Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner Asks Joe Rogan About CTE in Sports

So imagine that I came down from Mars and I look at, you know, human civilization. I think, you know, this makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense. This one doesn't make any sense. Fights? Well, I was going to use fights as an example. What about the Coliseum? I mean, it's always been a part of humans. We've been interested in people beating the shit out of each other since the beginning of time because it scares us. So it's entertaining to watch other people do it. That's why we want to watch a bar fight. I don't want to be in a bar fight. You know, a lot of people want to be in a bar fight, right? But if you saw a bar fight, you'd be like, what the fuck is this really happening? So a lot of the people who have turned against football the last, let's say five or ten years, fueled by CTE, which is obviously a legitimate thing. We don't really know the magnitude and the scope yet. But a lot of people who've turned against it do it for a kind of moral argument that I don't want to support an endeavor where people are hurting each other, period. Right? How do you feel about that? There's a libertarian argument to say, what are you talking about? People can do whatever they want. They can do drugs. They can go bungee jumping. They can work stock trading, which is stressful. You can do whatever you want. So where do you lie on that? Well, I think, first of all, they're right. And you are doing something that's definitely going to harm you. However, I feel like if you want to do something that you enjoy doing that's going to take some time out of your life that's finite anyway, who the fuck am I to tell you you can't do that? Where am I going to draw the line? Am I going to say no gymnastics? Yeah. Like, where am I going to draw the line? You know, didn't know soccer causes tremendous amount of CTE? Do you know that? Yeah. Lacrosse is a lot of... Just heading the ball. It's subconcussive trauma. Yeah. Just heading the ball causes a lot of CTE. I know a lot of youth leagues now are starting to cut out heading, which I think is probably a pretty good idea. It's a very good idea. They should probably eliminate it totally. Often it's not the ball. It's the collision with the guy in here. Yes, often. But they think heading has a huge impact. No, no, no. You're going up for headers. You're off and you're knocking heads. You're not going to shoulder into a head and elbow into a head. Yeah, I mean, you're running around on a field and full clip. You're going to collide with each other. Where do you stand on paying for organs? But let's keep going with this because we didn't even touch the surface of this. I'm in favor of people doing what they want to do with their life. If you choose to do something with your life, like, are we going to take away race car driving? Because that's one of the scariest goddamn things a person could do. Not as much anymore. After Earnhardt. What are you talking about? No, but you know what? These guys are getting fucked up. Did you see that recent crash? I did. But the fact that we remember that so well, one reason is because there have been so few since Earnhardt died back in whatever that was. Listen, I had Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his podcast and he went in depth about brain damage that he's gotten from multiple crashes. He talked about the severe impact of the concussions. He talked about the difficulty coming back and the different modalities, the different medical treatments that he's had to have. That's Dale Earnhardt Jr. This is after his dad is gone, right? This guy talked really extensively on this podcast about his personal struggle with brain damage that he's received from car accidents. It's a fucking scary way to make a living. And arguably more scary than fighting. Because there are guys like Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson, who's like this elite MMA fighter that barely gets touched. There's guys like him that don't take any damage. And then there's guys who are elite NASCAR drivers who wind up in these crazy collisions and go sent through the air and they wind up in the hospital all fucked up. The impact, just the impact. Even if you're in a cage, just your brain rattling around inside your head, fucks you up. And we're letting people do that. And I don't think we should stop. I think we should let people do whatever they want. If they want to do, they want to take a tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon and film it on YouTube. I can't, I'm not the guy. Unless it's over private land or public land and there's a law against using it, who are we to tell people they can't rock climb? Who are we to tell people they can't ski? Where do we draw the line? Where do you decide a person can't do a thing? I don't know. You make a good argument. I don't think there's a bad argument with what you're saying though. And saying that it causes damage to people. You're right. By the way, I love the NFL. I would cry if it went away. On the other hand, and I know a few NFL, well now former NFL players, one of whom stopped playing in his fifth year way earlier than he had to because he was worried about CTE, but also he was getting a PhD in math from MIT at the same time. So he had a plan. He had an alternative. But then there's another guy. It's a crazy combination. He's an amazing, you should have him on your show. John Urschel, his name is, you are S-C-H-E-L. Okay, we'll talk about it after the podcast. Amazing guy. There's another guy, Dominique Foxworth. Both these guys happen to play for the Ravens, which happens to be the team I hate most, but I've gotten to be friendly with them. Dominique Foxworth had a great money making career because he kind of got his big contract in his whatever, fourth, fifth year. Well, took out insurance on it, then got hurt and really never played again. So he banked enough money. After that, he went and got an MBA from Harvard because he's a bright and interesting and ambitious guy. He will never let his son play football. So you hear these stories about the guys who've done it, who've made a life out of it. And it just really makes me think about, you're right. Everybody should have the right to do anything for their own livelihood or for their own excitement, right? On the other hand, if we had the Coliseum today per se, like what we have is a modern version of the Coliseum. If we had the Coliseum per se, fighting the Tigers, slaves getting thrown in to fight the Tigers, we don't like that. It's like the line, things are repugnant until they're not. And it's hard to predict where that line is. A lot of things that used to be not repugnant, slavery, fine. The whole world, if you had the ability to do it. Right. And then it goes straight back to the Coliseum. It's the same thing. It's like we have a line and whatever the cultural line is, especially depending upon how many people die around us, how much plague and murder and how much you're dealing with war, that line moves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.