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Andrew Wilson (2026) - Suicidal Empathy and the Inverse Intelligence Theory · The Joe Rogan Recap

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Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
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follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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our latest episodes in your feed.
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Today we are dissecting a conversation that is, well, it's
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pretty confrontational by design.
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We are looking at Andrew Wilson. It's a heavy one for sure.
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If you spend any time online, you probably know Wilson is the
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host of The Crucible. He's a Christian nationalist, a
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really aggressive debater, and someone who's built this massive
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audience by, well, by seeking out conflict.
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We'll debate anyone. Yeah, college students,
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professors, random people online.
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It seems like he's not really looking for common ground.
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No, he's looking to win. But what really drew me to this
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deep dive isn't just, you know, the online shouting matches is
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the sheer range. I mean, in one conversation,
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they go from the internal spring mechanics of a specific handgun
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to the sociology of Aztec sacrifices.
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It's a lot to wrap your head around.
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It is, and I think the mission today is to try and figure out
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the framework that connects all those things.
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We really need to unpack his theory on color revolutions
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happening in America. His whole argument for why
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empathy is a weakness. And why he thinks a guy fixing
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robots in a factory understands the world better than someone
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with a PhD. Let's start right there, because
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his background is not what you'd expect from a political
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commentator. He didn't come out of a think
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tank or anything. Like that?
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No, not at all. Wilson's background is purely
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industrial. Before all the YouTube stuff, he
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was a gunsmith and a mechanic. He worked on automation robots
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in food plants. And I thought the detail he gave
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was so telling. These weren't the, you know, the
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sci-fi robots you might imagine. Right.
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No Terminators. These were machines that were
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designed to like, fold thousands of cardboard boxes a minute.
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And he made this point that in that world, things either work
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or they don't. You just you.
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You can't bullshit a machine. If a sensor is off by 1mm, the
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whole line stops. You can't write an essay
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explaining why it should have worked.
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That kind of binary mindset, it works or it breaks.
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It really seems to color his entire worldview, his politics.
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It does, and then COVID hits, the meat plants in Michigan shut
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down because of the restrictions, and all of a
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sudden he's at home with a lot of time on his hands.
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And like so many of us during the lockdowns, he went online.
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He went online, starts debating liberals on Facebook, then he's
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crashing Zoom panels, and this is where he comes up with his
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inverse intelligence theory. So it's a really scathing
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critique of the modern expert class.
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This was the idea that the quote UN quote smarter.
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His opponents were supposed to be the worst they were actually
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debating. Essentially, he claims that when
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he was debating just random nobodies with 50 viewers, the
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opponents were sharp. They had to be scrappy, you
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know, They had to make sense. But now that he's debating Ivy
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League academics, he finds them surprisingly dull.
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Which seems so counterintuitive, you'd think the Harvard grad
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would just wipe the floor with him.
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But Wilson argues the opposite. He says the academic class is
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totally insulated by ego and nepotism.
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They're dealing in abstract theory.
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They've never had to apply their knowledge in a situation where
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survival is on the line. So they live in a bubble,
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everyone agrees with them and their arguments get lazy.
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Yeah, whereas the blue collar worker, the comedian, the
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mechanic has a kind of competency that the credentialed
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class just lacks because they live in the real world.
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If a mechanic is wrong, the car doesn't start.
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If a sociologist is wrong, they just write another paper.
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That's his whole stance. He even calls media figures like
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Don Lemon Tokens. He argues they were hired for
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their identity, not their merit. And that's why they tend to flop
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when they leave the, you know, the scripted world of a network
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like CNN. They can't think on their feet
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because they've never had to. Exactly.
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That focus on real world mechanics is a perfect bridge to
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well to the darkest part of this conversation.
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They spend a lot of time breaking down the riots in
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Minneapolis in the shooting of a man named Winston Smith, also
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known as Prey. Right.
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And this is where Wilson's worldview really shifts from
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theory to, well, conspiracy, or as he would call it, strategy.
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He doesn't see the riots of 2020 as just organic anger.
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He calls them a color revolution.
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Which is a term you usually hear about, like the CIA toppling a
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government in Eastern Europe or something.
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How does he apply that to Minnesota?
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He claims there's a specific, almost mathematical formula
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being used to generate chaos. It's not random.
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Step 1 you order the local police to stand down.
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You pull them back so the streets are totally open.
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Step 2 you force federal agents. He mentions IC or Border Patrol
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to step in and protect federal buildings because the local pops
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won't. So you're creating a mismatch on
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purpose. You're putting federal agents
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who aren't from there against a local crowd.
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Precisely. Wilson calls it knocking King
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steel against Flint. You create friction between
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federal agents, who are now seen as invaders, and the protesters,
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and you just wait for the spark. A tragedy becomes inevitable.
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And once it happens, it's weaponized for political gain.
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And he thinks the shooting of Winston Smith was that spark, or
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was meant to be. He thinks the whole narrative
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around it was manufactured. The mainstream story was that it
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was an execution by law enforcement.
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Wilson, leaning on his gunsmith background, offers this
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completely different technical explanation.
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This is where the mechanic brain really comes out.
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It does. It got super technical didn't
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it? Specifically about the gunsmith
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was carrying a Sig P320. Right, and if you're not a gun
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person, this might sound like a bunch of jargon, but it's really
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crucial to his defense of the officers involved.
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The pre 2017 models of the Sig P320 had this this notorious
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defect. There's striker fired, which
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just means there's no external hammer.
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OK, so what's the defect? Does a jam.
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No, it's a drop safety failure. It's all about inertia.
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If you drop that specific model at a very specific angle,
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hitting the back of the slide, the Beaver tail, the physical
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mass of the trigger itself can move backward from the impact
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and fire the weapon. Yeah, without a finger ever
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being on the trigger. So.
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The gun can literally shoot itself if it hits the ground
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hard enough. Yes, and Wilson thinks that's a
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very strong possibility of what happened there.
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You have Smith wrestling with officers inside a car.
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It's total chaos. There's pepper spray, the fog of
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war. You know, if that gun gets
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knocked or twisted while there's pressure on the mechanism, it
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could discharge negligently. And if the officers hear a
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gunshot coming from the suspects gun?
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They're going to assume they're being fired on and they will
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return fire immediately, right? So Wilson's point is the
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officers were likely reacting to a gunshot that wasn't an
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attempted murder, but just a mechanic failure in a crazy high
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stress environment. So not a calculated execution,
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but a hardware bug meeting a chaotic human situation.
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Which is a tragedy, of course, but it's not a crime.
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And then he contrasts that technical reality with how the
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media presented Smith. He points out that MSNBC
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actually altered the photo of the suspect.
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I think I saw the side by side of this.
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They lightened his skin. They lightened his skin, shrunk
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his nose, widened his jawline. They literally photoshopped him
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to look more handsome and sympathetic.
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Wilson compares it to when CNN put that weird Gray green filter
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on Joe Rogan when he had COVID to make him look like a ghoul.
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It's all visual manipulation to control who you feel empathy
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for. And that, I guess, leads us
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right to the sociological core of this whole thing, this
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concept. He talks about suicidal empathy.
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It's a striking phrase. Yeah, it comes from Gad Sod, but
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Wilson really leans into it. The idea is that modern empathy,
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being kind, being inclusive, being culturally relativist, can
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actually destroy your society. It's when your desire to be nice
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overrides your own survival instinct.
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Exactly. And he used a very graphic
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example to prove his point. The Zambia people of Papua New
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Guinea, Yeah. This part was distinct it.
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Was the Zambia have this rite of passage for young boys that
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involves seaman warriors and we don't need to get into the
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really graphic specifics, but it involves the systematic
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ingestion of bodily fluids from the elders to gain strength.
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It's incredibly disturbing, but why even bring that up in a
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political debate? To shatter the idea of cultural
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relativism, the modern left often argues, well, who are we
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to judge other cultures? Different isn't bad, it's just
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different. And Wilson is saying no, that is
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just plain wrong. He says the Christian
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missionaries who went in and stopped that practice were
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morally correct. He's arguing that some things
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are objectively evil, and if you're too empathetic to judge
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them, you've lost your moral compass.
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And he applies that same sort of survival logic to immigration,
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too. He really pushes back on the
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idea that Democrats support immigration out of just
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compassion. He thinks compassion is the
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mask. The real goal, in his view, is
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consolidating power. He breaks down the census
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mechanism. Illegal immigrants are counted
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in the census. That population count determines
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how many seats a state gets in Congress.
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So even if they can't vote themselves, they increase the
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political power of the sanctuary cities where they live.
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Precisely. And to prove what he sees as the
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cynicism of it all, they played these audio clips of Obama from
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2010 and Hillary Clinton from 2008.
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I remember. Hearing those, they sound very
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different from today's rhetoric. Oh yeah, Hillary was calling for
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the deportation of anyone who committed a crime.
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Obama was warning that indiscriminate legalization
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would hurt working class wages. It's wild.
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Wilson and Rogan's whole point was that 2008 Hillary sounds
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more mega than Trump does today. Which is a crazy shift in just,
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what, 15 years? How does Wilson explain that?
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His argument is that their morality didn't evolve, their
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strategy did. They realized the demographics
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were a vehicle for permanent political power.
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It's a cynical take for sure, but the audio clips make it kind
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of hard to dismiss. He's basically saying they
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didn't get nicer, they just realized open borders helps them
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win. That's the argument.
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Cynicism really is the theme here.
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Yeah, Let's pivot to the mental health segment because the
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numbers they talked about were just.
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Stark they were. They were looking at data that
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showed over 50% of young liberal women report having a mental
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health diagnosis. Meanwhile, Conservative men
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reported the lowest rates. OK, but the standard rebuttal to
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that, and I've heard this 1000 times, is that conservatives are
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just repressed. They don't go to therapy because
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of the stigma, so they're just not getting diagnosed.
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They're just suffering in silence.
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Wilson rejects that completely. He calls psychology and
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psychiatry voodoo. Voodoo.
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That's a strong word. He believes it's a secular
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replacement for real community. He argues that conservatives
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might just be genuinely happier because they rely on organic
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support systems. You know, family, church,
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friends instead of paid strangers.
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He calls the secular worldview the ME philosophy.
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Explain that. Well, if there's no God, no
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higher duty, then the entire universe revolves around you,
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your feelings, your identity, your trauma.
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And Wilson argues that this kind of self obsession inevitably
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leads to misery and nihilism. You become the main character in
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a tragedy that you wrote yourself.
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Pretty much. And Rogan had that great analogy
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for this the parking lot. The church parking lot versus
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the concert parking lot, Yeah. When you leave church, people
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are waving you ahead. You go first, no after you.
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It's polite, but try leaving a stadium concert.
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It's a war zone. Every man for himself.
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And Wilson's argument is that this behavior isn't an accident,
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it's the difference between a worldview based on duty to
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others versus 1 based on self gratification.
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Ray And he also made a point about forgiveness that I thought
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was pretty profound, you know, regardless of your religious
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views. The mechanism of forgiveness.
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Exactly. In Christianity, everyone is
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flawed so everyone can be redeemed.
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You can repent, but he argues the modern woke left has no
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mechanism for forgiveness at all.
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Which is why you see these purity spiral.
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Yes. If you make one mistake, say one
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wrong word, you are cancelled forever.
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There is no path back. It kind of explains the ferocity
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of the infighting you see online.
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The stakes are so high if there's no redemption.
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But Wilson didn't just stick to modern politics.
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He went way back after the whole historical narrative of the
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noble Savage. He really wants to dismantle
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this idea that Indigenous cultures were these peaceful
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utopias before Europeans showed up and he went straight for the
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Aztecs. The numbers he cited were they
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were industrial. He was referencing historical
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accounts claiming the Aztecs sacrifice somewhere between
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20,000 and 80,000 people in just four days.
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To consecrate a single temple. A single temple that's, I mean,
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that's a logistical nightmare. Just the cleanup alone, it
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sounds more like a processing plan than a church service.
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It's horrifying, and Wilson's blunt assessment is that the
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Spanish conquest wasn't the destruction of paradise, it was
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the end of a barbarous nightmare.
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He argues we've romanticized these cultures to demonize the
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West, and we ignore the brutality that was actually
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there. He did the same thing with the
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Comanches, right? He referenced that book Empire
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of the Summer Moon. Yep.
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He describes the Comanches as the Mongols of the plains,
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brutal expansionists who basically wiped out the Apaches.
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But the nuance, he adds, is about technology.
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The Comanches only became that dominant after they got horses.
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Which came from the Spanish. Exactly.
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Horses went extinct in North America, the Spanish
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reintroduced them. So the entire Comanche empire
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was actually powered by colonial technology.
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And Wilson uses this to argue that, look, everyone is a
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colonizer. Humans have been migrating and
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conquering and displacing each other since we first left
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Africa. He thinks the label colonizer is
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just a political slur used to delegitimize the American Nation
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Today. That is a heavy reframing of
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history, but we have to take a quick detour before we finish
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because it wouldn't be a Rogan recap without a wait What moment
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about science? The Super Collider.
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Yes, that giant tunnel in Texas. This is such a fascinating
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rabbit hole. Back in the 90's the US spent
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billions digging this massive tunnel for a superconducting
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super Collider. Then all of a sudden they just
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filled it in and abandoned it. And Wilson suspects it wasn't
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just about budget cuts. No, he and Rogan were
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speculating about the military angle.
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Did they realize the tech could be weaponized, used for directed
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energy weapons or particle beams?
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Did the military step in and say Nope, this is too dangerous for
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civilian scientists? Pure speculation, but it fits
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his theme of hidden knowledge. It does.
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They also touched on the brutality of nature with that
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missing 411 phenomenon, you know, people just vanishing in
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national parks. Wilson takes the pragmatic, if
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kind of gruesome, route here. No portals, no Bigfoot, no.
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He just points out that nature consumes dead things
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terrifyingly fast. Maggots, scavengers, a body can
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effectively disappear in a matter of days.
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It's a grim reminder that nature is not a Disney movie.
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Which brings us to the wolves. The reintroduction of wolves,
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we're always told it balances the ecosystem.
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But Wilson points out these unintended consequences.
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In places like Colorado, the wolves are killing mountain
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lions or just stealing their kills.
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So the mountain lions, now desperate, have to kill more elk
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just to survive. Right, so instead of creating
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balance, you've just created more stress on the entire prey
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population. It's a metaphor for everything
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we've talked about. Yeah.
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When you meddle with complex systems, whether it's a
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government or an ecosystem, the result is rarely what you
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intended. Perfectly put.
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So we've covered gun mechanics, mental health stats, Aztec
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history, and wolf predation. How do we land this plane?
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I think we have to end on Wilson's personal philosophy
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because despite believing that half the country is under this
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suicidal empathy spell, he spends 2 hours every single
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morning replying to every DM he gets.
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That sounds absolutely exhausting.
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He sees it as a duty, but he leaves us with this provocative
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and honestly slightly terrifying thought about the polarization
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we're all living through. What is it?
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He challenges you, the listener. If you genuinely believe, as
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many on the left claim they do, that you are fighting literal
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Nazis, that Trump is Hitler, or conservatives are the 4th Reich,
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then what action isn't justified?
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Right. If you believe you're fighting
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the actual Third Reich, then violence isn't just an option,
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it becomes a moral obligation. You wouldn't debate Hitler,
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you'd stop him. Exactly, Wilson suggests the
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breakdown we're seeing isn't about tax rates or healthcare
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policy. It's because one side has
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convinced themselves they are in an existential war against pure
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evil. And you believe that you can
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justify anything, Lying, cheating, violence, because the
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ends always justify the means. It forces you to ask, are we
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just disagreeing on policy anymore or are we living in 2
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completely different realities? That is the question.
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A heavy note to end on, but that's why we do the deep dive.
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Thanks for listening and we'll catch you on the next one.