Joe “just conversations” Rogan defends misinformation like a classic grifter
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Celebrities turned into snake-oil salesmen.
The institutions that previously had more control over the narrative and are losing the control have the most to lose.
I’m tired of this any criticism or fact I don’t agree with is “censorship” and should be ignored/censored hypocrisy.
>"I want to show all kinds of opinions so that we can all figure out what's going on—and not just about COVID, about everything about health, about fitness, wellness, the state of the world itself," Rogan said.
>In the meantime, you can check out products from a health company he promotes called Onnit, which sells Alpha Brain Black Label vitamins for $124.95 per 80-count bottle. There's also the $147.95 Quad Mace, which Onnit claims has origins in ancient Persia and represents the company's embrace of various "training modalities."
It's important to remember that content, in ad-driven media, is simply just filler for the advertisements. The content is just to lure you in so you can be sold a product or a brand can reify itself.
That said, I'm interested in the criticism of him and this "misinformation" that keeps cropping up. So, I read the articles and, importantly, the comments. Rarely do I see criticism beyond simple ad hominem attacks.
Asking this community as it seems reasonable, am I missing something here? What's wrong with debating ideas with a 50/50 weighting of left/right topics for discussion (i.e., old "equal time" rules)?
1. He rarely pushes back on any interviewee if they're pushing an anti-vaxx position. However, he suddenly becomes very skeptical when any medical professional states their support for the vaccine, COVID protocols, etc.
2. It's not a 50/50 split of left/right. Ever since he moved to Austin (and even before), he's typically brought many more center and right leaning people than left. Also, the same thing happens as point 1 in that he typically lets right-leaning folks off a lot easier with questions than left-leaning folks (this is hard to quantify, admittedly).
3. Politics aside, his podcast is far less interesting than pre-COVID. He's far more interested in pushing his own points and positions than listening and asking the interviewees for their positions. In the earlier days, he was much more inquisitive and focused on helping the interviewee discuss their area of expertise. In the last few years, it's more focused on Joe talking about his theories and asking the interviewee for their opinion.
I loved his older interviews about nutrition, health, etc. Every fucking podcast these days is only about COVID and how vaccines are bad, mandates are bad, and the Biden administration is bad.
Because of the crazy political polarization where "everyone who doesn't agree with me is literally hitler"
But the article actually answers your questions so maybe we can make exception this time.
it’s not left/right issues. It’s non-quackery versus quackery. You’re actually asking What wrong with giving snake oil and consensus backed science equal time?
The roles here are being mixed up. The quackery equal time supporters are like the church, wanting something to be true and heard simply because they like the way it sounds. The anti-quacks are simply saying look “here are the facts as to why that’s not true and show that’s snake oil”.
That way he’d call out garbage facts like his guests recently have had instead of making them seem legitimate by giving them equal coverage to real facts and he’s also be able to highlight a Galileo should those facts line up.
Like sure, it's important in science to question everything, but that means doing experiments to generate elucidating data, not getting high and rambling on Spotify.
My theory is that there is an ongoing media campaign being waged to discredit and demonize Joe Rogan. Ever since he publicly claimed his course of Ivermectin treatment he has been treated as some kind of public enemy by most news media. I find it strange because he has essentially promoted smoking DMT on his podcast - a practice which is likely quite bad for your health, but no really gave that any attention aside from a few memes. But he mentions taking an antiviral and everyone starts treating him like a serious threat to society.
Whether or not this stuff is misinformation, yelling about it like these people are some kind of religious heretics is …. Kind of funny to watch.
Joe Rogan talks about the largest range of controversial topics I've ever seen. He's willing to entertain ufo's, dmt, early hominid history, jfk assasination conspiracies, how plastics affect hormones, moon landing conspiracies, sasquatch, mermaids, the list goes on and on, the crazier the better. If people want to listen to him let them. If they want to say he's full of shit let them. But why are they so enraged if that's just who he is.
He talks about the weirdest things out there because its interesting, why even bother taking such an offensive stance against someone that talks about these things, it brings a world of possibilities? Like you're offended that a man who talks about sasquatch as if it could be real asserts the possibility, not as a matter of fact but just the possibility, that the state mandated policies towards the pandemic might not be the best policy? Again a man who says, you know what, ufo's might be real, sasquatch could be real dude. I mean the bar is low, real low, but yet they're offended?
There is actually a whole subreddit dedicated to laughing at the mindless pro-state zealotry of those who blindly follow the state's guidelines due to fears instilled from the pandemic. I forget who said it but anti-antivaxxer affiliation (can't say pro-vaccine, because there are many rational people who are pro-vaccine but anti-mandate and not anti-antivax) if you look at the conditions that cause history to repeat itself, its actually a rebirth of religions of the past.
So while you say religious heretics, there is a lot of truth to it. Since we live in an age of science, however, religious arguments will not suffice. Instead the zealotry follows the pope of this religion, an authority figure who instead of representing god, represents science (in fact the pope's own words unadulterated), a science which he has full authority over both in its dissemination and interpretation to his congregation.
If you're curious why people are so irrational about this, look no further than other examples religious zealotry, and realize its a very real phenomenon that repeats itself over and over throughout history because of the psychological traits of a certain, I would say pretty large, subset of people who have not learned to suppress very natural human cognitive biases.
But that won't translate into ratings so don't hold your breath waiting for it.
I don't think it's mechanically possible. Average cable news show is 5 minutes of <insert subject> and then cut for commercial. It's also common for "panels" of people to be involved so that's 5 minutes for multiple people to talk over each other trying to get their point of view across. It's madness.
So it's no wonder long format Podcasts and YouTube shows are gaining popularity. I think there is a huge market for people wanting to passively hear more information. And this can be on any topic, not just politics and the crisis of the week.
The ratings are dropping, the clicks are slowing, legacy media (including Ars that pivoted from tech to politics like Gizmodo) are annoyed at competition and are lashing out.