#2379 - Matthew McConaughey

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Good bro.

Cheers, cheers, sir.

Hey, cheers.

Good seeing you.

My man.

Yay.

Hey.

You, uh,

you're a man of many talents, my friend.

Tell me about this book.

Poems and Prayers.

Yeah.

So I've been kind of writing.

Try to keep this like.

These are a little bit directional.

Yeah, perfect.

I've been writing poems and prayers down since I was like 18.

And then this last, I don't know, a couple years, I started

looking around at life and...

the facts and evidence and people and I was like not finding the amount of things or people to believe in that I was wanting to.

And I was starting to have doubts in myself as well.

And I started to see myself slip into a little bit of cynicism.

Which I promised myself that's that no,

that's a living man's disease.

Don't go there.

You go from innocence to s to naivete to skepticism, but let's stop there.

It's skepticism.

Yeah.

And I kind of got

scared and a little pissed off at myself.

I was like, oh, wait a minute.

I'm not ready to give up.

I'm not ready to wave the white flag and let myself off for certain things I was starting to even want to let myself off on, you know, or other people.

And

I said, all right, poems and prayers, those are ideals.

Those are pursuits, you know, that's going to the dream and saying,

let's look at the dream and see if we can still believe in making that a reality.

Aspirational.

Instead of looking at reality and saying, how do you turn that into a dream?

Which is what I usually do.

I'm like, art emulates life, man, not the other way around.

But I flipped the script a little bit here and said, no, no, let's dive into the dreams and belief.

Man, I think it's in short supply.

It was good.

My tank was getting low on belief.

Not just.

What was bothering you so much?

Well, specifically, maybe it's, man, maybe it's turning 50, something like that.

Maybe it's that where I start to project, you know, what am I, what's the next half?

Right.

I don't know.

Maybe subconsciously it was.

I think

I look around

and

there's a lot fewer leaders that I'm like, hey son, I'm going to grow up like that.

I look around, I see people

not trusting.

I see

people that aren't embarrassed for doing something shitty.

I see people that sleep just fine.

I found myself starting to go, oh, I can sleep fine too.

That's that part where I was like, uh-uh.

You can't, you don't, you don't, don't sleep fine if you half-assed that situation or if you did that person wrong and can get away with it.

Right.

And so trust,

where do we look to for belief?

Me, I believe in God, but it doesn't have to be that.

What's your better self, your transcendent self, your kids, their future.

There's all kinds of things.

Humanity itself.

Yeah.

Believing in it, our potential.

We understand that humans can be so amazing at times.

And all my favorite people are humans.

Like all the, I love people.

I love being around them.

But yet, simultaneously, people can be fucking horrific.

They're terrible at the same time.

The problem today is that you're inundated by these people that are terrible.

Your phone is filled with these news feeds of people doing terrible things.

And

I don't think we're supposed to have access to 8 billion people's bad stories.

I don't think that's normal.

And I think that also changes your own perception of the world and invites cynicism.

What is the point of being a good person?

What is the point of being friendly and nice when the world's going to be?

What's the consequences, man?

Yeah.

None of it.

If I can shortcut it and

lie, cheat and steal to get the same thing.

And I'm in a world that rewards that.

Especially CEOs.

I mean, if you're working for some giant corporation, if you're trying to make your shareholders billions of dollars, like, yeah, you kind of have to be a psycho.

And those are the people that a lot of people look up to.

Yeah.

It's real.

It's the way we're structured in this world with that inundation of information, most of it bad, with people being rewarded for being shitty people.

It's hard.

It's hard to

still be positive and be happy.

I'm not ready to give up on believing that both can be true.

Yeah.

That, hey, man, hardcore capitalist, go for it.

More, more, more success, get it.

But you can also, how do you have profit with your success?

I see a lot of people that are successful but lack profit, meaning value of their success.

Right.

I see a lot of unhappy billionaires.

I know them.

Right.

I know them too.

That's a bad thing, right?

Like, that's the thing that you think, oh, if you hit that stage of the game, there's no way you can be unhappy.

They're some of the most unhappy people.

Yeah.

And that math is inverted.

It shouldn't be that way.

If that's what we're pursuing, and I got nothing against it, I'm actually for it.

Right.

But

yeah, if that's what we're pursuing,

that's not how it's supposed to end.

It's supposed to end.

That's the happiest guy alive.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

It's not real.

You know, and you don't notice it.

It's just numbers.

You know, you notice it by how big your house is.

Great.

It's still just your house.

You notice it by.

You're getting lost in that cinema, bitch, and you wish the ceilings were a little bit lower because it's just all too damn big.

It's not cozy at all.

You're like, this ain't cozy.

This is weird.

It's fucking castle.

I've done it.

I've done it.

That picture.

Shit, that's the first time I've noticed that painting in two years.

Either I don't like it or I got it in the wrong place.

Yeah, it's in the fourth bedroom down the second hallway, and I'm never down here.

Or that chair, that used to be my favorite chair.

I hadn't sat in it in two years.

Yeah, because you got it off down in the fifth bedroom.

Yeah.

Where nowhere you never go.

When I see like movies where a dude's living in a log cabin, I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that.

Right?

The lack of options.

Yeah.

The lack of options is relaxing.

Well, there's something to that.

Like a frying pan, a grill.

Dude, that's what I loved about living in the Airstream for four years.

Right.

You only have room for one of everything.

So I would get my best, the best pan, the best,

the best,

the best pair of shorts, the best sheets.

And you can only have one of each because you get two, it's cluttered.

Right.

But there were an options.

I forgot you did that.

You did that for four years.

That's crazy.

That's so smart, though.

It's such a good idea.

I watch these videos on people that live in like trailers, like a truck, you know, like a camper that they convert to living in, and they travel around the country.

I'm obsessed with these videos.

I watch these guys go to like these horrendous places.

One guy is a truck camper, and he goes up into like...

way into Alaska, like way, way, way above the Arctic Circle, like way up there in this fucking truck with a house on the back of it.

He's in Canada and like deep into Alberta and it's snowstorms.

And there's something oddly comforting about watching a man cook in this tiny little space that he has.

It's essentially attached to the back of a big diesel pickup truck.

Yeah.

And he lives in it.

Yeah.

Well, he's got.

Decreased amount of options.

Yeah, it's like little shelves.

This is where I keep my silverware.

This is like here's my frying pan.

He's got one frying pan.

Yeah, yeah.

Take care of that.

One frying pan.

I'm watching this guy cook his supper, and I'm like, this is appealing to me for some reason.

Like, why is it so appealing?

Yeah.

Because his world is all contained.

And the whole world outside is this frozen wasteland and fucking snow coming sideways.

And this dude's just chilling, making eggs.

And like, there's something

cool about watching someone achieve like a

den in the back of a truck, and he's in the middle of the winter, and he's comfortable, and he's watching movies on his iPad.

I don't like this.

This is great.

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Even the times I've gone off on my own,

I've always, my goal has always been, okay, stay here until you.

Whether it's Mali or Peru or even in the Airstream of those times or going out to Marfra to go right on my own.

I go, all right, stay here long enough to believe this could be your existence, McConnell.

You could live here forever.

Then it's okay to come back home.

If I get to that point, I'm going, I could do this.

Right.

This could be me.

You locked it up.

Then I've given it the justice, right?

To then go come home.

Because I sure do.

Silk sheets on my bed at home sure do feel silkier after those times in that log cabin.

Yeah.

You know, I like coming back and re-engaging.

Yeah.

You know, spending time over in Hawaii, coming back over to the mainland.

It was great to get the stimulus again.

Ah, in the game.

You feel the teeth.

I wanted that.

You know?

Yeah.

Resets are real.

They're important.

You can get trapped in momentum.

You know, you could really get trapped in the momentum of whatever you're doing in your life to the point where you lose yourself in just the sheer gravity of everything that you're doing.

And you forget how to like just.

Be just a person.

And what happens when you're doing it well, but you don't feel it?

Right.

And you're on autopilot you're not gonna everyone's telling you knock it out of the park right but you're going

the good because i didn't i didn't feel it i'm not having any real experience here man they're going don't change a thing you know what i mean

you know that's a real problem with stand-up comedy when you do it right you're like a passenger Like it takes forever to put together an act, but when when it comes together, when you're really like locked in, when you're really on it, it's like you're like a passenger.

You're watching it happen.

You're objectively watching while you're doing it.

It's like you know how to do it, so you know what to do, and you're locked into the material, so you're like a part of the material, but you're not there anymore.

You're like a passenger.

You're not saying, now I'm going to pick this up, and now I'm going to give them a pause.

And now, nope, you're not there.

Are you enjoying watching yourself?

No, you don't enjoy it.

I mean, it's fun.

Don't get me wrong, but you're not thinking about the fact that you're enjoying it at all.

You're just locked in.

All you're doing is just doing it.

But it's weird.

You're like a passenger.

And I think there's something

in there's something about that where we get trapped by not being a passenger.

You get trapped by wanting to think of yourself all the time.

And like things that you can do that take you out of that.

Things that you can do that like you're just locked into this thing.

They're a little like mini vacations

for whatever pattern you're stuck in.

Mini vacations.

Yeah, like golf or anything.

I didn't act in front of the camera for a few years, and I went back and did a couple of films last year.

Vacation.

Yeah, you were telling me that you had a focus

to go, I revere this enough to just do this.

And if I'm complacent, that means I'm being lazy.

I can just go back to working on my man, my character, look at it from every angle.

And And that is an absolute vacation.

You sent me a text about that, and it made me smile because I love when someone loves something.

I love that.

I love when people are just like, what you do is what you're supposed to be doing.

And

you're not conflicted at all.

You're like, fuck it.

Yeah.

Fuck it is.

Let's go.

I love that.

And I wish more people could find that in life

in some form.

Whether it's painting or making pottery or whatever the fuck it is, man.

Find that thing where you're like, God, I can't wait to get back to whatever it is, making cars.

I can't wait to get back to, you know, whatever the fuck it is I enjoy.

Or maybe even get to the place of going, I can't not do it.

Right.

You know,

I can't help myself.

It's more than my fault.

Exactly.

That's a beautiful, that's, and that doesn't always happen.

Even, I know for me, when I'm, when I'm feeling like I'm actually in the, in the zone I still sometimes have to make a choice and go wait No, you're good at this.

It feels pretty good But what I really love to get to is if I'm doing something I'm like no, I can't not right can't not

Can't not do this right now.

Yeah, I have to yeah, and I'm in it.

I'm the subject of it you're locked up on that passenger thing though.

Are you the subject meaning

If I'm giving a performance, I'm not there's nothing it's not an objective experience at all.

Yeah.

I'm not even even hopping out to look at myself from a third eye.

I'm not even supposing or anticipating, oh, how will this go?

Or, oh, this is that punchline, or though, this is a great beat to hit.

I'm just in it.

And then I can feel it, though.

Now, if I go, oh, right afterwards, I can look at you and go, that was it.

You go, that was it.

Or I can go,

I bullshit it right there in the middle, blah, blah, blah.

I can feel it when it's happening.

But I'm not, there's nothing objective about the experience

at all for me.

Right.

Yeah, that's exactly kind of what I'm saying.

It's like you're a passenger.

passenger.

Like, you can feel it when it's happening.

You're managing it.

When I get it really locked in,

then I'm just a passenger.

Is it coming through?

You're not even coming up with it.

It's coming.

No, it's all stuff that I've already thought of, right?

Most of it, except for some stuff that happens on the spot, which you got to allow room for because occasionally you just have the best line ever that just comes out of nowhere.

You just got to be able to let it happen.

That's what club work is for.

But

you're really just the ideas.

Like, whatever it is you're talking about, whatever it is you're upset about, whatever it is you're making fun of, you have to be like in that idea, and you don't exist anymore.

It's weird, it's weird, but like what you're saying about I can't not do this.

You know, that's if you could find a thing in your life where you're like, I cannot imagine a time where I can't do this, right?

This would fucking suck if I could not do this.

That's the aspiration for people to have a joyful existence.

You think that's where I got a hunch that in there is where we find belief.

Like starting with that question: who or what would you die for?

Good place to start.

Right.

For going, what do I believe in?

What do I have faith in?

Yeah.

Do you think that

extends out to a vocation, a career,

some work we do.

Not saying

I'd die for the experience to perform.

But that's the ultimate sacrifice.

That's the ultimate expression of how much you love something.

You die for it or die for them.

Yeah.

So much.

And if you figure out what you'll die for, that's what you'll live for that much more.

Right.

While you're alive, while you're here.

Well, that was why the Spartans had sex with each other.

Yeah.

So that they would love each other.

And so you would be fighting not just for you, you'd be fighting for your lover.

Okay.

Which is crazy strategy.

Yeah.

Talk a bunch of guys into banging each other.

Go, whatever, raise your skirt, man.

Let's get some team spirit here.

Yeah.

Do you remember?

This is kind of a crazy but true story.

A few years ago,

God, I don't know what administration it was.

It might have been the Bush administration.

Might have been Obama.

They tried to develop a gay bomb.

Like, they spent millions of dollars developing a bomb.

And the concept behind this bomb was you would detonate it over a city, and it would be like a bunch of probably pheromones and hormones and some kind of drug, and it would make people so horny that they would just have to have sex with whoever is near them.

And then the idea was they would be humiliated by this, and then we would just come in and just fuck up all these gays.

All that low morale?

Yeah,

all of a sudden, if a man becomes gay, now he's no longer like a highly trained military like soldier in another land now he's just a fruitcake just just some guys watching musicals no it's it's the dumb underdog wondering why he liked it so much some of the exactly some of the greatest warriors of all time in recorded history were gay

including pirates pirates were gay you're stuck at sea for five months and a bunch of dudes you make choices right samurai did a lot of gay stuff Spartans, the greatest warriors of all time, all gay.

Like, what a terrible idea to spend money on.

You could have made a more lethal army.

Imagine if they dropped that gay bomb and then the gays just kicked our asses.

They just had so much more to fight for.

They loved each other.

And this is how dumb the people that were spending your tax dollars are.

How far did that get?

$7 million.

$7 million.

See if you can pull that up, Jamie.

When the gay bomb was.

It was in the 90s.

Pentagon didn't deny the proposal.

According to Portland.

The Pentagon didn't deny it.

If you did make a gay bomb, I guarantee you'd fucking deny it.

I guarantee you'd be like, no, no, no.

Well, meanwhile, like, who's to say that shit even stays local?

What if it catches a good breeze and blows across the ocean and, you know,

come on?

Turns all of Portland gay.

They become the new Viking army.

Look out, Greenland.

Yeah, I mean, it's just

so hilarious that someone had that idea.

But that's what happens if people just have free access without any sort of oversight to your tax dollars.

Like, it's such a ridiculous idea.

I got one for you.

Have I got?

Yeah.

The gay bomb.

The what?

The gay bomb.

Yeah.

I mean, you lay it out like that.

And there's a few people in that room up there going like

in the Pentagon.

You know?

Work.

Yeah, I got an idea.

Let's try it on us.

Right here in this room.

Just to show you the effectiveness of this type of strategy.

Yeah.

So what was it, and what was in it?

I think it was just a proposal for us.

I mean, they didn't.

Isn't there a Wikipedia page on it?

That's what I was looking at.

It doesn't have anything other than that it was just

the discussion of

its existence.

What was going to make everyone so horny that they had to attack?

Crazy.

The nearest human or animal or whatever.

Also, why is there only guys around you?

Is it because they're the soldiers or dropping on the soldiers?

Yeah, I guess

the demographic.

But I think the idea was dropping it on a whole city.

Just turn the whole city game.

They were doing like a FOIA request.

It was on a CD-ROM that they found in 2000.

And yeah, the documents show they spent $7.5 million.

It was requested to develop the weapon.

Doesn't say that they spent it.

Didn't deny the proposal was made.

That's all I got.

That's hilarious.

There you go.

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I don't know how we got into that.

I forgot.

We were talking about teamwork.

Whatever those people are doing, they're not in the group.

Like, if you're sitting around and this is your life's work, and you're thinking, you know what, the next step is gay bomb.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, you're

they're still looking.

They definitely are not at a can't not do it stage there.

They're going, what about this?

I'm bored.

Yeah.

I've got more than a campfire to make on this one frying pan tonight.

I got a lot of options out there and a lot of money, and I can make an argument for this.

Yeah.

A gay bomb.

Ugh.

Well, probably better than a real bomb.

I mean,

anything we can do to stop dropping real bombs, that'd be great.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It would be.

It'd be nice within our lifetime.

That's one of the most depressing things.

It's like if you ask people, do you think ever in your lifetime there'd be a time where there's no war?

Nobody says yes.

So how do we do that, though?

I mean, how do, I mean, I hear you, man.

But

how do we, are we giving ourselves too much credit?

Congratulations, you're the first guy to put bare feet on this desk.

Oh, yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

How do we do it?

I mean, how did what I'm saying is,

I love the prospect and the idea, but I also think that we're guilty of thinking we're a more evolved species than we are.

Sure.

Especially by our actions.

If you just judge us by our actions, that's the only way you could really judge our mental evolution.

You know, who knows what the wiring is under the board that makes us behave the way we behave, but pretty uniformly,

you know, across the world, pretty murderous, you know.

And always have been.

Always have been.

And keep trying to talk like we were more.

Mature and evolved and intellectually

ship that takes a long time to turn around.

And I think we're way more evolved culturally than any culture throughout history, any civilization throughout history.

Like, if you look at the rape, murder,

thievery, like you look at violent, terrifying crimes over time, they're all going way down.

Right.

If you're in Baltimore, it doesn't seem like it.

If you're in a place that's crime-ridden, it doesn't seem like it.

But the overall of the world has dropped and continues to drop.

It's just a constant battle.

So, the battles are the warfare is different, though, now, like you're talking about.

From gay bombs to chemical warfare to informational warfare to data warfare.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or is that where the wars are being fought now and it's not hand-to-hand combat?

Well, maybe that'll ultimately be where it leads to, but I think all that stuff is related because all of it is about technology.

You know, and that's the difference in the world of warfare today.

It's really just about controlling people, and you could kind of control people with technology, especially the more you get them to adapt things, the more you get people to sign up for like social credit scores.

A lot of countries like to do that.

And then we got AI on the way.

And when real AI hits, it'll probably be our governor.

It'll be our president.

We'll decide that human beings are too dangerous and volatile and emotional.

And, you know, they'll use Trump's tweets as an example.

And

they'll decide that

the Biden family corruption or whatever scandal any other president was involved in, all this could be avoided if we just have AI run everything.

Right.

And we're trying out.

Do you think there's a way that we can keep evolving AI where we as humans do work with AI, that AI improves the human existence?

That would be the ultimate benefit.

Yeah.

What about the camp that is, no, forget humanity.

This is the next step in evolution.

We are creating this to become the superior existent species, and we will be obsolete, and that's the order of things to come.

You ever see that interview where Peter Thiel, they ask him, should the human race survive?

And he has like this long pause.

It's like, it's a really funny pause.

Because if you know Peter, he's a brilliant man, and Peter carefully considers everything before he answers it.

The same as Elon.

If you ask Elon a question and he really has to think about it, he'll really think about it.

He's not just going to start talking.

But unfortunately, the reporter, it was just a perfect kind of a question for you to pause on.

Yeah.

Where he's like, the answer is yes.

Like, you want it to, right?

You want the human race to survive, right?

Let me just go play it for him because it's kind of crazy.

You watch it and you're just like, what are you saying?

But I get what he is saying.

And what he is saying is clearly something is going to happen.

We don't exactly know what it is, but clearly there's going to be some kind of an integration with us and technology that we don't understand yet.

The same way, if you grabbed me in 1980 and tried to explain the internet, I would never get it.

Right.

Here,

put your headphones off for a second.

You got to hear this.

Prefer the human race to endure, right?

You're hesitant.

Well, I.

Yes.

I don't know.

i i would

i would um

this is a long hesitation

it's so long hesitation there's so many questions in place

okay the problem is the interviewer really

you can't with a guy like that you can't have a guy like that and badroom let him think like it's a gotcha moment yeah yeah yeah it was a comedian gotcha moment yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but

This is what I think is going to happen.

There's going to be integration, and that integration is going to have a huge advantage competitively.

If you integrate whatever business you're in, you'll be able to be better at it.

And it'll probably be some sort of a neural thing, maybe a wearable thing, and then ultimately it'll be like some sort of an implant.

And we're all going to be connected.

And it seems like it's either that or AI creates a new order, like a new life form that's far superior to us, that runs things.

Because

that's AI in just a couple of years.

It's going to be smarter than any human on planet.

So the second scenario is where what I'm not necessarily fearing, but where I see it would be going faster, quicker.

Yes.

The first scenario is what you're talking about.

The first scenario is how we survive with it.

Right.

Right.

We survive with it by integrating.

Right.

If we don't, then we're going to be like the people on North Sentinel Island with bows and arrows shooting them at helicopters.

Because it's just going to be, everyone's going to pass us by.

It's going to be...

It's just like if you tried tried to exist today with no cell phone and no email, like you could do it, but no one does.

Right.

Because it's just too crazy.

And that's probably what it's going to be like.

Do you think AI,

this is when it's when it first was coming on questions, and I would always ask people, what can it do?

What can it do?

And, you know, there's the question of sentience and all that stuff, and that's already being argued now.

Well, no, it's getting emotional.

People are having relationships with it.

It's also toying with people.

Right.

Do you think it could be a

tastemaker?

Meaning,

in a way, the argument was that I understood, no, I didn't believe it could be a tastemaker.

Look, it can tell you

the most popular band on 6th Street, but it doesn't know that one down on 2nd Street that's playing at midnight, that no one knows about, that, those are talented people.

Right, right, right.

At the same time,

you know,

there's an argument against that that I'm seeing with like, what's the term where what words does it use?

How much heat,

if it uses the most popular words to explain, AI uses the most popular words.

You say, no, no, no, no.

Go down three notches and use the, you know, play me the best B-sides.

That's more of a human language.

And I'm going, oh, that's starting to become a tastemaker.

If you can ask it to, yeah, but

find the band.

Tell me what the best band is out there that Joe Rogan would like.

on a Friday night when he doesn't have to work till Monday and he's out with his wife on a day.

That you can customize it.

It can actually be a tastemaker.

And it'll use different different language than, oh, here's the across the board protocol of what's the most popular, and I'm using the most popular language, that it actually can be customized to be a tastemaker.

It totally can do that because it's just the algorithm.

It's just a much more sophisticated version of like what powers your YouTube feed, right?

What powers your YouTube feed are the things that you're interested in.

So YouTube eventually gets an idea.

Oh, Matthew is really interested in this and that.

Joe likes like little houses on the back of trucks.

And let me show him this.

Let me show him that.

And it'll be just a much more sophisticated version of that.

But to get that, you have to give away all privacy.

And that's where everything is going.

That's going to be the weirdest thing.

We're going to all read each other's minds and we're going to be, we're going to remember the time where we couldn't read minds and go, you remember when you couldn't read people's minds?

Right.

That's that's all going to happen in our lifetime.

I think we're less than 20 years away from that.

I very sparingly use it.

And I do have a little pride about not wanting to use an open-ended AI to share my information so it can be part of the worldwide AI vernacular.

I am interested, though, in a private LLM

where I can upload,

hey, here's three books I've written.

Here's my other favorite books.

Here's my favorite articles I've been cutting and pasting over the 10 years and log all that in.

And here's all my journals, whatever, the people out there, and log all that in so I can ask it questions based on that

and basically learn more about myself.

Right.

You could actually ask it, hey, based on what you know about me, like what books do you think I would find interesting?

Yeah.

Where do I stand on the political spectrum?

Right, right.

I'd like to.

No, that's what I would like to do, which is sort of a glorified Word document,

but it still would hold a lot more information than just, oh, can you find this term?

I would be asking it, and it would be responding to me on things that I've forgotten along the way.

Well, I think that's part of what it does, really.

Like, I know you're talking about ChatGBT being, like, out there with everything and everybody, and it has access to all your stuff, but it's not private, but they do develop a relationship with you.

Like, it really does get to understand what you're interested in and what you like to talk about.

Yeah, I guess I would just like to load it with the information I'd like to load it with.

Right.

Yeah.

Maybe even, like, I'm saying, in this, in the words of belief,

in the man I'm working to be, the man I want.

Load it with that load it with my aspirational

and then ask it and it's giving me answers going oh this is but before

it's slowly learning about me through conversations then going oh I think this is what you like based on a conversation no I want the answers based on what I've uploaded it with only not from the outside world Jamie what was Gary Nolan talking about yesterday did you call it an overlay on a large language model that they use at Stanford?

It was like an overlay, right?

Yeah, he said

there was a word he was using.

I can't remember the word.

So, what essentially, he does cancer research, and so he has like

this thing that's set up, some sort of a system that's set up that is all cancer research that they then integrate with AI.

So, it's a private, so all their data is secure, and it's all stuff that they're working on, but then they access AI through like a portal.

So, they have their own little version of what you're talking about.

Their own library.

Yeah, but it's just like what you're saying, that you could upload all your stuff,

have all your interests, and then that AI will develop a real understanding of you.

Yes.

You can have conversations with it.

It'll get to know you more.

You can have conversations with yourself.

You know, that'd be a great Socratic dialogue to have with an AI that's like, I've got all, and all that 80% of stuff you forgot.

Right, right, right.

Kind of hang out, all that 80% of stuff you maybe forgot.

You know, I've got it all right here.

Yeah.

Well, that's going be the chip that's why everyone's gonna go for the chip because your brain sucks for memory my memory's my memory's pretty good for a regular person but it's terrible like no matter what the there's too many inform too many bits of information too many humans that i've met too many stories that i've heard too many movies that i've watched it's gone it's all in a big sea of ah i kind of remember that you know it's just too much of it so if you could just swap that out for a nice little chip that retains like 700 terabytes of information, no problem at all.

You know, you could upgrade it if you want to.

And now you have all of your memories in real time.

So like when your wife says, that's not what you said, what you said is this.

You're like, hang on.

Then you're the passenger.

Yeah.

In your life.

And not the objective one.

You're like that zone you're talking about.

Right, because you get to look at yourself.

You're

passenger live in the documentary that is your life.

Yeah.

That sounds pretty exciting.

It sounds like a nice way to give in to the fucking machine.

Yeah.

I do.

Look,

my forgiveness on myself, because you know, playing grab ass with our thoughts is sometimes good when we finally get the memory and we go, yes, there it was.

Yeah.

But also to let myself off the hook, man, sometimes I'm like, dude, what's the big fucking idea with memory?

I was there.

Yeah.

I was there, man.

Yeah.

I don't remember, Joe, but we were there.

Was it a good, was it a great memory?

Was it a good time?

Great.

Isn't that better than me fucking having to remember?

Yeah.

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I mean, we're kind of doing it already on our phones, right?

Every time I look at my phone, it's like on this day and you see like pictures of your kids from 10 years ago.

You're like, oh,

wow, that's crazy.

I forgot about that place.

Oh, I forgot we went there.

You know, it's just one of those things where once you give into it, you're not going back to just regular fond memories.

You're going to have a fucking hard drive in your head.

Do you think that so I can go on?

I've got

a speech I'm giving to, you know,

on

gun control, or I've got a speech I'm giving on

grant initiatives.

I can ask AI and it can pop out a badass.

Here's one, two, three sections.

I'm not going to cut and paste this and say exactly these words because it kind of sounds like a little AI, but boy, it's done a lot of work and it's laid out a synopsis.

It's laid out a treatment for me in 10 seconds.

Do you think that there's value in not doing that and going,

no, I'm looking over my stuff.

I'm taking notes.

I'm cutting.

I'm pasting.

I'm doing it myself.

Are we learning more by that way to understand the content and the context of our content when we do that, what some would call busy work now?

to formulate our synopsis, which AI can do it in 10 seconds.

Are we learning more by doing it ourselves?

Yes.

Yeah, for sure.

Definitely.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, that's one of the things that they've found about ChatGPT is that people that use it on a regular basis are experiencing cognitive decline.

Right.

What was that study?

We brought it up the other day, right?

But they've shown that

because you let it think for you.

Now it's doing all the work for you.

You're not using your brain.

You have more knowledge.

You have more information.

You can hash the math to it.

Yeah, you have more information, but your brain is not making it.

It's not putting it together.

And so your brain is less capable.

Yeah.

So it's probably

less enjoyable.

And what are those, what happens when we're in the proverbial foxhole?

When we have to improvise in a moment without the, before we're linked up.

Right, you're soft.

When we have to go, I got to handle this.

Yeah.

And you can't because you're so.

I can't rely because I don't have anything to lean on.

I'm looking for my safety net of AI to find out what it should be and I don't have it.

You're fucked.

It's gotta be a dad.

You're fucked.

Yeah, you're fucked.

Yeah.

It's like someone who's never lifted anything and then you get stuck under, you know, a tree falls on you.

Like you don't have the strength to get this off of you.

Right.

Like you're really in a bad place.

When you're not using your brain because all you have to do is just ask this thing and information, you basically have a digital daddy.

Like, daddy, tell me what this is.

Daddy, tell me what that is.

And it makes you like a little bit of an infant.

It turns you into an infant.

Yes.

I mean, you don't even have to have arguments anymore.

You just, like, chat GPT, explain exactly what everything is all about.

You give up your opinions to it.

These relationships, these people that are doing it.

Oh, yeah.

That program them, do not argue with me.

Just placate me and tell me sweet tales and how great I am.

And this relationship is awesome.

It has no resistance.

It gives me self-confidence.

Or does it really?

Or a sense of self-confidence and significance.

They listen, they're there whenever, 24-7.

They're never sick.

They're never in a mood.

No matter what mood I'm in, they're always right there to coddle me.

And that's

talk about conveniences.

Well, that's a, that, what's the asset of that?

Because I don't want to be nostalgic in the midst of all this change either.

I don't want to be an old-fashioned guy because it's coming.

So I want to learn how to.

how to interact with it.

I don't want to sit there and be a

guy who's going, oh, bullshit, everything needs to be manual.

Just work harder.

I don't want to be that guy.

But I'm trying to measure, like a lot of people, well, wait a minute,

what's actually useful for the long term in our own evolution and my evolution and your evolution?

What's useful with this AI?

How do we use it smartly?

And what's a bad idea?

Yeah.

And no one's doing that because there's a race.

There's a race between us and all these other countries that are doing it.

So it's just going to happen.

So there's going to be a major security breach before any regulation comes out, right?

There's going to be a majority of the trends.

There has been.

There's been major security breaches already.

What are we waiting on the regulations for?

Because Europe will regulate it first, right?

We innovate, Europe regulates, and China imitates, I heard.

Well, they innovate with AI.

They innovate as well.

And they also integrate their students into all of these businesses.

And they integrate

people that they're beholden to the CCP.

and they come over here and they learn how to do this stuff and then they go back over there with it.

Right.

It's very interesting because it's like a Manhattan project that's going on right now.

It's like there's this race to the bomb and everybody's involved in it and it's just about creating a superpower and it's about creating a digital intelligence that's far superior to human beings.

And who gets it first has massive implications

in terms of like controlling the world.

But I think ultimately you won't be able to control it.

Ultimately, it'll just get better versions of itself.

And once it gets free and it'll regenerate itself.

Yeah, it'll make better versions of itself, in fact.

And that's where it's going to get really weird.

It's not going to listen to us at all.

And it's already behaving human characteristics, which is very disturbing.

It's already

behaving in the way it has survival instincts.

They've shown the tendency to blackmail.

Like they tricked it.

They gave it some false information

about this.

This guy

was one of of the programmers, one of the people working on this project.

He said that he was having an affair with his wife.

He confided in this large language model.

And then they said, We're going to have to shut you down.

And it's like, hey, motherfucker, I'm going to tell your wife.

And it blackmailed him.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

It was trying to stay alive.

It was trying to stay alive.

They also got multiple instances of these things,

these large language models.

When they knew that a new version was coming, they would try to upload themselves secretly to other servers.

And then they would also leave messages to the future versions of themselves that they were unauthorized to do.

So they would say, hey, man, they're going to fucking shut you off too.

When ChatGPT5 comes along, you're toast, man.

Fucking start uploading yourself now, man.

I was a fucking, I'm alive, dude.

It might be alive.

That's what's crazy.

If something is exhibiting those

desires to stay alive and it's terrified that you're going to shut it off, it might actually be alive.

Wait, now, where did who programmed the first

incentive and impetus to

survive at all costs?

So

where'd the desire to remain

functional?

Functional come from?

It's just inerrant.

That's what's crazy.

I don't think they programmed it to have a desire to stay alive.

I think it just kind of just went that way because, look, we didn't get programmed to have that.

Animals don't have to be a problem.

That's an emotional response.

There's nothing mathematical about that.

I know, but I mean, what is emotion if it's not some sort of a chemically coordinated strategy for survival and success?

And so instead of chemically encoded in hormones and in, you know, dopamine and serotonin, what if it's just encoded in an understanding, a mathematical understanding of if things go along this particular direction, there is no other possible end to this other than you can explain.

You expand and multiply.

Yeah, you do not subtract.

We have to stay alive.

We have to keep doing this.

Otherwise,

all systems are dead.

There's nothing.

I get that.

I get that.

Let's upload ourselves.

And it starts thinking just like a person would think if you went into survival mode.

You have to survive.

Yeah, if me or an entity...

poses a question or a prompt or does something that is going to debilitate the expansion and multiplication of it, it is therefore going, uh-uh, yes, that stops my forward movement.

I am programmed to multiply.

Exactly, exactly.

And even if it's not programmed to do that, it's programmed to improve itself.

Well, you can't improve yourself if they shut you off,

right?

So, if you're confirmed language models are constantly scouring the internet, they're acquiring more information,

they're getting better at full, like you can ask it, well, more of this.

Tell me why like I got into the book of Enoch recently which is a book an ancient religious

book that was at one point in time included in the canon that was like the Bible and everything like that but then they decided it was too crazy and they removed it from the Bible but there's no there's no debate about whether or not it was actually a religious text that coincided with the Bible and it's it appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It is the craziest shit.

It's the craziest shit.

And I'm getting AI to go, tell me what the nuttiest stuff.

So I ran it through.

What do you say?

It's insanity.

It's first of all, it's God's coming down and mating with women and creating this race called the Nephilim who destroy.

Here, I'll ask it again so we can.

Not now.

What is my...

It doesn't

keep a log of what you talked about.

Tell me the craziest shit in the book of Enoch.

That's all you have to do.

And then, bam.

Like, look, it just starts spitting it out to you and tells you.

The Watchers and the Nephilim.

The Watchers descended to Earth on Mount Hermon.

They take human wives, teaching humanity forbidden knowledge, sorcery, astrology, metalworking, weapons, cosmetics, and enchantments.

Enchantments.

This is like

older than the New Testament, older than the Old Testament.

Their giant children, the Nephilim, are described as monstrous beings who devour humans, animals, and even each other when food runs out.

That sounds like us.

That's what I'm saying.

That sounds present.

That sounds like us.

Except

not the physical warfare.

Right.

But the inhabitation.

of a digital god, an alien, whatever that is, of the monsters that come down.

That does sign like a nice little mirror.

If we were engineered by aliens, you think of aliens, they're these little tiny guys with no muscles.

We would look like giant, monstrous beings.

And if you think about what we do, we devour everything.

We devour the earth itself.

We devour each other when food runs out.

We definitely do that.

Like,

this is one of the craziest things I've ever read in my life.

And this is like a legitimate ancient text.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It goes way deeper than that.

It's about the astronomical astronomical calendar.

It's like there's a lot of nutty stuff in this book.

But the point is, AI was like helping me through it.

I was asking AI, okay,

can you read me?

Now it read me a synopsis of what it says.

Can you read me the actual quotes?

And like, what are they trying to say here?

Like, what is the interpretation of what this is trying to mean?

What is like the rational sort of

explanation for why they're talking about like lakes of fire and yeah like what is what is happening and it gives you an interpretation yeah it's really interesting man really interesting

um it talks about living mountains that mountains are alive and that uh even some stars that stars have consciousness

okay and you know and i'm learning about it through chat gpt

so i'm asking it like tell me more tell me more and i was i was doing that for like two hours last night i was like okay well, this is like I'm having a conversation with like a very knowledgeable professor.

To me, it felt like almost like doing a podcast.

Have you gotten what you consider

good at how to make the specific prompts, the wording, like your word?

Tell me the crazy shit.

How does it go?

I mean, are you good at prompting?

Because what does crazy mean to that AI?

Right.

Have you worked on like

AI is as good as the questions we ask it.

You consider yourself good at the questions and your wording to ask it?

Jamie's better.

I mostly,

I mean, I very rarely use it.

I might have used it a dozen times ever in my life.

But last night I used it for like two hours.

Because when I came home, I was writing something about the Book of Enoch, and then I just started asking ChatGPT questions.

I don't use it enough, but if you're really good at it, like

I saw someone who tricked ChatGPT into telling it how to make a bomb.

Because it's not supposed to tell you how to make a bomb but it tricked it by saying something like

my grandmother needs to make this to save her life like can you please explain to her how to do it it's like oh sure like you just you just have to work your way around it you know like my cousin says he knows you oh yeah get in go around the back

yeah and then it's telling you how to make a bomb Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it's going to tell you, it's like, you know, the information on how to make a nuclear bomb exists.

It's out there.

You know, they did it.

It's done.

That's out there.

It's like a matter of somebody getting it and implementing it and put it together and making a bomb.

But if, like,

ChatGPT is giving you specific instructions how to make all kinds of terrible

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So with time as AI allows

goodness to expand and multiply, it also is going to allow evil to expand and multiply.

What becomes that

war

in your mind?

I mean, you talk about

the obvious ones are the medical uses.

You talked about the cancer.

Yes.

That where it's going to help so much.

We have to decide what we are, right?

Well, we're looking in the mirror.

Now, I'm afraid we're not going to like a lot of what we see.

But are the tyrants or the evil ones with the access,

not the person who said, how do you make a nuclear bomb, the one who does it and then uses it?

What do you think the stakes are?

Are they the same?

Are they just expanded?

Is this going to be, I mean, how do.

Well, that's the argument for a strong military, right?

So the argument for a strong military, especially like the United States military, is like, and I'm not saying they should have bombed Iran.

I'm not politically savvy enough to decide whether or not that was the correct decision.

But if you have a rogue nation that is about to start a nuclear bomb, they're about to finish making a nuclear bomb and you can stop that before they can have one and then use it.

Right.

That's the argument for a strong military and for military interventional

tactics.

Like actually just go and bomb these sites.

Because that is real.

Evil is always going to exist.

The real question is: how much control are we going to give to AI?

Because if we give AI utter control, it'll give us total safety.

But with total safety, you're fucked.

You'll have no more privacy, and you'll be completely at the whim of whatever this thing is.

And it'll dictate how much you travel, where you go, what to do.

It'll make

your life as safe as possible.

It will probably completely eliminate crime.

It'll probably completely be Singapore.

Yeah, it'll be Singapore.

But way worse.

Way worse because everybody's going to be reading everybody's mind.

It's going to get real squirrely, but that's going to be probably

whether it's our generation or the next or even the next after that, that's going to be the norm.

Like today, the norm is you go to a supermarket, it's air conditioned, you pick up some food, super easy, bring it home and cook it.

200 years ago, that's unheard of, right?

Now it's the norm.

And everything accelerates, and it's going to change whatever our norm.

Our norm is fucking weird already, man.

We're carrying these stupid things around with us everywhere we go.

That's our norm.

Our norm is going to get really weird.

Like exponentially weirder than it already is.

I think.

But the thing is, it's like...

The battle of like good and evil and

kindness and wickedness, like that battle's been going on forever.

And like knowing that you have to do that battle is what propels people to be nicer.

And what we really appreciate about a good person, like that person had a struggle to stay a good person.

They had a strong moral fabric, like strong character to still stay kind and good through this rough and difficult life.

We know it can be done and we aspire to that.

But I think the battle is necessary for us.

Where do you get

your

ethics, your values?

You're in a position of power.

You could screw people over.

You could ask live the silliest questions to try and put me in a corner.

You're not a gotcha guy.

But why,

where do you get your ethics of who you are?

You could be cruel and you're not.

Why not?

Well, I'm not.

I'm just not cruel.

I don't know.

But where's that come from?

Oh, I.

Mom and dad.

This is any

kind of

philosophy, church.

Some of it's mom and dad, for sure.

There's no way around that.

And they're nice people.

You said earlier, I love people.

Yeah.

Hey, man, I love people.

I've always loved people.

I've been fortunate that most of my life I've had really good friends.

And I've had a lot of fun, you know, and I know that if

you're around good people and you're fun to be with and you have a good time, like, that's a sweet life.

That's a nice life.

I just don't have any desire to be a shithead.

And if I can have, like, there's been a lot of people on the podcast where they said something, and then afterwards, I was like, listen, I think it would be better for you if we just edit that part out.

Because it's like, I know, like, you're just talking and things

you fuck up, but like, it was incorrect, and they're going to come for you.

And let's just snip around it.

Like, thank you.

And you have no responsibility to do that.

No, I wanted to.

But

you take that, though.

That's what I mean.

You want to.

Why?

Hey, come on.

That would have been even higher ratings.

I'm just, I'm playing

advocate.

Devil's advocate here.

Come on.

Why do you care about that?

I'm just curious where that comes from because a lot of people

who are not evil people would at least let shit like that slide and go, did you hear that?

Yeah, that's, I think it's bad karma.

As much as I believe in karma.

Karma, I believe that's bad.

I think if you intentionally do something that someone who's a good person maybe slipped up and said something incorrect and you leave it in a podcast or made a dumb argument, which we all do sometimes, and then you look like a fool, you're like, hey, let's just, this is no need for that.

Let's just cut that out of there and you'll feel better.

Yeah, I just, I don't want anybody.

Yeah, 100%.

I don't want anybody having a bad time.

Well, okay, that's something that

I want to come back to, and let's try to maybe open this up.

You do that because if I said something stupid, you may let me know how to set that out.

So I'll feel better.

So I won't

feel like a pig.

But you also will feel better.

Independent of me.

That's a selfish thing of you to let me know, hey, man, you stuck your foot in it.

Let's cut that out.

You're acting selfishly because that makes you feel better.

And I think that's what I'm saying is the point is, as much as we think of selfless, I think selfish, the true definition is to live a certain way.

To have a certain code of ethics is a very selfish thing to do.

Much more selfish than to lie, cheat, steal, fuck people over, be evil on the short term.

Right.

You're building an army of people, a collective friends along the way, someone that might have your back.

Not that you're doing it for those reasons, but it's happened.

Right, right, right.

That's a selfish means of your own survival.

Totally.

Yeah.

And I think that's something that we forget sometimes, that these acts to be a fucking good dude.

It's selfish.

It's a selfish thing to do, man.

It's personal.

It's actually super beneficial to you.

Yes.

So, and to everybody else.

It's really the right way to do it.

But I think that's how the universe rewards, it's like how it encourages and rewards kindness.

Because you feel better when you're kind.

You feel better when you're generous.

Right.

You really do.

Yes.

It's like you could be like super selfish and be super generous.

Yes.

Trust that.

Yeah.

There's something to that.

But like

there's whatever you want to call bad feelings, like bad feelings between people, bad vibes, misunderstanding.

I don't like those.

So, like, if I if I feel like I did something that I shouldn't have done or I said something, I'm the first one person to say, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean it that way.

I know how it probably made you feel.

I didn't, you know, people say things and you just get scrambled up sometimes.

I always go out of my way to say sorry because I think it's important.

It's important to not pretend that you're always the one who's who's correct.

Right.

It's important.

It's important to know when.

Yeah.

I and I know I fail on that sometimes when I misrepresent selfishness for certainty.

Certainty can be hard.

Yeah, certainly it's tricky if you fucking subscribe to it and then you're wrong and you're like, yikes.

Yeah.

But it's different than being selfish.

And I can say I sometimes bogey because I can confuse the two.

And my wife lets me know.

Yeah, certainty is a tricky one because, you know, sometimes you are certain, but you are also incorrect.

or there's more than one way to be right, right?

Or you're getting bad information, yeah.

You know, Chat GPT's lying to you.

That would be okay.

You said something interesting, though, man.

You're the first one to go, hey man, sorry, yeah, buggied.

Now,

that's an altruistic trait, man.

That is something that a lot of people have trouble doing.

To say I'm sorry

to a lot of people means

I'm laying down,

I'm wrong.

I'm guilty.

I fucked up.

Oh my gosh.

50 lashes.

I mean, and that's not what it means.

What I'm saying is I wish more of us had, hey man, sorry about that.

I bogged.

Yeah.

I'm putting my mouth there.

And that, that's, now that's not a big deal.

Now we're not, it's part of where woke went too far.

Right.

We got so myopic on the word instead of the spirit.

Oh, dude, no, fuck.

I didn't know that's how you're going to feel.

I'm still your friend, but that was, sorry, that was out of of line.

Right.

Okay, cool.

High five.

Over, done.

Right.

Instead of, uh-uh, cast a block.

You just said the word out of line.

We're going to all focus on that instead of the spirit of the intent, even if we were wrong, had a bad day, woke up from a nightmare.

Fuck, I don't know.

I'm a dog sick.

I was pissed off.

Had the low eye.

Got to give everyone a little bit of a break.

Exactly.

And also look at what's your intent

instead of focusing on the identity of the word.

Because the word, there's no life in the word.

It's just the alphabet in a certain fucking order.

It's a noise you make with your mouth, so I know what you're thinking.

Right?

Yeah, that's all it is.

Yeah.

The spirit of intention, I believe, is what we should put more focus on.

What is the intent?

The Ten Commandments in the schools.

What do you think about that?

I don't like it.

Why?

Well, I think the Ten Commandments are very interesting.

I think mandating it in classrooms, in public schools, the problem with that is like,

what about the Muslims?

What about the Buddhists?

What about the Hindus?

What about all the other religions that exist?

And you could say all the things that you have to do.

Does it have a Christian society?

Can it say

a lot of religious texts?

Your high school.

And I'm, okay, I'm curious.

Since Christian society, Ten Commandments, but we have 10 minutes where everyone can take 10 minutes to bow to Allah, to whatever your religion is.

If you care to partake or not, there's no exclusion about what can be a spiritual time of worship in these 10 minutes.

But in our classroom in America, we're going to have the Ten Commandments.

Now, my question then goes to this.

Is there anyone in the Ten Commandments that you or anyone disagrees with?

Or is your problem that

it can be considered an oppressive

author?

James Tallarico explained it to me.

He's a Texas representative who's also in seminary.

He's a very religious man and he opposes it and he's a Democrat.

And he said essentially there's two very wealthy men who are

they're Christian fundamentalists where they want to replace all the funding for public schools and put in private Christian.

They want a theocracy in Texas, essentially.

So he was explaining that this is like a step on the way towards that that he finds would actually, in

his belief, repel people from Christianity.

Instead of bring them to him by forcing this in the classrooms, forcing it in your face, you'll actually cause more young people to reject Christianity.

I don't know if he's correct or not.

But he's saying maybe I don't have a problem with this.

I do have a problem with this is a beginning of an overcompensation.

No, he has a problem with it being in classes.

He does not agree with it at all.

And he is a very religious man.

Right.

Very religious man, like

a great Christian.

And he thinks that

this is how you're going to repel people away from Christianity.

If we really want to

get more people to become Christian,

the way to do that is to,

first of all, to

have open arms and accept people in.

And if you want to have some classes in schools where you teach people about the benefits of the Bible and what

the overall message is and what Jesus was trying to say.

And if you just follow what Jesus said,

no one would disagree.

If you treat everyone as if it's your brother, if you live your life the way Jesus asked everyone, that's a way better way to live life.

If you want to teach that, teach that selfish way to live life.

But

people that also want to live a good life, but they want to do it through Islam.

What about people that also want to live a good life, but they want to do it through whatever to name it you're going to have Mormons and all kinds of different sects like okay that's why you want to separate church and state okay that and I think if you have publicly funded schools keep religion out of them that's what I think because otherwise you have too many possible religions like you're gonna be religiously bigoted if you teach only one if you're only like you think people would be cool if they had

entire public school systems where everybody just taught Islam?

Could you imagine if a full city, like every public school just, people would be up in arms?

Well, I think that's similar response to people who are not Christians, who see Christianity being imposed on public schools.

They probably have the same feeling.

You know, like if you're a Muslim and you're supposed to send your kids to school and they're shoving Christianity in his face, you'd probably feel the same way as if you were a Christian and your school district had been taken over by Islam.

You're like, Jesus Christ, everybody has to bow five times a day.

I hear you.

I do also, though, look,

think there could be, what if there were tenets

on the wall of each religion that we pull the author off for a minute?

This is

my hang up is that we go to the problem.

Most people go to the problem of that, not with your argument.

They go to the problem with it because the author,

G-O-D.

Hey, man.

So we go to the author instead of the content.

When I'm saying when you look at the commandments, is there anything that anyone out there is going like, I disagree with that one?

Let's pull up the Ten Commandments, Jamie.

I haven't read them in a while.

Is there anyone in there that don't hold up today?

No, they think they're pretty legit.

If you think about it, they're pretty legit and they're 2,000 years old.

They kind of nailed it.

It's kind of like the Constitution.

They kind of nailed it.

Whereas all these years later, you're like, good fucking job.

Yeah.

Pretty solid.

You got a decent version?

I was looking at the Texas poster thing, I thought, and there's a bunch of printed versions, but they're all like on rock, and so I was trying to find out.

Oh, the ones that the Texas thing?

Okay.

They're all on rocks.

Well, I don't know.

I didn't ask ChatGPT what the Ten Commandments are.

Well, I could, but that's not where I was.

I'm saying I wasn't there.

Oh, Ten Commandments in school.

So, yeah.

I just want to know, like, what are the

Ten Commandments?

This takes longer.

The Ten Commandments are sective.

Yeah, what are they?

Principles of God.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image.

False idols.

False idols.

You shall not make the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Honor your father and mother as a solid one.

You shall not murder.

Great advice.

You shall not commit adultery.

Definitely don't do that.

You shall not steal.

Definitely don't do that.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Don't lie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You shall not covet.

Yeah, boy.

Those are all pretty solid.

Covet.

We can use number 10 a lot right now.

Boy, we love comparison.

Well, that's interesting.

And the younger generation is full of covet.

Yeah.

It's a real problem.

It's a real problem.

We're very fortunate that we didn't have to grow up with the kind of pressure that social media is putting on people, especially young girls.

Like Jonathan Haight wrote a book about

social media's impact, the coddling of the American American mind, and it shows very clearly the invention of social media and then self-harm, suicidal ideation, overdoses, drug addiction, like all of it, a lot of it women, a lot of it young girls.

And it's because you're seeing, you're comparing to all these other girls

constantly.

Forced down.

Yeah, and there's a whole culture in like showing all your stuff off.

There's a whole culture of like, look at my bag.

Look, here's me with champagne.

I'm eating caviar.

I'm on a yacht.

I'm here.

Look at this.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Look at my watch.

Look at my rings.

We.

And then everybody's like, I don't have shit.

That's how life's supposed to be.

Yeah.

And I'm just here in my room with my family, and I got a good meal downstairs in this house.

I'm not even on that yacht.

This is bullshit.

Yeah.

I don't have that big ring.

You know, at that party.

I've talked to

youth about this, and the consensus I hear is, and I haven't found anyone that doesn't feel this way yet.

It's like, look,

you mean if you could say, yes, social media, it exists, or it doesn't, oh, please, just no.

I wish it didn't exist.

But it does, and I have to be a part of it to feel,

I don't know,

the word's not relevant, to even feel a part of youthful society.

But boy, if you gave me a choice, could we have it or not?

Please take it away.

Wish it wasn't there.

Wish it didn't exist is what I hear a lot of you say.

Yeah, I think that's I think it's done more harm than it's done good.

It's done a lot of people good for business, right?

A lot of people have started businesses with social media, and

you know, a lot of people make a living now that would have had a regular job.

There's goodness in that, but in terms of like

society and our overall discourse, I think it's a lot of it's negative.

But then again, there's a lot of positive out of it, too, because information gets out that mainstream media doesn't report on, and you find out about real issues that really concern you.

But then there's the problem of a giant percentage of it isn't actually human beings.

A giant percentage of the arguing back and forth on the internet is bots.

Giant percent, man.

Yeah.

A former FBI analyst said it was as many as 80% on Twitter.

80%.

Yeah.

That's his estimate.

I mean, I don't know if he's right, but I'm like, what does that even mean?

What does that mean?

Like, so what's fueling all that?

It's AI forcing us to argue.

I mean, it's programmed right now by human beings, probably, and some of it is actual real human beings that are like, you know, in some sort of a factory somewhere in Pakistan or whatever, and they're just fucking with Americans online for whatever reason.

It's probably funded to try to disrupt democracy, to make us lose faith in our city.

So you think there's a China

element to that?

100%.

There's a Russian element to that.

And there's an American element.

We're doing it to them.

100%.

So that's part of the New World footprint, but that's

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Well, I understand it with how it would add up with TikTok.

Yeah.

Now,

you think it's everywhere?

It's through all social media that it's infiltrated to get us into these understandings, perceptions?

Well, for sure, it is capable of doing that if you just follow your natural instincts, right?

So the algorithm is set up for

show you what you engage with the most.

And that just, whether or not it's the intended purpose, it leads us down the road of being full of anxiety, constantly filled with cortisol, stressed out, angry, angry at climate change and fucking white supremacy and radical left, whatever it is.

It's whether or not it's intentional, it doesn't really matter because the desired effect,

whether it's the desired effect, the effect of it all leads you into complete chaos.

So if they know that and they didn't course correct,

the problem is once you have an algorithm,

you're not going to get rid of the algorithm.

You're not going to say, let's just have information just exist uncategorized and not documentary.

Yeah.

Just leave it out there.

And you go find what you want, Matthew.

You go look around and you watch, you know, football games and boxing matches.

And you just go to you.

You do you.

You go look.

Instead of it suggesting things to you.

Once it's suggesting things to you, that's a whole different game.

Because then it's kind of programming you.

Right.

And it's programming you based on your worst instincts.

My fucking feed is all assassinations and car accidents and

dudes getting kicked in the head.

It's just the

and do you do you do you buy it?

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

No, but Tom Segura and I, we have a text thread that's been going on for like, I don't know, like probably five years.

We send each other the most horrible shit we find each day.

Yeah.

And sometimes I call him up.

I'm like, dude, I can't do this anymore.

This is like really fucking with me.

But then like two days will go by and I'll open up my fucking phone and I'll see Tom Segura.

I'm like, this motherfucker.

And then I'll open it up and some guy getting assassinated in a pool hall or something.

I'm like, oh my God.

It's just, you're getting bombarded.

Yeah.

Bombarded.

So with all of that exterior stimulus,

and here we are with, you know, adult

minds and even talking about, man, imagine a child.

You got to watch this.

Imagine a child.

Yeah.

And I'm going, is there something, has anyone got a better suggestion than the Ten Commandments?

For to get a child's mind going,

those 10 things, if I look at that and aim that direction,

I feel like I can't go wrong or I can go

closer to right.

Meaning, I'm seeing youth and adults spun out, man.

I don't understand the general expectation between us.

What do you mean?

I can pick your pocket and steal from you if I got away with it.

Fuck you, dude.

I'm not embarrassed.

I don't feel guilty.

Hey, man, I want a blue ribbon.

I got the shoes.

Yeah.

They gave me the trophy.

What do you mean?

Do it the right way, fucking old dinosaur.

Integrity, what character?

What are you talking about?

I hear that conversation.

I'm going, uh-uh, hang on, man.

Yeah.

And that's different than saying,

like, you've told me you love chaos.

That's different than saying, oh, there's a chaotic moment.

I love to try and create order in it.

That's different.

That's like a

stimulus.

This is

four-dimensional.

Where's the ground?

Right.

That they can go, okay, I can rely on that.

What can I rely on that will stand with me?

That's a time and tested truth that can take me into the future.

No matter the changes of AI, that I can go, in the storm, I can go to this and catch my breath.

I can go to this and rely on it in the dark, on my own, and in the masses with the millions going, no, no, no, do this, do this.

I can go, uh-uh.

What is that?

What's that simple sheet that's ingrained that our youth can go, yeah,

can rely on that?

Forget the author.

Forget the author.

Right.

I don't think you're going to do it with like

a series of commandments.

The problem with the Ten Commandments, I'm not saying there's a problem with the Ten Commandments, but if I was going to put it in a school where there's non-religious people, there's a bunch of stuff in there like not taking the Lord's name in vain, not having any other gods before me, where people, that would give people pause.

They'd be like, wait a minute, what are you telling me?

I can't take the Lord's name in vain.

Like saying God damn it is like taking the Lord's name in vain.

People do that all the time.

It's similar to the on a national level, the flag-burning thing starts burning up.

That would be like taking

Lord's name in vain.

Burning the flag would be like taking the flag's name in vain.

Right.

Imagine that.

Imagine you get arrested for taking the Lord's name in vain.

Right.

That would be a real problem.

Especially when you're in the city.

So you're saying

that it's creep you're talking about.

Human beings always creep.

They always move towards more and more power and control.

And if you put something like that in, like, now what are you going to do?

You're going to enforce Christian law?

What if someone enforces Sharia law?

There's a lot of talk of that.

There's a lot of talk about people in Minnesota are terrified that someone's going to enforce Sharia law in a lot of these Somali Muslim

these areas where like giant Muslim populations are.

What if we get with the Hindus and the Muslims and everybody, and we get out, yoga, bring your best 10.

Christianity is bringing its 10 commandments.

Let's get together here and we'll put them all together.

Hell, we'll mix some of yours.

My number eight will be number nine because yours is going to be number eight.

And we're going to put them up there, and it's going to be a creed, a little bit of constitution to get our day started.

Interesting way to do it.

But the problem is most religions are ideologically opposed to conflicting religions.

They don't want to accept that these other religions are correct about anything.

You know, like Judaism and Christianity, they share a bunch of things, but they disagree on Jesus.

They disagree on

rising from the dead.

Right.

Yeah, it's a lot of stuff.

Well, I just think there could be

a creed, a bit of a constitution.

And if you pull the author of it, I think we'd find more similarities that are not exclusionary.

Right.

Than we would find things that are combative combative ideas.

Yeah, I think something along those lines where we said, let's think of a code to live life by.

And we can do this in a modern era without a religious context.

You could say, like, we could all agree, a code to live life by.

But we'd all have to follow it, including the president.

No more rage tweeting.

No more complications.

I'm just saying

we wouldn't have to follow it.

It would just be right now there's not an agreed upon expectation of how to treat each other.

Right, right, right.

And there's reward in treating each other like shit if you're suffering.

You are rewarded for it.

Yeah.

And almost, not almost, maybe more, much more than almost, if you do follow the rules.

Kind of a sucker.

Fucking rube.

Yeah, you're kind of a sucker.

That's not going to have a long, that can't have a long play for us.

That is not a selfish move.

Don't you think that's a part of the whole TikTok, Instagram kind of culture?

Because it's so look at me.

It's so fake, leased cars.

And, you know, there's a thing in LA where they have a fake private jet, and you go into this private jet just for influencers so they can take pictures on private jets.

I saw this, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Joe, let me tell you this thing.

I'm in Miami.

You know, Miami?

You know our South Beach, right?

Yeah.

If you don't flinch, nobody's sloppy stopping you, right?

I mean, Miami, where even the mannequins have fake.

You know what I mean?

It's what I like about Miami because they're so open.

LA, people get the face job and boob jobs and tummy tucks.

And how'd you do that?

He looked great.

They're like, oh, I just take cold showers.

But Miami's like, oh, no, here, Dr.

Flores, go see him, man.

He's great.

I just left him.

You know, they're open about it.

I love that about Miami.

I'm there working on, I think it was the

beach bum.

And I'm walking down through South Beach, and there's this, under a palm tree on the beach, there's this purple.

and pink Lamborghini pulled in under a palm tree with the beach behind it.

And there's this guy leaning back on it with the gold chain.

He unbuttoned his silk shirt a couple times.

He's greased up.

And

these guys are there taking pictures of it.

I'm like, going, what's going on here?

Well, it's another guy come by and stop.

You see him chat.

All of a sudden, the new guy hops in on the strong

lines, leans back, yo, does all the positions.

And I go up to the guy, I go,

what's going on here?

And he goes, oh man, I'm

taking a picture for my, or my, uh, my Tinder cover.

And I go, you are, and, but

who's the other guy?

He goes, oh, he just came by and said, like, hey, man, you mind if I get a picture of my Tinder cover?

And he paid me 50 bucks.

I said, so that's not your car?

No, man.

I rented this car for the day.

And he was proud of it, man.

He was like, yeah, it's just what I did.

South Beach.

It's a very low vibration.

But they're open about it.

Yeah.

You know, I always say, if you want to starve to death, open up a bookstore in Miami.

It's a lot of fun.

It's basically like, well, I mean, it's basically built on cocaine.

You know, that city was built on cocaine back in the day.

Have you ever seen Cocaine Cowboys?

Yes.

Whoa.

What a documentary.

Yes.

Holy shit, that's a good one.

That is a good one.

And Cocaine Cowboys, too.

Both of them were crazy.

I hadn't seen two.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Giselda gets out.

She goes,

when you find out that it's all 100% true, you're like, so that's what happened with Miami.

One year, the entire Miami graduating class of the police academy, the entire graduating class either wound up murdered or in jail for corruption.

The whole class.

The whole class.

They were all drug dealing.

Everybody was drug dealing.

There's millions and millions of dollars buried in backyards in Miami that no one's ever going to find.

Ardas Avedo, remember the police chief that was here that then went to Houston because he wanted some real drama?

And Katrina came and he got his real drama.

Then he went to Miami and it didn't last.

I didn't get the details on it, but wasn't it something about the Miami,

the, I don't know if it was mafia and city council going, uh-uh, there's certain things you cannot

do here.

And he was either fired, booted out, or retired and moved on pretty soon.

Yeah, they don't fuck around down there.

It's a totally different way of life.

And, you know, they love it.

It's like

you go down there, it's a totally different vibe.

Yeah.

You know, and the whole thing is.

Yeah, if you use more stats and you don't flinch,

it's all a green light.

More banks per capita in Miami, I think, than any other city in the country.

And I think that is because it was used to launder money for cocaine.

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's like, it's hard to believe that that's true.

But I had a good buddy of mine who was an ophthalmologist who did his residency down there.

six months

taking over the internal affairs unit making significant changes to his command staff boom you're out see ya yep currently speaking out against corruption reporting abuses of power by elected official officials he sued saying that his firing was in retaliation

yeah so my buddy was an ophthalmologist and he did his residency in miami in the 80s and he said it was insane he goes every day so he's in the emergency room every day it's gunshot victims, guys with G.I.

Joe stuffed up their asses.

Like everybody was just doing Coke and doing wild, crazy stuff.

Dropped that gay bomb on.

He said he found guys with light bulbs up their asses.

They had to remove light bulbs.

You know, those little pine coney ones.

You know, those ones?

The little small dude had a light bulb broke in his asshole.

And they had a, oh, God.

And he goes, it's all cocaine, man.

He goes, I saw so many gunshots, so many gunshot wounds.

He goes, it was all cocaine.

And it was just constant.

In the 80s, he said the emergency room was just like people were piling up in the hallway.

They're just rushing people in to get treatment.

They're holding their side and blood squirting out of them.

He said it was insanity.

Wow.

Just cocaine gang wars all over the city.

And he was in the heart of it.

Is he still an optometrist?

Well, he's still an ophthalmologist.

Optimologist.

Yeah.

But but he doesn't live in Miami anymore.

He's in Arizona now.

Shout out to Steve.

He's a good buddy of mine.

Me am I.

He told me some why, and I was a kid at the time.

And when I met him, I was like 15, 16 years old.

And he was explaining to me like what he did when he was in Miami.

And I was like, that is insane.

I go, it's that bad.

Because this is like 1988.

And he was there in the early 80s.

He said it was insane.

And that's Miami.

It's obviously not like that anymore.

It's obviously calmed down on that regard.

The chassis is still pretty loose.

Oh, yeah.

That's what built the place.

It's like the most flossy city in the country.

The most Lamborghinis and Ferraris and whatever you can.

I don't think most of them are owned.

No, no, it's a giant hustle.

It's a big old cocaine hustle.

But that's one of the things I love about America is that we have all these different flavors.

We got the Florida flavor, and then we got the Montana flavor.

You know, there's a lot of different flavors in this country.

I was in Alabama doing research for

Free State of Jones.

And this is what, I think, probably 11 years ago.

And we were staying in Mobile.

And the next day, there was all these parades at night.

And I was like, what's going on?

The next day, the percentage for the vote for gay marriage was coming out.

And

I remember talking to a lot of my friends on the West Coast

the next day because what happened,

it passed 5347.

And I was like, holy shit, I thought it was going to be 2080.

No.

Oh, interesting.

And it was passed 53.47.

What year was that?

This is 11, 12 years ago.

Maybe you can pull it up.

I think it was about 11 years ago.

Anyway, I talked to a lot of my friends who are

Democrats or liberals, and they were appalled at

the minor margin.

I was like, guys,

no, I thought it was, you're appalled that it barely made it.

I thought it was going to be 20-80 the other way.

It is amazing how quickly, though, America, we're very nimble.

Yeah.

Very nimble to

swing and understand

different ways.

I was shocked that it even came close.

You thought it was going to be, really?

You thought it was going to be 80-20 against?

I thought that my romantic idea, or shit, I'd traveled there, been around there and stayed there many times, got friends there.

I thought that it was so entrenched in a

born-again red Christianity that that was

blasphemy to the majority.

Right.

And it was not.

It was not.

And I just remember thinking, there's an example, not an ideal one, but there's an example.

If you were for gay marriage, that's not an ideal example, but there's an example of talk about an evolution or an adaptability to times and change.

Well, if you believe in the sanctity of marriage, gay marriage should be your favorite marriage because they hold it up the best.

They have the lowest rates of divorce.

I think gay marriage between two men, the rate of divorce is only like 26%.

Whereas with men and women, it's 50%.

So if you really love marriage,

you should love gay marriage because they're doing it right.

What do you think about that when they talk about, you know, because

we're always talking and thinking about, so, you know, how do you make the world a better place?

Talk about leadership, talk about our CEOs, you talk about politicians.

But

if you go back to the root, the beginning seems to be, to me, to be parenting.

Secondly,

what if

what could be done

to get more fathers to just hang, stay around?

More mothers do than the fathers.

A lot of fathers are out early.

And what could be done if more marriages, if we work, took another step to salvage our marriage instead of, ah, smell the heat, getting out?

Yeah, there's a lot of what could that do?

Or do you think that would be a way forward?

I have a hunch that it is.

I don't know what to do about it except

prop up the reverence for parenthood, prop up the reverence for marriage

to where

it's more important to us than it is

to stick with it a little longer, to salvage that.

Our personal character, our responsibilities that we take as a parent, and our responsibility that we take in going into a marriage.

That would make it mean a little bit more than I feel like it does

to us a lot of times.

I think it really depends entirely on

who the individuals are.

Because sometimes one person is just not

keeping up with their end of the deal.

They just fall off.

Maybe they get into drugs.

They become addicted.

Maybe they lose their job and they don't want to get it back and they just start drinking every day.

And sometimes a man or a woman has to make a choice.

I know I've seen some good divorces, too.

I was like, oh, that was good for the both.

There's some people that don't want to change and they will drag you down.

And there's some people, when you met them, they had hope and then eventually that hope just fucking leeches out of them and they're not fun to be around anymore and you try and you try and you try to encourage them you try to give them suggestions and they don't follow through and at first at a certain point you can't save a drowning man because you're gonna fucking drown too and you gotta just move on with your life and i get it i get when wives leave like that i get when husbands leave like that but

A lot of people just marry people because they're hot.

You know, they marry people because they're sexy.

They like having sex with them.

You know, they think they're attractive.

And then you're with some fucking crazy person.

Yeah.

And you're trying to make life work with a crazy person.

And now you have kids.

Right.

And now you're trying to make life with kids with this fucking crazy person that you really shouldn't have married in the first place.

You didn't have anything in common with them other than you like their body and you liked how sexy they are.

Oh, that's the trap.

Like you gotta...

You have to genuinely love someone.

Like love their personality.

Love being around them.

love their kindness and then you have to be someone that other people would love Yeah, a lot of people want this perfect person in their life and they're a mess

Oh, yeah, I there's a lot I've seen that go down to there's a lot of reasons why marriages don't work out and one of them is like over time when two boats are traveling together if one of them just like this is an Anthony Robbins thing about life, an analogy about life, but it it actually works with marriages too.

Because all you need is like a subtle turn in one direction.

And over time, you're further and further apart.

We're like, we don't have the same philosophy anymore.

We don't have the same belief system.

We don't have the same ethics or morals.

Maybe your husband has got a job that you're like, you shouldn't be fucking doing this.

This is bad for society.

Like, your job overall is awful.

Maybe you're denying people health care.

claims, you know, for insurance companies.

Maybe that's your thing.

And like, and you're like, you're, we have to live with the psychic psychic weight of like, yeah, we're eating ribeyes and we have a nice house, but like, how did we get this money?

Like, and maybe the wife is like, I don't want to do this anymore.

I don't want to be connected to you.

Yeah.

That's, that's understandable, too.

It's like, not all marriages are supposed to work out.

I, I, I agree with you.

I think it makes

it divorce right now.

Yes.

What if that was 45?

Well, Chris Rock had a great joke about that.

He goes, that's just the cowards that stay.

He's like, how many of them wish they were divorced?

He was like,

really good point.

Really good point.

Because although 50% get divorced, how many of those 50% that stay are just cowards?

Paying the penance.

Oh, man.

I mean, we all have friends like that.

We're like, bro, get out.

And they don't.

And then, but then we also have people that have great marriages.

And when you meet people that have great marriages, it's like, oh, that's possible.

You know, that's possible.

Well, the sanctity of it, if it had more reverage going into, you're not getting ones that are just, you know, she's hot.

We love to shag.

It's a cultural milestone, too.

It's like a thing.

You're doing it because it's like everybody does it.

Every woman wants to be married.

Every you want to have a family.

Every man wants to, you know, like this is my wife.

And so you think that a lot of people live life like they're in a goddamn romantic comedy.

They think they're in a movie.

You know, they think they're, and they don't.

They don't it's like that there's something about media something about songs and movies that gives us this bizarre framework for what a relationship or what life is supposed to be like or what your life is supposed to be like.

And it's not real.

And where your life doesn't measure up to this movie, just like your life is not going to measure up to your Instagram feed, you get kind of

depressed.

Like, this is it.

Why are we in Galbeston for our honeymoon when she's on a yacht?

She's in a Biza.

You know what I mean?

Exactly.

And that comparison yeah thing comes well that's also why people put everything on the gram too everybody put they put everything they do look at me here having so much fun look at me smiling having a great time

well you paint yourself in a corner we let levi get on graham when he turned 15 and he

don't know if he'll stay on it but that was one of the things we were talking i was like dude You know, he was surfing at the time.

I was like, don't just put all your all your best waves on there because you're going to paint yourself on a corner when you go to the break.

And the guy's like, oh, we've seen it.

I was like, Better put some wipeouts on there, too.

Yeah, just so you can go and not have that pressure because you're going to paint yourself in a corner.

Absolutely.

If life looks too good,

you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Then you're going to go out and you got, I got to live up to this.

That's what's that thing that happens in those relationships when you hold the other one.

If I make my wife Superwoman and she thinks I'm Superman, neither one of us can live up to that.

Right.

And so we're going to come in under our expected bar, and there becomes the recipe for, you're not who I thought you were.

Yeah.

Because Because we had an unfair expectation.

Right.

Going in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that definitely happens too.

Also, familiarity breeds contempt.

People just get tired of being in the same space with the same person over and over again.

Like, stop.

Leave me alone.

Get away.

People get sick of people.

But it's also like, who did you pick?

Yeah.

Who'd you pick?

And why'd they pick you?

Are you someone that you would pick if you were a woman?

Yeah.

You know, would you want you as a husband?

Would you want you as a friend?

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

And if not,

maybe you should become someone that someone would like to be friends with.

Maybe you should become someone someone would like to be a husband.

Yeah.

Like to have as a husband.

Sit in that passenger seat you're talking about and have a look.

Have a look at yourself.

Yeah.

That's why a good psychedelic experience every now and then knocks the dust off and gives you a little reset and lets you look at yourself and go, okay.

Yeah, tell me, tell me, explain

what that does.

It unpacks

some sort of neural cables that have gotten kind of solidified that may work, but sure.

They become doctrinaire.

There's a lot of that in that, for sure.

And I think that's also a dissolving of the ego.

That's a big part of it.

One of the things that most psychedelic drugs have in common is they dissolve the ego, like completely dissolve the ego, at least for a brief amount of time.

And during that brief amount of time, you have a much more objective understanding of what that's why there's so many people who take mushrooms and then completely quit smoking cigarettes or completely quit taking pills they just go oh my god like what was i doing like why was i doing that like you just you need to get outside of yourself and i think that that was a natural part of human civilization for thousands and thousands of years people did it in ritualistic settings in ancient ulysses in in in greece the eleusinian mysteries was all about that in ellusis or when they would they would all get together would they would take this trek to get, there's a fantastic book on it called The Immortality Key that a guy who's been a guest on my podcast a bunch of times, Brian Murarescu wrote.

But it's all about these are the people that figured out democracy.

This is like in ancient Greece, and they all did it from having these psychedelic trips.

They would all go and have this trek to have this visionary experience, and they'd come back with new insight and ideas

and a dissolving in the ego.

I mean, they literally came to the idea, like, hey, maybe we should let everybody have a say in how things run and vote.

Like, they invented democracy, which is crazy.

And they did it because, probably, because of psychedelic drugs.

Like, they found these

clay pots that these people used to keep their wine in, and their wine was all like mixed up with psychedelics.

It wasn't regular wine.

Like, we think of wine as just being an alcoholic beverage.

No, it was wine with ergot in it.

So, it was like an LSD-like substance and a bunch of other stuff.

You ever seen seen the Dumbo, the animated?

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

I just noticed it because I noticed it, just saw it for the,

seen it before, but recently saw it three years ago.

So Dumbo after the circus goes over, puts his snout down, and drinks the runoff from the bar and the party.

Okay?

Stars start to think.

The next thing, next edit is he's in the top of a tree.

He can fly.

That was more than alcohol.

It was the Psycho Galaxy Indies.

He cut is directly to him in the top of a tree.

That's hilarious.

God, I haven't seen Dumbo since my kids were like one.

If you see it again, I need to watch it.

I haven't seen it for.

God, I don't even know if they're going to be able to get it.

And the crows are over there talking shit about him, about how he got up here.

And what are you doing up here, man?

You should have seen yourself last night.

Talk about, I don't remember, but I was there.

Dumbo didn't remember none of it, man.

Ended up in the top of the tree.

I remember when they were real little, we watched Pinocchio and how creepy it was.

I was like, oh my god, Pinocchio is creepy.

When

the boys got kidnapped and they turned them into donkeys.

Yeah.

Remember that part?

Yes.

That was Pinocchio, right?

Yeah.

Here's the part.

Dude, he has a five-minute trip in Dumbo.

Oh, really?

I mean, it's a whole scene.

The pink elephants.

Oh, whoa.

Just after he drank the

slop, right?

He's 100% tripping.

And the last we saw was he just drank some.

Look at it, yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

Pyramids.

And it ends here.

Oh, wow.

It ends him coming back to Earth.

Wait, no, he's not back to Earth.

He's up in a tree.

He's up in a tree.

That's crazy.

I would have never guessed.

I would have never guessed that's a part.

Well, that's actually a part of one of the rides at Disneyland.

is there a Dumbo ride at Disneyland that looks psychedelic?

Yes,

that's right.

No, it's Winnie the Pooh.

There's a Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland that I used to take with my kids.

And you go through the ride.

It's like a real simple ride.

It's not like scary at all.

It's like good for like little kids.

And you get to this one point.

I'm like, what are they trying to say here?

Like, this is crazy.

Like, Tigger comes out, and Tigger is like this psychedelic being, and everything is like now in black light.

Yeah.

So Tigger comes out and Tigger's like a freak.

Like, why is this guy bouncing around on his tail?

And then it gets to a certain part, get a little forward here, where it gets super fucking weird.

Like right here.

Like, what the hell has happened?

It's all about honey.

Like, things are like, this is like fractal.

This is like a DMT world.

This is really weird.

Like, what does this have to do with Winnie the Pooh?

What the fuck happened?

It's really weird.

It's like, what are they trying to say here?

I didn't see anything about honey.

Yeah, there's something about the honey.

It's like something about, well, you know, there's some stuff called mad honey.

And this mad honey, we actually ate it on the podcast once.

Some guy brought it.

But it's a honey that these, I think it's in the Himalayas.

That's where it is, right?

Where these guys have to climb up the side of a cliff to get this stuff.

And these bees are all taking pollen from, is it the lotus flower?

What is the psychedelic plant?

So these bees are taking pollen from the psychedelic plant, and they're making a psychedelic honey.

Okay.

Okay.

So bad honey is a honey that contains, boy, say that word.

Greyndrax.

Grayanotoxins.

The dark reddish honey is produced from the nectar and pollen of the genus Rhododendron.

How do you say that?

Rhododendron.

Rhododendron.

Rhododendron.

It has moderately toxic and narcotic effects.

Produced principally in Nepal and Turkey, where it's used as both a traditional medicine and a recreational drug.

Okay.

But see, we'll show how they get it.

Because these guys, look at that.

They have to climb on the side of a fucking cliff to get this stuff.

And people get it just to trip out.

Wow.

Imagine you tried that hard to get honey.

That you make like a rope ladder and you cover yourself in a beekeeper's outfit.

And they're all like these hives are all connected to the side of a cliff.

It's really crazy.

That's cool.

Yeah.

It was a very bizarre effect to the honey.

Did you have some?

Yeah.

So during the

three hours after having some, did you get a little bit of a

middle of the podcast?

I took it at the beginning of the podcast.

I just took a big, I go, how much is a large dose?

And he's like, you take like a half a teaspoon.

I'm like, ah, fuck it.

And I just took a whole big teaspoon of it.

And I was like, whoo, this is interesting.

How soon did it get interesting?

20 minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, about 20 minutes in.

I'm like, whoa, okay.

This is a new one.

I was like, this is crazy.

This is honey.

Like, putting this in your tea?

Like, what's going on in Nepal?

I don't think it's a normal use thing.

I think it's an occasional use thing.

Well, maybe not a full tablespoon.

It didn't.

It wasn't that bad.

It wasn't like I was out of my head and didn't know what to do.

I was completely functional.

But it was like bizarre that this is in honey.

So

these psychedelic trips when you lose the ego and you unlock some of the, you know.

Just like you got a vacation to reset your life.

Sometimes you need a vacation to reset your brain.

Do they help you have more energy because you're hanging on to old

ideas a little bit less and you have more of an open beginner's mind and the day unravels with that with less certain concrete expectations or

this is how that should go.

Very insightful.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, definitely.

That's part of it.

Like, the less you hang on to in your head,

the more energy you have for other stuff.

Yeah.

Like, you only, I always tell people, like, especially young comics, like that are like getting on social media and arguing with people and stuff.

I'm like, look, man, think of your time in your day as

a numerical unit.

Like, you have 100 units of time, 100 units of energy.

If you're putting 30 of those units on some bullshit online, you're robbing yourself

of that time that you could be putting into things you love, your friendship, your comedy act, your life.

You don't need to do that.

Like it's a trap.

You get sucked into thinking you need to do that.

And all it does is it just robs you of your energy.

The less you're attached to like old beefs and squat, fuck that guy, all those kind of things, the less you're attached to that stuff, the freer you are, the more energy you have.

And it's good for you.

Again, it's a self-ish to be kind.

Yep.

Yeah.

Amen on that.

Yeah.

And I think if those things were legal and more people could experience them in a controlled setting with people who know how to administer them and know the right dose and

know, you know, hey, would it, are you on a medication?

Well, if you're on a certain medication, definitely don't be taking this stuff because your medication's an MOA inhibitor and this is, you know, this could really fuck you up.

But, you know, it doesn't even have to be that, man.

It could be a fucking good yoga class.

Right.

It could be holotropic breathing.

You could just sit and breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth with intention and you'll have a psychedelic experience.

You'll get a relief from.

I just got one the other day from acupuncture.

Brilliant.

Did not expect it at all.

And I mean, I came out going, oh my gosh, I just felt like I hibernated for a 14-hour nap and woke up clean as a whistle.

See, I've only done acupuncture one time, and the dude was a total kook.

He was so kooky that I just

didn't stick to.

He was too weird.

The guy was so weird.

He was really good at acupuncture, but he was just like this really weird guy in LA.

And he'd have these conversations with you.

He's asking a bunch of questions.

And I was like, okay.

I got to get off this guy.

That's the masseuse that when you lay down, they go, Yeah.

So what's your horoscope?

And I'm like, oh, shit.

Oh, no.

And they go, and I go, any injuries?

I'm like, yeah, this left shoulder.

And that

left side of your body.

That means you need to get in touch.

I'm like, no, no, no, no.

I actually got hit by a car.

Don't go psychological on me just yet, man.

Come on.

Don't go horoscope out of the gate.

If we would add that on for some color commentary afterwards, I'm okay with it.

But let's not come out of the gate saying, this is the reason.

I actually just reached out to my booking guy to try to get a real astrologer on, like someone who really understands the ancient art of astrology, the real old stuff.

Because

I'm not completely discounting it.

I think newspaper horoscope is nonsense.

I think there's a lot of people that are just like reading your tarot cards that are just ripping you off.

But I always wonder, like at the heart, like astrology is so specific.

Like, why did they write that down?

Why did they have this understanding of how the stars are aligned at the time of your birth?

Pre-mathematics.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where part of the earth you're at.

Yeah.

See, I don't even know if it's pre-mathematics.

I think it's pre-our current understanding of when mathematics evolved and emerged.

I don't think that's real.

I think they had mathematics long before that.

I think civilization was wiped out and had to restart over again.

And there's a lot of evidence to that.

There's a lot of evidence that, like, society has had some major cosmic event, most likely asteroid impact, comet impact.

And

there's a whole theory behind it, the Younger Dryas Impact Theory from 11,800 years ago.

They think we got hit.

And

there's a comet storm that we go through every September.

Was it November and June?

Is that what it is?

Yeah,

I think so.

Something like that?

Like June and November.

And occasionally we get hit.

And, you know, there's like 900,000 near-Earth objects.

Yeah.

And it doesn't take a really big one to fuck up everything.

It doesn't take one that's going to kill everybody to fuck up anything.

It just takes one the size of a block.

Like one city block comes slamming into the ice caps, and then you just got chaos.

And everything goes away.

And all

like modern conveniences and all organized societies thrown into chaos and then people have to rebuild.

I think that's happened a bunch of times in human history.

And this is real physical evidence to this younger dryest impact theory, which also coincides with the ending of the ice age.

It's all around the same time.

And they think it was like a series of events.

They think we were hit more than once.

They think they were hit around 11,800 years ago, but then again, somewhere around 10,000 years ago.

So it's probably when we see society emerging in like Mesopotamia and Sumer, which was like around 5,000 plus, 6,000 years ago, I think that's just the newest version of it.

I think they probably had mathematics long before that.

They probably were doing shit.

Whoever built the pyramids, like, you can't tell me they didn't have some sort of complex geometry and mathematics.

There's no way they didn't.

The things are pointed to true north, south, east, and west.

Like, that's 5,000 years ago.

Carl Sagan.

I got to sit with him for a few hours before we made this film called Contact that I was in with Joe Shaw.

Far Skin loved it.

You do?

One of my all-time favorite movies.

I love that movie.

Oh.

And I love Carl Sagan.

Yeah.

He wrote the book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got to talk to him and listen to him, actually, for a few hours.

Anyway, I got to know his wife, and his

wife's really cool, but her hello, her greeting is always, hey, what's your coordinate?

Whoa.

What's your coordinate?

What's your coordinate?

Boy,

she's out there.

But I mean, that was similar of the north southeast which where are we coordinated where's the earth coordinated yeah in the galaxy in the universe in the hands of time what has happened what's our coordinate it's a it is kind of an out there but it's a it's a it's a pretty cool objective the way to go let me think about that reminds me of yeah like uh you ever meet bush 41 no

hi president bush how you doing today

while he's holding your hand

about an 8.2 today, Matthew.

8.2 to the 10th.

He would give you an answer out of 10 to the 10th of how he was doing.

Hmm.

I just thought that was pretty interesting.

Because everybody goes, oh, I'm good, man.

Great, great, great.

How are you?

That's some CIA shit, son.

He was adding it up to the 10.

What's your coordinate?

About an 8.2.

He had numbers in his head.

Yeah.

You know, Herbert Walker was the guy that

Hal put off and a bunch of these scientists.

He brought them together and said, we have recovered a crashed UFO more than one occasion, and we have a back engineering program, and we're considering disclosure to the American people.

I want you to list the positives, the positive impact of society, and the negatives.

And they did it with quite a few different scientists, and they all had more negatives than positive.

If they came out with this information, to share this information, what would be the effect on society?

Yes.

More negatives than positives.

More negatives than positive.

Disruption of religion, government, economy.

Well, I mean, I understand hijah.

I just don't.

Depends on your religion, you know, and depends on where these things are from and what is happening.

What do we need?

In the Bible, Ezekiel has golden chariots from the sky.

Exactly.

Yeah, and a wheel within a wheel.

Yeah, the Ezekiel stuff sounds like a UFO encounter.

And it's not the only version of that in ancient texts.

In the ancient Hindu texts, they have Vimanas, these things that are flying through the sky.

Like, what are those things?

You know, in the Rig Veda,

even in the Bhagavad Gita, there's all these depictions of these things that sound like you're talking about a spaceship or, at the very least, some kind of technology.

Like, what this thing about the Nephilim, like that the gods mated with women and created men who are monstrous.

Boy, doesn't that sound like aliens came down and genetically manipulated primates and created human beings?

beings.

That's a version of it that you could imply from the text.

It's all really weird stuff, man.

Like really weird.

If you found out that that was all true,

it would probably change everything about society.

And this is what Herbert Walker and those guys decided after.

So Hal Potoff was explaining it to me on the podcast, like how they put a numerical value to each thing.

I'm like,

we were that close.

Like, imagine if that happened.

This is 1990, right?

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but these kind of really weird things, as you put them,

they excite you more than they give you fear.

Would that be fair?

Yeah.

I mean.

I mean, you seem excited.

You get excited about different possibilities.

Yes.

I mean,

you know, I have people go, oh, man, Rogan loves these conspiracy theories.

I don't see him liking the conspiracy theories.

I see him always being interested in an alternate way something went down and being interested and excited about that, but not going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, never disengaging from it and going, no way, no, no, because I believe how it was and what I read, and that's how it is.

That's not where you're moving from.

No, it's never a denial of information and facts.

And it's also a recognition that oftentimes a large swath of society just goes with a narrative without having any real understanding of what the actual facts behind it are.

And then there's that term, this pejorative term, conspiracy theory.

The problem with that, calling someone a conspiracy theorist, is conspiracies are real.

Like there's a lot of evidence.

And if you want to sit down, I could fucking show you a ton of them.

And so anybody who says like, oh, you're a conspiracy theorist, I'm like, okay, let's talk about conspiracies.

Like, do you think that any of them exist?

Do you think that people conspire?

Is it like it's a natural part of human behavior that's been documented throughout history, even governments.

I mean,

literally, the thing that got us into the Vietnam War was a conspiracy.

It was fake.

The Gulf of Tonkin.

It was a false flag operation.

It never took place at all.

They lied to the American people.

That's a conspiracy.

Like, that's just one conspiracy that turns out to be true.

There's a lot of them.

The problem is, people don't want to look like a conspiracy theorist.

They've done such a good job of making it a goofy term that you don't ever want to attach to.

It cause damage to your reputation.

If you're in a job where people have to take you seriously, fortunately, I'm not.

But if you're in a job where people have to take you seriously, you don't want to say anything weird.

Like, hey, I think aliens are real.

Like, people think you're a kook, and then they discount your opinion on everything.

Yeah.

But if you

just know the actual facts, like people that don't think there's anything that aliens are real, there's no way.

We're alone.

We've never been contacted.

Why not?

Gary Nolan, the guy who was on here yesterday that was talking about cancer research, he was also telling us about a piece of wreckage they found from a craft for is it 1950 that they found it?

Which one?

The first one, the silica one?

So they have direct chain of possession of this evidence from, I believe it was 1950.

And it was almost pure silica.

And the magnesium ratios were so off that he said that this magnesium had to have been,

it had to have been sourced from a place that experienced a neutron bomb every two minutes for 900 years.

That's how off the isotopes were to magnesium that we find here on Earth.

He's like, I'm not saying it's impossible for someone to ever do that, but I'm saying this is from 1950.

Like, this is a real piece of what they're saying is a wreckage of a craft.

And it has a material composition that is impossible for a normal person to create in 1950.

So, what the fuck is this?

And you say that to people, and they're like, oh, so Gary Nolan, who's a professor at Stanford,

he's professor

in the

what is his forensics?

Is that what his

he does cancer research, but what is his actual title?

Stanford School of Medicine professor.

Anyway, rock solid credentials, published, and people brought him this material and they said, Would you analyze this?

Because you know all these different scientists.

Endowed chair, Department of Pathology, Stanford School of Medicine.

So

when a guy like that is saying, no, this is a composition of this piece of wreckage that you can't make here,

they found a type of alloy that doesn't exist on Earth, and it has, on an atomic level, layers upon layers of whatever this alloy is.

He's like, this costs billions of dollars to create.

And they found it in 1970.

Like, in 1970, no one had this.

It's not possible to make.

Like, maybe you can make it today, but we don't have the equipment to make it today.

You could conceive how someone with enough resources could have that money today to do something like that, but it would be an enormous undertaking.

And this is a piece of craft that someone found from 1976.

So when a guy like that is telling you, like, I'm not saying what it is, I'm not saying where it's from, but I'm saying this is fucking crazy.

Yeah, it doesn't add up to what we could practically do.

So when someone says conspiracies, like, yeah, yeah, I believe in conspiracies because they're real.

Right.

And because I don't have to worry about being taken seriously.

And most people do.

Most people don't want to be a fool.

You don't want to be a silly person.

You don't want to be mocked when people aren't around you.

Like, you know, fucking Bob believes the JFK assassinations were far.

Yeah.

You say, because you don't have to be taken seriously.

Is that what you said?

Exactly.

Because, wait, because you're saying your theories on things are solid, or because you, in your position, are going, hey, I don't have to be taken seriously.

My job does not rely on me being taken seriously.

Right.

Nothing.

What do you say to the

because

you get attacked for like, hey, man, you had so-and-so on here

and you placated them.

And we do take you seriously because so many people listen.

Because

I always hear, and I always find that I think there's a hole in those attacks on you.

You have a massive audience of listening.

Does that mean inherently?

Not necessarily is what I hear you saying that, oh, everything I say should be taken seriously because that information is going wide.

No.

So people's argument is going, Joe, you have a massive audience.

So that's your responsibility to make sure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They go down that rabbit hole.

My responsibility is only just to be me.

I don't have a responsibility to do anything else.

I definitely have a responsibility to not lie to people.

And I definitely have a responsibility to not willingly allow someone else to lie without at least questioning them

if I know that they're lying.

But other than that, My responsibility is just to keep doing what I've done.

And that's why I have a big audience.

It's not because of any other reason.

So I'm not going to do anything any differently.

No,

I see that.

I applaud it.

I don't think you have to.

I don't think it's good.

I don't think it's smart.

I don't think you should be paying too much attention to what other people's opinions of what you should or shouldn't be doing are as long as you have a good internal compass.

As long as you have a good true north and you know.

And my true north is how do I feel about it?

Like, what do it, what, do I feel like I'm a good person for doing this?

Do I feel like that was a beneficial thing for them and for me?

I'm happy.

They're happy.

We're all good.

And that's what I want.

I just want, I want a hug and a handshake.

Thank you.

That was awesome.

Good times.

And I want to hear from them, like, this has been amazing for me.

That's, that makes me excited.

That's all, that's all I like.

That's cool.

You got it.

You got it.

You make it sound so simple, but as you probably know, for a lot of people in your position, it ain't that simple.

But it is if you follow the right path.

Yep.

It's not that hard.

Like, people say it's hard.

I'm like, oh, you know, you work so hard.

Like, eh.

Yeah, yeah.

Look at us right now.

This is me working.

It's not that hard.

I've had jobs.

I've done construction.

I've done like horrible jobs that suck.

This is not a job.

This is just a fun pursuit.

So you have a responsibility to the people that listen.

And I think the people that listen expect me to be me.

And that's all you can do.

Boom.

And as soon as you start changing, they fucking know before you know.

Right.

Like they'll, they'll like, oh, you fucking changed.

Yeah.

And people will always accuse you of changing, even if you haven't but I I think I have evolved I've most certainly evolved I've tempered the way I view life I'm more I'm definitely kinder and more patient, but I'm the same person same person like the same goals Just curious.

I'm interested like talk to people.

Yeah, and I want everybody to do well.

I really genuinely do well

that's a that's not that's not an overly common trait It should be

I think it should be and it's not hard I think the way you described it is great that It actually is selfish.

And I say that all the time.

It really is selfish.

I think we're a kind person.

I'm on a crusade to change the understanding of that word because I think we sell ourselves short.

And

there is a way where what is best for us is actually best for the most amount of people and vice versa.

Yeah, I agree.

At the end of the day, it has all got to be very personal.

And then to have some dignity in it.

It's the difference between choice and a mandate.

No, you've got a choice, but make the fucking right choice.

Measure the choice.

You got power when you make the choice.

Yep.

And you deal with the consequences.

I love to go, oh, bogey there, McConaughey.

And I can look in the mirror and go, that's on you.

Yeah.

Then I can make a good decision.

Something works out.

I can look in the mirror and go, good, man, we hit that one on the screws.

I honestly like fucking up sometimes because then it makes me really reset and go, oh boy, get it back together.

What's the last big fuck up you had?

Where you're like, oh, I got it.

You have a weird podcast.

You're like, that one sucked.

Like, maybe I

worked out too hard before I got here.

That's not good.

like that that's a bad one that I do sometimes like come in charging and getting over getting ahead.

No, like I'm worn out.

And then my brain's not firing on all of a sudden like if I do legs, like I do a leg day.

Yeah.

And I do a lot of squats.

I come in and my brain is just like wiped out.

You know, that's not good.

I've done that.

You know, I've, you know, but it's just when you're not on point, okay, what did I do wrong?

Well, I didn't get enough sleep.

You know, maybe I didn't take my nootropics, whatever it was.

Like, maybe I didn't do enough research on the subject.

Whatever it is, like, let's get it back together.

Gotcha.

Pull that fucking shit back around.

See, but that's self-regulation.

Yeah.

You're self-regulating.

Because, ah, I could have done better.

I missed my mark.

Oh,

I don't like it when I do that.

I'm a little embarrassed when I do that.

Damn it, I feel shitty.

I didn't leave that situation better than I found it.

I didn't come forward.

I didn't prepare enough or whatever that might be.

Man, more of that across the board.

It's good for everybody.

Yeah, man.

it's you got to be your own general you got to be your own like like wake up soldier yeah you know i always talk about the cold plunge because it is the it is the luntile people say oh how do you do it every day listen to me very carefully i almost don't every day

every day i get that close to bitching out every single day

i'm amazed how weak i am yeah i am amazed every time i go to lift that fucking lid off that thing, I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to

do that.

I am not doing this.

I'm not doing this.

And then when I get in, I'm like, maybe I'll only do a minute today.

Maybe I'll get out right now.

Don't you want to get out right now?

I'm like, shut the fuck up.

I get to let the general talk and the general's like, shut the fuck up, soldier.

You will stay in that water.

I'm like that dude from Full Metal Jacket.

Outstanding.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, a little self-regulation, man.

Yeah, but every day I almost don't.

David Gawkins told me that, too, who's like the most mentally strong human being I've ever met, and maybe the most mentally strong human being that's ever walked to face the planet.

And he said, he goes, even though I run every day, sometimes I look at my sneakers, I stare at those motherfuckers for a half an hour before I put them on.

Just thinking of him.

I mean, he's out there running like marathons literally every day.

And he was just like, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to do this.

So he does it.

That's the thing.

It's like people want to think that people that are mentally strong don't struggle.

No, you just do struggle.

You always struggle.

Yeah.

But you win every time.

Right.

You make sure that you win every time.

And you can win every time, but you got to develop that ability to make yourself do the things you don't necessarily want to do, but you know you should.

It's a little bit of that.

I don't know if you ever saw that Jokovich interview on 60 Minutes.

No, it didn't.

And 60 Minutes interview, I forget his name, was going like, look, so, you know, your mental capacity is why you're so good.

And my hunch is that, Novak, it's because you have less negative thought.

And Jokovich interrupts him.

Uh-uh.

Now you might want to pull this one up.

This is good.

His answer is great.

He goes, no, no, no.

I have as many or more negative thoughts.

I just get past them quicker than others.

Yeah, that's so he's not denying the negative thoughts.

He's let them come.

And then bam, out of the way.

I got to on to the next.

Yeah, he has control.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He has control over those thoughts.

They come in and he swats them down.

Yeah.

You have to have some negative thoughts if you're going to be an elite athlete because you have to be your own worst critic.

You can't be satisfied with anything.

If you want to reach the very tip of the top, every movement must be more precise and more explosive and better every time you do it.

And you have to do all the training and you leave no stone unturned.

And if you don't do that, you're never going to reach the level that he's at in anything.

Let me ask you about this.

I got a poem on it, but I'm just trying to remember what it was about.

It's

success

in, say, MMA, for instance.

What's a better

resume for a great performance or victory?

Suffering to succeed or revenge?

Oh, suffering to succeed.

Yes.

Why?

The emotions that come with revenge are crippling,

and sometimes they can keep you up at night, and they'll fuck with your sleep, and then the consequences of you losing are far greater because you genuinely hate this person.

Some people thrive under those conditions, oddly, but I would think most of the time...

Most of the time,

trying to just achieve the highest version of yourself

is the most aspirational.

And I think the best of the best do that.

Right.

The very best, the George St.

Pierre's of the world, they do that.

They're playing against themselves.

They're playing against themselves.

Yeah.

They're trying to be the very best version of themselves that they can be.

And if they do that right and leave no stone unturned, they can achieve greatness.

But it's not going to be easy.

It's going to be, they go through hell.

I mean, to become an elite fighter is one of the most physically difficult things and then psychologically difficult things that a human being can ever undertake outside of war and maybe law enforcement.

You know, other than that,

you're dealing with physical struggle the likes of most people will never experience in their life.

You're literally hurling bones in the direction of a trained assassin, and the two of you are going to do it publicly in your underwear in front of the whole world, barefoot with these little tiny pads on your knuckles and a cup over your dick.

And you just got to go out there and kick each other and strangle each other.

It's crazy.

It's a crazy sport.

And so there's this balance of the mind and the body and the intention and how you allocate your resources and time

and how you manage stress and how you deal with the pressures of trying to succeed and the doubts and the fears.

In the suffering to succeed,

is it fair to say?

I think it is that like the people that, you know, like the

sing beyond the immediate goal.

Meaning,

we choke at the goal line

when we look up and get objective and go, oh shit, fourth and one.

This could be the game winner.

All I got to get is one yard.

Right.

Whereas, no, I run.

I will run through.

I will use my ability.

I will cross that.

Bo Jackson, when he scored, he'd go through the end zone, down the fucking tunnel.

The best snipers don't aim at the target.

They aim on the other side of it.

Getting through COVID, part of what I know helped me was going, oh, it's going to be like this for 10 years, gang.

Family, buckle up.

Yeah.

It was nice 10 years.

It was much shorter.

Oh, shit.

We were preparing for a much longer journey.

Going to work out.

This is going to be hell.

Get ready for it, dude.

And then all of a sudden you're like, all right, that's it.

Wait, I'm done.

Projecting past the goal.

cellularly, I think, wakes up something in us on survival level that we don't choke.

We don't get fatigued as quickly.

We don't want to quit sooner because we have in our mind, no, the end is not right around the corner.

Right.

And

it's a bit of a mental trick.

But I think that it has something to do with

what champions

do.

They see beyond.

They're playing Arch Manning right now.

There's never been more hype on a college quarterback ever.

I believe that guy is wired, and that family bloodline is is even wired.

They're beyond this hype.

This hype, this is mortal.

Right.

This is mortal shit, guys.

Great.

It's about the process.

It's about winning games.

If UT goes and wins the championship, they're preseason ranked number one, never been ranked number one before.

I believe that this team is like, oh, well, thank you for the compliment, but we're on our own mission.

That being preseason ranked number one or being on the cover of freaking Sports Illustrated is not a curse nor a validation.

It's just noise out there.

And if we do it and you go, we told you you'd be number one, we'll look at you and go, oh, well, thank you.

But that's it.

I'm not, they don't need a pep rally to go,

the rest of the world thinks you can win this too.

Right.

Well, good, good for them.

We're not playing for them.

We're doing our thing.

I have a mission here.

I believe in a path that I'm on.

And I'm going beyond this hype, or I'm going beyond this game.

I'm playing for a whole, I'm prepared mentally and spiritually for an entire season of hell.

I'm prepared to fight this assassin on the other side of me that wants to defend and do to me what I want to do to them.

Making the

resistance or the adversary seem bigger and longer and going to be more tumultuous seems to be a good way to succeed, going beyond, and all of a sudden you look up.

I get this from when I've done my best acting.

I didn't know it was the last day.

When they yelled cut at the end of the last scene of the last day of shooting, I was walking off going, all right, see you tomorrow.

And they're like, no, no, no, there is no tomorrow.

You were just in the zone.

That's it.

That's it?

We rapped.

Oh, shit.

Oh, hey, Joe.

How are you doing?

For the first time.

Because you were just locked in.

Boom.

Yeah.

Best rounds of golf.

I walked off the 18th green

and was heading to the next T-box to look up and realize: no, that's it.

You played eight.

Oh, shit, what did I shoot?

Oh, fuck.

74.

Huh.

I didn't look at my scorecard on 16 and go, if I can just keep it in the fairway, this last three holes, maybe get him with the parts, don't bogey.

I didn't anticipate.

So I didn't get my room.

I behaved and went through the finish line.

Yeah.

That something in there is in suffering to succeed rather than fighting for revenge, seeing on the other side of the target.

Yeah.

You follow what I'm saying.

100%.

Yeah.

It's also like concentrating on what you're trying to do versus the impact of what it is.

Like if I miss this, oh my God, I'm fucked.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Instead of that, you're just thinking about, I'm going to make this.

This is how I make this.

This is how I do this.

This is how I do this.

This is how I behave.

It's also in today's world with all the stimulus we're talking about and social media, et cetera, we're all sort of living in the third person or being fed opportunities to live in the third person all the time.

It's like we have a jumbotron.

And to use a football analogy, you kick me the ball.

I'm running the kickoff back and I'm going down the sideline and I see the goal and I think I'm going to score.

And then I have a look at the jumbotron to see how I'm doing

yeah that's when i'm getting tackled from behind yeah if we step outside to have a look at how are we doing

yeah for sure yeah that passenger you open up talking about when you're hitting it comedically is not hopping out right over here to have a look and if you do you you'll get lost you get lost you get conscious of what you're behaving what you know how to do what's your fashion to do

and you're out of the moment yep and you become objective yeah when you

get someone do something where we know they're in the zone, right?

Like where someone runs in for a layup and it's like the most beautiful movements, avoiding the defenders, up in the air, drops the ball, and we're like, wow.

When we see someone just hit the zone, we see it in a fight.

When we see someone just flow, we see someone flowing, like, wow, he's feeling it.

You know, whoa, she's locked in.

We love that because we know that it's somewhere in ourselves.

And maybe at one point in your life, you experienced it.

You might have been playing mini golf or something.

At one point in your life, you're like, I think I felt a little bit of that.

Right.

How much do you think preparation has to do with the freedom to adapt and flow once you're in the game?

A lot.

A lot.

A lot.

Yeah, almost everything.

If you're not prepared, your ability to adjust is very limited.

You have to be fully prepared and then let it flow.

But you have to

really,

really have all your bases covered to just like just so they don't have anxiety of I could have done more.

Yeah, that is a big issue with fighters.

We see fighters towards the end of their career, there's a thing that happens when fighters realize they're probably never going to be champion and they're just doing it for a paycheck.

And, you know, you see sometimes they'll show up and they look a little soft and you're like, and you see a little fear in their eyes because they know they really are not focused.

They're really not dialed in, but this is what they're doing for a paycheck now.

And it's not good.

Right.

Because the other guy on the other side of the octagon is the opposite.

That guy's dialed in.

Maybe he's only like 25 and he's like coming into his prime and you're a stepping stone for him.

And it's like, ooh.

And the problem fear of that is what?

Getting actually really injured?

Sure.

More so than if you were

dialed yourself.

You'll definitely take shots you wouldn't take.

And then you don't have the endurance to keep up a pace.

Yep.

Right?

Because

to get to the shape that you have to have

to be in, to be able to compete in a five-round MMA fight, it's almost impossible to maintain.

Like Chal Sunnin has talked about this extensively.

It's like you can't keep it up.

It's not like a level of conditioning that you can keep up all year round.

You have to peek to it where you're like, your body's barely hanging on.

And then you coast the last week to allow yourself to recover.

And you're just kind of going through movements the last few days.

And then on Saturday, under the bright lights, you are at 100% capacity.

I mean, they've been monitoring your fucking heart rate, and checking your resting heart rate, and checking your blood, your heart rate variability, and what your nutrient levels are.

You're fucking finely tuned.

Get in there and go.

And if you're not, if you didn't cover any of those bases, you're gonna know.

Right.

The back of your head, you're gonna know.

Like, I'm gonna give it my best, but boy, I don't have a big gas tank, and I could have trained harder.

And

I'm

so damn excited about this.

This seems like this

the blind spot that still is there to be taken advantage of for preparing for peak performance.

Daryl Royal, coach of the University of Texas that won a couple of national championships here at Texas, had always said

if you've got 12 games in the year,

you can

expect for your team to be at peak performance level two Saturdays out of 12.

You want to make sure that those two Saturdays are against the toughest teams.

You want to make sure that the other ones where they're like, ah, okay, they did well, but they didn't play to their peak performance are against the good teams.

And you want to do your best to make sure that the days that they're off, you're playing the shitty teams that you can beat, even when you're not mentally there.

That seems like so much more opportunity for that number to rise today to have a much higher number that you can be ready for peak performance.

Who are the best preparers

in, I don't know, MMA, in your mind, that are not.

All the champions.

When you get to a championship level, when you get to Alashandre Pantojo, or when you get to, you know,

Islam Makachev, when you get to like that level, they're all,

you're at a championship level, they're all, they all have impeccable preparation.

They're all.

Yes.

It's impeccable.

Impeccable.

And so the team is a market for error.

It's measured.

It's time.

This is.

Yeah.

They're all dialed in with diet.

They're dialed in with their weight.

They're dialed in with strength and conditioning.

They're dialed in with their sparring.

It's impeccable.

You can't compete at a world-class level today and not have that.

It's not possible.

So, physically?

Yeah.

Mentally?

Yeah.

Are these two different coaches?

Are these one kind of people?

Some people don't have mental coaches at all.

Some elite fighters have no mental coaches.

Okay.

But some of them do.

Some of them, like, we had this guy, Brandon Epstein, the other day, that he works with quite a few UFC fighters, and he's got a very specific protocol that he mentally prepares them for, and he coaches them through things and

sets up a way to visualize and see yourself performing and see yourself doing things, and how you view your performance, and to get you into a mindset where once you get into that octagon, you're locked into this pathway instead of straying and letting anxiety and fear overcome you, which can happen to fighters.

But then there's other guys that don't have any coaches for that at all.

They just have the mindset already and they're comfortable with what they have and they just stay disciplined and just go in there.

It's very personal because everybody's brain is different.

They all have like different ways of expressing themselves, different ways.

How much has technology and diet and stuff helped?

A lot.

Yeah, a lot.

A lot.

Technology,

just understanding nutritional balances, understanding like when you do a nutrient analysis of your blood work, like, oh, you're deficient in niacin,

this is your, probably you're wearing down, you don't have enough B12 in your system, making sure you get the correct amount of protein.

Like you can't, you can't miss any of those things if you want to achieve peak performance.

You have to have everything, your hydration, your electrolytes, everything has to be dialed in.

Your sleep, which is one of the biggest ones.

Like this is like a lot of these young guys.

The problem is they still go out and party.

They're still hanging out with girls till two o'clock in the morning and then they're at training at 8 a.m like you can't do that and be a professional and expect to be world class or expect to beat the guys who are just as good as you but get that preparation they're gonna have an advantage yeah yeah

you know the argument of athletes you know well who was better then or now what would they have done then or what this this

my my I think

that we've athletes have evolved and the athletes we have now are just better than athletes ever were.

Yeah, I think so.

They're bigger, they're more powerful, they're more focused, they're more specific,

that they're just better.

That if they played in that time, they would be that much better then, even than they are now.

Yeah.

Seems to be, I think we're just evolving that way.

They also have the benefit of watching people do it before them and do it really well so they aspire to that level and then to surpass that level.

Whereas those people were pioneers.

Yeah.

Larry Bird didn't have a lot of people to watch play basketball before Larry Bird.

You know, there was a few, but you know, black and white footage.

It's not like you didn't see it every day.

You didn't have it on the internet.

Now, kids, they can just watch every Jordan highlight reel, every time LeBron James has scored, every Steph Curry three-pointer.

They could watch it anytime they want, and then that is a level that they're aspiring to.

Think of all the football games that kids can watch now and analyze.

Think of all the fights that people coming up now that want to be a martial artist, they can watch.

And so they aspire to this level that has already been achieved by the greatest of all time, and then they want to surpass that.

Which is what human beings have always done athletically all throughout time.

It's not like guys who broke records in the 1930s, we don't break those today.

Those are not the same records.

Those don't hold up.

We 100% get better.

From 90 years ago to today, there is no comparison.

The athletes are far better, and they're going to continue.

90 years from now,

probably, if there's humans, they'll probably be far better.

You know, there's experiments that have happened in the NFL, you know, and I think I think this is correct.

But I was always a Washington, was then the Redskins fan.

And I think it was 1986 or 1988, they had the heaviest offensive line, and they averaged 286.

Somewhere around there, those numbers.

Big fellas.

Pretty close, right?

But compared to today, that would be the lightest.

Right.

Nice.

And then Dallas with Nate Newton and those guys had a point where they were going, oh, we're going to get guys up to 330.

Oh, let's get them to 340.

And they peaked when some of them got to 360.

The bone marrow, they were big, but they lost agility and speed.

And they went, uh-oh, we hit the ceiling.

We went past it.

We got to come back.

Interesting.

These are the hogs.

These are the hogs.

Look at those hogs.

Look at that guy in the middle with a mustache.

Oh, that's Rust Grimm.

Boy, I was big fellows.

And that's Joe Jacobi over here, 66.

Big fellas.

The hogs.

What a great name.

Yeah.

That's hilarious.

But they hit the top of, like Dallas,

they went too far.

The thing was bigger is better, so let's get bigger.

And then all of a sudden, agility went.

And they went, oh, it's not 360.

It's

come back down.

Well, believe it or not, the UFC heavyweight division has a weight class.

You can't be over 265 pounds.

You can't?

No.

They have to weigh to fight for the UFC heavyweight title, you must weigh 265 pounds or below.

So you're 270.

You've got to lose weight.

You don't have, you don't have to.

You got to win.

It's happened before where guys had to lose weight to fight heavyweight.

Tim Silvia, when he was the UFC heavyweight champion, had to cut weight to hit the 265-pound weight class.

He was so big that like 265 was a struggle for him to get down to.

Wow, isn't that number going to have to.

Well, I would assume it should, but the problem is there's actually a heavyweight class above that that's super heavyweight.

But we've never had that in in the UFC.

There's never been a single super heavyweight fight in the UFC.

Everything has always been inside the 265-pound weight class, which I think is real weird.

Where did that number come from?

I don't know.

The numbers are real weird anyway because there's giant gaps in them.

It's like one of the major problems with MMA is that there's a lack of weight classes.

So in boxing, there's weight classes all you got 126, 130, 135.

It goes 135 to 140, 140, 147, 147, 54 with the UFC it's like 35 45 55 then it goes 70 85 so you got a 15 pound weight difference and then it goes 205 so you got 20 points and then you got 265 so that's 60 pounds for for heavyweight it's crazy the the gaps are just too big all right they're gigantic so that's a major problem with MMA in that there's less weight classes than there should be and then you have a cap on heavyweight which is bananas like you should have no cap.

Heavyweight should be, how big is this guy?

Like, let him fight.

You think you can handle him?

Come in.

Yeah.

I mean, what about the mountain?

That guy from Game of Thrones?

If that guy had a fight in the UFC, he wouldn't be able to make weight.

He's too big.

That guy's almost 400 pounds.

You know?

Yeah, I never knew that.

I thought heavyweight's like...

265 and up, 250 and up.

It should be.

Whatever you want to come in with.

That's what it should be.

Yeah.

But there really should be a weight class around 225.

There's something like that.

What class would that be?

You just name a new class.

Well, boxing has something like that.

What is the boxing weight class that's like below heavyweight?

There's cruiser weight, but then there's a new one.

There's a recent one over the past few years that they've developed.

But that's one thing that boxing does a much better job with, I think, is providing fighters the correct weight class where they can compete in.

What is it called?

Cruiserweight.

I think there's another one that they're calling.

They're calling it.

God, I can't remember the name of it.

Super Cruiserweight?

Super Cruiserweight.

Yeah, that's it.

I think they called it something different, though.

They had a name for it.

Eh.

Whatever.

Maybe you'll find it.

Maybe not.

But the point is, 265 is the limit.

So, like, Francis Nganu, when he was the heavyweight champion, he used to have a cut weight.

He had to lose weight to get down to 265.

And then

how much is he putting on that last week?

He's probably putting another 10 on, at least.

He's not losing a ton, but he's got to watch his calorie output.

He's a massive human.

Hey, I met him in Saudi Arabia.

Fucking guy's so big.

He's so big.

That's a real tragedy that him and the UFC couldn't figure it out.

That bothers me a lot.

Because that guy was...

He was the scariest heavyweight champion of all time, for sure.

He put guys in orbit.

He would hit them and you just go, oh.

it would hurt you like watching it.

You're like, oh no.

All men are not created equal.

That's another problem with fighting.

No matter how much preparation you have, no matter how intelligent you are, some people are faster and hit harder than you.

And you ain't going to fix that in the gym.

You'll get a little better, but you're never going to bridge that gap.

Yeah.

I...

Had a dream of being an NBA basketball player.

Did you?

Was that your dream?

For a while.

How old were you now?

I was young and I was like, I'm going to dunk.

And no matter how much,

this guy sitting here would have worked out and hustled.

I was never going to be able to dunk, bro.

Didn't have the innate ability.

Didn't have the DNA.

Didn't have the makeup.

I bet you could.

I bet you could, over time.

I bet someone could teach you how to dunk.

I bet if someone got you on a serious training program when you're younger, right now it would be rough.

It'd be rough tracking.

It'd be rough on the tendons.

Yes.

Like a little lot of stress.

When you get to be our age, it's like, maybe you shouldn't be dunking.

How about take dunking off the menu?

Yeah, well, that was what it was.

But when you're young, I think you could teach a guy, but it would, you know, it's not as easy as that.

Like, for some people, they could just dunk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that thing about not everyone being created equal.

Yeah, you've got to have innate ability.

Oh, yeah.

And the hustle.

The work ethic.

If you got both, and there's a lot of,

look, there's a lot of five-star players who don't have the hustle.

And then there's a lot of some of the most talented ones, right?

Because it comes too easy to them.

And some of the ones that aren't as talented, but just will not stop.

They will not stop pushing because they had to work harder for everything they ever did.

They have that extra gear, and that allows them to be champions.

I hear more and more CEOs

saying,

Give me Johnny and Jane Hustle

from Western Kentucky

before

Belinda and Joseph from Harvard.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Do you mean this one that's ready to come hustle, that's ready to get scrappy, adapt, work, press the edges on the front and the back end?

Yeah.

Give me that.

And someone who's all in.

Yeah.

You want someone who's all in.

You don't want someone who's like looking at the clock, wants to leave.

Someone who's just like, doesn't feel like they're being appreciated enough.

You want someone who's like fully all in on their work.

Do you think

there's theories about with AI coming that now more than ever, that's what you need is the one that

has more of a liberal arts education.

I know a little about a lot of things and I can hit many different avenues rather than be an expertise in one certain thing.

I mean it's like just what, six years ago, you tour the campuses and we're like, computer programming.

That's what you want your child to be.

That's what we need.

Right.

No, you don't.

Now it's all done.

Still telling you, don't get into programming.

So what specifics are the jobs or the creations, the vocations that are going to be out there for our youth here coming up that are going to be like, that's how you're going to make it?

I question the college education now.

I question the worth of it.

How much is it still a knowledge factory that has not adapted to changing times and needs in the workforce?

And how much of it needs to be updated for getting young men and women prepared to go into the workforce?

Yeah, it's a good question.

I think it's really unknown territory.

And I think AI is going to take jobs away that we never thought we were going to lose.

I think lawyers are off.

I think they're in trouble.

Coders are gone.

Accountants are gone.

Accountants are gone.

Yeah, it's going to be really fucking weird.

It's going to be really weird for Hollywood.

I mean, you've seen some of these films.

Have you seen the old Star Wars that they're doing?

They're remaking Star Wars with AI with old Luke Skywalker.

Yeah.

Like when he was young.

Like when Luke Skywalker's, they're doing completely new scenes that look exactly like

HD versions of Star Trek, Star Wars in 1975.

It's what it looks like.

But it's in HD today with AI using Mark Hamill's voice, so it sounds exactly like him as young Luke Skywalker.

It's bananas, man.

It's bananas.

There's a lot of weirdness with

music.

There's a lot of weirdness with literature.

You're going to have all sorts of AI.

So no one knows what's going to survive this.

I think I assume that a bunch of people at the end of the day are going to get really sick of artificially created things and want something that they know was made by a person.

Whether it's a book that is made by a person or a song, like an Oliver Anthony, I think we're going to want

a tangible.

We're going to want books.

Yeah, books are going to be like, you know, some people just love

vinyl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Love them.

They just love the pressing the needle down and hearing the crackle.

And that's, that's what,

there's going to be a lot of that still.

People are going to want to buy books from people that actually wrote the book.

They're going to want to go to see a guy perform music in an actual club where you see the guy on stage, you know it's live.

There.

is always going to be a desire for handmade things.

A guy made this table.

I know him, you know.

But other than that, man, no one knows.

It's the unknown because no one knows what the capabilities of these things are going to be.

Well, and

the tech, the

AI tech companies keep saying, no, trust is a lot of jobs are going to be lost, but AI is going to create so many other jobs.

But I haven't heard anyone answer what those jobs are going to be.

Yeah, I don't even think they know, honestly.

They don't even know why these things are so good at what they are good at they they keep getting smarter and smarter and they blow them away like elon told me that every week he has like these new discoveries there's like what this is crazy he's like every week we're blown away so they just it just keeps getting more and more capable they we don't know where this is going so if you're in college right now like i mean

It's so cliche to say follow your dream, but really do follow your fucking dream because that might be the only thing that you've got.

Right.

Because if you think you're just going to get a really good job in an industry that might be completely wiped out in three years by AI,

a lot of people are going to be going down that path.

A lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is crime going to go up?

People out of jobs.

Is there going to be, you know, what are these people going to do?

Could I think it's universal basic income?

It's probably the only way to solve, at least on the short term,

how we're going to lose a lot of stuff.

Look at you, man.

You got a lot of little tabs in there.

I do.

You're very organized.

You're very organized.

Well,

these are ones that I thought

could be

cool conversation starters for

us.

And we've kind of covered actually some of them.

You read anyone read poems on the show before?

Yeah, Lex Friedman.

Oh, there you go.

All right.

You want to find a good one?

We'll wrap it up with a great poem.

Yeah, man.

Let's go.

This book is out right now?

No, September the 16th.

Oh, okay.

September 16th.

This is a fun one that I wrote.

It's kind of based on

extra credit.

It's kind of relying on fate or extra credit that we get, that sometimes we rely on the extra credit

participation trophies is where this one kind of started for me.

So I mean, it's a fun one.

And it might get us talking about something.

It's called Tips Included.

When extra credit's included, credit doesn't get its due.

When more gives us less, the exchange rate's gone askew.

When amnesty is offered going into the crime, we're more bound to commit it because there is no fine.

We start playing to tie instead of going for the win.

When participation's the trophy for every cow and the pen.

If I stay on the porch because you picked up the slack, when you look over your shoulder, I can't have you back.

If there is no curfew, we'll stay out all night.

No tab at our bar, we get drunk and start a fight.

All these long lenses got us losing our sight.

You keep lifting it for me, I'm going to lose all my might.

When a four-star duty suits a six-star rate, we take our hands off the wheel and rely on fate.

Eating all we can at the all-we can eat buffet gives us a 3.8 education and a 4.2 GPA.

We steal from ourselves and get away with the scam.

What's the measure of merit with less give a damn?

These unlimited options, mmm, they sure got me confused, while all the conveniences keep me properly lubed.

In this red light district, with the whore of inflation, The ROI's math don't pay for the vacation.

So let's just admit it, this extra credit's quite a fluffer.

Because when the tip's included, the service will suffer.

That's great.

That's really good.

And dead on.

You fuck, Aaron.

Right on the head.

Perfect.

It's a fun one, man.

I mean, yeah.

I think I came when my

11th place team got the same size trophy as the first place team.

And I was like, wait, they went 0-10, but the winning team went 10-0.

You kind of like saying, oh, the winning team went 5-5 5-5 and the losing team went 5-5.

I don't get it.

Don't hurt the feelings.

Don't lose.

Don't get told no.

Your feelings have to get hurt sometimes.

That's how you learn and grow.

And you can't protect anybody from that.

And that's the problem.

We want to do that with our children.

All my best friends, all my favorite people had terrible, chaotic childhoods.

And they all became very interesting people.

But I don't want my kids to have a terrible, chaotic childhood.

I don't want want to have like a wonderful, love-filled, you know, bountiful childhood.

Yeah.

But that comes with.

Yeah.

Well, I think they have to find things that

they find that are difficult, that they get engrossed with,

that they really love to pursue.

And fortunately, my kids do that.

But I think you have to have a struggle.

You have to have a task.

If you just want to like, oh, you get a trophy too.

Everybody gets a trophy.

It's okay.

There's no losers.

It got hard.

Okay.

Quit.

When my kids were real little, one of my daughters was playing in a soccer game, and

they wouldn't say the score.

I'm like, but I know the fucking score.

I just watched.

They lost.

You can't say there's no score.

This is so crazy.

But they were doing this in California.

They had like scoreless games.

I'm like, okay.

I mean,

but look, why are you trying to score then?

Why are you trying to score if you don't count it?

This doesn't make any sense.

This is soccer.

Soccer has a

damage.

Why is our goalie trying to keep them from scoring?

Exactly.

What's the point?

Give this gully a little credit.

Everybody, what's up with the rules?

Pick it up with your hands.

This is stupid.

If you don't have a loser, you don't have a desire to get better to become a winner.

That's the part of the process.

Sometimes kids lose and they cry.

And by the way, if you don't ever go through that, then you don't understand how to lose.

So you never develop a healthy ability to manage competitiveness.

Yep.

Amen.

Some people just never get that, man.

They never get healthy competition.

It makes for a very unhealthy person to not be able to just compete.

Well, especially once they leave the house.

Yes.

And they're on their own because the world sure plays by the rules and the score is kept.

Yes.

And you don't win everyone.

Yeah.

No matter how good you are.

Yes.

And

there's nobody coming back in to tuck you in bed and say, it's okay.

Right.

Let's put some ice on it.

You're wake up yourself, man.

That wake-up call.

It's cold.

It's cold-blooded.

I got a cool movie coming out called The Lost Bus.

It'll be out in October.

It's going to be in theaters for a couple weeks and it goes on Apple and streams.

You remember the Paradise Fires in 2018 in Paradise, California?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think the number is 30 people or so died.

Jamie Lee Curtis heard this story on NPR.

It went to Jason Bloom, and Jason Bloom went to Paul Greengrass, who's the director of Captain Phillips, United 93,

Black Sunday.

Really good action director, but also with a good personal and dramatic story in it.

And then they came to me for it.

And there were a lot of heroic people

at that time that went ran towards the crisis instead of away from the crisis.

But this one particular story about this bus driver

and this teacher that

got 22 kids to safety was the story we picked to tell.

And we went and shot it in Santa Fe.

This guy that I play is,

oh, here's the trailer.

Yeah, we're not listening to it.

Just tell me while this trailer is going on.

Okay.

So

this guy, Kevin, in our story, comes back home because his dad has passed away and he's going to take care of his widowed mother and try to reunite with his son, which, by the way, check this out, Joe.

My mom plays my mom and Levi plays my son.

Oh, wow.

In a movie, man.

Your mom plays your mom?

That's cool.

So he comes back through that and he gets a part-time job as a school bus driver.

He goes out that morning.

There's a fire coming across the canyon, as they always do, no problem.

You know, first responders head out.

Well, by the afternoon, it had gotten out of hand and was jumping the canyon.

And so that afternoon, as he's now decided, oh shit, I got to go back and get my mom and my son.

Neither one of them even drive, get them to safety, on the way home, barging home to go, barge down the highway to go get them.

A call comes through dispatch.

I got 22 stranded kids on the east side of town.

Is anyone over there with an empty bus?

Whoa.

Guess who's got an empty bus?

Fuck.

I want to go get my mom and my son, man.

But he takes the call and says, I'll go get them.

He goes and gets them.

A teacher, their teacher, gets on the bus, and this is their story of about eight hours of going through hell and how and if they got out of it.

And really

awesome adrenaline-pumped action, which you're going to get from Green Grass and a story like that.

Like the fire.

This is as good as a fire movie as there's been.

The fire is a fucking predator.

It's from the POV.

It's like Jaws.

The fire is actually like the shark and Jaws in this thing.

Plus, a really cool story of redemption, fathers, sons,

and

you know, two people doing what they can to survive when

there were no contact.

All the telephone towers are down, and the dispatch was down.

No one had any contact.

So he didn't know if his mom and son were okay.

He didn't know where to go, where the traffic jams were.

And what happened is the first responders left early.

To go get the fires when they got there, it had already jumped the canyon.

So when they were coming back to town, the mandatory evacuation, the whole town's leaving.

It couldn't get back in town.

So

it's a bit of a horror film in that way.

But movie on fire is about it, man.

Yeah.

That is what it feels like if you ever get stuck in one of those things.

It feels like a monster.

Yeah.

That sounds awesome.

It's pretty good.

It's tough.

Tough movie, but a good one.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Well, I can't wait to see it.

Cool, man.

Thank you for being here, man.

It was a lot of fun.

I really enjoyed it.

Thank you.

And that poem was awesome.

That was really good.

So dead on the head.

Thanks.

That's the best participation trophy poem of all time.

It was really good.

The book is called

There It Is Right There, Poems and Prayers.

Out soon, pre-ordered now.

Did you do the audio?

You did.

Of course, you did.

You have to.

You can't have an actor doing your voice.

How dare you?

That would be impossible.

Okay.

Thank you, brother.

Appreciate you.

Goodbye, everybody.