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."