Reggie Watts on Ketamine, Kindness, Keto, Supercars and Growing Up in Great Falls

High-Level Overview

Comedian, musician and author Reggie Watts sits down with Joe Rogan for a loose, warm, wide-ranging conversation that opens with the two of them drinking a kava-and-kratom tonic and never really settles on one subject. They cover ketamine and other dissociatives, war and capitalism, the idea of an AI-assisted government, student debt and homelessness, how to disagree with people without a fight, food addiction and a keto-ish diet, knee strengthening, UFOs and the hollow-moon theory, and a long, gleeful detour through supercars and electric trucks. Near the end Reggie mentions his new memoir about growing up biracial in 1980s Great Falls, Montana.

The tone is friendly, curious and funny, with Reggie playing the optimistic, slightly esoteric idealist and Joe pushing back with practical skepticism. The conversation swings between drug talk, social philosophy, personal health confessions and pure car enthusiasm, often in the same breath.

The Discussion Explores:

• Ketamine, kratom and kava as tools for fluid conversation, creativity and exploration, and why Reggie insists on careful dosing
• Reggie's theory that most conflict traces back to capitalism without human well-being built in, and Joe's counterargument about socialism
• Whether AI could handle low-level legislation or even act as an unbiased president
• Student debt, homelessness and wasted human potential, and why investing in people pays off
• How to have real conversations with people who disagree, including Reggie's "10% rule" and his idea of speaking to the person behind the character
• Food addiction, keto, glucose monitoring, knee strengthening and Joe's functional fitness routine
• Psychedelic therapy, MAPS and why regulation of human choices frustrates both men
• UFO sightings, the Apollo moon quakes, and a detailed tour of supercars, the Porsche Taycan, Lucid, Alpha trucks and fan cars

Deep Dive into Main Ideas

Ketamine, Tonics and the Art of Dosing

The episode starts with Joe and Reggie drinking Feel Free, a tonic Reggie describes as a mix of kava and kratom: a mellowing, anti-anxiety component alongside a euphoric, energizing one. Joe recalls a friend who took ten kratom capsules before working out; Joe tried the same and found himself clearly intoxicated but with his coordination oddly intact. Reggie says he limits himself to about four times a week, usually at night before social events, because it makes him hyper-engaged with people.

That leads into ketamine, which Reggie is openly enthusiastic about. He tells the story of a musician friend trapped in constant self-analysis who, after a small, carefully measured dose, spoke fluidly without stopping herself once. He compares the state to improvising when it is going really well, almost like standing next to yourself watching, and says he would like to do real-time fMRI research on improvisation. The two look up ketamine's history as an anesthetic related to PCP, and Reggie compares it with the cough syrup dextromethorphan he drank as a teenager, which he says feels like an Instagram filter over the dissociative experience, while ketamine feels clean.

Later Reggie describes practicing normal behavior while very high, saying to friends, "I'm gonna do an impression of a normal person," and likening it to training with a weighted vest. He says he is "really good at dosing" and that "it's all about set and setting." Joe is more cautious, noting that too many people he knows are too into ketamine and that a woman recently had to be helped out of his club after going into a K-hole. Reggie says he rarely misses any of it on tour, explaining he is "not using it to hide" but "using it to experience."

Capitalism, War and the Case for Investing in People

The two reflect on how phone cameras now expose the reality of war, from the ban on showing coffins after 9/11 to graphic footage from Ukraine and Gaza, and on how such footage can both warn and desensitize. Reggie offers what he calls a gross oversimplification: that raw capitalism, lacking human well-being in its equations, lets a few people game the system, breeding resentment that opportunists then weaponize. Joe counters that the alternative, full socialism, can only be enforced through violence and dictatorship; Reggie clarifies he is thinking more of social safety nets like Sweden's.

From there they agree on more than they disagree. Joe calls student loan debt insane because it saddles 17-year-olds with debts that force them into jobs they don't want. Reggie argues that anyone in survival mode is in crisis rather than solution mode, and that driving past homeless people in Los Angeles he thinks there may be a genius among them, calling it "a waste of human potential." Joe adds that most of the homeless are mentally ill or addicted, that the country should be treated like one big community, and that crime-ridden neighborhoods should be engineered out: if you want to make America great again make less losers. He suggests giving no-bid contracts to rebuild American cities the way Halliburton got contracts in Iraq. Reggie mentions liking Bernie Sanders' idea of a tiny tax on stock speculation to fund healthcare or education and says he is interested in universal basic income.

Reggie also describes losing three house bids in LA to all-cash offers far over asking with waived inspections, and both lament how the TV show Yellowstone drove up prices in Montana, with Bozeman now nicknamed Bozangeles.

Could AI Help Govern?

Reggie predicts that within our lifetimes governments will begin using AI for low-level legislation. He recommends his friend Dr. Alan D. Thompson, an AI researcher who publishes a regular newsletter called The Memo and frames AI optimistically as human evolution. Reggie's hope is that a system free of emotion could propose several solutions aimed at maximizing positive outcomes, and that one country will try it first and others will follow if it works.

Joe builds on this with the idea of an AI president, immune to bias, corruption and influence, since no single person can be an expert in foreign policy, the environment, economics, infrastructure and immigration all at once. He points out that his own relatively tiny role, finding replacement opponents for a UFC card, consumes huge amounts of his time. Reggie coins the term "corporate crats" for politicians whose good intentions get swamped by corporate influence, and says he just wants leaders humble enough to work with anyone who wants to solve problems.

How to Disagree Without Fighting

A central thread is civil conversation. Reggie describes a friend from Cody, Wyoming, a Christian, gun-loving constitutionalist, with whom he has wonderful conversations and who fears visiting California. Both men agree LA has real problems with rising violence and fewer police; Reggie says the answer was never less police but better-trained police, noting that in other countries officers train for years. Joe laments that people adopt whole packages of opinions from their political tribe and then react emotionally to anything different.

Reggie explains his approach: "I always call it the 10% rule," meaning he always leaves a margin for being completely wrong. He tells the story of a tense backyard conversation in Montana with an Iraq War armorer about policing that cooled down once Reggie made clear he understood where the man was coming from, calling that kind of moment his favorite high. He describes believing we all play characters of ourselves and trying to speak to the actor inside the character. Joe says marijuana makes him more considerate of other perspectives, and that he tries not to be married to his ideas. Reggie adds that there's "more power in being collaborative," and that disarming hostility with something unexpected can open people up. Joe notes the flip side: when you are known, people are often nice because they want something, and he has changed his number to escape grifters.

Hard Work as a Mood Stabilizer

Joe explains that controlled adversity is essential for him: "if I don't work out a couple of days in a row I'm a different person." He believes the irritability he feels after skipping workouts is a small taste of what many people live with constantly, compounded by alcohol, poor sleep, bad diets and stress. Reggie reflects on watching how famous friends handle crowds, citing Owen Wilson's graceful way of accepting positive energy while still leaving, and says his worst nightmare is becoming detached from ordinary people. His therapist, he says, has encouraged him to own some of his achievements instead of making himself small.

Food, Keto and Fixing the Knees

Reggie speaks candidly about food addiction: late-night Uber Eats binges, eating an entire box of "healthy cereal, anxiety about ordering at restaurants. For about three months he has been eating what he calls keto-ish," taking a gut-health powder he believes is called Super Gut, carrying protein with him, and using a continuous glucose monitor through a program called Bio Coach. He has lost some weight, sugar cravings at backstage snack tables have faded, and his knee inflammation has gone down. Joe agrees that cutting sugar and bread is step one, says he allows himself a junk day now and then, and blames processed food and sedentary lifestyles for widespread obesity, contrasting old photos from the 1970s with today. They also touch on Quorn, portobello burgers and Reggie's excitement over lab-grown chicken from Upside Foods.

On fitness, Reggie admits he gets option paralysis in a gym and prefers a trainer. He has low cartilage behind his kneecaps and is knock-kneed, and he tweaked a knee on a leg press. Joe, who has had three knee surgeries from martial arts, prescribes Hindu squats ("I do 100 of those every day"), slant-board work with heels raised, and the progressive program from the Instagram account Knees Over Toes Guy. He warns against heavy leg presses and says everything he does is functional: bodyweight moves such as pull-ups, dips and push-ups plus kettlebells up to 70 pounds, nothing for aesthetics. Reggie says dancing, incline treadmill walking and steep hiking are the workouts he actually enjoys.

Psychedelic Therapy and Regulation

Both men lament that psychedelic therapy is not legal in the US. Joe mentions friends helped by ibogaine and praises Rick Doblin and MAPS for their MDMA research with veterans with PTSD, noting that right-leaning people are changing their minds after seeing Navy SEALs and other veterans helped by psilocybin and ayahuasca. Reggie describes psychedelics as zooming out of a tight trauma loop to see new terrain, and says he thinks psychedelics are "one of the things that could possibly save humanity." Both stress they are not for everyone, especially people with severe mental illness. Joe says he supports quality and safety regulation but not regulating people's choices about substances used for thousands of years, especially by people with no experience of them. They also briefly note a lawsuit involving Feel Free.

UFOs, the Moon and Perspective

Reggie recounts seeing three glowing lights at 17 while crossing a cattle field in Montana at night: they moved silently, shifted position, and turned a beam on and off, and friends independently described the same thing. He is open to explanations ranging from secret propulsion to simulation glitches. Joe thinks the most likely explanation for many sightings is secret military drones with novel propulsion, given where they are spotted, but does not doubt Earth could have been visited. Reggie brings up the hollow-moon idea from Apollo seismic tests; Jamie pulls up articles explaining the moon quakes, and Joe expresses doubts about the moon landings while Reggie leaves "a 5% chance that I'm wrong" in favor of the landings being real. They end on the astronauts' overview effect and Earth as a fragile "organic spaceship that's hurling through the cosmos."

Cars, Engineering and Design

A long, joyful segment covers cars. Joe owns a 2005 Ford GT, a 2007 Porsche GT3 RS and a 1995 Gunther Werks Porsche, and describes his first track day with an instructor. Reggie drives a Porsche Taycan Turbo S in coffee beige and a 911 Turbo S, compares the Taycan's cornering to snowboarding, and explains Porsche's e-fuel made from captured carbon. They look at the Lucid Air Sapphire, the Alpha Wolf electric trucks, the tiny Telo truck, the Cybertruck (which Joe loves in person), electric Mustang recreations, Gordon Murray's T.50 and T.33, and the McMurtry Spéirling fan car that set the Goodwood hill-climb record while Reggie watched. Reggie says what he really loves is design and engineering of all kinds, from Berlin's amber street lights to knives, and Joe agrees there's something moving in seeing human passion turned into a machine. They also swap stories about G-forces, including blacking out on a Blue Angels flight.

The Book and the Mothership

Reggie's memoir, Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again, was a pandemic project about his high school years as the biracial son of a French mother and an American father from Cleveland growing up in Montana in the 1980s. He reads the audiobook himself, after joking he wanted Fred Armisen to do it. The episode closes with Reggie praising Joe's Austin club, the Comedy Mothership, where he is about to perform five shows, and Joe explaining how it was designed for comedians, with advice from Louis CK and a green room built from the old projection room.

Conclusion

This is a meandering but good-hearted conversation whose throughline is optimism tempered by realism. Reggie Watts argues for curiosity, kindness, careful exploration of altered states and investment in human potential, while Joe Rogan brings practical checks on socialism, drug overuse and conspiracy thinking. Along the way listeners get concrete takeaways on disagreeing well (leave room to be wrong, speak to the person rather than their position), on health (cut sugar, monitor glucose, strengthen knees with Hindu squats and progressive work) and plenty of pure fun about supercars and UFOs. As Reggie puts it, the thing to do is "get into the solution."

This is a summary of "#2048 - Reggie Watts" from The Joe Rogan Experience, giving you the GIST so you can decide if you want the REST. Listen to the full episode.