Joe Rogan Experience #2473 - Bill Thompson
In a Nutshell
Bill Thompson, a former military cyber/intel expert, gifts Joe Rogan a custom pre-1840s knife from his rendezvous camping roots, shares his path from ADHD trailer kid to elite signals/comms intel operator in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Philippines against Abu Sayyaf, and critiques modern ills like absent male rites of passage, divorce culture, woke military DEI undermining meritocracy, government fraud bloating GDP, and centralized federal power via 17th Amendment eroding state autonomy. He advocates engineering-minded conservatism—measure outcomes not intentions, reject ideological labels, performance-tie liberal gov pay, repeal unconstitutional overreaches—and favors open-source Android (GrapheneOS) over Apple for phone security trade-offs against nation-state hacks like Pegasus. AI lacks true consciousness (just math projecting human data, per Penrose ORCH-OR), enabling his app Spartan Forge for efficient, freedom-focused hunting to get families outdoors.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Bill Thompson gives Joe Rogan a custom knife with a larger explanatory reason. His father died when he was five, and he and his brother grew up attending rendevous events introduced by their stepfather.
Rendevous are camping events where everything in camp must be pre-1840, no modern conveniences like refrigerators. Closest to Civil War reenactments but focused on fur trapping era (end of Jeremiah Johnson time, peak fur trapping). Participants dress as American revolutionaries, mountain men, or Indians. Thompson and brother dressed as mountain men. Learned skills like brain tanning hides, traditional archery.
Every animal has exactly the amount of brain needed to tan its hide. Take brain out, grind it, mix with water. Clean and scrape hide, stretch over dull shovel, soak in brain mixture, repeat. Breaks down leather naturally for soft feel, possibly due to fat content.
Knife handle from one black bear jaw split in half (bear killed by Thompson in Canada, 2017, his biggest black bear). Irish linen threading. Blade from 1860 knife, rusted, ground down by brother (dated 1860-1890 by pitting, hilt, steel type). Sheath: porcupine quill beadwork, buffalo brain tan backing, beaver tail front, horse and turkey hair sides, bear teeth from same bear. Could drop in 1840 and pass as made yesterday. Made as unique gift since money couldn't buy it; brother Aaron helped.
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