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Comment by kardianos | Hacker News Reader

Have you watched Joe Rogan? What makes someone a "real intellectual"?

I used to like Rogan years ago. He was sort of like a cross between Art Bell and Howard Stern, but with less of a penchant for bringing on wild-ass cranks than Art Bell. I found Art Bell entertaining but didn't buy 90% of the stuff on there.

A real intellectual is someone with a deep understanding of their field. It's usually someone actually working in their field, not a media personality. Actually doing things generally leaves one with little time to talk about doing them, especially to the degree that is required to build a big audience.

Rogan is an intellectual when it comes to Standup Comedy and Mixed Martial Arts.

25% of his last 20 guests have a doctorate: Anna Lembke, MD Bret Weinstein, MA, PHD Rhonda Patrick, PHD Lex Fridman, MS, PHD

These are specialists in their fields. Rogan is exposing his audience to legitimate intellectuals. He also tends to have a melange of perspectives on his show. You may hear Alex Jones in one episode and Amy Schumer on the next. Elon Musk, Edward Snowden, Maajid Nawaz, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Dave Chapelle, Louis CK, Bernie Sanders, Sam Harris, Ted Nugent, Henry Rollins have all been guests on his show. It's hard to argue that these people aren't experts in their fields.

Louis CK has never been on The Joe Rogan Experience.

TIL

Did Rogan even attend college? I don't know enough about his background. Getting a phd is a pretty good step, but not the only step, for being an intellectual.

Going to high school and then spouting out things like taking horse medicine to cure covid would be a pointer in the opposite direction.

You do realise the inventor of "horse dewormer" who got a nobel prize for it (does that count as intellectual) also talked about how it has antiviral properties?

Oh wait you didn't because his video got removed from YouTube by other "very clever people"TM

I'm not endorsing ivermectin, I don't know if it works for covid or any other viral infection, but your reduction to people needing a PHD to make informed choices is just silly.

There is some possibility that ivermectin has some benefit for COVID, but right now there are few if any high quality studies showing that. The right answer is to do more higher quality studies.

There is zero justification for getting on the radio and YouTube and hyping it up to the point that ignorant or desperate people try to take horse paste, especially when you combine it with soft-pedal antivax bullshit that convinces people they can put horse paste in their coffee instead of getting the vaccine.

This stuff has killed people.

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/241660405...

Numbers are similar in other places.

Yeah the horse paste and soft-pedal antivax shit is definitely when Rogan and also the "Intellectual Dark Web" jumped the shark.

I don't think you need a Ph.D, but as you say it's one decent avenue. You can also grind yourself up, but you have to be an honest real autodidact who actually tries to learn stuff not a crank. The core characteristic of a crank IMHO is that they either stop when they know enough to sound smart or get emotionally attached to particular points of view and refuse to entertain others.

It's clear that Rogan himself is not an intellectual. He will be the first person to tell you that.

That seems to be the appeal of his show, though. He talks to experts (not all of them intellectuals) without being an expert himself. That's useful as a listener, because chances are you aren't an expert in any given field and listening to two experts talk would be borderline imcomprehensible to you.

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