Joe Rogan Experience #1266 — Ben Anderson Transcript

Transcript

0:00 You remember the last time you had Shane on? What happened? I wasn't sure. rather than realizing it's actually happening in real life right now. And there was a town called Marja that was and then just fight their way out from the middle of the town. And as soon as the sun came up, all of the So they're setting up the perfect ambush. I thought we were all going to get killed.

3:10 targets and picking them off and then the taliban ran out of ammunition and the actual ambush lasted wasn't even a good night's sleep but yeah but yeah once you survive a few you i mean i remember when I think it is. I mean, I think with me, it's slightly different. I mean, I took part in this MDMA therapy for PTSD recently. And one of the revelations that came out as a result of that was

5:16 really had started thinking that so the the mdma therapy made you sort of look at your rational perspective? Thank you. I haven't stopped, and I don't think I'm going to stop. It's horrible to be there. It has an impact. out. Has it made any difference whatsoever? I'm not sure. Is it because when we do get rid of a leader That has failed miserably.

8:10 I mean, Bill Clinton would say that's his biggest regret, Well, it's so hard when you look at the rest of the world and you see these horrific conditions and you see warlords it's not real that you're you're covering it through this this lens so you're immune from it and it just doesn't make sense yeah doesn't uh you like if you hear five guys get killed in a

10:24 How is everyone not talking about this every single day and i still feel like this for so long was, it was numbness to physical danger when I was there, there's going to be nothing. and how much really important stuff doesn't get traction. of time that guy puts into an article yeah this is a it's such a strange time because it doesn't You know, it's like porn, right?

13:17 Nothing is verifiable now no matter how much evidence exists small video clip no one's going to see the full thing and i think that's what what trump has people but i think he yelled at people when he was a real estate mogul i mean i think you know everyone can accept as a basic fact like what you know um uh i mean syria yeah you know the white helmets there are some fairly serious people

16:06 I mean, Seymour Hersh, I think, has walked it back a little bit since, believing rightly that the government lies about all kinds of things and that's got him into a So I don't know what happens. I mean, maybe if you just do this for too long, you just You know what I'm saying? Venezuela is a very strange one And I do not know. And if you support the opposition, then you find yourself alongside John Bolton and Donald Trump, which means that a lot of people are going to automatically attack you.

18:56 that do want genuine elections. But some people will say, well, just because George Bush in another cushy job behind the glass desk in the studio now it seems like you can go straight to the we're getting stupider or dumber in this country I watch people fight over it on Twitter, his biggest inspiration and he's doing that i guess we could agree some people are saying that

21:54 Is that really evidence enough? clearly so like what is he you know he's like some troll murderer some troll mass murderer It's like you see so many of these mass murders now. you said we're going straight to the argument about who to blame who did he follow and you know people and when people they rely on biased websites which many of them do whether it's

25:01 my gut feeling tells me i need to find a head not even a story, a headline that justifies my gut feeling about this. I'm sure your work makes a lot of difference to the people that pay attention to it. I think that would be considered very good viewing figures. They probably got 10 million. understand this or is it just they're just frustrated to confuse themselves so just lashing

27:58 No, I'm not sure it did. to be felt down the road i don't know it feels like there are that there is a generation of Well, sometimes the feedback you do get is on Twitter. covering all these various uh russian troll farms and how they uh so how they essentially going on about the new yorker but a piece came out in the new york i don't mean to keep on going

30:42 player gets fouled that's a blatant foul he should get sent off it's 100 blatant tribalism yeah very few objective people very few legitimate centrists Your occupation, depending upon your occupation i mean You relied on Rolling Stone, New York Times, whatever, washington post whatever newspaper was covering whatever I hope so. Right now, I don't see what that what that looks like what that looks like is the best way yeah to describe it what does that look like i mean

33:31 too oh yeah so you're not part of the conversation if you're not man i walked into a restaurant the Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. to implement it in our deal no we just went to to the fucking Verizon store and picked up a new phone. like a trust fund kid or something like that. the discipline required to learn how to use one and create it and build it that we have in this ultimate access to all these things constantly.

36:07 yeah and again that's that's not what we're doing well i don't think we operate very well without Yeah, it's amazing how quickly we become lazy and complacent. And the fact that we can, you know, I mean, within a few hours here, we could have one of the best meals possible in the world. I was on this trip in Prince of Wales. Everything. going to be like when everything has just been at their fingertips from day one forever forever no

38:43 You know? A few people have tried it. of patriotism in those countries and appreciation in those countries People outside of your circle and your bubble. restaurants and right i lived on the dividing line between the bit that was getting gentrified and Right. husband had a real fight about it because she said no we got to put our kid in the in the bad

42:34 And, you know, they want a bit of diversity, but not too much diversity. I mean, street by street, segregated. and it's really much closer to a 50-50 split Yeah. I experienced that when I was in London as well. It's so strange. out what he wants to do and he's thinking about moving to new york and getting a degree in finance and trying to figure out what he wants to do. And he's thinking about moving to New York and getting a job in Wall Street.

45:25 your reward is things. see yeah but what do you actually do oh i i look for fluctuations in international grain markets I'd be like, look at this motherfucker. It's whatever circle that you're in. and you're going to get the mortgage, That's what they say. Yeah. And it actually can be to the tune of millions of dollars. popular. So another place where they moved to?

48:50 I mean, they're... So I turned on ESPN last night they have an eSports arena are 25 million dollars earl spence is the real deal i mean i thought mikey garcia would outbox him for a few rounds But it wasn't just the size. Yes, I do. It reminded me of that. Yeah, look at the size difference. talk he's so smooth and do you remember the smiley winky right felix trinidad fight yes i do

50:52 Is he, like, working as a, he's helping them promote these things? he was shunned i mean hated yeah mass shame across the whole world for years yeah until he beat davy Wow. Davey Moore wound up dying in a crazy accident where he was working on his car in his driveway and it fell on him a bit guilty you know in MMA I know sometimes the ref tries to get in there.

52:56 while he's out cold. It's because those guys would just beat the fuck out of each other. know and you can admire floyd yeah defensive skills but he's never going to have that that Most of them are broke before they even retire. wrote a play i think and he teaches uh actors how to how to box as well like you know when they're like fighting i'm not a fighter he goes i'm an athlete i'm just good at it and i was like wow

56:17 i really like that guy yeah yeah before i met him you know he's got that picture in vanity fair of Yeah, I couldn't be a bigger fan of his. yeah yeah i mean the you know when when i was getting the ptsd treatment numb numbness was the Then a new producer joined Vice, a guy called Stephen Bailey. What is the difference between doing it in a therapeutic environment?

58:26 you know gently nudge you towards the right topic of conversation but always makes it after the three month trial. So during the three-month trial how many your friends and enjoy your family. And he said that gave him permission. And that was Well, maybe I didn't really experience it because I came out unscathed. We were stepping on bodies to get through rooms.

1:01:00 So we stepped into this, and I remember just looking so bored, i didn't think i was important enough to get to get shot and hurt and have medics rush over to One of the reasons you feel guilty is you do get respect for being brave. and then they just start talking to you about the things that are troubling you? And that keeps you up for, you up for six, seven, eight hours.

1:03:48 and even thought I'm not going to have a family and kids and house and dog. what is it particularly about MDMA what What is it about? I mean, ignoring the other parts of your brain that provide context and that say that bang outside is just a car backfiring it's not an id or someone And I was kind of saying, yeah, I thought this was a revelation. I think it's two or three days

1:06:18 take it would just dance and sweat right all night dehydrate yeah yeah maybe maybe it's a shitty mdma maybe it's real shit if that gets as good a result to the first two trials which i'm sure it will then then i think therapy but but i think i said it before that you know in the first session i was planning the next I mean, I thought I would retire after this therapy,

1:07:56 There isn't this pressure to be where people all parties to end this war and she was she was literally on the front line where a nurse just just begged all parties to end this war mostly synonymous for drone attacks drone strikes is when we think about yemen we think about the drone strikes that we hear about on wedding parties the accident the the number of people

1:09:48 I think they're taking an approach to Yemen in Yemen it's fairly but it's not That's the really shocking thing there. I mean, I think for a while the only thing the U.S. was doing in Yemen was drone strikes against al-Qaeda. basically no one was punished for it. iraq and afghanistan is that now we're killing guys like him with drone strikes or special forces

1:13:17 still still out there like it was so egregious and so crazy that this guy walks into the embassy Yeah. families very easily and that that takes a whole other level of of bravery the woman who's raped And how long were you in jail for? I was roughed up a bit. What were they trying to get you to confess to? by saying that. And luckily I appeared on a couple of docs

1:16:27 Shane actually saw it, and that's when he first reached out in some famous protest in 1999 where the police But I had no idea at the time. But, I mean, one of the things we tried to cover was the you know former ambassador to sa Arabia, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, going to get rid of the Taliban. So the Iranians said, OK, here's a map of the Taliban leaders'

1:19:06 And it was the axis of evil speech. and Iran is sponsoring the insurgency and giving them sophisticated IEDs and I mean, when you actually go there, the people are so smart and so educated and potentially such, such good allies. That's just never going to happen. I get paid to pay attention to this for a living and i feel out of my depth regularly and that's focusing

1:22:01 Yeah. But he certainly seems like a monster. Yeah, it was booming just a few years ago. Yeah. than double the amount that were murdered in syria jesus yeah i think it was 72 000 yeah and after the world cup and olympics the the trafficking gangs and the police militias just retook all of And during the World Cup Olympics, they put billboards next to that road to block the view of the favelas.

1:23:50 leg so he was lying on the ground put four rifles to his head and just unloaded and his chin was everyone will assume he's a drug dealer. I believe it was one in three rio residents what yeah what happened afterwards right and those areas were abandoned as soon as the world cup and then then now they're down on their luck and now they've changed their tune and saying that it

1:27:24 chemically it sounds preposterous until you look at his frame I mean it did not have the frame of a person who then he had kids to own his kids he looked like his brothers. I don't know. I mean, I think that's just been pretty much established. But we had a similar case in the UK with Jimmy Savile, the most popular. Michael Jackson looked like a monster eventually.

1:29:58 yeah but honestly in his lifetime this was not discussed not even questioned yeah and like i i mean yeah you think now you'd you'd right you'd kill yourself if you didn't you know right intervene And to the conversation we had earlier, I remember that great documentary where a guy protests in front of the statue. Jesus, man, this show's a bummer. You normally can't cry at all?

1:32:55 oh there's there's going to be this what would have felt like a breakthrough and still never Oh, what's it like in Yemen, Ben? What is it like when you go to dinner with fellow war journalists? other people from your background, from your country. But I don't hang out with them day in, day out. Or even worse, the Brian Williams type situation. well known and aren't well supported. What is it about the talking head in front of the camera that we want so badly?

1:36:00 We're now talking to our guy live from wherever. But now everything I just think the risk is too high, full stop, for the entire crew. i just think if you're there you're in you're obviously in the wrong place right right and it's I mean, in Mosul, we filmed the Iraqi army attacking a house where ISIS was shooting from the house and there were three or four families in the house.

1:38:38 Those are the moments you're trying to capture. But there's not much of that there. in terms of what to do when the refugees come. who I'd been with in Afghanistan who got these special immigrant visas And, you know, we turned away Jewish refugees on what to do with refugees. I mean, that's a level of viciousness and ignorance that I just can't fathom.

1:41:32 immigration but yet it's comprised entirely of immigrants yeah there's a great um do you know Richard Spencer was the intellectual argument. I literally don't know what he stands for what he whole world was like that you could just kind of go wherever you would prosper and wherever things didn't but they do with with muslims what's fear of the unknown you know it's a lot of it

1:44:20 You'd think that, you know, having traveled to most of those countries, places people have a lot of faith in trump you know like donald trump's going to protect us culture provides more freedom and more economic opportunity more prosperity yeah um and i haven't we knew were good people. A lot of people believe that. A lot of people believe that over here as well right yeah but that still doesn't

1:47:22 we're now negotiating with the Taliban where they might get a very good deal. That's a massive humiliation for the US. And also Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, And I said, of course I do. he's met far more senior people than me That's been proven many times. I mean, what are the numbers of troops That's not even news here. No, it's conveniently ignored. Yeah.

1:50:30 just drinking beer and relaxing yeah i think i tried to do my bit i'm not sure how much of a bit Do you have an exit strategy? but it feels somewhat useful. very useful you've dedicated so much time doing this that if you were to make you know documentary I mean, Um, three months off and go to Costa Rica and surf and do yoga and read nice books and just then see how I feel.

1:53:14 see it yeah cover it do you think you really could take three months and go to Yeah. Why don't you just do that then? and enjoy it and love it you can go for a big dinner and enjoy it and love it but that's about Oh, wow. Maybe there's more of those in your future. And they all have three world champions. up that's incredible and people walk past it and it's just this door. There's no sign. People wouldn't even know.

1:55:32 It looks like a derelict building. and Henry Akin one day walks in and your mind is constantly firing. He's learning Mandarin, I think, a whole group of us had dinner Really? But he says exactly the same thing. Right. But it seems like there's almost no effort at rehabilitation. environments and horrible situations and the the idea that we just take people and lock them in

1:59:30 redemption you fuck up once you do something wrong one robbery you get accused of yeah fucking up oh Yeah. and ensuring that they don't lose, but five years you will. What we do with people in this country when someone commits a crime is, it's pretty stunning. are concentrating on think about all the part of what's wrong to model. than anywhere else on the planet Earth.

2:01:48 It's really crazy. you know, and you know, before I was born, but you, you just don't don't see you know like streetwise policemen who were for psychedelics remapping the world there really is there's a moment in the frivolous yeah there's a moment in the mdma documentary you did where i interview MDMA is a great doorway because of its work with people with trauma,

2:03:44 Yeah. I mean, anything that makes people compassionate and kind to themselves as I think it's entirely possible. They become a slightly different version of who they were 5, 10, 15 years ago. that are in the community that's least likely to accept psychedelics, right-wing, pro-war, Yeah, exactly. change that i mean how many people are involved in psychotherapy and it doesn't do a goddamn thing

2:06:52 weird. That's exactly success it and then it becomes a business then it can happen i mean once insurance starts covering There's so much potential to this. and, as you said, turned into a successful business. So they want to have it very much controlled, I think it is illegal. Oh, maybe I'm wrong. He owns that Wu-Tang Clan album. Oh, that's hilarious.

2:10:15 The FBI owns the Wu-Tang Clan forbidden album. But what a great marketing tool. A lot. He's a dick. that makes it but huh well it's better than shooting it up because i know that a lot of He's got a video of that. Nothing? I don't know the ins and outs. He's the classic case of the comedian that can never be helped. He just keeps getting better. But, you know, he's a guy fighting demons. Yeah.

2:13:32 people definitely respect him but yeah i'm sure he gives people tag lines and gives them advice these things really see i mean he's very very proactive he's always searching for new things um but then i just found myself saying things and concluding things that I wouldn't normally say. know to your point about neil being so open to trying everything even that even taking that step

2:15:52 To drop that skepticism and to try everything once you take you can't untake it. I just thought I'd say things and accept things It's respected. That's somehow losing sight of what's important and what your role is and what you can do to actually help things, you know? enjoying the things that most people enjoy then that's the price you pay you know that's that's

2:18:22 Thank you very much. Thank you.