During his conversation with Priyanka Chopra Jonas on The Joe Rogan Experience #2464, Rogan drew a direct line between the East India Trading Company and the modern military-industrial complex, arguing that the same financial logic that drove colonial exploitation continues to fund war today.
The discussion began with Rogan reflecting on the East India Trading Company’s structure as one of history’s first publicly traded corporations. “The more awful s**t the East India Corporation did, the more the people back home made money off of it,” Rogan said. “And so everybody was like, ‘Oh, look. I got money.'”
He connected that historical model directly to present-day defense contractors. “We’re doing that with what Eisenhower warned us about at the end of World War II, the military-industrial complex,” Rogan said.
He continued: “They make money doing that. And you can invest in them. You can invest in Raytheon and you can invest in all these companies that make money going to war. You can get returns on your investment from b*mbing people overseas that had nothing to do with anything in your life.”
On why individuals within these systems rarely feel personal responsibility, Rogan pointed to corporate structure. “One of the ways is because it’s a corporation, so there’s a diffusion of responsibility because you’re only a piece of a gigantic machine. You’re not the one person that’s doing it. And the people that are at the very top of it most likely, just in order to get there, you have to be at least somewhat sociopathic.”
He argued that leadership within these industries becomes desensitized over time. “At some point in time, you probably, just like I got numb to puke, you get numb. You get numb to harming people.”
Rogan used the language of demonic possession to describe what he sees as the moral reality of modern warfare. “If you were possessed by a demon, you would drop a nuclear b*mb on a city. The demon would go, ‘There’s only one way to stop this. You’ve got to k*ll everybody in that city. Just drop it.'”
He also stated: “A person with a conscience would be like, ‘Well, these are just people down there. They have nothing to do with this war. That doesn’t make any sense at all. These are just people living their lives.'”
He applied that same framework to pharma industry incentives. “The financial incentive is not to cure, it’s to treat,” he said, calling the whole arrangement “demonic.”
He elaborated: “I don’t know if I really believe in demons, but I definitely believe in demonic acts. And there’s certain things that human beings have done and do do that are very demonic.”
