Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2133 - Brendan O'Neill
Uploaded: 2024-04-10T17:00:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2133 - Brendan O'Neill' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2133 - Brendan O'Neill' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-04-10. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2133 - Brendan O'Neill

Joe Rogan podcast check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day Joe Rogan
podcast by
night all day. Brendan, what's up? Joe, how you doing? It is my goal before the
end of the world
to talk to as many interesting people as possible and it feels like that's kind
of ramped up lately
so I saw you on Trigonometry and I was introduced to your stuff through that
and then I watched a
bunch of your conversations online so I'm excited to talk to you man. Thanks
for being here. I'm so
happy to be here. You wouldn't believe it so thank you for having me. My
pleasure yeah because it does
seem like I really do want to talk to as many people as I can before you can't
talk to anybody
anymore. Yeah well exactly who knows you know how long before talking to people
is outlawed or
certainly talking to people like me and people like you. Well I don't think
that's going to happen
likely anytime in the future. I think too many people push back against it but
I think it certainly
could make it increasingly more difficult and my real fear is that we do
something so stupid that
we lose all communication period. I have a real fear of World War III that like
I haven't had since
I was a kid. When I was a kid I was growing up in the 80s we were legitimately
worried that we're
going to get in a nuclear war with Russia. Yeah. It was a real fear and I
remember when the fall
the fall of the Soviet Union it was like a weight had been lifted off the
shoulders of the earth.
Yeah. Like we were like oh my god thank god it's over. I remember I remember
those days in the 80s.
We watched a film at school called The Day After. Did you see that? Which is a
film about. I think
we've talked about that. Yeah. Didn't we talk about that before? A film about
after nuclear war. Yeah it's
a film about Russia bombing America. It's very depressing but we watched it at
school and we had
numerous discussions about what would we do in the event of a nuclear holocaust.
How would we try to
survive it? But it was on our minds all the time. And there was also other apocalyptic
scenarios if
you recall like acid rain was a big one. The ozone layer was another one. Yeah.
My childhood was full
of fears that the end of the world was nigh. And I think people feel that again
today for different
reasons. And my approach to it is always to think well where are the real
problems in terms of
civilization really grinding to a halt. And what are the unreal problems that
are just
designed to whip up fear and make us panic and make us fret about the future.
So I think
distinguishing between those two things is probably quite important. It is very
important. It's also
very important to recognize that when there's a thing that is getting people
whipped up and is in the
news constantly for sure someone's making money. That's why it's doing it. I
used to think they were
warning us about the real dangers of this or that. I don't think that anymore.
Now I think they can
justify the fear mongering by saying it's a legitimate concern because it has
the opinions of a few people
attached to it. But ultimately what they're doing is they're somehow or another
using it to make money.
Yeah. Well they're either making money or they're making moral mileage. Or both.
So if you look at global warming is a perfect
example. Right. The climate change catastrophe or the climate catastrophe as we
now have to call it.
Yeah. There are a lot of people invested in this end of the world scenario who
are making a lot of money from
alternative sources of energy. But just as important as that I think they're
making moral mileage. It's the issue through which they can pose as the saviors
of humanity. Right. And it gives them a real sense of purpose. I mean Al Gore
is a
classic example. He both makes money from climate change fear mongering and he
also positions himself as a global authority on how to save humankind from the
next apocalypse. So I think it's a combination of financial reward and moral
reward draws people to these apocalyptic scenarios.
Absolutely. And also audience capture. In the case of like Greta Thunberg. Yeah.
Right. Here's this young lady who's become a celebrity by saying how dare you.
That was it. That's all it took. That's all it took. We're like we're in the
catch me outside girl phase.
Of all you need is like a good slogan. You know let's get ready to rumble.
Whatever it is. She's the green version of the catch me outside girl. That's
what she is. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. But it's like with you
know with someone like Greta it's I think it was funny for a while that you had
this 16 year old kid saying how dare you having a temper tantrum in public
essentially. Yeah. And all these politicians in America and Britain and across
Europe were falling at her feet and staring at her in this wide eyed fashion
like she was some messianic
figure. Yeah. Come to deliver humanity from the end of the world. But more
recently I think the Greta Thunberg cult is just not funny anymore because she's
now going around Europe and telling governments to stop investing in energy
production.
to stop investing in fossil fuel companies during an energy crisis. And how old
is she? She's 21 now. She should know far better. Just imagine. Just imagine
being 21 and having the president listening to you. It's great. I can't imagine.
You know how dumb I was when I was 21. I was shockingly stupid. Shockingly
stupid.
When she started and she was 16, 17, she was very young. I often think to
myself if when I was 16 and 17 the thought of being in public and saying things
I would have said the craziest stuff but that's exactly what she did.
Yeah. And I think the problem is that there were so many people in the adult
world who were willing to listen to her and who engaged in her hysteria about
the end of the world. And so I often see the Greta phenomenon as a perfect
example of how on the one side you have these cranks who are talking nonsense
and pushing ideas that are just not true. But the bigger problem is the
political world and the media world who really buy into it. Yeah.
And give it give it meaning and give it emphasis. And I think there's that kind
of two way relationship between these things.
I'm not saying that like Greta Thunberg is not an intelligent person because
she clearly is and she's very young. And again, I was way dumber than her when
I was her age. But what she said was not this extraordinary message of wisdom
that would merit the kind of attention that she got.
And that's why. And that's why. And it's also it's not within her power as a 16
year old to get in front of all these people. So it's kind of like a form of
exploitation. Yeah. I mean, it's a willing exploitation, but it's your you're
you're using her as a political pawn for like sort of cementing an opinion that
you must have on this subject.
That's absolutely what happened. You know, like every other teenager, she was
narcissistic, self involved, panicking about the adult world and how crazy it
is. That's what that's what every teenager is like. We all went through that.
We all went through that. I did it. Yeah, we all do it. We all did it. We
screamed how dare you at our parents. You know, we thought they're oppressing
me. They won't let me go out. They won't let me do this.
We all have these kind of oppression complexes when we're teenagers. Yes. The
problem with hers is that it became this public spectacle and it became a
public spectacle precisely as a consequence of the political class who said,
you know, give us more really socket to us.
There was it was almost like a kind of sadomasochistic relationship between
these self hating elites and this teenage girl who was more than willing to
whip them in public.
And you had this kind of it was mutually beneficial. She got to feel like she
was saving the world.
They got to feel like they were being told off for being, you know, the rulers
of the world. And it was beneficial for both sides. But it was when you look
back on it, it was creepy as hell.
It's very creepy. And here's something to consider, too. At what what level are
people immune to the bullshit that they're talking about?
Like here's here's like an example about Hollywood. These people when I when I
would talk to people that didn't work in like television and they had these
ideas of what they're doing with television shows.
You know, oh, they're they're pushing this or they're creating that. They're
trying to sedate America with nonsense and they're being told to do it by the
government.
Like, no, no, no. Listen, the people making these shows watch these shows. They
like making them. This is what they're trying to do.
They like watching sitcoms. They like making game shows. There's that's not. So
they're as trapped in it as you.
Yeah, it is dumbing down the world. One hundred percent. Reality shows are dumbing
down the world.
But the people are watching the reality shows are the same as the people making
them. They all watch them like they're they're making dumb shit because people
consume dumb shit.
And that's not a conspiracy. That's just a market decision. And I wonder when
it gets to like climate change, when it gets to some of these like contentious
issues, particularly the climate is a big one.
Because any scientist, regardless of how wise they are and how well read they
are and how much they understand about their field of study, if they have
anything that deviates from the narrative, they're like automatically dismissed.
Even ones that will talk about long term temperatures of the Earth. It's almost
like they don't want you to talk about long term temperatures of the Earth.
No, no, no. But there has never been a time in our lifetime. But that's all
these things are true.
But we if you look at long term, you recognize, oh, it's never static, even
when humans didn't exist. It does all this. It's it's there's a lot of factors
going on constantly.
And to not consider that and to only consider what's happening during during
our lifetime, not take into account volcanic activity, not take into account
you're blaming cow farts.
And you know what I mean? I like there's there's so many weird things that we
do when we attach an ideology to a science.
So the science of climate change is fascinating, right? It really is. It's like
taking into account all these factors, CO2 in the atmosphere and solar flares
and what's going on with volcanic activity and cloud cover and pollution and
all these different factors.
But if you don't like toe the line and say this is a catastrophe, if you just
want to look at it objectively, you're a heretic. Yeah.
You're cast out of the kingdom. Yeah.
That's precisely the problem. I think I think there are probably more climate
change skeptics out there than we realize.
But there is a cost to saying what you think. There is a social cost. There is
a professional cost. If you say, listen, climate change might well be happening.
There may be a human contributory factor, but it's not the end of the world. A
billion people are not going to die. That's that's bullshit.
There's no evidence for that whatsoever. And we will probably be fine if we
focus on it and fix it. If you say anything like that, even something quite
moderate, you will be denounced as a climate change denier.
Yeah, you will be people will say, get them off the BBC, get them off the airwaves,
no platform them from universities.
We can't have these heretics speaking in the public sphere. So all of that
instinct for cancellation trickles down through society.
And the message it sends to ordinary people is, listen, you might be skeptical
of this stuff, but the price of speaking out is too high.
So don't even bother. Yeah.
So I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people out there than we realize
who think to themselves, OK, pollution is a problem.
Climate change may well be a big issue, but it's not the end of the world.
But they feel they can't say it because this entire grammar of cond