Joe Rogan Experience #2394 - Palmer Luckey

Narrator 0:00 (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Um, suck as fuck. I haven't done the ball, but I have done those knee chairs.

Palmer Luckey 0:18 Okay.

Joe Rogan 0:18 They're a little annoying. And you're like...

Palmer Luckey 0:20 What about standing desks?

Joe Rogan 0:21 No.

Palmer Luckey 0:21 You a standing desk fan?

Joe Rogan 0:23 No.

Palmer Luckey 0:24 Yep. I, I, when I use them, I usually have lower back gets, gets, gets kind of sore just standing there.

Joe Rogan 0:29 I feel like some part of you should be relaxed, and if you're standing, you're, you're gonna want to lean on something. To have a conversation, especially. 'Cause I know some people do podcasts standing up, like a standing up table. I'm like, "Okay."

Palmer Luckey 0:41 That's crazy.

Joe Rogan 0:42 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 0:42 I, I have a buddy of mine who's doing a pr- have you ever seen the, the float tanks?

Joe Rogan 0:47 Sure.

Palmer Luckey 0:47 Where you float in the salt water and you-

Joe Rogan 0:48 Yeah, we have one here.

Palmer Luckey 0:49 Oh, no, no way.

Joe Rogan 0:50 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 0:50 So, I know someone who is building a rig with a waterproof keyboard, waterproof mouse, and a VR headset so that they can have a float computing rig. And they wanna just-

Joe Rogan 1:00 Whoa.

Palmer Luckey 1:01 ... they wanna just, they wanna, they wanna program while they're floating in space.

Joe Rogan 1:04 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 1:05 And, uh, he hasn't, he hasn't gotten all the way there yet. The hardest part has actually been the mouse. There's lots of waterproof keyboards for various industrial applications, like, you know, they, so you don't get metal shavings in 'em-

Joe Rogan 1:13 Sure.

Palmer Luckey 1:14 ... and oil in them. But mice, it's actually, it's actually harder. But he's gonna get there.

Joe Rogan 1:17 That makes sense 'cause there's a r- well, there's a laser now. It used to be an actual ball-

Palmer Luckey 1:21 That would have been really hard.

Joe Rogan 1:22 ... in the old days. Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 1:22 Yeah, the optic... At this point, I don't think it's that hard. I think he, he's been, he's been screwing around with just taking a normal one and then, uh, wrapping it in, in, in Saran wrap.

Joe Rogan 1:32 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 1:32 But, you know, that, that's kind of splash-proof but not, not immersion-proof.

Joe Rogan 1:35 Is he actually underwater with the setup?

Palmer Luckey 1:38 Yeah, so the... Because if you're taking your hands up out of the water-

Joe Rogan 1:41 Right.

Palmer Luckey 1:41 ... one, it's uncomfortable, two they're on a-

Joe Rogan 1:43 So he's floating like this and the keyboard on his lap.

Palmer Luckey 1:46 Underwater, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:47 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 1:47 Exactly. So you're, you're floating at neutral position, basically.

Joe Rogan 1:50 And just to code? He wants to code like that?

Palmer Luckey 1:52 He wants to code. I think it-

Joe Rogan 1:53 He must be a super weirdo. (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 1:55 I, I, I want to do it for VR gaming. I think that'd be really interesting.

Joe Rogan 1:59 Oh, yeah.

Palmer Luckey 1:59 'Cause you kinda... If you can't, if you can't simulate the experience of your body being in the game-

Joe Rogan 2:05 Right.

Palmer Luckey 2:05 ... at least to forget that your body exists and have the only thing you're viewing be, you know, your vision and, and the sound, I feel like would be very interesting experience. So I'm, um, I'm, I'm, I'm bagging off a, a, an hour in it from, from him when he gets it done. But I have, I'm looking forward to that.

Joe Rogan 2:20 I would let you use ours and try it out, but we just had a problem with one of our pumps broke. So it's...

Palmer Luckey 2:25 Oh, that's a bummer.

Joe Rogan 2:26 Yeah, it flooded everything with salt water. It's, it's weird. There... It's a weird ex- have you done it?

Palmer Luckey 2:32 I have actually never done it. I'm so fascinated by it, and I've actually booked a session at some of those, like, float tank companies several times.

Joe Rogan 2:40 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 2:40 And then every single time, my schedule has intervened and it turns out that I've not been able to do it, so...

Joe Rogan 2:44 You should get one for your place.

Palmer Luckey 2:46 Maybe I should.

Joe Rogan 2:47 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 2:47 I should probably try it first, right?

Joe Rogan 2:50 You'll, you'll like it.

Palmer Luckey 2:50 Or is it, or is it it's, it's just so good I should have it?

Joe Rogan 2:52 Yeah, you'll love it. Yeah, it's very relaxing too, and it's really good for thinking.

Palmer Luckey 2:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:56 Like, if you have a thought and you're just, like, fucking around with it in your head, you're like-

Palmer Luckey 2:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:59 ... "I don't know, dude, this." You're in there, you have zero distractions. It's like your m- your mind has more computational power that's available because even though you don't think about it... Like, right now we're in these chairs.

Palmer Luckey 3:11 Yep.

Joe Rogan 3:11 Your butt's touching the chair, your feet are on the floor, your hand's on the table, your clothes are on your body.

Palmer Luckey 3:16 Yep.

Joe Rogan 3:16 There's all these different things that your body is recognizing as input.

Palmer Luckey 3:20 Sure.

Joe Rogan 3:20 When you take those away, you're... It's like, if you're having a conversation and there's a bunch of people right beside you with a jackhammer, you're like, "This is too distracting."

Palmer Luckey 3:28 Yep.

Joe Rogan 3:28 "Let's go over here." And you go to where... In the park, it's nice and peaceful. Now you can have a conversation. It's so much easier. Well, you don't realize that, like, regular everyday life just establishing the, the distance between the walls and thinking about all the data, all that stuff is... Your brain is computing this.

Palmer Luckey 3:45 Yep.

Joe Rogan 3:46 In the silence of the float tank, there's none of that. And you don't feel the water 'cause it's the same temperature as your skin.

Palmer Luckey 3:52 That's right.

Joe Rogan 3:53 So you just feel-

Palmer Luckey 3:53 And it's all salt-laden, so it's isotonic.

Joe Rogan 3:55 Yes, exactly.

Palmer Luckey 3:55 It's not... Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 3:56 You feel like you're flying.

Palmer Luckey 3:59 That's so cool.

Joe Rogan 3:59 It's really cool.

Palmer Luckey 4:00 I've, I've, I've done a lot of reading on it, and I'm super interested in the-

Joe Rogan 4:02 Oh, you should get one.

Palmer Luckey 4:03 ... in, in the science of it. But I've never actually managed to get into a float tank, which is really embarrassing. I mean, uh, you'd think that a billionaire would have the resources to get-

Joe Rogan 4:10 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 4:10 ... into a bucket of salt water.

Joe Rogan 4:12 Yeah, you should have somebody make you one. Have, have someone-

Palmer Luckey 4:15 That'd be interesting.

Joe Rogan 4:15 ... build you one at your place.

Palmer Luckey 4:17 Oh, that'd be cool. Maybe get one made out of wood instead of, like, the plastic or fiberglass.

Joe Rogan 4:20 You want metal. Mine is, mine looks-

Palmer Luckey 4:22 You want metal?

Joe Rogan 4:22 ... like a giant meat locker. That's what it looks like. Um, b- but the guy who made it for me was, like, a mad genius. He died, unfortunately. He was a mad genius who also didn't believe in medicine, and I think he... Did he die of hepatitis?

Narrator 4:35 I'm not, uh, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 4:36 I think he died of hepatitis.

Palmer Luckey 4:38 Well, you'll have to show it to me so that I can check it out.

Joe Rogan 4:40 It's dope, yeah. Um, but it's... It would definitely be, at some point in time, the best way to disconnect from your natural environment. If they do come up with some sort of haptic feedback that's like... Or whether it's some sort of a neural interface that completely changes, you know, the environment around you, like bloop.

Palmer Luckey 4:59 Yep.

Joe Rogan 5:00 Like, you drop into it.

Palmer Luckey 5:01 Yep.

Joe Rogan 5:01 That would be the perfect environment-

Palmer Luckey 5:02 Yep.

Joe Rogan 5:02 ... to do it in salt water.

Palmer Luckey 5:04 Yep. Well, I mean, that's been my... That was always my dream in the, in the ol-... You know, my first company was Oculus. And so, like, that was my dream was to just fully feel like you were inside of the video game f- completely forget about the real world.

Joe Rogan 5:16 How old were you when you started working there?

Palmer Luckey 5:18 So, I started building virtual reality headset prototypes when I was 14 or 15.

Joe Rogan 5:23 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 5:24 And then I, I built the first prototype of what I call the Oculus Rift at 16, and then I formally s- turned it into a company when I was 18, launched the product when I was 19, uh, and then sold the company a few years later to Facebook for a few billion dollars. So it was kind of a, it was kind of a crazy arc for me. I-

Joe Rogan 5:42 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 5:43 Uh, d- did like... That was like... You know, that, that was... I was putting myself through school.

Joe Rogan 5:46 Did you work with Carmack?

Palmer Luckey 5:48 Yeah, so, well, Carmack was... So, uh, John Carmack was one of my heroes growing up.

Joe Rogan 5:53 Love that dude.

Palmer Luckey 5:54 And it was one of these crazy things where the universe kind of brought us together. I was working on my VR technology, and nobody was paying attention to VR back then. It was a cr- kind of a crazy person thing. Nobody was paying attention to what I was doing. But I was posting about it on this internet forum, and then John Carmack started-... posting on that same forum asking for help modifying his own Sony head-mounted display that he had bought to reduce the latency. And so I gave him a bunch of input on why he couldn't do it, why it was a lar- ba- im- impossible project. And because I had been trying to do the same thing. And then he ended up seeing the work I was doing on the Oculus Rift and he said, "Hey, Palmer, can I buy one of these from you?" I said, "Well, I'm not really selling these yet, but, uh, I'm, I'd be happy to lend it to you for free." And so I sent it to him. He ended up writing a review and posting it on his blog and said it was, uh, "the best VR experience the world has ever seen." He introduced me to Sony. They tried to hire me to run their VR research and development lab. I turned them down. They doubled the offer. I turned that down. Um, and then so J- John was kind of the guy who got me like really ... He's kind of the first guy who got any public attention for me where everyone was like, "Oh, if John Carmack says this is important, then this must be important." And then if you could believe it, two years later after I started Oculus and started selling these, he actually left id Software and became the CTO of Oculus. So-

Joe Rogan 7:08 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 7:09 ... we got- then I, then I had the, the incredible opportunity to work with one of my childhood heroes as my CTO. That was so cool.

Joe Rogan 7:16 What, what year was that?

Palmer Luckey 7:16 That was 2012.

Joe Rogan 7:18 Okay.

Palmer Luckey 7:18 So although he, he joined-

Joe Rogan 7:19 'Cause he came on the podcast-

Palmer Luckey 7:20 He-

Joe Rogan 7:20 ... I think 2016 you brought one.

Palmer Luckey 7:22 Yeah. Well-

Joe Rogan 7:23 So, yeah.

Palmer Luckey 7:24 So he joined in 2013. So summ- I think it was June of 2013, so about a year-

Joe Rogan 7:30 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 7:30 ... after I started Oculus is when he joined as CTO.

Joe Rogan 7:33 Mm. Well, he showed us, um, and he was doing whatever the one is where y- I guess you have drumsticks?

Palmer Luckey 7:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:39 Is that what you have? And you're whacking stuff as it comes out of the sky. He showed us that. And like what a workout it is.

Palmer Luckey 7:44 Whoa, whoa, whoa. With, with, with prob- with Beat Saber?

Joe Rogan 7:46 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 7:46 Yeah. He's a huge-

Joe Rogan 7:48 Beat Saber. That's it.

Palmer Luckey 7:48 ... Beat Saber fan.

Joe Rogan 7:48 Oh, he was going nuts. And he was doing it really fast. I was like-

Palmer Luckey 7:51 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 7:51 ... "This is nuts."

Palmer Luckey 7:52 It's actually ... It's like it is good fitness-

Joe Rogan 7:55 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 7:55 ... it is good coordination training.

Joe Rogan 7:56 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 7:57 It real- like Beat Saber was great because it really busted this myth that VR was this, like, you know, totally inactive, be a fat lazy slob thing.

Joe Rogan 8:06 Right.

Palmer Luckey 8:07 People, people ... VR gaming, at least as it exists today, takes a lot more caloric expenditure than any other type of gaming. I mean like-

Joe Rogan 8:13 For sure.

Palmer Luckey 8:14 And like even more than like other motion games. Like remember Wii Bowling and Wii Sports?

Joe Rogan 8:18 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 8:18 Like, that's like one movement every once in a while. Like Beat Saber's a full body workout.

Joe Rogan 8:22 What's really impressive is the boxing games.

Palmer Luckey 8:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:25 The boxing games are a really good workout.

Palmer Luckey 8:27 Y- did you play, I think one of them was Creed by a company called Survios?

Joe Rogan 8:30 I don't remember what the name was. We had a couple different ones at the old studio in LA and-

Palmer Luckey 8:35 Yep.

Joe Rogan 8:35 ... y- I'd work out with it. I'd put it on and, you know, you do a round with these virtual boxers and-

Palmer Luckey 8:41 Yep.

Joe Rogan 8:42 ... you really get a workout in. Your feet hurt, like you're like, "Wow, I'm, I'm utilizing a lot of movement here."

Palmer Luckey 8:47 Yep. You know the, the, the company that did a few of those boxing games is this LA studio called Survios. And the two co-founders that were actually guys who worked with me in the Army research lab that I worked in before starting Oculus. So it's, it's one of those-

Joe Rogan 9:01 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 9:01 ... teeny tiny worlds. There were, there were so few of us that really believed in VR in those days.

Joe Rogan 9:06 Is there a VR that like a professional boxer could use? Like could you get VR to the point where you could program it with AI so you could take like-

Palmer Luckey 9:15 Oh, I'd go further. Th-

Joe Rogan 9:15 ... the movement of like a Sugar Ray Leonard or something like that and actually program it into the machine?

Palmer Luckey 9:21 So I'd go fur- It's not just something you could do. It's being done.

Joe Rogan 9:24 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 9:24 There are boxers who are using this technology.

Joe Rogan 9:27 Really?

Palmer Luckey 9:27 Um, so like I, I, I, I, I know, uh, I know Logan Paul and Jake Paul and have talked with them a lot about using virtual reality and how they're using it to do combat training.

Joe Rogan 9:38 They're doing that?

Palmer Luckey 9:38 That's right.

Joe Rogan 9:38 Wow. Well, m- my thought was that you could actually emulate an opponent. So like say if you were supposed to fight Canelo Alvarez.

Palmer Luckey 9:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:47 Well, we have a, this database of all Canelo Alvarez's performances.

Palmer Luckey 9:51 Yep.

Joe Rogan 9:51 And training footage. So you could calculate what his normal exchanges are, what his opening moves are, how he, how he sets the hook up off the jab.

Palmer Luckey 10:01 I-

Joe Rogan 10:01 He feints the right hand.

Palmer Luckey 10:01 You're giving me crazy deja vu. Let me send you, let me show you-

Joe Rogan 10:04 Ah.

Palmer Luckey 10:04 ... the text message that I was just doing with Logan Paul last night. Um, I said, "It's time to have robots fighting people."

Joe Rogan 10:15 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 10:15 "My dream is that you can have robots perfectly tuned to match your own current physical capability and progressively ramp up against yourself over time or against the greats." Like we, we were talking through, like now, this was less VR. Well, are you, are you even following some of the robot fighting league stuff?

Joe Rogan 10:30 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 10:30 Having the ro- So that's controlled by VR. You put on a VR headset-

Joe Rogan 10:33 Right.

Palmer Luckey 10:33 ... you put on a motion capture suit, you tele-operate a robot. One of the things I've been talking with Logan about is the idea of having where you have one tele-operated robot versus a actual human.

Joe Rogan 10:44 Uh-huh.

Palmer Luckey 10:44 But then what we were talking about is this idea of having the robot learn from, like you're saying-

Joe Rogan 10:48 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 10:48 ... learning from footage of y- of not just the greats, but even yourself-

Joe Rogan 10:51 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 10:52 ... so that it, it can be basically ex- you could fight against your style, your exact level of strength. And then of course you want to fight against the greats and see just how far you have to go and just get the shit kicked out of you.

Joe Rogan 11:01 The other thing I was thinking about what a robot could do if you programmed it cor- correctly, it would have a really accurate sense of distance so it would be able to touch you instead of hurt you.

Palmer Luckey 11:12 It could pull its punches.

Joe Rogan 11:13 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 11:14 That's a really good point.

Joe Rogan 11:14 Which is the best sparring partners.

Palmer Luckey 11:16 Someone who ca- So, so the mechanics of it are all the same.

Joe Rogan 11:18 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 11:19 But you don't have the follow through of actually getting beat up.

Joe Rogan 11:20 Well, it would have, it would have more control probably even than a person, right?

Palmer Luckey 11:25 So people-

Joe Rogan 11:25 So just like you think of the precise movements that surgical robots are able to do.

Palmer Luckey 11:29 Absolutely. Um-

Joe Rogan 11:31 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 11:31 Well, I mean, it's you could do this ... The, the main thing that robots have is they have just such fast reaction time. And so you could put sensors in like a glove. You could have it where the moment that it hits or even a ranging sensor, where I mean it could stop a millimeter away from you.

Joe Rogan 11:46 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 11:46 So yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, you could, you could totally, you could tota- you could totally do that.

Joe Rogan 11:51 Is this something that someone's working out with?

Palmer Luckey 11:53 This is, uh-

Narrator 11:53 Yeah, well actually-

Joe Rogan 11:54 ... the Robot Fight League out of San Francisco, so- Oh, this is the Fight League.

Palmer Luckey 11:56 So actually, so actually this is, this is a buddy of mine who's been working in VR for a really, really long time. So it's again, what a tiny, (laughs) what a tiny world of weird wackos. Um, but yeah, Six Live has been working on-... uh, which is his real name, by the way. Um, uh, he's been working on VR stuff for the past 15 years, and he recently got into doing this, this, this robot, robot combat f- sports league.

Joe Rogan 12:19 So that's that move-

Palmer Luckey 12:20 They're doing a bi- they're doing a big US versus China fight in December if you want me to get you tickets.

Joe Rogan 12:24 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 12:24 I can, I can make it happen. I can pull some strings.

Joe Rogan 12:26 Where is it? Where is it taking place?

Palmer Luckey 12:27 I, I think it's gonna be in San Francisco.

Joe Rogan 12:30 That's funny. I try to stay out of San Francisco. I also don't-

Palmer Luckey 12:33 Same. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:34 ... really wanna watch robots fight.

Palmer Luckey 12:36 No?

Joe Rogan 12:37 I, I don't mind watching them on TV, but yeah.

Palmer Luckey 12:39 D- do you ever, uh, you ever, uh, see, you ever read manga or, or anime about fighting?

Joe Rogan 12:44 No.

Palmer Luckey 12:45 One of, so, I'm, I'm, I'm li- uh, I gotta admit, I'm less of a fighting guy, more of an anime/manga guy, but I love some of the just ridiculous inventions that, that make you think if there might be something there. So like, Fist of the North Star, there's a move that a guy learns and, uh, it's, it's like a, I forget, uh, I forget the name of it, but it's like a double punch. So what you do is you fold your fingers-

Joe Rogan 13:06 Okay.

Palmer Luckey 13:06 ... and you punch the guy-

Joe Rogan 13:08 Right.

Palmer Luckey 13:08 ... and then, like, his skin recoils it, you know, delivers the full hit, and then you fold your fingers in so that you hit-

Joe Rogan 13:15 Right.

Palmer Luckey 13:15 ... fold your fingers, and then punch again. And it's like one punch, but it's a double punch.

Joe Rogan 13:19 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 13:19 And then one of the culmination of his training is where his master shows him that there's actually a final step. You can see where this is going. It's a triple punch. So you punch him like this, and then like this, and then like this. And mostly that stuff is nonsense and never gonna work with a person, but it makes me wonder if a robot could do it. (laughs) I-

Joe Rogan 13:37 (laughs) Well, you would need momentum, right? I mean, if it's generating force-

Palmer Luckey 13:41 Well-

Joe Rogan 13:41 ... your force would be stopped with the first blow. To be able to generate additional momentum in a short distance-

Palmer Luckey 13:47 Yep.

Joe Rogan 13:47 ... would be very difficult.

Palmer Luckey 13:48 For a person.

Joe Rogan 13:49 Right, right.

Palmer Luckey 13:49 See, but what I'm thinking is a robot would allow you to do this-

Joe Rogan 13:52 Right, because it doesn't-

Palmer Luckey 13:52 ... this type of multiple-

Joe Rogan 13:53 ... have muscles, it's using a different f- force, yeah.

Palmer Luckey 13:55 Exactly. So your first one would carry all your inertia through-

Joe Rogan 13:59 It seems stupid-

Palmer Luckey 13:59 ... and then you could, you get a second one. Oh, I agree-

Joe Rogan 14:00 ... 'cause you would think you would want-

Palmer Luckey 14:01 ... it probably is.

Joe Rogan 14:02 ... the most power in the first shot and concentrate only on that.

Palmer Luckey 14:05 But what if you could do the most power in the first shot and then another follow-up shot-

Joe Rogan 14:09 Like a ba-da-boom.

Palmer Luckey 14:09 ... shot anyway? Yeah, or, or like-

Joe Rogan 14:10 Right.

Palmer Luckey 14:10 ... you hit him and it throws him back a bit, and then the moment, you know, the distance it creates-

Joe Rogan 14:15 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 14:15 Look, I'm not a fighting expert. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a com- I'm a computer kid.

Joe Rogan 14:19 The thing, the, what bothers me about it is the human body's inherently flawed. It's not a good design.

Palmer Luckey 14:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:24 And it's not a good design for fighting. So if I was gonna design something to fight something, I would never design it after a human. I would use an animal-

Palmer Luckey 14:31 That-

Joe Rogan 14:32 ... or something more destructive. I wouldn't use something so vulnerable, or something with like-

Palmer Luckey 14:35 Sure.

Joe Rogan 14:36 ... shitty mechanics.

Palmer Luckey 14:37 Well, it ends up looking like a battle bot probably.

Joe Rogan 14:38 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 14:38 You know, something heavily shielded and armored and it's got a big spike on an arm.

Joe Rogan 14:42 It would be like that. That's what you would have for a robot to fight, because a human is just too goofy.

Palmer Luckey 14:48 Well, I mean, that's why the stuff that I make for the Department of Defense, or I guess now the Department of War, none of it looks like a human.

Joe Rogan 14:53 Right.

Palmer Luckey 14:53 You know, w- we're, I mean, we're making robots for fighting and they all have very hyper-specialized forms, and some of them look a bit like sharks or a bit like birds, but g- generally, yeah, you're right, the human form is not the one that you would actually base a Terminator off.

Joe Rogan 15:07 No, it's terrible. It's a terrible form.

Palmer Luckey 15:08 Al- although I would say, one of my, I, I don't, I don't think James Cameron ever really explored this in Terminator, but my, my personal kind of like, uh, like, like a headcanon theory would be that the reason that Skynet made the Terminators into a humanoid form is because maybe there is really some hope and that it, there's something of, of humanity left in it. You know, what, like if-

Joe Rogan 15:29 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 15:30 ... if it was truly a merciless killing machine with no affiliation with humanity, why would it make its agents, uh, you know, so, so uniformly human shaped? Uh, but that's just, that's just something I've thought from time to time.

Joe Rogan 15:43 But wasn't it just for deception?

Palmer Luckey 15:44 Well, so it-

Joe Rogan 15:45 So they could sneak around.

Palmer Luckey 15:46 ... the, the later ones truly were for deception, but if you look at a lot of the flashes into the future, they don't have meat-shielded Terminators. There's lots of, like, T-Series, uh, humanoid combat robots that are just walking around as bare metal skeletons.

Joe Rogan 15:59 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 16:00 And so I f- I, I feel like that it, it's some, it's almost like an admission that the AI does see itself in the, in the, in the mind of a, uh, it sees itself as a creation of man, it sees itself in the, in the eyes of man.

Joe Rogan 16:13 That's what's-

Palmer Luckey 16:13 Y-

Joe Rogan 16:13 ... really creepy, right? 'Cause that's in the Bible.

Palmer Luckey 16:15 Y-

Joe Rogan 16:15 God created man in his image.

Palmer Luckey 16:17 Th- that's exactly what I was thinking, is like, it's, it's very much like it realizes it was created in man's image and, and derives some sort of satisfaction or value from that. I don't know if that's-

Joe Rogan 16:25 Or maybe it is-

Palmer Luckey 16:25 ... good or bad, but it, I thought it was interesting.

Joe Rogan 16:27 ... just a giant cycle and that's how life eventually does create artificial life, and then ar-

Palmer Luckey 16:32 Well, I mean, you're familiar with all like, you know, the, like all the, all the theories around, uh, you know, like, uh, humanity being like planted here by an alien.

Joe Rogan 16:39 Oh, yeah, sure.

Palmer Luckey 16:40 And, and like that, that, that's, that's always interesting 'cause, you know, you could imagine a world where yeah, it is this cycle of things that look kinda like humans were on top of us, and maybe eventually there will be things l- look like humans beneath us.

Joe Rogan 16:52 Wasn't there some weird discovery-

Palmer Luckey 16:54 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 16:54 ... uh, recent discovery of an asteroid where they picked apart whether it's the im- the crucial amino acids for life or some sort of genetic material?

Palmer Luckey 17:05 You're talking about the, the NASA release that there were strong indica- like biosigns in, uh, co- that are, that are compatible with, with what we'd expect from life?

Joe Rogan 17:13 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 17:14 There was, and then I think they, they-

Joe Rogan 17:15 Recently, right?

Palmer Luckey 17:16 It was recently, although they walked it back pretty quickly.

Joe Rogan 17:19 Oh, did they?

Palmer Luckey 17:19 Um, th- the, there was kind of an initial release that said that we found that are, that they're strongly aligned with being biological signals, and then they re- re- kind of reached back, they said, "Well, maybe not."

Joe Rogan 17:31 Do you kn- do you think that-

Palmer Luckey 17:32 I, I haven't dug into that one as deep as others. I've just been too busy really lately, and that you're right, this is like very recent news.

Joe Rogan 17:37 I always wonder if someone got overenthusiastic or if someone said-

Palmer Luckey 17:41 (laughs) Did they get to them?

Joe Rogan 17:42 ... "Hey," yeah, "why don't you shut the fuck up?" You know, like-

Palmer Luckey 17:45 Yep.

Joe Rogan 17:45 ... "We're trying to slow this whole release of alien technology-"

Palmer Luckey 17:49 Yep.

Joe Rogan 17:50 "... alien life, slow it down."

Palmer Luckey 17:52 Well-

Joe Rogan 17:52 "Try to keep society together so we have a stock market." (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 17:55 Well, the good news, the good news in this case is I think even, even in the most optimistic sense, and optimistic meaning I hope they find life, I think it's gonna end up being, you know, some microbes. It's not, whatever they saw was not consistent with, you know, oh-

Joe Rogan 18:07 Right.

Palmer Luckey 18:07 ... dude, it's a, it's a person in the rock.

Joe Rogan 18:09 Right.

Palmer Luckey 18:09 Uh, which of course what we all want. We want li- uh, people or, you know, little green men or-

Joe Rogan 18:13 Right.

Palmer Luckey 18:14 ... som- something like that.

Joe Rogan 18:15 That's probably gonna be pretty far away.

Palmer Luckey 18:17 It probably is, and it seems, I mean, in my experience...... on this front is largely from a military angle, and looking at a lot of the footage that's coming out and, and, and, and a lot of the sensor feeds that have come out. And the thing that, what we, like, what we really need even more than discovering microbes, like these flying objects-

Joe Rogan 18:35 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 18:36 ... the problem is that most of them, mo-, and I'm not saying all of them, most of them they, we're only capturing on, let, let's say one sensor, like a camera is seeing it or a radar is seeing it. It's very rare to get both of those totally different types of sensors looking at the same time. It's relatively easy to imagine a world where a sensor would have an error, an artifact, or even that it's being actively spoofed, right? Like, it's a- people are actively trying to trick it. You can make radars see things that aren't there. You can make cameras see things that aren't there if you're really smart about how you interact with them. It's very hard to make something that makes a radar and a camera see something that isn't there in a way that perfectly aligns-

Joe Rogan 19:10 Right.

Palmer Luckey 19:10 ... with what is there. Now you saw the recent one with the hellfire that was fired at it.

Joe Rogan 19:14 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 19:14 And, and it appears to have broken, broken up, but then kept moving.

Joe Rogan 19:18 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 19:18 That's interesting because now you have something that's on a camera and you sent another thing with a seeker and it got there-

Joe Rogan 19:24 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 19:24 ... and it blew up. And-

Joe Rogan 19:25 Is that definite real footage?

Palmer Luckey 19:29 I mean, I believe-

Joe Rogan 19:30 It's been verified?

Palmer Luckey 19:33 I am probably not in a position where I should say if I know if it's been verified-

Joe Rogan 19:37 Let's-

Palmer Luckey 19:37 But I'll tell you this, I believe the footage is real.

Joe Rogan 19:39 Let's run it through-

Palmer Luckey 19:40 And, and I can't, I can't s-

Joe Rogan 19:42 What do you mean by verified though?

19:43 Just ask if it has been verified that this is legitimate footage from the military of whatever they thought it was gonna be and a hellfire missile hits it.

Palmer Luckey 19:53 I do believe that one of the, one of the members of the unidentified aerial phenomenon committees in Congress introduced it into a hearing.

Joe Rogan 20:00 Yeah, I think that's-

20:01 Ooh.

20:01 ... that's where it came from. It came from a hearing.

Palmer Luckey 20:02 Yeah, so, so it-

Joe Rogan 20:03 Who, uh, released it?

20:03 It didn't just, like, show up on Twitter.

20:05 W- oh, okay. Which guy released it?

20:07 Uh, one... I don't know. I don't wanna speak out.

Palmer Luckey 20:12 You saw the phenomenon?

Joe Rogan 20:14 Yes.

Palmer Luckey 20:15 Fantastic. That's-

Joe Rogan 20:16 It's really good. Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 20:16 You know the guy who did it is doing a follow-up. Have you heard about this?

Joe Rogan 20:18 What's he doing? This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. We all know ultra-processed food isn't good for us as humans. Why would it be any different for our dogs? The Farmer's Dog is real, fresh food for dogs, and their recipe goes beyond just using good ingredients. It's all about how they use them. Unlike most pet food, they always use real meat and vegetables and gently cook them to retain vital nutrients without any of the bad stuff that comes from ultra-processing. Their food is developed by a team of on-staff board certified vet nutritionists who make sure it's all complete and balanced, and it's backed by research and made to human grade safety standards. It's portioned for your dog, making it easy to manage their weight. And they label each pack with your dog's name that lets you know that this food is truly packed for them. Plus, they have 24/7 customer support, so you can chat with real dog people who care about your dog anytime. The Farmer's Dog says good ingredients matter, but the best recipes call for so much more. Head to thefarmersdog.com/rogan to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. This offer is for new customers only.

Palmer Luckey 21:31 You know, I probably shouldn't say too much more, but, uh, there's, there's, there's, there's a, there's a follow-up to it that's coming that's even-

Joe Rogan 21:36 Yeah, wait a minute.

Palmer Luckey 21:36 ... that's even better.

Joe Rogan 21:36 The phenomena- wasn't the phenomenon Jane Fox? James Fox?

Palmer Luckey 21:40 Was it James Fox?

Joe Rogan 21:41 Was the phenomenon-

Palmer Luckey 21:41 It was, it was-

Joe Rogan 21:42 ... James Fox?

21:42 What? Say again?

21:43 James Fox, was that the phenomenon?

21:45 Yeah, but did they do disclosure?

21:46 He had moment of con- he had, uh, Moment of Contact, he had the, The Virgin-, that's The Virginia One. And then didn't he have The Phenomenon too? Somebody did it. I saw it.

21:59 Yeah.

21:59 Why did I think it was Fox?

22:00 Yeah.

22:00 It is Fox. Yeah, Fox had been on here a few times. He's got that crazy one about The Virginia Brazil sighting. Do you know about that one?

Palmer Luckey 22:07 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 22:08 That one's nuts. Like, the whole town saw this thing. It crashed in, in the-

Palmer Luckey 22:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:11 ... 90s, and they have, like, a statue of this thing, like, as you're entering the city.

Palmer Luckey 22:15 Yep.

Joe Rogan 22:16 And supposedly, this is the crazy story, there was a, a, a wounded alien.

Palmer Luckey 22:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:22 One of the police officers carried this wounded alien in the back of a car, they brought it to a hospital. There's records of them bringing this to the hospital.

Palmer Luckey 22:29 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 22:29 The hospital said, "We can't handle this. We didn't, we have no capa- take it to a different hospital." So they took it to another hospital.

Palmer Luckey 22:35 Yep.

Joe Rogan 22:36 Then the g- the guy who carried the thing gets a severe bacterial infection that's unresponsive to antibiotics and dies.

Palmer Luckey 22:45 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 22:46 Yeah. Young, healthy, you know, fighting age man gets this weird infection after handling this creature. Multiple witnesses say they saw another one of them. There was, like, a couple of them.

Palmer Luckey 22:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:58 One of them was injured that they picked up, and there was another one that was there. And then many people in the town said that they saw another craft come by to retrieve those aliens.

Palmer Luckey 23:09 I need to, I need to look at this-

Joe Rogan 23:09 It's a really nutty story because it's... The same story is told independently by a bunch of people.

Palmer Luckey 23:17 You know, I've kind of got my retirement figured out.

Joe Rogan 23:19 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 23:19 Um, and I have for a while. Um-

Joe Rogan 23:21 Can't you just retire right now if you wanted to? Like, think about it.

Palmer Luckey 23:23 I mean, I could. It's just, I, what I'm doing I think is important, you know?

Joe Rogan 23:25 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 23:25 So I, I gotta, I gotta see my mission through. Like, um, the government is, we've been spending way too much money on defense, not getting nearly enough for it. So I started Anduril with the goal of saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year. I need to, I need to see that through. But what I wanna get to someday is, uh... See, there, there's a handful of these government groups that are going around looking into things like what you're talking about, you know? Like, they-

Joe Rogan 23:47 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 23:47 ... they look into the, the strange phenomenon.

Joe Rogan 23:49 Right.

Palmer Luckey 23:50 Um, those groups do exist, and I've tracked down a few of them. The problem is that they're not taken seriously, they're not well-funded, and, uh, you know, they're, they're, they're subject to all the same normal rules as an average government employee. Like, their, their problems are not, you know, finding weird things. It's stuff like getting approval to buy plane tickets to go somewhere and, you know, getting approval to stay there for two nights versus, versus one night.

Joe Rogan 24:13 Really?

Palmer Luckey 24:13 Oh, it, look, it's just the, it's the typical government bureaucracy where they have to make every penny count. They only have so much money. Anyway, one of my dreams is I'm gonna, at some point when I'm retired, I'm gonna go get deputized by the government, go get my federal badge, and, uh, I'll be the, I'll, I'll, I'll be the government's, uh, uh, privately funded X-Files, and I'll just fly around-

Joe Rogan 24:31 Dude.

Palmer Luckey 24:31 I'll fly around in my own plane, I'll have my own team, we'll bring our own sensors, our own computers. "Oh man, if only we could bring in this expert," but he's on the other side of the world. Just say, "Bring him in."

Joe Rogan 24:40 Da da da. (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 24:41 "Br- br- bring him in. Send the, send the, send the plane."Yes, sir.

Joe Rogan 24:44 Put out the Palmer signal.

Palmer Luckey 24:45 Y- yes, yes, sir, he'll be here in 12 hours. You know, like-

Joe Rogan 24:47 Ugh.

Palmer Luckey 24:47 ... th- w- I, I feel like there's enou- and not even just aliens, in general, there's enough weird stuff going on-

Joe Rogan 24:52 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 24:53 ... that it doesn't seem like a stretch to have somebody or something that really stays on top of that stuff.

Joe Rogan 24:59 It seems like a very good idea. Did you see The Age of Disclosure? Did you see the documentary?

Palmer Luckey 25:03 Age of Disclosure? No, I haven't seen that.

Joe Rogan 25:05 It's a n- it's a new one, and it, it, it has a hypothesis. It has a theory of why there hasn't been disclosure, and a lot of it has to do with the legal implications, because too many people have been misappropriating funds-

Palmer Luckey 25:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:19 ... if this is real.

Palmer Luckey 25:21 Sure.

Joe Rogan 25:21 So if this is real, they-

Palmer Luckey 25:22 Like if there's recovered alien crash objects-

Joe Rogan 25:24 Yes. Yes.

Palmer Luckey 25:24 ... if those have been parceled out to private companies, like, yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:27 Exactly. That's exactly the dilemma. So say if, let's say, just to make up a name, Lockheed Martin gets it-

Palmer Luckey 25:33 Sure.

Joe Rogan 25:33 ... and they have this back engineered craft that they're working on, but then Raytheon doesn't get it-

Palmer Luckey 25:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:39 ... Raytheon should be able to sue the government, like, "Why'd you do that? Is it an unfair competitive advantage?" Also, the people that are in charge of the projects, there's all this money that they have to lie to Congress about.

Palmer Luckey 25:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:52 And so in this documentary, one of the things that they're proposing, guys like Lue Elizondo, and, like, what is the path to sanity with all this stuff? One of the things they're proposing is amnesty.

Palmer Luckey 26:01 Yep.

Joe Rogan 26:01 Just give, like, blanket amnesty, "Tell us what the fuck you know. Let's go." But then there's some of this is-

Palmer Luckey 26:07 And I assume limited time amnesty where you say... (laughs) And, and, and the amnesty only applies to what is disclosed-

Joe Rogan 26:11 Exactly.

Palmer Luckey 26:11 ... in this amnesty. It doesn't apply beyond that.

Joe Rogan 26:14 But also if it's government, you know there's a lot of fraud and waste.

Palmer Luckey 26:17 Sure.

Joe Rogan 26:18 So even if, if these guys are just monkeying around with billions of dollars, a little yacht here, a little vacation here.

Palmer Luckey 26:24 Yep.

Joe Rogan 26:24 Little Cayman Islands there.

Palmer Luckey 26:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:25 L- you know, like, so stuff is probably, it's probably real ugly.

Palmer Luckey 26:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 26:30 Which is, and they've been doing this for, if it's real, they've been doing this for decades.

Palmer Luckey 26:33 Yep.

Joe Rogan 26:34 With no oversight.

Palmer Luckey 26:35 Yep. W-

Joe Rogan 26:35 So they probably are, they're a little wild.

Palmer Luckey 26:38 I mean-

Joe Rogan 26:38 They're a little feral by now.

Palmer Luckey 26:39 I mean, it's just across the board our country's been spending so much money-

Joe Rogan 26:43 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 26:43 ... on what is supposed to be for national security, but in, in re- in reality, it's, a lot, lot of it has nothing to do with that.

Joe Rogan 26:50 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 26:50 And so that was why I got into, that was why I got into the defense base. Like if you have-

Joe Rogan 26:54 Well, isn't that with e- everything though, right? It's like, that's how it is with charities as well.

Palmer Luckey 26:57 So it, it's, it's with everything-

Joe Rogan 26:58 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 26:58 ... but it's a question of, of how you can appr- apply targeted pressure as a private individual, right? So yeah, like charities, there's a lot of, lot of graft going on, but what can I really do to stop that at each of these charities, right? Like no, there's, there's no one charity that kind of dominates, right? It's, it's a, it's a thousand, it's a thousand grains of rice. Um, whereas the Department of Defense is one giant entity with a trillion dollar a year budget. And so it's much easier, like if, if you wanted to s- you know, call it like say $100 billion a year for taxpayers, you kind of have to go after the big concentrated chunks. Like you might be able to do that going after like, healthcare problems, maybe education problems, definitely going after Department of Defense problems. And I know a lot more about how to build good technology than I do about healthcare. And so, um, yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:47 Like if these, if these were all private companies, they would never survive the way they're running.

Palmer Luckey 27:53 Correct. Well, I mean, yeah. These government agencies, they, when they make mistakes, they don't go out of business. And in fact they can make bad mistakes over and over and over again and still remain in business. Uh, y- you, it's... I do think, I th- I think we're turning a corner with some of this. Did you see, um, the new Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll's, uh, AUSA talk yesterday?

Joe Rogan 28:14 No, I did not.

Palmer Luckey 28:15 Oh man, it's, it might be worth pulling it up.

Joe Rogan 28:17 Okay.

Palmer Luckey 28:17 He, he pulls up this piece, um, this piece of hardware and he is like, "Hey, like this little thing, like it costs this insane amount of money and we were able to make it in our own lab, just 3D print it for like $10. And so that's what we're gonna be doing now." Like, and he like, he killed the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program. He killed this new kind of boondoggle of a robotic ca- ro- robotic tank pr- program where it was gonna be millions of dollars for these robot tanks that were gonna get blown up by $300 drones. And so he, I mean he, the, there's just kind of been like no rules just going and axing all of the dumb stuff that doesn't make sense. And then taking a knife to these companies that have been charging way too much money, which is very different from the past.

Joe Rogan 28:59 Hmm.

Palmer Luckey 29:00 It's very rare. It has been a long time since you saw a secretary level official being willing to publicly contraindicate defense companies and say, "You're screwing over taxpayers and it ends here." Uh, so-

Joe Rogan 29:13 Whoa.

Palmer Luckey 29:13 ... I'm, I'm, I'm actually pretty optimistic about this across the services. I think like pe- pe- people are fed up. There's-

Joe Rogan 29:19 Do you think Doge sort of started that ball moving and then they-

Palmer Luckey 29:23 I, I think it did.

Joe Rogan 29:24 ... th- that direction is sort of momentum is headed on its side right now.

Palmer Luckey 29:27 I, I think the, you know, the Doge thing was interesting because it wasn't even the technique so much. Like the techniques where they kind of went into the data on like USAID and looked through all of this stuff and like, like basically where the data science of it is what allowed them to find the graft. That doesn't really apply to finding the problems in DOD, um, because it's, it's just so much more deeply buried. But it kind of gave people permission to go look at these things. Like it gave people permission to even say, "I believe there is billions of dollars in waste in my department. I'm gonna do something about it." I don't think people felt like they had like psychic permission to do that five years ago.

Joe Rogan 30:04 Oh wow. That's interesting.

Palmer Luckey 30:06 Well, I mean, and let, let, let's go to like, kind of like the-

Joe Rogan 30:07 So you just didn't wanna rock the boat five years ago?

Palmer Luckey 30:09 Well, I mean, let's go to like the height of, and you know, not even making it political, just timeline wise. Go to the like the middle of the Biden administration.

Joe Rogan 30:15 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 30:15 Could you imagine any official in that area, like secretary or chair or anybody coming out and saying, "My department is wasting billions of dollars."

Joe Rogan 30:25 (gasps)

Palmer Luckey 30:25 "We are taking money from taxpayers and using it on absurd nonsense." That would never happen five years ago. And I think the Doge stuff gave people permission to come out and say that. And, and, and, and for them to be seen not as, you know, crazy, but as just being honest about the truth. So when you see like the Secretary of the Army come out and say, "We are wasting billions of dollars on total bullshit and we're getting, we are getting screwed this, that way and the other," uh, I, I think that's a-... that's a really, that's a really good development.

Joe Rogan 30:56 Well, it also seems like it's a really shitty way to compete with other countries that operate very efficiently, like their, their private companies.

Palmer Luckey 31:04 Correct.

Joe Rogan 31:05 Like, other countries, like China, the government fully embedded in private companies-

Palmer Luckey 31:09 Yep.

Joe Rogan 31:09 ... and the private companies are competing against each other-

Palmer Luckey 31:11 Civil military fusion.

Joe Rogan 31:12 Right.

Palmer Luckey 31:13 Well, it, and there's, it's, it goes even beyond that, where like, uh, you know, central planning has downsides, but it does have upsides. And one of the interesting things there is also, like, there are some people who are being accused of corruption because they just want to kill them and get them out of the way for political reasons. There's other people who are actually corrupt, and they're going in, and when people are wasting money, they're not going and saying, "Oh, well, you kinda wasted a few billion dollars, but, you know, we're gonna give you another shot and try this again." They just, they just, they just, they just imprison them for treason and/or kill them. I'm not saying that's what we should do exactly-

Joe Rogan 31:45 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 31:45 ... but I think that there's a scale to all of these things. On a scale of, you know, give them another shot versus shoot them in the head for treason, we could probably move in that direction without going all of the way, and it would probably be healthy for our country's national security.

Joe Rogan 31:59 Would that be the, like if you, ideally, would it be that all this national security stuff was handled by a private company? Would that be, like, ideal in terms of efficiency?

Palmer Luckey 32:08 S-

Joe Rogan 32:08 In terms of technological innovation?

Palmer Luckey 32:10 Mm.

Joe Rogan 32:11 Implementing ideas?

Palmer Luckey 32:13 I think that... Look, like, private c-

Joe Rogan 32:15 Not a, I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying, like-

Palmer Luckey 32:17 No, no, no. So, uh, look, I've got, okay-

Joe Rogan 32:18 There's problems with running a government.

Palmer Luckey 32:20 I just, I mean, look, I've got a strong, I've got a strong opinion here. I think that what you want, it's not a private company. It needs to be done by competing entities, right? And so if it's private-

Joe Rogan 32:30 Right.

Palmer Luckey 32:30 And, and at least one of them has to be private. So, like, I don't even really mind the government doing something if they're not being f- favored. In other words, if there's some government office that is competing with multiple private sector companies-

Joe Rogan 32:40 Like the post office versus UPS.

Palmer Luckey 32:42 Exactly. Although, that's a little unfair in that I don't know how d- By the way, I'm very deep on this. Like, I don't understand why we give the USPS a monopoly on normal mail. Uh, are you familiar with this whole bit?

Joe Rogan 32:53 Yeah, it's a little weird.

Palmer Luckey 32:54 It's cr- Like, we would never let-

Joe Rogan 32:55 They're the only way you can get chickens shipped, too.

Palmer Luckey 32:57 It's, I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 32:58 Yeah, if you bu- Have baby chicks, they send them through the m- regular mail, but they won't send them UPS.

Palmer Luckey 33:03 That's so interesting. Well, it's the same thing with, uh, firearms. You can only send them USPS. You can't send them-

Joe Rogan 33:08 Hm.

Palmer Luckey 33:08 So like, uh, I don't know why we've given a private company a monopo- Like, if there was a private company that had the same monopoly that the USPS does, and they were using it to send, you know, o- 100 pounds of junk mail to every American every year-

Joe Rogan 33:20 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 33:20 ... there's no way they would survive. Like, like, the- They would be regulated out of existence.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Yeah, right.

Palmer Luckey 33:24 But, you know, is l- What you really want is competition. You want organizations, private or public, that when they trip and fall, they skin their own knees instead of getting bailed out by taxpayers.

Joe Rogan 33:35 Right.

Palmer Luckey 33:35 You want them to f- You know, live in fear, be highly competitive, um, and by the way, this is-

Joe Rogan 33:39 Make their audits, by the way.

Palmer Luckey 33:41 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 33:42 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 33:42 And, and, and, and they have to survive an auditing process. They have to be accountable to, uh, you know, whether it's a board or to, you know, s- some committee. And the problem is right now, we don't have a lot of that. I will say, though, you asked should, you know, should, should these national security, you know, programs be in the hands of private companies. I think that's true for the development of the technology. However, it can never ever be in the hands of private companies when it comes to the actual national security policy of what we are building or who we are building it for or where it should go.

Joe Rogan 34:10 Of course.

Palmer Luckey 34:11 I get, I get people all the time who come to me, usually people who are more skeptical of government, um, and yet they say, "Palmer, aren't there countries you would commit to never building for? You know, like, would you just build for whoever gives you money?" And I say, "Well, I'll, look, I, my job is to do what the government tells me. They're the, you know, they're the ones who decide who we're gonna work with or not." And they say, "How could you do that? How could you work with this country or that country? How could you build this type of system or that type of system?" And I point to them as, "Do you wanna live in a corporatocracy where big tech CEOs get to decide the de facto foreign policy and military policy of the United States?" Like, you should, if I were in a position to make those decisions, something's gone very wrong in this country because you can't vote me out.

Joe Rogan 34:55 Right.

Palmer Luckey 34:55 You can't elect my competitor. And so I, I, a lot of people who normally are skeptical of the government and government power and overreach, suddenly they, they, they look to the private sector for, you know, "Oh, like, the private sector's gonna regulate this." To me, that's the most, like, cyberpunk dystopian thing ever. Imagine, like, me and a bunch of weapons executives sitting in a room being like, "So which countries are on the green list this year?" "Hm, I don't know. I was thinking we could sell some missile defense to those guys, and I think we should sell some offensive weapons to those guys." Like, no, that, that has to be, that has to be the government, unless you just don't believe in democracy at all, right? Like if you, if you believe-

Joe Rogan 35:28 Oh, yeah.

Palmer Luckey 35:28 ... that the sys- That we cannot elect officials that are accountable, then that's a different thing. But I, I'm not that black-pilled. I-

Joe Rogan 35:35 I'm not that black-pilled either, but I'm getting there. (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 35:38 I, no, look, I, I'm, look-

Joe Rogan 35:39 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 35:40 Sometimes I see it too. I mean, I think that what it is is you, inevitably, when you have a pendulum, sometimes it will swing too far. And I think, but I think the good news, it can correct. I mean, like, look at a lot of our misadventures in the Middle East as a really good example where there were a lot of things, like, the government caused a lot of things to happen that I think never would have happened had people really known the truth behind a lot of those actions. But in the end, we did have the ability to hold them accountable. Now, the real problem is that people didn't hold them accountable. Like, there's a lot of people today where, uh, they don't, they're not really that worked up about some of these people in government who lied to us. But I, I would say that's a fault of the American people, not of the democratic process. It just means-

Joe Rogan 36:17 Hm.

Palmer Luckey 36:17 ... people don't care about that issue as much, which I think they should care more, but, but they don't.

Joe Rogan 36:21 I think they're also not that informed, like-

Palmer Luckey 36:23 Sure.

Joe Rogan 36:23 ... universally about-

Palmer Luckey 36:24 Now, is it, is that because they don't want to be or because they can't be?

Joe Rogan 36:27 It's difficult because most people don't have time. I think that's-

Palmer Luckey 36:31 That-

Joe Rogan 36:31 ... that's a big part of it.

Palmer Luckey 36:32 That does make it hard.

Joe Rogan 36:33 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 36:33 That does make it hard. But I mean, I, I think that, you know, not, not, not to butter you up, but this is one of the things where shows like yours have made a huge difference, where they've been able to take things that are pretty complex for a person to f- figure out from first principles, stories that they would never read about in establishment media, like let's say the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, which by the way is dependent on continued access to the US government. They can't just go out and burn everybody in the government or nobody will ever talk to them.

Joe Rogan 36:56 Right.

Palmer Luckey 36:57 You've taken a lot of these stories and put them into a format where the guy who's busy, he's, you know, he's in his truck, he's on his way to the work site, can actually become informed on these issues.

Joe Rogan 37:05 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 37:05 And as someone who is a journalism major, I've been so happy to see that shift because I wanted to be a journalist because I, there were no good technology journalists. And I was good at technology, figured I was gonna, uh, beat all these guys and be a better technology journalist.

Joe Rogan 37:18 Oh, that's interesting.

Palmer Luckey 37:18 And in the end, I ended up dropping out of school and starting Oculus instead, but, um-

Joe Rogan 37:22 That worked out. This is an ad by BetterHelp.We have a lot of big holidays coming up, but before you start preparing for trick-or-treaters or make plans for travel for Thanksgiving, there's one other big day you should focus on, World Mental Health Day. It's October 10th, and if you don't know already, it's a great day to send some love to therapists. Maybe a therapist has made a positive impact on you or someone you love. Therapists listen, ask the right questions, and help someone move forward. They can help you if there's something keeping you up at night. If you're looking for a safe space, BetterHelp is a good place to start. They've spent the past decade helping people connect with the right professional therapist, and based on the millions of highly-rated reviews, it's safe to say they do a great job. BetterHelp does most of the work for you too. All you have to do is fill out a quick questionnaire. This World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/jre. That's betterhelp.com/jre.

Palmer Luckey 38:46 But, yeah, I, I, I mean, I think you would agree, it is getting easier to become educated on these things. Like, 10 years-

Joe Rogan 38:52 It is in America-

Palmer Luckey 38:52 ... what would you have done?

Joe Rogan 38:53 It is in America, but it's a little disconcerting, like when you see th- the way they're handling things in Europe.

Palmer Luckey 38:58 Oh, sure.

Joe Rogan 38:59 Like, it's getting really weird in the UK. 12,000 arrests this year for social media posts about immigration, and now, now they want everybody to have a digital ID.

Palmer Luckey 39:05 You got a license for that meme, mate? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:07 Yeah, it's getting really weird. And, you know, th- as that-

Palmer Luckey 39:11 Arrests for, uh, uh, posting, uh, disturbing or offensive content.

Joe Rogan 39:16 Yes, or annoying.

Palmer Luckey 39:17 Could I share a little story there?

Joe Rogan 39:18 Sure.

Palmer Luckey 39:20 Um, this has been so funny watching, watching this in, in the UK because... So I... The first thing I ever did that anyone cared about was called Mod Retro. So it was this internet forum for people modifying game consoles, making, making, making portable versions of int- of, of old game consoles, upgrading modern game consoles. Anyway, when, when we started the site, it was me and a few other people who were kind of running it. I was the founder and there were a few other co-administrators, and one of them was this British guy who went by the online handle of Bacteria.

Joe Rogan 39:50 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 39:50 And I won't say his real name because it doesn't matter. Um, but he, he was a British guy. He worked in, um, he worked in a very, very low level British government, so like, not higher up at all. But he, he worked in a government, government agency, government office, and, um, he was always, w- I think of all the people on this forum, which was mostly like teenagers and college students, he was kind of like the older guy. And he says, "Oh, we need to be kind about what we say." You know, that "we, we shouldn't say anything that is bad." And he was always pushing that our rules should say it's, that is was against our rules to offend anybody.

Joe Rogan 40:21 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 40:21 And you shouldn't be able to say anything, uh, that was, that was, that was too offensive. And, uh, you know, we mostly just made fun of him. "Aha, he's an old British man," you know. Uh, and, but what's interesting is he ended up eventually leaving the site because he thought people were being too mean to each other, and he started his own competing website. And the rule number one was, uh, "No content that make m- that may make any member feel demeaned, uncomfortable, or insulted." We're like, "Well..." I mean, they, and, uh, and, and w- we were all making fun of that. We were making our own little, you know, image macros and memes about it. Like, we actually made some fake ads for his website and put them on Facebook-

Joe Rogan 40:53 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 40:53 ... and it said, "Come join the, uh, you know, the Bacteria's website. Nobody will say anything to you that might offend or displease you." Um, but what's interesting is as all this UK stuff has, has come around, I remember these kind of like long-forgotten childhood memories. Like, I was like 13 or 14 at the time. And I think it really is partly a cultural reflection for them. Like, there are a lot of people in the UK who genuinely think it's good to police this stuff. They don't want people to be able to go out and just cause a ruckus.

Joe Rogan 41:22 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 41:22 You know, to, to say things that are insulting in the streets. And of course you have people who are protesting against that, but I think that also their surveillance state, you know, where there's cameras everywhere, it's actually a reflection of different cultural norms. And so, uh, the, the one good thing about what's going on in the UK is I don't think it would ever come over to America very easily because culturally, you know, we're, we're not walking around feeling like it's... Like, we don't, we don't feel like it's a crime to insult people. They feel like it should be.

Joe Rogan 41:47 Maybe perhaps some of p- some of them do, but I think it's so overwhelmingly-

Palmer Luckey 41:51 Oh, it's worse.

Joe Rogan 41:52 ... moving towards tyranny.

Palmer Luckey 41:53 I think, I think it's the majority. That's the crazy thing.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Really? You think the majority of people want it that way?

Palmer Luckey 41:57 I, I think that the majority of people in the UK have no problem with people who post spicy memes getting a visit from the local constabulary.

Joe Rogan 42:06 Wow, really?

Palmer Luckey 42:08 I, I... That, that is, that has been my experience. Now there are people who disagree, of course, and like I would say maybe it's a growing group. Uh, they're, they're a highly visible group, they're protesting, but I, I... If, if I had to bet, they're... Most people don't care. Most people in the UK just don't care about it one way or the other. And I think the group of people who are on the side of the control is larger than the people who are on, not on the side. By the way, similar thing in China. Um, you know, people talk about Chinese censorship on things like, you know, Tiananmen Square.

Joe Rogan 42:33 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 42:33 And that's actually the majority Chinese opinion too. If you talk to most Chinese people and you say, "Well, what do you think about the fact that they're censoring all this discussion?" The typical... And I, I know lots of people in China, they say, "That's an irrelevant issue from 30 or 40 years ago. It doesn't matter. Anyone who's trying to make every discussion about Tiananmen Square is just a troublemaker. And I don't care if they're shut down, I'm glad that they're not clogging the comments, and I'm glad those people are being, are, are being pushed out of, of the conversation." And like, that's such a pretty normal opinion. Don't, don't cause trouble needlessly.

Joe Rogan 43:04 Hm.

Palmer Luckey 43:04 Now these same people might say, "I have strong opinions about the COVID lockdown information locked down in China." Like they might say, "I don't like that the Chinese government is locking down on, you know, l- locking us in our apartments." But when it comes to discussion of political issues, China in general, they think that people who bring this up like you would just be a troublemaker.

Joe Rogan 43:21 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 43:22 They just say, "Ah, that Joe Rogan, he's a troublemaker. Why is he bringing up all these problems from the past? It's irrelevant."

Joe Rogan 43:27 Hm.

Palmer Luckey 43:27 "Why, h- wh- why, why are we, why are we allowing this guy to take up our public spaces?" Like if you're public protesting in public space, they're not... Here you would... You've probably seen protesters you didn't agree with and you said, "You know, I'm glad they're, I'm glad they're doing something they believe in."

Joe Rogan 43:39 I'm glad George Soros is sending them checks. (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 43:41 (laughs) Maybe not those, but, but, but true grassroots. You know the guys-

Joe Rogan 43:44 Yeah, for sure.

Palmer Luckey 43:44 ... who scribble the signs?

Joe Rogan 43:45 Look, it's, it's important-

Palmer Luckey 43:46 But that's, that's not a thing in China.

Joe Rogan 43:47 ... and it's an important part of our First Amendment. Right.

Palmer Luckey 43:48 People in China see that and they say, "Look at those, look at those troublemakers ruining my beautiful public space." So it's a very interesting cultural value difference.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Well, they also don't have any perception of the ability to change the government.

Palmer Luckey 43:58 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 43:59 There's, there's no-

Palmer Luckey 44:00 There's one party in power.

Joe Rogan 44:01 No one's like, "I think we can do this. I think we can push them out. I think..." Nope.

Palmer Luckey 44:04 Yep.

Joe Rogan 44:05 You ain't, you ain't fixing shit, so put your nose down, get to work.

Palmer Luckey 44:08 I wonder if that really is the difference. I mean, in Europe-

Joe Rogan 44:11 Has to be.

Palmer Luckey 44:11 Well, in Europe you see-

Joe Rogan 44:12 Because they, they kind of resign themselves to the fact that they're not participating.

Palmer Luckey 44:15 Yep.

Joe Rogan 44:16 You know? It's not an experiment in self-government-

Palmer Luckey 44:17 It's a lot easier to be apolitical when it's a futile exercise.

Joe Rogan 44:19 Yes. It's like, what are you gonna do? Stop being a troublemaker.

Palmer Luckey 44:22 Of course, you know, part of this-

Joe Rogan 44:23 Gotta work.

Palmer Luckey 44:23 It comes down to an attitude. I mean, you, you, you're probably familiar with the numbers in the American Revolution. Only about 3% of America supported the revolution.

Joe Rogan 44:29 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 44:30 It was a, it was a, it was a really niche movement of very dedicated, motivated people. And so, um, the, the best way to probably stop that 3% from existing in China is to convince them that it's futile and to, to kind of fuel that cynicism almost.

Joe Rogan 44:44 Yeah. Well, that's true-

Palmer Luckey 44:45 You see this in Russia too. I mean-

Joe Rogan 44:47 Military dictatorships, sa- same deal.

Palmer Luckey 44:49 So one, one of the conclusions I've come to... You know, I, I, I work in the weapons industry and I've seen a lot of cool stuff. I've seen stuff that the US is making, that I'm making. I'm familiar with a lot of the weapon systems that, uh, Russia and China have in fielding or in progress. Some of the stuff that China and Russia are doing i- I mean, it's as sci-fi as what the United States is doing. But I've come to the conclusion that their most powerful weapon is not any bomb or missile or drone, it's their ability to control people's minds through the media, through propaganda, through kind of state pressure.

Joe Rogan 45:23 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 45:23 They convince them to believe things about the world that weren't true, that aren't true, and then they're, th- they're basically m- making people willing to fight for causes that don't really exist. Like, a good example of this is Ukraine. A lot of the Russians who went to fight in Ukraine, in the early days, I think the truth is out now, but when they were first invading, they were told that the people of Ukraine want to be liberated, you're gonna be a hero, you're gonna go over there... Like, they desperately want Russia to save them and reunify them, and it's, it's just this, you know, Kyiv-led, you know, cabal funded by the West with it as a... that's barely holding on to the country and, and keeping, and staying in power. Um, and people in Russia really believed that. Like, the, the guys who were fighting on the front lines, the guys who were flying tanks and helicopters, they believed it. When, when I went to, when I went to Ukraine during the war, uh, one of the things that I got to see was, uh, there was this helicopter wreck. It was an attack helicopter that was trying to seize an airfield of a, of a private aerospace company, and the guys actually shot it down themselves. Like I, they showed me videos of them wearing polo shirts, shooting down the helicopter in their parking lot. I mean, it's like-

Joe Rogan 46:27 Whoa.

Palmer Luckey 46:28 ... crazy shit. So the, the, the pilots, the pilot's kind of go bag, you know, his bag with all of his emergency and survival gear in it, it had three or four days of water, three or four days of food, another flight uniform, his dress uniform with dress shoes, because he, they were told they were gonna be... They said this is gonna be a five-day military operation, there's gonna be parades, there was gonna be... So dress uniform and then 50 condoms. This guy thought that he was gonna be s- He thought the women were gonna be all over him. They were gonna... He was gonna need 50 condoms for the post-war celebration.

Joe Rogan 47:02 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 47:02 And to me that speaks to how brainwashed this guy was. And remember, helicopter pilots aren't like the dumb grunt-

Joe Rogan 47:07 Right.

Palmer Luckey 47:08 ... dragging... I mean, he's probably one of the more highly educated people.

Joe Rogan 47:10 Right.

Palmer Luckey 47:11 And they convinced him that the people of Ukraine wanted him to liberate them and that they were going to be so happy to see him that he was gonna need his dress uniform and 50 condoms.

Joe Rogan 47:20 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 47:21 And there are similar stor-

Joe Rogan 47:22 50's a lot.

Palmer Luckey 47:22 50 is a lot. You know-

Joe Rogan 47:23 That guy's fucking up a storm. That's crazy.

Palmer Luckey 47:25 I w- I will give him a little cr- You know, 50 condoms doesn't take up that much space in your bag. But, but it's-

Joe Rogan 47:29 But also-

Palmer Luckey 47:30 But it's a lot. It's a lot.

Joe Rogan 47:31 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 47:32 And the... This wasn't like the-

Joe Rogan 47:34 Very optimistic.

Palmer Luckey 47:34 Well, this wasn't the only guy. Like, this was actually pretty common.

Joe Rogan 47:37 Everybody had 50 condoms? (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 47:38 I don't know if everybody had 50, but a lot-

Joe Rogan 47:39 They all brought condoms?

Palmer Luckey 47:40 Well, a, a lot of guys had condoms and a lot of people brought their dress uniforms. They thought that there was-

Joe Rogan 47:45 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 47:45 ... a barrier to roll into Kyiv, take over, the people wanted them to be in power-

Joe Rogan 47:49 Oh my God.

Palmer Luckey 47:49 ... and that they were gonna be marching around town and people would say, "Look, it's our liberators, our saviors."

Joe Rogan 47:54 Oh my God.

Palmer Luckey 47:54 Now of course, that's totally divorced from reality. Like, whatever you, however you feel about the politics of Ukraine and-

Joe Rogan 48:00 Right.

Palmer Luckey 48:01 ... Russia and the A- America, because they're all tightly intermingled-

Joe Rogan 48:03 Right.

Palmer Luckey 48:04 ... that's clearly not reality. And so what I worry about is... Like, the easy one is if China invades Taiwan, they're gonna come up with a similar story. They're gonna trick their people into thinking, "Oh, Taiwan wants to be reunified. You're fighting for the better cause." But then the really spooky thing is, what happens when our media pulls the same stunt?

Joe Rogan 48:22 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 48:22 I would argue that what we did in the Middle East was driven by really not that different, right? I mean, a lot of the justification for going over there and doing this nation building... I mean, we were told all these stories. "Oh, they want the, the, the... They don't want... They, they want to get out-

Joe Rogan 48:36 Right.

Palmer Luckey 48:36 ... from under the Taliban. They don't want to have these, you know, tribal rule. They do want democracy." And in reality we were kind of sold a bill of goods that-

Joe Rogan 48:44 Right.

Palmer Luckey 48:44 ... just wasn't true. So it's easy to make fun of the Russian with his 50 condoms, but we're not really that much better. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:50 Well, we also had a very distorted sense of what war is in the 20th century-

Palmer Luckey 48:54 Yup.

Joe Rogan 48:54 ... and in the 21st century because of Desert Storm.

Palmer Luckey 48:57 Yes.

Joe Rogan 48:57 So Desert Storm we were like, "Man, we're the fucking shit."

Palmer Luckey 49:00 Yup.

Joe Rogan 49:00 "We're just gonna roll in and kick everybody's ass." And, and it happened so quickly with so m- minimal casualties.

Palmer Luckey 49:05 And my grandpa, he wasn't military, but he w- he was a United Airlines pilot for 45 years and he was part of the civilian support element for Desert Storm, so he actually has a-

Joe Rogan 49:14 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 49:14 ... letter from the Secretary of the Air Force that they sent to all of the commercial pilots who were bringing troops and equipment back and forth for a few days. I mean, they were, they were flying like, you know, crazy 24-hour shifts getting people in and out. Um, but I mean, like, I remember my grandpa. He, you know, he came out of that s- saying, "Man, nobody can stop us." I mean, we are just... We are unstoppable. If we wanna go in and do something, we just go get it done. And I mean-

Joe Rogan 49:40 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 49:40 ... he, he was convinced. Uh, you know, I... But, but you're right, I think everybody was convinced by, by Desert Storm.

Joe Rogan 49:43 That's what everybody thought in the 1990s. They thought that the United States government and the military was so much more powerful, and it probably was.

Palmer Luckey 49:50 It was.

Joe Rogan 49:51 For a while.

Palmer Luckey 49:51 Relatively speaking.

Joe Rogan 49:52 (clears throat) Relatively speaking.

Palmer Luckey 49:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:53 For a while. Technology seems to be shifting all that stuff in a very weird place.

Palmer Luckey 50:00 Yup.

Joe Rogan 50:00 And this is where I get concerned with China, because they have complete compliance.

Palmer Luckey 50:06 Yup.

Joe Rogan 50:06 Like, their government and their private corporations, uh, they are the same. They work together.... and the stuff that they're producing in terms of like, if you pay attention to their electric cars.

Palmer Luckey 50:15 Oh, yeah. No, they have-

Joe Rogan 50:16 They have a 300 mile an hour car now.

Palmer Luckey 50:18 Their, uh, uh, and, and their cars are extremely cheap and they are extremely good. They have-

Joe Rogan 50:24 Extremely good.

Palmer Luckey 50:25 ... really nice cars.

Joe Rogan 50:26 Crazy technology in terms of like, the ability to absorb-

Palmer Luckey 50:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:29 ... bumps.

Palmer Luckey 50:30 Oh.

Joe Rogan 50:30 Have you seen how smooth they are?

Palmer Luckey 50:31 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:31 They put champagne glasses on them.

Palmer Luckey 50:33 So one of the... And so I, I will, that one I will push back a little bit. I've seen the demo you're talking about. There are German and US cars that do that type of thing, but they're not the cars that people want here. So th- this, this is a whole nother interesting cultural thing.

Joe Rogan 50:46 Oh. What are the car-

Palmer Luckey 50:47 So, well, so, so think, so it, it's, it, this is, this is one of my, this is such an interesting rabbit hole. So in China, people with money don't drive cars, they're driven. That, like that, that-

Joe Rogan 50:59 Oh.

Palmer Luckey 50:59 ... that is the culture. You don't drive, you are driven if you have-

Joe Rogan 51:02 Oh.

Palmer Luckey 51:02 ... if you have really any money. Of course, there's a few rich guys buying sports cars, but in general, the wealthy in China don't buy cars to drive themselves.

Joe Rogan 51:09 That's interesting.

Palmer Luckey 51:09 And so for example, Tesla has a China exclusive model of the Model S, which has teeny tiny little front driver and passenger seats, and then it has two seats in the rear with extremely long leg room. Not like three in a row, but like just two giant chairs. And they kind of cram the, they cram the driver way forward to create this gigantic pa... I think it doesn't even have a trunk. That's right, they pulled the trunk out of it even or maybe-

Joe Rogan 51:33 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 51:33 ... maybe it's just way smaller. And in China, that's what people want. So like their best-selling Mercedes-Benz, even American brands like Buick, we have these cars that are made to be driven in. So as a result, their most luxurious, most expensive cars have suspension that is designed to absorb all of the bumps, be extremely smooth, 'cause you know, riding in the back, and it creates terrible mushy road feel for the driver. Like-

Joe Rogan 51:57 Right.

Palmer Luckey 51:58 ... i- i- in America, rich people, they wanna drive and you wanna feel the road. You know, you, you want that sports car.

Joe Rogan 52:03 Sports car.

Palmer Luckey 52:03 And, and even our SUVs, people generally want that sports car-like feel.

Joe Rogan 52:07 Right.

Palmer Luckey 52:07 And so th- I, I guess I will push back only on the champagne glass thing 'cause I've seen people saying this a lot. Believe me, there are a handful, like th- you can buy an American Buick or like, or, or, uh, like, or, or a, or even a Mercedes that is that good, but they're just not very popular here. In China, they're mu- cars like that are much more popular, cars that feel like shit to drive for the driver-

Joe Rogan 52:29 Mm.

Palmer Luckey 52:30 ... and are super mushy and bouncy, but for the guy in the back, his champagne glass doesn't fall over.

Joe Rogan 52:34 That's interesting. So when it gets to a certain price point, then it becomes all about the passenger.

Palmer Luckey 52:39 Exactly. Oh, a- a- and, and it's almost, it's n- it's not even when it gets to a certain price point. E- long before you're buying $100,000 car, you're being driven around. Like even if you're, even if-

Joe Rogan 52:48 Really?

Palmer Luckey 52:48 ... even if, if you're halfway there, you're being driven around. People, r- again, rich people there, they don't drive, they are driven. It's a, it's a, it is a cultural thing. It's, it's a sign that you've made it as well.

Joe Rogan 52:57 Oh, okay.

Palmer Luckey 52:58 And, and also remember that their, their wages are so much lower that it's much more accessible. It's kind of like how you have these countries where l- like almost anybody who's middle class, uh, in like the, in like Southeast Asia has a live-in, uh, uh, nanny and a live-in housekeeper.

Joe Rogan 53:14 Uh-huh.

Palmer Luckey 53:14 It's very... It's, it's a little bit like that where like if you get to a certain point, uh, and that happens pretty fast, you have a driver. If you don't have a driver, people are like, "What, what the hell is going on?" Like you're, you're an eccentric-

Joe Rogan 53:24 Right.

Palmer Luckey 53:25 ... if you are a rich guy who drives himself around.

Joe Rogan 53:27 That's weird.

Palmer Luckey 53:28 It is weird.

Joe Rogan 53:29 But they do have sports cars over there, like the electric sports car-

Palmer Luckey 53:32 The, the-

Joe Rogan 53:32 ... that goes 300 miles an hour.

Palmer Luckey 53:33 They do. And well, I, and I would say largely those are export-focused.

Joe Rogan 53:37 Ah.

Palmer Luckey 53:37 China knows, they d- like-

Joe Rogan 53:38 Interesting.

Palmer Luckey 53:38 ... the, the broader markets want this. Like-

Joe Rogan 53:40 Do they sell them in America at all?

Palmer Luckey 53:42 They don't, but that's largely due to American policy being very protectionist against Chinese cars. The reason that Chinese manufactured cars have not taken over the US is not because Americans don't want them. I, and I, by the way, I-

Joe Rogan 53:54 That seems kind of crazy because-

Palmer Luckey 53:55 Well-

Joe Rogan 53:55 ... Japanese cars are ubiquitous.

Palmer Luckey 53:57 Japanese cars are ubiquitous from Japanese brands-

Joe Rogan 54:00 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 54:00 ... but many or most of them are actually-

Joe Rogan 54:01 Made... Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 54:01 ... exactly.

Joe Rogan 54:02 Made here.

Palmer Luckey 54:02 Like a, the most American car you can buy, I think right now it's either a Nissan or a Toyota outside of Tesla.

Joe Rogan 54:09 (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 54:09 Like Teslas are made in the US-

Joe Rogan 54:10 Right.

Palmer Luckey 54:10 ... but I thi- I think the most... I can't remember. It's either a Nissan or a Toyota is the most American pickup you can buy right now.

Joe Rogan 54:17 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 54:17 Um, and it's because we have a lot of our parts, even for our US made cars made in Mexico, made in Canada, or made in Japan.

Joe Rogan 54:23 That's such a-

Palmer Luckey 54:24 Some parts are made in China.

Joe Rogan 54:25 ... dirty trick for someone who wants to drive a Chevy 'cause they feel like it's an American brand. I'm buying American. I'm s-

Palmer Luckey 54:29 I agree.

Joe Rogan 54:30 ... helping American jobs.

Palmer Luckey 54:31 But, but here, but here's the pro- Well, this is ac- And this is the point I was trying to get to is, here's the problem. Let's say you said we're gonna make an Amer- all American version of the Chevy and it's 10% more, people wouldn't buy it. Like that's when I, when I say that like people I think unfortunately would buy these Chinese cars if they were for sale in the United States. P- p- people can say they wanna support the US, but at the end of the day, they f- they, they want to provide the best quality of life for their family. They have a fiduciary duty to do so.

Joe Rogan 54:57 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 54:57 And so if they need to buy, like if, if they have a choice between an American truck or a Chinese truck, a Chinese new TV, and a Chinese new computer, and a Chinese new HVAC system-

Joe Rogan 55:10 And a phone.

Palmer Luckey 55:10 ... to replace all the work, and their phone, I, I, how can I blame them for choosing the Chinese one?

Joe Rogan 55:14 Right.

Palmer Luckey 55:16 Like th- th- the only way we can solve this is for the United States to become competitive with China again-

Joe Rogan 55:20 Oh.

Palmer Luckey 55:20 ... which means we need to get our energy costs down. We need to get our resource extraction costs down. Like, you know why these cars in China are cheap? It's not magic. It's because the cost of resource extraction is lower. The cost of making steel and aluminum is lower. The cost of, uh, building a factory is lower and that's why you're able to buy a awesome car for $10,000 in China. And here, the cheapest thing you can buy is a shit box for 17 or 18 grand. And I mean like, it's bad. Like have you ever driven a $17,000 car?

Joe Rogan 55:47 What do they have that's 17,000? What can you buy?

Palmer Luckey 55:49 I think, I think you can buy a Nis-

Joe Rogan 55:50 Like a Chevy Volt or something?

Palmer Luckey 55:51 So not, not a J- Uh, so there's the... I think you can buy a Chevy Spark, which is actually not an electric car. The Bolt, the Bolt was an e- was an electric platform. So I think you can buy a Chevy Spark. I think you can buy a Nissan Versa. Those are the two cheapest cars in America right now, I think. Um, both of them, I believe you can get them out the door for less than $20,000. And, uh, th- I, look, they're... I, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, Chevy, I'm sorry, Nissan, I like those brands, but these cars are not the stewards of the brand. They're the, they're the college student shit boxes.

Joe Rogan 56:21 Yeah, just transportation.

Palmer Luckey 56:22 And then you can buy a car like that in China for 3 or $4,000.

Joe Rogan 56:26 Whoa.

Palmer Luckey 56:26 Three or four grand will get you a car that here is almost 20 grand. And again, it's, it's, it's not magic.They're not gen- and people also, like, they, they kind of have this, there's this current attempt to kind of mythologize, like, "Oh, well, they're geniuses. Like, they're just so good at it." If we would just do the basics right, we can be competitive, but we, but we aren't doing the basics right. We've made energy so competitive and materials fabrication so expensive. I mean, how could we compete?

Joe Rogan 56:50 I was watching an interview where I believe it was someone from Ford-

Palmer Luckey 56:53 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 56:53 One of the engineers from Ford-

Palmer Luckey 56:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:54 ... made a visit to China-

Palmer Luckey 56:56 Mm. He was the CEO of Ford, even. Even better.

Joe Rogan 56:58 Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Palmer Luckey 56:58 Yeah, and he went with, he went with his whole engineering team.

Joe Rogan 57:00 Yeah, and was humbled.

Palmer Luckey 57:02 That's right.

Joe Rogan 57:02 Just like, "Oh, no."

Palmer Luckey 57:03 Well, I think he said, when he came back, he said, "I wanted to take the SUV I was driving back home with me." I mean, that's, like, like you said, it's that, it's that good.

Joe Rogan 57:12 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 57:12 "I didn't want to stop driving it."

Joe Rogan 57:14 That seems kind of fucked. I mean, that's very anti-competitive of us. That seems like kind of a-

Palmer Luckey 57:19 You mean, you mean if we're locking the Chinese out?

Joe Rogan 57:20 Yeah. That's kind of a bitch-ass move. (laughs)

Palmer Luckey 57:24 I- look I, so, like, I lean libertarian, and in general, I'm a fan of free markets, but the, the, the, there is something that makes this tricky though. Uh-

Joe Rogan 57:31 You tank the economy.

Palmer Luckey 57:33 Well, there's tanking the economy-

Joe Rogan 57:34 Yeah.

Palmer Luckey 57:34 And there's also, it isn't actually free. So we do need to do a better job on the basics. But China is also subsidizing these, right?

Joe Rogan 57:42 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 57:42 So they're, they're actually putting money from other industries to prop up these other industries. And so even if you let them freely compete, like if you let them go toe to toe, China would be thrilled if they could subsidize their way into destroying the American automotive apparatus.

Joe Rogan 57:58 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 57:59 Partly for economic reasons, but there's another reason that I don't know if you've thought of. How did the United States win World War II? Just, you know, big- I know that's a big picture question.

Joe Rogan 58:07 A lot of it was manufacturing.

Palmer Luckey 58:08 Exactly. And that manufacturing, some of it was new factories, but most of it was taking over old factories. So we took all of our, uh, farm implement factories, you know, like John Deere and Caterpillar, they were building tanks and guns. We took all our automotive factories, we had them building aircraft, we had them building weapons, we had them building missiles. In fact, we even designed those weapons so they could be manufactured by those plants. But, like, to the- literally to the specifics of how thick of a gauge of metal you could bend to a certain radius. We were limited by the automotive manufacturing machines as to what we could do in aircraft. And so we, we won because we had all of this automotive and, and other industrial capacity. China would love to wipe out the American automotive industry, partly for economic reasons, because it also means we will never be able to fight a war against them.

Joe Rogan 58:59 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 58:59 If- imagine an America with not, like, we've lost a lot of manufacturing. You're probably familiar with it. I mean, like, we don't make nearly as much as we used to, but we still make a few things. We still have some things that we do, and cars is one of them. And we even export those cars. Like, we're doing okay on cars. If, if China could wipe out our industrial capacity entirely, they never need to worry about fighting a war with the US again, because they know that we wouldn't be able to get back in the game fast enough to matter.

Joe Rogan 59:26 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 59:26 And so that, that's, that's China's aim there. And it gets back to what you talked about earlier. It's the civil military fusion.

Joe Rogan 59:32 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 59:32 So this is a, it's a- there's a, there's the economic war and the kinetic war that they could win with one move, which is out-competing our, our automotive industry.

Joe Rogan 59:41 That's interesting. I never did think of that.

Palmer Luckey 59:44 Well, and, like, Andross to think about this all the time, because unlike a lot of these other defense companies that are designing weapons that can only be made by really fancy, high-end bespoke factories, we're designing weapons that can be made in existing American industrial capacity. It's like we make this, uh, line of cruise missiles, the Barra- the Barracuda, we make three different Barracuda missiles. It has 90% fewer parts than legacy cruise missiles. It can be made with 10 tools that all exist in every automotive plant. So you could make this missile at mass scale in any GM facility, in any Ford facility. And that's really important for us, because if you, if you can only make your missiles in this specialized factory that took you 10 years to set up, well, what, what do you- what in the world do you do when you need 100 times more of those missiles made every day?

Joe Rogan 1:00:29 Right.

Palmer Luckey 1:00:29 You're, you're just kind of screwed. And so the United States has been doing better at this. I think, like, the Air Force is doing better, the Navy's doing better, the Army's doing better. Like, the Army has a whole transformation initiative where they want all of their new weapon systems to be highly manufacturable at scale using real industrial capacity. And working with private companies from the beginning to make sure that any- that- they want to make sure that any new system that they are building can be built by the American industrial economy-

Joe Rogan 1:00:59 Mm-hmm.

Palmer Luckey 1:00:59 Not, you know, not only these specialized, you know, specialized aerospace technicians of which they're just not that many.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 That's very smart. How soon-

Palmer Luckey 1:01:08 And China does this, by the way.

Joe Rogan 1:01:09 (clears throat)

Palmer Luckey 1:01:09 Like, this is- Ch- China made- China- have you seen the automated cruise missile factories that China has?

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 I haven't.

Palmer Luckey 1:01:15 Oh man, you, you've got to look this up at some point. There's some videos that they put out there, and they have this totally robotic line just churning out cruise missiles.

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 I've seen their shipping ports. It's bananas.

Palmer Luckey 1:01:24 Oh, well, I mean- so China has 300 times more naval shipbuilding capacity than the United States. The time that it takes us to build one aircraft carrier, they could build 300. Now, they're not building a bunch of aircraft carriers. They're mostly focusing on other things that are more relevant to what they want to do, which is invade Taiwan, so amphibious landing craft primarily. Um, but another thing China does is they actually require many of their commercial vessels that have nothing to do with the military to build to military standards for two reasons. One, because it means that all the shipyards are being built to handle military standards. Two, they plan on basically, uh, you know, they're going to press all of these civilian vessels into service. So they're saying, "Hey, you have this roll on/roll off, uh, car ferry that's used for moving cars around, for delivering cars to the United States. You have to build it to deck plate pressures that allow us to roll a bunch of tanks onto it so that we can then use it to deliver tanks to, to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland." And they're just requiring people to do that. And so even their civilian shipping fleet is actually this kind of-... military ghost fleet just sitting in the open, pretending to be civilian, but the moment it- the shit hits the fan, it becomes part of the war machine. And so they're- they've- they've-

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Wow.

Palmer Luckey 1:02:39 ... done a great job integrating in a way the United States has not.

Joe Rogan 1:02:42 Do you think that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent?

Palmer Luckey 1:02:46 It's not imminent, but it's coming.

Joe Rogan 1:02:47 Inevitable?

Palmer Luckey 1:02:47 So, Anduril has an internal policy called China 27. The idea is that anything we are working on, anything that we are investing in, needs to be built with the assumption that sometime in 2027 China is going to move on Taiwan. And I might be wrong on this, right? It might be never, it might be a longer term thing, but in general, like, imagine how stupid I'll feel if I spend hundreds of millions of dollars building some new weapons system that I know is not going to come into service until the 2030s, which is what most experts say is outside of the window of when this invasion would happen. Wouldn't I feel pretty stupid if there's a gigantic fight and I've spent all my money on something that wasn't ready in time? I think that it is very likely that China moves on Taiwan for a variety of political reasons. Uh, so- so, like, Xi Jinping has this window politically where he can show that he's reunified China, he's got a lot of demographic problems that are gonna go out of control as he waits and people age, he's got a lot of economic problems where they're propping up their- their economy with a lot of kind of fake GDP, fake growth, fake demand, fake construction, and he's doing that, I think, to help build up his war machine. But it- i- i- it's not sustainable in the long run. So I- I think there's a window where they can do this. If you had to ask me, it's more likely that they don't do a full-scale invasion to start. It's much more likely that they do something like a blockade. So they'll come up with some pretense. They'll say, uh, "Oh, uh, Taiwan is exporting goods that say 'Made in Taiwan'," and our position is that Taiwan is part of China, and therefore they need to pay Chinese taxes on those made in China goods, so we're gonna blockade their port and not let them export anything until they resolve this. And I- I- and I worry- I worry about them kind of boiling the frog. You know, they- they blockade one port, and then two ports, and then the airports, and then the people of Taiwan are running out of money, running out of food, but you've boiled the frog enough where there's never a point where Taiwan really wants to fire the first shot and actually start a war. And certainly, like, I don't... I think you and I would agree here, the US probably should not start, uh, a- a- a- you know, start World War III-

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 Proxy.

Palmer Luckey 1:04:59 ... over a blockade of a port, right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:01 Right.

Palmer Luckey 1:05:01 That- that- that's ... A lot of people-

Joe Rogan 1:05:03 Boiling the frog is a great analogy.

Palmer Luckey 1:05:05 Boiling the frog, I think, is what China will do. And so what we need to do, and- and this is just my opinion, which is definitely biased. So, to be clear, just so people know, nobody's gonna dig it and say, "But Palmer, Palmer's obviously only saying this because he's got money in the game." Uh, I- I will first say, I have plenty of money. I sold my first