Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1427 - Melissa Chen
Uploaded: 2020-02-14T20:00:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1427 - Melissa Chen' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1427 - Melissa Chen' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-14. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1427 - Melissa Chen

What's up, Melissa? How are you?
Hello, Joe.
We were just talking about caning and hanging in Singapore.
Hanging now, is that the new one?
No, it's always been.
That's how they always do it?
Caning is one of the forms of capital punishment, but they still, they actually
hang for drugs.
What is Singapore like? I've never been.
It seems like a strange place because it's relatively wealthy, right?
Yes, very much so.
And upscale and very nice, but also ruthless.
But you know what happened in, like, my generation?
I've witnessed it go from third world to first world in my lifetime.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
So it's one of those success stories of nation building.
But it's kind of like, you know those snow globes, the perfect snow globes?
Yeah.
Yeah, when you, like, turn it over and, like, everything kind of sprinkles.
That's what it feels like living in Singapore.
For me, at least.
I had to get out.
It's just, it's a bit sterile.
It's perfect, but it's too perfect.
It's almost like there's a, somebody called it once Disneyland with the death
penalty, which is a pretty good description.
And you get the death penalty for things like drugs, right?
Just possession past, like, maybe 25 grams or 25 milligrams or something.
Marijuana, trafficking.
So if you have an ounce of marijuana, how many grams is in an ounce?
What's the conversion?
I don't know.
I haven't converted to.
20?
Your system.
28.
28 grams in an ounce?
So, like, an ounce is a good amount of weed, but two ounces of weed, you're
dead.
Yep.
Ooh.
Yeah.
By hanging.
Ooh.
Two ounces.
Wow.
That's insane.
That's weird.
You can go down the street and buy that at a store.
Now.
You just have to show your driver's license that you're over 21.
Yeah.
And you can buy that at a store.
And in Singapore, they'll kill you for it.
Right.
How many people have they killed for pot?
I don't know about that, but I do know, like, one time they actually executed
an Australian
citizen who was on transit.
So he didn't even get out of the airport.
He was just kind of carrying the drugs on transit.
Whoa.
And they found him.
And they executed him?
Oh, yeah.
It was hanging.
It's always hanging.
And what, do you remember what kind of drug, was he selling drugs?
He was carrying quite a bit.
He was definitely trafficking it.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
They just hung him.
Yep.
Zero tolerance policy.
Yeah, that's crazy.
How did it go from third world to first world so quickly?
Well, I guess the founder, you know, of the country.
Well, not the founder.
The founding prime minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, was probably one of the world's
most famous
modern statesmen.
He was resolute, like, you know, weeded out corruption.
He was kind of like very, very tight controls on free speech, but very much
sort of neoliberal
economic policies.
So it attracted a lot of foreign investment, right?
Because the highest income tax bracket is like maybe 13%.
It's very low.
There's almost no welfare, at least in the sense of how we understand welfare.
But there's a lot of – it's a hybrid system.
So there's a lot of, like, zero capital gains taxes, zero state taxes.
Very easy to set up a business.
So he managed to attract a lot of foreign businesses to set up their multinational
corporation headquarters
in Asia because the other alternative would be maybe China.
But China would probably end up stealing all your corporate secrets, your
intellectual property.
But Singapore was billed as this is the country that protects rule of law.
Also, English.
He kind of made everybody speak English.
It was the working language.
So if you wanted to set up business in Asia, that was your place to go.
Oh, okay.
You got to, like, you know, if you want to attract investment, you have to say,
like, okay, what's in my region?
And how can I be – how can I have a competitive advantage?
So that was how Singapore really developed and, you know, just gained a lot of
traction as a state.
The average American knows Singapore because of that kid that got caned.
Now it's that stupid movie.
Which movie?
Crazy Rich Asians.
Oh, Crazy Rich Asians.
Right, right.
Yeah.
I never saw that.
Was it good?
I didn't like it because I don't like rom-coms.
Oh, okay.
And, like, come on, the premise is, like, a girl – an American Asian girl is,
like, dating this guy from Singapore.
She doesn't know he's rich and she finds out on the plane there.
It's, like, the most bullshit thing.
It's just conspicuous consumption.
I mean, it's got some – you know, the city looks beautiful and, in fact, I
kind of grew up with some people that lived that lifestyle.
But I just don't like that kind of movie.
It's a chick flick.
A chick flick.
Got it.
You're not into chick flicks.
Your Instagram is hilarious, by the way.
Instagram?
It's very – excuse me.
I don't have Instagram.
Your Twitter.
Okay.
I get them confused sometimes.
Your Twitter feed is really good.
I try.
It's both insightful but also very funny.
Yeah, I try to play both sides.
But the problem is, like, you know, I think today there's a bit of a – if you're
a girl and you're kind of funny, there's a bit of a sense that, like, people
are really taking that seriously.
So I've been told to tone down on jokes.
Who's telling you that?
Well, I'm also – you know, I run a major nonprofit organization.
Do you want to tell everybody what it is or keep it on the down low?
No, it's a really – well, it's kind of right up your alley.
You know, it's an organization that really tries to promote pluralistic
thinking and, you know, basically exporting ideas to part of the world that it's
often censored.
And you have narratives that are just not, you know, not exposed to – people
are not exposed to the Middle East.
So, you know, we thought – you know, we spent, like, what, $8 trillion on the
war on terror.
And what was the result?
Right?
Like, we marched in and said, like, okay, we're going to bring freedom and
democracy to people.
But if there were no cultural institutions to kind of nudge people to
understand why they should value freedom and democracy, is it really a surprise
that it failed to take root there?
So that's what, you know, we basically – the organizations call Ideas Beyond
Borders.
And it's kind of self-explanatory.
You know, we basically take – acquire the rights to books that are not
available there, translate them into Arabic for free, and then we just, like,
load it up on the library site.
Anyone can basically access that, download it.
And we do Wikipedia, too.
So, like, 10% of all Wikipedia is in Arabic, English Wikipedia.
And so we basically try to, you know, like, for example, George Orwell doesn't
exist in Arabic, right?
So, like, if you look it up, would you even understand what the word Orwellian
means?
Right.
Yeah.
So how did you get involved in this?
My co-founder is an Iraqi refugee, and he grew up under Saddam.
And it's – I met him when I was in grad school.
And I was really compelled by what he was talking about, you know, just, like
– somebody who grew up in Singapore, too, we don't really have freedom of
speech, right?
So the issue was that, like, for me, I just felt like growing up, I was not –
I was kind of like, all right, you know what?
My issue is that, like, there was no freedom of thought, freedom of speech in
Singapore.
The government just kind of controls everything.
Sorry.
Give me a second.
My heart rate is, like, so high because I've been drinking so much.
Because you've been drinking this stuff?
Is that what it is?
Bang.
Yeah.
I was worried that you were nervous.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So let's tell everybody what you're drinking.
You're drinking this –
Oh, my God.
I'm sorry.
It's called bang.
How many did you have?
This is my second one.
You weigh eight pounds.
I don't.
What the fuck are you doing?
I don't.
Sorry.
You're so tiny.
This is so much.
Are you going to –
I know, I know.
You're going to be the first person to die on the show?
No, no.
Please don't.
Sorry.
I mean, this stuff is, like –
Yeah, put it away.
It's got a lot of caffeine.
Stop fucking with it.
Sorry.
It was my second one.
I had, like, a really heavy workout.
You can't have second ones of those.
You probably weigh, like, 80 pounds.
Like, seriously.
105.
Come on.
Stop lying.
105 pounds, yeah.
No, I got muscle.
You're a tiny person.
No, no, I got muscle.
Right.
But you're very small.
That is a lot.
It's also heating me up right now.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Your heart rate's pounding.
It's kind of crazy.
No, I know.
I can feel it.
It's, like, I can see words.
What do they look like?
What color are they?
I don't know.
Red.
It's getting crazy.
Sorry.
Sorry about that.
Just take some deep breaths.
Yeah, I know.
Calm yourself down.
I know.
Did you drink that to get pumped up for the show?
This is my pre-workout, so when I did my morning workout, I drank one.
And then I was like, you know what?
I didn't really sleep that much last night, so I might need another one.
Oh, my God.
What a bad idea.
Sorry.
I've had people come in here that are on Adderall, and that's always the
weirdest one.
Why?
Because you just, like, you've got to slow down.
Like, we're on different paces.
Not you.
I need a downer.
I definitely need a downer.
What's a pot?
But pot doesn't work on me.
Oh, right.
What kind of pot?
I bet the pot we have will work on you.
Up to 50.
I've done 55 milligrams edibles.
That's ridiculously low.
I do 200 every time I go to the airport.
Wait, 200 milligrams?
Yes.
Okay, but I'm like a quarter of weight.
Joey Diaz takes 1,000.
All right, maybe I just haven't upped my game yet.
You can't say pot doesn't work on you.
Okay, but I so far have been unable to respond to THC.
Yeah.
And smoking it or eating it or both?
Both.
Jamie is with you with the eating.
He's got some weird genetic disorder that doesn't work with him.
Like, edible.
He can take 1,000 edibles and just hang around with people.
Yeah, but that's a thing.
Like, people are immune.
Some people are immune to THC.
It's just not.
Some people get withdrawals, too.
You know, I've talked to people that get actual physical withdrawals from
marijuana.
And I used to be really skeptical about that.
But these are people that I actually trust.
And they're like, wow, I would, you know, when they would go on tour.
Like, if they have to go places and they didn't have pot, they'd get, literally,
they'd get shaky.
They'd feel weird.
And then they realize, like, oh, this is my body's withdrawing from THC.
Apparently, it's very rare, but common enough so that it's in the literature.
They really have documented people that have, like, a physical response to
withdrawing from marijuana.
Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to more research being done on this stuff
anyway.
Yes.
Yeah, we're headed there.
Yes.
But then Trump recently said something about trying to.
I know.
He was comparing the way they handled drug dealers in China with a swift fair
trial.
Yeah.
Was he saying Singapore?
No, but.
But that's how they do it in Singapore.
Swift, swift fair trial and the death penalty is what he said.
Yeah.
There's a resurgence of this in Asia.
You see it in the Philippines as well.
So Duterte has this extrajudicial drug war that he's been launching.
So it's I understand the concern with the plight.
I understand that people are really worried that people getting addicted to
drugs ruin their lives.
It devastates families, people dying of overdoses from fentanyl and all these
different hazards that are associated with drug use and drug dealing.
I understand that.
But this sort of archaic way of handling it and death penalty talk in 2020.
I know.
Like it's.
And one country completely decriminalized all drugs, right?
Was it Portugal?
Portugal, yeah.
Yeah.
And they had spectacular results.
Low everything.
Lower incidence of HIV infection.
Lower drug addiction.
Lower overdoses.
Lower everything.
Lower crime.
Right.
I just don't.
It's just messy.
It's not like if there was one thing you could do.
Like, hey, if we do this thing, then no one gets addicted to drugs and no one
dies from overdoses.
We