Joe Rogan Experience #2102 — Will Storr Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. And it was fucking amazing. but W. Kamal Bell was And then, you know, they're like, well, you're not like the others. Reza Aslan, is that his name? You know? I really enjoyed your intrigue andometry, and that's why I wanted to talk to you here. But what you're showing is like these status games that human beings play, they're sort

3:29 We have to be a good Christian and that means following certain rules. the backs of male again it's fucking too complicated right you got one shot if Or did you get captured by the idea of being accepted And yeah, I mean, there's this concept we plug our status into. the satanic panic, cult movements, communism, Nazism. And I was talking to my friend Todd,

6:14 confidence in my view of the world. so I had sort of an ideology attached to that. because cults are like, group is just that it's much tighter. So the rules are much stricter, like there's a zillion rules, No, he wasn't surprisingly enough. Like you know back then but, but they had gone through bit of a myth. When we settled down. We think in stories.

10:17 What do I have to do? status are so incredibly important to us. Absolutely. for people to like me and respect me? if you attach things like death for people who leave. Bro, heaven, it's the best spot ever. a status and secure connection into a supportive group I'm not a pedophile, dude, I just like women. But I think that term is not for this moment by the great one.

13:28 You're like a god. drop in status or they feel completely isolated and alone. that's how crazy we become about these social rewards. Just the idea that That's one of the things that always strikes me As does the KKK. People, they can fall into belief structures and they don't necessarily So they've got no identity, they've got no tribe, so they're really vulnerable to these

16:47 he left before the ball cutting. and people talk about how we were forced to follow these rules. that they use very bizarre language and that they all agree to it. They have like specific Or potential trouble source. Dude, I ordered Dianetics in like 1994. hang on a minute, this is quite interesting. Cause it seems like that was part of it. I thought that was interesting.

19:29 I'm sure they treat Stallone like he's Rocky. Catholic parents and I was very, I hated it, I was very rebellious as a They feel they're good Catholics because my dad conducts the choir and this, that and the other. So it was quite easy to feel securely connected. It was quite easy in that environment to feel we exited these fucking massive international tribes now.

22:09 Most of the day you can't sit down for a couple hours like this and just say why do we behave this way? We get them from the news which is increasingly I mean, that's a perfect example of how the status games work is that used car salesman And those super-saly guys are like, how does that guy turn that off? He's going, look at his movements. And that's kind of what we do.

24:27 I've got to turn myself into this person. the place down, he swore he saved that for me. Posturing you know like yeah, it's not really how you feel It's just people are so easily influenced when someone is really stunningly good. they're not good yet, you know what I mean? Well, just to say, if you read a book that you really love, the next day you'll turn

26:58 about, I don't know if he rewrote the revelations or whether he used to read it over and over again, Y'all, he did amazing on this, yeah. Because in the early days, when he was running for sheriff with that's the that's the tragedy of that yes you got to manage the biology Like when 9-11 happened, he still wrote a brilliant piece When Johnny Depp does this, Hunter S. Thompson,

29:56 I mean, it's kind of similar in a way, like, the Manson family and fucking CIA was dosing people with LSD and they were doing anything this psychedelic counterculture that was the 1960s and we paid for it artistically. Right, the gas crisis. like if you change the rules of the status game, from 1981 with Margaret Thatcher, And she said this thing, she said, the method is economic, but the object is to change the soul.

33:22 There was a really interesting study that they found in 1983, they were looking at changes And when you look at the changes in values being good looking, number three was being rich. Like that's who we've become. And the When you're young, that's what seems like everybody wants. Yeah, you know like in order to survive in the 80s. And the 80s, what defines the 80s is these big economic changes.

35:37 You're saying greed is good. Like it's kind of worked, but it's also created much more separation between the top and the bottom, much more when people look at this caravan of people coming in through South America, through Mexico, I'm like, I can get a job there, let's go. You're gonna change everything provide job opportunities set up places where we should make how about here's a law

38:01 there's a lot going on that you wouldn't like to see. here. allowed to pay people in Mexico and how much does it go? Like let's say, let's pick a place, Nobody ever has a company and goes, we're good. and Samsung or whoever. between two and three times more money. And it's like, you're not going to be perfectly happy, you Well, I was gonna say about the McDonald's thing.

41:09 That's the slight problem with it, Like it has to, every quarter has to go up and go up All of them. Stock price. We're making more money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would imagine that that would be better if the companies had to be owned. But, but, but, yeah. Oh yeah, it's tempted the shit out of me. It never ends. What is it? It always fuels? dominant life form on earth. It'll be far smarter. It'll hopefully will coexist with it

45:23 So basically, the more status that you get in your group, everything gets better. It's about, I want to be better than you and I want to be the best inventor of artificial the people that are engaged in sports they're fucking psycho competitive about that. which is that Steve Jobs, his wife, It's not Stylus, it's a finger. and that they'd solved computing.

47:49 Yeah, back in the day, like 20,000 years ago, It certainly has created a lot of amazing inventions that enhance our lives, but it's How much longer? I mean that's a status thing too, right? measuring our status versus other people that we're completely unaware of. Like there's one And they were kind of, they weren't getting along. reason why communism could never work, because, you know, they're trying to wipe out the effects

51:03 Human life. Yeah, that's why Fidel Castro lived in a fucking mansion. Yeah Many how many thousands of people are in jail? Is it millions? Isn't that amazing that despite of the many, and everybody just divides the money up. And so, where's all the Polish people come from? And she said, we've got this post-Soviet mindset. So removing that stuff from human society

53:30 It rewards the status instinct. They play to the most charitable and the kindest people in the world That's right. And I think there's a big misunderstanding about what that competitive instinct, what Yeah, exactly. You're tired of getting an iPhone. Exactly. Yeah, do you like iPhones? Yeah There's virtue games. That's what made the West what it is, is that we started playing six, like for millennia

56:17 in that sense. It's massively positive. And weirdly, capitalism is an economic system is kind of a pejorative. eradicating status. Everybody works together. tortured and killed you were held back in every sense. And that's the thing about utopians. Where people of color could stay home, Then you can stay home if you like, If you have the money to do it,

59:28 It's a bad idea. So when I was doing my research into communism, there was this phrase that came up. like former people. You're yesterday's people. That was her comeback. Like, hey, sometimes that's good advice. And sometimes you're just telling people you And she said to me, there's a problem with, I've got a problem with what you've been talking about. And it's that most of

1:02:16 Okay. She was clearly a smart person. what it is oh please is it real is it the seat chef he's trying to no no no no Look at this. Oh my God. over 10,000 respondents. of all the seven groups. So these people that are constantly going on about privileged, if Mason Howe They don't have any financial stress, right? media, they feel like sometimes the majority of the country, but their beliefs are actually really

1:06:20 thought it should be a woman, and TV companies. It has the indoctrination, it has the excommunication, logical, just if they can stay in the group. You bow to them. You bow when you enter the... Like like now I've been like where so it was there's the gym respect So it was a there's that I bought on Sixth Street. and he had his followers build him this theater

1:10:28 LA in West Hollywood and then when the cult awareness networks are going after people he took off And as I'm like in the middle of the purchasing it, That's status. And it looked real and they talked about it even after they like this guy's a fraud No, no, there was just some issues, places there. That like my stepdad went to Gettysburg I don't know because I'm not expecting to feel that way.

1:13:44 Yeah. Because that building was built by people don't necessarily know if I want that building. Yeah so important the way you say it and the way you talk about these things and the way you How could this technologically advanced sophisticated country descend into Nazism? of the 19th century. And then there was the Treaty of Versailles, which was savage.

1:16:03 And so this is the thing that we were never talked about Hitler in schools, Have you seen how they've translated into English now with AI? Because of AI, one of the things that they can do now, like that they can do even with That's not so much scary. Yeah, it does. The voice hasn't really got the attitude want to see the Jews being attacked and killed.

1:18:33 So he was doing the thing of restoring Germany's status. Yeah, yeah. was taken away from them and he didn't just promise to restore it. For a while, Yeah, and wasn't his army on amphetamines? But Hitler was a full-on Energizing and confidence boosting methamphetamine played into the third Reich's obsession with physical and mental superiority It's what the communists thought as well that the average human their intelligence would become so much that everybody would be a genius

1:22:04 But it's so wild that most people don't address it that way. They just get even really brilliant white people get blamed for a lot in this day and age. And if you look at the wave of what black people are to face in this country, it's by every definition, of these places where people have the most despair and people have done nothing to fix it the money that they've already pumped in Ukraine, just in the inner cities of this country.

1:24:27 There was the New Deal, the Social Security Gap, the GI Bill. Not fucking take all the money away from the successful people. They put up fences in front of these buildings with the they would camp out It's just... you have to jump over, It's counterintuitive to it. out. children were saying they had their eyelids stapled shut. There was one kid that said

1:28:15 into it. He's like, yeah, baby. Yeah, he said at first I thought Oh my God. So they believed it. It does. What? That's older bro, no one looks great when they get old that's not fair that's not fair you son of a bitch These are from like the 80s or whatever this started. like what's this all about? It's the idea of moral panics. God, the ability to just tweet out something the moment something hits the news or whatever and you're hot to believe it. Boy, social media doesn't do us any favors with that. Does it?

1:32:16 I mean, that's the thing. So that's why it becomes addictive. whatever it is, whatever cause there is, it's du jour. and you can sort of draw a straight line They've got massive student debt. were left with, because these people were unpunished, that the game is fixed, it's dangerous, it's not working anymore. I've had friends that have had like real problems

1:35:02 and everybody's trying to zing on everybody Not just that, but I feel like this hierarchy-free utopia. about our success. That's what we're doing, and that's why, you know, that's why each other around with virtue signaling and we're showing off about our success. Yeah, that's what we're doing and that's why Yeah, absolutely. have more status in their phones than they do in their actual real life. You know, they're going to their ordinary job in their ordinary town, but on this platform,

1:37:35 Mason Klee When you say that people get physically ill place in the hierarchy predicted your health outcomes. So for middle-aged people, Even on the same terrible diet. Where with monkeys? of status, it puts us into that stress state of raises inflammation, all kinds of horrific issues. So anxiety, depression, self-harm is all tied to feeling sort of low in status.

1:40:46 people become suicidal when somebody they love And so yeah, it's a massive red flag for... They don't want to tell you that the quality of your life affects the way you feel It seems so obvious it seems so obvious what is probably the worst night of their life from like the day before she did that and she said in the journal, the words inadequate keep

1:44:02 Was it an accurate statement or was And when you take someone's status away, like they took her status away, I feel like it it's often used because it can transform that sense of humiliation into a sense of pride. This pattern of behavior that people have locked into their brain. They feel slighted. Those people, the reason why you're in the situation that you're in. And you're empowering people to hate someone specifically because of the

1:47:15 Just by deciding I'm not listening to a white man. Yes We're playing a status game, but our conscious experience of life is a story with men. I've been abused. I've been this and the other, all of which is true. But so it happens to all of us, it's human nature. We are xenophobic by design. Our groups, our Yeah. But it's pure tribalism. So really smart people can give you ten reasons why they're justified in their hatred of this that and the other

1:50:35 of the Second World War. Like the reason we know about Dresden, offered the opportunity to withdraw his opinions in an Austrian court. Isn't it his 70s this who has this fucking mat beliefs about the world. Oh, well, I mean, he went through a period of outright Holocaust denial, which he then kind It might be. Well, not only that, that stuff subsides into the atmosphere.

1:53:23 there, but he's still a deeply, deeply anti-Semitic man. Like his family, his history goes back to, he's all very embedded inritish Empire. And I think he liked Hitler. Like his family's, his history goes It was kind of a scary week. But one of the most... They were quite nice. material for my book I need to interview him again and I was going to panicking because I was thinking, I've not got enough material for my book. I need to interview him again. And I was talking to the Nazis about freaking

1:55:30 But that's the thing. the super, did you have the film Downfall? And that was a big light bulb moment for me. was this kind of fabrication Knowing what you know about our desire for status and how that's just impossible to remove It feels like we should have guidelines specifically that we teach people at an early age, to recognize Like, what are you? A Nazi, a or racist or transphobe? Whatever it is. It's like, we should be able to see

1:58:53 Give you a little shitty dopamine spike and so they just dive in but if we could I mean, one of the things that I took away from this They tell you stories that you want to hear. it didn't begin with force. I mean, They're going to react. these entire categories of people. Watch what happens. and it ratchets up. It certainly is and other parts of the world where they convince people that these people are the bad people

2:03:01 politically active or They could chase their dreams and pursue their dreams. The other part is me is like, yeah, get them going. status where they're going to go, fuck this. Really? and if you have a low IQ, the production line at Foxconn. into an introvert because of, you know, because a lot of that is genetic. Like we're born there are categories of people that are always going to need our help through no fault of

2:06:51 I don't know, but I think what we need to have is, of work. You've got an excellent mind and an excellent personality and I And I think that there's a real good argument for what you're saying that some people are just, they just don't have the tools. and then I really got into it. maybe it's not as simple as them going to school. That's a giant factor in who you become as an adult human being like who you exposed to as a child?

2:09:47 So if we see somebody's really competent at something, it just goes into this runaway thing, and you get some Paris Hilton who's got no apparently street gangs in socioeconomic low, you know, in poor places. and you're 14 years old and you want status lower socioeconomic groups, more opportunities to earn status. No. And then these jihadists came in and just got rid of them all.

2:12:53 this big man and now he was nothing. And the other guy had gone into the Islamic, the Muslim, and in your own health. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because it was and it's still in China today Yeah. And so people insist that they're not interested in status, but you are. Like it's in your It's nonsense talk. It's like, why would you want to? Exactly. So it was the LSD studies and part of what they did when they dose them up with LSD and they would do humiliating things to him and

2:17:02 And then what happened? He didn't get human touch he would be horrific and angry and write letters and And who did he attack? that girls, women were the responsible for all the evils in the world and decided to go out and, you know, kill It's only discussed the actions themselves, not the root cause of it. He's killed six people. was desperate for a girlfriend. He was just weird around people in general. But he was

2:20:31 He starts talking about how... And the special insight is that all the evil in the world is because women choose jocks But I don't think people not playing world of Warcraft with you can do that. I have a feeling No, no. Yeah, it was the edge. Yeah, you were talking about that in the trigonometry podcast like have more than one thing that you're interested in that way all of your

2:23:00 Right, right, right. I mean that in the best possible way. are wired to feel good about ourselves. That's part of the reason why we do good things, we're wired to give back to the tribe. Yeah, that's right. to vote. Yeah. And then I know how you're voting. And so when I meet somebody that's my age and they're just giving this sort of list say it in the most peaceful way and just talk just like that and they'll get

2:26:30 It's well known that. Very few people can like stand outside their ideas. is if you fucking cling to that other stupid thing, How does it function without electricity? because your brain isn't thinking what's true your brain is thinking how can I defend this And I think we are naive to think that we're not subject Maybe you are at a certain level of your life where you have enough sophistication and understanding

2:29:19 beliefs are invisible to you. you're wrong about and you can't cheat by going stuff that you don't care about, like Because you could be hanging on to a bad idea. But if you irrationally defend an idea, Yeah, those guys are great So it still works. Like if the perception of your depression has decreased, then the depression has decreased. But does the placebo effect work

2:32:55 But it does work with pain and depression, that's fascinating. Yeah. In that book I ended up meeting, lied a lot about the things he'd said about you know he had this million dollar challenge. something like half a million euros setting up a study in a hospital to test, properly I asked him at the end of the interview Digestible way. Thank you Joe. I already appreciate you having me on. It's been amazing. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Alright, bye everybody.