Joe Rogan Experience #1875 - Dave Smith

Dave Smith joins Joe Rogan for a sprawling political conversation rooted in libertarian, anti-war ideas. They argue that government, media, pharmaceutical companies, and intelligence agencies repeatedly lie to the public, citing COVID lockdowns, vaccine messaging, the censoring of Alex Berenson and the Hunter Biden laptop story, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Smith lays out a detailed alternative history of the Ukraine war, tracing NATO expansion, the 2014 coup, Burisma, and US foreign policy, warning about nuclear escalation. They also cover student-loan debt, the 'culture war as distraction' theory, Christianity, psychedelics, drug legalization, and the dangers of a central bank digital currency.

• Smith argues Big Tech censorship was driven by Congress and the White House pressuring platforms after Trump's 2016 win, not just employee ideology.
  00:09:21
• Rand Paul's FOIA finding that ~$135 million in royalties was paid to NIH scientists from pharmaceutical companies, raising conflict-of-interest questions about Fauci.
  00:11:25
• They discuss data that up to 88% of ventilated NYC COVID patients died, suggesting ventilator overuse caused harm before doctors corrected course.
  00:31:13
• The 'culture war as distraction' theory: corporate media flooded coverage of racism and identity around 2011-2012 to fracture left- and right-wing populist movements after the bank bailouts.
  00:50:25
• Smith claims the US (via Boris Johnson) told Ukraine not to negotiate an early peace deal with Russia that was reportedly worked out.
  01:02:54
• Extended retelling of NATO's eastward expansion, the 2014 Western-backed Ukraine coup, and Burisma paying Hunter Biden as the war's true context.
  01:05:30
• The Gulf of Tonkin's second attack never happened; they fact-check live that the war's pretext was fabricated and misrepresented to Congress.
  01:31:21
• Warning that a government-controlled central bank digital currency tied to a social credit score could let authorities shut off citizens' money.
  03:09:18

• A woman who took out $150,000 in student loans reportedly ended up $250,000 in the hole as interest compounded.
  00:04:11
• Zuckerberg told Rogan the FBI warned Facebook of coming 'Russian misinformation' before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke.
  00:13:29
• Smith cites CDC-linked figures that roughly 66-70% of US medical costs are tied to preventable illness like obesity and smoking.
  00:27:34
• Smith argues lockdown vs non-lockdown states and mask vs non-mask counties show no clear difference in outcomes.
  00:37:55
• The George Carlin line 'it's a big club and you ain't in it' frames their top-vs-bottom rather than left-vs-right view of politics.
  00:46:18
• Muhammad Ali gave up his heavyweight title in his prime and sat out three years rather than be drafted for Vietnam.
  01:19:32
• Rogan praises Ali's 1966 fight vs Cleveland 'Big Cat' Williams as Ali at his most beautiful and artistic.
  01:20:35
• Tom O'Neill spent ~20 years researching 'Chaos,' linking Charles Manson to CIA MK-Ultra and Jolly West.
  01:56:45
• Roughly 100,000 overdose deaths per year, with overdose the leading cause of death for people 18-49, partly from fentanyl-laced street drugs.
  02:02:58
• In 2022 the Department of Defense had about $1.77 trillion in distributed budgetary resources, not counting the separate nuclear program.
  03:04:37