Ancient Mysteries, Modern Fights, and the Search for Meaning

Action Bronson and Joe Rogan cover a dizzying range of topics in this sprawling conversation, but a throughline emerges: the tension between what we know and what we don't, whether that's about human prehistory, the limits of the human body in combat sports, or where technology is taking us next.

The Deep Past and Its Puzzles

The conversation opens with a woolly mammoth tooth carved into a mammoth shape—a gift Bronson received from a friend. Rogan marvels at the audacity of carving into something 10,000 years old, but notes that these teeth are so abundant they're not treated as precious. People make knife handles, pool cues, even pistol grips out of mammoth ivory.

This leads to a discussion of Teotihuacan, the massive archaeological site outside Mexico City. Bronson had recently visited and was struck by how little is known about the people who built it. "The Aztecs didn't build that," he says. "They found it there and they called it the place where gods were born." He describes going down a rabbit hole about the Olmecs and their giant stone heads—"fucking huge heads with a helmet on"—and the fact that no one knows who made them or what language they spoke.