporter in 2016. And this was 20- 2019. And then that got picked up by c- by, by this machine, I'm told it's called the Clinton machine, and the New York Times picked that up without fact-checking and then 100 other places did. And I got squashed like a bug. Squashed. I had a flawless reputation as a researcher. My, my research reputation was gone. I was now a fraud. A fraud. Even though I've always published in peer-reviewed journals, which is really hard to do. And, uh, there was nothing I could do about it. And all of a sudden I found that, uh, the only places I could publish were in what I call right-wing conservative nutcase publications.

    2. NA

      (laughs)

    3. RE

      Where I've, where I've actually made friends over the years. I've made friends with them, but that's beside the point. I've, I've, I was crushed. And, uh, not only that, I, I've been, uh, discovering things. I've made at least 10 major discoveries about new forms of influence that the internet has made possible. These are controlled almost entirely by a couple of big tech companies. Affecting more than five billion people around the world every single day. And I've s- I've discovered them, I've, I've, I've named them, I've quantified them, I've published randomized controlled studies to show how they work, published them in peer-reviewed journals. We just had a- another paper accepted, uh, yesterday. And, uh, what it... (sighs) And I,

  3. 5:10 – 9:18

    Surveillance claims and personal safety fears after his research escalated

    1. RE

      I've built systems to do to them what they do to us and our kids. They surveil us and our kids 24 hours a day. Uh, Google alone does that m- over more than 200 different platforms, most of which no one's ever heard of. People have no idea the extent they're being monitored. They're being monitored when they're, if they have A- Android phones, they're being monitored even when your phone is off. Even when the power is off you're still being monitored.

    2. NA

      How do they do that?

    3. RE

      Well, because the m- remember when we could take the batteries out?

    4. NA

      Yeah.

    5. RE

      And then at some point they soldered (laughs) them in?

    6. NA

      Yeah.

    7. RE

      Because they soldered the batteries in, even when you turn the phone off, it's not off. It's easy to demonstrate. It's still transmitting. Or it'll transmit the moment the power comes back on. It's still collecting data.So what am I trying to say here? Then my, I... My wife was killed in a suspicious car accident. This was, this was also shortly after I testified before Congress in 2019. Right before she was killed, I did a private briefing for Ken Paxton, the AG of Texas, and other AGs at Stanford University, and one of those guys came out afterwards and he said, "Well, based on what you told us, Dr. Epstein," he said, "I don't mean to scare you, but," he said, "I predict you're gonna be killed in some sort of accident in the next few months." So I told you this before-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. RE

      ... when I was on before, and obviously I wasn't killed, but my, my, my beautiful wife was killed, and, you know, her vehicle was never inspected forensically, and then it disappeared from the impound lot. I was told it was sold to some junk company in Mexico, and, uh, that is one of now six, six incidents, six, of violence against people who are associated with me over the past few years. The last just happened a couple of weeks ago.

    10. JR

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  4. 9:18 – 13:27

    The “needle in the computer case” incident and intimidation of his team

    1. RE

      Well, th- this last one is kind of weird and creepy, in that I was at a meeting with, in, in Dallas I think it was. Oh, no, no, no, it was up in, it was up in Monterey, and it was with, uh, General Paxton and then with some of my staff, and one of my staff members, uh, sitting next to me, she all of a sudden just brushed her hand against my computer case, which is... That's my computer case.

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. RE

      (clears throat) And she screamed, and we all went, "What, what happened?" And she goes, "Look." And there was a needle sticking out of the computer case, sticking out of the computer case, wh- which is impossible. And it was going a half-inch into her thumb. It had gone through the end, and of course I'm thinking, "Uh, oh, that's awful, but maybe, maybe you just saved my life. Maybe it's, you know, it's got some sort of weird poison on it," or it's like a Putin thing, and it's got, you know-

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. RE

      ... radioactive substances or something. I'm trying to joke around, but meanwhile she was terrified. How, how did a pin get... Uh, as... And by the way, I have a picture of the pin. It's really creepy. I've never-

    6. JR

      So when you're saying a needle, you're not saying, like, a syringe. You're saying a needle like a th- sewing needle?

    7. RE

      (laughs) No, that's what I'm saying. I have no... No- none of us has ever seen a needle like this needle. It's, it's about, it's about two inches long. Uh, the end is, is like it's b- it's like it's been sharpened.

    8. JR

      Okay.

    9. RE

      You can see it's sharpened, and at the end, the end where there, there should be a hole for thread, there's no hole.

    10. JR

      Okay.

    11. RE

      So I don't know what it is, but we've had worse incidents too. I'm just saying this was happened to be the latest.

    12. JR

      But that's in your computer bag? Was your computer bag ever out of your care?

    13. RE

      Well, not, not that I noticed, but, uh...

    14. JR

      But I mean, if somebody wanted to harm you, a little needle, that's not really-

    15. RE

      Oh, I don't think that's someone wanting to harm me.

    16. JR

      What do you think that is?

    17. RE

      Well, if it's anything, it's someone wanting to scare me, and the fact is, I have been scared and so have a lot of my staff. I have... This summer, we've had 26 interns from... They come from all over the country. Th- 23 of these people were volunteers and... Fantastic young people, extremely smart, you know, helping me run almost 40 research projects.

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RE

      And, and there is... You know, we take precautions, and there is some fear, and one of these young men, uh, who, who's done superb work, he asked that we take his name off of everything. You know, the... He, he, he didn't quit, but he... I'm just saying, he just-

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. RE

      Because they're, they're-

    22. JR

      Sounds reasonable.

    23. RE

      Yeah, yeah, because, uh, you know, there ha- uh, there have been a number of incidents. And, (clears throat) and if I were ... (clears throat) did you ever hear of, um, John Catsimatidis?

    24. JR

      No.

    25. RE

      Okay. He owns a ton of, uh, supermarkets in New York. He also owns WABC New York. But I was at a luncheon with him, I shouldn't do this on the air, I shouldn't do this. (laughs) But, uh, he actually j- said, to make a long story short, that if he were Google, he would kill me.

    26. JR

      Hmm.

    27. RE

      He, he, he said it straight out.

    28. JR

      But yet you're still alive.

    29. RE

      Well, I'm alive but I'm in rough shape, because, uh, you know, when push comes to shove here, I have been making discoveries that are really startling, and they've gotten worse and worse and worse. And since I was last with you, which was two and a half years ago, we've made, uh, probably five or six, seven more discoveries. They get worse each time. And we've done something that, uh, I was speculating about doing when I was here, which was building a nationwide monitoring system to surveil them the way they surveil us, and see what content they're actually sending to real voters and to real kids.

  5. 13:27 – 15:02

    Rogan reframes the core claim: search engine curation as election interference

    1. JR

      So let's, let's, let's break this down, because I think we're getting a little in the weeds here. Let's explain to people that don't know what you're talking about what your research is about, because most people are not aware. Um, and one of the major issues that you have discovered is the curation, and the purposeful curation of information through search engines. So, most people that are unaware think that when you do a Google search on something, say if you, you know, want to find out, uh, about a Kamala Harris rally or a Trump rally, that you are just going to get the most pertinent information in the order in which it's m- most applicable to your search, but that's not the case. The case is everything is curated, and if you want to find positive things about someone who they deem to be negative to whatever ideology they're promoting, y- it will be very difficult to find that information. If you wanna find positive things about someone they support, they will be right up front. If you wanna find negative things about someone they support, they will be very difficult to find and you will be inundated with positive things. And what you have found is that this curation of information from searches has a profound effect, especially on the casual voter and the low information voter, a profound effect on who gets elected, and it's tantamount to election interference. Is that fair to say?

  6. 15:02 – 17:48

    Search suggestions and “ephemeral experiences”: measurable, court-admissible manipulation

    1. RE

      Uh, it's fair to say that's where I was two and a half years ago. We, we, we have gone so far beyond that, because it's not just, it's not just search results, uh, it's search suggestions, which we're capturing now by the millions. So, it was in the news recently that when people were typing in, (clears throat) uh, Trump assassination-

    2. JR

      Right.

    3. RE

      ... you know, they were getting crazy stuff, like the li- the Lincoln assassination.

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. RE

      They were getting crazy stuff, and they were not getting information about the Trump attempted assassination. And, uh, you know, I, I looked at that and I said, "Oh, isn't this nice, that there's an anecdote about s- how they may y- be abusing search suggestions." We don't have anecdotal data anymore. We have hardcore, large-scale, scientific data on all of these issues. Uh, we know what's actually going on, and we've quantified the impact. See, it's one thing to say, "Oh, look what they're doing." It's quite another to say, "What impact does that have on people?"

    6. JR

      Right. Let's talk about the Trump assassination one in particular. What, what did you find about that?

    7. RE

      Well, we could, frankly, we couldn't care less about that, because that's one anecdote.

    8. JR

      Right.

    9. RE

      We're, we're collecting these by the millions, and what we know, uh, we know a couple of things. (laughs) We know that, first of all, they're not, uh, uh, uh, you know, eh, it started out as one thing, and it's turned into something else. And so, what they're, they do is they use search suggestions to shift people's thinking about anything. It's not just about candidates either. It's about anything. And we've shown in controlled experiments that by manipulating search suggestions, you can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split, with no one having the slightest idea that they have been manipulated.

    10. JR

      Wow. And this always goes a very specific way. It always goes

    11. RE

      It always goes a specific way, but I'm gonna show you maybe a little later, if I haven't put you to sleep, or if my meltdown hasn't gotten too bad, 'cause I'm not quite finished with my meltdown yet, uh, I'll show you content, data, large scale, that we're collecting now 24 hours a day, and I'll show you what they're actually doing. An anecdote, they, those don't hold up in court. You know, they, they grab headlines for a couple of days, but that's about it. They don't do anything. But we're actually collecting evidence that's court admissible. So we're collecting data now in all 50 states, but we actually have court admissible data now in 20 states already, and we keep building bigger and bigger every day.

    12. JR

      And what is this data about?

  7. 17:48 – 31:56

    How the nationwide monitoring system works: 15,000 voters, privacy protections, personalization

    1. RE

      Well, it's, uh, any, any data that's going to real people. So we're collecting data, with their permission, from the computers of a politically balanced group of more than 15,000 registered voters in all 50 states, and from many of their children and teens as well. And so when they're doing anything on their computers, they've given us the right to, to collect it, grab it-... zap it over to our own computers, aggregate the data, and analyze it. I, I want to point out that when we do this, we do this without transmitting any identifying information.

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. RE

      We protect people's privacy, but we are getting these ex- increasingly accurate pictures of what Google and other companies are sending to real people. Why do you have to do it this way? Because all the data they send is personalized. You will never know what they're sending to people unless you look over the shoulders of real people and see the personalized content.

    4. JR

      And what have you found?

    5. RE

      Uh, well, as it happens, I've just summarized our findings over the last 12 years, and you get the first advance copy-

    6. JR

      Oh.

    7. RE

      ... of a monograph that's called The Evidence. And-

    8. JR

      (Drumming sounds with mouth)

    9. RE

      (laughs) And because we're so desperate, we need help, we need money, we need emails, we're so desperate for that, that we have set up, we kinda did this last time too, but we have set up a link. If people go to that link and they're willing to give us their email, we will give them a free copy of this, advance copy of this monograph. And it, it goes through the whole thing. It ex- it shows all the, th- the effects we've discovered, but it also shows the monitoring we're doing and what we're finding out from this monitoring.

    10. JR

      One thing that I noticed since the last time you were here was, um, I used to use DuckDuckGo, and, uh, one of the reasons why I started using DuckDuckGo is there was a story about a physician in Florida that took the mRNA vaccine and had a stroke shortly afterwards. It was very early on in the pandemic, and they were beginning to speculate that some of the side effects of the vaccine are being hidden, and I could not find this story on Google. I could not find it. I kept looking and looking and looking. I, I entered in the information on DuckDuckGo, it was one of the first articles, instantaneously. I was like, "This is crazy." Um, since then, something's happened, and, uh, I think they became aware that DuckDuckGo was, uh, a problem spot for the dissemination of information, and now it appears to mirror Google.

    11. RE

      Well, the same has happened with Bing, and the same has happened with Yahoo!, so-

    12. JR

      What about Brave?

    13. RE

      No, Brave is still independent. I know Brendan Eich, you sh- you should have him on if you haven't, and he's the guy who wrote Brave. Before that, he wrote, uh, Firefox for Mozilla. He left because Google was, was, had its tentacles into Firefox.

    14. JR

      Yeah. I'm afr- afraid to talk about Brave for them to be compromised because, like, we were talking about DuckDuckGo, and I was telling everybody, "Go to DuckDuckGo," and now I'm like, "Jesus, it's the same thing as Google." Like, something happe- Do you know what happened?

    15. RE

      Well, we, we know in some cases with some of these companies what happened. I don't know the particulars with DuckDuckGo, but it's easy enough to guess. They're, they're under... All, all of these, these, these alternative websites that are trying to protect people's privacy, so we use Proton Mail, for example, we use Signal for texting, uh, they've all run into problems, and the, and the problem is when Google goes after them. So Google tried to shut down Proton Mail. That's been well documented.

    16. JR

      Really?

    17. RE

      Oh, yeah.

    18. JR

      Why did they try to shut down Proton Mail? What was their argument?

    19. RE

      Because they saw it possibly cutting in a little bit into their, their Gmail business, and, uh, they were brutal. They were brutal in suppressing, uh, any, any mention of Proton Mail anywhere. Uh, don't forget, it's not just the search results. It's the search suggestions. It's the answer boxes.

    20. JR

      Right, how were they s- suppressing Proton Mail?

    21. RE

      The way they suppress everything else. They, uh, w- I'll tell, I'll give you a detail here that you may not know.

    22. JR

      Okay.

    23. RE

      Okay? 'Cause they don't have to adjust their algorithms to do something this simple. Uh, their algorithms, all of them, as far as I know, check blacklists and check white lists, so all they have to do is add a couple of Proton Mail links to blacklists, and that means that before one of their algorithms will take someone somewhere or will show someone something, it checks for b- the blacklist first. And if you put Proton Mail on the blacklist, it, it's suppressed, and it doesn't appear.

    24. JR

      Well, let's look for it right now. Jamie, do me a favor, please, and pull up Google. Um, obviously this is happening before the podcast is released, so they can't correct this 'cause they didn't know you were coming on and they didn't know we were talking about this. So let's pull up Google real quick and put it up on the screen, and, okay, you already Googled it.

    25. NA

      I don't know if you want me to do that or not.

    26. JR

      Just let me see. Okay, right away, it shows Proton Mail, and then below that, it shows Proton account, sign in. Um, uh, you can use the Proton VPN. So, how is it suppressing? This is not suppressing at all.

    27. RE

      Okay, now this is where my staff has warned me, "Don't be condescending to Joe Rogan."

    28. JR

      How is it condescending if you're... I'm just asking a question. You can just give me an answer.

    29. RE

      No, but, I know, I could, but I w-

    30. JR

      But look, it says-

  8. 31:56 – 40:37

    Real-time bias dashboard and examples: abortion results and the Elizabeth Warren “shocker”

    1. JR

      Okay. So what are we looking at here?

    2. RE

      Oh, perfect. Perfect place to begin.

    3. JR

      (clears throat) Okay.

    4. RE

      How did you know?

    5. JR

      Jamie's a wizard. Mean bias by political leaning, Google only. Okay, so what is this, uh, showing us here?

    6. RE

      Uh, this is showing, and if- if you see, uh, mm, bars below the zero line, that means the content is liberally biased. And you're seeing very strong liberal bias, and those three different bars show you the bias in content being sent to conservatives, liberals, and moderates. Now, abortion, you would think, if they're really showing people what they wanna see, well, something that matches their interests, you would think that they would not be sending the same level of liberal bias to conservatives, liberals, and moderates, but that's what this shows.

    7. JR

      So, this is the search topic, is abortion.

    8. RE

      Correct.

    9. JR

      Uh, this is the average of January to August of 2024.

    10. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    11. JR

      And so, when you say, "Mean bias by political leaning," so are you saying they're- they're sending the same biased information roughly? There's a slight difference, a little bit more in the liberal side, uh, and a little bit more in the conservative side than the moderate side, it looks like, right? Is that correct?

    12. RE

      Yes.

    13. JR

      Um, so what are they ... No, the opposite. Right? Seems like moderate is more. Um, but what- what is the, what is the bias? Like, what, so if you search abortion-

    14. RE

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      ... is it leaning towards pro-choice websites and pro-choice information? Is that what it, what it's saying?

    16. RE

      Well, I knew you were gonna ask that, so I- I can actually show you.

    17. JR

      Okay.

    18. RE

      For- for some of these graphs, let's look at a couple of the graphs, and then I'm gonna show you the content.

    19. JR

      Okay.

    20. RE

      Because all of this- this bias that we're measuring ultimately results in them taking you to a news story, to a web page, right?

    21. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    22. RE

      So, we're gonna ... Oh.

    23. NA

      Which one do you want me to go to?

    24. RE

      This ... Go to, let's do Elizabeth Warren next. Uh, j- uh, uh, just the, just the bl- just the red graph. Just the graph itself.

    25. NA

      Uh, this?

    26. RE

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      This one?

    28. RE

      Yeah, yeah.

    29. JR

      Okay.

    30. RE

      Okay, so this is a shocker, because if it's Elizabeth Warren who's a very well-known liberal politician, they should be sending lots of blue stuff to her. They're not. (laughs) They want her out of office. They are sending people to- to content that vilifies Elizabeth Warren. They want her gone. Why? Because she is one of the only Dems who's gone on record, writ- written statement, the whole thing, calling for Google's breakup.

  9. 40:37 – 50:34

    Answer bots and home assistants: Alexa/Siri bias effects and upcoming monitoring

    1. JR

      Have you seen the, uh, Alexa, uh, when people ask Alexa-

    2. RE

      Sure.

    3. JR

      ... about Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris?

    4. RE

      Yes, we have-

    5. JR

      Wild.

    6. RE

      Uh, yes, and we, starting last year, we developed special equipment that, uh, funds allowing, will eventually, uh, will eventually provide to all of our field agents, we call these people our field agents, and we'll eventually provide them with special equipment which is going to allow us to start analyzing the answers given by Alexa, the Google Home device, uh, the Google Assistant, Siri. So, we're gonna start monitoring the content that's coming from these, uh, IPAs, intelligent personal assistants. Now, why? Because we've published, we've published in p-, you know, a peer-reviewed article on what's called the, uh, answerboteffect.com. So, if you go to answerboteffect.com, we will show you in, in controlled experiments how easily a biased answer coming from an answer bot, like Alexa, can, boom, just like that, shift the opinion of someone who's undecided. 40% or more after just one question and answer interaction in which someone is getting back a biased answer. Now, if they personalize the answer, the effect is even larger.

    7. JR

      So, this is essentially a danger that no one was aware of, no one ever saw on the horizon until search engines were created. Now, search engines are here, and it's something that is not regulated, and it's right in front of us. And what steps have been done to sort of mitigate the effects of this, if any?

    8. RE

      Okay, so this is where now we get back to my meltdown.

    9. JR

      Oh, I thought you were done melting.

    10. RE

      Oh, no.

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. RE

      No.

    13. JR

      Okay.

    14. RE

      No, I've been melting down for years, so I have a lot t- to go. Um-Yes, you summed it up nicely. Uh, I'll just rephrase what you said a little differently. Uh, no one anticipated these kinds of manipulations were possible. And by the way, we've hardly even scratched the surface of what these manipulations are and what they can actually do, and the fact that we have evidence that they're being used. Forget all that. The point is, yes, our, our lawmakers, our regulators never anticipated that. Uh, when, uh, when your friend, uh, what's his name? He, uh, you just interviewed him recently.

    15. JR

      Brett Weinstein?

    16. RE

      No, no, one of the early investors at Google and Facebook.

    17. JR

      Marc Andreessen?

    18. RE

      Marc Andreessen was one. Uh, McNamee-

    19. NA

      Peter Thiel?

    20. RE

      Oh, Thiel, Thiel, Thiel.

    21. JR

      Peter Thiel.

    22. RE

      These people never anticipated when they invested ... In fact, uh, McNa- McNamee has said straight out, "If I had known what was gonna happen, I wouldn't have put a dime into these companies." No one really knew this was gonna happen.

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. RE

      But now that people like me, and there aren't too many, but now that people like me have been figuring this out and getting the word out for more than 10 years now, and getting the word out in bigger and bigger ways, I've testified twice before Congress now, you would think that lawmakers, regulators, somebody-

    25. JR

      Somebody.

    26. RE

      ... would jump up and say, "Okay, we're, we're gonna fix this problem."

    27. JR

      Right.

    28. RE

      You would think.

    29. JR

      You would.

    30. RE

      You would also think that in general, people, people around the world, it's not just Americans, people would say, "The hell with this. We're not w- you know, I'm not gonna take that anymore." Like in that old movie.

  10. 50:34 – 54:33

    Kids’ recommendation feeds: sexual/violent content as engagement optimization

    1. RE

      As long as the system is running... No, no, no because we're also dealing with, with public advoca- advocacy groups, like election integrity groups, parenting groups. Uh, if you, i- i- if you wanna show some of the ... There's a folder in there that has some images that we pulled from videos being recommended on YouTube to children. And if you just look at some of these images, uh, we've gotten several parent, big parenting groups in- interested in what we're doing. There can be a lot of public pressure applied, and, you know, not just by politicians and regulators, but by big groups of people saying, "We don't want you doing this."

    2. JR

      Okay. What are you talking about specifically when you're saying recommended to children?

    3. RE

      I'm saying, um-

    4. JR

      So this is, uh, what you're discussing?

    5. RE

      I'm saying that, that-

    6. JR

      This is Boondocks, which is a television show, an animated television show.

    7. RE

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      So this is recommended to children because it is animated? Is that what the idea is?

    9. RE

      I don't know. I don't know what their criteria are, but this-

    10. JR

      Okay. And then the other one is ... Down below that, you see The Walking Dead, which is the horrible scene that made me stop watching the show. This is on the website. This is out of the folder he gave me here. They're all k- kind of small.

    11. RE

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JR

      I got it. And, um, these are all ... okay. There's a lot of sexual stuff.

    13. RE

      Yep.

    14. JR

      Um, so these are all being recommended to kids?

    15. RE

      Yep. We're not searching for them. They're, they're coming into the devices through which we are, we are gathering data.

    16. JR

      And what would be the benefit for them of doing this, of, uh, showing all these sexual images to children?

    17. RE

      It's titillating, and it's addictive.

    18. JR

      So to, to increase engagement?

    19. RE

      Correct.

    20. GC

      Some of these channels are really popular channels though, and they're making content not for kids.

    21. JR

      Right.

    22. GC

      But they're being still being recommended to them, I guess. But, like, this has 4 million views on it from a channel with 40 million subscribers.

    23. JR

      Jesus. And this is just anime?

    24. GC

      Well, it's like ... I've ... It's like a f- ... I forced my friends to watch an anime clip. So, like, that's what, you know-

    25. JR

      It says to dub-

    26. GC

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      ... anime clips. So they, they, uh, said their own words over these clips.

    28. GC

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      Is that what it is?

    30. GC

      Yeah.

  11. 54:33 – 1:12:59

    Beyond elections: EU compliance checks, financial market influence, and AI threat assessment

    1. JR

      Okay.

    2. RE

      And then maybe I won't keep melting down. So what else can you do with a system like this? Well, you could s- ... If, if some laws and regulations were passed, as they have been in the EU, you could measure compliance with a system like this because that's been the frustration in the EU, and they've admitted it recently, is that they've...... made all these rules, especially for Google, and they've gotten lots of, you know, fines paid, and Google has completely ignored them.

    3. JR

      Hmm.

    4. RE

      But if you set up a system like this, you can actually see if there's compliance 'cause you'll see that there, a change was made and that it's being maintained. That's a possibility. You could see whether Google, and other companies to a lesser s-, lesser extent, are manipulating financial markets. So, we've just started collecting data on that topic, but wouldn't you manipulate financial markets if you were Google and there's no laws or regulations to stop you from doing anything?

    5. JR

      So you're saying manipulate financial markets for their own gain?

    6. RE

      Of course.

    7. JR

      And how do they do this?

    8. RE

      Oh, well, what, well, what drives the price of a stock up or down? People's confidence in that company.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. RE

      It's totally emotional.

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. RE

      Well, they can control that very easily. So can Facebook. Google can do it, you know, more precisely, in a more precise way. The point is, are they? Are they not? Would they admit to it if you ask them? No. But a monitoring system will detect it, and it will detect it on a massive scale and in a way that's scientifically valid and that is court admissible. And now, I've got one that I think you'll really, really like.

    13. JR

      Okay.

    14. RE

      Or at least give some thought to.

    15. JR

      I'm giving thought to all of it.

    16. RE

      Well, AIs, we are now collecting content from AIs because content from AIs is also ephemeral. So, I keep using this word ephemeral, I'm not sure people know what it is, but ephemeral means fleeting content that just is there, it's on the screen, it affects you, like search results, search suggestions, news feeds, and then it, you click on something, it disappears, and it's gone forever. There's no record of it. It's ephemeral. That's why in 2018, there, there were some emails that leaked from Google, had Google employees discussing, how can we use ephemeral experiences ... their term, how can we use ephemeral experiences to change people's views about Trump's travel ban?

    17. JR

      Wow.

    18. RE

      Now-

    19. JR

      That, that was an internal discussion-

    20. RE

      Correct.

    21. JR

      ... with a search engine company-

    22. RE

      Correct.

    23. JR

      ... that also makes an operating system for phones?

    24. RE

      Of course, yes.

    25. JR

      That is, that's such a wild thing.

    26. RE

      I'm trying, I'm just trying to tell you, this is why I am so frustrated, and r-, and, and upset, and, uh, uh, and worn out, and fed up, okay? Now, let's get to the one that I find most exciting right now. Most exciting at this particular moment-

    27. JR

      Okay.

    28. RE

      ... 'cause there's new stuff that keeps happening. This is just brand new. We realized just recently, a few days ago, and I thought, "My God, I've gotta tell this to Rogan." We realized that we can use our monitoring system for active threat assessment. You must know that phrase.

    29. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    30. RE

      It's used in-

  12. 1:12:59 – 1:59:25

    Neural Transduction Theory (NTT): consciousness as a transduced connection to another domain

    1. RE

      Well, I, um, I have, I've concluded that, in fact ... Let me, let me give you some background here.

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. RE

      Okay. Everyone knows that, uh, evolution has created millions, possibly billions of different species.

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. RE

      So, at least, uh, people who, who kind of give some credence to Darwin, uh, kind of get that. Uh, and I, I recently re-read, um, you know, Darwin's magnum opus just to see what he actually said, and, you know, he's actually very tentative about the theory of evolution in his book. You know, he keeps saying, "I know this sounds crazy, but ... Uh, but it's a better alternative than saying God did it." You know? And then he just, over and over again, he says, "I know this is crazy, but..." And, uh, so we end up with a theory that's pretty widely accepted that says ev- evolution over time, because of changing environments and because there's variability in genetic code, uh, over and over again, it keeps selecting for organisms that can survive in this new environment. And so every time it does that, it kind of creates divergences among those animals and those animals. And over time, you end up with two separate species that can't even, you know, produce offspring together. And we end up over time with millions, maybe billions of species. All good. But there's something we haven't really given much thought to, and that is evolution has also created millions, if not billions, of transducers. So this is the beginning of what I call NTT or neural transduction theory. We are encased in transducers. Now, p- in case people don't know what a transducer is, uh, there's one right in front of my mouth right now. It's a one-way transducer. It's taking a signal over here, which is just vibrating air, but the vibration has a pattern to it, and it's converting that signal into an electrical signal, which is coming out this wire. And that electrical signal has roughly the same pattern. I say roughly because it depends how good your microphone is. But that's what transducers do. They take signals from one medium, send them to another medium. Our bodies, in fact, the bodies of most organisms, are encased in transducers. Head to toe, transducers. Okay, we all know the eye is a transducer. It's taking electromagnetic radiation, it's turning it into, what? Neural signals. Uh, the ear, it's taking vibrating air, it's turning it into neural signals. The nose, it's taking airborne chemicals, turning that into neural signals. The tongue is taking liquid-borne chemicals, turning that into ... And then the piece de resistance is, uh, the skin. The skin is an amazing transducer, which does at least three different kinds of things. It can transduce temperature, turn that into neural signals, pressure, and texture. Head to toe, encased in transducers. So we've been looking into transducers in the, in the animal kingdom. We've been looking at that for a couple years now, and it's, it's amazing, the, the kinds of things, the kinds of transducers nature has created. So nature is a super-duper amazing expert on creating transducers. Uh, my cat, okay, we, we, we, we recently have been in- investigating this because it turns out my cat's whiskers, we don't have anything like that in us, but cat's whiskers, they actually can detect direction. The direction the wind is blowing, the direction a, uh, you know, a po- a potential predator or insect is coming 'cause they, when they tilt, that actually gives the cat different information if they tilt one way versus the other way. There are transducers in some animals that can dete- detect magnetic fields. Um-

    6. NA

      Like how birds migrate.

    7. RE

      Exactly. Uh, so there's so many different kinds of transducers. Now, what if, at some point, evolution ... in fact, I don't see how this could not happen. What if, at some point, evolution, possibly using a chemical which I know you have some interest in, called DMT, and possibly using a gland called the pineal gland, maybe, what if, at some point, a baby was born somewhere in Central Africa, maybe 20,000 years ago? We're still trying to pin that down. But what if a baby was born with a special coord- kind of transducer that, that connected up all the experience it's having with another, another domain, another universe? Now, at first, that might strike you as a little batty. But it turns out it's not batty at all because there's not a physicist in the world, an astrophysicist who doesn't believe in some variation on the multiverse idea. In other words, any physicist will tell you that the kind of space that we experience is not the nature of the universe. It is, it is such a pathetically limited view of the way the um- universe is constructed. I- it's just outrageous. It's so pathetic. We're, we're just picking up so little information. But again, think about that flexibility that evolution has over a period of billions of years. You only need one baby that's born with this capability and, of course, that's also able to survive and pass on this capability through its genes, but you only need one. Because once you have one, you're probably gonna have a lot more because this is going to be ... Talk about survival value, this is going to have unbelievable survival value if there's a connection to some intelligence in another domain-... call it, like the Greeks did, the other side.

    8. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RE

      Call it the other side. Now, all of a sudden, we become much smarter. In fact, the, the brain doesn't change. The anatomy, brain anatomy doesn't change, so we don't see any change in the structure of a, of, of the, uh, you know, the, the remains we find of bones and so on. We don't find changes there, but we get a lot smarter all of a sudden. We, our language suddenly becomes much more complex. Uh, we become suddenly capable of living in larger and larger groups. We become moral. There are no moral animals, except us, and we weren't always moral. There seems to be a change that occurred to us, not anatomically, but a change that occurred to humans at some point in the past, where be- we came much more capable. Now, all you need is a transducer that connects up our domain with another one, in which we are now connected to a higher intelligence. And you've got a new way of understanding how the brain works, of course, because we have no way of understanding how the brain works now, but now we have a way. And you have a new way of understanding how the universe is structured as well. Now, we think that, 'cause I'm in touch with some physicists, some neuroscientists who are very intrigued by this, and we're hoping next summer to have a, a conference on this. Um, and we're even hoping to have some guy named, oh, Joe Rogan, maybe, stop by 'cause of your interest in DMT. Because DMT probably plays a role in this process. But this would change everything, because we could, over time, learn to simulate this connection. If we can simulate the connection, then we can control the connection. We might be able to communicate more directly with these entities. By the way, this, this theory, which I call NTT or neuro- neural transduction theory... In f- in fact, if people go to neuraltransductiontheory.com, they can read all about it, a piece I published in Discovery Magazine. The point is that this kind of theory would really help us a lot (laughs) because of the mysteries. It's the mysteries that we try to ignore, but we can't. The dreams. The dreams, come on. Wh- why does a dream sometimes have nothing to do with your daily life? Sometimes, it's just so amazing and so wild and, and, and then you get up 'cause you have to pee, and you're struggling 'cause you wanna continue this dream. You wanna hold onto this dream, this dream is amazing, but by the time you reach the toilet, it's gone, and you can't get it back. Why? Because it was streaming, that's why. It was streaming, and the stream stopped. That's why you can't get it back, 'cause you weren't generating it. It was being generated through this point in time. You know, (clears throat) you know the famous s- s- ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? And there's, I think it's Adam, and I think there's a God, and there's two fingers like that?

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RE

      And they're... You know that there's some communication happening there that's extremely important? That's what I'm talking about. I'm saying, let's find out where that is happening, where that connection is and how it works, and let's test our ideas empirically, because I think this is a testable theory. And let's, most important of all, let's figure out how to simulate this. Because now we can talk directly to these other int- these, these other intelligences and really find out things that we just know nothing about.

    12. JR

      I, I'm very, very fascinated by dreams. Uh, and, uh, I, I think it's always... It's, it's very interesting how we kind of dismiss them as just being hallucinations, or as just, "Oh, it was just a dream. You just had a dream." But some of them are so realistic and so bizarre, I, I've always wondered, like, why do they seem so much like reality? And how do I know what the difference is? Like, maybe reality, like as in waking life, is a more persistent dream. So, when you're saying that it's streaming and that's why you can't get it back, what do you think it is? What do you think a dream is?

    13. RE

      Uh-

    14. JR

      Have you... And have you ever talked to, like, lucid dreamers, or people-

    15. RE

      Sure.

    16. JR

      ... that use techniques to try to master the traveling back and forth into the realms of dreams?

    17. RE

      Oh, absolutely. I'm talking to all kinds of interesting people these days.

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RE

      Some near-death experiences, uh, f- fits beautifully. I, I actually had my staff make a list of these mysterious phenomena.

    20. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RE

      They came up with a list within a few hours of 58 items. There are so many weird things that we experience. Dreams probably top of the list.

    22. JR

      What do you think they are?

    23. RE

      I think they're all... Uh, they, they all have to do with this transduction. I think they're all indicators of transduction. It- i- it's, uh... I'm not the first person, by the way, who's kind of thought of an idea like this, but I think I am the first person who's pointed out that now we actually have laboratories around the world, neuroscience labs, where we could test this. And I think that's, that's what we're gonna do. We're... So, I'm getting this group together, and we're gonna figure out ways of testing this. And because we have so many wonderful neuroscience labs now around the world, I don't think it's gonna take 50 years. I think it's gonna take a few years. I think we're going to find support for this theory, and then engineers are gonna start working on how to simulate it. But to answer your question, I think that the, the-... the, the other intelligences or intelligence that we're communicating with, and that, and that elevated us, just like in the movie 2001, right? We got elevated. There were these black monoliths that appeared-

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RE

      ... and people went up to them and, you know, the chimp-like creatures touched them and I think that we, we were elevated through neural transduction. And I think that's... I think we're going to be able to figure out how it works, where it works, what chemicals are involved. I'm 99% sure that DMT plays a v- very important role in this process and then, I think, I think we will be able to figure out what these mysteries are really all about and they're... and it, it almost amazes me that we can live with so many mysteries, like dreams, uh, I don't know, demonic possession, uh, uh, uh-

    26. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    27. RE

      ... there's so many crazy things that we experience. Uh, near death experiences are fascinating, of course.

    28. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    29. RE

      And then there's these other crazy things that happen, these, this, the, the, it's the wake up kind of thing that happens when people are dying sometimes, people who've been out of touch, sometimes for years, and all of a sudden they wake up. Sec- the second hurrah, they wake up and they now recognize everyone and they talk and they're fine and then 30 minutes later, they die. How, how, how could that possibly be? And some of them have severe brain damage. How, all of a sudden, could they become fully conscious again? Well, I think it's because consciousness is not really... we're not really producing the consciousness. Consciousness has to do with that connection. That connection, right? Hand of God? That connection, I think we can figure out where it is and what it is and how it works.

    30. JR

      So do you think it's an emerging property of human beings? Like, uh, uh, uh, you have to think, single-celled organisms did not have the ability to see things.

Episode duration: 2:38:55

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