EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,320 words- 0:00 – 2:27
Viral classroom conversations and the firing fallout
- WSWarren Smith
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)
- JRJoe Rogan
How's it going, man? How are you?
- WSWarren Smith
Hey.
- JRJoe Rogan
Pleasure to meet you.
- WSWarren Smith
Thank you for having me.
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure. I, uh, I wound up seeing you, as many people did, on those, uh, videos that you're making where you were talking to students. You know, just kind of like exploring critical thinking and asking students questions and why they're upset about certain things and getting to the bo-... And I'm like, "Wow, this guy is like..." He's young, he's obviously, uh, an academic but super reasonable, and like really level-headed. I'm like, "We need more of this. This is really interesting." And then, (laughs) and then I found out you got fired for doing that. (laughs) And I was like, if this isn't an encapsulation of all that is wrong with, uh, our current higher education system, then I don't know what is.
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm. Well, to be fair, I didn't get fired for that, technically. I think I got, I got fired for posting another one similar to it. But I think they were looking kind of... That whole thing was so bizarre for everyone. It was so big. I think there was... At the school where I teach, there's kind of one... There's echo, sorry. I gotta get used to this. One, like, person in control of everything that makes these decisions, and it was so nuts. I think they genuinely were like, "We don't know what to do 'cause if we fire him, it'll... Our name might get out there," which is their primary, you know, concern, I think, and...
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you not want their name to get out there?
- WSWarren Smith
I just... No, it doesn't feel right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- WSWarren Smith
I, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not important.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, it's not.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, what's important is that what, what it is, is that this is a resistance to thinking. I mean, it's really what it is.
- WSWarren Smith
It's out there, for sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a resistance to questioning why people have, like, certain, like, deeply ingrained thought processes that are a part of an ideology.
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I think what you were doing was really pretty brilliant. It was awesome. And I, I love the way you were handling it. It was like, you know, very calm and rational, and just having discussions with students, and you kinda see, like, a lot of their flailing and trying to rationalize why they have these sort of incoherent beliefs.
- 2:27 – 6:23
Teaching multimedia to high-needs students—and how the Harry Potter/J.K. Rowling clip happened
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, and I don't teach critical thinking. I was... When I was a teacher, I was teaching multimedia, like what we're doing now. Working with cameras, did a lot of podcasting. I had this lab that I developed over four years with a bunch of Mac computers with Adobe Premier Pro, Photoshop, a 3D printer. So it was using technology to make art at a special education school with kids that had behavioral challenges and some... A variety. Anything you could come up with, we had it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... there. It was like the last line of defense kind of for public schools that couldn't handle these kids. They would send them there. And so I would just use this tech to work with them in a therapeutic way, kind of. That was my goal, the way that would most benefit them. And so one day they asked me to do a... "Hey, can you do a newscast for the school? Like, this week at the school, you know, there was this field trip, the soccer team did this, blah, blah, blah." "Sure." "And we want this kid to be on camera and, like, to do... He's really good at that." And he was getting really nervous on the day. And so I was like, "Let's just sit down. You've seen, like, Joe Rogan and stuff. Let's do, like a... Just treat it like a five-minute warmup podcast. Here, I'll sit down and be (laughs) on camera. You ask me whatever you want." "Well, you know, w-... How have your thoughts on Harry Potter changed given J.K. Rowling's bigoted opinions?" And so that's where the video came from.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
So I don't... I just wanna be clear. I don't teach... I wasn't like, "We're gonna sit down and learn..." In the moment, we do have conversations like that because when you are doing something like this with students, like, "Well, what are you gonna talk about?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WSWarren Smith
Kill two birds with one stone to be as effective as you can. And so a lot of students have questions. Like I've had students ask me, "What's the difference between fascism, socialism? What's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?" They don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
And they're genuinely curious, and sometimes you can get another... I had one teacher that... The music teacher I worked closely with, and he was like my best friend there. And he would be in the room often, and we would have little debates. And he was from Romania. Yeah. Uh, Ro-... Not R-... Um, I think Romania. I'm, I'm blanking. But... And so he had a very different political perspective. And when you're in those debates, the kids were, like, locked in, and you can tell. 'Cause normally they're just making noise and then they're just quiet in their seats. They turn around and they're, like, watching it. It's... There was an effect.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think most kids are aware that you're being forced to think a certain way, or at least to talk about things a certain way. And they're n-... M- most people are... They don't like being told what to do. P- people don't enjoy that. And when they feel like there's, like, a, a lot of social pressure to adhere to a very specific ideology, I think people don't like it. And so when you see debates where people have differing opinions and they have, you know, these sort of logical, objective ways of describing why they think about things a certain way, uh, it gets people like, "Okay, was there another way to think?" Like, is there... Like, "How's this guy doing this?" Like, what is... "What d- what does this mean?" Like, "Why do we have to say... Well, why... What is wrong with what J.K. Rowling said?" And it's exciting to people. And the videos were exciting, and they, there was a tremendous amount of, uh, response to them. I, I know you're aware of that. I mean, there's so many comments and so many people were, uh, interested in them. They got very popular.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then, um, when I heard you were fired, I was like, "Of course."
- WSWarren Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It was too good (laughs) 'cause it was get-... It gave me hope. I was like, more people should be doing this at schools, and, you know, it would help a lot 'cause a lot of this, this really sort of, uh, polarized positions that people are taking, one side or the other, that they just wanna win and they dig their heels in, and they don't exactly even know why they have this p- particular opinion that they're defending. They just know that they're supposed to. And so they just kind of bite down and, and dig in, and, you know, and you, and you get these...... shouty, sort of polarizing arguments.
- 6:23 – 11:23
Stories as lenses: defining critical thinking through narrative and filmmaking
- WSWarren Smith
I've been playing with the idea of, like, how we see the world through stories. I think that has a lot to do with it, is people kind of labeled me as the critical thinking guy all of a sudden, so I really started to think about it, like what is critical thinking? And the best I can articulate, it's, it's thinking for yourself to contend with the stories that make up the world. 'Cause a lot of the stories are nonsense, some are true, and there's usually-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... a middle ground, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
And my background's in filmmaking. (clears throat) I kind of fell into teaching, and I spent time in LA and made some movies and I teach at Emerson a filmmaking course still, where I went to grad school and got my master's in f- film is probably the wrong term now, 'cause it's all digital, it's like visual media art. But I think you can study movies today like scholars are now studying, you know, the great thinkers. I think movies will be the artifacts-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... that people look back on for our time, you know? Be in museums and things like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
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- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So ... No, I, uh, we talk about it all the time, that it's, uh, a great sort of, uh, p- postmark for culture. Like, if you go back and watch movies from the '50s and then the '60s and the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the 2000s, and, and, and today, you can see how different the narratives are, how different the way the films are made, the way people communicate, the subjects that are covered, the quality of the acting and filmmaking, the quial- quality of the cinematography. And y- it's- it really just shows. Like, if you really think about it, you know, (clicks tongue) um, human civilization and human history, like, uh, modern society has- is so recent. You know, the Industrial Revolution and, uh, g- giant cities and cars and transportation and all this other- it's so recent. It's a couple hundred years, maximum. You know, you go from trains and horses to cars and cities, and then you have Morse code to all the sudden now you have digital communication that's instantaneous worldwide. I mean, it's- it's a rapid change in humanity, and a lot of it is ... It's the- the artifact, as you said, is really our media. Like, what have we created? You know, we were, we were talking the other day about, um, the limitations of mainstream television and how mainstream television, you know, they're trying to kind of, like, adapt more towards what is going on on the internet, but they're so hampered by their format. Their form- the censorship, the format, and the fact that they're sponsored by a bunch of different enormous corporations that they can't really critically talk about.
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So there- there's a bunch of things that they could never actually say. So there's news that they can't cover. There's, like, significant health problems that have probably been a direct result of medication that they literally can't cover-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because they're being sponsored by these companies. So, like, they're so hampered. And if you go back and watch the early broadcasts from 1945-
- WSWarren Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... people had, like, this way of communicating.
- WSWarren Smith
Talking. It's changed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sh- Right. It's not the way ... Like, if you were having dinner with someone and they were saying, "Tell me, Warren, where did you grow up?"
- WSWarren Smith
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You'd be like, "Oh, this is not a real person. This is bizarre."
- 11:23 – 13:59
Subtext, intent, and why word-policing misses the point
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. The transformation in acting-
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
... is remarkable.
- JRJoe Rogan
Remarkable. Right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or you go M- Marlon Brando's like ... Marlon Brando was probably, like, the first example of someone-
- WSWarren Smith
Method.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Who's like- sounds like a real person.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, this is what I really expect a person to behaving like-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... on the in- on the waterfront-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like under duress. Like, this is- is a real human being.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. It became internalized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
And now we're in this phase now where I think the best actors are doing both, the external ... Like Heath Ledger is my favorite actor of all time and had a huge impact on me. That's why I went into filmmaking.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
And he ... Think about his externality in The Joker and all his-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... roles. He had this ... I think the key to acting is about what is not said, what's unspoken, and it ties into everything about critical thinking. It's ... The best metaphor I ever got from a, a directing professor, he drew on the board the ocean with a squiggly line.... and they drew little boats on the surface and said, "These are words." This is everything you need to know about directing actors. Everything beneath the surface is subtext, what's really important.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WSWarren Smith
So, if you're an actor and I hand you a screenplay, well anybody with given enough time can memorize those words. What's me- what really sets an actor apart is everything else: what's not said, what they do with the words, the intention behind the words. The words are just floating on the surface. They're just the tools that we're trying to use to communicate the elusive intangible, the subtext, everything that's... And the best we can do, our bumbling selves, are formulate with these tools. So to treat words as the end all bin- be- the end all, be all is so silly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WSWarren Smith
You know? Like, people say the- the wrong thing now and you get p- it's politically incorrect. The Papa John's CEO.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WSWarren Smith
Right. With no con- context has gone- y- but it's a larger issue. But it's fa- (sighs) it's just fascinating how that correlates beyond just film to (sighs) 'cause just, like, it's true that most comm- most communication is non-verbal. So the more time you spend studying it, working with actors, studying movies, you start getting really tuned in to body language.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
It has great utility, so it's pretty interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. No, it's very interesting. And so when- when you were doing these videos, when you initially did it, uh, did you have any idea of the impact that it was gonna have? The ... I mean, did you- did you think, like, "Oh, this is actually, like, really unique and interesting, and I think people are gonna really enjoy this"? Or did- were you, like, really shocked?
- 13:59 – 20:16
2016 campus activism and the ‘experts were wrong’ awakening
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, I was shocked. Yeah. Yeah. (clears throat) I had been playing with YouTube as a medium since discovering Jordan Peterson in 2017. 'Cause I remembered ... maybe it was even earlier than that. 'Cause I arrived at graduate school in 2016, Boston, Emerson, and all hell breaks loose. Trump gets elected, and there seemed to be a huge pushback, and I had never thought about these things before. And then being a grad student and seeing what I witnessed at school, like protests claiming Emerson was racist, (laughs) which, it's like, this is one of the f- most far left schools I've ever seen.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. (laughs) It's super far left.
- WSWarren Smith
Can you provide any evidence-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WSWarren Smith
... of that? (laughs) It was just nuts. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did it come outta nowhere? Was it, like, right after the election? Like did you-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What- what year did you, uh, uh, first attend? What was-
- WSWarren Smith
2016.
- JRJoe Rogan
2016? So was this, uh, what time? So this is like September of 2016? August of 2016?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, at the beginning of the academic year. October.
- JRJoe Rogan
So this is like when the elections are kind of heating up and people didn't think that Trump was gonna win yet?
- WSWarren Smith
I remem- 'cause I vividly remember the day of the election 'cause I was renting a house with three roommates and I was watching the election. I remember just being like, "Guys, I think Trump might win this." And they were like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
... "We're not ... It's not even worth watching." You know? And they were walking around. Time goes by and I'm like, "Guys, like..." And then they started to, they're like, "What?" So no one saw that coming. And I, my big takeaway was, how could so many experts get something so wrong? And that caused me to question my presuppositions, basically my view of the world, and then that opens your mind to someone like Jordan Peterson and all these other great thinkers, intellectual dark web, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
But that in s- ... Suddenly it's so difficult to articulate what that does to someone like me, an average viewer, like a genuine lover of this space.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
So it's surreal to be here (laughs) because like-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
... it suddenly causes you to f- s- if- you feel like everyone's moving in slow motion all of a sudden. You feel like you're waking up and it doesn't ... it's ... I- I don't wanna talk about The Matrix 'cause it's so ... it- it's such a strange ... it's gotten all this momentum in a different ... but that's what it felt like. It felt like you were suddenly, like, "How? What? This is so much more interesting and complicated than I thought." And there's no going back.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I think we like to adhere to certain narratives about the world. And we, we wanna think ... the big thing is we wanna think that there's a central ... there's some sort of competent control, some sort of competent leadership that exists, and that the structure of government and the structure of media is established, rock solid and logical. And that these are the smartest people in the world. That's how they've risen to this position, and now they, they are there to provide this ... You know, like, if you have, uh, a- a knee injury, you wanna go to an orthopedic surgeon 'cause he is an expert in knee injuries and he's gonna tell you what's wrong with your knee and h- what can be done. And, you know, that's a real expert. And we thought, we think of politicians and we think of the media as being real experts. Well, it turns out no. (laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It turns out not even a little bit.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're terrible at it.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're n- they're not just not good at it. They're really bad at it. They're really bad at it and they lie a lot.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, they're not much smarter than you or I.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- 20:16 – 31:02
Microaggressions, confirmation bias, and the ‘I can’t even’ debate-stopper
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to go back to those days and think about it, but it was... At, at Emerson, it was... I remember, um, I was taking a class with the dean of the student body, and it was a pedagogy class, the philosophy of teaching, and it was right in the midst of these protests. And it was the day of the protest and so... And there was, like, s- ten people in the class. It's a for our class, so they're like, "We're gonna devote the four hours to talk about the problematic racism occurring at Emerson." So we're all sitting around and... But the white students were not allowed to speak. We had to concede our space-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
... for four hours in a classroom. Like, "What the fuck is going on here?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Why was that? What was, what was the reason given for that?
- WSWarren Smith
Because it was the moral right thing to do according... Because we, um... They tur-... That... They said to me, I remember he said, um... I said, "What can I..." I did say... I was like, "What can I do about this?" I genuinely... I gen- I genuinely believed everything. I was kind of... I ha- I was just starting to question things. I said, "What can I..." I feel terrible speaking to the student who had just spoken. Like, "You genuinely feel, every day you wake up and come to class, you feel oppressed? That sucks. What can I do?" They didn't have a response 'cause... (laughs) And then she said, "You can just listen. Just take your time to concede your space and listen."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
So that, that was the reason given.
- JRJoe Rogan
Concede your space. And then why did they feel so threatened? Did they articulate that?
- WSWarren Smith
They... There was a Facebook group that was designed to provide that evidence called Emerson hashi- #EmersonSoRacist or something, and it was like-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
... a student, um, like a teacher said, "No, you can't. You gotta turn in the work or you're gonna fail the class." And my first, uh, teaching gig occurred shortly after that in the... I remember this vividly. The teacher, um... I was gonna be teaching the screenwriting course with undergraduates for the first time. And she's... Before the protest, she said, "Don't let them walk all over you. They will try and take advantage. Like, if they don't do their work, just be fair, honest, give them the grade they deserve." After the protest, "Yeah, Warren, you remember when I was saying that?" 'Cause she got called out on the Facebook page for some stupid, I don't remember what it was, quote. "Yeah, Warren, you remember what I was saying about that, um, t-... Don't... I was wrong. Don't forget to be compassionate because that student is Black and it... And she reminded me of how difficult it is to be Black at Emerson, and so I couldn't fail her."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
"I couldn't give her the grade that, you know..." So...
- JRJoe Rogan
That objectively she deserved.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
I remember that vividly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, why was it s- why was it articulated that it was so difficult for her, uniquely difficult as a Black student?
- WSWarren Smith
I'm trying to remember.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
I don't know, honestly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Abracadabra. (laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. It's just like micro-aggre-... That's the thing about-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
... about these claims though is there is no concrete evidence. It's things like microaggression. Someone made a reference about fried chicken that was... I've heard that one. That happened to my mom who's a professor, runs a study abroad program. She said, "We're really exc- this place is, um..." They have really g- they were in Italy doing a study abroad program. She's like, "Th- I know you guys have been missing American food and this place has fried chicken." Right? "So, and it's really good here." And two of the students she was talking to at that table were Black and they claimed that that was racist. She was like, "What?"
- JRJoe Rogan
The fried chicken one is so crazy. Fried chicken and watermelon, those are the two things that are associated with racism for as far as foods. Whe- which are universally loved. Like, fried chicken is delicious. Watermelon is delicious. Like, how could that possibly be a negative that certain people like delicious food? Like, h- I... To this day, it's one of those things. It's, it's so bizarre. You could bring up all kinds of different delicious foods, but if you bring up fried chicken...... which everybody eats. Everybody who eats meat and, and loves delicious food, loves a good fried chicken. Have you tried Gus' in town?
- WSWarren Smith
Is that the, is that the, where you get the slabs of meat?
- JRJoe Rogan
No. No, that's-
- WSWarren Smith
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Terry Black's. But Gus' Fried Chicken is in Austin.
- 31:02 – 38:44
Tribal politics, truth-detection, and modeling honesty as a teacher
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I believe that too, if it's done logically and you can have reasonable discussions. But even in the opposition to that, right? You have people on the right who adhere to a right-wing, cult-like thinking, right? And, you know, they'll push back against it in, in a way that's also not logical. And so, they-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... dig their heels in on their ideology. You know?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the left digs their heels in. And, you know, you s- you have things like, people say, "People on the left don't get it. People on the left this." Like, no, there's a, there's a giant spectrum-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of people on the left and a giant spectrum of people on the right. I don't like any of those labels.
- WSWarren Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't-
- WSWarren Smith
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I really don't like it 'cause of me. Like, I don't fit in there.
- WSWarren Smith
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
Exactly. I've been... (sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
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- NANarrator
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- WSWarren Smith
If people wanna box you in on that, and this goes, goes back to seeing stories, which story do you fit into? Like, my mom has this story of what a Democrat is. She can never think of, like, a story of what a Republican is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
And she'll never deviate from that.
- JRJoe Rogan
My parents are the same.
- WSWarren Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly the same.
- WSWarren Smith
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're-
- WSWarren Smith
... I would rather be homeless, be-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're blue no matter who.
- WSWarren Smith
... rather than be-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're just-
- WSWarren Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... locked in. Yeah.
- 38:44 – 44:33
Crime statistics and Roland Fryer: what metrics can (and can’t) prove
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with Roland Fryer of Harvard?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- WSWarren Smith
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- WSWarren Smith
Have you, have you, have you had him on?
- JRJoe Rogan
I have not, but I would.
- WSWarren Smith
He's, he's ... Re- it's really interesting. He's changed the way-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
... I view statistics. And ... But in, like, a three-minute synopsis of it that goes to st- crime statistics, he ... I can't think mathematically, and I think this applies to logic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
I think visually, so if I have a metaphor, I can suddenly understand a mathematical concept.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
Just don't have that mind. So he broke it down, like, all right, after all that research that caused him to go into hiding, he's like, "If you look at it through an economics perspective, let's say my job is to-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Explain w- w- let's get to the l- explain why he went into, like, he went into hiding.
- WSWarren Smith
He conducted a study, a deep dive into police statistics to see racial bias in policing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WSWarren Smith
The findings did not match the story that people wanted to be true at Harvard, which caused him to literally go under police protection. And I think, like, a one-year-old he had at the time, for days. Now, I don't know the, the deep dive beyond that, but that's the ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WSWarren Smith
Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
And we should say he's a b- black gentleman.
- WSWarren Smith
Right. Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, so he says that colleagues told him, "Don't publish this. Warning, you'll ruin your career."
- WSWarren Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
For r- releasing findings that contradict popular, left-wing narratives on policing.
- WSWarren Smith
And he said, "I'm gonna do it anyways."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
And then he came to University of Austin and taught a class. It's on YouTube. And watching that class, to summarize it in a minute, look at it through economics. If my job is to approve or disapprove loans, I've been able to get that down the best I can. I want to keep the default rate as low as possible, and I've achieved, like, a 0.5 default rate. Out of anyone who comes in my office, 0.5, after I've done my job, defaults. All right? That's pretty good. Someone could come along later and analyze all that and say, "Wait a minute. You're, you're turning down 60% black people, though, versus white people." His point is you can't look at it through, through that lens. You have to look at it through what is the goal that's trying ... What i- what is the result we're trying to achieve? So in policing, it's to ... He c- he, his study showed that 40% of stops approximately, I think, if, if we use that as the example, 40% of stops recover contraband, which is pretty crazy, pretty good. Across demographics, which means it's being done correctly. And people, this changes how you view so much. It's k- it's kind of difficult to, to understand at first glance. I'm trying to ... Tell me if this makes sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- WSWarren Smith
So it's fo- ... It's 40% across, whatever color the driver is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 44:33 – 56:38
Root causes: poverty, family breakdown, and real escape routes (sports/art)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I've seen that argument that, like, not everybody starts at the same spot, so you have to raise up people who've started at a different spot.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is, to me, a Band-Aid on the real problem. The real problem is that we have crime-infested areas that we've done nothing to fix. That's the real problem. The real problem is, we have parts of our society that have been, you know, because of Jim Crow laws and red line laws, there's a, uh, uh, a long history of them being riddled with crime and gangs.
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, it could be fixed. There's been no effort. There's been n- no real national effort to, uh, take impoverished, gang-ridden, crime-ridden neighborhoods and rehabilitate them. The more you do that... If you did that, you would have less losers. If you have less losers, you have a better country. And that's including, like, the Appalachias, like, areas of West Virginia that are filled with people that are addicted to pills and committing crime because they're drug addicts, that are all poor, white people, coal mining people and those, those folks. It's everybody. It's, it's just crime and poverty. And crime and poverty causes people... You, you imitate your environment. You imitate your atmosphere. If you grow up in a crime-ridden, gang-ridden neighborhood, the chances of you getting involved in gang activities and crime are much higher than if you don't grow up in an environment like that.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, I'm from North Carolina.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
Ashe-... Like, near Asheville.
- JRJoe Rogan
Asheville.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's rough out there. Which people don't, don't believe. You look at Asheville-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're like, "Mountains? Beautiful."
- WSWarren Smith
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's like very high per capita crime rate.
- WSWarren Smith
It is the meth capital-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... (clears throat) right near where I live. And so I've... I agree with you, the thing is, if we look at it... I agree, if we look at it through a socioeconomic lens. So I had a profes-... One of my professors from Emerson, he's like, "I solved racism." There... This was in one of the videos.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- WSWarren Smith
I was like, "Sure, come over. Let's record."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
"Hit me with it." So the solution is we're gonna, um, have a tax for... So if your an-... If you can trace your ancestry, then you're gonna... You don't have to pay taxes or some form of tax. It's like, okay, but what about the white person in Appalachia w- who was in an equally bad socioeconomic position, but they don't get the, the tax or whatnot? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
The award w-... Your solution?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
Well, their ancestors weren't oppressed, so I would be all for it if it was looking through a consistent, applied across all demographics equally, s- socioeconomically.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, you're never gonna stop racism. You- you're never gonna stop ignorant thinking. I mean, unless there's some sort of, uh, a groundbreaking human neural interface that completely changes our cognitive function and, and d- dissolves all boundaries. The, you're not going to stop people from... There's, there's people that don't like people from other cities because they play sports against them, you know? They... Like, "I hate people from Philly." There's, there's always going to be e- people that discriminate against other people because there's always gonna be ignorant people. So it's gonna be... And it's easier to do that. It's easier to decide, "This person's my enemy. These, these are... These people are on my side." It's easy to be tribal. It's like, it's much simpler.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It d-... You don't have to think as much.
- WSWarren Smith
I mean, like, Ana Kasparian got sexually assaulted by a homeless person, so when she's walking down the street, she's probably going to b- recoil a bit, maybe, and if she sees someone home-... You know? It's g-... There's a human psychological element. She's gonna try, probably (laughs) , not to do the... But it's just human nature. If you have a bad experience, then it's gonna... It goes back to how we see the world. But you're right, yeah, that we'll never be able to solve racism.
- 56:38 – 1:01:45
Modern creative careers vs institutional cynicism: YouTube, monetization, and platform control
- WSWarren Smith
I had a student, I mean, I've had multiple students 'cause the number one, like, profession kids wanna do now is be an influencer, YouTuber-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
... blah, blah, blah, so I get the apprehension when a kid's like, "I really wanna do YouTube, make a YouTube channel. Like, I wanna do like what Joe Rogan's doing," whatever. It's the, but the school was kind of like, "You can't make money on YouTube."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
It's like ... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WSWarren Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so dumb. That's like y- you should be fired for being incompetent. Not just incompetent, but you're counter to what's true. Like, you're saying things that are objectively untrue. "You can't make money on YouTube." That is the cr- You could pull up statistics instantaneously.
- WSWarren Smith
It's hard, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
... you're never gonna ... I got lucky, man, just because I was willing to put myself out there and make a fool of myself 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
But that's not why you got lucky. You got lucky 'cause you put out good content.
- WSWarren Smith
(sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's a merit-based thing. It really is. Like, what the, and it doesn't necessarily have to be good, right? There's content that's just, it's, you know, inflammatory, and that people, people gravitate to that because they like controversy. People like just people squabbling and yelling at each other, like, shitty content. Or someone who's saying, like, awful things, so people go, "Can you believe this person's saying these awful things?" And they get a lot of attention for saying awful things.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so, you know, and then YouTube has ways to sort of manage that, which are, you know, a little Orwellian, right? Like, they demonetize people for talking about specific things and-
- WSWarren Smith
That scares me.
- JRJoe Rogan
It should scare you-
- WSWarren Smith
'Cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
... 'cause a lotta times, they're demonetizing things that are absolutely accurate, and that's where it gets really weird. Like, this is what we faced during the COVID crisis. Like, if you said that you think this disease came from a lab leak, you would get demonetized on YouTube. Well, that's proven to be true now. So like, what happens? Does, does YouTube owe you money from all those videos that you put out that they should've monetized? Like, what-
- WSWarren Smith
(sighs) I keep thinking about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you're saying ... It, well, it's crazy. Like, you're saying accurate things, but these accurate things were being suppressed by our own federal government, which is really weird. We're in cahoots with these corporations that were making these medications, and so it got real fucking weird, like, real weird. And, um, the, unfortunately, a lot of those laws still stand. We had an instance where there was a video that we put out during the pandemic, um, when we were only on Spotify. So, when we were only on Spotify, all of our videos, all of our episodes got released only on Spotify.
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But we banked them all to eventually, you know, just, like, we'd have them if we ever wanted to put them on, up on YouTube. Well then, 2024, uh, I sign this new deal, and in the new deal, what I wanna do is put it everywhere. I was like, "We'll beat Spotify, but let's put it on ..." And Spotify wanted to do this as well. It was actually, they, they were very supportive of this. Put it everywhere. W- put it on YouTube, put it on Apple, put it on ... But it's a Spotify exclusive-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and we work out this deal that way. And just, I would, like, well, so when we take these videos that were available on Spotify to, in order to put them on YouTube, even though they're factually correct, they have a strike against them because it's still adhering to their old laws that were applicable at the time that we made the video.
- WSWarren Smith
So, what did they, did they make adjustments?
- JRJoe Rogan
What did we wind up doing with that, Jamie?
- NANarrator
I don't know which case, I don't know which case you're talking about specifically.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, where you were saying that, like, there was a video that we were gonna put up, but it had a strike, and you, you were gonna have to do, like, training? Remember that?
- 1:01:45 – 1:09:28
Algorithmic gatekeeping and the Trump podcast ‘suppression’ episode
- JRJoe Rogan
Here's an interesting statistic about YouTube. Um, this shows you. Like, this is probably one of the best examples of bias that you're ever gonna see. During the time where I released the podcast with Trump, it was getting... What was the most it was getting in an hour? Was it 1.2 million? Sure, I think so. Maybe 1.2, 1.3, something like that.
- NANarrator
As much as 1.5 million, I think, at one point in time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
An hour.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's fuck-
- NANarrator
Never trending. I heard about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Never trending.
- NANarrator
Yeah, I saw that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Never trending. What's trending, then? Tell me what trending is. If something gets 50 million views in a couple of days and that's not trending?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What's trending?
- NANarrator
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you call trending? What does that mean, then? Is, are you curating your trending thing? Are you...
- NANarrator
Did Kamala Harris-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why would you do that?
- NANarrator
... on Call Her Daddy trend?
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a good question. It, well, it didn't get any views.
- NANarrator
No, it didn't get many views.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, what did, what did, uh, Kamala Harris on Call Her Daddy get?
- NANarrator
Like, less than a million, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I get a million for some random-
- NANarrator
Shoulda gotten a million.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But that doesn't make any sense. Um...
- NANarrator
Maybe, I'm thinking, might be wrong about that one.
- 1:09:28 – 1:22:08
Los Angeles wildfires: policy failures, arson claims, and ‘climate change’ as narrative shortcut
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That was a c... See, here's the thing this climate change narrative. This is a really goofy thing that people on the left are talking about. "This is because of climate change. This is climate change causes fire." LA has had essentially the same weather pattern since the 1800s-
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... since they started noticing them. There's a great video. Here, I'll send it to you, Jamie. There's a great video of the, uh, Topanga Fires. See, maybe you might be able to find it before I can pull it up. The Topanga Fires from 1961, I believe. There was a huge fire that raged through the Hollywood Hills, pre-climate change.
- NANarrator
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
1961. LA has always been dry as fuck. It's a desert.
- NANarrator
That's why the movie industry was developed there.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that's why the movie industry's there.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because you could film outside-
- NANarrator
It's sunny.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you don't ever have to worry about it raining on you. That's literally why they came there, 'cause it was, it's the perfect climate. It's amazing. I was just there last weekend. The weather's incredible. But the city, because of their ridiculous policies, is just a fucking disaster. A d- dangerous, creepy, weird disaster of a city.
- NANarrator
Is that the 1961 Bel Air fire? Which is probably the same time period.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, could be, could be.
- NANarrator
So it's a windy-ass, windy f- sounds the same. Brush fire, wind.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I mean, that's just what happens, man. So the, the situation that I encountered was, uh, from 2000... I was filming Fear Factor, so it had to be before 2007. So it was really before a lot of this... I mean, you know, you had the Inconvenient Truth-
- NANarrator
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... documentary, but you didn't have the type of, uh, climate change discussions that you're, you have today.
- NANarrator
So you think it was more...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just LA.
- NANarrator
LA? Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just LA. It, it's not a climate change issue. God, I gotta find this video. I know I have it.
- NANarrator
15,000 acres burned. 450 homes burned. Here's the aftermath. Houses, they're digging through it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that is a black and white one. The one that I had was-
- NANarrator
Do you have it in color?
- JRJoe Rogan
... uh, was color footage. Um, I know I have it. If you just give me second, I will find it.
- NANarrator
There's a documentary. It's called Design for Disaster that's popping up. This also says Bel Air.
- JRJoe Rogan
Here, I'm just going through my... Whitney Cummings sent it to me, so I'm going through my videos with her and I'll find it in a second. But the point is, it's like, when I experienced that, this was not when everybody was, uh, chiming in about climate change being the... Here it is. I found it. 1960s, it was in the canyon. Here it is. I'll send it to you, Joe-
- NANarrator
134 square miles of thick, dry chaparral and oak-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
... all within the city boundaries-
Episode duration: 2:49:39
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Transcript of episode m7Hrq8WL1-g
