Joe Rogan Experience #2473 - Bill Thompson

Bill Thompson grew up participating in 'rendezvous,' traditional camping events where everything in the camp must be pre-1840. Participants dress as mountain men, revolutionary soldiers, or Native Americans and learn ancestral skills. Thompson specifically learned brain tanning, a natural method to soften animal hides using the animal's own brain, which contains the exact amount of material needed for its hide.

Thompson details growing up doing 'rendezvous' where 'everything in the camp has to be 1840 or prior.' He explains brain tanning: 'every animal, no matter what animal you kill, has the exact amount of brain needed in order to tan the hide.'

Both Thompson and Rogan lament the absence of formal 'coming of age' rites for young men in modern society. They argue that without structured transitions, men often remain in a perpetual state of childhood, lacking responsibility and purpose. Thompson credits his military service and having children with imposing necessary structure and responsibility in his own life.

Thompson states, 'It's a one of the things we're kind of missing in culture today... coming of age rights. Something to say you're a man and I'm going to start treating like a man from this moment forward.' Rogan adds, 'men sort of dwindle into this perpetual state of childhood.'

Thompson, drawing from his military experience advising generals on offensive cyber development, reveals that government systems incentivize the execution of budget rather than the achievement of mission objectives. Officers are reprimanded for not spending all allocated funds, as underspending leads to reduced future budgets. This creates a perverse incentive for waste and growth of bureaucracy.

Thompson recounts seeing a field-grade officer 'get dressed down more than when he didn't spend all of the money that he was budgeted for for that year.' He explains, 'if you don't spend that money, your budget for the next year will be lower.'

Thompson criticizes the Biden administration's introduction of 'woke' politics into the military, where general officers were required to read books like 'White Rage' and were told that white men were inherently problematic due to systemic racism. He argues this narrative disrespects the majority of combat deaths, which are white men from the middle of the country, and undermines the meritocracy essential for military lethality.

Thompson describes 'books that general officers were being told to read... like White Rage, like understanding why your problem uh you as a white man are a problem in the modern day military because um this whole thing's built on systemic racism.' He argues this denigrates 'lethality' and is a 'threat to national security.'

Thompson asserts that tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta offer 'free' services (e.g., photo storage, apps) because users are the product. They collect vast amounts of personal data, including faces, conversations, and political biases, to train powerful AI models. This data is crucial for developing hyper-realistic AI and facial recognition, making privacy a trade-off for convenience.

Thompson states, 'If you're getting a free app... then you're the product.' He explains, 'when Google is allowing you to use a Google Drive... they're going to use those photos to train neural networks to do better facial recognition.'

Drawing from his cyber offense background, Thompson explains that foreign-made network infrastructure, such as Huawei and ZTE devices, often contain built-in backdoors or unpatched vulnerabilities. These allow foreign actors to gain root-level access to communications, intellectual property, and critical infrastructure (power, banking), posing significant national security and business espionage risks.

Thompson notes the ban on Huawei and ZTE, explaining that 'some of them were coming out implanted... there was access built in for a foreign actor.' He adds, 'the Chinese were just owning Africa... because they wanted their resources and they wanted to know what these people were saying.'

Thompson argues that the 17th Amendment, which mandated direct popular election of senators, fundamentally altered the U.S. governmental structure. Originally, state legislators appointed senators to protect state rights against federal overreach. The amendment made the Senate redundant with the House of Representatives, centralizing power in the federal government and allowing national parties to fund campaigns based on popular urban centers, ignoring broader state interests.

Thompson explains the 17th Amendment 'made it a redundant house of representatives and using the popular vote.' He states, 'the state senators... job was to go to the federal government and protect the rights of the state.'