JRE MMA Show #12 with Ben Askren

1. 0:00 – 1:16

   Why Askren never fought in the UFC (and whether he’s really retired)

   1. BABen Askren0:00

      Yeah, my oldest one's s- super-

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Here we go, five-

   3. BABen Askren0:03

      Okay.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      ... four, three, two, one. (claps) Ben Askren, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I've talked about you on this podcast-

   5. BABen Askren0:10

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      ... at least a dozen times. You are the number one guy that I'm most disappointed never fought in the UFC.

   7. BABen Askren0:17

      Yeah. And I, I always get, uh, whenever you talk about me, I get like 15 texts, like, "Hey, Joe, Joe's talking about you now."

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      (laughs)

   9. BABen Askren0:22

      And, you know, they'll send me clips or whatever. So obviously appreciate that. Um, but yeah, I never, I never really got to fight those top guys, and it was for reasons beyond my control.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Yeah, and you're done now.

   11. BABen Askren0:34

       Yeah, I, so I said, I said... I, I don't wanna say I'm done period. I said I'm done excluding the fact that I get to fight and prove I'm number one. That would be the excluding factor.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       So if you could get in the UFC, you'd be willing to do it again?

   13. BABen Askren0:47

       I mean, I don't care where it is, right? I, I, I really-

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Right.

   15. BABen Askren0:49

       ... genuinely don't. And obviously that would be the, the thing that makes sense. But there is legislation, like the Ali Act and other things going through, so I don't know that maybe... You know, I'm still 33, so I'm not old, and you know, if you look at GSP, he took four years off-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       Yeah.

   17. BABen Askren1:02

       ... from one fight to the next fight. So I'm not g- it's not like I'm gonna age overnight. Um...

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Well, your style too. You avoided so much-

   19. BABen Askren1:08

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       ... damage.

   21. BABen Askren1:09

       I didn't get, I didn't get hit o- once this, in 20- 2017, so...

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       Really? (laughs)

   23. BABen Askren1:12

       Yeah, I didn't get hit once.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       (laughs)

   25. BABen Askren1:14

       Yeah, in three fights. So yeah, I, I-

2. 1:16 – 1:23

   From Bellator champion to ONE FC: the contract path that shaped his career

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:16

      And that was ... Uh, you should tell people, you were fighting in ONE FC-

   2. BABen Askren1:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:19

      ... which is a big Asian organization.

   4. BABen Askren1:20

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:20

      It's like the Asian version of the UFC.

3. 1:23 – 6:44

   The Bellator release and the UFC non-offer: matching clauses, Vegas meetings, and a vanished deal

   1. BABen Askren1:23

      Yeah, so O- ONE FC started in 2012, I think. Um, obviously my contract with Bellator came up in 2013, and then there was that negotiation process, which obvi- obviously went south.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:32

      And what happened there? You were the champ-

   3. BABen Askren1:34

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:34

      ... of Bellator-

   5. BABen Askren1:35

      Yes.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:35

      ... and then all of a sudden you left, and everyone-

   7. BABen Askren1:36

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:37

      ... was like... So you're, you're still undefeated, right?

   9. BABen Askren1:38

      I'm undefeated, 18-0.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:39

       So what the- what the fuck happened that Bellator let the champion go?

   11. BABen Askren1:43

       Well, that wasn't what happened. So-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:45

       No.

   13. BABen Askren1:45

       And there's, there's so much misinformation out there-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:47

       Okay.

   15. BABen Askren1:48

       ... and, you know, I, I'm popular but I'm not that popular. And so a, lots of times my story gets mistold because I get spoken over by other people, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:56

       Ah.

   17. BABen Askren1:56

       And they don't hear what I say. So here, here's what happened. Um, obviously ... So prior to me in Bellator, Hector and E- Eddie were the ones that left, right? They were ... Hector was the-

   18. JRJoe Rogan2:06

       Hector Lombard-

   19. BABen Askren2:06

       Yep.

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       ... and Eddie Alvarez-

   21. BABen Askren2:07

       Eddie Alvarez were the-

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:08

       ... was then at UFC. Both of them.

   23. BABen Askren2:09

       Both the middleweight champ and then the lightweight champ, and they both got taken care of pretty well. But if you, if you remember Eddie's situation, I don't know if you remember this, he got an offer from the UFC, still under the matching period with Bellator. Bellator says, "We matched it," right? And i- in terms of what was in the contract, it was matched, right? But because Bellator has no pay-per-view venue ... Well, if UFC says, "We'll pay you on pay-per-view," Bellator says, "Well, we will too." But that's not real life, right?

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:37

       Right.

   25. BABen Askren2:37

       That, that's fictitious.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       They don't have ... They've done two pay-per-view shows ever.

   27. BABen Askren2:40

       And they've never met any type of threshold.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:41

       Yeah.

   29. BABen Askren2:42

       So, you know, they say it matches but it doesn't, so they ... I don't know if you remember, but they went to court over it, and UFC won. Eddie ha- got the right to ... I'm sorry, he didn't win. He, he somehow did like a one f- more fight in Bellator and then went to the UFC. I don't know exactly what the finality of that case was. But anyways, when that happened, his, his contract became public knowledge, right? And so a lot of UFC fighters were pissed because he, they gave him a whole bunch of money. And so when I, I, I was 12 and 0, I, well, I had my last fight in Bellator against Andrei Khushkov July 30th, maybe 31st, of, uh, 2013. Beat him up pretty good. And then I had a 12-month matching period. And so what was expressed to me by the UFC brass was that, "You need to get rid of your matching clause and we will make you an offer, but we will not make you an offer until that happens."

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:31

       Get rid of your matching clause?
4. 6:44 – 9:19

   Why Dana didn’t want him: steroids criticism, “boring style” narrative, and being no yes-man

   1. BABen Askren6:44

      Well, I, I, so I... Here's my guess. I've never got to sit face-to-face with Dana and say, "What was your problem with me?" I think there's four things, in my mind. Number one, he didn't really like me. Um, stemming from the... I called him out on the steroid thing. You know, where he said, "It's impossible." And this is where our disagreement... "It's impossible to test all UFC athletes." And I said, "Well, that's not true. USADA does it all over the world for all kinds of athletes, right?"

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:08

      Right.

   3. BABen Askren7:08

      "You can do it. It's just expensive, but let's just call what it is. You're a private business. You don't have to do drug testing." It's gonna be-

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:14

      Well, obviously they do it now, so you were right.

   5. BABen Askren7:15

      They do it now, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:16

      They do it through USADA-

   7. BABen Askren7:17

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:17

      ... so you were totally right.

   9. BABen Askren7:18

      Yeah, so I, I was correct. And now, but that was... You know, when Dana is wrong in an argument, and he's got this huge army that follows him, and he said, "I'd rather..." He... I think his quote was about... He goes, "I'd rather watch flies fuck than Ben Askren fight." You know?

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       I think he said something like-

   11. BABen Askren7:31

       Or-

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:32

       ... "Ambien takes Ben Askren-"

   13. BABen Askren7:34

       He-

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:34

       ... "and he goes asleep."

   15. BABen Askren7:34

       Yeah, yeah. There were, there were a few of them.

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:36

       (laughs)

   17. BABen Askren7:36

       So the personal attacks start, right? So that, that's number one. Number two, my fighting style is not highly attractive. But I also think that's a little bit of fake news, because if you look at Georges St-Pierre as the... consistently. Now, obviously McGregor has trumped him, but only a couple of times. But if you look at consistent basis, Georges St-Pierre is the number one draw of all time. He heavily relied on takedowns and ground and pound.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:56

       Yeah.

   19. BABen Askren7:56

       I mean, he didn't have a finish in, like, five years or something.

   20. JRJoe Rogan8:00

       Well, let me just say what my-

   21. BABen Askren8:01

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:01

       ... take has always been on you and that style, is that it's important, and that it real- it really works.

   23. BABen Askren8:08

       Yeah, absolutely.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:08

       Like what you, what you're able to do really works. And I've always said this, and it was proven Sun- uh, Saturday night in the Stipe Miocic-Francis Ngannou fight.

   25. BABen Askren8:16

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:16

       Wrestling is the most important part of MMA.

   27. BABen Askren8:18

       Absolutely.

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:18

       The ability to take the fight to the ground. Obviously, Stipe has a lot of other attributes.

   29. BABen Askren8:22

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       He, he took tremendous punches in that fight. I mean, I know you didn't get a chance to watch it, but-
5. 9:19 – 13:16

   Building an MMA game around ‘not getting hit’: wrestling advantages and durability

   1. BABen Askren9:19

      Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, not... So, we'll, we can get back to the UFC thing Yeah. ... at it later. But, so, yeah, I mean, when I started fighting, right, it was just like, "Hey, let's go fight." I, I didn't really make coaching and so I didn't move to Duke's until tw- Rufus. Duke Rufus. Duke Rufus, yes, until 2010, I think. So I started... No, no, 2011. I'm sorry, because I was in Arizona. I was coaching for Arizona State University. But when I moved there, I know, "Hey these... uh, there's a lot of elite strikers in this gym," I said, "but I'm, I'm never gonna be an elite striker, but if no one can hit me, they can't beat me." They're not gonna outlast me. They're not gonna out-grapple me. They're not gonna beat me. If they can't knock me out, they're not gonna beat me. Plain and simple. So my whole goal was, "How do I not get hit?" Not... I don't need to be a great striker hitting people. I just need to not get hit. If you can't knock me out, I'm gonna eventually get you on the ground and I'm gonna beat your ass.

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:06

      Right.

   3. BABen Askren10:06

      Right? And so that was kind of my whole goal when I got into MMA, is, "How do I not get knocked out?" Right? And so you said, obviously, I've be- you know, found a really good way to do that. And it, uh, it added a lot of longevity to my career, where I wasn't taking damage that, uh, a lot of other people were taking. And I, I think there's also a lot of other things to being a really high level wrestler that, you know... Besides, obviously, you can control where the fight happens, right? But there's a lot of other things that high level wrestling provides us, right, that came from that world, that other disciplines don't get. You know, a lot of competition. We, we compete thousands of times, right? How to get our mind right. Um, these wrestlers are just strong. I mean, there's just a different strength. I did actually, I got to go work out with Jordan Burroughs last week. He's a Middletown world champ. And it's like you forget how strong wrestlers are. Like, you grab them and you're like, "Good God, this guy is like..."

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:55

      (laughs)

   5. BABen Askren10:55

      You know, I don't feel that from MMA people. I grab him and I'm like-

   6. JRJoe Rogan10:58

      Right.

   7. BABen Askren10:58

      Oh my... Everywhere, it's like there's nowhere he's weak. Um, very, very disciplined, right? 'Cause wrestlers like... We've been in the system from youth wrestling to high school wrestling to college wrestling, where we're under, you know, coaches and have a very strict training plan, and understand how to put a training regimen together, where a lot of other martial arts don't have that kind of structured system. So I think there's a lot of advantages that we, as, uh, wrestlers have when we commit to mixed martial arts.

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:22

      And if I could add to that, the intention is pure. It's pure for competition, because there's no financial reward.

   9. BABen Askren11:27

      Yes, mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:27

       It's not a bunch of people that are getting into wrestling because they want to get rich.

   11. BABen Askren11:30

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:30

       It's a bunch of people that really want to prove that they're the best. And so you have so many top flight guys that are incredibly mentally strong, feeding off of each other, knowing that they're gonna be competing against each other-

   13. BABen Askren11:42

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:42

       ... and almost no financial possibilities-

   15. BABen Askren11:45

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:45

       ... except for coaching.

   17. BABen Askren11:46

       Well, yeah, there's a co-... I mean, now... So 2018 to 20... uh, 2008, when I was wrestling, and then when I decided to make that jump to MMA, there is a lot better financial structure for senior level athletes. Now, none of them are getting rich, and there's only about a dozen of them making, like, a decent living, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan12:03

       Yeah.

   19. BABen Askren12:04

       And so-

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:04

       Which is crazy.

   21. BABen Askren12:05

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan12:05

       There's thousands of wrestlers.

   23. BABen Askren12:06

       Exactly. So your point's mostly correct, but there are a handful of top United States athletes now who could do nothing but wrestle. Where when I was in, in 2008, when I was training, that wasn't even the case. I had to go do camps. I, I was coaching at Missouri, so I was doing other things in addition to wrestling.

   24. JRJoe Rogan12:21

       So, like a top Olympic athlete, what, what else would they do to make money?

   25. BABen Askren12:24

       Well, so like, in tw- in 2008, I was doing a lot of camps, right? You'd travel around the country, do camps, make money. Um, coach a college team. I was making money that way. So, a handful of things I did. Like I, I w- it wasn't just wake up and train every single day.

   26. JRJoe Rogan12:37

       But the athletes of today that you were saying-

   27. BABen Askren12:38

       Now, that's what they're doing. That's it.

   28. JRJoe Rogan12:40

       Coaching and-

   29. BABen Askren12:41

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan12:41

       ... a bunch of different things. Yeah.
6. 13:16 – 22:00

   Amateurism, NCAA/IOC criticism, and why athletes can’t profit from their own names

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:16

      Well, it's the tragic story of John du Pont. I mean, that's literally why that whole ... if ... people have seen that movie. What-

   2. BABen Askren13:22

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:22

      ... what was that movie called?

   4. BABen Askren13:23

      The Foxcatcher.

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:24

      Foxcatcher.

   6. BABen Askren13:24

      Yeah. Awful.

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:24

      It's a crazy story of, um, Dave and Mark Schultz and this millionaire, cra- billionaire-

   8. BABen Askren13:32

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:32

      ... crazy guy-

   10. BABen Askren13:33

       Five billionaire, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:33

       ... who wound up shooting Dave Schultz, and, uh, was this weirdo guy that was-

   12. BABen Askren13:38

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan13:38

       ... running this camp. And these guys kinda got stuck training with this guy.

   14. BABen Askren13:42

       Yeah, because, I mean ... a- and that's '96 was when Schultz got shot, right? And so, that's 12 years prior to, you know, my Olympic birth then. And so then, it's even worse.

   15. JRJoe Rogan13:53

       Yeah.

   16. BABen Askren13:53

       I mean, these guys are literally making nothing. And that a- then ... And then, you know, then we can go back to the argument of amateurism in, in the Olympics is stupid, which was abolished. Like '92, The Dream Team, was kind of totally abolished with amateurism.

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:05

       Yeah.

   18. BABen Askren14:05

       But yeah, those guys in that era, the '84, '88, '92, nine-... they were making nothing. And so when this guy, John du Pont, offers them money and stipends and places to live, they don't really have a better option. And it-

   19. JRJoe Rogan14:15

       Right.

   20. BABen Askren14:16

       ... it's freaking sad, to be honest about it, and then obviously USA Wrestling sanctioned him because he gave USA Wrestling a lot of money, so yeah, it was really a bad thing. And, and so we're doing a lot better in 2018 than we were 10 years ago, and way, way better than we were doing 20 years ago.

   21. JRJoe Rogan14:29

       Yeah, the Olympic thing where they try to treat the Olympics like it's an amateur sport event. It's a business. You're making-

   22. BABen Askren14:38

       Absolutely.

   23. JRJoe Rogan14:38

       ... billions and billions of dollars off these athletes-

   24. BABen Askren14:40

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan14:41

       ... who get paid zero.

   26. BABen Askren14:42

       Zero.

   27. JRJoe Rogan14:42

       It is ... To me, it's disgusting.

   28. BABen Askren14:44

       It is.

   29. JRJoe Rogan14:44

       I think it's just this relic of ancient thinking, and these guys are using it to steal money-

   30. BABen Askren14:50

       Mm-hmm.
7. 22:00 – 34:38

   Sports psychology and preparation: managing the mind, routines, and structured coaching

   1. BABen Askren22:00

      So I'm really into sports psychology, and I want someone to write this book 'cause no one's ever written it, but I think there's this, uh, I call it the hypocritical elite athlete. So there's two sides to every coin, right? And if you're a really elite athlete, you need both sides of those coin, and I'll give you a great example 'cause it's kinda what you're talking about. There's these guys who are ultra-elite preparers. They eat right, they sleep right, they train right, they do everything right, right? But then if one little thing goes wrong, it messes with them, right? If they don't get the right food or their weight cut's bad, they, they start panicking, right? And then on the opposite side of the coin, there's these cowboys, right? And they're just like, "I'm not gonna eat right, I'm not gonna sleep right, I'm not gonna do anything right. But when the time to step in the cage, I'ma fight my ass off and nothing's gonna bother me." Right? And so you need, you need both sides of those coins to ma- to make it whole, and so you want someone ideally who does everything right, but at the same time when, when something goes wrong or their toe hurts or whatever, they can just say, "Well, it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna go compete anyways." Right? You wanna have both sides of those, and that's why I think a lot of the UFC fighters are more on the cowboy side of it, like, "Well, I'm not really gonna do a lot of things right, but I'm just gonna go f- I'm, I'm a fighter. I'm just gonna go fight."

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:09

      Like Cowboy, like-

   3. BABen Askren23:10

      That'd be-

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:11

      ... Cowboy Cerrone.

   5. BABen Askren23:11

      ... great.

   6. JRJoe Rogan23:11

      He's perfect.

   7. BABen Askren23:11

      That's an example, and it is-

   8. JRJoe Rogan23:13

      (laughs)

   9. BABen Askren23:13

      Yeah, the namesake of my argument. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan23:15

       Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, and it, it is, uh, it's probably ... One of the more fascinating things about any f- form of high-stress, high-level competition is there's no real guidelines of how to prepare your mind, you know? I mean, everybody teaches you how to wrestle.

   11. BABen Askren23:30

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan23:30

       Everybody teaches you how to kickbox. There's all these martial arts schools that teach you technique. There's very few real, like, rock solid programs-

   13. BABen Askren23:38

       Yes.

   14. JRJoe Rogan23:39

       ... and of how to, how to manage your mind.

   15. BABen Askren23:41

       Absolutely.

   16. JRJoe Rogan23:42

       Like, like, like I think you should be taught a- a ... almost like in, in a step-by-step basis, like, hey, you get a flat tire, do you kick-

   17. BABen Askren23:51

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan23:51

       ... your car-

   19. BABen Askren23:51

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan23:52

       ... and scream, or do you just go, "This is what it is, and hey, I could've been born in Ethiopia with no feet."

   21. BABen Askren23:57

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:57

       Right? I could be-

   23. BABen Askren23:58

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan23:58

       ... living in uh, a fucking coal mine somewhere. No-

   25. BABen Askren24:00

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan24:00

       ... I'm lucky, I'm fortunate.

   27. BABen Askren24:01

       Yeah, absolutely.

   28. JRJoe Rogan24:01

       This is nothing. This is a minor setback.

   29. BABen Askren24:03

       No, I, and so like I, I actually started going to graduate school for sports psychology. I got nine of the 36 credits done.And then I, I actually got a scholarship to go further and, you know, get it paid for. Um, but I was just, I was traveling so much. That was 2007, '8, when I was trying to make the Olympic team and I was gone all the time. And then once I was out of school for a year, I was just like, "There is no freaking way-"

   30. JRJoe Rogan24:24

       (laughs)
8. 34:38 – 47:49

   CTE, sparring, and the opioid crisis: risk, brain damage, and ‘don’t recommend MMA’

   1. BABen Askren34:38

      Learn those skills, figure it out, and then after that it might be once a week, twice a week, three times a week. But then when, when we start considering the, the CTE factors, which I'm not totally sold on, on CTE yet, um-

   2. JRJoe Rogan34:50

      'Cause you don't get hit. (laughs)

   3. BABen Askren34:52

      (laughs) No, you know, the study-

   4. JRJoe Rogan34:53

      You're the poster boy for wrestling-

   5. BABen Askren34:55

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan34:55

      ... as a martial art if you really think about it.

   7. BABen Askren34:57

      Yeah, no, for sure. But so I watched, I watched Concussion-

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:59

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BABen Askren35:00

      ... when I, I was actually flying to my fight in April of 2016. I watched it and I said, "Shit, that's scary." I did, I sparred two more times the rest of my career. So my, my career was 19 more months I sparred twice. I just didn't, I didn't do it.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:13

       Just 'cause you didn't wanna get hit?

   11. BABen Askren35:14

       Uh, yeah, I felt it was an- a- a- an- a- an unnecessary risk.

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:18

       Well, there was a, a recent study that came out, uh, uh, just a few days ago that said that it's repeated subconcussive hits-

   13. BABen Askren35:25

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan35:25

       ... that are causing CTE, not concussions.

   15. BABen Askren35:27

       Yeah. So the, but the study that made me really question the CTE phenomenon was they, they did that study where they studied a whole bunch of professional football players and it was like 100%, it was like 99% have CTE, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan35:40

       Yeah.

   17. BABen Askren35:40

       But then they studied people who had played football for any length of time.

   18. JRJoe Rogan35:43

       Yeah.

   19. BABen Askren35:43

       Any length of time. And it was like, still like 80% of the people.

   20. JRJoe Rogan35:47

       Yeah.

   21. BABen Askren35:47

       And it's like, well, F, I can't live my life in a bubble.

   22. JRJoe Rogan35:50

       Right.

   23. BABen Askren35:51

       Like how are, like how can 80% of people who have ever played football... I mean, how many American males, what percentage of American males walking around at 40 years old today played some level of football? It's like gotta be 80%. So you're telling me 70% of America is walking around with CTE-

   24. JRJoe Rogan36:04

       Yeah.

   25. BABen Askren36:04

       ... are American males? Like that's crazy.

   26. JRJoe Rogan36:06

       But no, that, but that's real.... that-

   27. BABen Askren36:08

       Come on.

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:08

       ... that really is what's happening.

   29. BABen Askren36:09

       No, I, but I, you got, you gotta think there's gotta be some kind of low threshold, because otherwise 40 years down the road, if everybody played football and everyone who played football has CTE, everyone's gonna be walking around like durr.

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:21

       A lot of people are walking around like that.
9. 47:49 – 1:07:37

   Modern discourse and conspiracy thinking: labels, nuance, and media cycles

   1. JRJoe Rogan47:49

      Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting time. W- well, I get labeled-

   2. BABen Askren47:53

      It varies.

   3. JRJoe Rogan47:53

      ... alt-right all the time.

   4. BABen Askren47:53

      I know, it's bizarre.

   5. JRJoe Rogan47:54

      It's ... But everybody's so quick to label people today.

   6. BABen Askren47:57

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan47:58

      (coughs) It's such a strange time. P- finger-pointing and putting people in boxes.

   8. BABen Askren48:02

      It really is.

   9. JRJoe Rogan48:02

      And they're doing it disingenuously.

   10. BABen Askren48:03

       It's, it's more divisive. Pe- These-

   11. JRJoe Rogan48:05

       Yeah.

   12. BABen Askren48:05

       ... A lot of these leftists, they want to, uh, you know, they wanna say, "Well, I'm trying to make people less racist," but what they're really doing, they're being very divisive.

   13. JRJoe Rogan48:14

       Yeah.

   14. BABen Askren48:14

       You know? And, like, I would ... I think you identify as libertarian. I w- I identify more as a libertarian than Republican or Democrat. But, yeah, a lot of people say I'm, you know, alt-right or love Trump so much. And it's, well, I'm more libertarian than anything.

   15. JRJoe Rogan48:28

       Yeah.

   16. BABen Askren48:28

       You know? I think less government, less inva- invasion into our lives, but people wanna put you into a little box because you don't agree with what they're saying.

   17. JRJoe Rogan48:36

       Yeah. It's a weird time for that. And th- that's wh- I think what you were saying about shaming. They try to shame you-

   18. BABen Askren48:41

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:41

       ... into being less racist or shame.

   20. BABen Askren48:42

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       But you're not doing that if you're pretending someone's racist when you know they're not.

   22. BABen Askren48:46

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:46

       Or if you're pretending that someone is a sexist or homophobic or whatever, when you know they're ... You're just ... They're ... People are l- They're ignoring nuance-

   24. BABen Askren48:56

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:56

       ... on purpose.

   26. BABen Askren48:56

       And what, and what they're really doing also is they're making, they're making people afraid to speak their minds, right? And really, how ... If you and I had a disagreement on something, how we would come to a common ground is by discussing it.

   27. JRJoe Rogan49:07

       Yes.

   28. BABen Askren49:07

       By y- I'd say, "Well, I think you're a reasonable person. What do you believe?"

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:11

       Yeah.

   30. BABen Askren49:11

       And you'd say, and it's, "Well, I don't agree with that and this is why." And eventually we would talk it out, and maybe we still disagree, but we'd come to a common ground, right?

Episode duration: 2:16:03