> I've not run across one yet that wasn't well-reasoned,

Then you cannot listen to many. Joe speaks so much bollox with an authoritative air that if you didn't know the subject you would think that Joe did, when many many times he clearly does not.

I agree they are interesting when he lets the guest speak (even if completely disagree with them) or it is on something Joe does know about / has researched. But that is far from all the time.

Joe also has a habit of ignoring the guest at times and carrying on down his own little conversation alley, usually when he got too stoned - which ruins the conversation IMO

I really like Joe Rogan, and the format of its podcast. I don't know other medias where they let people speak for three hours. I was suspicious the first time I listened to him. I thought, can this beefy archetypical MMA dude say anything interesting? actually he can. He's at ease with all types of guests, he just seems to be an outspoken, honest guy.

I agree that he tends to bring up his favorite topics all the time, which gets a bit repetitive but it's ok. You can't expect him to run hundred of conversations without being repetitive.

I am sure there are many others, but these three shows feature long-form interviews which feature interesting guests:

The Ezra Klein Show - Ezra Klein

Making sense podcast - Sam Harris

80000 hours podcast - Rob Wiblin

[1] https://www.vox.com/ezra-klein-show-podcast [2] https://samharris.org/podcast/ [3] https://80000hours.org/podcast/

In the same vein as those: Conversations with Tyler and Sean Carroll's Mindscape.

https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

Whatever you think of Chapo Trap House, and there's a lot to criticize them on, from both the left and the right, when they let Virgil Texas do an interview for a whole episode, it's damned good.

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman is also a very good interviewer, but her guests are often too niche for me to recommend to a general audience.

Sam Harris is definitely decent, and the podcast is usually pretty long. Very thought provoking. I recommend giving it a listen.

old Charlie Rose episodes as well, although only usually an hour. But good for guests who are currently dead.

Those are great recommendations - thanks! I was already a follower of the Sam Harris podcast, but the other two I did not know about.

I think you’re right. But... Joe Rogan often claims he’s not a genius, and not an expert in many topics. I also feel his fan community strongly understands this. There are a lot of YouTube videos making fun of his mannerisms and when he might be too high on an interview.

To me this is as good as it gets for a talk show that has a wide ranging set of topics like the JRE. Joe Rogan isn’t an expert and doesn’t pretend to be unbiased on all issues. His community, I think, understands his limitations. He just runs a good conversation, and that’s all I want to hear.

Yes, he does a great job playing the curious and interested, but mostly uninformed everyman. This has the "explain it like I'm 5" effect on his guests, which forces them to be relatable instead of using jargon. It's a lot more valuable for most listeners than two people trying to one-up each other in how intellectual and sophisticated they can sound.

I'm a frequent listener and the only subject I assume Rogan is an authority on is martial arts and nutrition. I ignore much of what else he says, but I respect his knowledge on those two topics.

Other listeners I've spoken to feel the same way. And I reckon Rogan knows that too

I would say martial arts and being a comedian.

But he knows a lot about nutrition as well.

He is very biased toward the carnivore/keto kind of diet and dismisses any kind of plant-based diets with "bro science". I would never listen to his nutrition advice, it's just incredibly biased and factually incorrect.

There is some research nowadays showing that different diets work differently well for different people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4

Most of our current long-term (>1 year long) studies about diets deal with the problem of "subjects not sticking to the diet" by just saying that X% of participants stopped the diet and then proceeding to analyze the health benefits for the Y% that stuck to it.

That's a fair thing to do, but what's not supported from those results is the conclusion that such a diet would have worked very well for the X% had they stuck to it.

Some of his best conversations, are with himself /s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xY_D8SMNtE

He certainly spouts some "bollox" but I don't think I agree about "authoritative". He tends to show a lot of humility and asks a lot of questions rather than making statements

It really depends. Go listen and to his interview with Adam Connover where he uses him as a foil to spout off a lot of nonsense about trans people and their agency.

What is his “nonsense”? It’s reasonable to not allow people to cross their biological gender league. He’s seen how biological males have absolutely destroyed in biological female leagues.

He kept repeating that trans women were “confused gay men” on the basis of one very shoddy Swedish research paper, as if that was somehow authoritative.

That was in regards to using puberty blockers on children, I believe. The study stated that many children that believe themselves to be trans ended up simply being gay, and that this lack of certainty (as well as the fact that we don't think of children as rational consenting entities for most things) makes the issue of using puberty blockers controversial.

I could be wrong, but I am almost positive that this is what was being argued.

That matches with what I remember, and I don't understand why that's a controversial thought here. Changing gender is a big deal, it can wait a few years so you're sure.

A big issue is that the longer you wait, there longer your body has permanent effects from puberty. Someone who is ultimately right in their convictions about themselves then has to wait longer through something irreversible.

I think the purported advantage of puberty blockers is that they help “waiting a few years so you’re sure” while taking the path that’s the lesser of evils.

If you're trans and going through puberty, "a few years" can literally ruin your life.

But how do any of us know we are making the right call here? This is one of those wickedly complex problems where there is no right answer. It just sucks for everybody involved, nearly every decision you make can have a horrific outcome and the effects are permanent.

You can't be that surprised that in a situation like this, most people would tend to be very conservative (not republican conservative, but careful, do no harm, don't rock the boat kind of conservative).

No, puberty blockers don't cause any permanent body changes: that's the whole point. They delay the decision. You can still go through a male or female puberty once you're older.

Most people are "conservative" on this issue because they have no idea what they're talking about, just like every almost every other issue related to trans people.

I don't want to wade in, but puberty blockers do have long-term effects, so they're not just a cureall.

Or you can transition once you've reached an age where your body is not in a constant state of flux. When I was young, I intensely wanted to be female. As I got older, it turned out to be a result of curiosity. If I was young today, I'd be far more likely to be going through some hormone regimen because of a childish curiosity.

That "constant state of flux" is what makes your body into a prison that you have to inhabit the rest of your life. Every single trans person I've met desperately wishes that they had transitioned earlier. I transitioned relatively early, and I'm still intensely jealous of trans teens who are getting proper treatment today. My older friends who've transitioned in their late 20s-40s regard their lives as being hopelessly ruined. And some of them repressed their trans feeling for a while, only to have them come back later with vengeance. But you never hear about those people in these arguments.

My mom said something similar about "curiosity" to try and convince me that I couldn't be trans. As it turns out, what she meant was "when I was your age, I wanted to cut my hair short." Likewise, pretty much every story I've heard like this turns out to be either obvious lies meant to discredit trans people, or something that would have been easily sorted out by a psychologist. Eg. I've heard of gay people wishing they were another gender so that they wouldn't get bullied for their orientation. No decent professional would mistake that for genuine dysphoria.

But even supposing that your psychologist was incompetent, you still would have socially transitioned in some capacity before you ever started hormones. This almost certainly would have let you know if transitioning was really right for you. And even if it didn't, and you went all the way to starting estrogen, you could always stop if you didn't like what it was doing. Estrogen works very slowly. I've been on it for three years, and I know cis men whose boobs are bigger than mine. If I changed my mind, I could easily start living as a man again.

It's absolutely unfair to impose life-ruining misery on trans teens because of the off-chance that it might do a fraction of the same harm to a cis person.

That’s not what it was. The guy was venting about how irritating he finds trans people.

Uh thats exactly what it was about... For 20 minutes Mr flamboyant Adam tried to spout bullshit about how it should be perfectly acceptable to give children, who don't even know themselves or bodies, incredibly powerful psychoactive drugs that drastically alter their behavior

Except he's actually had trans people like Eddie Izzard on and they got on just fine, so this is obviously wrong. He takes issue with trans females competing in female sports.

And it's not like he's alone in this- the authoritative bodies charged with protecting the sports are starting to think the same thing.

That's also a valid view, even if it's insensitive. You can be annoyed by whomever you like.

Right. My comment was just that I found it to be low quality content. It was like something you might overhear from a table of not-so-bright senior citizens at a Denny’s.

And you're welcome to that opinion, just as he's welcome to his. That's kind of the point here. Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid.

I was responding to a comment that introduced the transphobic comments, simply to attest that I had heard the episode and that the skinny guy who is on that episode with Rogan was venting/ranting in a way that I found very dumb.

Rogan himself was holding back from joining in, and I think some of the commenters here mistook my comment as critiquing Rogan for being transphobic, which I did not observe. It was the skinny guy (whose name I don't know).

(I don't want to wade in here really, but I have to take exception to your statement: Stupid opinions are not valid.)

Stupidity and validity being decided by whom? If you believe someone's opinion is stupid, you may not consider it valid, but that changes nothing about the actual opinion. Remember, Newton had a series of "stupid, invalid" opinions about physics and astronomy, and now look at us.

(rpmisms and hnbroseph both make excellent points! I want to add that "Stupid opinions are not valid." is, of course, just my own stupid opinion, eh? Combine that statement with "Opinions are valid, even if they're stupid." and you have a logical self-referential paradox, eh?)

perhaps it's a category error to apply the notion of 'validity' to opinions.

The purpose of puberty blockers is to delay body changes until the teenager (not "child") is ready to decide. They don't cause permanent changes like actual hormone therapy, and trans teenagers can always go through a "natural" puberty later if they change their mind. On the contrary, denying a trans teenager puberty blockers causes permanent changes to the body that are likely to cause massive distress and take many years of therapy, training, and surgeries to correct. Many trans people regard having gone through puberty as literally having ruined their lives.

His views on the topic lack nuance. First, you need to determine that the presence of male-to-female trans athletes is indeed a significant problem in a given discipline. Then, we as a society have to decide whether or not we want to do something about it, which is not necessarily a given. For example, are you aware that the top 30 male marathon runners are all from Kenya and Ethiopia? It sucks for Europeans that we apparently just can't compete at the highest level, but most people would probably argue that this is just the way it is. Finally, the actions that should be taken will depend on the sport in question.

Case in point: Rogan talks a lot about fighting. But in that particular case, we already discriminate by weight. So it might be possible to make things more fair by giving a weight penalty to male-to-female fighters that want to compete in the women's league.

The whole point of female leagues is, that females don't become overpowered by males. So the decision you are talking about is already made. If one starts to introduce biologically males back into the female league one could arguably instead remove the female league and introduce a unisex one. This would be more coherent with your reasoning in my eyes.

The purpose of female leagues is to allow women can participate in sports. If all sports were unisex, then pretty much all competitive athletes at every level would be men, denying women access to an important part of culture and social life. This is pretty exactly what you advocate doing to trans women, who could not possibly compete against cis men.

Trans women are rare, and transition dramatically reduces muscle mass and other attributes related to performance. In fact, trans women typically have a lower testosterone level than cis women due to hormone treatments. There's absolutely no reason to believe that allowing trans women to participate in sports would prevent cis women from being able to compete. Trans women have been allowed to participate in women's Olympics events since the early 2000s, and not a single one has won a gold medal. You use the term "biological males" to refer to two completely different sets of people, which is dishonest and despicable.

The decision about female leagues was made at a time when transsexuality wasn't socially acceptable and hence did not factor into it.

My point is, there are options to explore besides an outright ban. For example, a trans woman that goes through HRT will lose some of the advantages of her birth sex. However, she might still enjoy the advantage of the male frame, hence my suggestion of an additional penalty.

A unisex league as you suggested could also be a posibility, and one could think about introducing not only weight classes, but testosterone classes as well.

But again, the female leagues were established because of the physical differences between men and women. Yes, some trans people who undergo some medical interventions have some of their physical sporting attributes brought closer into line with the opposite sex, but it’s not all attributes and it’s not all athletes. It’s exceedingly complicated.

The reality is that female leagues was a cultural hack that worked well enough in the 20th century. But in a world where we recognise that neither sex not gender fit neatly into binary categories, it is impractical to assume that we can fit people into two sporting categories.

testosterone is highly variable even at the individual level to the point that I think this particular metric would difficult to implement.

Before the higher level of testing, there were plenty of rumors that fighters would overtrain (or cycle on steroids) to the point of plummeting their testosterone levels to be given a TRT exemption. By the time their baseline levels recovered by fight day, they could still be on TRT

I feel like you're picking one thing you feel strongly about and disagree with to discredit the entire show. I don't agree with a lot of what Rogan believes, but I feel this is an unfair characterization of him and his show.

Connover was doing a lot of hemming and hawing as well I recall

Yes because he’s not an expert on trans issues, he’s a comedian, which Rogan knows, but chose to use him as a foil for his equally misinformed stances.

Connover, to his credit, went so far as to provide additional context for his defense of trans people’s agency post-interview:

https://www.adamconover.net/adding-evidence-to-the-discussio...

Multiple commenters have stated his stances are misinformed. Are his stances misinformed or is he simply poor at arguing for one of the many stances people can take on trans issues (issues which, if everyone is honest, are pretty complex)?

The stance that it is wrong that there should only be male and female sports leagues AND that trans people should automatically be included in whichever their identification maps to, is a completely defensible and not misinformed stance. It may be wrong, but so might the opposite stance held by trans activists (which is also likely completely defensible and not misinformed).

I listened to that episode by accident (autoplay). He was just venting ignorantly about his prejudices toward trans people. It was honestly quite an ugly spectacle. It was the kind of commentary one might overhear from a table of not-so-bright senior citizens at a Denny’s.

There has to be conversation. There are some who just want to shut it down with 'bigot-transphobe' type spit-words. Gotta let it grow. Transcend the offended feeling.

Not sure why you characterize my comments that way. I was just mentioning how I reacted to it, not calling for it to be shut down.

I guarantee you have had a take of similar nature (not necessarily against the same identity) at some point in your life.

We all have some dumb opinions. I appreciate it when people help me develop awareness of my own.

Correct, that episode was so bigoted and off putting that I decided not to listen to any more.

Hearing someone vent/whine about the orientation and life choices of others is just not my cup of tea.

It was the kind of commentary one might overhear from a table of not-so-bright senior citizens at a Denny’s.

I thought the episode with James Damore was a good example of Joe ruining what could have become an interesting interview: lack of direction, ranting, pushing James towards particular statements. But I don't mind his show being hit or miss, given the sheer number of episodes.

It didn't help that Damore was a terrible interviewee. He was clearly nervous and awkward and not particularly good at arguing his viewpoints. I put more blame on Damore sucking for that one than Joe.

Exactly, he generally seems to get dragged on by the guest, especially if they have a strong personality. Someone like Neil DeGrasse Tyson will call out Joe on make he starts saying bollox like the moon landing conspiracies. But then other people will go on the conspiracy path with him and let him spew shit neither of them understand.

He even does this in an area he should be knowledgeable in: MMA. For example how he went on how you should destroy yourself in training, and always go 110%, while his guest (I can't remember who, maybe Firaz Zahabi the coach of GSP) said the exact opposite.

> how he went on how you should destroy yourself in training, and always go 110%

I've been listening to him forever and watch MMA every single weekend. I have hard time imagining him saying this. Infact, one of his MMA pet peeves is over training.

You'll want to provide a citation here as the claim you are making is likely false, or perhaps you've just mis-remembered.

yeah, no.

i've never heard him say anything like this. i've also watched the entire Firaz episode.

Yeah, I’ve noticed he likes to do this around issues I imagine are red meat for his audience (e.g. the rights of trans people). It really detracts from what are otherwise decent interviews.

Be careful, because his podcast is a bit of an echo chamber.

The other day he set up a debate on nutrition where he covered the topic of heart disease, and he put a cardiologist (Dr. Khan) with 20 years of experience debating with an acupuncturist (Kris Kresser) on the causes of heart disease.

And he kept interrupting the doctor and taking the acupuncturist side on the most absurd claims.

He is also into things like moon landing conspiracies and all that good stuff that generate a lot of internet traffic, but I think in a bit of a hypocritical way as I'm pretty sure he doesn't really believe in any of that stuff and just talks about it for the clicks.

Dr. Khan is not just a cardiologist, he's a vegan and my problem with him specifically and with veganism in general is that it's often ideological.

Chris Kresser is not an "acupuncturist". And this is a classic ad-hominen ;-)

Joe kept interrupting Khan because Khan was avoiding answering the asked questions.

And Chris kept mentioning the elephant in the room, which is that the randomized-controlled trials (the gold standard in nutrition) don't show a statistically significant link between heart disease and meat or saturated fat consumption and that's a fact, being also the subject of recent meta analysis, that used GRADE to reach the conclusion that there is no good evidence for the claim that meat causes cancer and that adults should probably continue their current meat consumption:

https://examine.com/nutrition/red-meat-is-good-for-you-now/

This isn't to say that meat or saturated fat is good or bad, but if listening to such a podcast causes anger at the people daring to question a "cardiologist with 20 years of experience", then maybe you should consider that you yourself have stepped in the land of ideology / religion and that's just not compatible with science or health for that matter.

It's his formal training, he is a licensed acupuncturist. The man has absolutely no business talking about heart disease, especially with an experienced cardiologist.

The problem of putting someone with acupuncture training debating a cardiologist is that, in the eyes of that huge audience, he presents those opinions as perfectly equivalent, alternative to each other and equally valid.

When in fact, one person has basically no idea of what he is talking about, but in the eyes of the public, and because they are put side by side, they are seen as equivalent when they are not.

Why not put him against a non-vegan cardiologist then? Someone at least with equivalent training.

From a scientific point of view, the only diet that as ever shown to stop the progression of heart disease is a whole-food plant-based diet.

Khan replied to the questions, not sure why you are saying he avoided anything. It's obvious that Joe took Kresser side during the debate.

What kind of tough questions did he ask Kresser compared to Khan?

> It's his formal training, he is a licensed acupuncturist. The man has absolutely no business talking about heart disease, especially with an experienced cardiologist.

This is an extremely closed minded view—not everyone with formal training is automatically an expert. This is the appeal to authority fallacy, and a poor one at that.

> From a scientific point of view, the only diet that as ever shown to stop the progression of heart disease is a whole-food plant-based diet.

This is not true either, and I find it ironic it’s stated authoritatively with no sources.

Not everyone with formal training is an expert, but its the minimum requirement. Literally no one without formal training can be an expert in such a complex topic as heart disease.

Why is Joe Rogan asking about heart disease to a licensed acupuncturist in a podcast with 60 million downloads a month? It's like asking for legal advice from a massage therapist.

If you had heart disease or someone in your family had it, would you ask an acupuncturist for advice?

For the sources:

"proved decades ago that heart disease could be reversed solely with diet and lifestyle change"

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/our-number-one-killer-can-b...

The video is a summary of the studies listed via the "Sources cited" button, that you find scrolling down after the video.

> Not everyone with formal training is an expert, but its the minimum requirement. Literally no one without formal training can be an expert in such a complex topic as heart disease.

I have no bone in this particular fight. I'm inclined to agree with you, most of the time, but it's clearly possible to be an expert in nearly anything without formal training:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

Lots of absolutes in this discussion, but reality is usually far more nuanced.

It depends, if looking for advise on how to use excel from someone, I don't think that they need to be certified or whatever.

For asking someone to do some web design or a logo, I don't think it's necessary either, but there is a limit somewhere.

Think about this way, if you yourself or someone in your family would have heart disease, would you take advice from an acupuncturist?

I bet you wouldn't. What are the odds that Kris Kresser without any formal training or experience managed to better understand the science behind such a complex topic like heart disease than full-time scientists and cardiologists?

Self-learning is great for a lot of things, but heart disease is likely not one of them.

How dare you question dietary proselytizing which is clearly masquerading as scientific fact.

FWIW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study YMMV

The recent meta-analysis got to the same conclusions as before (the link between meat and cancer), it's just that the interpretation of the authors was different.

They said that although a link exists, its not worth it for people to change their diet, which has triggered outrage on the scientific community.

One of the authors of the studies meta-analysed complained that he never saw such as misrepresentation of the data.

The author of the meta-analysis is someone with strong financial links to the meat industry, so thay study is suspect, to say the least.

When you open someone up after a heart attack, what do you find clogging their veins? It's cholesterol. What happens when you eat cholesterol? Your cholesterol serum goes up.

If Joe could have found a serious cardiologist that would claim that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease, he would have long invited him to the show.

But the best he could come up with is Kris Kresser, which kind of says it all.

> When you open someone up after a heart attack, what do you find clogging their veins? It's cholesterol. What happens when you eat cholesterol? Your cholesterol serum goes up.

That’s an incorrect oversimplification of the situation. Like most of what is being bandied about here.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

The amount of cholesterol in the blood is largely produced by our own body depending on the mix of fat and carbs that we eat, and a smaller but still significative part comes from dietary cholesterol.

Most people eat more than just an egg a day in terms of cholesterol. They eat dairy, meat, eggs, and fish multiple times a day typically one or more of those at every single meal.

So dietary cholesterol does add up over the day, combined with a bad mix of processed carbs and fats it's a recipe for disaster.

Yes, you can eat one egg day and get away with it, but most people eat way more cholesterol than that every single day.

> his podcast is a bit of an echo chamber.

> The other day he set up a debate on nutrition where he covered the topic of heart disease, and he put a cardiologist (Dr. Khan) with 20 years of experience debating with an acupuncturist (Kris Kresser) on the causes of heart disease. And he kept interrupting the doctor and taking the acupuncturist side on the most absurd claims

I haven't listened that episode, or really many Joe Rogan podcasts at all. But isn't that kinda the opposite of an echo chamber? He had two guests on with opposing viewpoints, and gave both of them a fair shake, even when one of the guests had an minority (absurd) opinion?

An echo chamber is a place where the local acoustics make it difficult to speak clearly.

Medical science is able to speak with brilliant clarity hard-earned from centuries of experimentation on the topic of heart disease.

If I hear a discourse involving a cardiologist and a layperson, and it's not really made apparent who is the expert and who is not, then I call that an echo chamber.

That's not the conventional definition of a metaphorical echo chamber.

> an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered

Source: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/echo_chamber

He has said it time and again, that he is willing to sit down and have a reasonable conversation with anyone and everyone.

which is a silly position to take because putting quacks and experts into a room on topics that require domain knowledge and scientific expertise is counter-productive and gives a false impression that both opinions are equally valuable or justified.

In reality, the show is an excellent avenue to mainstream conspiracy theorists and people who want to sell their latest books or products or whatever, and the people who will listen to it will get a hugely distorted view of what the actual consensus on certain topics is.

This is the same sort of dynamic that recently cropped up around a certain youtube 'educator' who claimed to teach people ML and to have disrupted the cartel of higher education, only to turn out that he had plagiarized a lot of his content and that the education was actually of extremely low quality. The same mentality, gatekeepers are evil, listen to the pot-smoking show-host who brings you the real information that they don't want you to know, yada yada.

Having guests with opposing views doesn't make it less of an echo chamber when the host is totally biased towards one of the opposing viewpoints.

>I think in a bit of a hypocritical way as I'm pretty sure he doesn't really believe in any of that stuff and just talks about it for the clicks.

Or maybe he just finds it interesting? I find myself on paranormal sites from time to time even though I know it's 100% (or at least 99.9%) bullshit. It's still fun to read.

There are a couple of huge differences. You don't have financially anything to gain by that, and you are not influencing the opinions of a huge number of people in the process.

There is already so much scientific ignorance in the general public, there is so much misrepresentation of science already.

A ton of people actually believe thinks like the Earth is flat, Joe many times gives a voice to that type of quacks for clicks.

His podcast many times acts as a vehicle for spreading ignorance, other than that yes its entertaining and people should know better. But often they don't and that's the problem.

It's also quite educational and interesting when he has good guests on. I don't know why people have to judge the entire podcast based on his worst guests when there is simply no other mainstream outlet, or at least one as big as Rogan's, that has nearly as many interesting scientists, philosophers, journalists, etc. on. Yes he also has idiots on. So what? The point is the entire world steps through that studio and people blanket generalize the podcast away whenever he has someone they disagree with on, which is a sad stance to take in my opinion.

>He is also into things like moon landing conspiracies and all that good stuff that generate a lot of internet traffic, but I think in a bit of a hypocritical way as I'm pretty sure he doesn't really believe in any of that stuff and just talks about it for the clicks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k

He used to believe that, and now he doesn't.

That was just an example among many. Anything from alien landings to Atlantis to god knows what is fair game to Rogan.

He will gladly give his huge platform to the most complete wacko as long as it makes a good story and gets him his clicks, spreading a ton of misinformation and reinforcing common ignorant beliefs in the process.

> That was just an example among many

Well, it wasn't really an example at all as he's petty open about how silly he was to believe it, but ok.

Rogan invites anyone on who he finds interesting. Yes, he has a proclivity to want to believe things that are a bit out there, but he challenges a lot of those "wackos" as well. He also brings on many field experts just to hear what they have to say.

I think you're wrong about Joe fishing for clicks. He's been doing this a long time now and his format hasn't really changes. He's not purporting to be an expert of any kind (hell, he doesn't even claim to be intelligent) and he's an intellectually open person.

His show is not a platform for guests who won't offend your sensibilities, and he has no obligation to censor for you. If you don't like what a guest is saying then great; make up your own mind. He's not trying to convince you.

He does have some shared responsibility for the accuracy of what gets said on his show and the guests that he invites.

When he invites a guest he gives them a platform, many people hear what some of those quacks have to say and take it at face value.

He should take more care in not spreading so much misinformation and ignorance to a gigantic audience, there is too much of that in the world already.

Why does he? He's not a journalist, he's a talking head. He'll challenge statements he can't get behind, but this is an opinion/entertainment show, and he's not throwing up slogans that read "fair and balanced" at every opportunity.

I don't fundamentally disagree with what you're saying, but with great power, comes great responsibility.

Journalist or not, he still has a responsibility to his audience.

It's a shared responsibility, between him and the guests and the people that listen and take it at face value that should know better.

He can very well balance better the entertainment aspect with the accuracy of the information, especially on topics that have an actual impact on people's lives like health-related topics.

> he still has a responsibility to his audience.

What? If people stop liking what he has to say, they'll stop listening to him. I don't know what your point is. Set up federal regulations on the Joe Rogan Podcast because you disagree with some things he says?

My point is that Rogan does have some sort of moral responsibility for not letting his platform be used so easily to massively disinform the public on non-scientific beliefs.

> he still has a responsibility to his audience.

What? If people stop liking what he has to say, they'll stop listening to him. What's your solution? Set up federal regulations on the Joe Rogan Podcast because you disagree with some things he says?

>>Be careful, because his podcast is a bit of an echo chamber.

Counterpoint:

Be brave about hearing stupid arguments. They are a whetting stone for your own thoughts.

It is not smart, courageous, healthy or prudent to prevent yourself from being exposed to bad ideas.

everyone has an expiration date. someone who wants to make the most of their time probably should not waste it on nonsense.

He's since disavowed the moon landing conspiracy theory beliefs. I agree he has a bunch of episodes that dabble in pseudoscience, though. At least there are a lot of episodes with actual scientists as well.

Any individual podcast definitely is. He will agree with a lot of the stuff the guest says and not really fight back much. Arguably he doesn't have the knowledge to anyways.

But as a whole, I do find that he has a very wide variety of guests which show all sorts of view point. Just don't take what you hear in any single podcast as absolute truth.

If this is the Chris Kresser you are referring to - https://chriskresser.com/ - he is a lot more than just an acupuncturist.

He does have a popular blog, but take a look - https://chriskresser.com/about/

Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac. - "M.S. L.Ac." means Master of Science, Licensed Acupuncturist. This is his formal training, all I'm saying is that he shouldn't be presented as an expert to Joe Rogan's audience in the topic he was interviewed on.

But have you tried DMT, bro?

I agree with your first sentence, but not so much with your second.

He's the best out there now as he's got the pick of his guests (the result of a forward feedback loop of being a good interviewer).

But view/listen to enough of them and you'll learn to pick the gems from the drivel, like almost everything.

Each show has like 50% of just general Rogan filler. It's really noticable if you listen to many of them in a row. I only listen to the really interesting guests like Elon Musk, John Carmack since they're so outside of the entertainment/social media field that the talk stays pretty focused on what they've done.

Joe is a master interviewer for the reasons you mention. I'd also add he has broad interests in almost any topic and subject matter, which helps. Another technique he employs is "listening". There are many times when I want to butt in when listening to his podcasts. But Joe just waits and let's the other person speak and soaks it in.

There are of course the interviews which are actually him being interviewed (he does most of the talking)... But I think that's part of why it makes for good listening. He keeps the conversation going. Even with a reticent guest, most interviews go for 2 hours or more. So in the end you extract something useful out of it.

Joe is not a master interviewer. Compare him to someone who does a lot of research ahead of time and comes prepared with thought-provoking questions, and can keep pace with the deep conversations, like say a Tim Ferriss.

Joe does little research on most guests (mostly due to the sheer volume of guests I'm sure), which could be a more stylistic choice if he were a deft interviewer who could think on his feet and dig deep anyway, but he's not. He's an everyman and asks very surface-level questions. As you say guests are (usually) given wide latitude to own the mic, which works great when it's a guest with a compelling narrative. It works terribly when the guest is very ideological or has some sort of agenda they are adept at selling.

The times he does challenge a guest (sometimes way too aggressively as others in the thread have shown), oftentimes he has missed the point entirely, and the guest has to back up and try to patch the conversation. Once that happens a couple times the flow of the interview is really disturbed and it takes a long time to recover.

I like Joe as a person, and admire his discipline, but to call him a master interviewer would be as accurate as calling him a master comedian because he has been grinding so long.

Narduar is my favorite example of a master interviewer. Watch him leave Pharrell speechless multiple times (starting around the 5:15 mark is a good example). This guy does his homework better than anyone.

https://youtu.be/5RKbSi87J5Q

My go-to examples of people going from skeptical to "WTF?" are Waka Flocka Flame:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMyvB2wAXYI

And A$AP Rocky

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IYpVF_S5M

He also seems to be able to 'find' people just before they really make it big/mainstream, like Kendrick Lamer, Billie Eilish, and Tyler the Creator. I heard about them from Narduar before anywhere else.

Will check him out, thanks for the tip!

His researching skills are indeed impressive, but I feel like he's a bit "loud" in his personality/character and that can take some attention away from the interviewee.

I'd say he's just eccentric, and takes a bit of getting used to in terms of style. also, IIRC, this interview got him some REALLY big ones (including Jay-Z, I think) because Pharrell told everyone he knew to that they had to talk with Nardwuar.

At the very least in terms of doing proper research on a subject, I think there's no one better.

In his interviews he really doesn't draw attention away from the interviewee. You're right about him having a strong personality but it's obvious to me that he tries very hard to never outshine the person he's interviewing.

If you're not used to him, and are coming in 'cold' to watch one of his interviews, then it can be a bit distracting. After a few I think it goes into the background more.

Peter Robinson (of the Hoover Institution) is a good example of a master interviewer, with his Uncommon Knowledge series. Here's one of the last ones I saw:

Peter Thiel on “The Straussian Moment” (Sept 2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRleB034EC8

Definitely; he actually came to my mind but I didn't want to ruffle ideological feathers due to his neoliberal ties. Not that he should be pigeonholed as such - an excellent interview about Leon Trotsky he did with Christopher Hitchens and a Trotsky biographer comes to mind.

He is in the style of Larry King, who famously doesn't do research so he can put himself in the shoes of the audience and ask questions that would be on their mind. It's a valid technique and works well with a laymen audience. What you are describing is a totally different type of show that goes more in depth on fewer subjects.

Since others are posting examples of who they consider master interviewers, I need to include Sean Evans from the spicy-chicken-wing-gauntlet interview show Hot Ones.

His guests routinely compliment him on his prep and the questions he ask. The show would be just as good without the hot sauce gimmick.

It's been quite a long time since I watched a Hot Ones but my impression was Sean Evans does great research with excellent questions, but he's often pretty stiff when he has to steer the conversation - it's like he has a clipboard with questions that he is focused on getting through. He is pretty quick and capable of riffing off guests' comments, but - perhaps due to time constraints - he jumps right back to his list of questions.

The Hot Ones episodes I found the most entertaining were the ones where the guest was the dominant one, steering the conversation, and the questions were incidental / not necessary.

I kinda agree.

He honestly doesn't add that much by being in the room vs if someone else had the same questionnaire sheet. And in some ways his wooden demeanor can even be detracting instead of some of the best interviewers who can melt away and give the interviewee the space and direction to shine.

Perhaps him acting as uninformed and a layman helps bridge the gap between an average joe and someone who is very informed. Sometimes acting stupid or being stupid is a great way to help smart people explain their points.

Terry Gross is a (the?) master interviewer.

One of my favorite interviewers is Sean Evans from Hot Ones on Youtube. Fantastic questions every time. Most guests also remark how good his questions are.

I enjoy Rogan but he's no master interviewer. In fact he strikes me as a kind of conversational Zelig who will nod along in agreement with nearly any idea a guest might put forward.

For a supremely frustrating example of Rogan not 'getting it' listen to the last hour-ish of JRE#1350 with Nick Bostrom, where Joe simply can't wrap his head around The Simulation Argument.

Oof, I mostly only ever listen to Rogan on long flights and then choose episodes based on whether I have any interest in the person interviewed. I was excited to listen to Nick Bostrom, but came away from that episode wanting to scream. I feel like there are other episodes that have been reasonably good... I’m struggling to think of any that stood out in recent memory.

But yeah, Rogan’s a mediocre interviewer at best, though he can be entertaining himself. And the long format of the podcast means that interviewees can sort of talk themselves out, which can give real insight into what they think.

I thought his recent interview with John Carmack was great. Though a lot of that has to do with Carmack himself being a great communicator.

Oh yeah, I did listen to that one. It was a perfect venue for Carmack because I could listen to John speak about anything for as long as John wants to speak about it. Rogan didn’t need to do much prompting for Carmack to spill his solid-gold guts, and he also didn’t feel the need to cut in.

It helped that Rogan is a self confessed Quake nut. If someone didn't have exposure to those early id software games, they might not have been as much at home with Carmack.

Joe is an OK interviewer if he remains sober, and he doesn't inject current events randomly just so he can comment on some talking point going around that week in the media, cut it into a promo and stick it on his channel. By OK I mean he will actually let the person talk most times without interruption and trying to take over like most other annoying interviews.

I started listening to his stuff few months back. And I must say I learnt a lot about listening and having good conversations.

He mentioned this actually few times and its interesting that he learnt to be patient and non-combative no non-issues.

Half of the time i pay attention to how he runs the podcast instead of actual conversations.

I noticed that over time too. My guess is that he has a feel if a guest is entertaining or not. And if they are not he is going into story mode and just sharing the joys of bow-hunting.

You should see JRE#917, Steven doesn't really care about the whole marijuana issue and Joe completely bullies and flames him for like thirty minutes.

That one was not well-reasoned or patient, but other than that, I've found almost all of Joe's podcasts to be very good. He's definitely one of the greatest interviewers on the planet right now.

He did apologize for that. His excuse was that he had a lot to drink and smoke. Also I think him being on good terms with the guests made him more comfortable with being an asshole

That's not really an excuse for an adult person.

Why anyone would listen to anything with a bigot like Crowder is beyond me. If you can’t defend your conservatism without devolving into racist and homophobic slurs, you really shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I find it's useful to listen to those you have strong ethical disagreements with, in order to challenge your own ego and ideas.

Sorry, but I’ve lived enough of my adult life to know that I can tune out people who do mocking imitations of queer people on YouTube and be intellectually just fine.

Crowder was harangued by Maza for years, Crowder responding by doing a mocking impression of the self-referential non sequiturs that Maza would proclaim amidst his criticisms seems like fair game and not homophobic.

I don't see how it is any worse than when Crowder mocks Trump's braggadocios by imitating his common catchphrases. Such material is low comedy, for sure, but not cancel-worthy.

He was homophobic because he used homophobic slurs, not because he did a mocking impression (which is just childish, and is also a good reason to not take the guy seriously). The guy is a fucking joke.

The slurs in question were repeatedly and brazenly used by Maza in his past attacks on Crowder, and thus were part of the impression in Crowder's response. Context matters. Otherwise, if simply uttering or referencing homophobic slurs makes one a homophobe, regardless of context, then wouldn't Carlos Maza be a homophobe too?

I don't follow Carlos's work, but looking at his twitter he is very openly gay, so I would find it very difficult to call him a homophobe. Also even outside of this one incident, the nicest way I would ever describe Crowder is a leach - I was shown his work by a family member (who thankfully doesn't watch his bullshit anymore) before this incident. The guy stirs up shit and offers no value; absolutely worthless.

I agree with you in general, but there are much better people to do that with than Crowder. He doesn't seem like he's acting in good faith, and more generally, think about stuff very much.

There are plenty of intelligent conservatives/whatever that don't do the stuff he does that's just intended to be offensive/get attention.

> This is possible only if those people you disagree with don't have power over you

This certainly must be false, or parenting wouldn't work.

I've taken many, maybe even most lessons and ego checks from people more powerful than me.

What power does Crowder have over you? He's a joke.

Consider: his viewpoint is a firing offense at FAANG while your viewpoint is constantly validated and endorsed.

Who's got the power there? Of course Crowder is a terrible example to speak up for, but he definitely is not empowered.

Not to mention the fact that Crowder's own material tends to show how severely misinformed he is on some of the views he criticizes - in fact in that respect he's become somewhat of a meme in some circles.

Where does Crowder come in at all in this conversation?

JRE #917, which the parent said to listen to, is an interview with Crowder.

> talking-head punditry available on the major news networks

That's also because most news networks don't have the luxury (or the willingness) to do 2 hours interviews with a single person in the first place. They need to make things short so they can drown you with ads at every break.

A.k.a. “concision”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concision_(media_studies)

nailed it

I am not too sure what to make of Joe Rogan’s podcasts. Note that I do not listen regularly, and mostly only listen to some of the ‘big name’ guests. On one hand, it is cool that he is able to attract big names from diverse fields to come onto his podcast.

On the other hand, it feels like most of the podcasts have a shallow content level if you are already familiar with the subject, and sometimes the conversation/questions tend to go into the stoner mysticism realm.

Interviewing Nick Bostrom was cringe worthy. I don't know what Joe was trying to achieve - maybe forming an argument against the simulation theory? But it was so bad. The youtube comment section is amusing.

But mostly Joe gets it spot on and does a great interview. What this does to popular discourse? When a small % of the population watch these types of long form interview and get deep, thoughtful and insightful answers to complex ideas .... and some % of the population watch Fox and read tabloids to get their news.

How does society fix this huge knowledge divide?

> Interviewing Nick Bostrom was cringe worthy. I don't know what Joe was trying to achieve - maybe forming an argument against the simulation theory? But it was so bad.

Bostrom really failed there. He simply did not explain the argument very well. Everything Bostrom said is clear to someone who already understands the argument or has experience with statistics, but it was not at all a good explanation for someone who doesn't have the necessary intuitions to understand why they are more likely to be a simulated agent.

I had the opposite impression. Bostrom is just making up nonsense, then dressing it with fancy words and big numbers to prevent people from calling out his bullshit. It's the opposite of clear. If you look a little deeper he has nothing meaningful to offer in any field.

His argument is extremely clear. It's just unclear to anyone with absolutely no background knowledge, like Joe. He didn't explain it in the clearest way on the podcast because Joe was missing a lot of necessary basics, but if he sat down with Joe for longer and perhaps drew a diagram or something, I think he'd get it.

Perhaps "clear" isn't the right word. Sometimes when someone is spouting total nonsense I initially assume that I didn't understand them clearly because obviously no educated, articulate person could actually be that stupid. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, right? But no, in Bostrom's case it's total unsupported bullshit all the way down regardless of whether he's talking about AGI / singularity / simulations / etc. A complete and utter waste of time. It's disappointing that he's managed to con so many otherwise intelligent people into taking him seriously and buying his books.

Please refute his simulation argument and arguments related to AGI, then. I find pretty much everything he says to be supported and insightful. If so many intelligent people like and agree with him, maybe the issue is with your understanding of his arguments than with the arguments themselves.

How would one "con" so many intelligent people for so many years with purely logical arguments, exactly? An argument is either coherent and valid and sound or it isn't. There's no room for conning or personal charm or anything related to the person themselves.

my impression is that you seem to have an emotional commitment to your position. why do you say that bostrom is "that stupid" talking about "bullshit all the way down" and is "conning" people?

It is actually not that complex of an argument. Well, in the sense that it doesn't strike me as over intellectualized and/or over complicated.

Actually, the simulation argument is solid. One of the three possibilities Bostrom outlines absolutely must be true.

Well, Bostrom states that there will be more ideas in the future that may change the simulation theory. It's the latest most plausable theory.

It may change the probabilities of the various outcomes entailed by the argument, it won't change the argument itself or its conclusions.

Its not just the lack of long form interviews, its the lack of long form in general. News is too short to be meaningful. I just checked the word count in the top 10 stories on BBC news.

Average number of words per article was 764.

While you can get long form fewer and fewer people read it, myself included. If a major player like the BBC resort to news in an average of 764 words the majority of people are not getting deep/insightful/challenging news or information.

In my 20s I used to read long form broadsheet articles on a Sunday, I don't seem to have the attention for it any more. Even articles from hacker news that are too long I just go straight to the comments to get a digest. I suspect my mobile phone addiction is to blame, even last week I signed up for blinkist after I tried to read Ray Dalios Principles for the third time and didn't have the attention for it when I saw an ad for the summary on blinkist and just signed up.

Not sure what point I'm trying to make but I just believe super shortform, dopamine induced hit of information may be detrimental to me/society in the long run.

*edited as table of data not displaying correctly

tl;dr please?

This operates under the assumption that your thing is good while the other is bad. I think the people in the other group would see it differently.

I also imagine on some other forum out there someone is lamenting the popularity of the Joe Rogan Experience while the media of their liking gets even less exposure, and wondering how they fix that knowledge divide in society.

The fact that the people in the other group see it differently doesn't mean they're right though. It doesn't mean either group is right, but at the end of the day one can still take a step back and evaluate the two sources/modes of informing oneself and decide that one is good and the other is bad - with respect to what we agree it's good to optimize for (forming more accurate mental models, being well informed in general and not being deceived either by others or self, etc).

> How does society fix this huge knowledge divide?

- Why should it?

- Isnt the divide inevitable anyway (X knows about Shakespeare, Y knows about quantum theory, Z knows how to grow corn...)

Just a few hundred years ago it was actually possible for a single person to learn essentially everything that was known in Western civilization. And some wealthy people with a lot of leisure time pretty much did that. So now we still see it as a goal to strive for even though it's no longer achievable.

But how many people really try to do that? I’m not aware of any well known true renaissance men/women. Perhaps, perhaps Elon Musk comes close. But even then he’s far too concentrated in tech, just different tech industries. And even short of that, what percentage of people have any kind of cross-training in orthogonal disciplines? Getting an advanced degree in one field is seen as a huge accomplishment. Is society missing out on something due to this? My impression is that ‘way back when,’ everyone who was ‘educated’ had a pretty solid background in history, literature, and philosophy. It was just what you did if you were ‘educated.’ I think much of that tradition is diminished now. Not gone, but diminished.

To some degree, yes, but a lot knowledge can be accurately summarised, and is also both useful in general and even necessary for the good functioning & growth of society. It's not even really about knowledge, it's more about ability - to think critically, to exercise empathy, etc.

I think it depends on your field of expertise.

When he interviews people from tech, it’s usually cringeworthy for me. And very entertaining in fields I know little of.

This kind of issue makes me think I should believe all most nothing. When I know the topic and then know how wrong they got it then I assume that the same is true for all the experts in other topics. I suppose I only have a sample of 1, the topic I know, but I have zero samples of the opposite where some expert tells me "they totally got it correct"

This is kind of the opposite of what Michael Crichton named the "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" [1][2]. Often in the media we recognise stories in our area are wrong, but don't extend resulting distrust to all the other topics.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...

[2] http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/

More people listen to his podcast than watch network news.

I don't doubt this, but do you have a source?

> I've not run across one yet that wasn't well-reasoned, patient, and interesting

You should check out #947 - Ron Miscavige [1]. It is the one episode that comes to mind where JR's behavior and impatience really bothers me. The guy's story is quite sad and Joe seemed distant and distracted the entire time.

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVdCikBDQk

It's funny, I thought that was one of the better ones. Because Ron Miscavige seemingly is trying to avoid all responsibility, and Joe pushes back on this several times. That episode in particular sticks out to me where Joe asks difficult questions which elevate the interview

To me, it seemed like a story of a father being terrorized and subjugated by his narcissistic son. He seemed pretty apologetic for getting him involved in the first place.

Where do you think he was trying to shirk responsibility? I've listened to a lot of his podcasts and that was also the only one where I couldn't understand why Joe was acting so harshly towards him. Once his son was absorbed into the cult, I don't think there's anything he could've done. Not to mention how hard it is even to get yourself out of it, as he explained in great detail.

There are interviewers out there that are far more knowledgeable than him and conduct genuinely interesting interviews with smart people. For example, check out Intelligence Squared podcast. It is true that Rogan's breadth of types of guests is probably unmatched.

The breadth is what I really come for. Like he interviewed John Carmack and Chuck Palahniuk, two people I've admired immensely but who come from two very different fields. Sure, he only covers surface level stuff, but if you knew nothing about writing, game design, or rocket science, you wouldn't get that within two podcast episodes anywhere else