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Comment by nums | Hacker News Reader

I enjoy listening to some of Rogan's podcasts. I don't agree with all of his opinions (or his guests). Also, I'm not into all of his topics (e.g., MMA).

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)?

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> What's wrong with debating ideas with a 50/50 weighting of left/right topics for discussion

Because of the crazy political polarization where "everyone who doesn't agree with me is literally hitler"

> So, I read the articles and, importantly, the comments. Rarely do I see criticism beyond simple ad hominem attacks.

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.

I know it's impolite to ask people to read the article. We should discuss only the title and leave articles alone.

But the article actually answers your questions so maybe we can make exception this time.

There are a few issues with his last 2 years of the podcast:

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.

The presentation of things that aren't really in question as being up for debate isn't great. At least not when the debate isn't well informed.

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.

> What's wrong with debating ideas with a 50/50 weighting of left/right topics for discussion

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?

Galileo was a quack in his time. Most great scientists were quacks who were opposed by orthodoxy. There is nothing wrong with having Robert Malone on to counter government approved science in a podcast. He's not giving him equal time. He's giving them a modicum of time in the face of overwhelming government approved virological perspective.

It’s arguing with half truths to defend actual quacks being called out for purveying views that lack evidence to prior events when people with actual supporting evidence backing their work got pushback. Despite the church, Galileos work got support from a significant number of people when they were able to see and test reproduce his observations, something that quacks can’t stand up to.

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”.

Did Dr. Malone not have facts and studies at his disposal?

If Rogan had reviewed and assessed the claims and any support before hand, checking how they stand up to scrutiny, and only then conducted the interview then this would all be a non issue.

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.

I'm curious: what garbage fact or facts can you remember from the Malone podcast?

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