Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Francis Foster & Konstantin Kisin (2025) - Social Media, Conflict and Humanity

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Francis Foster & Konstantin Kisin (2025) - Social Media, Conflict and Humanity · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Yeah, welcome.
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  Today we are jumping straight into a deep dive on that recent
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  conversation Joe had with Frances Foster and Konstantin
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  Kiesen. That's JRE 10 tagged 2398.
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  That's the one and our mission today really, is to cut through
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  all the noise and pull out the crucial facts, the kind of
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  surprising insights from what they talked about.
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  Insights about, well, cultural manipulation, the way political
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  language is used, and how technology, you know, is
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  fundamentally reshaping things, human behavior, geopolitics,
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  it's all connected. So if you're interested in
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  getting a necessary shortcut sort of to being well informed
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  on stuff like information overload, how algorithms might
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  be dividing us, and what extreme rhetoric is doing globally.
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  Then this deep dive is absolutely for you.
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  We're aiming to lay it out clearly.
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  OK, so where do we start? They brought up the UK quite a
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  bit. They did.
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  Let's start with this interesting point about the UK
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  police and freedom of expression.
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  There's been a shift recently. Right.
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  They mentioned police saying they won't investigate these non
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  crime hate incidents anymore. Exactly a non crime hate
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  incident or NCHI. It's basically when someone says
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  something considered hateful but crucially, no actual crime was.
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  Committed. And who decides what's hateful?
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  That's the tricky part, isn't it?
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  It's subjective. Totally subjective.
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  Now, on the surface, not investigating sounds like a win
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  for free speech, Maybe. But there's a catch.
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  Always a catch. What is it?
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  Well, they're not investigating, but they are still going to keep
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  track. They'll make a record of these
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  incidents. So it's like a database of
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  things people said that someone didn't like, even if it wasn't
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  illegal. That feels a bit Orwellian.
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  That's the concern, yeah, a kind of bureaucracy of subjective
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  morality. And the argument put forward in
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  the source was that these sorts of restrictive rules, especially
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  around social media, came in during what they called the Uber
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  woke era. Right.
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  And it was pushed from the top, wasn't it?
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  The police on the ground maybe didn't even want to enforce it.
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  That's what was suggested, that officers found these laws dumb.
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  But you know, pressure from higher ups meant they had to
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  follow up on complaints or get into trouble themselves.
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  It was a massive top down thing. A kind of moral policing.
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  But they said the really worrying part wasn't even the
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  police actions. No, it was the behavior of
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  ordinary people. They use this analogy of
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  societal global warming to describe the overall shift.
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  That's a powerful image and the worst part of that.
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  The worst bit they observed was how willing neighbors became too
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  well snitch on each other during the pandemic.
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  For instance like. Reporting someone for taking a
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  second walk when the rules said only one.
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  That kind of thing, Exactly. That petty stuff and that
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  willingness to turn on each other.
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  That revealed something quite profound, didn't it?
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  It revealed A vulnerability, maybe to manipulation.
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  Precisely. Which leads to this pretty
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  cynical observation they made. They kind of joked about elites
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  or lizard people, but the serious point was that those in
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  power perhaps realized just how incredibly easy it is to
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  manipulate the public during that period.
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  That is a scary thought. What specifically did they think
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  the elites learned? Basically that all it took was
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  quote just a cold and a little bit of social media input and
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  you could get mass compliance with rules that never existed
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  before. And get people to admit things
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  they never would have otherwise. Wow, OK.
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  Yeah, it showed this terrifying malleability when you apply fear
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  and social pressure. And this connects to the tech
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  side of things, right? The algorithms, yeah, they
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  pinpointed a shift around 2014. They did.
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  That lines up with the real explosion of social media and
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  algorithms getting really good at, well, keeping us glued to
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  our screens. And the key thing there is why
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  the algorithm keeps us glued. It's not for truth, is it?
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  Not at all. It's curated purely to hold your
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  attention. That's the only goal, and that's
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  something totally new in human history.
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  Having our main info source design like that, it's basically
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  unstudied territory. And if life for many people is
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  relatively safe but maybe kind of boring, the whole get up,
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  commute, work, eat, treadmill routine.
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  Then people start looking for excitement, for emotional highs
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  and lows. And where do they find it,
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  exactly? They suggested people actively
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  seek out the terror, the sadness, the rage, the drama of
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  global conflict online almost to feel alive.
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  And the algorithm's perfectly happy to serve that up, because
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  negativity grabs attention. It absolutely does.
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  It feeds that need for drama, pulling people towards the
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  extremes because that guarantees engagement.
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  So you've got algorithms feeding outrage.
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  Where does that spill over into the real world politics?
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  Political. Language directly into political
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  language, it becomes a weapon. They gave the example of Auk
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  Green Party leader calling Nigel Farage a Nazi or a fascist.
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  OK, which goes way beyond just disagreeing with his policies
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  way. Beyond because labeling someone
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  like that is incredibly dangerous.
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  If someone is truly a Nazi or a fascist, historically you're
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  expected to fight them physically if necessary.
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  So using that language is like painting a target on someone's
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  back just because you disagree with them politically.
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  It absolutely is. It's weaponizing language with
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  potential real world violence in mind.
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  And is this weapon applied evenly?
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  They talked about bias, didn't they?
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  A huge bias according to the discussion.
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  They contrasted how the law seems to react differently
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  depending on your political leaning.
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  Was the example. Zara Sultana, described as a far
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  left MP, apparently advocated fighting fascists in the
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  streets. Now that sounds like clear
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  incitement to violence. You think so?
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  But it was seemingly deemed acceptable, maybe because of her
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  political alignment. This was contrasted sharply
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  with, say, Graham Linehan being arrested for tweets considered
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  relatively innocuous. And wasn't there another case,
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  someone saying something really extreme about violence against
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  the far right who got acquitted? Yes, exactly.
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  Someone apparently said we need to slit the throat of the far
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  right and was acquitted. So you see this massive
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  inconsistency in how language and potential incitement are
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  treated. It depends on who's saying it
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  and about whom. It feels very trouble.
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  Very. And this feeds into another
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  point. They raised the observation that
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  at a lot of these protests you see individuals who are, quote,
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  clearly not well. Meaning people struggling with
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  mental health issues. Potentially, yeah.
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  Schizophrenia, extreme anxiety, other issues.
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  These individuals might latch onto a cause, a tribe like the
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  groups No Kings or Fuck Ice because it gives them belonging.
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  And the danger there is what taking vulnerable people and
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  aiming them at political opponents.
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  That's the risk you take someone unstable, desperate for
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  community, and you tell them those people over there are the
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  enemy of humanity. It simplifies the world and can
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  justify extreme actions for someone already on the edge.
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  And does this instability connect to how much they
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  actually know about the 'cause they're supporting?
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  Often, yes, there was this really telling anecdote about
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  protesters with a socialist intifada sign.
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  OK. What happened?
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  When they were asked, the students holding the sign
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  apparently didn't know what intifada actually means, which
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  is historically it refers to an armed uprising, a popular
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  resistance often involving violence.
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  So to advocate for that without understanding its meaning.
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  It suggests it's more about performance than substance for
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  some. It certainly points that way,
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  and the Internet makes that performance performance
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  incredibly powerful. It creates illusions.
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  Illusions of mass movements. Precisely.
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  They use an Extinction Rebellion as an example.
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  You might only have, say, 40 really organized people at a
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  protest. OK, but if each of those 40
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  people films it, edits out the context, maybe makes it look
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  bigger than it is, and floods social media?
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  Suddenly it looks like massive, widespread outrage, even if it
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  wasn't. Exactly.
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  Tiny groups get huge leverage online, which leads to the next
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  point, funded protests. Are they always organic?
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  Good question. What did the source material
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  suggest? It suggested looking closely at
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  things like counter protests. You sometimes see these really
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  professional uniform signs maybe linked to specific organizations
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  like the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party.
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  Not exactly hand drawn cardboard signs from concerned citizens
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  that not. Always no.
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  That kind of organization hints at funding.
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  They mentioned evidence of corporate funding for groups
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  like No Kings and even touched on claims that money might trace
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  back to places like US AD for certain activism.
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  Wow. And this extends to political
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  rallies too, doesn't it? The idea of manufacturing
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  crowds. Yes, they brought up busting
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  people in, even allegedly paying people to attend rallies.
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  The Kamala Harris campaign was cited as an example discussed
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  elsewhere. The goal being to make the
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  candidate look way more popular than they might actually be.
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  Right. It's optics.
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  It's creating an illusion of massive engagement.
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  And the argument was that's basically deception.
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  It's propaganda, not genuine democracy.
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  OK, let's shift gears completely.
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  They also dove into culture, gender, and biology.
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  The Cass report came up. A huge one In the UK, Doctor
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  Hilary Cass, a pediatrician, LED this major review of gender
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  treatments for young people. The findings were pretty stark,
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  weren't they, regarding puberty blockers?
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  Incredibly stark, the report found essentially 0 evidence
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  that puberty blockers actually help with the psychological
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  distress of gender dysphoria in children.
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  Zero evidence that's significant.
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  It is, and they highlighted the context of these drugs too, that
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  they were originally chemical castration drugs used on sex
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  offenders, just repurposed. Which adds a whole other layer
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  of seriousness to it. This isn't just politics, it's
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  about medical ethics evidence. Absolutely.
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  And this whole area, they argued, reveals a kind of
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  cognitive dissonance, particularly within some
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  feminist circles. Silly.
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  Well, the tension between arguing that society is a
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  dangerous patriarchal rape culture on one hand, and on the
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  other hand supporting policies that allow biological males
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  trans women into traditionally female only spaces like
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  bathrooms, changing rooms, even prisons and dominating women's
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  sports. So the argument is that those
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  two positions seem contradictory if leafty is the primary
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  concern. That was the point raised, and
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  they noted an interesting asymmetry.
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  Nobody seems to be asking what is a man?
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  Meaning there isn't the same cultural fight about trans men
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  using male spaces. Exactly.
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  There's no comparable level of outrage or conflict, which they
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  argued highlights what the real underlying issue is for many
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  people, which is the opening up of vulnerable, segregated
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  women's spaces, spaces created specifically for safety from
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  predatory males to all biological males, regardless of
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  their identity. Because that inevitably opens
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  the door to the creepy pervert men, as they put it, The one
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  society has always had to protect women from.
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  That was the core concern expressed, that this specific,
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  undeniable risk is being dismissed sometimes by the very
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  people who most strongly claim to fear patriarchal harm.
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  So it's presented as a direct conflict between the perceived
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  rights and safety needs of two different groups, biological
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  women and trans women, especially around physical
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  safety and fairness in things like sports.
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  Yes, a complex clash of rights and reality.
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  OK, let's pivot one last time to the human element, creativity
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  and AI. They talked about AI music.
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  Yes, specifically an AI trying to make a 50s soul version of
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  $0.50 in die club. A slightly funny example, but it
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  made a point. Which was that AI can do it
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  perfectly. Kind of.
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  It can synthesize the most soulful sounds, the most
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  engaging elements, because it analyzes vast amounts of data.
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  It creates this technically perfect synthetic emotional
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  landscape. It's not the same as human
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  creation. That's the argument.
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  The real power, the lasting impact of human music, think
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  Michael Jackson's love songs or Billie Jean, comes from genuine
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  lived experience, from fantasy, from raw, messy flaw, human
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  emotion. AI gives us the perfect copy,
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  but maybe we crave the imperfect original, the thing rooted in
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  actual life. Exactly.
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  We search for that unique perspective and this relates
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  back to conversation itself. How so?
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  Well, the value of actual long form human conversation, like
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  the kind people have in a room together, not just typing
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  online. Because online it just descends
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  into shouting matches. Often, yeah, name calling anger
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  because there are often no real consequences for being
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  disrespectful or unreasonable online.
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  Whereas face to face or even in a structured debate, there's is
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  a need for civility, consequences for being out of
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  line. Right.
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  Civilized debate forces a certain level of respect, the
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  ability to actually disagree constructively, to make nuanced
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  distinctions. Like they mentioned
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  distinguishing between Muslims generally and Islamist
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  specifically. That's a human skill, A.
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  Skill that's maybe getting weaker in the digital age.
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  Possibly atrophying. Yeah.
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  And this connects to a deeper human desire, the search for
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  certainty. Certainty.
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  How does that fit in? They drew this contrast between
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  political ideology and, say, deep religious faith.
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  Ideology offers certainty, which can be really appealing,
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  especially if you feel unstable. But that certainty can also be
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  rigid and dangerous. Extremely dangerous when taken
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  to extremes, political zealots often seem highly unstable,
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  always chasing the next outrage to confirm their worldview.
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  And how does that compare to religious faith?
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  Well, they observed that truly devout, kind religious people
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  often have this deep inner peace even amidst suffering.
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  It stems from a belief that it's all part of a bigger plan.
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  Maybe it provides an anchor? An anchor that political
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  extremism lacks. They even mentioned ancient
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  myths possibly containing real history like the flood myth and
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  geology. Yeah, a brief mention of things
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  like the Younger Dryas impact theory possibly being reflected
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  in ancient stories. Just a hint that maybe faith
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  traditions hold more than just stories.
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  OK, so pulling all these threads together, what's the main take
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  away for you, the listener? Well, we've really dug into
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  sources showing this pervasive manipulation happening, from how
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  political language is used to incite, how mental illness might
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  be weaponized, and activism. And the subtler stuff, like how
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  algorithms shape what you see, how biased enforcement works,
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  and how some activism might be funded and staged to look bigger
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  than it is. And the underlying suggestion
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  from the source material is that humanity seems stuck in these
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  cycles, doesn't it? Tyranny, War.
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  Moral Panics. And maybe part of the reason is
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  we're constantly looking down at our phones, at the manufactured
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  outrage, instead of looking up the stars, which kind of puts
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  our own problems in perspective, humbles us.
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  That was definitely a theme, that loss of perspective.
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  So here's a final thought to leave you with something
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  provocative to Mull over. Go on.
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  Given how easily humans seem to be manipulated, as discussed,
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  and given how fast AI is developing, creating potentially
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  perfect, irresistible experiences without needing any
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  messy human input, what's left? What becomes the core human
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  purpose that stops us all from just collapsing into bitterness
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  or narcissism or just passively consuming AI content?
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  If AI masters perfect creation, what's the unique thing only
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  humans can do? What endeavor can AI never truly
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  replicate? Maybe the answer is in some of
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  those other concepts they touched on developing real
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  skills, discipline, what they called Hunter's persistence.
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  That dedication to getting really good at something
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  difficult as an antidote to just being resentful about the world.
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  Perhaps that pursuit of difficult mastery might be the
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  key thing AI can't simulate, and the very thing we need to
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  counter the chaos. Something to think about.
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  Definitely something to think about.
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  Until next time, keep looking.