Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games

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Good to see you.

Please introduce yourselves.

Uh, I'm Dr. Aaron de Souza, president of the Enhanced Games. And I'm Christian Angermayer, co-founder of the Enhanced Games.

And, uh, this is a very exciting idea. And how did this come about? What, what was the impetus behind this?

I've been studying the Olympics and the Olympic movement my en- entire life. You know, I'm 39 years old. When I was a undergraduate at university, it was just after the Sydney Olympics and, you know, it was always something that inspired me. And I thought to myself, you know... I l- I learned some key statistics. 44% of Olympians admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs within the last year, according to research commissioned by the World Anti-Doping-

44%.

44%.

And the other, you know, probably lying.

Are losing. (laughs)

(laughs)

Exactly. Uh, and, and so, you know, and then I learned that the average American Olympian only earns thir- $30,000 a year. And I thought to myself, "There's something really wrong in the system." And instead of, you know, trying to reform it, let's take a blank slate, uh, slate of paper and invent the third Olympiad from scratch.

Mm. Well, the Olympics is kind of a scam because it generates billions of dollars in revenue and the people that are there to perform make almost none of that.

That's correct. The i- actually the International Olympic Committee doesn't pay any of the athletes, uh, in... Incidentally, they may get some money in sponsorship or from their National Olympic Committee-

Yeah.

... but ultimately, the billions in dollar- billions of dollars in revenue come into the Olympics and none of that goes to the athletes. It gets wasted building stadiums. It gets wasted paying officials. And we thought there was a way to do a better, more honest model that inspires us to believe in the future of science and technology in the 21st century.

And you could do apolitically too if you chose to.

Uh-

You know, are you, are you guys doing it by nation or are you doing it just, like, human beings?

Human beings. Uh-

Better.

I th- yeah. I think the era of nationalism, uh, is, is over, right? Look at the Eurovision Song Competition recently. Um-

What is that? (laughs)

Oh, it was when, you know, Israel was performing and there were huge protests out front of the competition. It's a very Eu-

What was the competition?

It's a very European thing. It's called European Song Contest. I'm European.

Song Contest.

A song contest.

Oh, Song Contest. Okay.

Yes. It's every country, every year, makes a very cheesy song.