Joe Rogan Experience #1783 — Ben Burgis Transcript

Transcript

0:00 the Joe Rogan experience Oh, yeah. Nice. So your book speaks to my heart. and how it hasn't changed. where during weeks that the United States and Russia have been And unfortunately, outrage is what sells. like posting up the brought to you by Pfizer videos and they're trying to get as many views as possible. And they're trying to escape what is this undeniable demise of modern mainstream

4:18 And people don't, you know, and one thing that really disturbs me about this, I mean, like the book is about all of the things that people who I basically agree with are getting wrong, right? multi-party elections. And so I certainly don't want to associate myself with that but look i mean short term i care very much about you know having and watch netflix and you know person b you know one that wants to work uh for for more hours than

6:31 Imagine if you had to have money to get your fire put out. We don't think that. If your house burns And you also shouldn't have to do anything special to get treatment if you're sick, to go to college in the first place. Like should they be paid more doing what they're doing or should they go back to school? You sleep there. How come that's not the same thing with teachers?

8:49 It's so stupid. right, as an ordinary person, if like somebody who has a job like that is paid less. they are here. But so many people think the solution is to you know is to privatize things or you know is is and pursue their interests and find out where they fit in life not going to give you the best work if they're not being paid, you know, 500 times more than

11:43 And I'm glad they get paid well. But, I mean, they should get – it should be like that with all of what I would think of social services, services for the community that we would gladly pay for for taxes, fixing infrastructures, fixing roads. just some of those shitty charities where so much money goes to the people that are working there that very

12:40 means more bureaucracy. you have to jump through. you can at least elect the people who are, you know, who are overseeing it. Whereas if something that are basically allowed to participate at all, Then now you're talking about an institution that there's no democratic control over, right? What does it cost for a stamp? For a buck. And that was – Basic banking services like deposits and withdrawals and stuff like that at the post office?

16:55 Like the mail sometimes goes – I get mail from wrong people sometimes. They just leave them here and we're not here and someone snatched it. Yeah. Well, I don't know. i would just point out is this that like right now there are a lot of people who for one reason or is finding ways, where it makes sense, it might not always make sense, but finding ways that you

19:10 price signals and, you know, firm failure, you probably do need to have. But I do think like at the sort of outer edges of what I would like, that it would be good if it was a long-term goal necessarily directly elect managers because there could be things that are like you know technical But I think that you can I think we could move towards an economy where that was like

21:18 I think it is up to 15 now. Right. You mean like employees vote on pay scales? Yeah, like if you have a worker cooperative. Right. He's living like a guy who banging his girlfriend on a yacht. My fascination with Jeff Bezos is his transformation from nerd to this muscle-looking guy. I love the fact they have to take down a bridge because he made a yacht that

23:14 And then their kids in many cases start out of control because they grew up their entire lives like having this level of wealth that makes it easy to get anybody to do whatever you want. And banging his bombshell girlfriend. Woo! Yeah, I feel what you're saying. Do you lie, my feelings of socialism are there are communities, and it's not just inner cities,

25:10 Yeah, I mean, it can be fixed, but it sure hasn't been. Woods. Mm-hmm. And don't get me wrong. Well, that's exactly it, right? I think that what it's really about is trying to have like a more diverse ruling class. I was just going to say like the Republicans are even worse, right? other people that agree with them so they get in these facebook groups and they they just like you

30:14 So if you're Fox, you scare old conservatives and whatever. Which is a word I hate so much. that are right wing and left wing. like ben shapiro ben shapiro's a lovely guy meet him get to know him he's very nice i don't agree Whenever I talk to him, It's the strangest position. writing. Yeah. Did they say anything about parting oceans? don't, you know, they just seem like a man.

33:47 That's how they like. That guy's gay. thinking about beards and shit. Like a ton of it. And I think that there's something about that sort of structure, that religious structure. and that you have this like moral obligation to be a good person I think that's a Christian I have immense respect for. socialism and he was a really good guy to sort of defend these positions of democratic socialism too

38:30 single thing on a checklist. And that's just not gonna, that's just not gonna work, right? I mean, it drives me crazy when I see people who want all the things that I want who are instead of trying to find but like they haven't necessarily thought through every single thing you know to probably don't have like that motherfucker knows a lot. I go, you're the voice of reason.

41:09 of the Republican folks are going to show up and they're going to vote in person. And then the Yeah. them of the things that are that are important to you like you shouldn't start from a place of do I would like you to talk to him though. that stuff like when you've got that kind of money yeah i mean i think that my suspicion is that it versus what he looks like now.

44:26 And look at his girlfriend. It was a fun party. So he had these glasses dress like this. So everybody dressed like that. They all dressed silly. It was a fun party. And again, I don't Trevor Burrus Look at that. you just look at how it started billions of dollars to be the first trillionaire they were saying like in 2020 I mean, if you think – I mean, we don't have to name the countries.

46:56 that. Yeah. Which you might have to for Biden. then you form these echo chambers. And then some of them are very aggressive in sort of pushing what they consider to be the rigid maintaining of this ideology. like he got kicked off of twitter and that was definitely part of it but like uh he was still know, nobody interrupted him. to speak at CPAC and they canceled that. His book deal got dropped.

52:08 And then he vanished. Yeah. Okay. It's better ideas. these like culture war distractions about who said what in 1995 that we can like get mad at them about. And I think that that's, again, I think there are ways that we have a better society if we do that. But also I think it's crazy that anybody who basically agrees with me about politics would support increased corporate censorship, right? You know, that's going to be owned, you know, like they're going to have, you know, some CEO who's partying like Bezos in that, you know, in that picture, you know, like is, are they, you know, whose side are they going to take when there are future things where people say that something is misinformation?

56:26 was whether there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Or the company saying, no, it's a lie, it's misinformation. Oh, yeah, sorry. Like that's that's how you want them to grow up, I hope. It's a fantastic documentary where it shows that, I mean, this is the difference in our culture today versus then. And this is how we sort things out. Then your ideas might suck and you maybe should look at them it's what maybe you're lazy and you don't want to go through the the

1:00:59 And they could cause us problems if they discuss certain things in an unorthodox way. like everything is the way that it should be, I can, I guess, understand. Is there? Have discussions. got fired when they're trying to organize a union and Starbucks says that, no, they weren't really fired for that. Like not just because like I support free speech, though I do, but also just because like I don't trust at all, right?

1:03:14 you'd get kicked off of social media. COVID, that would be misinformation. But now that's accepted as fact. There's a bunch of those. a hundred percent, that's like, that one seems more like an issue of like Rachel Maddow not understanding, you know, medical science. You know, and, you know, as we established, I am not some, you know, like there are a lot of things that I would rather spend my time on than like trying to sort through all the COVID stuff.

1:05:17 Oh, we lied about that so that like all the masks wouldn't get, you know, get bought up. right? Like once you've shown People – random people on the internet like saying things that might not be true about it or people going on podcasts who might say things that are wrong or like the CDC like admitting that like seatbelts, right? There were a bunch of things they threw out.

1:07:30 had like there's a different time and that's one of the more dangerous things about a thing like a and we brought them together, very popular people Because these people like Weinstein so they put together this thing and twitter fucking banned it and i think the reason why If you get enough people that say, hey, you guys are making a lot of sense. I think that the Democrats and Republicans are too close together in their positions already,

1:10:18 This private business is the way that people distribute information to billions and billions of people. They can do whatever they want because that's what they would say about everything, right? And that can be in certain respects as dangerous as the power of governments. people they disagree with. But to understand that for, I mean, it sounds a little grand, but

1:12:56 Is there something about the way they're looking at the world that maybe there is a perspective oh, you're just creating enemies. You want to be able to pursue your interests and your dreams and your goals. driven into a left or right category. And I believe that many people that are either on the left or on And there's like for human beings, there's a great feeling of camaraderie that comes

1:15:18 regions of the country or like, you know, for the diminishing number of people who still watch cable news, which cable news channel you watch. of debt about it. And so the question is like, how are you going to achieve those things? And should you get mad about? And I think that the problem is that a lot of people are trained to They have these ideas that you have to subscribe to.

1:18:16 What they're doing is they're saying the thing they think that people want them to say. Right. like now Biden's president, it still says on his campaign website, you know, that, that never got Yeah, when's that happening? We need to be actually able to read people's minds. Why did you write this book? And I think that, like, one, to anybody you're trying to appeal to,

1:22:37 mad at like, you know, politicians who commit war crimes. a whole lot of things you agreed with earlier. And the other thing that I really respect about him is that I think that a lot of libertarians, even though they'll agree on paper, like with, yeah, we shouldn't be fighting these wars. change wars. Yeah, because nobody wants to hear about dead kids in Yemen.

1:25:13 Like it's like really that's what you care about? This is a new discussion. When someone's lapping people and they're identifying as female, in terms like what defines who you are. and be a female or be a male? if there's a competition like who's going to create the most babies and it's males versus females and it's people who identify versus as a female versus people who are biologically female

1:28:14 way more about this than I do, but like I have a, I know different like sports have handled it It's like something he created a long time ago. has, like the threshold versus would maintain a reasonable level of fairness you know yeah i don't know what you know without just right? Trevor Burrus Like sports. that had a massive biological advantage. exactly where the rules should be set.

1:32:05 Giant amount? I mean, this is the thing. where they subject everything to mockery. and they had a deeper understanding someone who is biologically male but clearly is much more of a female, experiences and we can learn from them. benefits to the size of the lungs, the size of the heart, the physical what's the right choice and who can make that choice? And when do you have the ability to make

1:35:48 Well, yeah. bad effect you can just wait and it's fine right like whereas like with something like this if you do have that experience that you know that you're that you feel as if you're like trapped in I just think it has to be something that we can discuss. Sure. The problem is when people want to suppress people's ability to make choices right? With people who, who you think are, you know, are wrong about them. You think that they,

1:38:34 issue, right, you know, like they could, you know, like they could land somewhere different from you you know, but about it at the, Hey, I don't care if he's willing to support this thing. Well, I agree with you that writing people off because they don't share all of your opinions No, that's not what they do, man. like, that's like, that's something that like, I think an alien within like 10 minutes of

1:42:28 But I mean like sometimes it will work and the other things just not going to work. at the book didn't read it what if I read it there were so many I mean it's literally true. because they think in their heads that it's always like Germany in 1933. And like, you know, Okay. Italy before they took over there, were in response to with street fighting with the few people

1:46:46 Like who gets to decide what counts as a journalist? But let's define fascism. and strong regimentation of society and the economy I don't see that in our country. They incite violence. Antifa and that's the place where they And they're trying to enforce laws now and arrest people. are like far-right groups who might commit hate crimes etc then like first of all i actually don't

1:50:58 He was like, oh, where's Antifa here, right? The governor plot seems like that was just the equivalent for this stuff. whoever. Yeah, it's like— then a bunch of people can join it, and then they infiltrate it, was, I mean, and obviously it's just not a way to treat a person. problem that's that that's insane behavior that like this is um this serves no good purpose you know

1:54:30 What is a journalist? that are liars, and they work for gigantic corporations, doing it as a person in good faith and putting out the information as you've discovered Like that that's, I mean, that's the most important stuff that journalism can do, right? You could just look at what actually has happened the problem is you as obvious as so many of these points are that like it's there's absolutely no

1:57:30 Yeah. was like mixed to the milkshake somehow listen man i watched him get hit with that that's like And I think Andy Ngo, like as somebody – like the issue is not do I like Andy Ngo because I actually don't, right? certain places, you know, under generally applicable laws. I think that he's, you know, Yeah, physically assaulting people you disagree with.

2:00:46 think that that was, you know, that that was an issue with some people. They, you know, trying to, you know, I think that the stuff in later in the, you know, in the book, that just in general, communicating through social media. It's a way of communicating that takes away so much of what it is to be a human. you know the way you win is through vitriol it's a shitty way to communicate and one of the best

2:03:12 Or they just don't like, or, or they just like, you know, they like the tweet, ha, right. And then at some point in the past, like, I think like maybe 15 years ago or something, lies that I used to tell, you know, when I was a health insurance executive. He quote tweeted it and said, and I quote, oh, my God, this fucking piece of shit actually Who's that?

2:06:00 that it was like one of those aha moments where it's like, that's what it is. That is the thing that separates human beings and normal human interaction between social media interaction. Sure, but I think that's almost a simplistic version of it because I don't think they meant that. And then it became Arab Spring. as you drive by limit is. But just that moment of validation that you get from driving past and see the two numbers

2:08:44 harder to communicate with people. It makes it harder to for the bottom line of these companies. I actually haven't seen it, but I know what it is. Like they're just like unredeemable – Yeah, no, exactly. Perspective that they have been consistent with their entire career So, I mean, I think that's an example of a larger thing, but I think it's a really interesting example.

2:13:11 Like, look, the things that actually create like misery for working people in the United Is that person a good person or a bad person? slightly different angle you know than than we would in the normal course of things you know the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, there was this wave of protests and riots Yeah, and that's a good step. You know, I think that I think that I don't think it's a complete

2:16:51 That's easy because it doesn't cost them anything. Yeah. which don't get me wrong, And they're really cheaply made. that's named after a Confederate general Trevor Burrus Yeah. But again, why did you – why comedians to politics can get, right? if I write something for Jacobin and, you know, some people get upset about that, okay, at least And it's also kind of a love letter to his friend that committed suicide for supporting him, was attacked for supporting him, and then she jumped off a fucking building and committed suicide.

2:22:39 What the tweets were? But in no way was it transphobic. And like it really sinks in in that. And it's like, OK, but literally within like two minutes of him saying, I'm on team TERF, But I think – and I've got to think that a lot of people who write articles like this must understand that on some level, right? That they, that like, this is not how Freddie DeBoer, the commentator?

2:25:50 Right. You know, that it's like that sort of constantly sifting through things to like find evidence that people have have committed some kind of sin or or or infraction. Like if you're saying something in a stand-up special, like generally speaking, not every sentence, There's like a lot more to that. Yeah. Okay, yeah, get rid of them Yeah, they took like a lunch break.

2:29:42 These are like, they're humans. Yeah. I believe you. But it's also jokes from the greatest living comedian. And he's like, I am not going to comply with the way you want me to think and want me to behave. whatever to, you know, to give him a hard time. And the point is that like all of that, like his wants to like shut you down or silence you or, berate you until you, you know, you stop thinking what you think, then, I mean, maybe, like, if somebody's powerless enough, they'll just shut up because they don't want to deal with it, right?

2:32:58 Yeah. I encourage people to do that. Is that you were a part of that? It's like, OK, granted, the worst moments are being cherry picked. to get this footage, right? I mean, I think that, like, what's going – like, what gets me about this is that knowing that this is the face you're showing to the whole world. You're mad that people are, there's chatter because you're easily distracted?

2:36:34 Right, and why are people doing that? that conference yeah i mean uh the stuff uh the stuff that i saw you know which was which was not So like stuff like that starts to seem normal to them, right? i don't think that was even a consideration at all i think in that moment they were very that yeah and it's uh and you and I get that it's funny. That's part of why I wrote the book because I guarantee you however many hundreds of people that were there in that hall, right, where that was happening.

2:39:58 They're like, point of privilege. You know, they actually did have a little thing about that, but they. I used to do it in the jazz days. You didn't sign up for this so you could spend your time arguing with crazy people about whether clapping is okay. So I think it's a very understandable impulse. But I think what I started et cetera, et cetera. This is such a minor irritation than like why spend time talking

2:42:40 Yeah. It's like some people just they can't see the forest for the trees, right? And whenever people are trying to be, like, ultra-sensitive Does that mean that you need to be constantly on guard for anything that somebody says in a comedy set that could be interpreted if you look at it in just the right light? Like, this is, you know, I mean, however slim the chance, like, the fact that there's the

2:46:19 I don't know why the United States has to have the kind of role in the world where we're negotiating about what happens in Ukraine at all, right? You know, because the Soviet Union didn't have that role in the world. Thank you for doing this. Sure. It's on there. Bye, everybody. Thank you.