The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games

00:00:11.000 Gentlemen, good to see you.

00:00:13.000 Good to see you.

00:00:14.000 Please introduce yourselves.

00:00:16.000 I'm Dr. Aaron D'Souza, president of the Enhanced Games.

00:00:19.000 And I'm Christian Angermeyer, co-founder of the Enhanced Games.

00:00:22.000 And this is a very exciting idea.

00:00:24.000 And how did this come about?

00:00:26.000 What was the impetus behind this?

00:00:30.000 I've been studying the Olympics and the Olympic movement my entire life.

00:00:33.000 You know, I'm 39 years old.

00:00:35.000 When I was an undergraduate at university, it was just after the Sydney Olympics.

00:00:39.000 And, you know, it was always something that inspired me.

00:00:42.000 And I thought to myself, you know, I learned some key statistics.

00:00:47.000 44% of Olympians admit to using banned performance-enhancing drugs within the last year, according to research commissioned by the World Antidepressant.

00:00:53.000 44%.

00:00:54.000 44%.

00:00:55.000 And the other, you know, probably lying.

00:00:57.000 Or losing.

00:00:58.000 Exactly.

00:01:00.000 And so, you know, and then I learned that the average American Olympian only earns $30,000 a year.

00:01:06.000 And I thought to myself, there's something really wrong in the system.

00:01:09.000 And instead of, you know, trying to reform it, let's take a blank slate of paper and invent the third Olympiad from scratch.

00:01:19.000 Well, the Olympics is kind of a scam because it generates billions of dollars in revenue, and the people that are there to perform make almost none of that.

00:01:30.000 That's correct.

00:01:31.000 Actually, the International Olympic Committee doesn't pay any of the athletes.

00:01:35.000 Incidentally, they may get some money in sponsorship or from their National Olympic Committee.

00:01:40.000 Yeah.

00:01:41.000 The billions of dollars in revenue come into the Olympics, and none of that goes to the athletes.

00:01:46.000 It gets wasted building stadiums.

00:01:47.000 It gets wasted paying officials.

00:01:50.000 And we thought there's a way to do a better, more honest model that inspires us to believe in the future of science and technology in the 21st century.

00:01:58.000 And you could do it apolitically, too, if you chose to.

00:02:02.000 Are you guys doing it by nation or are you doing it just like human beings?

00:02:07.000 Human beings.

00:02:08.000 Better!

00:02:08.000 Yeah, I think the era of nationalism is over.

00:02:11.000 Look at the Eurovision Song Competition recently.

00:02:14.000 What is that?

00:02:16.000 Oh, it was when Israel was performing and there were huge protests out front of the competition.

00:02:23.000 What was the competition?

00:02:24.000 It's a very European thing.

00:02:25.000 It's called European Song Contest.

00:02:27.000 Song?

00:02:28.000 Contest.

00:02:28.000 A song contest.

00:02:29.000 Yes.

00:02:29.000 It's every country, every year, makes a very cheesy song.

00:02:33.000 Oh, God.

00:02:34.000 I actually like it.

00:02:37.000 Let's not go there.

00:02:38.000 I'm kind of a fan, being German.

00:02:41.000 It's a big thing in Europe.

00:02:43.000 But unfortunately, it was super fun and campy.

00:02:47.000 There's actually a Netflix movie about it.

00:02:50.000 Not a documentary, but a fun movie about it.

00:02:51.000 Is this it right here, Jimmy?

00:02:53.000 Well, that is one of the recent winners of the year.

00:02:56.000 She's amazing.

00:02:57.000 She's amazing.

00:02:58.000 It's Lorene.

00:02:59.000 She's amazing.

00:03:00.000 Okay.

00:03:01.000 It's very catchy songs.

00:03:02.000 I don't know what your song is.

00:03:03.000 She's crawling around with her butt up in the air. 1.00

00:03:05.000 Well, it's very campy.

00:03:07.000 I guess.

00:03:08.000 But there is even a cool Netflix movie about it.

00:03:10.000 But long story short, unfortunately, this was the first year where it became really political, which I think music shouldn't be, which was sad.

00:03:19.000 But we will not be political.

00:03:21.000 That's the short version.

00:03:22.000 We're not going to go per country.

00:03:24.000 It's the best human being, the fastest one, highest jump or whatever.

00:03:28.000 Yeah, it's just so many countries use it as a political tool.

00:03:33.000 You know, and they cheat.

00:03:36.000 Like, I'm sure you guys have seen Icarus, right?

00:03:39.000 Oh, yeah.

00:03:39.000 I was with Brian Fogle a couple of days ago.

00:03:41.000 He's great.

00:03:41.000 And that documentary is amazing.

00:03:44.000 I mean, what incredible, like, circumstances.

00:03:47.000 Like, the way it all played out.

00:03:48.000 Where he's in the middle of doing this documentary about doing a race, naturally, and then doing a race enhanced.

00:03:56.000 And the guy he contacts, in the middle of all the Sochi Olympics crap, that guy winds up fleeing the country, spilling the beans, and now he's hiding.

00:04:05.000 He's a witness protection, yeah. 0.98

00:04:06.000 Yeah, still in this country, hiding from Russian killers. 1.00

00:04:11.000 Yeah, and that's right.

00:04:12.000 And I think, you know, the reality is that performance enhancements are everywhere.

00:04:18.000 6.3% of men in the Western world have used anabolic steroids at some point in their life.

00:04:24.000 75% of men who regularly go to the gym are interested in using steroids.

00:04:28.000 And so instead of doing it underground, in secret, let's do it out in the open with clinical supervision and safety.

00:04:37.000 But what is – what are the legal ramifications of this?

00:04:41.000 Because we were talking about this in the – we were talking about the different drug schedules on the podcast yesterday.

00:04:48.000 And steroids are scheduled, right?

00:04:50.000 It's like schedule three.

00:04:52.000 Yeah, it's a Schedule III substance in the United States.

00:04:54.000 There are 23 countries where steroids and anabolics are legal, including in the United Kingdom for personal use.

00:05:00.000 And so let's first distinguish between what is legal and what is banned.

00:05:06.000 So in Olympic competition, they always say, oh, these drugs are illegal, but actually they're banned in Olympic competition.

00:05:13.000 Because there's a lot of things that are, you know, like peptides and things along those lines that are illegal in the Olympics.

00:05:19.000 That are banned in the Olympics, but they're not banned.

00:05:22.000 Because that means the Olympics decided as a sort of private organization, we don't want that, but you can take it.

00:05:29.000 Right.

00:05:29.000 So legally you can take it.

00:05:31.000 So like TRT, for example, is a perfectly legal substance.

00:05:35.000 It's FDA approved.

00:05:36.000 It's delivered under clinical supervision.

00:05:38.000 But if you used it, you would be banned from Olympic competition.

00:05:41.000 Right.

00:05:42.000 So the vast majority of compounds that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency are actually perfectly legal.

00:05:47.000 You know, the UFC had a guy that accidentally took something that had DHEA in it.

00:05:54.000 A real high-level guy, Khalil Roundtree.

00:05:56.000 And he was supposed to be fighting Jamal Hill in three weeks.

00:06:00.000 And he found out that there was DHEA in it.

00:06:05.000 He informed the UFC, told them.

00:06:07.000 And DHEA isn't even performance enhancing.

00:06:10.000 And they banned him for two months.

00:06:12.000 So he missed out on the biggest opportunity of his career.

00:06:15.000 So if you go into your local GNC, 25 percent of the goods will contain substances that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

00:06:23.000 25 percent.

00:06:23.000 Yeah.

00:06:23.000 So these are just off the shelf.

00:06:25.000 Right.

00:06:25.000 This is not black market.

00:06:27.000 This is what you can buy in your local shop.

00:06:28.000 And then, of course, there's tainted supplements, which is a real problem because a lot of these supplements, they use another party that puts them together for them.

00:06:36.000 Generally in other countries and a lot of them in China and these people are also making different things with these vats.

00:06:43.000 They don't clean them properly and then they mix the new stuff in it and you easily get contamination.

00:06:48.000 It happens all the time.

00:06:49.000 Exactly and well that's the excuse that the Chinese government used about the 23 swimmers.

00:06:53.000 Are you aware of this situation?

00:06:54.000 What's this?

00:06:55.000 So, 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive TMZ, which is a heart medication, and they claimed that this was because of a...

00:07:03.000 When was this?

00:07:04.000 How long ago?

00:07:05.000 Oh, just six weeks ago.

00:07:06.000 Oh, really?

00:07:07.000 It came out six weeks ago.

00:07:08.000 Oh.

00:07:09.000 The incident was earlier.

00:07:11.000 Yeah, so 2021. But yeah, the New York Times reported it.

00:07:15.000 Received no sanctions.

00:07:16.000 13 athletes won other than the Olympic Games in Tokyo, won six medals, three of them gold.

00:07:21.000 Huh.

00:07:22.000 Well, they definitely did something during Beijing, too.

00:07:25.000 Yeah.

00:07:26.000 Well, the Chinese clearly were doing this intentionally. 0.99

00:07:29.000 And the World Anti-Doping Authority, because of pressure from the Chinese state, covered it all up.

00:07:34.000 And that's not my accusation.

00:07:36.000 That's the accusation made by Travis Tigard, who's the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. 0.99

00:07:40.000 OK, so the premise is let's cut the shit. 0.98

00:07:44.000 You guys are – there's been people that do – it's like the argument for Tour de France, right? 0.99

00:07:49.000 Like Tour de France, when they stripped Lance Armstrong, the next person that had not ever tested positive was 18th place.

00:07:58.000 And if you look at the 100-meter time, it's the fastest man in the world.

00:08:03.000 Seven of the top ten fastest 100-meter runners in history have had a doping violation.

00:08:10.000 And the only one that's not in the top five is Usain Bolt.

00:08:13.000 Wow.

00:08:13.000 So it's just a scam.

00:08:15.000 It's a scam, yeah.

00:08:16.000 And we've been hearing that for years about sprinters, particularly sprinters in other countries, that they're enhanced.

00:08:23.000 And especially if your national pride is involved, and they know that there's ways that you can kind of finagle things and get around them, and you hire doctors to test people and use masking agents or whatever the hell you do.

00:08:35.000 Mm-hmm.

00:08:36.000 In the UFC, they don't even let them rehydrate with IVs anymore.

00:08:40.000 Yeah, same thing in cycling.

00:08:41.000 So if you take more than 100 milliliters of IV within 12 hours, that's considered a banned substance.

00:08:46.000 Well, you can't do any IVs in the UFC. Really?

00:08:49.000 Yeah, they won't let you, just because of the fear of masking performance-enhancing drugs, because you could flush your system.

00:08:57.000 But the problem with that is, like, IVs are good for you. 1.00

00:09:01.000 Like, this is really stupid. 0.95

00:09:03.000 Like, if you can make sure that a person is just doing IV vitamins, I mean, if your random testing is effective, you should just do that. 0.99

00:09:12.000 Like, don't stop someone from doing something that's going to make them healthier while they're in a business that's about as dangerous as you can get without people shooting at you.

00:09:21.000 Yeah, and so the solution is not to do drug testing.

00:09:24.000 It's to do health testing.

00:09:26.000 Like, we want to make sure that our athletes are healthy and safe to compete.

00:09:29.000 So we do cardiac screenings, MRIs, blood work, to measure their biomarkers to ensure that they're within healthy ranges.

00:09:36.000 And that's the core difference, right?

00:09:38.000 The drug testing apparatus at the Olympics is about fairness and competition.

00:09:42.000 It's not about the health and safety of athletes.

00:09:44.000 Here's the question.

00:09:46.000 If you open up the gates and say you're allowed to take whatever substances you want at whatever levels you want in order to compete at your very best, How close to redlining does a person get?

00:10:00.000 Especially if you're involved in something that requires strength and explosive energy.

00:10:06.000 The UFC at one point in time had testosterone use exemptions.

00:10:12.000 And you were allowed to get those if your testosterone was at a low enough level.

00:10:16.000 The problem with that was that was not thought out at all.

00:10:19.000 You can beat that test in a heartbeat.

00:10:21.000 Just stay up all night. 0.99

00:10:22.000 Stay up all night, eat 15 cheeseburgers, and jerk off three times, and you're good. 0.55

00:10:28.000 You're going to be at like 200. You're going to be like, oh my god, you're sick, Bob. 1.00

00:10:35.000 But also, there's another problem, is that people that have a history of anabolic steroid use, generally they've wrecked their endocrine system.

00:10:45.000 And particularly back in the day, the early days of MMA was all enhanced.

00:10:51.000 And if you go and watch Pride, for instance, like Pride, which was the big show in Japan, it was this enormous organization in Japan that kind of fell apart because the Yakuza was involved with it and they went bankrupt.

00:11:04.000 There was a lot of craziness involved.

00:11:05.000 But at one point in time, they were selling out, like, these 90,000-seat arenas in Tokyo.

00:11:12.000 It was nuts.

00:11:14.000 And everybody looked like a superhero. 0.99

00:11:16.000 I mean, just fuckin' jack, just giant jack guys beating the shit out of each other. 1.00

00:11:21.000 And everybody who went over there will tell you, like, the contract literally specifically stated in capital letters, we do not test for steroids. 0.99

00:11:30.000 They will encourage you to do steroids over there.

00:11:33.000 They want you to look good.

00:11:33.000 They want you to fight at your best.

00:11:35.000 Like, we don't care what you take.

00:11:36.000 Just go over there and go ham.

00:11:38.000 But it comes down to a fundamental philosophical question.

00:11:41.000 Shouldn't an individual with free and informed consent, an adult, be able to make choices about their own body?

00:11:49.000 They should.

00:11:50.000 But the question is, when is it not fair?

00:11:53.000 It's the epitome of fairness if it's very transparent.

00:11:57.000 What is unfair, think about it like you winning silver in the current Olympics.

00:12:01.000 And I talk to so many athletes, they kind of know who is cheating or not.

00:12:06.000 Because if you are very into sports, you know what is kind of, let's call it unnatural or enhanced.

00:12:11.000 Right.

00:12:11.000 But they cannot say it.

00:12:13.000 There is a lot of politics, as you say, whatever.

00:12:15.000 So you win silver, you stand next to the person who won gold, and you have a deep hunch that this person is enhanced.

00:12:23.000 That is the worst because you are betrayed of your performance because the people on the screen cannot contextualize it.

00:12:31.000 What we are saying is like, by the way, we're also not anti-Olympics.

00:12:34.000 We're like, the Olympics should be really clean.

00:12:36.000 Then it's interesting because then I have a framework I can judge performance.

00:12:40.000 But in our case, people will know that people take enhancements.

00:12:45.000 We actually will endorse people to even say what they're doing because it's completely open.

00:12:49.000 And then again, you can contextualize.

00:12:51.000 So both is about either zero or completely free slate in the medical framework is the real definition of fairness.

00:12:59.000 And from 1896 until 1992, the Olympics banned professional athletes from competing.

00:13:05.000 And so the Olympics were amateur and there were professional sports leagues elsewhere.

00:13:09.000 And I think the same thing is going to happen in the 21st century.

00:13:12.000 The Olympics are going to be the natural sports competition, where we're going to see what the best of a human 1.0 can do.

00:13:19.000 And at the Enhanced Games, there will be what can the best unleashed human, superhuman can do.

00:13:25.000 But here's the question. 0.97

00:13:27.000 If you guys are successful, What athlete would want, if you guys are successful and it becomes a huge household name and people watch it and it becomes exciting and you make money, what athletes are going to want to do the Olympics for free and get a microscope up your ass? 0.60

00:13:46.000 And people constantly testing you for this and that and knowing that other countries are probably pulling off some shenanigans like China allegedly did.

00:13:55.000 Not our problem, but I agree with you.

00:13:58.000 By the way, the same question is...

00:14:00.000 It's a good answer.

00:14:01.000 Not our problem.

00:14:02.000 But I don't want to not wish them well.

00:14:05.000 It's just like, I think we're going to do better.

00:14:07.000 And the other thing is, by the way, I deeply believe humans are wired.

00:14:10.000 We want the best and we want to also watch the best.

00:14:12.000 Yes.

00:14:13.000 You're not going to watch something where the best natural player, no, you want to see the best absolute player, even if this player or person is enhanced.

00:14:22.000 But again, the future will tell and the consumer will tell, but we are super confident.

00:14:25.000 But it's like the rise of the UFC. So the UFC was unbridled by the traditional rules of boxing and other combat sports.

00:14:33.000 And the simple premise that Rory on Gracie had was, how do we find the very best fighter, right?

00:14:39.000 Mm-hmm.

00:14:40.000 And that's just a very simple question.

00:14:42.000 And at the Enhanced Games is how can we find the fastest human being?

00:14:45.000 Or what is the total potentiality of the human spirit and all of humanity?

00:14:52.000 So how do you get...

00:14:54.000 There's a lot of factors, right?

00:14:55.000 You need people that have already competed.

00:14:58.000 You don't want to get someone just starting out at a sport, right?

00:15:01.000 So you have people that have a...

00:15:02.000 A deep history in the sport where they want to, and they can, they're capable of competing at an elite level.

00:15:08.000 And then if they're going to do your games, they have to kind of make this decision because they're never going to be able in the Olympics again after that, right?

00:15:17.000 Well, they actually could go back to the Olympic system.

00:15:20.000 But they would get so tested.

00:15:21.000 And if they do, I mean, if they do start taking testosterone, do start taking a bunch of other things, it's going to inhibit their natural ability to produce hormones.

00:15:31.000 Well, technically most likely it comes back, but I would say it's a decision of the Olympics and other sports leagues how they want to handle athletes who also at a certain time have participated in our games.

00:15:43.000 Maybe they say there is a cooling off period.

00:15:45.000 So it's not that we will exclude them going back.

00:15:48.000 It might be that other sports leagues say, look, once if you're in the enhanced games, you can't come back to us.

00:15:53.000 And it's fundamentally an economic question too.

00:15:56.000 So your average Olympian is earning $30,000 a year.

00:15:59.000 The best performing track and field athletes might be making a couple hundred thousand bucks a year.

00:16:06.000 And we're offering a million dollar prize to break significant world records.

00:16:10.000 So it's a million dollars just to break the world records?

00:16:13.000 Yes.

00:16:13.000 A million bucks to break the 100 meter world record on the track.

00:16:16.000 A million bucks to break the 50 meter freestyle world record in the pool.

00:16:20.000 So the question is like how can you ensure that you're gonna get elite level athletes that are capable of performing at like an Olympic level and they're gonna they'll be risking it's a big it's a significant risk to them because they'll be openly admitting they're a part of the enhanced games they're openly admitting that they're taking these substances in order to compete at this level and they don't know if you guys are gonna be around like Well,

00:16:48.000 so number one, you don't have to take enhancements to be at the enhanced game.

00:16:51.000 You can just be a regular person with awesome genes.

00:16:53.000 Yeah, you can say, hey, I won the genetic lottery, right?

00:16:57.000 And I think I can beat all the enhanced athletes and make great television.

00:17:00.000 Yeah, that's fun too, right?

00:17:02.000 Yeah, and so, you know, if you believe you've won the genetic lottery and you think you can show up and break a world record and get a million bucks, they'll come and do it, right, and do it naturally.

00:17:13.000 And then some athletes say, you know, I did not win the genetic lottery and I want the chance to be, The Neil Armstrong of our generation.

00:17:21.000 This is how I think of it.

00:17:22.000 I think we're building the Apollo mission for the 21st century.

00:17:26.000 What did the Apollo mission do?

00:17:27.000 It showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species.

00:17:32.000 We had a new threshold going to the moon, using science and technology to overcome our limits.

00:17:38.000 This is exactly what the Enhanced Games is about.

00:17:41.000 Sort of.

00:17:42.000 You're not going to the moon.

00:17:43.000 Let's be serious.

00:17:44.000 It's going to be cool.

00:17:46.000 You're just getting a bunch of guys juiced up, running really fast.

00:17:49.000 Big difference.

00:17:51.000 But still interesting.

00:17:52.000 I would say breaking a world record is a thing.

00:17:56.000 Maybe not going to the moon, I agree, but it's something people aspire to do.

00:18:01.000 Well, it is.

00:18:02.000 It's also we'll know for sure that these people are doing something, whereas before we just suspect it, you know, I remember when Ben Johnson got popped and everybody's like, oh, I can't believe he cheated.

00:18:16.000 But then you find out that Carlos was taking stuff, too.

00:18:19.000 I think everyone on the starting line in the 1988 100-meter final was...

00:18:23.000 They probably all were.

00:18:24.000 You know, Bruce Jenner took him famous.

00:18:26.000 I mean, he talked about it, like taking him when he won the decathlon.

00:18:29.000 And by the way, one thing is that we don't even need to speculate if athletes want to do it because we did a so-called casting call.

00:18:35.000 So we're doing a documentary about the way to the Enhanced Games together with Ridley Scott.

00:18:40.000 So we made a big casting call, and we have more than 1,000 professional athletes, many of them who are in the Summer Olympics, who applied to be in the documentary and hence in the Enhanced Games.

00:18:53.000 So the question, if this is an appealing proposition, is answered.

00:18:58.000 More than 1,000.

00:18:59.000 What about the pressure from countries, like different countries that have elite athletes that compete in sprinting and whatever, boxing?

00:19:08.000 I spoke to two head of states about it.

00:19:10.000 One is a very close friend, and he texting me every week is like, I can't wait for this to happen.

00:19:15.000 He's one of our early fans.

00:19:17.000 So they're in two?

00:19:18.000 Well, at least the ones I spoke to.

00:19:20.000 I don't think there will be a lot of pressure.

00:19:23.000 Because again, what do countries want?

00:19:25.000 Sports for them is a way to show their national pride.

00:19:29.000 And if you have national pride, you want your person to be the fastest person in the world.

00:19:34.000 If that's with enhancements, so be it.

00:19:37.000 And it's also a point of national pride.

00:19:40.000 It will be a point of national pride to be the most technologically and scientifically advanced society that has the engineering and intellectual capability to develop and manufacture and clinically supervise these products.

00:19:54.000 It's actually what is interesting, like when we teamed up, Aaron had the idea, we talked early, I have my own investment firm, so I'm both the investor and his co-founder.

00:20:03.000 We both were actually calculating with much more negativity.

00:20:09.000 In actually a good way because it's driving our recognition.

00:20:13.000 But I'm always jokingly saying it's almost going too smooth because people love it.

00:20:18.000 The only people who don't love it is the Olympics. 0.94

00:20:21.000 But the feedback we're getting from my 14-year-old godson to a head of state is like, that's fucking awesome. 0.93

00:20:29.000 Well, it's also everybody knows that... 0.93

00:20:33.000 Athletes are taking things.

00:20:35.000 They've been doing it forever.

00:20:37.000 You know, before USADA came into the UFC, a lot of people studied the difference between certain fighters that were competing at an incredibly high level before USADA came, and then their physiques melted.

00:20:51.000 I mean, you could see the difference.

00:20:53.000 It's a giant difference.

00:20:55.000 But they were all passing drug tests.

00:20:57.000 Before.

00:20:58.000 But they were passing drug tests by the athletic commissions on the day of the fight, which by all accounts is an intelligence test.

00:21:05.000 It's just whether or not you're taking the proper steps to cover your tracks.

00:21:09.000 Yeah, you just got to know the half-lives of the products that you're taking.

00:21:11.000 And everybody knew that that was the case. 0.99

00:21:13.000 And so instead of going your way, they went the way of just crawling up everybody's ass with a microscope. 0.99

00:21:19.000 And they do it... 0.96

00:21:21.000 USADA was doing it in a very intrusive way where they were waking up fighters on the day of a weigh-in early in the morning because they'll show up at 6 o'clock in the morning.

00:21:31.000 And it's because USADA is not accountable to anyone.

00:21:35.000 The International Olympic Committee is not accountable to anyone.

00:21:39.000 It's a really important question about how the structure of sports internationally works.

00:21:45.000 Do you know who appoints the members of the International Olympic Committee?

00:21:48.000 No.

00:21:48.000 Right, so logically it should be like member countries like the UN, or maybe the athletes should elect members of the IOC. No, the IOC is a club of European aristocrats that was formed in 1896 that just elects itself.

00:22:03.000 And so it has no external accountability.

00:22:05.000 It's not regulated by anyone.

00:22:07.000 It's not accountable to any governments.

00:22:09.000 And so that means that they can just set the rules however they want, and this is how they've gotten away with not paying athletes for over 100 years.

00:22:18.000 Yeah, that makes sense.

00:22:20.000 What are the sports that you guys are going to showcase, and will you have combat sports?

00:22:26.000 Yeah, so there are five key sports.

00:22:28.000 Track, swimming, combat, gymnastics, and strength.

00:22:34.000 And for combat sports, you're going to have boxing, wrestling, what are you going to have?

00:22:37.000 So, boxing and MMA are definitely in.

00:22:41.000 MMA? Yeah.

00:22:43.000 Really?

00:22:43.000 Yeah.

00:22:44.000 Hmm.

00:22:45.000 That's interesting.

00:22:47.000 So MMA, if you're going to have people being enhanced in MMA, that will severely limit their ability to compete in other organizations.

00:22:59.000 So how are you going to get high-level fighters that are not going to compete in Bellator or not going to compete in the UFC? How are you going to do that?

00:23:08.000 Well, I think the entire MMA community is clearly moving away from the traditional drug testing apparatus.

00:23:14.000 Look at what UFC has done moving away from Minnesota.

00:23:17.000 No, they just moved to drug-free sport, which is just a better organization that does the exact same thing.

00:23:22.000 They're doing the exact same things.

00:23:24.000 The exact same things are banned.

00:23:26.000 Including peptides like BPC-157, which people argued like this is ridiculous.

00:23:30.000 This shouldn't be illegal.

00:23:32.000 But what they said is the problem is state athletic commissions test for BPC-157.

00:23:37.000 And as long as they test, some of them do at least, as long as they deem it illegal, we have to make it illegal.

00:23:43.000 Even though, yeah, I mean, soft tissue injuries, it's really great for recovery.

00:23:46.000 Yeah.

00:23:47.000 And so, you know, in terms of athlete recruitment, there's such a wide pipeline.

00:23:51.000 You know, the difference in terms of with MMA and combat sports is there's no objective world records.

00:23:59.000 So, you know, it's solving for a fame question, not a performance question.

00:24:04.000 Right.

00:24:04.000 It's to be one of the people that does it.

00:24:08.000 Have you talked to athletes about that?

00:24:10.000 Combat sports athletes?

00:24:11.000 We've had, in the casting call that we did, we had maybe about 15% of the athletes were in the combat disciplines.

00:24:19.000 Really?

00:24:19.000 Including ex-UFC athletes, yeah.

00:24:21.000 Ex-UFC athletes.

00:24:22.000 So guys at the end of their run?

00:24:24.000 Yeah, you know, that's where performance-enhancing drugs are very appealing, right?

00:24:29.000 Sure.

00:24:30.000 You've been in your career, you know, you're sort of 30, 35 years old, and people say, you know, you're out of it, you should be retired.

00:24:37.000 And they're saying this isn't now with the emotional maturity that you have in your 30s to regain the body in your 20s and to come back to compete at a high level.

00:24:45.000 It's also the wisdom.

00:24:47.000 It's not just emotional maturity.

00:24:49.000 It's like accumulated time sparring, accumulated time in different scenarios where you know what's coming next.

00:24:57.000 You don't have to think about it.

00:24:58.000 It's programmed into your system.

00:25:02.000 So they're all kind of...

00:25:03.000 That is interesting, because, like, I don't know how much you guys follow MMA, but one of the great eras of MMA was Vitor Belfort when they let him take testosterone.

00:25:13.000 So do you know about this?

00:25:15.000 Okay.

00:25:15.000 It's legendary in MMA, because he is the best example of a veteran, a guy who was an older guy, first fought in the UFC at 19 years old in 1997. And in the 2000s, this was like 2004 or 5,

00:25:32.000 that's when they allowed the testosterone use exemptions and Vitor looked like an alien. 0.99

00:25:38.000 Luke Rockhold saw him at the weigh-ins and my first thought was, what the fuck is this guy on? 0.99

00:25:45.000 Because he had a mohawk and he just looked insanely jacked and he was knocking everybody out. 0.99

00:25:50.000 I mean, fearless.

00:25:53.000 But because of the testosterone use exemptions and then there was some controversy about it, they had tested him one time when he was in the United States and he was Off the charts.

00:26:05.000 Like, you're not supposed to have that much testosterone in your system. 0.99

00:26:08.000 This is fucking insane. 0.96

00:26:09.000 And so then it started this controversy, and then ultimately they got rid of testosterone use exemptions. 0.98

00:26:14.000 But he was the perfect example of a really elite fighter who, you know, is getting older.

00:26:22.000 His body was kind of failing him, and he did a lot of steroids when he was younger, allegedly.

00:26:27.000 And so his physique looked kind of soft. 1.00

00:26:30.000 And then all of a sudden he looked like a fucking freak. 1.00

00:26:34.000 Just a real freak. 1.00

00:26:36.000 And he was just wheel kicking people and knocking everybody out.

00:26:39.000 It was like he went on a run for a few years where he was just unstoppable.

00:26:43.000 It was terrifying.

00:26:44.000 And everybody knew he was enhanced.

00:26:46.000 You'd look at him and you'd just go, good lord.

00:26:49.000 So then he gets off of it.

00:26:51.000 2017, rather, is him off of it.

00:26:54.000 So 2012 is Vitor high on the sauce.

00:26:57.000 I mean, look at him.

00:26:58.000 And then 2017...

00:27:00.000 It doesn't even look like the same person.

00:27:01.000 It doesn't.

00:27:02.000 All of his muscle went away and all of his endurance went away.

00:27:05.000 His endocrine system was shot from years of doing TRT and just whatever else he was doing.

00:27:12.000 And what I would caution about that is having the highest quality clinical and scientific supervision.

00:27:19.000 So the problem about the current environment is that it's largely done underground.

00:27:23.000 Very few athletes have access to high-quality doctors.

00:27:27.000 Most of the information is what I call bro science on bodybuilding.com forums.

00:27:31.000 Or gym guys that tell you, I got you, bro.

00:27:33.000 Yeah, someone on Instagram.

00:27:35.000 So, you know, what we're trying to do is a very rigorous scientific process.

00:27:43.000 We're good to go.

00:28:06.000 And when you do this, so you're going to have combat sports, so you'll have MMA, you'll have wrestling.

00:28:13.000 Not sure?

00:28:13.000 Not sure about wrestling.

00:28:14.000 Well, you know, we're still open to ideas in terms of the pool of athletes that we can recruit.

00:28:19.000 Wrestling is, you know, increasingly a niche sport.

00:28:23.000 The participation numbers are down.

00:28:24.000 The television numbers are down.

00:28:26.000 You know, so it's an economic decision because one of the core challenges of the Olympic Games is they've expanded to so many sports.

00:28:32.000 It's so much content, so expensive to run.

00:28:36.000 And so in our analysis of sports, it's always, what can be delivered?

00:28:40.000 With the highest television and social media impact, with the lowest infrastructural cost.

00:28:45.000 Hmm.

00:28:45.000 But you're having sprinting and all these other games too, right?

00:28:50.000 Don't you think that wrestling is like...

00:28:52.000 I mean, wasn't it the original game in the Olympic Games, it was the original sport?

00:28:57.000 Yeah, but, you know, we are inspired in some ways by the Olympic Games, but we don't want to be held back in history like the...

00:29:05.000 IOC is, right?

00:29:07.000 They're like, oh, it must be every four years, right?

00:29:10.000 We must have these certain sports in.

00:29:13.000 Our games are going to be every year because that gives athletes greater opportunities to monetize and engage with their fans.

00:29:20.000 And we believe that we are the Olympics not of reinventing ancient Greece, but of the future.

00:29:27.000 So you'll have boxing?

00:29:29.000 Boxing, certainly.

00:29:30.000 Hmm.

00:29:32.000 The only worry that I think people would have is that giving someone some substances would allow them to hurt someone more.

00:29:43.000 It's different.

00:29:44.000 And I know what you're saying, like the other person gets them too.

00:29:47.000 But it's a discussion, right?

00:29:50.000 If someone runs faster because you gave them something, like, no one's getting hurt there, you know?

00:29:55.000 Maybe reputation's getting hurt, whatever.

00:29:58.000 But if you give someone something and allow someone to beat someone more, you know?

00:30:04.000 But isn't that the wrong world discussion?

00:30:06.000 Because then we shouldn't...

00:30:07.000 Pull up to that microphone.

00:30:09.000 Isn't that the wrong discussion?

00:30:11.000 Because we shouldn't then do boxing if we don't want to allow people to hurt other people.

00:30:15.000 Ultimately, that's the real discussion.

00:30:16.000 Exactly.

00:30:17.000 But I think a lot of discussions are always pseudo-discussions where we can have a real discussion, should we have boxing?

00:30:22.000 But it's the same ethical power slap.

00:30:28.000 Don't get me started.

00:30:29.000 But the other one is that Maybe it's actually safer for the athletes if they're enhanced.

00:30:36.000 Because maybe they can recover better.

00:30:39.000 Maybe they can take more punishment.

00:30:41.000 Maybe if they do get hurt in a fight, they'll recover better from the fight than they would naturally.

00:30:47.000 There's a good argument there as well.

00:30:49.000 Certainly what is appealing, particularly to older athletes, is reducing recovery time.

00:30:55.000 Yes.

00:30:55.000 Oh, yeah.

00:30:56.000 I mean, it's a significant thing for guys just as they get into their 30s, if they're still competing as a professional.

00:31:03.000 They realize, like, I don't recover as well at 34, even though I'm still in my athletic prime in terms of ability to perform.

00:31:10.000 Their ability to put in work in the gym is not quite the same, and the way they feel the next day is not quite the same.

00:31:17.000 I can tell you, I started the whole process.

00:31:19.000 I always, when I started a company, I want to feel it myself, what is really what I'm talking about.

00:31:24.000 It's not just like, so I'm going through the enhancement process of an athlete myself.

00:31:30.000 And it's unbelievable.

00:31:32.000 You feel 20 years younger in recovery.

00:31:35.000 I can train every day.

00:31:36.000 I wake up in the morning and don't feel stiff anymore. 0.98

00:31:39.000 I'm like, oh shit, this is how it felt when I was in my 20s. 0.97

00:31:42.000 Yeah, it's really strange that that's looked down upon. 0.99

00:31:45.000 Yeah, I can't really understand it.

00:31:47.000 No, I can't really understand it.

00:31:48.000 It's like, I think it's a natural right.

00:31:51.000 Like, you want to be at your best at any time in your life.

00:31:54.000 And it should be your decision, by the way.

00:31:56.000 Yes.

00:31:56.000 What is your best?

00:31:57.000 I'm not saying that people should be jacked, that this is aspirational.

00:32:01.000 It should be every single person's decision.

00:32:03.000 Yes.

00:32:03.000 What makes you happy?

00:32:04.000 What is aspirational for you?

00:32:06.000 But whatever you define...

00:32:09.000 You should be allowed to do if you're a grown-up.

00:32:11.000 And if you do it, that is always my sort of not limiting factor, but I'm really adamant.

00:32:16.000 I also, I don't know if you know, I'm also working on bringing psychedelics back.

00:32:20.000 That's the same sort of discussion into the medical world.

00:32:23.000 It's always you have to do it with a doctor in a sort of informed environment, but then it should be up to you.

00:32:30.000 The same with performance enhancement.

00:32:31.000 Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

00:32:32.000 And I think another aspect of this whole thing is what you said initially.

00:32:37.000 We all know That the Olympics are dirty.

00:32:40.000 We all know that...

00:32:42.000 Anyone who's seen Icarus, and if you haven't seen it, I really recommend it.

00:32:46.000 It's amazing.

00:32:47.000 These state-funded, state-sponsored programs have existed forever, and they've just been doing weaselly things to try to avoid detection, and they get caught all the time.

00:32:58.000 And it's not as simple as, like, everyone just really wants to find out who the best is, and they're on the honor system, and everybody is honorable.

00:33:08.000 No, it's like they're taking things.

00:33:10.000 Everyone's taking things.

00:33:11.000 They're all hiding things.

00:33:12.000 But imagine the scientific potential of all of that research that came out into the open in terms of anti-aging in particular.

00:33:21.000 The same compounds that allow individual athletes to run faster and jump higher are the ones that will allow us to be younger, faster, and stronger for longer.

00:33:32.000 And I think that's a very admirable...

00:33:41.000 Yeah.

00:33:46.000 Yeah, openly enhanced and works out with jeans on, which is odd, right?

00:33:50.000 The jeans thing is so weird.

00:33:52.000 Like, what are you doing, man?

00:33:54.000 But also, by the way, it's an important point.

00:33:55.000 I think a lot of people always put enhancements into just the vanity pocket, which is, by the way, and I think it's a very legit pocket because, for example, I'm doing it more for vanity.

00:34:06.000 But if you look at older people, like sarcopenia, like a rapid muscle loss, whatever, is a problem for many people.

00:34:13.000 And we take it as normal.

00:34:15.000 We're like, oh, it is normal that you're losing muscle mass.

00:34:18.000 And I was like, no, we can do something.

00:34:20.000 And the life of a 70, 80-year-old would be completely changed if they have a functioning muscle system again.

00:34:28.000 Yes.

00:34:28.000 Which is, by the way, easy to produce.

00:34:30.000 But, like, we're shying away because it all got commingled in that 80s, 90s doping debate.

00:34:37.000 There are extremely good anabolic steroids with a very good medical use case.

00:34:43.000 Take Anavar, yeah, or these kind of compounds.

00:34:46.000 Like, they are very good for older people with muscle loss, with osteoporosis.

00:34:51.000 But we don't give it to them.

00:34:52.000 So I spoke to so many doctors.

00:34:54.000 They're still there, but the doctor's like, oh, like...

00:34:57.000 I have these reputational risks giving an eight-year-old an anabolic steroid because the word became so bad.

00:35:03.000 Despite, they all agree, this would make the life of millions of older people much more livable. 0.95

00:35:10.000 By the way, small doses, but like, yeah.

00:35:12.000 So I'm very passionate, not just about like, enhanced games, we hope will be a crystallization factor for a whole societal change on how we look at Body autonomy, how we give the decision back to people,

00:35:29.000 again, what they want to be with their body, with their mind, and all of that.

00:35:33.000 And with the current state-of-the-art science, too.

00:35:35.000 It's like, what is the point of having all this knowledge and functional ways?

00:35:41.000 There's absolute ways to enhance the way your mind performs, your body performs.

00:35:46.000 And to chalk it off to vanity is so crazy.

00:35:49.000 Like, well, what about fashion?

00:35:50.000 Should we get rid of that, too?

00:35:51.000 Exactly.

00:35:51.000 No, 100%.

00:35:52.000 What are you talking about?

00:35:53.000 That's vanity.

00:35:54.000 Do you know what the legal definition of medicine is?

00:35:56.000 No, I do not.

00:35:57.000 So it's a fascinating thing.

00:35:58.000 I only learned it a couple weeks ago.

00:35:59.000 So in the 1920s, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University, Professor Albert Flexner, to go and study medical education.

00:36:11.000 And so it used to be, back then, that anyone could call themselves a doctor.

00:36:15.000 Really? 0.99

00:36:16.000 Damn, I missed the boat. 0.99

00:36:18.000 Yeah, anyone could just read some books and you call yourself a doctor. 0.99

00:36:21.000 And after the Flexner Report, it was decided by state legislatures that we had to regulate what it meant to be a doctor and what medical education was required.

00:36:33.000 And the definition of medicine as a result of that is that medicine is about the treatment and cure of disease.

00:36:40.000 It's making sick people less sick.

00:36:43.000 Right?

00:36:43.000 And if you walk into your doctor and you say, I'm a healthy 39-year-old, but I'd like to be extraordinary, he would say, I'm sorry, medicine legally cannot help you.

00:36:56.000 Well, wasn't this the reason why ProVigil and NuVigil, when they first came up with those, I believe they came up with the idea of them being a performance-enhancing substance, but then they didn't have a way to prescribe them,

00:37:11.000 so they used narcolepsy.

00:37:13.000 You mean modafinil?

00:37:15.000 Modafinil, yeah.

00:37:16.000 I love it.

00:37:17.000 Yeah, it's interesting stuff, right?

00:37:19.000 Because it doesn't make you speedy.

00:37:22.000 No, it's like, I think it's like, by the way, I always tell that at universities when I give a speed, that's the real mind or intellectual enhancement drugs because it doesn't make you chittery, whatever.

00:37:32.000 Do you stack it?

00:37:35.000 Nootropics?

00:37:36.000 Yes.

00:37:36.000 I do a lot of things.

00:37:37.000 Yes.

00:37:38.000 He's the one that's more enhanced.

00:37:40.000 Ask him about his stack.

00:37:42.000 But it's a good example.

00:37:44.000 Why do we say for students or whatever, oh, it's bad if you try to be the best?

00:37:51.000 And why is a substance, modafenil, which is, by the way, wildly studied, which is there since decades, Every single neuroscientist in my team, in my biotech sector, I talk to is like, this can be taken safely in moderate amounts.

00:38:05.000 Why are we shying away to discussing that this is a good thing?

00:38:11.000 I don't even understand it.

00:38:12.000 Is there a large body of research on long-term use of modafinil?

00:38:17.000 Enormous.

00:38:18.000 Trust me, because I take it.

00:38:19.000 I looked at it.

00:38:21.000 Are you on it right now?

00:38:22.000 Yes.

00:38:22.000 How do you feel?

00:38:23.000 Great.

00:38:28.000 The lucky thing in my life is I have these resources.

00:38:33.000 We're the largest investor, one of the largest investors in neuroscience globally.

00:38:37.000 So I have all these colleagues at hand.

00:38:40.000 And I went to everybody because people always mix it up.

00:38:43.000 They're like, when they hear me talking, like, oh my God, Christian is so adventurous.

00:38:45.000 Like, I'm actually a huge hypochondriac.

00:38:48.000 And I'm always worried I do the wrong thing.

00:38:50.000 So meaning I put in a lot of effort before I take something.

00:38:54.000 So I went to some of the biggest neuroscientists in the world and discussed modafinil.

00:38:59.000 And everybody just had good things to say.

00:39:01.000 I really mean it like it's like...

00:39:02.000 I'm not only doing a marketing session about it, but it's a good example where I really don't understand how we could not at least give people the choice.

00:39:12.000 Again, some people might not want to do it.

00:39:15.000 Right, they should have the choice.

00:39:16.000 Just like they have the choice to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

00:39:18.000 By the way, which is way worse.

00:39:20.000 He might have even been on the show.

00:39:22.000 A good friend is Professor David Knott.

00:39:24.000 Do you know the name?

00:39:26.000 Where's he from?

00:39:27.000 From the UK. Imperial College.

00:39:29.000 If we can pull it up.

00:39:30.000 He wrote a whole book. 0.98

00:39:32.000 That's my favorite sort of take on how fucked up our society is in terms of drugs. 0.85

00:39:38.000 He wrote a whole book about the risk of drugs. 0.89

00:39:42.000 Because the interesting thing is, we're all throwing around the word risk without definition.

00:39:48.000 When I sit at dinner and talk with people about Modiphany, for example, or psychedelics, and they're zipping a glass of wine, look at me, and like...

00:39:54.000 Oh, this is very risky.

00:39:56.000 And then like, tell me, what do you mean?

00:39:58.000 What is risk?

00:39:58.000 And people don't have an answer for that.

00:40:00.000 So what David did, he defined what actually risk is.

00:40:04.000 He made a real risk score.

00:40:05.000 Simplified said, can you die when you take it?

00:40:08.000 Can you die when you take too much?

00:40:10.000 Can you become disabled?

00:40:11.000 Can you have long-term damages?

00:40:13.000 Can you become addicted?

00:40:14.000 All of that.

00:40:14.000 So he, for the very first time, defined a proper, by the way, never tested undisputed risk score for substances you can take.

00:40:23.000 And then he applied this risk score He forgot sugar, but like most legal and illegal drugs from alcohol to heroin to psychedelics.

00:40:34.000 So the outcome is that in a comprehensive risk assessment, the most risky, riskful drug of all The number one is alcohol.

00:40:46.000 Full stop.

00:40:47.000 And by the way, it was never sort of disputed.

00:40:50.000 The number two is heroin.

00:40:52.000 Wow.

00:40:52.000 And then comes everything else.

00:40:54.000 That's per user?

00:40:56.000 So they just...

00:40:56.000 Yeah.

00:40:56.000 On a total societal risk analysis.

00:40:59.000 So the paper is published in The Lancet, which is the top medical journal.

00:41:02.000 And if, Jamie, you want to pull it up, it's called Drug Harm in the UK, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, published in The Lancet in 2010 by Professor David Nutt.

00:41:12.000 And it has this amazing chart, which I'm looking at on.

00:41:14.000 By the way, I like your little logo.

00:41:16.000 It's pretty dope.

00:41:17.000 Oh, thank you.

00:41:19.000 And yes, on the one side, on the most extreme, with the highest individual and social risk is alcohol and heroin.

00:41:27.000 And on the other side is psychedelics.

00:41:28.000 So, by the way, I urge every listener, because that's a little bit my passion, is to make people at least aware.

00:41:34.000 And then you can decide, by the way, that you drink alcohol.

00:41:36.000 I'm not saying I would ban alcohol, but I think people should be aware of what they're doing.

00:41:43.000 It's all about education and awareness.

00:41:45.000 Look at the drop between alcohol and heroin.

00:41:48.000 Heroin's way less bad for you than alcohol.

00:41:50.000 So, by the way, but I want to be careful because that actually would got him in political trouble because one magazine wrote, which is, by the way, the wrong takeaway, said, oh, the drug advisor of the UK government said heroin, take heroin on alcohol, whatever.

00:42:03.000 Heroin is the second worst.

00:42:04.000 So, mushrooms?

00:42:06.000 So, and...

00:42:08.000 And by the way, that chart has a very emotional, emotional thing for me.

00:42:13.000 Because I presented that chart in 2013, and guess it or not, I have never drank alcohol in my whole life.

00:42:19.000 Really?

00:42:19.000 I'm from Bavaria, and I decided when I was 14, I'm never going to touch it ever.

00:42:24.000 Wow.

00:42:24.000 For societal reasons, because I was gay in a village where it was not cool to be gay, and I was like, if I get drunk, I'm going to spill it, and my life is ruined.

00:42:31.000 Right, right, right.

00:42:32.000 And then I stayed on that track.

00:42:33.000 But like, so Friends in 2013 showed me that chart.

00:42:37.000 And we talked a lot about it.

00:42:39.000 And the outcome of it was like, you should try mushrooms. 1.00

00:42:41.000 And I was like, you're completely insane. 0.97

00:42:42.000 Like it's a Schedule 1 drug, whatever. 0.88

00:42:45.000 And then it took me a year when I was reading up.

00:42:48.000 And by the way, this was a different time.

00:42:49.000 Like people didn't talk about psychedelics and all of that.

00:42:53.000 So I was reading up all about psychedelics from 2013 to 2014 and then had my first psychedelic trip.

00:42:59.000 In 2014, which was hands down the single most meaningful and important thing I've ever done in my whole life.

00:43:08.000 Nothing comes close.

00:43:08.000 And I was always a very happy, lucky person, so I didn't think it's doing that much to me.

00:43:13.000 So I came out of this trip, and there was the point when I decided that psychedelics in general should be medically available again, and then sort of restarted the whole psychedelic renaissance.

00:43:24.000 Well, I'm glad that that's something that we've been discussing forever.

00:43:28.000 I mean, it's something that got squashed in 1970 by the sweeping Psychedelics Act, and it didn't make any sense.

00:43:35.000 I think it was the biggest crime, one of the biggest crimes that government back then did.

00:43:39.000 Because if you think about it, like all the data we're producing, it has the potential to heal, really, I'm using the word healing deliberately, To heal mental health issues like depression, anxiety.

00:43:52.000 So if you think about it, that a government scam in 1970, which was a pure political scam to discredit the hippie community because they were going against the Vietnam War, that that took away one of the most potent groups of drugs,

00:44:10.000 medical drugs, for mental health issues.

00:44:12.000 And then you look at our time, how prevalent mental health issues are.

00:44:16.000 They are actually as a whole You could say the number one problem we have from opioid addiction to depression to youth suicidality.

00:44:24.000 And it all was taken away for no reason.

00:44:27.000 These drugs, as you saw on the chart, and by the way, what we're showing with my two companies, Compass and Atai, They have a little downside, meaning everything has a downside, but there is no big downside if taken properly with a therapist together.

00:44:42.000 But the data we're producing shows an enormous upside, again, to cure and alleviate mental health issues.

00:44:49.000 And I think one of the best paths that MAPS has put forth is helping soldiers.

00:44:55.000 Helping soldiers with PTSD and that's been a great way to get through the door because you know the veteran community has been dealing with it for a long time and I think it's shifted the perspective from a lot of these people that are more conservative that would normally think of drugs as being for losers and bad for society and they have a different perspective on it now like you're calling it drugs It's the wrong word.

00:45:22.000 No, it's a medication.

00:45:23.000 Yeah.

00:45:23.000 Well, it's really entheogens.

00:45:25.000 Yes.

00:45:26.000 What they are is when you experience it, anybody who experiences it would not want it to be illegal.

00:45:32.000 The problem is the people that are adamant about it being illegal are the ones who aren't experiencing it. 0.97

00:45:37.000 It's really ridiculous. 0.95

00:45:39.000 I agree. 0.60

00:45:39.000 You might have seen that it was one of the problem of the advisory board meeting of the FDA some days ago when MAPS presented their data. 0.60

00:45:46.000 I don't know if you followed it.

00:45:48.000 I did not.

00:45:49.000 Unfortunately, it was a very sad moment.

00:45:51.000 It's not a decision yet because the FDA is going to decide on August 11th on MDMA. But the advisory committee hearing, which was public, recommended not to approve MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder.

00:46:06.000 It was a big outcry.

00:46:07.000 But the reason is also, I want to be a little bit self-critic-like for the psychedelic industry, Because I'm a huge believer, like you're sitting next to maybe the biggest believer in psychedelics, but I also realize that 95%, I would guess, because we live in our bubble.

00:46:23.000 You have met a lot of people who take psychedelics.

00:46:25.000 I'm always very open, like in a country where it's legal, I do my psychedelic therapy, sort of life enhancing thing twice a year, like I'm very open with that.

00:46:34.000 But, like, I also realized we are a bubble, like, and 95% of whatever, like, a vast majority of people have not done psychedelics yet, and are unfortunately, we can like it or not, and we can blame the Nixon government or not, but, like, are stuck in this misinformation.

00:46:49.000 So the only way to, this was sort of what some people say, I'm too conservative, because they're like, oh my god, you're taking it, like, you should, like, be more, like, be liberal, whatever.

00:46:58.000 But my decision was the only way to move psychedelics Back into the medical world is to do it like I would do it, and we have a biotech portfolio, 50 biotech companies, like I do it with every other medical substance.

00:47:12.000 I'm producing clinical data in a very rigorous, very scientific way to show and prove it what I personally believe, but we have to prove it.

00:47:22.000 And that was a little bit the weakness Of the MAPS data, because MAPS was a non-profit, so they never had a huge funding.

00:47:31.000 So all the data was actually always done with the minimum effort.

00:47:35.000 Not because they wanted it, but it was kind of limited in terms of funding.

00:47:38.000 I'll give you an example.

00:47:39.000 MAPS did 200 people in the Phase 3 PDST study.

00:47:44.000 In our treatment-resistant depression study with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, we treated around 800 people.

00:47:53.000 Why people said at the beginning, oh, it's a lot.

00:47:55.000 You need to spend all that money because it costs hundreds of millions.

00:47:58.000 But I was like, people will try to poke holes in it because it's magic mushrooms.

00:48:03.000 So because I'm dealing with psychedelics and because I have this personal conviction, but I cannot take my personal conviction and say, oh, everybody should just follow me because, like, I know.

00:48:13.000 I need to be especially rigorous and need to do it sort of very scientific, very broad.

00:48:19.000 So, yeah, long story short, I think psychedelics are coming back.

00:48:22.000 Yeah, I think we're going to deliver really good data over the next years.

00:48:27.000 And I also think, I still hope that the FDA will actually still approve MDMA because they can, so they don't need to follow...

00:48:35.000 That advisory board's recommendation.

00:48:37.000 And I think the political pressure of the veterans is there, so I really hope.

00:48:41.000 But if not, it's also not lost because the advisory board didn't push back on MDMA per se.

00:48:48.000 They pushed back on that specific data set and said, okay, there are holes we can poke into it.

00:48:53.000 So, yeah, nothing lost.

00:48:55.000 Nothing lost.

00:48:57.000 What's going on with marijuana is interesting in this country, because at this point, 24 states have it legal for recreational use.

00:49:09.000 That's literally half the country.

00:49:10.000 And then you have more that have it available for medical use, yet the government still has it as a Schedule I. They've made moves to turn it to a Schedule III, but as of this discussion, it's a Schedule I drug.

00:49:23.000 You have half the country.

00:49:25.000 Literally in states that are saying you can take it here you could buy it here you could sell it here We'll tax it and the federal government is still not on board with that and then The move next would be psilocybin so some states have decriminalized that right like Portland kind of Portland or Oregon I think has done a reverse they've did they've made like I think they've hit the brakes on I want to make a big sort of plea that psilocybin or in general psychedelics and cannabis should not be mixed

00:49:55.000 together.

00:49:56.000 People instinctively do that because it's kind of the same history.

00:50:00.000 It's so-called illegal drugs which now be coming in one way or the other legally.

00:50:06.000 But if I look at it, I have a very sort of strong opinion.

00:50:10.000 Psychedelics are very strong substances in a very good way.

00:50:13.000 So they have a very good outcome.

00:50:15.000 But if I look at human history, and you had Brian here, Murarescu, whom I love.

00:50:19.000 So if you look at Brian's work, he has shown that over 10,000 years, humans have used psychedelics in a very actually rigid setting.

00:50:29.000 If you think about the cult of Demeter, the Ilysinian mysteries, or the cult of Osiris, all of these psychedelic cults, they all actually said you can't just do psychedelics once or twice a year.

00:50:44.000 With a shaman together, it was actually forbidden by death to take the kykion, the drink which we believe was ergot, the natural version of LSD, in the Illycinian Mysteries outside of the very strong framework of the Illycinian Mysteries.

00:50:59.000 Mm-hmm.

00:51:00.000 So psychedelics were never consumer drugs.

00:51:04.000 They were always there for enlightenment and for becoming a better human being.

00:51:08.000 But the people understood that it has to be done in a certain framework to really unfold their power.

00:51:14.000 Okay.

00:51:15.000 So that's what I wanted.

00:51:16.000 So that's why I really have, I mean, my personal opinion is, so psychedelics should be medically used, but they should be limited.

00:51:22.000 It's not consumer drugs.

00:51:23.000 They should be limited to be used with a therapist together who also sort of gives you a sort of a full sort of therapy session around it, and that's how they can unfold.

00:51:36.000 I understand.

00:51:37.000 I understand where you're coming from, but here's where I would say about that.

00:51:39.000 First of all, two things.

00:51:41.000 You can take psychedelics in micro doses and it's very effective It's very helpful and to limit people from having the ability to do that.

00:51:49.000 I don't think makes any sense There's great benefits to micro dosing psilocybin a lot of people have had great benefits micro dosing LSD like tremendous benefits and they talk about it very openly and I think if we are going to act under the idea of body autonomy that falls under that also To say that marijuana is not a psychedelic,

00:52:11.000 all that would say to me is you haven't taken enough.

00:52:14.000 Or you haven't taken edibles.

00:52:16.000 Are you aware of the process of what happens when you eat cannabis?

00:52:22.000 You know the difference?

00:52:24.000 What do you mean?

00:52:24.000 Compared to psychedelics?

00:52:26.000 No, the difference between THC and 11-hydroxymetabolite.

00:52:29.000 No.

00:52:30.000 Okay.

00:52:30.000 When you eat marijuana, it produces a completely different chemical when it gets processed by your liver.

00:52:38.000 And it's called 11-hydroxymetabolite.

00:52:40.000 11-hydroxymetabolite is five times more psychoactive than THC. And I used to do a joke about it where it said, and it lets you talk to dolphins.

00:52:48.000 Because it's very psychedelic.

00:52:50.000 Eat edible...

00:52:52.000 Pot, like in high doses, is extremely psychedelic.

00:52:56.000 Especially if you close your eyes.

00:52:58.000 Like, if you lie somewhere in silent darkness and close your eyes on edible marijuana, it rivals a lot of different drugs.

00:53:08.000 Psilocybin, a lot of them.

00:53:09.000 Especially in the tank that I showed you guys.

00:53:12.000 Psychedelic drugs, mushrooms, there's a great history of people using them in those tanks.

00:53:18.000 We talked about John Lilly who would take ketamine.

00:53:21.000 But I know a lot of people who do high levels of edibles and they get in the tank and they have crazy psychedelic experiences.

00:53:32.000 I think that's also part of the problem with people recreationally taking edibles, is you really probably shouldn't do that all the time, especially at high doses, because I think it causes schizophrenia, and I think it has in some people.

00:53:46.000 I think it causes fragile minds to shatter.

00:53:50.000 And especially if you have some underlying conditions or propensity or family history of schizophrenia, it's probably not a good idea for you.

00:53:57.000 But I don't think we should just dismiss marijuana as being different than the other drugs.

00:54:03.000 It's just a drug that is more likely to be consumed microdosed.

00:54:09.000 Okay, so I just want to be mindful that we're not mixing things.

00:54:12.000 I didn't want to oppose Mariana.

00:54:14.000 No, no, no, I didn't think you were.

00:54:15.000 But you were talking about it the same way.

00:54:18.000 You were opposed to talking about it the way you talk about mushrooms.

00:54:21.000 Because mushrooms are, I mean, it's technically a different mechanism of action.

00:54:25.000 Yes.

00:54:26.000 So it might have the same or similar feelings.

00:54:30.000 But I think it's a different mechanism of action.

00:54:32.000 If you, by the way, pull up the chart again of David Knott, so the amazing thing with mushrooms is that the only risk which you saw with the small pinkish sort of thing is that you fall down the stairs and hurt yourself while you take it.

00:54:47.000 Otherwise, psilocybin has no toxicity.

00:54:50.000 Cannabis has.

00:54:51.000 As you said, like it could trigger.

00:54:53.000 Yeah, but that's...

00:54:54.000 Cannabis is way less than alcohol.

00:54:57.000 But I know people that have blown their brains out with psilocybin and with LSD as well.

00:55:02.000 I cannot imagine.

00:55:03.000 We have a whole team which is following up that sentence if somebody says that.

00:55:08.000 And literally for like, since when are we doing that?

00:55:11.000 Since 2018. Every single person we could find online and chat boards, whatever, whom we contacted, who said, oh, I have any side effects.

00:55:19.000 Our first question is always, what have you taken?

00:55:22.000 And 100% of the people who had negative things said, oh, I've taken mushrooms and I drank a lot of alcohol and I took a lot of cocaine.

00:55:29.000 Can already stop there.

00:55:31.000 Never mix these things because we don't know.

00:55:33.000 What I'm arguing for, by the way, the same going back to microdosing, we need to find or we need to create a scientific basis for all of that.

00:55:41.000 There will never be a scientific study which tells you you can happily mix alcohol, psilocybin, and cannabis.

00:55:48.000 I really don't know what's happening in your brain.

00:55:51.000 So don't do it.

00:55:52.000 But I can give you a lot of studies what is happening standalone when you take psilocybin.

00:55:56.000 I can give you a lot of studies what is happening when you take cannabis.

00:55:59.000 Yeah, so I always tell people, why mix?

00:56:01.000 That is one of my first recommendations because, remember, I'm a hypochondriac.

00:56:06.000 I just want to do things where I really know what's happening in my body because life is awesome.

00:56:12.000 I think I'm very...

00:56:14.000 I'm okay up there.

00:56:15.000 I'm happy.

00:56:16.000 Why should I risk it?

00:56:19.000 Microdosing is my favorite example to push back a bit because you said it actually.

00:56:25.000 You said there are people who say they were helped by microdosing.

00:56:29.000 That is not how science works because I can give you a lot of people who have one experience, but science is take thousands of them and see if there is a real statistic significance in whatever we want to prove.

00:56:43.000 They are not from us, because I think microdosing will always be not a commercial endeavor, but there are a few really good studies from, I think it was the University of Chicago, but I don't know, about microdosing,

00:56:58.000 and they could not reproduce the positive factors individual people were saying on a large scale.

00:57:07.000 Second...

00:57:08.000 What positive factors were they searching for?

00:57:11.000 Increasing concentration, increasing creativity, like all sort of the anecdotal evidence.

00:57:17.000 Did they try skills games?

00:57:18.000 Study of LSD microdosing doesn't show a therapeutic effect.

00:57:23.000 Yeah, but who wrote?

00:57:24.000 How is this performed?

00:57:26.000 What I'm saying is, like, we need more work.

00:57:28.000 I'm just saying microdosing.

00:57:30.000 I want to hang out with these people.

00:57:31.000 But I give you the positive ending you're going to like.

00:57:34.000 But, like, what I'm saying is, like, by the way, think about, again, Brian's work.

00:57:38.000 People never microdose psychedelics.

00:57:40.000 People macrodose psychedelics.

00:57:42.000 Right, but it doesn't mean that there's not a benefit to microdosing.

00:57:45.000 Yeah, but I would say microdose, do you one trip a year.

00:57:48.000 You get all the benefits, by the way, because there we know you get neuroplasticity.

00:57:52.000 There we know you get all the positive effects out of it.

00:57:55.000 But second, what you need to be just mindful is like there was a study some days ago, if we can pull it up, if you look microdosing at heart, so all these psychedelic stock at the 5-H2A receptor,

00:58:11.000 But also have an effect on your heart.

00:58:14.000 So hopefully I'm not using the technically right terms, but I always describe it to my friends.

00:58:19.000 It's like psychedelics are a little bit poking your heart.

00:58:22.000 So if you do that once a year, we've shown it zero problem, zero.

00:58:27.000 We don't know what psychedelics microdosing does to your heart.

00:58:33.000 Right, but isn't the poking the heart effect due to the large doses of stunning experiences that you're having when you're really tripping on like seven grams?

00:58:43.000 The answer is we don't know.

00:58:43.000 We don't know.

00:58:44.000 We don't have the data.

00:58:45.000 And the only thing I'm putting out there is that everything I'm saying is like what is really important, and I'm saying that as really like one of the most passionate people about psychedelics, That we cannot or we shouldn't abandon the...

00:59:01.000 Microdose and chocolate bars.

00:59:03.000 No, stop.

00:59:04.000 I know that study is about a polluted chocolate bar.

00:59:09.000 It's another thing.

00:59:11.000 There was a brand which put in stuff which is not what they say.

00:59:15.000 Microdose and chocolate bars.

00:59:16.000 Which is also a really important point about all drug use.

00:59:22.000 It's a wonderful book by Professor Carl Hart from Columbia University, Drug Use for Grown-Ups.

00:59:26.000 Yeah, we were talking about them yesterday.

00:59:27.000 Yeah, and it's like, you know, America's drug problem is a dosage and an adulteration problem, right?

00:59:34.000 And so we want to think about the issues that we have at hand in our society.

00:59:37.000 It is almost always about adulteration.

00:59:41.000 Like, no one goes out to seek out fentanyl, right?

00:59:45.000 Right.

00:59:45.000 It's adulterated into other products.

00:59:48.000 And in the correct dosage and with high-quality products, in most circumstances, most products can be used safely.

01:00:00.000 I swear there was something about psilocybin microdosing and skills.

01:00:06.000 This is the LSD thing.

01:00:07.000 It says that they were not told what drug they were on and then there's the results and no performance on cognitive tests.

01:00:12.000 It's known for microdosing, yeah.

01:00:14.000 This is the microdosing either during drug sessions or did they use like some sort of IQ test, puzzles, what did they do?

01:00:21.000 It says cognitive tests.

01:00:23.000 I'm just wondering what they did for cognitive tests.

01:00:26.000 There were also some neurobiological reasons to expect LSD might improve mood because LSD acts through serotonin receptors where traditional antidepressants are known to act.

01:00:39.000 The main thing I'm saying is, so microdosing could be, the only plea I make is, like, let's treat psychedelics with the same sort of rigorous scientific lens like we treat anything else.

01:00:50.000 By the way, that's my whole, like, how I marry my libertarian view and sort of my scientific view is let's just prove things.

01:00:57.000 Science is awesome.

01:00:58.000 We have learned over the last hundreds of years how to prove things or dismiss things.

01:01:02.000 Let's prove it.

01:01:03.000 And that's, by the way, how we, I mean, here in the room, because we all love psychedelics, how we convince the 95%, how we convince those people who were sitting on the advisory panel and said no to MDMA. It was very clear when they were talking that none of them had tried it.

01:01:19.000 But the answer can't be, come on, try MDMA and then please approve it.

01:01:23.000 The answer must be, I put in front of you a data set where it doesn't matter that it's called MDMA and it doesn't matter that it has a history because the data speaks for itself.

01:01:34.000 Right.

01:01:34.000 Yeah, it's just, it's body autonomy is what we're really talking about.

01:01:38.000 Once we have proven it, exactly.

01:01:40.000 But you want body autonomy, you want to have people that data to decide on body autonomy.

01:01:46.000 Sure.

01:01:47.000 So I always make the point that individuals with free and informed consent, adults, should be able to make decisions for themselves.

01:01:54.000 But that free and informed consent comes from data.

01:01:57.000 And like a good example, I assume you've used creatine at some point in your life, just like virtually all athletes have.

01:02:03.000 Right.

01:02:03.000 When creatine first came out on the scene after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, you should read the headlines.

01:02:10.000 It was like, new super steroid, infecting our sports, like headline from the independent newspaper.

01:02:16.000 Creatine is cheating no matter how you look at it.

01:02:19.000 What year was this?

01:02:21.000 1992. Wow.

01:02:22.000 Right?

01:02:23.000 Now we take it all.

01:02:24.000 Yeah, I take gummies.

01:02:25.000 I take creatine gummies every day.

01:02:27.000 Yeah, and it was banned in the Irish and French rugby federations.

01:02:31.000 It was seen as...

01:02:34.000 Cheating.

01:02:34.000 It was worse than cheating.

01:02:37.000 It was morally reprehensible.

01:02:40.000 Like, think of the children.

01:02:42.000 You might encourage children to use creatine.

01:02:44.000 Wow.

01:02:45.000 And the headlines were just unbelievable.

01:02:47.000 Wow.

01:02:48.000 That's crazy.

01:02:48.000 That was just 30 plus years ago.

01:02:50.000 Yeah.

01:02:51.000 Nuts.

01:02:51.000 And thankfully creatine didn't fall into the black zone like steroids or psychedelics, right?

01:02:59.000 Yeah.

01:02:59.000 Where moralizing got in the way of scientific data.

01:03:03.000 Now let's talk about the enhanced games in terms of long-term plans.

01:03:08.000 Like how are you guys funded and how long can you stay open?

01:03:14.000 Do you have a long-term strategy?

01:03:17.000 Yes.

01:03:18.000 We've raised millions of dollars in the world's top venture capitalists, Christian included, Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan.

01:03:24.000 And we're reinventing the Olympic Games, not just in terms of adding Performance enhancements, adding payments to athletes, but we're also removing the core waste.

01:03:35.000 So the core problem of the Olympics is that they build a dozen stadiums and then they throw them away after two weeks.

01:03:40.000 It is literally the most financially wasteful exercise in human history.

01:03:48.000 Between $30 and $100 billion a cost to put on an Olympic Games, and it is just disastrous for the host city.

01:03:55.000 So by reducing the number of sports and focusing on the ones that have the highest television and social media impact, we can have very, very low infrastructural costs and operate the whole thing profitably.

01:04:07.000 Right.

01:04:07.000 But do you have a plan as to how long to do it?

01:04:12.000 Oh, this is a century-long project for us.

01:04:16.000 It's not a pop-up event.

01:04:17.000 It's going to be forever.

01:04:18.000 I understand.

01:04:19.000 But what if it's not successful?

01:04:20.000 What if the first one comes out of the gate?

01:04:22.000 How are you going to make the money?

01:04:24.000 Are you going to use sponsorships?

01:04:25.000 Are you going to charge pay-per-view?

01:04:27.000 How are you going to do it?

01:04:27.000 Are you going to sell it to a network?

01:04:28.000 So number one, we will raise enough equity capital so that we can run the games for at least three years without any media rights, corporate sponsorship, or ticket sales.

01:04:40.000 Of course, we will grab all those revenue drivers, and that will make us a profitable endeavor.

01:04:46.000 But fundamentally, we have enough equity capital to make sure this thing really works and is delivered for a long period of time.

01:04:53.000 So for three years, you could just run it till the brakes fall off.

01:04:56.000 Even if we don't.

01:04:57.000 But what I can tell you, what I was actually a little bit surprised positively, is like we got inbounded by big brands.

01:05:04.000 We were actually calculating in the early days.

01:05:06.000 We said, ah, it's going to be controversial.

01:05:09.000 We don't think a big, whatever.

01:05:13.000 Outdoor brand or whatever, a big sportswear brand will sponsor in the first year.

01:05:17.000 So we really, as Aaron said, we planned, we are venture funded and we can do it three years without those major revenues, which we obviously somewhat want to have.

01:05:25.000 But then surprisingly, major brands Inbounded us and said, can we work with you early?

01:05:33.000 Which, again, showed us like we sort of hit the zeitgeist a bit with the thing.

01:05:39.000 In terms of brand sponsorship, so Nike, their core mythology is that the fastest people in the world wear their shoes.

01:05:46.000 I like how you say their core mythology.

01:05:47.000 Yeah, the core mythology, right?

01:05:50.000 And then, this is very simple.

01:05:52.000 Eventually, the fastest people in the world will be at the Enhanced Games.

01:05:56.000 And if they're not wearing Nike shoes, that can undermine that $100 billion brand.

01:06:03.000 And so if you're a challenger shoe company out there and you say, ooh, I'm going to sponsor this Enhanced Games thing, right?

01:06:09.000 We can capture Nike's core mode.

01:06:12.000 A brand is just a myth.

01:06:14.000 Hmm.

01:06:15.000 It's an interesting way to phrase it.

01:06:17.000 A core mythology.

01:06:19.000 Now, when you guys...

01:06:21.000 When is going to be the first Enhanced Games?

01:06:24.000 At the...

01:06:25.000 We're targeting for the end of 2025. And do you know where you're going to do it?

01:06:30.000 So, this is a question journalists always ask me.

01:06:33.000 We need to do it at this year.

01:06:35.000 The sphere is...

01:06:37.000 Come on.

01:06:39.000 Not an uneducated guess.

01:06:41.000 Not an uneducated guess.

01:06:42.000 Oh, really?

01:06:43.000 Hey, I like it.

01:06:44.000 So the journalists always ask, well, where's the Enhanced Games going to be?

01:06:48.000 Because they think of it like the Olympic Games.

01:06:49.000 They think, oh, you need a host city.

01:06:51.000 Where you have 12 stadiums, and there are very few cities like that.

01:06:55.000 But we live in the era of television and social media.

01:06:59.000 We don't need all of our infrastructure in the same place.

01:07:03.000 The swimming could be in Sydney.

01:07:05.000 The track and field could be in Los Angeles.

01:07:07.000 The weightlifting could be in Las Vegas, right?

01:07:10.000 Interesting.

01:07:10.000 And all united through the magic of television.

01:07:13.000 Therefore, we are not dependent on infrastructure in one city.

01:07:17.000 We're not dependent on having 10,000 hotel rooms available.

01:07:22.000 And this is really the technological innovation that we're bringing to the design of the Olympic Games.

01:07:28.000 It's like, why do the Olympics need to be in one city?

01:07:31.000 Why does the Paris metro system need to be upgraded for just two weeks at the cost of billions and billions of dollars?

01:07:39.000 No.

01:07:39.000 We live in a world where 99.9% of sports is consumed Either on television or on our phones.

01:07:47.000 Has the Olympics, have they responded to you guys?

01:07:52.000 Yes.

01:07:52.000 What did they say?

01:07:53.000 I can't wait to hear this.

01:07:55.000 So, you know, it's interesting.

01:07:58.000 So, publicly, they don't like us, obviously.

01:08:01.000 But the fact that we are paying the athletes has really changed the dynamics of Olympic sports.

01:08:07.000 So, Lord Sebastian Coe, who is the president of World Athletics, came out and said that athletics will pay $50,000 For a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

01:08:16.000 And read the coverage.

01:08:17.000 Journalists all attribute this because of the pressure we put on because we're offering payment for athletes.

01:08:23.000 Obviously, we're offering a million for a gold medal.

01:08:25.000 They're offering 50 grand.

01:08:26.000 So gold medals in the Enhanced Games are a million.

01:08:29.000 Breaking a world record is an additional million?

01:08:31.000 No, no, no.

01:08:32.000 The world records are a million, and there'll be base compensation negotiated with each athlete, probably around 100 grand.

01:08:39.000 But you just said gold medal's a million.

01:08:42.000 No, no, no.

01:08:42.000 A world record is a million at the Enhanced Games.

01:08:44.000 A gold medal in track and field at the Olympics is 50,000.

01:08:47.000 Right.

01:08:49.000 I'm pretty sure you said it.

01:08:50.000 I think you just scrambled it.

01:08:52.000 So what is first place in boxing?

01:08:56.000 To be determined.

01:08:58.000 To be determined?

01:08:58.000 Yes.

01:08:59.000 So you're going to negotiate it with different athletes?

01:09:01.000 Yeah, it depends.

01:09:02.000 If someone has a big social media following, someone's famous.

01:09:06.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:09:07.000 If LeBron wants to play basketball for you guys.

01:09:09.000 Exactly, exactly.

01:09:11.000 And some sports are more compelling because of larger viewership or that they have...

01:09:19.000 You know, multiple disciplines.

01:09:21.000 Are you planning, do you have a plan as to how to stream it?

01:09:25.000 Are you guys going to do YouTube?

01:09:27.000 Are you going to have your own platform?

01:09:29.000 So we have been approached by every major broadcaster in the world.

01:09:33.000 And the overarching message is they're like, this is going to be exciting television.

01:09:39.000 So the three most watched sports event in the world, number one is the FIFA World Cup final.

01:09:45.000 Number two is the UEFA Champions League final.

01:09:48.000 And number three is the Olympic 100-meter final.

01:09:51.000 And if you think about it, the first enhanced games should be a lot more interesting than an Olympic 100-meter final.

01:09:58.000 Right?

01:09:59.000 Well, it's definitely...

01:10:00.000 I mean, if you guys can really come out of the gate guns blazing and put on a tremendous show and captivate people, I think you're in.

01:10:08.000 Yeah, and that's why we've raised millions and millions of dollars from the world's top venture capital funds so we can deliver an amazing broadcast experience, recruit the best athletes, and ensure that we make a television package that's really,

01:10:23.000 really compelling.

01:10:25.000 And for the networks, they want to buy a five, ten-year deal because they're effectively taking a bet.

01:10:33.000 The Olympic television rights are worth four billion per games.

01:10:36.000 Wow.

01:10:37.000 We live in the era of peak television rights right now.

01:10:41.000 Amazon, ABC, D&D, they're all bidding for the NBA rights.

01:10:45.000 Two NBA games on Christmas Day are worth a billion dollars.

01:10:51.000 This is an absolute sweet spot.

01:10:54.000 And you see this with college football and college basketball.

01:10:57.000 The NIL writes, you know, 18-year-olds in college are now driving Lamborghinis.

01:11:01.000 Yet Olympic athletes have been so screwed financially and that we're just going to deliver a better economic system that is a more compelling television package because of enhancements.

01:11:14.000 And then ultimately...

01:11:17.000 Television rights are about what commercials can be sold.

01:11:21.000 And traditional sports markets three things.

01:11:24.000 Processed food, alcohol, and gambling.

01:11:27.000 Yet the Enhanced Games opens up broadcast partnerships, commercial sponsorships in a whole new way.

01:11:34.000 Because we present a scientifically and technologically optimistic view of the world.

01:11:39.000 We believe that science helps us overcome our limits.

01:11:43.000 And what pharma company wouldn't want to be putting ads against that?

01:11:48.000 It's good.

01:11:49.000 Well, I mean, it's really interesting because if it does take off, it might legitimately change the way pharma companies interface with these particular substances if they realize they're going to be extremely popular.

01:12:03.000 Once they see how well people do, especially if you get athletes that are in their 30s that may be washed out of MMA organizations and they start competing at an elite level again, if you start seeing people breaking the world records in sprinting, they might go,

01:12:20.000 hey, let me revisit this.

01:12:21.000 Yeah, and think about it.

01:12:23.000 The whole world is abuzz talking about artificial intelligence.

01:12:27.000 The total value of all the generative AI startups, including OpenAI, is $200 billion.

01:12:33.000 Ozempic and the GLP-1 drugs have added $1 trillion to the market capitalization of Nova Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

01:12:40.000 So one enhancement drug is worth 5x all of artificial intelligence. 0.99

01:12:45.000 And it's a dumb one. 0.98

01:12:46.000 Yes, but it's a progress. 0.99

01:12:48.000 By the way, I use that always as the same example.

01:12:52.000 I think Pharma, and that's my core industry, biotech and Pharma, is going through a fundamental change because of GLP-1s.

01:12:59.000 Because they realized that enhancement, they're not using that word, but they're all thinking about it.

01:13:07.000 Because, like, if you look, by the way, the data, so you know, like, Teco Zempeg or Munjaro, they are technically not, I'm taking it.

01:13:15.000 Are you really?

01:13:17.000 Yeah.

01:13:17.000 Why are you taking it?

01:13:18.000 Because it's outsourced discipline.

01:13:20.000 That's it.

01:13:20.000 Yeah.

01:13:21.000 It's like I'm eating a little bit less.

01:13:23.000 I don't need to think about it that much.

01:13:25.000 Yeah, because of all the other stuff.

01:13:27.000 But the consequences, the negative side effects.

01:13:29.000 I've had good friends that have had very bad side effects.

01:13:33.000 Gastrointestinal issues.

01:13:34.000 I don't have it.

01:13:35.000 By the way, that is again, my answer is always like, everything has side effects.

01:13:39.000 The coffee you just gave me has side effects.

01:13:42.000 The Diet Coke, the...

01:13:43.000 Whatever, I actually always come back.

01:13:45.000 Psychedelics have made it the least. 1.00

01:13:46.000 But it's all about an educated guess.

01:13:49.000 I can look at Ozembek. 1.00

01:13:51.000 There is a whole list of side effects.

01:13:53.000 And I can look at myself.

01:13:55.000 By the way, it's also very important to measure yourself from the basic stuff, like have an Oura ring, whatever.

01:14:02.000 That's already more complicated or more advanced.

01:14:05.000 But take an Oura ring.

01:14:07.000 I do a blood test every two weeks because I'm obviously at the moment going through an enhancement process.

01:14:12.000 And because people react different on different stuff.

01:14:15.000 Like there might be people who say, look, I don't like Ozempic, then don't take it or like it.

01:14:19.000 But like it worked for me, which is great.

01:14:21.000 So but it's outsourced discipline, but I'm not the person which it was made for because it was obviously originally made for diabetes and then for clinically obese people.

01:14:30.000 And you know that Ozempic and the GLP-1s are prescribed in the United States off-label 83% of the time.

01:14:38.000 Yeah.

01:14:38.000 So 83% of all people don't take it for the original use.

01:14:42.000 They take it for vanity whatsoever.

01:14:44.000 And that really changed the way pharma CEOs are looking at medications.

01:14:50.000 It's exactly coming back to what Aaron said.

01:14:53.000 We are in this zeitgeist shift.

01:14:57.000 Where suddenly the whole industry looks at health.

01:15:00.000 By the way, I think looks at health how we should look at health, not like how we just give people something once the damage is there, but how we can keep people more healthy for longer and help them to enhance themselves if they want to.

01:15:17.000 Yeah, so I couldn't agree more.

01:15:18.000 Yeah, and I come from the view that aging is a disease that we should be able to treat, cure, and eventually solve.

01:15:24.000 But that's not what medicine is about.

01:15:27.000 So legally, aging is not a disease.

01:15:30.000 So a doctor cannot prescribe you medication against the clinical indicator of aging.

01:15:37.000 Aging is a normal biological process and is just accepted by the field of medicine.

01:15:42.000 And it wasn't until 1997 that osteoporosis was considered a disease.

01:15:49.000 It was prior to that just considered a natural part of the aging process.

01:15:54.000 And so I think we need a revolution here where we say medicine is not about making just the sick people less sick.

01:16:01.000 It's about fundamentally improving the quality of all human life so that we can become Superhuman.

01:16:09.000 And at the time in which we live, an era of artificial intelligence where the machines are upgrading, we need to upgrade our own biology to be competitive.

01:16:19.000 Well, I think in that case, especially looking at Ozempic and these drugs that are used off-label, the fact that they're incredibly profitable and the fact that they are being used mostly for people that just want to lose some weight and look better, that's really probably a good sign for the future of how these substances are at least allowed to be used.

01:16:41.000 100%.

01:16:42.000 And at the first enhanced games, athletes will break world records.

01:16:46.000 You think so?

01:16:47.000 I think so.

01:16:48.000 And I'll park that up for a second.

01:16:51.000 But when that happens, everyone's going to say, what is he on and how do I get it?

01:16:58.000 Yeah.

01:16:58.000 Because it's no longer going to be scary.

01:17:00.000 It's no longer going to be unknown.

01:17:02.000 It's like if Lance Armstrong, after coming back from cancer and winning the Tour de France, went out and said...

01:17:09.000 You know what?

01:17:09.000 I'd like to thank my sponsor, EPO. EPO made it possible for me to go from being a cancer patient to the best cyclist in the world.

01:17:17.000 Everyone in the world would go talk to their doctor about EPO. Yeah.

01:17:20.000 Right?

01:17:20.000 But he didn't do that.

01:17:21.000 No, he didn't.

01:17:23.000 Also, everybody shouldn't be on EPO. That's a dangerous one.

01:17:27.000 No, but talk to your doctor about it.

01:17:29.000 Talk to your doctor.

01:17:31.000 And so why will world records get broken at the enhanced games?

01:17:34.000 It's actually pretty simple.

01:17:35.000 Okay.

01:17:37.000 According to my scientific team, they believe that enhancements will add about 5% to the performance of any athlete.

01:17:43.000 However, most of the existing world records are enhanced in some way or another.

01:17:49.000 Usain Bolt's world record, et cetera, might be...

01:17:52.000 And so it's actually kind of hard, but actually doing a full open enhancement that's not trying to beat the drug test probably has about 5%.

01:17:59.000 But it also goes back to the economics of being an Olympic athlete.

01:18:04.000 Most Olympians are stacking boxes at Home Depot or flipping burgers at McDonald's.

01:18:08.000 So by being able to pay the athletes and create a fair economic arrangement allows them to focus on their training, right?

01:18:15.000 And then a third dimension is actually a really simple one.

01:18:17.000 Have you ever been to the Olympics?

01:18:20.000 No.

01:18:21.000 Okay.

01:18:21.000 Go to the athletes' village.

01:18:23.000 It's a dump, right?

01:18:24.000 They had these, like, cardboard beds, these paper-thin walls.

01:18:27.000 It's noisy.

01:18:28.000 Everyone's having sex all the time.

01:18:30.000 If you just put up the athletes at the Four Seasons, give them a nice bed to sleep in, they'll be more focused.

01:18:35.000 They'll have a good night's sleep before the big race, and they'll perform better.

01:18:39.000 Interesting.

01:18:39.000 So I didn't know that.

01:18:41.000 So they make the athletes' day at the athletes' village and it's just real loud and crazy and they're partying?

01:18:46.000 Yeah, that's right.

01:18:47.000 Because the vast majority of athletes who go to the Olympics have no chance of meddling.

01:18:51.000 Oh, so they're there for the party.

01:18:53.000 They're just there for the party and you have all these beautiful young people.

01:18:57.000 What do you think is going to happen?

01:18:58.000 Right, and they're all athletes.

01:19:00.000 They're all horny as hell. 1.00

01:19:00.000 They did literally a press release some days ago where they said they're just going to do single beds in order to avoid people having sex. 1.00

01:19:09.000 I was like, whenever in university life has a single bed avoided that people have sex? 0.99

01:19:15.000 It was one of the most dumbest ideas. 0.99

01:19:17.000 That's hilarious. 1.00

01:19:18.000 That's like just say no. 1.00

01:19:20.000 That's such a dumb idea. 1.00

01:19:23.000 People have sex in the woods. 1.00

01:19:24.000 The fuck are you talking about? 1.00

01:19:26.000 Paris Olympics lifts intimacy ban for athletes and is stocking up on 300,000 condoms. 1.00

01:19:32.000 They went the other way.

01:19:32.000 No, there was then two conflicting news.

01:19:34.000 The other one was more hilarious with the single bed. 1.00

01:19:37.000 Yeah, you realize it's a stupid idea. 1.00

01:19:39.000 But then there were all these headlines I saw some days ago that a blowjob before sports is actually increasing your testosterone. 1.00

01:19:45.000 Really? 0.98

01:19:46.000 So, yes.

01:19:46.000 Google it.

01:19:48.000 Why specifically a blowjob? 0.99

01:19:50.000 I don't know, but I was like, I take it. 0.99

01:19:52.000 I take it.

01:19:52.000 It's good.

01:19:53.000 Wait a minute.

01:19:54.000 Giving or getting?

01:19:55.000 Getting.

01:19:55.000 Okay.

01:19:56.000 But why would that...

01:19:57.000 I don't understand why that particular kind of sex would do it.

01:20:00.000 I ran with it.

01:20:01.000 I was like, I like the headline.

01:20:03.000 I'd shut the laptop when I read a good headline.

01:20:05.000 Exactly.

01:20:07.000 Let's not be too scientific on that one. 0.99

01:20:11.000 Yeah, why fuck around? 0.99

01:20:12.000 I made a screenshot using it in every day. 1.00

01:20:14.000 Yeah, that's it.

01:20:15.000 Start arguing.

01:20:16.000 So now we have...

01:20:19.000 How many sports?

01:20:22.000 So five sports.

01:20:23.000 Five sports.

01:20:23.000 So track, swimming, combat, weightlifting, gymnastics.

01:20:29.000 Those are the five core sports that we've identified that have the highest television and social media impact with the lowest infrastructural cost.

01:20:36.000 We don't need to build specialist stadiums.

01:20:37.000 So, you know, like I love velodrome cycling.

01:20:40.000 It's a sport that I did myself.

01:20:41.000 You need to build a $300 million facility for it.

01:20:44.000 What is velodrome cycling?

01:20:46.000 Track cycling.

01:20:47.000 Oh, it's like around the loop?

01:20:49.000 Yeah, that like, you know, a few thousand people in the whole world participate in.

01:20:52.000 It's a pretty niche sport.

01:20:54.000 Most sports at the Olympic Games, the total number of professional or semi-professional participants is very small.

01:21:02.000 So, you know, things like rock climbing, skateboard, you know, there aren't huge participation numbers for these things.

01:21:08.000 So people are going to be heartbroken that synchronized swimming is out.

01:21:12.000 Yeah, you know, curling, bobsleigh, you know.

01:21:15.000 Curling is one of the silliest ones of all time.

01:21:18.000 Yeah, and curling has participated in by less than a thousand people worldwide.

01:21:22.000 The interesting question, though, would be if people on psychedelics would be better at synchronized swimming because it's like bringing you in.

01:21:32.000 Yeah, interesting.

01:21:34.000 But we save that for later.

01:21:36.000 Are you familiar with beta blockers?

01:21:38.000 Yes.

01:21:38.000 So do you know that classical musicians use beta blockers?

01:21:42.000 About 75% of professional orchestral musicians have used beta blockers.

01:21:47.000 No.

01:21:47.000 Right?

01:21:48.000 So beta blockers are a banned substance under the World Anti-Doping Code.

01:21:52.000 They would not be allowed to compete at the Olympic Games.

01:21:54.000 But it's used en masse by professional orchestral musicians.

01:22:00.000 That's interesting.

01:22:00.000 I wonder why professional orchestra musicians would find that helpful.

01:22:04.000 It allows them to focus.

01:22:06.000 I think the hand gets more stable.

01:22:08.000 It's my guess I'm not a musician.

01:22:10.000 Interesting.

01:22:11.000 Because I wouldn't think that they would be, especially in a large group of them, they've been working together, they practice.

01:22:18.000 I wouldn't think they'd be that anxious.

01:22:21.000 I don't know, have you ever performed on stage at Carnegie Hall?

01:22:24.000 I performed on stage at Madison Square Garden.

01:22:28.000 I mean, once you're out there, you're out there.

01:22:32.000 Musicians use beta blockers as performance enabling drugs.

01:22:38.000 Video game players also.

01:22:40.000 Oh, that makes sense.

01:22:41.000 Calm the fuck down in a stressful situation. 0.77

01:22:44.000 Yeah, interesting. 0.97

01:22:46.000 I know they're illegal in archery events.

01:22:49.000 They test for them in archery events.

01:22:51.000 And here we go.

01:22:52.000 There's the concertmaster of the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra right there.

01:22:55.000 She's openly talking about using a band performance-enhancing drum.

01:23:00.000 Now I want to try them.

01:23:02.000 That's how it works.

01:23:03.000 That's how it works.

01:23:04.000 You read an article, you're like, hmm, what's the side effect of beta blockers?

01:23:08.000 After consultation with your doctor.

01:23:09.000 Yeah, I want to talk to my doctor.

01:23:11.000 Dr. Feelgood.

01:23:12.000 Hey, buddy.

01:23:14.000 Hook me up with some beta.

01:23:15.000 I'm going to go do something dangerous and see how I feel.

01:23:17.000 And have an unadulterated supply.

01:23:19.000 You need good quality manufacturing.

01:23:21.000 Right.

01:23:21.000 From the pharmacy, because that's when you take medical drugs.

01:23:24.000 Well, that's how all drugs. 0.70

01:23:24.000 I mean, this is the conversation that I had yesterday. 0.70

01:23:26.000 I had Freeway Ricky Ross on the podcast yesterday.

01:23:30.000 I don't know if you know who he is, but he was a drug dealer that was illiterate that was at one point in time selling as much as $3 million worth of cocaine in a day.

01:23:40.000 And he was supplying...

01:23:42.000 It was all done through the CIA, allegedly, to supply the Contras versus the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

01:23:50.000 He went to jail for it, learned how to read in jail, became a lawyer, figured out his case was tried and prosecuted wrong, got off.

01:23:59.000 Wow.

01:23:59.000 Yeah.

01:24:00.000 Incredible guy.

01:24:01.000 And, you know, we talked about...

01:24:05.000 The problem is you're never going to get away from the demand.

01:24:09.000 The demand in the United States is immense.

01:24:11.000 So you're fueling drug empires in Mexico.

01:24:15.000 So you're fueling illegal organized crime because you won't come to terms with the fact that body autonomy and The rights of an individual to choose to do whatever they want, especially in light of what is legal that is incredibly damaging,

01:24:33.000 like alcohol.

01:24:34.000 And that if you just made it legal, I mean, you would have a real problem.

01:24:41.000 You would have a lot of people getting addicted, you have a lot of people trying it that wouldn't try it, but eventually the dust would settle.

01:24:48.000 And the concept would be you would have to mitigate all these potential future problems With counseling, with treatment, and with education, but you would severely limit the amount of adulterated drugs.

01:25:02.000 You would change a lot of that.

01:25:04.000 If you made sure that the supply was clean and you're getting it from pharmaceutical drug companies and pharmaceutical drug companies, Could profit off of it.

01:25:13.000 And you would just have a percentage of that profit that would be taxed.

01:25:16.000 Yes.

01:25:16.000 Tax the externality.

01:25:18.000 Exactly.

01:25:19.000 And in that discussion about the social externality and addictive substances, we never talk about the two most addictive substances, processed food and sugar, which have done so much damage to our society.

01:25:34.000 And do you know who Team USA's top Olympic sponsors are?

01:25:38.000 Kellogg's?

01:25:40.000 McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

01:25:41.000 Oh, okay.

01:25:42.000 I thought it was Wheaties.

01:25:44.000 Read the social history of the Olympic movement and of McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

01:25:50.000 Both of them built their brands on sports marketing.

01:25:53.000 Selling the most dangerous, most addictive, most damaging drug ever developed to children.

01:26:04.000 It's funny that we don't look at it that way, isn't it?

01:26:06.000 Also, I always say, like, when you remember the chart we looked at where alcohol is worse than heroin, next time you go to an airport and you see all these shops which say alcohol and tobacco, whatever, just think for a second it would say heroin.

01:26:21.000 How messed up is that?

01:26:23.000 And it's not just for adults.

01:26:24.000 It's also children.

01:26:26.000 We're just bringing them up in a world where the most dangerous substances are stuffed into them and marketed to them and whatever. 0.99

01:26:34.000 I think it's really fucked up. 1.00

01:26:35.000 It is fucked up. 1.00

01:26:36.000 Yeah, we're very silly. 1.00

01:26:38.000 There's a lot of things that we've got wrong. 0.89

01:26:40.000 And there's a lot of perceptions that people have that are just locked into their minds.

01:26:45.000 And they don't want to move on these ideas at all.

01:26:49.000 They don't want to readjust with new data.

01:26:51.000 They don't want to change their feelings about things.

01:26:53.000 How do you think?

01:26:54.000 Is the best way to change perceptions?

01:26:57.000 Conversations.

01:26:58.000 Over long periods of time.

01:27:00.000 It's not a quick fix.

01:27:02.000 Nothing's going to fix.

01:27:03.000 Nothing's going to change things.

01:27:04.000 But young people coming up, and I think a lot of podcasts are doing that because these conversations are available for the first time, and not just available, but available to millions and millions of people in a way that it used to be.

01:27:18.000 Mainstream media was and these conversations get shared and then people they put clips on Instagram and YouTube and they start passing them around and people Listen more and then they you know I used to think this but now that and The more conversations you have with intelligent,

01:27:36.000 educated people that really understand what's going on and can give you the data and explain it in a logical way, you realize, well, this is an intelligent person that has an informed perspective on this.

01:27:47.000 And it'll allow people to just sort of reevaluate.

01:27:51.000 And I think...

01:27:53.000 Faith in institutions is at an all-time low, and faith in institutions that give out health advice is at an all-time low, because we now know about the sugar industry that bribed scientists in order to lie about the dangers of saturated fat.

01:28:10.000 We know about drug companies that lie about the side effects of their drugs and high data.

01:28:15.000 We know about all that now, so we're a little less We're likely to believe the mainstream narrative on a lot of things that we just accepted as fact.

01:28:24.000 That's right, and I think we live in this era of disruption, and social media is such a powerful force in both positive and negative ways.

01:28:33.000 And two years ago, it was basically impossible for athletes to talk about performance-enhancing drugs.

01:28:39.000 You would just be canceled immediately.

01:28:43.000 And, you know, we launched and, you know, started to have a conversation and pulled the Overton window open.

01:28:48.000 And now so many eminent scientists and doctors come and say, you know, if you actually look at the data, look at Professor Nutt's study, it's not that dangerous.

01:28:56.000 It's worth having a conversation about.

01:28:58.000 How will this affect our society?

01:29:00.000 How will this...

01:29:01.000 Build a better future, right?

01:29:04.000 And this is only possible because of the era of information distribution which we have, which is not guarded by traditional media institutions.

01:29:12.000 Right.

01:29:12.000 By the way, you might have missed it, but, like, anabolic steroids were also on the chart.

01:29:17.000 Yeah, I did see it.

01:29:17.000 And it's almost where psychedelics are, like, very low risk.

01:29:21.000 Yes.

01:29:21.000 Can you put that chart up again, Jamie, please?

01:29:24.000 One of the things that was interesting in that chart is just, like...

01:29:30.000 I would like to know, like, percentage of people who use these things.

01:29:35.000 Like, what kind of data?

01:29:36.000 Scroll up right there.

01:29:37.000 First of all, what is that one at the bottom?

01:29:41.000 Buprenorphine?

01:29:43.000 Buprenorphine?

01:29:44.000 Yeah, I always want to look it up.

01:29:45.000 What is that?

01:29:47.000 How many people are using that?

01:29:48.000 We can look it up together.

01:29:50.000 What is that stuff?

01:29:51.000 There it is.

01:29:52.000 Synthetic opioid.

01:29:54.000 Oh, interesting.

01:29:55.000 Used to treat pain and opioid use disorders.

01:29:58.000 Okay, so is it...

01:29:59.000 Oh, from the poppy flower, yeah, okay.

01:30:01.000 Interesting.

01:30:03.000 Okay.

01:30:04.000 Is it an FDA-approved substance by that?

01:30:07.000 I also saw methadone was on that, which I thought was interesting.

01:30:11.000 Oh, equally as effective as moderate doses of methadone.

01:30:14.000 However, because buprenorphine is unlikely to be as effective as more optimal dose methadone, it may not Be the treatment of choice for patients with high levels of physical dependency.

01:30:27.000 Okay, so it's to treat people that are physically dependent.

01:30:30.000 Was Kratom on that list?

01:30:32.000 No.

01:30:33.000 Interesting.

01:30:34.000 We did a lot of research on Kratom.

01:30:37.000 Butane.

01:30:38.000 Butane, like lighters?

01:30:40.000 People are sniffing lighters?

01:30:41.000 Cannabis is in there.

01:30:42.000 Jesus Christ, cannabis is really high.

01:30:45.000 It's not without risk.

01:30:46.000 Yeah, but lower than tobacco.

01:30:48.000 What kind of risk you got in there?

01:30:50.000 Here's the risk, and then they're weighted based off of, I'm guessing...

01:30:53.000 Drug-specific mortality.

01:30:54.000 Let me scroll up again so I can see what it says for drugs.

01:30:57.000 Is there anything in cannabis?

01:30:58.000 You have to go by the color and then the size of the thing.

01:31:01.000 There's no drug-specific mortality.

01:31:02.000 Okay.

01:31:04.000 International damage.

01:31:05.000 I like how it's all color-coded.

01:31:07.000 Yeah, so the way the survey works is that it looks at the overall harm, and it's broken up into two sections.

01:31:14.000 One to the user, and that's physical, psychological, and social.

01:31:19.000 And to others, the physical and psychological and the social damage caused.

01:31:26.000 So drug-related mortality, drug-specific damage, they're all color-coded.

01:31:30.000 Injury, crime.

01:31:32.000 I like to see crime and weed.

01:31:34.000 Oh, that's connected.

01:31:35.000 Is that just people that are high that do things?

01:31:37.000 It's that gray box right here.

01:31:38.000 Yeah, but what does that mean?

01:31:40.000 Did you test them?

01:31:41.000 Were they high when they committed the crime?

01:31:43.000 Or are they just testing positive for marijuana, which stays in your systems for weeks?

01:31:47.000 No, no, no.

01:31:47.000 It's really like, do you commit a crime, I guess, to get it?

01:31:50.000 Or is it some crime associated with taking it?

01:31:54.000 Oh.

01:31:55.000 I thought that meant, are you doing crimes while you're on it?

01:31:58.000 No, no, no.

01:31:59.000 It's like, are you robbing a gas station to pay for your cannabis addiction?

01:32:03.000 Oh, right, right, right.

01:32:03.000 Clearly, no one is robbing a gas station to pay for their antibiotics.

01:32:06.000 Right, but a lot of criminals take marijuana. 0.99

01:32:08.000 It's funny.

01:32:09.000 I don't know if you could put that in that same thing.

01:32:13.000 It's interesting.

01:32:14.000 Cocaine and tobacco are neck and neck, and then...

01:32:19.000 Amphetamines are below that, which is interesting.

01:32:23.000 Not a lot below, but yes.

01:32:25.000 It's below tobacco by three points.

01:32:27.000 But cannabis is only below amphetamines by three points.

01:32:32.000 And to emphasize that this is a really high-quality, credible study published in The Lancet, which is one of the top medical journals in the entire world.

01:32:40.000 Very, very interesting study.

01:32:44.000 We need more of that.

01:32:45.000 You know, I mean, we need to be informed.

01:32:47.000 We need data, and I firmly believe in personal autonomy.

01:32:52.000 And I just think, again, I just don't think adults should be able to tell other adults what to do and not to do.

01:32:58.000 If they're informed, if they're educated, if they know what they're doing, you should be able to do whatever you want to do, just like you can go bull riding.

01:33:04.000 I don't encourage you to go bull riding, but if you want to go bull riding, you're allowed to go bull riding.

01:33:08.000 So tell me why you can go bull riding, but you can't smoke a joint.

01:33:11.000 It makes zero sense.

01:33:12.000 Well, I think about this in the context of space exploration, right?

01:33:15.000 Going into space has a 1 in a 19 chance of fatality.

01:33:19.000 Jesus, Jamie, we're not going into space.

01:33:22.000 No, not yet.

01:33:22.000 It's going to be bad.

01:33:23.000 Fuck that. 1.00

01:33:24.000 Let's go. 1.00

01:33:25.000 Fuck that. 1.00

01:33:25.000 1 in 19? 1.00

01:33:26.000 1 in 19. That's 5%.

01:33:28.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:33:29.000 Fuck that, dude. 1.00

01:33:30.000 But does that mean we shouldn't- We have a 0% chance of going into space if we don't? 1.00

01:33:34.000 Yeah.

01:33:35.000 But like, you know, think about the Apollo program.

01:33:37.000 Apollo 1 burnt down on the launch pack, killed three astronauts.

01:33:41.000 Did we stop the Apollo program?

01:33:43.000 Should we have not gone to the moon?

01:33:45.000 Right?

01:33:46.000 And what we have lost in our contemporary society in so many ways is the propensity to take risk.

01:33:52.000 Thoughtful, intelligent, positive risk.

01:33:54.000 And this has always been something that I've been so deeply passionate about is The people who succeed in life, the people who push society to a new level, the people who improve themselves and their families and their communities are willing to take positive risk.

01:34:09.000 Yet our society is so dominated by a safetyism and a safetyist culture that we're increasingly unwilling to take any risk.

01:34:21.000 Our desire for safety is not accurate.

01:34:24.000 We're not really targeting the things that are actually dangerous for us.

01:34:27.000 We're not being honest about it, about what we know about food and what we know about certain substances that people are using and taking in their food and just what happens when you have a bad diet.

01:34:38.000 It's one of the primary factors for all-cause mortality is a shitty diet.

01:34:43.000 Yeah, absolutely. 0.64

01:34:44.000 Arguably the number one factor with diet and exercise.

01:34:48.000 I live in London and just coming here to the United States and just consuming the available food makes me feel ill.

01:34:58.000 What are you consuming?

01:35:00.000 You can eat good here too, dude.

01:35:02.000 You can eat good here, yeah.

01:35:04.000 I don't think you can blame it on America that you came over here and ate McDonald's.

01:35:08.000 Oh, well, you know, just the prevalence of sugar in American food.

01:35:12.000 You look at like a Chobani yogurt.

01:35:15.000 You can just buy in the grocery store in Whole Foods in London versus in New York.

01:35:19.000 The one in New York has more sugar in it.

01:35:21.000 Because we want it to be delicious.

01:35:22.000 Yeah.

01:35:25.000 Just don't eat it every day, man.

01:35:27.000 The idea is, look, I'm all for all those things existing.

01:35:31.000 I don't like the marketing.

01:35:33.000 I don't like the marketing for kids.

01:35:35.000 The thing that drives me crazy is sugary cereals, which when I was a child, we just thought gave you cavities. 0.80

01:35:41.000 We didn't know it was going to fuck up your health.

01:35:43.000 No one knew that sugary cereals were actually really bad for you.

01:35:47.000 But I like them.

01:35:49.000 I don't take them.

01:35:50.000 I don't eat them.

01:35:51.000 But if, you know, I don't think you should stop someone from having Captain Crunch.

01:35:55.000 No, I don't think we should stop anyone.

01:35:58.000 Just like I don't think you should stop someone from having tiramisu at a restaurant.

01:36:02.000 Yeah, but I think it's about accurate disclosure.

01:36:04.000 Yes.

01:36:05.000 Right?

01:36:05.000 Yeah.

01:36:06.000 And informed disclosure, like the food pyramid, right?

01:36:11.000 Clearly written by special interest.

01:36:13.000 Yeah.

01:36:13.000 Right?

01:36:14.000 And guided, you know, died hairy decisions for Americans for 50 years in completely the wrong direction.

01:36:20.000 Yes.

01:36:21.000 And to many people to this day, it's still gospel.

01:36:25.000 It's really crazy.

01:36:26.000 It's very bizarre how few people actually know how you should really eat.

01:36:31.000 And what is actually bad for you?

01:36:33.000 And just the ubiquitous use of seed oils. 0.98

01:36:35.000 Like, seed oils are fucking crazy. 0.93

01:36:37.000 The fact that that's not something that someone's clamoring to get off the shelves. 0.97

01:36:42.000 You know, they don't put the brakes on that industry.

01:36:44.000 Well, you know, my theory of social change is very simple.

01:36:48.000 Change only happens when someone puts a suit on and goes to work every day trying to solve a problem.

01:36:54.000 Until I decided to rent a little office in West London, hire a few people and say, you know, we're going to normalize performance enhancements.

01:37:02.000 We're going to celebrate performance enhancements.

01:37:03.000 There was no one dedicated full time to doing it.

01:37:06.000 I doubt that there's anyone dedicated full time in a really professional manner to stopping seed oils.

01:37:11.000 Well, there's a giant industry that's profiting off of them that would get in the way of that, I'm sure.

01:37:16.000 Yeah, but now we would need a business model.

01:37:18.000 I think that's the power of capitalism.

01:37:19.000 We're not doing it as an activist.

01:37:22.000 We're doing it because we believe we're going to build a multi-billion dollar sports franchise with the enhanced games.

01:37:27.000 But additionally, I think we're going to positively influence society.

01:37:32.000 So we would need to find a business model where a team could say, buy...

01:37:38.000 Whatever, educating about C-Dolls, like, people would make money. 1.00

01:37:41.000 That's always the hard thing.

01:37:42.000 I deeply believe, like, capitalism and for-profit models are the best driver for positive change.

01:37:49.000 Absolutely.

01:37:49.000 Or neutrally said they're the best driver for change.

01:37:51.000 Unfortunately, sometimes also corporations did negative change.

01:37:55.000 Yes.

01:37:55.000 But, like, we can combat it with positive change also.

01:37:58.000 As long as people have access to accurate information, the problem is when capitalism also works to try to subvert Accurate information and try to distort things in order to increase their profits, which is also a giant issue.

01:38:13.000 But today, I think that's more difficult to do than ever before, just because of new media, just because people have the internet, they have access to information, as long as that information is not being curated, which is also a problem.

01:38:24.000 You know, it's a problem what is allowed and not allowed to be distributed.

01:38:29.000 And I think that's why the podcasting industry is actually so powerful as compared to consuming written content, which is so easily manipulatable and doesn't have that trust dimension.

01:38:40.000 As I read the New York Times, I don't actually think about the person who wrote the article versus I listen to a podcast and I say, oh, I know Joe.

01:38:49.000 I listen to him every day.

01:38:50.000 I've built an emotional relationship with the presenter.

01:38:54.000 And if they do something to break that trust...

01:38:57.000 We're good to go.

01:39:21.000 I think that the reality is that I have not yet engaged with a transgender athlete who has the potential to break a world record.

01:39:32.000 In a female sport? 1.00

01:39:34.000 In a female sport. 1.00

01:39:34.000 And if there is such a person who wishes to compete at the Enhanced Games, please write to me and I'm going to set up a meeting with every athlete you propose to compete against and create a fair and balanced framework. 1.00

01:39:47.000 But is it fair and balanced if you're allowing a biological male ever to compete with biological females, especially in light of the enhanced games proposal of allowing people to take performance enhancing drugs?

01:40:01.000 Because you'd have to make a very clear definition What is a transitioned athlete?

01:40:09.000 How long would you have to wait?

01:40:11.000 And what are they allowed to take?

01:40:13.000 If you're going to limit a biological male's ability to take testosterone or force them to take some sort of a testosterone blocker, In order to achieve a certain requirement, that kind of goes against the ethics or the ethos of this enhanced games in the first place.

01:40:32.000 Well, so I think you're actually viewing it in the inverse way that I would.

01:40:37.000 Because the actual question to ask is, so, and I'm gay myself, so let me use my language very precisely here because I know it really matters to a member of the transgender community.

01:40:48.000 The standard argument is that a person born a man who transitions to being a woman, particularly after puberty, has an insurmountable biological advantage over a natural born woman.

01:41:03.000 And I accept that argument.

01:41:05.000 In sports, you mean?

01:41:07.000 In sports, yeah.

01:41:08.000 And what has yet to be proven is, does an enhanced woman have an ability to compete on a level playing field? 1.00

01:41:18.000 With a biological male?

01:41:20.000 Yeah.

01:41:20.000 That is also allowed to enhance themselves?

01:41:22.000 A biological male that's transgender So you're taking a biological male, for lack of a better term, lack of being politically correct, and you're allowing them to compete with biological women, and you're allowing them to take performance-enhancing drugs, then you're allowing a man to compete against a woman. 0.97

01:41:39.000 Like, full stop.

01:41:40.000 That's what it is then.

01:41:41.000 Why not just say you have to be biologically female to compete in the female division, biologically male to compete in the male division? 0.97

01:41:49.000 Yeah, so one version that one of our investors has proposed to us is that we have a Because the reality about gender transition at the moment, it's still not even beta stage technology.

01:42:04.000 It's alpha stage technology.

01:42:05.000 It doesn't really change anyone on a chromosomal level.

01:42:08.000 It changes people on a surface level.

01:42:11.000 And so let's assign athletes based on chromosomal status without having the labels of male and female, which are very precious to some people, or man and woman.

01:42:22.000 And that language has been manipulated by both sides politically.

01:42:25.000 And just say, it's actually a scientific question.

01:42:28.000 Are you XX or are you XY? Right. 0.98

01:42:30.000 Well, that would work.

01:42:30.000 I mean, you could do that with everything.

01:42:33.000 I also think that's a good idea.

01:42:37.000 But also, it's interesting.

01:42:39.000 I think the point Aaron wanted to make earlier is that in all the more than 1,000 people we had, there was no person identifying as transgender.

01:42:48.000 I also think that it might be a little bit the whole headlines blown out of proportion on a very professional level.

01:42:56.000 Yes, there are some activists on both sides who I think try to make a point almost in sports, but these are not the people who compete on an Olympic level.

01:43:06.000 So we also think for us, it might not even be a big issue.

01:43:10.000 That's why Aaron was saying, like, we really welcome a discussion.

01:43:12.000 And that's the great thing of inventing a new sport.

01:43:15.000 We can think about things with a very clean slate, without any prejudice in one or the other direction.

01:43:20.000 Yeah, so that's why if somebody is really feeling or if somebody is transgender and really is on a level, though, they can...

01:43:38.000 You're still dealing with a biological male that you're allowing to enhance themselves so that they can perform to the highest level of their ability physically.

01:43:48.000 So if you're taking a biological male, who's transitioned to being a woman, but now you're allowing them to take EPO, testosterone, you know, fill in the blanks, IGF-1, whatever you're going to give them, you're not, that's a biological male,

01:44:04.000 full stop.

01:44:05.000 I'm not, I'm not, only thing I'm saying is like how many of those descriptions you just had are in the really high level Olympian community.

01:44:14.000 I'm just thinking it's, it's much less- What about Lea Thomas?

01:44:18.000 Is Lea Thomas in world record contention?

01:44:20.000 I don't believe so.

01:44:21.000 Well, as a woman...

01:44:22.000 And I don't think as a man.

01:44:24.000 No, as a woman.

01:44:25.000 As a woman or as a man.

01:44:26.000 Not a man.

01:44:26.000 Not even close as a man.

01:44:28.000 But as a woman, yes.

01:44:29.000 Was the number one in the country.

01:44:31.000 Jamie?

01:44:32.000 Do you want to pull up Lea Thomas?

01:44:33.000 At one point in time, has won major events.

01:44:37.000 I don't believe Lea Thomas is close to world record contention.

01:44:41.000 Okay.

01:44:42.000 Correct me if I'm wrong, James.

01:44:44.000 But college athlete NCAA has won women's events. 1.00

01:44:48.000 Has won women's events.

01:44:50.000 Right.

01:44:50.000 Now, I want you to imagine Leah Thomas on testosterone, EPO, all sorts of performance enhancing substances, peptides, and then allowing this person to compete as a woman.

01:45:03.000 Yeah, and so does her competition.

01:45:05.000 Yeah, but it's not a biological man.

01:45:07.000 The competitions are biological females. 0.99

01:45:09.000 And you would have to change the structure of their body, the hip structure.

01:45:13.000 You'd have to change the size of their lungs, the size of their heart, different cardiovascular capacity.

01:45:18.000 Everything is different.

01:45:19.000 And especially if you're allowing Leah Tom... 1.00

01:45:22.000 The whole idea about a transgender athlete competing with biological females is that there's supposed to be It's supposed to be even because this person is on testosterone blockers and on estrogen and they've lost all their muscle mass and they're basically a woman. 0.67

01:45:36.000 This is the argument that the activists use.

01:45:38.000 But the problem with that is the structure of the body is different.

01:45:41.000 Reaction time is different.

01:45:43.000 Lung capacity is different.

01:45:45.000 Heart size is different.

01:45:46.000 There's a giant difference between males to females when it comes to athletic performance.

01:45:52.000 And I think that's why the XXXY categorization makes it a lot simpler.

01:45:57.000 And is a resolution to the issue.

01:45:59.000 But this is where the entire global sports apparatus is unable to adjust to scientific change.

01:46:06.000 And this is just the beginning.

01:46:07.000 So we're talking about things like CRISPR gene editing is going to be on the cards. 0.95

01:46:13.000 So think of this from an intellectual mindfuck.

01:46:18.000 There are children who are being born today. 0.98

01:46:22.000 Who are being CRISPR edited by their parents.

01:46:26.000 So it is a one-way street.

01:46:29.000 They can never reverse it.

01:46:31.000 They never consented to this procedure.

01:46:34.000 And they are very enhanced human beings.

01:46:38.000 And there's no way they can stop it.

01:46:39.000 They've never consented to it.

01:46:41.000 Should that person be banned from the Olympics?

01:46:43.000 Well, it's a good question.

01:46:45.000 Yeah.

01:46:45.000 I don't think they should.

01:46:46.000 But I think that that's going to be the likelihood in the future is that most children, at least in like first world countries, are going to be edited.

01:46:54.000 Yeah.

01:46:54.000 And so then, you know.

01:46:55.000 And then you're going to get GigaChad.

01:46:57.000 Yeah, you're going to get GigaChad.

01:46:59.000 I mean, that's what it is.

01:47:01.000 Yeah.

01:47:01.000 I mean, when they can do that to fully grown adults, it's going to be very strange.

01:47:06.000 Yeah.

01:47:07.000 And then if we think about like where Olympic competition goes, where in the rich countries, The rich people are enhancing their children from birth.

01:47:17.000 Take a look at that.

01:47:17.000 That's the future, bro.

01:47:18.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:47:21.000 And the transgenderism issue is actually just the vanguard of this whole transhumanism issue.

01:47:29.000 Right.

01:47:30.000 Where eventually we're going to have BCI implants in our brain.

01:47:34.000 We're going to have gene editing.

01:47:36.000 We're going to have the most amazing technology.

01:47:38.000 Right.

01:47:39.000 And, you know, if the Olympics are stuck in this ancient Greek Corinthian values modality, then they're not going to adjust to modern technological and social changes.

01:47:52.000 Right.

01:47:53.000 That's actually the vision beyond what we're thinking now about performance enhancements, is that we're going to be the continuous role model or the continuous showcase where human enhancement can go over the next 20 years.

01:48:08.000 We're talking now about performance enhancing medications, but maybe in 10 years we're going to have the first people with a chip in their brain.

01:48:16.000 Maybe it's going to be There is going to be a continuous sort of pushing the boundaries in a good way where we want to showcase what science can really do positively for humans.

01:48:26.000 By the way, fun fact, because we always reference back to the ancient Olympics, they did allow performance enhancements very openly.

01:48:33.000 You can go to all the ancient documents.

01:48:35.000 What did they have back then?

01:48:36.000 So they didn't have a lot.

01:48:37.000 That's the point.

01:48:38.000 They actually did a lot of stuff which was pain numbing so that they could sort of run harder and whatever because pain was a big thing. 0.98

01:48:47.000 They actually believed interest in eating bull testicles.

01:48:53.000 Weirdly, there are some documents who mention psychedelics, which I'm not fully sure why it would be performance. 0.80

01:49:01.000 I don't know, but they mention it.

01:49:02.000 If you go into all these documents, and potions, and again, it was very, very archaic, but the notion was, do everything is possible to win.

01:49:13.000 And actually, the transgender issue goes back to the ancient Olympics.

01:49:18.000 Really?

01:49:19.000 Yeah.

01:49:19.000 You said hermaphrodites.

01:49:20.000 Well, and so do you know why they competed naked?

01:49:23.000 So you could know.

01:49:24.000 You could know.

01:49:25.000 Yeah.

01:49:25.000 Aha!

01:49:26.000 And so there's a kid.

01:49:27.000 So, you know, a historian told me, and you need to verify it independently.

01:49:32.000 That they originally wore clothes, and then, you know, a woman pretended to be a man to compete at the Olympic Games, and then this was found out, so then they just made it all naked. 0.82

01:49:42.000 Interesting that it was a woman. 0.99

01:49:43.000 Well, it was not because she thought she could win.

01:49:46.000 It was more like because it was for men.

01:49:48.000 And it was, the story is it was a revolutionary point.

01:49:53.000 Ah, I see, like women voting. 1.00

01:49:55.000 Yeah, interesting.

01:49:58.000 Another problem would be when you add testosterone to females, you fundamentally change them. 1.00

01:50:04.000 So you don't just change their ability to perform, you change the way their voice sounds, you could make them sterile.

01:50:13.000 When you're adding exogenous testosterone to women at a very high level, it has pretty profound permanent changes.

01:50:21.000 As adding testosterone to men do, right?

01:50:23.000 Sort of, but they're still men, right?

01:50:26.000 And it's thought of as being a positive thing.

01:50:29.000 You know, I'm sure you're aware of the Eastern Bloc women in, I mean, some of the records still to this day haven't been broken. 0.89

01:50:36.000 And these women were just juiced to the tits, no pun intended, because they were trying to win. 1.00

01:50:42.000 And so they, you know, when you've, there's been some interviews of these women that were forced to do this in these communist countries. 0.93

01:50:47.000 And You know, it devastated them.

01:50:49.000 They became infertile.

01:50:51.000 They, you know, developed all sorts of problems, ovarian cysts and all sorts of things that were connected to the use of exogenous testosterone at very high levels.

01:51:01.000 Yeah, and one of which is a lack of proper scientific research to develop compounds that are performance enhancing specifically for women. 1.00

01:51:09.000 Right, but you wouldn't stop them from taking testosterone, right?

01:51:14.000 Right.

01:51:15.000 So let's talk about combat sports athletes, for example. 0.88

01:51:18.000 If you had a female combat sports athlete and you allowed that female to compete with other women, but allowed that person to get juiced to the hilt, And go in there, look with a fucking crazy voice, and looking like Vandelay Silva in those pictures, 0.99

01:51:35.000 or rather, Vitor Belfort in those pictures that we saw. 0.96

01:51:39.000 I mean, that's, you know, then you're saying to these women, in order to compete, you have to stop being a woman. 0.98

01:51:45.000 You have to essentially transition, which is what happens to trans men. 0.99

01:51:49.000 When you take a woman and you give them a shit tote of testosterone, they start growing beards, They become trans men, right? 0.99

01:51:55.000 That's part of the process. 1.00

01:51:57.000 It's what's happening.

01:51:58.000 That's not reversible.

01:51:59.000 And when you do that to women competing with women, those women are going to be more effective. 0.99

01:52:04.000 They're going to be stronger in weightlifting competition.

01:52:07.000 There's going to be no comparison.

01:52:08.000 If you have combat sports, you're going to have much more power, much more speed, more violence.

01:52:15.000 It's just you're turning them into men, essentially.

01:52:18.000 You're turning them into trans men. 1.00

01:52:20.000 And just to compete.

01:52:22.000 It's a little bit different, right?

01:52:24.000 Because we look – I mean, maybe it's a society standard.

01:52:26.000 Maybe it's not, though.

01:52:28.000 If you look at it in terms of, like, when someone looks at, like, GigaChad, you know, guys look at that.

01:52:33.000 Guys who like to work out, like, wow, I'd like to be built like that guy.

01:52:37.000 Very few women look at like a female bodybuilder who's got a five o'clock shadow and say that's the ideal physique. 1.00

01:52:45.000 But isn't that an individual choice?

01:52:46.000 It is an individual choice, but all women in the enhanced games will have to make that choice then to become men.

01:52:53.000 I actually think there's also an economic rationale here, right?

01:52:57.000 So if you're an athlete, particularly in the era of NIL rights and in the era of- What is NIL? Name, image, license, what's happened in the NCAA, right?

01:53:08.000 Selling your brand, right?

01:53:11.000 For an athlete, male or female, their physique and their brand are- Attached to each other.

01:53:19.000 And so if a female athlete says, you know what, I'm going to take tons and tons of testosterone, she may also be compromising her economic ability to earn by not building a visual brand that is amenable to the market. 1.00

01:53:37.000 But even easier, like we forgot to mention one thing at the beginning.

01:53:40.000 So we have actually three, and by the way, we're still mapping out and sort of phrasing the details, but we have three essential rules.

01:53:46.000 Rule number one, which we said at the beginning, it has to be FDA or any other agency globally approved medications.

01:53:53.000 Because again, we discussed it at length.

01:53:55.000 It's all about data, knowing what you take, what's the risk preferable.

01:53:58.000 Second, you have to have a doctor.

01:54:02.000 Which we will require to be public, who is your doctor?

01:54:05.000 Think about a Formula One team where you say, who's my chief engineer?

01:54:09.000 So this doctor will have a public pressure to not go too far because people will know you're the doctor of that person.

01:54:17.000 Right, but we're talking about percentage points in order to win.

01:54:19.000 You just have to go a little bit further than everybody else and you have an advantage.

01:54:23.000 Wait, third one, but it's still a limiting factor.

01:54:27.000 You need to find a doctor who's publicly your doctor, who's not hiding in the shadows, and who's like, I'm responsible for whatever this athlete is taking.

01:54:36.000 It's just thinking through safety measures, or how do we sort of make it in a way that people are sort of doing rational decisions.

01:54:44.000 But the third one is important.

01:54:46.000 Anything, by the way, in life which you take too much of has side effects and has bad ones.

01:54:51.000 If you take 20 vodka shots, you're going to be dead, most likely, or 30. There's a number of alcohol, if you take it, you're dead.

01:54:58.000 So, alcohol has a lethal toxicity at a certain amount.

01:55:02.000 So what we're going to do, the same is like for many of the things we're just discussing, is like if you take too much of it, even if you think you get one point more out of it, you're going to put damage on your body.

01:55:14.000 There's always for anything, for testosterone, for human growth hormones, for anabolic steroids.

01:55:19.000 How we regulate it is we're going to do a full health check, which the Olympics don't.

01:55:25.000 It's very simple.

01:55:25.000 You should do it.

01:55:26.000 We do it on site with our own doctors so that you can't cheat.

01:55:30.000 One of the most important things is an MRI of the heart.

01:55:32.000 Because, for example, a lot of anabolic steroids, if you abuse them, so if you take too much to squeeze out the last point, you're gonna have a heart damage somewhere.

01:55:42.000 And then you're gonna get disqualified.

01:55:43.000 We will not let any person on the field who has a health damage.

01:55:48.000 That's gonna be interesting data.

01:55:50.000 And that is the limiting factor.

01:55:52.000 So if you're a woman, And everything you described, I hear you, but I can tell you, I'm not a doctor now and can tell you the exact answer, but if you describe me a woman is taking that much testosterone that she grows a beard and whatever, she's going to have damage to her body and her heart. 0.92

01:56:07.000 And she's not going to, and that is then, they don't do it because then they would do it for nothing.

01:56:13.000 They would arrive and would be disqualified.

01:56:16.000 What's the testing involved in the CrossFit Games?

01:56:19.000 I believe the CrossFit Games does not have any testing.

01:56:22.000 That makes sense.

01:56:23.000 Because you've seen some of them gals? 1.00

01:56:25.000 Yeah, and some of those guys do. 0.99

01:56:28.000 Yeah, but some of the gals are like giant six-packs, fucking huge shoulders. 1.00

01:56:32.000 The vast majority of bodybuilding comps don't have any drug testing. 0.99

01:56:35.000 They can't.

01:56:36.000 They really can't.

01:56:37.000 It's not even possible without it.

01:56:38.000 All athletes registered in any CrossFit Games competition are subject to drug testing at any time during the year.

01:56:44.000 But we don't do it.

01:56:47.000 Including directed, unannounced, out-of-competition testing for any reason.

01:56:51.000 CrossFit Games drug testing policy aims to prevent the use of...

01:56:54.000 2002. Look at it.

01:56:55.000 Ask the question before 2002. That's 22. Yeah, 2022, yeah.

01:57:00.000 That's just two years ago.

01:57:01.000 Yeah.

01:57:03.000 What drugs are banned?

01:57:05.000 Stimulants, anabolic agents, beta blockers, in competitions, treat drugs, diuretics, peptides.

01:57:10.000 Peptides.

01:57:11.000 Interesting.

01:57:11.000 Anti-estrogens, beta-2 agonists.

01:57:14.000 Interesting.

01:57:16.000 We don't – hold on.

01:57:17.000 Permitted with prescription use and therapeutic use exemption through inhalation only.

01:57:25.000 Okay.

01:57:25.000 Oh, we haven't talked about TUEs.

01:57:27.000 Yeah.

01:57:27.000 Oh, we need to talk about TUEs.

01:57:28.000 Okay.

01:57:29.000 So this is the primary abuse that's going on in the Olympic system.

01:57:35.000 Therapeutic use exemptions.

01:57:36.000 We're going to get all lawyerly and technical for a minute here.

01:57:39.000 Okay.

01:57:41.000 And double-check my statistics, Jamie.

01:57:44.000 I believe 2% of all people are asthmatic.

01:57:47.000 No, no.

01:57:48.000 I think double-digit of all swimmers are asthmatic.

01:57:50.000 It's insane.

01:57:51.000 Sorry, 2% in real life.

01:57:53.000 2% of the population is asthmatic.

01:57:56.000 But double digits, maybe a third of all swimmers, claim to be asthmatic.

01:58:02.000 So they can use high-powered steroidal inhalers.

01:58:06.000 So is there an epidemic of asthma among swimmers?

01:58:08.000 Or are they faking asthma?

01:58:11.000 They're faking asthma.

01:58:12.000 Yeah.

01:58:12.000 If I had a guess.

01:58:14.000 Yeah.

01:58:14.000 And these therapeutic use exemptions are just abused left, right, and center.

01:58:19.000 Look up the case of Bradley Wiggins, the British cyclist, I believe, who had a therapeutic use exemption for asthma and then, you know, forever hid this from even his own teammates.

01:58:33.000 Ah.

01:58:34.000 Yeah.

01:58:35.000 Okay.

01:58:36.000 Hmm.

01:58:36.000 So how do they diagnose asthma?

01:58:39.000 That's a great question.

01:58:40.000 I'm not a physician.

01:58:42.000 My guess is that it...

01:58:43.000 Well, you mean in real life or like the doctor just says you have asthma?

01:58:47.000 Like, I think they just find a doctor who is...

01:58:48.000 Yeah, I think their team doctor just says they have asthma.

01:58:50.000 So they just say...

01:58:51.000 Yeah.

01:58:53.000 Was athletes with asthma required to show proof of airway obstruction with a clinical test...

01:58:58.000 Yeah, 25% of all sorts.

01:58:59.000 ...in order to use their inhaled medications, which are otherwise prohibited during competition?

01:59:03.000 Is there anything that they can take to obstruct their airway?

01:59:07.000 Or can they just...

01:59:09.000 What does that mean?

01:59:09.000 Is it like how you blow on things?

01:59:11.000 Could you like fake it?

01:59:13.000 I think it's quite easy to fake.

01:59:14.000 I think what is generally happening with a lot of our new colleagues, as we hired chief cardiologist of FIFA, right?

01:59:23.000 Yeah.

01:59:23.000 And colleagues at that, is like one of the ways to cheat in the Olympics is that they let people do tests, these kind of stuff, in their home country.

01:59:33.000 Yeah.

01:59:33.000 Also, look at how it's described here.

01:59:35.000 A long-term study would help distinguish between athletes with asthma who self-select to swimming and those who have asthma as a result of exposure to endurance training practices.

01:59:48.000 That's interesting.

01:59:49.000 So the idea is that you could limit your cardiovascular system from extreme training?

01:59:57.000 Intensity of swimmer training, long hours spent in water, may expose swimmers to more chlorine byproducts.

02:00:05.000 Whoa! 0.71

02:00:05.000 It's compared to divers or others who spend less time breathing. 0.71

02:00:08.000 Oh, so that can cause asthma.

02:00:11.000 It could be that swimmers really have more asthma because their training environment or living environment is fostering it, but it also could be that most likely it's both.

02:00:20.000 Well, that is one thing that I did consider because chlorine's bad for you.

02:00:25.000 And you're probably getting a bunch of it in your mouth.

02:00:28.000 And if you're swimming in it, you're also absorbing it through your skin.

02:00:32.000 Like, I always think that when I get out of a pool, like, this can't be good.

02:00:36.000 You know, it's what came first, the chicken or the egg?

02:00:38.000 Right, right.

02:00:40.000 Well, listen, gentlemen, this is all very, very exciting.

02:00:43.000 And I love the idea of it.

02:00:47.000 I love the potential.

02:00:49.000 And I think it really is going to change the conversation about what these substances are and what the benefits of them are.

02:00:58.000 And you're frankly exposing the lid on so-called amateur athletics and what the real big scam is with the Olympic system.

02:01:07.000 It's just like a A giant money grab, and these poor athletes aren't getting any of it.

02:01:12.000 And they're dedicating their entire life, hoping that they become famous.

02:01:16.000 Meanwhile, NBC makes how much?

02:01:19.000 Billions.

02:01:20.000 Yeah, and IOC makes how much?

02:01:22.000 The whole thing is, it's not a good system, and I think your system is far better.

02:01:27.000 And I really, really hope this works.

02:01:29.000 Thank you.

02:01:29.000 I really hope you succeed.

02:01:30.000 When it comes out, I'll tweet about it.

02:01:32.000 I'll tell people.

02:01:32.000 I still say tweet.

02:01:33.000 I'm not going...

02:01:34.000 I don't even know how to say it.

02:01:35.000 I think we all say tweet.

02:01:36.000 Yeah, we have to say tweet.

02:01:37.000 Yeah, I think Elon probably even says it.

02:01:39.000 But best of luck.

02:01:41.000 I'm really excited.

02:01:42.000 And let me know when it happens.

02:01:44.000 Come back on again right before it happens.

02:01:46.000 We'll talk some more and we'll find out where you went with all these ideas.

02:01:49.000 Cool.

02:01:49.000 We'd love to.

02:01:50.000 Thank you very much.

02:01:51.000 Appreciate it.

02:01:51.000 Thank you.

02:01:51.000 All right.

02:01:52.000 Oh, if anybody wants to know more, where should they go?

02:01:55.000 What's the best place to...

02:01:56.000 Enhance.org or Enhance Games on Instagram.

02:01:59.000 Okay.

02:02:00.000 Beautiful.

02:02:00.000 Or I'm on Instagram.

02:02:02.000 I'm on Twitter.

02:02:03.000 So find us.

02:02:05.000 Okay, so tell everybody your handle if they want to follow you.

02:02:07.000 C for Christian, underscore, A-N-G-E-R-M-A-Y-R. And you? 1.00

02:02:13.000 I'm not on Twitter.

02:02:14.000 Good for you.

02:02:16.000 Follow me on Instagram.

02:02:18.000 Okay, what's your Instagram?

02:02:19.000 Aaron Ping DeSouza.

02:02:20.000 Okay, beautiful.

02:02:21.000 All right.

02:02:21.000 Thank you, guys.

02:02:22.000 Bye.

02:02:22.000 Thank you.

02:02:22.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 19, 2024

Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games

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