Whole Foods Founder on Effects of COVID Lockdowns

What do you think about the concept of universal basic income? Yeah, I, you know, no, I mean, I don't think that's a good idea. But when you have a situation like a pandemic, where so many people through no fault of their own are being forced out of work, they cannot work. That's a temporary situation. But isn't that a good argument for universal basic income, at least for a temporary situation? Well, when people are sick, they need to be taken care of. When they're healthy, they don't need to be taken care of. They need to stand on their own two feet. Right, but when you have a situation where they can't stand on their own two feet, because they're literally not allowed to work, like California, I mean, California, they're just they're right now shutting down restaurants that serve outside. Yeah, well, I mean, the the alternative is not to shut down. Yeah, no, listen, I agree. But there's a lot of people that they get really hysterical about this. And they think this is the only way we're going to save people. There's a lot of people out there with terrible health. And they think that what we need to do is shut everything down. And that's the only way we're going to be safe. I was reading this woman's Twitter the other day. I just someone said something ridiculous. And I'm like, Oh, my God, I need to check this person out. And they were talking about, hey, you know, I am ready to lock everything down for five weeks. I don't go outside. I stay away from everybody. I order my my groceries delivered. I'm ready to lock down for five weeks. I'm like, this is the most simplistic and individual perception of this problem that everyone should do what you're capable of doing. And most people can't do this if they have a fucking business like they can't. I'm ready to lock down for five weeks. Well, congratulations to you. But some guy who runs some whatever figure out whatever store it is or whatever kind of business they need to be there in order to be open to stay to stay alive. There's no other way to keep that business alive. They have rent. They have overhead. They have they have employees. Do you know you know the history of the 1918 1919 influenza epidemic? That's the worst pandemic that we know of in our modern history. That's only 100 years ago. And 50 million people died worldwide. I mean, how many people died worldwide in COVID a couple million at this point, and the population was four times greater than they didn't shut anything down back then. I mean, the population was four times greater than four times greater now. Yes. And then it was one 25% 1.8 billion people back 100 years ago across the world. So you could scale that up pretty, pretty largely. Exactly. That was a killer that didn't just take people with comorbidities. It took children. It took healthy adults. It was non discriminatory disease. And we took precautions people, you know, social distanced. But at the end of the day, the economy did not shut down humanity went on with their lives. And this is not nearly the same type of pandemic that we had back then. It's very interesting the time that we live in the reaction that we're having today to COVID being so very different than the reaction we had to the influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919, which was far more destructive. It's it's I don't know, it's just food for thought. It's very interesting. Well, what was the difference? What's the difference in the reaction of today versus the reaction from 1918? Their action back then was individual responsibility to to do what was necessary to protect yourself and their family. But other than that, life went on. And there was no governmental, not nearly the same level of they had mask mandates, though, didn't they? If you if you go back and read about it, that not any kind of national type of mass mandate, certain small communities did it. It was just all so much smaller in scale. I didn't even know they wore masks. We've been looking at it because we were looking at a lot of photos from back in the day. It's kind of crazy to see because they did. Yeah. And people were scared and they wanted to protect themselves and their family. They did what they thought was necessary. It's just interesting how much different we're reacting to this one to me. And we are we are doing great, great harm. And we don't see the harm that we're doing. We don't see the small businesses failing, the suicide rates going up, the domestic violence, the isolation, the mental or emotional health problems people have by not being able to connect with each other, not being able to physically touch the kids that are missing out in school and in person. I speaking as a man who was once a little boy, little boys need to they need to play. They also need to connect. They need to they need they can't just watch a screen. Yeah, kids. I have any they need to be more interactive to kids in school right now. And it's soul sucking watching them stare at a laptop. And then I sat in in my daughter's room once and watch the teacher teach the class and Jesus Christ. I think it could have not been less motivated. It was horrible to watch. Yeah, motivating or motivated. They're they're they're lazy. Well, hopefully, hopefully these vaccinations are are going to be as effective as they're reporting and will not have side effects and that that a year from now will be this will be in the rearview mirror. Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere. But after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.