Joe Rogan Experience #2442 - Ehsan Ahmad

This wide-ranging, largely political and cultural conversation opens on immigration, ICE enforcement, and census/redistricting politics before drifting into media manipulation, deepfakes, and the collapse of shared reality. A long middle stretch celebrates the Austin stand-up scene, the Comedy Store's history, and what it takes to develop as a comic. The pair then dive into ancient history and cryptozoology (Aztecs, lost languages, the Voynich manuscript, the coelacanth), declining Western birth rates and the loneliness/dating crisis, and close on the US raid that captured Venezuela's Maduro and the future of warfare. Throughout, Perplexity AI (the episode sponsor) is used live to fact-check claims.

• They use Perplexity live on-air and find ICE detention data showing only ~5-8% of detainees had violent or serious convictions, sparking a debate about the rest.
  00:09:25
• Discuss a federal judge blocking lawmakers' effort to force DOJ release of the Epstein files despite the campaign promise.
  00:24:24
• Cite former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as a convicted child molester who served only 15 months on a financial technicality.
  00:33:14
• Claim California's Newsom vetoed a bipartisan bill (passed 72-0 / 40-0) to audit ~$24 billion in missing homeless spending.
  01:01:40
• Frame living crocodiles and the rediscovered coelacanth as proof 'dinosaurs' effectively still exist.
  01:32:13
• Argue declining Western fertility, falling testosterone, dating apps, and vanishing 'third spaces' are fueling an unrecognized incel/celibacy crisis.
  02:25:38
• Recount the US raid that captured Maduro in Venezuela, describing a sonic/incapacitating weapon and a 10-minute in-and-out operation.
  02:35:28
• Agree podcasters now have an outsized impact on elections as mainstream media loses trust.
  02:52:30

• The coelacanth was thought extinct for ~66 million years until one was caught off South Africa; the species is around 400+ million years old.
  01:21:57
• Easter Island's Rongorongo script remains undeciphered after over a century of study.
  01:12:35
• The Voynich manuscript carbon-dates to ~1404-1438 and was rediscovered in 1912 by rare-books dealer Wilfred Voynich.
  01:14:42
• Cortez is said to have taken over the Aztec empire with ~600 men and only 13 muskets, exploiting tribes the brutal Aztecs had alienated.
  01:06:22
• The sandwich is named after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who ate them during an 18th-century card game.
  02:03:56
• Terry Black's BBQ in Austin reportedly serves ~18% of America's brisket.
  02:11:39
• Katz's Deli (NYC) uses an old paper-ticket system and Canter's in LA dates to 1888.
  02:05:29
• The median first-time US home buyer age has hit a record high of 40, cited as a driver of delayed family formation.
  02:27:12
• Roughly 10% of women aged 18 to their 20s are claimed to be on OnlyFans, with the vast majority earning little.
  02:23:33
• They discuss anti-aging research treating aging as a reversible disease rather than an inevitability.
  00:18:40