The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2269 - Bret Weinstein
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,025 words- 0:00 – 0:55
A “different timeline”: fear of crackdown, then sudden regime shift
- NANarrator
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- BWBret Weinstein
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) What's up? Good to see you, my friend.
- BWBret Weinstein
Great to see you, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wild times.
- BWBret Weinstein
A- almost unbelievable.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. The last time you were here, we were really worried about what was gonna happen, and now it seems like we're in a completely different timeline.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah. I, I have to say, in addition to being just overarchingly worried about what was gonna happen to the republic and to, uh, the globe, I was personally worried about what would happen to people like you and me if we lost.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yeah. Probably wouldn't be so good for business. (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
They probably would've cracked down.
- BWBret Weinstein
There's that. But I, I must say, on my darker days, I had, I had concerns even beyond that and, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
And you probably should.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- 0:55 – 3:53
USAID and the “shadow apparatus”: corruption claims and media silence
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, in light of what we now know. You know, it's, um ... This US aid thing that's going on, you know, Mike Pence has been on that like a pit bull, and, uh, I've been following him on X, and he's gonna come back on here and kinda explain everything. But he explained it the last time he was here, and I don't think I really grasped it until Elon's six wizards ... (laughs) They brought in some young wizards to go in there and go over the books, and they are just finding crazy shit. It's cra- ... And it's so interesting. I was listening to, uh, a left-wing podcast today. I like to mix it up, you know, I listen to all kinds of different stuff, and, and it was like I was listening to a different world. Like, they weren't even talking about all of this corruption and all this obvious b- buying of influence. Instead, they were talking about aid overseas and how people are gonna starve, and like-
- BWBret Weinstein
Uh, it's mind-boggling and there's also ... I have to say, I'm just f- I'm upset at the general pattern of a failure to recognize how right those of us who hypothesized that there was a racket that had overtaken our entire governance structure, we turn out to be absolutely right about this, and no one's gonna mention it. That, that's mind-blowing to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very strange that the media is ignoring it, especially the left-wing media. It's just too big of a win for the right, and so they're just ignoring it, and then they're just highlighting the good things that USA did, which I'm sure they probably did, probably had to do some good things to, like, at least justify its existence while it's-
- BWBret Weinstein
To, uh ... As a cover story? I'm not even sure. M- maybe it doesn't change anything. Obviously, this was a mechanism used to funnel money to all sorts of things that we didn't vote on, that don't make sense in light of our Constitutional structure, and, uh, I'm ... You know, I obviously have concerns like everybody else about where this train takes us, but seeing that structure broken up is ... It's a huge relief.
- JRJoe Rogan
They gave $27 million to the George Soros prosecutor fund, so our own government is funding this left-wing lunatic who is hiring the most insane prosecutors, who are letting people out of jail who commit violent crimes.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that's, that's exactly how this racket worked, is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... that the ability to tax the American public and then effectively get us to pay for being propagandized, for being surveilled, that, that's the game. And, um, I don't know what era we currently live in. Obviously, there's a lot that's confusing about what the Trump administration is up to, but I, I don't think any reasonable person could be unhappy that we are exiting that era.
- 3:53 – 6:03
Reading the spending list: absurd line items, border facilitation, and debt
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm gonna read off some of the things that this guy Kenn Cota the Great on Twitter, uh, l- listed, and this is off the Jesse Water Show. Uh, US aid, uh, $20 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, $2 million for Moroccan pottery classes, $11 million to tell Vietnam to stop burning trash, $27 million to give gift bags to illegals. $27 million. Um, $330 million to help Afghanis grow crops. (laughs) Crops.
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(tuts) I wonder what those crops are?
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What's their biggest crop, Brett?
- BWBret Weinstein
Uh, it's gonna be the poppy seeds for bagels, I'm thinking.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's opium! $300 million, oh, $200 million, uh, on an unused Afghani dam, $250 million on an unused Afghani road. This is wild! I mean, some of this stuff is really, really crazy.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, yes, and, you know, USA ID is of course riddled through whatever international madness it is that caused us to open our southern border and facilitate an invasion through the Darien Gap. So, you know, seeing that structure laid bare is ... It, it, it almost feels like it can't be real. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's crazy.
- BWBret Weinstein
... it can't have been this close to the surface, and yet here we are.
- JRJoe Rogan
They were spending ... Is th- is this number correct? I think the number that I read was $600 million every two months to ship in illegals.
- BWBret Weinstein
Uh, sounds right. I don't know the number offhand, but, uh ...
- JRJoe Rogan
What the fuck? (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, you have to, you have to realize that basically we had a shadow apparatus functioning, and it involves all kinds of things. It involves payoffs to people who didn't deserve them, it involves contracting to, uh, entities that were necessary to get the work done. So, I, I don't think we can properly understand what these numbers mean and what they're actually being used for, but it, it was a racket.
- 6:03 – 13:39
EV charger billions and the fact-checking trust crisis
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, we were always wondering, like, why is our debt so high? Why is the national debt so high? Like, why is our deficit so insane?Well, this is it. I mean, the one... How about the one where they paid $236 billion, like, for chargers. Do you know that they were trying to set up chargers?
- BWBret Weinstein
You mean car chargers?
- JRJoe Rogan
Car chargers.
- BWBret Weinstein
And they only built a couple of them?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, excuse me. $40 billion for electric car ports, eight ports have been built.
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you know how crazy that is? $40 billion-
- BWBret Weinstein
I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for car ports.
- BWBret Weinstein
But I have to say, as much as this is shocking, I wasn't surprised. I thought that effectively our entire system had been turned into a racket and that we were basically being fed a cover story from it. And it's weird to now have the evidence of this, but I think it was apparent that whatever had taken over our system wasn't interested in the well-being of average people, that it was interested in the power of the state to take people's resources and redistribute them. And that that really is what's been going on for most of our adult lives.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's also important to note that this progressive, left-leaning, like, radical left arm of the government, of the country, was manufactured.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes. Uh, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's all manufactured. It's, it's all manufactured and supported. It's not organic, which is really fascinating about the other side, because the other side, the reaction to it is organic. Like, the... Say what you want about the, the, you know, the Trump administration and what you think about him. That was an organic shift, where people were like, "E- fucking-nough. Enough."
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes, it was an overdue reaction.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
The cover story that what we were up to was righting past wrongs was so pernicious and pervasive that it was hard to get our footing to challenge it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
But it shouldn't really be surprising that that movement wasn't organic. Of course it was induced. It was a cover story for theft. And we're going to be waking up to the magnitude of that theft for quite some time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever heard of the audience effect? It is a psychological theory that our behavior changes when we know we're being watched. And here's the thing, we are being watched. When you use the internet, data brokers watch and record everything you do online, even if you're using a private browser. But you don't have to become a slave to the digital surveillance state. You can free yourself with ExpressVPN. With ExpressVPN, 100% of your online activity is rerouted through secure, encrypted servers that hide your IP address. That means you can get to use the internet with real freedom and privacy. ExpressVPN is easy to use. It takes just one click and it works on all of your devices, even smart TVs. Use it on up to eight devices at the same time and protect your whole family with just one subscription. The best part? Podcast listeners can get four extra months of ExpressVPN for free at expressvpn.com/rogan or by tapping the banner. That's expressvpn.com/rogan or tap the banner. If you're watching on YouTube, you can get four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or by clicking the link in the description. I think this is going to take years. Chamath said that it's going to be like Iran-Contra on steroids. That's what he said. He said when you get to the bottom of all this, it's going to be insane, because they haven't even got to the Medicaid yet. They haven't even got to the medical stuff. They haven't... There's so much they haven't even tapped into where they think the real mother lode of fraud is.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes, and I must say that there is also another aspect to this which we have to be careful about, which is that the, um, the justifiable anger at discovering what it is that we've been dragged into as a nation is going to make it hard to see where the limits ought to be in terms of upending this stuff. In other words, at the moment, I'm cheering for the wrecking ball, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
Break this stuff up, never again. Um, but there are...
- JRJoe Rogan
What's that, Jamie?
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
I was reading an article about the spending on the Chargers. They said that they haven't actually, according to this, they haven't actually spent all that money yet.
- BWBret Weinstein
It was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what do they do with it? (laughs)
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
It's, it's... They've spent some of it to make some of those things, but it's just, it hasn't been allocated yet. It's a long article going through all the spending that's been done. Uh, it's on factcheck.org. Um, some-
- JRJoe Rogan
Factcheck.org, who runs that?
- GVGuest (secondary, off-mic/producer-type voice)
I don't know. Some of the Chargers have been made, some of them are on the way to be made, and they built 61 out of 15 stations since mid-August or through mid-August, 14,900 more are currently in some stage of development, but that's where it goes into like where they are, what they have to be done, and who's getting the money from them has to be done through a long process from each state.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah, the question is, how can we get a proper accounting, as you point out.
- 13:39 – 29:15
NGO funding webs and the danger of overcorrecting (Alaska Native/8(a) example)
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you see how they used software to map out 55,000 different NGOs that were used as a, a branch of the democratic system?
- BWBret Weinstein
No, I didn't catch that.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) I can send it to you. I think I sent it to you, Jamie, right? We went over it on the podcast before. It's so nutty that this was all kind of like hidden until they started using software to try to like figure out like what, and, and map out where all the influence goes. And the crazy thing about the NGOs, and this is one of the things that Mike Benz has gone like so deep into, it's essentially like they contribute to the Democratic Party, the government pays them. It's like, it's all this like weird sort of like circular money transfer thing that's out in the open.
- BWBret Weinstein
No, it's a, it's a positive feedback.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
The whole idea is power is utilized to free resources that garner more power, and it is the exact inverse of the system that we are supposed to have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
Um...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very interesting.
- BWBret Weinstein
Where we're headed, that's a harder question.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where we're headed is, uh, we're gonna own Gaza. (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Somehow.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is it. So fractal technology maps previously hidden connections between 55,000 liberal NGOs revealing how tax dollars allegedly flowed through major institutions like Vanguard and Morgan, Morgan Stanley to groups like the Chinese Progressive Association. This breakthrough tracking system can now monitor every dollar going to every NGO, exposing intricate funding webs that traditional tech couldn't detect. So an example, Black Voters Matter fund's $4 million distribution network was invisible until Quantu mapping revealed dozens of subsidiary organizations. The unprecedented mapping reveals a presi- previously hidden web of financial relationships. And that's what it's really all about, and-
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes. The problem is I, you know, sometimes when I see like a list of preposterous scientific projects that have gotten big grants.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
I read it and I think, I, some of, they all sound preposterous, but I don't know. Some of these things are likely to have had a good explanation, and it just is not apparent in the sound bite. And some of them are every bit as preposterous as, as they seem. And so I can't look at a map like that and say what I would expect if the system was healthy. So I'm, I'm cautious about it. I, I don't think the system was healthy. I think the system was a racket from one end to the other. And I've been saying that we've been living in the era of malignant governance where there's basically no element of this you couldn't turn off and make us better. But we have to be suspicious also of our understanding of how a properly functioning system would graph in some- something like that, um, so that we don't, we don't overrun the train station when we get there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And I, I will just say, I was, I was talking to a friend of mine who runs an Alaska native corporation, which I don't know if we've talked about Alaska native corporations before, but this is a, um, a corporation. The, it, it competes for federal contracts. It has some advantages in the competition for federal contracts, and all of the profits go to Alaska natives. And it is finding itself in a very difficult to navigate battle because of all of the successes of Doge. So the Alaska Native Corporation is utilizing something called the 8A program. The 8A program is a program that gives advantages to disadvantaged people. And at some point, that ability to use the 8A program was granted to Alaska native corporations. Well, the 8A program is now under attack by some large corporations, federal contractors who do not like competition from things like Alaska native corporations. And it is being portrayed as if it was based on race, which it isn't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
Anybody can use it. It's not a race-based program, but because people are in a mood to dismantle all of this left wing solution-making corruption, the, these mega corporations are finding it easy to target the 8A program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- BWBret Weinstein
And they are persuading members of Congress that, uh, it doesn't belong. And this is gonna be, uh, a tragic loss if this program, which works well, is dismantled in the fervor to go after all of the stuff that should never have been.
- JRJoe Rogan
What does this program do exactly?
- BWBret Weinstein
It provides a mechanism for disadvantaged people to compete for grants. It's really not race-based. Anybody, you know...
- JRJoe Rogan
So what'd you just have to live in Alaska?
- BWBret Weinstein
No, it d- no, no. So there are two separate things. Alaska native corporations are for Alaskan natives.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
When you say Alaska natives, you mean people who live in Alaska, or-
- BWBret Weinstein
No, no.
- 29:15 – 39:21
Ads break, then: money in politics and rebuilding a competitive information ecosystem
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a big weekend. Get in on the action of the big game and UFC 312 at DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. The men's middleweight and women's strawweight titles will be on the line in the co-main events of UFC 312. And of course, pro football is crowning a champion at the big game. Just getting started? Pick a fighter or a team to win this weekend. Go to DraftKings app and make your pick. That's all there is to it. And if you're new to DraftKings, listen up. New customers can bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks. It's a big weekend only on DraftKings. The crown is yours.
- NANarrator
Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY, 467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. New customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co/audio.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, how do we get money out of governments? See, that's the problem, right, is money gets involved in government, especially enormous amounts of money, and then they have influence. And then you have senators and congressmen and different elected representatives that don't do the will of the people. They do the will of the people that paid them enormous amounts of money. And this is a real problem, because if it was just, the, the only way you could win was you had to do s- for the will of the people, if, if you had to literally do things that were better for the people, the people realize you're doing a great job and they keep electing you.
- BWBret Weinstein
(smacks lips) Well, let's be honest about what the conservatives had right from the get-go. There are problems that only competition solves. There are other problems that competition in something like a market is not well-positioned to solve, but there are certain problems that there's just, there's no second best. It's only competition that works. And so when we talk about, well, (smacks lips) you know, what are we going to do for fact-checking? We're going to abandon the idea of fact-checking. What you want is a vibrant, independent journalist sector in which people who spot the story early-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
... and people who articulate the story in the most intuitive and accurate way out-compete those who do a worse job, so that over time what we get is journalism that you can't, uh, fool.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that it reveals to us which government programs actually work. Even if they don't sound reasonable at first glance, here's what's really going on behind the scenes in this program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right? And then journalism that exposes any kind of fraud. And I, I don't know about you, but as, as I was watching confirmation hearings, m- my sense was that the Elizabeth Warrens and the Bernie Sanders were dinosaurs who do not understand that the Earth has just been hit from outer space and that they don't live in the world that they are so used to.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
That their corruption was immediately apparent, and they're not used to that. They're used to having a whole phony journalistic layer that covers for them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that layer is gone, and the American public is awake, and it's angry, and rightfully so. And now, it looks at Bernie Sanders, who, you know, I remember the first time you and I spoke, you and I had both been Sanders supporters.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
And now to see that same guy going after Bobby Kennedy, and, you know, the feeble excuse, "Well, what if Bobby Kennedy becomes the head of HHS and, uh, people don't have access to prescription drugs?" And it's like, dude, I just lived through COVID. It's not obvious to me that they wouldn't get healthier if they didn't have access to prescription drugs. Do you realize how corrupt those companies are and how nonsensical their science is, the science that says that you actually get better if you take a statin based on some metric in your chart? Right? So, I'm not arguing that there aren't good pharmaceuticals. There undoubtedly are. But what's the net effect of our pharmaceutical-obsessed medical culture? It's not obvious to me that it's positive. I think it may well be negative. And so anyway, again, I, I see Bernie Sanders, and I see him reading from a script that is no longer relevant to the movie we're watching.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, and this is not saying that there aren't some pharmaceutical drugs that are amazing. The problem is they're not all amazing, and they sell them all like they're amazing.
- BWBret Weinstein
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the problem. Some of them are great. Like, Viagra's fantastic. Like, it's really good stuff. (laughs) There's a bunch of stuff like that that really works. There's a bunch of drugs that really help people. There's a bunch of drugs that brilliant scientists have developed that definitely help people live longer and live healthier lives. But also, they're in the pr- business of selling medicine, selling pharmaceutical drugs, and so there's a lot of stuff that they sell that is not good, not good for you, overall net negative. When you look at the, the amount of drugs they get pulled, they get endorsed and then supported by the FDA and then they have to pull them? Wasn't it like 30%? Something in the range?
- BWBret Weinstein
Um, yes, and that is the tip of the iceberg. We do not have, just as we don't have a journalistic layer that exposes people in Congress who are lying to us and aspects of the government that are corrupt, we don't have a university system that can properly do science and can be relied on to tell us what the impact of a drug or a food additive is. Right? The whole system is missing in action. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. The whole system is paid for by the pharmaceutical drug companies. They pay for tests, they pay for studies, they support organizations that are supposed to be regulating them. The, the whole thing is bananas.
- BWBret Weinstein
Everything that is supposed to evaluate something like safety or efficacy or analyze net effects, anything like that, has been captured by the PR wing. And so the consumer is in no position to, to navigate a world like that. I mean, and w- we know that this encompasses everything. You know? How many people's doctors are pharma-skeptical?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right? Your doctor should be very pharma-skeptical. "I don't know that this drug is actually a benefit to you." But no, the, the doctors have become pushers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Because they've been compromised. And, and also, I mean, that's l- literally the system that they're created from. Like, they're, they, they're sent out into the hospitals immediately with that. And it just, it's so difficult for a doctor to step outside of the system and be independent. When they do, they get attacked. Like, how many doctors lost their licenses because they were trying to prescribe ivermectin to people who, who had COVID?
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah, almost all of the doctors who were any good found themselves chased out of a job or were, w-... jeopardy to their license or slandered in, in the media. And, you know, my, (laughs) I'm sure you're in the same position. Those are, frankly, the only doctors I trust at this point-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... were the ones who were willing to pay a price to tell me the truth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah. My doctor, uh, that I know out here w- won a case, but, th- they were about to lose their license.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- 39:21 – 47:11
“First genuine election since 1963”: Trump 2.0, DOGE/Elon, and unity politics
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's a good point. It's, um, it's a fun time though. It's fun because things are actually happening, which is very different than most of the time when people get elected. Most of the time when people get elected, they claim all these things when they're running for president, then they get into office and not much changes. And in fact, a lot of what they campaigned on, they don't practice at all. Like, a great example is the Obama administration. The Hope and Change website had to be changed because there was a bunch of stuff in there about whistleblowers, protecting whistleblowers, which they didn't do at all.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They were some of the worst. That was one of the worst administrations for whistleblowers.
- BWBret Weinstein
100%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, I think what we have seen over our... You and I are about the same age. What we have seen over our entire lifetime is that elections can change the jerseys, but they just swap.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
You know, who's in power and who's out of power. Well, the point is, the system is in power and, you know, the people in the, the roles to deliver the speeches change, but they're just basically trading off. And so, I have the sense that you and I are now watching the first... The outcome of the first genuine election since 1963.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I've heard that argued, that '63 when they assassinated Kennedy, that was the last time we had a real president, was an actual person who was trying to change things and put things in w- uh, uh, put things in a position where he felt it was beneficial to the entire country.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right. And it changes the feel of this in two ways. One of them is just, just unfamiliar to us because we've been watching theater for our entire lives and being told that it was the transfer of power.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
And the other is that there's a lot of pent-up need for change, because you've effectively had a cryptic power structure that never gets displaced, that has gotten so entrenched that rooting it out takes, frankly, an extraordinary, in every sense of the word, person like Donald Trump.
- JRJoe Rogan
And an extraordinary team. Imagine if he's doing this... Imagine us trying to do Doge without Elon.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, I th- So, you know, Heather and I took a lot of flak after the assassination, the first assassination attempt, uh, of Trump, where we both perceived... I think we were actually perceiving this before, but the, the assassination attempt really kicked it off. We perceived that this was a, a different person than the first administration's Trump, that he had matured and he had been f- he had been forged by, you know, all of the lawfare that had been deployed against him, and that it had been good for him. And in fact, I- I- I hate to say this because I have my doubts, of course, about, uh, the election of 2020, but I don't think what he is currently doing would have been possible if he had won and been inaugurated in 2020.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think you're right. I think also, the public wouldn't have supported it if they didn't see four years of the Biden administration and how crazy everything was.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then having gone through COVID and watching the economy collapsed and watching, you know, hurricanes coming, he's like, "The most important thing for a hurricane is to get vaccinated." (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Remember that? (laughs) ... I do, now that you mention it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hurricanes coming, get vaccinated.
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very important.
- BWBret Weinstein
The-
- JRJoe Rogan
Everything's harder if you're not vaccinated.
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everything.
- BWBret Weinstein
Um.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
The-
- JRJoe Rogan
We lived in, in a movie. We went through-
- BWBret Weinstein
A bad one.
- 47:11 – 49:48
Free speech platforms as ‘collective reasoning’: why X changed the narrative game
- BWBret Weinstein
... and then, you know, apologize for it later, sort of. Right? That wasn't what Musk did. He actually had the courage of his convictions, A, as many people have noted. His liberation of X set the stage for this election to even happen. That there wasn't anything you could put over on us that we couldn't unpack and, you know, crowdsource a better interpretation of on X. And even if most people weren't on X, it was enough that they- their narrative engine just didn't work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you look at a viral post on X, a viral post about something that's very important, like, that has to do with USAID, you will see seven million, eight million views, 10 million views. There is nothing equivalent like that to mainstream media. There's nothing even close. There's nothing even close. Maybe a very viral YouTube clip. But these are every day, all day long, there's posts that have seven million, five million, three million. And people are reposting them as well and sharing them and, and taking the information and posting them, you know, w- without credit. There's a lot of that going on. So, this- the actual amount of the information that gets out is far more than it would have ever happened without Elon taking over Twitter. It prob- it, it's probably changed the course of our civilization in a way that nothing else could have done.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yes, and I think it's a little bit deceptive because its size doesn't quite explain its impact. But it's a little bit like the higher reasoning centers of the brain. Like, there's a collective consciousness in which we figure out what we think is true, and it's been downstream of this amazing propaganda engine.... well, we're now learning to spot the propaganda and to understand what it really means and to figure out what it's cloaking. And a lot of that is happening on Twitter because it can, and it's actually forcing, you know, Facebook to come around. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
Which, of course, you know, I- I usually say that zero is a special number, meaning in a world with no social media platforms where you can speak freely and reason with others, there's no pressure to start doing that. But once you have one, any social media platform that doesn't allow you to speak free- freely is at a competitive disadvantage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
And so, you know, Elon freeing X actually liberated the others, and they're beginning to move in the right direction, which, frankly, is part of why this era just feels different.
- 49:48 – 1:07:49
UFOs, PSYOPs, and projection tech: plasma displays and perception errors
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, it's very interesting times. And then on top of that, we're being invaded by UFOs, so it's all happening at the same time.
- BWBret Weinstein
I have not noticed that.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) I, I w-
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you watching NewsNation? What's wrong with you?
- BWBret Weinstein
(laughs) Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
You're so not informed.
- BWBret Weinstein
I- I am, uh, not informed. I am, I'm waiting for some sort of compelling evidence that something extraterrestrial is going on.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm talking to everybody, and the more people I talk to, the less I know.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, there's that.
- JRJoe Rogan
The more information I get from all these people that have had UFO and alien encounters and experiences and whistleblowers, and the more I talk to them, the less I feel like I know. I do not feel like it's... And then on top of that, I'm in the middle of Jacques Vallée's books, which are very wild. Like, Jacques Vallée, I had him on the podcast a long time ago, and he's coming back on again. But the first time I had him on, I only knew him as the French scientist that had, um, the, he, the, the character in Close Encounters of the First Kind was based on him. Do you know the character, the French character that, uh, brings together the military to try to communicate with the aliens? It's based on Jacques Vallée, who's been studying UFOs, like, li- for decades, like, from the f- since, like, the '50s and the '60s. And, uh, boy, the more you read about his take on things, the more it's very confusing, 'cause these fucking stories are the same stories that have been going on for hundreds of years. They're, they're not m- even modern. You know, when we, we think of them, we think of, like, Kenneth Arnold seeing the flying saucers and coin- coining the phrase in the 1950s. Like, no. No, these stories have been, like, real similar for hundreds of years, that some, there's some phenomenon that people occasionally encounter, and it's real similar. It c- it has similar, like, it's similar enough from people that weren't aware of the narrative that you have to wonder what the fuck is actually going on.
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah, I think you do have to wonder what the fuck is actually going on. On the other hand, I think there's a whole range of possibilities that don't involve anything extraterrestrial.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think there's a bunch of shit that doesn't involve anything extraterrestrial that's happening at the same time as a bunch of shit that we don't have explanations for.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Tha- that's what I think. I s-
- BWBret Weinstein
You wouldn't... That would not be shocking.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- BWBret Weinstein
If there was something to cover, you might decide instead of trying to keep it under wraps, you would bury it in so much low-quality bullshit-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BWBret Weinstein
... that nobody'd be able to find it.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what it feels like to me. That's what it feels like to me. W- it feels like to me that this is... There's a lot of people that I think are trying to do the right thing, a lot of whistleblowers that are really trying to educate the American public, but I don't know who they really are doing the bidding of. I don't know they even know. I think if I was the government, let's pretend that I was some gigantic arm of the military-industrial complex, and I had some literal recovered flying saucers, I would come up with the dumbest fucking stories and put them in binders and leave them on desks and hope that these people leak this shit. And the more dumb shit they leak, the more the actual reality of what we possess. Like, let's say if the government really did find a flying saucer in the 1940s, really did back eng- back engineer the propulsion system, really did apply it to drones, and they really are flying them around, and they have them. Wha- well, what I would do, I would make up some crazy shit about, you know, a mothership that's 47 years away, and it's coming, and it's as big as a planet. And I would, I would come up with the wackiest stuff possible and, like, get it all out there, put it all out there. We have 57 different species all in a, a f- a fucking freezer somewhere in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and I would, I'd just, like, ramp up the bullshit in as many ways as possible. You know, they've controlled all our nuclear test codes, and they, they hover over our facilities. We're powerless to control them. I would say everything as wacky and crazy as possible, so I could keep flying around these gravity propulsion vehicles that we've developed.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, I must tell you, I'm not... I'm skeptical that those vehicles are vehicles.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you think they are?
- BWBret Weinstein
Projections.
- JRJoe Rogan
Projections?
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
In what way? But what if you could monitor them on... If you see them on radar, if they, they visual, th- they're seeing them going into the water. Like, what is it-
- BWBret Weinstein
I'm having a, uh, deja vu moment here, or we've discussed this before. I don't know which it is. But, uh, the basic rubric is physical stuff displaces air, which means it makes noise when it moves. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
... I don't quite see the logic behind suppressing that fully. I don't see the capacity to suppress it fully. Who, who knows what I don't know. But my guess is, if you had actual craft moving around in the ways that people who have observed these things think they've seen it, that noise would be an inherent part of the phenomenon, and that-
- 1:07:49 – 1:14:52
Domestic propaganda, informed consent, and regime-change tactics turned inward
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Yeah. Yeah. It's all interesting. Uh, but it's also, I always assume that when something hits the zeitgeist and is, like, prominently out in the newspapers and media and websites, and I always assume that they're covering something else, and that this thing is the big distraction. And that's what I was thinking while the UFO thing was happening over New Jersey. I was like, "Okay, what are they distracting from? What's the big distraction?" 'Cause it seems like that's what that was. That just seemed so forced and so obvious, and then the Trump administration says, "Oh, they were ours."
- BWBret Weinstein
Right. Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
And okay, well, why were you doing that? Why were they doing that? Why, why didn't they say they were ours? Why'd they freak everybody out? Why'd they send jets to go scramble after them and then they turn their lights off and disappear? Like, what?
- BWBret Weinstein
So there, there is the question of what they were trying to distract us from, if that was their purpose, but I also find, this has again, uh, become a kind of theme in my life. This is also a violation of informed consent. If those were our drones and they were nightly traumatizing the residents of New Jersey and pretending they didn't know what it was, that's a de facto experiment that they were running on the citizens of the country.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good point.
- BWBret Weinstein
They have no right to do this shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that should be illegal.
- BWBret Weinstein
100%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, e- especially, like, lying about it and not telling us what you're doing, and then just keeping everybody in the dark for weeks while people were really panicking.
- BWBret Weinstein
I, I th- you know, one doesn't know until you see this stuff, uh, enacted where it's gonna lead. But my sense is, I don't want my government lying to me ever again with the excuse that it's for my own good.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it possible to, y- you know, Obama passed that law in, was it 2012 that allowed the government to use propaganda on its own citizens?
- BWBret Weinstein
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Remember that law?
- BWBret Weinstein
(smacks lips) I'm trying to remember. This is not the NDAA 2012?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no. NDAA is, uh, that's the, uh, authorization act, uh, this is, uh-
- BWBret Weinstein
That's indefinite detention.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's indefinite detention. This is different. This is, uh, the use of propaganda. So, they authorized the use of propaganda on American citizens, so the CIA, instead of turning its, you know, propaganda wing on the whole world, they're allowed to use it, under the guise, of course, of national defense and national security, that sometimes they need to bullshit us.
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, that is, in fact, exactly what we have discovered.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
And why it was so hard to convince people of this before the evidence f- for it emerged, I don't know. But all you needed to realize was that some rogue element had decided that it had the right to engage in the same kind of regime change bullshit domestically that it was already feeling entitled to engage in globally, and the rest makes perfect sense. And of course-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... you would get an entrenched cabal that would come up with a justification for fending off a challenge, you know, at the ballot box, that it could portray as somehow, uh, a threat to American democracy. Of course it would do that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right? It has to be forbidden to do that, and the penalties have to be extreme for attempting it, or it will happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
(smacks lips) Right. So the argument against that is not, not the argument for using it in America, but the argument is you need organizations like that to do that worldwide to counteract the fact that other countries are doing that worldwide, and that there is some sort of a psychological game that's going on. There's a propaganda game that's going on with all countries, as well as, you know, w- they're doing it against us. We're doing it against them. We need to be sophisticated in how we employ these things. Otherwise, we're gonna lose very important parts of the world. It's key to the national security of the United States. We have to have things like that in place. But when they start using it on us, and they say, "Oh, well, we have to start using it on us because Russia's using it on us," or, "We have to use it on us to counteract what China's doing. We have to..." That's when things get really screwy, right?
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, y- yes, but I also am not sure that I buy the international rationale either. And I think, as much as I understand it, right, w- we have to be mature about what's possible in the world and what implications it has for, for the republic. On the other hand, to the extent that we believe in self-determination, where exactly does our right to interfere with other peoples' self-determination come from? Further, I do think that there's a kind of end state for the governance structures of Earth, that what we have in the West, an agreement on a level playing field, an agreement to compete with each other by attempting to produce better stuff rather than by interfering with our competitors' ability to get to the market, that that view of the West is superior, and it is also contagious, that it makes for a safer, uh, more rewarding, fairer...... less warlike system, and therefore, there's a very good reason for people to want to adopt it. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
That sounds great though, but doesn't that... isn't that slightly naïve when you take into consideration the amount of espionage that we know exists in American corporations and in American, uh, educational institutions?
- BWBret Weinstein
Well, I'm not arguing that you just go and live your values. What I'm arguing is that those values are superior, that they are sticky and contagious when they take hold.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
And that anything you do where you compromise on the idea that that's the objective, is to get-
- 1:14:52 – 1:23:19
AI disruption, UBI doubts, and the ‘complicated vs complex’ warning
- JRJoe Rogan
How much are you paying attention to DeepSeek and the AI competition that's going on right now?
- BWBret Weinstein
I am loosely paying attention to the AI competition. I'm conflicted about it. I don't think there's anything we can do to regulate AI competition that doesn't make matters worse. I'm very concerned about the outgrowth of this transformative technology. I think even the most mundane disruptions that will come from it, things like, uh, disruptions to the, the job market, are going to be a profound challenge to our society and we're going to have to come up with an approach that allows us, uh, to, to tolerate the disruption.
- JRJoe Rogan
I used to think the approach was universal basic income, but now I'm conflicted 'cause now I, I just take into account human nature. (sighs) And, you know, unfortunately, I don't think it's good for people to just give them free money. Even though you need to. Even though you need to, I think it's, uh, it's ultimately bad for them to be dependent upon it, and that's what scares me about automation and AI in general, that if it does get to the point where there's so many people that are displaced from the job market that we have to provide them, like, a real meaningful wage, and what incentives do they have to break free from that system? And do they just decide to live inside the means of whatever that is forever, and does that limit the growth and potential that those people possess? 'Cause people really don't accomplish anything unless they're driven or unless they have to. Right? That's, that's what really gets people going. That's why it's so difficult for people that were trust fund babies to ever get anything going. I mean, we all know the trust fund kids that are just... They do s- do drugs, and party, and they're materialists, and th- they're really lost. That's really common. Like, more common than not, right? Very difficult to, to navigate that water. So, what, what would we do to incentivize people to do things? Like, to, to, to have this healthy, thriving, artistic, creative, innovative economy that we have right now? Like, how does that continue if so many people are displaced from the job market? Or is there a way where you can say, "You know what? We are so concerned about basic g- goods, needs, food, shelter, things like..." If you just provide people with the basics so nobody ever has to worry about food or shelter, would it organically arise that some people would compete outside of that, and then say, "Now that I have basic food and shelter, let me pursue my dreams. Let me do what I want to do. Let me provide... Uh, let me create a business that AI can't make. Let me make, you know, fine cabinetry. Let me, let me do... Let me paint. Let me do things that's gonna provide a real value that, uh, you know, I can get money from, that it can be an actual viable business."? And maybe the way to incentivize people to do that is to never take away their universal basic income so it's not like welfare, where it... One of the things... Like, my family was on welfare when we were young, and when they got off welfare it was, like, a nice thing to know that, like, th- we're providing for ourselves now. You know? And... But you have to do that. You have to break off the system, and then you don't get the checks anymore. But what if the people just keep getting universal basic income and you'll, uh... And we just rewire the way we think about food and shelter? We think about food and shelter as just something that everybody should have. Not, like, uh, tons of money, not exposable- indispensable income where you can... Disposable income where you can just buy fucking junk food and garbage and, and do cocaine all day. But have enough where you can live, and then have people pursue a life that is more meaningful. But you don't have to give people incentives. They have to be, somehow or another, either personally motivated to do that, uh, encouraged by the culture to do that. It has to be something where people develop this desire to do more. Well, let's talk about the ultimate source of this problem. Our ancestors, our hunter-gatherer ancestors, even our farming ancestors, lived in a world where the world itself provided the incentive structure. Right? If you didn't work hard enough as a hunter-gatherer, it manifested as hunger and jeopardy.
- BWBret Weinstein
... so people were naturally incentivized to invest in the right kind of stuff. And the right kind of stuff is hard work in some cases, where, you know, you pursue the materials that make your hut better, that procure more food for your family. Or it could be insight, where you figure out some way to do something better, so you make more with what you've already figured out how to get. That's a very natural structure. And it's what we neurologically are built for. The economy has some of that characteristic. The economy rewards hard work somewhat, and it rewards ins- insight somewhat. But it also rewards, uh, cheating, and it rewards lots of unproductive behavior that actually destroys wealth but creates a profit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Stock market. (laughs)
- BWBret Weinstein
Yeah. For example, it, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... rewards gambling, it rewards-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BWBret Weinstein
... uh, interference competition, all, all sorts of stuff, you know? Destroying wealth is actually a big part of our economy. And the way the mythology of free market capitalism works, you're getting paid for producing stuff that enhances us all. But what fraction of the economy is actually dedicated to activities that destroy wealth, you know? The production of porn, for example. In my opinion, that is highly likely to destroy vastly more wealth than it, than it produces. But it's a very rich industry for a reason. So, what I'm getting at is we have a new problem with the AI component. Maybe it's taken the magnitude of the problem that we had, and it's multiplied it by 10. But it's not a new problem. We are still trying to figure out what to do with the fact that you're taking an animal out of the habitat that properly inherently incentivizes it, and putting it into an environment in which the incentives aren't really well built. And I agree with you. Whatever sympathy I may have had for the idea of universal basic income is gone, because I do think it would produce, at best, a kind of learned helplessness-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BWBret Weinstein
... that's unproductive.
- JRJoe Rogan
A dependency.
- BWBret Weinstein
So, what-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's scary.
- BWBret Weinstein
Right. So, what we really want is a system in which whatever the new opportunities are going to be in the world where AI is available everywhere and very sophisticated, we want people to figure out how to leverage it on our behalf. And mind you, we could have the same conversation before the worldwide web, and we could talk about, well, what's it gonna be like when you can source information-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
... from anywhere? What kinds of opportunities is that going to create, and can we incentivize people to figure out what those opportunities are? Yada, yada, yada. So, the AI version is the s- it's the same problem, but at a different order of magnitude. So, I don't know what the solution is about how you create that proper incentive structure, but we are going to be living in a world in which meaning and wealth are of a fundamentally different nature. And what we want is for people to have the tools and the incentive to explore that world productively, so that when they do it well, they end up economically enhanced, and when they do it poorly, they suffer a challenge, so that they are naturally led by that world to find stuff that creates wealth for all of us.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BWBret Weinstein
That's-
- 1:23:19 – 1:51:33
Education, attention, and ‘consumption vs production’: porn, games, and motivation
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, maybe it starts with the education system. Maybe we have to incentivize people to pursue their dreams instead of just to try to find a job. 'Cause that, this is the way the education system is scheduled now, or is, is, uh, set up now. It's basically, you go back to the Rockefellers, right? This is, you're basically trying to make factory workers. You're trying to make people that obey. The earlier you can get them into school, the better, 'cause the more you can indoctrinate them into the way the system works. You get them accustomed. You get these f- kids that are filled with fucking energy and they're excited about the world. They just want to play all the time, and you make them just sit down all day. And when they don't, you, you say, "That little fellow's got ADD. He's not paying attention. We need to give him some Ritalin. The little fucker is just sitting there jacked out of his mind on Ritalin now." You know? And this is what we've done. And instead of having an education system that educates people that way, have an education system that excites people about learning things they're actually interested in.
- BWBret Weinstein
Hell yeah. But again, this is an, another version where it's not like AI is a bad fit for the education system. It certainly is. But the education system has been garbage. My whole life existed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... with an education system that was almost totally worthless, and in some cases, was counterproductive, which is, I think, why some of us folks with learning disabilities actually turn out to have an advantage. It's not that there's something good about having a learning disability, but if it breaks your relationship to school, so school has less of an easy time programming you to be a cog-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BWBret Weinstein
... then you at least retain the potential to be something other than a cog.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't think I had a learning disability, but I was a l- latchkey kid, right? So, I didn't have a lot of guidance when I was young, and I wasn't used to people telling me what to do, and I didn't enjoy it. And also, I had a lot of energy. And it was very difficult for me to pay attention to boring things by uninspired teachers. But then again, every now and then, I'd have an inspired teacher, and I'd go, "Okay, maybe I'm not stupid. Like, maybe I'm just bored," you know? And then I'd get really interested in something, and then I'd learn a lot about it, and then I'd be able to, like, tell people about it. I'd talk to my friends, be, "You know what I learned today?" And then we'd have these conversations about it. But like, okay, it's not that I'm not curious or interested, it's that I'm not being inspired.Now, why is that? Is it because I'm 10, you know, and you know, this... 'cause it's hard to be inspired by things when you're 10 'cause you're just a little fucking dork and you're running around reading comic books and paying attention to other things, and you don't really care about math or you don't care about history. What, what is it? But whatever it is, the system's not working for you. You have to find some sort of inspiration outside of it. And I've been educated almost entirely outside of schools. Almost all of what I know, I know from books that I read because I was interested or I listened to audiobooks, or I listened to podcasts, or I had conversations with people like you. That's how I learn things. And it wasn't that I wasn't interested. It wasn't that I wasn't smart. It was that I was not inspired. I... I had other... Uh, I didn't know that I wasn't a loser until I got really good at other things. And I'm like, "I can get good at things. Okay, so if I can get good at things, it's not that I'm a loser." It's just like, I can't work a job. I can't just show up every day and do something that's not exciting to me. But that doesn't mean I'm useless. It just means I'm useless for that. I don't have the personality to just sit there and go over paperwork. It doesn't... I can't. I'll go crazy. But that go crazy part is also what lets you have the courage or the, the motivation to go and try a path that seems unlikely for success, and to have the courage to say, "Well, some people succeed. Why don't I fucking try it?" And just, "I can't do this. Fuck it. Let's give it a go." And then, that's how you become a standup comedian, you know? (laughs) Nobody thinks, nobody thinks it's a good path. Like, out of 100 standup comedians that do open mic night, maybe one, maybe one will have some sort of a career in comedy.
Episode duration: 2:37:36
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 7ted-qUqqU4
