Joe Rogan Experience #1795 — Antonio Garcia Martinez Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. Cool. A little chit chat. Great. Thanks for having me, Joe. And a bunch of people expressed interest. for you? Yeah. I mean, we can get into this, differently maybe than Americans do. And so I felt I just had to go there and see it for myself. The pull request. read my shit and like integrate it with your shit oh and so in some sense it's

3:48 hadn't been for this and also this other consideration, I probably would have pushed I cannot leave. We have to do it. We would have to do it another time. Yeah, exactly. But I didn't You're going to capitalize on that. And so a quarter of the country is basically a refugee at this point. Holy shit. refugees that come across the border. you're standing, as I was standing many times at the actual border, watching them walk across,

6:41 like you that are observing and just witnessing? Yeah, I think he's been there I know a journalist was killed recently. So to be clear, I did have a goal. As a side thread to me, I'm converting to Judaism. So has all these food programs. He has a major presence there. Every stop, there was basically So you walk across and there's somebody holding a sign that says JW.org.

10:00 You've got someone who's ill and needs medical care. We're involved in a bunch of conflicts now. which is very difficult to source, is volunteering in some capacity, or is a refugee. Again, a quarter and you're seeing it on 4K cell phone video are basically living in the subways, taking shelter, and they've been there for weeks, I mean, there's literally dead bodies in the street, and they don't bury them because it's too dangerous to go up top and try to bury them.

12:49 I mean, you go from Poland, which I was in a town called Przemyśl, which is a little train junction close to the border. That's right. chairs and stuff in there for guests to hang out in the basement as the air raid sirens go off. Like, I didn't go, unfortunately, for the reasons I mentioned. I'm like, oh, look, normal human life continues. Bosnia-Sarajevo where they missed it.

15:40 and they legitimately miss conflict zones. On Sunday, I was there again, walking around. most recent news like, oh, Czech Republic promises more aid in the war against the Russians or what was different about the coverage that you're seeing on mainstream media No one cares about, people get obsessed about what the State Department did or didn't do is remotely meaningful. That's at a high level. Another thing I think it missed is like the level,

19:03 of Russia. And I'm not a military You know, he's just like this nerdy kid who's like on the anonymous chat channels and like So do you think that he thought he was just going to go in there and it was going to be like Crimea? This is a terrible plan. You don't see a lot of counteroffensives. They're not taking back cities because that would require

21:44 When he was talking about the possibilities and the options, like how it could possibly play out. either escalate to a nuclear option or leave? I think the Ukrainian on the street just thinks so when you have the winter thaw, Up until summer, until it dries out. And that's more than 2x what they currently are. I've stared at the map every day now for weeks, and that seems to be what's going on.

24:46 And Biden, the laptops coming out and all this stuff. what I would do, I would show them strength and what I would do, they wouldn't fuck around with I've got a piece coming out in Barry Weiss's. One thing I've, I don't know how much politics you want to talk about, Joe, but one thing I don't know, are you familiar with the National Conservatives or the NatCon conference? People

28:22 to speak for them or pretend to speak for them, But some of them seem to have at least sympathies for Putin's Russia, right? Even if you did support that, like Russia isn't that, right? As soon as you talk to people that have fled Cuba, those are the most Republican fucking people and most patriotic people in America. And eating in an Alice Waters restaurant. It's like, bro, Plaintoe Van is right

30:12 But again, if you realize the level of human catastrophe that's going on in Ukraine, in my opinion, polluting the discourse around that in a country that could impact that, I'm disappointed by it. Well, there's a thing that happens with the right and with the left where they look at whatever position that the opposite is taking, because it doesn't suit your narrative, then you're living in fantasy land.

31:43 That you are one of the absolutists. past. But sure, it is the case that some people have swapped their like other one cause for And so now they've just contrarian themselves into another position without really thinking And that doesn't mean it makes sense that Putin entered and invaded. I mean, it's not an invention. in my opinion are typically the ones that could never

34:25 Yeah, because you have the freedom to be stupid. Yeah. Please, have some. That is, yeah. So what is that like when you come back, and how do you sort of integrate that into this? That's not even a good way to say it. All the things we worry about seem trivial. He's Ukrainian. Wow. I mean, think about what it would take, the sense of loyalty and duty and self-sacrifice it would take for you to go back to the war zone.

38:19 And they're prepared for it far more than anyone in the United States. like how much how many people would fight i mean how many people would flee how many people would company, you know, whose country was behind the Iron Curtain and was kind of crushed behind the Like this business of like leaving with nothing. I'm in the middle of rereading Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers.

41:15 Like, this is wild shit. Right. There's a certain section of society that seeks conflict in the most preposterous ways. then they'll fight against democracy and against liberalism, if nothing else, for the sake of struggle, because they refuse to it tends to degenerate into fights over pronouns or whatever. And let's abandon some of this nonsense that we've been fucking squabbling over.

44:46 And he was in America for a while. And he's playing bongos and they're cooking. Like, we have this yin and yang of life, and it sounds so cliche to say, but without some sort of antagonist, without some sort of problem, some sort of real thing to rise against, people find nonsense to squabble over. I hate my job. race as like a graph of progress there's not that much time from the Vikings to

46:58 And that's what people did forever. it's all of like of lack of con like with in an absence of you know idle hands are the devil's his political theory was that the friend-enemy distinction is the core distinction in human We were talking about this recently. And I think a lot of people – I think there's a conservation of religion. A yarmulke like Ben Shapiro.

50:24 in a society. I think this is particularly bad in San Francisco and like And the baby mama to my third kid, who's Jewish, basically said, look, if this kid goes to synagogue, you're taking him, so you convert. They actually celebrated that, which is good. You have like a specific type. And that's the thing about Jews, that the family raises the children based on the mother's religion.

52:24 He married a Jewish woman. And you talk to the rabbi and then it's like, dude, when do I graduate? it was kind of my COVID project to be honest. So that they're there on Saturday. And what that means is it's kind of like what Trump's son-in-law was. hospital in New York you can use a thing because you're using Come on. Christianity. Like if you're not a practicing Christian and you've got like Christianity

55:18 I think there's a default setting that people have to adhere to some sort of orthodoxy. And it doesn't necessarily have to make sense And it's really lack of religion. I interviewed a Berkeley professor sociologist named Carolyn Chen who wrote a book called Work, Pray, Code. On Twitter now too. It sucks. I just, if you over post hustle porn, I just so much of that. There's so much of that on Instagram. It's kind of cute. On Twitter now, too.

58:02 But I think I do it based on my personal experiences and what I've learned that I think that you could tell people. People who have done very well in there I've done nothing to try to promote this show. I think generally it's a skill. I think it doesn't seem back in the day when we first started when it first started getting big i remember uh me and um

1:01:15 Oh, I've done that before. I had no idea what we were talking about. I can't believe I'm meeting him and we're talking about ancient civilizations You never go further than when you don't know where you're going. about the way I think about all kinds of things and applied it to conversations and applied it We could just go home. hard interviewing people and you make it look so seamless and perfect and I think

1:04:39 What is the thing that entices you to get up in the morning? When I'm looking at my own life, I'm like, how different am I than this guy? We don't want to admit it, but that's true. of people in my family that are like these very outside the box thinking people. My parents were and avoided the rocks and made their way to the waterfall. There has to be a lot.

1:07:30 I had a lot of jobs that I fucking hated when I was a kid. but it's just a grind, a grind mentality. Rowing is the ultimate grind. Like we won state one year and stuff. of expressive way that's unique to your personality. No. Left, That dude could apply that shit to anything. because the whole goddamn sport was dirty. But if you took away him being first place and you say, okay, we're going to give first place to the next person who didn't test positive ever for performance-enhancing drugs, you've got to go to 18th place.

1:11:26 If you want to be like that giant butterball turkey looking ultra vein muscle dude, you have to take steroids. because he was cheating go ahead and pretend because that's not why he won because like A thousand percent. If you look at him now, he looks great. But if you want your body to perform well, it wards off diseases better. He looks great. Yeah, he does.

1:13:40 That was a disco party. Well, you're Cuban. Right. I don't know if that's true. So I can't comment on the business as a whole. is this i think it's the netherlands oh. I heard about this. The shipyards, yes. The bridge. So they have to dismantle a bridge to get his yacht. Why are you driving this Honda? Yes, I do know that. Like, the Ukrainians are like, yes, super Elon because they're bringing all these units.

1:17:22 I'll set up your training. He's a big guy. He had a match with a sumo player at one point in time. surprisingly apply very well as they get older. They don't forget some things. You know, like if what is it took away his black belt what is that no? No, they gave him an honorary Taekwondo black belt. Speaking of canceled people. Especially if you gave him time.

1:19:44 He's like, how epic would that be? Three months ago, we were worried about vaccines and whether or not you'd have to wear a mask on an airplane. And the Russians used one in Ukraine recently, a couple days ago. Wow. and then the world would be fucked. So hold on. Go back up there. It says they launched them because it's the only thing that they can get through with absolute certainty. Oh, I see. So they're

1:22:18 stating that Russia's military launched them. But if he really did use that and they showed that it's not just a concept, that it's a real thing that they have and they have access to and they can arm with a nuclear warhead. At a Ukrainian city. Appalachian cultures where they were just constantly, you know, the Hatfields and the In the West. It's wild that humans still participate in that.

1:24:53 I think we'd find even more ways to kill each other. like that? There's a lot of civil war talk. And it was weird that a lot of people on the red I don't know if we can – not just the U.S., but just broadly, the notion of a nation state. It's like if the government has the ability to veto purchases or decide that your social credit Ukrainian perspective, though, they didn't have a choice. I mean, they provoked... There's an

1:27:57 have? You know, is it all going away? Can you take it all away? Like, where is it? Who has it? So it's kind of moving around, and everybody knows where it is. So what if he goes to Dubai? That's how they do it? You should have that guy on here. They've frozen the central bank's reserves overseas, as I understand it. If I were a betting man, They'll take more cities in the East, potentially.

1:31:05 be that. That's what you think? That's probably the most likely outcome. Did you ever in your and then completely ignored the other cause. Like it's gone. That's gone now. I mean, I think that's a legit criticism. Again, I don't think it invalidates the other cause. Like, it's gone. That's gone now. I'm glad we agree. because I think there's something about when you know you're going to be your most vulnerable

1:33:12 Being high at night is fucking scary because the paranoia is accentuated by the natural paranoia that you have from the fact that it's dark out. and I'm out there with them, I'm like looking around. So I bought five acres of these islands off the northwest of Seattle called the San Juan Islands. fucking MacGyver shit. And I did that for off and on a couple of years after, after the thing.

1:34:58 And like the fringes of like what you can see on the fire and the light, it's like, I don't know. There's a small meth problem. I showed up with a copy of it, Damien. So I was kind of vaguely aware of it. I created the very first versions, initial, not what's there now, versions of that. So a lot of the, I was the first like product manager for ads targeting. So like

1:36:59 The inner workings of Silicon Valley. I went through this famous incubator thing called the No. It was something me and you were talking about. One of us. Get me more people like him. But we have very different online things. all right, we need to talk about this. your phone all the time. What fraction of the time do you think you're actually mentioning

1:39:20 And then the fraction of the times versus you just, like, going to fucking kayak and, like like entering Boston and using that data. And so I'm not saying it's technically impossible. And very little of what you do or things that you wouldn't think of are what they want, Stuff like that. Or Amazon, then they would show you the ads. And then they'll show you ads based on your actual buying history.

1:41:22 That's creepy. There's never been a company that has the kind of input on social policies or on the but was there a media establishment that manufactured consent when it comes to policing online behavior. every day, right? Like we looked up the data on YouTube about the amount of data, amount of videos that get uploaded to YouTube daily. But it's one of those things where you go, okay, how would you manage that?

1:44:09 the team that policed ads. So it's a smaller problem, the big problem you're talking about, And so that's how they do it. Because even Facebook and Google can't afford to hire And, you know, really bright guy, very well-read, open-minded, you know, the whole deal. you know that fake, It's like a guy's head That fucking standard head exploding gif that everybody's been using from the beginning of time,

1:46:31 for decades. And I don't see why, obviously, legally, the First Amendment doesn't apply to point where things that you do agree with and you think should be fine are now worthy of getting Is a lot yeah nine years. He's already been a funny. Oh, yeah, no money had it. Yeah, it's added to ascendance You could do so because it's going to cost you financially or it's politically uncomfortable, whatever it is.

1:49:13 our topic about religion, I think liberalism requires a certain religious belief and certain rigid, rock solid, fundamental principles that we apply to communication and to rights. And if we By your minds? Like, you have to point to some document and say, we agree on this. What kind of trouble did you get with Apple? He's like, oh, wait, you're the Apple guy.

1:51:41 I'm sexist. My career, for better or worse, has been turning human eyeballs and data into money in various And then what happened, which we've now seen in many companies, and I was the first of this at Apple, there was like a slack mob that, you know, kind of conjured itself and objected to the fact that I wrote this was the end of that. So when you say a Slack mob, what do you mean by that?

1:53:52 little salty, right? It's like, it's a work of literary nonfiction told in the voice of like the internal culture at these companies, how the ads world works. We talked about targeting. It's about that. It's not about and it's so great that I'm not dating these other women or whatever, right? often deeply unpopular. I think something like 1% or less of Apple employees signed whatever petition it was to fire me.

1:55:55 I can't talk about that. But I mean, about the firing the other employees, that's publicly, Door's over there. literally in a mob, but you can feel a sense of moral righteousness. It is just the greatest Right. They're not anything that's standing out. you see someone doing well and you go, wow, how the fuck did he make it? Well, whatever. They use the same language.

1:59:02 Bringing back dueling. Well, it's kind of a verbal assault. It's in some ways it's, it's in a, that has literally nothing to do with that book. I can't really talk. Because it's like I've had a good friend who was a big executive at Google, mentally ill and they consider themselves activists and they have to placate This is your fucking job. There's this philosophy among like the HR there that like and if you're being cynical

2:01:53 They do your laundry? Yeah. Fund. And the thing is, he's right. He's right. Like Facebook was a cult and I joined it and I I was one of many, to be clear. They create the hardware and the software and all of it, right? They would track you individually. I mean, whether it's worth doing or not is another matter, showing the ad makes goes down. Now, is this for the end user, for the person who has the phone?

2:05:15 One of the many misconceptions that I try to address in the book about how Facebook works is it's often not Facebook data that's being used to target you. all the Cabela's shit because Cabela's doesn't want to let Facebook know that shit because they But getting back to your original question, how does Apple fuck that up? In the happy case. the day to be like a little moving target and you'd like punch the monkey.

2:07:45 i.e. the amount of money they make per ads goes down, It's good. bit better about being more open to the outside. Mind you, they still use monopoly power in various internet, we've had this model where, like, you do shit on a phone, Like, why shouldn't the computation and all the shit that happens throw it into the fucking lake. Their data is gone. Right. While like opt out and deletion when the

2:10:01 and they launched a system that would, it's complicated, I'm not sure if they discontinued the program or not, but- Right. If you've got an image that happens to map to that, then you could have a collision in that space and it's like, oh, it's kiddie porn, but it's not. your kid or even like a random picture. But like WhatsApp by default saves those images to iPhoto.

2:12:09 I have some really ridiculous friends. like there's a lot of fucking kiddie porn. The guy who ran the bagel shop got arrested in an FBI sting. I know. of their system or whatever. It's, yeah, it's, it's just fuck that it's real. It's just fuck I mean, he was at a park and luckily he pays attention. and we'll find your child everywhere. rights and that still still there's people out there that want to do that to children.

2:15:40 My friend Jim Brewer said that best. it's a part And you go, of course. but someone could hack into your iCloud and gain access to your iMessages. history with that company. least is running on the on the phones and so there it's in theory safe in Dude, the reality is my life is so boring that, like, even the FBI was seeing everything. People shouldn't be allowed to just read your email, especially when it's a national security agency.

2:18:49 But when it comes to the government, different story. Yeah, but there's this like truism in startup life that like for most companies, it's not a technical problem that's a problem. I think, yeah. You're using an Apple phone. I hate to call you out, but you- But, I mean, is it a different experience? Calendar and Gmail and stuff, which integrates really nicely with Android. A lot of Apple

2:21:06 Like I have an Android Fold. That's like the stupidest fucking thing to be a snob about. Like overseas, it's mostly WhatsApp or Signal or whatever else that are actually even use texting. Do you think that privacy and this thing that's going on where Apple is sort of cutting off the stream of ad revenue that used to exist. That said, strategically,

2:22:37 why I joined, like, They're just going to be apps in their ecosystems. And so what that means is when you browse, again, you're shopping for Cabela's shit or whatever on your fucking phone, that data just doesn't leave the phone. Because an individual is not going to generate enough data on one phone. You should use Apple because Apple destroys all the data."

2:24:57 that it was causing these traffic jams in these sleepy communities People think about privacy in these very absolute ways as an absolute right. and that's pretty cool. Or I posted about this interview, I'm giving up some of my privacy, I think people are smarter than people think. I don't think people are that dumb. I think there was a few things in that earnings release you're talking about, the one last quarter.

2:27:54 are on some Facebook property, either Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp, right? And so at some Founded in the mid-aughts, I think. You know, he's he's he seemed to me very somewhat cold and aloof, but definitely in charge. Facebook is default installed on the operating system. Imagine. what got extirpated in Vanity Fair. of like, you know, I think it's Cato the Elder,

2:31:15 They literally printed that phrase with like a Roman helmet, Facebook was. I know it's laughable. It's a joke. I go, this is clunky and shitty. But look at the risk, though, right? And with all that input, all that influence still sucked. I mean I almost compared it to Communist Cuba. But you think the people, they definitely tailored their wardrobe to fit in?

2:33:42 Like I was part of a team. and he saw the posters on the wall, the great leaders, the uniforms. He would think that communism had won. That literally Oh, yeah. equity you get. Because the real money is in the equity. The salaries actually aren't that high. And I'm doing the same job as you, hey, so Joe, what'd you do on Monday? But if you're talking about the early stage of a company, and it's so variable, right?

2:36:35 or even more has a major difference. Wow. So is there a bunch of resentment potentially. And it's like, you're taking the same fucking risk. It's like day one of the Where one person does develop a company that does manage to become fucking insanely enormous. They're at the center of this thing. She goes, nobody really talks to you. You know, that's my life. That's my experience.

2:39:23 You saw the werewolf out there. If someone can make something like that, they can artificial nose and shit. Like they can do it. Like you saw the werewolf out there. The Substack guys are great. I do, because Naval was trying to tell me that it was going to take off. But I got on with Tim Dillon, and we did it after our podcast once, This is the fucking internet.

2:40:39 with Lex Friedman, and you guys Yeah. I mean, I know Getter existed, but then when I got on Getter, one of the first things that I noticed is that Getter imported all of my Twitter followers and tried to pretend I had 9 million followers on Getter. But it's like, dude, A, I don't think the censorship on Twitter is that bad for most people. Yeah, yeah. Did you see that they got banned

2:42:22 I, I support that, but I don't support them getting banned for that. people? As you can tell, I don't talk about things that I don't feel I'm a domain expert. They don't own anything, right? And so Web3 in a trustless environment, like with not people necessarily agreeing in direct ways, that email just works, I have an app that sits on top of it that like reads that and renders it to me

2:45:19 That this could like you needed something along those lines maybe even more egregious What's interesting is Twitter still allows pornography, right? Yes. Like, if you follow porn stars Wow. Amendment sort of a guy. I think as time goes on, that's going to be more attractive to people, I believe. Yeah, I agree. I really enjoyed our conversation. Because you followed me.

2:48:24 I appreciate that. Thank you, Joe. that I mentioned alright good luck with that well thank you very much