That quote is Joe Rogan's shtick in a nutshell.
Society has always had court jesters who poke fun at authority. If you take health and epidemiology advice from a comedian then that's on you.
And every person you infect.
Yeah, I think it does. Has he been cancelled? Nope. Does he stop making jokes about almost anything? Nope. Do you listen to his podcast? Nope.
You know how he became so popular? From talking and being open minded. That's _all_ he does. He ain't doing it to be an influencer yet "journalists" actually waste time writing articles like this. I guess the haters need something to read too?
If you're listening to a comedian then your mind should not be open to any scientific statements that person makes or medical advice they give.
“Mind opening leads to compassion.” -Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, 16
“The sage deters those who know too much from going too far.” -ibid, 3
Imagine drowning: If we were talking about expert lifeguards vs. some random beach goer and you had to choose which would try & save you, would you choose the expert lifeguard or the random person?
And sure, Lao Tzu may be right about compassion. It's also irrelevant in this discussion.
"Visit the covid 19 information center to learn more"
These are all over and post on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc whenever certain keywords trigger it. I think this is not enough. We need to replace all right of center entertainment with videos of Dr Fauci reminding us to wash our hands, wear masks, get our shots and do the right thing by staying home. Not enough people are getting this message.
Like someone else pointed out, Bill Burr is exactly what you describe. He's a comedian that discusses these topics but never gives the illusion that he is somehow qualified and someone that should be listened to. Joe does.
The overwhelming majority of his content is along those lines, to the point wherein you really have to scrape to find scare quotes. I mean, it's easy to Google because of supposed controversy, but really disagreeable stuff would be hard to find lest you to have to actually sit down and listen to him.
I wish he took a slightly different tact on vaccines (i.e, at the end of every show say 'Folks, it's 100% choice, but vaccines are safe, I've taken, everyone I know has, make the choice for you, your family and community, that's all, goodnight' kind of sign-off), but I don't think he's in condemnation territory either.
All of this said, I'm not sure how he is received in different cultures around the world where he might have influence we're not aware of.
I think that would be fair, if he didn't constantly insert himself into these culture battles and debates we are having as a society. If he just hosted guests to get their perspective, that would be one thing. But he actively pushes his own ideas. He's established himself as not only a source of news, but also a "voice of reason" for many of his followers.
Saying that he gets a pass because he's just there for entertainment is a cop-out. That's the same excuse Fox News uses for their "opinion" segments (most of what they air).
I also think you might be underestimating how many people base their opinions off of Joe.
If you want high-brow stuff there's Lex Fridman's channel.
> “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
It’s a common pitfall for a certain type of nerd to think that expertise in one area allows them to make claims in completely unrelated fields.
That and he didn’t challenge Rogan’s mostly unfounded claims about the COVID vaccine among other things. I understand that it must be difficult I do so as a guest, but for someone who fancies himself “rational” it was disappointing to say the least.
There's nothing wrong with listening to two regular people have a conversation regardless of their qualifications for the topics they're discussing. They don't pretend to be professionals. (Hence why that quote can be said and why they can laugh about it.)
I have friends I have lost because of this, whom I have no idea how to respond to their messages anymore; Intelligent and educated ones.
Regular people argument doesn't apply in here.
He made $30M last year.
He doesnt talk over his guests - he never pontificates to them, and lets them have their piece...
Additionally - he is actually really well read, and has a great memory and can recall how things he had read in the past relate to the conversations at hand.
You put joe rogan up against literally any television "interviewer" in the history of television, and you will see they are all hacks. Soundbyte driven hacks.
Ill take joe over ANYONE on television today.
Also - there are far too many podcasts, and its great to have very interesting people on his show - where they talk openly about anything for 3 hours.
as opposed to a 1 minute sound byte on complex world affairs where reporters are interviewing reporters about what some other reporter said and then claiming that "experts" "officials" and "sources close to the matter" say... and then every single person on their cast is "Senior correspondent this or that" - with zero creds shown as to why they are senior...
News is FAKE.
At least the interviews on JRE are uncut, there is only ONE other staff member in the room whos only job is to switch cams and look up something if either the guest or joe have doubts about what they are saying.
I find it funny how people can bitch about someone if there is something they dont agree with, as if one must have a 100% ideological map to anything they watch/see/listen to or else its all 100% fake.
[0] https://www.biolayne.com/articles/research/paul-saladino-on-...
He may actually believe what he's pitching, but he's so drowning in financial conflicts of interest and personal brand-building that I don't think he could accept contradictory evidence from anyone. He only sees what he wants to see because that's how he makes his money and builds his fame.
It's fascinating to see him cited by the grandparent comment because Saladino is a notorious quack among the actual nutrition communities, including keto communities. He presents himself as a doctor but conveniently forgets to mention that he's a psychiatrist. He cherry-picks citations from papers that he knows listeners won't actually read and then presents them out of context.
And most of all, he sells his brand and products hard, which should be a huge red flag for anyone being delivered this uniquely contrarian information that defies mainstream medical science. It's fascinating that this person concluded he's an expert in the field simply because he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. I suppose that is the problem with the JRE podcast: Too many of the listeners think they're equipped to identify the real truth, while Joe Rogan serves up a steady diet of convincing quacks interleaved with actual experts.
Hell, I'm sure if this Saladino guy just completely made up a study and presented it as fact, the vast majority of the users will never bother to check if that study even exists, let alone verify the claims. Most listeners are just there to reaffirm their preexisting beliefs.
Personally, I just don't trust people that push such narrow solutions to complex systems (nutrition in this case).
As far as trying it, I have no need. I eat a balanced diet and I feel, and look, great. Glad it worked for you, but I've heard the same about dozens of other diets.
“Moreover, the current western lifestyle is characterized by high fat intake”
Which is stated as fact when it’s not even true. Fat has been stripped out of everything. Even milk has the fat taken out of it. Look anywhere and you will see “fat free”
And while I agree that a lot of what saladino says doesn’t have enough evidence to be totally sure, what everyone always ignores is when saladino points out that there isn’t enough evidence to be sure of the lipid hypothesis of heart disease. There has never been a randomized, interventional study that proves anything anyone says about meat, fat, heart disease and health. Not one proper study. Meanwhile, him and other people have zero CAC on a diet that should have killed him according to the current model. And there are many other people who have done this. I can’t dig into the “debunk” right now but that’s the value I take out of saladino
This is a common, but lazy, trope trotted out by people like Saladino. It's the same "It's just a theory" argument that climate change deniers use.
There is a lot of evidence showing that things like elevated LDL cholesterol has a cumulative (area under the curve) negative effect on heart health, and that saturated fat consumption is directionally negative for heart health. You'd be hard pressed to find an actual cardiologist or researcher who believes these things aren't true. So why do you choose to believe a known salesman with a conflict of interest in promoting his expensive supplements and books on the topic?
You seem to be assuming a specific conclusion is true and cherry-picking the single person who wants to sell that conclusion to you. There are plenty of citations to the contrary, many of which are in the article linked above.
It’s funny you say there’s a lot of evidence showing LDL is bad etc, ok then show me the randomized interventional study regarding animal fat. Regarding carnivore. You can’t and so whenever you say “there’s lots of evidence” you also have to say “but it’s still unproven.” And yes, there is a difference between me and people who deny gravity or global warming because in my case, the study is absolutely trivial to perform! But it never happens because the academic community refuses to put people in (hypothetical!) danger by feeding them animal fat. It would be immoral and most importantly very unfashionable to perform a study like that.
Here’s the rub: nobody I know or have seen has experienced a decline in their health from carnivore. There’s no hard evidence that it’s bad for you. That guy from the grateful dead did it for 40 years and never had a heart problem. I want a randomized controlled and interventional study that simply shows us what difference it makes to be carnivore rather than something else. I will happily shut up forever if we did that and I was wrong.
Carnivore Diet wasn't really a thing until about 2018, aside from scattered anecdotes ( https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=c... )
Heart disease develops over decades.
It's very disingenuous to declare that "there's no hard evidence that it's bad for you" when the vast majority of experimenters have barely been doing this for about 3-4% of their expected lifespan.
And I disagree anyway. Heart disease might take a long time but your CAC score wouldn’t stay 0 for a long time. Two years in two cases and CAC of zero. That’s not anecdotal, that’s two clearly measured examples of something that shouldn’t exist under the current model. And you continue to keep your head in the sand. All you have to do is openly support some kind of real interventional study. Not agree with me, but just acknowledge that fact that it isn’t settled and that something so fundamental should be settled. The study will cost a pittance. So are you in favor of that or not?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010529071125.h...
(I'm not recommending that anyone eat a carnivore diet, just pointing out that it's hardly novel.)
Stripped of everything including pizza, burgers and fries?
Many of us have tried to listen to Joe Rogan for the former category. When I catch an interview with someone I already know and respect (e.g. John Carmack), it's not bad.
But Rogan is also notorious for bringing on over-confident "experts" who present their pet theories as done deal research. Saladino is a perfect example of this over-confidence. Citing papers and having a medical degree doesn't automatically make someone infallible or even correct.
> And he’s an MD.
Saladino has a medical degree, but did you know he's a psychiatrist? Perhaps a good degree to have for manipulating people, but I prefer to get my nutrition research from nutrition researchers, not psychiatrists who have webstores selling $60 supplements.
Saladino profits by building his brand: He sells books. He sells coaching. He sells extremely overpriced supplements. He has a branded web page with his Joe Rogan interview as the background and a "Join my Tribe" link at the top.
Saladino is a salesperson who is pitching you on his theories to sell you products and extract money from you. Joe Rogan is unqualified to push back on it, so he gives these people a huge audience with which to push their agendas.
And it works! Here you are, completely convinced that everything he said is true and accurate, while it's trivially easy to find fact checkers showing how he made incorrect claims all through that podcast ( https://www.biolayne.com/articles/research/paul-saladino-on-... ).
That is the problem with Joe Rogan's podcast.
White supremacists and Crypto Fascists.
He just lets them talk unchallenged.
As someone who has been listening to Joe (on and off) for ~5 years, it's hard to believe that you haven't noticed a trend in the type of guests Joe has on in past year. I really feel it used to be that Joe would have on a wide range of people but now it seems that he's created an echo chamber. For example, at the start of the pandemic, in March, he had Michael Osterholm on his show - a top epidemiologist. He took it seriously at first, but once he was tired of lock downs, he has had several more "alternative" scientists to appease his world view and is pretty much antagonistic to anyone else.
I was listening him talk to Rhonda Patrick this morning (who's been on the show multiple times) and I was completely flabbergasted about how incredulous he seemed to be then Rhonda talked about vaccines. Think about that - this is one of his most credentialed friends and now he's incredibly skeptical as he's gotten even more dogmatic in his views.
And I'm sorry, diet fads are as old as America. You can pull up medical papers justifying almost anything when it comes to gastronomy. I hate this idea that has creeped further into the American psyche that people are pushed out of the mainstream because of the liberal boogeyman. You have quacks that are backed up by as much data as Saladino saying that going vegan will give you super powers. Some people are just wrong, and I'd be critical of the praise Joe gives a guy like Saladino given that Joe also has a vested interest in Saladino being correct as well.
To me Joe comes across as someone who's figuring it out as they go and doesn't have a filter. I personally find this refreshing compared to zealots who are certain they have all the right answers on very nuanced and complex topics.
Edit: Ok downvoters, what is Joe Rogan's "dogma"? Honest question.
FWIW, Merriam Webster defines dogma as a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds. That's the definition I was using, that I thought was more colloquial. Simply holding a strongly help opinion on shaky grounds is dogmatic. I don't believe that definition is at odds with what I'm describing.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dogma
1a. something held as an established opinion, especially a definite authoritative tenet.
1b. a code of such tenets.
1c. a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds.
2. a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.
Also, when has Joe Rogan ever claimed, or even implied, that his beliefs are "authoritative"? He constantly does the opposite.
>Also, when has Joe Rogan ever claimed, or even implied, that his beliefs are "authoritative"?
If you literally watch JRE today he does with regards to keto.
You seem to be reading a different definition than I am, but ok /shrug.
In particular, the CDC recommended against the use of masks early in the pandemic, which may have caused many thousands of cases and deaths.
More recently, they've been wishy-washy on masks again. Backflipping repeatedly on whether vaccinated individuals should wear masks.
Hospitals were in danger of running out of protective equipment.
The public was panic buying anything and everything. Remember empty grocery store shelves? Price gouging people who were hoarding all the hand sanitizer?
When those circumstances changed, so did the advice.
There's no one on earth who gets everything right first time, and thus never needs to change their mind. Not one single person.
Why do you value an opinion or advice that never changes?
We pay the CDC. Not the reverse. And we don’t pay them to give us socially engineered advices depending of the politics or economics of the day. We have other federal organizations to screw up that part of our life already. And it always ends up badly when you don’t tell the truth to people. Never in history we never came to conclusions “What a relieve we lie to the people.”
> Hospitals were in danger of running out of protective equipment.
They said: "We need the masks for hospitals. Please don't use masks, because they don't work for you, they only work for us in the hospitals".
Why would anyone take from that that masks don't work? How/why did people believe that? They literally say that masks work. This is one of the greatest mysteries for me.
Could you maybe also pull this off in some other context, too? "We want the good stuff. But it doesn't work, so please don't buy it. Leave it for us"? Could it be made to work?
But this is too contentious an issue. I shouldn't have commented.
That's what's making people lose trust in institutions.
That's not at all what GP said. Try re-reading it:
>> health authorities told people not to use masks at first because ... Hospitals were in danger of running out of protective equipment.
That is in no way lying.
This opinion piece in New York Times says there was lying going on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...
This false narrative persists even today.
How many thousands died because they were told by an authority masks don't work?
Your point of view seems to suggest that the ends justify the means. I ask you how many deaths are an acceptable amount of collateral damage to protect the health system's access to masks. 1,000? 5,000? 50,000?
In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive. Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.
N95 are better, but those are not generally available to civilians.
[0] https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-e...
But early in 2020, they disappeared off the shelves. Amazon, in particular, only sold them to medical professionals. Same thing, if you went directly to 3M.
I was able to buy a few more at about ten times the usual price.
A few are available at reasonable prices now, but it's still very limited. When I wear a mask, it's an N95. You can dry them out and reuse them - SARS2 is very fragile.
There was no new information. There were only lies.
Except Rogan is actually this: https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/8xofvi/joe_rogan_...
FTFY
Side note, on /r/Math the other day I saw a great joke.
People in real life: Ops, I'm bad at math. I need a calculator to calculate a tip.
People on the internet: Allow me to demonstrate to you why I'm bad at statistics but confident I'm right and all the scientists are wrong.
> The worst sort of rap is the pet peeve. Pet peeves manage to smuggle their way into every conversation, no matter what the topic. Marty is hung up on America's foolishness in not imposing tariffs against the Japanese. It's not clear why he takes this so personally, but he's definitely obsessed with the problem. The topic of conversation is Monday-night football? Marty contrives a quick segue to the state of television in America, orchestrates a smooth turn to the subject of the future Japanese control of the entertainment business, and— presto— tariffs. Marty's rap is boring for the same reason the preacher's is— it's predictable— but it's also an imposition. He uses friends as a sounding board for his venting.
- From the book Everyday Ethics by Joshua Halberstam
"In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world."
- Emil Cioran
I just looked up this story and the apes in question were regular eastern chimps with some regional variation. They've been studied for nearly two decades. The whole 6 foot lion killer thing was a few sensationalized articles from 2003 or 2004 due to a member of the research group making excited claims. The member wasnt even a primatologist and was kicked out.
Joe Rogan's research was literally some popular articles from a decade and a half ago... And he dares tell the person on the phone they aren't "current" and to do research.
Some really petty schoolyard grimes here.
(EDIT: I mean there are link to reddit caricature / joke lists etc. since when do we do this here?)
I don't think Joe Rogan is very interesting ... but the 'haters' say more about themselves than anything, it's a bad look on them.
Rogan is what is he is. He has a variety of guests, he entertains them and let's them speak, he popularized a fairly new format where people can come on and actually make their case for as long as they like. Turns out it's very refreshing and frankly 'important' thing.
All of these podcast/celebrity etc. people take themselves probably a tad to seriously, but I don't think Rogan lacks the self awareness to not recgonise he's not an intellect, that seems apparent.
For those screaming about his subtle wavering on vaccines, first, he hasn't really, and second, our beloved Lex Friedman has gone a bit into the weeds on that one as well so you'll have to throw him into the cauldron as well.
The possibility of a 'dude bro' who's broken the mould and is more influential, and in most ways legitimately so, than many others who are supposed to be more deserving ... seems to bother a lot of people. I don't care that much one way the other about Joe, but I'm annoyed by those people.
Some of the criticisms of Rogan are legit, a lot of it seems to me like something else going on under the surface.
But Rogan's not that. He likes to hear himself talk, throws his opinions at experts as if they're equally valid, invites charlatans on and equates them with experts, rarely changes his mind, and comes out of it just as dumb as he came into it. Then people emulate him and end up in a state where they're less able to learn, and frankly, bigger assholes.
It's barely even a shtick, it's the same old pseudo-intellectual machismo that has always plagued society.
When someone tells you who they are, listen. But I'd add this: When someone lets someone else speak for them, pay attention to who is in that group.
Putting all your faith in the CDC and choosing not to allow yourself to form your own opinions is an interesting strategy. It absolves you of any responsibility. Do you vote? Choosing someone to make decisions on things you are not an expert on would seem like a huge responsibility you wouldn't be qualified for. Do you leave those decisions for others?
due to rampant downvoting, I will respond to individual replies here:
"This worked perfectly basically anywhere people actually complied. "
Italy had among the strictest lockdowns in April but saw a huge resurgence at the end of2020
" Largely it did happen, we just don't see the counterfactual. It could have been a lot worse. "
That is moving the goalposts. The claim by the experts was that the vaccines were 95% effective at stopping the spread. It seemd that way until a few months ago when Deltacame along.
This worked perfectly basically anywhere people actually complied.
No, vaccines are not expected to prevent infection or spread, and almost none do. For example, flu vaccines don't keep you from from getting infected, and the virus still spreads successfully even when vaccination rates are high. What the flu shot does is (hopefully) cause you to have less severe symptoms.
Vaccines are designed and tested to prevent disease in spite of infection. This is a universally understood principle in the field of immunology, regardless of the CDC's confusing messaging.
The current evidence indicates that the vaccines are doing a good job of preventing hospitalizations due to covid.
No, the expectation is that a successful vaccination campaign will end the pandemic, by making the burden on healthcare systems manageable. Nobody serious thinks we can eradicate the virus like we did with smallpox. It will always be with us, causing infection.
This is how all vaccines work, with the exception of HPV and possibly measles. Vaccines are not expected to provide sterilizing immunity, and they don't need to as long as they prevent serious disease due to the infection.
Within the field of immunology this is common knowledge, and I wish the CDC would message it more clearly.
Second, those predictions were made ahead of a year of mutation— delta in particular.
[1]: https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/health-and-wellness/posit...
Israel has an epic Delta outbreak and Britain's Delta outbreak keeps rolling on. So no, they're not crushing it at all.
Israel's weekly Covid counts have soared back near record highs.
Britain's weekly Covid counts are not dropping. They're at 200,000+ weekly cases and sustaining. They've been up there for about a month now.
The vaccines are primarily changing the mortality rate, which is of course critical. The current vaccines can't entirely stop Delta even if you vaccinate 100% of the population.
It should be fully intuitive that anything that reduces the r0 value for spreading the disease flattens the curve compared to what it could have been. That somehow it is not obvious to you suggests your sense making apparatus has been hijacked by something. Take a good hard look at yourself.
To the downvoters, you are retarded. Sincerely.
How do you know the curve wasn't flattened? I don't know whether it was or not. It seems the only way to find out for sure is to compare the curve to what it would have been in an alternate timeline.
Meanwhile Fox News continues to mislead Americans with active disinformation on a daily basis.
Last week tonight is quite credible.
Bill Burr is a comedian. He's telling a joke. A joke something someone says to cause amusement and and laughter.
Everyone should question and seek information on issues they care about.