I fail to see how anyone can seriously listen to Joe Rogan. He has a circus of quacks and conspiracy theorists on the show and when he does occasionally have a legitimate scientist he can barely muster any response beyond “wow that blows my mind”
I haven't been listening to it in recent months because it seems the show has become has obsessed with covid and is all covid all the time with some comedians thrown in now and then, not to mention Spotify as a platform is kind of a chore to use for podcasts.
"COVID-19: A Second Opinion" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jMONZMuS2U
"On January 24, 2022 Senator Ron Johnson invited a group of world renowned doctors and medical experts to the U.S. Senate to provide a different perspective on the global pandemic response, the current state of knowledge of early and hospital treatment, vaccine efficacy and safety, what went right, what went wrong, what should be done now, and what needs to be addressed long term. This 38 minute video highlights the 5-hour discussion."
The 38 minute compilation is a great, easily consumable summary - however here's the link to the full 5+ hours of testimony - https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html - which obviously has far more depth to it.
The reason I ask if you've seen it is Joe's had multiple of these highly credentialed, front-line workers (doctors, researchers, etc. with expert domain knowledge and experience), on his podcast - some multiple times.
It's going to get harder to ignore these people and what they have to say the more formal the setting the information is shared.
Another video everyone should watch is Maddie De Garay's mother giving testimony for 10 minutes of their experience of her daughter being in Pfizer's 12-15 year old vaccine clinical trial. The limitations designed into the clinical trial reporting app might be most obvious to UX designers, but I think everyone will be able to understand the design implications: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2GKPYzL_JQ
And then you didn't watch the Maddie De Garay video either, otherwise anyone who watches it and cares about integrity would be shocked - and would want to make sure it's looked into - just alone on the clinical trial reporting app design alone is highly disturbing.
Edit to add: You haven't posted in 4 years and you have few comments to begin with? That's a bit curious. I wonder what an analysis of the HN accounts that instantly jump to putting smear campaign links on these different credible, articulate doctors/researchers/experts, would look like. Any way to do such a study dang, ideally with directly or indirectly getting upvote and downvote data to see if there's other interesting patterns that emerge?
That component on its own is not a complex problem - it's blindingly obvious.
You're trying to gaslight to categorize something as simple and obvious is a "conspiracy theory" is "classic" attempt to lazily smear and demonize, meanwhile you actually avoid addressing my specific points.
So let's address 1 of my specific points shall we, and not claim that I'm merely being a perfectionist to dismiss discussing it?
Is it a problem, yes or no, that the adverse events that could be reported by participants in at least the Pfizer mRNA clinical trial for 12-15 year olds limited what could be reported by highly specifically creating a relatively short list of relatively minor potential adverse events? Yes or no?
Now, please brainstorm and extrapolate to the potential consequences of the app that participants were provided as the only means of reporting adverse events, and write out your thoughts here.
It's obvious you don't care much for integrity as you dismiss crucial structure for an apparatus meant to and necessary to capture the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - but interestingly the operators and designers of the clinical trial decided to design the app to not allow any free-form writing option - like you and I are able to do here?
Surely you're smart enough and have enough integrity to agree that that is unacceptable, especially if you believe in the scientific method? Or perhaps you'd be okay if in scientific studies words like "harmful" weren't allowed to be used?
The avoidance and cognitive dissonance you must be experiencing to dismiss this as me being perfectionist is something else.
Did you even watch or analyze everything said in the Maddie De Garay video? I'd go line-by-line through it with you and dive into the implications if you want?
And then what about the 5+ hour long testimony that Senator Ron Johnson had on January ~25th, that included a bunch of highly credentialed frontline doctors and other experts with incredible amounts of domain experience but that have been being smeared and suppressed in the mainstream media? What are your thoughts on these highly intelligent, articulate individuals sharing their experiences and backing it up with third-party study data when necessary? Are they all perfectionists too or they're all lying too?
Here's the 38 minute shorter compilation version EVERYONE should watch even if you're not willing to dive into the studies or domain knowledge they're referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jMONZMuS2U (38 mins)
Here's the full 5+ hours of testimony: https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html
"On January 24, 2022 Senator Ron Johnson invited a group of world renowned doctors and medical experts to the U.S. Senate to provide a different perspective on the global pandemic response, the current state of knowledge of early and hospital treatment, vaccine efficacy and safety, what went right, what went wrong, what should be done now, and what needs to be addressed long term. This 38 minute video highlights the 5-hour discussion."
P.S. Even the U.S. military is represented in these testimonial video: one of the best kept, if not the best kept dataset on a set of humans' health - where you'll hear their lawyer state that prior to the mandated vaccine there was 1.7 million issues reported during the sam period before the vaccines, once vaccines started the issues reported JUST in/by the military was OVER 20 MILLION more than the period before; so are they all lists too, unreliable sources I imagine you'll say, just like VAERS is apparently/conveniently unreliable - which if true then why/how are we even allowing deployment of new treatments if there's no apparatus to detect potential harm? We should just trust clinical trials are designed "good enough" - but not flawlessly like the scientific method would require, because we don't want to be called perfectionist do we!
Fuck ANYONE who tries to demonize or put me dowm or dismisses me when I'm concerned about the safety of children, or anyone for that matter. You should be ashamed of yourself for your current reaction to this - care about the safety of our children, by caring about the integrity and quality of clinical trials, please.
--
Kids have gotten sick from the vaccine - but a lot more kids have gotten sick due to Covid.
You obviously feel very strongly about this, but no I don't see any evidence anywhere here that there was any intentional wrongdoing.
> Is it a problem, yes or no, that the adverse events that could be reported by participants in at least the Pfizer mRNA clinical trial for 12-15 year olds limited what could be reported by highly specifically creating a relatively short list of relatively minor potential adverse events? Yes or no?
It is hard to parse some of what you're saying, but what I think you're saying is is it bad that the app only permitted selection of certain things.
First, I don't know this is true. I haven't:
1) Seen the app
2) Seen multiple people talking about the app
3) Seen other apps used for similar trials
From what I know of end-users of software, and also what I know about parents and people who are politically motivated, I have a lot of skepticism about the claims in the video. Note I said skepticism, not that they are lying. I am skeptical.
I don't know if this claim is true.
But, let's assume it is true. There is another list of things I don't know:
1) Were there other ways to report these effects?
2) Is there a clinical reason why the app would be designed this way?
3) What else don't I know that should stop me from jumping to a really big conclusion? (that the entire world is in on some vaccine conspiracy).
Even if the answer is definitively "the app was designed to limit selection of adverse effects of the vaccine during the trial" there is a set of other things that I just don't know:
1) Was the app designed this way intentionally, or was it a consequence of poor planning? Or a bad software team? Again, being familiar with software, I'm skeptical that if we get this far (see all my previous points...) it was intentional
2) What else don't we know that we can't get from a ten minute video?
Your claims are remarkable - they need to be remarkably substantiated, and you're not doing that.
You're being a classic conspiracy theorist, just like I said in my first comment.
His interviews aren't template question a, template question b, it comes across like a natural conversation, an opportunity to talk to experts in a plethora of different topics and gain an insight to the distilled wisdom of individuals who have spent their life researching their respective fields.
Personally anyway ^^
A lot of inequality comes not from some people being inherently superior/inferior or deserving/undeserving but from information management, a crucial part of this is to secure it from competing actors while sharing it with those with overlapping interests. That is the definition of a conspiracy.
Even if there were actually no known conspiracies, we can't know they don't exist unless something comes out... so it would be healthy to have some conspiracy theories around and events being tested against those theories. The mere motivation to suppress them is very likely to come from either ignorance or malice. I believe the very fact that "conspiracy theories" are treated with such hostility is a tell that there are much bigger conspiracies that we need to uncover.
I find Julian Assange's take on something similar from back in the day very interesting: https://www.frontlineclub.com/julian_assange_the_state_and_t...
Just discovered he lives in the same town as me.
> Graham Bruce Hancock… promotes pseudoscientific theories… An example of pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology, his work has neither been peer reviewed nor published in academic journals.
> Mark Lehner, an American archaeologist and egyptologist, has disputed Schoch's analysis, stating, "You don't overthrow Egyptian history based on one phenomenon like a weathering profile... that is how pseudoscience is done, not real science."
> Historian Ronald H. Fritze has described Schoch as a "pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific writer".
Randall Carlson doesn’t have a wiki page.
I hope anyone who is interested in these people is listening to them out of morbid curiosity and not because they think they are deserving of any credence whatsoever. The scientific method is not optional. If you don’t use it, you’re not a scientist.
Rogan, however, appears to genuinely want to believe (and promote) these theories, whether they have any factual basis or not.
And my God, everything isn't about science or the scientific method. Some of this stuff is just plain entertaining to me. Is it really so wrong to listen to these things and just have a great time thinking about crazy and out there stuff?
You say this like it's bad.
Anyway, going back to reading my book about how aliens told Bill Gates how to invent computers in 1992, leading him to found Apple and help the Allies win World War 2. It’s the story the mainstream media doesn’t want you to hear.
To clarify the point; the fact that a former president commented on the UAPs at all was remarkable. To expand, even the existence and decades long cover up Area 51 and the proven things that have come from those programs (like the f-117) are examples of the .1% of “conspiracy” quackery that did happen to be true.
I maintain these types of things are the gateway or hook that draw people deeper into conspiracies, but I’m no expert.
All the Joe Rogans of the world want is audience stats - let him pivot to exposing quacks and continue to take fools money.
This is the best explanation I've heard of the show's appeal: Back when I was a kid you didn’t need Joe Rogan. Your best friend had a 27 year-old brother who was a fucking loser who would smoke pot in a room with blacklight posters and tell you that the Mayans invented cell phones.
Joe Rogan facilitates discussion with interesting people and not much more. Mainstream news has done just about as poorly as it could have reporting facts, unknowns, and probabilities with Covid...as the anointed truthsayers, they most definitely created a vacuum by dismissing credible questions and skepticism (lab leak, mask effectiveness, how to think about vaccines long term). And they have been eager to bless the opinions of those who have been far too optimistic https://youtu.be/_FvWnlIEHVo
There is no way we just deplatform or content moderate our way out of honestly misguided information like Malone and McCullough. Misinformation and disinformation cannot include people who are trying in good faith to present a pov that happens to just be just wrong…at some point in time that would include…everyone.
What I hate about “skeptics” these days is that they think an opinion is a valid scientific argument. I mean, just go work with the published data and prove it isn’t valid. Instead, we have guys who go around saying things like “Covid is not a virus, it’s our own EXOSOMES duh”. And clueless idiots who amplify those.
Ben Shapiro is a funny guy sometimes, but his recent episode on JRE was disgusting. “We don’t need any measures because I got sick and I was fine!”. That ignores all of the scientific and clinical evidence on the population scale.
I can't speak for others, but I'm there for the guests. Not all of them, but I find Joe to be an entertaining host, mostly because it's just different. The ones I enjoy the most are the ones where it feels like some random dude has recognised he's on a train with a leading world expert in a field he finds interesting but knows nothing about. It's just earnest conversation from someone curious.
> when he does occasionally have a legitimate scientist he can barely muster any response beyond “wow that blows my mind”
I love watching Joe explore complex subject matter with experts. There are so few interesting interviews with scientists just talking about why they do what they do and what it is that they find fascinating and why they love their craft. There are some real good interviews where they just geek out and Joe asks them really stoned questions. It's not for everyone, I guess.
More to the point, as long as people hold elitist opinions like this, then there will be people who distrust science (and people abusing that to make money)
And while he's featured a few conspiracy theorists, they're a minority and are balanced out by credentialed 'serious' scientists.
That's all beside the point though - purging conversations from the internet is bad, and the culture that cheers this on is worse.
Regarding censorship, where does one draw the line? Misinformation? A conversation encouraging self-harm? The harm of others? Without holding media to some reasonable standard an anything goes mentality develops.
Maybe you should start there. It pays to learn to empathise with and try to understand other people. You don't have to like someone else, but its not that hard to see why people do listen to his podcast. You don't have to be that dismissive of other people.
That is why we are listening to him.
The biggest problem, for me, with Rogan’s podcast is he brings on people that know nothing about a subject but let’s them talk as if they are some kind of expert. They have long conversations where Rogan as little if anything of value and just let’s a lot of weirdos that will get views ramble on endlessly for 2 hours. Then things get cut and paste around social media and misinformation spreads like wild fire.
A recent example is Dr Jordan Peterson talking about climate change. He lacks even a basic understanding but was sitting there talking about it with the confidence of a climate expert and as he is a Doctor people take him seriously about everything and it’s just god damn awful.
The same problem exists on a lot of “news” shows/channels where they have a genuine expert that has studied a subject for 20+ years and is known and respected world wide and sit them next to someone that read something on Facebook then got very vocal about it as it matched their feelings on the subject.
This whole “we need two sides” concept is bullshit when the two sides are not equals but are presented and treated as equals.
It gives credibility to people that deserve none as they have done nothing to earn it.
I think multiple points of view are extremely important but you need to ensure the people involved are as close to equal as possible with regards to their professional standing and experience. Not some random blogger.
Ironically, I see this on HN, too. Not always, but frequently enough.
What I'm talking about is comment sections (often about economics, climate change, etc.) with commenters who post with iron-clad confidence, only to be contradicted by other commenters who take the opposite position with the same confidence.
I read these dueling comments and think, "Everyone seems so sure of themselves. But I have no clue as to who is correct here."
I find this jarring because: a) somebody has to be wrong in these wars of dueling facts and b) I'm surprised because I feel that HN is enriched with reasonably bright people who I'd expect would be more circumspect with their comments.
I'm not surprised about the abject confusion that the general public has when discussing similar topics, especially since I am often confused reading HN comments. I know that's arrogant of me, but there's truth in there, too.
tldr: If I can't get a handle on dueling "facts" when reading HN, how the hell can I expect Joe Rogan or his listeners to do the same?
The biggest misconception is that an expert in some field(especially STEM) has “common sense” in other areas. My former classmate is doing a PhD in automation, but claimed vaccines are harmful and he’d rather get sick “naturally”. The same goes for politics, economics, and other fields. It’s like people can’t imagine they might be completely ignorant in the areas outside their field of work.
Agreed. My expertise is in molecular biology / genetics and when I see those topics discussed on HN, I can ferret out the BS reasonably well.
But with other topics, I'm out of my depth.
I've come to believe that "critical thinking" is often a matter of knowing which expert to trust. And sometimes, knowing who to trust is difficult.
an actual historian dissected the claims and it was all complete nonsense:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sh92go/in_a_...
Personally, I thought that it was hilarious that Peterson criticized climate scientists for building models without the full information, because that is exactly what his field of clinical psychologists do.
Your argument is that because some people choose to get their information about the vax and climate change from people that are not experts in those fields none of us should have access to that media.
If that is how you feel you should also be in favor of shutting down fast food restaurants and liquor stores because some people don't take responsibility in those areas and become obese and alcoholics.
These people are more than welcome to setup a blog and write up their views should they wish but there is an astronomical difference between them posting their views on whatever subject they wish and inviting them onto a podcast listened to by tens of millions as if they are some sort of respected expert in the subject.
Also as I said in my original post this is not just aimed at Rogan's podcast but the media in general. Many times I have seen experts in a subject with decades of experience sat next to a random person from MumsNet or some other online community with anecdotes and nothing more. Yet they are sat side by side, given similar air time to communicate their views as if they are in some way 'equals' on the subject which is misrepresentation.
In no way am I saying the non-expert random person should be silenced but they also should not be given such a wide reaching platform due to laziness of the "news" service to find an actual expert to argue the other side.
I never said we have to silence them. I don't think we have to give them a megaphone to hundreds of millions of people unchecked either though. Why should we give a platform to any random person? Do we no longer care about a persons expertise on the subject?
> Your argument is that because some people choose to get their information about the vax and climate change from people that are not experts in those fields none of us should have access to that media.
Again not what I said and you know it.
> If that is how you feel you should also be in favor of shutting down fast food restaurants and liquor stores because some people don't take responsibility in those areas and become obese and alcoholics.
No, I would be in favour of better educating people. You know by having them get information from actual experts with regards to their bodily health to either lose weight/never become obese in the first place, show how to enjoy alcohol without it becoming an addiction, etc.
In 2002 all of the media and the experts said that Saddam Hussain had WMDs and ties to Al-Qaeda and we went to war and hundreds of thousands of innocent people died.
I'm not saying that experts don't exist, I would much rather have the chief surgeon at Harvard perform surgery on me than some random guy off the street. But, the idea that "non-experts" shouldn't be able to you cannot question climate scientists on a large platform gets your right back to the Iraq war situation.
Honestly, I wish people took climate change more seriously, and I wish that people didn't become alcoholics and obese, but that is a tradeoff that exists in a free country.
I'm not saying you cannot question climate scientists though. I'm not saying you cannot question any expert.
The difference, and my complaint, is that this isn't just questioning experts but taking an expert and a non-expert and treating them as if they are equal experts in the subject. People listen to these non-experts in a subject (because they are an expert in some other subject) and accept what they are saying as correct.
If you want to discuss clinical psychology then by all means have Jordon Peterson on, after all he is a clinical psychologist.
But don't ask a clinical psychologist about quantum computing or climate change or any other subject they're not an expert on and present what they say as if they're an expert.
Imagine inviting a race horse breeder on a show to discuss horse racing and then the conversation pivots to Formula 1 engines and race car physics and you treat what they say as expert advice because well horse racing and Formula 1 are both racing sports aren't they. Surely this persons knowledge of breeding a horse transfers over right? That's about the same level of "transfer" that Jordon Peterson's clinical psychologist background has to climate change science.
As for Iraq and WMD that is a far more complicated discussion and the comment section of Hacker News is not the place for it.
Jordan Peterson clearly doesn't understand climate change in detail, I understand that, and I can watch him talk without thinking that climate change is a hoax.
That isn't what I said. I specifically said "Formula 1 engines and race car physics". I put it this way because I mean the specifics of Formula 1 engines and car physics. Not a general chat about Formula 1 but specific specialist areas.
Sure if it was just a general "oh what do you think of F1?" and they shared their personal opinion then fine but if they start saying stuff like "All the F1 engineers in the whole world don't know what they're doing" nobody is going to take them seriously (or you would hope not).
It is this important point, general opinion vs specific area expertise, that is the big issue for me.
Following the Dr Peterson example, had he said something like "oof I think climate change is all overblown and stupid and I don't agree with any of it" then that is his opinion and of course he is entitled to voice his own opinion.
But he didn't say that, he went in to attack specifics about climate models that he patently has no expertise in but talks as if he does. He presented it as if he is sharing factual information and that "nobody" working in climate science is correct.
It was entertaining to me - I can’t tell how what he does now or in 10 years affects what is said in the previous episodes