Podcast notes: The Saga of Joe Rogan on NYT podcast

Rogan grew up working class
Very good at martial arts – 19, wins national tae kwon do championship
Moves to LA to pursue standup comedy
Big break – becomes host on Fear Factor
Then becomes commentator for MMA

MMA was growing quickly, and Joe becomes public face of MMA commentary
In 2003, starts recording chats with his friends
Built-in audience: Fear Factor, UFC, comedy nerds
Audience steadily grows
In 2009, moves to Ustream platform – and renames it The Joe Rogan Experience (play on Jimi Hendrix Experience)
In 2013, he starts recording and publishing clips to YouTube
This led to massive growth

Audience is largely men – “patron saint of certain kind of American masculinity”
Like hearing smart people talk about interesting stuff

NYT podcast is highly produced, fact checking, lots of prep
JRE is polar opposite, very long (up to 4 hours), very unedited
“Medium is the message” – wysiwyg
Dabbles in wide variety of topics: fitness, fighting, health, thinkers like DeGrasse Tyson, DMT and psychedelics

His manifesto: always keep learning, keep expanding horizons

Has proclivity for conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, hearing out more radical thinkers, like UFOs, Alex Jones
He may disagree, but he will let them talk – even if they can’t get mainstream media

His biggest view – proudly anti political correctness (anti cancel culture, anti liberal pieties) – really resonates with audience
“It’s ok to be a white man who watches people beat each other in UFC”

Singular figure – pro gay marriage, pro weed, believes in climate change
Not Republican or Democratic – just Joe Rogan view of world

By 2015 – 11M per episode
Viral clips that start to influence culture
Elon Musk episode – smokes joint on air, gets really personal, becomes instant meme – causes Tesla stock to drop

May 2020 – Spotify acquires it for $100M for exclusive distribution rights
People who listen to podcasts listen to more music too
Spotify wants to build exclusive library of podcast content
Deal does well – share price rises, subscriber numbers grow
Spotify surpasses Apple to become #1 podcast platform

Then comes the covid pandemic
Invites fringe guests that counter mainstream health authorities – lockdowns, masks
Joe got covid, treated with ivermectin, skeptical about covid vaccines
Interviews Dr. Robert Malone – medical pariah, darling of Republican Right, who believes hospitals are incentivized to get more covid patients, anti-vax
Interview got huge public blowback

Musician Neil Young was very offended – tells Spotify either me or Rogan –
Joni Mitchell too

Initially Spotify says it’s neutral platform, eg, has rappers with offensive lyrics
CEO Daniel Ek says it won’t de-platform, but will add warning labels, publish moderation guidelines

Rogan releases IG video – half apologizes, acknowledges his approach may need to change
Talks about more preparation, more fact checking, more mainstream guests

Then controversy escalates
India Arie takes music off Spotify, because old clip of Rogan saying N-word

Rogan releases another video – apologizes for using the N-word
Takes down ~70 old episodes

Spotify’s own employees also confront CEO
But Spotify doesn’t back down
Promise to allocate $100M to under repped minority content

Spotify is taking their own stand, but also Rogan matters financially to them (more than he matters to a platform like YouTube)
Rogan so far is cancel proof – saying un-woke things, isn’t afraid to offend people

How can Rogan, who has more podcast listeners than NYT, not be “mainstream media”?
Massively popular, extremely wealthy, yet positions himself as outsider punching up at establishment

Represents a new emerging mainstream – popular, contrarian voices like Rogan’s

Can Spotify give platform to this new contrarian mainstream, while still adhering to old mainstream?

Podcast notes: Axie Infinity founder Jiho shares his story on Bankless podcast

Bankless Layer Zero podcast
Jiho from Axie Infinity

Grew up in NY
Gamer and collector
Dad was painter, gallery, fossil collector, and an attorney
Korean mom, tiger mom
Jiho is his Korean name

Starcraft was his first real game
Also WoW
DK Country, Zelda (played Ocarina 20+ times)
Pokemon on Gameboy – bot two Gameboys so he could trade with himself

Collectors instinct – “some things I just need”
Inherited from his father – collected 40 cases of butterflies

What’s his starter Pokemon? Charmander
likes lizards, salamanders

Trendsetter for games his school played
eg, Diablo – wanted to trade with others
Had Korean cousins who were always into the new Blizzard games

Didn’t know what he wanted to do for most of his life
Entrepreneurial pretty early – selling fossil sharks teeth at school, selling drawings and paintings to people who visited his house
People pleaser

He came from within Axie community – one of first hundreds in Discord
Fell in love with art and roadmap
Helped write whitepaper, did announcements, community building
Job is “sharing vision repeatedly”
What creates sustainable economic engine is people spending for fun + status

Some thought it was fork of CryptoKitties, and early CK players came to Axie
Problem with CK was hyper inflation of cat supply

Axie is balance of collaboration + competition
But also PvE component – Axie believers versus non-believers / critics
Beefs / enemies can be good, eg an early beef with CryptoKitties

DH: How do you prevent it becoming too grindy
Jiho: ownership helps, “things you’re grinding for”, social elements help

3rd version of battle system coming

“Is Axie fun?”
Being “rewarding” is more important – life isn’t always fun, but it should be rewarding

Metaverse = digital lives are becoming just as important, and merging with real world

A lot of initial team members are Vietnamese
Moved to Vietnam to help

In current game industry, a lot of money isn’t going to developers or players
Remove those middlemen, give to builders and players

Since AXS mooning, how has community changed?
Bear = missionaries
Bull = rest of world finds out
Cycle repeats

Classic growing pains eg,
Some schism between OGs and newcomers
Gamers in general are not very nice

Axie is example of the rise of opt-in nations
Choose who your leaders are
Decentralized contribution and building

Axie is largest Discord in world
Collab.land auto assigns role (eg, 3 Axies = can speak, 10 Axies = special channels, etc)
Moderators to guard dog and guide
Jiho is still #1 by total messages sent

Discord caps (max 800K members) may be holding back their game growth (instead of vice-versa!)
Need more innovation around social coordination tools
maybe Discord inherently unscalable

Will see a lot of consolidation in guilds, P2E games
Community + scaling + art + gameplay + economics = Each component is important, requires getting all of them right

Under appreciated reason for Axie’s success is “people love their Axies”
Bunch of his, he would never consider selling eg his first one #707
“Emotional utility” – NFTs don’t work if everyone’s doing it just for money

Mistake when shipped an update where your Axies stopped making facial expressions while battling = got feedback players missed this feature
When you don’t use your Axies for weeks, Axies should act like dogs / pets that actually miss their owners

Combo of aesthetics + utility + scarcity
Triple threat of NFTs
View at Medium.com

DS: end of day, it’s all about optimizing for love
Jiho: It’s hierarchy of needs; Ikigai

Eve founder quote – don’t chase fun, create rewarding experience

Software is creating equal access to communities, relationships, opportunities
If you’re born in bad place or environment, you’re not as limited anymore
No surprise that people in Philippines, Venezuela were early adopters
Direct access to those of different socioeconomic classes (eg, Axie players can easily connect to whales)

Future will be more free, more individual responsibility
“There will be a battle”
Felt like he was a revolutionary without a cause – but now there are many
Not going to be a peaceful era, full of schisms, but very interesting times
Web3 = generational opportunity, a cause worth fighting for

Final advice? Be willing to waste a lot of time online, wander, go down rabbit holes, absorb info

Podcast notes: David Sinclair’s Lifespan podcast on longevity benefits of exercise, heat, and cold

David Sinclair (DS)
Lifespan podcast

Notes from last episode:
-Too much iron can accelerate aging
-Typically long lived have low iron levels
-So limit meat intake – red meat high in iron
-Also multivitamins w/ iron

Recs from last episode:
-Plant-based diet
-Low iron levels
-Eat less often
-DS eats one meal / day

Found mutant worm living 2x longer – single gene mutation – was insulin receptor gene
Start of revolution in manipulating genes for health and longevity
It’s related to stress resistance

Modern society is too comfortable
Need to find more of the right stressors
Examples: fasting / IF, exercise
Sitting down is bad for you – muscles atrophy, testosterone decreases

Get moving!
Exercise can slow down and even prevent cancer
Reduces all cause mortality
Walking after meal controls glucose
Both low and high intensity exercise

High intensity = hypoxia = panting and can’t carry on a chat
Turns on helpful genes
Generates free radicals
Mitochondrial hormesis

Aging reduces glucose sensitivity – and exercise increases it

Can measure biological age now (Horvath Clock) – exercise slows down this clock
Insight Tracker blood test to do this test

Standard sex isn’t aerobic / intense enough, and only lasts on average 5 minutes

Recommends 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week = ~10 minutes / day

Less than 50 resting heart rate is good target

Benefits of weight training
-DS does it every other day or more
-Maintains hormones (eg, testosterone), posture, aesthetic
-Lose muscle mass as you get older – breaking hip is major risk to mortality
-Thighs, butt, back muscles – large muscle groups – most impact on testosterone

Senescent cells – zombie cells, can secrete damaging chemicals and don’t have any benefits
Exercise kills senescent cells

Overall takeaways
1. Low intensity exercise – “get off your butt” – 4K steps / day
2. High intensity exercise – 10 mins / day, lose your breath
3. Muscle building – weights, pushups + situps

Hyperbaric chambers = low oxygen environments, mimicking hypoxia
Study of daily sessions ~90 minutes
Showing cognitive improvements
Improve dementia / Parkinson’s
Seems to work similar to exercise
Impact on telomere length (anti-aging)

Benefits of COLD exposure
Production of brown fat (beige fat) – found in babies, helps them stay warm
Adults have brown fat, mostly on back
When cold, this revs up metabolism, burns white fat, and improves overall health
Reduces free radical load

Dwarf mice living 3x longer than normal mice
They were shivering (didn’t have companion)
With buddy, the life extension went away (!) – because they weren’t shivering (no longer cold)
Old mice don’t make brown fat as well as young mice – why you shouldn’t wait to do it

Ways to get cold therapy
-Cold showers
-Sleep with little or no clothes / covers
-Ice baths

Benefits of HEAT exposure
One of most ancient therapies
Now in Finland, Scandinavia

Men who sauna bathe a few times a week have dramatic reduction in heart attacks and cardio disease
Activates heat shock proteins
Not sure what dosing is right – but no evidence so far you can over do it

DS used to do heat sauna + ice bath cycles multiple times (reader beware)

Some evidence that infrared sauna can have additional benefits (over dry sauna)

Lecture notes: The Meaning Crisis by cogsci prof John Vervaeke

University of Toronto professor Dr. John Vervaeke
Lecture series

Symptoms:
-Sense of more bullshit everywhere
-People lost trust in authority
-Can see this evidence in public media, academia

We’re spending too much time in online environments, social media

Why are zombies and superheroes so big rn?
These myth forms are cultural expression of feeling “stuck”

Meaning crisis – interdependent with other crises like environmental crisis, political crisis

Wisdom = realizing meaning in life in a profound way
(“wizard” root = wise)

Questions
1. What is this meaning?
2. Why do we hunger for it?
3. How do we cultivate the wisdom to realize it?
4. Why do we seek to alter consciousness? Not just us, but animals do too!

Subset of mystical experiences are crucial – “awakening experiences” – “quantum change”

The same (mental) machinery that makes you intelligent also makes you foolish

We’re very belief centric – very focused on ideologies – but there’s many more kinds of knowing

Therapy is booming – because of meaning crisis, because loss of the many kinds of knowing

No simplistic answers, but will try best to offer rational, careful answers

Paleolithic revolution – 40K BCE
Radical changes
1. Start making cave paintings, music
2. Radical change in cognition – use of calendars, tracking time
3. Develop projectile weapons – throwing spears, slings

Why did it occur?
Near extinction event
To protect themselves, create broader trading networks
Widens scale for human cognition
Cognition is participatory

Rituals make this work
1. trade rituals – eg, handshakes
2. initiation rituals
3. shamanic rituals

Initiation rituals
As you interact more out-group, weakens in-group ties
So initiation / commitment rituals grow
Requires pain and fear = shows commitment
Must improve ability to regulate emotion

Exaptation = evolutionary mechanism
eg, using tongue for speech, but not evolved primarily for this purpose (primary = taste / poison detector)

Shamanic rituals
Take enhanced perspective on others – “mind sight”
Shamanism = altering consciousness to control mental and emotional states
Archetype – wise old man (Yoda, Merlin)
Shamans improve a group’s healthcare, coordination, wisdom
Shamanism thesis = explains rise in cognition
Not hardware but software change

You’re a natural born cyborg = evolved to integrate with machines = your clothes, shoes, pens, computers, desks, literally everything except your naked body

This can apply to not only physical but intangible / cognitive things too (psycho tech)
eg, literacy

Shamanism = sleep deprivation, long periods of singing + dancing, imitation / masks, social isolation
Psychedelics
Altering consciousness
Disrupting how you find patterns in world
How you find patterns is profound

Shamanism teaches you HOW to disrupt patterns and gain new insight
Participatory knowing
Enhancing your cognition by manipulating the meaning of things

Podcast notes: Performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais on Tim Ferriss

from Tim’s Fearless show
guest Dr. Michael Gervais

Felix Baumgartner jumped from highest point ever
became claustrophobic in space suit – was about to scrub the project
asked Dr. Gervais to assist

How to extinguish fear
1. Systematic desensitization
2. Flooding

Flooding – if fear response, put them in environment until they no longer experience the fear, overwhelm them

Fears become loops – tension and exit

Systematic desensitization – arousal control and thought management
List fear triggers, and systematically put them into those environments, manage heart rate and emotional response

Surfing was huge part of his life – but his anxiety during it prevented him from pursuing it professionally
Fine with free surfing, but not with judges / fans
Brain became overloaded

Met 3 professors who changed his life
Art of Seeing book
Did a one week survival course with just that book, pen & paper, and can’t meet anyone for a week

Figuring out who you are is largest work you can do as a person
How to articulate this in 1-20 words
Words that make your heart skip a beat

Jesus: Love
Buddha: Love and Kindness
MLK: Equality

Tim’s philosophy: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

First athlete client, hockey player – has “potential” – but this can be a crippling word

Pre-performance routines
Routines are useful – different from superstitions
1-3 things that are triggers for you to think the right way
When I tie my shoes, what do I say to myself; when I put on my helmet, what do I say to myself

Team routines differ from individual routines

Learnings from Pete Carroll
Begins with relationship – with himself, with team, with staff
3 rules
1. Always protect your team – especially when things are hard
2. No whining, no complaining, no excuses; Own your stuff
3. Be early

Message, “Championship game” / “Championship opportunity” from pre-season

Every game is big, every practice is huge, maximize the moment

Right after “the loss”, Pete Carroll devastated for 2 secs, and then realized: I gotta be there for my guys

Role of mindfulness
-to be centered, be here now
-“invisible process of becoming more aware”

Mindfulness recs
sit and pay attention to one breath at a time
“the practice is the work”
natural state of mind is drunk monkey
integrating senses, and just listen

when you’re around people that are truly mindful, you’ll naturally want it

practice openness, vulnerability, saying the hard things
being present with people is a loving act

how to come back from eg, a super bowl loss
value of front loading a philosophy – being prepared
feel the pain first
only reason people change is because of pain

“know who you are and let it rip”

advice for everyday 9-5
being present
have great conversations
get after it every day, put yourself into emotionally uncomfortable situations so you can adjust

role of Stoicism in his life – know what you can and can’t control

Billboard message to world
“Just fricking love”
“Make a decision. Build capacity. Test yourself.”

Request to audience
your unique journey is determined not by what you DO, but who you ARE. self discovery, share those insights with others
get into rugged hostile environments, what it feels like on razors edge, learn to love it