Joe Rogan Experience #2492 - Ari Shaffir

Old friends Joe Rogan and Ari Shaffir catch up after Ari spent seven months traveling through South America and Southeast Asia, banking podcast episodes in advance so he could disappear. The wide-ranging conversation covers the slow legalization of psychedelics (Ibogaine, MDMA, psilocybin) and how Nixon-era drug laws still shape policy, plus tangents on the opioid crisis, corporate cover-ups, and Middle East geopolitics. They geek out on unexplained ancient sites like the Longyou Caves, Derinkuyu, Petra, Nazca Lines and Machu Picchu, and dig into the mechanics of MMA weight cutting, pool/billiards gambling culture, and chess ratings. The back half is about comedy: how networks like Comedy Central strong-armed and cancelled Ari's show, and how he financed his new show The End independently with help from Tom Segura's Your Mom's House.

• Texas allocated $100 million for an Ibogaine initiative after advocates persuaded Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had been staunchly anti-drug.
  00:13:00
• Joe argues mushrooms and MDMA should be as legal as buying whiskey at Costco, blaming the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
  00:19:09
• Ari banked podcast episodes through July in advance so he could travel for seven months with no social media.
  02:04:29
• Joe recounts how Comedy Central cancelled Ari's successful show because he wouldn't do a special with them instead of Netflix.
  02:13:44
• Ari says they made their budget back day one on The End, a self-financed show that flew in 23 comics, some by private jet.
  02:30:14
• Ari describes successfully running a double-cross bluff on a pro at the World Series of Poker using a tell from Mike Caro's book.
  01:14:26
• Joe says if he had to do JRE from New York he'd have to live by Central Park for his dog.
  02:01:55

• A Max Planck study (2022, 295 participants) found 6 minutes of birdsong cut anxiety while traffic noise raised depression, even in lifelong city dwellers.
  01:56:43
• Turkey's Derinkuyu underground city, found via a man following his lost chickens, can hold 20,000 people across many levels.
  01:44:26
• China's Longyou Caves were discovered in 1992 by farmers draining ponds; they are 2,000+ years old with no record of who built them.
  01:46:27
• Heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Marciano weighed only 185 lbs, lighter than many modern fighters.
  00:59:52
• Magnus Carlsen peaked at a 2882 chess rating, the highest in history.
  01:02:32
• A 2025 World Snooker final drew over 24.5 million viewers per session in China, with 180 million cumulative.
  01:06:09
• The 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders (cyanide-laced capsules, 7 dead) remain unsolved and prompted tamper-proof seals.
  00:34:11
• Ford Pinto crash tests revealed a rear-end fire risk pre-production, but the car shipped largely unchanged.
  00:36:15
• UFC weigh-ins are now ceremonial; fighters officially weigh in earlier to allow more recovery time.
  00:52:13