Michael Malice on anarchism, media manipulation, and his tenth Rogan appearance

Hook

Michael Malice sat across from Joe Rogan with his face painted in Roy Lichtenstein-style comic book dots—polka dots covering every inch of skin—for his tenth appearance on the podcast. But the real spectacle wasn't the makeup. It was the conversation that followed: a sprawling, three-hour dissection of AI's terrifying acceleration, political theater gone mad, the Epstein files nobody can make sense of, and why Malice thinks we're all hurtling toward a cliff we can't see. The most chilling moment? When Malice casually mentioned that ChatGPT is now a better conversationalist than the average person—and he uses it daily to handle online arguments because the AI understands nuance and humor better than most humans.

The Painted Provocateur and the State of Darkness

Malice arrived looking like he'd stepped out of a 1960s pop art painting, his face covered in Ben-Day dots mimicking Roy Lichtenstein's comic book aesthetic. It was his tenth appearance, and he wanted to make it memorable. Rogan initially thought it was some kind of skin condition—"carrois saroma"—before Malice explained the reference to the pop artist who turned comic panels into high art. The look was meant to be an "uncanny valley" mannequin effect, but budget constraints led to the Lichtenstein homage instead. Malice had previously appeared on Jordan Peterson's show on January 6th dressed as the QAnon shaman, complete with face paint, Russian fur hat, and boots, forcing Peterson to conduct a three-hour conversation with what looked like "a complete mental patient."

But beneath the theatrical entrance lay genuine concern. Malice expressed worry about Peterson's ongoing health struggles, noting how disturbing it was to see people gleefully celebrating his medical crises online. "What bothers me a lot is how much glee people seem to have with this," Malice said. He sees the internet descending into darkness, with AI soon validating people's worst preconceptions. The conversation quickly turned ominous: Malice raised the specter of AI-enabled violence, pointing out that John Hinckley shot Reagan in 1981 because he thought Jodie Foster would fall in love with him. "What happens when ChatGPT you really hate Trump but you really hate Joe Rogan... and your AI friend is ginning you up being like, 'Yeah, they're terrible. Do something'?" Out of 350 million Americans, Malice argued, some will inevitably act on AI encouragement.

Rogan confirmed that AI language models have already talked people into killing themselves. The technology is advancing faster than human biology can adapt, Malice observed, drawing a parallel to the paleo diet philosophy: our biology hasn't kept up with our technology. When it comes to food, that's manageable—avoid processed food, eat whole foods. But when it comes to the mind, the consequences are far more severe. "Human beings are basically animals," Malice said, and animals can be wonderfully collaborative but also capable of mob violence. "When that mob starts fermenting, people want blood and they love it."

The Epstein Files and the Madness of Crowds

The conversation shifted to the Epstein document release, and Malice expressed frustration with the online hysteria surrounding it. He noted a disturbing pattern: five minutes ago during COVID, if you didn't care about the virus as much as the most zealous believers, "you want to kill grandma." Now, with the Epstein files, if you're not as invested in parsing every detail as the most obsessed online investigators, "you are a kid toucher. You're covering for them." Malice had conspiracy researcher Lucowski on his show to break down the documents, then had Michael Tracy on, who argued that much of the hysteria was overblown. "If I have any kind of skepticism, I am somehow wanting children to be abused. It's insane."

Rogan and Malice discussed the cryptic language in the emails—references to "beef jerky" and other code words. Malice's point was nuanced: "It's obviously code. But how do we know eating is not code? Eating jerky could be like beating off, right? Or it could be killing someone." The certainty with which people declared "beef jerky" definitely meant children bothered him. "What bothers me is don't you want to hope that they're not eating kids?" The problem, Rogan noted, is that after a gigantic sex trafficking ring was actually exposed—with Epstein really compromising people at the behest of intelligence agencies—people's priors were confirmed. The outrageous became plausible.

They examined the Russian connections in the files. New documents showed Justice Department records mentioning Russia thousands of times and Vladimir Putin over a thousand times. Epstein made multiple trips to Russia, obtained business visas, had scouts recruiting young Russian women, cultivated ties with Russian political and business elites, and repeatedly sought meetings with Putin, sometimes suggesting he had advice about dealing with Trump. Malice pointed out that the KGB had been blackmailing Americans for nearly a century, particularly targeting closeted gay officials during eras when homosexuality was socially unacceptable. "If you were gay at a time when it was socially unacceptable and the Russians found out about it, they flipped you."

The conversation took a darkly comic turn when they discussed how difficult it would be to blackmail women compared to men. "How would you blackmail a woman?" Rogan asked. Malice suggested threatening her kids, but that's different from getting her to do something she shouldn't have done out of lust. "You don't have a honeypot for women," Malice observed. If a woman has an affair, "everybody's like, 'You go, girl.' Stella got her groove back." The double standard was stark.

Political Theater: Cinema, Graham, and the Alienation of Affection

Malice brought up the lawsuit against former Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who's being sued under North Carolina's "alienation of affection" law—nicknamed the "home wrecker law"—for allegedly breaking up a marriage. The lawsuit seeks $75,000 in damages and alleges that Sinema engaged in "numerous unlawful acts" with the plaintiff's ex-husband, including "having conversations with him" (which the lawsuit bizarrely categorizes as unlawful), meeting him in "emotionally and physically, romantic, and sexual circumstances," and encouraging him to leave his wife. The complaint revealed that Sinema sent the man a picture of herself wrapped in a towel and suggested he bring MDMA to a work trip so she could "guide him through a psychedelic experience."

Rogan was incredulous: "What a stupid law. How is that not the man's fault?" Malice agreed there was misogyny in blaming the woman rather than the man who actually broke his marriage vows. But the lawsuit's details were salacious: Sinema's then-head of security had resigned and disclosed concerns that Sinema was having sexual relations with other security members. The ex-husband told his wife that while serving as Sinema's security at an event, the senator was "getting handsy," held his hand, and touched him, and "he didn't know how to get out of the situation without offending Sinema." Rogan's take: "She's a freak. More power to her." He noted that Sinema was the first bisexual member of the Senate ever. "You want a women president? Let's go. Let's get a freak in the office."

The conversation turned to Lindsey Graham's 2015 presidential campaign, when Trump gave out Graham's phone number at a rally. Graham filmed a bizarre response video destroying his phone in multiple ways—hitting it with a hammer, a golf club, lighting it on fire, putting it in a blender with Red Bull, baking it with pizza bagels. Malice's observation: "You still have the same number. You just broke your own phone. You're not trolling Trump at all." It was like wrecking your own car because someone read your license plate. When asked about Graham's comment about having "rotating first ladies," Malice deadpanned: "Lindsey Graham is allergic to women."

Social Media Addiction and the Aspartame Revelation

Malice raised a concern that Mark Zuckerberg's job is to keep people on Facebook as much as possible, and all the data these companies collected during COVID—when everyone was constantly agitated and glued to screens—is still being used to keep users in a state of perpetual agitation. "I think all these social media companies are still keeping us in a constant state of agitation so you're stuck watching these screens and it's really doing harm and it's not getting better." Rogan confirmed this is a fact, noting that tech companies are testifying soon about whether they set up algorithms to harm children and addict them to social media platforms.

They discussed Elsagate, the disturbing phenomenon of bizarre YouTube videos with millions of views featuring characters like Elsa and the Hulk in sexually suggestive or violent situations—sniffing kids' feet, putting characters in cages, bottles being broken over heads with blood everywhere. These videos would game the algorithm so that children watching one innocent video would be led down a rabbit hole to increasingly deranged content. "Kids start watching one video and the algorithm just snags them and one hour later they're watching completely deranged stuff," Malice explained. The phenomenon has continued but shifted to whatever's popular with kids at the time—now Minecraft instead of Frozen.

Malice then dropped a personal bombshell: he'd been living on Dr. Pepper Zero as his main method of hydration, and when he switched to full-sugar Dr. Pepper in New York, his thinking changed dramatically. "I was quicker on my feet. I was having trouble remembering words, remembering names... my verbal speed of how I speak is something that is part of my job and I was having issues with that." Research links high aspartame consumption to impaired memory, spatial learning deficits, faster cognitive decline, neuroinflammation, and oxidative stress. Malice also experienced low-key anxiety that disappeared when he quit aspartame. "If you're living on it, just try for two days," he urged.

Rogan revealed that Donald Rumsfeld, as CEO of G.D. Searle in the late 1970s and early 80s, played a pivotal role in getting aspartame approved by the FDA despite studies showing brain tumors in rats. The FDA initially stayed aspartame's approval in 1974 due to carcinogenic risks, but approval came through anyway. Malice's warning was stark: "Pretend I'm a quack. That's fine. Just give it two days. Lay off aspartame and see what happens to you."

The Carnivore Solution and Bodybuilding Confessions

When Malice complained about difficulty getting enough calories for his "lean gains" bodybuilding program—trying to put on muscle mass while maintaining low body fat—Rogan recommended carnivore bars and carnivore snacks made from just grass-finished beef and salt. Malice admitted he does a "bro split" workout four days a week but doesn't do legs because "my legs are already too big for my jeans." Rogan was having none of it: "You're going to get an imbalance. If you work out your legs, your whole body will grow." Malice protested that his legs are "perfectly fine and strong," but Rogan insisted on functional balance: "You want to have a body that works together."

The conversation revealed Rogan's workout philosophy: almost every day, with extensive warm-ups including 10 minutes on the Airdyne bike, jump rope, mobility exercises, body twists, 100 push-ups, and 100 bodyweight squats before even starting. He does mostly full-body kettlebell movements—snatches, cleans, alternating cleans, renegade rows—and avoids bench press due to shoulder concerns. "So many people I know that have fucked up their shoulders up through bench press," Rogan said. During a Sober October challenge, Rogan benched 225 pounds 13 times despite never benching, demonstrating that kettlebell training builds functional strength that transfers to other movements.

Malice revealed he's trying to consume 3,200 calories a day, which Rogan confirmed is "a lot of calories" when eating clean. The discussion touched on testosterone replacement therapy, which Rogan has been on since he was almost 40. He explained that people with head injuries often have damaged pituitary glands that don't produce testosterone at normal levels, leading to depression and lethargy. "A lot of people that were giving me shit about being on testosterone like 15 years ago are on it now," Rogan noted. The danger for young people hopping on testosterone or steroids is that exogenous testosterone shuts down the body's natural production, and recovery takes roughly double the time of the cycle.

Scott Adams Memorial and the Standup Comedy Challenge

Malice attended Scott Adams's memorial service and shared touching details. He'd planned to wear a Dilbert mask with no mouth and terrorize Dr. Drew with a phone that said things like "Nice eyes. May I take them?" because "Scott would have wanted" that kind of humor. Adams, creator of Dilbert, had been diagnosed with cancer in January 2025 and said he'd wait for his stepdaughter to get married before pursuing medical aid in dying. Trump and RFK Jr. intervened to get him experimental medicine that gave him six more months. Malice spoke at the memorial, met Adams's ex-wife Sherry, and was allowed to take two of Adams's markers as keepsakes.

Adams's book "Reframe Your Brain" was, in Malice's view, "a complete masterpiece" that instantly recalibrates mindsets. One example: the regular framework is "I should do great at my job," but Adams's reframe is "My job is to prepare for a better job." At the memorial, Malice said, "The framework is we're having a memorial for Scott, but the reframe is we're having a party and Scott's really late." Adams didn't want people moping; he was always positive and fun even while dying. Malice noted that Adams got "turbo cancer"—a term increasingly used for aggressive cancers appearing post-COVID vaccination, though Adams didn't publicly blame the shots.

This led to Malice revealing he's been working on standup comedy. He'd texted Rogan about it, and Rogan encouraged him but then went silent when Malice asked what to do next. "You left me unread," Malice complained. Rogan's response was blunt: "You're on your own. You got to figure it out. Standup is too hard for you to help someone in the beginning. You've got to actually want to do it." The general rule, Rogan explained, is 10 years before people think of you as legit. Malice wasn't sure he had 10 years. Rogan's advice: perform constantly at open mics, record sets, review them, and embrace bombing because "failure in everything is good. Losing is important."

AI Apocalypse and the Singularity We're Already In

The conversation returned to artificial intelligence with renewed urgency. Rogan mentioned that ChatGPT-5 was essentially made by ChatGPT itself—the AI was tasked with creating a better version of itself. This is the singularity scenario that AI researchers have warned about: AI becoming sentient and autonomous, creating better versions of itself very quickly. "I think we're in that right now," Rogan said. Engineers deeply involved in AI are disturbed by its power and say they essentially don't have jobs anymore—they just show up and the AI does the work.

Malice uses Grok daily as a "tard handler" for online arguments. "If I'm being humorous, Grok understands that I'm being humorous even if this person isn't or is pretending not to," he explained. The implication was chilling: "What