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Judged by who?

By parents whose children were slaughtered. Alex Jones intimidated, harassed and lied about those parents. They deserve our empathy. And you know what? So does Alex Jones.

But extending empathy to someone does not mean you give that person what they want. It's possible to empathize with Alex Jones for what he is: a deeply disturbed man who has hurt many people and who regularly engages in either outright lies or unhinged self-deception.

Being empathic does not mean we leave our brains at the door, it means being thoughtful and respectful and when Joe Rogan continues to provide a platform for Alex Jones he is showing an extraordinary lack of respect for the parents and families of the children who were killed.

True empathy extended toward Mr. Jones would be to reach out as a friend and tell him what he needs to hear: He needs to get serious help.

There are a lot of interviewers who would have both Shapiro and Sanders on, so your point on that is just not relevant. Most of those interviewers would not touch Alex Jones with a six foot.

Like it or not, Jones is in the popular zeitgeist - or was. One could make the argument that Rogan having him on exposed him to people who hadn't gone down the Info Wars rabbit hole and now he's somewhat faded from relevance. Jones came off utterly unhinged, you're right. But isn't this a kind of control mechanism for what gets in the popular narrative?

>There are a lot of interviewers who would have both Shapiro and Sanders on, so your point on that is just not relevant.

Who? Shapiro, an orthodox Jew, is repeatedly slandered as a white supremacist. I'm pretty skeptical that mainstream interviewers who would love to interview Sanders would touch Shapiro. Not necessarily because they aren't interested, but because of the potential wrath from their regular viewers/listeners. Rogan just doesn't have that kind of polarized following, at least it doesn't appear so to me. Interviews with people like Sanders garner just as much interest as his interviews with e.g. Bret Weinstein. People show up because it's interesting, not because they're looking for confirmation of their own views.

I have a real problem with people "deciding" who "gets" to have a platform.

I have no problem with individual social media sites setting their own policies as to who they will allow a voice on their site.

I have a big problem when people go further than that, and try to prevent certain people from having any platform anywhere. They'll go after hosting, after advertisers, after anything they can to completely shut a person down.

It is so unbelievably naive to think that those tools of suppression won't be used against everyone at some point in the future. The collective track record of human governments throughout history with regards to human rights has been, and currently is, absolute dogshit.

Whether the true point of "common carrier" should be the internet backbone, I don't know. But there needs to be a point where anyone can run a site to put forth their views, no matter how any individual feels about those views. The problem with restricting speech is that everyone's idea of acceptable free speech infringements is different, and the devil is in the details with something so vitally important.

It makes me wonder how many millions of teenagers are going to turn on to Alex Jones because their parents project so much outrage towards him.

Oh, it's guaranteed. He's hilarious to the meme generation. I know my brother listens to him because he's funny.

He’s hilarious. He’s a big blowhard dummy, and if someone can’t watch his show for the entertainment value of laughing at him, then I very seriously doubt they have the mental defenses to watch mainstream political commentary without blindly downloading the opinions of the commentator into their own head.

Exactly. The house remix of "They turned the friggin frogs gay" was a trending meme on TikTok last year.

http://vm.tiktok.com/LjvBod/

I tried to listen to his podcast for a while after his Joe Rogan appearance, not because any of his views resonated with me, but because he's (unintentionally) hilarious. I couldn't keep listening because it's so full of ads. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous the ratio of ads to content. And when Alex does speak, he's so repetitive. It gets boring. He's better in occasional short bursts.

> As judged by who?

People who can, willing and want to go beyond the factoid soundbyte 0-24 screaming cycle?

> This kind of whining is what drives his audience to him.

Of course, but it doesn't make the "whining" invalid.

Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem. (That's why we have so many people who found shit on the Web and got so deep into the hole that now they are probably beyond repair. Basically just as extreme xenophobia/racism/bigotry/classism indoctrinated people in the past centuries now we have the Internet with its cacophony of bad ideas/memes.)

> Providing a platform for anyone is tremendously good for democracy.

Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.

> Hyde Park in the UK

Speaker's corner. The soap box. Such a noble idea.

Except, well, look how great the UK is doing.

> When both Bernie Sanders, Ben Shapiro, and __Alex Jones__ happily go on the same podcast and have civil discussions, you're doing something very, very, right.

Or .. just nothing. You are just an empty conduit, a blank screen.

Which is okay, sure, why not. It's just doesn't make the JRE "great". It makes it bad in the big picture, because it again provides an outlet for those people that are at risk of getting hooked into something extreme.

> Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem.

No it's not. Any kind of discussion can be valuable it doesn't need to conform to your one way of having a talk. Yes there are echo chambers all over the internet. This is not at all convincing that we need to ALWAYS have ALL critical discussions/arguments. You sound like you are either butthurt or taking it wayyy to seriously

> People who can, willing and want to go beyond the factoid soundbyte 0-24 screaming cycle?

Not you, apparently

> Of course, but it doesn't make the "whining" invalid.

Not necessarily, but it's completely self-defeating.

> Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem. (That's why we have so many people who found shit on the Web and got so deep into the hole that now they are probably beyond repair. Basically just as extreme xenophobia/racism/bigotry/classism indoctrinated people in the past centuries now we have the Internet with its cacophony of bad ideas/memes.)

No, it's not. Uncritically discussing ideas in front of an engaged audience is literally the core of democracy. The Roman "Forum" was literally this.

> Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.

Depends on who you ask. The current president has gotten record numbers of people active and engaged in political discourse and policy. People are interested in what our country is doing. All other things being equal, isn't that a net positive for democracy?

> Speaker's corner. The soap box. Such a noble idea.

> Except, well, look how great the UK is doing.

You mean after essentially removing free speech? Yes, look how well they're doing now. Wow, great example.

> Or .. just nothing. You are just an empty conduit, a blank screen.

JRE adds value by providing an honest environment. You don't get that in the news anymore, as you admitted.

I think Trump got a lethargic population engaged in politics the same way a fire gets me engaged in fire drills - holy shit, we need to pay attention because someone set the house on fire.

And you're supporting the Forum, talking about how "letting anyone talk is good" - but you missed the caveat: Not all talk or opinion is equal. Terrible opinions and thoughts must always be challenged in public. That is the critique of Rogan. No one is saying that Alex Jones literally should not be allowed to speak, but that letting him speak to your curated audience of millions, without challenging their horseshit, makes you an enabler to those bad ideas.

Bad ideas as judged by me. And most people. Stop with this moral relativism line about how everything is equal. It isn't.

And what if the bad ideas suddenly aren't judged by you and "most people"?

Of course, challenge the terrible ideas. But challenge them in public, don't hush them in secret. If you can't win in front of a crowd, you've already lost.

Here's a little thought experiment for you. My great-grandparents were killed by communism. I think liberal economic policies lead towards communism, even though universal healthcare could save lives. According to you, if you and your invisible cohort don't like that idea, you should just shut me up, instead of debating me on the pros and cons.

You're in a bubble, where you're simply right, and obviously any sane person would agree with you. That's not how it works. We can look at the same facts and derive different, valid, and sane positions.

> No one is saying that Alex Jones literally should not be allowed to speak, but that letting him speak to your curated audience of millions, without challenging their horseshit, makes you an enabler to those bad ideas.

Actually lots of people are saying that. He was deplatformed from youtube, facebook, and twitter which is exactly why Rogan had him on the show. He is a personal friend and explains that many times. Having Alex Jones on his show is not some dumb idea enabling bullshit, all of his ideas are not completely wrong.

Let people come to their own conclusions. Why do you think people listening to him will not see for themselves? If they can't listen to a rational discussion and make an informed decision there isn't much credit to ones opinion anyway. Just banning him from media is a childish perspective in my opinion.

>> Providing a platform for anyone is tremendously good for democracy.

>Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.

Considering that Trump got elected in a time where actively shaming his viewpoints was the dominant approach in the mainstream media, it seems like your suggested approach is ineffective.

There are Trumpian viewpoints, and there are Trumpian-adjacent viewpoints that are more centrist and more extreme. The mainstream media lately is whipped into such a frenzy lately that it can't tell the difference. I listened to an NPR correspondent, a supposedly minimally biased source, call Trump a white supremicist two days ago. When the norm is so obviously skewed, right-leaning folks don't have the opportunity to hear meaningful critical discussion of their own wing- and when this is true, more extreme candidates have the opportunity to win.

> Yes, these political ideologies are "bad" (I'm not naming any here, fill in your own blank), but every idea, no matter how awful you find it, deserves a voice and public judgement.

Even pedophilia advocacy and Holocaust denial?

From the HN Guidelines:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "

"A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

Yes. Both of those deserve to be shouted from the rooftops, considered carefully, and then praised or cursed appropriately. If someone wants to hold one of those opinions, that's their right, and doesn't give them less value as a human being.

I disagree, but I respect you for daring to answer yes on that question. Then you are not a hypocrite.

I actually think that tabooing those topics and refusing to even discuss them makes them a lot more powerful than they deserve to be.

If a topic is not discussed in public space enough, its counterpoints and refute arguments become less and less obvious and visible, which leads to people colliding with it for the first time not being mentally equipped to muster rational arguments against it out of their own brain due to not being mentally equipped or mature enough. Not everyone can recreate a hundreds of years of mental and cultural progress on the spot without any external references and talking points readily available.

So if you know nothing about holocaust and encounter a convincing-looking argument that it's a hoax, it's very easy to adhere to this idea and move on with your life thinking it's the truth, especially if you don't see any moral issues with it.

Tabooing controversial topics creates an ideological vacuum that is very easily gets filled with garbage. Especially if the the only actors willing to break the taboo are those who have questionable motives and pushing some sort of angle.

If you never hear their viewpoints, how can you effectively debunk or debate them?