Joe Rogan pushed back hard on comments made by Palantir executive Alex Karp regarding the military draft during a conversation with former Navy SEAL and MrBallen creator John Allen on The Joe Rogan Experience episode #2543.
The discussion emerged as the two were talking about tribalism, power, and the abuse of authority when it comes to sending people to war. Rogan brought up Karp specifically as an example of people in positions of power pushing for policies that would not personally affect them.
“It’s primate tribalism. It’s it’s based on our territorial instincts,” Rogan said, before pivoting to the tech industry’s role in war. “It’s also just based on this weird desire to control resources and greed and not recognize the fact that we have a finite life and also just the abuse of power.”
Rogan continued, “Human beings love to be in power and especially if you can be in power and get other people to fig ht for you and mandate them and force them to fig ht for you.”
He then went on the criticize Palantir, saying, “You know, that’s one of the weirdest things about some of these tech companies. Like Palatir was talking about reinstating the draft and I’m like, ‘Hey, who the f**k are you?’ Like what is this? Like you think you want to draft people because you think war… what? Aren’t you a tech company?”
Rogan continued questioning why someone in Karp’s position would call for a draft rather than volunteering himself.
“So like do you want to go fig ht? Why don’t you go fig ht? Why don’t you take your glasses off and go over there? Like what are you talking about?” he continued.
Rogan said, “So it’s like the people that have the kind of power and control and resources that they can just take poor people and take young people and say you should go over there. You should go do this. You should [do that] while I sit here and watch. I’m going to watch on a screen in Nevada while the drone operator is using an Xbox controller to nuke some building.”
Allen, who was wounded by a grenade blast during a firefig ht in Afghanistan in 2014, agreed with the sentiment and offered his own take on how differently policymakers might act if they had to face the consequences of the wars they support.
Rogan asked, “How much less war would we have if people that wanted us to go to war were forced to lead the charge? Like imagine how few wars there would be if Lindsey Graham had to suit up.”
“We wouldn’t have war, dude,” Allen said.
Rogan agreed, saying, “Cuz Lindsey Graham’s like, we got to go over there, we got to kill everybody. Well, okay, good. Get in the helicopter. Let’s go, Fatso. Like that might be the only way to stop it from happening.”
