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Nov. 23, 2021 - The Joe Rogan Experience
03:29:32
Joe Rogan Experience #1738 - Ben O'Brien
Participants
Main voices
b
ben obrien
01:48:02
j
joe rogan
01:33:31
Appearances
j
jamie vernon
02:18
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
Oh, hi, Ben O'Brien.
ben obrien
Hey Joe Rogan.
God it feels really comfortable in here.
joe rogan
It's been a while.
ben obrien
I know.
I missed you.
joe rogan
This is so appropriate that I'm mixing this with a nice little Benchmade knife.
We're making rye brains.
This is a...
ben obrien
We are.
joe rogan
Well, we figured out a couple of different drinks one time on a hunting trip in Lanai, and one of them was the Cat Lady.
That was John Dudley's creation.
unidentified
LAUGHTER The Cat Lady.
ben obrien
There's no way to know.
Do you remember what was in the Cat Lady?
joe rogan
The Cat Lady had Red Bull, red wine, and I think it was tequila?
ben obrien
Tequila, for sure.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
There's no way to really recreate that.
John Dudley's everybody's uncle.
joe rogan
He can put him away.
Yeah, he knows how to put him away.
And we did a podcast.
ben obrien
Podcast in Paradise?
joe rogan
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Who was on that?
Remy was on that one?
ben obrien
Remy, Sam Soho was on that one.
joe rogan
Shane Dorian.
ben obrien
Shane Dorian.
joe rogan
Oh, it was a classic.
And we had a giant dinner table in my hotel room just covered with bottles.
ben obrien
And you emptied the minibar.
You're like, guys, guys, let's have a podcast.
joe rogan
We literally opened up the minibar.
And I don't even remember what equipment we used to record.
ben obrien
I was employed then as a marketing person.
I was like, this is it.
joe rogan
Was that when you were working for Yeti?
ben obrien
Yeah, I was like, this is the end of my career.
I think I might have even told you guys after, like, that could be it for me.
joe rogan
That could be a problem.
We got a little wild, but I don't think it was that bad.
No, no.
I don't think we said anything that was too crazy.
ben obrien
I think we did just fine.
We created the worst drink ever.
And people actually, to the discredit of the American public, people actually...
Made that and drank that.
joe rogan
Star drinking cat ladies?
unidentified
They did.
joe rogan
They weren't that bad.
ben obrien
Which is the surprising part?
joe rogan
Yeah.
The rye brain, which is what we're making now, that was your creation, I believe.
ben obrien
I want to say Dudley was also involved.
joe rogan
But Rye Brain is an Alpha Brain Instant, the delicious...
Alpha Brain is like a...
ben obrien
Memory.
joe rogan
Yeah, well it is normally, like it's just a supplement, but we have Alpha Brain Instant, you add to water, it actually tastes good.
This one I'm drinking here is lemon.
No, pineapple.
ben obrien
This one, yeah.
I was stirring my drink.
I didn't have a spoon, so I was stirring it with a packet.
Coconut lime flavor.
joe rogan
Oh.
ben obrien
With a little...
joe rogan
Benchmade gave me this sweet little knife.
ben obrien
Oh, look at that.
joe rogan
I feel like light that is.
ben obrien
You done any...
Ooh, it's got like a little design on it.
You done any work with this on animal parts?
joe rogan
No, no.
That's just a little carry one.
They gave it to me when I was in Portland.
I did a show up in Portland.
ben obrien
Just don't fly on a plane.
You probably fly private.
Don't fly on a plane with that.
They'll take it away from you.
joe rogan
No, dude.
Jocko gave me a big-ass fucking knife, and I had it in my fanny pack.
I went straight through security, no problem.
And then I sent him a photo of it from my hotel room.
I go, hey.
I go, look who's protecting your hair.
The fucking TSA let me fly straight through.
ben obrien
I think if it's in a fanny pack, though.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
They figure this guy's safe.
ben obrien
He's not going to do anything.
He's wearing a fanny pack.
joe rogan
He's a good guy.
ben obrien
It's leather.
It's shiny.
joe rogan
Don't a lot of people use fanny packs for concealed carry?
ben obrien
Yeah, that is popular in Concealed Carry World.
joe rogan
Have you seen those Velcro ones that they have that you just like pull a tab?
ben obrien
No offense, Concealed Carry World, but it's not the most fashion-forward ever.
It isn't!
joe rogan
If you're not worried about getting laid, just, it's a practice.
ben obrien
But you can defend yourself.
joe rogan
You can defend yourself.
Mine's in my truck.
What do you need?
My car, rather.
My fanny pack.
I carry it everywhere.
ben obrien
No, I mean, the first time I met you, you had one on.
joe rogan
I fucking really wear one.
ben obrien
I know, you really do.
I often tell people, they're like, how's Joe Rogan?
I'm like, well, he wears fanny packs.
I don't know.
You take...
What are we doing here?
What's your...
So you put it in the water.
joe rogan
So put a little bit of there.
So we got a little water.
Oh, whiskey.
We need the whiskey.
ben obrien
What kind of whiskey are we going to go with?
Is Jamie...
You going to have one, Jamie?
He's going, no.
joe rogan
Got a couple different choices.
ben obrien
Who gave us this one?
joe rogan
Someone gave us this one.
ben obrien
Three of them.
What do you got there?
Buffalo Trace.
That's delicious.
joe rogan
Is this the one that Sanjay Gupta gave me?
Might be.
unidentified
Could be.
joe rogan
I think it is.
And then Buffalo Trace, which is probably my favorite.
ben obrien
Which is pretty good.
joe rogan
But then still Austin.
Since we're in Austin, probably have a little local flavor.
jamie vernon
Did you see this guy yesterday go viral?
Because he's Blade, the security guard guy on the left.
joe rogan
Look at him, knee pads and shit.
ben obrien
What's stuck in his pants?
A hatchet?
jamie vernon
I think it's a sword.
ben obrien
That looks like a hatchet.
joe rogan
He's a real security guard?
jamie vernon
It says on there, Agent Wolf Security.
I don't know.
I was trying to look at the picture.
unidentified
Wesley Snipes.
joe rogan
I'm going to go on a limb and say that guy lives alone.
Right?
He's one of those dudes.
ben obrien
Small apartment, just a couch.
joe rogan
Or maybe like a trailer in the woods.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, and he's out there doing karate and fucking moonlight.
ben obrien
Shirtless in the moonlight.
This is going to be, this is going to taste nostalgic, I feel like, Joe.
joe rogan
Yeah, this will bring us back to hunting and land.
ben obrien
Better times.
joe rogan
Not better times.
ben obrien
Not better times, different times.
joe rogan
These are perfect times.
How dare you.
ben obrien
These are good times in this little time machine you got here.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
This is, I was telling you, this is my third studio.
joe rogan
Yeah, you've been to all of them.
ben obrien
All the studios.
joe rogan
Well, yeah, I've been to the one that was in my house.
That was the first one.
ben obrien
That was the early one.
So I don't want to overhype my podcast.
joe rogan
That was before I knew this was a job.
That was back.
ben obrien
Cheers.
Cheers, my brother.
Good to see you, my brother.
joe rogan
Very good to see you.
ben obrien
It's good to be here.
joe rogan
Yeah, that was...
The one in the house was like, this is just for fun.
ben obrien
Yeah, you guys filmed it, or live-streamed it, didn't you?
joe rogan
Yeah, we had my office that we set up, and I just put a table in the office and put a little webcam on.
It was just for fun.
It was all just a goof.
ben obrien
Well, I tell people, like, my biggest regret in life, although there are many.
One of them is, when I first met you, when we went moose hunting, the whole time, we had a fucking hell of a time.
I didn't laugh more in a truck my whole life.
joe rogan
Like, that was fucking fun.
ben obrien
And you said, you should do a podcast, man.
Do a podcast.
I'll help you out.
Do a podcast.
And I was thinking, I work for a magazine.
That's the real media.
Joe Rogan's over there in his basement with his buddies.
joe rogan
That's what everybody said.
Everybody said that.
ben obrien
And I didn't listen to you.
It took me a while to get there.
But if I had listened to you when you first told me, I think it was seven years ago this month.
This might be like the seven-year week anniversary of that, huh?
Or seven or eight years ago.
joe rogan
Yeah, something like that.
ben obrien
So how long has this been going?
joe rogan
12 years.
ben obrien
12 years.
joe rogan
Yeah, this is a 12 year old podcast now.
ben obrien
Oh shit.
joe rogan
Yeah.
The only ones who were doing it before me were Corolla, Marin.
There was a couple guys that were doing it before me.
ben obrien
Yeah, you had the guy on that was the Podfiler?
What was that guy's name?
Lives here.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, Adam Curry.
He's the OG. He's definitely been doing it longer.
I mean, he fucking invented this shit.
And he's, I love that guy.
He's awesome.
He's so fucking smart and so tuned in.
And he does everything, like, completely independent.
You know, he's got one of them fucking Linux phones.
Like, he only uses Signal.
You know, like, everything's blockchain.
He's one of them guys, you know?
unidentified
Mm.
ben obrien
I don't know how to smoke a cigar, so for the people watching, you probably...
joe rogan
Just do it.
ben obrien
Just fucking go.
joe rogan
Figure it out along the way.
He's fully dialed in.
Adam Curry's the most dialed in guy.
He's the one who's always alerting me to fuckery.
Weird shit that they're doing with voting, or with the internet, or with digital rights.
ben obrien
You feel like you have kind of a back alley...
Like information group of people that are just sharing stuff with you all the time.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
A lot of information comes to you.
joe rogan
Yeah, a lot of information comes to me because people want me to get it out and I usually butcher it.
ben obrien
Me too.
joe rogan
So it comes out all fucked.
Comes out through my meathead mouth.
He goes to my ears and I'm like, yeah, got it, got it.
All right, let me tell everybody.
And then I fuck it up.
ben obrien
I got you, bro.
I got you, bro.
joe rogan
Yeah, and then I fuck it up.
ben obrien
I'm terrible like that.
And you think of the important points of history and things that you want to, ideas you want to articulate to people about things that are very important to you.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
And you almost invariably fuck it up.
And we could all just do a little bit better to acknowledge that with each other.
I guess it's hard.
joe rogan
But you know what it is also?
It's like we have many interests.
And that's my main problem.
I have so many interests.
If you want to talk to me about very specific things that I've studied for most of my life, I can give you a very detailed...
You could wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning and ask me, What martial art's the best martial art?
And I go, okay, well, this is what we know.
And then I can give you a very detailed, nuanced perspective on what we've learned about hand-to-hand combat.
ben obrien
Yeah, and everybody has one or two of those subjects that they know really well.
And that's when you get into public speaking or doing stuff like this, where you can go all day about that stuff.
The rest of it, you have, at best, ancillary knowledge of what you're talking about.
unidentified
Right, exactly.
joe rogan
At best, second-hand knowledge.
Especially if you're a person that has many interests, because there might be multiple things that you're really fascinated by.
You know, I always say that I wish I had many lives that I could live simultaneously, because I would have a bunch of different occupations.
ben obrien
And you've gone deep on many things, just in your life, like pool, when I first met you.
joe rogan
Still addicted to pool.
ben obrien
Addicted to pool, and then we got you addicted to hunting, archery.
Everybody got you deep into that.
And you find, like, especially going outside, you find that there's so many crafts.
Even in the outdoor world that I live in, there's so many little crafts that you can...
You've got the archery ones.
joe rogan
Yeah, the bow hunting one is a big one because there's like hunting, which is a fascinating, really difficult pursuit.
And people don't understand how difficult it is, especially on public land.
You know, it's a very hard pursuit.
unidentified
It is.
joe rogan
And especially if you want to fill your freezer up on a regular basis and you want to eat mostly wild game.
And especially those do-it-yourself guys, I fucking give all the credit in the world to those dudes.
ben obrien
I tell you a story.
When I moved to Bozeman, I had killed big elk, right?
If you came to my house, you might say, this is a big elk killing guy.
This guy has the bona fides to tell me how to kill elk.
But I had never really done it on my own.
joe rogan
All with guides?
ben obrien
Yeah, most of it.
I killed one big elk on public land, but again, it was a rifle hunt, and I had a buddy helping me, and I didn't gather the intellectual property in a way that I felt was appropriate to say, this is the thing that I did.
This is a craft that I can now say I'm a part of.
I'm a craftsman in this thing.
And so that idea stuck with me.
And so when I moved to bows, I thought, I have to understand the most difficult version of this elk hunting.
I'm going to go figure that out.
And that's by yourself, on your own, find where elk live, learn their habits, learn how they talk, and then be proficient enough with a bow, in this case, to get close enough and kill one.
joe rogan
Did you do scouting online?
unidentified
I did.
joe rogan
Did you use onyx maps?
ben obrien
I used onyx maps for e-scouting.
I went deep.
And I'm also a young father.
I got a lot going on.
So I'm like, I want it to be close to my house.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
One, I want to be able to include my friends in this.
There's a lot of things I want to be able to do.
And so I wanted to just understand the craft deeper.
Because I'm sure you know, with hunting especially, there's no bottom to how deep you can go in terms of learning.
You could never get to a full breadth of knowledge.
Ever.
joe rogan
There's so many layers.
ben obrien
It's impossible.
So I said, I'm going to go public land in Montana.
I'm going to learn to call.
I'm already proficient with a bow, but I'm going to learn everything.
I don't want anybody to tell me their spot.
I don't want anybody to tell me where the elk hang out.
And it took me two years.
unidentified
Wow.
ben obrien
I had a lot of shitty days in the woods where I thought I was an idiot.
I was walking around going, maybe this will never happen.
joe rogan
When you started out, did you remember anything that you'd learned hunting with guides?
You weren't starting from scratch, right?
No.
ben obrien
No, I wasn't starting from scratch.
I had a lifetime of hunting knowledge.
A lifetime of understanding how to...
I don't want to understate my abilities, but understanding how to work a landscape, how to understand where animals want to be.
It's pretty simple a lot of times.
So I had all this knowledge in my head, but what I didn't really have was the application of that knowledge.
I've been in the hunting industry since I was 22. And so I had this base of knowledge, but I hadn't carried it out.
And in my mind, when you get in the industry, you get handed experiences.
They're like, hey, go.
Hey, this is going to be cool.
So you get a suite of experiences that don't exactly add up to skill and craft.
And so I was like, started from scratch, sounded like shit as an elk caller.
It was been about three years ago, three and a half years ago.
Sounded like shit, but just went in my truck.
And when I was driving around, I'd be calling.
And when my wife got pissed at me, I'd go sit in my truck in the driveway with the heat on and just blow this elk call.
joe rogan
You'd blow a cow call or you'd blow like a bugle?
ben obrien
A full bugle, too.
joe rogan
In the car?
ben obrien
In my driveway.
joe rogan
That's why your ears are ringing, man.
ben obrien
It's not tinnitus.
But that was it.
So for me, it's a craft, right?
Bohang is a craft, but learning to talk like an elk is itself kind of this immersive craft.
So I went along that path.
I found a spot where elk hang out.
I got a lot of stories about that particular spot.
Where I learned when the elk were there, when they weren't, where they like to be, how they like to use the landscape.
We had a lot of grizzly bears, a lot of wolves in that area.
joe rogan
Did you see any?
ben obrien
Oh yeah.
joe rogan
A lot of grizzlies?
ben obrien
One grizzly.
joe rogan
Yeah?
ben obrien
Big fucker.
joe rogan
Did something happen?
ben obrien
This would have been last year.
Me and my dad are in the spot where I killed my elk this year in September.
And I was struggling through the season.
My dad comes to town.
I'm like, Dad, I'm gonna show you how to...
Let's go get an elk.
Dad, I'll show you.
Little does he know, I don't know what the fuck's going on at all.
I got it, buddy.
I got it.
So we go up to my spot.
If you picture, it's like a bowl like this.
You know, the elk live in the bowl.
It's a drainage.
We go to the top of the bowl and I hit the call and I look up the ridge and above us is this big bull elk.
He's going across the ridge above us.
And so I know how to use this ridge where he was on.
He was going to come down, hit the spine that we were on, and then come down the ridge towards us.
So I said, Dad, get in front of me.
I'm going to go back here and call, and we'll draw him past you and you get a shot.
So I start calling, make a little cow call.
I didn't want to bugle.
He was dominant.
I didn't want to get run over.
But I wanted to kind of entice him this way.
So I was just cow calling.
And it was a little bit after the rut.
So it wasn't full rut.
And he starts coming.
I see him look over and he starts coming down the ridge.
So I get all set up and I look back to where he came from and this big brown flash goes down the hill.
I thought it was him.
So I said, Daddy, get ready.
He's coming down.
unidentified
He's running.
ben obrien
He's coming in.
unidentified
Oh, Jesus.
ben obrien
And I'm looking this way and the bottom of the drainage is behind me.
And I knew, the longer story, is that I knew a buddy of mine had killed, his brother-in-law had killed an elk in the drainage to the day before.
I had a trail camera in that spot.
That trail camera had picked up wolves.
Literally, probably 500 yards from where we were standing at that moment, I had a trail camera that only weeks before had picked up wolves killing cattle.
Chasing cattle.
I got videos on my phone, wolves killing cattle.
And so I had talked to the game warden.
I said, hey man, just want to let you know.
The landowner, his cows are getting whacked up here.
And he said, listen, I said, well, he said, are you going to hunt the carcass of the cow that was killed?
I said, no, not necessarily interested in that.
He said, well, good, because there's a grizzly bear in this, there's a big boar grizzly bear, male grizzly bear, in this zone.
And you know how they are.
They can smell a carcass from five, seven miles away.
He said, he'll probably be over.
I said, okay, noted.
And he said, if you kill an elk, get it out of here.
So my buddy kills an elk.
It snows when he kills this elk.
This is the day before we were there.
He said there were wolf tracks on his tracks.
He had one pack out to the truck with half the elk, went back to get the other half.
There were wolf prints on his tracks in the time it took for him to go back to the truck and then come back for the rest of the week.
joe rogan
How long is the hike out?
ben obrien
I can't imagine it was more than 45 minutes.
joe rogan
So they were waiting.
ben obrien
They were waiting.
joe rogan
They probably, did he rifle hunt or bow hunt?
ben obrien
This bow hunt.
joe rogan
They probably know.
ben obrien
They know.
joe rogan
When they see you, they're like, oh, this guy's going to go shoot.
ben obrien
That guy over there?
Look at that silly little bitch.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
Just prancing around his camo.
joe rogan
Not only that, they leave behind the best part for a wolf, the liver.
Like, a lot of people leave behind the guts.
ben obrien
You've been taking livers lately?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Dude, I eat it all the time.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
It makes you feel good.
ben obrien
Remember we ate that moose liver?
joe rogan
I do remember.
I remember because Mike was like, nah, I'm into it.
ben obrien
We were drinking peppermint schnapps or something.
joe rogan
We were drinking everything he had.
ben obrien
Oh, that was awful.
I remember getting on the plane the next day and being like, if somebody could smell, they probably could.
joe rogan
I think I have a photo that I was just looking at us.
ben obrien
I have a video of you describing my moose kill.
That if we could find it, it would be...
unidentified
Oh my god.
ben obrien
Let me try to find that video.
joe rogan
That moose was amazing.
ben obrien
Because you're like, I was just running.
And I don't know why.
joe rogan
Well, it was going down.
As it went down, as your moose went down, I started running towards it.
I'm like, why am I running?
But I just kept running.
LAUGHTER I was so excited to see it because it was so big.
Let me explain to people what it looked like.
The first time I saw it, shout out to our friend Mike Hawkridge.
ben obrien
The best.
joe rogan
He's the best.
He's an awesome guy.
ben obrien
The man.
joe rogan
And he lives up there in BC. And he's got some wild stories about wolves.
He's got some wild stories about wolves.
Wasn't there like a bunch of wolves that took out someone's cow, like right outside of his house?
ben obrien
Yes.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
And there was...
Man, I can't even remember.
If he was here, he would regale us with so many of them.
But when you're in...
He spends so much time outside.
He has horses and he has cattle and he spends time on the res up there.
Yeah.
Reservation up there.
And when you're in that environment, and I've never...
I'm an East Coast kid, dude.
When I was 15, he'd be like, hey, one day you'll be living in Grizz country.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Fuck that.
unidentified
That's not real.
ben obrien
That's not real.
I'm going to find this video.
joe rogan
We're going to go back to this grizzly bear story because people are like, what are you doing?
ben obrien
They're used to that.
joe rogan
They get used to it.
So we found a wolf kill.
Do you remember that?
ben obrien
I do remember that.
joe rogan
Jamie, see if you can find that because it's on my Instagram.
It's on my Instagram from seven years ago.
ben obrien
I promise.
joe rogan
It's like when I first got an Instagram.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
I mean, Everlast.
joe rogan
Everlast from the House of Pain.
He's the one who talked me into having an Instagram.
He's like, you should have an Instagram.
I was like, I already got a Twitter.
ben obrien
Well, I got a thing on my Facebook, like, seven-year anniversary of the Moose Hunt.
joe rogan
Oh.
So, seven years ago.
ben obrien
It was this video that I'm about to find here.
joe rogan
Okay.
There it is.
I got it.
ben obrien
I don't know.
It's on...
This is going to be shitty audio.
In a second.
joe rogan
We're having a good time, laughing, joking.
All of a sudden, Mike goes, holy shit, two bulls!
We stop the truck.
You jump out.
Within ten seconds, the first shot goes off.
unidentified
Boom!
joe rogan
The moose drops.
I don't know.
I might have yelled, shoot him again or something.
Who knows what happened?
The moose drop.
You've got this...
I have an Elvis t-shirt on.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Elvis doing karate.
ben obrien
It's the worst podcast.
unidentified
Audio.
This is my favorite part.
joe rogan
It was so big, dude.
When we saw those...
Let me explain the first time I saw a moose live.
It was like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Where he like pops his head out of the Jeep.
Like, what the fuck?
I'd never seen...
ben obrien
They do move in herds.
joe rogan
They're so big.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
They're so big.
When you first see...
I had seen deer before, but when you see a moose on the hoof...
I mean, back then I'd never seen an elk.
ben obrien
This is early in your hunting career.
joe rogan
Yes, very, very early.
ben obrien
Yeah, this is super early.
joe rogan
It was like the second or third hunt I'd ever been on.
ben obrien
You've got to pull up that cover, Jamie, that we did for Peterson's Hunting.
joe rogan
Yeah, so it was me carrying the moose hunt.
And I was making a cardinal sin.
I was wearing some First Light stuff and some Sitka stuff.
ben obrien
You were a man of the people.
joe rogan
What are you doing?
ben obrien
You're bringing people together.
joe rogan
What are you doing?
That's the thing in the hunting world.
You have to be committed.
There it is.
I'm wearing a First Light shirt and sit and dance.
Ben and I met because Ben was working for Peterson's Hunting Magazine.
He contacted me and said, do you want to go on a moose hunt?
I was like, fuck yeah.
I had just gotten into hunting back then.
It was a completely new endeavor for me, but I was obsessed.
ben obrien
Right away, early on, Yeah, this was early, early in your evolution.
joe rogan
There's a video right there.
Joe Rogan, I'm not very good at hunting.
Who is, though?
Well, I mean, I've been hunting now for nine years, and I say that I'm like a purple belt in hunting.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's how I describe it.
And, you know, Cal, Ryan Callahan likes that analogy.
ben obrien
I like it too.
joe rogan
Because it's like, if you're honest, like jujitsu honesty is like, you know, like there's white belt, blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, black belt.
So I'm like a purple, like now, all these years in, I'm a purple belt in hunting.
ben obrien
And even, as I was saying earlier, you could pick lanes there.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
You know, because I'm in kind of like hunting knowledge and overall, I spent 12 years reading articles, writing articles, thinking about this, podcasting about this.
So like, maybe I'm a black belt in kind of being able to talk about it.
But that doesn't mean you have the physical ability, the mental stamina, you know, really to put the time in.
And that's really a big part of it, too.
You have to be immersed and put the time in.
And you have to sacrifice other things in your life and go outside and suffer.
joe rogan
You have to get a feel for how things work.
There's choices that you make when you're hunting, when you're in the field.
Do you go left?
Do you go right?
Do you try to cut this animal off?
Do you wait it out?
What do you do?
Do you try to play the wind, or do you try to take a chance while things are swirling?
There's so many...
And even to this day, you talk to Cam Haynes, who's an absolute black belt in hunting.
ben obrien
That I would agree with, yeah.
joe rogan
100%.
Nobody would disagree with that.
Probably, I would say he's the greatest bow hunter alive.
That's my feeling.
ben obrien
I'm with you.
joe rogan
That guy makes mistakes.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
He'll tell you.
He's like, I took a chance.
I tried to do this.
I tried to shoot him slightly quartering towards.
I tried to do this.
I tried to do that.
ben obrien
And it's one of those things where you try to describe it as, there's a bunch of topics here all mixed together, but one of them is that, why do we hunt in the modern sense, right?
What are we out there doing?
We'll get back to the elk story in a minute.
joe rogan
We're doing two things.
We're getting meat, and we're also having a transformative experience.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
But bring that back a little bit.
Think about game theory.
This is the most immersive, real, in a real sense, game that you can play.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
And it's a three-dimensional game.
Because it has...
You go play a video game and what do you get at the end?
You get the dopamine kick.
You get the kind of critical thinking that it takes.
You get the muscle memory, whatever.
You get all those things that are beneficial.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
But in the sense of hunting...
And we tend to focus on one part of the game or the other.
But the game itself is understanding an animal, understanding the landscape it uses, understanding its ecology and biology and the history of the landscape.
joe rogan
And catching it while it's horny.
ben obrien
Catching it while it's horny.
It's weak.
joe rogan
It's so dirty.
ben obrien
It's weak as fuck.
joe rogan
It's such a dirty game because you catch them in the rut while they're making bad mistakes because they're trying to get some...
ben obrien
There was probably some Pleistocene hunter thinking about when to mammoth fuck.
When are the mammoths in the rut?
And when can I take advantage in a very similar sense to what we do with whitetail deer and elk and the things that we pursue?
So you're like, well...
I'm going to take advantage of this thing, but the game theory, I think, is, in a modern sense, because we can just get meat at the store, game theory is what draws us in, but what keeps us there, and what becomes kind of like what I always think of as a side benefit of hunting, not the reason we go, is the meat and what that provides for you.
unidentified
Yes.
ben obrien
You think about the activity of hunting.
You would do it holistically different if you were just after meat.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
You would do it holistically different if you were just after antlers or horns.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
You would do it holistically different if you were just out there for exercise.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
It's the package of the game of hunting, the game theory, that makes it attractive.
joe rogan
That's very well put.
ben obrien
Yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
Is real.
You can taste it.
You can smell it.
You can fucking feel it.
joe rogan
And it sustains you.
ben obrien
It does.
joe rogan
And I'm like, dude, I'm 54. And there's a lot of supplements and hormones and all sorts of other things that go into why I still can work out and do things like I could when I was 34 and even 24. But I think game meat is a part of that.
I really do.
It's fucking super healthy.
ben obrien
I have a picture of my dad.
I was just down yesterday.
I'm like fresh out of the woods.
We were cica deer hunting in Maryland with my dad.
He shoots this hind, which is a female cica deer.
And we hung it up, had a few beers, went to sleep, woke up the next morning, skinned it, cut it up, and ate the back straps.
And I did the French cut back straps.
You remember on the lanai?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
Bone-in.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
And as you're going through this process, you get to see the transformation from a thing that walks around to a thing that's on the plate.
And in that case, it was like microwave.
Boom.
unidentified
Done.
ben obrien
It's on the plate.
And you see it.
And you can see the redness of the meat.
We're used to this, like, bullshit marbling that we've created in beef.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
This is just flesh.
joe rogan
It's the difference between LeBron James and a gamer.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like a fat Twitch gamer.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's the difference.
It's like the difference between a super athlete, a Brock Lesnar thigh steak.
You know what I mean?
That's what it is.
ben obrien
It's pure and it's...
unidentified
Thick.
ben obrien
It's thick and pure.
And it's just the redness, the richness of it.
joe rogan
Nutrient rich.
ben obrien
Dense.
And even the muscles that are used quite often in the animal, like if you think of shank meat or things that are muscles that are used a lot so they become...
joe rogan
Tough.
ben obrien
Really tough.
They got a lot of sinew, a lot of tendons, a lot of things you got to work through to get the meat out.
When you slow cook them, you almost get to taste the effort of the animal.
It's so beautiful to peel off the meat from a shank.
joe rogan
But you know, I'm starting to change my opinion on tender meat.
There's a thing about tender meat where it's easy to eat and everything, but that's the reason why people have bunched up teeth and small jaws.
Do you know that?
That's what's happening to humans.
I believe his name is John Mew.
There's a guy who has a theory about this who created this technique called Mewing.
And it literally changes the structure of your jaw.
And it's like a stress technique.
You're doing things to stress your jaw.
I think you put your tongue in your palate and you...
But the idea is that the reason why people develop these like small jaws and the reason why people are their facial structures changing and their teeth are getting bunched up his thought and it's not just his it's many people that understand human beings and I guess evolution is that we're eating soft food that doesn't require you to have a strong jaw like we used to have to have during the caveman days the Paleolithic days And that
strong, tough meat is what we're supposed to be eating.
That's what made our jaws.
When you look at a person, you're like, look at that guy with his fucking strong jaw.
ben obrien
Strong jawline.
That's a human characteristic that...
joe rogan
It's an admirable character.
ben obrien
That's an admirable one, yeah.
Somebody has a strong jawline, yeah.
joe rogan
It comes from eating meat, like tough meat.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You don't get that from mashed potatoes only.
ben obrien
That's true.
joe rogan
You just don't.
ben obrien
But I'll tell you, that backstrap from that Sika deer was like melt in your mouth.
joe rogan
It's delicious.
It's delicious.
But I think those flank steaks and the different cuts off the shoulder.
ben obrien
The flat iron steak off the front shoulder.
Yeah.
joe rogan
The chewy meat.
ben obrien
It could be.
joe rogan
You're supposed to eat that stuff.
That's like a part of the reason why your jaw is supposed to be strong.
And the thing about this Mew guy is that for the longest time people thought that it was genetics that shaped and structured a person's face.
But what he's showing through his exercises, and other people are showing through similar things, like I have a device that I use, I forget what it's called, but it's basically like a half of a rubber ball that I put in my mouth, and I bite down on, and I do reps with my face.
ben obrien
For your jaw reps?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ben obrien
Where do you do this at?
Do you do it in the truck?
joe rogan
In my house.
ben obrien
Okay.
joe rogan
Like in my office.
It sits in my office.
I put it in there, and sometimes when I'm scrolling things online, it's like, Yeah, I'm crazy.
ben obrien
No, you're not crazy.
joe rogan
I've got problems.
ben obrien
You've got problems, yeah, that's true.
joe rogan
That's my problem.
I try all kinds of other things.
ben obrien
No, your problem is you're always trying to better yourself.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
And that's annoying for people.
joe rogan
So I try to better my face.
Literally, my jaw's gotten stronger because of this.
I've been doing it for years.
ben obrien
What can you use that for, you think, as an application?
joe rogan
It's good to take a punch.
If you need to take a punch, your jaw will be stronger.
If you need to bite things, you have more bite power.
I chew right through tough meat.
I'm used to it.
ben obrien
But yeah, I appreciate all cuts of meat now because of that.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
And that appreciation comes from every, like you know exactly.
And I as a hunter also went a long time not knowing how to butcher a full animal from nose to tail.
And I don't want to overplay what that really is, but it is, when I open my freezer, I know you've probably talked about this before, but when I open my freezer I get this comfort.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
ben obrien
Especially during the pandemic.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
Hey, look in there.
That is, and I look, oh, that's, oh my gosh, that's the sirloin tip that comes off the hind quarter.
It's wrapped around the bone.
I know I'm going to make a roast out of that.
I know that came from an elk that lived right up there.
I know he was three and a half years old.
And I turn around, his head's on the wall.
I'm like, oh, that's cool.
joe rogan
I get a lot of satisfaction of feeding my friends too.
Feeding my friends with the food that I have.
ben obrien
And that's the best, because we get into this in my world, we get into this like, how do you promote hunting?
Because not everybody can do what we're talking about.
Because it's not sustainable.
There's not enough animals.
joe rogan
That's a weird argument that vegans always use.
Not everybody can hunt.
Well, not everybody's going to.
ben obrien
Not everybody's going to hunt, but that's...
joe rogan
Not everybody's going to do anything that's hard.
ben obrien
Not everybody's going to factory farm either.
I mean, these are...
Yeah, that's a straw man in so many ways.
joe rogan
It is, but if you think about most of the people that are eating meat, they are eating it from these factory farms.
ben obrien
They are.
And we have, I was thinking about this at some point in the last couple of days where, because I was out with my dad, he's the person who taught me to do this.
I don't know if my life would have been different had I not gone the path that I went on getting in the hunting industry and making it my life.
I mean, I think if I died tomorrow, three quarters of my funeral would be people in the hunting world that I've met and gave relationships with.
It's been my life in the large part.
And I was thinking if that hadn't happened, where would I be?
But I know that I have shaped and will continue to shape my life around it.
My life will follow it.
And I moved to Montana to have the lifestyle that I wanted to give my kids an opportunity at the very least to see what that is.
And I've watched...
There's never been a person I've taken hunting that didn't come out of the experience completely obsessed or completely addicted to it.
There hasn't been anyone.
There's nobody that's been like, yeah, it's nice, but I'll do it on the weekends.
joe rogan
I can remember very clearly Me and Brian Callahan and Rinella and Ryan Callahan eating meat from a deer that I killed over a fire in the Missouri Breaks in Montana.
And then Rinella asking me, so what do you think about hunting?
I said, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.
This is what I'm doing.
ben obrien
And like I said, not everybody has to do it.
But they have to understand that it's an option.
And so many really smart people you've had on this podcast.
Podcast, when you start thinking about what's our culture do for us?
What's the really useful thing that our modern culture does for us?
I can tell you, I don't know, but I can tell you what it doesn't do.
It lays up all these kind of acceptable addictions.
I'm acceptably addicted to fast food.
I'm acceptably addicted to my phone, to a sedentary life.
I'm not saying honey is the only solution for some of those issues, but it is one of them.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
It's one of them.
joe rogan
It's a healthy addiction that can substitute some of the unhealthy ones.
ben obrien
And it's endless.
And like I said, it's a way to hack into what I think you really are, what you're supposed to be and the shit you're supposed to be doing.
And so at some level...
I've committed my whole life to telling people about that and saying it's not for everybody, but if you do it, you're going to find some kernel of substance that will help cure the cultural woes and societal woes that you're experiencing.
joe rogan
One of the things that I've gotten out of this podcast and having all these conversations with people is trying to put myself in their mindset and try to examine and understand various experiences that they've had.
Whether it's someone who's lived in a monastery or someone who is an ultramarathon runner or someone who's a mathematician.
Trying to understand them.
Over the last 12 years, it's radically changed the way I view the world because it's allowed me to have this really comprehensive understanding of people that I do not think would have ever been possible.
ben obrien
No, this is like a hive mind you got going here.
joe rogan
Yeah, and it's also a massive education.
I've had a 12-year education talking to some of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and in all sorts of walks of life, like Snoop, like having Snoop on the podcast and seeing his perspective and seeing that guy is a black belt at living life.
He's so good at living life.
He's so comfortable.
He's so kind.
First of all, my whole family met him, right?
And my daughter has a dog named Snoop.
And Snoop had to meet Snoop.
And it was the moment of Snoop meeting Snoop was amazing.
You know, he calls himself the dog father.
That motherfucker loves dogs.
ben obrien
Dogs love him.
joe rogan
He saw that dog and he's a small dog.
It's a dog that's part Chihuahua and part Whippet.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
So he's petting Snoop.
Snoop's my buddy, by the way.
Snoop, when he sees me, runs full clip to me and jumps and I pick him up.
This is my relationship with my daughter's dog.
So to see Snoop with the real Snoop, and I said, this must be what it feels like if a dog with his limited understanding of the world meets a god.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, you've heard legend of this thing that I've been named after, this god.
Now here I am in his presence, and he's so kind to me and so benevolent in petting me and touching me.
ben obrien
He loves me.
joe rogan
He loves me.
Yeah, it was amazing.
ben obrien
He was in here, and I was watching.
I only watched the first little bit of it, but it was pretty clear that Snoop is Snoop.
And he probably was like that from the beginning.
joe rogan
Well, he's learned, you know, he talked about it during the podcast.
He's talked about learning how to be like a peaceful, kind person and learning like from his mistakes and, you know, the early days of gangster rap and getting caught up in all that shit.
ben obrien
East versus West and stuff like that.
joe rogan
Yeah, that was a big part of the conversation that we had.
I really enjoyed his company, man.
I really, really, really, really enjoyed it.
ben obrien
And that's the beautiful thing about sitting down with somebody for that long, locking yourselves in this room and just exchanging ideas.
joe rogan
There's no hiding.
ben obrien
No.
joe rogan
There's no hiding over three, four hours, whatever it was with me and him.
But at the end of the day, it's like I'm getting this education in people.
I'm getting this human education.
ben obrien
I always appreciated that because you have that education and you kept hunting, because you could have...
I know you described it from the first moment that you knew.
And I remember you telling me a story of being at dinner with your wife's friend, I guess, that was a vegan or something like that.
And you were saying, I'm hunting.
And they were just appalled at the fact that you would go out and do something like that while they're just cutting into...
You know, a nice T-bone steak.
joe rogan
Yeah, they weren't a vegan.
Or they were just...
Yeah, I wasn't there.
My wife was having a conversation with her friend, and one of her friend's friends from England was this guy who was eating a steak, saying that it was appalling that I was hunting while he was cutting into a steak.
She goes, do you not see what's happening here?
And his rationale was that this animal's raised to be killed, and you're going out there killing wild animals.
It's just...
Pure ignorance and a lack of understanding about conservation, a lack of understanding about conserving, protecting, and paying for the conservation of wild animals through the Pitt and Robertson Act.
ben obrien
Well, you get to a point where you love the game.
And I think for me as a kid, you don't understand what the game is.
You just understand that you love it.
And for me when I was a kid, I followed my dad in the woods.
It's this immersive game where my dad shows me the structure and the rules and he says, this is how we do it.
And you're just kind of following, in my case at least, following him.
And then you start to go out on your own and you start to explore the myriad of things you can do in hunting.
And then you start to find your own way, right?
You find your own value system.
And if you're lucky, it helps structure your life in a better way.
And so then you get to the point where I can say for sure that I know...
I've sussed it all out.
I understand exactly what hunting does for my life.
And then I can then understand there's a structure for why this matters for society.
And there's a structure for how we pay for this, and there's clear evidence that it has done good for wildlife on this continent, let alone this country.
And all that is very clear when you look at the evidence.
I know you know this.
I've spent some time with vegans.
I've podcasted with vegans.
Not just your regular run-of-the-mill vegan.
I'm talking activist vegans, people that are probably in federal prison right now.
I went to the Dingo Den one time.
There's a group called Direct Action Everywhere, I believe.
DXE. And I went to Berkeley and had lunch with a couple of the activists.
I won't say what their names, but I had lunch with them.
At a vegan restaurant.
And just ask, like, what's it like?
Where are you from?
Who are you?
How'd you get here?
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
Because one guy was, like, from a farm in Kansas.
joe rogan
Those are good podcasts, by the way.
Tell people how to get those.
ben obrien
The Hunting Collective is a podcast that, I don't do it anymore, but I did it for Meat Eater.
You can go to Meat Eater's website.
joe rogan
And what episodes are those with those vegan guys?
ben obrien
Because I really enjoyed There's a bunch of them.
I'd have to look.
If you look for Direct Action Everywhere, I did one.
I have a good friend who I'm hoping to start a podcast with at some point soon.
His name is Dr. Robert C. Jones.
He's an animal ethicist and he's a professor in California.
He used to be at Chico State.
I think now he's at a different college.
But he's an animal rights guy and a vegan.
Good friend.
I've been talking to him about how do we do a show together and just take these issues on together because him and I have the best conversations.
So if you look for the best example of this is Dr. Robert C. Jones.
So if you look for that podcast and look for Dr. Robert, you'll get some good discord.
And it's healthy.
He's a philosopher, so he takes me on some of these philosophical journeys and tries to convince me that animal rights has some validity, which I often say, I've always said to him, I said, listen, Imagine if we, animal rights and veganism and hunting, you're a vegan, I'm a hunter.
We start back to back.
We start at the exact same place.
And over time, we walk away from each other.
After a while, we forget where we started.
And all we are is we're separated and we're yelling back at each other.
And that's what veganism and hunting is to me because I think vegans and hunters start from the same place.
joe rogan
Vegans and hunters, ethical hunters, are way closer than people that just eat meat and people that have no thought whatsoever.
ben obrien
I feel more connection to somebody that actively looks at how they consume and someone that actively avoids.
joe rogan
Right.
Someone who just is willfully ignorant.
ben obrien
So I always tell them, I'm like, we're, and this is many, many, many issues in our country right now.
We talk past each other.
We don't have to because we start with the same idea.
We just get to a different place.
And by the time we're so separated in this walk away from each other, we're just yelling back at each other with no context of how we started.
joe rogan
There's also this lack of appreciation for survival itself.
Because we've gotten to this point where it's so easy to consume food.
Consuming food is like, we're like one of the rare moments in history where poor people are fat.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's so strange.
ben obrien
Cell phones.
joe rogan
But it's just food.
Just sheer calories.
It's not nutrient-dense calories, but it's just sheer calories.
And poor people are often fat right now, which is...
In history, if you looked at the moment, if you look at all the moments of human history, during a time where poor people are fat, this is the only one.
Like literally, the only one.
If you go back to the Civil War days, every man weighed 120 pounds.
You know, like, people were tiny.
You know, you go back to, like, Napoleon.
They made fun of Napoleon because he was short, but he wasn't short.
Napoleon was tall for the day.
ben obrien
For the time.
joe rogan
But he was, like, 5'6".
Because everybody was tiny.
Because no one had food.
ben obrien
He was way taller than Homo.
Was it Homo Florensis?
joe rogan
Yes.
Well, that's a weird one.
That's the hobbit person that lived in the island of Flores.
That was a different, totally different branch.
ben obrien
Only different branch of a Homo.
joe rogan
We're going way away from this grisly story.
unidentified
But...
ben obrien
I was just thinking that too.
joe rogan
Have you seen the new skull that they found?
I believe they found it in China.
It's called the Dragon Man.
See if you can find that, Jimmy.
unidentified
Dragon Man?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's an enormous skull with a human-sized head, and it's a completely new branch of the human species.
You know, like there's, was it DeNovian?
How do you say it?
How do you say it?
Well, obviously, there's Neanderthal, there's Homo sapien, Denisovan.
I forget which one it is, the one they found in Russia.
ben obrien
I've listened to that Sapiens audiobook like 20 times, but it escapes me.
It's really good.
It's in my brain somewhere, but I can't get it.
joe rogan
It's good to go back to over and over again.
But this Dragon Man is this new skull that they found.
It's a massive skull.
Now, this skull was put in a well.
It was wrapped and put in a well.
So, okay, here it is.
The Dragon Man as a specimen represented a human group that lived in East Asia at least 146,000 years ago.
It was found at Harbin, Northeast China in 1933, but only came to attention of scientists more recently.
The analysis of the skull has been published in the journal The Innovation.
One of the UK's leading experts in human evolution, Professor Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum was a member of the research team.
And this creature was a completely new animal.
In terms of fossils, in the last million years, this is one of the most important yet discovered.
What you have here is a separate branch of humanity that's not on its way to becoming homo sapiens, but represents a long separate lineage which evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and eventually went extinct.
But if you see what these things look like, go back up to that skull again.
ben obrien
That's wild.
joe rogan
Look at the fucking brow bone, man.
I bet that too could take a punch.
ben obrien
He probably wasn't chewing on anything for his jaw.
joe rogan
He probably got hit by a lot of shit.
ben obrien
But that's what, when you listen to Sapiens and you understand that book, they're saying, like, the branches of the tree, we were just one branch of the tree.
We happened to keep growing while others died.
Homo floreensis and this dragon man.
joe rogan
Because we were the ones where the aliens came in.
ben obrien
That's right.
Built the pyramids.
joe rogan
Yeah.
But if you look at the bones of, I think the dragon man is on, where is it?
Dragon Man is on the far left.
So that's the one.
Look at the fucking eyebrow bones.
ben obrien
Look at the brows, man.
joe rogan
The brow bones are wild, man.
ben obrien
Look at the crown of the skull.
It's kind of elongated.
joe rogan
I mean, imagine running into one of those dudes in the woods.
You'd be like, hey, buddy.
ben obrien
One time I went to the Smithsonian.
joe rogan
What's up, Jamie?
jamie vernon
It says, ancient human on the far left may have evolved into the Dragon Man on the far right.
joe rogan
Oh, the far right is.
Oh, I see.
So, oh, the far right is even bigger.
ben obrien
Much bigger.
joe rogan
So, ancient human on the far left has a massive brown bone as well, but it's not as big as the one on the far right.
You're right.
ben obrien
Yeah, skull is...
joe rogan
Go back to that other picture.
ben obrien
Size is increased.
joe rogan
Oh, no, it's the same picture.
I'm sorry.
You just made it smaller.
The one on the far right, that's the dragon man, right?
Yeah, look at that fucking brown bone.
ben obrien
Dude, that looks like...
That looks like an alien, man.
joe rogan
That looks like a dude I would recruit for the UFC. I'm like, listen, dude, you just gotta learn some technique.
ben obrien
He's got a good ground game.
joe rogan
You already got power.
ben obrien
He's got a good ground game.
joe rogan
You can take a shot.
ben obrien
Harry Knuckles, big game.
But that is, it's interesting.
It's interesting to kind of think about how, I think it's just a little bit misleading to say that we are tapping into that holistically in the modern sense of hunting.
joe rogan
No, not really.
I mean, we aren't really.
ben obrien
We are and we aren't.
joe rogan
I mean, we're a little bit.
We're surviving.
ben obrien
We're playing at it.
joe rogan
Yeah, right.
ben obrien
We're LARPing.
We're LARPing.
But that's where the game theory comes from.
joe rogan
Because if supermarkets do exist, and they do, you can go to Whole Foods and buy a bundle of kale and a grass-fed steak.
ben obrien
Delicious.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
To me, so we're trying to recreate something that was once essential to human life.
You couldn't separate hunting and life for millions of years.
joe rogan
But during the pandemic, it occurred to a lot of people that this may still be essential.
And this was one of the things that really changed.
During the pandemic, let's Google this.
The percentage of hunters increased during the pandemic.
And I think it increased by a large percent.
ben obrien
So we've seen it across the hunting space.
We'll pull up some actual numbers, but it happened during turkey season.
And in almost every state, you saw an increase in hunting license sold.
That's how we track that, obviously.
Some states, you saw a 5% increase in hunting license sales.
joe rogan
Okay, it says the Council to Advance Hunting and Shooting Sports, that's lots more than I thought it was, released the report this month.
Is that from Meat Eater?
ben obrien
Yeah, it is.
joe rogan
Okay.
Found a 5% increase in hunting license sales between 2019 and 2020 among the 40 states it surveyed.
Includes a 5.4% increase in resident licenses and a 1.6% increase in non-resident licenses.
This is what people need to understand.
This is probably the first year in the last couple decades where hunting licenses increased.
That's the big change.
ben obrien
Since the 1980s.
joe rogan
It's been declining rapidly every year.
Now, you want to know the big one?
The increase in bow hunting.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Now, Google what is the increase in bow hunting.
By the way, look at this.
Somebody gave me that.
ben obrien
Where from?
joe rogan
It's from Texas.
ben obrien
I've got some friends that pulled us out of the ground.
joe rogan
We're holding an actual arrowhead from some Native American tribe that someone pulled out of the ground.
ben obrien
You can see the napping.
I mean, you just can picture somebody sitting in the dirt, chipping away at this.
joe rogan
Trying to feed their family.
ben obrien
With a real use for it, right?
And that was a person who...
That was people who we were descended from because those were people who survived and didn't die.
And here we are, you know...
Years later, trying to struggle with why we should do that.
jamie vernon
I was looking for that, but this article came up first, and this seems like better information than what I just told you for the last time.
joe rogan
It says, more than 545,000 hunters in Michigan had bought licenses through November 11th, nearly 10% more to the same point in 2019. Significantly, the number getting licenses for the first time in at least five years, if ever, has jumped 80%.
80% is crazy.
Now this is again something that had been declining and up until...
ben obrien
Since the 80s.
joe rogan
Yes.
And people had been trying to figure out how to make people more interested in podcasting.
And I think there's a two-fold answer to that question.
ben obrien
Hunting.
joe rogan
Hunting.
Well, how to get people interested...
What did I say?
unidentified
Licensing?
joe rogan
Podcasting.
Podcasting is a big one.
I think that's a big one.
I think...
That's probably the most significant, whether it's Meat Eater, yours, mine, Dudley's.
There's a lot of great...
Remy's, Cal's.
There's a lot of great podcasts out there that cover hunting that are really interesting.
And then the pandemic.
The pandemic opened a lot of people's eyes to the possibility that...
My friend Duncan sent me a picture of his grocery store and the meat shelf was completely bare.
Completely bare.
He's like, dude, there's no meat.
And I'm like, whoa.
And he was in North Carolina at the time.
ben obrien
And you've talked about this before.
It just took away the thin veneer of safety.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
That we are somehow beholden to the people that put the meat on the shelves.
The proxy executioner that whacks the cow on the head.
And the industry that goes and creates that cellophane-wrapped beautiful piece of meat for you, dude.
joe rogan
And these people that don't have this understanding of our place in the actual ecosystem, these Beto O'Rourke type of individuals.
ben obrien
You're hot on Beto.
joe rogan
These humans that are protected in this way that they have this undue confidence in the system.
ben obrien
Yeah, and the system itself is made up of individuals, right?
And when you have a toilet paper shortage or a meat shortage, I don't think it's that a certain subset of individuals are buying at all.
I think it's that every single person buys more than they need, right?
And then you have a shortage.
joe rogan
The toilet paper thing is it takes up so much space.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
If you have a thousand people, And they need to buy these giant fucking things of Charmin.
Like, there's a lot of fucking space that those big toilet paper packages take up.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you only have, like, one aisle that's toilet paper.
That shit gets filled up really quick.
ben obrien
Quickly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
Yeah, but that's where I, and a lot of people I know came to you, it came to me like, what do I do?
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
I need some meat.
Can I borrow some meat?
unidentified
Sure.
joe rogan
Did friends ask to borrow guns?
ben obrien
Yes.
joe rogan
Yes.
That was weird, right?
ben obrien
Or like, where do I buy guns?
Or what do I do?
Or what's the process?
Scared and uneducated is how I would, and I don't want to call my friends and family uneducated, but I think they would probably admit that when shit hits the fan and the person you're calling is probably the lifestyle you at least want to partially emulate next time the shit goes down.
joe rogan
Did you guys have lines in Montana outside the gun stores?
ben obrien
Not that I can remember.
joe rogan
Everybody already had guns.
ben obrien
Yeah, Montana, we got guns.
joe rogan
In California, there were lines.
unidentified
Fuck me.
joe rogan
Like food lines.
Like Russian in the middle of the fucking collapse of the Soviet Union.
ben obrien
Put some ammo in this bowl.
joe rogan
I'm not bullshitting.
ben obrien
I know, I know.
joe rogan
It was wild.
Me and a buddy of mine were driving, and it was in regular Southern California, near my house.
We were driving, and I pull over.
I go, stop, stop.
Look at this.
Look at this.
That's a line where people are scared, and they need to buy guns for the first time.
ben obrien
And what's a gun?
I carry a gun quite often.
I carry a gun definitely in the woods in grizzly country, which may bring us back to the grizz story.
I obviously didn't get mauled because I'm here.
But I carry a gun, and I understand the feeling.
I get it.
I understand the safety.
I understand the feeling of...
Not even the internal feeling of, like, I'm taken care of.
If somebody comes at me, I at least have a tool to use.
I also understand, like, the externality of, like...
You're not afraid of people anymore.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
You're not afraid of somebody rushing you.
You know that you have the capability to defend yourself.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
And that feeling, once you have it, once you understand it, and then you take it a couple steps further to getting meat for your table, and somebody comes up to you and be like, I don't think you should have that gun, or I think that gun is unsafe.
You're like, look, I promise you, if you could climb in my head, you would understand how beneficial these firearms are to my life and how kind of core they are to who I am.
joe rogan
Not only that, like if you were in a situation where you needed one and you didn't have one, you would be so goddamn terrified.
Versus if you're in a situation where you needed one, you had one, you had training in one, you would be protected.
ben obrien
And I've never run a gun counter, but I bet if you had somebody in here that did, they would say there's a large percentage of people that come in after some life-changing event where they were robbed, or some kind of violence or crime was committed on them, and then they decide to go get that thing that'll give them that extra safety when some people don't get a chance to go into the gun counter because they're dead.
joe rogan
Right.
And you're seeing, and this is not in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, right?
But you're seeing in the trial, if you paid attention to this trial...
The guy who's prosecuting him doesn't know jack shit about guns.
ben obrien
Finger on the trigger.
joe rogan
Because his fucking dummy, finger on the trigger, pointing it at the jury.
ben obrien
You gotta pull that up, Jamie, the picture of him.
joe rogan
It is goddamn crazy that this guy's doing this.
That he's in the middle of a trial about the use of firearms.
Deadly use of firearms.
And he's got his finger.
Why do you have your finger on the trigger?
What are you doing?
You don't ever do that.
This is rule number one.
You don't point a gun at people unless you're trying to shoot them, and you certainly don't put your finger on the trigger.
This guy doesn't realize that by doing this, he has validated everything that the pro-Second Amendment people have said about these anti-gun people, that they are ignorant.
Fools who don't understand what the fuck they're talking about.
This guy with his finger on the trigger pointing this gun at the jury probably put the fucking cherry on the sundae.
ben obrien
He broke pretty much the entire NRA gun safety four-point rules.
joe rogan
Fuck the NRA. Not fuck the NRA. Forget about the NRA. Common sense.
Everybody.
ben obrien
Let's call that.
joe rogan
Everybody that ever trains anybody in gun safety tells you not to do that.
Whether it's the military, someone who trains you because you want to get a concealed carry permit or whatever.
You don't do that.
ben obrien
And you don't know because the action is closed whether he's got a round in the chamber.
There's no magazine in.
joe rogan
He doesn't fucking know.
You think he knows?
If he puts his finger on the trigger like that, I guarantee that guy probably doesn't know jack shit about guns.
ben obrien
No.
And I think that goes back to me podcasting with vegans in the dingo den.
People that feel like I feel, that guns are so useful in my life, aren't that different from that fucking guy.
That guy just doesn't know.
All he would have to do, like you've done in your life with Terran Tactical and the stuff that you've done, is take a little bit of time to learn and understand and ask questions.
That's fucking it.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
Go and say, you know, I don't really understand these things.
I think they might be a little scary.
I've heard some shit, and my first reaction is to be a little bit afraid of them or to denounce them or see them as tools of violence and not tools of utility.
Why don't I go across the table and try to learn a little bit more and see if I'm wrong?
joe rogan
Well, the problem is that prosecutor's playing a game, right?
He's trying to win.
He's trying to put that kid in jail.
ben obrien
He's playing a game in the highest of high stakes.
joe rogan
Yes.
Literally, yeah, the highest of high stakes.
The end of your life or now you're free.
ben obrien
Matt Taibbi has an article.
Matt Taibbi, by the by, is God.
joe rogan
I love that guy.
ben obrien
On Earth.
He has an article about kind of...
This trial and how it's being played on both sides of the coin.
And then, oh, by the way, our corporate overlords, the aristocrats, are having record profit that no one's talking about.
He has this whole article about how while we're focused on this one trial and kind of the ideological polar opposite approaches, our corporate bettors are making lots of money.
joe rogan
Snoop joint.
ben obrien
Oh, that's a Snoop joint?
Oh, baby.
joe rogan
You know, what's interesting, too, is a lot of people that are ideologically progressive and very left are also honest and waking up to the fact that they had a very distorted idea of what happened in that case.
And heavily left-leaning people like Anna Kasparian, who is in the Young Turks.
She wrote a whole thing about how, you know, she had a perception of it.
She wrote it on Twitter and, you know, some people attacked her.
She's basically saying she was wrong and she made a correction, which is brave.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
And she's right.
And Glenn Greenwald has exposed a lot of this and there's many other people.
There's many, many, many journalists who said, okay, I did a deep dive on this and I thought I understood what was going on and I'm incorrect.
When you look at the people that attacked Rittenhouse, the Rittenhouse, again, it's not a defense of Rittenhouse.
They attacked him.
They went after him.
Also, he showed up with a fucking AR-15.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Which is crazy.
ben obrien
Yes.
joe rogan
He's a 17-year-old kid.
He's kind of LARPing a little himself, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I mean, he's showing up in a place where, I guess, his grandparents had a business.
And he showed up because there was rioters and looters.
And these people are not these noble people.
These people that he shot are not these noble people that everyone wants to pretend they are.
If you look at the record of the people that he shot, first of all, one of them, pull this up, because they dismissed all his charges right before the trial.
And this guy had like a fuckload of charges.
ben obrien
All the charges of one of the guys he shot?
joe rogan
Yeah, different stuff that unrelated to the trial.
See if you can find that.
Unrelated to the trial.
Before he...
Took the witness stand.
One of the guys he shot was...
I think he was a pedophile.
I think...
I don't want to step out of line, but I really think that that was one of the...
We'll figure this out.
ben obrien
It doesn't matter if he was an astronaut.
joe rogan
They were coming after him with a gun, and one of the guys hit him with a skateboard, tried to take the gun away from him, and he shot the guy.
ben obrien
Yeah, it's all on video, and it's like, why the feeling to paint...
To attach him to a narrative?
Dude, I don't know.
joe rogan
Get scared.
Try some of that Snoop Dogg blunt.
Yeah.
He has his own brand of weed.
That's how you know you made it.
unidentified
In my world.
ben obrien
I'm not going to inhale too much because I'll go off the fucking rails.
But the reality of this is, like, we're...
What is that?
Oh, that's Snoop's...
Let me see.
joe rogan
What does it say?
Premium nutrients?
Is that what it says?
ben obrien
Snoop's premium nutrients.
Growing science.
Higher knowledge.
Hand roll with glass tips grown with Snoop's premium nutrients.
Snoop has his own fucking nutrients.
joe rogan
He's got nutrients.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
Maybe one day I'll have my own.
joe rogan
I'm wasting my time with AlphaBrain.
He's going straight to the motherland.
ben obrien
He's like, I'm going to own the nutrients.
joe rogan
But the point is that we separate ourselves.
Into these ideological categories, these groups, left and right, and right and left, and I'm a weird one because I'm a part of both in a lot of ways.
unidentified
Me too.
joe rogan
But I'm more left than I am right.
I'm very open-minded in most things.
My parents were hippies, and I grew up on welfare.
Like, I believe in social services.
I believe that we have to have some sort of a safety net for folks when they're down and out, and single moms, and people that are poor, and people that are escaping abuse and bad situations, and I think There's a place for that.
I think it's important.
And this idea that everyone needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
When people say that kind of shit, I'm like, you don't know the hardship that some folks go through.
It's not a fair game.
ben obrien
Put a little empathy on the situation for a minute.
It's not like there's no room for empathy.
It has to end at some point because it turns into some of the crazy shit we've seen.
But yes, you have to at least start there and then bring common sense in when shit starts to get wonky.
joe rogan
You need discipline.
So I'm both.
I'm an empathetic person who believes in discipline.
I force my own discipline on myself.
And I think that that puts me, in a lot of people's eyes, in the right for some reason.
In the pro-gun thing.
I'm very pro-Second Amendment.
But a very pro-First Amendment too, and that used to be a left-wing thing.
And now that's not anymore.
It's a left-wing thing if you agree with what I'm saying.
You know, if you don't agree with what I'm saying, you want to silence me.
This is the same thing as prison reform.
There's so many people who are, you know, we need to be, like, we need to have less people in prison.
We need to, like, fix people and rehabilitate people.
And then those same people, like, lock Kyle Rittenhouse in jail and throw away the key.
He's a kid.
He's 17. Like, showing up at a fucking riot with an AR-15 when you're 17 years old, that is not a wise move.
ben obrien
Yeah, I mean, you live in the same world I do.
I walk around this city, other cities where I live, Bozeman where I live, I've lived in different places.
Most people agree with you.
Most people are well-meaning, they want to live a safe and happy life, and they don't want to be beholden to one ideality or the other.
They don't want to have to march in line.
And one of the things I learned, mostly from your podcast, Is the death of skepticism inside of these kind of tribal groups of left and right.
It doesn't matter.
It happens in my world, the hunting world as well.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
And in the Second Amendment world.
The death of skepticism is a problem.
Like, you should be skeptical of every politician.
You should be skeptical of every institution.
You should live a life.
Like, what's my religion?
Skepticism.
You should be skeptical of it.
joe rogan
Of yourself.
ben obrien
Of yourself.
And you should be able to see when, and like I said, I always take it back to being able to go into the dingo den with the vegans and ask them, who are you?
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
Where did you come from?
How did you get to this place in your life?
And how can I learn from you and teach you a little bit?
joe rogan
And how can you teach me, maybe, too?
You've got to be open-minded.
Dude, I was on the verge.
When I went hunting with Rinella, I had reached a point where I was like, I'm going to be one or the other.
I'm going to be a vegetarian, or I'm going to be a hunter.
We're going to figure this out.
ben obrien
The world isn't binary.
In the situation where I went to the dingo den, there was a bunch of kids.
They're not kids.
I mean, they're adults.
They're younger.
And there was this celebration of federal indictments.
Like, they would be rushing up on stage with Jeff Bezos or breaking into some factory farm with ag-gag laws, breaking laws on purpose.
And in that community, there was a celebration of a federal indictment.
And maybe even going to federal prison for your beliefs.
Street cred.
Street cred.
And one of the things I thought is, man, that's a rough...
You have to really believe that everyone, like Jamie, you, me, we're all murderers.
You'd be walking around as a vegan activist, as an animal rights activist, looking at everyone as if you live in a world of people that have no...
Feeling for sentient life as people that don't understand kind of the society that they live in and function in.
They don't understand kind of the mass of death that they cause in this proxy executioner world.
This is what's in their minds.
joe rogan
But let me put it in their perspective.
Let me play devil's advocate here for a moment.
Imagine if you're them and that is what you believe.
ben obrien
That's what I mean, that's what I'm saying.
joe rogan
We're saying it as almost as if it's ridiculous.
ben obrien
But if you're them and that is what you believe, I think?
joe rogan
Well, it's a perspective, right?
And it's a perspective that, you know, we can all lean one way or another.
We really need to be aware of this.
We all can lean left or right, depending upon what feels good, and you get a lot of confirmation bias, and you get a lot of community involved in this ideology that you adopt.
There's a supportive group of people that are also adopting that ideology, but human beings are so susceptible to cult-like thinking.
It's so fucking dangerous.
ben obrien
I know.
joe rogan
We all are.
All of us are.
ben obrien
We had this.
So on my podcast, we were making fun of this idea of what do we call ourselves?
Are we the nation?
Everybody has kind of every podcast.
You don't have like the Roganites or anything like that.
Like this kitschy marketing term.
joe rogan
I can't even believe people are listening.
So I am not willing to have any kind of- Hundreds of millions.
ben obrien
I can't believe anyone listens to my- So you don't want to call them something because you're not even sure that they're there.
joe rogan
When I do ads and they say, my listeners, I always change it to the listeners of this podcast.
I'm like, I don't own anybody.
I don't want to own any- I mean, it sounds ridiculous, like I'm being silly, but that is literally how I think of when I read it.
I'm like, ick, that's gross.
ben obrien
And so in my way of kind of making fun of this idea, I'm like, we're going to call ourselves the cult.
joe rogan
Didn't Jared Leto start a religion and call it the cult?
ben obrien
I don't know.
joe rogan
I think he did.
ben obrien
We should look that up.
joe rogan
Let me be clear.
It's him having fun with the idea of him starting a religion.
He doesn't really start a cult.
He seems like a fun guy.
ben obrien
Big animal rights guy.
joe rogan
Is he?
Oh yeah.
That's okay.
He seems like a fun guy and he does these things where he has a bunch of his fans and I think they go to an island or something and they do all these activities and dance around and have a good time.
I remember I read something about it.
Have you read anything about it?
ben obrien
I have not read anything about it.
joe rogan
But it seems like...
Totally friendly.
He's just having fun.
ben obrien
And that's, like, cult has a bad connotation, but what I was doing is, like, let's call ourselves this, because why do we have to call ourselves anything?
Might as well just, let's take back the word cult and do something good with it.
And so, long story, this is a very long story, but I was on my show, and again, that no longer is on the air, but I was on my show, and we had a guy named Juan Carlos.
This guy, Ayata Ribrain.
joe rogan
Yeah, I gotta get another.
I'm just going straight whiskey now.
ben obrien
Okay.
joe rogan
I've become smart enough.
ben obrien
Can you overdose?
joe rogan
There's Jared Leto.
There's Jared Leto.
See, dude, I'm not bullshitting.
Everybody's wearing white.
ben obrien
30 Seconds to Mars and Jared Leto have a cult on their island.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
Why do cults always have to be on an island?
unidentified
Look at him.
joe rogan
He's sitting.
That's the only way to get it off.
ben obrien
Why can't we do it on the mainland?
joe rogan
No, no, no.
You gotta do it in a place where people feel like they're literally on an island so they're separate from the rest of the world.
Look at him.
unidentified
Look at him.
joe rogan
He's walking around on this stone bridge.
unidentified
That could be you, Joe Rogan.
ben obrien
You have enough power that that could easily be you.
joe rogan
I am so not interested in that.
ben obrien
All you'd have to do is want it.
joe rogan
I'm interested in the exact opposite of that.
I wish I could hang out with those people and not have anybody be weird with me.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Sometimes people, they're weird with me and I'm not ready for it.
ben obrien
He looks a lot like Jesus.
joe rogan
He's having fun, man.
Dude, he's a beautiful man.
He's got long hair.
ben obrien
He's having fun.
joe rogan
He's on an island.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
No one's getting hurt.
ben obrien
Why have an island if you're not going to do shit like that?
joe rogan
But here's the thing.
I don't think he has an island.
unidentified
He rents it.
ben obrien
He's just on an island.
It's not his own island.
unidentified
I think it's Elise.
ben obrien
After Epstein, islands have really got a bad rap.
joe rogan
It's in Croatia?
ben obrien
It's in Croatia.
joe rogan
Oh, dude.
Croatia.
ben obrien
I think...
joe rogan
A lot of tough motherfuckers come out of Croatia.
You want to talk about a country that makes...
jamie vernon
It's on a short trip, though.
joe rogan
...tough fucking people?
jamie vernon
Croatia?
ben obrien
It's big in MMA. Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Mirko Krokop, one of the great all-time legends, is from Croatia.
Pat Miletic, the Croatian sensation.
He was a champion in the early days of the UFC. Pat Miletic is a beast and also founded Miletic Fighting Systems, which is one of the top gyms in the early days of the UFC. One of the first top professional gyms and they produced killers.
Matt Hughes, one of the all-time great welterweight champions, came out of Croatia.
Yeah, big hunter.
Tim Sylvia, another big hunter.
ben obrien
I'm imagining none of those people are at Jared Leto's.
joe rogan
They run it.
They're behind the scenes.
Tim Sylvia, the former UFC heavyweight champion, he's a big-time bowhunter.
Loves bowhunting.
ben obrien
I remember seeing him at shows and whatnot.
joe rogan
Well, you know, he lives in the motherland.
He lives in Iowa, right?
That's like whitetail heaven.
ben obrien
Right now it's whitetail season.
joe rogan
Yeah, that Dudley character.
He's up there in a tree trying to play tricks on a deer.
ben obrien
Let me ask this question.
I'm going to ask this question to everybody that's listening.
What other thing?
Is there another thing?
Somebody tell me.
That where you sit in a tree all day, other than whitetail hunting, or hunting in general, where you're in a tree.
You sit, I've done this many times, where you sit, you climb up in a tree.
joe rogan
You'd have to be a murderer.
I mean, that's what you would be doing.
You'd be waiting to sneak up on someone.
ben obrien
Just waiting on somebody.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you're a guy like Dudley, Dudley moved to Iowa just so that he could hunt deer.
ben obrien
That's all that matters.
joe rogan
To me, it's so mind-blowing.
I'm into Bozeman.
The amount of time that he puts into...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You live in Bozeman, but let's be clear about the difference here.
ben obrien
Let's make sure that we're clear.
joe rogan
Let's be really clear.
Here's the thing.
White-tailed deer are like a religion in the Midwest.
It is not as simple as an animal.
It is a part of the culture.
People take school off on opening day.
They let kids off school in some places.
ben obrien
Where I grew up is like that.
joe rogan
So then you have like the actual opening day itself of rifle season sounds like World War III. It is the wildest shit I've ever heard in my life.
As soon as you start seeing the sun peek out You start hearing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
So you have that animal.
It's an iconic animal.
It's like, if someone invented baseball today, people would be like, get the fuck out of here.
Get the fuck out of here.
This takes too long.
ben obrien
Your little white ball with the stitches.
joe rogan
It takes too long.
I don't give a fuck if a guy hits the ball.
ben obrien
NFL must better.
joe rogan
But because NFL is clearly exciting to anybody that watches.
ben obrien
That's right.
joe rogan
They're trying to get that ball across.
Giant super athletes are smashing into them.
People that you can't even imagine running into.
ben obrien
I took my five-year-old son to his first NFL game, and he didn't even say a word for like three of them.
joe rogan
Because you're stunned.
ben obrien
Yeah, stunned.
joe rogan
If you meet those guys, like quite a few of those guys have wound up fighting in the UFC, former NFL players.
My buddy Brendan Chobb.
There's a lot of these NFL players.
ben obrien
Big dudes.
joe rogan
Giant guys who make it to the UFC, and when you meet them, you're like, what in the fuck are you?
You're like, barely a person.
Why are you so big?
Like, what is happening here?
ben obrien
Maybe you saw that guy at Dunkin' Donuts, and he was just like, what would you like?
The chocolate covered or the glaze?
You're like, dude, you ought to be...
You should be doing something different.
joe rogan
I've told the story before, unfortunately, but we were in Phoenix, and we were waiting to get into this place, and there was a guy in front of us that was like, All these other people in here.
And this guy was like up here above the clouds.
And he was giant.
He was at least 300 plus pounds.
Just fucking huge corn-fed white dude from like the middle of the country.
You know, this like leftover Viking DNA from when they showed up in the fucking thousand years ago whenever they came here.
Dudes are so big.
They're so big.
ben obrien
They're big.
They gotta be playing football, these guys.
joe rogan
Well, you know, that's the weird thing about the UFC is that there's a weight limit.
ben obrien
Well, you gotta be.
I wrestled in high school.
joe rogan
No, no, no, but at heavyweight.
ben obrien
Oh, at heavyweight.
You can't beat it.
265. Is it the biggest you can beat?
joe rogan
Yeah.
There's guys that are too big.
ben obrien
That's breakthrough.
joe rogan
There's a guy named Tom Erickson who was one of the best heavyweights in his era.
He was a really unusual guy.
They called him the Big Cat because he was 300 pounds.
I mean, a natural 300 pounds.
A big, giant wrestler who knocked people dead.
He was like, but he was at a time, he came along at a time where there wasn't the kind of coverage of the UFC that there is today.
Not even close.
He came around and he fought.
He fought all over the place.
He fought a lot in Japan and I don't know how invested in he was eventually because it was hard.
There wasn't a lot of reward back then.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like it was very difficult to make like now fighters can be rich they can make Conor McGregor is extremely wealthy like Kamaru Usman makes I'm sure he I don't know what he makes but I'm sure he makes a shitload of money.
The top people that draw in the long style bender they make a lot of money but back then they didn't and you had to be a champion to make any of it and Tom Erickson he never broke through in like neither pride and I think he was too big for the UFC Once they put the weight classes in, because I think...
ben obrien
Fucking Brock Lesnar.
joe rogan
Let me show you what this dude looks like.
Tom Erickson.
Give me photos of him.
Bro, in his prime...
How is he the big cat?
ben obrien
The fact that his name is the big cat.
joe rogan
Well, it's because he moved like a fucking cat, dude.
unidentified
Look at him.
joe rogan
I'm telling you, this guy was gigantic.
Gigantic, awesome wrestler, but moved like a cat and knocked people dead.
unidentified
I mean...
joe rogan
He was just a giant human.
ben obrien
He looked like his head was made to be punched.
joe rogan
If there's like a Wikipedia on him...
ben obrien
Pride.
Oh, there he is.
That's a video game.
joe rogan
Oh, this is a video game.
That's so weird.
There's a lot of good fights anyway.
There's a lot of good fights.
Find one where he wins though, don't be mean.
Okay, find Tom Erickson versus Kevin Randleman, rest in peace.
See if you can find that one.
I don't know who Matt Skelton is, but yeah, put this on.
So this guy, and this is probably many years after he was, I don't even know if he was in his prime back then.
I guess his prime was like during this time or maybe slightly before that.
It's hard for a lot of these guys, dude, because this sport is so hard on the body.
ben obrien
Look how fast.
joe rogan
That you don't get a lot of time.
He was such a good wrestler, too.
What a shot.
He would just grab guys and manhandle them.
Like, look at him.
He's just gonna manhandle this dude.
ben obrien
This is not a small guy that he's...
joe rogan
Dude, look at the way he just threw that guy to the ground.
unidentified
Animal.
joe rogan
When you get a grip, when some fucking wrestler like this, like this kind of high-level wrestler gets a grip on you, it's terrifying.
Because you realize, well, he's stronger than me.
ben obrien
You're not helpless.
joe rogan
Now I'm fucked.
And now he's got this dude mounted.
ben obrien
His full mount.
joe rogan
And it looks like he's going forearm to neck.
He's tapping him.
ben obrien
He's just going to choke his life out.
joe rogan
Oh, he's going behind his head.
Okay, he's just smothering him.
unidentified
That's what he's doing.
ben obrien
Let me ask you a question.
If he wins this, how much would you guess that he would make from this?
joe rogan
I don't know because this was Pride, and Pride was pretty wild back then.
I don't know what they got paid.
It was very controversial.
ben obrien
Was it a lot?
You mean it was a bunch or not a lot?
joe rogan
Pride was run by people that were...
jamie vernon
He taps right there.
joe rogan
Oh, he tapped into like a...
He looks so desperate.
He grabbed his...
With his actual fingers...
ben obrien
He just choked him out with his hand!
joe rogan
Yeah, he grabbed his neck and smashed his throat.
unidentified
Look at that.
ben obrien
There's the...
joe rogan
Bro, I'm telling you, that guy was a straight gorilla, and he fucked a lot of people up.
ben obrien
It's good to learn about this.
joe rogan
Yeah, he was one of those guys, but there's a few of these guys that are in between eras of the sport.
If Tom Erickson came into his prime during certain moments of the UFC, I bet he would have been the heavyweight champion.
With fighters, it's like, when do they come along?
Like, when is the sport exciting enough to get them to fully commit?
Like, because if you're not making much money, there's a lot of guys that they have to do other things.
So they have, like, full-time jobs, maybe.
ben obrien
Well, I'm sure injuries play a huge part in that.
joe rogan
Giant factor.
So you can only compete at his level for a certain amount of years.
So, like, when you see a guy, like a top-flight guy, like, did you see the fight, the Yair Max Holloway fight a few days ago?
ben obrien
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
One of the greatest featherweight fights of all time.
It was insane how good it was.
The only way you get a fight that's that good over five rounds, you have to have two men or two women that are insanely dedicated to what they're doing.
Because it was a crazy war for five rounds.
It's so hard for you to do that.
It's so hard for you to get your body into the kind of condition where you can maintain a war for five rounds.
ben obrien
I always think, you know, when I go to an NFL game or I go to a UFC or I go somewhere, I think of, I start to think of what it must be like for that person.
What it must be like to run out on an NFL field or run out into the octagon and understand that you are the center of the attention, but you still have, like, it's all about performance.
And in a way, it's the best kind of meritocracy because the lights are on you and you have a chance to earn, you know, by being more skillful than the other person, you have a chance to earn it.
joe rogan
It's one of the bravest athletic pursuits for sure.
ben obrien
I can't imagine it.
I can't imagine it.
joe rogan
In terms of risking your physical health and playing this super complex game.
I think I'm going to be able to take this guy down and smash him.
He thinks he's going to be able to stand up and kick me in the face.
Who's right?
And sometimes you are in the middle of a fight and you realize this is not working.
And you have to figure out a way to regroup and re-strategize and adjust.
And some guys can and some guys can't.
And you see it in the moment.
You see these changes and these shifts.
You see people rise.
You see their emotions boil up inside of them.
You see them try to push through adversity and exhaustion and try to figure out a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
And when they do, they don't always.
Because it's hard.
It's hard to win when you're losing.
But when guys win when they're losing, it's one of the most glorious things in all of sports.
ben obrien
Because where does that come from?
I want to be too.
People that love MMA are loving this for sure.
But when you're talking about it, and this is going to be probably cheap on my part.
When you're talking about it, there's an element in hunting when you're by yourself.
It's fucking like that, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's something to it.
ben obrien
I don't want to cheapen.
joe rogan
No, no, no.
ben obrien
Maybe not a great analogy.
joe rogan
The thing is, you can get eaten and killed.
That's for sure.
We'll go back to your grizzly story.
That's a real thing.
Did I tell you about that?
Oh, I didn't tell you yet.
Sorry, everybody.
This is like the fourth time I've told this story.
When I was in Utah, I saw a big mountain.
ben obrien
Oh, like a big guy?
joe rogan
A big one.
ben obrien
Big Tom?
joe rogan
Like big, like a buck 70 plus.
Bro, he was giant.
My friend Colton stops the car.
ben obrien
This is on the ranch where we've hunted together before?
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
Yes.
joe rogan
He stops the car and he's like, what the fuck?
There's a mountain lion right there.
He's like, mountain lion, mountain lion.
There's 30 yards from us.
There's a giant cat under a tree.
I've never seen one.
ben obrien
I've only seen like- You don't see him.
joe rogan
I've only seen one run across the street, and they were small.
I saw maybe a 70-ish pound one in Montecito, outside of Santa Barbara, and I saw one in Colorado that was about the same size.
I've never seen one like this.
I never saw a real one.
This is a real mountain lion.
ben obrien
And talk about how, have you ever felt the intense, like the real emotion of fear and helplessness?
joe rogan
Dude, it's a wild feeling.
And I'm, first of all, be real clear, inside a truck, I'm being a pussy, right?
And we're armed, okay?
I've got a bow on me.
ben obrien
But what you're doing is imagining, like, you're connecting with the animal and imagining what it must be like.
joe rogan
This is not to say my life was in danger.
I don't want to overstate this.
I was completely safe.
But I was in this position where I realized that I was sharing this land.
I was sharing this space.
I was walking around with a primordial killer and looking at things.
You have an idea what a mountain lion is based on seeing one at the zoo or seeing one in a video.
You have this idea of what it feels like to be in the presence of one.
But I was looking through my binos At this thing 30 yards away under a tree, so I am right on it, right?
Through the windshield, clear as day.
It is wild.
You're looking in these fucking demon eyes, and it has this huge pause, dude.
He was a big tom.
He had a pumpkin head, big ass, these are all the muscles for crushing bones and tearing throats apart.
That's what that pumpkin shaped head is.
It's all muscle tissue.
ben obrien
This is a meat processor on four legs.
unidentified
Good Lord!
joe rogan
The feeling of being in front of that thing was like a jolt of fear went through my...
ben obrien
You get a little Snoop nutrients in you and then...
joe rogan
No, I didn't have anything in me.
Oh, me now?
ben obrien
Yeah, now, but it takes it back.
I will tell you this.
I went to Yellowstone a couple years ago.
It would have been 2020, so it would have been last year.
There's a guy there named Dr. Dan Stahler.
He's the predator biologist, one of the predator biologists in Yellowstone.
We went on...
He had collared a male mountain lion.
I want to say three or four months prior to that.
This is a big tom.
I have video of it somewhere.
This is a big...
What you're describing is a big, mature tom.
Length body, kind of sway in the belly.
joe rogan
Muscle.
ben obrien
Muscle.
I mean, just gait when he walks.
They had video of him, trucking videos of him walking, and just his collar.
joe rogan
He looked like Matt Hughes in his prime.
ben obrien
Think about this.
He had killed over, I believe, a 90-day period.
No, a 60-day period.
He had killed 17 what they call neonates, which is fawns or calves in elk or mule deer.
I want to say most of them were elk.
A couple of them were mule deer.
And what was interesting about that is they often say that, you know, predators like a mountain lion will, they need about, maybe a neonate every couple of weeks to survive.
You know, like what's the clip at which they're preying on?
joe rogan
It's only every couple of weeks to survive, but if they have the opportunity, they'll do it more often.
ben obrien
So when he said, he said 17 in 60 days.
And again, I hope I don't have the numbers wrong.
Apologize to Dr. Dan if I do.
But suffice to say, the clip at which this mountain lion was killing neonates was much higher than it should have been.
And so what you might think of immediately is this is an aggressive male lion.
He's going around pleasure killing and pop, pop, pop.
He's just doing his thing, right?
He's living his life.
He's a more aggressive tom or he's surplus, what they would call surplus killing.
But turns out, what was happening was he was getting displaced by grizzly bears, mostly.
joe rogan
And wolves.
ben obrien
On these kill sites.
So what he would do is he would come to a kill site.
He would kill, you know, pretty fresh at that time of the year.
It was in the summer, so it was a pretty fresh elk calf or mule deer fawn.
He would drag it up in some brush.
We went to a kill site and found the elk calf and kind of looked around forever.
It's like CSI Yellowstone.
What he said is when you're tracking via collar, you can see the movements of these at intervals.
You can see the movements of these animals.
What this particular time would do is he would kill an elk calf, stash it, and then go a mile away roughly sometimes or maybe a half a mile up above it and watch out because he was getting displaced by grizzly bears that often and displaced by other bears and possibly wolves as well.
And so you start to think of how impressive is this predator or mountain lion?
But, there's something out there that is dominant over this mature male mountain lion.
All he is is a meat processor on four legs.
That's all that he is.
joe rogan
We look at this situation with predator and prey and us and them through a filter of the human being.
So we look at it through the filter of living our lives, being on the internet and communicating with each other and getting a map of what reality is.
But we look at it through this lens.
If you looked at it through, like if it was just everyone had a number.
Everything had a number.
If mountain lions had a number and deer had a number and wolves had a number, this is like a math problem that's being sorted out in real time.
That's what it's like.
It's like you have more mountain lion if you have more deer.
If you have more deer, you have...
A lot of mountain lions and the mountain lions start killing the deer.
Maybe they kill too many of the deer if you don't kill the mountain lions.
So if nothing kills the mountain lions, then you have less deer.
Then the mountain lions start to kill people.
That's what the fuck is happening in Calabasas.
A five-year-old just got attacked by a mountain lion the other day.
The mother chased...
These mothers, bad motherfuckers.
ben obrien
This happens all the time, right?
joe rogan
If a mother, if her fucking animal is attacking a baby, if it's a mother, mothers go crazy.
Doesn't matter what it is.
Attacks this fucking mountain lion, this bad lady.
She scares the mountain lion off her kid, rescues her kid.
The cops come, shoot the mountain lion.
The mountain lion's still hanging around.
They shoot the mountain lion, and then two more mountain lions, exactly the same size, show up.
They're starving.
They've eaten all the deer, and there's no management of wildlife when it comes to predators.
In California, They almost banned the bear, right?
They were going to ban bear hunting.
And people, why would you want to hunt a bear?
ben obrien
They tried.
joe rogan
Listen to me.
You have to.
Because if no one does, then they get out of control and they cannibalize each other.
There's diseases and starvation.
We have to play a part in the system, and we have to trust these wildlife biologists that have done these assessments.
ben obrien
Yeah, so this is where we get to a bunch of very important concepts that I hope everyone can start to understand from this show or wherever they can get the information.
And this is where I go back to where when I'm a hunter and I see this game theory and I understand why I love it so much, I also then get to understand the structure in which it thrives and has thrived since the turn of the century in 1900 roughly.
There's a guy named Dr. Valerius Geist.
He was a wildlife biologist, a legend.
He was one of the authors of the North American model of wildlife conservation.
I've talked to him.
He recently passed away.
A wonderful man.
Him and I talked a lot about this idea of how do you intervene.
He was very staunchly anti-wolf in a way that was surprising to me.
As someone who had spent his entire life around animals, studying them, and as a biologist, understanding how they acted.
joe rogan
Was he staunchly anti-wolf naturally or reintroduction of wolves?
ben obrien
He was reintroduction.
He called them predator pits.
He had, at least to his point, and again, he's passed away, so I don't want to get too far down the road and let him speak for himself, but I've interviewed him and talked to him about this idea of how predation works, and he has seen, he explained to me kind of how he'd seen wolves act With surplus killing and what he calls a predator pit when a group of wolves, a pack of wolves, takes over an area, they surplus kill, and they're not really worried about carrying capacity of the land.
They are killers.
That's what they do.
He met a lot of flack in his later life in the wildlife biology and kind of wildlife management communities because of that view, which was seen as anti-wolf.
One of the most profound moments of my kind of professional life is when I had a conversation with him, and I pushed him on this a little bit, and I said, look, there's a lot of people that think your theories on wolves are a bit outlandish, that wolves are a blight on the landscape, they should be controlled.
And he brought it back a little bit, and he said, you know, I am for intelligent intervention.
And if people really think about that term and what that term might mean, intelligent intervention means that we have the cognitive ability to And the ability as a species to intervene in these wild places and intervene in these landscapes where we kind of belong and don't belong at the same time.
But we can intelligently intervene and make sure that we can strike a balance.
And in the case of wolves and in the case of bears, it comes down to carrying capacity of a landscape.
How many elk can be on a landscape?
How many bears can be on a landscape?
How do they work together?
How do you understand kind of the ecosystem as a whole?
joe rogan
And recognizing the cruelty of what happens if you don't manage that.
They attack each other.
ben obrien
There is no easy way out.
joe rogan
No.
ben obrien
There is no easy way out.
joe rogan
No.
The cannibalism aspect of bears can't be ignored because most people don't understand it.
One of the things that happens, and Ronell has talked about this before on his podcast, The Meteor, that there's a possibility that these bears are actively hunting cubs when they get out of hibernation.
ben obrien
Yes, they are, and they're trying to get the sows back into heat by doing this.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
But there's that.
Whether or not they're doing it because they're hungry and they think of them as meat...
Or whether or not they're doing it to control the amount of males and control the population and control the competition.
ben obrien
I imagine there's a mixture, but you don't know.
joe rogan
But a big factor of it is overpopulation.
Now, here's where it gets wonky.
Ready for this?
The most amount of bears in this fucking country by capita...
Is New Jersey.
ben obrien
Black bears.
joe rogan
The most black bears.
Well, I think most bears, period.
If it's the most black bears.
ben obrien
Yeah, I mean, yes.
Bears as a species.
joe rogan
Brown bears are less prevalent except in certain areas of Alaska, right?
But when you look at the overall continental United States...
ben obrien
Bears are in every state in the lower 48. Yeah.
joe rogan
And when you look at bears in New Jersey...
It's extraordinarily dense.
And you can't hunt them.
You can't hunt them because they have a guy who's an ideologue.
The guy who is their governor.
ben obrien
Phil Murphy, I believe is his name.
Governor Phil Murphy.
joe rogan
He ran on banning the bear.
That was one of his things.
He wanted to ban the bear hunt.
It's not a scientifically wise thing.
ben obrien
Yeah, shout out to the Sportsman's Alliance, which is a group in our space that battles these kind of state-by-state legislations that are meant to end hunting practices in different ways, whether it's trapping or whatever.
joe rogan
Right, right, right.
ben obrien
They're an important group to know about.
And they often run afoul of HSUS, Humane Society, the United States.
And they're often against each other, which is a strange dichotomy, but that's the way it is.
And in New Jersey, it's been a while since I've been immersed in this, but in New Jersey, the first thing that Phil Murphy did was try to ban black bear hunting on state lands.
So they had a black bear hunt.
And how this happens, and this happens with wolves and grizzly bears and everything.
There is, with the Endangered Species Act, you want to get to a threshold, a healthy threshold.
The wildlife biologists will set a healthy threshold.
And if you take a few steps back, the North American model of wildlife conservation, one of the main things it was founded upon, and this goes back to the 1800s, is the public trust doctrine.
This means that wildlife isn't owned by anyone.
Back to Snoop Lion.
Wildlife isn't owned by anyone.
It's held in trust by the states.
It's not owned by the landowner.
It's not owned by the governor.
It's not owned by any fucking buddy.
It's owned by all of us in trust.
This is an important thing to understand about our model of conservation, and this is an idea that led to the renaissance at the turn of the century where our country went from extirpating many of its wildlife species to saving and conserving them.
So the public trust doctrine bleeds right into our North American model of wildlife conservation, which in and of itself says that we will enact wildlife laws and legislation based on science and wildlife biology.
So that means we have state game agencies, and we can get into this too, are mostly funded by hunters and anglers through American System of Conservation funding that you've talked about a lot on this show.
Pittman-Robertson is one of them.
Dingle-Johnson is another.
joe rogan
Explain that to people that don't know what we're talking about.
ben obrien
It's a lot.
joe rogan
This Pittman-Robinson was interesting because one of the things I learned from Manella's podcast is that a large percentage of that money is actually coming from people who are into the shooting sports.
ben obrien
Shooting sports.
So here's...
Most of it, right?
joe rogan
Isn't it most of it?
ben obrien
Most of it.
I mean, it's hard to say year by year.
I don't have the numbers.
joe rogan
So many gun nuts.
If all guns and all ammunition contribute to wildlife, that's fascinating.
That means that gun nuts...
The craziest fucking people.
Paying for them bears.
Their pain to keep all the animals alive.
ben obrien
Maintenance those bears.
So, yeah, you take it back to 1936. America is kind of in the throes of the Great Depression.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's the president.
They have the first, you may Google this, Jamie, the first North American Wildlife Conference at the urging of many conservationists of the time.
Ding Darling is a wildlife artist.
joe rogan
Imagine your name is Ding Darling.
ben obrien
He's awesome, dude.
You can go to Ding Darling.
joe rogan
I know, but that's hilarious.
Ding!
Either you're a clown, or you're a stand-up comic, or you're a politician that no one trusts.
ben obrien
This is a wildlife artist guy.
joe rogan
Ding Darling?
Ding Darling?
ben obrien
That's only a name that could happen in the 1930s and be cool.
Nowadays, we'd be like, Ding, fuck you.
joe rogan
Like, if you were trans and your name was Ding Darling, people are like, bro.
Come on, that's so on my head.
ben obrien
So listen, Ding, we're sorry to take a left, Ding.
joe rogan
Ding.
ben obrien
Ding.
joe rogan
My name's Joe.
It's one of the most boring names of all time.
Ben and Joe.
We're jealous.
ben obrien
We got nothing.
joe rogan
I wish.
I was Ding Darling.
ben obrien
I don't think that was Ding's real name.
He probably was like Charles Darling or something like that.
joe rogan
Bro, but that it was his real name?
ben obrien
J-N-Ding-Darling.
That's a weird thing.
J-Norwood Darling.
So he was a boring name.
joe rogan
So if your parents name you and then you rename yourself, is that okay?
Can you hang with people like that?
ben obrien
Yeah, well it's like...
unidentified
That's what you're...
ben obrien
Yeah, can you hang with people that just change their name?
I mean, Snoop's not Snoop's real name.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is.
ben obrien
No, he's got a real name.
joe rogan
It's been his name more than it's been not his name.
What's his name?
He's been Snoop since, like, fucking 1990. That's a long time.
ben obrien
Is there a threshold for how many years you call yourself a certain thing?
Ding is, in history, Ding Darling.
It's not Jay Norwood Darling.
joe rogan
I've been very fortunate to never have any other names.
Very fortunate.
I feel very...
I feel very fortunate for never having the desire.
But my friend Aubrey, he used to be named Chris.
He changed his name to Aubrey.
Aubrey Marcus?
Yeah, yeah.
His name was Chris when I met him.
ben obrien
Was that a middle name or just something that he went to?
joe rogan
He tripped his balls off and he just rethought his life and said, I want to be a different person in one of the best ways.
I think he was naming himself after his grandmother or his grandfather.
ben obrien
Which is fine, right?
joe rogan
I'm sorry, Aubrey.
I don't remember.
ben obrien
We're sorry to ding and ding.
joe rogan
But I've only known him as Chris for a couple years, and Aubrey is like eight years.
Eight years.
ben obrien
Shout out to Chris Aubrey.
joe rogan
But it's like if my mom named me Julius, I'd be like, God damn it, Mom.
ben obrien
Maybe I'm Joe.
joe rogan
Yeah, I can't do Jules.
ben obrien
In terms of name changes, some of the name changes have got to be corrective.
Like, eh.
I'm not liking this.
Others have to be kind of declarative.
Like, I'm this guy now.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I'm Snoop, bitch.
I'm King Rogan.
unidentified
Okay.
ben obrien
There he is.
joe rogan
What is it?
jamie vernon
He was friends with Disney.
ben obrien
He was friends with Disney.
joe rogan
Smoking a pipe.
ben obrien
Got that bow tie.
joe rogan
Ding Darling.
That's a very important...
His real name was Jay.
But what was Ding back then?
Because gay was awesome.
Back then, they're like, we'll have a gay old time.
ben obrien
Ding darling.
joe rogan
Remember the Snoop, or the rather Flintstones?
Back then, gay was festive.
Yes.
And then somewhere along the line, it shifted to homosexual.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
Right?
Like gay was like this fun thing.
ben obrien
This is the best conservation history lesson anybody has ever received.
Ding Johnny was an important fellow.
You can go to a wildlife refuge named after him.
joe rogan
Maybe back then Ding had a different meaning.
You know, like you could be Dick Nixon.
ben obrien
Did it say Jamie what Ding, how he got his nickname?
jamie vernon
Yeah, he was the editor of his college yearbook and started signing his work with the contraction D'ing and it stuck.
ben obrien
T-apostrophe-I-N-G. Darling.
Ah, he was making a short for Darling.
How lazy is he?
joe rogan
How lazy?
ben obrien
He did a lot.
joe rogan
You can't write all the other letters?
ben obrien
He did a lot.
Yeah, I'm going to get to this conservation factor.
joe rogan
We're going to get to the grizzly story, too.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
ben obrien
That'll be the very end, like the flourish of the podcast.
joe rogan
We know what we're doing, folks.
ben obrien
Yeah, we've been doing this for years, me and Joe.
joe rogan
You and I have been doing this for years.
ben obrien
For ripping this shit for years.
unidentified
Yeah, for years.
ben obrien
This is our third...
This is our third...
How many hours are we in right now?
That's the dangerous part.
joe rogan
It's only...
Yeah.
ben obrien
Two-ish.
unidentified
We're at two-ish.
ben obrien
We still have two or three more to go.
So, Ding Darling, he's out there dinging it up.
And in 1936, a bunch of folks like Ding and conservationists of the time were challenging and pushing Franklin D. Roosevelt to kind of They'd already had the renaissance of understanding what conservation needed to happen in our country.
Why are you looking at me like that?
joe rogan
I'm taking giant hits.
Snoop Dogg weed and going, mm-hmm.
Continue, sir.
ben obrien
I'm learning.
joe rogan
I am learning.
ben obrien
So anyway, 1936, we've already gone through a bunch of the legislation, Lacey Act, a lot of the things that would lay the foundation for this idea that we needed to conserve wildlife in this country.
In 1936, there was this first wildlife conservation gathering.
2,000 people come.
I've read reports anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people come to Washington, D.C. And at this point, conservation was an idea that was kind of shared across party lines.
I remember reading that garden clubs and other bird watchers, all these people came to the table for conservation.
It wasn't like, bunch of hunters, and that was it.
It was people that cared about wildlife, and they saw over the last decades how we had degraded and extirpated many of the wildlife populations that were important to this nation.
Mallard duck, elk, deer, everything you see a lot of.
Turkeys, all of it.
In 1936, they have this wildlife conference, and what comes of it is a lot of things.
But the first, one of the things that comes from it is this idea of the Wildlife Restoration Act, which is termed Pittman-Robertson.
There was two senators, I hope I get this right, Key Pittman and Absalom Robertson.
joe rogan
Imagine your name's Absalom.
ben obrien
Go to that, make sure I got that right.
It's like Absalom or Absalom.
joe rogan
My name's Absalom.
ben obrien
Meet my friend Ding.
unidentified
He's always hanging out.
joe rogan
Dude, you should have been a comic.
ben obrien
He's always hanging out in the back.
joe rogan
That was great timing.
ben obrien
He's hanging out in the back drawing stamps.
Duck stamps.
Fucking weird.
joe rogan
I like to collect coins.
ben obrien
There it is.
That's him.
joe rogan
Look at him.
ben obrien
He looks like Absalom Willis Robertson.
He was from Virginia and Keith Pittman, I believe, was from Nevada.
joe rogan
That looks like the type of guy who would slap you if you told him.
If you were your son and you told him you were gay, he would slap you.
ben obrien
He would smack the shit out of you.
joe rogan
He would slap you right in the mouth.
ben obrien
That's right.
joe rogan
Goddammit, not my boy.
ben obrien
Look at his early picture there on the left.
joe rogan
Wow.
People were not even people back then.
ben obrien
That's a staunt.
joe rogan
They were like a trained monkey.
ben obrien
You're not friends with that guy.
You know of that guy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
He shows up.
He's a state senator.
So anyway, those are the two guys.
They introduced the bill.
And so, in a sense, Pittman Robertson.
So Pittman Robertson is a thing that...
Basically took at the time.
This was a very popular thing at the time.
It was called user...
Too much snoop line.
It was a user pays public benefits model.
So I'm using a road.
I pay for it, the public benefits.
And this is...
Around the time where we really had to understand how to pay for all this conservation that we wanted to do.
We have national parks now.
Yellowstone's already a thing.
The National Forest Service is already a thing.
Under Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt has already done a ton to forward conservation in this country.
So now it's 1936. All these people get together and one of the things they want to achieve is how do we pay for this shit?
Because we got to pay for it.
And they decided, and there was, I think, five or six things that they wanted to achieve.
One of those things was to pay for it.
And they decided that we're going to create this bill and take a current excise tax on the sale of ammunition and firearms, 11% excise tax on sale.
It was already there.
And they're going to take that and they're going to put it into a bucket to pay for many of the conservation programs that we have in the United States at the time.
That legislation was put forward by those two cool-ass motherfuckers that we talked about.
And those folks, I think it got to Roosevelt's desk in nine days or something like that.
It was so popular.
It was like, boom, done.
Let's pass this shit, unlike today.
Nothing would ever be done that quickly.
But there was such a gathering around this that it went to Roosevelt's desk in nine days.
He signs it.
It becomes law.
Wildlife Restoration Act.
That means that the manufacturer, so today, the manufacturer of goods and services, so you're talking about Ronella?
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
What he was talking about, about like tactical shooters and people that just go to the range and shoot a bunch of ammo.
The manufacturer of those goods pays that excise tax.
joe rogan
For people who've lost our train of thought, this is where, like, the percentage of the Pittman-Robertson that goes...
ben obrien
11% for ammo and...
joe rogan
How much of it is from hunters?
And how much of it is from shooters?
ben obrien
I've never read any real clear statistics on that because it would be hard to say.
You would have to go to the actual place where they're buying it.
joe rogan
It would be conservative to say, like, 70%.
ben obrien
You could say for sure.
joe rogan
Oh, Jamie's got something.
ben obrien
Jamie got it.
joe rogan
Jamie's the shit.
ben obrien
One source, hunters spending around $10 billion a year on everything they need for their hunting trips.
A different source found that hunters spend between $2.8 and $5.2 billion a year on taxable merchandise.
This generates $177 and $324 million a year in PR money, which means Pittman Robertson money.
joe rogan
Just remember that, because anybody that thinks that that kind of money is coming from any other source is delusional.
ben obrien
Well, we can get to that, too, because that's a huge...
joe rogan
Please do, because...
ben obrien
That's a huge part of it.
joe rogan
If people think that that kind of money is coming from people that are just philanthropy, it's not, right?
ben obrien
It's not, and not in this way.
This is one of the more...
joe rogan
Not for wildlife, right?
ben obrien
Yeah, this is one of the more beautiful kind of...
This is the thing that I discovered after I was always in love with hunting.
I'm like, oh, look, there's a structure that is really nice, too, that I really admire.
And it's a government structure, and I hate government, and I hate its structure.
But this one I like, man, and I'm taking part in it.
So, Pittman-Robertson is, it started out as, at the time, because there wasn't a lot of archery hunting at the time, if any.
Very, very few.
There wasn't a compound bow.
What year is this?
joe rogan
1936. Take a hit of this, maybe a little refresher memory.
unidentified
Ah, Snoop.
joe rogan
You only have very few moments in life where you can get high on Snoop weed.
ben obrien
And then talk about...
joe rogan
Legitimately from this motherland.
He gave it to me.
ben obrien
This is kind of like the Snoop weed and then taking a test on history.
joe rogan
No, this is perfect.
You're doing an amazing job.
ben obrien
Thank you.
It seems to be helping.
joe rogan
100%.
ben obrien
It's interacting somehow with the alpha brain?
joe rogan
Yeah, and the whiskey.
ben obrien
And the whiskey.
joe rogan
All of it together.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
And the fact that we're in Texas.
ben obrien
The free place.
The fishbowl.
unidentified
We just keep this going.
joe rogan
You talk freely here.
ben obrien
We keep this going for hours.
joe rogan
But explain.
Keep going.
ben obrien
So 11% on guns and ammunition.
This is an existing excise tax.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
So they decided that this was sort of a compromise and also a good faith effort to try to preserve all the things that were missing during the whole market hunting problem.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
Yeah, and there's so much more that goes into this before this moment.
But since we're talking about PR, we would then need to say that this 11% already existing excise tax was funneled into a fund.
It's called the Wildlife Restoration Fund.
I'm not sure if it was called that back then, but that's what it's called now.
Over time, over the next 70 years, roughly, we would go on to then add archery products and ancillary archery equipment to this.
It's a 10% tax on that.
In the 70s, we would then have a similar addition called Dingle Johnson that would add that similar excise tax to fishing equipment.
And so now you have this kind of bucket of money that is earmarked and goes towards that from the purchasers...
joe rogan
It's kind of amazing.
ben obrien
It's driven by the hunting and fishing economy and shooting economy.
joe rogan
But let's compare it to anything else in society.
ben obrien
User pays public benefits.
joe rogan
But imagine if there was a thing, like if you bought an iPhone and 10% of it went to social justice.
But you know what I'm saying?
ben obrien
I know, but imagine if this is, and the duck stamp's this way too, and we talk about that, but the duck stamp and this tax, if they were to come to the hunting community, the fishing community, and say, we want to raise this excise tax to 12.5%.
I would guarantee.
joe rogan
They would say yes.
ben obrien
There you go.
Hand up.
How about 13?
How about 13?
Because they're- It's fine.
Because they know they benefit.
joe rogan
It's recreational activities.
It's a part of the lifestyle.
And if you have to pay a little more, but you know that that money is going to a good cause and that everybody feels good about the transaction.
ben obrien
All good.
joe rogan
All good.
ben obrien
And so this is a constituency that not only happily pays this tax, but would support Whatever we need to do for that tax to pay for the thing that we love.
It's kind of a perfect governmental...
joe rogan
This is my thought.
It is.
And it's not that known.
And I think if we can implement that same strategy for everything, for law enforcement, for education, for everything, for everything...
ben obrien
It's a value system thing.
joe rogan
I know what you're saying.
But look at it that way.
Look at the amount of money that's been generated by people who love wildlife and live off the land, whether it's 100% or even 5%.
If you have 5% venison in your diet, you know?
ben obrien
Yeah.
So there's a bunch of more beautiful things that are built into it that kind of buttress what you're saying.
And one of them is...
joe rogan
I love the word buttress.
ben obrien
It's got butt in it.
unidentified
Whenever you can use it.
joe rogan
Whenever you can use it, I'm like, respect.
ben obrien
Whenever you can buttress that shit, baby.
joe rogan
I've never said buttress ever.
unidentified
Really?
ben obrien
You've never said buttress?
joe rogan
I don't think I have.
ben obrien
We should make a t-shirt.
joe rogan
I mean, it's just by accident.
ben obrien
It's not like I have a problem with the word buttress.
Somebody out there listening will make.
You fuckers drank cat ladies.
You'll make a buttress t-shirt, goddammit.
joe rogan
Yeah, but it's not like I'm...
Like I said, I've never said it.
What I mean by that is it's not like I'm above it.
It's just fucking...
It never came up.
ben obrien
I'm a man of the people.
joe rogan
I'm not saying I'm above it.
I'm not being elitist here.
I just never said that word.
ben obrien
That's why the term buttress is now something.
joe rogan
I mean, I might have, but I might have been like 14 experimenting with new words.
ben obrien
Jamie, where are you at on buttress?
Have you ever said buttress?
joe rogan
Jamie's never said buttress.
ben obrien
Jamie?
joe rogan
I don't think you've said it.
jamie vernon
No, it's too close to waitress, but...
joe rogan
Jamie with the one line!
ben obrien
Yeah!
Yes, Jamie.
That's too good.
It's a good word.
joe rogan
Back to buttress.
ben obrien
Back to...
I can't.
I'm never going to be able to be serious about this with you over there.
joe rogan
It's fine.
Just come up with another...
To connect the two.
ben obrien
Waitress butts.
Buttress.
So what's happening is we're now...
So we're paying...
People in the modern sense are calling it the American System of Conservation Funding.
And there's more than just Pittman-Robertson.
Which is Wildlife Restoration Fund.
So what happens is we take 11% excise tax.
This is, again, paid for by the manufacturers.
It does not show up on a receipt.
You do not see it when you purchase a product.
You do not really, unless you're listening to this or have read about it or been introduced to it, know about it.
It's not something that when you look at your receipt, you go, oh, look, 11.5%.
I just paid that and that's going to go here.
You don't really know about it.
Which I think is one of the great failings of the fucking place where I, the community that I work in.
joe rogan
The problem is that there's the amount of people that are involved in that world, in the hunting world, in the general, it's too easy to get food.
So most people think it's frivolous, or it's sociopathic, or it's evil.
They have this distorted perception of what it means to want to be engaged in that world.
That you're doing this almost as an excuse to kill things.
You're not correct.
ben obrien
Yeah, it's a dangerous...
It's a slippery slope in that way.
joe rogan
But you are correct sometimes.
That's the problem.
Because all...
It's not like hunters are all pure.
There's not a fucking single group of humans that are 100% pure.
ben obrien
I always say, like, do campers litter?
joe rogan
Yes!
That's a good way to say it.
It's beautiful.
ben obrien
All campers aren't shitty.
joe rogan
That's a great...
Do cigarette smokers throw their fucking cigarettes out the window?
ben obrien
That means...
That doesn't mean all people at camp are assholes.
joe rogan
Right.
Doesn't mean that all people who throw cigarettes out the window of their fucking cars are arsonists.
But a lot of them are.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
A lot of them are, man.
That happens all the time in California.
ben obrien
For sure.
joe rogan
Dude, during fire season, I've been evacuated three times, okay?
One of the reasons why I abandoned California, I was tired of being evacuated from my home with fire.
There was a moment during the last one.
Where it was, I came home from the comedy store, there was a fire that was like a mile and a half plus from our house, and I came home from the comedy store, and me and my wife were like, we gotta get the fuck out of here.
I think it was her idea first.
She was like, I think we should just leave now.
Like, why wait?
I go, you're right, why wait?
Like, everything that matters is right here, right?
You, me.
ben obrien
Let's go.
joe rogan
The kids, our dog, let's get him in a car, and let's just go.
And I knew that, like, I'm like, we can escape, like, danger in this one moment if we act now.
But if we get stupid, and I don't even want to say stupid, because people have made bad decisions based on the fact they never had to encounter a wildfire before.
Stupid is a wrong...
Because I remember the first time I saw a fire, a real wildfire in my neighborhood was like...
I moved to my neighborhood in 96, and the first time a real fire came around was like 97 or 98. I was like, whoa.
I'll go, this is real.
Like, this can overcome an area.
ben obrien
You feel powerless.
joe rogan
Well, you also feel like, wow, it's amazing that you could just buy a lighter.
unidentified
Yeah.
It's amazing!
ben obrien
Somebody on a buttress fires.
joe rogan
There's so many disenfranchised, angry people.
ben obrien
Right.
joe rogan
And so many lighters.
It's kind of shocking.
Why would you live where it's dry?
ben obrien
Confucius says.
joe rogan
Why would you live...
Joseph says.
ben obrien
Joseph Frogan says.
joe rogan
Get the fuck out of the dry spots.
ben obrien
Stop smoking cigarettes.
joe rogan
It's getting too dangerous.
unidentified
In the tall grass.
joe rogan
You're counting on morons to not throw cigarettes out their windows.
And it's a thing that people do when they smoke.
Yeah.
It's a cultural thing.
They don't even realize they're doing it.
They smoke their cigarette and they throw it on the ground and they stomp it out and they leave it there.
They litter.
It's the one time you're allowed to litter.
It's a weird thing, man.
It's weird.
ben obrien
I've never been a smoker.
I've never picked that up.
It is weird.
joe rogan
I have conscientious, intelligent friends that I love and respect.
Comedians in particular.
They smoke and they put their cigarette on the ground and they stomp it.
Men and women.
ben obrien
I'm a big fan of Ron White.
He smokes...
Well, like Chappelle.
Chappelle smokes like a fucking chimney on stage.
joe rogan
Do you want to smoke one of Ron White's actual cigarettes?
ben obrien
Yes.
joe rogan
Don't you feel weird?
ben obrien
I wouldn't feel weird at all.
This is like a fucking menagerie of drugs and alcohol.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's an actual cigarette that he's made that he smokes, though.
ben obrien
He's around here, huh?
Is he around in Austin?
joe rogan
Yeah, he's around.
Yeah, we're doing a show tonight.
You want to come?
ben obrien
Fuck yeah.
joe rogan
Exactly!
ben obrien
Is that real?
joe rogan
I was bringing it on you.
ben obrien
Did you just say that?
joe rogan
I got other plans.
ben obrien
You fucking guy.
joe rogan
Multiple plans for this evening, ladies and gentlemen.
ben obrien
Before we get to that, let me get to...
This thing fell apart on me.
joe rogan
I will.
ben obrien
Before we get to that, let's get to the history of conservation in America, Joseph.
Ding, darling.
joe rogan
This motherfucker might have...
ben obrien
Ding, darling.
joe rogan
...a motive.
ben obrien
Not really a motive.
More like I want to finish a story.
We have this deal.
We make a deal.
11% guns and ammo.
joe rogan
10% archery.
ben obrien
What year?
1936. I want to say.
3836. That is amazing.
It's a long time.
This thing has lasted a long time.
Hundreds of millions of dollars going into this fund.
This goes into a wildlife restoration fund, which is managed, I believe, by the IRS, and the IRS takes the money and says, hey, here, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, here's this money, fucking make it happen.
And then the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes that money, and they go from state to state, and they use a...
says, I think it's the land mass and number of licensed hunters.
And they take that equation and they give the money to the state.
The beautiful thing that said, and this is often in politics, I think something that happens, they say, hey, man, if you don't use this money on what it's earmarked for, which is hunting and fishing, access and education, access and education, access and We're going to take away your license funds and put them into another...
I think they put them into the Migratory Bird Act or Migratory Bird Fund.
But basically it says, if you don't use this money for what it's purposed for, you lose it, it goes somewhere else, bitch.
Sorry about your luck.
So now you have this thing where hunters, shooters, fishermen are paying into a system that many of them have no idea about.
It's so ingrained in our system, in our minds as hunters and anglers, that we know that the American system of conservation funding, which includes Pittman and Robertson, but also includes license sales.
Can't forget that.
You pay for a license.
You pay for the privilege to go hunt wild game.
All of this goes to fund...
State game agencies that are appointed by us that are there for the public trust doctrine.
We don't own these animals.
We all hold them in trust.
And we take that money and we say, we're going to pay for a bunch of wildlife biologists to work for the state, and those folks are going to be the ones, for the most part, to enact legislation to keep these animals around.
And that's a huge part of the North American model of wildlife conservation that is unique to this continent and that kicks fucking ass.
joe rogan
As a person, I agree.
If you look at it as a system in comparison to a lot of the other systems that are combating, whether or not it's like community violence or drug addiction or crime or anything, If you look at problems and solutions, it's one of the great problems VS solutions in our country.
ben obrien
For sure.
joe rogan
I don't know why I said VS. Never said that before either.
There you go, buttress and VS. Hashtag buttress.
ben obrien
Put that on a shirt.
joe rogan
But it's like, I didn't want to be pretentious, but I had to be.
No, you're not.
It's one of the great systems.
It really is.
If we could have that same sort of ethic...
Into other aspects of our life, I think we could do amazing things.
If you think of the amount of money that has been generated willingly, and also, like, happily by hunters and fishermen and people in the shooting sports and knowing that it's all going to good, but it's sustainable.
Like, it's not too crazy.
No, and there's results.
There's an ammo issue right now.
ben obrien
Well, sure.
There always is.
It's cyclical.
joe rogan
But that's like a pandemic thing, right?
That did really happen, pandemic.
ben obrien
That's a whole other thing.
But let me just say this.
You pull up, maybe, Jamie, pull up John Oliver did a thing on the duck stamp.
It'd be cool for us to watch that.
That was...
joe rogan
Another person, two days in a row, that's quoted John Oliver as a source of history.
ben obrien
John Oliver, if he's listening to this, is a shitbag.
joe rogan
What?
How dare you?
ben obrien
Not a big fan.
joe rogan
Oh, he's a good guy.
He's a comic.
ben obrien
Has he been in here?
joe rogan
No, but I'd have him in here.
ben obrien
His show sucks.
joe rogan
Oh, how dare you?
ben obrien
Do you like his show?
joe rogan
I've watched some funny elements of his show.
ben obrien
Shitbag, I apologize for it.
That was a low blow.
joe rogan
He's a comic.
ben obrien
His show is...
joe rogan
He's making fun of things, and they have a very left-wing theme to it.
Which is why I don't like it.
ben obrien
I don't like it because it's so obviously left-wing.
joe rogan
If you show up, and I'm not defending him, but yet I am.
If you show up and you're working on a show...
And I don't know how much say he has in how they sculpt those monologues.
ben obrien
You don't know.
joe rogan
I don't know.
I don't know.
But I think some of it's funny, even if I don't agree with it.
ben obrien
It's funny.
I'm not saying it's not funny.
I've watched it for a long time, and I guess I should say the backstory is I was a big fan of it, and then it started to turn to something.
joe rogan
He's great in community.
ben obrien
I've never seen him in that.
unidentified
He is.
ben obrien
He's probably a talented guy.
joe rogan
He's 100% talented.
ben obrien
I shouldn't call him names.
joe rogan
No, no, he's funny.
He's just very left-leaning.
ben obrien
It's trying to normalize these ideas that aren't...
Trying to make these left ideas...
And this happens quite often in other mainstream media.
It's trying to normalize these ideas that we should be talking through.
Like, this is how it is, guys!
joe rogan
Right.
You're absolutely right.
We should be talking through it.
ben obrien
We should be talking through it.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying you could be.
joe rogan
But in his defense, he's doing it for entertainment and humor.
So it's like, I give you a certain amount of license.
The problem is not what he's doing.
The problem is not what he's doing.
The problem is the way it makes people feel.
So you can either decide, I don't like to watch him because he's very left-leaning, so I'll watch something else.
Or you can decide, that's what I'm looking for.
And then you watch him and he becomes as popular as he is.
See?
It's like we have this idea that everybody on television or everybody who has a podcast or everybody who has a YouTube show has to share your ideas.
ben obrien
That's it!
joe rogan
But they don't.
ben obrien
You, Crystal and Sager, Bill Maher, let me name you, Jon Stewart, people that challenge...
joe rogan
Kyle Kalinske.
ben obrien
Kyle Kalinske.
People that challenge these narratives.
unidentified
Tim Pool.
ben obrien
All of them.
joe rogan
But all of them.
Sam...
I mean, Sam Harris.
ben obrien
Intellectual Dark Web.
Everybody.
joe rogan
Brett Weinstein.
Heather Hying.
ben obrien
These are people that are...
Skeptics.
Challenging ideas that need to be challenged, not people that are promoting narratives in kind of a disingenuous way.
joe rogan
The label's the problem.
The label's the problem.
Whether you call it the intellectual dark web or you call yourself progressive or left-wing or right-wing.
These idealities, these labels that we put on ourselves, they sort of are like...
They're like the latticework of cults.
Like it sets it up and then the cult grows inside that little fence and it takes root and before you know it you got a cult.
I have a matrix target.
You know what a matrix target is?
You know those archery targets?
Oh yeah.
I have one in my backyard that has like vines have decided to grow around it.
It's like they are unaware that lethal darts are going fucking 300 feet per second slamming into that foam.
ben obrien
That's not a place to grow if you're a weed.
joe rogan
For them, it's not enough disruption that it stops them from growing because it rains here in Texas and shit grows.
Crazy.
Nothing lights on fire.
And everything just fucking grows.
ben obrien
Yeah, I mean, I apologize to John Oliver, but I think the frustration for me as just a normal dude that watches a lot of stuff is that I want to really like him, and sometimes I can see through it.
joe rogan
You gotta let it go.
ben obrien
See through the narrative stuff, so apologies.
joe rogan
You gotta let it go, and he's gotta let it go, too.
ben obrien
That was unfortunate.
joe rogan
Everybody's got to let it go.
Everybody's got to realize we have more in common than we do in difference.
We all want our families to be safe.
We all want to have fun with our friends.
We all want our children to grow up and have a great education.
We all want to live in a world with no war and no pollution.
We don't have a problem with environmental contaminants leaking into our water.
We can all agree on those things.
We're being separated by ideologies more than we are about what we agree on or disagree on.
What we agree on is way more numerous.
Most people who are good people who are happy people want everybody to have a good life.
ben obrien
And that goes right back to public.
We're paying money so we can go do things.
I would apologize again to John Oliver.
I went way off.
joe rogan
You stepped out of line, you son of a bitch.
ben obrien
I stepped out of line.
Sorry, John.
joe rogan
He's a fucking comic.
ben obrien
He's doing his job.
He's doing his thing.
Shouldn't have said that.
joe rogan
The thing is, it's his point of view.
ben obrien
Yeah, it's his point of view.
And he may challenge me on hunting one day.
That would be fun.
joe rogan
But if you agree with the First Amendment, you want him to have his point of view.
ben obrien
And you really do.
And you want to have his show and you want to be entertained by it.
joe rogan
That's where the problem with social media comes in.
Because there's a lot of people that don't think that way.
There's a lot of people that don't think like...
Whether it's John Oliver or whether it's Donald Trump or whether it's fucking a lot of the right-wing people or a lot of left-wing people, there's an ideological battle.
And if you've got control of the switch and you're like, fuck that guy, he doesn't think you should have a seven-month-old abortion.
There's weird...
You know, there's weird decisions people make.
Like, fuck that guy.
He doesn't believe that this is more than that.
You should use these pronouns.
You should say this instead of that.
You should let these people control this because they've never been in control.
And you should let Marxists and Leninists try to run the country because we've been run by capitalists.
And it's obviously unfair and racist!
And then you try to figure out your way through the mess.
ben obrien
Let me offer a solution, Joe.
joe rogan
You have one?
ben obrien
Yeah.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
Ben O'Brien.
What's today's date?
I'll wait.
November 16th at 3.47 p.m.
Central Time has figured it out.
ben obrien
Let's take a moment of silence before I start.
Now, everybody good?
joe rogan
I'm stretching out.
ben obrien
Okay, let's go.
We'll start with Piven and Roberts, and we'll eventually get to the Grizzly Bear story.
unidentified
We're going to get to that fucking story!
ben obrien
I feel really bad about that.
joe rogan
I feel like we should shut this thing off before the story.
unidentified
This is like the end of Sopranos.
Exactly!
ben obrien
Just be like, that whole thing about John Oliver's The End.
Sorry, John.
joe rogan
What the fuck did that guy just try to explain the end of The Sopranos recently?
jamie vernon
He got mad because someone kept asking him, I think.
joe rogan
Bro, why would he answer any questions?
ben obrien
No, I don't.
joe rogan
Anyway, go back.
ben obrien
This is the most fun I've had in a long time.
Me too.
I'll say this.
We have.
So we talk about the American System of Conservation Funding.
I think we've mostly covered Pittman-Robertson.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
So people understand that we're paying money and that money is going towards the thing that we're taking part in.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
User pays the public benefits.
Like I said, there's a large...
Part of our populace that shoots for fun.
They go out.
We call them, you know, tactile shooters or range aficionados.
joe rogan
And they call people like you FUDs.
FUDs, yeah.
For Elmer FUD. Yeah, Elmer FUD. Like Rinella would be a FUD. A FUD. That's probably true.
ben obrien
Elmer FUD. People call me whatever they want.
joe rogan
Right.
Remy Warren's a FUD. Is he?
I would say so.
ben obrien
I love him.
joe rogan
I love him too, but he's a FUD. If he's got a rifle, it's for hunting.
He doesn't have time for anything else.
ben obrien
That's true.
I don't know where the delineation of that is, but at some point, yeah, you're a hunter or you're a shooter.
There are different communities.
I've lived in both.
Yes.
Hopefully they like me.
I like them.
joe rogan
I know, but isn't that funny?
This is what people need to understand.
There's that much division inside people who believe in the Second Amendment.
ben obrien
There is.
joe rogan
There's people that are just tactical people who have bulletproof underwear on right now.
And there's people who want to shoot a white-tailed deer for dinner.
ben obrien
That's right.
And everybody's trying to convince each other that their way is the right way.
joe rogan
Right, right, right.
There's people that just want to protect their family from an armed invader, and there's people that want to start a militia.
They both have similar...
They both exist.
ben obrien
These people both exist.
joe rogan
This is a divide.
ben obrien
It's not a real divide.
joe rogan
We are fractal, is what I'm trying to get at.
ben obrien
It's not a real divide.
We're all together.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
We should be all together.
ben obrien
Especially in the Second Amendment world.
joe rogan
This is my feeling with everything.
With the left and the right.
I think most of our decisions that are really polarizing are based on ideologies rather than shared goals.
ben obrien
Right.
joe rogan
Our shared important goals.
That's what you see when the pandemic hit a little bit in the beginning.
You saw it after 9-11.
You're a younger fella.
But during...
How old are you now?
35. 35. Yeah, so you're a little baby.
What are you, like 12 when 9-11 happened?
How old are you?
13?
ben obrien
I was in high school.
I was in SAT prep class.
joe rogan
What the fuck is wrong with you, boy?
ben obrien
Hey, don't degrade the educational system of America, Joe Rogan.
joe rogan
So, when that happened, what was my point?
Completely forgot my point.
ben obrien
Let me get back to the history of conservation in America.
unidentified
I had a whole thing to solve our culture.
joe rogan
What was I just saying?
What was I just saying?
ben obrien
I don't know, Jamie?
He's off it too.
joe rogan
Jamie has no idea.
ben obrien
That's when you know the podcast is going to a good place.
joe rogan
I can't do calculations in the middle of a rant.
ben obrien
All right, let me take it back to my solution for all of our culture.
We know now that we pay for a thing that benefits us.
Now, I would encourage everyone to look up the duck stamp.
I would encourage everybody to look up the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
We don't probably have time to get into those things, but those are things that act in a very similar way, as do licensed sales, in a similar way to Pittman Robertson.
These are things that help fund the things we love to do.
We take money from particular areas and we place it back in the public trust.
And we create access and opportunity across this country in amazing ways.
joe rogan
And all in all, with all the different organizations, how much money are we talking about?
ben obrien
You can look it up in terms of PR money.
But most of this money, we have to then separate this in a lot of ways from conservation groups within our space.
We have Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, of which I'm a part.
We have Rocky Mountain.
joe rogan
I have a lifetime membership.
ben obrien
You are?
unidentified
Yes.
ben obrien
Thank you, buddy.
You and Don.
joe rogan
I got a free canoe.
ben obrien
You and Don Jr. I got a free pistol.
Kimber.
unidentified
Congratulations.
ben obrien
I'll shoot a bear in the face, which we'll talk about.
unidentified
This is the longest tea story ever.
ben obrien
And so we have conservation organizations, and I think this is just in the spirit of this user pays public benefits, how it is in hunting.
We have single species organizations like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Wild Sheep Foundation, Pheasants Forever, Rocky Mountain Goat Alliance.
I mean, go on and on and on.
joe rogan
And all the fishing organizations.
ben obrien
All the fishing species, Coastal Conservation Association.
I mean, you could go on and on about associations that are kind of entwined and ingrained in our community that help to fund hugely important access.
Hugely important access.
I mean, the duck stamp itself is a piece of legislation.
Has supported wildlife refuges in America for decades and has opened up access to hunting in millions of acres.
Similarly, the RMEF. I've hunted conservation- Ducks Unlimited.
Ducks Unlimited.
joe rogan
Trout Unlimited.
ben obrien
Delta Waterfell, Trout Unlimited.
joe rogan
I met a dude who was a member of Trout Unlimited when I was 13. Yeah.
For real.
ben obrien
End it there.
joe rogan
I had to talk to this dude about, like, what are you doing?
ben obrien
He was, like, recruiting you.
joe rogan
Trying to help the conservation of trout.
ben obrien
And this is, and so this is, like, the people that are using these resources.
We call it the sustainable use of a natural resource.
Sustainable being the important part there.
We're using it, but we're not overusing it.
And to go back to my friend, Dr. Valerius Geist, the legend of our model of conservation, we're intervening intelligently to make sure that these populations flourish.
joe rogan
And this is debated, right?
This is discussed by wildlife biologists.
ben obrien
And this is a part of our model of conservation, and again, this is all intertwined.
The point, I guess, would be to say that all of this says that the hunting, fishing community is paying a lot of money and a lot of time to conserve and to give access opportunities through public lands and other programs the thing that they are consuming, right?
Sustainable use of a natural resource.
We see this thing as a natural resource and we want to use it sustainably while also fording the population.
We have never had more white-tailed deer In this country than today.
joe rogan
Since Columbus landed.
ben obrien
Columbus!
joe rogan
But that's because of GMO farms.
ben obrien
Nope, nope.
I'm going to cut you off so I can finish my story.
Because I'm solving all the problems in America and you're trying to stop me.
joe rogan
God, please.
With Columbus talk.
ben obrien
So, here we are in this kumbaya world of hunting where there is a user pays public benefits ingrained.
I once, when I was writing an article about Pittman-Robertson some years ago, I did a straw poll of 100 people in my orbit that were hardcore hunters.
I asked them, what is Pittman-Robertson?
97 of the 100 people didn't get it right.
joe rogan
What'd they get wrong though?
ben obrien
They either didn't know what it was, they thought it paid for some random shit it didn't pay for, they thought it was part of the duck stamp, they thought it was, they didn't know what it was.
Three people of a hundred, and this includes like family members, people I grew up hunting with, it wasn't ingrained enough in our own communities, and so how could we expect the people outside of our community to then understand it?
joe rogan
On a side note, that'd be a great grill.
ben obrien
Stop siding it.
joe rogan
Great grill name.
Pittman Robertson.
ben obrien
Pittman Robertson Grills?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
A nice pellet grill.
ben obrien
Butchers for me.
joe rogan
Cast iron.
ben obrien
Butchers for me.
joe rogan
Made in American.
ben obrien
Go ahead.
See, I always do this, Jamie, and I'm trying to tell the history of America.
joe rogan
It's a long history, but you don't.
ben obrien
eventually that grizzly bear is gone.
unidentified
You got a saunter across that drainage in Montana.
joe rogan
Saunter?
Another word I'd never use.
You ever used saunter?
How many times?
jamie vernon
I've made it like once.
joe rogan
Ever in your life?
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
More than 20?
Okay, if you had all the money that you've ever earned, if you had it on the table.
jamie vernon
I've been writing books set in the 1930s, but...
joe rogan
Would you be willing to push all the money you've ever earned in your life?
10 to 1 odds.
jamie vernon
On...
joe rogan
On you having said saunter 20 times.
jamie vernon
Oh, 20 times?
No, absolutely not.
Unless I was reading a book.
joe rogan
Imagine the saunters just start racking up in his memory.
unidentified
No!
Saunter!
And he realized it's 17, 18. No!
jamie vernon
With that song I wrote called Saunter?
joe rogan
23. Oh, and he realized it's going to hit the number.
ben obrien
How many times have you sauntered, Jamie, into a place?
Because I've sauntered a lot into a room.
Sauntered.
joe rogan
Bro, I sauntered in a movie.
jamie vernon
How different is sauntering from a...
I don't know.
joe rogan
Never mind.
ben obrien
Strolling?
Sauntering, I imagine, would be like strolling with confidence.
Strolling, you're just not really...
No care in the world.
Sauntering is you have a mission.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
And you're about to put it out there for the world.
jamie vernon
It's actually a leisurely stroll, so...
joe rogan
Sauntering.
ben obrien
That's fake news.
joe rogan
According to people with low testosterone.
jamie vernon
A slow, relaxed manner without hurry or effort.
joe rogan
What is the difference between the way a woman walks in a sexy manner?
What is that called?
Sultry?
ben obrien
That's like the adjective for it.
joe rogan
Is there a word?
Saunters seems like relaxed and confident, right?
jamie vernon
Well, there's a noun and a verb for saunters.
joe rogan
Oh, what's that noun?
jamie vernon
What's the noun?
A noun is a leisurely stroll.
But the verb is a saunter.
joe rogan
Wait a minute.
A leisurely stroll is in motion, you fucking cowards.
jamie vernon
A quiet saunter.
I mean, it's like a quiet...
unidentified
Bullshit.
jamie vernon
You go on a walk.
joe rogan
He's moving.
jamie vernon
You walk or you go on a walk.
joe rogan
That's a verb.
jamie vernon
Well, the verb is walk in a slow, relaxed manner.
joe rogan
But why is this different?
ben obrien
In 1936...
joe rogan
It's describing?
Okay, so it's a noun describing a type of walk?
jamie vernon
Yeah, it's a very descriptive type of walk.
That's what I was going to say.
I was going to call it a stroll, but...
joe rogan
Imagine, like, growing up learning Chinese and trying to figure out American.
ben obrien
Do you ever think of the time when Ding Darley...
unidentified
Chris was an American.
ben obrien
John Muir.
jamie vernon
Signature there.
ben obrien
There it is.
jamie vernon
That's Ding's signature.
ben obrien
Jay Norwood, Ding Darley.
joe rogan
Wow.
ben obrien
He's got a National Wildlife Refuge.
It actually looks like Disney wrote that down in the old swamp.
joe rogan
It does look like Disney.
jamie vernon
Look at that one.
ben obrien
Right, that's totally Disney-like.
Here I come, Joe.
You ready?
jamie vernon
Grizzly Bear.
ben obrien
You've got pretty broad shoulders.
This is going to hit you hard.
joe rogan
Uh...
ben obrien
So, we've established that we have this wonderful system that is buttressing hunting and fishing in the outdoors in America.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
No, we've established this.
And we've also established early in the podcast, about three or four days ago, that there is a solution buried deep in hunting to most, if not all, the cultural woes that you've talked about on your show and you've had very smart people talk about on your show.
Sedentary lifestyle, kind of too much information of social media.
All these things are kind of baked in, and I believe hunting has some solution to all of those things.
I really believe that.
joe rogan
I do as well.
ben obrien
It is backed up by a structure that pays for itself.
And also that structure bakes in a value system that I believe in wholly, and the people that take part in it can opt in to believe in wholly.
And it is a unifier for our folks.
I have...
A long way to say that I have a group that I've helped create for my podcast.
There was a guy that's no longer on the air.
It's over there in Meat Eater.
There was a guy named Juan Carlos.
Juan Carlos was down in Virginia.
Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
He wrote into my show and said, Hey man, I'm brand new to hunting.
Need a mentor.
Because as you all know, you can't hunt.
joe rogan
Sounds like a psychopath.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
Fucking vegans.
So we helped him.
Then I read the story on the air and about 30 or 40 people wrote in.
I'll help Juan Carlos.
I'll mentor him.
joe rogan
I'm kidding about him being a psychopath.
ben obrien
He's not a nice fella.
joe rogan
Just joking around.
ben obrien
Nice guy.
He...
We got him a mentor.
And the next episode I made kind of a joke.
Hey, you know, this is the first regional chapter of our podcast.
unidentified
Ha ha ha.
ben obrien
Pretty funny.
We've helped one guy get to hunting that really wanted to get there.
It's hard to get there, as you all know, as somebody who came from a non-hunter.
It was Steve, Cam, Dudley, myself.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's really hard if someone doesn't have any friends that do it.
ben obrien
So we endeavored to figure out how to create an organization from that.
This just came very organically from the podcast.
People love it.
They want to share it.
So my proof that hunting is good for you and good for kind of the culture is that the people that want to do it also want to share it with other people for nothing.
joe rogan
But here's the problem.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
The problem is the people.
It's not saying like the people that hunt are all awesome.
That's not true.
ben obrien
No.
joe rogan
People are people.
ben obrien
That's true.
joe rogan
The real problem is the perception that people have of hunters based on the people that are not nice.
Right.
This is when you hear stories about people doing things that are unethical or going into people's private property or these like...
All the bad guys in movies that are hunters, remember the movie Wolverine?
ben obrien
I do.
joe rogan
There's a bunch of really evil guys that are trying to kill a grizzly bear, right?
Do they kill a grizzly bear?
They poison it or something like that?
ben obrien
They poison it.
Beauty and the Beast, Gaston.
joe rogan
Yeah, but it's something crazy where it's not what hunting really is.
It's the worst possible example that's put in the biggest possible platform.
ben obrien
Pop culture.
Buffalo trees.
I agree, and I've thought about this a lot.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
And when my first reaction was, probably the first couple times I came on this podcast, I was in the realm of, like, we've got to fix Hunting's image.
And that was what I thought was the thing that was needed.
And then at times I thought, that's not...
A real useful idea on a grand scale.
It's really just not.
Because you end up looking down upon people that are just trying to do what they've always done.
You look down upon other hunting traditions because you're going to tell them, well, that's not the best for today's pop culture.
Pop culture wants us to be a certain way.
joe rogan
What do you mean?
ben obrien
I mean, they don't want us to hunt in Africa.
They don't want us to use dogs.
They don't want us to...
joe rogan
The Africa conversation is one of the weirdest ones, right?
ben obrien
It is one of the weirdest ones, but there's also hunting with dogs.
There's also...
Oh man, black bear hunting.
And I support almost all of that.
All of that.
joe rogan
Well, it's been thought out long past the place where a lot of people that are casually intervening with this subject have brought it to.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
This is a conversation that's been thought out.
ben obrien
It's way deeper, right?
So I took it away from this broad level.
Like, how do I fix hunting's image?
Hunting's image will be fixed.
And we would maybe fix it by...
Using a very localized, very slow burn of just taking the good things that we've already talked about, teaching people the structure, teaching people the ideology of hunting and the values that it purports, teaching people how...
To love an ecosystem, the one that you live in, how to learn about it, how to learn about natural history, how to learn about wildlife biology, how to learn about the North American model of wildlife conservation, how to learn about our history, and then how to go find an animal, find where it lives, learn about it, then kill it, and then eat it.
This is a process that's repeated many times over millions of years, and it's very useful in today's day and age.
There's a lot of people, I think, that want to do it that are adults that don't know how.
joe rogan
They don't know where.
ben obrien
They don't know where to go.
joe rogan
They don't know, like, is there an area that's close enough to them where they can live their normal life and escape for a couple days?
ben obrien
I always describe it as, like, the Grand Canyon.
There's, I want to hunt, and then the other side of the Grand Canyon, there's hunting.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
And there needs to be a bridge built.
And I want to build that bridge to say that...
You need...
As much as I can explain to you all the great stuff about hunting, you need to experience it.
Experience it locally, I feel.
I feel like experience it in your own communities.
joe rogan
But it's hard for people, right?
Imagine if you're in a city, you live in Brooklyn, and someone says you should start hunting.
ben obrien
I'll tell you how to do it.
You've got to find somebody that hunts, that lives near you.
joe rogan
That's not that easy.
ben obrien
And follow them.
joe rogan
You're like, I've got a plan.
Just find gold.
Dig a hole and find your gold and then you're rich.
ben obrien
Inspired by this thing that happened on my podcast, we started a group called...
I sound like a fucking promoter.
But we started a group called The Hunt in Common.
And this is a group that hopefully...
And this was started by people that listen to my podcast outside of me.
They said, we're going to do this.
We experienced this from your show, and we're going to do it.
We're going to figure it out.
One of the guys involved is a biotech startup guy in LA. His name's Nuri.
We have another person that's a big part of our group.
His name's Jordan.
He's a former NFL player.
We have people from across the country that want to share this shit.
They just want other people to see it holistically for what they've experienced.
And they're willing to donate their time and their money to make it work.
To, like, localize mentorship.
To be the Match.com for...
joe rogan
Is that scalable?
ben obrien
I believe it is scalable.
We have already 40, or roughly 40 chapters there on Facebook, but like 40 chapter pages.
joe rogan
So how does someone find out about this?
ben obrien
So right now we have thehuntincommon.org.
joe rogan
You can go there.
Thehuntincommon.org.
ben obrien
You can go there and there's like a little form that these guys set up.
And you can say, I want to be a mentor.
I want to be a mentee.
I want to learn to hunt.
Put your name, your email.
unidentified
Is that a word?
ben obrien
Mentee?
joe rogan
Mentee.
ben obrien
Oh, for sure.
Just like buttress.
joe rogan
Have you ever heard Mentee?
You ever said Mentee?
100% have never said Mentee.
Have you said it?
Said it, used it, nope, wrote it.
100%.
Never said Mentee.
ben obrien
Here's the thing from this podcast you could do.
Try to make a sentence with Buttress, Mentee, and Saunter.
joe rogan
While under the influence of a cat lady.
ben obrien
Words that Joe Rogan has never said more than once in a sentence.
joe rogan
For sure.
ben obrien
For 100, Alex.
joe rogan
All of them.
Saunter...
Saunter's a problem.
Mentee?
Is that a fucking thing you said?
Oh, no, no.
Mentees never come out of these lips.
That's unclear.
ben obrien
Somebody's going to figure that shit out.
Your whole life has been recorded.
You're going to have to own up to this.
joe rogan
I don't see Menti ever being...
I don't think I've ever heard that.
jamie vernon
Smash cut five uses.
joe rogan
Yeah, you probably.
ben obrien
You don't think, Jamie, that he said Menti at some point.
joe rogan
But let me tell you something.
If it pops up, I'm going to go, why didn't I say that?
I thought I didn't say it.
ben obrien
Oh, you're giving yourself an out already.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
I'm being honest.
I'm being honest.
I really genuinely don't think I've said it.
It might be one of the rare words in the English language that gets used every day.
Not like thy.
Like, if you...
jamie vernon
I'm fucking out.
joe rogan
Thy shall tellest one.
ben obrien
I've had enough.
unidentified
That's so good.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you say thy and you're serious, I'm like, listen, crazy.
Listen, crazy.
I gotta get the fuck away from you before you go back in time.
You can't say thy.
ben obrien
Mentee is not thy.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's right up there.
ben obrien
It's not up there at all.
Is there any way you can confirm this, Jamie?
joe rogan
Mentor and mentee?
Who the fuck's a mentee?
What are you, a little bitch waiting for someone to tell you what to do?
ben obrien
No, you're menteed by the mentor.
jamie vernon
Yeah, if you have mentors, you've got mentees.
ben obrien
Yeah, you've got mentees.
You've been menteed before.
joe rogan
I'm sure I've been menteed.
ben obrien
I menteed you one time.
joe rogan
But I never said it.
ben obrien
I fucking menteed you more than once.
unidentified
More than once.
joe rogan
But I never said it.
I never said the word.
ben obrien
Jamie, can you help me out with this?
jamie vernon
Yeah, I just said a bad joke.
unidentified
What'd you say?
jamie vernon
They have mentees on golf courses, but it's a different thing.
joe rogan
Oh, men versus women tees?
unidentified
Mentees.
joe rogan
You son of a bitch.
ben obrien
Do you guys have sound effects?
Do you have a sound effects board?
jamie vernon
That'd be a horn.
ben obrien
Anyway.
joe rogan
Use your imagination.
ben obrien
Anyway, I feel like a salesman guy, but I really do feel this is true.
jamie vernon
Just for clarification, I went to the huntandcommon.org.
ben obrien
We're working on it.
Don't worry.
It'll be up there by the time this airs.
joe rogan
Oh, you got a bullshit, fake-ass website.
jamie vernon
Just making sure.
ben obrien
Oh, bitch, it's coming in.
joe rogan
What kind of fucking show is this?
That's not even a Geocities website.
jamie vernon
It's not.
ben obrien
This is going to make the suspense even better.
Or not.
joe rogan
Or fail miserably.
ben obrien
At thehuntingcommon.org, we'll tell that Grizzly Bear story.
joe rogan
No, we're going to get to that story.
ben obrien
Anyway, we're working on that.
I was actually talking to the folks that were doing that today.
So have confidence in me, people out there.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
Or don't.
joe rogan
People that don't know Ben.
unidentified
Trust me.
ben obrien
Trust Joe.
joe rogan
He's going to be fine.
ben obrien
You help me out?
joe rogan
Yeah, 100%.
ben obrien
Yeah, you got me?
Okay.
unidentified
100%.
ben obrien
So, my feeling is after all this experience that I've had that there is an opportunity to localize this thing to say, look, man, this is a hard thing to do.
It's very beneficial.
And I think because it's hard, it can help you with a lot of the problems you might have in your life.
It also is backed by a system and a model.
That has helped us get a whole bunch of wildlife.
joe rogan
But we have to acknowledge it's not for everybody.
No, it's not for everybody.
Just like marathon running or CrossFit.
ben obrien
No, it's not for everybody.
joe rogan
A lot of things aren't for everybody.
ben obrien
I think the big thing for hunting is not that people need to participate in it.
It's that they need to understand it.
Just say, look, I appreciate it's not for me.
I don't have any real problem with someone who says, I appreciate hunting, but I'd like to buy my stuff at the grocery store.
joe rogan
Listen, there's nothing wrong with that.
This is what we have to understand.
We have to have space for everybody.
We have to have space for people who write novels.
We have to have space for people who build bridges.
We can't expect the guy who engineers a fucking bridge to go hunt a white tail.
Stop it.
He doesn't want to.
ben obrien
No expectation.
joe rogan
He wants to figure out how to make a fucking bridge so you can drive across the river and you don't die.
Okay?
Leave him the fuck alone and give him some meat.
Right?
ben obrien
That's the point, right?
joe rogan
That's the point.
The point is, like, we're not in competition with each other.
No.
Literally 95% of the population of the planet Earth eats meat.
Let's figure out a way to do it where it's ethical.
ben obrien
Well, let me just say this.
I don't want everyone to hunt, but I want everyone to have an open access to the information that's appropriate to make the decisions.
joe rogan
To make the decisions.
Making the decision.
That's everything.
ben obrien
That's all I want.
I want them to know the history.
joe rogan
Make an informed decision.
ben obrien
I want them to meet people in our community that they respect that also hunt and not look down upon them.
I want them to understand that this is a thing that's useful to a lot of people, may not be for them.
I want them to understand that there isn't two polar opposites, vegans and hunters.
There is a great middle ground where we can all understand the good here.
And like I said, I've never taken a new person hunting and not have them really...
Fall in love, I would say, with some aspect of it.
Not all aspects of it.
I've had many people, I take them hunting for the first time, they shoot something and they really don't want to see it struggle for its life.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
That's a deep and abiding human feeling that you don't want to watch something struggle for its life at your hand.
joe rogan
Dude, the first time I ever killed anything, it's on video.
It's on Meteor.
The first time I ever killed a mammal was on Meteor.
Or I shot a mule deer in Montana.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
You can find it on YouTube.
ben obrien
I'm very happy that I live in the generation where we can have these conversations.
Because when I was coming up, I think there was enough bravado and enough kind of we don't talk about this.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
Where I could say, hey man, I really sometimes...
And I'll tell you this story and be very honest about it.
I was squirrel hunting with my son recently.
And I shot this squirrel in the spine.
And this squirrel was fucking, you know, he was paralyzed, but he was running for his life from me.
This shit was not fun at all.
This shit was, we ate that squirrel in a squirrel pot pie two days later, and it was delicious.
But it was not at all fun for me to watch it struggle for its life.
At my hand, nonetheless.
joe rogan
But it's crazy that you need to say that.
Of course it wasn't.
ben obrien
Of course it wasn't.
joe rogan
That's not your intent.
ben obrien
But to your point, to somebody like Cam Haynes' point...
Now we get back to the craft, where if I learn to talk to an elk better, if I learn to shoot my.22 better, if I make my whole life about this craft, then that makes me a more ethical hunter.
Because I now know where that arrow will land, I now know where that.22 bullet will land, and I now know Better understand the outcome of what's going to happen.
That doesn't ever stop a wounding or a gut shot or, in this case, a spine shot.
That doesn't stop the shittiness of the finality of what you've just done, but it does put you right next to it.
It makes you realize who you are, what you are, and why you're here, and your impact on the things around you.
Way better than someone else whacking a chicken over the head and serving it to you in this wonderful cellophane wrapper.
I'm now, I have a side of like, I don't want to say I have a side of guilt with my squirrel slippery pot pie, but I have a side of understanding.
Like I have a side of, I know what that thing is.
joe rogan
Did you say slippery pot pie?
ben obrien
You don't know what that is?
Go to my Instagram immediately.
unidentified
Jamie?
ben obrien
Jamie?
joe rogan
Any knowledge of slippery pot pie?
ben obrien
This is a...
joe rogan
You say it's so casual.
Like everybody knows.
Oh, slippery pot pie.
ben obrien
This whole podcast is about shit that you don't say.
unidentified
Go to my Instagram.
ben obrien
It's a Pennsylvania Dutch.
joe rogan
Slippery pot pie to most of planet Earth.
ben obrien
Now you've offended Pennsylvania Dutch.
joe rogan
I'm not offending anybody.
jamie vernon
Slippery squirrel pot pie?
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
There it is.
Right there.
joe rogan
Okay.
What a coincidence.
It's Ben's fucking Instagram.
ben obrien
I told him to go to my Instagram.
No coincidence.
joe rogan
Where else?
ben obrien
You won't find that anywhere else.
joe rogan
There's a bunch of eggs in there.
ben obrien
No, that's flat noodles.
That's flat noodles.
joe rogan
What are those little yolk-looking things?
ben obrien
No, it says a slippery pot squirrel pie was the best game dish I've ever had.
Slippery pot pie is basically a chicken soup with flat square noodles.
It's popular in the Pennsylvania Dutch community.
joe rogan
What are those little yolk-looking things?
jamie vernon
Yellow corn?
ben obrien
That's corn, lime of beans from the garden, corn from the garden, squirrel there on the right, and then there's flat, those noodley-looking things.
Yep, you circled the squirrel there.
joe rogan
So you have fake eggs with corn centers?
jamie vernon
What?
ben obrien
That's a noodle.
joe rogan
It's really a noodle to me.
ben obrien
It's like an egg.
I bought that at a store.
It's a noodle.
It's called Ann's Square Dumplings.
joe rogan
If you just said, slippery squirrel pot pie, how many people go, oh yeah, Good number of them.
What's the number, Jamie?
ben obrien
Jamie?
jamie vernon
I've been in that area once for food, and I was 15, but we didn't have that, and I've never heard of it being from Ohio.
joe rogan
Of course you haven't heard of it.
It's nonsense.
ben obrien
Well, I grew up in a different place than Joe Rogan.
joe rogan
This guy's just making shit up.
ben obrien
Stop putting down my culture.
joe rogan
He wrote it on his Instagram.
It's the only reference online.
ben obrien
Google Slippery Pot Pie.
jamie vernon
I'm looking it up.
I feel like I've heard of people eating squirrel roadkill more than I've ever heard of Slippery Squirrel Pot Pie.
joe rogan
The roadkill thing is weird because it should be 100% legal for you to eat roadkill.
ben obrien
Many states it is.
joe rogan
It is.
ben obrien
Not all, but many.
joe rogan
The problem is this crazy notion that you're targeting deer with your car.
It's so dumb!
jamie vernon
Squirrel still is the meat of the pot pie, correct?
ben obrien
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now search Slippery.
Take Squirrel out.
Slippery pot pie.
What makes it slippery?
Quiet, Joe.
There it is.
joe rogan
How am I quiet?
It's my own show.
What makes it slippery?
ben obrien
Keep talking.
Pennsylvania Dutch chicken pot pie.
joe rogan
What makes it slippery?
ben obrien
Slippery is that the noodles are slippery, and it's not the crust of an actual pot pie.
I'm not a Pennsylvania Dutch.
This is just my mother, my grandmother.
My paternal grandmother, Lucille O'Brien, made this as I was growing up.
joe rogan
Is it good?
ben obrien
It's delicious.
If I had it right now, you would be flipping out on how delicious it is.
joe rogan
I only had squirrel once.
ben obrien
It's like a chicken noodle soup with a flat dumpling.
And in fact, if you go to the store, maybe you search Ann's Flat Dumplings.
joe rogan
Why wouldn't you just call it dumplings?
Why you gotta be so needy and connect yourself to the pie world?
I'm just saying.
unidentified
Seriously, that's not a pie, bitch.
joe rogan
You know what a pie is.
I like an apple pie.
What's this noodle soup?
You motherfucker!
ben obrien
But that pie is slippery.
It's hard to get a hold of.
joe rogan
It's slippery squirrel noodle soup.
I wanted a pie!
ben obrien
It's delicious, Joe Rogan!
joe rogan
That's not a fucking pie by anybody's estimation.
ben obrien
I feel attacked.
unidentified
Right?
joe rogan
That's far.
You with me, Joe?
ben obrien
That's actually a good point.
joe rogan
That's chicken noodle soup.
ben obrien
Jamie, who do you side with here?
Me or Joe?
jamie vernon
I'm with Joe on this one for sure.
joe rogan
Thank you.
Holla.
ben obrien
He pays your bills.
jamie vernon
Well, that has nothing to do with this.
joe rogan
He's my friend.
We agree.
jamie vernon
This is pie.
unidentified
Pie is pie.
joe rogan
You're in a cult.
jamie vernon
You need breading.
That's not pie.
joe rogan
That's a bowl of soup.
ben obrien
You think I'm in a slippery pot pie cult?
joe rogan
100%.
That's a bowl of soup.
Who the fuck, if you just said, hey, is this a pie?
Yes or no, all your money's on the line.
jamie vernon
Yeah, there's no slippery apple pie.
joe rogan
Who the fuck?
jamie vernon
Who the fuck?
unidentified
Click on that one.
ben obrien
Maybe we should start?
joe rogan
Google it.
ben obrien
Jamie, Google it.
joe rogan
Hold on.
Hold on, please.
Yeah, any of them.
unidentified
I won't have it.
joe rogan
Click on any of them.
ben obrien
I won't have it.
joe rogan
Okay, stop for a second.
Now, look at that image to the right.
ben obrien
Yep.
joe rogan
No, no, go to the one that's actually in the bowl so you can see the whole fucking bowl.
Okay.
Now, here we are.
Imagine if I said, hey, Ben O'Brien.
ben obrien
Hey, Joe.
joe rogan
I'm going to give you an opportunity to multiply your money by 10. Okay?
So, everything you've ever learned, ever earned in your life.
ben obrien
Okay.
joe rogan
You can make 10 times more than that if you're correct.
If not, you're indebted to me for everything you've ever earned.
But if you're correct, you make 10 times more than anything you've ever earned.
Is this a pie or is it fucking soup?
ben obrien
Is it slippery?
joe rogan
Is it a pie?
jamie vernon
I feel like Gordon Ramsay would be like, I just saw fucking soup.
unidentified
Or is that fucking soup?
joe rogan
Let's stop playing games, son.
ben obrien
It's soup.
joe rogan
Look at, that's right.
unidentified
You're correct.
ben obrien
It's soup.
unidentified
You're correct.
joe rogan
And all you people that said pie, go outside.
I want you to exercise.
I want you to jog a mile.
That's what I want you to do, you fucks.
I want you to deadlift your body weight ten times.
That's soap!
ben obrien
Let's look at slippery apple pie.
joe rogan
That's not a fucking pie!
unidentified
See?
jamie vernon
Apple pie has pie crust.
joe rogan
That's right!
Jamie comes from Ohio!
They're not crazy in Ohio!
jamie vernon
I almost feel like if you don't have crust, you ain't got pie.
joe rogan
That's right!
All you squirrel-eating pie-talking motherfuckers!
ben obrien
I'm not gonna let this get to me.
I'm gonna stay strong in the face of this...
joe rogan
You ain't doing shit.
ben obrien
I'm gonna stay strong.
joe rogan
That's nonsense.
You believe in nonsense.
That's soup.
ben obrien
I don't believe in...
I believe...
joe rogan
If that was soup, I'd say it's quite watery.
ben obrien
I hope it's tasty.
I believe in the delicious Slippery Pot Pie tradition of the Pennsylvania Dutch and my grandmother Lucille O'Brien.
Rest in peace.
Being sullied by Joe Rogan.
joe rogan
They came over here eating shoes.
They ate shoes.
unidentified
They...
joe rogan
They boiled shoes to stay alive.
ben obrien
Lucila Bryant would have never boiled shoes.
joe rogan
They ate pine cones.
jamie vernon
They're not even using the word slippery here.
They're just saying it's a Pennsylvania Dutch chicken paw pie.
ben obrien
Slippery is not the word we're talking about.
We're talking about pie is the word we're talking about.
Don't change the fucking rules.
joe rogan
They can't read.
ben obrien
How do they not read in Pennsylvania?
joe rogan
Those people who call that a pie, they never saw a pie in their fucking life.
They've been eating pine cones.
unidentified
At this point, at this point, there's a fucking pie right there.
joe rogan
They've been eating salamanders and pine cones.
ben obrien
Is that pot pie slippery?
Would it slip out of your hands if you try to pick it up?
jamie vernon
That's a pie.
joe rogan
If someone says, hey, for all the money in the world, listen to me, bitch.
ben obrien
Bullshit.
joe rogan
If someone looks at that and says, hey, for all the money in the world, is that soup?
I go, that is a fucking pie.
That's not soup.
Imagine if you said, oh, you want some fucking apple soup?
And someone brings you that?
unidentified
That's not apple soup.
joe rogan
You'd be like, hey, fuck you!
ben obrien
Call it a pie!
That pie's not slippery at all.
It probably stays right in your hands.
joe rogan
Listen, dude, it's not a pie.
ben obrien
It's not going to slip anywhere.
Ham pot pie?
Right there, that says ham pot pie.
jamie vernon
Can you eat that slippery pot pie with a fork, or do you need a spoon?
ben obrien
Fork you can do, but a lot of it slips through the fork.
joe rogan
Bitch, you ain't eating any of that with a fork.
The amount of liquid that's in that pot pie.
ben obrien
Alright, I'm going to come back in January and I'm going to make you.
I'm going to change your mind.
joe rogan
I'm going to change my number.
Because I'm not interested in this conversation.
ben obrien
Alright, so I was out in this train to just Grizzly Bear.
This Grizzly Bear, my dad's there.
And I'm cow calling.
Okay.
joe rogan
And you think the elk's coming?
ben obrien
I think this elk's coming.
joe rogan
But it's not.
unidentified
It's not.
ben obrien
I see the elk go across this ridge, right?
It goes across this ridge.
And then I see this brown flash go down this hill in front of me.
And there's a bit of a, you know, if you look like this, This brown flash has to go down this ridge and then around the corner of the spine of the ridge and stay down in the valley.
I know that above me is an elk carcass freshly killed yesterday.
So I'm calling.
I'm waiting for this big bull elk.
I'm looking this way.
And I turn around.
I look down below me and 100 yards below me, my dad's here, I'm here.
And I turn around below me and there's a giant bear 100 yards below me.
I turn all the way around.
I'm like, Dad, there's a bear.
There's a bear.
I have my pistol right here.
joe rogan
Does your dad have a pistol?
ben obrien
He's not.
He's a bow only.
I have a pistol and bear spray.
joe rogan
Does your dad have bear spray?
ben obrien
He does not.
At this point, he's not.
So luckily I'm between him and the bear.
The bear goes down the drainage.
I remember, as a hunter, mostly I'm worried about is this a black bear or a grizzly bear.
I didn't know at the time.
It was kind of shadowed in this ravine as it was going up.
And I'm looking through the binos.
I'm like, I don't know what this is.
I'm not sure if it's a black or grizzly bear.
Grizzly bears have a distinct hump that you're looking for that's different from a black bear.
And they can be...
And this black bear is sauntering down...
joe rogan
At the risk of making this a longer story, explain why it's way more dangerous if it's a grizzly.
ben obrien
A black bear, you and I have experienced this in Alberta together, a black bear is not as aggressive, not as predatory.
Black bear attacks are very less frequent than grizzly bear attacks.
I don't know that I could explain kind of just the nature of a grizzly bear.
A black bear is an omnivore in many ways.
A grizzly bear is a carnivore.
And in this scenario, I would be, if it was a black bear, I'd be looking to shoot it rather than being afraid of it.
Because I love black bear meat.
It's delicious.
And black bear fat.
If you had clay newcomb on, you'd make bear grease.
It's one of the best things that there is.
So I guess that maybe explains the difference.
joe rogan
For people, in comparison, it's like a golden retriever versus a wolf.
ben obrien
Pretty much.
That's a pretty good comparison.
joe rogan
It's a completely different animal.
ben obrien
I wish there was a wild apologist to kind of really lay it out there.
joe rogan
He would probably say German Shepherd Wolf.
ben obrien
Yeah, something like that.
That's a fucker.
joe rogan
I'm trying to be more comedic.
Right.
It's a different animal.
ben obrien
It is.
And I would say that...
You've seen it when we were hunting bait in Alberta.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
When a black bear comes in, you're willing to stand your ground.
joe rogan
You know, we were on our way.
We saw a grizzly in Alberta.
When we were on our way to where we were hunting, looking eye to eye with a grizzly is wild.
ben obrien
It's a wild thing.
And when a grizzly bear comes through a stand of timber or a mountainside in this case, things go quiet.
joe rogan
And we didn't even, when I was in Alberta, the one I've seen in the wild was not that big.
But the one you saw was big.
ben obrien
This is one of the biggest bears I've ever seen.
I'm talking big hind end.
joe rogan
Give me a roundabout.
ben obrien
I have no idea.
I would guess it at six and a half to seven feet.
I don't know how to guess how much it weighed.
300, 350. Oh, fucking way more than that.
unidentified
450. 700. We later found...
joe rogan
700 pounds.
ben obrien
We later found the track on the road where...
We later found the track on the road where we walk in every morning to the drainage.
This little two-track dirt road where we walk in.
We found this thing's track.
So it is sauntering up this drainage.
And there's a moment where my mind's not in the right spot.
It's in the place of, is this a grizzly bear or a black bear?
And now that I look back on that moment, that bear was about two seconds away from ripping my face off.
joe rogan
Oh my god.
ben obrien
I'm cow calling.
To that bear, I'm a cow elk.
And to me, I wasn't scared.
I wasn't pulling for my pistol.
I was watching it as a hunter might watch any game species that it comes...
joe rogan
Thinking an elk's gonna come over the ridge.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And a grizzly bear.
How many pounds?
ben obrien
Maybe 700-800 pounds.
I don't know.
I hope I'm not wrong about that.
unidentified
Let's be nice.
ben obrien
It's a big one.
unidentified
Let's be nice and say 600. Imagine a 600-pound super predator.
ben obrien
One swat.
joe rogan
One swat.
Full clip towards you.
ben obrien
I've interviewed many people that have had their face ripped off, their testicles ripped off.
I know the pure carnage that a grizzly bear like that can do, and I also know...
In my pack is a tourniquet and all the medical supplies a man might carry.
And I'm pretty close to town.
My dad's there.
We have our cell phone service.
We're not in the backcountry.
I know at this point, when I determine it to be a grizzly bear, it's already walking up the drainage away from me.
I determine it's a grizzly bear.
I know then that if it turns back to us, we got a problem.
But if it keeps going up the drainage, I know where it's headed.
It's headed to that Elkirk that was there.
And so luckily for us, it goes up the drainage, it heads over towards the elk carcass and ducks into the timber, and that's...
I mean, it's not the end of it, but that's the end of that encounter.
joe rogan
And you're carrying a pistol?
ben obrien
I have a pistol.
joe rogan
What caliber?
ben obrien
A.44 Magnum.
A Taurus.44 Magnum Ultralight.
And I have a chest holster that's from a guy named...
It's Razco.
A guy in Bozeman makes his chest holster that attaches to the bottom of the chest.
joe rogan
Is this a revolver?
ben obrien
It's a revolver.
And I have bear spray on the hip belt of my...
joe rogan
So you can get off six shots?
I can get off six shots.
ben obrien
And I know...
Again, having been in the industry and talked to a lot of people that have had encounters, I know kind of how this is going to go.
And likely how it goes is the only way you get out of it is you get mauled and the bear loses interest or the person that's with you saves you in some manner, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
There's a pretty face.
joe rogan
But your dad doesn't have a gun?
ben obrien
He doesn't.
He has a bow.
joe rogan
And you're in front?
ben obrien
No, I'm in front.
unidentified
Oh.
ben obrien
So I'm between these two.
And again, this is...
joe rogan
Is your pistol in...
Is it...
You have to open up a snap to pull it out?
ben obrien
No.
Or is it a kydex or something?
It's fully in a molded holster that I can pull out and present.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
Easy.
It'll be double action because I don't have it cocked.
joe rogan
And do you have a thought when that's happening where he might run away, but if I shoot him, he might attack me?
ben obrien
Yeah, I mean...
joe rogan
It's like a calculation, right?
ben obrien
Yeah, and again, as a hunter, I'm more interested in what is this thing doing?
Why is it here?
Then I am like, I should run away.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
And that is, I think, both appropriate and also probably not the best thing to be doing, man.
Like, it should probably be...
joe rogan
Can you remember what you thought?
Like, what went through your head when you realized it wasn't an elk and it was a giant grizzly bear?
ben obrien
Finally...
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
Because you are in the country where you know...
Dude, I've been out in June setting a trail camera and heard a wolf howl.
I told you I talked to the game warden.
He's like, there's bears around.
And so the thing that you do is you prepare for the worst and you really, really prepare for the worst.
And I did it knowing that there's folks that I've talked to, like I said, that have had really life-changing experiences.
One of them in Kodiak, a brown bear ripped off his testicles.
One of them in Alaska, a brown bear, I think grizzly bear ripped off his face.
And so I know these stories.
I know them all too fucking well.
joe rogan
What is a video of that one guy?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Pretty recently.
ben obrien
Glenn Bond.
joe rogan
Yeah, four or five years ago, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
It would have been back in, yeah, roughly.
joe rogan
Give or take a few years?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That one is available online.
It's horrendous.
ben obrien
Kind of, yeah.
They keep pulling it offline, unfortunately.
joe rogan
They put his face back together again.
Pretty good.
ben obrien
I have the full...
I talked to that guy.
I know that guy very well, and I have the full story of that.
You can listen to it on The Haunting Collective.
There's a podcast with Brett Bond.
joe rogan
Yeah, I listened to it.
ben obrien
It's amazing.
It's a whole other show probably.
joe rogan
But it's like that's one of those conversations where like a vegan or an animal rights activist would be like, good.
unidentified
Good.
ben obrien
Some people might say that.
joe rogan
Some people might say that.
Like, I'm glad that fucking bear got that guy.
ben obrien
And people said that about Brett Bond and his father Glenn.
joe rogan
Yeah, they did.
ben obrien
There was a lot of people saying, like, because they were hunting bears at the time, and they were hunting bears in their den on the Denali Highway in Alaska.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
And so people are like, good, you hunt them in their den, that's what happens.
And again, and that's where I come back to the emotion of finally, because so much of my hunting life in Montana has been anticipation of those encounters.
joe rogan
And that was the first ever?
ben obrien
With a bear, a grizzly bear, yeah.
Well, not the first ever in my life, first ever in Montana.
I was once on a caribou hunt up in Northwest Territories.
unidentified
Yeah.
ben obrien
They helicopter you out into the middle of nowhere, and then you have, I think, a 12-hour delay before you can hunt once you've been helicoptered into the wilderness.
I think it's 12 or 24 hours, but you have a delay before you can hunt.
So you literally have to sit there and wait.
And we were there at a time in August when there was no darkness.
It was literally light pretty much the entire 24-hour day.
And so we sat on a ridge line and we were glassing for caribou in the period where we couldn't hunt.
And here comes this sow grizzly bear down this drainage.
Every bush that she went by.
unidentified
Whack!
Every piece of moss was crushed.
ben obrien
She was upset.
She was having a bad day.
Whether her cub got taken or she was just in a predatory mood, I remember glassing her with a spotting scope going, I hope she doesn't come over here.
joe rogan
Is that normal behavior when a cub gets eaten by a boar?
ben obrien
I don't know if that's normal behavior.
I imagine it to be.
joe rogan
For folks who don't know, that happens a lot.
The females try to fight the boar off.
ben obrien
I imagine it to be.
I imagine them to be aggressive in the times that they need to be.
But I don't know enough to know if that's like every time a cub gets eaten, she goes out and whacks the shit out of the next thing she sees.
I don't know that.
But in this case, this Sal was alone.
She was not...
She didn't look all that mature when she was going down this drain.
It's just everything she saw, she was hitting.
And I thought, well, if she comes by me...
joe rogan
You're fucked.
ben obrien
I'm fucked.
And we were kind of on what we would call a glass and tit, which is kind of a raised up ridge.
And glass and she got at some point below us where we couldn't see her.
joe rogan
What a terrifying idea of a mad grizzly.
Like a road raging grizzly.
ben obrien
You're like, dude, oh.
That's what that is.
joe rogan
It's like someone just fucking fuck you!
ben obrien
And where do grizzlies live, right?
The grizzlies don't live by the urgent care, right?
They live in places where if they whack you, you're fucked.
Unless your friend knows how to...
joe rogan
If they break both your legs, you have to crawl to safety if you can.
ben obrien
So in an example of Brett Bond, who we were just talking about, he saved his father.
His father got his face ripped off by a grizzly bear.
He comes running down the hill with his.454 casule, shoots this bear.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Kills it.
It actually...
I was reading some of his accounts of the hunt.
He measured five and a half feet from his bootstrap to where the bear died when he was defending his father's life.
His father had been attacked.
unidentified
Oh my god.
joe rogan
How much did the bear weigh?
ben obrien
The bear is now in Glenborn, who's 70. He's probably in his 80s now.
It's in his living room.
He got it mounted, full standing mount, and it's in his living room.
I bet that bear weighed 800 plus pounds.
And again, apologies for getting that wrong if that's the case.
It ripped his...
You could probably try to find it.
joe rogan
Don't show it.
Don't show it.
ben obrien
You don't want to show it?
joe rogan
Folks can find it if they want to.
ben obrien
So Brett's Instagram is at BBB Alaskan.
You go there, you'll find this video.
joe rogan
If folks want to see it, but it's hardcore.
ben obrien
It's one of the most gruesome things that you'll see.
joe rogan
If you want to see it.
ben obrien
If you want to see it.
And so I know that video.
There's another Marine who was on a Fogneck Island, which is similar to where Rinella and crew got attacked.
He was attacked by a bear and it ripped his testicles off.
They were since put back on.
joe rogan
Congratulations.
ben obrien
Yeah.
And so when I've...
unidentified
They were off, then they're on.
ben obrien
So when this bear pops out, finally is kind of a way of thinking, if you take the chance to go outside in a place where you know there's grizzlies, and think about this.
This happened to me this year.
I shoot this elk this year.
This is a year later.
I shoot this elk.
And now I'm in the dark by myself for roughly three hours till my buddies get there with a giant dead animal that I'm now skinning and removing the meat from.
joe rogan
Do you have a gun?
ben obrien
Yes, I do.
But I'm in the dark with a headlamp only.
And I'm in the dark literally this last September, probably 50 yards from where that grizzly bear walked through the year before.
And now I have a giant elk that's dead in front of me, and I'm by myself in the dark.
I killed it at 7 p.m.
It got dark at 8 o'clock.
Before my friends got there to help me pack it out, I was three hours, roughly, of skinning it and quartering it by myself.
joe rogan
When it's totally, completely dark.
ben obrien
Totally dark.
joe rogan
Dark and quiet.
Do you ever think that this is going to be it?
ben obrien
Yeah, of course I did.
joe rogan
This is where it ends.
ben obrien
Of course I did.
I was like, I really...
I remember thinking...
This year, I remember thinking, this isn't the over-dramatized thing.
Like, if you live where I live, this is a common occurrence.
Like, this is what happens.
You kill an elk.
If you're angry as a country, you fucking, you know, you deal.
But I remember thinking, man, I know people this has happened to.
This is not, this is a rare occurrence, but it happens.
And I'm in a position where every stick that breaks...
Turning my little headlamp over there, hoping that my black diamond headlamp can LED its way into seeing what's there.
And I know that there's been, literally 12 months prior to that, a grizzly beer standing right there.
I know it.
I've seen it.
I know that fact.
And so, it's scary, man.
And yes, having a firearm strapped to my chest...
And my holster helps a little bit.
But I know from knowing...
joe rogan
It's just a vulnerability, like knowing what that animal's capable of.
ben obrien
Yeah, and I go back to what hunting is in itself.
It's the game theory we talked about earlier on, but it's also the vulnerability of those moments that helps me understand...
Who I am as a man.
And then also in the moments where I think, man, you know, modern society is kind of the sedentary lifestyle is getting to me.
I want to get outside.
Like I get to go drive 30 minutes from my house and challenge myself against what could possibly be a big fat fucking grizzly bear.
joe rogan
Right, but you don't want that.
unidentified
I don't want that, but I... Right, you're not, let's be real.
No.
joe rogan
You're not, if there was no deer and elk out there, you wouldn't be out there like, let's hope I don't get killed by a grizzly.
No.
That's a side element.
ben obrien
I'm not playing at it.
I'm saying that it's a reality of the thing I love to do.
joe rogan
Yes.
ben obrien
And so, here I am loving this thing that is elk hunting.
The craft we talked about, you know, eight hours ago is real.
I mean, it's a craft.
I learned, Jason Phelps is, you know, part of Meat Eater and he's a huge advocate for, I mean, he started an elk calling company and he has all this information and I want to learn it and I want to learn how to archery hunt.
I want to learn from Cam Haynes and John Dudley.
How to make that arrow go where I want that fucking thing to go and I want to learn how to pack as light as possible and how to be prepared for the backcountry with my medical kit and my kill kit and I want to go take that meat home and pack it out and then butcher it at my house and show my son what muscle groups are what and what's a roast and what's a steak and I want to take that and then I want to put it in the freezer and I want to pull it out and I want to cook it for my family and go hey And also,
I want to boil the elk skull, I want to whiten that skull, I want to hang that on my fucking wall in my garage, and I want to go, hey, this whole thing, this entire thing, is interactive, it's real, and it challenges everything that I know about the world around me.
And it makes me learn more.
What an ecosystem is, how an elk relates to a wolf, how a wolf relates to an elk, how I relate to elk and wolves.
Terms like trophic cascade, things like intelligent intervention.
It leads me to those real deep thoughts.
And then when I'm worried about whether I'm doing the right thing, then I look back at the structure of Pittman-Robertson, the structure of the duck stamp, and the structure of the user pays public benefits system.
And I look back at that and I go, shit.
All these personal experiences are backed by a structure that's pretty beautiful.
I would say if it wasn't...
I'm not a big guy.
I don't love government.
I'm a big government guy.
joe rogan
But as far as government goes, that's pretty damn good.
ben obrien
I would say that I'm a libertarian in my politics.
joe rogan
But Ben, this is what I keep getting at.
I think this structure could be applied to a lot of things we do.
ben obrien
I agree.
joe rogan
I really do.
unidentified
I agree with you.
joe rogan
I think if you look at the sportsman structure, the fisherman, hunter, and then Second Amendment advocate that's out there shooting a lot of just rounds of the range...
Those folks are contributing so much to the greater good while allowing them their freedom to pursue the things they enjoy.
If we applied that to other stuff, like I said earlier, if we said every time you buy an iPhone, let's say 11% of that goes to prison reform, 11% goes to, like, education.
11% goes to some sort of reinvigoration of impoverished communities, investment in the communities.
ben obrien
Think about the public trust doctrine inside of our North American model.
Public trust just basically says, no one owns this, we all own it together.
That's all it says.
It's no more complicated than just that sentiment.
It says, like, you own land.
You don't own the elk on that land.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And it works.
ben obrien
It works.
joe rogan
If that could be applied to other parts of our world, I really think we've got to...
I think there's something real there.
I think it's almost like...
There's a thing that happened during the pandemic where people realized there was this gap between people that hunt and people that use guns and the people that never would conceive of it.
I have a friend of mine, his wife was like, you're not getting a gun, you're not getting a gun.
Pandemic hits, George Floyd riots, you gotta get a gun.
Like, it was fucking immediate.
It was immediate.
And, like, that's what happens.
Without being a mean person, you've got to consider the fact that this is a possibility.
And this gap, which used to be pretty wide, when the pandemic hit, it all closed in.
And then...
What we have to do, collectively, as people, is abandon these groups, abandon these ideologies and these teams, and instead just look at what is the reality of the math?
When it comes to wild animals, when it comes to humans, when it comes to habitat, when it comes to sustainable resources, what's the math?
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Okay, because when it comes to the math of animals, you want to start bringing in wolves?
Like, have you done the math?
Like, what's the math on wolves?
Wolves are the only animal that work together.
They work together, other than coyotes.
But coyotes can't put a dent in a moose population.
Wolves can fuck up an elk population.
They would fuck up elves.
ben obrien
Elves, they're slow with the shoes.
joe rogan
They would trip and fall.
With those bells, the wolves can heal them.
They have bells in their toes.
ben obrien
Dr. Dan Staler, the guy from Yellowstone, told me that you think that wolves are efficient?
Wolves are opportunistic in a lot of ways.
As well as coyotes are opportunistic.
You start looking, then you start going up the scale to mountain lions and grizzly bears.
Their predatory behavior is less opportunistic and more just straight predatory.
joe rogan
Grizzlies.
ben obrien
Grizzlies.
joe rogan
Because they're so big.
ben obrien
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they're different.
That's the thing that, like, why is there a grizzly and why is there a brown bear?
People really don't distinguish.
A lot of people think that like Alaska, those are grizzly bears.
ben obrien
Yeah, there's different brown bears too.
Coastal.
joe rogan
But the amount of food they have available to them changes their behavior.
Because genetically, isn't a brown bear super similar to a grizzly?
They're interchangeable.
They wouldn't be a hybrid, right?
ben obrien
I want to say no hybrid, no.
But they're similar genetically.
joe rogan
Like a polar bear and a grizzly.
When they mate, it's a hybrid.
ben obrien
I want to say Ranel is the one in his Fogneck-Bear attack podcast.
They go through this in pretty good detail.
He knows it better than I do.
unidentified
That's right.
joe rogan
And then Remy came on this podcast and told his version of the story.
Yeah.
I don't remember what episode it is, but it's worth reviewing because Remy tells a horrific story of them being attacked.
Okay, let's just...
Ben was talking about a bear that was horrifying.
What would you say?
Six and a half, seven feet?
ben obrien
It was a big bear.
joe rogan
They thought it was 11. They thought their bear was 11. And the bear's on a fog neck.
ben obrien
And again, you're on an island in the archipelago off the coast of Alaska.
I was like, I could have went to Target in 30 minutes.
I was, bro.
So I'm not like, let's not say those dudes were in what we might call the shit.
joe rogan
They're in the shit.
They're in the shit and they went to an elk carcass that they had shot earlier.
And so they were retrieving it in stages.
So they went and they took some of it.
unidentified
Like I was talking about.
ben obrien
Exactly.
joe rogan
They hiked it out, they went to their camp, and then they went back to retrieve the rest, and they found some grizzly bear shit, and they didn't think too much about it, and they sat down to eat lunch, and while they were eating lunch, unarmed, a giant bear ran up on them.
Nobody died, so that's why it's a good story.
ben obrien
And these are experienced outdoorsmen, Giannis Patelos, Franny Warren, Steve Rinella.
joe rogan
It's a fascinating, fascinating story.
ben obrien
Yeah, and again, I would say the stories that I've covered and understand about Krizzy Bears tell...
They tell a particular thing.
They tell a particular thing that we are living in this time where, as you said, there's monsters out there.
joe rogan
That's a monster.
If that was a werewolf, you'd be terrified.
ben obrien
And we don't understand them.
We wish to understand them.
Grizzly bears and wolves have been politicized in our time along the lines of the Republican and Democrat ideologies in a way that I just hate.
And I think that's just a big part of how...
Enigmatic they are.
joe rogan
Well, look what's going on in the Pacific Northwest, like in British Columbia.
In British Columbia, they used to hunt grizzly bears because they wanted to sustain the population.
They wanted to figure out how to get it to a manageable level because otherwise then the grizzly bears would attack a lot of the fawns and a lot of the...
The calves and all these different animals.
But then the city people, the people from Vancouver, those were the people that voted against it.
Because that's the largest population.
ben obrien
They call that ballot box biology.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
And it goes against the model of conservation we talked about.
joe rogan
They don't have any understanding of what it means to live in a place where hawker drips.
ben obrien
Well, think about this.
So Colorado had this, ballot box biology, like, hey, we're all going to vote for the reintroduction of wolves.
This happened in the last ballot measure here in the last election.
joe rogan
Sounds like you're very green, eco-friendly if you say yes.
ben obrien
He said, well, think about it this way, and I always think of it in both of these terms, and I've seen it in reality.
You have a person as a rancher who owns land, who runs cattle.
Their life is off the land.
They have a relationship with the land that can't be repeated.
Then you have someone living in Denver or Boulder who doesn't have that relationship.
joe rogan
Or Vancouver.
ben obrien
Yeah, or Vancouver in the same analogy, and that's why in our North American model we don't We cede these decisions to wildlife biologists and scientists in an effort, not a perfect effort, but a holistic effort to not allow public sentiment to override the realities of wildlife management.
And that's what, when we talk about vegans and we talk about some of the struggles with animal rights, we talk about a public sentiment that's easier swayed in that direction.
When you say to someone, We're good to go.
Wolves are friendly.
They have families.
If you shoot them, that's bad.
Right.
It's easier and it's always been easier.
joe rogan
But that fits in with the Disney narrative.
ben obrien
It's always been easier to spin that narrative.
And I don't blame anybody for believing that.
joe rogan
The people that have these narratives in their head, they have them from media.
They don't have them from direct interactions with actual wolves.
ben obrien
And this is what...
joe rogan
I have to be so bad I can't talk anymore.
So we have to hold this.
If you want to keep going...
ben obrien
This is four hours or five.
How long have we been there, Jamie?
joe rogan
Three hours, for sure.
ben obrien
Three hours for sure.
joe rogan
Three hours.
unidentified
I have to pee so bad.
ben obrien
So do I. We go together.
joe rogan
Let's pee.
We'll come back.
We'll wrap this up with a nice bow.
We'll be right back.
And we're back.
unidentified
And we're back.
joe rogan
So much relief.
I was about to pee my pants.
I was really close.
I was like, I'm trying to be strong.
I'm trying to David Goggins slash Jocko Willink.
ben obrien
He does one of those things where when you said I had to pee, I immediately was like, yeah, me too.
joe rogan
Well, just like three hours.
unidentified
I hadn't thought of it.
joe rogan
How many minutes in?
ben obrien
Where are we at, brother?
joe rogan
Five minutes.
305?
ben obrien
That's not bad.
I thought we might be five or six hours.
joe rogan
That's manageable.
ben obrien
That's a manageable podcast.
We always tend to go there.
joe rogan
Yeah, they all go that way.
But you were saying there's a time machine.
There's a time machine that happens with good conversations.
ben obrien
Dude, I fucking love you, man.
joe rogan
I love you too!
ben obrien
I'm not scared to say it.
joe rogan
I love you too.
ben obrien
It's not something I'm embarrassed of.
joe rogan
You're a good guy, you're a smart guy, you're a fun guy.
We have a lot of fun together.
ben obrien
I fucking love it.
joe rogan
We've had fun together for as many years as we've known each other.
We never had a bad time.
Ben O'Brien, I never had a bad time with you.
ben obrien
I never had a bad time with you.
I know a lot of people have been in this seat saying the same shit, but I don't care.
joe rogan
Think about how many times you and I have been out together, hunting together.
ben obrien
Bro, so many just...
joe rogan
Fun times.
ben obrien
So many fun times.
joe rogan
Yeah.
ben obrien
I want to say that I think maybe hunting is a part of that, but I don't think that's true.
joe rogan
It's a part of it, but it's all connected together.
The thing about hunting is you're all agreeing that you disagree.
You're all agreeing that you disagree with the standard model of how to get meat.
You all agree that you're willing to go out...
Yeah, you're willing to go out and get your own deer.
And that eating a deer is really better for you than eating some sort of weird processed cow meat.
ben obrien
You put your hand up and say, hey guys, getting food should be hard.
It's been hard for a million years.
It's hard.
And the difficulty of getting your food leads to the thing that makes you value the food itself.
And when you're eating it, it tastes better.
I can't explain it, but it does.
joe rogan
It does.
But here's where the problem is.
This is where people get real weird, where people get real conspiratorial when they think about the elites that run this country, those weird world leaders.
How many people can we sustain?
How many?
The reason why we have so many people is because someone figured out how to supply those people with food.
It's not you and me.
Most of those people are not supplying food for themselves.
But in turn, by supplying food to people that don't supply their own food, those people are allowed to innovate.
And they make airplanes and computers and cell phones and satellites.
All those things that you don't make if you're a fucking hunter or gatherer.
So if you're a person with an iPhone and you don't like hunting, you're a fucking hypocrite.
You're missing the point.
We need everybody.
We need soldiers.
We need nurses.
We need doctors.
We need teachers.
We need a fucking everybody.
We need everybody to figure this thing out.
ben obrien
Yeah, and I think I've interviewed people from plant-based burger companies, like the big ones.
joe rogan
Hold on.
Keep going.
Is there any of them that taste good?
ben obrien
No.
We had a taste test one time in our offices at Meat Eater about this.
And it was not great.
We could easily figure out an elk burger versus a plant burger.
But I think what you're saying is the scariest thing about that is that we're able to quickly...
When we look holistically at what farming is, what land use is, and what wildlife is, and what ecosystem health is, and we look across the space about what sharing the land might look like, how about sustainable use of land might look like, the version of the plant-based burger feels good and it's kind of the veneer that it paints across your consumption.
But when you dig down deep, you look at monoculture crops, and you look at what this world would have to be to sustain this kind of veneer of your plant-based burger.
joe rogan
Narnia.
ben obrien
Yeah.
It doesn't make any sense.
joe rogan
It's not good for you.
ben obrien
It's not good for you.
joe rogan
Most importantly, it's not good for you.
unidentified
It's not good for the land.
ben obrien
It's not good for the wildlife.
joe rogan
If you want to eat vegetables, eat vegetables.
Those are good for you.
ben obrien
Look into regenerative agriculture.
joe rogan
Don't eat some crazy fake meat.
ben obrien
Yeah, shout out to like Rome Ranch that I've been to and that's close to here.
Yeah.
There's so many things that are connected to hunting that I've found myself.
joe rogan
That's the complicated conversation.
ben obrien
Yeah, I'm not on, like I don't have a podcast right now, I'm not on the air, but I'm very excited about the future of conversations because all this shit is interconnected.
All this shit matters, and we can have an honest conversation about how close we are to each other.
There isn't vegans and hunters.
There is one group of people trying to figure this out, and it's so complicated, and anybody trying to generalize it is probably lying to you.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the idea to collect everybody into these groups, vegans versus hunters, right versus left, it's not good for anybody.
ben obrien
I very much hope in the future that I'm able to get off the ground a podcast with my friend.
joe rogan
Why don't you just have a podcast?
What the fuck are you talking about?
You're talking about it like you're starting some kind of crazy infrastructure where you have to dig tunnels into the city.
ben obrien
Make a fucking podcast, bitch.
joe rogan
Why are you complaining?
ben obrien
I will.
joe rogan
Right?
Thank you.
Jamie agrees.
ben obrien
I'll do it.
Thank you, Joe Rogan, for the direction there.
joe rogan
I hope I can do it one day.
One day I'll breathe underwater.
ben obrien
I'm on a podcast and I'll have a slippery squirrel pot pie.
I'll throw it in your fucking face.
joe rogan
That's not a fucking pie.
It's a soup.
All your money on the line with most of the world betting.
ben obrien
Here's what I'm going to do.
joe rogan
There's a world of vote.
The whole world has a vote.
It's coming to you.
Is that a pie or a soup?
ben obrien
No, it's coming to you.
joe rogan
Guess what, bitch?
It's a fucking soup.
ben obrien
The realness is coming to you.
I'm going to hire a whole troop of Pennsylvania Dutch people.
They can't We're going to come outside your studio and we're going to throw slippery noodles.
joe rogan
They don't know where they're going.
They ride horses.
ben obrien
That's the Amish.
unidentified
That's the Amish.
joe rogan
Oh, it's chicken and dumplings.
Fucking hacks.
ben obrien
I can't imagine.
joe rogan
If you're a Pennsylvania Dutch and you're just tuning in, I don't mean any of the things I just said.
I'm just fucking around.
Ben and I are friends.
ben obrien
We've had a lot of fun.
joe rogan
We're talking a lot of shit.
We're drinking a little whiskey.
ben obrien
For the Pennsylvania Dustin to John Oliver, we apologize.
joe rogan
Snoop Dogg, nutraceuticals, whatever the fuck you call them.
ben obrien
This has been fun, dude.
I'm having so much fun.
joe rogan
But I think there's a thing that you brought up that I really believe might work.
And this is the thing.
That this Pittman-Robertson act...
The amount of money that goes from the taxes that helps conservation, that goes to wildlife habitat, the amount of money that's generated by that is really substantial.
Imagine if we had something similar.
It doesn't have to be as much, but it was like normal consumables.
If you're looking at things like hunting goods, what percentage of people are doing that?
Not that many.
What percentage of people are even buying ammo?
Not that many.
It's probably not even close to...
ben obrien
Can I... What's the number?
joe rogan
Do you know what the number is?
ben obrien
I don't know what the number is, but I would tell you that part of my work on Pittman-Robertson in the past has been to look at a thing called the backpack tax.
You ever heard about that?
joe rogan
Yeah, is that enacted?
ben obrien
It's not.
It's not currently.
joe rogan
They proposed it, right?
ben obrien
Yeah, in the late 90s, the senator enacted a bill that would do the same for outdoor goods.
When I say outdoor goods, I mean there's an $887 billion economy around...
joe rogan
Outdoor activities.
ben obrien
What we call non-consumptive outdoor activities.
unidentified
Right.
ben obrien
You might call fishing and hunting a consumptive outdoor activity.
You might call hiking or ice climbing a non-consumptive.
joe rogan
Right.
Non-consumptive.
ben obrien
Non-consumptive.
joe rogan
The idea is that this land is all of our collective as a culture, as a civilization.
In the United States, it's all of ours.
unidentified
It's all of ours.
ben obrien
For the sustainability of our state game agencies and the agencies that are put forth to manage these species in this land, you know, there's the Bureau of Land Management, there's the Forest Service, National Forest Service, there's federal and state agencies that manage this land, they manage the wildlife, all in trust, as we've talked about, all within our model of conservation, as we've talked about, all within the funding system that we've talked about.
There's this idea that if a backpack tax, which just means enact the same Pittman Robinson taxes, the excise taxes, and enact those on all the gear that's sold at, say, REI. And that would be 11% as well?
Call it 11%.
joe rogan
Whatever it is.
So it's tents, coolers, everything.
ben obrien
There was legislation in the late 90s, I'll forget the senator, the Department of Interior head and the senator that put it forth, that called it the backpack tax and said we want to, this is, it's way, there's way more, the economy for outdoor recreation is way bigger than the hunting and fishing economy.
Let's call it that.
I don't know what the numbers are, but I know that it's much bigger exponentially so.
joe rogan
Yeah, much more, right?
ben obrien
And so the idea would be like, hey, the hunting and fishing manufacturers are paying this excise tax on behalf of the public, and this is going into the Wildlife Restoration Fund and all the things we've talked about, that why wouldn't we do that also with, you know, in the user pays public benefits model with other users that are also using these wild places?
They're not using them in a consumptive manner, but they are also consuming them in terms of trails, ice, you know, they're using these places.
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
ben obrien
And so there's a group called the Outdoor Industry Association that was formed around a lot of things, but one of the things was an opposition to this backpack tax.
joe rogan
But what if there could be some sort of agreement?
Like, a consumptive tax should be more than a non-consumptive tax.
ben obrien
That would make sense.
joe rogan
Yeah, because a non-consumptive tax, you're not removing a resource, right?
You're not taking salmon, you're not killing a deer.
ben obrien
Hiking on a trail, camping in a campsite.
joe rogan
Just having fun.
You're not really taking much out.
It would be nice if you put a little in to make sure it's there for everybody.
So let's cut it in half.
ben obrien
Yeah, the Outdoor Industry Association argues, and again, I tend to think that they're wrong, but this is their argument.
Hopefully I summarize it correctly.
Is that they feel that there's so many taxes on goods and services these days.
And we have to move this to the manufacturer side of the coin because that's where this tax comes from.
You're asking for these taxes to be levied on the manufacturer of the goods, not necessarily the public.
Although the public who purchases the goods are the ones driving the tax itself.
And so what their argument is more like, hey, there's so many taxes on the small businesses in the outdoor community.
There's so many taxes on many of the activities in the manufacturers.
joe rogan
Why add more taxes?
ben obrien
Why add more taxes.
joe rogan
Right.
ben obrien
And to some level, I agree.
So I just want to set that up as the backpack tax has been argued for a long time.
joe rogan
Yeah, but here's the point.
It's like, where's that money go?
If the money goes to the standard things that buying anything, you know, like if you buy a clock or What does your taxes go to?
If you buy a tent, what does your taxes go to?
If it goes to the same shit, that's one thing.
But if every time you buy a tent, it goes for habitat renewal, if it goes for wildlife conservation, that's a different thing.
That's what the Pittman-Robertson does.
ben obrien
Well, and also, yes, absolutely.
And also, the duck stamp, when you buy a duck stamp, the money that goes from the duck stamp, and the duck stamp is required to hunt waterfowl in our country.
joe rogan
Right, but we're talking about these people that sell tents, like the camping people.
If you're saying that they don't want to participate in this, they have to look at it this way.
What if it was just something that contributed to the thing that literally supports your business?
What the fuck are you doing?
Let's negotiate.
Make it 3%.
ben obrien
I hesitate to paint the whole industry.
The outdoor industry itself is very much...
Conservation is a buzzword.
They're very much environmentally friendly.
They very much want to give back.
They have been hesitant to enact attacks like this.
In the past, I don't know where it is right now, but in the past they've been hesitant, and that's the truth.
joe rogan
Yeah, because they want to make sales.
Right.
It's almost like we have to come to some sort of a reasonable conclusion.
Because, like, yeah, of course you want to make money.
You want to keep making money, you want to make more money every year, blah, blah, blah.
You don't fucking make any money if there's no woods.
So let's...
It's a good faith effort.
You generate a certain amount of income every year by donating, everybody agrees, donating a small percentage.
ben obrien
Let's take it back a little bit, too.
joe rogan
Let's make it better for everybody.
ben obrien
Let's take it back a little bit, too.
In the example we gave earlier, 1980s hunting populations have been dwindling.
I want to say around 14 million to around 11 million, give or take any estimate.
Even our estimates are kind of shoddy in the way we gather them, but hunting has been going down.
Hunting license sales are a big part of the way we fund state game agencies and other agencies that provide for wildlife management, wildlife biology, and access to state and federal lands.
joe rogan
And is that only the hunting licenses, or is Pittman-Robertson buying ammo?
Does that go to that as well?
ben obrien
It does.
So we call that the American System of Conservation Funding, and it has all those elements in it.
And I've read, you know, it's confusing because I've read about 17 different things about this that say different percentages, but I've read from anywhere from 40% to 80 to 90% of state game agencies are funded by the American System of Conservation Funding, which includes the things we've talked about.
joe rogan
Mm-hmm.
ben obrien
And that is, state game agencies manage this wildlife.
And that's what they do.
And so, here's a point to be made.
You don't want, as much as I love hunting, you don't want one constituency within a myriad of user groups to dominate the funding of these agencies.
We need that funding to be sustainable and diverse.
We need that funding to come from all kinds of different areas because...
As we discovered, when the hunting numbers in our population drop in millions and they recede, we have less money to fund an increasingly expensive endeavor of managing wildlife.
Native and non-native game species and non-game species, we have to spend money to manage them.
Public land and private land, we have to spend money to manage wildlife in those corridors.
That's when we get back to the backpack tax itself and the diversity of funding where we might say also, as much as I want the constituency of hunting and fishing to have a seat at the table, it really can't be one of the only seats at the table.
We need to have other people pitching in.
And I feel as though the backpack tax is something that should be revisited.
I don't want to generalize the Outdoor Industry Association or companies like Keene or Patagonia that care a lot about the environment.
But I do think this is something that they should all publicly address and they should talk about and they should have a dialogue about because I think it's important.
joe rogan
Well, it's interesting.
We were talking about taxes and about the idea of the Pittman-Robertson is very clear where that money goes.
And if we had that with other things, like if you had every time you purchased a computer in the United States, you knew that there's a certain percentage that goes to education.
And we radically upgraded the school system in this country because of that.
Think of the amount of money that could be generated by that.
If there was a similar...
11% style tax to computers.
I mean, I don't want to diminish people's struggles with like buying equipment and computers and shit like that, but if there was a small percentage, the amount of money, if it was proportionate to the amount of use, right?
Like the hunting thing, like it's 11%, not a lot of hunters.
The computer thing, it doesn't have to be 11%.
There's so many, that would be abusive.
If it was 11%, people would start showing up in fucking fur coats, driving Bentleys and Rolls Royces and shit.
ben obrien
Go back to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was an existing excise tax that was funneled into an account to then go to...
It was like deciding it, instead of going to this, it would go to this.
It wasn't creating a tax out of nothing.
joe rogan
I think, though, if you look at the sheer amount of money in consumer goods, 11% would be bananas.
It would give too much power to whoever's in control about how that money gets distributed.
Even though there's a shitload of money through hunting and firearms, Fucking...
Overall GDP is not...
11% of the fucking computer market would be bananas.
ben obrien
Yeah, I would love to get...
joe rogan
Computer, electronics, cell phone market, that's too much.
ben obrien
I would love to get in a room with...
And I have done this through Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, which is a group I serve on the board for.
Like, get in with some really influential politicians and just talk this through and say, look...
joe rogan
It's not just the politicians.
It's the people that pay for them.
That's the problem.
ben obrien
It's the manufacturers as well, because that's the thing that really...
joe rogan
It's the people that make the stuff, the people that generate the finances that fucking sponsor these people to be in office, and they're beholden to those folks once they get in there.
That's the big problem, because you're dealing with a fucking corporation that employs X amount of people, like thousands of people or whatever, many, many locations all over the world.
They have all this responsibility.
There's a lot of momentum behind that.
ben obrien
I want to raise my hand and say, hey, look, man.
joe rogan
We're all in this together, bitch.
ben obrien
We're all in this together.
At the turn of the century, we had no ducks.
We had no deer.
joe rogan
That's a wildlife, but it applies to everything.
ben obrien
It really does.
It applies to everything, right?
It really does.
It's a value system proposition.
It's like, if we all value a thing in this way...
It could be wildlife, it could be computers, it could be roads, it could be anything.
joe rogan
But this discussion, like no bullshit, we might have tapped into something.
And this is what I think we might have tapped into.
We might have tapped into the idea that a certain percentage of anything that you really enjoy should be donated to help conserve and improve that thing that you enjoy.
Whether it's if you like to go fishing, wetlands.
If you like to go duck hunting, wetlands.
If you like to – whatever the fuck you like to do, man.
Anything.
Whether it's hiking.
You want to go hiking.
You know, clean up and making sure that there's park rangers that can accept emergency calls and help people when they're stranded.
Anything and everything.
We should all contribute a certain amount to this, and it would enhance the experience and make it more available to everybody, which would enhance everybody's life, and it would be barely noticeable to most folks.
If you had a 1% tax, just 1%, That didn't exist before and now exist, it would have a significant impact.
ben obrien
And it has had an impact in the example we're giving, which is an admittedly narrow example.
It has had an impact on a very, very, very important thing for our country that doesn't exist elsewhere.
It just doesn't exist elsewhere.
The continent of Africa, it just doesn't exist elsewhere where we're able to say we pay into a system Where everyone in this country, every person that might sit down in this chair would say, I want there to be elk.
I want there to be deer.
I want there to be mallards, mallard ducks.
I want there to be wild turkeys.
I want there to be bison.
I want there to be wild animals.
I want to be able to see them at Yellowstone.
I want to be able to see them in national forests like the Gallatin National Forest where I live.
I want that.
This is a universal value.
That universal value in turn is supported by the user group Who goes out and takes part in the use of that natural resource.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
We can do that with everything.
ben obrien
We could.
joe rogan
I think we can do that with everything.
ben obrien
We do that with a thing called the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which takes offshore oil royalties and puts that in a fund that helps pay for parks and access and fishing docks and shit all across this country.
joe rogan
Who paid for the BP oil spill?
ben obrien
I don't know.
unidentified
Hopefully BP. That one was nuts.
ben obrien
No.
joe rogan
When you watch that one, you're like, how many millions of gallons every day?
Where does that go?
ben obrien
Where does that go?
What's going on in the bottom?
It certainly doesn't help wildlife.
And I think people might be surprised to know that I hesitate to call myself this, but this is the real truth.
I'm an environmentalist.
You son of a bitch.
I know.
I know.
You're upset.
joe rogan
Who wouldn't be?
Who the fuck wouldn't be an environmentalist?
Environmentalist means you want to preserve the thing that keeps you alive, your environment.
Everybody's an environmentalist.
ben obrien
This idea of conservation and preservation and where will we stand and how do we do this.
And I'm pretty invested for my whole life to live in a place and put my life into this idea that this complex...
I go back to my buddy Dr. Valerius Geist.
Intelligent intervention, man.
Intelligent intervention.
We have the ability to intervene.
joe rogan
Right, but we have to agree on what the intelligent choice is.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
And that's where we don't agree.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people that don't think we should make any decisions in like the California model where you don't do anything to manage predators like mountain lions and they kill all the deer.
Like, good luck finding a deer in California.
Yeah.
Like where I live, out here in Austin, there's deer everywhere.
You have to be careful when you're driving at night.
But where I used to live in California when we saw a deer was an amazing occurrence.
Like, oh, look, there's a deer.
ben obrien
It wasn't in the mouth of a...
joe rogan
Oh, my God, he's getting dragged away!
He's getting dragged away by a panther!
ben obrien
Turn the car around!
joe rogan
Yeah, you didn't get that.
ben obrien
There's plenty of them.
joe rogan
There's too many of them.
I mean, when a mountain lion attacks your five-year-old and then two more show up after the cop shoots them, how many are out there?
Are you guys looking?
Are you fucking counting them?
ben obrien
Two too many.
joe rogan
This is a thing that people have when they get locked into ideologies, right?
I bet that lady, when that mountain lion attacked her kid, all of her preconceived notions of what a mountain lion is were out the window because she realized, oh, Jesus Christ, By being sensitive, kind, caring people, we have allowed monsters to live near our children.
Monsters that would eat our children face first.
Grab your kid by the fucking head, dude.
ben obrien
That's when I hang out with vegans and I talk to people like, that I said Dr. Robert C. Jones.
When I hang out with these people, I understand that the middle ground is the strongest place.
There's so much of their ideology that I agree with and so much of, without knowing it, my ideology they agree with.
In the middle is the fucking place where wildlife, the complex wildlife biology and management happens.
And it's on the poles where it doesn't happen.
joe rogan
We gotta wrap this up.
But before we wrap this up, how does that bear story end?
Is that it?
ben obrien
Yeah, the bear leaves and goes to eat that elk carcass.
joe rogan
How close were you at the closest time?
ben obrien
80 yards.
Toward death.
joe rogan
How many seconds would it take for a bear sprinting at you from 80 yards?
ben obrien
Two.
joe rogan
Do you think you'd have time to pull the gun?
ben obrien
Well, we did a whole thing with Clay Newcomb.
If you look on the old meat eater YouTube where we tried to figure out how quickly you could draw your bear spray or your pistol.
joe rogan
Not so quick, huh?
ben obrien
Not so quickly.
I probably would have gotten mauled.
unidentified
Who?
ben obrien
But again, that's the reality of the world in which we live, Joseph.
joe rogan
That's a nice thing to say if you don't get mauled.
If you do get mauled, you should say, I should take up roller skating.
ben obrien
Yeah, if you don't get mauled, you're like, ah!
joe rogan
If you don't get mauled, you're like, I am going roller skating from here on out.
ben obrien
I'm going to take up crochet.
joe rogan
Like if you got mauled and you had the opportunity to not get mauled, you're like, yeah, I'm going to do something else.
ben obrien
I'm going to keep my face.
joe rogan
Yeah, keep your chest cavity intact.
ben obrien
I'm going to keep my testicles in the scrotum.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Ben O'Brien, you're the shit.
Thank you very much.
ben obrien
Love you, buddy.
joe rogan
Love you, too.
ben obrien
Thank you for having me, as always, every time I come here.
I'm a fan of the show.
I'm a fan of you.
joe rogan
I'm a fan of you, too.
ben obrien
I'm not going to keep saying it, but it's true.
joe rogan
Do another podcast, bitch.
All right.
Bye, everybody.
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