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Joe Rogan · 2024-10-09 · 3h 15m

Joe Rogan Experience #2211 - Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger and Joe Rogan dig into Brazil censorship, COVID narratives, the drug-policy debate, and a new UAP whistleblower.

Joe Rogan Experience #2211 - Michael Shellenberger
The guest

Michael Shellenberger — Investigative journalist behind the Twitter Files, founder of Public, and inaugural CBR chair of politics, censorship and free speech at the University of Austin

The gist

Shellenberger recounts the Twitter Files Brazil saga, where a Supreme Court justice banned X and demanded individuals be deplatformed across all networks, and frames global censorship as a counter-populist project backed by deep-state agencies and NGO funders. He and Rogan critique the COVID vaccine messaging, institutional capture of science, and failures of bodies like the American Academy of Pediatrics. A long middle section debates drug policy, addiction, prohibition, the cartel-driven fentanyl crisis, and the loss of religious and stoic values. The episode closes with Shellenberger breaking news on a UAP whistleblower and an alleged secret Pentagon program called Immaculate Constellation, with both men theorizing about disinformation and whether humanity is alone.

Big reveals

  • Shellenberger claims internal memos show a CIA-linked group (Althea) attempted to take over content moderation at Twitter before Elon Musk bought it.
  • He asserts current CIA director Bill Burns and Bill Gates both visited Epstein's apartment, tying Gates's censorship push to potential blackmail.
  • Both argue the vaccine's justification was retconned from preventing infection/transmission to reducing hospitalization and death.
  • Citing Marty Makary's Blind Spots, he lists four AAP recommendations (stomach sleeping, peanut avoidance, seed-based formula, trans medicine) that allegedly created the harms they aimed to prevent.
  • Shellenberger says the same Aspen Institute operatives who ran the Hunter Biden laptop 'disinformation' effort later produced a book dismissing UFOs.
  • He reveals a new whistleblower alleging a secret Pentagon UAP parent program called Immaculate Constellation, illegally withheld from Congress.
  • The Pentagon goes on record during the recording denying any SAP called Immaculate Constellation.
  • The whistleblower describes a large classified database of high-quality UAP videos, including an F-22 escorted by orbs and a UAP descending over an aircraft carrier.

Things worth remembering

  • Shellenberger argues Trump won mostly through conventional media debates, not social media, which triggered the deep-state reaction.
  • He compares social media's disruptive effect to the printing press, noting Martin Luther's theses going viral against the Catholic Church.
  • Rogan cites that polio cases had sharply declined before the polio vaccine arrived, crediting sanitation and herd immunity.
  • 95-99% of polio cases are asymptomatic, and most polio cases today are vaccine-derived.
  • Descartes reportedly conceived the scientific method after three dreams on November 10, 1619.
  • The peanut allergy epidemic is attributed to AAP advice against early peanut exposure, contrasted with low allergy rates among Israeli children.
  • Rogan cites roughly 112,000 US drug overdose deaths last year, up from about 20,000 in 2000, with around 75% involving fentanyl.
  • Shellenberger notes Vietnam veterans addicted to heroin largely quit after returning home, and addicted doctors show very low relapse rates.
  • The discussion compares possible alien observation of humans to scientists tagging wolves and studying gorillas in the wild.
  • Both note nuclear bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki coincided with a wave of UFO sightings.

Recommended in this episode

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

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RecommendedBook

Blind Spots

Marty Makary

“my friend Marty mcari just came out with this amazing book called blind spot yeah blind spots um where he looks at American Academy Pediatrics” — Michael Shellenberger 00:46:48
Find it on Amazon
Guest’s ownBook

Pathocracy: Why Elites Subvert Civilization

Michael Shellenberger

“pathocracy is the new book why Elites subvert civilization and that's the big question is how is it like that the institutions” — Michael Shellenberger 00:52:59
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedBook

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

“if you read meditations by Marcus reias it's very Progressive not only is it very Progressive it's very compassionate and kind and considerate” — Joe Rogan 01:07:09
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedBook

WEIRD

Joseph Henrich (inferred)

“this is an amazing book called weird about Western industrialized educated societies and they just talk about these these core values” — Michael Shellenberger 01:57:48
Find it on Amazon
Guest’s ownBook

Apocalypse Never

Michael Shellenberger

“I happened I I included a how we've protected gorillas in my book apocalypse never and like we actually” — Michael Shellenberger 03:02:33
Find it on Amazon