Joe Rogan Experience #1539 - Jenny Kleeman
Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Jenny Kleeman (guest), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Narrator and Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan Experience #1539 - Jenny Kleeman explores sex, Robots, Vegan Meat, and Death: Rethinking Humanity’s Tech Future Joe Rogan and journalist/author Jenny Kleeman discuss themes from her book *Sex Robots & Vegan Meat*, exploring how emerging technologies could reshape sex, reproduction, food, and death. They debate whether technological progress is inevitable or can be steered by cultural pushback and individual choice. The conversation covers sex robots, Neuralink, genetic engineering, lab-grown meat, overpopulation, and assisted dying, repeatedly returning to questions of human nature, empathy, and the unintended consequences of innovation. Throughout, Kleeman argues that many ‘solutions’ are overshoot engineering that avoid changing human behavior, while Rogan worries humans will willingly make themselves obsolete through technology and materialism.
Sex, Robots, Vegan Meat, and Death: Rethinking Humanity’s Tech Future
Joe Rogan and journalist/author Jenny Kleeman discuss themes from her book *Sex Robots & Vegan Meat*, exploring how emerging technologies could reshape sex, reproduction, food, and death. They debate whether technological progress is inevitable or can be steered by cultural pushback and individual choice. The conversation covers sex robots, Neuralink, genetic engineering, lab-grown meat, overpopulation, and assisted dying, repeatedly returning to questions of human nature, empathy, and the unintended consequences of innovation. Throughout, Kleeman argues that many ‘solutions’ are overshoot engineering that avoid changing human behavior, while Rogan worries humans will willingly make themselves obsolete through technology and materialism.
Key Takeaways
Sex robots risk normalizing one‑sided, empathy‑free relationships.
Kleeman argues that highly realistic sex robots—especially female‑coded ones—could create ‘domestic echo chambers’ where users never have to consider another person’s needs, desires, or boundaries, potentially corroding their capacity for real human intimacy.
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Technological ‘solutions’ often bypass, rather than fix, human problems.
From sex robots to lab-grown meat and death machines, many innovations aim to let us keep our habits (eating meat, avoiding conflict, fearing death) instead of addressing root causes like overconsumption, lack of empathy, or cultural attitudes.
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Inequality will likely be amplified by enhancement technologies.
Tools like Neuralink or artificial wombs may initially be accessible only to the wealthy, widening gaps between enhanced and unenhanced humans and potentially stigmatizing those who can’t or won’t adopt them.
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Lab-grown and plant-based meats carry hidden ethical and environmental complexities.
While marketed as cruelty-free and climate-friendly, current approaches can rely on products like fetal bovine serum, ultra-processed ingredients, and global supply chains, with uncertain long‑term health and ecological effects.
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We underestimate how much capitalism shapes our relationship with technology.
Both note that profit-driven systems depend on people feeling incomplete and needing ‘the next thing’, which accelerates tech adoption (phones, filters, cosmetic procedures, meat substitutes) and blinds us to simpler behavioral changes.
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Legal and ethical frameworks lag far behind technological capability.
Examples like sex robots, child-like sex dolls, genetic editing, and assisted dying show how law struggles to keep pace, often regulating imports or narrow use-cases while leaving broader ethical questions unresolved.
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Critical thinking and long-form, good-faith conversation are essential counterweights.
Both see deep, nuanced dialogue and genuine listening—rather than soundbite debates and social media outrage—as key to helping people reflect on what kinds of futures they actually want to choose or reject.
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Notable Quotes
“What happens in a future where it’s possible to have a relationship where only one half of the partnership matters?”
— Jenny Kleeman
“Technology can do fantastic things, but it can’t solve the most important human problems. Those have to be solved by changing human behavior.”
— Jenny Kleeman
“I’m worried that we’re going to be obsolete… I don’t think this version of human being that we’re enjoying right now is going to last.”
— Joe Rogan
“We’ve become addicted to different orders of magnitude of technology to solve problems caused by technology.”
— Jenny Kleeman
“If you want a superpower, the superpower is to listen—really listen to what people are actually saying.”
— Jenny Kleeman
Questions Answered in This Episode
If sex robots become affordable and lifelike, how should society define acceptable versus harmful use, and where—if anywhere—should we draw legal lines?
Joe Rogan and journalist/author Jenny Kleeman discuss themes from her book *Sex Robots & Vegan Meat*, exploring how emerging technologies could reshape sex, reproduction, food, and death. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Are there realistic scenarios in which widespread human enhancement (e.g., Neuralink, genetic editing) does not massively deepen social and economic inequality?
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Should we treat lab-grown meat and plant-based substitutes as genuine ethical progress, or as distractions that allow us to avoid confronting overconsumption and factory farming directly?
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How much control should individuals have over their own death, and what safeguards—if any—are justified to prevent impulsive or coerced decisions?
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In a world driven by capitalism and constant technological novelty, what practical steps can individuals take to resist purely consumerist adoption of new tech and make more values-based choices?
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Transcript Preview
(drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Jenny.
Hello, Joe.
Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.
I'm totally psyched to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.
Y- my pleasure. So your book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, did you have alternative titles that you-
I'm really, really shit at titles.
(laughs)
I just can't think of-
It's a good title. I thought it was an excellent one.
It's a brilliant title.
Yeah. It works well.
It's, it's my editor Chris's title. It's not my title.
Ah. Did you have ideas?
So I ... I had really bad ones.
(laughs)
I think when I wrote the proposal, it was called Future Humans or something.
Mm.
And he just said, "No, no, no, no, no." I can't do high ... I can't do titles. I write things that are very, very long. I can't do nice little short things. So anyway, my, my, uh, my editor, my editor at the publishing house, Picador, came up with the title and I loved it.
Yeah, he nailed it. Excellent job, Chris.
Yes.
Way to go.
He's a smart guy. (laughs)
Well, it just ... It, it really covers the subject matter so well and so, uh, succinctly. So I am concerned with all the things you appear to be concerned with, so I'm really excited about this conversation. Um-
Good.
F- let's, let's start with sex robots since it's the first part. Um, I, uh, d- I'm sure you've seen Ex Machina.
Yes, I have.
Oh, fantastic movie, right?
Brilliant. Yes, totally.
And confusing, because I think there will be a time, whether it's in our grandchildren's life or when, where that's a real concern, where we do have artificial humans that don't have any empathy. They're programmed whatever way we decide to program them and they're insanely similar to us.
Yes.
And people are gonna have sex with them.
Yes. It's, it's this idea that, I mean, uh, there are people who are working on this stuff now. That's what my book is about. It's about, like I went and met the people who are doing this stuff now. We have this idea that comes from science fiction of like Ex Machina or Pris from Blade Runner of these like totally perfect beings who are really dangerous. And that doesn't exist at the moment, but it is going to exist. It is going to exist. At some point there will be something extremely realistic that gives a very good illusion of being human even though it's not. And, uh, there are lots of reasons to be concerned about this and there are some really solid kind of feminist reasons to be concerned about this 'cause the vast majority of, of the robots being made at the moment are in the female form.
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