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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

He’s always been up and down that road. I don’t agree with Joe on a lot of things but I don’t know that is his goal. If there is one thing that I think Joe does reasonably well- its to have you consider your stance and reasons for feeling that way. I think it’s healthy to reflect on why you take stances on things like politics, culture and religion. Joe admits that he is “a cage fighting commentator” and while I think he self labels that way to sometimes get away with fringe viewpoints I do think he genuinely is looking for the best ideas. He’s definitely not infallible and he gets on my nerves to the point I stop listening for periods of time I do think that on balance his hearts in the right place and he is much less apt to blindly follow political doctrine a’la Fox News or CNBC.

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> I do think he genuinely is looking for the best ideas.

I lean more towards he’s looking for affirmation to be contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian.

If he was looking for the best ideas, he would of had a completely different set of guests.

I suppose that is possible, but I dont really find him overly contrarian and a lot of his views are relatively centrist to slight libertarian. I will say I think he looks for folks that he jives with more than most qualified for the subject. But really Im not here to defend Joe and honestly have not found a lot of compelling guests of late on his show. I just dont think he is as bad as he is sometimes made out to be.

>I will say I think he looks for folks that he jives with more than most qualified for the subject.

Then how can you honestly believe he's just looking for the best ideas?

> Joe admits that he is “a cage fighting commentator” and while I think he self labels that way to sometimes get away with fringe viewpoints

This is the same way John Stewart and Stephen Colbert hid behind, "I'm just a comedian." It's a great strategy if you can pull it off.

You can pull it off if you've got integrity. John Stewart surely has plenty of integrity in my eyes. Joe's definitely also going for integrity, but maybe he's also liable to be pulled into the views of his guests. He certainly keeps an open mind, but if you surround yourself with a certain kind of people at some point you'll develop a bias no matter how open you're trying to be.

What's scarier are the persons who for the law are considered entertainment, but conduct themselves on Fox as if they're real journalists, and lie and deceive with impunity. If Joe Rogan could disrupt the right media with that, the same way John and maybe Stephen did on the left side, the world would be a better place for sure.

There is no real legal distinction between entertainers and journalists. The separation of news and editorial content is purely a matter of ethics and not law. Journalists don't have any special statutory privileges.

> Journalists don't have any special statutory privileges.

I’d say a special mention in the first amendment is notable.

Nope. US courts have consistently held that the first amendment applies equally to everyone regardless of occupation. There is no special legal test to determine if someone is a member of the press. There are centuries of case law on this issue.

Journalists have (some) protection against being forced to testify about sources. I guess it becomes a philosophical question at that point whether being a journalist is an occupation or an action.

Wrong again. At the federal level, journalists have no such protection.

https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/journalists_privil...

That article says 30 states have such laws, however, and another source indicated 49 states (plus DC).

I actually think Rogan's approach is exactly the opposite of Stewart and Colbert (S&C). S&C would critique news organizations for failing to provide counterpoints. They would also earnestly advocate for their own views without feeling the need to provide counterpoints. Their justification was that they were entertainment - they believed what they were saying and didn't feel like they needed to properly inform on every element.

Rogan feels like he wants it both ways. He wants to pick the people for his show and get credit when he picks well, but if people dislike one of his picks he would suddenly like to be seen as 'mixing it up' or a "cage fight commentator." He won't really own a view (or the idea of wanting to expose people to particular thinkers), but he would rather bring people on in a way where he's seen as minimally responsible for the uncomfortable content he produces.

For a long time he thought the moon landing was fake. That's not a position you arrive at with reasoned science and understanding how the world works. He's stated he thinks Bigfoot could be real. He does the same thing on a myriad of other topics. He presents some random quack as just as valid as real science.

If he was just some random dude none of this would matter. But with 11 million followers, sometimes this "my youtube research is just as valid as your scientific research" attitude can do real harm, as it did with vaccines.

He's quite literally the "average Joe" (at least when he started). The reason he no longer thinks the moon landing is fake is because of reasoned science and understanding which he learned through the course of the show by talking to guests like Neil deGrasse Tyson.

If you invite me for dinner at your house and I spend 4 hours forcing you to convince me the Earth is round, even if I emerge with changed views, are we really going to be good friends after that?

That's up to you whether you can be friends with people who change your mind. I don't see why that's so hard but Rogan's changed opinion should be seen as a success story about learning.

Rogan changes his mind every time he talks to a guess with a different opinion. The opinion of someone who thinks the moon landing could be fake, or bigfoot could be real, should not be taken seriously by 11 million people when it comes to anything scientific. But sadly it is.

Rogan doesn't think either of those things, and really never the latter. It seems like you're basing all this on some outdated 2nd-hand source rather than actually listening to his podcast. And yes he's also fluid on views but stable on his values, like most people. That's how you can have hours of conversation instead of devolving into a heated debate, and maybe even share some knowledge by the end.

The more you claim to be the one to take seriously, the less serious anyone will want to take you. Especially if you do it in a negative fashion blocking others rather than putting out your own message. There's far more to influence, trust, and authenticity than claiming you're right or deducing everything to some rational puzzle, and perhaps that's the biggest lesson of all.

What does understanding about how the world works have to do with the validity of a moon landing?

A fake moon landing would take a conspiracy of 1000s of people, all of whom have kept their mouths shut, even on their deathbeds. That's just one of many things which have had to happen that defy all common sense.

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