#2172 - Sebastian Junger

Joe Rogan (0:13)

As I was saying, you're one of the last of the Malikans rocking that flip phone.

Sebastian Junger (0:18)

Yeah, that's right. I'm proud of it.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

Do you text people?

Sebastian Junger (0:21)

Yeah, I text.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

Do you do the do, or it takes a bunch of times?

Sebastian Junger (0:24)

Well, it's something called T9. It's predictive texting, so it gives you a bunch of alternatives.

You just have to do it all on a keypad with your thumb, rather than with an iPhone with you have the full alphabet.

Joe Rogan (0:35)

But I bet that battery lasts like a week.

Sebastian Junger (0:38)

I don't even travel with a charger, man.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

Really?

Sebastian Junger (0:40)

Yeah, I mean, unless I'm gone for a week. But if I'm just gone for a couple of days, and I don't have any long conversations planned, I don't even bother.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Wow.

Sebastian Junger (0:48)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

All emailed, everything's handled at home.

Sebastian Junger (0:51)

Plus.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

All on the laptop, right?

Sebastian Junger (0:53)

Yeah, plus chicks day get bad.

Joe Rogan (0:57)

What kind of chicks are you hanging around with, savages?

Sebastian Junger (1:00)

No, at one point, I was at CNN waiting for to go on, and these two young women, they kept looking at me. And this is like 10 years ago. So I plausibly could say to myself, well, maybe I still got it, right? Like, who knew? And then one of them noticed that I had noticed them looking at me, and she goes, oh, excuse me, sir.

We can't believe that you have a flip phone. So I was like, well, that's the end of an era.

Joe Rogan (1:23)

10 years ago?

Sebastian Junger (1:24)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

Wow.

10 years ago, there was a few people out there that were hanging out. My friend Ari still had a flip phone 10 years ago. Yeah. The only people I know now are you and David Tell. So you're in good company.

Sebastian Junger (1:37)

Yeah, that's right. It's cool. I'm telling you, it's cool. It's coming back. It's the next big thing.

Joe Rogan (1:42)

Well, I know a lot of people, they switch to what's called, I think it's called a simple phone. Is that what it's called, Jamie? What is that thing called? What's that?

No, the little tiny, the one that's, it just gives you nothing but text message. I think you can get music on it, too. I think it's called a simple phone.

Do you read on a tablet, like one of those Kindles?

Sebastian Junger (2:10)

I don't.

Joe Rogan (2:10)

Well, the great thing about those is they have this white paper looking interface.

So it doesn't look like a screen. It looks like paper.

Sebastian Junger (2:18)

Right.

Joe Rogan (2:19)

That's what this little phone looks like. And it's the same sort of, that's what it is, light phone. Yeah, that thing.

So it has basically the same thing as your phone, except you could text like a normal human. And it'll play music and has notes.

Sebastian Junger (2:33)

It gives you directions. Right.

I mean, what I don't want is to get sucked into the algorithms of social media and all that garbage.

Joe Rogan (2:41)

You don't want to get into the algorithms I'm in.

You don't want. I have seen more people fall off buildings, get hit by cars, get shot, get stabbed.

Sebastian Junger (2:51)

And just not participate in their life. Even if nothing bad happens, you're still. I mean, listen, man, I have young children. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl. We're at the playground, and I swear there are kids who fall. And I got to go. Kids, I don't know. I got to go over and dust them off and comfort them because the mom or dad doesn't even know because they're on their phone.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

Yeah.

Sebastian Junger (3:12)

Right? That's not parenting. I mean, what do you have to do?

Joe Rogan (3:14)

Especially playgrounds, man. Playgrounds are still a little sketchy, you know? My daughter, when she was six, she broke her arm at school on a playground.

Sebastian Junger (3:22)

Really?

Joe Rogan (3:22)

Actually, she was a little older than six. She might have been eight.

But yeah, it's playgrounds are fucking scary, man. You know, you're swinging around and you're playing and kids fall the wrong way.

Sebastian Junger (3:34)

And we're on the Lower East Side in New York City. So it's sketchy in some other ways, too. Like, you got to be awake, right? You got to be alert and just like, and not only that, but you had kids, like, what do you do? Like, just enjoy this while you can.