Joe Rogan Experience #2466 - Francis Foster & Konstantin Kisin

Francis Foster is a comic and author of "(Un)educated." Konstantin Kisin is a political commentator and author of "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West." Together, they host the podcast "Triggernometry." https://www.youtube.com/@triggerpod https://www.subfrancis.co.uk https://www.francisfoster.co.uk https://www.konstantinkisin.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Visit https://squarespace.com/ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Joe RoganhostKonstantin KisinguestFrancis Fosterguest

Mar 11, 20263h 9mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,083 words

0:02 – 1:52
Global instability and war fears: UK crackdowns, Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran escalation
1. SPSpeaker
  Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
2. SPSpeaker
  The Joe Rogan Experience.
3. SPSpeaker
  Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat rock music]
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay, so when we scheduled this, like, there was nothing happening.
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [chuckles]
6. JRJoe Rogan
  The world was so peaceful.
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Every time we're here-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  [laughs]
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... something crazy is going on, man.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, uh, maybe we manifest it. I don't know.
11. FFFrancis Foster
  To be honest, it did s- 2026 did start with a bang.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Well, a lot of things, you know... It's just nothing seems stable everywhere. Everywhere in the world seems fucked right now. Like, this is the like, in all of my years, this seems the most unstable globally. Like, I never worried that the UK was gonna be, like, complete chaos-
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
16. JRJoe Rogan
  ... arresting 12,000 people for social media posts-
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
18. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and, uh, abandoning trial by jury, all that, all that shit. I never thought the Ukraine-Russia war would go on this long.
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Never thought.
21. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Never thought they would just continue bombing Gaza, and then what's happening now? They just sort of stop, and now they're talking about putting a resort there.
23. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
24. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
25. JRJoe Rogan
  What? Are you...
26. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, you hear that, and you go, "Are you fucking serious?"
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Tim Dillon has a g- I wanna, I wanna, I won't give the bit away. He has a fucking phenomenal bit about staying in that resort. [laughs]
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
1:52 – 3:35
Drone strikes, missing information, and the false-flag question
1. JRJoe Rogan
  And then, you know, uh, I was listening to Tim Dillon's podcast today. Uh, he's got a great podcast with, uh, Ryan Grim and one other gentleman. But one of the things that they br- brought up was that some of these drone attacks, it doesn't even seem like they're from Iran, some of these drone attra- attacks on Gulf states.
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Like that, the, one of them, um... I, I don't wanna speak out of tune, 'cause, out of turn, 'cause I don't, I'm don't, I'm not exactly sure which ones they're talking about, but they're talking about one of them on, um, either it's a oil refinery, I think it is an oil refinery, that it doesn't seem like it came from Iran.
4. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  So, okay-
6. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Where did it come from?
7. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a good question.
8. KKKonstantin Kisin
  One of their proxies?
9. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a good question.
10. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, the, the fear is a false flag.
12. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  That's the fear.
14. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm, mm.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, if you really wanted to get really scared of what we were dragged into-
16. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... you're dragged into an ally that's not telling you the truth and is also doing some other stuff.
18. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I'm not ne- even, uh, saying that that's the case, but a lot of people are assuming that that's what it is.
20. FFFrancis Foster
  But that's what happens when you have an absence of information.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
23. FFFrancis Foster
  And so the moment you have an absence of information, there's a vacuum. And nature abhors a vacuum. You need to have that vacuum filled, so that's where conspiracies naturally flourish, because-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  100%
25. FFFrancis Foster
  ... because if people don't have information, then they're going to basically theorize.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
27. FFFrancis Foster
  And part of people theorizing is conspiracies are gonna start flourishing.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I think they were basing it on the, where the drone came from. Like, let's see if we can find some information on that, Jamie.
29. SPSpeaker
  I will try. And it was, it was Jeremy Scahill was the other-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  That's right
3:35 – 9:39
Hot-take culture and ‘everyone has a narrative’
1. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I just find it amazing now how many people have, like, a hard take on, like, what's g- I'm like, what the... We don't know a fucking thing about what's g- Like-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
3. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... the coin is in the air, right?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And we do not know how it's gonna... But everyone's got a take.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Of course.
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Every- everyone knows.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, of course.
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Like, we do not fucking... I don't, I don't think anyone knows. Like, I understand if you, if you work at the White House, or if you work in Russian propaganda, or you work in Chinese propaganda, like, or if you work in Iranian, like, you've, you've got to get your point of view across to try and persuade people.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
11. KKKonstantin Kisin
  But if you're actually trying to work out what's genuinely happening, I don't think anyone knows how... This is a gamble of gigantic proportions.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And nobody knows how it's gonna end. Uh, it, it's like, it's just so unpredictable. And I can tell you a great story that is, like, positive for the, for the West, let's say, or for America. I can tell you a terrible story, and they both sound very convincing, and no one knows which one of them is true.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, that's a very good point. Uh, th- this is the hot take culture, right?
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
16. FFFrancis Foster
  Mm.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Every- everyone has a take, and they're, they want their take to be the expert take. So, uh, specific drone attack incidents that call potential false flags. Saudi Arabia, uh, Saudi, uh, Saudi A- Aramco, rather, um, oil facility attack. So Iranian officials deny striking the Saudi Aramco processing facility and instead suggest Israel may have carried out that attack as a false flag to inflame Gulf opinion and pull Saudi Arabia more directly into the war with Iran. So Ryan Grim explicitly says he thinks Iran's claims that Israel hit the Aramco facility need to be taken seriously, and that it's very possible Israel did it. And this was the other one, the drone strike on the British base in Cyprus.
18. KKKonstantin Kisin
  That was from Lebanon, right?
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. Is that what they're saying?
20. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah. Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  May have come from the direction of Lebanon. He places this in the same context of Iran claiming Israel carried out certain attacks in neighboring states as false flags to blame on Iran and drag those countries into the war.
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Those countries... This, this doesn't make any logical sense to me, 'cause those countries are already in the war. I mean, Saudi Arabia and UAE have been attacked by Iran because they were on the phone to Trump basically asking him to do this.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Here's a... This is another weird one, the Tucker Carlson one.
24. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  You saw that, right?
26. KKKonstantin Kisin
  No.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  So Tucker Carlson said that-
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Oh, yeah, yeah
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... Mossad-
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  The alleged Mossad, yeah, yeah
9:39 – 12:22
Can regime change work? Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and the Iran ‘after’ problem
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I th- there's the other thing that... Do you remember Desert Storm?
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
3. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Desert Storm, quick and easy, baby. Woo, we went in, kicked some ass-
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
6. JRJoe Rogan
  ... took some names. That's a wrap.
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Pulled out. There was only one base that got hit, so there was... The, the amount-
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
10. JRJoe Rogan
  ... of deaths by American citizens was fairly minimal.
11. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  I think that's what got people so confident into entering Iran after 9/11, or excuse me, Iraq after 9/11.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  To go back-
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
16. JRJoe Rogan
  ... like we already fucked them up once.
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  We're gonna go back, and this is gonna be easy. Well, it wasn't easy the second time.
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  And it was drawn out, and it didn't make any sense, but people wanted some form of revenge-
21. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... something for 9/11, and so somehow or another they justified a war with a country that had z- zero to do with it.
23. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, it didn't even make sense.
25. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  That one took for... And then we a- also invaded Afghanistan at the same time. Like, what do we do? What the fuck? So in the fog of this idea of American exceptionalism, we're just gonna go in and fix it. We did it before. There's no one even close to us. Well, look how that turned out.
27. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
28. FFFrancis Foster
  Uh, yeah, well, this is completely true, and then it's this idea that it's so easy to take one regime, remove it-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
30. FFFrancis Foster
  ... and then just put another one in its place, like it's a Lego block.
12:22 – 17:01
Venezuela as ‘regime adjustment’: US leverage, oil, and conspiracy comedy corner
1. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah. And also with Venezuela, it wasn't a regime change. Practically everybody who was in the old regime is still there.
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  It's a regime adjustment.
3. FFFrancis Foster
  Exactly. [laughs] Exactly.
4. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
5. FFFrancis Foster
  So Delcy Rodriguez was one of the senior leaders in Ma- uh, Maduro's regime. They just took out Maduro and his wife, they put Delcy Rodriguez there, but the whole structureThe whole leadership, the whole party is still in place. So they've just... What they've done is they put Delcy at the top, and they've said to her, "Look, if you fuck about, you're gonna get what your boss got. So you're gonna follow what we say. You're gonna do what we say. You are gonna open up the oil refineries. We're gonna build it. We're gonna s- you're gonna start pumping oil out. You're gonna stop messing about with Hezbollah," which they had training camps in the island of Margarita, which is a little Caribbean island two and a half hours away from Miami. Training camps, you can't have that. You're not gonna be fraternizing with the Cubans, and you're gonna play ball. And essentially, Venezuela is now a colony of the United States. That's what it's now become.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  That's wild. Well, there's also [laughs] the Kurt Metzger angle, which is hilarious.
7. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Ku- Kurt Metzger cornered me one night at the co-
9. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
10. JRJoe Rogan
  ... at the mothership, and, uh, he explained to me that this was all about the 2020 election.
11. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
12. JRJoe Rogan
  And that Maduro somehow or another had something to do with rigging the 2020 election, and he's going to say it as a part of his testimony. He's like, "Just wait. Just wait. Mark my words."
13. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  So he's, he's convinced of this.
15. FFFrancis Foster
  Mm.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  He goes down the rabbit hole to the lava.
17. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
18. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, he passes, and he's like, "This rabbit hole's been covered up."
20. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
21. JRJoe Rogan
  It goes deeper.
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
23. JRJoe Rogan
  And he keep, he keeps going till he's at the fucking center of the earth.
24. KKKonstantin Kisin
  He's a funny guy, though.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, he's hilarious. He's hilarious. He's mentally ill.
26. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
27. JRJoe Rogan
  But he's hilarious. He's one of the funniest people I know.
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, ever. Fantastic joke writer, too.
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
17:01 – 19:15
Nuclear thresholds and why Iran isn’t North Korea (in motives)
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Who else thinks it's a good idea to just attack a country that isn't doing anything? They haven't done anything. Like, if you've proof that they have developed, uh, y- the depleted uranium, and they've got it up to a point where it's, they've got it to what it ha- what, what, what percentage does it have to be? Like, they're at 60, right?
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm. But that's way more than you need, I think.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Way more than you need.
4. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Right? So it shows that they're at least ramping up their production where it's possible to get it to-
6. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah
7. JRJoe Rogan
  ... whatever it needs to make a nuclear weapon.
8. KKKonstantin Kisin
  That's way more than you need for civilian use.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
10. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
12. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Um-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  But that still... It's not clear that that justifies an invasion when North Korea has nuclear weapons.
14. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
15. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Right? It's like, do we just want... Are we just trying to prevent them from ever getting to a point where they're like North Korea? Who the fuck is worried about North Korea?
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Ze-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Zero people. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Look, if you're trying to take your business seriously, you gotta level up your website. Mine, joerogan.com, is powered by Squarespace. It's a no-brainer because it does all the hard stuff for you. They've got everything in one place. You can lock down your domain, make your stuff look clean and professional, build your brand, get paid, all of it. Go to squarespace.com/rogan and try it out for free. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I think the difference, as you correctly said earlier, is these people are very different to the North Koreans, right?
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. Religious fanatics.
21. KKKonstantin Kisin
  North Korea wants to be left the fuck alone.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
23. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Iran does not want to be left alone. Iran wants to dominate the region. That's why they fund Hamas.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
25. KKKonstantin Kisin
  It's why they fund Hezbollah. It's why they fund the Houthis. It's why they are doing shitThat's why the Gulf countries and Israel are very worried about them, right? So that's the difference, I think. And then there's the, you know, uh, some of the people we've had on the show who are Iranian have talked about the pat- the s- what is it called? Twelver Shia Islam? Is that the...
26. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
27. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I can't remember the details, but basically they have a kind of messianic vision of what's gonna happen, and they, they believe that when the world ends, that's when the prophecy will be fulfilled. You don't want those guys with nuclear weapons, right?
28. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a good point.
29. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah. So from that perspective, it's different to North Korea.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
19:15 – 27:10
What is the strategy? Pushing back China/Russia and the ‘no-kill list’ claim
1. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Um, and so that, that's, I think that's part of the thinking. But your, your point is interesting to me about the fact that this doesn't reflect what people, the m- you know, as we're not Americans, but it doesn't seem to have been part of the policy platform of the Trump, uh, election at the last election, right?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  No, not at all.
3. KKKonstantin Kisin
  But I do think there is some kind of strategy behind all of this, and I'm very curious what that is. Uh, because I guess, uh, if, if you think about it logically, you would say, well, is it an attempt to effectively push back against China and Russia infiltrating all these countries, right? China and, and Russia were very close with Ven- with Maduro in Venezuela.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Very, very... Like Francis is saying, Hezbollah training camps, Isla Margarita. Where was the oil going, right? Same with Iran. I mean, Iran sells its oil to China-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... uh, and s- sends suicide drones to Russia to use in Ukraine. So m- maybe it's that. Maybe the strategy is you're trying to push back against Chinese and Russian influence in, in all these countries because you can't attack them directly, 'cause you can't attack them directly, right?
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Uh, but this is all just guessing on, on my part, and that's what I'm really curious. We're gonna do some interviews on this trip to kind of... Like, I wanna get someone on the show who can go, "This is the strategy."
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
11. KKKonstantin Kisin
  "This is what we're doing."
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  'Cause I think, as we were saying earlier, it's not very clear to most people what the rationale behind all of this is, but I also don't think this sort of, like, mad dog Trump idea is true either. I think he has a strategy. I'd just love to know what it is.
14. FFFrancis Foster
  And it's very interesting because there's been talk about regime change in Cuba.
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
16. FFFrancis Foster
  And one of the things... So wh- [laughs]
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I think that's next.
18. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Genuinely.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, my God.
21. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I think that's next.
22. FFFrancis Foster
  So when Chávez came to power in '99, what he did, and not enough people talk about this, is he turned what was a very corrupt, admittedly, liberal, Western-style democracy into a communist dictatorship. And how do you do that? You, you can't just literally do that overnight. So what he did is he allied with the Cubans and, um, Fidel in particular, Fidel Castro. Venezuela provided Cuba with cheap oil, which helped to keep the Cuban economy afloat, 'cause Cuba's been going broke since however many years, 40-odd years. And what Castro did was he gave him the boots on the ground in Venezuela, but also the technical expertise and know-how in order to change a Western liberal democracy into a communist state with permanent surveillance, secret police, subjugate the population, so there was no chance of them ever being able to revolt, and ma- make every... and turn everything into, like I said, into a communist state. So by what they did in Venezuela, Venezuela can no longer support Cuba, so Cuba is literally now withering on the vine as a result-
23. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
24. FFFrancis Foster
  ... of them knocking out the Venezuelans.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
26. FFFrancis Foster
  So it's gonna come to a point where you could say Cuba are effectively gonna go bankrupt, which could precipitate an uprising, a revolution by people when people can no longer eat, and that would mean that that country's then weakened. Finally, they can get rid of the communist regime there, and they can have a different type of government, one which will be far more sympathetic, shall we say, to working with America and being an American island.
27. KKKonstantin Kisin
  See-
28. FFFrancis Foster
  Possibly
29. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... that makes sense to me in a way. What I don't understand about the Iran thing is, like, what is the end goal here? Like, you've got the Reza Pahlavi, the Shah's son. I mean, he left Iran a long time ago as a kid, right? The, you know, the idea that he's gonna go back in there and be welcomed by the masses, uh, maybe that's true. Maybe that's-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  It's like Daenerys returning to the-
27:10 – 37:51
Oil-price shocks, domestic politics, and Europe’s cost-of-living backlash
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Was, was there some sort of a concession today on Russian oil?
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah. Well, I think the, it... First of all, Trump let, uh, India buy Iranian oil.
3. FFFrancis Foster
  Mm.
4. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And I think now they are lifting the sanctions on Russia selling its oil because the oil prices spiked as much as they did, right?
5. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Here it goes.
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  "US eases limits on Russian energy as oil prices soar."
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  [sings] Dum, dum, da-dum, dum.
11. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Dum, dum, dum, dum. [laughs]
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Money. [laughs]
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Well-
16. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah, well, you've got the Pink Floyd to you-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, I know
18. FFFrancis Foster
  ... so it's appropriate.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  It's perfect. Perfect.
20. KKKonstantin Kisin
  But you, you can see it. Like, the oil, oil prices spiked for-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... for what? One day? Two days?
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
24. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And everyone went full panic-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
26. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... straight away. But the thing is, if that d- if that carries on for two months, the impact of that on domestic politics, I mean, I'm not an expert on American politics, but even I can say that's gonna be pretty fucking important.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, it's bad.
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. It's gonna be bad. I mean, if oil prices spike, we're fucked.
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
37:51 – 46:14
Media framing of terrorism and the ‘Islamism vs Islam’ distinction
1. SPSpeaker
  Because this is a problem, Joe-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm gonna send that article to Jamie.
3. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Jamie, uh, we- you could probably find it on CNN, 'cause it's kind of hilarious.
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  It's incredible. This was actually incredible.
6. SPSpeaker
  The New York Times title change thing?
7. JRJoe Rogan
  And did the New York Times change their title?
8. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  They did? Well, they- [laughs]
10. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
11. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
12. JRJoe Rogan
  I wonder why. [laughs]
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  All, all Astia scholars.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm gonna send you the CNN one first. Um, the CNN one is, is really wild. I'm gonna-
15. SPSpeaker
  What was it called? Like, they had, like, s- fuses of things with smoke or something, and they had to change it to bombs or something.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, fucking duh.
17. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, I'm sending you this one, 'cause the CNN one is, believe it or not, more preposterous. The CNN one is so kooky, you, you, you see their headline, and you're like, "What, what kind of story are you painting here?" Like, this is such a crazy way to frame a guy showed up with bombs and was hurling them at people. You know-
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  No, they made it sound like the exact opposite of what actually happened.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, it sounded like it was just a regular day.
21. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Just a regular, just a regular day for this fella, and then things just went a little sideways-
24. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
25. JRJoe Rogan
  ... somewhere along the line.
26. SPSpeaker
  Listen, we've all got hobbies, man. You know what I mean?
27. JRJoe Rogan
  To the left.
28. SPSpeaker
  You like working out, and he has nail bombs.
29. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
30. SPSpeaker
  Come on.
46:14 – 1:02:58
Christian nationalism and Armageddon rhetoric inside institutions
1. JRJoe Rogan
  But then you have the crazy Christians, and that thing that I sent you, the Yahoo thing that we talked about yesterday with Schoenberger, the Yahoo thing is nuts. So these military leaders... So, so this, this comes from one of the non-commissioned officers who went to a briefing. He goes to a briefing, and they inform him that you shouldn't be scared because this is all because President Trump is anointed by Jesus, and this is to bring about Armageddon so that Jesus returns to Earth. This is in a fucking military briefing. One such note included an a- anecdote from a non-commissioned officer who reported that their commander had urged us to tell our troops this war was all a part of God's divine plan, and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelations referring to Armageddon and the eminent return of Jesus Christ. This is fucking crazy. Um, he said, "This morning our command..." So this is, this is a, an officer who's talking about this. "This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be afraid as to what was happening with our combat operations in Iran." He said, "President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth." He said he had a big grin on his face when he said all this, which made his message seem even more crazy.
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Well, that's reassuring. [laughs]
3. JRJoe Rogan
  That's, that... Well, this is, this is the scary arm of the, the right.
4. KKKonstantin Kisin
  That right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  This is the scariest arm of the right.
6. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  The, the-
8. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah
9. JRJoe Rogan
  ... people that think that this is one of the main reasons, the Mike Huckabee people-
10. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that think this is the main reason to protect Israel. It's a part of God's plan. You know, Israel is where Jesus is gonna return.
12. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  He's gonna return to Jerusalem. Yikes.
14. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah, I've never really understood that. Like, I think you can argue for... You can be pro-Israel for pragmatic reasons. This religious stuff is a little bit s- weird to me. I don't get-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, this... But the problem is you've got fanatics-
16. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... like the Islamists.
18. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  But you've also got these Christian hard right Christian nationalists-
20. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
21. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that really believe that this is a part of biblical prophecy.
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  And that they, this is Book of Revelations. It's about to go down.
24. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  And they, they want it to go down. This is fucking terrifying.
26. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
27. FFFrancis Foster
  This is really interesting for us because in our, in, in the UK, Christianity has been de-fanged to the point where there's a trans flag on practically every church. So this idea of having these hardcore right-wing fundamentalist Christians, we, we just don't experience that.
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  No, we don't have that really.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. It's like, can't anyb- everybody live in the middle? Why, why do you have to go all the way over to-
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm
1:02:58 – 1:07:08
Information warfare, bots, monetized outrage, and the anonymity dilemma
1. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Well, I think your point about people wanting to believe something is so true.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. KKKonstantin Kisin
  If, if, if... Whenever anything like this happens, you instantly get these camps, right? You've got the anti-war camp, you've got the pro-war camp, you've got the this camp, you've got the anti-Israel camp, you've got the pro-Israel camp, and everyone... Like, information is no longer about information.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  It's just fodder for your information war that you're fighting.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Exactly.
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And then on top of that... And look, this is a kind of... I'm cutting my own balls off here, 'cause I c- I make good money from posting stuff on X, right? But the monetization of content has made things different, and we can all see it in our feed, right?
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  You've seen this.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I mean, you must see it.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  So now you have people who are basically... Like, I go on Twitter, on X, to express my opinion and to engage in discussion with people who have a different opinion. That's what I do, right? But there are now lots and lots of people who go to work. They go to X to work.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And that's what they're doing. Now, the incentive structure of that is not conducive to a healthy debate-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... at all.
18. SPSpeaker
  No.
19. KKKonstantin Kisin
  What you've got now is people going, "Okay, a thing has happened. What is my t- Venezuela got invaded. It was Israel's fault. Okay, here's, here's some content about that."
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
21. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And it's no longer authentic communication, unfortunately.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  And that's just actual people doing it.
23. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
25. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And then you've got AI on top of that.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
27. FFFrancis Foster
  Yeah.
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And then you've got-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Bot farms
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... foreign bot farms-
1:07:08 – 1:11:39
Deepfake reality: Tehran crowd photos, chain-of-custody, and ‘blockchain proof’
1. SPSpeaker
  I found another picture [clears throat] of that area from what it says is yesterday. So I don't know that it was not real.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  So this is from which website?
3. SPSpeaker
  This says, uh... I typed it into Perplexity, and I'm clicking around on pictures to find out where they're coming from one by one.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  So is it possible that this is, that the New York Times put-
5. SPSpeaker
  I-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  ... the wrong footage, but it was a similar kind of protest-
7. SPSpeaker
  Maybe
8. JRJoe Rogan
  ... in the same spot?
9. SPSpeaker
  Maybe.
10. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah, that's my understanding.
11. SPSpeaker
  This is a similar photo.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  That makes more sense.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
14. SPSpeaker
  This is a AP source on this photo.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay.
16. SPSpeaker
  But-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  So all the New York Times did is get the wrong photo-
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah
19. JRJoe Rogan
  ... of a bunch of people gathering.
20. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
21. SPSpeaker
  I'll, I'll note this one, which is at night, so it is definitely a different photo. This is from January.
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm-hmm.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  This one is?
24. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
25. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
26. SPSpeaker
  But this is not the same photo that we looked at before.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. So the other one, though-
28. SPSpeaker
  This one is from a day ago.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay, that's-
30. SPSpeaker
  And it looks very similar.
1:11:39 – 1:53:50
AI existential risk: blackmailing models, nuclear preferences, robots, and hoaxes
1. KKKonstantin Kisin
  I know. It's, it... I mean, there's so much to be excited about with AI, but I think it blinds a lot of people to the, like, not exciting [laughs] parts of it.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, well, ultimately, if you just looked at where, what is it ultimately going to lead to? It's going to lead to something that's way smarter than us.
3. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Mm.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  And why would it listen to us anymore?
5. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Well, you've seen, I'm sure you've seen the stuff about how it will blackmail the CE-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
7. KKKonstantin Kisin
  ... right? So that, by definition, that means it has a survival instinct.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. KKKonstantin Kisin
  And if it has a survival instinct, by definition, it means there is a priority that it has which is above humans.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. KKKonstantin Kisin
  By definition. That's what a survival instinct means. It means you care more about yourself than you do about anyone else.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
13. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right? So if AI has a survival instinct, we are not going to be its number one priority.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Not only that, it doesn't seem to differentiate between using nuclear weapons or other weapons. And when you've, they've done these war game simulations with AG- AI-
15. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Uh-huh
16. JRJoe Rogan
  ... they prefer to use nuclear weapons.
17. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Well, they're more effective, right? [laughs]
18. SPSpeaker
  [laughs]
19. JRJoe Rogan
  But this is, but this is the thing, like, they're not scared-
20. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right
21. JRJoe Rogan
  ... of this idea, like, oh my God, you're just gonna dust a city. They're like, "Oh, that's the way to do it."
22. KKKonstantin Kisin
  It's the numbers on a chart, right?
23. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, you wanna get your, your goal accomplished. How does AI accomplish its goal? With whatever the best tool available is. Oh, that's this bomb.
25. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Right.
26. SPSpeaker
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
28. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
29. SPSpeaker
  It's efficient.
30. KKKonstantin Kisin
  Yeah.
1:53:50 – 2:27:19
Surveillance-state origins: ‘LifeLog’ and Facebook, Havana Syndrome-style weapons, and Venezuela aftermath
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Speaking of religion, so, um-
2. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... show us this, uh, Sam Tripoli Facebook take. [laughs] He was on, uh, Danny Jones, and this is what he said about Facebook.
4. SPSpeaker
  Hold on. Uh, damn it.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Fine.
6. SPSpeaker
  Now there's a little muted here.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
8. SPSpeaker
  It's a giant lie. It's a propaganda piece. That was a Pentagon program called Life Log. Life Log is a Pentagon program-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh-huh
10. SPSpeaker
  ... that wants to collect all your data for your whole life. What day did the government stop the Life Log project?
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. DARPA shut down the Life Log project February 4th, 2004.
12. SPSpeaker
  What day was Facebook registered as a business?
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, my God. No way, bro.
14. SPSpeaker
  The exact same day.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  [laughs]
16. SPSpeaker
  They don't even hide it, dude.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  It was created by DARPA.
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah. They hand it to Mark Zuckerberg, and then the, the vassal twins are like-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  What about the other... Yeah, yeah, yeah
20. SPSpeaker
  ... that's all, and that's why they became the first Bitcoin millionaires, 'cause they played ball.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, my God.
22. SPSpeaker
  It's all theater, dude.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  So what is the purpose of Life Log?
24. SPSpeaker
  To collect all your data for your whole entire life. The wh-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay. Take this with many grains of salt.
26. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
27. KKKonstantin Kisin
  [laughs]
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Sam is one of my best friends.
29. FFFrancis Foster
  [laughs]
30. JRJoe Rogan
  I've known him for decades. He's a wonderful person, but he's a kook.

Episode duration: 3:09:47

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Global instability and war fears: UK crackdowns, Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran escalation

Drone strikes, missing information, and the false-flag question

Hot-take culture and ‘everyone has a narrative’

Can regime change work? Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and the Iran ‘after’ problem

Venezuela as ‘regime adjustment’: US leverage, oil, and conspiracy comedy corner

Nuclear thresholds and why Iran isn’t North Korea (in motives)

What is the strategy? Pushing back China/Russia and the ‘no-kill list’ claim

Oil-price shocks, domestic politics, and Europe’s cost-of-living backlash

Media framing of terrorism and the ‘Islamism vs Islam’ distinction

Christian nationalism and Armageddon rhetoric inside institutions

Information warfare, bots, monetized outrage, and the anonymity dilemma

Deepfake reality: Tehran crowd photos, chain-of-custody, and ‘blockchain proof’

AI existential risk: blackmailing models, nuclear preferences, robots, and hoaxes

Surveillance-state origins: ‘LifeLog’ and Facebook, Havana Syndrome-style weapons, and Venezuela aftermath

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