Joe Rogan on Coronavirus: Are We Going to Be Scared of Everything?

Do you think that people will put up with that though? I mean, is this how America breaks up? Does it become the pro open and pro closed states and then we just divorce? Well this is what's happening. It's right wing, left wing. Left wing people want the government to take care of everything. They want everybody to get checks. And they want everybody to stay home forever until there's a cure. It's not going to be a cure. This is something that's going to be around. We might have herd immunity. We might be able to wipe it out that way. This is not something that they can just spray away or inject away. So this is something, hopefully one day they'll have some sort of a real treatment, whether it's a vaccine or whatever it is. We're probably going to have to take a vaccine every couple years or every year or something like that. None of this is good. I mean, you get the flu shot if you get it and it's not going to keep you from getting the flu. There's still other strains that are out there. It helps you even if you do get those strains that aren't the strains. Exactly. Then there's herd immunity, right? Where more than 60% of the people get it and the virus sort of dies off. That's a positive possibility in the future. There's people that want to get back to work and there's people that don't want anyone to go anywhere. It's become this sort of, again, this ideological battleground where the people that want to go back to work, you're putting dollars over money. Someone said, you're going to be the richest man in the cemetery to Elon Musk because he wants to open up his factory. What are you talking about? Are we going to be just stay home forever? We're going to be scared of everything? Why would you drive when you know how many people die in driving accidents? Stay home. Don't do anything. And I think this is put, we make these calculations all the time about how many people is it acceptable to die? It's just not so in our face. For instance, with opioids or the op- if you're using these to help people manage pain, but you know a certain amount of people might become addicted or die, there's all kinds of trade-offs that we're making driving another good example. So we're constantly making these cost benefit analysis in our society. It's just not usually you have to make it. Now it's like you have to be part of the person who's saying, am I going to be? But it's also, there's so much false information or confusing information. And I don't, again, I come back to what we started talking about. I don't know that a lot of people know who to believe. And if you just believe your tribe, it's much easier. I think if I was just like gobbling up all the CNN or gobbling up all the Fox, I would be happy little fricking no nihilism Bridget. Or you'd be angry wanting to overthrow the government, not wanting to get things back to the way things used to be. Or I'd be terrified of not leaving my house because I was worried that I was going to get- There's all those things. But if you just look at the raw numbers and this doesn't discount any of the deaths, doesn't discount the tragedy, I know people are, but my grandma, but my friend, I knew a guy. I knew a guy. He was young. Everybody knows a guy. But if you just look at the overall numbers, this is not what we thought it was going to be. It's really simple. And this is why you want to move. Yeah. I don't like that they're telling me that you have to stay home. I don't like that they're telling me you have to wear a mask when you go outside. No, if I'm around people and you want me to wear a mask in a business or something like that, okay, I'm fine with that. Until everything settles down and we figure this out. Okay. But you can't tell me I leave the house. I have to put a mask on. What about if I walk around in my backyard? Do I have to have a mask on? No. What does that mean? I mean, yeah. If I'm running on a trail, I have to run on a trail with a mask on? The fuck out of here. And you're stupid. And your ideal way to transition back, what would it be? What would it look like? Let people take risks. Let people do what they want to do. But educate them. Educate them in terms of their immune system. Educate them in terms of like, here's where it could go bad. This is why you need to wash your hands. Like one of the things I said is that women were getting it less than men. And people are like, why? I'm like, because we're gross. We don't wash. We're fucking disgusting. So guys are picking their nose after they're touching a faucet and other people touched it and... Is that why they're getting it more? Could be a bunch of factors. But I would guarantee that one of them is that men are gross. Yes, men are gross. Yeah. I guarantee you that has to play some sort of a part in it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's been somebody, I think I'm a writer, I forgot her name, Megan, someone. She had a tweet. It's a black light. No, it's a black light on like the sperm filled hotel room, basically, the pandemic. It just reveals like all of these institutional failures and all of the structural failures and all of the ideological battleground is up to 11 now. And I find that most people are wrestling and don't know really what to do. But I think most people are grown up enough to want to be able to take that risk for themselves. I walk around, I see all these businesses. I'm like, how are these businesses going to come back? They're not going to. We're going to lose like 40% of them. I think you got to let people make their own decisions. And the decision you've already made has already cost something. It's cost businesses. It's cost a lot. It's cost a lot of people's livelihoods. So it's not like there's no loss here. There's a loss here. And if you don't think there's a loss of life, talk to people that are dealing with suicide. I know a guy who talked to this sheriff and who's saying that they used to have. Everyone knows a guy. I do. Everyone does. They were saying that he used to deal with one suicide a week. Now he's dealing with five a day. Wow. Really? Yes. Holy shit. Yeah. That seems like it should be a bigger story. It is a big story, but it's just not being talked about because the narrative is always stay safe or stay at home, this and that. This is crazy. We went down. There's a real loss that comes with your business going away. It's not just loss of life. It's loss of business, loss of livelihood, and that could lead to loss of life. And it's going to last for years. It was creepy. I was texting you the pictures of the phosphorescence. It's amazing. And what are you going to tell people? They can't go look at nature. And so I think it was Cinco de Mayo. We went down and everybody was out. So many people. No cops. I couldn't believe it. I was like, yeah. What are the cops going to do? You want to tell people to get off the beach? Yeah. So that night everyone was wearing masks. Everyone was responsible, socially distancing. It was fine. It was really cool. It was chill. You could tell everyone was going crazy, stir crazy. People were partying because it was Cinco de Mayo. It was awesome. I'm like, yeah, good job, California. I went down the next day and it appears the word had got out. And they had turned the Ferris wheel down at the pier into like a weird, creepy, dystopian message. It was just like, hey, support our health care workers. And then there was a Red Cross in the Ferris wheel and the police were there and they were like, everyone off the beach. The beaches are closed. We will sight you. And no, to the people's credit, no one gave a fuck and didn't move. But they were driving up and down telling everybody. But it was a creepy vibe with the Ferris wheel and the messaging that had totally changed overnight. I'll go to the hospitals out here. They're empty. Yeah. It's a real problem. Hospitals are going bankrupt. I know. I know. And I read a thing about how college might go bankrupt too. So I don't know how the schools are going to stay afloat. A lot of private schools that are charging exorbitant rates and expect people to do that shit in front of a computer, they're going to go under. Yeah. They're going to go under. I mean, again, you at least have a platform you can talk about this and an audience that you hear from. And what's the general feeling? People are furious. Yeah. There's a certain percentage of people that are cowards and they just want to trust in the government and let the government make these decisions. They're doing this with sound science. No, but they're not. But they're not. If they were, I'd be like, okay, I get it. Because I was like, okay, I get it in the beginning. I didn't protest it in the beginning. I canceled gigs. I backed off. I said, I think they're trying to save us. But then when you get the science in, when you get the actual numbers in, you're like, no, this is way different than they thought. They thought it was going to be hundreds of thousands dead in California alone. No, it's a thousand people, 1800 people, whatever it is. Do you think it'll be worse than that? Do you know the average age that people die of this is older than the average age? Yeah. It's like 85 plus. Yeah. The average age people die of this is older than the average age people die. Yeah. Like what?