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Comment by naasking | Hacker News Reader

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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