Joe Rogan Experience #1957 - Shane Gillis

This is a loose, free-association conversation between Joe Rogan and comedian Shane Gillis, recorded around the opening of Rogan's new Austin comedy club. They open with raunchy tangents about kinks and creepy childhood encounters, then settle into a long stretch on MMA and boxing history covering Usman, Leon Edwards, Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou, Chael Sonnen, Jon Jones, and Tyson Fury. The back half wanders through Stephen King novels, hoarder TV clips, animal behavior, the British/Mongol/Civil War history of warfare, and a skeptical riff on money in politics, the Ukraine war, and US involvement in the Afghan heroin trade. It closes on the looming Trump-DeSantis-Biden election cycle and the value of religion as social scaffolding.

• Rogan recounts dodging two childhood molestation attempts, once saved by a librarian shouting that the man had just gotten out of jail.
  00:09:55
• Gillis describes gripping a knife at 13 when a drunk retired teacher told him there could be 'no love without sex.'
  00:12:32
• Rogan explains Onnit began with Aubrey Marcus, whose family owned the Fleshlight company, the podcast's first sponsor.
  00:26:35
• Rogan got into nootropics via Bill Romanowski's Neuro1 supplement, which seeded the Onnit idea.
  00:27:39
• Treasure hunter Tommy Thompson has been jailed for contempt for years over gold he claims he can't remember where he stashed.
  01:40:18
• They argue roughly 96% of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan and cite Geraldo Rivera footage of US Marines guarding poppy fields.
  02:33:08
• Gillis admits that while broke and using a Fleshlight on a mattress in West Philly, he resented other comedians' success.
  02:11:06

• A cited survey shows single men aged 18-29 rose from 51% (2019) to 63% (2022) while single women held around 32-34%.
  00:21:25
• Jon Jones broke his own toe pushing off the ground while beating Chael Sonnen, leaving the toe flipped and needing tape ever since.
  00:42:43
• The documentary 'Zoo' is about 'Mr. Hands,' a Boeing software engineer who died from a beastiality encounter.
  00:07:17
• An Indian temple venerates rats, putting out milk for them based on a belief in reincarnation between humans and rats.
  01:49:13
• Nilgai antelope, rhinos, raccoons and other animals use communal dung piles like shared toilets.
  01:50:46
• A University of Washington study found crows remembered and scolded masked researchers for years, teaching the grudge to other crows.
  01:53:51
• Shanna Swan's book 'Countdown' claims male testosterone has dropped about 50% in 50 years due to phthalates in plastics.
  02:07:26
• They sympathetically reframe Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler as a WWI veteran desperate to avoid another war.
  02:29:25

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