[HN Gopher] Observations from our Joe Rogan Experience experience
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Observations from our Joe Rogan Experience experience
        
       Author : phgn
       Score  : 206 points
       Date   : 2022-08-30 11:41 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lulu.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lulu.substack.com)
        
       | thenerdhead wrote:
       | Whether or not you like Joe Rogan, I think there's something
       | significant about how far they've come with so little.
       | 
       | They don't have many employees. They don't take much time to
       | produce shows. They don't have countless assistants to schedule
       | logistics. They keep their operating costs modest. And yet their
       | shows reach a mass audience.
       | 
       | I respect how a small team has kept onto their autonomy and
       | continues to grow and be in the headlines constantly depending on
       | what was discussed. They just push content into the world and the
       | world reacts to it.
        
         | threeseed wrote:
         | I don't think it's particularly impressive.
         | 
         | He's not that different to a top-tier Youtuber or influencer of
         | which there are hundreds who have managed to build successful
         | content businesses with very small staff.
         | 
         | They are all just standing on the shoulders of the platforms
         | and content creation tools which allows them to affordably
         | produce and distribute high quality content to billions.
         | Something which has never previously been possible.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | > I don't think it's particularly impressive.
           | 
           | It's the highest listened to podcast for many years now. You
           | don't find that impressive?
           | 
           | I'm not a Howard Stern fan, but I'm impressed by the reach of
           | his satellite show.
           | 
           | Do you not find podcasts impressing at all? Reaching millions
           | of people for hours each week is very rare.
        
           | adammarples wrote:
           | I remember Joe podcasting back when there were like 3
           | podcasts available. He came out shortly after the iphone, the
           | first platform he was available on was probably iTunes. He's
           | been doing it a long time where many have failed.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | SyneRyder wrote:
             | Podcasting was around long before the iPhone. There's a
             | reason it's called _Pod_ casting.
        
             | zimpenfish wrote:
             | > I remember Joe podcasting back when there were like 3
             | podcasts available.
             | 
             | According to [1], JRE launched in late 2009. According to
             | [2], podcasts took off spectacularly in 2004 and by 2005,
             | every man and his dog had a podcast (paraphrasing, obvs.)
             | Whilst he has been doing it a long time, he was relatively
             | late to the party.
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience
             | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Tim
             | eline
        
               | tomjakubowski wrote:
               | I have no evidence to back it, but it felt to me like
               | there was a podcasting boom around 2004-2006, and then I
               | stopped hearing about them until a revival circa 2014,
               | when everyone and their mother was listening to Serial.
        
           | towaway15463 wrote:
           | Pretty shitty dig. You'd better get started on creating that
           | universe if you ever want to claim credit for anything.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | I don't think this is right. The podcast and YouTube space is
           | incredibly competitive. Everyone has the same shoulders to
           | stand on.
           | 
           | Nobody watches top tier YouTubers, rather than others
           | YouTubers, because of the platform. The platform is
           | _absolutely saturated_ with others, making identical content.
           | It 's the same with podcasts. The same guests are almost
           | always making rounds to all the other podcasts, yet people
           | prefer Joe Rogan over all the other podcasts the guests are
           | on. Why?
           | 
           | The top tier people have some mix of personality traits,
           | physical traits, work ethics, or talents that separate them
           | from everyone else. That ability to be so massively separated
           | is what should be considered "impressive", since it's
           | provably not trivial or common.
           | 
           | I'm always impressed by someone getting to number one, on
           | their own merit, because I know the reasons are _extensive_
           | rather than simple. Well, except for something like OnlyFans.
        
         | koheripbal wrote:
         | The real question is how he got such good guests in the
         | beginning.
        
           | jjulius wrote:
           | He was already a celebrity before he started his podcast.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | Another question being, since those same guests have been
           | present on many other podcasts (most do rounds for
           | promotions), why does his podcast seem to be preferred?
        
           | notdarkyet wrote:
           | It should be pretty clear if you look at Joes career outside
           | of the podcast. For 30 years he has been in the entertainment
           | industry with stand up comedy, television (News Radio and
           | Fear Factor), to announcing UFC fights.
           | 
           | He was one of the fist big podcasts and livestreamers before
           | others started doing the same. Most of his initial (and
           | repeat) guests are simply friends from these various
           | industries.
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Unless you consider Joey Diaz to be a "such good guest," he
           | didn't
        
           | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
           | Reread what you responded to. I'm sure it is a large
           | component.
        
           | tharne wrote:
           | He let his guests talk without trying to put words in their
           | mouths. He respects his guests and takes a sincere interest
           | in them. In other words, he's the exact opposite of most
           | people in the media.
        
         | StanislavPetrov wrote:
         | The same thing that attracts so many to his podcast is what
         | drives so many away: his lack of a political agenda. Many
         | people find it refreshing that Rogan can talk (mostly listen)
         | to nearly anyone without pushing his (or anyone else's) agenda
         | on them or acting as some sort of policeman to attack those
         | with views that various groups of people don't like.
         | 
         | Unfortunately in today's environment, many people (most of the
         | ones who don't like Rogan) think it is incumbent on everyone to
         | be a wokescold. They think that having a conversation with
         | someone somehow grants them legitimacy or "normalizes" their
         | views, while intelligent people with coherent, well-thought out
         | principles understand that legitimacy is not something that is
         | granted through proxy.
        
         | StrictDabbler wrote:
         | Truly, it is incredible that a sitcom star from the peak of
         | network television and who hosted one of the first major
         | reality television gameshows and the early years of the MMA
         | rise has managed to parlay that _tiny_ bit of fame into a
         | podcast listenership of 12 million.
         | 
         | If only the rest of us could do so much with so little.
        
           | choxi wrote:
           | I think the overpolished and analytics-driven media
           | personalities left a vacuum for an authentic voice to fill.
           | Someone would have filled it, and it happened to be Joe. It's
           | not like someone sufficiently motivated could repeat his
           | success trajectory, part of it is always being in the right
           | place at the right time too.
        
           | xwowsersx wrote:
           | His prior fame undoubtedly helped him get off the ground, but
           | if you think the show's success coasts purely on his earlier
           | fame, I'm afraid to say this is a story you're telling
           | yourself, seemingly in part, to make yourself feel better.
           | 
           | A podcast doesn't stay relevant with a large and loyal
           | audience unless it's actually good. To pretend like JRE is a
           | continued success purely because he was on TV before 1)
           | ignores the countless podcasts started by people far less
           | famous than Rogan was when he started which have failed to
           | take off and 2) sounds like a cynical, resentful thing you
           | tell yourself feel better along the lines of "well, if I came
           | from where Rogan did, I'd be just as successful."
           | 
           | Whatever you want to say about the reasons anyone tuned in to
           | begin with, it's transparently unfair (and betrays your own
           | "issues") to not offer a balanced perspective which includes
           | the need to acknowledge the obvious which is that Rogan's
           | success just might be _also_ due to the fact that he is a
           | good interviewer, that he has good guests on his show, that
           | he's able to spark interesting conversations, etc.
           | 
           | The idea that his TV stint and MMA fame makes a listenership
           | of 12M an automatic thing is just laughable.
        
             | StrictDabbler wrote:
             | I was replying to a comment about *how small Rogan's staff
             | is.*
             | 
             | You appear to have missed that context and have launched
             | into a passionate defense of his talent, behavior and
             | personality. As a bonus you've dipped into the ad hominem
             | well at least twice.
             | 
             | If you think it's impressive that somebody very famous can
             | make a podcast with only three employees, ok. Go ahead and
             | be impressed.
        
             | guhidalg wrote:
             | Unreal this amount of effort is spent defending Joe Rogan.
        
               | NeverFade wrote:
               | 1. Attack a person incessantly.
               | 
               | 2. Some people come to his defense.
               | 
               | 3. "Why is there so much effort to defend this person?!"
        
               | tharne wrote:
               | Unreal this amount of hate toward a man who does not
               | claim to be an authority on anything and happens to have
               | a popular podcast.
               | 
               | Don't like Rogan? Don't listen to him and leave it at
               | that.
        
           | oswald42 wrote:
           | Yes, let's ignore he became a successful star first. That was
           | obviously just handed to him. Success breeds success only if
           | you have some actual ability. Otherwise he'd be a one hit
           | wonder. At one point he really only did have as much as
           | anyone on HN, and probably even less.
        
         | golemotron wrote:
         | > Whether or not you like Joe Rogan, I think there's something
         | significant about how far they've come with so little.
         | 
         | Joe identifies as a man.
        
           | ssizn wrote:
           | I think he means the entire team.
        
             | bavila wrote:
             | The statement was clearly meant as a joke, albeit a flat
             | and stale one.
        
           | eachro wrote:
           | they as in him + his assistant(s) that produce the show
        
           | bioemerl wrote:
           | In addition to what some others are saying here, they is
           | often used as a singular gender neutral pronoun and not a
           | specific pronoun that excludes the others.
           | 
           | I use singular they all the time, especially online where
           | people are accounts and not people.
        
         | givemeethekeys wrote:
         | If by, "they", you mean the show, then the show's name is The
         | Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan is the host.
         | 
         | The team behind the team started small and have managed to stay
         | small despite the massive audience. Very cool indeed.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | PeterStuer wrote:
       | Scrolled through the comments here for a bit. Polarization at its
       | prime. Good job HN.
        
       | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
       | I'm not going to bother digging up the clip cuz it's easy to
       | find, but it pretty much tells you what you need to know about
       | Rogan.
       | 
       | It's him talking to Joe Diaz, where Diaz is bragging about how
       | when he was the manager at Laugh Factory he wouldn't book female
       | comics unless they sucked his dick. Rogan asks him how many women
       | he did this to and Diaz says a dozen or something, and Rogan
       | starts hyena laughing like it's the funniest thing he's ever
       | heard.
       | 
       | Rogan gets some great guests on, but don't be fooled by his "aw
       | schucks I'm just a bro asking questions" act. He knows exactly
       | what he's doing and he's a lot more predatory than his on camera
       | character.
       | 
       | Something to consider before you associate your brand with him.
       | Probably better to find an up and rising podcast.
       | 
       | Edit: freetime2 dug up the clip below and it's even worse than I
       | recalled.
        
         | TeeMassive wrote:
         | "I take everything two comics say at face value and it's not
         | funny"
        
         | babyshake wrote:
         | An anecdote like that would be a great opportunity to ask Diaz
         | if he had reflected on the way he had acted and felt remorse,
         | or if he would want his daughter/sister/spouse to be treated
         | that way. Podcasts can sometimes be an excellent venue for
         | having heartfelt conversations about difficult topics. What a
         | shame.
        
           | brailsafe wrote:
           | I feel like you'd have to be pretty deep into silicon valley
           | progressive culture to actually ask this instead of presuming
           | that people have the capability of coming to that conclusion
           | on their own. I would assume that someone would laugh at just
           | how absurdly awful it is.
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | Diaz is absolutely disgusting
        
           | xdennis wrote:
           | He's one of the most entertaining guests though.
        
             | jjulius wrote:
             | >He's one of the most entertaining guests though.
             | 
             | "He won't give women a job unless they suck his dick, but
             | _boy_ is he great! "
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | EarlKing wrote:
         | Better take: Joe Rogan has an uncanny ability to make people
         | think he's just a bro asking questions and uses that to get
         | people to admit to truly horrendous behavior, free of
         | judgement, for his profit and your shock.
         | 
         | Seriously, what do you expect him to do when someone says
         | something like that? Immediately end the broadcast and summon
         | the police? What exactly do you think shows like this are for?
        
           | jjulius wrote:
           | >Seriously, what do you expect him to do when someone says
           | something like that?
           | 
           | Instead of "hyena laughing", he could maybe go, "Wait, wait,
           | you actually did that? That's how you hired women? That's
           | pretty fucked up, you know that, right?" and then start
           | having a tough conversation about it.
        
         | slg wrote:
         | You don't even have to go deep into the archives to feel
         | uncomfortable with this whole world's treatment of gender
         | issues. Directly from this article:
         | 
         | >At a long desk in the big main room sits an attractive nurse.
         | She offers us an enhancer of B12 or NAD+, through a shot or an
         | IV.
         | 
         | >I get a shot of NAD+, which is supposed to be good for energy
         | and metabolism. NAD stands for Nicotinamide Adenine
         | Dinucleotide, and I don't know what the + is. (Actually, I
         | don't know what any of it is, but the nurse said she takes it,
         | and if you saw this woman, you too would ask for a shot of
         | whatever she's on.)
         | 
         | What are we supposed to take away from this? Is this nurse
         | actually trained for this? If so, isn't the author completely
         | dismissing that training because the nurse is attractive? If
         | not, isn't Rogan basically just hiring a model to pump his
         | guests full of unknown drugs? Neither option is great. And this
         | was written by the VP of Communication for Substack and is
         | approved by Rogan. This isn't some unauthorized look behind the
         | scenes. This is what they want to advertise. It just gives me
         | the creeps.
        
           | PeterisP wrote:
           | Well no, the way I read is quite literal without anything
           | misogynistic - if a person is saying that they personally
           | take X to affect their body, then the appearance of their
           | body is some (weak but still) evidence about what effect X
           | has, and the decision of whether you want to imitate their
           | actions is influenced by whether you want to look like they
           | do, whether the results they're getting seem worth imitating.
           | The author was apparently considering that personal
           | experience as a user of that product (and the visible
           | outcome) was more relevant than whatever some specialist
           | would have read about it.
           | 
           | Like, for an example of the opposite gender, if someone you
           | trust says they did a particular treatment to fix male
           | pattern baldness, then it seems reasonable to put some weight
           | in their personal experience and how their hair looks after
           | the treatment, especially if you don't trust the official
           | descriptions/PR/advertising claims, then even small amounts
           | of anecdotal but real evidence might seem more valuable.
        
           | JamesBarney wrote:
           | > What are we supposed to take away from this? Is this nurse
           | actually trained for this?
           | 
           | This a nurse not a metabolism researcher, she might know a
           | fuck ton about NAD+ but it wouldn't be because she's a nurse.
           | Most medical professionals (especially nurses) are trained on
           | the delivery of medical care, not necessarily the ins and
           | outs of supplements.
        
           | nipponese wrote:
           | FYI, the author is female, so I believe this qualifies as a
           | "female perspective".
        
             | kelseyfrog wrote:
             | Asking one person to speak for a group is a quick way to
             | arrive at personal bias.
        
             | slg wrote:
             | The author wasn't a mystery to me. I mentioned her by her
             | title. Misogyny isn't limited to men. Many women who run in
             | male dominated worlds such as tech and comedy will often
             | use misogyny as a shield to let the men around them know
             | _she is one of the cool ones_.
             | 
             | This is not an accusation against the author's character.
             | Like I said in my original comment, I don't know what she
             | is trying to say with that comment. Although I guess that
             | is its own accusation. Maybe the VP of Communication isn't
             | great at her job if I don't understand what she is trying
             | to communicate.
        
               | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
               | Yeah, that line stood out to me as well in exactly the
               | same way. From reading it I think besides the "I'm one of
               | the cool ones" effect she's doing a bit of if by whiskey.
               | Even when she's criticizing Rogan et all she does it in a
               | way they're likely to just be even more proud of.
        
           | Shank wrote:
           | > If not, isn't Rogan basically just hiring a model to pump
           | his guests full of unknown drugs?
           | 
           | > Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme
           | central to metabolism. Found in all living cells, NAD is
           | called a dinucleotide because it consists of two nucleotides
           | joined through their phosphate groups...NAD exists in two
           | forms: an oxidized and reduced form, abbreviated as NAD+ and
           | NADH (H for hydrogen), respectively. [0]
           | 
           | It's worth noting that NAD+ is well-known. Artificial
           | supplementation I'm not so sure about, but it's inside you
           | already. I...somehow doubt they're just injecting raw NAD+
           | but I suppose it could be?
           | 
           | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinuc
           | leot...
        
             | slg wrote:
             | Cyanide is also well-known and probably inside me already
             | and yet I wouldn't be happy with someone injecting it
             | directly into me.
             | 
             | I don't really care about the specifics of what they are
             | injecting. I am objecting to how they are pressuring
             | people, perhaps unintentionally, in the moment to accept
             | the injection of a substance in which the injectee admits
             | they don't understand. It is especially ironic considering
             | Rogan's various comments about vaccines. Thousands of
             | doctors can tell me that the COVID vaccine is safe and I am
             | supposed to doubt them. One nurse tells me NAD+ is safe and
             | I am supposed to believe her.
        
           | ryanisnan wrote:
           | Yeah, I don't know if this article is a great look for
           | Substack. Sounds like the author at least suffers from FOMO
           | and falling prey to peer-pressure.
        
         | dshpala wrote:
         | There are people that don't let a single mistake sink a person.
         | Yes that episode is bad and leaves bad taste, but everyone
         | makes mistakes.
         | 
         | So yeah, I like Joe Rogan, and I'm fine with associating my
         | brand with him. But if you know rising podcast stars like him -
         | please share.
        
           | jjulius wrote:
           | >There are people that don't let a single mistake sink a
           | person.
           | 
           | Sure, but it's pretty easy to find plenty of similar
           | instances throughout the JRE catalog.
        
         | stainablesteel wrote:
         | so there's definitely no reaction ever that anyone would ever
         | be disgusted by you with, you're a perfect individual with no
         | vices whatsoever
         | 
         | it's not like rogan was the one asking someone to suck his
         | dick, if anything he exposed someone else
         | 
         | plus, why is laughter painted as agreement? it's a mechanism of
         | coping with ridiculous circumstances. i'd probably laugh out of
         | that whole conversation becoming super awkward
        
         | gsatic wrote:
         | This gens Charlie Rose I guess.
        
         | mduerksen wrote:
         | So _one_ clip tells you _everything_ you need to know. Do you
         | judge everyone this way? One mistake and their whole character
         | is defined by that?
         | 
         | Do you live up to that standard, or would someone be able to
         | find some damning evidence of some dark side of you?
         | 
         | Is it possible that people are messy, not always consistent in
         | their behaviour, that they have bad days? That they haven't
         | thought everything through, that they get caught in the moment
         | and regret it later?
         | 
         | Is there _any_ grey area to you?
        
           | hotpotamus wrote:
           | You know, I've done things I'm not proud of, but I generally
           | try to keep those things to myself rather than broadcast them
           | out for money.
        
             | oswald42 wrote:
        
             | xdennis wrote:
             | In those days Rogan's audience was very small and he wasn't
             | making much off of the podcast (if at all).
        
               | hotpotamus wrote:
               | Ah well that makes it ok I suppose. Was he also a much
               | younger man back then and he couldn't have been expected
               | to know better? That usually excuses a lot too.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | powerset wrote:
         | Not to dispute any of your points, but one of the reasons I
         | find some of the JRE podcasts interesting is that he gets
         | people to open up and talk about (admit to) stuff they
         | otherwise might not. Joey's comments are repulsive, but it's a
         | good thing we now know what kind of person he is.
         | 
         | Not sure if that's a net positive overall, but it's something
         | to consider.
        
         | tomohawk wrote:
        
           | ALittleLight wrote:
           | Well, there are "scolds" and there are people who think it's
           | bad to compel female employees or contractors to have sex
           | with their boss.
        
             | at_a_remove wrote:
             | Hunter S. Thompson was able to interview Nixon, despite a
             | kind of hatred he held for the man that was nearly
             | blinding.
             | 
             | If you want to get people to let their guard down, be
             | agreeable. Draw them out. Smile and nod. Let them hang
             | themselves with their own words. That's a journalistic
             | skill.
             | 
             | If you just want to be angry at them, well, write a letter.
             | Yell at them at the phone.
             | 
             | With that in mind, is he there to 1) Let his guests know
             | how much he agrees or disagrees with them? 2) Get them to
             | say whatever and find out who they really are?
        
               | ALittleLight wrote:
               | That's not at all what happened between Rogan and Diaz.
               | Diaz tells the story of the time he borderline raped a
               | woman repeatedly to the extent she became depressed and
               | defeated, and Rogan laughs along like it's hilarious.
               | Diaz returned to the show afterwards and the furor about
               | it, to the extent there was, was not raised by Rogan
               | after the podcast, but by would-be Rogan-cancellers.
               | 
               | It's fine if you like and listen to Rogan. Maybe he's
               | grown since then. I think it's less fine to pretend like
               | bad things didn't happen, aren't bad, or that Rogan is a
               | journalist luring his friends to hang themselves by
               | confessing misdeeds.
        
           | exogeny wrote:
           | I don't think "being repelled by stories of sexual assault"
           | and "scolds" are the same thing.
        
           | Kye wrote:
           | I think "don't make sexual assault part of the interview" is
           | a good virtue line. Even "don't make jokes about sexually
           | assaulting employees" is good praxis, if it's a joke.
        
         | Keyframe wrote:
         | And both of them have daughters (only). There's a possibility
         | it's a schtick from Diaz, he has this absurd persona, but still
         | in bad taste if so.
        
           | _n_b_ wrote:
           | Even if that's true, Ken White's Rule or Goats applies:
           | "[s]lightly paraphrased -- for this family newspaper -- the
           | rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing
           | it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser."
        
             | lifeisstillgood wrote:
             | That's a really useful expression - thank you and Ken White
        
               | hirvi74 wrote:
               | It actually derives from an older and more crass joke.
               | Said joke has been slightly modified in many different
               | forms, but here is an example:
               | 
               | (Warning -- Potentially Not Safe For Work)
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/26pf4s/an_irishma
               | n_a...
        
           | lossolo wrote:
           | > And both of them have daughters (only)
           | 
           | I don't think this is really relevant, I know plenty of
           | people that will joke in the same way about other women
           | besides their daughters and mothers.
        
             | jjulius wrote:
             | Maybe I'm getting off on a tangent here, but I have two
             | daughters and I truly don't understand the idea that it's
             | completely fine for sexually-degrading jokes to be made
             | about every single woman except my wife/daughter/mother. If
             | I feel that I'm free to make those kinds of jokes about
             | every woman except the few closest to me, then I am
             | essentially granting that same agency to every other guy,
             | leaving my own kids open for those same degrading jokes
             | from others. It's a double-standard, and our
             | wives/daughters/mothers are going to see that. To me,
             | that's a _really_ shitty thing to do as a parent; we should
             | be leading by example.
             | 
             | And that's without addressing the fact that Diaz' comment
             | is potentially rooted in truth...
        
         | freetime2 wrote:
         | Here's the clip for anyone who's curious:
         | 
         | https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/news...
         | 
         | I'm generally fairly ambivalent about Joe Rogan. I will listen
         | occasionally if he has an interesting guest, and I feel a lot
         | of the outrage about him is overblown. But I agree this is
         | pretty disgusting.
        
           | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
           | God, half the reason I didn't look it up is I knew it'd just
           | piss me off again, but I forgot all that about being proud he
           | "broke" someone.
           | 
           | So yeah, I would _really_ not associate my business with this
           | cluster of clowns.
        
             | AzzieElbab wrote:
             | that video is 12 years old. As far as I can tell every
             | episode back then was a bunch of wasted/high comedians
             | talking sht to an audience of basically themselves
        
               | ruw1090 wrote:
               | Sure, but given multiple opportunities (every time the
               | clip gets brought up) to condemn it, he hasn't. This
               | should tell you enough.
        
               | octodog wrote:
               | ...so? If anything that's worse because it indicates
               | their true outlook and behaviour.
        
               | jeffy90 wrote:
               | We should take into account the amount of time he spends
               | being recorded, the frequency of the incidents, and the
               | trends of the incidents over time. I think most everyone
               | has said something wrong in the last 12 years. If it
               | happened 12 years ago and hasn't happened since, then
               | I'll give him a pass. If it's a repeating thing, then
               | I'll judge more harshly.
        
               | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
               | "When people show you who they are the first time believe
               | them." -- Maya Angelou
        
               | xdennis wrote:
               | "Base your morality on internet quotes and don't accept
               | that people and times change." -- Mark Twain
        
       | remote_phone wrote:
       | Lulu Cheng Meservey's twitter account is one of the best ever.
       | Her mastery of tweets is on par with Donald Trump, but in a good
       | way.
        
       | hatware wrote:
       | Joe Rogan is more of a journalist than any major news
       | organization, and that is the most worrying thing about it all.
       | The major organizations know this.
        
         | greenhearth wrote:
         | How so? Real investigative journalism is a discipline and a
         | craft. There are methodologies, techniques, field history and
         | degrees of masterhood, just like any other profession. This guy
         | has a talk show on the internet.
        
           | cwkoss wrote:
           | Most major news organizations are driven more by ad sales
           | than seeking truth. They say what their patrons want them to.
           | 
           | I don't know if I agree with GP, but I understand where the
           | sentiment is coming from. It's not that Rogan is a paragon,
           | it's that the average quality of MSM journalism is low enough
           | he may be able to crawl over the bar.
        
       | nvahalik wrote:
       | One of the things I appreciate about Joe Rogan is that, unlike
       | other podcasts I've listened to, he actually lets the person on
       | the other side talk.
       | 
       | There are several podcasts that I will occasionally listen to
       | where the host of the show repeatedly talks over whoever else is
       | on the podcast with him. Usually the brunt of it is a "sidekick"
       | or co-host.
       | 
       | I get it, it's your show, but like, if someone is talking, let
       | them talk!
       | 
       | Maybe it's the longer format that gives that "breathing room." No
       | matter: I can listen stress-free without getting upset that
       | someone is saying something and he keeps barging in.
        
         | subsubzero wrote:
         | I think this is why he is so popular, 90% of the media is all
         | saying the exact same message and if you deviate from it you
         | get cancelled or your show/platform dropped. Americans are not
         | dumb, they don't like being preached to and talked down to
         | which is why Rogan's show and guests are so popular as many of
         | them are saying things which are not heard on any of the other
         | media outlets.
         | 
         | That being said having watched a few JRE podcasts he definitely
         | has his dogma that comes out in many episodes, here are a few:
         | "hallucinogenics are good for expanding consciousness", "Most
         | social media is a bad echo chamber", "tribalism is bad(and is
         | the cause of most of todays issues)", "censorship is happening
         | at a mass level", "medical solutions are not a one size fits
         | all fix", "ufo's are most probably real" etc.. He definitely
         | comes across as someone with a open mind and seems to be a life
         | long learner but I think some of his ideas are somewhat out
         | there. I would not classify him as someone who is dumb, which
         | is strange as alot of HN folks seem to peg that on him.
        
           | PuppyTailWags wrote:
           | > I think this is why he is so popular, 90% of the media is
           | all saying the exact same message and if you deviate from it
           | you get cancelled or your show/platform dropped. Americans
           | are not dumb, they don't like being preached to and talked
           | down to which is why Rogan's show and guests are so popular
           | as many of them are saying things which are not heard on any
           | of the other media outlets.
           | 
           | I'm really confused by this stance, because the top podcasts
           | are never swarmed by one specific perspective. On my apple
           | podcast the podcasts on "top episodes" lists for me both the
           | nyt daily and ben shapiro in the same top 5. If I filter to
           | news podcasts only, they're the top 2.
        
             | subsubzero wrote:
             | > 90% of the media
             | 
             | media being MSM like NBC, NY Times, CNN, etc. Podcasts and
             | even the popular ones are longtail so they will have
             | divergent messages than the MSM players. But Joe Rogan has
             | more viewers than some of the smaller networks top shows
             | and that puts him squarely in the field of MSM, and those
             | players mentioned before are all seeing ever shrinking
             | audiences and JR is seeing his audience expand and he has
             | 100x less of the support and administrative staff than
             | those networks do, it must infuriate them to no degree and
             | I can see why they would want him shut down.
        
               | unethical_ban wrote:
               | You're shoehorning "MSM" to mean "non-podcast media I
               | don't like".
               | 
               | It's completely dumbfounding to compare staff sizes of a
               | podcast to worldwide journalism institutions. It borders
               | on bad faith. "They" want them shut down? Who is they?
        
               | PuppyTailWags wrote:
               | I'm confused about your claim that 90% of MSM is the same
               | if I'm pointing out that just briefly going to top
               | podcasts points out two radically differing MSM taking
               | the top 2. That doesn't sound like 90% saying the same
               | stuff to me. Especially if you consider Joe Rogan himself
               | to also be MSM. I don't even know the definition of MSM
               | then or how you can say 90% of them are _anything_.
        
               | panzagl wrote:
               | OP is saying top podcasts are not MSM.
               | 
               | But to address the point I think you're making, just
               | because two shows have different viewpoints doesn't mean
               | they're not the same- 'Fox and Friends' and 'The View'
               | might have opposing ideologies, but they're the same
               | show.
        
         | nix0n wrote:
         | Is there a show that lets the guests talk, except with guests
         | who are worth listening to?
        
       | koheripbal wrote:
       | People listen to the JRE because he gets great guests. Almost all
       | of us know Joe is a moron.
       | 
       | Don't assume that just because we subscribe that we are being
       | indoctrinated to every stupid comment he makes. That assumption
       | infantilizes is all.
       | 
       | The overreaction to filter content based on that assumption is a
       | much more problematic issue than the content itself.
        
         | nvahalik wrote:
         | > Almost all of us know Joe is a moron.
         | 
         | I said this in another comment as well--but a lot can be said
         | that he actually lets his guests talk rather than talking over
         | them as is the habit of some.
        
         | npc54321 wrote:
         | > Almost all of us know Joe is a moron.
         | 
         | A moron with a hundred million podcast, after having fairly
         | successful careers in both comedy/acting and fighting.
         | 
         | And you're here in an online forum calling him a moron.
         | 
         | He might be a myriad of things, but a moron he isn't.
        
         | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
         | You are telling people not to make assumptions about how Joe
         | Rogan listeners think, right after speaking for "all of us":
         | 
         | > Almost all of us know Joe is a moron.
         | 
         | I'm quite certain Joe Rogan is above average intelligence, and
         | that people who doubt that are usually abusing Joe's public and
         | unforgiving curiosity which will sometimes lead to basic
         | questions or ridiculous statements - that is the price of
         | curiosity, which clearly _we fans_ are not only willing to pay,
         | but look forward to.
        
           | stoplying1 wrote:
           | I'm having flashes of the episode where he spent 20 minutes
           | being obstinate and then crushed about the idea that hot
           | sauna air wasnt going to magically protect him from or cure
           | COVID. It was hard to listen to.
        
           | gadders wrote:
           | Yeah, I wouldn't say Joe is unintelligent. He's an
           | autodidact, and as a result he has gaps in his knowledge
           | because he's followed his interests, rather than a formal
           | curriculum.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | Years ago I listened to JRE for a while. I enjoyed the approach
       | that I would sum up as "I don't know, let's hear what some folks
       | think." It felt fair and open and interesting.
       | 
       | But at some point it occurred, "Shouldn't at some point, if we're
       | listening to all this that, we stop being a dumb guy who doesn't
       | know anything and actually have opinion / challenge some of these
       | things with some facts / solid ideas?"
       | 
       | But I never saw that happen, and as time went on the "I don't
       | know" excuses just felt ... more and more insufficient, dumb by
       | choice, or just excuses.
       | 
       | At some point just being "dumb" and listening to every rando
       | person makes you susceptible to / a target of a bunch of horrible
       | randos with bad ideas ... An open approach is admirable, but not
       | learning along the way is not.
        
         | unity1001 wrote:
         | > But I never saw that happen
         | 
         | Can it EVER happen, since he is a talk show host that must be
         | dumb and constantly say 'Lets hear what some folks think' and
         | bring even more people to his show?
        
         | mistermann wrote:
         | The ability to realize one does not know things actually takes
         | a lot of intelligence. It is very often the opposite of dumb.
        
           | duxup wrote:
           | And yet not learning is dumb.
        
           | checkyoursudo wrote:
           | A lot of intelligence? I know there are lots of things I
           | don't know, and I even know what a lot of those things are,
           | but I don't know that this really takes a lot of
           | intelligence.
           | 
           | Compared to a clam, maybe. I am definitely smarter than a
           | clam. Probably.
        
             | BitwiseFool wrote:
             | >"I am definitely smarter than a clam. Probably."
             | 
             | I admire your defensive use of 'probably', as clams can
             | contain pearls of wisdom.
        
             | piinecone wrote:
             | Depends on the clam!
        
             | monkeywork wrote:
             | I think the person who knows and accepts they don't know
             | things, and more importantly will refrain from opoining on
             | those things is more wise than the average person. Maybe
             | not more intelligent but definitely more wise
        
         | EarlKing wrote:
         | If he challenged them then they wouldn't open up. This isn't
         | Jerry Springer. Instead of demanding he do the thing you want
         | to do, maybe you should be doing that after the fact. If
         | someone goes on his show and admits to doing horrendous things
         | then reach out to them and let them know what you think of
         | them. This guy's doing you a service by exposing horrible
         | people and all you can do is complain.
        
         | StanislavPetrov wrote:
         | >But at some point it occurred, "Shouldn't at some point, if
         | we're listening to all this that, we stop being a dumb guy who
         | doesn't know anything and actually have opinion / challenge
         | some of these things with some facts / solid ideas?"
         | 
         | In my experience, the overwhelming majority of people who think
         | they are smart and challenge "dumb" ideas with "facts" are the
         | truly dumb people (see anyone in corporate media or government
         | for examples of this).
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | > But at some point it occurred, "Shouldn't at some point, if
         | we're listening to all this that, we stop being a dumb guy who
         | doesn't know anything and actually have opinion / challenge
         | some of these things with some facts / solid ideas?"
         | 
         | Not if that's the format of the show, and the show is wildly
         | successful.
         | 
         | Also: what's an example of a really good interview show where
         | the interviewer only brings on people they agree with, or else
         | brings on people they disagree with in order to tell them
         | they're wrong? That sounds like a debate show rather than an
         | interview, and it doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Reminds me
         | of those political interview shows on TV where the host cuts
         | the guest off to yell at them.
        
         | godshatter wrote:
         | I'm one of those people who likes to entertain different ideas.
         | I like talking with a flat earther, for example, and listening
         | to their viewpoint on things. It's interesting and if you're
         | not combative you get better information on the topic. It's
         | similar to why I read science fiction and fantasy. Take an idea
         | and run with it for a while. If someone believes the earth is
         | flat, what would that mean? Where would that rub up against
         | other things you think you know, and how does it affect them?
         | With something like flat earth theory, it doesn't change me
         | much except to warn me to be more careful to examine my beliefs
         | from different angles so I don't end up in a sort of mental
         | trap, but other topics might change me more directly.
         | 
         | I don't look to podcasts like these to make their guests
         | conform to my beliefs, I look to them to see novel perspectives
         | and to glean what I can from them for my benefit, and simply
         | because looking at other perspectives in a format like this
         | really does entertain me.
         | 
         | "Horrible randos" got where they were in some way, and it's
         | certainly possible that they might have a unique perspective
         | that might be helpful or that what they say might actually be
         | information I need. I wonder if Edward Snowden, for example,
         | would be classified as a "horrible rando" if he hadn't been the
         | guy that worked for them and blew the lid off of what the
         | government was surveilling but had only speculated about what
         | they were doing as an outsider with his actual self as a
         | contact in the NSA. He would be saying the same information,
         | but his credibility would change. Which doesn't mean it
         | couldn't be true, as it obviously was in this case. Dismissing
         | him as someone who shouldn't be listened to would have been a
         | mistake.
         | 
         | I keep a lot of thoughts flowing in my head to compare new
         | information against and to make connections with and rate their
         | truthiness as more information comes in. The more information
         | the better. You don't find the truth by listening to people
         | restate your set of beliefs every day.
        
           | the_cat_kittles wrote:
           | how many times do you need to hear from a flat earther? its
           | not really open minded to listen to the same dumb shit again
           | and again. its a necessary part of growing up but it makes no
           | sense to keep doing it. it takes no investment or skill to be
           | a flat earther. id rather listen to people who have expended
           | effort in a particular area.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | Bear in mind, with the Snowden example, that most people with
           | expert opinions counter to his have legal and/or privacy
           | concerns that prevent them from elaborating too much on the
           | topic.
        
             | abnry wrote:
             | If you believe them. It is a convenient excuse.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | Believe what? I am pointing out an availability bias. The
               | absence of dialogue is not something that you can believe
               | or not believe.
        
         | wollsmoth wrote:
         | yeah, that's one of the things that would annoy me about him
         | and part of peoples issues with him. Most of the time things
         | are reasonable and cool on the podcast. Guys hanging out,
         | shooting the shit, talking about their job/book/interests. But
         | occasionally he'd have a guest who was pretty out there, and
         | Rogan would just be like "wow cool!" to whatever alternate
         | reality thing they were talking about.
         | 
         | The other thing that bugged me about him is he pretty much has
         | a playlist of topics he hits on most episodes. Hunting, Jiu
         | Jitsu, DMT, etc. It's pretty interesting the first few times
         | but after a while it's gets a little old. I still have a
         | generally favorable view of Rogan but I haven't listened to an
         | episode in years. I think the controversy around him is
         | probably a bit overblown though.
        
         | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
         | It's the same tactic Mehmet Oz would do when he trotted out
         | medical quacks on his show and let them prattle on with their
         | lies unchallenged.
        
           | batman-farts wrote:
           | Reminds me of what Coast to Coast AM became under George
           | Noory, too. Art Bell would occasionally offer some pushback
           | or a sliver of skepticism towards his more out-there guests,
           | but Noory typically let them barge ahead with their sales
           | pitch unchallenged. (And the last few times I listened to it,
           | it always was an explicit sales pitch of some sort.)
        
             | hoistbypetard wrote:
             | Art Bell was a national treasure. I didn't realize Coast to
             | Coast AM survived him. (I don't think I've heard it since
             | 2004 or so.)
             | 
             | I'm surprised the show is still on. I'd have thought its
             | niche had been filled several thousand times over by
             | podcasts.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | > I'd have thought its niche had been filled several
               | thousand times over by podcasts.
               | 
               | Not at all.
               | 
               | I have a distinct memory in which I'm driving alone, late
               | at night, on a long road trip. I don't have any
               | unlistened podcasts downloaded, I'm not in the mood for
               | music, but it's late and I would like to hear another
               | human voice. So I turn on the radio. The night sky is a
               | magical sight that implies endless possibility, so I'm
               | not in the mood for sports radio or Dave Ramsey. I don't
               | know if I ended up listening to Coast to Coast AM or one
               | of its imitators, but I found something along those lines
               | and it hit the spot.
        
               | hoistbypetard wrote:
               | *That* is exactly how I discovered Coast to Coast AM in
               | the 1990s. It was late at night, I'd listened to all I
               | could stand from my collection of cassette tapes, and I
               | just hit "scan" with my radio set to AM.
               | 
               | These days my unlistened podcast collection is large
               | enough that I rarely get to that point. And my unlistened
               | podcast collection is that large in part because the
               | radio dial is a little bare lately when I hit "scan" in
               | most of the places I'm apt to do so.
        
         | hbn wrote:
         | His primary goal is to be a good interviewer. He acts as a
         | blank slate so the guest can bounce whatever their thing is
         | they have to talk about off him.
         | 
         | But even so, I wouldn't say he never challenges people,
         | especially if it's something he actually does have a strong
         | opinion on, like MMA and fitness stuff. There's a (in?)famous
         | episode where he interviewed Adam Ruins Everything and they had
         | a pretty big debate over some of Adam's assertions, like the
         | idea that alpha males don't exist, or that men only seem to be
         | better at sports because the sport was designed for them to be
         | better at it.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | timr wrote:
         | > At some point just being "dumb" and listening to every rando
         | person makes you susceptible to / a target of a bunch of
         | horrible randos with bad ideas ... An open approach is
         | admirable, but not learning along the way is not.
         | 
         | I don't know what show you're listening to. I'm not a regular
         | listener, by any means, but I hear Rogan routinely bring up
         | things that he learns from other/prior guests. Often to
         | challenge whatever he's hearing in the moment.
         | 
         | It really feels to me that people are just looking for reasons
         | to attack him because he "platforms" voices they don't like.
         | That was fine when he was just a comedian with a podcast, but
         | now he has An Audience (tm), so it's Bad.
         | 
         | Rogan has certainly had some cranks on his show (IMO), but I'm
         | comfortable enough with my intellect that I can listen to these
         | (or not) without having my brain turned to mush.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | I constantly hear "Well what about <idea from book or
           | person>? They say <>. I had them on a while back".
        
           | joe_the_user wrote:
           | My main experience with jre recently was watching his
           | interview with Robert Lazar. Lazar has considerable
           | reputation in the UFO community and is a fraud and a criminal
           | (convicted pimp and sanctioned for selling illegal poisons
           | through his chemical supply operation).
           | 
           | One of the thing about Rogan's interview with Lazar is he
           | fails to ask the obvious questions - such as "what are your
           | credentials". 'Cause with Lazar, that question already takes
           | you to dubious territory since Lazar's answer is "I have a
           | PhD but MIT erased my records" (and his thesis advisor went
           | along with this?).
           | 
           | And this kind of left a nasty taste in my mouth concerning
           | Rogan. Sure, his questions might be just naive but it seems
           | more likely he's using that naive pose to avoid the mine
           | fields of the guests he likes.
        
             | Teever wrote:
             | What I found most odd about the Lazar interview was that if
             | you contrast it with the Robert Bigelow interview you see
             | that Rogan is totally capable of being highly skeptical
             | with his kooky guests and willing to hold their feet to the
             | fire.
             | 
             | The fact that he didn't with Lazar but did with Bigelow
             | indicates to me that he favours Lazar, and considers his
             | story to be genuine, and that kind of bias is detrimental
             | to the interview process.
        
               | monkeywork wrote:
               | Rogan has addressed this since then saying basically he
               | doesn't know if Bob is full of shit but knows that he
               | (Rogan) wants to believe in aliens so much that sometimes
               | he goes lighter than he should.
        
               | twic wrote:
               | Considers his story to be genuine, or thinks the show
               | will be more entertaining if he doesn't immediately
               | discredit a fun kook?
        
             | timr wrote:
             | It's like I said: Rogan has had guests that I consider to
             | be cranks. But Rogan is completely transparent about the
             | guest list being people he finds interesting. That's not a
             | high bar. Therefore, I don't outsource my critical thinking
             | or judgment of character to Joe Rogan.
             | 
             | I do feel for Rogan here...he's doing more-or-less the same
             | thing he's been doing since the start, but now it's
             | "wrong", because other people are _expecting_ him to behave
             | in a particular way. He builds an audience by being a good
             | conversationalist with a huge variety of different,
             | sometimes nutty, people, and suddenly uptight folks expect
             | him to be Walter Cronkite.
        
               | joe_the_user wrote:
               | First, I think the Lazar example says to me that he's not
               | merely naive - it takes effort to not ask someone like
               | that basic questions.
               | 
               | Second, the thing with national level news isn't just
               | that people are "uptight". It's that there are many
               | professional and well-practiced liars out there eager for
               | a softball venue (people less obvious than Lazar
               | usually). These sorts of people make significant money
               | from their deceptions and Rogan is an enabler of this
               | stuff, making vast amounts of money himself.
               | 
               | Edit: and just on the question of Rogan's evolution. Just
               | by Wikipedia's bio, I'd say he didn't start with small
               | nuts and graduate to fronting professional conmen.
               | Rather, he started MMA chat, built to national level and
               | then moved laterally to interviewing people saying
               | "hypothetically true" things about the world in
               | generally.
        
               | evol262 wrote:
               | Kind of the thing with being in mass media with an
               | enormous audience is that you lose the ability to just do
               | what you've always been doing. I mean, he can, by
               | abandoning his platform and starting over with something
               | else, but the piles of money are too attractive.
               | 
               | Public figures who can heavily influence discourse and
               | thought have an ethical obligation to not give
               | unchallenged credence and a drastically increased
               | audience to their nonsense. If Rogan thought that
               | Goebbels was interesting and let him do his thing for
               | hours to an audience of millions, he would be held to a
               | higher standard. If Rogan thought that Ted Bundy was
               | interesting and let him tell "his side of the story"
               | without challenging it with the truth, he would be held
               | to a higher standard.
               | 
               | This is a basic which we should expect of our society.
        
               | jgust wrote:
               | We can expect it but I'm not sure that means anything.
               | I'd really like people to stop giving Tucker Carlson
               | attention, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Keyframe wrote:
             | David Fravor seems to speak favorably of Lazar, at least
             | from what I've gathered from his JRE interview, but I see
             | your point absolutely.
        
           | btown wrote:
           | > I'm comfortable enough with my intellect that I can listen
           | to these (or not) without having my brain turned to mush
           | 
           | It's an interesting turn of phrase, because there's a very
           | real pipeline in which people with less-trained critical
           | thinking skills listen to Rogan -> cannot distinguish
           | openness from endorsement -> believe Rogan is endorsing anti-
           | vaxx voices -> contribute to an aggregate increase in
           | community transmissibility of communicable diseases with
           | proven neurological impacts -> said diseases turn
           | immunocompromised people's neurons to "mush" at an increased
           | rate, through no fault or Rogan-listening of the victims'
           | own.
           | 
           | Rogan has consistently made a decision to prioritize the
           | "vibe" of his podcast over pushing his interview subjects in
           | a way that would make it clear that his provision of a
           | platform is not endorsement. Sure, he challenges things as
           | you have mentioned, but when he challenges anti-vaxx voices
           | no more or no less than he would a guest who, say, had an
           | opinion about hunting he didn't like, that creates a
           | responsibility that I think does scale with audience size.
           | 
           | https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074442185/joe-rogan-
           | doctor-c...
        
             | Domenic_S wrote:
             | What you're talking about is nuance, and there's
             | unfortunately little-to-no room for it in modern discourse
             | largely because of opinions like yours which could be
             | summed up as "if this person doesn't robotically toe the
             | line, then _the dumbs_ will believe things we don 't want
             | them believing."
             | 
             | Strategic lying is employed for the "greater good" in the
             | context of this way of thinking frequently, the most
             | egregious example probably being Fauci telling the public
             | not to wear masks because privately the government believed
             | that there wouldn't be enough protective equipment for
             | health care workers -- they didn't want _the dumbs_ to
             | panic-buy and leave hospitals vulnerable.
             | 
             | Not looking to get into a covid debate, just pointing out
             | that even governments will lie to keep the dumbs from doing
             | something they don't like, and I think that's bad.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | It's basically like treating adults as if they are
               | children. Something that all these public health
               | "experts" did to people for 2.5 years. They talked down
               | to people. Acted like they knew what was best for
               | everybody (which they didn't).
               | 
               | You don't get to treat adults like children. They are
               | adults who might know something you don't.
               | 
               | It's just toxic discourse.
        
               | matwood wrote:
               | Unfortunately a lot of adults act like children. It's
               | debatable if acting like children is the cause or the
               | reason for treating them that way.
        
               | spookthesunset wrote:
               | > Unfortunately a lot of adults act like children.
               | 
               | True, but it could also be their priorities are somewhere
               | other than yours. Which might be okay or might not
               | depending on whatever.
               | 
               | What these "experts" and politicians did though... treat
               | people like dumb children... completely inexcusable.
        
               | futuretaint wrote:
               | If we were able to get to the source of the 'trust
               | science' clique, I bet we would be amazed at how
               | uninteresting it all is. grievances about hurt feelings,
               | mental health issues and moral panic.
        
             | ryandv wrote:
             | > It's an interesting turn of phrase, because there's a
             | very real pipeline in which people with less-trained
             | critical thinking skills listen to Rogan -> cannot
             | distinguish openness from endorsement -> believe Rogan is
             | endorsing anti-vaxx voices -> contribute to an aggregate
             | increase in community transmissibility of communicable
             | diseases with proven neurological impacts -> said diseases
             | turn immunocompromised people's neurons to "mush" at an
             | increased rate, through no fault or Rogan-listening of the
             | victims' own.
             | 
             | It's hard to find a more textbook instantiation of the
             | slippery slope argument than this. Have you observed this
             | "real pipeline" in operation? If so, what quantity of
             | people have you seen progress through each stage of the
             | funnel? If not, how do you know one exists?
             | 
             | Or perhaps you're simply projecting whatever biases and
             | stereotypes exist in your mind unto the digital simulacra
             | of the "others" who don't agree with your cultural
             | worldviews.
             | 
             | Curious what other stereotypes you harbour.
        
               | mikkergp wrote:
               | I'm not confident that censorship is the right answer,
               | but it also seems anti-intellectual to deny that
               | information flows through complex systems in viral and
               | unexpected ways and assume the best outcomes will occur
               | naturally when powerful organizations and people
               | promoting certain perspectives over others, without
               | concern for veracity of those perspectives.
               | 
               | There are people who travel the country after school
               | shootings, comforting parents who lost children, and one
               | of the first things they have to tell them is to brace
               | themselves for all of the harassment and abuse they will
               | receive from people who believe that all school shootings
               | are false flag operations.
        
               | ryandv wrote:
               | > it also seems anti-intellectual to deny that
               | information flows through complex systems in viral and
               | unexpected ways
               | 
               | Does this principle apply only to information of a
               | particular political leaning, or is it a property of
               | information in general?
               | 
               | > veracity of those perspectives.
               | 
               | What is the process by which the veracity of any
               | perspective is determined?
        
               | mikkergp wrote:
               | > Does this principle apply only to information of a
               | particular political leaning, or is it a property of
               | information in general?
               | 
               | Could you go deeper into why you think political leaning
               | would have anything to do with it? I wouldn't think so...
               | 
               | > What is the process by which the veracity of any
               | perspective is determined?
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
        
               | ryandv wrote:
               | I don't think so either. However, I have seen the
               | argument made many times that opinions originating from
               | particular political ideologies should be suppressed
               | (which is a solution I recognize you have stated some
               | qualms with), because of "bad faith actors" spreading
               | misinformation virally that is too labour-intensive to
               | debunk.
               | 
               | > Scientific method                   Undoubtedly: and
               | such teaching         suffices on a subject like
               | mathematics, where there is nothing at all to         be
               | said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity
               | of the         evidence of mathematical truths is, that
               | all the argument is on one         side. There are no
               | objections, and no answers to objections. But on
               | every subject on which difference of opinion is possible,
               | the truth         depends on a balance to be struck
               | between two sets of conflicting         reasons. Even in
               | natural philosophy, there is always some other
               | explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric
               | theory instead         of heliocentric, some phlogiston
               | instead of oxygen; [...]              - On Liberty (1859)
        
               | mikkergp wrote:
               | So you really believe that denying any and all hierarchy
               | to knowledge is rhetorically useful? Newton's laws of
               | motion and Phrenology equally voratious? You can have
               | this opinion but it doesn't seem compatible with building
               | a society. Why should a people trying to support a
               | functioning society take such anarchic philosophy
               | seriously?
               | 
               | > the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two
               | sets of conflicting reasons.
               | 
               | This is terrible reasoning, for the opposite reason you
               | seem to be arguing:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
        
               | ryandv wrote:
               | This is a textbook strawman. Did you understand the
               | passage quoted? John Stuart Mill clearly admits of a
               | hierarchy of knowledge, ranging from the absolute truth
               | of mathematics to progressively less "objective" fields
               | (or perhaps, merely "a posteriori" truths), e.g. morals,
               | religion, politics. Here is another excerpt from the
               | paragraph:                   But when we turn to subjects
               | infinitely more         complicated, to morals, religion,
               | politics, social relations, and the         business of
               | life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed
               | opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which
               | favour some opinion         different from it. The
               | greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left
               | it on record that he always studied his adversary's case
               | with as great,         if not with still greater,
               | intensity than even his own.
               | 
               | https://xkcd.com/435/
               | 
               | P.S. Can you demonstrate how the scientific method was
               | applied when you reached the conclusion that this
               | supposed "real pipeline" exists?
        
               | mikkergp wrote:
               | I never talked about a "real pipeline" that was someone
               | else, also this is a very let me google that for you type
               | question but here goes:
               | 
               | https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-
               | fake-n...
               | 
               | This was a great podcast:
               | 
               | https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/12/02/504155809/e
               | pis...
               | 
               | The research on this stuff is fascinating.
        
             | dogleash wrote:
             | > there's a very real pipeline in which people with less-
             | trained critical thinking skills
             | 
             | If this is your opinion, perhaps the problem is that
             | society undervalues critical thinking skills. Not that an
             | entertainer isn't shilling in the correct directions.
        
               | ryandv wrote:
               | If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be
               | cultivated, a thing         which Protestants at least do
               | not deny, on what can these faculties be         more
               | appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things
               | which         concern him so much that it is considered
               | necessary for him to hold         opinions on them?
               | - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)
               | 
               | Perhaps the cause of this problem is refusing society the
               | opportunity to exercise their critical thinking skills.
               | 
               | No matter, we can just spoonfeed everyone the received
               | and accepted wisdom. Then there will be no need for any
               | faculties of discernment.                   The Catholic
               | Church has its own way of dealing with this
               | embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between
               | those who can         be permitted to receive its
               | doctrines on conviction, and those who must
               | accept them on trust.
        
           | Kye wrote:
           | I listened to a few episodes. I concur with the assessment of
           | Rogan as not being too bright. And not in a wholesome way. He
           | isn't just ignorant, he's fiercely defensive of positions
           | that are based entirely on the strength of "I'm just saying!
           | Who can really say? Here's what I say:" no matter how many
           | times people try to reach him.
        
           | lazyeye wrote:
           | Agree completely. Joe Rogan gets attacked because he is
           | successful ( large audience) and he doesnt constrain himself
           | to the narrow railroad tracks of a particular ideology (which
           | would be incredibly boring).
        
         | philwelch wrote:
         | I've always felt that in a strong episode of the Joe Rogan
         | Experience, you don't actually experience too much of Joe
         | Rogan. If you're going to do a long form interview show, part
         | of being a gracious host is to be open to what the guest has to
         | say. And frankly, I'd much rather that people adopt Joe Rogan's
         | humble attitude of "I don't know" than cop an overconfident
         | attitude because they think they know everything. If you want
         | to listen to some opinionated loudmouth like that, you're in
         | luck because they all have their own podcasts.
        
         | deebosong wrote:
         | Not sure if this is what you're pointing at, but I feel
         | similarly about those who very much enjoy talking about new and
         | different ideas/ perspectives, but are loathe to test out, live
         | out, and integrate new and challenging ideas into their belief
         | systems. It's more like, there's a relegated space in their
         | minds for "ideas to consider and discuss, even agree with and
         | champion," but that relegated space is removed from their core
         | value system, which has no intention to be challenged, tinkered
         | with, examined, and open to replacing faulty mechanisms and
         | functions.
         | 
         | Seems like talking about ideas for some is more a form of
         | amusement/ entertainment/ mental stimulation (in the same way
         | recreational or escapist drugs can be mentally stimulating),
         | especially if there are no outward signs & indications that a
         | person is committed to testing out, applying, integrating, and
         | even replacing formerly held and inferior ideas - a process
         | which involves a lot of trial end error, failures, humility,
         | perseverance, and delayed gratification. It might seem open-
         | minded and intellectual, but if across time, there's no change
         | in belief via deeper understanding from considering new and
         | different perspectives, that then results in outward action,
         | then all the talk in the world about ideas and perspectives is
         | just hot air.
         | 
         | Maybe that's not Joe Rogan and his loyal audience? I dunno!
        
           | robocat wrote:
           | Echos of https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/criticism-of-
           | criticism...
        
           | philwelch wrote:
           | It's useful to be able to run code in a sandboxed
           | environment.
           | 
           | Or, in other words, the ideas and values that people live
           | their lives by usually work for them, to some degree. Often
           | in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Making changes to a
           | working system that one relies on isn't something to be done
           | lightly. You can see this with a specific subset of
           | psychedelics enthusiasts, who end up completely fracturing
           | their ability to function in reality. Or in people who don't
           | have a working value and belief system in the first place and
           | end up being preyed on by cults.
           | 
           | Human life is infinitely complex. None of us have it figured
           | out, and none of us are going to figure it out even if we
           | lived for a thousand years. What's the biggest code change
           | you think you can make to a working piece of software without
           | introducing a bug? That entire piece of software is only a
           | fraction as complicated as the human condition.
           | 
           | > It might seem open-minded and intellectual, but if across
           | time, there's no change in belief via deeper understanding
           | from considering new and different perspectives, that then
           | results in outward action, then all the talk in the world
           | about ideas and perspectives is just hot air.
           | 
           | Sure. Is that so bad? The cautionary tale on the other side
           | of the ledger is every failed attempt to build a utopia based
           | on theory. This sort of thing was one of the leading causes
           | of unnatural death in the 20th century.
           | 
           | To be clear, I think it's definitely possible to err on the
           | other side as well. But erring on the other side looks like
           | being unwilling to play with ideas at all. You need a
           | sandboxed environment if you're going to play with ideas, and
           | even when an idea is promising enough that you might want to
           | take it out of the sandbox, it's hard to tell whether that's
           | because of the merits of the idea or just a vulnerability in
           | your sandbox.
        
           | golemotron wrote:
           | > Not sure if this is what you're pointing at, but I feel
           | similarly about those who very much enjoy talking about new
           | and different ideas/ perspectives, but are loathe to test
           | out, live out, and integrate new and challenging ideas into
           | their belief systems.
           | 
           | This sounds very much like philosophy. In general, readers of
           | philosophy enjoy looking at many frames without privileging
           | any particular one.
        
             | tsol wrote:
             | I think it's a common modern/ academic take on philosophy.
             | Traditionally Greek, Christian, Islamic, Chinese, etc
             | philosophers all lived their beliefs.
        
         | bko wrote:
         | If someone is an expert in their field or has a depth of
         | experience, I'd prefer him to be challenged by someone with a
         | similar level of expertise. Lex Fridman does this where he
         | tries to challenge people but can't articulate it and ends up
         | asking "can you steelman some criticisms to what you're doing".
         | I get it, but if you can't really articulate an argument, just
         | keep the person talking and you'll eventually learn more.
         | 
         | For instance, if you're talking to a Bitcoin developer and you
         | ask them "what about the energy use", it's just a boring
         | question that's been asked millions of times. You likely know
         | the answer. I'd much rather they get in the weeds about some
         | proposal or technical issue.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | That requires a podcaster that's an expert in everything, or
           | an interview on a super niche, super low subscriber, topic
           | specific podcast. Odds are against both.
        
             | SyneRyder wrote:
             | I think that just defined what I like about all the
             | podcasts I listen to. Topic specific, hosted by someone
             | with significant experience in their field.
             | 
             | I would much rather listen to a musician interviewed by
             | someone with experience with recording & songwriting &
             | making albums, who can ask intelligent questions about the
             | craft & process & equipment. (Warren Huart's interviews
             | with music producers are a great example.) Not some random
             | gossip journalist asking "So what are your inspirations on
             | this album" and "what can we expect from your tour".
        
             | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
             | Or it requires a podcaster that does some research and
             | preps questions, including soliciting questions from the
             | guest's peer community. This is like journalism 101 stuff
             | but because Joe is a podcaster no one has the basic
             | expectation of it.
        
             | bko wrote:
             | Right which is fine, in which case I'd prefer to hear the
             | person being interviewed just speak candidly and the
             | interviewer to offer little guidance. It's a more natural
             | conversation style, like one I would have with someone at a
             | dinner party about their field of expertise.
        
             | homarp wrote:
             | or a podcaster who prepares their interview ?
        
               | nomel wrote:
               | No, original comment was:
               | 
               | > If someone is an expert in their field or has a depth
               | of experience, I'd prefer him to be challenged by someone
               | with a similar level of expertise.
               | 
               | Preparing for an interview will give you some superficial
               | understanding, which will probably fall apart during the
               | interview, unless the interviewer is very
               | intelligent/curious (Sean Carroll's Mindscape and Newtons
               | Apple comes to mind).
               | 
               | Another alternative would be to have people on both sides
               | present, but I've never seen that work out. The
               | discussion you get with hostility is nowhere near the
               | discussion you get with curiosity.
        
               | chimineycricket wrote:
               | Joe Rogan doesn't interview people. He might have stuff
               | that he wants to bring up, but most of the conversation
               | is organic which is part of the appeal I think.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | originalvichy wrote:
       | I will disagree with things he says and not personally like that
       | he gives some people access to a huge audience, but I will never
       | discredit the fact that he (and others behind the scenes) have
       | made it this far by being sort of podcasting purists.
       | 
       | There might be only two major changes JRE has gone through
       | content wise during the hundreds of episodes: no more co-host and
       | no live broadcast. That's remarkably good and he had good enough
       | taste to not ever take part in things like mid-show ads (as in
       | stopping the chat in its tracks and starting to read ads).
       | 
       | It's rare that someone can land it so early on and keep that
       | magic recipe going. I bet touring radio shows for his
       | entertainment business helped him gauge what kinds of radio shows
       | were nice vs. the ones that were cumbersome.
        
         | kyleee wrote:
         | there are mid show ads now on spotify
        
           | originalvichy wrote:
           | True but they are different from ad reads that hosts do
           | during the show. From what I understand they are pre/post-
           | recorded ads that are added in digitally. Not live reads.
        
       | hericium wrote:
       | "Depressed? Just get over it". This guy is (edit: in my opinion)
       | an idiot. He's a successful showman but (edit: in my opinion) a
       | moron nonetheless. I've watched a few of his interviews and it
       | always seemed like he's lacking personality - he always tried to
       | copy the behavior of his guests and lacked own viewpoint.
        
         | registeredcorn wrote:
         | >he always tried to copy the behavior of his guests and lacked
         | own viewpoint.
         | 
         | Have you ever had to make an effort to be overly agreeable with
         | others in order to avoid conflict? I would imagine that a talk
         | show host would make a point of trying to keep things civil in
         | order to keep the "back and fourth" open.
         | 
         | If the guest and the host were immediately pissed at each
         | other, it would be a lot more difficult to carry on a
         | conversation.
        
           | hericium wrote:
           | No, not "overly". Everything has limits and I hope I won't
           | ever have to pretend to be someone else for the sake of
           | money. His "show" is made to entertain and to make money.
           | Overly quickly turns into overenthusiastically and fake. He
           | chooses to be a fake while pretending to be Joe Rogan. And
           | Joe Rogan was someone else in every episode I've seen.
        
             | registeredcorn wrote:
             | https://www.sellingantiques.co.uk/photosnew/dealer_lornabys
             | k...
        
         | seper8 wrote:
         | >"Depressed? Just get over it".
         | 
         | Looks like someone doesn't actually listen to JRE but parrots
         | some talking head viewpoints instead.
        
           | ilogik wrote:
        
             | seper8 wrote:
             | And this link proves that by ..?
        
             | realce wrote:
        
               | i_love_limes wrote:
        
               | realce wrote:
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | From the guidelines
         | (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
         | 
         | > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't
         | cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer,
         | including at the rest of the community.
         | 
         | I certainly understand not liking Rogan, but your comments
         | aren't really on point. Idiot? Moron? Lacking personality?
         | "always tried to copy the behavior of his guests and lacked own
         | viewpoint"?
         | 
         | These do not appear to be the observations of someone who's
         | actually watched the show.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | hericium wrote:
           | I appreciate your comment and indeed two of three statements
           | (idiot and moron) lacked opinion wording and were stated as a
           | facts. I have edited my comment in a way that doesn't
           | invalidate yours.
           | 
           | But you're not right regarding me not watching "the show".
           | I've seen the interview with Musk in which Musk said "this
           | stuff doesn't work on me" while pretending to inhale smoke
           | from a pot joint. I've seen Dan Aykroyd interview which was
           | basically Dan Aykroyd advertising his skull-bottled vodka.
           | I've seen dr. Rhonda Patrick episode, dr. David Sinclair
           | episode and maybe 10 to 15 more episodes.
           | 
           | I'm not ashamed to admit that I went through a very brief
           | "this guy is fucking cool!" phase but after really getting to
           | hear what he's got to say, my opinion of him is that he's a
           | behavioral copycat and a moron.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | a) The guidelines are meant to govern discourse between
           | people in this community.
           | 
           | b) If I want to call Joe Rogan an idiot because I find his
           | views and lack of intellectual rigour to be commensurate with
           | that of someone who is ignorant and reckless then not sure
           | what the issue is. He is a public figure after all.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | PedroBatista wrote:
         | Would be possible he lets his guests talk and expose their
         | point of view without the pressure of being immediately
         | "opinion bombarded"?
         | 
         | I would argue it's mostly a podcast, not a CNN/FoxNews
         | interview. But since I only listen occasionally and feel
         | there's a lot of emotion attached to this subject ( for some
         | reason ) I might be wrong...
        
         | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
         | This thread is a treasure trove of people who have skimmed
         | content from JRE yet somehow have more insight into the show
         | than the fans they seem to despise.
        
           | stoplying1 wrote:
           | Funny, the gutteral emotional reactions seem much stronger
           | from people defending their totally not parasocial streamer
           | relationship!
           | 
           | It's so hard respecting people that still fall for Joe's
           | obvious shtick at this point. A child just asking "why?" over
           | and over would be as interesting, and would likely come
           | without the platforming of altright folks and semi constant
           | COVID misinformation.
           | 
           | Edit: honestly why did I even post in this thread. I guess I
           | should've skimmed other posters comments before writing some
           | of my replies. Yikes.
        
             | spookthesunset wrote:
             | > platforming altright folks and semi constant COVID
             | misinformation
             | 
             | In other words, he hosts people with viewpoints that some
             | disagree with. And with covid there is like about 6-12
             | month lag between when something is "misinformation" and it
             | becomes "we always knew this'. Example: The vaccines don't
             | stop transmission. Covid could have been a lab leak.
             | Lockdowns fuck over the working class and kids. Etc, etc,
             | etc...
             | 
             | Most of the time "misinformation" is just a derogatory way
             | to frame something one disagrees with.
        
         | sn0w_crash wrote:
         | I guess many of us enjoy listening to an idiot/moron talk for 2
         | hours.
        
           | SQueeeeeL wrote:
           | Is that a problem? Legitimately, we glorify traditional
           | metrics of intelligence, but just because someone might not
           | be able to ace an SAT test doesn't automatically make their
           | perspective invalid or mean they can't be interesting and
           | make art (I feel like Joe Rogan would probably be good on
           | most intelligence metrics though, but in general)
        
             | threeseed wrote:
             | > doesn't automatically make their perspective invalid
             | 
             | It does when they start affecting people's lives in serious
             | ways.
             | 
             | For example him pushing ivermectin.
        
               | SQueeeeeL wrote:
               | It's still a valid perspective, just harmful.
               | 
               | Having a large platform/following does not automatically
               | make someone trustworthy. Low key, why do we live in a
               | country where the opinion of an MMA judge/podcaster
               | influences people so much, it's impossible to endlessly
               | validate any claim.
               | 
               | We may need to transition to a more authoritarian model
               | of speech in which content produced by an individual
               | should be truthful, or we just endlessly play wac-a-mole
               | on the latest rando who gains a following
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | What a horrifying comment. You can't seriously believe
               | that we should start censoring speech just because some
               | random podcast guest might have stated some medical
               | misinformation. Do you really want the government
               | deciding whom is allowed to speak? Pretty soon they'll
               | decide to censor someone you agree with, for your own
               | good of course. Don't be naive.
        
               | sn0w_crash wrote:
               | "Do you really want the government deciding whom is
               | allowed to speak?"
               | 
               | The answer to this question is yes.
        
               | kyleee wrote:
               | it goes to show just how upset it makes people that the
               | JRE podcast exists and is successful. a peculiar insight
               | into how controlling people are that they'd casually
               | suggest we may need "a more authoritarian model of
               | speech" just to combat a weird celebtrity talking to
               | people for 2-3 hours
        
               | SQueeeeeL wrote:
               | My point was more complaining about Joe Rogan feels like
               | it misses the forest for the trees. We have very liberal
               | speech laws, and that means people can say stupid shit
               | that some individuals may follow. Holding individuals to
               | account for the consequences of their words _is_ more
               | authoritarian, I don 't personally inject myself with
               | horse dewormer so I don't really care
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | fleddr wrote:
       | Joe Rogan is a perfect mirror for the US's ultra polarized
       | society, which is humorless, performative, ultra correct, and
       | politically intolerant.
        
         | tomasaugustus wrote:
         | A profoundly narcissistic people hence: no humor lest someone
         | laugh at them, only pretending to project an image, taking
         | threats to that image violently as seen by your downvotes
        
           | fleddr wrote:
           | Not downvotes, I call them California votes :)
           | 
           | A people so detached from reality, common sense and common
           | people that they might as well be considered a separate
           | species.
        
       | jimmydddd wrote:
       | There are many good/great podcasts out now that don't hesitate to
       | conduct 1-3 hour meandering interviews with interesting people on
       | a regular basis. I don't recall seeing that before JRE. So even
       | if you never listen to his show, I think he has improved the
       | media landscape.
        
       | O__________O wrote:
       | Curious, beside interview below, are there any other notable
       | breakdowns by JRE directly of the show style, process, etc?
       | 
       | YouTube: Joe Rogan Explains His Interview Style
       | 
       | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uP62FNQTI-o
        
       | realce wrote:
       | Wow, JRE makes this site lose their minds. That's odd.
        
         | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
        
           | realce wrote:
           | someone call the burn ward!
        
           | doliveira wrote:
           | You're not really helping his image if the comeback you come
           | up with is "they're jealous of Joe Rogan's testosterone".
           | God, I certainly hope you're a teenager.
        
             | realce wrote:
             | _gasp gulp and gnash_
        
       | user00012-ab wrote:
        
         | conorcleary wrote:
         | Because of comments like this.
        
           | user00012-ab wrote:
           | have you seen the comments in this thread? I think mine
           | actually was actually pretty good.
           | 
           | I was serious, are there any tech news sites out there?
        
             | conorcleary wrote:
             | Go back to Digg for a bit and you'll find that HN is a
             | great tech news site.
        
       | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
       | Nothing in this article is particularity unexpected, but this
       | line had me chuckling.
       | 
       | "To paraphrase Rule 34: if it exists, Joe Rogan's studio has
       | jerky of it."
        
       | danpalmer wrote:
       | What concerns me about Joe Rogan, and what this article helped
       | solidify, is not necessarily his views, but the power he has as
       | one person.
       | 
       | In my opinion he has taken some problematic view points, but
       | others would agree with him more, and many would say he just
       | plays devil's advocate and likes to talk hypotheticals and dig
       | into interesting topics. I don't think any of this really
       | matters.
       | 
       | The issue is that the views come from one guy, get amplified in
       | some man-cave banter with a few guys paid by him, and then
       | broadcast to an audience "larger than Belgium". This isn't
       | normal. Media companies have layers of editors, they have at
       | least some diversity, a woman will hopefully look at a story or
       | script before it goes out, sometimes even a lawyer might tell
       | them to tone it down a bit. Even celebrities with big followings
       | on social media are likely to have more input on many of their
       | postings than Rogan does on his broadcasts.
       | 
       | A bit of a filter is a good thing for everyone, whether it's
       | trusted friends who can and do tell you when you're wrong, an
       | editor at work, a legal team, whatever. It's also honest. I think
       | Joe Rogan could use a filter.
        
         | ElCheapo wrote:
         | Joe Rogan is able to produce a podcast in which the topics
         | covered and the tones used are not really dictated by
         | advertisers. This is as good and independent as it gets. The
         | podcast should be a prime example of what the web should be
         | about: genuine content free from higher up control and
         | censorship.
         | 
         | The problem seems to be that you don't like this kind of
         | content and would much prefer "safer" things to be popular, but
         | that's exactly how we get harmless TV shows and meaningless
         | music ruining the fun for everyone.
        
         | logicalmonster wrote:
         | You know, I don't even particularly like Joe Rogan or agree
         | with him on many issues, but I'd say that your mentality here
         | is just about everything wrong with big corporate media
         | companies.
         | 
         | Every opinion that deviates slightly outside of the current
         | zeitgeist has to be watered-down, censored, scoffed down upon,
         | and diminished.
         | 
         | Everything has to be reviewed by bloodsucking lawyers rather
         | than talking like a normal human being.
         | 
         | Somehow a lone white man is not allowed to express his opinion
         | without a layer of ''diversity'' to somehow make it acceptable.
         | 
         | Joe has a following bigger than Belgium precisely because the
         | rest of the media is such a bland and fake piece of shit for
         | the reasons you mentioned. If you want to point the finger at
         | anybody for the success of Joe Rogan, look in the mirror buddy.
        
         | TMWNN wrote:
         | >In my opinion he has taken some problematic view points
         | 
         | Your comment is more evidence of the notion that "problematic"
         | is the woke religion's "blasphemous".
        
         | DharmaPolice wrote:
         | Given the responses to this post, I think you should have
         | someone in your team read it a few times and filter our some of
         | the problematic views.
        
           | seper8 wrote:
           | Perfect :)
        
         | thebigjewbowski wrote:
         | > Media companies have layers of editors, they have at least
         | some diversity, a woman will hopefully look at a story or
         | script before it goes out, sometimes even a lawyer might tell
         | them to tone it down a bit
         | 
         | Sometimes editors and a corporate machine behind the news isn't
         | the best thing.
         | 
         | Take, for example, Amy Robach. A CBS reporter who wanted to air
         | the Jeffery Epstein story years before he was arrested for the
         | second time. Then ABC tipping off CBS and the leaker being
         | fired.
         | 
         | There's also the Chris Cuomo basement scandal.
         | 
         | Or Brian Williams lying about his experience covering Iraq.
         | 
         | Or Glenn Greenwald and Bari Weiss being pushed out of their
         | newspapers.
         | 
         | Or studies showing that the media covered Russia's invasion of
         | Ukraine far more than the US invasion of Iraq.
         | 
         | Or censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Also haven't
         | seen much about the contents of the diary in the mainstream
         | press...
         | 
         | The media has failed time and time again on what I outlined
         | above and much more. They have an agenda, be it left or right,
         | that is larger than any one person and are largely beholden to
         | advertisers and whatnot.
         | 
         | I applaud independent media. There are a lot of people doing
         | really great work on substack. Jimmy Dore, for example, does
         | amazing reporting and really shows the bias of the media.
         | 
         | People like Alex Berenson, Matt Taibi, Glenn Greenwald, etc are
         | doing really great investigative reporting that I once
         | respected mainstream outlets for.
         | 
         | Just because someone has a large audience doesn't mean they
         | should be censored. Talking to people about things for hours is
         | invaluable and Rogan does a great job on his show.
         | 
         | https://nypost.com/2019/11/05/abc-news-amy-robach-claims-net...
         | 
         | https://www.theblaze.com/shows/the-glenn-beck-program/cbs-fi...
         | 
         | https://freebeacon.com/media/chris-cuomo-fakes-emerging-from...
         | 
         | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-williams-credibility-ques...
         | 
         | https://www.globalissues.org/news/2022/04/12/30585
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...
        
         | oliv__ wrote:
         | Yes, please someone get him a woman, christ a lawyer,
         | something, someone to review his podcast! We can't allow
         | someone to simply speak their mind, think of what might happen
         | if people got the hang of that!
         | 
         | The amount of authoritarianism in this comment is staggering
        
         | DeWilde wrote:
         | The lack of filter is why CNN can only dream to have Rogan's
         | viewership numbers.
         | 
         | Maybe we don't need to water down every piece of information
         | and discussion that exists.
        
         | mistermann wrote:
         | How is a filter (a sort of censorship or constraint) more
         | honest than nothing one? I can see it being _more thruthful_
         | (and also less), but honest seems off.
        
         | seper8 wrote:
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
        
             | itsthemmrvax wrote:
        
         | mantas wrote:
         | > a woman will hopefully look at a story
         | 
         | Sexism much?
        
           | csunbird wrote:
           | I am not sure why this was down voted, as sexism work both
           | ways. Asking a woman to review a man's content is the same
           | thing as asking a man to review a woman's content, and most
           | people would not be fine with the second.
        
             | SilverBirch wrote:
             | Absolutely, most people wouldn't be fine with the second,
             | because most people have grown up in a society where men
             | have held the overwhelming majority of positions of
             | privilege and power. When we're talking about a woman
             | taking looking at a man's work what we're really saying is
             | "That work environment might be so dominated by men that
             | there isn't even a single woman in the office who could
             | provide a different perspective due to her lived
             | experience". The counter "Well a man should look over this
             | work" invests a world in which a workplace could be so
             | dominated by women that they would lack even a single man
             | to offer an opinion on a piece of work. The idea that a
             | reporter at a news organization could have an entire
             | management chain above them of exclusively men isn't far-
             | fetched. The counter - a woman only chain of management
             | would be incredibly rare.
             | 
             | It's important that we see the world as it is, rather than
             | as some theoretical thing out that where we can just plug
             | in different variables and go "Well now look!"
        
               | mantas wrote:
               | Why should we even go for opinion of opposite gender?
               | What's next, ensure that all political groups offer an
               | opinion? All socioeconomic classes? All age groups? I'd
               | say opinion of average man and woman are much closer than
               | other splits.
        
               | SilverBirch wrote:
               | Errr... yes. We should basically be aiming to take into
               | account a wide range of experiences and perspectives when
               | forming our opinions, and by surrounding himself with a
               | clique of bro-y young men Rogan provides a very narrow
               | perspective on the world, and arguably a big part of the
               | reason he's so popular is because he doesn't really
               | challenge the perspectives of his audience.
        
               | mantas wrote:
               | Yes and no.
               | 
               | We have a wide variety of media outlets to expose
               | experience of different groups. That fulfils what you're
               | looking for. You can find opinions of pretty much any
               | group no matter what.
               | 
               | What your proposal would do, most groups wouldn't get a
               | chance to translate their experiences. Biggest and/or
               | loudest group would dominate the narrative. Everyone else
               | would be tuned out to bigger or smaller degree.
               | 
               | Actually, we already had your solution. Back in TV-
               | dominated era. Only vetted content would make it to the
               | public. With marginal groups silenced. Well, those
               | marginal groups just started tiny podcasts to tell their
               | stories :)
               | 
               | What do you think would happen if you take those tiny
               | podcasts and force them to act like big media of the old
               | days? Can you silence some dude streaming from his
               | kitchen?
        
               | Happos wrote:
               | Hey Joe, we can't release last week's episode yet because
               | focus group #12 is running behind.
        
         | fareesh wrote:
         | I don't want this great show to be influenced by what other
         | people find problematic. Joe Rogan himself has an opinion
         | regarding what is a problem and what is not. Since it is his
         | show, he should run it the way he wants and presumably he will
         | say something when he has a problem with it. This has always
         | been the case.
        
         | itsthemmrvax wrote:
        
         | kranke155 wrote:
         | There are always people like this and Joe is not the most
         | problematic we've had to be honest.
         | 
         | Yes he's never taken his show as a responsibility/burden to
         | seek out some absolute truth to to guide men to an utopian
         | future through his influence - but in those respects he would
         | have likely failed had he fallen for that trap - the whole
         | point of his show is this is who he is and he is not trying to
         | make YOU do anything (maybe exercise ?). This is just something
         | he does and he does his best not to think about it.
        
         | belval wrote:
         | I never listened to his podcast (I don't even know the guy),
         | but you might want to re-read your comment and think about the
         | totalitarian undertone.
         | 
         | You are not the great enlightened above a sea of unwashed
         | masses.
        
         | cfcosta wrote:
         | I find this take really surprising. He has a huge reach, but
         | you kinda need to go out of your way to watch him, and the
         | people that do, do it exactly because of the lack of filter.
         | 
         | If I wanted to listen to something sanitized and approved by a
         | legal team I would just watch CNN or Fox News.
        
         | refurb wrote:
         | I mean, that's pretty much what the media does. They claim they
         | do more fact checking and take an unbias stance, but that's
         | been disproven too many times.
         | 
         | I don't see anyone getting worked up that Dan Rather has "too
         | much power as one person"
        
         | mfDjB wrote:
         | His audience disagrees that he needs a filter. The filtered
         | content you are talking about is abundant, authentic content is
         | scarce, that's why he pulls the audience size he pulls. His
         | reach would be smaller if we took the filters off other
         | sources.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | You seem awfully concerned about someone who doesn't fit the
         | usual media profiles. You may want to look at the rankings of
         | more conventional shows. They've been dwindling for decades.
         | People are really, really tired of that stuff. Trust in them is
         | vanishingly low, below even Congress and lawyers. Diversity? He
         | literally is diversity. You just spent a whole post talking
         | about how he's different from the usual legacy media
         | mouthpieces.
         | 
         | Also... how do you know he doesn't get plenty of input?
         | 
         | > This isn't normal.
         | 
         | Literally no popular media figure is remotely close to normal.
        
         | bioemerl wrote:
         | > This isn't normal. Media companies have layers of editors,
         | they have at least some diversity, a woman will hopefully look
         | at a story or script before it goes out,
         | 
         | Jesus Christ, do you understand what you're saying here? A man
         | can't speak and be heard without a woman going over it first?
        
           | sergiotapia wrote:
        
           | seper8 wrote:
           | Imagine telling a woman having a podcast to make sure that a
           | man looks over the script first before it goes out...
        
             | thrown_22 wrote:
             | I mean that sounds like a good idea.
             | 
             | Also a five year old.
        
           | realce wrote:
        
         | LatteLazy wrote:
         | Of course, the exact some criticism could be made of anyone
         | that famous. Obama for instance had no editors, I doubt Bernie
         | Sander's has a woman or a lawyer pre-approve his opinions
         | either...
         | 
         | One of the things I respect about Joe Rogan (I am not really a
         | listener unless someone wants to discuss a particular show in
         | my social circle) is how often he says (and seems to mean)
         | "don't listen to me, wtf do I know" or words to that effect.
        
           | lashloch wrote:
           | You respect someone who... hedges their statements? And then
           | profits from saying those things anyway?
        
             | LatteLazy wrote:
             | I respect someone who seems to honestly admit they do not
             | know, and that it's ok to not be sure. And I respect anyone
             | who encourages others to think for themselves (though that
             | failed pretty drastically with Covid).
             | 
             | Compare that any politician who is 100% sure of X until X
             | is only supported by 49% of people.
        
         | thr0wawayf00 wrote:
         | We can't pretend like all media companies care about promoting
         | balanced, thoughtful and inclusive commentary. That's just not
         | reality.
         | 
         | There's a ton of money to be made pushing agendas and peddling
         | hate. And then you run into the age-old question: who controls
         | the filter? How do you regulate controversial content?
        
         | mindwok wrote:
         | Joe doesn't need a filter. Maybe if he wanted to appeal to more
         | people, he could use one. But he doesn't really care about
         | being controversial it seems. Let people make up their own
         | minds I say, the same way you have.
        
         | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
         | > Media companies
         | 
         | HEAVEN FORBID we have a single publication that doesn't have
         | four teams of people checking lists of who can't be mentioned
         | in a negative fashion....
        
         | ArtWomb wrote:
         | It's hilarious for me personally to see the "I trust Joe Rogan
         | more than I trust Joe Biden" slogans, because I've never
         | listened to a single episode, and I only really know him from
         | the 90s cult sitcom "News Radio" ;)
         | 
         | I will say that the Jimmy James Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
         | reading is one of my fav things ever to be broadcast on
         | American television!
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM0dKm9BqT0
        
         | koheripbal wrote:
         | I have seen "problematic" viewpoints on CNN and Fox News, both
         | of which have audiences orders of magnitude larger than Rogan.
         | Should we "filter" those also? Should we filter you too for
         | advocating for filters on others?
         | 
         | You inherently infantilize the public when you assume they
         | agree with, or are indoctrinated by, media they consume. Adults
         | are capable of disagreeing with long form content they consume.
         | 
         | What is more damaging are the sound bytes and headlines that
         | get amplified on short form social media like Facebook,
         | Twitter, and Reddit, which offer conclusions and misinformation
         | and not conversations.
         | 
         | Joe Rogan is a bit of an idiot, but his audience mostly knows
         | that. They listen to him because there are nuggets of truth in
         | his podcast that most MSM won't report.
        
           | edmundsauto wrote:
           | Rogan is claiming 11M listeners per episode, CNN and Fox News
           | ratings peak around 1M for their primetime shows. I'm not
           | sure how to make a total viewership comparison, but it
           | appears like they're in the approximately same scale.
        
         | silvestrov wrote:
         | > What concerns me [...] the power he has as one person
         | 
         | What concerns me is that the traditional media are not able to
         | make interesting podcasts that connect as well with most
         | people.
         | 
         | Don't blame Joe Rogan for what he does, blame everybody else
         | for not being able to do the same.
         | 
         | Joe Rogan has no power by himself, only by traditional media
         | not wanting to let people talk freely on the radio anymore. No
         | one runs unedited interviews anymore. Everything is massaged
         | into the viewpoint that the journalist already has.
        
         | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
         | The filter is in your brain. If you need a team of editors to
         | sift through and analyze thoughts before they reach your brain
         | YOU are the problem and YOU CANNOT THINK properly.
        
         | inglor_cz wrote:
         | Don't mistake the visible for the real.
         | 
         | People like Zuckerberg have orders of magnitude more power, but
         | they aren't so easily seen and heard.
         | 
         | There will always be powerful people, and a moderator like
         | Rogan isn't anywhere near to the top of the ladder.
        
         | drexlspivey wrote:
         | > A bit of a filter is a good thing for everyone, whether it's
         | trusted friends who can and do tell you when you're wrong, an
         | editor at work, a legal team, whatever. It's also honest. I
         | think Joe Rogan could use a filter.
         | 
         | Cool, who do you suggest should do the filtering? We could
         | create a ministry of censorship.
        
       | ksec wrote:
       | I thought his was cancelled by the woke. But simply judging from
       | comments on HN he is alive and kicking.
       | 
       | Edit: And it is funny this is getting downvoted. A thread with
       | 400 comments but only 160 points.
        
         | ctf1er wrote:
         | I think Neil Young tried to cancel him right? Young is from a
         | different generation than me, but I had the notion he'd be more
         | free-speak/free-thought/don't trust the man minded. Maybe that
         | is what happens when a pharma exec buys your catalog? Or was
         | that misinformation?
        
       | raarts wrote:
       | And even on HN Joe Rogan succeeds in achieving lots of
       | engagement...
       | 
       | Regardless, I like his interviews and his guests are often very
       | interesting _especially_ when their views go against the grain.
       | Take his recent interview with Alex Berenson for example, the
       | only person ever to litigate himself back into Twitter after a
       | lifelong ban, great interview.
        
       | Melatonic wrote:
       | The problem I have with his stuff is that he used to be a lot
       | more self deprecating in his humour. It made the show more casual
       | - he took him self less seriously - and there was more comedy
       | overall. Now that he seems to take himself so much more seriously
       | it seems like he is just following the money in terms of what
       | content he knows will be popular vs just having interesting
       | guests on his show to have a discussion.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ggm wrote:
       | Anyone here remember a page or three in "the glass bead game"
       | about feuilletonism and the rise of interviewing roller skating
       | boxers about politics and politicians about art history?
        
       | kranke155 wrote:
       | The size of his man cave is awe inspiring.
       | 
       | Anything that we build is an extension of our mind, and oh lord
       | is that an interesting choice of props, pictures and workout
       | machines.
        
         | desindol wrote:
         | Inspiring? In what form or sense is excess spending for
         | signaling purposes inspiring. Do you really believe he uses
         | more than 20% of the stuff that's in there?
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
           | Ah yes? It looks to me like a personal gym and it has all the
           | machines you'd want in a good circuit. I myself must use
           | 10-12 machines in my regular weekly routine. I don't see why
           | he wouldn't do the same.
        
             | desindol wrote:
             | ,,all the stuff" not the gym...
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
           | Looking at it again it literally looks like he has 6-7
           | machines, mostly cardio, then lots and lots of weights.
           | Nothing too crazy to me.
        
             | desindol wrote:
             | ,,all the stuff" not the gym...
        
       | Entinel wrote:
       | I've listened to a few episodes of JRE at the request of some
       | friends and I kind of get it but I also don't get it. Joe ask the
       | "dumb questions." The questions you would ask if you as a laymen
       | were sitting in front of a Nobel Prize winning scientist like if
       | Star Wars lightsabers are actually possible and a lot of people
       | find that entertaining and I get it.
       | 
       | But people have this weird way of taking things they like and not
       | only rejecting criticism but making it their whole identity. Joe
       | can do no wrong and if people dislike him it's because they don't
       | "get it" and they are just being soft.
       | 
       | Joe also likes to deflect by saying "I'm an idiot don't listen to
       | me" which hey that's fine but if you're going to ramble about how
       | the moon is made of cheese then say "don't listen to me" but then
       | bring on a guest who is going to talk about how the moon is made
       | of cheese; the line that is being pushed is pretty clear even if
       | it is unintentional.
        
         | user3939382 wrote:
         | I've heard Jon Stewart do this. He puts all this effort into
         | political commentary and when he got called out on something
         | said "Hey my show comes on after crank yankers!" Oh so when
         | you're wrong now you shouldn't be taken seriously, I see.
        
           | thrown_22 wrote:
           | The last decade hasn't been kind to the people who I looked
           | up to when I was a teen.
           | 
           | Turns out the left wasn't any better than the right, they
           | could just be honest when they weren't in power. Once they
           | were, well it's obviously your fault for holding them to the
           | same standards they held the other team to.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | Right, I don't take Jon Stewart seriously. He's just a court
           | jester.
        
           | hotpotamus wrote:
           | I'm curious where Jon Stewart ever said he should be taken
           | seriously? On his comedy show I mean. In his testimonies to
           | congress and whatnot, he doesn't do the comedy thing.
           | 
           | I'd also say the same thing about Al Franken - he was pretty
           | deliberate about "de-comedying" or whatever it was he called
           | it when he went into his first term in the Senate. I will
           | admit that that would not have been as much work for him as
           | it would be for Stewart.
        
             | jrochkind1 wrote:
             | Why is he invited to give testimonies to congress, do you
             | think? This is not something I have the opportunity to do.
             | It's, presumably, on the basis of his comedy show? He
             | doesn't want his comedy show to be taken seriously, but he
             | wants himself to be taken seriously on the basis of that
             | comedy show? What's the difference?
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Congress routinely invites individuals to "testify" for
               | propaganda purposes. It's all for show. Remember when
               | they invited Tipper Gore to testify based on zero actual
               | qualifications?
               | 
               | https://www.npr.org/2005/01/11/4279560/tipper-gore-and-
               | famil...
        
             | mikepurvis wrote:
             | Pretty sure the GP is referring to the famous Crossfire
             | takedown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
             | 
             | There's a play by play of it on Crossfire's Wikipedia page
             | also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(American_TV_
             | program...
        
             | amalcon wrote:
             | They're probably referring to the Crossfire interview
             | (which is widely credited with getting the latter show
             | cancelled). He basically complained about the lack of depth
             | on Crossfire, and when questioned about his own show's lack
             | of depth he basically just said "It's a comedy show".
             | 
             | It's sort of a nuanced issue, since a lot of people took
             | The Daily Show seriously in that era _anyway_. The
             | difference is, of course, that Crossfire and its ilk were
             | /are unserious in subtle ways, and seemed meant to be taken
             | seriously. I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide
             | which space Joe Rogan's show lives in (I actually couldn't
             | tell you, never having seen it).
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | An ancillary point Stewart made was "the Daily Show is on
               | Comedy Central" (per memory, this was before peak Daily
               | Show popularity, so it was well-known but not famous) as
               | opposed to "Crossfire is on CNN."
               | 
               | Presumably people watch CNN for different reasons and
               | with different expectations than they watch Comedy
               | Central.
               | 
               | Tucker Carlson's rebuttal was that Jon Stewart could book
               | political guests that wouldn't come on Crossfire, so he
               | had a journalistic duty to ask hard questions.
               | 
               | Which... felt kind of weak to me. For profit media is for
               | profit, and both Crossfire and Daily Show were beholden
               | to the bottom line, and had to calibrate their behavior
               | against that. Edward Roscoe Murrow, they were not.
               | 
               | PS: My favorite Stewart line from that interview remains
               | (paraphrasing) "Crossfire isn't theater? Tucker, you're
               | 35 year old man wearing a bowtie. This is theater."
        
           | wrigby wrote:
           | This sounds like you're referring to his appearance on CNN's
           | Crossfire in the mid 2000's; here's a link for context:
           | 
           | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | To be fair, he was telling that to CNN presenters who were
           | trying to deflect his accusations that they were enabling
           | political theater by saying his show does the same thing,
           | missing the obvious point that CNN should be held to a higher
           | journalistic standard than Comedy Central.
        
           | 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
           | They are comedians. They are entertainers. Why do Americans
           | hold their entertainers in such high regard?
           | 
           | These people may put some thought into what they say. And
           | some of them may be smart people. So sometimes they have good
           | points. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes they are right.
           | And sometimes they are wrong. But you should just laugh. And
           | if they give you a new perspective on something, find out
           | more reliable source. Why are you taking jokes seriously?
        
             | bnralt wrote:
             | The vast majority of new is entertainment. If you're in a
             | deep blue area that has never voted for Trump, and you know
             | that you'll never vote for Trump, spending hours a day
             | reading about how terrible Trump is doesn't inform your
             | decision to vote. It's done because you enjoy political
             | celebrity gossip, the same way other people spend hours a
             | day watching entertainment celebrity gossip. You'd be
             | better off spending at least a fraction of the time
             | learning about local races, but very few people do that. I
             | know lots of people that can't tell you most of the people
             | they voted for the day after a primary, but say that
             | they're into "politics" because they spend hours reading
             | and commenting on national news.
             | 
             | Stewart fits right into the political infotainment
             | environment. His show was intentionally laced with jokes,
             | but other than that it was very similar to the highlight of
             | "top news stories" you'd hear on other cable news stations.
             | The depth (shallow) was probably about the same for most
             | news stories as well.
             | 
             | Stewart also, despite his claims of being just a comedian,
             | would go on serious moralistic diatribes. Someone brought
             | up his Cramer interview, and that's a good example. The guy
             | clearly doesn't view himself as just a comedian there. Like
             | Rogan, they're willing to go after and call out others as
             | if they know more than them (whether or not they do is
             | another discussion), but when called out on their failures
             | they pretend they're just goofballs and never pretended to
             | be anything more. It's dishonest.
             | 
             | Personally, I dislike Stewart because he's often prone to
             | hypocritical moral posturing. He took a unflattering
             | picture of Charlie Rangel up and laughed about his "front
             | butt." Then a year later he took Newsweek to task for
             | having a bad picture of Michelle Bachmann, saying that you
             | can argue with her politics but it's never appropriate to
             | attack someone's looks. When the only black writer on the
             | show took issue with one of his impersonations, he yelled
             | at the guy and cut ties with him. Now he's going around
             | lecturing white people about how they have to listen to
             | black people.
        
             | wccrawford wrote:
             | Perhaps a lot of people can't tell the difference between a
             | journalist and a comedian pretending to be a journalist.
             | 
             | I struggled with it for a long time, without even knowing I
             | was struggling with it. I fact-checked one of them and
             | realized the truth of the whole comedy situation, and I've
             | viewed them completely differently ever since.
        
               | user3939382 wrote:
               | > a comedian pretending to be a journalist
               | 
               | It's a cop out. Often times he's very serious about the
               | political points he's making, even if he packages the
               | point in a joke. The point or argument itself isn't a
               | joke, at all. So you can't do that but then hide behind
               | "I'm just a comedian!" when there's a flaw in your
               | argument.
        
             | P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
             | Go to youtube and look up the Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer
             | interview (this happened after the 2008 financial crisis).
             | 
             | Then look up Jon Stewart on Crossfire.
             | 
             | I can't find a version of that interview that isn't edited,
             | you really should watch the entire thing as it went out
             | over the air.
             | 
             | But here's one that shows the important parts (imo). Note
             | the timestamp is 57 seconds
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RkqzRs95Sc&t=57s
             | 
             | Jon Stewart was publicly saying what everyone wanted to
             | say. The only person he could get ahold of was Jim Cramer,
             | but you can FEEL the anger. That anger wasn't just Jon, it
             | was your average Americans.
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | Jon Stewart was consistently getting named in polls as the
             | most TRUSTWORTHY news source, and a lot of it was for this.
             | As a comedian he was pointing out the ridiculousness of the
             | politics, and he wasn't doing it because it was a
             | republican in office.
             | 
             | Because Jon Stewart was saying what most people WANTED to
             | say.
             | 
             | I can't find the skit, but during the Iraq war the US lost
             | _PALLETS_ of money. Think about that. PALLETS OF MONEY. Jon
             | Stewart did a skit where he made fun of it because how
             | ridiculous is that? You send literal pallets of money and
             | don't put enough security on it to prevent it from
             | disappearing?
             | 
             | ---
             | 
             | There's this idea of court jester's as being the only
             | people who could safely say certain things. I'm no
             | historian so I can't speak to that historical accuracy, but
             | that's how I view Jon Stewart.
             | 
             | People are aware that he's a comedian, and they're aware
             | that he's highlighting very specific things. But given the
             | news media then (and today), there's a reason he was
             | considered by many people to be the most trustworthy news
             | source.
             | 
             | When Jon made those statements about only being an
             | entertainer, he was defending himself from attacks by the
             | media, not by your every day American people. That
             | statement in particular, put in context, was him showing
             | how ridiculous it was for these organizations to be
             | attacking him.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | If people consider you the most trustworthy news source,
               | you have a responsibility to live up to that trust, which
               | saying "I'm only an entertainer" is abdicating, he was
               | saying "I'm only an entertainer, why are you trying to
               | hold me to the standards of news media?" Well, because
               | millions consider you a trustworthy news source, that's
               | why.
               | 
               | > There's this idea of court jester's as being the only
               | people who could safely say certain things. I'm no
               | historian so I can't speak to that historical accuracy,
               | but that's how I view Jon Stewart.
               | 
               | I believe that's exactly how Rogan's audience views him
               | too. I am not a fan of Rogan. But this seems pretty
               | similar. The difference is just that you disagree with
               | Rogan's fans and agree with Stewarts, ok...
               | 
               | The difference is just that you personally think Stewart
               | is generally more trustworthy than Rogan? If so (and I
               | generally agree), why didn't Stewart accept that
               | responsibility instead of trying to abdicate it with "I'm
               | only an entertainer, you can't hold me to the standards
               | of news media". Don't both Stewart and Rogan have the
               | responsibility to in fact be held to the standards of
               | news media, when millions consider them trustworthy as
               | news media? I think both of them are irresponsible and
               | acting in an _untrustworthy_ manner if they say  "I'm
               | only an entertainer, I shouldn't be held to the standards
               | of a news source", while being considered a trustworthy
               | news source by many. How do we know if someone is
               | trustworthy as a news source? By evaluating them as a
               | news source, not letting them get out of it with "I'm
               | just an entertainer, you can't hold me to that standard".
        
               | P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
               | One wonders if the you believe the negative of this
               | holds.
               | 
               | If everyone believes you're an adulterer you have a
               | responsibility to cheat on your spouse?
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | In addition, this is why cherry picking is frowned upon.
               | Jon Stewart was responding to the ridiculousness of CNN,
               | Fox, et al, running hit pieces on him, and they started
               | running hit pieces on him because they were showing up in
               | polls as less trustworthy than Jon Stewart.
               | 
               | What you're basically claiming here is that because he's
               | more trustworthy than CNN, Fox, et al, he has a
               | responsibility to trustworthiness. AT THE TIME this was
               | happening, the general sentiment was the opposite. That
               | the trustworthiness of CNN, Fox, et al was SO BAD, that
               | even a comedian, whose job it is to take things out of
               | context and stretch the truth for a laugh, was more
               | trustworthy than CNN, Fox, et al.
               | 
               | This was all going on during the second Iraq war, where
               | Bush and Cheney was giving speeches about mission
               | accomplished atop aircraft carriers with the banner
               | "Mission Accomplished" while we were still sending more
               | troops.
               | 
               | It was clearly a political maneuver and Jon Stewart was
               | making fun of it whilst CNN, et al, were mostly not
               | calling them out. But people aren't _stupid_, they knew
               | it was ingenuine. That Jon Stewart, a fricking comedian,
               | was the only public forum really highlighting how
               | disingenuous it was is WHY he was getting voted as more
               | trustworthy in polls. Jon Stewart was pointing this out.
               | 
               | And you know what? The people were fucking right. When
               | the 911 responders were getting dicked who was it that
               | fought for them? It sure as shit wasn't CNN, Fox, et al.
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | Without that context, what you're doing here is cherry
               | picking, and I suspect it's because the current "social
               | politics" surrounding joe rogan are causing younger
               | people to let it bleed over onto Jon Stewart.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | I'm 46. And a leftist. fwiw, btw.
               | 
               | No, becuase someone thinks you've done something bad
               | doesn't mean you have the have the responsibility to do
               | something bad.
               | 
               | I think Joe Rogan encourages people to build a worldview
               | off of things he says, encourages people to treat him as
               | reliable news, and profits from them doing so, both
               | monetarily and by influence over what people think. He
               | has a huge amount of influence over what people think,
               | based on people believing that he's a straight shooter.
               | Then when called on whether he's doing so responsibly,
               | whether he really is straight-shooting, he says "I'm just
               | an entertainer, it's not a relevant question". I think
               | it's irresponsible and manipulative.
               | 
               | I don't see how that has anything to do with thinking
               | someone is obligated to kill if people believe they are a
               | murderer, that's a ridiculous and silly analogy that just
               | doesn't work.
               | 
               | I think Jon Stewart did/does the same thing as Joe Rogan.
               | He has a huge amount of influence over what people think,
               | based on people believing that he's a straight shooter,
               | and he likes, _encourages_ , and profits from this trust
               | and this influence -- it is intentional. Then when called
               | on whether he's doing so responsibly, he says "I'm just
               | an entertainer, you can't expect that of me or hold me
               | accountable for it, it's not what entertainers do". I
               | think it's irresponsible and manipulative.
               | 
               | Can you be specific about how you think the cases differ?
        
               | P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
               | The point is that people are not obligated, period. This
               | obligation thing is just an attempt at trying to find
               | fault with actions that are completely reasonable.
               | 
               | As for your question, I've already explained the context
               | around Jon Stewart and I have no interest in a culture
               | war.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | It's been common for millenia that a court jester is the
               | one that tells the most truths.
               | 
               | That doesn't abdicate the press of their responsibility,
               | but is instead a sign that we've reverted back to feudal
               | power structures.
        
             | jrochkind1 wrote:
             | It's been going on at least since electing Ronald Reagan
             | president in 1980.
             | 
             | And it's not just the USA, see Ukrainian President
             | Zelenskyy, whose resume previous to being elected president
             | consisted of being a politically relevant comedian.
        
               | esyir wrote:
               | The fact that he turned out an extremely solid wartime
               | politician came as a massive surprise to me. At the very
               | least, whoever is in charge of his image is doing a
               | phenomenal job.
        
               | jrochkind1 wrote:
               | I mean, actors excel at "image", that's kind of their
               | job?
               | 
               | I saw someone make an argument that the rise of celebrity
               | politicians is about television. See also JFK, kind of
               | one of the first "celebrity" politicians in the age of TV
               | -- not that he was an actor first, but still.
        
               | badpun wrote:
               | Yep. America used-to have wheelchair-bound president 100
               | years ago, for Christ's sake. Now, it would be completely
               | impossible. Presidents have to look good, or at least
               | healthy. Even the senile Joe Biden is actually looking
               | pretty crispy.
        
               | cafard wrote:
               | FDR (not quite 100 years ago) was wheelchair-bound but
               | very cagey about it. And FDR was hardly fifteen years in
               | the grave before Nixon lost a TV debate to Kennedy by
               | looking pasty.
               | 
               | The senile Joe Biden?
        
               | BitwiseFool wrote:
               | FDR and his administration went to great lengths to hide
               | the wheelchair. They even made a panel for the resolute
               | desk to hide FDRs lower body when seated. Imaged mattered
               | then as much then as it does now.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Wheelchair users have been elected to Congress in recent
               | times. It's not impossible that one could make it to the
               | Presidency. We just don't have enough data points to draw
               | firm conclusions about how that impacts electability.
        
               | thrown_22 wrote:
               | The fact that he's a war time president at all is a
               | massive minus. He ran on a platform of letting the
               | Russian minority get more autonomy - the previous
               | government's slogan was literally military, language,
               | faith - and then launched a major operation against the
               | break away regions more or less as soon as he got in
               | power.
        
           | jrochkind1 wrote:
           | Yep, I think Jon Stewart basically invented this approach.
           | 
           | I believe that he in fact popularized the phrase "fake news"
           | first, to use it to refer to himself, to do exactly this,
           | defend himself when called out, saying "hey i'm just fake
           | news, why are you trying to hold me to real news standards?"
           | 
           | I think it totally paved the way for a lot of misinformation
           | (that now tends to, but not always, be right-wing oriented),
           | and I think it's a mess.
           | 
           | Here's someone else making the same connection in 2016: https
           | ://www.cjr.org/special_report/trump_jon_stewart_stephen...
           | 
           | It's not just Stewart, it's part of the general merging of
           | "entertainment", "news", and "politics". But I think Stewart
           | is a fore-runner in serving roles that are actually both
           | "politics" (advocacy of positions) and "news" (informing as
           | to what's going on) for their audience, while disclaiming
           | accountability for performing those roles responsibly because
           | "it's just entertainment" -- an approach that has been
           | adopted by Rogan, among others.
           | 
           | [In case you think I am making this critique from the "right"
           | I am most definitely not]
        
         | bnralt wrote:
         | I agree with all of your points. But it's worth pointing out
         | that most "public intellectual" interactions become a form of
         | Kabuki theater. It might be a friendly interview, where you can
         | guess what questions are going to be asked and what the answers
         | are. Or it might be an antagonistic debate, where the two sides
         | are yelling talking points at each other. But it's rarely
         | surprising.
         | 
         | What's interesting about Rogan is you can often find theses
         | talking head types getting easily flummoxed by normal questions
         | that are outside of the ritualized interactions they're used
         | to. Watch Rogan talk to Shapiro about his criticism of Colin
         | Kaepernick, or him asking Bari Weiss why she calls Tulsi
         | Gabbard an "Assad toady." He seems to like both of them
         | (perhaps even to the poitn where both are friends), but his
         | simple questions end up making both of them look completely
         | foolish. And because he's genuinely curious and doing it in a
         | non-aggressive manner, it doesn't get lost in the furor of a
         | antagonistic debate format.
         | 
         | Again, I agree with your criticisms of him and could add
         | several more myself. I think it's one of those situations where
         | in the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king. The
         | traditional forms of public debate are so shallow that a
         | curious guy just asking random questions can short circuit most
         | of the folks there.
        
           | KennyBlanken wrote:
           | > What's interesting about Rogan is you can often find theses
           | talking head types getting easily flummoxed by normal
           | questions that are outside of the ritualized interactions
           | they're used to. Watch Rogan talk to Shapiro about his
           | criticism of Colin Kaepernick, or him asking Bari Weiss why
           | she calls Tulsi Gabbard an "Assad toady." He seems to like
           | both of them (perhaps even to the poitn where both are
           | friends), but his simple questions end up making both of them
           | look completely foolish. And because he's genuinely curious
           | and doing it in a non-aggressive manner, it doesn't get lost
           | in the furor of a antagonistic debate format.
           | 
           | If you think that's impressive, listen to Terry Gross's
           | interview with Hugh Heffner.
           | 
           | https://freshairarchive.org/segments/playboy-hugh-hefner
           | 
           | I think Rogan is just barely smart enough to know to never
           | step into Gross's studio.
        
           | jrumbut wrote:
           | As a disclaimer, I have not listened to his show extensively.
           | 
           | But while he may be genuinely curious the sum of his
           | questions and his guest choices express a thesis and for avid
           | listeners seems to become a program of study that leads
           | somewhere.
           | 
           | It seems like it's always freshman year of college at the JRE
           | and you're learning all this fascinating stuff that shows you
           | the world is larger and more mysterious than you imagined,
           | but he never quite gets to sophomore year when those mundane
           | details are filled in and you see why all the quirky, obscure
           | things remain quirky and obscure.
           | 
           | I guess on some level it's not his job but since he has had
           | this success I do wish he would take it on, to give the
           | listeners more protein with their sugar.
        
         | sascha_sl wrote:
         | The JREs guest roster only has two flavors. Right wing and "I'd
         | rather not go too much in depth about my politics". There were
         | maybe 5 episodes in the history of the show where Joe is
         | confronted with left wing talking points, and aside from the
         | Bernie episode it was always an accident.
         | 
         | Notably, the one other exception is Joe calling bullshit on Ben
         | Shapiro's claims.
         | 
         | The show has never invited anyone in favor of affirmative trans
         | healthcare, for instance. But they did invite Debra Soh and
         | Abigail Shier almost purely because they were against it.
         | 
         | But because the JRE pretends it's a free speech zone where no
         | opinion is unheard, it creates a very biased view of public
         | opinion in viewers. A division into "the woke mob" of
         | ideologues and the "intellectual dark web" of people that are
         | supposedly free of ideology. The show is massively contributing
         | to what it says it hates.
        
           | seper8 wrote:
           | You know he had Bernie Sanders on right? And not Trump?
           | 
           | LOL.
        
             | sascha_sl wrote:
             | I literally did mention that as one notable exception?
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | And Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard and the list goes on...
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | I'll be impressed if he has Hasan Piker on.
               | 
               | That's not just a random bar I set, it's been pretty
               | heavily requested - but everyone knows it wouldn't happen
               | because of prior criticism.
               | 
               | Even Tim Pool invites people to the left of the liberal
               | democratic baseline (that I'd call center-right at best,
               | but I'm also used to a more european notion of left and
               | right) occasionally. Why not the JRE?
               | 
               | The Bernie interview was great, but it was a tactical
               | campaign move. He wasn't going to be too contrarian with
               | Joe when the audience is Joe's.
        
               | Cesura wrote:
               | Are these supposed to be examples of _leftists_? Tulsi
               | recently filled in as a host on Tucker Carlson 's
               | show...the same show actively peddling the Great
               | Replacement theory (among other far-right conspiracies)
               | to millions of Americans.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Yes, Tulsi Gabbard is a _leftist_ based on any rational
               | analysis of her actual voting record.
               | 
               | https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/tulsi_gabbard/41
               | 253...
               | 
               | She might not be as far left as you would prefer, but
               | there is no doubt she is on the left side of the US
               | political spectrum. (And please don't bother wasting our
               | time with that tired old trope about the Democrats being
               | equivalent to center-right party in European politics.
               | We're not in Europe.)
        
               | screye wrote:
               | To add to your point, there is a kernel of truth in the
               | 'the left keeps moving goalposts' meme [1].
               | 
               | In present internet discourse, 5-percentile radical
               | leftist opinions are peddled as if they represent any
               | significant group of people in this nation. Anyone who
               | does not agree with their often non-scientific
               | ideological framework is labelled as right-wing-fascist
               | irrespective of ground realities surrounding the person
               | or the topic.
               | 
               | What we're witnessing here is a takeover of the American
               | left by a very particular strain of political activism.
               | Like all activists, they too care more about ascendency
               | in the power struggle and aesthetic markers of cultural
               | victory, instead of practical solutions for improving the
               | lives of the population they represent.
               | 
               | > We're not in Europe
               | 
               | If Europe had anywhere near the racial/cultural/religious
               | diversity of the US, then they'd be on their way to a
               | swift turn to the right. Orban is the canary, and the
               | rise of the right in Germany/France/Italy is exactly
               | representative of that phenomenon. Social safety nets do
               | not make for left-liberal ideology. Most of these
               | socialist-paragons demand incredible conformity
               | (scandinavia) and have restrictive abortion laws [2]
               | among other traditionally right-wing traits.
               | 
               | [1] https://preview.redd.it/iwnju4entbw81.jpg?width=1024&
               | auto=we...
               | 
               | [2] https://dynomight.net/abortion/
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | I do find your [1] oddly compelling, but not for the
               | reasons you think. Wide political and social change (or
               | progress, if you want to be an optimist) is rarely made
               | through convincing people to fundamentally change, but
               | generational shifts. You are merely finding yourself on
               | the fading side of that shift.
               | 
               | That aside, it's very funny to accuse the left of
               | shifting the overton window after a republican president
               | that pardoned his co-conspirators, called for
               | insurrection and then took top secret documents home - a
               | crime he himself increased the penalty for. So much for
               | law and order.
        
               | AllegedAlec wrote:
               | > If Europe had anywhere near the
               | racial/cultural/religious diversity of the US
               | 
               | You fucken serious right now?
        
               | ModernMech wrote:
               | Despite your parenthetical attempt to sidestep this fact,
               | being barely on the left side of the US political
               | spectrum doesn't make one a "leftist". Meaning that
               | people who consider themselves leftists don't agree with
               | Tulsi Gabbard.
               | 
               | It's hard to point to a voting record as evidence of one
               | being a leftist or not, when actual leftist policies are
               | not typically put up for a vote in America. Her
               | ideological score puts her in line with Tim Ryan, who is
               | currently running for Senate in right-leaning Ohio, and
               | is competitive because of the very fact he _isn 't_ a
               | leftist. Despite what you may hear, not all Democrats are
               | socialists. Far from it.
        
               | Cesura wrote:
               | Your interpretation makes sense if you consider leftist
               | to be a purely relative classification. We don't even
               | need to look outside of the US to understand why that's
               | not a very meaningful way to think about ideology: the
               | Overton window within the Republican party has undergone
               | a substantial shift to the right since the 1970s [1].
               | 
               | Without even loosely-defined characterizations of what a
               | political ideology _is_ and where it falls on our (albeit
               | very imperfect) scale, terms like  "leftism" are doomed
               | to a future of being weaponized by their opponents, who
               | themselves shift right and decry moderates as "radicals".
               | 
               | All of that aside, I'd still like to hear your
               | rationalization for her recent appearance as the host of
               | a far-right talk show where she, among other things,
               | referred to the sitting attorney general's investigation
               | of a former President's alleged crimes as one having "all
               | hallmarks of a dictatorship". Is hosting Tucker's program
               | an endorsement of every position he's ever espoused?
               | Surely not. But I'd say it's a level of support akin to
               | giving a speech at a political candidate's rally...
               | 
               | [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
               | content/uploads/2022/03/FT_22...
        
           | Veen wrote:
           | > The show has never invited anyone in favor of affirmative
           | trans healthcare, for instance.
           | 
           | He's had Blaire White on.
        
             | remote_phone wrote:
             | He also had Kristin Beck, former Navy Seal who is
             | transgender.
             | 
             | The parent post is someone who doesn't listen to Rogan, and
             | a perfect example of someone that casts Rogan as a
             | transphobe because he dares to not tow 100% of the views
             | that they want him to.
             | 
             | This type of philosophical fascism is what is ruining our
             | world today.
        
               | npc54321 wrote:
               | These people are just sad man, something lacking in their
               | lives whether it's power sex love or money they are
               | lacking in it and the left just scoops them up into their
               | crusade preying into their shit.
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
        
               | Veen wrote:
               | It's interesting you name two trans women who have said
               | how much they enjoy beating the shit out of cisgender
               | women. In Fallon's case, she boasted about fracturing an
               | opponent's skull.
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | What are you appealing to here? It's one of the most
               | extreme forms of contact sports, but it's sanctioned.
               | Injuries are commonplace, not something trans people
               | exclusively inflict.
               | 
               | And how is it related to the question at all? I am not
               | interested in discussing if Fallon Fox is a good person,
               | good sport or good representative of trans people. I'm
               | discussing Joe Rogan calling her a man being indicative
               | of transphobia on the JRE. Just like OJ Simpson being
               | convicted would not justify calling him the slur with N.
        
               | hirundo wrote:
               | > It's one of the most extreme forms of contact sports,
               | but it's sanctioned. Injuries are commonplace, not
               | something trans people exclusively inflict.
               | 
               | For a competitor who has grown up with the (extreme in
               | the case of contact sports) benefit of male hormones to
               | compete with someone without that benefit is something
               | new, at least in this era. It makes injuries more likely
               | ... to the competitor with the female hormone profile.
               | 
               | A lot of us feel that it isn't fair. Whatever the
               | explanation, it appears to be a man beating up a woman.
               | Because biologically it is. Sanctioned or not, consensual
               | or not, that's not my preferred entertainment.
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | I didn't sign up to discuss this, but I'm very careful
               | with people that have only started claiming to care about
               | women's sports after this became a culture war issue.
               | There are a lot of armchair takes that are obviously
               | misinformed about the mechanics of HRT, and a lot of
               | ignoring that most contact sports are already grouped
               | into weight classes exactly because gender is a bad
               | discriminator.
               | 
               | I would be in favor of sporting bodies deciding these
               | things on a discipline-by-discipline basis, but at this
               | point christian conservative think tanks (like the ADF)
               | became involved and it has all just turned into such a
               | shitshow that I don't trust anyone in these bodies to be
               | impartial anymore either.
               | 
               | If you're interested in a nuanced discussion, may I
               | recommend Mia Mulder[1]? I promise, it's not a straight
               | up arguing for one side exclusively video essay.
               | 
               | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdT1PvJDRo4
        
               | hirundo wrote:
               | I would be much more supportive if the biological
               | differences were included along with the weight class,
               | such that a lighter person with testosterone muscles and
               | bones fights a heavier person with estrogen muscles and
               | bones. That is, where the competitors are competitive.
               | But the current ideological environment resists the
               | inclusion of such sex-based factors, on the absurd
               | premise that they are trivial.
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | Are you sure this isn't just an assumption you're making
               | based on _your_ "ideological environment"? How do you
               | know? Have you done the research? Do you actually know if
               | someone who has replaced their testosterone with estrogen
               | retains their "testosterone muscles"?
               | 
               | Spoiler: It's complicated, in no way straight forward,
               | and if you descend into the ugly guts of it you'll learn
               | that sports were never fair to begin with, and that we'd
               | need better bracketing systems even if trans people
               | didn't exist to have any semblance of "individual effort"
               | determining outcomes in sports.
        
               | hirundo wrote:
               | > Are you sure this isn't just an assumption you're
               | making based on your "ideological environment"? How do
               | you know? Have you done the research?
               | 
               | I feel that I have direct relevent expertise ... having
               | wrestled many boys and girls my age growing up. There was
               | at least one girl who could and did kick my ass. But
               | there were lots of boys I couldn't beat.
               | 
               | It doesn't take a biologist to make this unsubtle
               | observation. Boys in general are considerably advantaged
               | over girls in any kind of brawl. An environment that
               | doesn't allow a person to learn this growing up is too
               | safe.
        
               | sascha_sl wrote:
               | Now you're talking about the distribution in cis people,
               | but you haven't accounted for HRT. Hormones are an
               | immensely important part of sexual dimorphism, so much so
               | that people with an XY chromosome and complete
               | testosterone insensitivity (CAIS) usually only find out
               | they're not XX in their teens when they visit their
               | Gynecologist about lacking periods.
               | 
               | It is _very_ hard to maintain  "excess" muscle on
               | feminizing HRT (the body has different muscle to fat
               | target ratios depending on hormones), and impossible to
               | (re)build it. Someone would have to work
               | disproportionately hard on maintaining most of their
               | "male advantage" a year in. I'm not an athlete, but every
               | trans person you ask will tell you that the difference in
               | strength is quite significant. Even if I can just tell
               | from being unable to open jars.
               | 
               | That aside, I really recommend you invest time into that
               | essay. It's an interesting tale about why we have
               | segregated sports to begin with (believe it or not, women
               | doing sports is a relatively recent thing) and how trans
               | people really aren't the biggest interference to the
               | unfairness of it all.
        
             | sascha_sl wrote:
             | Blair White is a hardline transmedicalist who called usage
             | of puberty blockers "child abuse" and self-describes as
             | "center-right".
             | 
             | She might be trans, but she really is on one ideological
             | line with Shrier und Soh. I'm not sure if White would call
             | for all transition to be banned when opportunistic (as some
             | members of the GOP do now), whereas I have doubts about
             | Shrier and Soh being honest about finding transition
             | acceptable in principle, but that's really the only
             | difference.
             | 
             | Or are we not talking about the same person?
        
         | roenxi wrote:
         | A fundamental of the human condition is we don't know who is
         | lying and who is telling the truth. You can get a pretty good
         | hit rate assuming everyone is lying, but the misses with that
         | strategy are catastrophic because the rare truthful and
         | productive people are dynamos.
         | 
         | What people really want is someone who, as best they can, is a
         | bit humble and a bit curious. A note which Rogan hits a lot
         | better than most. It is irrelevant whether he is right or
         | wrong, that isn't what people are looking for. They can't
         | assess that and frankly most people don't prioritise the truth
         | that highly. If they want to be told what is right and wrong
         | they can go watch cable and get told by the likes of government
         | officials, or the clergy. Neither are popular. People want to
         | know what opinions are floating around.
         | 
         | From that perspective, Joe Rogan does no wrong. He is
         | fulfilling a role that people are desperate for. It is easy to
         | overestimate the confident and noisy moralisers who worry about
         | normal people hearing things that are not true - they aren't
         | actually popular. That class of people are the sort who staff
         | censorship bureaus.
        
           | zmgsabst wrote:
           | To add to this, Joe Rogan is higher quality questions than,
           | eg, CNN anchors while having on heterodox specialists, eg
           | Robert Malone.
           | 
           | Joe Rogan also has lengthy interviews with major figures like
           | Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, which aren't done by
           | traditional networks like CNN.
           | 
           | I'm having trouble taking people who don't see the value in
           | that seriously -- because it seems obvious to me why people
           | would want a diversity of information.
        
         | paulcole wrote:
         | > "I'm an idiot don't listen to me"
         | 
         | This is right out of the Jon Stewart playbook. He can say he's
         | a "comedian" when criticized but clearly loves the influence he
         | has a "journalist." Great schtick if you can pull it off.
        
           | SQueeeeeL wrote:
           | Damn, two people in this comment section brought up some
           | random Comedy Central late night host from the mid 2010s. I
           | feel like this is some elaborate bit, like Joe Rogan somehow
           | has a secret conspiracy of how to reply to that comment, and
           | they're all gonna pop out
        
             | paulcole wrote:
             | To be fair, I find Joe Rogan, Jon Stewart, and myself
             | equally insufferable.
        
             | greenhearth wrote:
             | Jon Stewart was just in the news in the past few weeks,
             | working to get military health insurance benefits passed
             | through the U.S. Senate. It's rumored he might run for a
             | political office. P.S. Conspiracy theories are usually
             | cases of apophenia, which could lead to dysfunctional
             | psychosis.
        
             | romanhn wrote:
             | Random host? Jon Stewart was huge, he defined political
             | comedy for over 15 years. His audience though likely didn't
             | overlap much with JRE due to different political leanings
             | (well, that and age).
        
               | chasd00 wrote:
               | I, and my friends, were very skeptical of Jon Stewart
               | taking over for Craig Kilborn but he really did a
               | fantastic job. Think about how many careers were born on
               | that show. Steve Carell for one. Stephen Colbert for
               | another.
               | 
               | EDIT: for those who don't remember policital
               | comedy/commentary shows were not a thing before The Daily
               | Show. Sort of like how people forget conversational
               | format and ajax weren't really a thing before gmail
        
               | remote_phone wrote:
               | He unfortunately taught a generation of millennials that
               | simply pointing out hypocrisy was enough.
               | 
               | Trump's presidency showed that it entirely wasn't.
        
             | clucas wrote:
             | I'm going to take a guess... you are probably under 30, and
             | the people who brought up Jon Stewart are probably over 35.
             | He was pretty big (bigger than Rogan, probably) when we
             | were forming our political opinions in high school and
             | college, and he also blended the line of entertainment and
             | political commentary. It's a very natural comparison. Don't
             | be too quick to cry conspiracy.
        
           | yalogin wrote:
           | May be I am misremembering but I thought Jon always used it
           | to mean "if I, a comedian, can ask these questions you should
           | do better as you are the supposed expert"
        
             | paulcole wrote:
             | We probably can't agree here, but to me it was clear he
             | wanted to avoid criticism by hiding behind his comedian
             | status while simultaneously relishing the power and
             | influence he had as a journalist.
        
               | dwringer wrote:
               | It's definitely worth watching again.
               | 
               | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
        
         | mattwilsonn888 wrote:
         | Joe is an intelligent person. One of the clear signals of that
         | is that he is willing to bring on experts and ask basic
         | questions without being embarrassed in an attempt to
         | understand, that also explains why he has such a general
         | audience - for experts its a great venue to break down and
         | think neutrally about their topic, since Joe's main agenda is
         | to learn.
         | 
         | As for misinformation, the word you seem to avoid saying - you
         | clearly don't have any problem identifying when Joe is unsure
         | of what he is saying, so I guess you are concerned about what
         | other people are thinking. I'm not sure your speculation about
         | how other people think is grounds for useful feedback. In fact
         | I'm not sure you know much at all 3 episodes in.
        
           | hericium wrote:
           | When he doesn't understand someone, he enthusiastically
           | agrees. When he's hosting someone with PhD or otherwise
           | smarter than him, he just says "ooooooh" a lot and is
           | overenthusiastic. He doesn't ask smart questions. He asks
           | questions his audience will understand.
           | 
           | He was "intelligent" maybe a few times in his life. Those are
           | represented by the third eye on show's emblem/logo.
        
             | stoplying1 wrote:
             | It's always something to watch people with certain types of
             | relationships to online celebrities construct this entire
             | illusory, aspirational set of attributes onto their e-celeb
             | and then reverse integrate it as a part of their own
             | internal identity effectively.
             | 
             | Resulting in "asking dumb questions and thoughtlessly
             | yielding to the last authority that spoke" being portrayed
             | as some height of intelligence.
        
         | evv555 wrote:
         | >But people have this weird way of taking things they like and
         | not only rejecting criticism but making it their whole
         | identity. Joe can do no wrong and if people dislike him it's
         | because they don't "get it" and they are just being soft.
         | 
         | I see what you're getting at but I think you're putting the
         | cart before the horse here. JRE has become a highly politicized
         | target and criticism(or praise) of the show is a proxy
         | narrative for half-dozen other issues. This is just more
         | identity politics spilling over into more facets of our lives.
         | 
         | >Joe also likes to deflect by saying "I'm an idiot don't listen
         | to me" which hey that's fine but if you're going to ramble
         | about how the moon is made of cheese then say "don't listen to
         | me" but then bring on a guest who is going to talk about how
         | the moon is made of cheese; the line that is being pushed is
         | pretty clear even if it is unintentional.
         | 
         | I think the diversity of perspectives is a valuable part of the
         | show. But it's a balancing act with many pitfalls.
        
           | rocqua wrote:
           | > This is just more identity politics spilling over into more
           | facets of our lives.
           | 
           | Could you elaborate what you mean? Especially the term
           | 'identity politics' feels like it is charged and in danger of
           | being mis-interpreted.
        
             | evv555 wrote:
             | The trend of people forming deep tribal identity around
             | political affiliations and institutions. Speech then is
             | first and foremost performative signaling of your in-group
             | affiliation to the good group or the evil group. At least
             | that's the lense any speech or action is looked at within
             | identity politics.
        
               | rocqua wrote:
               | Thanks for that clear explanation!
        
               | powerhour wrote:
               | You say trend like it is a recent phenomenon and not
               | something that has been happening for centuries if not
               | millennia.
        
               | adamrezich wrote:
               | it would be dishonest to ignore the fact that
               | "contemporary identity politics" kicked fully into gear
               | as a direct response to #Occupy--and its objective was &
               | continues to be successful
        
               | powerhour wrote:
               | Contemporary identity politics are at least in part a
               | response to the contemporary "occupy" movements, sure,
               | and that's pretty much by definition.
        
               | kranke155 wrote:
               | That's true. Identity politics is just a new name for it,
               | but we did use to burn people at the stake for the same
               | reason.
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | > JRE has become a highly politicized target
           | 
           | He has deliberately made it that way because it is highly
           | profitable for him.
        
             | WithinReason wrote:
             | So then why did he reject Trump when he wanted to come on
             | the podcast?
        
               | pwinnski wrote:
               | All downside, no upside. It wouldn't boost his
               | popularity, but would open him up to new levels of
               | criticism.
        
               | WithinReason wrote:
               | It would boost his popularity with half the country, and
               | he would get an insane amount of views on the interview.
               | All upside no downside.
        
               | chasd00 wrote:
               | > It would boost his popularity with half the country
               | 
               | idk, i feel like the majority of trump supporters already
               | listen to JRE. Those that don't support Trump would hate
               | Joe giving Trump the time of day and therefore risk
               | losing those listeners while gaining none. I don't see an
               | upside to Trump being on JRE.
        
               | weberer wrote:
               | That's a pretty large estimate. I'd be surprised if even
               | 10% of Americans even listen to podcasts at all.
        
               | adamrezich wrote:
               | the other half of the country (world?) would hate Rogan
               | for having Trump on. imagine if they agreed on anything.
               | imagine if they made each other laugh. the "you're giving
               | a platform for HATE" rhetoric would be deployed in full
               | gear. Rogan would undoubtedly ask tough questions, but no
               | matter what he were to ask, it would never be "tough
               | enough" for many. I'm not a big JRE guy but I would be
               | very interested in watching a Trump episode of the show--
               | however, I think Rogan made the right choice by not
               | opening that can of worms. at least, at this point in
               | time.
        
               | purple_ferret wrote:
               | He said he'd have Trump on prior to the election (with no
               | pre-screen questions, which the Trump team wouldn't agree
               | to).
               | 
               | Post Jan 6, Trump is a pariah for anyone not running in a
               | Republican primary.
        
         | screye wrote:
         | > Joe can do no wrong and if people dislike him it's because
         | they don't "get it" and they are just being soft.
         | 
         | I find that this is a reaction to a reaction.
         | 
         | I have frequently heard women (and some elitist men) make fun
         | of those who listen to Joe Rogan, long before Joe was every
         | heralded as a hero of the masses. It is only after he started
         | receiving what was perceived to be unjust criticism that people
         | started leaning into the 'with him or against him'
         | polarization.
        
         | jmyeet wrote:
         | > Joe also likes to deflect ...
         | 
         | I think there's some truth to what he says here. For some
         | topics he actually just does let people talk. And that's fine.
         | But there are some topics where Joe isn't just "asking
         | questions" but is actively pushing a particular viewpoint.
         | 
         | The first and most obvious one is vaccines. Covid has broken
         | this man's brain. If you go back to March 2020, his interview
         | with Michael Osterholm [1] was actually really good. It was one
         | of the first I saw that recognized how serious this actually
         | was. But for whatever reasons, Joe has decided vaccines are bad
         | and he's had a parade of grifters and charlatans on to back up
         | that view (eg Robert Malone). There is absolutely no evidence
         | in the world that will change his mind.
         | 
         | The second is all his manosphere [2] content. He really rode
         | the wave of popularity of Jordan Peterson in particular and
         | really gave him a platform with no pushback whatsoever. The
         | recent rise of Andrew Tate is just the latest manifestation of
         | this (fun fact: Tate dated JP's daughter a couple of years
         | ago).
         | 
         | The third is transgender people. Trans people broke a lot of
         | people in a way that's reminiscent of 1990s era homophobia.
         | Bill Maher is another example of this.
         | 
         | So a big part of Joe's popularity isn't just a "dumb guy asking
         | questions", it's that he pushes very normative and popular
         | opinions.
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw
         | 
         | [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manosphere
        
           | remote_phone wrote:
           | You're wrong on many levels.
           | 
           | Joe Rogan as recently as last week said the vaccine is mostly
           | safe and saved millions of lives. What he says is that the
           | vaccine is more dangerous to some people than the narratives
           | and pharmaceutical companies says. And he despises how you
           | can't even talk about the negative effects for some people
           | without being cast as an anti-vaxxer. You entirely proved his
           | point.
           | 
           | The exact same thing applies to transgender people. He
           | believes 100% in their ability to be treated as the gender
           | they believe they are. But his main disagreement is
           | pretending that it's okay that biological males vs biological
           | females is fair. It's not, especially in sports like MMA
           | which he is an expert in.
           | 
           | Yet by talking about it, he is cast as a transphobe just like
           | you accused him of.
           | 
           | And to correct you further, the 90s were the period where gay
           | rights went mainstream so you're even wrong about that. That
           | when people started understanding that it wasn't a choice and
           | was biological. Shows like Dawson's Creek really humanized
           | being gay for an entire generation. That's when Canada made
           | gay marriage legal.
        
             | hindsightbias wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act
             | 
             | Passed the House on July 12, 1996 (342-67) Passed the
             | Senate on September 10, 1996 (85-14)
             | 
             | What happened later is remarkable, but it wasn't even close
             | in 1996.
        
               | remote_phone wrote:
               | That in response to the growing pro gay rights movement.
        
             | jmyeet wrote:
             | > Joe Rogan as recently as last week said the vaccine is
             | mostly safe
             | 
             | - "How Joe Rogan Became a Cheerleader for Ivermectin" [1]
             | 
             | - "Fact-Checking Joe Rogan's Interview With Robert Malone
             | That Caused an Uproar" [2]
             | 
             | - "What the Joe Rogan podcast controversy says about the
             | online misinformation ecosystem" [3]
             | 
             | > But his main disagreement is pretending that it's okay
             | that biological males vs biological females is fair.
             | 
             | Sports isn't fair, period. It's why there's no "under 6
             | foot" NBA league. It's only with trans people that people
             | suddenly (pretend to) care.
             | 
             | > And to correct you further, the 90s were the period where
             | gay rights went mainstream
             | 
             | - "ABC shelves Ellen" (1998) [4]
             | 
             | - "Why Laura Dern Didn't Work For A Year, Despite Jurassic
             | Park's Success" [5]
             | 
             | - "How 'homophobia' denied Sharon Bottoms custody of her
             | son in the 1990s" [6]
             | 
             | Examples here are legion. Homophobia permeated popular
             | culture (eg TV and box office movies). There was progress
             | made, sure, but homophobia was so normalized at the time. I
             | have to wonder if you lived through this era (as I did) or
             | just read about it.
             | 
             | I mean, homophobia was still weaponized into the 2000s.
             | Many credit Karl Rove with weaponizing state ballot
             | measures on gay marriage to win the 2004 presidential
             | election [7].
             | 
             | > Dawson's Creek
             | 
             | technically the coming out storyline was 1999-2000 I
             | believe and was controversial. Roseanne [8] is probably a
             | better example. Picket Fences ended up censoring a kiss
             | scene in 1993 [9] and caused quite a lot of controversy at
             | the time.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-
             | features/joe-ro...
             | 
             | [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/arts/music/fact-
             | check-joe...
             | 
             | [3]: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074442185/joe-rogan-
             | doctor-c...
             | 
             | [4]: https://money.cnn.com/1998/04/24/bizbuzz/ellen/
             | 
             | [5]: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2485962/why-laura-
             | dern-didn...
             | 
             | [6]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-homophobia-
             | denied-shar...
             | 
             | [7]: https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=230634&page=1
             | 
             | [8]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Ask,_Don%27t_Tel
             | l_(Ros...
             | 
             | [9]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_%26_Spice_(Picket_
             | Fences...
        
               | remote_phone wrote:
               | Nothing you posted contradicts what I said. Questioning
               | the vaccine doesn't mean that he didn't think it was safe
               | for most people. He even almost got the vaccine if not
               | for a scheduling conflict.
               | 
               | When I said "mainstream" I didn't mean they were
               | generally accepted. I meant that the issue of gay rights
               | became a topic. Some places like Canada openly legalized
               | gay marriage without much of a protest. Gay rights
               | infection point was definitely in the 90s and only got
               | stronger. It wasn't like the 80s where gays were openly
               | mocked like in Three's Company
        
             | UncleMeat wrote:
             | He described Fallon Fox as "a man in a dress." Rogan's
             | statements about transwomen are considerably broader than
             | "I just want to talk about the impact on sporting
             | regulations."
        
         | bhedgeoser wrote:
         | > but if you're going to ramble about how the moon is made of
         | cheese
         | 
         | Examples of stupid things he's said?
        
         | vlunkr wrote:
         | > Joe can do no wrong and if people dislike him it's because
         | they don't "get it"
         | 
         | In my experience, it's the opposite with Joe Rogan. His fans
         | seem pretty casual, it's the people who don't like the show who
         | are extremely outspoken about it.
        
           | mbostleman wrote:
           | Exactly. It seems like a common pattern - I often wonder how
           | much a rise in popularity is because of those that like it
           | vs. those that are somehow angered by it.
        
         | acadapter wrote:
         | In other words, he's a glorified talk show host?
        
           | hackerbrother wrote:
           | talk, show, host... yes, that is exactly what he is!
        
         | Jhjjjjjjjjrte wrote:
         | What guest are you specifically talking about?
        
         | Enginerrrd wrote:
         | I think you're underestimating the power of dumb questions to
         | an extent.
         | 
         | Like, I wholeheartedly agree, he doesn't achieve good
         | interviews by the quality of his questions.
         | 
         | Except... that he kind of does, in a weird way. Experts on the
         | show are happy to use those questions as a launching point to
         | correct whatever incorrect assumptions he had in asking it.
         | 
         | He's very good at getting people to open up and talk. Perhaps
         | dumb questions play a role in that? Perhaps they make people
         | feel comfortable by validating their expert status in the room
         | or something, I don't know. But I do know that it seems to
         | work. I also know he's a comedian. Comedy is fundamentally a
         | weirdly manipulative art form... You carefully craft a set of
         | jokes and then practice over and over again to make it feel
         | like an organic, albeit funny conversation. Every little pause,
         | intonation, turn of phrase, it's all intentional. So, being
         | that he is a practiced comedian, it's possible some of that
         | interview style is pretty intentional too.
        
           | eldenwrong wrote:
           | HN is full of IYIs.
        
             | Veen wrote:
             | Intellectual Yet Idiot, in case anyone was wondering. It's
             | a favourite insult of Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
        
               | spywaregorilla wrote:
               | Ironic given he's perhaps the most noteworthy example of
               | one
        
               | belter wrote:
               | There is a lot to criticize of Nassim Taleb, but your
               | statement in unkind, as he did excellent work. I would
               | say 1/3 of his audience, can't stand him because they
               | don't like his style, but it's ultimately their loss. The
               | other 1/3 don't like he is somewhat external to academic
               | circles.
               | 
               | I think [1] is a balanced evaluation.
               | 
               | "...In short, Taleb resists categorization. If I had to
               | pigeonhole him, I'd call him an anti-guru guru. That is,
               | he mercilessly bashes other gurus, pundits and prophets
               | and warns you not to fall for them. He depicts himself as
               | a brave, lonely truth-teller in a world of fools and
               | frauds. In so doing, he becomes a guru himself, with a
               | cult-like following...
               | 
               | ...even if you question what Taleb is saying--and you
               | certainly should--he forces you to examine your own
               | biases and assumptions. Yes, he can be irritating, but so
               | are many of our most original thinkers..."
               | 
               | [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-
               | check/nassim-tale...
        
               | spywaregorilla wrote:
               | I think he's a manipulative asshole. He's a one trick
               | pony who picks a random group, makes false claims about
               | what they believe, which are obviously wrong, and then
               | invites the reader to feel smarter than his target group
               | by pointing out why the obviously wrong idea is wrong.
               | 
               | Bullshit along the lines of: Did you know statisticians
               | believe the normal distribution curve is infallible and
               | perfectly describe real world scenarios? This actually
               | false. Therefore, statisticians are stupid, and you're
               | smarter than them for understanding otherwise. And I am
               | smarter than everyone for having pointed it out.
               | 
               | He doesn't force you to examine your own biases and
               | assumptions. He tricks you into believing that you have
               | done so and have come out wiser. He's just yet another
               | fool and fraud in a pit of fools and fraud.
        
               | TMWNN wrote:
               | Or as Bertrand Russell said, "This is one of those views
               | which are so absurd that only very learned men could
               | possibly adopt them."
        
               | gilleain wrote:
               | Oddly enough, it also appears to be Turkish for "Good".
        
         | axg11 wrote:
         | > Joe ask the "dumb questions." The questions you would ask if
         | you as a laymen were sitting in front of a Nobel Prize winning
         | scientist
         | 
         | This is exactly why he's so popular. Most people are laymen.
         | Joe doesn't have a research team coming up with optimal talking
         | points. He's a regular minded guy asking regular questions. He
         | achieves depth through the sheer length of interviews.
        
           | mbg721 wrote:
           | Joe is playing the same role as the youngest child at the
           | Seder. It's a popular format because it serves a genuine
           | human need. If no one asks the most basic questions, no one
           | gets the most basic answers.
        
             | ethanbond wrote:
             | Well sure, but if the youngest child is primarily querying
             | the schizophrenic uncle and taking his answers with
             | complete credulity, then pawning them off on millions of
             | other credulous people, it's reasonable to feel that
             | there's a serious downside to such an act.
        
               | dominotw wrote:
               | will someone think of the credulous people.
        
               | ethanbond wrote:
               | Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society. Laws
               | against fraud, for example, are among the oldest in
               | existence, despite fraud overwhelmingly targeting the
               | most credulous among us (for obvious reasons). This is a
               | good thing, actually.
        
               | dominotw wrote:
               | > Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society.
               | 
               | would this imply something is not right with our society
               | because there aren't laws against listening to joe rogan.
        
               | ethanbond wrote:
               | Nope! It implies that yes, someone should think of the
               | credulous people.
               | 
               | I don't believe censoring Rogan is
               | justified/wise/useful/etc. -- even if it _were_ it'd
               | still be illegal anyway. But does that mean I think we
               | should just throw credulous folks to the wolves with
               | snarky remarks like "won't someone think of the credulous
               | people?!"
               | 
               | We _should_ think of the credulous people, and take
               | society's threats against them and their threat to
               | society seriously.
        
               | seper8 wrote:
               | Maybe the schizophrenic uncle is telling us the earth is
               | not at the centre of the universe, should we censor him?
               | 
               | Humanity has proven to be so wrong about so many things
               | before, best let the discussion flow instead of trying to
               | kill competing theories...
        
               | ethanbond wrote:
               | I didn't suggest killing competing theories. Only
               | pointing out that this analogy is missing some fairly
               | important characteristics. You know, the ones people are
               | actually worried about.
        
               | JKCalhoun wrote:
               | If "out of my butt" is the best support you have for your
               | "theory", then it's not really a theory is it?
               | 
               | Any of us could write an app that generated "theories"
               | ... a few may even turn out to be correct or close.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | I am pretty confident that the appropriate place to
               | distribute revolutionary new scientific models based in
               | factual evidence isn't the joe rogan experience.
        
               | FredPret wrote:
               | You'd be hard-pressed to find a _better_ one.
               | 
               | Research shouldn't be locked up behind paywalls and in
               | ivory towers. It should be public knowledge and lots of
               | basic questions should be asked about it.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | Sure. And a growing portion of research is made available
               | through places like arxiv. The government is also pushing
               | new regulations to make research publicly available when
               | funded by the government, which is a dominant force in
               | grant funding. This is _wildly_ different than presenting
               | findings on JRE.
               | 
               | And, in general, revolutionary new scientific ideas are
               | targeted at _scientists_ rather than the lay public.
               | Ideas like new models of the solar system don 't tend to
               | take hold because the public thinks they are cool but
               | instead because they become inevitable within the
               | scientific community. Being less able to go on JRE and
               | talk about how awesome ivermectin to a massive listener
               | base is isn't going to limit scientific breakthroughs in
               | the future.
        
               | mcculley wrote:
               | This is a straw man. There is a spectrum of choices
               | between having Alex Jones on multiple times and treating
               | him seriously and censoring him.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | It's not an "act". For better or worse, you're hearing
               | the real Joe Rogan. He would have the same conversations
               | with guests even if the microphones were switched off.
        
               | criddell wrote:
               | The thing about asking the schizophrenic uncle about
               | things is that it becomes clear they're schizophrenic,
               | even if the child asking is buying it all.
               | 
               | A while ago I read that lots of people were upset with
               | Joe Rogan for having Alex Jones on his show. I really
               | didn't know anything about Jones other than what you see
               | on cable news and Rogan I'm fairly neutral on. So I found
               | an Alex Jones episode and played it. Jones came off as
               | being entirely unhinged. It was not flattering at all.
               | They were basically winding Jones up and then letting him
               | explode.
        
               | remote_phone wrote:
               | They also fact checked EVERYTHING Jones said. They would
               | interrupt the conversation and fact check him real time
               | which I really liked.
        
               | aeneasmackenzie wrote:
               | And almost all the fact checks came back and Jones was
               | right. They kept doing it after an hour of this stuff.
        
               | kranke155 wrote:
               | The Alex Jones episodes are well known for being the
               | wildest comedy ever aired on JRE.
               | 
               | I think he sees himself a lot in the tradition of Stern
               | and Opie and Anthony, where some outrageous stuff is
               | cool. He doesn't see himself as a media outlet but a guy
               | who wants to have fun and push weird shit. Obviously it's
               | caused him trouble with the anti vacc guys he had and
               | he's sort of normalised his show a bit, but still I think
               | he sees himself in that tradition. He's not looking to be
               | Dan Rather.
        
               | ethanbond wrote:
               | IMO I think this is the root of both the valid defense
               | and the valid critique of Rogan. He doesn't seem to
               | properly account for the fact that having the # of
               | followers he has is _itself_ a signal of credibility.
               | It's very hard to overcome that with offhanded "I'm a
               | normal guy don't listen to me!" remarks. I don't feel he
               | properly informs his users of just _how fringe_ some of
               | his guests are, and in fact once they're on his show
               | they're _actually not_ fringe (in the social proof sense
               | of fringiness).
        
               | panzagl wrote:
               | > having the # of followers he has is itself a signal of
               | credibility
               | 
               | Is it though? I assumed it meant people found his show
               | entertaining.
        
               | kranke155 wrote:
               | I understand your point and partially agree with it - I
               | do think Rogan has learnt something from the vacc
               | debacle. I'm just trying to explain from what I think is
               | his POV on the matter.
        
           | throwaway290 wrote:
           | > Most people are laymen.
           | 
           | This statement is not even false. One is inevitably a
           | layperson in most things, even at one's job (like Rogan is at
           | interviewing interesting people), but also usually _not_
           | layperson in at least some things.
        
             | FredPret wrote:
             | So for any given topic... most people are laymen
        
               | throwaway290 wrote:
               | Depends on what the topic is and who is in the audience?
               | You can't be a layperson full stop you can be a layperson
               | at something, it's not applicable without a topic
        
         | dominotw wrote:
         | > But people have this weird way of taking things
         | 
         | I have people in my friend circle who have opinions about joe
         | rogan ( and his audience) even though they've never listened to
         | him.
         | 
         | Even top comment on this thread is a meta comment about
         | unreasonable behavior joe rogan supporters or something.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | kashunstva wrote:
       | > At a long desk in the big main room sits an attractive nurse.
       | She offers us an enhancer of B12 or NAD+, through a shot or an
       | IV.
       | 
       | There is one and only one indication for parenteral cyancobalamin
       | (B12) administration and that is deficiency thereof due to
       | inadequate production of gastric intrinsic factor or a disease of
       | the terminal ileum. Period.
       | 
       | It's hard to take anyone seriously who would encourage podcast
       | guests to receive vitamin B12 injections without documenting
       | deficiency. The evidence on this subject is widely available; so
       | if Mr. Rogan gets this so wrong, where else are his impaired
       | reasoning processes taking his 11M followers?
        
         | rtev wrote:
         | While it is kind of absurd, to be fair, B12 has documented
         | useful benefits for people that aren't deficient. Also, your
         | body eliminates any B12 it doesn't use in urine, so not really
         | any risk of overdose.
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Why do you completely disown the concept of off-label usage for
         | drugs?
        
         | robocat wrote:
         | > It's hard to take anyone seriously
         | 
         | So you want an authority, rather than to make your mind up
         | yourself?
         | 
         | Watching an interview where both participants are less than
         | perfect challenges you to think for yourself.
         | 
         | > where else are his impaired reasoning processes taking his
         | 11M followers?
         | 
         | The same place everyone is being taken by all the media we
         | consume.
         | 
         | It is ironic, but watching someone like Alex Jones forces one
         | to think. The real problem is how do we learn to filter when an
         | "authority" is speaking or writing?
        
         | darawk wrote:
         | > There is one and only one indication for parenteral
         | cyancobalamin (B12) administration and that is deficiency
         | thereof due to inadequate production of gastric intrinsic
         | factor or a disease of the terminal ileum. Period.
         | 
         | You are aware of a study of B12 injections in non-deficient
         | individuals indicating no benefit? "No evidence" is not the
         | same thing as "evidence against".
        
         | robbiep wrote:
         | Whilst I agree unreservedly about the indications for b12 and
         | it's complete lack of medical benefit in any other situation,
         | I've also experienced sections of the population that
         | definitively require (... not medically, but like present to
         | their GP) injections on a quarterly basis.
         | 
         | Specifically Australia's elderly Hungarian and Eastern European
         | population, it seems to be literally something inbuilt in them
         | to come in and demand it. They swear by it. And as much as I
         | absolutely hate tipping the hat to rubbish complementary and
         | alternative treatments, or which vitamin supplementation has to
         | be amongst the definitively most wasteful, it is simply not
         | possible to convince some people
        
       | purple_ferret wrote:
       | this is the woman who chided twitter employees for concerns about
       | Elon Musk[0] and told them not to come to Substack a couple
       | months it was revealed they are essentially broke[1]
       | 
       | [0]https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1511376638487019524?..
       | .
       | 
       | [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/business/media/substack-l..
       | .
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Bhilai wrote:
       | I have never a podcast from Joe Rogan but I have definitely heard
       | him mentioned around a lot of controversial topics - vaccines,
       | Ivermectin and pushing a certain political ideology. Lets say I
       | want to start on a clean slate, what episode in your opinion
       | truly reflects the best of Joe Rogan?
        
         | wppick wrote:
         | #1169 - First interview with Elon Musk
         | 
         | Episodes with Rhonda Patrick
         | 
         | #1555 - Interview with Alex Jones
         | 
         | First couple interviews with Jordan Peterson
         | 
         | Mike Tyson Episodes
         | 
         | Jack Dorsey and Vijayya Gadde - #1258
         | 
         | Paul Stamets - #1035
        
           | nixonpjoshua1 wrote:
           | Also #1309 Naval Ravikant
        
       | candiddevmike wrote:
       | I blame JRE for the ridiculous amount of "I'm a famous person
       | interviewing other famous people" podcasts everywhere.
        
       | Biganon wrote:
       | When I reached the NFTs and Elon Musk bit, I was convinced this
       | was satire
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | pookha wrote:
       | Rogan's sort of like an unfiltered Oprah for men. Some of Rogan's
       | content is hilarious, some of it's interesting and some of it's
       | boring. But I've never listened to a Rogan podcast and felt the
       | urge to be an angry dude behind a keyboard and rage over moron's,
       | a "dumb guy", "misinformation" etc. It's just a long form
       | conversation with a comedian and martial arts analyst. The people
       | that feel that much hate over some casual bro having long talks
       | should switch their Chai Lattes to decaf.
        
         | SilverBirch wrote:
         | I think you do actually feel the urge to be an angry dude
         | behind a keyboard, because whilst explaining to us just how
         | cool and unbothered you were you couldn't get through half a
         | paragraph without resorting to personally insulting people you
         | disagreed with about Rogan.
        
           | pookha wrote:
           | What made you think I wasn't bothered by this? The entire
           | reason I posted that was to show that I'm bothered by angry
           | people behind keyboards attacking people's mental
           | capabilities over simple disagreements. I try not to be angry
           | though. Life can be very short and you only have so much
           | energy and focus (finite resource) and the world already has
           | enough suffering. My message is to lighten up and avoid
           | feeding into mobs. I know that sounds corny and I'm probably
           | an angry-dude to you but that's where I'm at in life. My
           | apologies if the snarky coffee quip pissed you off.
        
       | kwertyoowiyop wrote:
       | "Chris gave a great interview by being unscripted, authentic, and
       | interesting."
       | 
       | /eyeroll
        
         | CTDOCodebases wrote:
         | It was boring.
         | 
         | To an outsider it looked like Chris was there for the
         | opportunity not the conversation.
        
           | kwertyoowiyop wrote:
           | Isn't every guest though...really?
        
         | purple_ferret wrote:
         | When your comms director chauffeurs you to an interview,
         | outlines how they went over talking points with you, and then
         | in the writeup gives that assessment...
        
       | [deleted]
        
         | drstewart wrote:
        
       | acatton wrote:
       | > At a long desk in the big main room sits an attractive nurse.
       | She offers us an enhancer of B12 or NAD+, through a shot or an
       | IV.
       | 
       | > I get a shot of NAD+, which is supposed to be good for energy
       | and metabolism. NAD stands for Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide,
       | and I don't know what the + is. (Actually, I don't know what any
       | of it is, but the nurse said she takes it, and if you saw this
       | woman, you too would ask for a shot of whatever she's on.)
       | 
       | Am I the only one cringing at people taking random injections
       | from random strangers claiming they have a semi-medical degree?
        
         | seper8 wrote:
         | "from random strangers claiming they have a semi-medical
         | degree?"
         | 
         | Who is claiming this exactly?
        
           | acatton wrote:
           | Well she says this person is a nurse. So this person most
           | likely introduced themselves as a nurse. So they are claiming
           | they are a nurse until it's proven true, right?
        
             | seper8 wrote:
             | Who else do you get injections/supplements from other than
             | "people claiming to have medical degrees"...
        
               | bad416f1f5a2 wrote:
               | Go to any gym with a focus on weightlifting (ie: not a
               | Planet Fitness). Lift weights. Strike up a conversation
               | with other people who lift weights.
               | 
               | Soon a new world of injections and supplements will be
               | yours if you want it.
        
               | kbelder wrote:
               | >Strike up a conversation with other people who lift
               | weights.
               | 
               | Nightmare fuel.
        
               | ctf1er wrote:
               | Nightmare fuel? Yeah, just got a shipment. You're gonna
               | be ripped bro.
        
               | acatton wrote:
               | I'm not well verse in the US medical system. But in
               | Germany, I get my injections from my doctor for which I
               | can look up their license online.
               | 
               | If I were to take supplements, which I don't, since I
               | consider it to be pseudo-science[1][2], I would get them
               | from my local drug store which has the german equivalent
               | of a FDA license and regular audits.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29v6rNFjlLI
               | 
               | [2]
               | https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-
               | vitam...
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | There are a zillion different substances classified as
               | supplements. It's reductionist and intellectually
               | dishonest to lump them all together. Some are effectively
               | just placebos, or even harmful in high doses. Others
               | appear to have beneficial effects. In many cases those
               | effects are subtle, and might only be noticeable to
               | people who push their bodies to the limit. Unfortunately,
               | this is almost impossible to study through high-quality
               | randomized controlled trials given the numerous
               | confounding factors.
               | 
               | Let's look at it empirically. Among elite athletes, how
               | many take _zero_ supplements? I can 't prove that they're
               | getting any benefit but the correlation between
               | performance and the use of certain supplements is so
               | strong that I suspect there's something real going on.
               | (And by supplements I mean real supplements, not PEDS
               | which are an entirely separate category.)
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | There is a certain type of person who follows all the
               | rules and regulations to the letter, implicitly trusts
               | the authorities, and has an undisguised attitude of scorn
               | towards anyone who does not live and act the same way. I
               | think the relative prevalence of this attitude is a long-
               | standing cultural difference between Germany and the US.
        
               | darawk wrote:
               | People get B12 injections from nurses all the time. It's
               | extremely common in the US. NAD+ is probably less common,
               | but it's not the nurse's credibility that's recommending
               | the substance. The nurse is just there to inject it
               | safely, something any nurse should be perfectly qualified
               | to do.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | Many injections given in the US are administered by
               | people _way_ less qualified than a nurse. A CMA can do
               | quite a lot after just a one-year certificate program.
        
         | preommr wrote:
         | Are you taking into consideration how hot the nurse was?
        
           | koheripbal wrote:
           | Are you taking into consideration that none of that happened
           | and it's meant to be comical?
        
             | rtev wrote:
             | Oh, it certainly happened. Nothing else in the article
             | seems to be made up.
        
             | conorcleary wrote:
             | uhh you better believe there is a staff nurse at JRE
             | handing out NAD.
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | This is one thing that always puzzled me with recreational
         | drugs.
         | 
         | People just snort/eat/shoot/smoke whatever? It's been through
         | how many shady people on the way to you?
        
           | chasd00 wrote:
           | drug users don't care otherwise they wouldn't be drug users.
           | Look up Krokodil, addicts don't care what it does to them as
           | long as there's a high somewhere in the effects. It basically
           | impossible to stop demand side which is why the (futile)
           | efforts are spent on the supply side.
        
           | L_226 wrote:
           | Yes because generally people who sell shit want to keep
           | selling shit to the same people. So there is an incentive to
           | sell stuff that is as close as possible to what the customer
           | wants. Yes you get cases where people cut coke with fentanyl,
           | but in general this is not how it works.
        
           | nibbleshifter wrote:
           | Test kits are available, lab testing is available in some
           | places, most drugs are easy to "clean up", and some sources,
           | while shady, rely wholly on reputation.
           | 
           | There's also a risk/reward factor - many drugs are
           | _incredibly_ enjoyable, and users feel it 's worth the risk.
        
             | bluedino wrote:
             | Oh, I've no doubt participated, it's just crazy because who
             | knows what's actually in it.
             | 
             | E.g., fentanyl.
        
               | seper8 wrote:
               | ... Thats where the mentioned test kits are for :)
        
         | nibbleshifter wrote:
         | I read "a shot" as in like, a shot glass, given the alternative
         | was an IV (which could also be referred to as a shot?).
        
           | gimmeThaBeet wrote:
           | I read it to be a syringe or an iv drip. It definitely feels
           | like disparate levels of administering, but going around this
           | studio with an iv seems really inconvenient. > Later, just
           | before taping, Joe goes over and gets his own jab of NAD+.
        
           | aqme28 wrote:
           | I read that the same until the next line
           | 
           | > Later, just before taping, Joe goes over and gets his own
           | jab of NAD+.
        
           | obiefernandez wrote:
           | No, given the substance he probably did indeed mean
           | intravenously. NAD is degraded significantly in the stomach.
        
         | TakeBlaster16 wrote:
         | That honestly reminded me of Cuppliance from Black Mirror.
        
         | dfc wrote:
         | A nursing degree is a medical degree.
        
           | InitialLastName wrote:
           | Dressing as a nurse and offering people injections doesn't
           | mean you're a nurse.
           | 
           | In fact, I'd be willing to bet that few nursing associations
           | would look kindly on offering people unprescribed snake oil
           | injections outside of a medical context and with no knowledge
           | of their medical history.
        
             | fragmede wrote:
             | The way this works is the person giving the injections is
             | an actual registered nurse, injecting vitamins from a
             | licensed source, so that's legal. The particular
             | formulation being injected may not have scientifically
             | proven results but that's not required, the customer just
             | needs to be willing to pay for the injection.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | TigeriusKirk wrote:
             | I'd be willing to bet many NFL teams (for example) has one
             | or more such nurses. I wouldn't be surprised if various
             | executive suites have such people around, either.
        
             | stripline wrote:
             | Why would you find it hard to believe Joe Rogan has an
             | actual registered nurse RN working for him? Not like he
             | can't afford one.
             | 
             | My wife currently works as a nurse at a hospital. She's
             | tired of the poor working conditions at the hospital so
             | she's applying to work at an infusion center for better
             | hours and pay.
        
         | itronitron wrote:
         | There are several IV 'spa' places in Austin where people
         | presumably go if they've had too much chardonnay the night
         | before. Apparently carrot juice is too out-dated at this point.
        
         | hotpotamus wrote:
         | My mother sells random old bric-a-brac on eBay, and came across
         | a 1960's era reprint of an early 1900's Sears Catalog which was
         | fascinating to me on several levels - the first being that
         | clearly it was nostalgic for folks in the 60's. For me it was a
         | straight up historical document in that it showed literally
         | anything you could order for your house.
         | 
         | Some things would be little changed from today but obviously
         | others would be very different. One of the weirdest things was
         | the patent medication section. Just things like "Dr Fowler's
         | Feminine Medicine" or stuff like that. Lots of promises to help
         | out illness and zero lists of ingredients. It's absolutely
         | bizarre to me, but I suppose not to everyone.
        
           | tintedfireglass wrote:
           | Even these days its no different. I got injured in a small
           | Indian town and went to a local health center. The nurse
           | never told me what they were injecting into me and frowned
           | when I asked them if it was a tetanus injection or an
           | antibiotic. Their tone changed to _You should trust us and
           | not question our experience_
        
         | faebi wrote:
         | Absolutely, also I wonder if it was NMN instead.
        
         | gilleain wrote:
         | For reference, NAD is an electron carrier in cells (https://en.
         | wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleot...). The (+)
         | stands for a charge on the molecule. Roughly, it is involved in
         | oxidative metabolism, among many other processes.
         | 
         | Calling it 'good for energy and metabolism' in one of those
         | wishy-washy ideas about how the body works. It's not clear how
         | adding more of one component of metabolism will affect how
         | energy is moved around and released from food.
        
       | motohagiography wrote:
       | The zoolander reference was brilliant. A lot of the criticism of
       | Rogan reduces to "the wrong kind of people" getting wealthy,
       | asking questions, having opinions, leading conversations.
       | 
       | The Zuckerberg interview he did was probably the most important
       | interview of the last few years, and to go 3hrs with anyone with
       | a calm and consistent interest and disposition is a direct result
       | of his level of physical fitness and world class expertise as
       | both a comedian and martial artist.
       | 
       | There is a mind required for comedy that is transferrable where
       | instead of making people laugh, you can use it to disarm people
       | and get them to open up and share what they believe. Rogan's
       | interview style is very closely related to comedy but just slowed
       | down to a Tai Chi level, where there is an arc in the discussion
       | where most people run out of neurotic energy after about an hour,
       | and then instead of gotcha'ing them, he is just accepting, and
       | then nudges them toward challenges, but not to catch them out,
       | but to get them to be honest. The effect is beautiful.
       | 
       | There is a lot of middlebrow anxiety about him, but I don't think
       | it has standing unless it's from someone who is also pro-level
       | funny, fit, and competent in their discipline.
        
         | nix0n wrote:
         | > The Zuckerberg interview he did was probably the most
         | important interview of the last few years
         | 
         | Why is this the first I'm hearing of it? It didn't seem to have
         | any effect on how Facebook operates.
        
         | filmgirlcw wrote:
         | Look, I don't have a problem with Rogan (I grew up watching
         | NewsRadio and Fear Factor), but this isn't even the best
         | interview with Zuckerberg. That would be when Kara Swisher and
         | Walt Mossberg interviewed him at the D Conference back in 2010
         | and he sweat through his hoodie. And no, they weren't even
         | challenging him or pushing back on him super hard -- he was
         | just that unable to answer basic questions about privacy.
         | 
         | Swisher has had him on her podcast multiple times since then
         | and also had very good, very substantive interviews with him.
         | 
         | Side note: Zuck has clearly invested many, many, many hours in
         | media training over the last decade or so and it has paid off.
         | He's still far from a good speaker but he's so much better,
         | it's honestly impressive.
        
           | philwelch wrote:
           | I guess it's a matter of opinion whether or not making people
           | sweat is the mark of a good interview.
        
             | ryanisnan wrote:
             | When the person in the hot-seat is in direct control over a
             | platform that can influence major world events, yeah, I
             | think so?
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | There's value to confrontational interviews, but not
               | every interview or interviewer needs to be
               | confrontational.
        
               | Cederfjard wrote:
               | Perhaps when the subject is that powerful, they do?
        
               | oswald42 wrote:
               | Perhaps for you, but perhaps you also have a massive chip
               | on your shoulder
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Is this actually a belief that Zuck is so unbelievably
               | powerful that he doesn't deserve the courtesy of a less
               | confrontational interview, or just a rationalization for
               | the fact that you don't like him very much and would
               | prefer to see him humiliated?
               | 
               | Confrontational interviews are a difficult style to do
               | well, and probably not a great style for Joe Rogan in
               | particular. If the guest is smarter or at least more
               | quick-witted than the interviewer, the interviewer can be
               | made to look like a fool.
               | 
               | Also, it's very easy for that style of interview to make
               | people close down and rely on rehearsed talking points.
               | If you really want to know what someone thinks, you need
               | to create a sense of emotional safety for them to open
               | up. Especially these days. You can't make the interview
               | feel like an interrogation. Even literal interrogators
               | will tell you that.
        
               | ryanisnan wrote:
               | I agree that they don't need to be confrontational
               | necessarily. However, most platforms of any importance
               | will have made contentious decisions that are worth being
               | pressed on. So I think a good interview will press on
               | those decisions (or lack of), and naturally become
               | confrontational.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | And there's a couple of ways of going about that,
               | depending on the guest and the interviewer. If you're
               | Chris Wallace interviewing Bill Clinton on Fox News, you
               | can just start an argument because Bill Clinton loves
               | arguing with people and will rise to the challenge. Other
               | times you have to open people up with kindness.
        
             | tharne wrote:
             | > I guess it's a matter of opinion whether or not making
             | people sweat is the mark of a good interview.
             | 
             | Exactly. Part of the reason Joe Rogan is so huge is that a
             | lot of people are sick of the current interviewing model,
             | where some sneering journalist (who usually lives in
             | Brooklyn) asks a bunch of leading questions in an effort to
             | humiliate his guest by luring them into a contradiction.
             | 
             | Well-adjusted people don't regularly enjoy watching others
             | get humiliated. They'd rather see an interesting
             | conversation between interesting people, which is exactly
             | what Rogan gives them and exactly what the traditional
             | media does not.
        
         | kahrl wrote:
         | This is literally the "Well, what color is YOUR Bugatti?"
         | defense of Andrew Tate spouted by teenagers.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | An impressive combination of gate-keeping and fanboyism that I
         | think perfectly illustrates why so many people dislike Rogan
         | and his devotees. God forbid someone "without standing" dare to
         | criticize the man himself, right? Especially if they aren't as
         | (checks notes)... fit as him?
        
         | purple_ferret wrote:
         | >The Zuckerberg interview he did was probably the most
         | important interview of the last few years,
         | 
         | You mean of all interviews done anywhere? Surely, that's
         | hyperbole.
         | 
         | What exactly came out of that interview that's worth noting
         | other than that Facebook throttled a Hunter Biden story (which
         | we already knew had been done across social media platforms)
        
         | rospaya wrote:
         | > The Zuckerberg interview he did was probably the most
         | important interview of the last few years, and to go 3hrs with
         | anyone with a calm and consistent interest and disposition is a
         | direct result of his level of physical fitness and world class
         | expertise as both a comedian and martial artist.
         | 
         | You should think about the tens of thousands of journalists who
         | have done the same thing for a hundred years without being fit,
         | comedians or kickboxers or whatever.
         | 
         | The whole comment reads like idolatry.
        
           | aaron695 wrote:
        
           | npc54321 wrote:
        
           | motohagiography wrote:
           | To be able to do a 3hr interview without neuroticism requires
           | stamina that you can only learn by having become very good at
           | something with practice. When you look at journalists who
           | can't do that without centering the conversation back on
           | themselves or using confrontation, it's pretty clear that
           | competence in a physical discipline makes the difference.
           | 
           | Interesting comparison to journalists though. Who would be a
           | peer as an interviewer? Maybe George Plimpton, Christine
           | Amanpour, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, or Dominick Dunne?
           | 
           | Personally, I respect physical competence, _techne_ over
           | _episteme_ , experiment over theory, performance over
           | criticism, predictive power over post-hoc explanation, etc.
           | It's more of an orientation than an idolatry.
        
             | flycaliguy wrote:
             | Howard Stern. I wish Rogan had his level of intelligence
             | and insight into the human mind. Howard is also much
             | funnier and knows how to keep a show from turning into a
             | sleeping aid.
             | 
             | No matter how hard you practice, you can't fake funny.
        
               | programmarchy wrote:
               | Hardly. Howard Stern gets views by shocking his audience.
               | He's raunchy and sadistic, either asking people about
               | their personal sex lives, or bringing on a disabled
               | person in order to humiliate them. He's not pursuing any
               | intellectual aims. There's no comparing what Stern and
               | Rogan are doing.
        
             | twmiller wrote:
             | "Who would be a peer as an interviewer?"
             | 
             | Dick Cavett has forgotten more about the art of the
             | conversational interview than most people have ever known.
             | Intelligent, perceptive, and witty. I'll take his 40-year-
             | old youtube clips any day of the week over the wannabe
             | everyman that Joe Rogan pretends to be.
        
             | Cederfjard wrote:
             | > When you look at journalists who can't do that without
             | centering the conversation back on themselves or using
             | confrontation, it's pretty clear that competence in a
             | physical discipline makes the difference.
             | 
             | It's not clear to me at all, to be honest.
             | 
             | > Personally, I respect [...] experiment over theory
             | 
             | Yet your theory above on how competence in a physical
             | discipline confers ability to conduct interviews for longer
             | periods without becoming neurotic seems entirely
             | unsubstantiated by experiment. Are you aware of any studies
             | that back it?
        
             | KennyBlanken wrote:
             | You seem unaware that many, many journalists and
             | interviewers do indeed spend several hours interviewing
             | their subjects....that is then significantly edited down.
             | That good interviewers (and their staff) have spent many,
             | many hours doing background research to prepare for the
             | interview.
             | 
             | If you think Joe Rogan is an impressive interviewer, your
             | mind will be blown away by someone like Terry Gross. She
             | appeared on the Tonight Show and Fallon showed a photo of a
             | book Gross had read before interviewing the author -
             | stuffed full of notes, page corners turned down
             | 
             | Stephen Colbert presenting her Peabody award covers her
             | show better than I ever could:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl8mkTFY-D8
        
               | filmgirlcw wrote:
               | Exactly what my comment I spent way too much time writing
               | was trying to say.
               | 
               | And as you say, people like Terry Gross and Oprah and
               | Diane Sawyer and Mike Wallace and even Howard Stern (who
               | is one of the best ever at interviewing) actually do
               | research ahead of time. And the interviews are far better
               | for it. Having an off the cuff conversation is fine.
               | Having awareness of the person you're going to talk to,
               | familiarity with their work and with what they are about,
               | is even better.
               | 
               | Watching Oprah interview Lance Armstrong remains a master
               | class in the art form and her ability to interview such a
               | wide range of people about so many things is just
               | incredible. Likewise, Terry Gross does what she does so
               | well -- and is one of the best audio journalists of all
               | time, that it's honestly comical for Rogan to even be in
               | the same sentence.
        
               | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
               | Charlie Rose was one of the GOATs as well, and the exact
               | opposite of Rogan: you could immediately tell he'd done a
               | super deep dive on the interviewee and the subject at
               | hand before the interview ever started.
               | 
               | I think Letterman has been doing some interesting stuff
               | lately in the gray area between those extremes. He's a
               | humble funnyman that keeps things a little loose, but you
               | can still tell he's done some prep and is quite well-
               | read.
        
             | filmgirlcw wrote:
             | >Interesting comparison to journalists though. Who would be
             | a peer as an interviewer? Maybe George Plimpton, Christine
             | Amanpour, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, or Dominick Dunne?
             | 
             | That's a good list. I'll add more, because I think you're
             | being pretty dismissive of journalism and the art of the
             | interview that has been born from journalism:
             | 
             | Terry Gross, Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Larry King, Bob
             | Woodward, Lesley Stahl, Bryant Gumble, Bob Costas, Walter
             | Cronkite, Barbara Walters (who I personally don't love but
             | who I can't deny has excelled at the art form and created
             | many of its best elements), Jane Pauley, Gwen Ifill, David
             | Frost, Audie Cornish, Kara Swisher.
             | 
             | There are many, many more I'm forgetting. Interviewing has
             | long been a stable of radio and television broadcasting.
             | Not all broadcasters are journalists, but there is
             | significant overlap.
             | 
             | The two greatest living interviewers are Oprah Winfrey and
             | Howard Stern. Stern isn't a journalist per se, but he is a
             | broadcaster and he's absolutely as good as anyone who has
             | ever done it (other than maybe Oprah, who has the ability
             | to interview anyone and make it tantalizing). And I think
             | Joe Rogan is a good interviewer and has absolutely improved
             | over the years (as one would hope if you do something for
             | hours a day for over a decade), but he doesn't even come
             | close to either of them.
             | 
             | And yes, interviewing is a physical act and an act of
             | stamina, but I'm not sure what your point is here. Most
             | journalists who are adept at the interview (and I'm
             | sticking with primarily broadcast interviews here because
             | written interviews, while equally important, are a
             | different beast that often require far more stamina and
             | time than doing a televised or audio broadcast of an
             | interview) have that level of stamina, or more.
        
               | hoistbypetard wrote:
               | > The two greatest living interviewers are Oprah Winfrey
               | and Howard Stern.
               | 
               | I would put Terry Gross miles ahead of both, and believe
               | Stern's skill as an interviewer laps Winfrey several
               | times. But I'd put nearly everyone on your list ahead of
               | Winfrey as well.
               | 
               | I'm curious: why did you call out Stern as "not a
               | journalist" but not Winfrey? Neither one of them bears
               | even a passing resemblance to a journalist as far as I
               | can tell.
        
           | freejazz wrote:
           | It's not idolatry so much as just being uninformed about
           | pretty much everything else in the world.
        
         | adammarples wrote:
         | I like Joe Rogan but calling him a world class comedian and
         | martial artist is not right. He doesn't compete in BJJ and he
         | always was a middling comedian.
        
           | Happos wrote:
           | You're not wrong, but Georges St-Pierre says Joe has the best
           | turning side kick he has ever seen, and that's gotta count
           | for something.
        
             | motohagiography wrote:
             | Indeed, and they hand out Netflix specials to anyone who
             | can fog a mirror these days so it's probably not a useful
             | measure... Maybe I should just do one.
        
               | Happos wrote:
               | Indeed. Just remember to keep your knee high - that's
               | where the power comes from.
        
           | purpleblue wrote:
           | He sold out Madison Square Gardens and headlines along with
           | Dave Chappelle. He's not one of the top comedians of all time
           | in my opinion (Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock Louis CK, Bill
           | Burr), but he is wildly successful for a comedian.
           | 
           | He was a state champion in Tae Kwon Do when he was younger
           | and is a black belt in BJJ. He's very experienced in multiple
           | types of martial arts. He doesn't compete because he's 54
           | years old but he still trains every day.
        
             | greenhearth wrote:
             | Your GOAT comedians list needs some work.
        
             | ethbr0 wrote:
             | > _top comedians of all time in my opinion (Dave Chappelle,
             | Chris Rock Louis CK, Bill Burr)_
             | 
             | Statistically, "of all time" should probably include some
             | dead people...
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | Have you watched his standup?
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | Is this satire?
        
       | [deleted]
        
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