Do you instantly know the truth in every conversation? Do you argue every point or do you let the topics flow naturally? Joe Rogan is no different. He's not an interviewer but just a guy who has long conversations. That's why many guests are his close friends, and also why people are eager to be guests in the first place and talk for hours.

The long-form uncritical nature is what made the show popular and gives you a chance to really see how someone thinks and speaks. It's a rare thing in the world of quick soundbites and prepared presentations. What you do with the information is up to you. Judge it, ignore it, research it, refute it - but that's for you to do.

Also for all the claims of anti-intellectualism, the show has introduced me to more interesting guests of all kinds than anything else.

Well said.

People are so used to shows and popular voices pushing agendas that it seems they're flummoxed when one isn't doing that. Apparently under the impression that Rogan is endorsing everything his guests say and that his listeners just blindly absorb/repeat.

But he isn't pushing an agenda, isn't telling you what to think, doesn't filter by ideology. He's just having conversations with people that he thinks are interesting and treats them respectfully, like a friend would in real life. That's why it resonates, is refreshing, and will continue to mystify those that expect everything to fit neatly in a pre-defined, pre-approved box.

This is a false dichotomy of filtering vs non-filtering. It’s sad that we are at that point in polarization where we can’t have a discussion or debate anymore and everything has to be either labeled or unfiltered. A knowledgeable host or other guest challenging a guest about a scientific fact is not having an agenda, it’s critical thinking than can lead to a healthy discussion and it used to be interesting for listeners to make their own opinion, it’s not hand guiding. There is a large spectrum between being completely passive/complacent and confrontational/insulting/canceling.

Joe Rogan is already in the middle. There are plenty of arguments and introspections where he strives to get more details and confirm the truth.

He just doesn't do it all the time with every guest and topic; but that's a side-effect of having long casual meandering conversations so people get upset when it doesn't happen with intensity they want against the content they disagree about.

In order to be in the middle you need to express an opinion. He seems to not be anywhere on the political spectrum, and that annoys me. Why listen to a political nihilist host morally depraved, political extremist crackpots?

In the context of this thread, being in the middle means he neither accepts everything blindly nor argues every single point, but questions refutes topics where he's knowledgeable or curious about while letting the conversation flow freely. It produces the greatest insight into how the guests think and what they really believe.

Rogan has expressed many strong opinions and has changed those opinions over the years. He's definitely not a nihilist and very clearly leans left on most issues with a few conservative points regarding individualistic rights and personal freedom. He also hosts many interesting people from many disciplines that I've learned a lot from.

It seems like you've never actually listened to any episodes and your comment represents the ignorant and shallow views that people accuse the JRE show of having.

Someone might listen because they believe the world is more complicated than a one-dimensional 'political' model would imply, and that the vast majority of reality and the human experience lies outside of the select few categories that exist in any given society at the moment.

"Forgive him; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature."

Yes, and Rogan would fall into the healthy part of that spectrum. People who say he's totally passive or unchallenging aren't actually familiar with the show - they're just echoing a tired tribal talking point.

But he chooses his guests. You can’t say he exercises no editorial control over the content of the show because he just lets the conversation flow. He chose to have Alex Jones on.

I didn't say that, only that he doesn't limit the conversation. Of course he chooses his guests, and I choose whether to listen or not.

And in case you didn't know, Joe Rogan has been personal friends with Alex Jones since the 90s. To him, he's just another friend on the podcast.

> To him, he's just another friend on the podcast.

I know. And to people critical of Rogan's editorial choices, he is a malicious liar who was given a massive platform with which to share his views in an uncritical setting.

Have you actually watched any of the shows with Alex Jones on JRE? What I’ve seen is Rogan doing a great job of calling him on his BS, while still being friendly. I wouldn’t call it an ‘uncritical setting’.

And those people should perhaps listen to the episodes to see that it was far from uncritical, or they will ironically continue in the same ignorance they claim the show to have.

Alex Jones is a terrible human being. Rogan is another con man in Jones’ vein, and the fact that they’re friends should tell you that Rogan isn’t a good person, either. Nobody who chooses to amplify Jones can be considered a decent person.

What's interesting is that all these warnings against Jones and guilt-by-association is generally from people blindly repeating the same thing while being ignorant and uninterested in the real details. The very episodes that people are worried about are actually the best explanations of who Jones is and his friendship with Rogan, and they include disclosures and harsh criticisms against what he's said and done.

Overall I don't understand the big deal about him. I've met truly evil people (from cartel members to death row inmates) and Jones doesn't come close. He's full of extremist conspiracies but he's also extremely easy to ignore. He barely makes a mark compared to the typical social media drivel these days anyway.

I don't really get the 'truth from the garage' vibe from Rogan's podcast. To me the space he creates by not strongly challenging his guests and by keeping the guests list so varied is that of a sort of neutral ground that people can sample other viewpoints from. Almost all other podcasts are easily filtered into the left/right buckets, end up with their respective entrenched audience and help build that audiences bubble. If someone listens to Rogan's podcast they might hear some quackery along the way but they certainly won't end up in a bubble. I prefer sifting through the sludge to find what resonates with me rather than having hosts do it for me.

Ymmv but for myself I prefer not to have my hand held entire life and explained “the one true way” I’m supposed to think. There’s a ton of programming out there that already does this (for your personal definition of “the one true way”)

I'm not sure declining to invite Alex Jones onto one's platform would qualify as forcing one's definition of "the one true way" on others. That's kind of an over-deep reading of that person's character.

I was interested in that episode. I thought Jones was batshit crazy before and still thought so after. It wasn’t hurting me to hear Jones speak.

I haven’t watched anything he did since the Waking Life time so it was interesting to see the downward trajectory there. I hate twitter and other “social” networks with a passion so jre and couple other independent voices are my only window into these sort of cultural phenomenons

They've been friends for over 20 years. The format of his show is a group of friends having an extended discussion. And love him or hate him, Alex Jones is one of the most interesting people on this planet. It'd be a disservice to his listeners to not invite him on the show.

> The format of his show is a group of friends having an extended discussion.

Sure. And that doesn't mean it is free from criticism. Rogan's format freely mixes experts, non-experts, and faux-experts in ways that contribute to an overall undervaluing of expertise in our culture. That's worth criticism even if he is friends with a conspiracy nut and wants to shoot the shit.

It always comes down to feeding the right message to the plebs, doesn't it?

But it also doesn't hurt to have him, you don't need to buy his man pills. To declare him dangerous is rather counter-productive. Especially since there are alternatives for that where you never need to see him. So what exactly is the problem?

This is a straw man argument. There's a big difference between simply vetting your guests to weed out quacks, and pushing some single-minded idea of orthodoxy.

Who decides what counts as a quack? One of the things I find compelling about the format of the show is that the long format really exposes people, for better or worse. If you want to find out whether Alex Jones is a quack there is probably no better evidence than watching his appearance on Rogan's podcast. Same is true for Milo Yiannopoulos (often deemed an alt-right troll) who basically had his career wrecked from his appearance on the podcast. I think having guests from all over the political and 'quack' spectrum is a great example of sunlight being the best disinfectant. It is also a powerful bubble popping feature - very few media outlets entertain serious conversations with such a wide variety of guests.

Thank you for explaining this. De-platforming is an annoying liberal tick that ends up creating an information disparity. When trying to get more information the only thing that comes up are a few intelligentsia-approved articles that lack an accurate description of the de-platformed individual.

I see the "who decides" argument used a lot like this, where the implication is that the mere nature of something being subjective means one must not leverage discernment, or that a single authority must be able to be established. I feel like the engineering types of minds attracted to HN are more prone to accidentally committing this kind of fallacy, as it involves a bias towards black and white objective processes.

I certainly think there is room and use for discernment in guest selection. My "who decides" is a bit of hyperbole in this case but my point is more that Rogan's podcast has a much wider band of guests across the political / scientific / psuedoscientific spectrum. It lets the listener be 'the decider' much more than most if not all other podcasts and media more generally.

Your memory is faulty here. Yiannopolous made his comments on a much smaller podcast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_Peasants), and the hosts challenged Milo in ways that Joe and JRE doesn't.

No doubt, you can draw the line at different points. And obviously, in terms of audience and profit, Joe has found a sweet spot, with enough crazy people to be interesting but not so crazy as to make it a nonstop freak show. My point was that there's a wide band there, and that simply excluding a guest whose beliefs are demonstrably incorrect or morally reprehensible is not the same as pushing a single orthodox belief. Hence my reference to the Straw Man Argument.

So you’re praising him for keeping the balance but the show is somehow “problematic” as some folks like to say bc he invited that one crazy guest? Sounds like more of strawman to me. And yes jre style is very much softball questions I don’t think anyone really disputes that

How about you just skip those episodes? I cannot understand your form of reasoning at all. You are morally reprehensible if you think your standards of acceptance should be used as a template.

Oh yes totally agree, certainly there are many guests who have been rejected from appearing on JRE and yet he is being touted as heterodox.

So in your mind, the ideal show would be one where the guests are chosen at random? Otherwise, there is always the possibility that pernicious orthodoxy would play a role in setting the agenda. And of course it couldn't be on Spotify; the free version plays ads, which definitely push a consumerist orthodoxy. And it couldn't all be in a single language, because as we all know, each language embodies certain cultural orthodoxies. Quite the dilemma, putting together the show of your dreams. ;-)

No it isn’t. As I said if you want your microwaved lasagna go watch 60 minutes. I want to see Dorsey, Jones etc for the lunatics that they are and be thoroughly entertained by it

So you'll trade the lasagna for a bag of Doritos and some Slim Jims? If you think there is something "authentic" about people like Alex Jones, you're delusional. They are media creations, just as surely as Dan Rather. Just less coherent.

That’s actually one of the reasons I watched that episode - to see how much of it is an act and what drove him to these levels of insanity where it’s not. This is what good interview supposed to show imo and jre is certainly not best at this but better than most interviewers out there (at least american ones)

I really just want to say that your comments have been hopeful and refreshing. Thank you.

People watch for the guests, not just Rogan.

Your morally superior attitude of telling others what's correct is exactly what people dislike about other shows. People who "don't need their hand held" can separate the information from the host and think for themselves.

I find that there is still something to learn from the guests that are batshit crazy.

You learn what aspects of their message resonates with their audience, even if their reasoning is clearly flawed. Rogan is unique in that he frequently let's guests speak freely enough that they divulge the reasons they believe the things they do. And that insight can be incredibly enlightening.

As Aristotle said "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

I mentioned this elsewhere, but people on HN eat up the argument of "do your own research, make up your own mind" as an excuse for not challenging even obvious the most obvious BS.

I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to do quality research of every guest he has on. Even if I did, I can't match the manpower or experience of a professional media outlet to do even basic fact checking. For stuff that isn't decided fact, I also don't necessarily have the breadth of knowledge to even know where to look for the competing opinions on a subject.

If I, a student, don't have the time to do that research, then what percent of a percent actually does? Like I was describing, what small fraction of that can even do that research effectively? My guess is that it goes to zero pretty quickly with the complexity of the subject.

That might not be a problem for the most controversial guests where I already have my defenses up. But, what about the more subtle guest who is pushing extreme views based on literal misinformation, but sounds plausible enough that I buy into it?

That is solely your problem that you don't understand it's on you to verify information. You as a student don't have time to quickly look up basic information on topics? Then I suggest that you also don't have time to listen to 3-4 hour podcasts for enjoyment. I work 60 hours a week and I never understand that frail argument. If you buy into information spoken freely, it is solely on you. I understand that by you mentioning you are a student, you are likely quite young. 10 or even 20 years from now you many not even hold these opinions you are forming currently. You may wish to actually preserve free speech.

Who is fact checking your teachers if you don't have the time to do these things? Do you just accept that whatever your teachers are now telling you within a school setting are true, fact, or something you should follow?

I can think back 15-20 years ago to multiple things teachers told me to accept as true or fact that were really just a teacher pushing their own agenda/ideology or belief on an entire classroom of impressionable youths.

It´s your problem that you don´t evaluate the information, not Joe´s or anybody else.

> Together with his lack of keeping the guests straight it creates a pretty toxic sludge that makes it impossible for casual audiences to determine who actually knows what they're talking about and who doesn't.

I don't think it makes sense to criticize Joe Rogan for casual run your mouth conversation when we all know Joe rebranding to be more scientific and educational would destroy him and anyone else who tries. Trying to be sciency while winning isn't really a thing in US broadcasting.

The late Mr Rogers suggests that those in broadcasting have elevated responsibilities as per their elevated stature in society, but maybe those who follow such advice have all but disappeared, undernourished by the market.

As I’ve said before, I’m terribly sad that Mister Rogers is no longer with us, but I’m so happy he didn’t live to see what television and the internet have become.

I think Mr Rogers would have carved out a niche in the internet just as surely as you and I are having a reasonable discussion involving hackers from all over the world.

This type of ethical dualism can be dangerous to your critical thinking long term. Implying that he needs to keep his guests straight suggests an agenda to be pushed. Having either Jones or Penrose on the show does not give it credibility or take it away.

Him not being Yet Another Gatekeeper of the Anointed Opinions is actually pretty nice. Having a blank slate, laying out all options, even fringe ones, and letting people form their own opinions, it's a huge advancement in a media world where everything is ultraprocessed and spoonfed to the audience.

You shine light on conspiracists and fools, for everyone to see, not just hide them in the shadows. That feeds them.

Those scientists must've felt some appeal going on Rogan's show, despite guests like Jones. That's probably why they agreed to it. How does that feed into a culture of anti-intellectualism?

> is uncritical attitude towards his guests

This is actually the part I like the most, and I think contributed the most to his success.

I don't like conflict and arguing, that is also why I stay away from the news.

His podcast feels like you meet some interesting person at the bar, and keep talking to them until the late hours.

Nobody needs to convince anyone about something.

And at the end of the night, you go home and think what you want to think.

He’s a comedian. The fact that people assume he has any kind of moral responsibility to do anything at all is pretty surprising.

I also don’t view him as anti-intellectual at all. He also calls his guests out constantly.

To me that’s the main feature, and not a bug.

I want raw and unfiltered content.

So you’re saying Joe should just not talk to people who don’t hold the right views? Or spend his entire show trying to prove them wrong?

I can go on CNN or Foxnews to see that.

The answer to both questions is pretty clearly no, having read the parent.

> Together with his lack of keeping the guests straight it creates a pretty toxic sludge that makes it impossible for casual audiences to determine who actually knows what they're talking about and who doesn't.

If anything, that is wonderful. Having multiple opinions put forward without context is a great way to engage critical thinking skills. The audience then has to decide what they 'feel' is correct. If the people with the facts can't sway the audience with said fact, then they should go back and figure out why that is. That will help them in the future and make the facts all the stronger.

I enjoy this very much. I believe in giving the audience the choice to determine that for themselves, you seem to prefer the paternalistic approach we had in the past.

> attitude is harmful

I disagree completely.

> makes it impossible for casual audiences to determine who actually knows what they're talking about and who doesn't.

This is quite condescending..

Also people fail to understand that the appeak of extreme right has never been a matter of facts.

What are you comparing Joe Rogan's 'toxic sludge' to?

Let's have a list of programming that's excellent by your standards that also has millions of listeners for each episode for comparison.

I don't listen to that many podcasts. Tyler Cowen has an excellent podcast called Conversations with Tyler, Russ Roberts is a long time podcaster/blogger with a focus on economics, Lex Fridman has a good science/compsci focused podcast and Sean Carroll's Mindscape as well as Ezra Klein's podcast I think have almost always high quality, fairly diverse guests.

I'm well aware none of these have the audience that Joe Rogan has, but I find that a weird metric for comparing quality or how informative something is.

Lex and Sean started because of Rogan telling them they should, in fact they pretty much owe most of their audience to him.

Agreed that those are excellent podcasts! Ezra Klein is one of my favorites and I am always delighted by how he seems to productively engage with people on his show. His guest list is also pretty diverse although it is mostly intellectuals.

I don’t think much is lost to the world by not engaging with Trolls or Quacks. There seems to be a weird kind of “both sides” going on where people seem to think that they should be heard from whereas there are so many interesting folks I would rather choose to listen to instead.