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Comment by cosmotic | Hacker News Reader

Over-sexualization is a bit different than legitimizing COVID denial and quack medicine and so are the consequences of each.

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Really? The guy with the psychedelic third eye logo is legitizing something?

https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/148718316166680576...

You think anyone actually looks or cares about the logo when a person has a massive following and a name? It's not logo that is the trademark of his brand, but the name. It's really stupid argument when the concept of people following celebrities has been a thing for years...

Why don’t we limit all people with millions of reach to only be able to speak about government approved things?

I mean it’s a massive risk having people in society who actually have lots of followers, they can say anything!!

We need to control influencers!

The idea that Rogan could "legitimize" anything is hilarious. He brings people like Alex Jones on his show, it's incredibly obvious that you shouldn't take everything you hear on the show seriously.

Many many people take Alex Jones very seriously

Alex Jones was right about Jeffrey Epstein, the jet, the island, and all the child abuse that has happened there.

Yet he is wrong about nearly everything else.

If you want a deep dive on Alex Jones and all his lies and schemes, the podcast Knowledge Fight has been documenting InfoWars for years.

He was right about Bohemian Grove in the 1990s. He gets some things right, and some things wrong. He’s about as right as most media organizations.

"He’s about as right as most media organizations."

Is this true? Do you have any analysis to back this up, or is it just something you made up because it makes you feel good?

This is a great point -- where can we find some INDEPENDENT FACT CHECKERS that happen to have the same political bias as me to dispute the above? I'm extremely uncomfortable that people have different opinions here.

Jones is a well documented liar and grifter. This is not a difference of opinion.

As someone who lived directly across the river from the Bohemian Grove for about a decade, I can tell you with certainty that the only thing he was right about is that it exists and its members are wealthy. There's nothing secret about the existence or timing of the gatherings, as they're discussed in the local paper. Jobs are advertised for caterers and cleanup crews. The people hired always return, just like any other summer camp type job.

A broken clock is right twice a day. And it's not like Epstein was some unknown figure before the Miami Herald reported on him, there were public 2008 articles about his jail time, which also mentioned his public figure ties[0].

0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/02/usa.internatio...

He is 'right' about a lot of things, but what he does is take one tiny nugget of somewhat real information and then build on it and spin it in any way he wants.

Alex Jones actually is a very serious performance artist who never breaks kayfabe, like that one old magician that Christian Bale's character in the Prestige respected for perpetually keeping up his act while in public. There is a lot of overlap with what Jones is doing and something like professional wrestling.

I don't much care for his style, but I think one day, maybe long after his death, people will give Jones the respect he deserves as an artist. A well-flowing rant is not an easy thing to improvise, and he is just a machine for generating them. To paraphrase a quote about jazz, you don't just wake up one morning, pick up a microphone and start raving about the new world order.

There is a real art to conspiracy theorizing. You can't just make things up. You have to take random true things and stitch them together into sort of framework that's wild and entertaining enough for your audience while still seeming plausible. You have to shade them in with sinister undertones. It's a sort of dark impressionism.

He is his own brand of genius.

A lot of what you say, I read it and say it's actually very consistent with him believing it.

People who suffer delusions often aren't stupid or even unconvincing. A lot of that intellectual effort you're describing, piecing together plausible details to justify their falsehood, can go into it. Someone I know who suffers these issues had a reputation in the family for being creative, a good storyteller... The hospitalizations and psychiatric diagnoses came later.

I remember seeing some of his earlier stuff before the modern info wars and its not exactly laid back but the production value was more of a radio show. Most people don't know but he played a raving conspiracist in A Scanner Darkly, but he basically became that charter on Info Wars. With some of the info from his ex-wife's interview, I think his public persona slowly started to take over his real identity as it grew.

And waking life, phenomenal film

The problem is Rogan does legitimize many things for a lot of his listeners. I listened to that one COVID episode making news and it's hard not to think "this guy knows what he's talking about" and I have graduate degrees in epidemiology and microbiology. How is a lay person supposed to critically think about his guests and their views?

Excuse me, does not all communication carry with it the 'problem' of legitimizing or delegitimizing something?

That's like, a big part of why all primates, fucking, communicate?

Sad but true. People seem to confuse celebrity with credibility.

I don't really care about JRE all that much, but I know there are people out there that resonate with his line of 'thinking'.

> People seem to confuse celebrity with credibility

It's a common pattern in America. Got a whole Presidency out of it.

... two, actually. Maybe even three, depending on who's writing the biography.

Three so far if you include both celebrities (Reagan, Trump).

Which episode are you referring to? What specifically did "this guy" say that was illegitimate? For someone who's not a regular listener these vague allegations are quite annoying because it's impossible to tell whether you have a valid point or are just trying to push something for political reasons.

It was the talk with Peter McCullough. Two that stand out to me.

1. He stated that Japan began using ivermectin as first line treatment for COVID and it stopped their wave. This is easily discredited by visiting the official site for approved treatments and seeing that ivermectin is not on there (https://www.pmda.go.jp/english/about-pmda/0002.html).

2. He also made a claim this was a planned pandemic and points to table-top exercises by NIH and CDC two years prior to the pandemic that spoke about a coronavirus emerging from China and resulting in lockdowns. Is it really evidence? SARS.... a coronavirus emerged from China in 2003 and resulted in lockdowns in China. So was the CDC "planning" the pandemic or just working through previous experience. Additionally, I'm sure they've run exercises on vector borne viruses spreading into the US given climate change and the spread of various mosquito species into the Southern US (think Zika). I'm sure they run a ton of exercises, 99% of which don't come true... but one ends up happening and all of sudden that's proof this was all planned?

Two things that are easily explainable or discredited, but the average Joe isn't going to realize this. This whole "just asking questions" argument isn't great because it's not a debate, no one is fact checking these guests. Joe doesn't put up any creditable responses or rebuttals.

You gotta remember the average 'layperson' is just as smart as you. Do you need people worrying about what information you see or hear? It's like worrying people will be corrupted by South Park, gangster rap, etc., etc. There's plenty of crackpot doctors that make all sorts of claims- is it blasphemous to doubt that the Food Pyramid, and three meals a day, are the correct way to eat? People can handle their own shit.

> People can handle their own shit.

I’m not for censorship; just pointing out this is clearly not true.

Thousands of died (and continue too) when they could have just been vaccinated.

Everyone dies, and nearly every death could have been temporarily postponed had the person done something differently. Choosing how to live and how desperately to fight for those extra minutes is part of handling your own shit. Helping and caring for people makes life worth living, but if people don't want what's being offered that's their choice.

I agree it’s their choice; however, there are clearly better/worse choices and that’s what i mean by not handling their own shit.

Basically, I don’t think people (including myself) sit around and carefully consider the evidence or think critically about their own beliefs. For the most part, we digest what we hear and that’s that.

There's a difference between not following the food pyramid and not getting vaccinated. It comes down to health of the public vs health of the individual. Someone's decision to intermittent fast doesn't affect anyone other than the individual. The decision not to vaccinate can affect many, many other people.

But, that's not a valid argument anymore since the vaccine is freely available and not so effective at stopping the spread. Anyway, people live in such different circumstances- some people may live in near isolation already, it's a jump to judgement to condemn someone without taking into account their situation. The largest spreaders are probably people with the most social connections, many of which are vaccinated- you could demonize people for all sorts of life choices that led to viral spread.

If your argument was valid Fox News et al would not be so popular.

Yet people take Alex Jones seriously.

I have real-world coworkers who were arguing about Ivermectin as a legitimate treatment to COVID19 and were clearly Joe Rogan fans.

If the listeners are adults of voting age, I see absolutely no problem with that. If you think that people are too stupid, I think we should talk about stripping their voting rights. If people are too stupid to consume misinformation aren't they too stupid to vote?

I'm on your side, let's strip jre listeners' voting rights

Nobody on Rogan's podcast denied COVID.

Right. He invited people who abuse their credentials to spread vaccine misinformation. And when he invites actual experts, Rogan refuses to acknowledge counterarguments - the discussion devolves into "X, look it up" and when they look the up the stats, he just says "I don't know about that".

His podcast went from "(self-proclaimed) stupid man talks with people and gets them to explain stuff" to "(self-proclaimed) stupid man talks with people and gets them to explain stuff EXCEPT when it's about COVID he's suddenly 'done the research', usually invited 'guest experts' are anti-vaxxers AND when he invites real experts, he argues with them on irrelevant technicalities".

Exactly. Here's a prime example: Rogan incorrectly stated on his show (as fact, not as his opinion or belief) that children who receive the vaccine have a 4-5x higher risk of getting myocarditis.

His guest, who has the correct info, claims that children have a much higher risk from getting myocarditis from COVID than getting it from the vaccine.

Rogan says "I don't think that's true, no no no, I don't think that's true. Let's look that up"

They look it up, Rogan is definitely in the wrong. The risk is 8x higher from COVID than the vaccine.

Does Rogan admit he's wrong? No, he states:

- "Well, that's not what I read before." - "And anyway, where are we reading these things?" and then rambles nonsense.

This is a pretty transparent way of signaling to his audience that even in the face of actual data, you should just find some justification to believe the stupid conspiracy-level thing you want to keep believing.

https://twitter.com/FullContactMTWF/status/14816386894154629...

Josh Szeps is not an expert. This is just your confirmation bias at work because you dislike Rogan. And here's Josh Szeps' take on their exchange:

https://twitter.com/joshzepps/status/1481834278271225864

I corrected it to "the person with the correct info" - it doesn't affect the point of what I wrote. I dislike Rogan because in listening to him, this is almost all he ever does: let conspiracy theorists and grifters speak on his show with no resistance (often even encouraging them), while providing this type of resistance to people with competence, then pretending he's some kind of neutral party providing a level playing field.

The problem is that "conspiracy theorists" and "grifters" in your mind are mainly just "people you disagree with". The problem is that not everybody agrees with that assessment, nor does that have any bearing on whether Rogan should be allowed to have such conversations.

Everyone complaining about Rogan's conversations is making the argument that they are harmful, but not a single one of these complaints is accompanied by any actual evidence of harm. Do you have any such evidence?

Only in a world where facts don't exist and truth is just a matter of opinion are conspiracy theorists and grifters simply people you disagree with.

And in any case, it doesn't have any bearing on the fact that Rogan claims to be some kind of innocent, open-minded guy who wants to talk to all kinds of people, when in fact he has clearly chosen a side on most issues and treats guests differenly in order to push people to that side.

The question is not whether facts exist, but whether you actually have all of the facts and thus are accurately applying those labels. In my experience, people rarely do apply them accurately, hence, this reduces to you just disagreeing with these people's opinions.

Which is all besides the point. If you think they are grifters and conspiracy theorists, you are free to simply not listen to the podcast. The real question here is whether anyone else should be able to listen to it, or whether it should be censored due to actual harm. I asked if you have actual evidence of such harm, and this is the only question that needs an answer.

But children are at very low risk of getting sick from covid19. According to David Zweig, a mainstream journalist, writing on Bari Weiss's substack, the risk of getting the virus in the <20 population is much smaller than the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine.

To the parent: please give an example of the vaccine misinformation being spread by Joe Rogan. Do you know who was actually promoting vaccine misinformation? Joe Biden & Kamala Harris, back when it was a "Trump vaccine" https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/campaign-press-rel...

To @p49k, you are a BSer. Joe Rogan apologized on twitter and even linked to The Guardian article where he got the "misinformation" regarding myocarditis. Here' a retweet by the guy that corrected him in the episode: https://twitter.com/joshzepps/status/1481834278271225864

> To people who think that @joerogan is closed-minded or that he’d get pissed when I disagree with him, here’s Exhibit A. I love the guy

> And when he invites actual experts, Rogan refuses to acknowledge counterarguments - the discussion devolves into "X, look it up" and when they look the up the stats, he just says "I don't know about that".

You mean instances like this [1] where Rogan openly admits he's wrong? Even though, it turns out later, he wasn't totally wrong after all [2], and there's still some unexplored nuance that isn't captured by reductive soundbites?

Everything you've said reveals that you haven't actually watched Rogan's podcasts. "Arguing on irrelevant technicalities" is called "learning". All models are wrong, but some are useful, and questioning the boundaries of models so you understand their scope is important.

[1] https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1481836566427414529

[2] https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1481993190718771201

He admitted in this instance, so what? The issue is that he spent tens of episodes speaking about this crap with the fervor of someone who did actual research and his yes men (guests, team) just nodded their heads in agreement. Or he nodded his head as con men said total bullshit. The damage is already done.

He always admits when he's wrong. You clearly know nothing about him.

> The damage is already done.

What damage exactly? Point it out and be specific please.

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