The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1266 - Ben Anderson

00:00:00.000 Shane on.

00:00:00.000 It's been a while.

00:00:09.000 Working?

00:00:10.000 Live?

00:00:10.000 We're live.

00:00:11.000 Do you want to talk about that?

00:00:12.000 Or no?

00:00:14.000 The Shane thing?

00:00:14.000 Did you have something to say?

00:00:15.000 Everyone sent me the clip, and I think you said something about taking a knee in the middle of a gunfight, and he said, yeah, that was Ben. 1.00

00:00:22.000 He's a fucking savage. 0.99

00:00:23.000 What did you do? 1.00

00:00:25.000 What happened?

00:00:25.000 Refresh my memory.

00:00:27.000 We're in Afghanistan.

00:00:28.000 Right.

00:00:28.000 And the guys I'm with, the Afghan soldiers I'm with, get ambushed by the Taliban.

00:00:32.000 And I just went down on one knee and carried on talking. 0.99

00:00:35.000 And Shane said, yeah, he's fucking savage. 0.99

00:00:39.000 Apparently that's a compliment. 0.99

00:00:40.000 I wasn't sure.

00:00:41.000 War journalists are very fascinating people to me because oftentimes you guys move towards the gunfire with the camera to get the shot.

00:00:51.000 And, you know, I've talked to folks before who have worked as a war journalist, and they say you almost don't think you're so concentrated on getting the shot, you don't think about the fact that you might get shot.

00:01:07.000 It's a safety mechanism, yeah.

00:01:08.000 You think you're protected by looking at it on a screen rather than realizing it's actually happening in real life right now. 1.00

00:01:14.000 It's stupid. 1.00

00:01:15.000 It's so strange. 1.00

00:01:17.000 Try to keep this like a fist from your face.

00:01:20.000 Perfect.

00:01:20.000 There we go.

00:01:20.000 I was with the US Marines for Operation Mushtarak, like the biggest operation of the Afghan war.

00:01:26.000 And there was a town called Maja that was controlled by the Taliban.

00:01:29.000 And I met up with this one group of Marines.

00:01:31.000 I used to love going out with the Marines, because if you were willing to run the same risks as them, they'd let you film everything.

00:01:37.000 And their mission was to get dropped by helicopter in the middle of this town at 3am on day one, and then just fight their way out from the middle of the town.

00:01:44.000 And as soon as the sun came up, all of the speakers on the mosques were saying, the infidels are here, the infidels are here, get your weapons, get your weapons.

00:01:52.000 And General McChrystal had introduced this rule of courageous restraint, saying you're not allowed to shoot unless you're shot at, or unless you see someone preparing a hostile act.

00:02:00.000 And the Taliban had figured out how to use this, so... 0.78

00:02:03.000 I'm sitting in this field with about 28 marines, watching the Taliban drop off guys in buildings all around us with their weapons wrapped in blankets, knowing the marines can't shoot them.

00:02:13.000 So they're setting up the perfect ambush.

00:02:16.000 And as soon as we started walking across the field, it started and it's like nothing I've ever heard or experienced before.

00:02:23.000 We ran and dived into a ditch.

00:02:24.000 The guys either side of me got hit, one of them badly.

00:02:28.000 A guy was killed on the other side of the field, almost straight away.

00:02:31.000 And I was there alone, filming it myself.

00:02:33.000 And because I was watching the whole thing through this tiny little screen on my camera, it felt like I wasn't, you know, in as much danger as they were.

00:02:42.000 And I was so afraid.

00:02:44.000 And the adrenaline runs out after a while and you just become...

00:02:47.000 I mean, then I'd resign myself.

00:02:49.000 I thought we were all going to get killed.

00:02:50.000 We were completely surrounded and outnumbered and there were RPGs and snipers.

00:02:53.000 And I watched it back and the footage is pretty good.

00:02:56.000 You know, I'm changing shots, I'm zooming in, I'm focusing.

00:02:59.000 And I think focusing on that helped me, you know.

00:03:02.000 How did you get out of it?

00:03:04.000 I mean, to this day, I'm not even sure.

00:03:06.000 I think the Marines just started identifying Taliban targets and picking them off.

00:03:10.000 And then the Taliban ran out of ammunition and the actual ambush lasted like six, seven hours of non-stop fighting.

00:03:16.000 Yeah, and then we ran into an old building, which became their base for six months, just an abandoned building.

00:03:23.000 And they shelled that all night and the fighting carried on the whole next day. 1.00

00:03:27.000 But that first day in the ditch, I remember saying to myself, you're an idiot. 1.00

00:03:30.000 You never say no to anything. 1.00

00:03:32.000 You always just, you know, join up and sign up for these insane trips. 1.00

00:03:37.000 And if you survive today, and you're probably not going to survive, but if you do survive today, don't ever go out with these idiots ever again. 0.99

00:03:44.000 And the next day they said, oh, we're going to launch this operation, take this mask. 1.00

00:03:47.000 And I went out with them all over again.

00:03:50.000 It just felt like a good night's sleep.

00:03:52.000 Yeah, it wasn't even a good night's sleep, but yeah. 0.99

00:03:54.000 But yeah, once you survive a few, I mean, I remember when I started doing this, you had an idea of what good odds and bad odds were, and that, you know, you're willing to accept lesser and lesser odds as time goes on because nothing happens, and it's easy to get careless and stupid. 0.97

00:04:10.000 That's a real thing with violence, right?

00:04:13.000 Until you've actually experienced it firsthand personally being enacted on yourself, it almost doesn't seem real.

00:04:20.000 Even when bullets are zipping by your head, yeah.

00:04:23.000 Is that just a weird compartmentalization thing that people are capable of?

00:04:27.000 Is that what it is?

00:04:28.000 I think it is.

00:04:29.000 I mean, I think with me it's slightly different.

00:04:32.000 I mean, I took part in this MDMA therapy for PTSD recently, and one of the revelations that came out as a result of that was...

00:04:40.000 I got into this 20 years ago, thinking I could help people in Syria, Palestine, Congo, wherever, by raising awareness about what's happening.

00:04:49.000 After a while, you lose faith in that idea.

00:04:51.000 So then you start feeling a bit guilty and thinking, am I just here for my own benefit?

00:04:56.000 Am I just here to profit in some way and not actually helping whatsoever?

00:05:00.000 So I think that guilt made me think You're not important enough to have something as dramatic as getting shot or blown up happen to you. 0.97

00:05:08.000 I know that sounds so stupid and never thought that until, you know, it came out as part of this therapy, but I think I really had started thinking that. 0.95

00:05:16.000 So the MDMA therapy made you sort of look at your rational perspective, like how are you rationalizing your time in these very, very dangerous places? 0.99

00:05:30.000 In ways that I hadn't even thought about before.

00:05:33.000 It was going on in your subconscious.

00:05:34.000 Absolutely, yeah.

00:05:35.000 You're sort of making these agreements and arrangements in order to be able to still do that.

00:05:40.000 Yeah, and if it continued, then it was going to end badly.

00:05:44.000 Want some coffee?

00:05:44.000 Thank you.

00:05:45.000 There was only one way it was going to end, and I hadn't seen that coming at all.

00:05:50.000 I hadn't connected the dots like that at all.

00:05:52.000 How did you wind up stopping?

00:05:55.000 Cheers.

00:05:56.000 Cheers.

00:05:58.000 I mean, this is the big thing.

00:05:59.000 I haven't stopped, and I don't think I'm going to stop.

00:06:00.000 I did the MDMA therapy thinking this would give me an excuse to stop, and I thought that's what I wanted.

00:06:06.000 Three quarters of the way through the first session, I was planning the next program.

00:06:10.000 I mean, people say you're an adrenaline junkie.

00:06:12.000 That's not true at all.

00:06:13.000 It's not a thrill to be there.

00:06:15.000 It's horrible to be there.

00:06:16.000 It's an endurance test every single time, but I still think it's important.

00:06:21.000 Do you think it's important because the information that you can get to people, there's no other way they can get it?

00:06:26.000 Yeah.

00:06:26.000 I mean, I wonder what impact that has these days.

00:06:29.000 But you hope that...

00:06:30.000 It has an impact.

00:06:32.000 Everything has an impact.

00:06:33.000 I'm sure it has an impact.

00:06:34.000 But, I mean, the example I always use, and some of my colleagues have been broken by this, is the Syrian war has been very well covered.

00:06:42.000 Every crime has been very well documented, often with video footage of exactly the crime being carried out.

00:06:47.000 Has it made any difference whatsoever?

00:06:49.000 I'm not sure.

00:06:51.000 The Syrian one is one where you hear rational people say that Assad is not our enemy. 0.97

00:07:00.000 What do you feel about that?

00:07:03.000 I think we're dealing with the legacy of the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars, in that even if you want to help, what's the point?

00:07:10.000 You can't.

00:07:10.000 You're only going to make it worse.

00:07:11.000 I think a lot of people feel that way, and I think that leads some people to think Assad is not a good guy.

00:07:16.000 He probably does have the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands, but we should deal with him anyway, because that's better than Iraq or Afghanistan. 1.00

00:07:24.000 Is it because when we do get rid of a leader like Libya with Gaddafi or Iraq with Hussein, that what happens is you get this power vacuum and then it becomes far worse?

00:07:36.000 We've tried every model.

00:07:38.000 We've tried invading Afghanistan, taking over, trying to rebuild the entire culture and armed forces and government ourselves.

00:07:44.000 That has failed miserably.

00:07:46.000 We've tried Iraq.

00:07:47.000 Libya tried leading from the back, you know, limited intervention, hoping that the guys on the ground could do the fighting for us. 0.52

00:07:54.000 And then Syria, we've tried almost no intervention whatsoever.

00:07:58.000 And all three have failed.

00:08:00.000 So I think now you've got people...

00:08:01.000 I mean, the thing I always think, most people would say we should have intervened in Rwanda.

00:08:05.000 I think almost everyone would say...

00:08:08.000 I mean, Bill Clinton would say that's his biggest regret, I think, in this presidency.

00:08:11.000 Most people would say we should have intervened in Rwanda.

00:08:14.000 I think if Rwanda happened tomorrow, you'd have a lot of people here saying, it's not worth it.

00:08:18.000 We won't help.

00:08:19.000 We can't make the situation better.

00:08:21.000 So why even try?

00:08:23.000 Well, it's so hard when you look at the rest of the world and you see these horrific conditions and you see warlords in power and you see atrocities being committed and we're sitting over here in the valley watching on internet and drinking Starbucks,

00:08:40.000 you know?

00:08:40.000 Or it's just Trump gossip.

00:08:43.000 Yeah.

00:08:43.000 Well, more so.

00:08:45.000 Yeah.

00:08:45.000 American foreign coverage was never great.

00:08:48.000 No.

00:08:48.000 Now it's almost gone.

00:08:50.000 I mean, Yemen, we'll see.

00:08:52.000 I mean, because of the Khashoggi murder, maybe something's going to happen with Yemen. 1.00

00:08:56.000 And there is a lot we can do there because we are directly supporting one side.

00:09:00.000 It almost seems like what you were talking about, but in a far lesser extent, the feeling that you get when you're in these war zones that it's almost like it's not real, that you're covering it through this lens so you're immune from it.

00:09:14.000 It almost feels like we view the massive conflicts of the world that way.

00:09:20.000 We're watching it on television.

00:09:22.000 We're seeing it on our phones or our laptops.

00:09:25.000 It's real.

00:09:25.000 I know it's real.

00:09:26.000 It's a real issue, but it's not real in terms of it's not knocking on my door.

00:09:31.000 It's almost like we feel about it that way.

00:09:33.000 And the numbers as well.

00:09:35.000 In Syria, it could be 800,000 dead.

00:09:39.000 Do people really think what that means?

00:09:41.000 What does 800,000 dead actually mean?

00:09:44.000 I think with certain numbers, it just becomes digits, and it just doesn't make sense.

00:09:52.000 If you hear five guys get killed in a shootout, you go, wow, those five guys are dead.

00:09:58.000 You start thinking about it.

00:09:59.000 You hear 500,000 people died on the other side of the planet.

00:10:02.000 It almost doesn't register.

00:10:05.000 But for you, it registers.

00:10:08.000 Yeah, and the reason I started doing this when I was a kid, as soon as I started reading about these situations, and I remember reading that my government, the British government, was arming You know, often the wrong side in these conflicts.

00:10:20.000 I remember thinking, how is this not front page news?

00:10:22.000 How is everyone not talking about this every single day?

00:10:25.000 And I still feel like that now, even though I'm clearly out of step with, you know, most of the population.

00:10:30.000 Well, you're so immersed.

00:10:32.000 Is it hard for you when you come back and you see the Trump gossip and all the nonsense and all the things that we engage in on a daily basis here in America that are really trivial at best?

00:10:41.000 I mean, you know, is it hard for you to... 0.99

00:10:45.000 I mean, you get to see the worst shit happening in the world all the time. 0.97

00:10:51.000 Is it hard for you to relate? 0.97

00:10:53.000 Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, one of the main symptoms I had of the PTSD from covering this for so long was it was numbness to physical danger when I was there, but it was numbness when I got back home.

00:11:05.000 So you'd come back and, you know, at one point you used to think, if I come back with the footage I have of whatever conflict, it's going to have some kind of impact.

00:11:13.000 It's going to...

00:11:14.000 Create some kind of ripple.

00:11:16.000 And you come back and you think there's going to be nothing.

00:11:19.000 The film's going to go out.

00:11:20.000 A few people are going to tweet.

00:11:21.000 A few people are going to send me a message.

00:11:24.000 That's it.

00:11:24.000 Are we in an information overload state?

00:11:28.000 I mean, if you go back to, you know, the early days of the internet, Facebook, it was going to be the free flow of information, you know, no borders.

00:11:37.000 I mean, I don't think you can doubt it. 0.96

00:11:40.000 It's made us dumber now. 0.98

00:11:41.000 There's so much. 0.98

00:11:43.000 It's not just how much there is.

00:11:44.000 It's also how much bad stuff gets traction and how much really important stuff doesn't get traction.

00:11:50.000 I mean, one of the great things about the Trump era is some of the best writing, you know, I think, for years.

00:11:56.000 But how many people are reading it?

00:11:59.000 Yeah, I would like to know how many people read Matt Taibbi's articles.

00:12:02.000 Yeah.

00:12:02.000 From the beginning to the end.

00:12:04.000 Yeah.

00:12:04.000 Yeah, I would like to see them.

00:12:06.000 When you think about the amount of time that guy puts into an article.

00:12:10.000 Yeah, it's such a strange time because it doesn't seem like any other time.

00:12:16.000 It doesn't seem like any other time in terms of our consumption of information or how much information we're consuming.

00:12:23.000 It's like...

00:12:24.000 The sheer volume of it, it's almost insurmountable.

00:12:33.000 The sheer volume of data that comes in every day, it doesn't go away.

00:12:36.000 It's just new data comes in.

00:12:38.000 It just keeps coming in and piling up.

00:12:40.000 You know, it's like porn, right?

00:12:42.000 You never could watch all the porns.

00:12:45.000 It's not possible.

00:12:46.000 But they keep making them.

00:12:48.000 You know what I mean?

00:12:50.000 You open up Pornhub and you go, what the, how many of them are there?

00:12:55.000 And that's, you know, that is really data.

00:12:58.000 I mean, but then all these crazy internet videos and stories and there's just, every day it's something new.

00:13:05.000 It's constant.

00:13:06.000 But you'd have thought that would have led to a situation where some things are indisputable.

00:13:11.000 Right.

00:13:11.000 Because there is video evidence.

00:13:13.000 But the opposite is the case.

00:13:15.000 Nothing is verifiable now, no matter how much evidence exists.

00:13:19.000 My concern is that that's leading into this trend of deep fakes and this new audio editing ability that they have.

00:13:27.000 They can take your voice and your mouth and put some stuff in there that you never said.

00:13:33.000 Yep.

00:13:33.000 And, you know, it could be news.

00:13:35.000 I mean, you could do that.

00:13:36.000 It could be Assad. 0.63

00:13:37.000 It could be Obama.

00:13:39.000 It could be anyone.

00:13:40.000 It's so strange.

00:13:41.000 And it might get debunked in the New York Times the next day.

00:13:43.000 No one cares.

00:13:44.000 How many people are reading that?

00:13:45.000 Very few.

00:13:45.000 How many people are even aware of it?

00:13:46.000 Yeah, very few.

00:13:47.000 Yeah, everything is taken out of context.

00:13:48.000 No one reads the full context.

00:13:50.000 Anything that is a small video clip, no one's going to see the full film.

00:13:54.000 And I think that's what Trump has mastered.

00:13:56.000 Yes.

00:13:56.000 He doesn't care if he gets taken apart the next day in the New Yorker.

00:13:59.000 He knows his base aren't reading the New Yorker.

00:14:01.000 They're not even aware of that article.

00:14:02.000 Well, it doesn't seem to be bothering him either.

00:14:05.000 He's one of the rare guys.

00:14:07.000 I've been paying attention to him a lot over the last few months.

00:14:11.000 He doesn't seem to be getting older like a lot of them do.

00:14:15.000 It's the concern that makes them old.

00:14:19.000 It's the stress of the job that makes them old.

00:14:21.000 He seems to be sleeping in late.

00:14:23.000 I go traveling and I come back and I read the headlines.

00:14:26.000 Trump's having a meltdown, screaming in the White House.

00:14:28.000 And I see him on TV. He looks as happy as a pig in shit. 1.00

00:14:31.000 I don't believe any of that shit they write. 1.00

00:14:33.000 I think they write things like that. 1.00

00:14:34.000 I think he yells at people, but I think he yelled at people when he was a real estate mogul. 0.99

00:14:38.000 I think he wants to get shit done. 0.99

00:14:40.000 He's a billionaire. 0.99

00:14:41.000 He likes progress.

00:14:43.000 He likes to make money.

00:14:44.000 He doesn't like incompetence.

00:14:45.000 He yells at people.

00:14:47.000 I don't know, man.

00:14:48.000 It's just...

00:14:50.000 I feel like we're at this cusp of something very strange happening.

00:14:54.000 Like, we're in the middle of it right now, but we're at the cusp of something very strange.

00:14:59.000 Where all it would take is one massive world event to completely remap how we view each other and how we view things.

00:15:08.000 It's very disconcerting to me.

00:15:11.000 It feels like without that one big world event, we're not that far away from that right now.

00:15:15.000 There are parallel universes right now that exist on things that you would have thought everyone can accept as a basic fact.

00:15:21.000 Like what?

00:15:22.000 I mean, Syria.

00:15:26.000 You know, the white helmets.

00:15:28.000 There are some fairly serious people saying the white helmets are, you know, some kind of media front for al-Qaeda or al-Nasra.

00:15:34.000 Would you explain the white helmets for people?

00:15:37.000 So when there's a bombing and a building collapses, they go in and drag people out and get their medical attention as quick as possible.

00:15:44.000 And people think that they're somehow or another involved in it?

00:15:48.000 They're a front?

00:15:49.000 Yeah, and the footage is faked in order to drum up sympathy for the rebel-held areas.

00:15:56.000 I mean, I've heard serious people say that.

00:15:59.000 Serious people? 0.99

00:16:00.000 Yeah, not loons on Facebook.

00:16:02.000 Like journalists?

00:16:03.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:04.000 I mean, Seymour Hersh, I think, has walked it back a little bit since, but he said that in the early days.

00:16:09.000 Why do you think he believed it?

00:16:11.000 I read a really interesting article about him just a few days ago.

00:16:14.000 Where was it?

00:16:15.000 I forget what...

00:16:16.000 It was, you know, the...

00:16:18.000 Not expose, but a really good look at him.

00:16:21.000 And I think he's just spent his career believing, rightly, that the government lies about all kinds of things.

00:16:27.000 And that's got him into a point where he thinks, well, they always lie, no matter what.

00:16:32.000 So...

00:16:32.000 And it's happened to a lot of journalists.

00:16:34.000 Robert Fiske...

00:16:36.000 Seymour Hersh, Martha Gellhorn, one of my favourite war correspondents of all time.

00:16:40.000 I re-read some of her stuff recently and the first batch of war reporting she did I think is the best war reporting I've ever read.

00:16:48.000 Spanish Civil War, Vietnam.

00:16:51.000 And then she spent 25 years writing novels and then later on wrote about, I believe it was the Yom Kippur War and was denying that massacres had happened and saying, you know, Arabs lie, they always lie, there was no massacre. 1.00

00:17:01.000 And we now know there was.

00:17:02.000 A massacre.

00:17:03.000 Or there were massacres in the aftermath of these wars.

00:17:08.000 So I don't know what happens.

00:17:09.000 I mean, maybe if you just do this for too long, you just become so cynical that you're open to these things.

00:17:15.000 But it's, yeah, I'm amazed that Seymour Hersh is open to that idea.

00:17:20.000 When the very people that are calling it, the very people that have boots on the ground and that are in these war zones and calling these things, when they become cynical and they become jaded, that's when it gets really, really sketchy.

00:17:33.000 And we rely so heavily on people like you.

00:17:39.000 I'm not going over there.

00:17:41.000 Jamie's not going over there.

00:17:42.000 Look at him.

00:17:44.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:17:45.000 And you wouldn't be able to really get... 0.99

00:17:48.000 I know people that have gone to Venezuela and they come back and they go, I don't know what the fuck is going on over there. 0.98

00:17:52.000 I don't know who to believe. 0.99

00:17:53.000 I don't understand it.

00:17:54.000 Venezuela is a very strange one.

00:17:56.000 And I get messages all the time.

00:17:58.000 I've had Abby Martin who goes over there and she has one take on it. 0.99

00:18:01.000 And I have other people that I talk to that have a different take on it.

00:18:04.000 And I do not know.

00:18:05.000 I don't know who to believe.

00:18:06.000 And I think you'd have to go over there and do...

00:18:09.000 You'd have to spend a lot of time to try to figure this out and it would have to be the entire focus of your life to really try to parse it out.

00:18:16.000 I think that's true of a lot of conflicts.

00:18:18.000 I mean, one of the drawbacks of doing what I do is I'm covering seven or eight things at once.

00:18:23.000 So I feel like I'm not expert enough in even Afghanistan where I've covered that more than any other.

00:18:28.000 But Venezuela is an interesting one because there's such a left-right divide on that.

00:18:32.000 And if you support the opposition, then you find yourself alongside John Bolton and Donald Trump, which means that a lot of people are going to automatically attack you.

00:18:40.000 Right.

00:18:41.000 Right.

00:18:41.000 Automatically.

00:18:42.000 Right.

00:18:42.000 Even if it's correct.

00:18:44.000 And I think it's, you know, we can say without a doubt that Maduro has destroyed the economy there.

00:18:49.000 Maduro has imprisoned, beaten, killed journalists.

00:18:52.000 There is a movement there that do want genuine elections.

00:18:56.000 But some people will say, well, just because George Bush in another area or John Bolton in this era support the opposition, therefore the opposition must be illegitimate and the information coming out must be false.

00:19:12.000 And I wish people did rely on people who actually went there, but it doesn't feel like that.

00:19:15.000 It feels like they rely on the guy behind the glass desk on the news with a loud opinion rather than the people who are actually there.

00:19:22.000 Well, we still have this idea in our head that the person who's reading the news is the authority, that Don Lemon has the inside scoop or whoever it is, you know?

00:19:32.000 And I think it used to be that those guys would spend 20 or 30 years traveling, and then they'd get the cushy job behind the glass desk in the studio.

00:19:39.000 Now it seems like you can go straight to the cushy job behind the glass desk.

00:19:43.000 Well, we just need someone who's relatable, who can read a teleprompter, who fits the profile that they're looking for, whether it's Fox News or CNN. And also, the information is there.

00:19:55.000 There are fantastic documentaries, articles being written about all of these conflicts.

00:19:59.000 People aren't reading them.

00:20:02.000 Well, with something like Venezuela, the real problem is you have two sides.

00:20:07.000 You have two different versions of what's happening.

00:20:10.000 And if you're not educated in that country and you don't understand their politics, it's very difficult to figure out who's telling the truth.

00:20:19.000 Yeah.

00:20:19.000 Same with Syria.

00:20:21.000 Yeah. 0.92

00:20:23.000 And, you know, I agree with you that I don't necessarily think we're getting stupider or dumber in this country or in the world in general because of the internet, but we're definitely getting weirder in our perceptions of actual world events.

00:20:40.000 And I think every time something... 0.96

00:20:43.000 Like mass shootings, for instance, like New Zealand.

00:20:45.000 Every time one of these horrific tragedies takes place, you see more and more division.

00:20:51.000 I watch people fight over it on Twitter.

00:20:53.000 People blaming left-wing people.

00:20:56.000 People blaming right-wing people.

00:20:58.000 People trying to find some reason.

00:21:01.000 And this one is particularly disturbing because it appears that...

00:21:08.000 At least one of the guys...

00:21:10.000 I don't know their names.

00:21:11.000 I don't know if they even released...

00:21:12.000 Have they withheld the names of these guys who have done this?

00:21:15.000 I haven't seen the names so far, I don't know.

00:21:17.000 One of them seems like he's trolling.

00:21:19.000 Like he thanked PewDiePie and said that Candace Owens was his biggest inspiration and he's doing that...

00:21:27.000 I guess we could agree some people are saying that that okay sign is a white power sign. 0.55

00:21:32.000 I know we had this dispute with Tim Pool where he was saying, I guess it is a game that some people do play.

00:21:37.000 What is it called the game?

00:21:39.000 The look?

00:21:40.000 I don't know if there's an official name of it. 1.00

00:21:41.000 There's some game where if you look under the table, you see someone doing that, they're allowed to punch you or something, something stupid like that. 0.97

00:21:46.000 I saw the Stephen Miller photo where he's doing up his blazer and supposedly doing the white power sign. 0.99

00:21:51.000 I thought, really?

00:21:52.000 Is that really evidence enough?

00:21:53.000 No.

00:21:54.000 There was a woman in court, too, that was doing that where she had her hand like this and people were saying that. 0.91

00:21:59.000 But that's what people are arguing about, rather than... 0.94

00:22:01.000 Right, which is ridiculous. 0.69

00:22:02.000 Like, ah, evidence! 0.88

00:22:03.000 Evidence!

00:22:04.000 But this guy, in custody, is clearly making that symbol.

00:22:09.000 Clearly.

00:22:10.000 So, like, what is he? 0.96

00:22:12.000 You know, he's like some troll murderer? 0.98

00:22:14.000 Some troll mass murderer? 0.99

00:22:16.000 I mean, he's both. 1.00

00:22:18.000 He's both fucking with everybody and a cold-blooded Ruthless killer of people that were praying. 0.99

00:22:23.000 Yeah, I mean, I think let's not lose sight of that. 0.99

00:22:25.000 You have to have some serious hatred to walk into a mosque and gun down 42 people and 7 people in the other way.

00:22:31.000 Yeah, it's horrific.

00:22:32.000 Across the board, top to bottom, it's horrific.

00:22:36.000 But it's also one of those things where we see so many of these now that we're starting to get numb. 0.96

00:22:42.000 Whether it's a Jewish synagogue, whether it's a Muslim temple, whether it's a gay club, whatever it is. 0.66

00:22:52.000 It's like you see so many of these mass murders now. 1.00

00:22:55.000 Whether it's a school or a movie theater, it's like, fuck, man. 0.99

00:23:00.000 It's just, it all, like you were talking about, When you're filming the news, you're there, you're watching the bullets fly by, you hear them fly by your head, and you are just watching it through the lens. 0.99

00:23:15.000 We're many, many, many, many levels removed from that.

00:23:19.000 And we're sitting here trying to figure out what to do.

00:23:22.000 And we're not there.

00:23:24.000 We're not where the bullets...

00:23:24.000 And the people that are there, where the bullets take place, they try to give you a description of it.

00:23:30.000 And even they barely can comprehend what happened.

00:23:34.000 But also, as you said...

00:23:35.000 Right.

00:23:38.000 Yes.

00:23:41.000 Yes.

00:23:56.000 Maybe it would be better if there was a website where we curated all of the bulletproof, that's a terrible way to describe it, but rock-solid investigative journalisms that are 100% ethical,

00:24:12.000 that you could completely rely on for an accurate assessment of what's happening.

00:24:16.000 Because it is difficult for people.

00:24:18.000 And when people...

00:24:20.000 They rely on biased websites, which many of them do, whether it's biased to the left or biased to the right.

00:24:26.000 Things get even more muddy, and there's so many of them.

00:24:28.000 It's so easy to reinforce your confirmation bias, whether it's left-wing or right-wing.

00:24:36.000 Just find that website.

00:24:38.000 Read the comments.

00:24:39.000 These are my people.

00:24:40.000 They think like me.

00:24:41.000 And especially now, it used to be if you were conservatively and you'd read the Wall Street Journal, if you were liberal leading New York Times, now, no matter how far off the scale you are, you can find a pretty professional looking website that will write a story backing up your prejudice.

00:24:54.000 And people aren't looking at a story thinking, okay, I want to find out what happened here.

00:24:58.000 They're thinking, I know what my gut feeling tells me.

00:25:00.000 I need to find, not even a story, a headline that justifies my gut feeling about this.

00:25:06.000 And that's as far as it seems to go.

00:25:07.000 Now, you as a journalist, as a person who risks their life to bring this information to people, how does this make you feel?

00:25:15.000 I mean, is this part of the reason why you needed to do that MDMA therapy?

00:25:19.000 Not just the fact that you were, you know, you really are without...

00:25:24.000 Better use of, without a better term, shell-shocked, right? 0.92

00:25:28.000 I mean, you're there.

00:25:30.000 You're there.

00:25:31.000 There's something that comes out of that that's got to be very, very difficult to recover from and overcome.

00:25:37.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:25:37.000 But there's also the fact that you're going over there and bringing this shit back and it doesn't seem to... 0.99

00:25:41.000 People don't seem to give a fuck. 0.99

00:25:42.000 And that used to be what kept you going, is you thought, like, some of my work is going to make some kind of difference. 0.98

00:25:48.000 And when that starts to fade and you start to think that's not going to happen, that's...

00:25:51.000 I'm sure your work makes a lot of difference to the people that pay attention to it. 0.99

00:25:56.000 I think we're overwhelmed by bullshit. 0.98

00:26:00.000 I think it's everywhere. 1.00

00:26:02.000 When I mean bullshit, I mean nonsense. 1.00

00:26:06.000 Kim Kardashian's psoriasis is in the front page of CNN or something like that. 0.99

00:26:10.000 It's not nonsense to her, but you know what I mean.

00:26:12.000 There's stuff that people are concentrating on.

00:26:15.000 It's like, Jesus Christ.

00:26:18.000 It's...

00:26:20.000 One of our docs on HBO, if it got 4 million views, I think that would be considered very good viewing figures.

00:26:27.000 4 million in a country of 360 million people.

00:26:31.000 Well, it's very difficult to get people to watch documentaries on real-world events.

00:26:36.000 You get them to watch documentaries on a sex cult from Oregon or something like that, like Wild Wild Country, that probably got 10 million.

00:26:43.000 It's just...

00:26:45.000 I don't know, man.

00:26:46.000 You know, this New Zealand thing really had me rattled.

00:26:51.000 And you know what is also strange?

00:26:53.000 People seem to demand a response.

00:26:56.000 They demand people in the public eye to talk about it and, you know, say thoughts and prayers or something like that. 0.99

00:27:03.000 But as soon as you say thoughts and prayers, they'll say, fuck your thoughts and prayers here. 0.99

00:27:07.000 We've had that for years and nothing's actually happened. 0.99

00:27:09.000 Yeah, it's very strange.

00:27:12.000 But like, I don't know if they're concerned that you're not horrified.

00:27:19.000 They want to make sure you are. 0.99

00:27:20.000 Who the fuck isn't? 1.00

00:27:22.000 How could you not be? 1.00

00:27:23.000 I don't understand this.

00:27:25.000 Or is it just they're frustrated and confused themselves or just lashing out at any target they can find or anyone they can find?

00:27:33.000 And also, you know, I mean, I know the footage is available of, you know, this guy's head cam as he shot everybody, but footage like that has been widely available for a long time now.

00:27:43.000 And I think that's had a massive numbing effect.

00:27:46.000 I mean, you know, the picture of the Syrian refugee washing up on the beach.

00:27:50.000 You know, it felt like that was going to have an effect.

00:27:52.000 It felt like that was the picture that was really going to change things.

00:27:56.000 No.

00:27:56.000 I'm not sure it did.

00:27:57.000 It might have for a couple days.

00:27:59.000 Yeah.

00:27:59.000 And then more news.

00:28:01.000 Yeah.

00:28:02.000 I mean, just to be not completely pessimistic, when you're doing stuff for Vice and HBO, you do get young people reaching out to you and saying, I had no idea.

00:28:12.000 I want to be a photographer or a doctor or...

00:28:15.000 Maybe that's an effect that's going to be felt down the road.

00:28:17.000 I don't know.

00:28:18.000 It feels like there is a generation of people growing up thinking, I'm not going to play by the normal set of rules.

00:28:24.000 I am going to actually try and do something about this.

00:28:26.000 I really do believe you do have an effect.

00:28:28.000 I think Vice certainly has an effect.

00:28:30.000 I think a lot of this has an effect.

00:28:31.000 I think it's very difficult to feel that effect if you're not experiencing it personally.

00:28:36.000 I mean, to just look out onto the landscape and say, how much of an effect is this having on people?

00:28:41.000 It's hard.

00:28:42.000 Like, where are you getting the feedback from?

00:28:44.000 How are you gauging whether or not this is changing people's perceptions?

00:28:49.000 Well, sometimes the feedback you do get is on Twitter, where you'll get a few lunatics will say, oh, you faked this footage.

00:28:56.000 So then you think, wow, we're really having no impact.

00:28:58.000 But I think that's an argument for just not reading the comments.

00:29:01.000 Well, there's a little bit of that.

00:29:02.000 And then, you know, I had Renee DiResta on recently, and she's done a lot of work covering all these various Russian troll farms and how they essentially organize conflict online.

00:29:19.000 And, you know, they set up these things where you have like a pro-Texas movement, and they set them up across the street from a pro-Muslim movement, and they do it on purpose. 0.88

00:29:29.000 And then they have these pro-LGBT movement things online that they organize to attack certain people in certain groups, diminish certain aspects, and defy parts of the Democratic Party.

00:29:42.000 It's crazy.

00:29:43.000 Yeah.

00:29:59.000 You know, there's a piece came out in The New Yorker.

00:30:01.000 I don't mean to keep on going on about The New Yorker, but a piece came out about The New Yorker today by Ed Caesar, a friend of mine, about Brexit and about Aaron Banks.

00:30:09.000 And I haven't read the piece yet, but I know what he's been working on.

00:30:12.000 And, you know, there may be evidence that the Russians directly influenced the Brexit vote.

00:30:17.000 Are the Brexit voters really going to look at that article and think, oh, maybe I was misled.

00:30:22.000 Maybe I read 10 articles on Facebook that made me vote wrongly.

00:30:28.000 How many people actually have their minds open enough to consider that?

00:30:32.000 I mean, especially with American politics, it feels like football.

00:30:36.000 If your player fouls someone, of course it's not a foul.

00:30:39.000 If your player gets fouled, it's a blatant foul.

00:30:41.000 He should get sent off.

00:30:43.000 100%.

00:30:44.000 Blatant tribalism.

00:30:46.000 Very few objective people.

00:30:48.000 Very few legitimate centrists.

00:30:50.000 Everyone seems to be digging their heels in on one side or the other.

00:30:53.000 And it seems that a lot of them have just picked a team.

00:30:58.000 I don't necessarily think they've curated these opinions and cultivated these ideas over many years of soul searching and reading and trying to understand who they are and how they interface with the world.

00:31:12.000 I don't think that's happening.

00:31:13.000 Or your family.

00:31:14.000 Yes.

00:31:15.000 So if your family has always been Republican, then suddenly saying, maybe I'm going to vote for Hillary instead of Trump feels like coming out or something.

00:31:21.000 It's that big a deal.

00:31:23.000 Or your occupation, depending upon your occupation.

00:31:25.000 I mean, good luck finding a job in tech if you're right-wing.

00:31:29.000 Good luck working in the arms industry if you're left-wing.

00:31:32.000 It's like, there's...

00:31:35.000 It's a weird, weird time, Ben.

00:31:37.000 Yeah.

00:31:38.000 I always used to read about the Nixon era, thinking that must have been a fascinating time to be alive.

00:31:44.000 Yeah.

00:31:44.000 But then to actually live through a similar period, now you're thinking it's not fascinating.

00:31:48.000 It's just depressing every single day.

00:31:50.000 Well, the Nixon thing, it must have been insanely difficult to get information, right?

00:31:56.000 You relied on Rolling Stone, New York Times, whatever, Washington Post, whatever newspaper was covering, whatever story.

00:32:03.000 You relied on all those.

00:32:06.000 But you couldn't get it any other way.

00:32:09.000 Now you can get it from everything, right?

00:32:11.000 I mean, there's people on the ground that are tweeting about things, and then they become local celebrities, or they become sort of like temporary internet journalists slash celebrities. 0.99

00:32:23.000 Fucking weird, man. 0.86

00:32:25.000 Your perspective and your life experience is so much richer and deeper in this than anybody else's. 0.99

00:32:34.000 Do you think there's a way to turn this around?

00:32:37.000 Is this going to eventually even out?

00:32:43.000 I hope so.

00:32:44.000 Right now, I don't see what that looks like.

00:32:47.000 What that looks like is the best way to describe it.

00:32:50.000 What does that look like?

00:32:51.000 I mean, my attention span, I think, has been shortened.

00:32:54.000 I'll sit down to watch a movie at home, and within 10 minutes, I'm reaching for my phone.

00:32:59.000 I'm not a heart surgeon.

00:33:00.000 There's no emergency.

00:33:01.000 I might just be checking Twitter again.

00:33:06.000 It's a perfect storm of distractions.

00:33:09.000 And we now know it is addictive, so how you turn that around, I mean, it feels like there's a little bit of a movement of people to switch that stuff off and just read a book or go for a walk.

00:33:20.000 Yeah.

00:33:21.000 You've got to have real discipline, though. 1.00

00:33:24.000 I mean, you're fighting against a fucking heroin addiction, man. 1.00

00:33:27.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:33:27.000 It's crazy. 1.00

00:33:28.000 And everyone else is addicted too.

00:33:29.000 Oh, yeah.

00:33:30.000 So you're not part of the conversation if you're not...

00:33:32.000 Man, I walked into a restaurant the other night and everyone was looking at their phone.

00:33:36.000 No one was looking at each other.

00:33:37.000 I'm like, I'm in a movie.

00:33:39.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:33:39.000 Like, this is a movie.

00:33:40.000 Some post apocalypse.

00:33:41.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:42.000 I mean, if instead of looking at their phones, if everyone was just looking at the sky, you'd be like, oh my God, there's a real problem. 0.96

00:33:48.000 These people are sick. 0.63

00:33:49.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:33:50.000 There's something wrong, you know?

00:33:51.000 If everyone is just sitting there with their hands open, like, staring up at the sky...

00:33:56.000 And sitting next to each other, you'd be like, these people are sick.

00:33:58.000 There's something wrong.

00:33:59.000 They need help.

00:34:00.000 Instead, they're looking at nothing.

00:34:02.000 Yeah.

00:34:02.000 They're checking their feed over and over again.

00:34:04.000 Someone's complaining about Captain Marvel being a woman. 0.74

00:34:07.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:08.000 And are the experts, are they the ones getting followed on there?

00:34:13.000 They're not...

00:34:13.000 Who are the experts?

00:34:14.000 I mean, the experts in whatever.

00:34:16.000 Are we looking at them?

00:34:18.000 It should be this free flow of information where you can find out anything in your hand.

00:34:23.000 What an incredible thing to have.

00:34:25.000 But it's not that.

00:34:26.000 It's definitely not that.

00:34:27.000 Well, I think there's two things.

00:34:29.000 I think one...

00:34:30.000 We didn't earn it, it's just given to us, right?

00:34:33.000 It's not like we did all the work to curate all this technology and put it together and figure out how to implement it in our daily... 0.97

00:34:40.000 No, we just went to the fucking Verizon store and picked up a new phone. 0.96

00:34:44.000 I mean, that's what most people are doing. 0.99

00:34:47.000 And because of that, it's almost like being a trust fund kit or something like that.

00:34:53.000 It's just all given to you.

00:34:54.000 It's all handed to you.

00:34:57.000 I feel the same way sometimes about weapons. 0.99

00:35:01.000 I feel like the discipline required to learn how to use one and create it and build it and then understand the responsibility of actually using it on a human being, all that shit's out the window. 0.94

00:35:14.000 You just go to the store and buy it. 0.87

00:35:16.000 You know, there's no requirements of you other than you never killed anybody yet.

00:35:20.000 Have you driven over anybody in your car?

00:35:23.000 No.

00:35:23.000 Have you robbed a bank?

00:35:24.000 No.

00:35:24.000 Okay, here you go.

00:35:25.000 You've beaten your wife?

00:35:26.000 No? 0.98

00:35:26.000 Okay, here's a gun. 0.98

00:35:28.000 It's fucking strange. 0.98

00:35:31.000 And this, as a human being, the lack of discipline and accountability that we have in this ultimate access to all these things constantly, and many of them become just massive distractions. 0.98

00:35:47.000 And, you know, this in some ways is the utopia that people have dreamed of for generations.

00:35:52.000 We're free of war.

00:35:53.000 You're not going to get attacked in your house tonight.

00:35:55.000 You're not going to starve.

00:35:57.000 You have everything you could possibly need.

00:35:58.000 So you'd think we would become the perfect human beings in the absence of all those things that would have killed us in the past or would have made life hard in the past.

00:36:06.000 And again, that's not what we're doing.

00:36:08.000 Well, I don't think we operate very well without legitimate conflict.

00:36:13.000 Without legitimate conflict in terms of actual things you need to worry about.

00:36:18.000 When I used to live in the East Coast, one of the things that was really noticeable was that when it snowed out, people were nicer.

00:36:25.000 They helped people when they were broken down the side of the road.

00:36:27.000 They were nicer to each other.

00:36:29.000 There was a sense of vulnerability that we were all deeply entrenched in this winter nature thing, and we've got to work together, otherwise we can't survive.

00:36:36.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:37.000 You know, and I think that applies to all aspects of life.

00:36:42.000 That when there's no real danger, people become extremely frivolous.

00:36:47.000 Yeah, it's amazing how quickly we become lazy and complacent.

00:36:50.000 Yeah.

00:36:51.000 And actually, the flip side of the negative stuff I was saying earlier, on good days, I'll come back from Yemen, Syria, wherever.

00:36:58.000 I'll go out and I'll get a cup of coffee and I'll read the newspaper and I'll get a donut and I'll think, man, I'm the luckiest man alive.

00:37:05.000 Yeah.

00:37:05.000 Just the fact that I can do this.

00:37:07.000 Because you do experience these horrific environments so you can appreciate it.

00:37:11.000 Yeah.

00:37:11.000 And the fact that we can, you know, I mean, within a few hours here we can have one of the best meals possible in the world.

00:37:17.000 You know, it's, you know, That's fairly incredible.

00:37:20.000 So on good days, you can appreciate that.

00:37:23.000 But again, this is you coming from these bad things, so it puts it in perspective.

00:37:27.000 Sorry, I was trying to back you up.

00:37:29.000 If you're not protected from all that stuff, then you can get to appreciate the basics again.

00:37:34.000 I was on this trip in Prince of Wales.

00:37:36.000 We camped out on this island.

00:37:38.000 It rained every day for six days, seven days.

00:37:41.000 I mean, we were soaked.

00:37:43.000 You're soaked.

00:37:44.000 Everything's soaked.

00:37:44.000 Your sleeping bag's soaked.

00:37:45.000 Your tent's soaked.

00:37:46.000 Everything.

00:37:47.000 Came back home and...

00:37:49.000 It felt so good.

00:37:52.000 Like, I'd never felt the sun like that before.

00:37:54.000 Like, the sun was just this magic love glow that the sky was pouring down on the city.

00:38:01.000 Everything felt so happy.

00:38:02.000 And I realized, like, you can't really appreciate this until it's taken away from you.

00:38:07.000 When it's taken away from you, then you understand what it is.

00:38:10.000 So then you wonder, when the kids of today grow up, what are they going to be like when everything has just been at their fingertips from day one forever?

00:38:18.000 No mystery. 0.95

00:38:19.000 They don't understand bullshitters either. 0.99

00:38:22.000 Because when I was a kid, people used to lie about shit, and you really didn't know. 0.99

00:38:28.000 You're like, man, I don't know. 1.00

00:38:28.000 He seems like he's full of shit. 1.00

00:38:30.000 You'd have to go to an encyclopedia and actually read the information. 1.00

00:38:35.000 Now you can go, okay, what year did this happen? 0.99

00:38:38.000 And you pull up your phone, get the fuck out of here, man. 0.99

00:38:40.000 You know? 1.00

00:38:41.000 People lie about being in the Olympics.

00:38:43.000 They lied about this.

00:38:44.000 They lied about that.

00:38:47.000 Yeah.

00:38:48.000 It's good in that we have ultimate access to information for people that use it and understand what it is and appreciate it.

00:38:54.000 It is good. 0.98

00:38:55.000 But to your point, if there was a way to actually filter and say, this is verifiable, this contains seven things which are absolutely bullshit. 0.97

00:39:04.000 We have no doubt about that whatsoever. 0.93

00:39:05.000 If that could exist, wonderful.

00:39:07.000 But, I mean, Vox have tried it.

00:39:09.000 A few people have tried it.

00:39:11.000 It still feels like you end up being described as being on one side of the fight.

00:39:15.000 Yeah, I almost feel like we need some sort of organized discipline.

00:39:18.000 Like maybe mandatory volunteer work cleaning up impoverished communities or mandatory volunteer work doing things.

00:39:27.000 But I don't want people to have to do things.

00:39:30.000 I'm conflicted on that too.

00:39:32.000 I don't want people to have to do that.

00:39:35.000 There's countries that have mandatory military service.

00:39:37.000 They seem to have an amazing feeling of...

00:39:40.000 of patriotism in those countries and appreciation in those countries because they actually do have to join the military for two years or whatever it is.

00:39:47.000 We don't have that over here.

00:39:49.000 It's weird.

00:39:50.000 And to your point about going up and cleaning up an impoverished area, at least then you'd get to meet other people.

00:39:56.000 Yes.

00:39:57.000 People outside of your circle and your bubble.

00:39:59.000 I mean, the amount of times here when you talk to people about Muslims, LGBT, whatever it is, and you think, oh, it's because you've never met anyone.

00:40:06.000 Right.

00:40:06.000 You've actually never met anyone that is X, Y, or Z, which is...

00:40:11.000 I moved to Brooklyn five years, six years ago, and I moved to Clinton Hill, Fort Greene.

00:40:15.000 And I got a few friends that have been there forever, and I said, look, this probably sounds like a really stupid thing to say, but it feels kind of segregated here.

00:40:22.000 And they were like, duh, of course it does. 0.88

00:40:24.000 And I couldn't believe it.

00:40:26.000 You know, I'd grown up on the Spike Lee movies.

00:40:28.000 I mean, I guess they do show a kind of segregation.

00:40:31.000 But I thought, you know, this was the place where everyone lived together on the same block and went to each other's bodegas and restaurants.

00:40:37.000 I lived on the dividing line between the bit that was getting gentrified and the projects. 0.68

00:40:42.000 You go two blocks that way, pretty much all black. 0.99

00:40:44.000 You go three blocks that way, pretty much all white, with yoga studios and bougie coffee shops and pet spas.

00:40:50.000 And the two communities just did not mix.

00:40:53.000 It wasn't necessarily that they hated each other, or they just did not mix.

00:40:57.000 Different language, different everything.

00:40:59.000 Right, there's this utopian perception that there is a place where everybody's cool.

00:41:03.000 Yeah.

00:41:04.000 And I thought it might be New York, it might be Brooklyn.

00:41:06.000 Yeah, it's probably the only place that's close.

00:41:10.000 Right?

00:41:11.000 At least it has a reputation for it.

00:41:13.000 Yeah.

00:41:13.000 Because at least in Brooklyn, people walk around.

00:41:15.000 I mean, yeah.

00:41:16.000 But talking about amazing pieces of journalism over the last few years, there's Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote a piece about New York school system, public school system, the most segregated school system in America.

00:41:27.000 Really?

00:41:27.000 In New York.

00:41:28.000 Really?

00:41:29.000 And she had to get her daughter into a public school. 0.89

00:41:31.000 And the choice was the very good, well-supported school in the gentrifying, mostly white area, Or the bad, failing public school in the non-gentrified, mostly black area, where her kid's education might suffer. 0.95

00:41:44.000 And I think I'm remembering it correctly, but her and her husband had a real fight about it because she said, no, we've got to put our kid in the bad, failing school and help it get better.

00:41:52.000 And it's going to take years, and our daughter may suffer in the short term, but that's what we have to do if we're living in this neighbourhood.

00:41:59.000 It's an incredible piece.

00:42:00.000 Wow.

00:42:02.000 Yeah, that's the real conflict as a parent.

00:42:04.000 Do you have children?

00:42:05.000 No.

00:42:05.000 It's impossible.

00:42:07.000 Yeah, I'm sure, right?

00:42:09.000 When you're thinking of your children, you're always thinking of their safety.

00:42:13.000 You're always worried about them and you want to protect them.

00:42:15.000 So putting them in a situation where they wouldn't be as protected is never your first instinct.

00:42:19.000 Oh, she was in town hall meetings where, you know, progressive white liberal parents, who would be very left-wing on every other issue, were really fighting to make sure their kid went to the good majority white school.

00:42:31.000 And, you know, they want a bit of diversity, but not too much diversity.

00:42:35.000 Right.

00:42:36.000 They want a black friend. 0.61

00:42:38.000 Yeah.

00:42:39.000 Yeah, that's when people think of Brooklyn, they do think of it as being like the most diverse place.

00:42:45.000 Yeah, and it's, yeah, I mean, street by street, segregated.

00:42:48.000 Atlanta's pretty diverse.

00:42:51.000 Atlanta's interesting, you know, because Atlanta has a lot of, there's a lot of...

00:42:59.000 Well, there's a lot of everything in Atlanta, but it's a very black city in a lot of ways, but it's also a very white city.

00:43:05.000 You see a lot of black and white people hanging out together in clubs and bars and restaurants and stuff, and it's really much closer to a 50-50 split than a lot of places, at least in some of the neighborhoods that I've been to.

00:43:18.000 When I go back to London, that's one of the few things I'm proud of about London versus certainly New York.

00:43:23.000 It's not a big deal for a group of friends, a family, a couple to be genuinely mixed.

00:43:31.000 You would know, I'd ask you, is that because London didn't experience slavery the way the United States did?

00:43:40.000 Yeah, I mean, obviously we have a, you know, colonial history.

00:43:44.000 Right, of course.

00:43:45.000 But that wasn't in the country itself.

00:43:46.000 Right.

00:43:46.000 And for a very long time, we've had a huge Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Jamaican community.

00:43:51.000 And it's, you know, I mean, here, if you have black friends or you date a black girl, you know, people think you're trying to prove you're woke.

00:44:00.000 Right.

00:44:01.000 There it was just normal.

00:44:02.000 Normal, yeah.

00:44:03.000 And I'm saying London.

00:44:03.000 I'm not saying England's perfect London.

00:44:05.000 Right.

00:44:05.000 I experienced that when I was in London as well.

00:44:07.000 It seemed like way more integrated.

00:44:10.000 Yeah.

00:44:11.000 And that's, I mean, still, five, six years after I moved to New York, there's still a surprise every day to reinforce.

00:44:17.000 Well, New York is a different animal now. 0.99

00:44:19.000 New York is so fucking expensive. 0.99

00:44:21.000 It's so strange. 0.98

00:44:22.000 And my friend Judah, Judah Freelander, who lives there, he's lived there for a long time.

00:44:28.000 He's like, it's so changed.

00:44:30.000 It used to be like a lot of artists and a lot of creative people.

00:44:34.000 And he goes, now it's all finance people.

00:44:35.000 Everywhere you go, it's finance.

00:44:37.000 Everybody just wants the most expensive suit and the most expensive watch and they live in this ridiculously expensive apartment.

00:44:44.000 And I thought that went out in the 80s.

00:44:46.000 I thought that was like Wall Street, American Psycho.

00:44:48.000 Cocaine, greed.

00:44:48.000 Yeah, but that still very much exists.

00:44:50.000 That's still prevalent.

00:44:51.000 Well, I was talking to this guy yesterday who is a 26-year-old who's graduating with a degree in finance and trying to figure out what he wants to do.

00:45:01.000 And he's thinking about moving to New York and getting a job in Wall Street.

00:45:04.000 But he's hesitant because he's a nice guy.

00:45:06.000 He doesn't want to go dark.

00:45:07.000 And I'm like, you could go to the dark side.

00:45:12.000 These people are, look, not all of them, but a lot of them are just straight up materialists.

00:45:18.000 They're just chasing money.

00:45:19.000 When you're in the money business and you're just chasing money, your reward is things.

00:45:27.000 Your reward is things. 0.99

00:45:29.000 Objects and status and clothes and houses and shit. 0.99

00:45:34.000 Yeah. 0.96

00:45:35.000 And sometimes you talk to those guys and you say, so what do you do?

00:45:37.000 I work in finance.

00:45:38.000 Yeah, yeah, but what do you actually do?

00:45:40.000 I work in finance.

00:45:41.000 I'm very well rewarded, as you can see.

00:45:44.000 Yeah, but what do you actually do?

00:45:45.000 Oh, I look for fluctuations in international grain markets.

00:45:49.000 Congratulations.

00:45:50.000 What an amazing thing to dedicate your life to. 0.94

00:45:52.000 And if you just said what they do rather than what the reward was, you think, this is ridiculous. 0.97

00:45:57.000 What a waste of your time.

00:45:59.000 It is, but the status of being super wealthy for a lot of them is worth it.

00:46:05.000 Because they don't have a passion, right?

00:46:08.000 They don't have a thing.

00:46:09.000 They're not trying to write a book. 0.99

00:46:10.000 They're not trying to make a painting or whatever the fuck it is. 0.90

00:46:14.000 You know, they're just trying to make the money. 0.97

00:46:16.000 And they're making the money, so everything is great.

00:46:19.000 They're doing coke and shots.

00:46:20.000 I mean, if I pulled up here in a, you know, a purple Lamborghini with a diamond studded watch. 1.00

00:46:25.000 I'd be like, look at this motherfucker. 1.00

00:46:27.000 He must be robbing people. 1.00

00:46:28.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:29.000 But not that many people would be that impressed. 0.82

00:46:31.000 I think most people would think, what a douche.

00:46:34.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:35.000 Yeah, it's certain circles, right?

00:46:37.000 It's whatever circle that you're in.

00:46:39.000 Certain circles, like in finance circles, it is about those things more than it's not, because those things represent success in your industry.

00:46:48.000 Your friend should read a piece.

00:46:49.000 It may have even been a book by Michael Lewis.

00:46:52.000 And he talks to a bunch of graduates who, you know, are about to get approached by the big banks and financial institutions.

00:46:58.000 And he says, listen, you think you're going to do this for two or three years and a few million dollars and then do something worthwhile with your life. 0.94

00:47:04.000 But what's going to happen is you're going to get seduced, and you're going to get the mortgage, and suddenly 20 years of your life will have gone by, and you'll think, what the fuck have I just done with life? 0.81

00:47:12.000 This is the exact advice I gave him yesterday. 0.75

00:47:15.000 The exact advice.

00:47:17.000 I was like, man, you've got to do something that actually makes you happy.

00:47:20.000 Don't get sucked into that.

00:47:21.000 And he was saying, I was thinking of trying it for a few years.

00:47:26.000 That's what they say.

00:47:28.000 Yeah, man.

00:47:28.000 Once you get a mortgage, once you get a car, Ooh, nice BMW. How much does it run you a month?

00:47:36.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:47:37.000 Fuck, man. 1.00

00:47:39.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:47:40.000 It's a strange thing, too, the stock market, the moving around of numbers and looking for fluctuations in the market.

00:47:49.000 And the fact that what drives me crazy is when you hear that people have gotten servers that are That's another Michael Lewis book,

00:48:12.000 yeah.

00:48:13.000 Oh, is it?

00:48:13.000 Flash Boys, yeah.

00:48:14.000 Oh, okay.

00:48:14.000 Yeah, these guys figured out what was going on, and then they started a trading floor where there was so much cable that no one could benefit from those, you know, those nanoseconds of advantage.

00:48:23.000 And, of course, the other banks tried to close it down, and it wasn't that popular.

00:48:27.000 Jamie was telling me that there's a game called Fortnite that all the kids play, and they're moving to Columbus, Ohio, so they could be closer to the server.

00:48:34.000 Not just there, but that's one of the places.

00:48:36.000 Right.

00:48:36.000 Texas also.

00:48:37.000 Right.

00:48:37.000 So another place where they moved to?

00:48:39.000 Same deal?

00:48:39.000 Yeah, to be closer to the server so that they could ping lower.

00:48:43.000 Because it's like a real business.

00:48:45.000 But at least these guys are playing a game.

00:48:47.000 It's a skill.

00:48:48.000 I mean, they're...

00:48:49.000 I guess it's a skill.

00:48:53.000 Someone made $100,000 yesterday playing.

00:48:55.000 So I turned on ESPN last night trying to watch the boxing.

00:48:59.000 There was boxing at Madison Square Garden last night.

00:49:01.000 And ESPN, the main channel, had gamers.

00:49:04.000 In a stadium, playing football, but on a computer.

00:49:08.000 They have an esports arena in Vegas, right?

00:49:10.000 At the Luxor?

00:49:11.000 It's like an esports arena.

00:49:13.000 I think the franchise fees for the next season of Call of Duty are $25 million of a team, which is like four guys on a team playing the game, and someone's got to pay for that.

00:49:23.000 Jesus Christ.

00:49:24.000 You were in Dallas for the Earl Spence-Mikey Garcia fight?

00:49:28.000 Yeah.

00:49:29.000 Earl Spence is the real deal.

00:49:31.000 I mean, I thought Mikey Garcia would outbox him for a few rounds at least, early on, and then maybe, you know, Spence's size and power would make a difference, but he outboxed him from...

00:49:38.000 When I looked at them in the weigh-ins, I was like, yikes.

00:49:41.000 Yeah.

00:49:41.000 He's a lot bigger.

00:49:42.000 Yeah.

00:49:42.000 Two weight divisions.

00:49:43.000 Yeah.

00:49:44.000 Yeah.

00:49:44.000 Well, Mikey started his career at one...

00:49:47.000 What was it?

00:49:47.000 135?

00:49:48.000 He was featherweight champ.

00:49:50.000 I think it was his first belt.

00:49:50.000 Oh, so it was lighter than that.

00:49:52.000 Yeah.

00:49:52.000 So it was at 126?

00:49:53.000 See, pull that up, Mikey Garcia.

00:49:55.000 See, they fought at 47. Yeah.

00:49:58.000 And Earl Spence looks every bit of 147. I mean, he's a big fella.

00:50:03.000 He looks like he could fight 154 easy.

00:50:06.000 You know, Mike Garcia just looks so much smaller than him at the win.

00:50:09.000 But it wasn't just the size.

00:50:10.000 It's like...

00:50:11.000 Yeah.

00:50:11.000 Earl Spence Jr. is just the real deal.

00:50:13.000 That was the surprise for me.

00:50:14.000 Yeah, he was incredible. 0.99

00:50:15.000 He's fucking good. 0.97

00:50:16.000 He's so smart, too. 0.99

00:50:17.000 Like, when you hear him talk, he's so smooth and...

00:50:19.000 Do you remember the...

00:50:20.000 Smiley?

00:50:21.000 Winky Wright, Felix Trinidad fight?

00:50:23.000 Yes, I do.

00:50:23.000 It reminded me of that.

00:50:24.000 Yeah, look at the size difference.

00:50:26.000 And he would have put on a load of weight in the next 36 hours as well.

00:50:30.000 Yeah.

00:50:31.000 I mean, he's taller, he's wider, he's more muscular, and he's probably pretty dehydrated making that weight.

00:50:37.000 Look at Roberto Duran having the time of his life.

00:50:39.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:42.000 I love Roberto Duran. 0.99

00:50:43.000 Yeah, he was dancing at the weigh-ins and shit. 0.99

00:50:45.000 Certain fighters were dancing and he was dancing too. 0.98

00:50:47.000 It's pretty funny.

00:50:49.000 What is he doing now?

00:50:50.000 Is he helping them promote these things?

00:50:53.000 Is that what's going on?

00:50:54.000 He was on this one.

00:50:55.000 Yeah, he was there.

00:50:55.000 We saw him ringside.

00:50:56.000 He's so beloved.

00:50:58.000 What a crazy story that guy had, right?

00:51:00.000 Like, to go for that No Mas fight, he was shunned.

00:51:05.000 I mean, hated.

00:51:07.000 Mass shame across the whole world for years, until he beat Davey Moore.

00:51:11.000 That's one of my favorite fights of all time.

00:51:13.000 I mean, it's brutal, but just to see that tenacity just slowly coming.

00:51:18.000 And I read a story that Tyson was at that fight.

00:51:20.000 With all of his friends from Brooklyn.

00:51:22.000 And they couldn't afford tickets, so they just rushed the security gate, knowing that three or four of them would get caught.

00:51:26.000 Really?

00:51:27.000 And the others would get in, and that's how he got in, yeah.

00:51:29.000 Wow.

00:51:30.000 Wow.

00:51:30.000 Yeah, I remember watching that fight thinking that he was going to lose.

00:51:33.000 And I was a big Roberto Duran fan.

00:51:35.000 And I was thinking, God, man, he's probably going to lose.

00:51:37.000 He was supposed to lose, right?

00:51:38.000 Yeah.

00:51:39.000 He was a massive underdog.

00:51:39.000 Sure.

00:51:40.000 And he fucked Davey Moore up. 0.99

00:51:41.000 Davey Moore wound up dying in a crazy accident where he was working on his car in his driveway and it fell on him. 0.99

00:51:48.000 Yeah.

00:51:49.000 He either fell on him or ran him over.

00:51:51.000 Like one of those things.

00:51:52.000 Like he was trying to fix his car. 0.98

00:51:54.000 Something fucked up like that. 0.95

00:51:56.000 And Duran laced him at one point when you still had the leather laces on the class. 0.99

00:52:00.000 Yep.

00:52:00.000 He thumbed him too, they think.

00:52:02.000 That's what, you remember his eyes swole up pretty bad.

00:52:05.000 That's one of the fights that makes me feel a bit guilty about loving boxing.

00:52:08.000 When you see that, because it's brutal. 0.99

00:52:09.000 It's a brutal fucking business, man. 1.00

00:52:11.000 It's a brutal business. 1.00

00:52:12.000 You know, I mean, I don't know if MMA is more brutal.

00:52:16.000 I think it probably is.

00:52:19.000 There's a lot of pokes to the eye in MMA, a lot.

00:52:23.000 And most of them, they're unintentional.

00:52:26.000 Most of them.

00:52:28.000 But a bunch have to be intentional.

00:52:29.000 The thing that gets me with MMA is, because I come from, you know, boxing is my sport, when you see a guy go down, and he's clearly out, and the guy jumps on him and pounds him.

00:52:37.000 I know sometimes the ref tries to get there.

00:52:38.000 That's just a bit too much for me.

00:52:40.000 This weekend...

00:52:41.000 Jorge Masvidal, he knocked out Darren Till, and he KO'd him.

00:52:45.000 He clipped him with the left hand on the way down, he hit him with another left hand, and then Darren Till is flat-lined, completely out, and Masvidal uncorks a bomb right on his face while he's out cold.

00:52:55.000 It was rough.

00:52:56.000 I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like a boxing crowd appreciates a good, skillful, technical match.

00:53:01.000 I feel like sometimes a UFC crowd will be cheering at that moment you just described.

00:53:06.000 I think humans like brawls.

00:53:08.000 I mean, there's a reason why Arturo Gotti and Mickey Ward was such a successful trilogy. 0.94

00:53:14.000 It's because those guys would just beat the fuck out of each other.

00:53:18.000 They were so closely matched, and they were both these blood-and-guts warriors, and they just stood in front of each other. 0.66

00:53:23.000 And we knew at the time that these guys are not going to beat Floyd Mayweather.

00:53:27.000 They're not going to beat the best guys.

00:53:30.000 They're good fighters.

00:53:32.000 They're world-class fighters, but they're not world champions.

00:53:35.000 And there's a thing that we look at when we watch fighters.

00:53:39.000 A fighter could be good, but there's fighters that we appreciate, but they'll never fight for the world title.

00:53:45.000 If they do, they have no chance.

00:53:46.000 And then there's fighters like, this guy might be the best in the world.

00:53:49.000 There's a difference.

00:53:51.000 And you can admire Floyd for his defensive skills, but he's never going to have that war with Mickey Ward or Arturo Gatti like that.

00:53:57.000 Never.

00:53:57.000 But he's also going to be fine when he's 55. He'll be able to talk and walk and, you know, nothing happens to him.

00:54:06.000 He didn't endure the punishment and the beatings that those guys had.

00:54:11.000 That's the saddest of all, is when you see these guys, you see them on television, you see the war, but you don't see the aftermath.

00:54:20.000 You don't see the struggles that they have with their memory.

00:54:23.000 You don't see the confusion, the anger out of nowhere, the emotional outbursts where they don't know why they're doing what they're doing.

00:54:30.000 They don't know why they're saying what they're saying.

00:54:31.000 Most of them are broke before they even retire.

00:54:33.000 Did you see the film about Michael Bent?

00:54:36.000 It just came out on Netflix as part of that Losers series.

00:54:38.000 No, I did not.

00:54:39.000 That's worth watching.

00:54:40.000 He never really liked boxing, never really wanted to box, but has got a really successful career in Hollywood producing plays and movies.

00:54:47.000 Really?

00:54:48.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:54:48.000 It's a great...

00:54:49.000 Michael Bent produces plays and movies.

00:54:51.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:54:51.000 He wrote a play, I think, and he teaches actors how to box as well when they're doing movies.

00:54:57.000 It's a great little talk.

00:54:58.000 Good for him.

00:54:58.000 Well, I'm always very happy when someone finds a path.

00:55:02.000 You just get the sense that boxing was never him, and he found a way at the end to be him and do something he loved, and he's thriving at it, which is a rare thing for Xboxes.

00:55:11.000 It's crazy when people are just good at things.

00:55:13.000 There's a guy in MMA like that, Anthony Rumble Johnson, who's one of the most terrifying fighters in the history of the sport.

00:55:19.000 Just a ruthless knockout artist.

00:55:22.000 And his last loss, I was talking to him in the Octagon.

00:55:26.000 I was interviewing him and he said, I don't like fighting.

00:55:28.000 I'm not a fighter.

00:55:29.000 He goes, I'm an athlete.

00:55:30.000 I'm just good at it.

00:55:32.000 And I was like, wow, that is a crazy, honest, like, in such an introspective way.

00:55:39.000 Like, he's, like, looking at himself.

00:55:40.000 Like, this is not what I – I don't want to do this.

00:55:43.000 Yeah.

00:55:43.000 Since then, he's thought about coming back, but – People say to me all the time, you're adrenaline junkie, you're addicted to the thrill.

00:55:48.000 I'm like, there's no fucking thrill doing this. 0.98

00:55:50.000 You think it's a thrill? 0.99

00:55:51.000 You're not close enough.

00:55:53.000 I'm sure there's no thrill for you, but do you think that being in these incredibly tense environments ramps life up in a way that you don't get outside of it?

00:56:06.000 Did you read Tribe, Sebastian Jung's book?

00:56:09.000 Yeah, and I met him a few times as well.

00:56:11.000 When I was having a few problems, he was very helpful.

00:56:14.000 He was a really, really good guy, yeah.

00:56:15.000 I really like that guy.

00:56:16.000 Yeah.

00:56:17.000 And before I met him, you know, he's got that picture in Vanity Fair of like posing with the dog tag and it's like a model looking picture. 0.63

00:56:23.000 And I thought, oh, this guy's ridiculous. 0.98

00:56:25.000 Tosser. 0.99

00:56:25.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:56:26.000 And then I met him and he was the nicest, most humble, considerate guy.

00:56:30.000 He's fantastic.

00:56:30.000 And I really like that book as well.

00:56:32.000 Yeah, I couldn't be a bigger fan of his.

00:56:34.000 As a human, too.

00:56:35.000 Just very genuine, really there when you're talking to him.

00:56:39.000 But that's sort of his take on it.

00:56:42.000 And if you're listening, I know I talk about that book too much.

00:56:45.000 I just love it.

00:56:46.000 But his take on it was that these people are experiencing life in this incredibly extreme environment, and then they come back to the rest of the world, and it just doesn't feel real anymore.

00:56:57.000 So it's not thrilling when you're there, but it is real drama.

00:57:00.000 You're seeing life and death drama right in front of your face.

00:57:02.000 So when you come back, you think you really want to see this person, see this film, try out this new restaurant, and then you get back and you just don't care.

00:57:10.000 You just feel flat.

00:57:11.000 Yeah.

00:57:11.000 I mean, when I was getting the PTSD treatment, numbness was the word that came out more.

00:57:16.000 Numbness to everything.

00:57:17.000 Numbness to the danger when you're there, but numbness back here for the things that should be pleasurable and should be providing some kind of relief as well.

00:57:24.000 Now, how did the PTSD treatment get organized?

00:57:27.000 Is this through MAPS? Are you part of that study?

00:57:29.000 Yeah, we did a short film about Rick Doblin and this effort to get MDMA legal.

00:57:35.000 But I'd been in denial for years and years, and a new producer joined Vice, a guy called Stephen Bailey.

00:57:41.000 And we had the first meeting where he was pitching some of his ideas.

00:57:46.000 And he mentioned, you know, this breakthrough therapy using MDMA for PTSD. And I just involuntarily put my hand up and said, I'll do it.

00:57:52.000 Straight away.

00:57:53.000 It gave me the excuse to actually, you know, get some help and see if...

00:57:58.000 Had you done MDMA recreationally before that?

00:58:00.000 I mean, yeah, I came of age in London in the 90s.

00:58:04.000 I mean, it was like having a pint of beer.

00:58:06.000 Right.

00:58:07.000 What is the difference between doing it in a therapeutic environment?

00:58:11.000 It's MDMA-assisted therapy.

00:58:13.000 The emphasis is on the therapy.

00:58:15.000 So you're lying in a bed, you've fasted for 24 hours before, the therapist knows you and knows your issues, so knows how to politely, gently nudge you towards the right topic of conversation, but always makes you actually get to the conclusions.

00:58:31.000 Right.

00:58:31.000 You know, there were times when I would ask him, why is this happening?

00:58:34.000 Why do I think this?

00:58:35.000 And he'd put it back on me and make me put two and two together.

00:58:39.000 Sometimes you listen to music, sometimes you put an eye mask on and you don't sleep, but you just have a quiet 20-30 minutes.

00:58:45.000 But it's a very intense 7-8 hour therapy session and the MDMA just enables you to get the benefits.

00:58:51.000 All of the veterans and first responders who took part in the first round of trials had been therapy resistant.

00:58:57.000 And I think the first round, I think 72% of them got the benefits and were considered PTSD free after the three month trial.

00:59:05.000 So during the three month trial, how many experiences do they have?

00:59:08.000 One a month.

00:59:09.000 One a month, that's it?

00:59:10.000 Three total, yeah.

00:59:11.000 I mean, the best example I can give of how this works, the first veteran I met had been through it.

00:59:17.000 He had one session, and he'd lost some friends in Iraq, and he'd felt guilty about it, and always thought, maybe if I'd done something different, I could have saved them.

00:59:24.000 And he imagined being them in the first MDMA session.

00:59:28.000 And they were saying to him, why are you ruining your life?

00:59:31.000 You're alive.

00:59:32.000 You're healthy.

00:59:33.000 We want you to have a fun, productive, full life and enjoy your friends and enjoy your family.

00:59:38.000 And he said that gave him permission.

00:59:40.000 And that was what he needed.

00:59:42.000 And he didn't even do the second two sessions.

00:59:43.000 Wow.

00:59:46.000 What an interesting way of looking at it, of course.

00:59:48.000 And that word permission, because there is so much guilt.

00:59:50.000 Just getting permission to just give yourself a bit of a pat on the back.

00:59:54.000 Survivor's guilt is real.

00:59:56.000 Oh, yeah.

00:59:57.000 Yeah.

00:59:58.000 A lot of people that come back from the war that lost friends have that horrible feeling that it should have been them, that they're not as good as the person who died, or that somehow or another them being alive is the reason why their friend was dead.

01:00:11.000 Irrational thoughts.

01:00:12.000 Yeah.

01:00:12.000 Or maybe I didn't really experience it because I came out unscathed.

01:00:15.000 Right.

01:00:16.000 Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I didn't seek treatment for years and years and years.

01:00:20.000 Because I've got friends who lost their legs.

01:00:22.000 I've got friends who were kidnapped and killed, you know.

01:00:24.000 So maybe I've only just dipped my toes.

01:00:26.000 So there's nothing.

01:00:26.000 I've got nothing to complain about.

01:00:28.000 What was your number one issue?

01:00:32.000 I think the numbness to danger and to pleasurable things back here.

01:00:37.000 I mean, my cameraman in Mosul, we were there when the Iraqi army beat ISIS, and it was house-to-house fighting.

01:00:43.000 We were stepping on bodies to get through rooms.

01:00:46.000 And at one point, we were with three or four Iraqi soldiers trying to get to the river to cut off these two ISIS positions, and they got a radio message saying, there's a suicide bomber and a gunman running down the street towards you now.

01:00:58.000 So we stepped into this We're good to go.

01:01:24.000 And he filmed it. 0.98

01:01:25.000 We got that moment on camera and I remember just looking so bored and I couldn't give a shit about the suicide bomber, the IED. I was just bored out of my brain. 0.99

01:01:35.000 And that's when I thought this is not a natural reaction to what's going on around you right now.

01:01:40.000 What did you think your natural reaction should have been?

01:01:43.000 I mean, blood rate increasing, heart rate increasing, you know, vigilance.

01:01:48.000 And what did you think at the time was the cause of you being numb?

01:01:53.000 While it was happening?

01:01:55.000 I hadn't really thought that much about PTSD. I just thought I'd become so used to this.

01:01:58.000 And one of the things that came up in one of the last sessions I did was I didn't think I was important enough to get shot and hurt and have medics rush over to help me and maybe a helicopter take me out.

01:02:12.000 I know that sounds ridiculous now, but I think part of me thought, yeah, you're not important enough to have something so dramatic happen to you.

01:02:18.000 You're just witnessing other people in these dramas. 0.71

01:02:26.000 To be right next to an IED and not freaking out is pretty crazy.

01:02:30.000 Yeah, with a suicide bomber running down the street towards...

01:02:33.000 I mean, that's...

01:02:33.000 And also, you know, people...

01:02:35.000 One of the reasons you feel guilty is you do get respect for being brave.

01:02:38.000 And I would say it wasn't bravery.

01:02:41.000 I wasn't scared and then did it anyway.

01:02:43.000 I wasn't scared.

01:02:45.000 I was just numb and just, you know, kept on.

01:02:47.000 You get respect from other journalists, from the soldiers?

01:02:50.000 Like, who are you getting respect from?

01:02:51.000 Yeah, or people that watch the films.

01:02:54.000 And it doesn't feel like bravery. 1.00

01:02:56.000 It just feels like you've become stupid about the risks you're taking. 1.00

01:03:01.000 So talk me through this therapy. 0.99

01:03:03.000 So you're fasting for 24 hours, you take the MDMA, and then they just start talking to you about the things that are troubling you?

01:03:11.000 Yeah.

01:03:12.000 So you take 125 milligrams, and then when that hits about an hour, I think it's a good dose.

01:03:17.000 But then when it hits you, you take another 75. So overall, that's a good dose.

01:03:22.000 And that keeps you up for, you know, six, seven, eight hours.

01:03:26.000 And then, you know, the therapist would ask very brief questions, just knowing what direction to push me.

01:03:33.000 And I remember the first session, I mean, I thought because of what I now know was PTSD, I thought because of the job I do and because there is this kind of darkness in there, I didn't get involved with anyone seriously for a very long time and even thought, I'm not going to have a family and kids and house and dog.

01:03:50.000 I hadn't even thought about it, just assumed that's not for me because of the job I do.

01:03:56.000 And very early on in that first session, after I resisted it for about an hour and a half, I was really resisting it for a long time and thinking it was even a placebo, But there was this wave of relief of just, of course you can.

01:04:09.000 Of course you can have all that.

01:04:10.000 And it felt like a revelation.

01:04:13.000 Wow.

01:04:13.000 Because I thought that had been closed to me for so long.

01:04:16.000 I don't know, seven, eight years, maybe longer.

01:04:18.000 I just thought, no, you can't do that.

01:04:20.000 That's not for you.

01:04:20.000 Or you can't put someone else through that with you.

01:04:23.000 What is it particularly about MDMA? I mean, I've done it, but I've only done it once.

01:04:28.000 Is it just because of the fact that it just alleviates the insecurity and allows you to look at things in a more natural sense?

01:04:35.000 You look at everything as if we're just talking about having coffee or water.

01:04:39.000 Everything is just easy to think about and address and talk about.

01:04:42.000 And I think I'll probably explain it badly, but I think the science of it is you have five networks in your brain and And I was basically in fight or flight mode so much that that was the only mode I knew.

01:04:52.000 So even when I'm back in New York, if someone walks up too close behind me, I'm expecting a confrontation.

01:04:57.000 I'm in fight or flight mode all the time.

01:04:59.000 So your brain is ignoring the other parts of your brain that provide context.

01:05:04.000 And that say, that bang outside is just a car backfiring.

01:05:06.000 It's not an IED or someone shooting.

01:05:09.000 So the MDMA just allows all the parts of your brain to communicate again.

01:05:13.000 You're not just in that fight-or-flight mode.

01:05:15.000 So once you get out of that fight-or-flight mode, you can then address things that you couldn't even begin to address before.

01:05:22.000 And once you've had these experiences, for you it was three experiences, they're profound enough that you retain the benefits?

01:05:29.000 Some.

01:05:30.000 I mean, it looks like I'm in the 25% that still have PTSD after the three months, but it still helps enormously.

01:05:36.000 I mean, the next day they got me to sit down and do a video diary.

01:05:40.000 And I was kind of saying, yeah, I thought this was a revelation.

01:05:42.000 And I said, you know what?

01:05:43.000 I'm just smiling now in a way that I don't feel like I've smiled for years.

01:05:49.000 Like it feels like my whole face is smiling.

01:05:51.000 And this is the next day, which is usually a little wrecked.

01:05:54.000 Yeah.

01:05:54.000 I think it's two or three days when you have what we used to call a moody Tuesday.

01:05:58.000 Yeah.

01:05:59.000 Is that what it, two or three days?

01:06:00.000 Yeah.

01:06:00.000 But with this, there's no come down.

01:06:03.000 With this, there's no downside.

01:06:05.000 How do they give you no come down?

01:06:06.000 Do they give you five HTP or anything while you're...

01:06:09.000 Nothing apart from the MDMA. I mean, you have juice, you have water throughout.

01:06:14.000 I mean, maybe the comedown is related to, you know, people that used to take it would just dance and sweat all night long.

01:06:20.000 Dehydrate.

01:06:20.000 Yeah.

01:06:21.000 Maybe.

01:06:22.000 Maybe it's just shitty MDMA. Maybe you get the real shit. 1.00

01:06:25.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:06:25.000 I mean, yeah, the ecstasy they would have sold in London would have been rat poison and breeze-block dust and all kinds of stuff in there, you know. 1.00

01:06:32.000 Yeah.

01:06:33.000 So, I know they're having very positive results with this, and are they planning on implementing this to the public in any short term?

01:06:42.000 I mean, is this something that, like, people that are listening to this right now, is this going to be available to them fairly soon?

01:06:47.000 It looks like it should be legal by 2021, 2022. The third round of officially FDA-approved trials starts soon.

01:06:54.000 That's the first one that involves people other than veterans and first responders.

01:06:58.000 If that gets as good a result to the first two trials, which I'm sure it will, then I think it's going to be...

01:07:04.000 And because FDA gave it breakthrough drug status, there's nothing that anyone can do to stop it.

01:07:09.000 It will be legal by 2021-2022.

01:07:11.000 That's very good news for a lot of people that are suffering.

01:07:14.000 Yeah.

01:07:14.000 It's so difficult for people to change perspective, just to have a break from the normal sort of momentum of your life and to be able to stop and analyze.

01:07:25.000 Yeah.

01:07:27.000 That's exactly what it did to me.

01:07:28.000 I was just in this rut for so long where it was impossible to look at things.

01:07:33.000 Did you think about changing your life?

01:07:36.000 Yeah, and I'm thinking about it a lot right now.

01:07:39.000 I thought I would retire after this therapy, but I think I said it before, in the first session I was planning the next film, the next series.

01:07:48.000 This is still what I want to do.

01:07:49.000 I've just got to do it smarter.

01:07:50.000 I've got to take breaks.

01:07:51.000 I've got to recover in between trips.

01:07:54.000 There isn't this pressure to be where people are getting their heads blown off every single time.

01:07:59.000 The last film I did was about Yemen, and we spent a week on the front lines with the various fighting groups and got the usual crazy fighting footage.

01:08:06.000 But the powerful stuff was a woman who had her leg blown off by an airstrike in an IDP camp, in a miserable IDP camp where the Saudis and Emiratis are claiming they're providing people with everything they need. 0.96

01:08:16.000 And then at the end, a child malnutrition clinic right on the front line where a nurse just... 0.97

01:08:21.000 Begged all parties to end this war.

01:08:23.000 And she was literally on the front line, surrounded by a minefield.

01:08:27.000 Couldn't get doctors, couldn't get supplies.

01:08:30.000 Had a few dozen kids in this clinic that she was just managing to keep alive.

01:08:33.000 You know, these wailing, emaciated babies with their ribcages caved in. 0.99

01:08:39.000 And, you know, the reason you do this is to cover the effects of war.

01:08:42.000 It's not to get crazy footage of explosions and shootouts.

01:08:45.000 It's the effect of war on civilians.

01:08:47.000 So maybe the answer is to do that and, you know, not feel this pressure to just get the crazy fighting footage all the time.

01:08:54.000 In our country, Yemen is in many ways mostly synonymous for drone attacks.

01:09:01.000 Drone strikes is, when we think about Yemen, we think about the drone strikes that we hear about on wedding parties, the number of people that are accidentally killed.

01:09:11.000 The civilian casualty rate is some preposterous number.

01:09:14.000 I mean, no one knows because you can't check in most of these areas, but it's in the tens of thousands at least.

01:09:18.000 And the percentage is also preposterous.

01:09:21.000 It's far more than 50%, right?

01:09:24.000 Yeah, I mean, it's airstrikes.

01:09:25.000 So it used to be US drone strikes on al-Qaeda suspects.

01:09:29.000 Now it's Saudi-Emirati airstrikes with US assistance.

01:09:35.000 I mean, we were, until recently, refueling the planes, supplying the planes, supplying the weapons.

01:09:39.000 But yeah, they've hit weddings, funerals, schools, hospitals, and I don't think that's by accident.

01:09:46.000 I think they're taking an approach to Yemen that we need to crush the opposition, not take out the military leaders.

01:09:53.000 And you can't, there's no movement in history that's been crushed by force.

01:09:57.000 That never works.

01:09:58.000 Jesus Christ.

01:10:01.000 When you're over there, what does it feel like in Yemen as opposed to Afghanistan or other places?

01:10:08.000 Yemen, the actual fighting is much more low intensity.

01:10:12.000 It's fairly small groups of guys at some distance just lobbing shells at each other and there's snipers and there are gunfights but it's not as big scale as Iraq or Afghanistan.

01:10:22.000 But there are regular airstrikes that are killing civilians and while the two sides are fighting this slow and bloody war, the infrastructure is being destroyed and the civilians are Unable to get basic food and medicine.

01:10:38.000 That's the really shocking thing there.

01:10:40.000 And also, I mean, I knew that the coalition, as it's called, the fighting groups backed by Saudi Arabia and UAE were American-backed.

01:10:47.000 But you see American stuff everywhere.

01:10:50.000 I mean, MRAPs, you know, these million-dollar bomb-proof trucks.

01:10:52.000 I've only ever seen American soldiers and Marines driving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:10:55.000 You see them everywhere there.

01:10:58.000 And that's a real surprise to see that.

01:11:01.000 How did Yemen become this area that's so synonymous with drone strikes?

01:11:06.000 Why did we approach Yemen differently than any other part of the world in terms of the allocation of drone strikes there?

01:11:14.000 In terms of numbers, I don't know.

01:11:16.000 I mean, I think for a while the only thing the U.S. was doing in Yemen was drone strikes against al-Qaeda.

01:11:22.000 But I don't know if there have been more drone strikes in Yemen than elsewhere.

01:11:25.000 I mean, that's where we killed an American citizen, which got lots of headlines.

01:11:29.000 Right, on purpose.

01:11:30.000 Yeah.

01:11:30.000 With no trial.

01:11:32.000 It was because he had joined ISIS? Is that what it was?

01:11:36.000 Al-Qaeda.

01:11:37.000 Yeah, it was a very well-known and popular online presence, rallying people to fight.

01:11:44.000 But the airstrikes in Yemen and with US weapons, that's what's really killing people.

01:11:54.000 And meaning that people can't get food and aid there because you just can't move things around there.

01:12:00.000 Whatever came out of that guy getting killed, basically no one was punished for it.

01:12:08.000 I mean, he's an American citizen.

01:12:10.000 If it was in America...

01:12:12.000 Somehow or another, this guy was in the suburbs of Chicago and they launched a drone strike on him.

01:12:17.000 It would be front page news and it would be a real issue, but the fact that it was in Yemen...

01:12:21.000 I mean, again, the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan is that now we're killing guys like him with drone strikes or special forces, raids here and there, and it's happening almost in secret and no one's saying, this appears to be illegal.

01:12:36.000 I mean, some people are.

01:12:37.000 You know which media outlets you can go to to read about this, but...

01:12:41.000 I think most people are thinking if that's the alternative to invasion and trillions of dollars and American soldiers coming back with no legs for a war we don't understand, I think a lot of people are willing to accept it.

01:12:54.000 I don't agree with it, but that seems to be what's happening now.

01:12:57.000 No, I think you're right.

01:12:58.000 The other thing about that is with a lot of these, even though it does seem to be illegal, people sort of shrug their shoulders and then no one pursues it and then it just kind of goes away.

01:13:08.000 Yeah.

01:13:09.000 But there's some stories that, for whatever reason, like Jamal Khashoggi did not go away.

01:13:15.000 And it's still out there.

01:13:17.000 Like, it was so egregious and so crazy that this guy walks into the embassy and just never comes out.

01:13:23.000 And they're like, I don't know what happened.

01:13:25.000 And then slowly you start getting a different story and then apparently there's leaked, there's audio and perhaps even video of his murder.

01:13:33.000 Yep.

01:13:34.000 And ordered, by the way, by someone who was hanging out with Jared Kushner afterwards with apparently no mention of what happened.

01:13:42.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:13:43.000 Now, as a journalist, when you see shit like that, that has got to hit home. 0.98

01:13:49.000 Yeah, the last few years for journalists, especially, you know, if you're, I mean, he wasn't an American citizen. 0.99

01:13:55.000 But he did write for the Washington Post, right?

01:13:57.000 Yeah, and was a resident.

01:13:58.000 But, I mean, I was arrested in Iran for a week, a long, long time ago, and roughly the same time, an Iranian-Canadian photographer was arrested.

01:14:06.000 And she was raped and beaten to death. 0.70

01:14:08.000 So the people that are citizens of these countries, they're really, really bearing the brunt. 0.99

01:14:14.000 And again, that's why I'm uncomfortable if people call me brave, because I get to come home.

01:14:19.000 With these guys, you know, they can get to them and they can get to their families very easily.

01:14:23.000 And that takes a whole other level of bravery.

01:14:27.000 The woman who was raped and beaten to death, what was she involved with?

01:14:30.000 She was a photographer. 0.59

01:14:31.000 She was just taking pictures?

01:14:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:14:33.000 And the usual thing with, I mean, certainly in Iran, but this is common all over the place, if you're a dual citizen working as a journalist in, for example, Iran, they'll accuse you of being a spy.

01:14:43.000 I was accused of being a spy.

01:14:44.000 They tried to get me to confess to being a spy.

01:14:46.000 That's a very normal assumption out there.

01:14:48.000 And how long were you in jail for?

01:14:50.000 Just seven or eight days.

01:14:51.000 What was that like?

01:14:53.000 Actually, not too bad.

01:14:54.000 Psychologically, it was bad because they were threatening torture and execution.

01:14:58.000 Physically, it wasn't too bad.

01:14:59.000 I was fed.

01:15:00.000 I had a bad bed.

01:15:02.000 I was roughed up a bit.

01:15:02.000 I wasn't beaten.

01:15:04.000 But I did think it could last months and months and months.

01:15:07.000 And I did think I could go to Evan Prison.

01:15:09.000 They actually put me in a car and drove me to what they said was Evan Prison once and then just took me somewhere else.

01:15:13.000 Evan Prison?

01:15:14.000 Evan Prison is where people have been tortured and executed.

01:15:17.000 So they just drove you there to scare you?

01:15:19.000 Drove me around for a few hours to scare me and then took me to another place, yeah.

01:15:22.000 What were they trying to get you to confess to?

01:15:24.000 Being a spy.

01:15:25.000 And they said at one point, they said, do you honestly expect us to believe you travel the world collecting all this information and you don't share it with your government?

01:15:33.000 I said, yeah, that's exactly how it works.

01:15:36.000 And they thought I was insulting their intelligence by saying that.

01:15:40.000 What were you over there covering?

01:15:42.000 I did a series, one of the first series I did was called Holidays in the Axis of Evil.

01:15:46.000 So I spent my first four years as a journalist undercover, wearing a secret camera.

01:15:51.000 And luckily I appeared on a couple of docs with a guy who was not very good.

01:15:56.000 And so I looked genuine next to him.

01:15:59.000 So the controller of BBC Two said, give this guy a series.

01:16:03.000 And I was racking my brains trying to think, wanted to be a foreign correspondent, wanted to cover conflict.

01:16:08.000 Then George Bush made the Axis of Evil speech.

01:16:10.000 And John Bolton added three countries to the list.

01:16:13.000 So it was Iraq, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Libya, Cuba were the six evil countries. 0.98

01:16:20.000 So we went to all six countries.

01:16:22.000 Me and one cameraman, handheld camera.

01:16:25.000 Shane actually saw it and that's when he first reached out and I started talking to Vice about eventually joining them.

01:16:30.000 But kind of documentaries from the streets up.

01:16:33.000 So we were just trying to say, you know, despite all the rhetoric about Iran, this is what the people are actually like.

01:16:39.000 And it was kind of youth-led.

01:16:40.000 We interviewed a bunch of students who were involved in some famous protests in 1999 where the police came in and smashed the dormitories and burnt them down and beat them.

01:16:48.000 And I think because we interviewed them, we were then tracked and arrested.

01:16:54.000 So how did you get it free?

01:16:55.000 How did I get it?

01:16:56.000 How did you get it free?

01:16:58.000 I didn't know at the time, but if two countries have diplomatic relations, it's only a big deal after a week.

01:17:03.000 So on the night of the seventh day or the eighth day, they let me go.

01:17:07.000 Oh.

01:17:08.000 Yeah.

01:17:09.000 But I had no idea at the time.

01:17:11.000 I thought this could go on months and months and months.

01:17:14.000 Now, when you're over there in Iran, what is their perception of the United States when you talk to the young people over there?

01:17:20.000 Oh, love the United States.

01:17:23.000 Really?

01:17:23.000 Music, culture, sports, everything.

01:17:26.000 And extremely well-educated about the United States.

01:17:30.000 American foreign policy is a completely different discussion.

01:17:33.000 But, I mean, one of the things we tried to cover was the Friday...

01:17:36.000 Rally at Tehran University, where you see everyone chanting, death to America, death to Israel.

01:17:41.000 And we wanted to cover it because they bus in old men from the countryside who sit there going, oh, yeah, death to America, death to Israel. 0.99

01:17:47.000 Really?

01:17:47.000 Yeah, it's not something to be taken seriously.

01:17:49.000 So it's just some propaganda-staged event?

01:17:51.000 Yeah.

01:17:52.000 I mean, if there was a turning point in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with Iran...

01:17:58.000 Ryan Crocker, who was the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan.

01:18:04.000 Straight after 9-11, he was sent to Geneva, where a number of countries affected by the refugee crisis were meeting to discuss how to deal with it.

01:18:11.000 One of the countries was Iran.

01:18:13.000 So they'd have this meeting, and then he and his Iranian counterpart would disappear for, he says, seven or eight hours over tea to discuss the future of American-Iran relations.

01:18:24.000 They knew that they were going to get rid of the Taliban.

01:18:27.000 So the Iranians said, okay, here's a map of the Taliban leaders' homes. 0.52

01:18:31.000 If you take out those homes on day one, Taliban are finished. 1.00

01:18:35.000 And Ryan Crocker said, oh, thank you.

01:18:36.000 Can I take notes from this map?

01:18:37.000 They said, the map is yours.

01:18:39.000 We made it for you.

01:18:40.000 Gave him the map.

01:18:42.000 Let the Americans use Iranian airspace. 1.00

01:18:44.000 Handed over some prisoners.

01:18:45.000 They were absolutely key in us overthrowing the Taliban so quickly.

01:18:49.000 And Ryan Crocker was making good progress in then talking about the future of Iraq post-Saddam.

01:18:56.000 One night he gets a knock on his door and two of his staffers come in and say, boss, you're really not going to like what's just happened.

01:19:02.000 He said, what's just happened?

01:19:04.000 And it was the axis of evil speech. 1.00

01:19:06.000 So the moderates, so-called in Iran, Who had fought hard to get permission to negotiate with the great Satan, the US, said, you've made us look stupid. 0.99

01:19:16.000 You know, it was hard for us to get this chance. 0.98

01:19:18.000 We helped you in Afghanistan.

01:19:19.000 We were willing to discuss future relations between our two countries.

01:19:23.000 And this is what happened.

01:19:25.000 So, it's over.

01:19:27.000 Wow.

01:19:28.000 And then fairly soon after that, obviously there's the invasion of Iraq and Iran is sponsoring the insurgency and giving them sophisticated IEDs and all that, rather than, you know, potentially helping.

01:19:39.000 So you think that with, wow, with one speech, the whole thing shifted?

01:19:46.000 Yeah.

01:19:47.000 So they would have been willing to somehow or another negotiate or cooperate or work alongside?

01:19:53.000 Getting rid of Saddam was obviously in their interest. 0.99

01:19:56.000 They fought a brutal eight-year war with him.

01:19:58.000 We have a very strange relationship with Iran.

01:20:00.000 I mean, going back to the hostages from the Jimmy Carter era, Yeah.

01:20:06.000 But I do think it's one of the most misunderstood countries in the region.

01:20:09.000 I mean, when you actually go there, you know, the people are so smart and so educated and potentially such, such good allies.

01:20:18.000 So what is the key issue?

01:20:20.000 It's the government.

01:20:21.000 Yeah.

01:20:22.000 Yeah.

01:20:22.000 And, you know, what I just explained.

01:20:24.000 Right. 0.81

01:20:25.000 I think they're capable of being far more rational than the speeches by the crazy old Mullers would suggest.

01:20:31.000 I mean, they've proved it.

01:20:33.000 Yeah.

01:20:34.000 And the idea that the Saudis and Emiratis can somehow bomb the Houthis in Yemen into submission and push back Iranian influence on their southern border is ridiculous.

01:20:43.000 That's just never going to happen. 0.83

01:20:45.000 And I think even if you ignore the obvious moral argument, just from a pragmatic point of view, the idea that we should back this unconditionally is ridiculous.

01:20:57.000 See, this is just part of the real problem when you're dealing with world events, is trying to parse all this stuff out and look at so many different stories from so many different parts of the world and so many different areas of conflict, and it's almost impossible to pay attention to it all.

01:21:13.000 Every time I meet people from these countries, I feel like a fraud because there's so much that they know that I don't know and that I shouldn't know. 1.00

01:21:21.000 And, you know, I get paid to do this.

01:21:22.000 I get paid to pay attention to this for a living and I feel out of my depth regularly.

01:21:26.000 And that's focusing on the five or six countries that I focus on, let alone everything else.

01:21:30.000 What other countries do you focus on?

01:21:32.000 I mean, the last few years it's been Congo quite a bit, Afghanistan mostly, Iraq, Yemen.

01:21:38.000 I've focused on a lot over the last three, four years.

01:21:41.000 They're the main ones.

01:21:43.000 Been to Brazil recently, been to Central African Republic recently.

01:21:47.000 Now, I've talked to a friend of mine who's from Brazil who has a completely different take on the new leader of Brazil.

01:21:54.000 Like, he's more positive about it. 0.63

01:21:56.000 And then I've talked to other people that say he's a monster. 0.71

01:21:59.000 Yeah.

01:22:01.000 I mean, if people in Brazil are living through the current chaos, I can understand why they might go to a Duterte-type figure to say it's going to be messy, but he's going to clean it up.

01:22:10.000 Right. 0.80

01:22:11.000 But he certainly seems like a monster.

01:22:13.000 Yeah, and they're experiencing some crazy economic crisis as well, right?

01:22:20.000 Yeah, and it was the fastest growing economy in Latin America.

01:22:22.000 It was booming.

01:22:23.000 Yeah, it was booming just a few years ago.

01:22:25.000 So it's like this rollercoaster ride.

01:22:27.000 We did a film there recently, and I might get the numbers slightly wrong, but the amount of people that were murdered in Brazil in 2017, I believe it was, was more than double the amount that were murdered in Syria.

01:22:40.000 Jesus Christ.

01:22:41.000 I think it was 72,000.

01:22:43.000 Yeah.

01:22:44.000 And after the World Cup and Olympics, the trafficking gangs and the police militias just retook all of those areas that were pacified to protect the tourists during the World Cup and Olympics.

01:22:54.000 So that violence has just come right back to the forefellers. 0.99

01:22:59.000 See, again, there's just so much shit to pay attention to. 1.00

01:23:02.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:23:03.000 And Rio, the image of Rio is still, you know, Samba on the beach. 0.89

01:23:06.000 Yeah.

01:23:07.000 I've been a few times.

01:23:08.000 Right.

01:23:08.000 Yeah, I've been for UFC events.

01:23:10.000 It's beautiful people, very nice, very friendly.

01:23:13.000 But then you go two or three miles up into the hills.

01:23:15.000 Yeah.

01:23:15.000 It's another world.

01:23:16.000 Well, we drove, when you land at the airport, you drive through the favelas on the way to Rio, and you're like, whoa, this is a different kind of poverty.

01:23:25.000 Yeah.

01:23:26.000 And during the World Cup and Olympics, they put billboards next to that road to block the view of the favelas.

01:23:31.000 Did they really?

01:23:32.000 And those billboards are now starting to fall apart and you can now see it again.

01:23:36.000 Wow.

01:23:36.000 And you can hear it.

01:23:37.000 If you stay close to there, you'll hear it.

01:23:38.000 I mean, we went into the favelas many times.

01:23:41.000 We saw one guy who was suspected of being a police informer.

01:23:45.000 So the trafficking gangs had captured him, slashed at his leg so he was lying on the ground, put four rifles to his head and just unloaded.

01:23:54.000 And his chin was still kind of where it should be, but everything else was...

01:23:58.000 This is when you got there while...

01:24:00.000 We got there right afterwards, sorry.

01:24:01.000 No, we didn't witness it happening.

01:24:02.000 We got there right afterwards, but yeah, it's...

01:24:04.000 I mean, hideous violence there on a massive scale.

01:24:08.000 And also, I got into an argument with someone the other day about this.

01:24:12.000 Deeply racist.

01:24:14.000 You know, the rich people in Ipanema tend to be white European descendants. 0.70

01:24:18.000 The poor kids getting shot in the favelas, almost all... 0.98

01:24:22.000 Black. 1.00

01:24:22.000 And if you walk into a bar in Ipanema with a black girl, everyone will assume she's a prostitute. 1.00

01:24:27.000 If you walk into a bar in Ipanema with a black guy, everyone will assume he's a drug dealer. 0.95

01:24:32.000 And again, the exact opposite of the public image of Brazil.

01:24:36.000 Ipanema is the more wealthy area?

01:24:38.000 Yeah, that's the very wealthy, nice beach area with all the nice hotels and apartment blocks.

01:24:45.000 But they still must get robbed all the time down there, right?

01:24:49.000 It used to be that the violence was separated from the really rich areas, but there are now a lot of wealthy Brazilians leaving because it's affecting everywhere now.

01:24:57.000 I mean, one of the experts we interviewed in the last film said, I believe it was one in three Rio residents will get caught in crossfire at some point over the course of a year.

01:25:07.000 I might be wrong on that.

01:25:08.000 I believe it was one in three.

01:25:09.000 Over the course of a year?

01:25:10.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:25:10.000 But it was a massive, massive number.

01:25:13.000 Fuck. 1.00

01:25:14.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:25:15.000 I mean, if you're anywhere near a favela, you'll hear it most nights.

01:25:18.000 You'll hear shots being fired most nights.

01:25:20.000 And not like, boom, boom, boom, you know, you'll hear a fight going on.

01:25:24.000 Jesus Christ.

01:25:28.000 How much time do you spend over there?

01:25:30.000 Three weeks, I believe it was.

01:25:32.000 Wow.

01:25:33.000 And what are you covering?

01:25:35.000 We did a film about the pacification campaign, the police and army clearing the favelas before the World Cup and Olympics.

01:25:40.000 So we went back just to see...

01:25:42.000 Just to sort of illuminate it for people to think that this is what Brazil is actually like.

01:25:46.000 And see what happened afterwards.

01:25:47.000 Right.

01:25:48.000 And those areas were abandoned as soon as the World Cup and Olympics were over.

01:25:52.000 Dude, I don't know how you do this.

01:25:55.000 You're so friendly, too.

01:25:57.000 You're so easygoing.

01:25:58.000 Look at you.

01:25:58.000 You seem so peaceful.

01:26:00.000 You don't seem like a shell-shocked guy.

01:26:05.000 You know, you really don't.

01:26:07.000 You seem very, very even.

01:26:10.000 Oh, that's good to hear.

01:26:12.000 Six months ago, a few friends said, yeah.

01:26:15.000 I mean, I think I still have PTSD, but it definitely helped.

01:26:18.000 And I bumped into a friend of mine, Dan Reed, who made the Michael Jackson documentary.

01:26:22.000 I saw him in New York a few weeks ago.

01:26:24.000 The Neverland documentary?

01:26:25.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:26:25.000 And he said, Ben, you just seem a bit calmer.

01:26:28.000 What is your take on that documentary?

01:26:30.000 I have not watched it, but I've heard that those two guys had testified saying that nothing had ever happened to them before this, and then now they're down on their luck, and now they've changed their tune in saying that it was...

01:26:42.000 They go into that in detail in the doc, and basically they'd been replaced by the new young boy, and had been kind of kicked to the side.

01:26:50.000 And then Michael reached out and said, I need you to help me.

01:26:53.000 And they say it was exciting, the idea to be...

01:26:56.000 To be back in Michael's good books and be wanted by Michael again.

01:26:58.000 So they talk about that very openly.

01:27:01.000 I had dinner with them a week before the film came out and I believed them.

01:27:05.000 Really?

01:27:05.000 Yeah.

01:27:06.000 And one of them certainly I think has what looks like the symptoms of PTSD and the other one I think went through therapy before he was able to talk about this stuff.

01:27:15.000 So I don't think they're doing it for financial gain.

01:27:18.000 What did you think about the doctor, Michael Jackson's doctor, saying that he was chemically castrated?

01:27:24.000 Oh, I didn't hear that.

01:27:26.000 This is something that we've talked about before, because his voice was so different.

01:27:31.000 And to me, I said a long time ago, before his doctor came out and said he was chemically castrated, I said he sounds like a castrato.

01:27:38.000 He sounds like one of those men who were taken as boys in the 1800s and the 1700s.

01:27:44.000 So he chose to do it, the doctor's saying.

01:27:45.000 I don't know.

01:27:46.000 I think the doctor is saying that his father did it to him.

01:27:49.000 This is the doctor that killed him, by the way, so take that with a grain of salt, right?

01:27:54.000 But he was saying that he chemically castrated him to preserve his voice.

01:27:58.000 Which, you know, it sounds preposterous until you look at his frame.

01:28:01.000 I mean, he did not have the frame of a person who had testosterone.

01:28:04.000 But then he had kids.

01:28:05.000 He didn't have kids.

01:28:06.000 He's saying those kids are not his kids.

01:28:07.000 They're not his kids.

01:28:07.000 Right, right.

01:28:08.000 They're definitely not his kids.

01:28:09.000 I mean, this is what we were talking about earlier, about how it's easy to get the facts to fit a theory, you know.

01:28:13.000 Right, but those kids are not his kids.

01:28:15.000 Those are the whitest kids you're ever going to look at. 1.00

01:28:17.000 Yeah. 0.84

01:28:17.000 They're really white. 0.84

01:28:18.000 I mean, they're not part African-American.

01:28:22.000 I mean, we've got to remember before his vitiligo kicked in, he was very dark. 1.00

01:28:26.000 You know, he looked like his brothers.

01:28:28.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:28:28.000 He looked like his father.

01:28:29.000 Yeah.

01:28:30.000 I mean, it's, I don't know.

01:28:32.000 I hadn't heard that theory before that his kids weren't his kids.

01:28:34.000 Really?

01:28:35.000 I haven't heard many theories.

01:28:36.000 I don't think that much about Michael Jackson.

01:28:38.000 I mean, I think that's just been pretty much established.

01:28:41.000 Yeah, that his kids weren't really his kids.

01:28:43.000 And I think the woman that he had children with, I think, was on the record saying they never had sex.

01:28:49.000 Right.

01:28:49.000 I think.

01:28:50.000 Yeah, I think they talk about that as well, yeah.

01:28:52.000 Yeah, I don't know.

01:28:54.000 But we had a similar case in the UK with Jimmy Savile, the most popular.

01:28:58.000 That seems even worse.

01:29:00.000 And the documentary is great because it's a portrait of how you groom not just a kid, but the family as well.

01:29:05.000 And in some ways, you groom the entire country to the point where if accusations come out, everyone says, no, not him, no way.

01:29:12.000 Right.

01:29:12.000 That's how it works.

01:29:14.000 Well, he looked like a monster.

01:29:16.000 Michael Jackson looked like a monster eventually, but we always go back to him as a boy when he was singing ABC. I mean, he was this adorable little kid, incredibly talented and so dynamic and exciting to watch.

01:29:28.000 Like, God, he's so talented.

01:29:30.000 Look at him.

01:29:30.000 And then in Thriller, I mean, everybody loved him.

01:29:33.000 But Jimmy Savile looks like a monster in retrospect.

01:29:36.000 I wrote to him as a kid.

01:29:37.000 Did you really?

01:29:38.000 Because he had this show called Jim Will Fix It.

01:29:39.000 Right, right.

01:29:39.000 Where he'd grant you your wish and then you'd sit on his lap and he'd give you a medal.

01:29:42.000 Oh, you got off light, buddy.

01:29:43.000 No one thought he was a monster back then.

01:29:45.000 Wow.

01:29:46.000 No one. 0.90

01:29:46.000 But he was so hideous. 0.90

01:29:48.000 Yeah.

01:29:48.000 And Louis Theroux did a great documentary with him.

01:29:51.000 Yes.

01:29:52.000 He keeps his mother's bedroom exactly what it was and all the clothes hanging in the closet.

01:29:56.000 Yeah.

01:29:56.000 But honestly, in his lifetime, this was not discussed.

01:29:59.000 Really?

01:29:59.000 Not even questioned.

01:30:00.000 Yeah.

01:30:01.000 And like I say, I think he groomed the entire country.

01:30:03.000 Well, there's so many cases like that where you have this systemic pedophile situation that doesn't make sense.

01:30:10.000 Like, how did this last?

01:30:12.000 Like, Penn State, like the Sandusky case.

01:30:15.000 Like, how did this last?

01:30:17.000 Everyone seems to have known about it.

01:30:19.000 How did it last?

01:30:20.000 And people had seen a kid in the shower.

01:30:22.000 Yes.

01:30:23.000 And hadn't, I mean, you think now, you'd kill yourself if you didn't intervene in some way.

01:30:29.000 I think it's also easy to forget how much that wasn't part of the conversation back then, though.

01:30:33.000 You know, the idea that there are pedophiles out there, and it's actually incredibly widespread.

01:30:38.000 That just wasn't...

01:30:39.000 Right.

01:30:39.000 That wasn't something people were worried about back then, from my memory, at least, anyway.

01:30:42.000 No.

01:30:43.000 It was church.

01:30:44.000 It was Catholic church, priests.

01:30:46.000 We knew about that. 0.99

01:30:48.000 Other than that, there was no discussion of, like, some world-famous football coach who was secretly fucking kids. 0.97

01:30:55.000 Like, you never heard that. 0.98

01:30:57.000 I mean...

01:30:58.000 And Paterno, they think, had to have known.

01:31:01.000 There's no way he couldn't have known, or at least been exposed to some of it.

01:31:05.000 And to the conversation we had earlier, I remember that great documentary where a guy protests in front of the statue, and another guy comes up and tries to beat him up, just for daring to suggest that this hero of his would be capable of that.

01:31:18.000 People just can't fathom it because they've been so well-groomed.

01:31:22.000 It's also Penn State football.

01:31:24.000 It's a religion. 1.00

01:31:25.000 It's so important to them to see that these people that were in charge of it were so fucked up. 1.00

01:31:32.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:31:34.000 Jesus, man.

01:31:35.000 This show's a bummer.

01:31:36.000 Ha! 0.89

01:31:39.000 But, you know, do you plan on doing this MDMA therapy on a regular basis?

01:31:45.000 And what sort of an impact do you think?

01:31:48.000 I mean, when you go over the results of the first therapy, where it almost immediately alleviates you of a lot of your feelings, but you still are thinking about planning your next adventure and your next project...

01:32:02.000 I'm probably going to do a fourth session.

01:32:04.000 The therapist recommended a fourth session, which isn't what they normally do, but said...

01:32:07.000 I mean, I thought being able to cry would be a major breakthrough as part of this therapy.

01:32:14.000 Because you normally can't cry at all?

01:32:15.000 I haven't cried since I was 13 years old or something, 14 years old.

01:32:19.000 Oh, well that's different because that predates your war correspondence.

01:32:23.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:32:24.000 I mean, English culture, it's, you know, my grandparents fought in the war, were tough as nails.

01:32:28.000 It's, you know, there is this pressure to be tough.

01:32:32.000 In the first normal therapy session, I told her what I thought was quite an everyday story about an experience in war to the therapist, and he cried.

01:32:39.000 Oh, Jesus Christ!

01:32:42.000 And then the first MDMA session, the therapist cried, I don't know, two or three times, and the cameraman cried.

01:32:47.000 And I still couldn't get there.

01:32:49.000 And then the third session, I nearly did, and my jaw was trembling, and I kind of thought, oh, there's going to be this...

01:32:55.000 What would have felt like a breakthrough and still hasn't come.

01:32:58.000 Never happened.

01:32:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:32:58.000 What were they crying about?

01:33:02.000 I can't even remember what stories.

01:33:05.000 You just said this show has been a bummer, like the stories I just tell them, you know.

01:33:08.000 Well, I mean, I'm joking, kind of joking.

01:33:11.000 I'm very happy you're talking about it.

01:33:13.000 This is one of the, you know, one of the lesser symptoms of doing this is you turn up to a party or a dinner or something, you know, with people that are enjoying themselves, they're smiling.

01:33:21.000 Mm-hmm.

01:33:22.000 People say, oh, this is Ben.

01:33:23.000 Ben's just come back from Yemen.

01:33:24.000 Oh, what's it like in Yemen, Ben?

01:33:26.000 Do you really want to know?

01:33:27.000 Yeah, yeah, tell us.

01:33:28.000 And then 10 minutes later, there's this dark cloud over the evening, and everyone's just like, oh, Jesus.

01:33:34.000 So you just feel like you're just killing them.

01:33:37.000 They're cutting into their steak, and you're talking about someone getting their leg amputated.

01:33:41.000 I've got a bad habit of doing that.

01:33:42.000 But I can't even remember what the stories were that had that effect.

01:33:46.000 What is it like when you go to dinner with fellow war journalists?

01:33:52.000 What do you guys talk about?

01:33:54.000 There's a few that are really good friends and we can talk about all this stuff.

01:33:57.000 There's a lot that I'm not that close to.

01:33:59.000 And I don't like the mutual back patting that goes on with it.

01:34:07.000 Is that what it is?

01:34:09.000 I kind of think, you know, if you're doing this for a living, like, you shouldn't be sharing stories with other people who cover that country, other people from, you know, from your background, from your country.

01:34:17.000 You should be talking to the people from that country.

01:34:20.000 And a lot of journalists, I mean, it's possible in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, to have a pretty good life.

01:34:25.000 You stay in the five-star hotel, you eat well, drink wine every night, and you, you know, you get information from each other.

01:34:32.000 Right.

01:34:32.000 And I think that defeats the point of foreign reporting.

01:34:35.000 Right.

01:34:35.000 Oh, I see.

01:34:36.000 So consciously or unconsciously, I don't spend a lot of time with other war journalists.

01:34:42.000 There are those who I deeply admire, who I see every now and again, like Sebastian Junger.

01:34:46.000 But I don't hang out with them day in, day out.

01:34:49.000 So there's levels to the involvement.

01:34:52.000 Yeah.

01:34:53.000 To how deeply you're immersed.

01:34:55.000 And it's completely upside down in the States because the TV news journalists aren't deeply involved and just want to get that quick shot of them looking like they're somewhere Middle Eastern-y.

01:35:05.000 Right.

01:35:06.000 Closest to the front line with the flak jacket on and the perfectly ironed shirt and they're not sweating.

01:35:10.000 Or even worse, the Brian Williams type situation.

01:35:13.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:35:14.000 Or on the roof of the Five Star Hotel.

01:35:16.000 You might see people report about what's happening with ISIS, and they're in Beirut.

01:35:20.000 Right.

01:35:20.000 And I think they're relying on the fact that a lot of people don't understand that's a different country.

01:35:25.000 Right.

01:35:25.000 But, you know, some of those guys are paid millions and treated very, very well.

01:35:30.000 The photographers and print journalists who are immersed and are spending weeks there...

01:35:35.000 Are sometimes struggling to make a living and aren't well-known and aren't well-supported.

01:35:39.000 What is it about the talking head in front of the camera that we want so badly?

01:35:43.000 I mean, I think it's a way for the news networks to claim credibility.

01:35:49.000 And when you see them get deployed, they're not focused on getting material from the war in these countries.

01:35:55.000 They're focused on the two-way.

01:35:57.000 We're now talking to our guy live from wherever.

01:36:01.000 That's more important than actually spending days collecting footage of what's actually going on.

01:36:05.000 It seems like you see that rarely, if ever, these days.

01:36:08.000 It's more and more rare.

01:36:10.000 It seemed to me that during Desert Storm in the 90s, there was always someone that was over there, and it seemed like there was real threat, and it was really going on.

01:36:22.000 But now, everything seems to be done from the desk, and you don't really see a lot of...

01:36:28.000 I mean, am I right about that?

01:36:29.000 Yeah.

01:36:29.000 I mean, I think in Mosul, a lot of the major news networks said to their crews, you're not allowed to spend the night in Mosul.

01:36:34.000 You know, you can go there and film a street and interview some refugees who just escaped ISIS territory, but you can't spend days on end there.

01:36:41.000 Whereas the freelance photographers and some of the writers, they were spending days on end there and getting the real stuff.

01:36:47.000 Is it because the on-camera people would be targeted?

01:36:51.000 I just think the risk is too high, full stop, for the entire crew.

01:36:55.000 And certainly when the story's really big and you send one of the very well-known correspondents there, then yeah, they can't be running around filming house-to-house fighting.

01:37:03.000 So when you're over there and you see these guys show up and you know that they're just going to be hanging out at the hotel and...

01:37:09.000 What is that feeling like?

01:37:12.000 Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty disdainful of those guys.

01:37:15.000 You have to be.

01:37:17.000 And you see these films like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot about Afghanistan, and I just don't recognize that world, you know, partying every night at whatever bar or restaurant. 0.94

01:37:27.000 I just think if you're there, you're obviously in the wrong place.

01:37:30.000 Right, right.

01:37:31.000 And it's not an adventure.

01:37:34.000 It's not a fun trip for you of wild times.

01:37:37.000 It shouldn't be that.

01:37:38.000 It should be.

01:37:40.000 I mean, for me, it feels like an endurance test every time you go.

01:37:43.000 It should be hard and you should be spending time with the people you're covering.

01:37:47.000 And sometimes you can think you've finished with someone and just go for dinner or tea.

01:37:51.000 And just by having normal human conversations, you find out so much other stuff that you didn't go there to report on.

01:37:56.000 That's what you have to be doing.

01:37:57.000 And that takes weeks.

01:37:59.000 Weeks of getting closer to them and gaining their trust.

01:38:02.000 Yeah.

01:38:02.000 And just spending enough time there where you then end up being in the right place at the right time to show something really happening.

01:38:10.000 I mean, in Mosul, we filmed the Iraqi army attacking a house where ISIS was shooting from the house and there were three or four families in the house.

01:38:18.000 So the Iraqi army shot at ISIS, so the ISIS guys went down and encouraged the families to run towards us.

01:38:24.000 And just seeing that moment of civilians fleeing and escaping ISIS for the first time after three years.

01:38:30.000 And when they turned the corner and saw us, they knew they'd made it.

01:38:33.000 And they just collapsed to the ground.

01:38:34.000 They were kissing the ground.

01:38:35.000 They were hugging each other.

01:38:36.000 You know, those are the moments you're trying to capture.

01:38:39.000 I mean, I've never seen relief like it.

01:38:43.000 Jesus Christ.

01:38:44.000 And how do they get them out of there?

01:38:46.000 What do they do from that stage?

01:38:48.000 I mean, they'll eventually walk out of Mosul itself, and then there are people that can take them to the IDP camps around there and we'll get them the basic services they need and medical services, but there's not much of that there.

01:38:59.000 And that was the shock in Yemen, was the places that the Saudis and Emiratis said were being so well supplied with food and water and tents and medical facilities just weren't at all.

01:39:11.000 No, please go.

01:39:12.000 We talked about Syria earlier.

01:39:13.000 Half the population is displaced.

01:39:16.000 You're talking about 12, 13 million people, either internally displaced or fled.

01:39:22.000 Just unimaginable.

01:39:24.000 Unimaginable.

01:39:25.000 And it's one of the biggest controversies in this country in terms of what to do when the refugees come.

01:39:31.000 What do you do?

01:39:33.000 Some countries are taking them in with open arms.

01:39:35.000 Some countries are not.

01:39:36.000 And there's a lot of people that are concentrating on the negative aspects of taking these people into your community.

01:39:42.000 What is your take on watching all this thing happen?

01:39:45.000 Watching all this take place?

01:39:47.000 I spent Friday and Saturday in Houston with a group of Afghan interpreters who I'd been with in Afghanistan who got these special immigrant visas and came to America with their families.

01:39:58.000 I cannot think of a better group of people who are contributing to life here.

01:40:03.000 I mean, on the Saturday morning they were running a food bank.

01:40:06.000 They've got jobs.

01:40:07.000 They're paying taxes.

01:40:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I think we should welcome them with open arms.

01:40:13.000 And I think, you know, despite our moral obligation to do that, I think we would benefit from doing it.

01:40:19.000 And, you know, we turned away Jewish refugees during World War II. You'd think we'd learn from that and say, never again.

01:40:28.000 You know?

01:40:29.000 I mean, if you're an American Christian...

01:40:32.000 I think Christianity is fairly clear on what to do with refugees, you know?

01:40:37.000 So to not only say no to refugees, but also to vilify them and say, oh look, a lot of them are fighting age males. 0.98

01:40:44.000 They're clearly ISIS sneaking in. 0.73

01:40:46.000 I mean, that's a level of viciousness and ignorance that I just can't fathom. 0.88

01:40:52.000 The ignorance is...

01:40:55.000 It's very pervasive, right?

01:40:57.000 It's like, it's one of these things where we don't, you don't know, you're reading these stories, and there's people who are telling you that these are fighting age males, and that we could very well be letting ISIS into our country, we very well could be letting in these terrorist cells and allowing them to come in, 0.83

01:41:16.000 but we also could be letting families in that This is a country that's made of immigrants.

01:41:22.000 It's one of the weirdest things in this country that this is a country so obsessed with borders and immigration, but yet it's comprised entirely of immigrants. 1.00

01:41:33.000 Do you know Gary Young, the British journalist?

01:41:37.000 No.

01:41:38.000 He interviews Richard Spencer.

01:41:41.000 Gary Young, I think, makes a very similar point.

01:41:44.000 And Richard Spencer says, yeah, but this country was built by white people. 0.92

01:41:49.000 You know, we came up with... 0.82

01:41:51.000 He said, no, no, it was literally built by black people, Gary Young says.

01:41:55.000 He says, yeah, yeah, but only because we told them how to do it.

01:41:58.000 And it's on camera.

01:41:59.000 Gary Young says, you know what?

01:42:00.000 I came to see you because I thought you were the intellectual argument for supporting Trump.

01:42:05.000 So I thought I might learn something.

01:42:07.000 You thought Richard Spencer was the intellectual argument?

01:42:08.000 He did, yeah, yeah.

01:42:08.000 Why did he think that?

01:42:09.000 I don't know.

01:42:10.000 But he says, you're not. 0.98

01:42:11.000 This is just ridiculous. 0.88

01:42:12.000 And he just shuts down the interview, turns around and walks off. 0.97

01:42:14.000 Good for him.

01:42:16.000 I don't know anything about Richard Spencer other than he always gets mentioned as a white supremacist.

01:42:21.000 I literally don't know what he stands for, what he does, or what he says.

01:42:24.000 And they always say he's well-dressed and with a nice haircut.

01:42:28.000 This is such a crazy subject.

01:42:32.000 The idea of, I mean, it would be nice if the whole world was up to the same standards of health and And prosperity and you didn't have to worry about where you could go.

01:42:45.000 If the whole world was essentially like the United States, where you could go to where the good parts were.

01:42:52.000 You know, if you live in Detroit and you save up your money, you can move to Florida or wherever you want to go.

01:42:57.000 I mean, you can do that.

01:42:58.000 This is the beautiful thing about living inside of a country.

01:43:02.000 It would be fantastic if the whole world was like that.

01:43:05.000 You could just kind of go wherever you would prosper and wherever things would be well.

01:43:10.000 The thing about refugees in other countries where we don't understand their language or their culture and then you get scared because you hear that they're Muslims and we're worried about Muslim terrorists and Again, it's one more piece of information that just overwhelms you.

01:43:27.000 One more.

01:43:28.000 One more thing to concentrate on.

01:43:29.000 There is a difference with Muslims. 0.98

01:43:30.000 In the Catholic Church and child abuse scandal, did a lot of people say, therefore all Christians are suspicious and all Christians are secretly pedophiles? 0.99

01:43:41.000 Right. 0.84

01:43:41.000 They're just not telling us. 0.84

01:43:42.000 No.

01:43:42.000 They didn't.

01:43:43.000 They didn't.

01:43:43.000 But they do with Muslims.

01:43:45.000 Well, it's fear of the unknown.

01:43:46.000 You know, it's a lot of it.

01:43:48.000 The languages and the fact that we're, you know, there's also this, there has to be this feeling that we've invaded their country, several countries, and been there for a long time.

01:44:00.000 And there's a deep-seated resentment that, you know, there's the thought of every time you accidentally blow up a wedding party with a drone, every time you...

01:44:12.000 We're good to go.

01:44:32.000 I said, these guys killed your brother because you were working for the Americans as an interpreter.

01:44:37.000 So how do you feel about the Americans now doing a deal with the Taliban? 0.56

01:44:41.000 And what about if the US leaves and the Taliban finishes off the government and then comes after your family?

01:44:46.000 He said, you know what?

01:44:47.000 America's not going to let that happen. 1.00

01:44:49.000 America has so much power and knows what to do that they will make sure that any agreement they reach with the Taliban will be enforceable and it will be safe. 0.93

01:44:57.000 He had so much faith.

01:44:59.000 I mean, far more than me.

01:45:01.000 Wow.

01:45:01.000 And that's what I hear far more often than the opposite.

01:45:05.000 Does that really depend on where you go?

01:45:07.000 I mean, because if you go certain places, people have a lot of faith in Trump.

01:45:11.000 You know?

01:45:12.000 Like, Donald Trump's going to protect us from evil.

01:45:14.000 There's places where you go that...

01:45:16.000 I mean, it's become a cliche, but I do think you'll find a lot of places critical of American foreign policy.

01:45:21.000 That doesn't mean they're critical of America.

01:45:23.000 How do they parse that out?

01:45:26.000 I think...

01:45:27.000 I mean, Vietnam, I think, is a good example.

01:45:30.000 We have defeated communism, or communism has been defeated in Vietnam, just because the new generation grow up and think Western culture, communism.

01:45:40.000 I know which one I want.

01:45:42.000 It's a simple choice.

01:45:43.000 And I think that young generation is making that very simple choice.

01:45:47.000 And it could just mean democracy.

01:45:49.000 And you think that is in Afghanistan as well?

01:45:51.000 Yeah.

01:45:51.000 That they're recognizing that Western culture provides more freedom and more economic opportunity, more prosperity?

01:45:58.000 Yeah.

01:45:58.000 And I haven't heard, apart from the Taliban, I haven't heard much anti-American feeling in Afghanistan at all.

01:46:04.000 Really?

01:46:05.000 Maybe I'm biased because a lot of the people I'm talking to had interactions with Americans, but they would even say as many mistakes as were made in the prosecuting of the war, with airstrikes and night raids and all that, the American soldiers and marines we met,

01:46:21.000 we knew were good people.

01:46:24.000 And like I said with Shroach, my interpreter, it's incredible how many people still believe that to this day.

01:46:31.000 There are conspiracy theories.

01:46:33.000 So, for example, in Iraq you'll hear a lot of people say, well, ISIS must have been part of America's plan.

01:46:39.000 Incompetence cannot explain what happened in Iraq. 0.51

01:46:41.000 This cannot be a mistake.

01:46:42.000 A lot of people believe that.

01:46:44.000 A lot of people believe that over here as well.

01:46:45.000 Right.

01:46:46.000 But that still doesn't mean they'll hate all Americans in America.

01:46:50.000 And it means a lot of them would love to visit and maybe even come and live here.

01:46:54.000 Is that anything that you take seriously?

01:46:56.000 Those conspiracy theories?

01:46:58.000 Is there any validity to any of that stuff?

01:47:00.000 The massive failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have done massive damage to the US on the world stage.

01:47:05.000 There's no way the US benefits from what's happened.

01:47:08.000 I mean, you know, the Taliban would have done a deal in 2002 where they got almost nothing.

01:47:14.000 Eighteen years later, a trillion dollars later, tens of thousands of lives later, we're now negotiating with the Taliban where they might get a very good deal. 0.96

01:47:24.000 That's a massive humiliation for the US. And also Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, others know that the US is not going to intervene in lots of countries.

01:47:33.000 So they're doing whatever they want and almost gloating about it, knowing full well that America just doesn't have the public support to intervene anywhere else for a very long time.

01:47:42.000 What's the predominant conspiracy theory that they want to prolong this war because of the military-industrial complex because they're spending tons of money and gaining contracts?

01:47:53.000 Oil, obviously, in Iraq.

01:47:55.000 Hamid Karzai has said to me, do you think America failed in Afghanistan?

01:47:59.000 And I said, of course I do.

01:48:00.000 Like, every film I've made explains exactly how.

01:48:03.000 And he says, no, I think this is exactly what they want.

01:48:06.000 They want us being attacked on all sides by extremists, so we will bow to their every wish.

01:48:11.000 And what do you say to that?

01:48:13.000 I mean, you know, he's met far more senior people than me, so it's hard for me to argue with him, but yeah, I don't give that theory any thought whatsoever.

01:48:22.000 That's the creepiest thought whatsoever, is that the government wants these perpetual wars.

01:48:26.000 I mean, that is the scariest conspiracy theory.

01:48:29.000 I'm not saying I support it, but if you...

01:48:32.000 Wanted to consider a conspiracy theory that's truly terrifying.

01:48:36.000 It's that they keep perpetual wars going on so that they can profit.

01:48:41.000 And, you know, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton benefited from airstrikes.

01:48:46.000 You know, there's a quick possible bump in terms of your approval ratings.

01:48:50.000 That's been proven many times.

01:48:53.000 But these wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, having gone so long and resulted in, I think, a humiliating defeat in both countries.

01:49:02.000 No one's been anything from that.

01:49:04.000 Well, there's a numbness that this country has towards them now.

01:49:07.000 It's been so many generations.

01:49:09.000 It's been so many years.

01:49:11.000 There's so many.

01:49:12.000 I mean...

01:49:13.000 What are the numbers of troops that have gone over to Afghanistan and Iraq and come back and not come back too?

01:49:20.000 It's just staggering.

01:49:21.000 And those towns they fought for, Fallujah in Iraq, Helmand province in Afghanistan, are now back in the hands of the Taliban in Helmand province.

01:49:29.000 That's not even news here.

01:49:32.000 Marja, the place I described earlier, is now back in the hands of the Taliban. 0.85

01:49:35.000 I've been since I went there with the U.S. Marines.

01:49:38.000 I don't remember seeing a headline about that.

01:49:41.000 No.

01:49:42.000 No, it's conveniently ignored.

01:49:44.000 Because the public are just, you know, you know, I've had so long of seeing people come back in body bags or without legs and thinking, I don't even know what victory looks like now.

01:49:52.000 I don't even know what the point of this is anymore.

01:49:54.000 Yeah, what are we, 16 years in?

01:49:56.000 Is that what it is now?

01:49:57.000 Afghanistan is 18. 18?

01:49:58.000 Yeah.

01:49:59.000 I mean, they say the longest war in American history.

01:50:02.000 The first four or five years, we went to Iraq very quickly and weren't doing very much in Afghanistan.

01:50:07.000 So, you know, I'd argue it's not an 18-19 year war, but it's a very long and very costly war.

01:50:13.000 Does this ever give you this feeling of hopelessness?

01:50:15.000 Do you look at yourself 40 years down the line still doing this?

01:50:18.000 How do you approach this?

01:50:21.000 I think about that, and I also think about just selling everything I have and getting a little house in Jamaica and just retreating from the world.

01:50:29.000 Just drinking beer and relaxing?

01:50:30.000 I think I tried to do my bit.

01:50:32.000 I'm not sure how much of a bit I did, but you can get that feeling very easily.

01:50:39.000 Yeah, I would imagine that you see so much and you see so much anguish and so much pain and suffering and death and war and so much of it seems pointless that after a while you might want to just detach, disconnect.

01:50:53.000 And you said it earlier, you know, when you read the numbers, hear the stories, I just, I can't even take it seriously anymore.

01:51:00.000 I mean, I can take it seriously, but I can't fathom it.

01:51:02.000 I can't really take it on board and really imagine what that's like.

01:51:05.000 Yeah.

01:51:06.000 And I've seen it with my own eyes, and even then it's so hard to process.

01:51:09.000 Do you have an exit strategy?

01:51:11.000 No.

01:51:14.000 I mean, I could make documentaries about other things, but I just don't think it would be...

01:51:20.000 This feels urgent to me.

01:51:22.000 And I question how useful this work is, but it feels somewhat useful.

01:51:28.000 It certainly feels like the most useful thing I can do for now.

01:51:31.000 I'm not a doctor.

01:51:32.000 I'm not a politician.

01:51:34.000 So even if it's not that much use, it's somewhat useful.

01:51:38.000 Well, there's also the problem that...

01:51:42.000 You've dedicated so much of your time to it.

01:51:44.000 I do think it's very useful.

01:51:46.000 You've dedicated so much time doing this that if you were to make a documentary on something frivolous, oh, this guy's a cabinetmaker.

01:51:54.000 How do you do it, Bob?

01:51:55.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:51:57.000 You might lose your fucking mind. 1.00

01:52:00.000 Once you've experienced what you've experienced, it's probably very, very difficult to look at the world through a normal lens and be satisfied with normal results. 1.00

01:52:11.000 And it would be easy to dismiss anything else you did as being frivolous in comparison to covering Yemen or Afghanistan or Congo or wherever.

01:52:19.000 So do you essentially just take it project by project and just keep going?

01:52:24.000 Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about this every day right now because, like I said, in that first MDMA session, I thought, this is what you want to do.

01:52:30.000 This is what you care about.

01:52:31.000 This is where your heart is.

01:52:33.000 So I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep on doing it, just maybe do it in a different way.

01:52:38.000 I'm also really tempted just to try and take, you know, three months off and go to Costa Rica and surf and do yoga and read nice books and just then see how I feel.

01:52:47.000 One of my favorite quotes is...

01:52:49.000 Is Nietzsche.

01:52:50.000 He says, credit no thought not had in the open air while walking in beautiful landscapes.

01:52:55.000 Ah, what a great quote.

01:52:57.000 Only when you're in that state of mind can you make the right decision.

01:52:59.000 So it'd be nice to make the decision in a place like that.

01:53:03.000 Sure, especially you.

01:53:04.000 I mean, you caught up in the momentum of these chaotic events.

01:53:07.000 And every day something new is happening.

01:53:09.000 I mean, ISIS are about to get defeated in Syria.

01:53:11.000 I want to be there to see it.

01:53:13.000 Yeah.

01:53:13.000 You know, cover it.

01:53:14.000 Do you think you really could take three months and go to Costa Rica?

01:53:17.000 Have you done that before?

01:53:19.000 I did nine days in Jamaica recently.

01:53:21.000 Nine whole days?

01:53:22.000 Yeah.

01:53:23.000 What was it like on day two?

01:53:25.000 I loved every minute of it.

01:53:27.000 Did you really?

01:53:27.000 And I actually felt like my brain kind of woke up.

01:53:30.000 I just felt, you know, the numbness I talked about earlier, the worst thing is it just kills your curiosity.

01:53:36.000 Yeah.

01:53:37.000 And that's horrible.

01:53:39.000 And I just felt, you know, curious again.

01:53:42.000 I felt like my mind, and I read a couple of books that weren't war-related, and I focused on them, I took it in, you know, I was in it for the experience, and I loved it.

01:53:52.000 Why don't you just do that then?

01:53:54.000 Take those three months.

01:53:56.000 Maybe you have a different view.

01:53:58.000 Yeah, I feel guilty.

01:54:00.000 You do feel guilty.

01:54:01.000 Yeah.

01:54:01.000 Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you.

01:54:03.000 I wanted to know if you felt guilty around day two.

01:54:06.000 Yeah, I did feel guilty on this one because it was quick.

01:54:10.000 I mean, in the past, you know, you can go to a big fight and enjoy it and love it.

01:54:14.000 You can go for a big dinner and enjoy it and love it.

01:54:16.000 But that's about it.

01:54:18.000 You know, a month of luxury somewhere, I think I would get uncomfortable.

01:54:23.000 You're not covering this fight when you went to the Errol Spence?

01:54:26.000 No.

01:54:27.000 I've made a couple of boxing docs.

01:54:28.000 I made a documentary about Danny Jacobs.

01:54:29.000 Did you really?

01:54:30.000 When he survived cancer and the night he became a world champion.

01:54:33.000 Oh, wow.

01:54:33.000 We were there.

01:54:34.000 And it was actually, it was great to be able to say to people, here's my latest film.

01:54:37.000 It'll make you feel really good.

01:54:39.000 It'll inspire you.

01:54:40.000 So to contradict what I said earlier, that felt really good to be able to do that.

01:54:44.000 Maybe there's more of those in your future.

01:54:46.000 Yeah.

01:54:47.000 Yeah.

01:54:48.000 I was talking to someone the other day about maybe a documentary about the gym that Danny comes from, which is a door that leads to the basement of a bodega in Bed-Stuy.

01:54:57.000 And they now have three world champions.

01:54:59.000 Wow.

01:54:59.000 It's tiny.

01:55:00.000 It's not a lot bigger than this room.

01:55:02.000 Really?

01:55:03.000 With a lower ceiling.

01:55:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:55:04.000 Really?

01:55:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:55:05.000 And it's underneath a bodega?

01:55:07.000 Yeah.

01:55:07.000 It's Saddam Ali, who I think is the first Arab or Yemeni world champion.

01:55:11.000 He beat Miguel Cotto.

01:55:13.000 Wow.

01:55:13.000 He got into boxing when he was a kid, so his dad, who owns the bodega, built this gym in the basement, and that's where he and Danny came up.

01:55:19.000 That's incredible.

01:55:20.000 And people walk past it, and it's just this door.

01:55:22.000 There's no sign.

01:55:22.000 People wouldn't even know.

01:55:23.000 Have you ever been to the Kronk Gym in Detroit?

01:55:25.000 No, I haven't.

01:55:26.000 It doesn't exist anymore, does it?

01:55:28.000 No, no, but you turn up to the building and you think this can't be the right place.

01:55:30.000 It looks like a derelict building.

01:55:32.000 Right.

01:55:32.000 And you go down this basement, you know, staircase into the basement and there's this crappy gym with one ring and a few bags and that's it.

01:55:38.000 And then Tommy Hearns walks in and Henry Akin one day walks in and, you know, Oba Carr walks in.

01:55:42.000 It's similar to that.

01:55:43.000 I had Lennox Lewis on the podcast last week.

01:55:46.000 It was amazing.

01:55:46.000 He sounded great.

01:55:47.000 He's amazing.

01:55:48.000 He sounded really good, yeah.

01:55:49.000 It doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with him at all.

01:55:51.000 I was wondering if chess is what's helping him.

01:55:54.000 Because he doesn't seem to be sustaining any of the long-term...

01:55:58.000 He got knocked out a couple of times like that.

01:56:00.000 Yeah, he really did.

01:56:04.000 I mean, it's amazing.

01:56:08.000 I really do wonder.

01:56:10.000 Because chess is so...

01:56:13.000 It's so difficult, and your mind is constantly firing.

01:56:17.000 And the brain, in some ways, does atrophy without use.

01:56:22.000 I mean, whether it's not physical atrophy in terms of the size of it, but in terms of its abilities.

01:56:27.000 The more active you are solving puzzles.

01:56:30.000 George Foreman used to do a lot of crossword puzzles and things along those lines.

01:56:33.000 And he actively sought difficult little quizzes and puzzles and things to keep his mind sharp.

01:56:40.000 I met Quincy Jones a couple of months ago.

01:56:43.000 Oh, yeah?

01:56:43.000 He's learning Mandarin, I think, and doing well at it.

01:56:46.000 How old is he?

01:56:48.000 I don't know.

01:56:48.000 He's in his 80s, I think.

01:56:49.000 He just turned 86. Wow.

01:56:51.000 And by the way, a whole group of us had dinner, and he was the last man to leave.

01:56:55.000 He closed the restaurant down.

01:56:56.000 Wow.

01:56:56.000 He's incredible.

01:56:58.000 And I got into an argument about Rio and racism in Brazil in front of him.

01:57:01.000 Really?

01:57:02.000 And he said, wait a minute.

01:57:04.000 I've been going to the favelas in Rio since the 60s. 0.99

01:57:06.000 And I thought, oh, shit, here we go. 1.00

01:57:08.000 And he said, and Ben's right, Brazil is deeply racist. 1.00

01:57:11.000 I just got backed up by Quincy Jones in an argument.

01:57:14.000 It was great.

01:57:15.000 But he says exactly the same thing.

01:57:18.000 Yeah, so he does these things specifically to try to stay sharp.

01:57:22.000 Yeah, treat the brain like a muscle.

01:57:25.000 Yeah, I think there's something to that. 0.97

01:57:26.000 I mean, Lennox Lewis is obviously one anecdotal case, but man, he's so fucking sharp.

01:57:33.000 But that's what's so frightening about the numbness that comes from the PTSD is if it takes away that curiosity.

01:57:38.000 You've got a day off and you think, I'm going to do a crossword.

01:57:41.000 I'm going to learn a language.

01:57:42.000 If it takes away that energy, that's terrifying.

01:57:45.000 Right.

01:57:45.000 The numbness.

01:57:46.000 Yeah.

01:57:47.000 The numbness that people – well, people in extreme poverty and extreme stress, they do experience that sort of numbness, especially if you're in a dangerous neighborhood and just – you're overwhelmed.

01:57:58.000 Like you were saying about how the adrenaline eventually wears off and then you're just kind of – you're in this weird gray state.

01:58:06.000 Yeah.

01:58:07.000 And imagine someone in prison.

01:58:08.000 If you can awaken that.

01:58:12.000 Who knows what's possible?

01:58:13.000 But it seems like there's almost no effort at rehabilitation.

01:58:15.000 But awakening that is, I don't think, that difficult.

01:58:18.000 It just needs the right book or the right person, the right film.

01:58:21.000 Well, there's a place where I believe MDMA therapy could really have some amazing results.

01:58:27.000 Yeah.

01:58:27.000 We've talked about it with the therapists who are leading this.

01:58:30.000 I think that's their dream, is to get in and do this in a prison, because I guarantee the majority of those guys in there are suffering from PTSD and reacting to it.

01:58:39.000 Well, and the majority of them have probably been abused and come from abusive environments and horrible situations.

01:58:48.000 The idea that we just take people and lock them in cages and say, well, you've done your time.

01:58:52.000 Now get out. 1.00

01:58:53.000 Now you're going to be even more fucked up. 1.00

01:58:56.000 Now you're habituated. 1.00

01:58:58.000 You're used to being surrounded by violent criminals.

01:59:01.000 Good luck in the world.

01:59:02.000 And we're going to make it even harder for you than anybody else to get a job.

01:59:05.000 Or an apartment.

01:59:07.000 Yeah.

01:59:07.000 I mean, there was this story about Kim Kardashian trying to pay this guy's rent because he got out of jail and she's going to pay his rent for five years to sort of get him on his feet.

01:59:17.000 He still can't get a fucking apartment. 0.98

01:59:19.000 Oh, I'd heard the first bit. 1.00

01:59:20.000 I hadn't heard the second bit.

01:59:21.000 Yeah.

01:59:22.000 Nobody wants to take him in.

01:59:26.000 We don't ever want to give anybody a road to redemption. 1.00

01:59:29.000 You fuck up once. 0.99

01:59:30.000 You do something wrong. 1.00

01:59:32.000 One robbery. 0.99

01:59:32.000 You get accused of fucking up. 0.99

01:59:34.000 And you're off to Rikers for three years before you even stand trial. 0.98

01:59:37.000 I read a stat the other day.

01:59:38.000 I think it's 94% of trials in the US are settled on a plea bargain.

01:59:43.000 Don't even go to trial.

01:59:45.000 And I thought that was wrong.

01:59:46.000 I thought that can't be accurate.

01:59:48.000 Well, they scare people.

01:59:49.000 Yeah.

01:59:49.000 You can plead guilty and get five years.

01:59:52.000 Or you can go to trial and you'll probably get 30. Yeah.

01:59:55.000 Which is insane.

01:59:56.000 Yeah.

01:59:57.000 Like, why would you give me five years if a judge would give me 30?

02:00:00.000 Like, what is that?

02:00:01.000 Yeah.

02:00:02.000 What is happening there?

02:00:03.000 Yeah, if I am guilty.

02:00:03.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:00:04.000 Yeah, no, it's insane.

02:00:05.000 It's just like a money-saving sort of mechanism and ensuring that they don't lose.

02:00:13.000 You know, and just, they scare you.

02:00:16.000 Yeah.

02:00:16.000 You want to risk it all?

02:00:18.000 You want to, 30 years, you won't have a life.

02:00:20.000 But five years, you will.

02:00:21.000 Yeah.

02:00:22.000 You might get out in two.

02:00:23.000 Be a good fella.

02:00:25.000 Don't stab anybody in jail.

02:00:28.000 What we do with people in this country when someone commits a crime is pretty stunning.

02:00:35.000 And then when you factor in the fact that there's actual businesses that revolve around profiting off of people being incarcerated is even crazier.

02:00:44.000 And no one investigates that either.

02:00:46.000 Yeah.

02:00:47.000 And again, there are some great investigations.

02:00:49.000 ProPublica, people like that.

02:00:50.000 How many people are reading them?

02:00:51.000 Reading them.

02:00:52.000 That's a better way to say it.

02:00:53.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:00:53.000 The information is there.

02:00:55.000 And to your point about the overflow of information, it's all there.

02:00:59.000 It's just that's not the stuff at the top of the pile.

02:01:01.000 It's nowhere near the top of the pile.

02:01:02.000 That's probably the last thing that people are concentrating on because you're assuming these people are bad criminals.

02:01:06.000 And you don't want them on the street.

02:01:07.000 What do you want to do?

02:01:08.000 Think about all the good people out there that are struggling.

02:01:11.000 Concentrate on them first.

02:01:13.000 But this is part of what's wrong.

02:01:16.000 Part of what's wrong is these people are in these terrible situations, terrible communities, no way out, no positive image to model.

02:01:23.000 Everyone is a drug dealer or a criminal.

02:01:26.000 It's crime around you all the time.

02:01:27.000 You wind up in the system.

02:01:28.000 You become incarcerated, and then that's your life now.

02:01:31.000 Yeah.

02:01:32.000 And you're stuck in this thing.

02:01:33.000 And there's more of them in American prison than anywhere else on the planet Earth.

02:01:37.000 Yeah.

02:01:37.000 And as a foreigner here, that's one of the things that just never fails to shock me.

02:01:41.000 Well, England's got its own concerns too, right? 0.99

02:01:44.000 I mean, there's so many fucking stabbings in London now. 1.00

02:01:46.000 It's really crazy. 1.00

02:01:47.000 Yeah.

02:01:48.000 Yeah.

02:01:48.000 I mean, but compared to shootings here, it's nothing.

02:01:52.000 But yeah, it's definitely a problem.

02:01:55.000 And you just don't see police on the streets like you used to.

02:01:58.000 In London?

02:01:59.000 Yeah.

02:01:59.000 And you don't see police.

02:02:00.000 My dad was a policeman.

02:02:01.000 Yeah.

02:02:02.000 Before I was born, but you just don't see, you know, like streetwise policemen who are part of the local community getting intelligence, knowing what's going on.

02:02:10.000 And often you'll see, I mean, I remember the riots in Brixton, which were right near where I lived, and the police would stand back, let the riot unfold, and then just study video afterwards.

02:02:18.000 We recognize that guy, we'll arrest him three days later.

02:02:20.000 Oh, Jesus.

02:02:21.000 I didn't think that's what police were supposed to do. 1.00

02:02:23.000 Well, they want to protect their own ass. 1.00

02:02:25.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1.00

02:02:27.000 Ben, how do we fix the world?

02:02:30.000 I have no idea.

02:02:31.000 I think it might be MDMA. Actually, I know some people that would say that and make a good argument for it and really believe it as well.

02:02:38.000 Just a really good argument for psychedelics remapping the world.

02:02:41.000 There really is.

02:02:42.000 Sounds frivolous.

02:02:43.000 Yeah.

02:02:44.000 There's a moment in the MDMA documentary you did where I interview Rick Doblin, the mastermind of this.

02:02:49.000 I've had him on.

02:02:51.000 Oh, right.

02:02:51.000 Yeah, he's been on.

02:02:52.000 And at the end, I say, what's the potential for this if you get it legalized?

02:02:55.000 And he basically says, spiritualize the world, world peace.

02:02:59.000 And I look at him like, are you serious?

02:03:00.000 And he laughed and says, I know it sounds crazy, but I really believe this is possible.

02:03:04.000 It is possible.

02:03:05.000 Yeah.

02:03:05.000 Well, not just MDMA. MDMA is a great doorway because of its work with people with trauma.

02:03:11.000 But psilocybin is as well.

02:03:14.000 And, you know, psilocybin obviously comes with these profound breakthrough psychedelic experiences that not just completely remap your perceptions of life, but show you a whole world that you didn't think could possibly exist.

02:03:26.000 Yeah.

02:03:27.000 And then all the other ones, you know, Ibogaine, for all these people that are hooked on pills, it was one of the most effective drugs or known molecules on earth for alleviating people of opiates.

02:03:39.000 I'm trying ketamine.

02:03:40.000 I've tried it a couple of times, but that's what they want to try with me next.

02:03:42.000 Yeah.

02:03:43.000 I mean, anything that makes people compassionate and kind to themselves as well as to others.

02:03:47.000 Yes.

02:03:48.000 And it doesn't seem like that much of a jump.

02:03:50.000 I think most people have it in them.

02:03:51.000 Yeah.

02:03:52.000 You know, not that far under the surface.

02:03:54.000 Well, people are scared.

02:03:55.000 You know, they're scared and they're tense and...

02:03:57.000 You know, people are just in constant states of conflict.

02:04:00.000 I mean, that's a big thing that's going on in this world.

02:04:02.000 And one of the things that psychedelics do is they give you a brief break from that conflict and then give you these thoughts that you probably would have never achieved without these drugs.

02:04:17.000 That's exactly what MDMA did with me.

02:04:19.000 It just removed all of those fears.

02:04:21.000 Yeah.

02:04:23.000 I think it's entirely possible.

02:04:25.000 I really do.

02:04:26.000 I think there's a real case for us being able to set up some sort of clinics, some sort of supervised psychedelic experiences where one after another people start changing.

02:04:43.000 And then it trickles down.

02:04:44.000 They start changing the people around them.

02:04:46.000 People say, well, what happened to Mike?

02:04:48.000 Like, oh, Mike did mushrooms at this...

02:04:50.000 New clinic that they're opening up and they're changing.

02:04:53.000 He's a new guy.

02:04:54.000 He's a different person.

02:04:55.000 He's so nice.

02:04:55.000 And then they joined too.

02:04:57.000 And I mean, I just think there's so much room for that in this world.

02:05:00.000 It's so difficult to change who you are.

02:05:03.000 People rarely change.

02:05:05.000 They become a slightly different version of who they were 5, 10, 15 years ago.

02:05:10.000 They rarely actually change.

02:05:12.000 And even to people who are completely skeptical about this, the fact this is helping veterans means that everyone is behind it.

02:05:18.000 Well, it's a great way to get in.

02:05:19.000 Yeah, I mean, they're very wise, MAPS is, in their approach to this one particular modality, because if they can actually achieve this, you're going to also achieve it and help people that are in the community that's least likely to accept psychedelics,

02:05:37.000 right-wing, pro-war, you know, MAGA people.

02:05:42.000 Those people, I mean, those are probably the least likely, if you wanted to generalize, to accept psychedelics.

02:05:49.000 We watched the Fox News segment with Rick at his house in Boston of Fox News talking about MDMA for veterans.

02:05:55.000 How did they approach it?

02:05:56.000 Well, they looked at each other at the end and said, do you ever think you'd do a pro ecstasy piece?

02:06:00.000 And they said, no, but if it helps the veterans, I guess we're for it too, right?

02:06:03.000 Yes, exactly.

02:06:05.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:06:06.000 And if it can lower crime rates to get people on mushrooms...

02:06:11.000 I mean, if dimethyltryptamine can change people's perceptions.

02:06:16.000 There's so many of these different drugs, too, that you could introduce people to under a clinical supervision setting where you could change that. 0.94

02:06:25.000 I mean, how many people are involved in psychotherapy and it doesn't do a goddamn thing to them? 0.78

02:06:29.000 They just keep going back and forth. 0.94

02:06:30.000 Or they numb them up with pills.

02:06:32.000 Oh, with me, it was Zoloft straight away.

02:06:34.000 Yeah, of course.

02:06:35.000 And it didn't work.

02:06:35.000 They doubled the dose.

02:06:36.000 Didn't work.

02:06:37.000 Doubled the dose again.

02:06:37.000 I was just a zombie.

02:06:39.000 Yeah, and that, I don't have any experience with it, but I know people that have had very negative experiences where just the world becomes, all the bright colors are gone, and the world just becomes weird.

02:06:51.000 That's exactly what it was.

02:06:52.000 Dulled.

02:06:53.000 Dulled everything.

02:06:54.000 And the great thing about MDMA is it's not a potential opioid crisis because it's a therapist sitting down giving you the pill.

02:07:00.000 I don't give you 50 pills and you can abuse it wherever you want.

02:07:04.000 Logistically, doing what you say is going to be hard to set up.

02:07:06.000 We need a lot of therapists, a lot of facilities, but It's possible.

02:07:11.000 Well, once there's success, and then it becomes a business, then it can happen.

02:07:16.000 I mean, once insurance starts covering it, once people start experiencing positive benefits, you can get it from both sides, right?

02:07:23.000 You get it from the commerce aspect.

02:07:26.000 Money starts coming in.

02:07:27.000 People start paying for it, and it becomes a business that's successful.

02:07:31.000 It actually has good results.

02:07:33.000 People start talking well about it.

02:07:35.000 Other people start opening up these centers.

02:07:37.000 Yeah.

02:07:38.000 There's so much potential to this.

02:07:40.000 Those people at MAPS and Rick Doblin and all of his crew, they have the real potential to change the world.

02:07:48.000 And actually, the first session when I was really resisting it and fighting it, I just imagined Rick's face and the Mithoffer's faces in South Carolina and just the kindness and benevolence.

02:07:59.000 I just thought of those faces and that's what allowed me to just let it wash over and hit me.

02:08:06.000 But Johnson& Johnson just got permission to use, to market their version of ketamine.

02:08:12.000 And right now, the dose of ketamine I had is like $90.

02:08:18.000 They're going to sell it for $15,000.

02:08:22.000 That's the danger of it getting properly legalized and, as you said, turned into a successful business.

02:08:26.000 Oh, that's terrible.

02:08:27.000 Yeah.

02:08:28.000 Now, why is it so expensive?

02:08:29.000 Just so they can make money off of it.

02:08:31.000 Now, this is the therapeutic dose of ketamine in some sort of psychiatric sort of...

02:08:37.000 What's the environment they're going to do it in?

02:08:40.000 So they want to have it very much controlled, but it looks like they want to stop the therapist giving it in the study, in their own office, I mean, which is what's going on now, and have it controlled under, you know, A hospital sort of situation?

02:08:57.000 Yeah, and there is a very good...

02:08:59.000 And it's not even underground, because I'm not even sure it's illegal here, right?

02:09:02.000 Ketamine?

02:09:03.000 Yeah.

02:09:03.000 I think it is illegal.

02:09:04.000 Oh.

02:09:05.000 But there are therapists giving it out now.

02:09:07.000 I mean, I bought mine legally.

02:09:09.000 You know, I think you can...

02:09:10.000 Oh, you bought it personally?

02:09:11.000 With a prescription.

02:09:12.000 Really?

02:09:12.000 Yeah, with a prescription in New York.

02:09:14.000 Oh.

02:09:15.000 Maybe I'm wrong.

02:09:16.000 Is ketamine legal?

02:09:19.000 Legal under prescription?

02:09:21.000 Maybe it's a Schedule 2 drug or something along those lines?

02:09:24.000 No.

02:09:24.000 Someone sent me the message about the $15,000 and how much it was.

02:09:27.000 That's fucking crazy. 0.97

02:09:29.000 $90,000 to $15,000. 0.99

02:09:30.000 Which is far more than the amount that Martin Shkreli put up the price.

02:09:38.000 Right, and went to jail for. 0.99

02:09:39.000 But yeah, he's a douchebag though. 0.99

02:09:42.000 It's easy to point at him. 0.98

02:09:44.000 He owns the Wu-Tang Clan album.

02:09:47.000 What happened with that?

02:09:48.000 I don't know.

02:09:49.000 Someone's got it, man.

02:09:51.000 He's in jail.

02:09:52.000 I saw he's still running his business from a burner cell phone in jail.

02:09:57.000 Oh, that's hilarious.

02:09:59.000 Well, what he's saying is, though, what happened to the Wu-Tang Clan album?

02:10:03.000 I thought it was in possession of the FBI. That's hilarious.

02:10:08.000 Come on, son. 1.00

02:10:09.000 That shit is hilarious. 1.00

02:10:11.000 That might be one of the most hilarious parts of that story. 1.00

02:10:13.000 The FBI owns the Wu-Tang Clan forbidden album.

02:10:20.000 How much did he pay?

02:10:20.000 Didn't he pay like a million dollars for it?

02:10:22.000 He paid a lot because it was up for auction.

02:10:24.000 I think this says he paid two million.

02:10:27.000 Wow.

02:10:29.000 You can never get that money back.

02:10:31.000 Especially if the tracks got released.

02:10:35.000 But what a great marketing tool.

02:10:37.000 It's worth more than $2 million in marketing.

02:10:40.000 The actual sale price is not released.

02:10:42.000 He confirmed he paid $2 million for it. 1.00

02:10:44.000 Yeah, but he's full of shit. 1.00

02:10:46.000 I bet he did, though. 1.00

02:10:48.000 I mean, if I had to guess.

02:10:49.000 I mean, how many wealthy people out there are Wu-Tang fans?

02:10:52.000 A lot.

02:10:53.000 Probably a healthy bid.

02:10:55.000 Healthy bidding war.

02:10:56.000 Yeah, this is as of like a year ago, the feds have it.

02:11:01.000 So I don't know if there's an update on that.

02:11:03.000 There's always, I mean, when it's an individual that's like him, it's easy to look at him disparagingly.

02:11:11.000 Like, look at this guy. 1.00

02:11:12.000 He's a dick. 0.99

02:11:13.000 Oh, he wants to raise the money or raise the price of these drugs that can help people? 1.00

02:11:18.000 Fuck him. 1.00

02:11:19.000 Let's go get him. 1.00

02:11:20.000 But if it's Johnson& Johnson, it's like, first of all, they make baby powder.

02:11:26.000 You know, they're so respected.

02:11:28.000 It's such a common household name.

02:11:32.000 And they're not calling it ketamine, they're calling it esketamine.

02:11:35.000 Esketamine?

02:11:36.000 Slightly different.

02:11:37.000 That sounds like a snail, right?

02:11:39.000 Sounds like escargot.

02:11:41.000 And it's a nasal spray.

02:11:42.000 Oh, Jesus.

02:11:43.000 I don't know how different that makes it, but...

02:11:46.000 Huh.

02:11:46.000 Well, it's better than shooting it up, because I know that a lot of people take it intramuscularly, where you just jab it into your thigh.

02:11:54.000 I believe, yeah, this says the drug will only be given by accredited specialists who must monitor patients for two hours after administration.

02:12:00.000 I don't think you can just get it and go home and...

02:12:02.000 Oh, that makes sense.

02:12:03.000 Because I know Neil Brennan did it, and he had some very good results from it.

02:12:08.000 I've spoken to him a few times.

02:12:09.000 He's tried everything. 0.97

02:12:12.000 He's a fucking hilarious guy. 0.97

02:12:14.000 He's had some real depression problems though. 0.98

02:12:17.000 He has some very good relief from magnetic therapy.

02:12:22.000 And have you seen the involuntary trembling thing he did as well?

02:12:24.000 No, what's that?

02:12:25.000 He's got a video of that.

02:12:26.000 What is that?

02:12:27.000 I have no idea.

02:12:28.000 Involuntary trembling?

02:12:29.000 Yeah, he's just sitting there and his arm and shoulder is just going.

02:12:31.000 They just juice him up with something?

02:12:33.000 Nothing.

02:12:34.000 Nothing?

02:12:35.000 Just talking.

02:12:35.000 Oh, so he just does it on purpose?

02:12:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:12:38.000 Or this therapist in LA gets him to do it somehow.

02:12:41.000 And that helps him?

02:12:42.000 Yeah.

02:12:43.000 You'd have to ask him.

02:12:44.000 I don't know the ins and outs.

02:12:45.000 I watched the Three Mike special thinking it was just another comedy stand-up.

02:12:49.000 I had no idea about that.

02:12:51.000 That third Mike being the serious stuff.

02:12:52.000 I thought it was incredible.

02:12:53.000 He's a brilliant guy.

02:12:55.000 He's a very smart guy and his stand-up is outstanding.

02:12:57.000 And it just keeps getting better.

02:12:59.000 But, you know, he's a guy fighting demons.

02:13:04.000 He's the classic case of the comedian that can never be happy unless he's on stage killing.

02:13:10.000 You know, and then, you know, even then, that's brief.

02:13:13.000 Like, he's just never this jovial, funny guy, but he's a brilliant comedian.

02:13:16.000 Yeah.

02:13:17.000 But as long as I've known him for many years, he's struggled.

02:13:20.000 And it sounds like he's kind of an unofficial executive producer for a bunch of other comedians as well.

02:13:24.000 How so?

02:13:25.000 Like, advising them and giving them notes, and it seems like a whole bunch of people respect him and get his input.

02:13:30.000 Well, people definitely respect him, but, yeah, I'm sure he gives people taglines and gives them advice and stuff like that.

02:13:36.000 He's a very smart guy.

02:13:37.000 But to be as honest as he was, and not even end it with a joke, you know, just to tell the serious story and then end, you know, that blew me away.

02:13:44.000 I met him on a Friday night and watched it on a Saturday morning and had no idea.

02:13:49.000 And it was one of the best things I've seen for a long time.

02:13:51.000 Wow.

02:13:52.000 Yeah, no, he's a special guy.

02:13:53.000 It's hard when, you know, I've had a few friends take their life.

02:14:01.000 Three in the last year.

02:14:03.000 And, you know, you see a guy like Neil and, you know, he's constantly pursuing all these different therapies and constantly trying to find something that alleviates this depression.

02:14:16.000 And you just keep hoping.

02:14:18.000 You keep hoping.

02:14:19.000 You keep searching.

02:14:20.000 You keep hoping that one of these things sticks.

02:14:22.000 One of these things really sticks.

02:14:23.000 I mean, he's very, very proactive.

02:14:25.000 He's always searching for new things.

02:14:27.000 He's very open about it and talking about it.

02:14:29.000 But the ketamine does seem to have helped him quite a bit and he was telling me like man He's like this is so fucking crazy I'm going to this doctor's office and having these full-blown Psychedelic experiences at the doctor's office.

02:14:40.000 Yeah And then two hours later you're out on the street feeling completely normal.

02:14:43.000 What was your ketamine experience like?

02:14:45.000 I took a tablet you put it under your tongue and let it dissolve for for ten minutes And then I laid on a sofa in a therapist office for two hours And I was out on the street again two hours later.

02:14:55.000 So how long did it take before it kicked in?

02:14:58.000 I don't really know because I never thought it was kicking in.

02:15:02.000 But then I just found myself saying things and concluding things that I wouldn't normally say.

02:15:06.000 And for the next week and a half, I just felt like there was just a weight off.

02:15:11.000 Did you have any sort of hallucinogenic experience?

02:15:15.000 Nope.

02:15:15.000 None whatsoever.

02:15:15.000 Nothing?

02:15:16.000 No hallucinating at all?

02:15:17.000 No.

02:15:17.000 Listened to music quite quietly.

02:15:19.000 Put an eye mask on for a few minutes here and there.

02:15:23.000 Sometimes didn't talk at all.

02:15:25.000 But, yeah, there was just this relief.

02:15:28.000 Especially afterwards, like in the week and a half or so afterwards, just felt this lightness.

02:15:33.000 And, you know, to your point about Neil being so open to trying everything, even that, even taking that step is hard.

02:15:39.000 Sometimes even getting out the door.

02:15:40.000 Sure.

02:15:41.000 It's hard, let alone researching this stuff and trying everything.

02:15:43.000 When I first moved to America, I said, okay, you're not going to do yoga.

02:15:46.000 You're not going to do therapy.

02:15:47.000 You're not going to do prescription drugs. 1.00

02:15:49.000 That's New York bullshit. 0.98

02:15:50.000 To drop that skepticism and to try everything and be genuinely open to everything, that's a lot in itself. 0.99

02:15:58.000 Well, it's hard for people to try anything new.

02:16:00.000 I mean, you have to respect anytime anyone does anything new. 0.92

02:16:03.000 The first time a person straps on a pair of running shoes and goes for a jog, it's fucking hard.

02:16:08.000 It's hard to just do something. 0.93

02:16:09.000 It's hard to change gears.

02:16:11.000 Or be curious enough to try it in the first place, to be open to the idea.

02:16:15.000 Not just be curious.

02:16:16.000 I mean, in the case of taking something like ketamine, brave.

02:16:19.000 You have to be brave.

02:16:20.000 I mean, once you take it, you can't untake it.

02:16:23.000 You're on a ride.

02:16:24.000 Yeah.

02:16:25.000 The first MDMA session was more frightening to me than going to Syria or Yemen.

02:16:30.000 How so?

02:16:33.000 I guess the vulnerability.

02:16:34.000 I just thought I'd say things and accept things that, you know, I'd put up a front against for so long.

02:16:41.000 Is it a British thing?

02:16:43.000 I think it's very much a British thing.

02:16:45.000 But it's also, you know, my identity has been a tough, brave war correspondent.

02:16:49.000 Right.

02:16:50.000 And you can like that.

02:16:52.000 Yeah.

02:16:53.000 It's respected.

02:16:54.000 Yeah.

02:16:57.000 And yeah, I don't know.

02:17:00.000 When I had that feeling of relief in the first session about, oh, you could have a family and a dog and kids and enjoy it and be happy.

02:17:08.000 There's also a part of me that resisted that and thought, no, that's somehow taking your foot off the gas.

02:17:13.000 That's somehow losing sight of what's important and what your role is and what you can do to actually help things.

02:17:19.000 And just doing whatever is good for you.

02:17:23.000 Well, it seems so conflicted because you obviously get a great benefit out of this...

02:17:28.000 This ability to help.

02:17:29.000 And you really do help.

02:17:31.000 And you really do put yourself in these incredibly difficult situations.

02:17:34.000 So there's something, there's a positive aspect of it, but for sure there's a price that you're paying that's pretty substantial.

02:17:42.000 Yeah.

02:17:43.000 And before the MDMA therapy, I thought if the price is you're on your own and you're not enjoying the things that most people enjoy, then that's the price you pay.

02:17:54.000 You know what you want to do and you'll do it whatever the price is.

02:17:59.000 And so I'm open to the idea of that not being the case.

02:18:03.000 I hope that's the case.

02:18:05.000 I hope it not being the case is actually the case.

02:18:07.000 Yeah.

02:18:08.000 Listen, Ben, thank you, man.

02:18:10.000 Thanks for coming in here.

02:18:10.000 Thanks for everything you do.

02:18:12.000 I really appreciate it.

02:18:12.000 It was great talking to you.

02:18:14.000 And I wish you well, man.

02:18:16.000 If there's anything we could do, please let me know.

02:18:19.000 Thank you.

02:18:19.000 Thank you, brother.

02:18:20.000 Thank you very much.

02:18:20.000 Thank you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - March 18, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1266 - Ben Anderson

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