Joe Rogan doesn't need to do these things if he's just "hanging out with his buddies smoke'n" but he also doesn't have an obligation to have provocateurs and hacks like robert malone or ben shapiro on his show. He does it because he knows his fanbase will listen to it, ingest the information, and then speak it as fact to their friends and family - and THAT is where the danger comes in. Furthermore, he also knows that parts of his fanbase will go wild to see their fringe views espoused by a guest on their favorite podcast, without Joe challenging them to back their claims up with facts. I'm sure he also knows that his listeners skew young and male, and impressionable young men have been radicalized to a dangerous degree on the internet. Having the same views on his podcast as conspiracy theory sites, for example, will undoubtedly make it easier for the bad actors running these sites to radicalize JRE listeners (who will then, of course, become a part of the fanbase that loves when their theories are given time on his show in some perverse feedback loop).
He has also inked a deal with the largest music streaming service in the world for more money than any of us will see in our entire lives - at that point I don't think you can even say he's just "hanging out" any more. It's facetious at best, and wilfully negligent at worst, to assume that no one thinks of him as an authority figure, because even if he's playing the everyman character his guests profess to be authority figures in their fields. If he doesn't seriously challenge their false claims or ask for evidence from credible sources, he's doing his listeners a disservice.
Also, on that note, "provocateurs and hacks"? The journal Nature, about as authoritative as you can get, has this to say about Malone:
"In late 1987, Robert Malone performed a landmark experiment. He mixed strands of messenger RNA with droplets of fat, to create a kind of molecular stew. Human cells bathed in this genetic gumbo absorbed the mRNA, and began producing proteins from it. Realizing that this discovery might have far-reaching potential in medicine, Malone, a graduate student at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, later jotted down some notes, which he signed and dated. If cells could create proteins from mRNA delivered into them, he wrote on 11 January 1988, it might be possible to 'treat RNA as a drug'. Another member of the Salk lab signed the notes, too, for posterity. Later that year, Malone’s experiments showed that frog embryos absorbed such mRNA2. It was the first time anyone had used fatty droplets to ease mRNA’s passage into a living organism."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
So, he did (according to Nature) help invent mRNA, but he's a hack because he disagrees with the "scientific consensus" or something. Reasonable minds can differ on that.
Outside perspective: They're clearly all heavily pushing agendas that are only very thinly veiled as news, in between the actual news.
The US hardly has any objective reporting because any attempt at doing so has to weather a lot of shit from every direction and because such reporting just doesn't do as well. The left-leaning and "centrist" news love to lie by omission (just look at the Rittenhouse trial: nobody who actually saw the full trial would have been surprised by the result), while the right-leaning news tend to exaggerate and outright make shit up (for examples look no further than reporting on the BLM protests). Both do a fair amount of cherry-picking what to report on.
It's like people don't actually want news, but instead want to have their views confirmed. The only places on this globe that manage to actually have some semi-objective TV news do so because it is ingrained in their very culture to value those and because of unconditional (government) funding. And even there news have issues - because it's still only people deciding what to report on and how.
Having programmes that the whole political spectrum can watch goes a long way towards having a dialogue and finding common ground.
In any event this deplatforming needs to stop. It's just about the most effective way to polarize a society by forcing everyone on separate platforms.
or lie by lying: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29774315
I also would let left-media (which I consider to be the majority) off the hook as not "exaggerate[ing] and outright mak[ing] shit up":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_...
Insurrection cop was hit on head (and killed) with fire extinguisher: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-c...
There's also a lot of dodgy terminology too, like Trump "putting children in cages" which is a "right-style" (think of the children) provocation not dissimilar to anti-Semitic or witch-hunting misrepresentations.
People want news but people are the product more than the customer.
A couple of posts back you said that the media never admits their mistakes.
That's just plain false.
CNN has issued numerous retractions, some quite high profile.
For example:
https://www.wired.com/1998/07/cnn-retraction/
> CNN chief Tom Johnson said in an on-air statement that CNN alone bears responsibility for the "serious faults" in TV reports and the related article in Time magazine. He said an internal investigation concluded that the claims could not be supported. He apologized to CNN viewers, Time staffers, and American military personnel.
or
https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-cnn-resi...
> CNN removed the story and all connecting links to it late Friday, saying the story did not meet its editorial standards. CNN also issued an apology to Scaramucci, who accepted it with a tweet on Saturday. “Everyone makes mistakes,” he wrote. “Moving on.”
or
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/28/trump-lawrence-odo...
> “Last night on this show I discussed information that wasn't ready for reporting,“ O‘Donnell said at the top of his show Wednesday night. “I did not go through the rigorous verification and standards process here at MSNBC before repeating what I heard from my source. Had it gone through that process I would not have been permitted to report it. I should not have said it on air or posted it on Twitter. I was wrong to do so.“
> “Tonight we are retracting the story,” he added. “We don‘t know whether the information is inaccurate. But the fact is, we do know it wasn‘t ready for broadcast, and for that I apologize.“
or
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/msnbc-apologizes...
> MSNBC apologized for using “not factually accurate” maps in a segment discussing the violence that has erupted across Israel in recent weeks.
> “MSNBC Live” host Kate Snow acknowledged Monday that her show displayed maps describing present-day Israel as a Palestinian state in 1946, when the area was under British mandate rule. The series of maps shown last Thursday gave the impression that Palestinians had control over all of modern-day Israel and have continuously lost land since.
> “[I]n an attempt to talk about the context for the current turmoil in the Middle East, we showed a series of maps of the changing geography in that region,” Snow said. “We realized after we went off the air the maps were not factually accurate and we regret using them.”
I eagerly await your retraction of that false claim.
I was not speaking to that MSNBC or CNN has never made corrections broadly-speaking, but rather that they would not back down on a story that is now broadly considered (according to the Washington Post, no right-wing sympathizer) debunked.
If you changed the all encompassing word media to press the difference is clear
I'm sure Tucker Carlson ( who Joe Rogan DWARFS in terms of audience ) would also describe himself as a "talkshow host" ( legally he has to, since his show is for "entertainment value" only. )
Plenty of scientists do great work in one topic and then also act like hacks at other times.
Yet it's been decried ever since as a mistake being based on fear rather than science, pushing stigma on segments of population in the name of compliance, and being so "overly cautious" that the damages (medical and social) far outweighed the benefits, even with its limited implementation.
Why does that sound so familiar?
History repeats itself.
Medical tyranny and cancel culture is just one form and the latest form of tyranny.
Linus Pauling was one of the founders of molecular biology and spent part of his later life advocating that people megadose vitamin c to cure heart disease, something that could have very well hurt people who chose that over a more evidence-backed treatment.
Steve Jobs tried treating his cancer through juice cleanses until it became too late-stage to treat conventionally.
Malone really should not be given a platform. We know that being unvaccinated can make covid way more severe and puts you at 14x higher risk of death from covid, and there is a huge body of evidence on covid vaccine efficacy from the literal billions of people worldwide who have been vaccinated.
People will almost certainly die because he lends credibility to anti-vaccination arguments.
The surpreme court seems to agree with Malone as well.
Should the surpreme court be deplatformed?
You think government enforceable law is less important or does "less damage" than voluntary viewing an expert with an opinion?
Your views may not be as accurate as you believe.
On the other hand, the media generally doesn't make ridiculous pie-in-the-sky takes. Every once in a while they get it wrong (sometimes dangerously so) but not with anything near the same magnitude or frequency that a comparatively uneducated influencer does. And they do apologize, for small inaccuracies with an editor's note at the bottom and for large inaccuracies with a retraction published in the next edition of the paper. Newspapers HATE printing retractions, and they try very hard never to say something that would require it.
Joe rogan has no such compunctions - in fact, he's on the same playbook as so many influencers and provocateurs before him. If you say enough crazy stuff, and only apologize for the worst of it, people are eventually going to give up trying to get you to denounce any statements you've made which are only mildly crazy. Here's a great example [0] - Joe apparently said you shouldn't worry about taking the vaccine if you're young and healthy, and when he apologized he called himself a moron and said he was talking about OTHER people. That's insane: getting vaccinated regardless of age means a brush with covid is less severe, thus saving you a trip to the hospital - and a hospital bed is saved for someone who actually needs it (covid-related or not).
I empathize with your apathy, but I would strongly urge you to think about the difference between a news corporation that hires professional fact-checkers to confirm their articles and has a two-source policy on news, and a guy who wilfully admits he's a moron before continuing to spout potentially harmful views against vaccinating yourself during a pandemic.
[0]https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/joe-rogan-retracts-cor...
Edit: whoops, you edited your comment after I started to reply to you. I'll make this brief: Robert Malone may have invented mRNA vaccines, but he's still anti-vax and believes the vaccines made from his technology (or some derivative thereof) make covid worse. On his episode of JRE he said something called "mass formation psychosis" existed, and had something to do with COVID(?!?) which is a bald-faced lie. You can be an excellent scientist on the frontier of medical research and still be an idiot who has no business spreading your personal views. If Joe had fact-checked him, his opinions would have folded, but he didn't.
Mass formation psychosis is a thing that does exist. It just means shared delusion. Psychologists steer clear of religion, but if you are atheist, beliefs in Gods would be a good example.
It basically just means erroneous groupthink. It absolutely has something to do with COVID, but people obviously argue over which side is delusional, or at least more delusional.
It's all a govt delusion to reduce power consumption at night, including blackouts in the name of "public safety".
Not picking on them, because Americans have way more delusional thinking when it comes to things like food safety, but its hard to use a delusion as an example/ proof to the deluded that... they're deluded.
It's not a lie. It's arguably unsubstantiated. The response to COVID, like shutting down schools for two years [1] to the enormous detriment of education [2], has been insane in its disproportionateness, and the claim that a type of mass hysteria is responsible is totally within the realm of the plausible, and the contra is certainly not the kind of clear cut fact that can justify calling the position a "bald-faced lie".
Classifying everything that opposes a particular agenda as the kind of indisputable lie that has no place being aired on any platform, is the path to a totalitarian society that censors views that are out of favor with the establishment.
[1] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-milli...
[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector...
It's actually not insane at all:
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...
What's insane is calling such statements insane when the evidence isn't yet there to reach such a conclusion.
> On the other hand, the media generally doesn't make ridiculous pie-in-the-sky takes.
I have to disagree with this too. A lot of takes on Trump were pretty ridiculous. He's probably among the worst Presidents ever, but the blatant exaggerations during the Trump years were ridiculous.
Right or wrong, it was most definitely NOT insane: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/us/california-wildfires-g...
NY Times article: https://archive.md/I1TXF
That was a huge, huge pie-in-the-sky take. The media is absolutely not above their own lunacy. Green Greenwald, the reporter who broke the news about Snowden, agreed that it was "this generation's WMDs in terms of media malfeasance."
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1459242600179933190
My point is that the media is absolutely capable of getting things immensely wrong on incredible magnitude.
To my knowledge it hasn't. I believe they continue to stand by their reporting. It's possible I missed a major retraction but I have no clue why they would have retracted their stories.
Here it is: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...
Most if not all the Russiagate claims have turned out to be false, but more critically, the media who reported them either willfully didn’t bother to validate the information or ran with it knowing it was false.
The best one was the FBI getting a search warrant based on an article by a reporter referencing an FBI source. How’s that for bullshit? Drop an anonymous tip to a reporter then use their article as proof your suspicion is valid.
Your source uses the word "warrant" in one section (in searchable text), #12, where the reporting was accurate in that warrants had been issued. Whether the warrant should have been issued is a different question.
You'll note I qualified searchable, because I have no desire to read the entire massive text of bullet points, although I did try to find relevant ones and your best example. I did try to scan it for other corrections (because this site believes in "text in screenshots), and they were all either minor [0] of they were correct reporting [1].
[0] Example: All 17 intelligence agencies didn't say X, only the agency who coordinates information between, oversees and synthesizes their information did (and the big three of CIA, FBI and NSA)
[1] Example: Report on Day X, Government investigating Y. Report on Day X + N, Government investigation into Y turns up Z. Sometimes the Z is "nothing". You know, or the warrant reporting example above.
That coverage was accurate. There was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It is clearly described here for example: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0126
> The Washington Post has now retracted dozens of articles, rewritten huge parts of stories, and basically admitted it was all a sham.
This is false and you provide no evidence for it.
> Green Greenwald, the reporter who broke the news about Snowden, agreed that it was "this generation's WMDs in terms of media malfeasance."
Greenwald is a disgraced journalist turned professional provocateur. I’m not surprised that you have to resort to quoting him to support an argument as ridiculous as “Russiagate was pie-in-the-sky”. You might as well quote Tucker Carlson.
> https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1459242600179933190
This references two Washington Post articles which have been corrected. The correction was specific to the identity of one source in the famous Steele dossier which made some of the more outlandish and salacious claims in the dossier. There is no other retraction. In particular none of the facts of the dossier are retracted. In any case, the FBI has since conducted their own investigation and published their findings. As far as I know the FBI has not retracted those findings and the press has not retracted any reporting on those findings. So what exactly are you talking about when you mention “dozens of retracted stories”? Where is your evidence?
Says who? He's unpopular (with the media), now he attacks the media; what gets to decide he's "disgraced"?
I guess one thing these two do have in common is that you do not like them.
The President’s son is on record saying he was interested in getting info from Russia. If Trump didn’t collaborate, it wasn’t from lack of interest or effort. It was wrong, but not a pie-in-the-sky take.
[1] which provably did happen, except it was the Hillary Campaign that knowingly did so: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier
Fauci is far more credible because he’s talking about what many hundreds of researchers have confirmed. When he’s talking about vaccines, he’s not just making things up but summarizing peer reviewed studies which have been extensively analyzed. Malone now avoids the scientific process because he knows that his claims aren’t rigorous enough to survive it, and he can profit by telling people that’s censorship rather than admitting inadequacy.
B. Fauci has had every position on every issue throughout the pandemic. No masks, then masks. No vaccine mandate, then vaccine mandate. Don't mask the children, then mask the children. Don't return to school, return to school, don't return to school. Lockdown for 2 weeks, keep it up for over a year. You might call it science changing. I consider it (as do many Americans at this point) an excuse for a dictator who doesn't know what he is doing to cover up his arbitrary decisions.
You’re similarly misrepresenting Fauci’s positions and the degree to which he represented a scientific consensus and how that changed over time as conditions changed (vaccines have been a clear win since the early days; the best way to return to schools safely was not as clear cut and the idea that we had a year long lockdown in the United States is just absurd). If you find batting at strawmen entertaining, have at it, but I don’t see much value.
When has Fauci said to keep lockdowns for over a year? You are making this stuff up.
That's kind of funny, because throughout history the people who were very critical of the scientific consensus (especially those who maintained this position even after lifting themselves up from a lower social status) are the ones who, on average, turned out to be right and either revolutionized that field or had an amazing insight that was a missing puzzle piece.
The mentality of 'scientific consensus says A, therefore B is bogus' does a lot more damage than people realize.Still, to be taken seriously you need to have some sort of proof or a sensible explanation of how you reached that conclusion.Here it's not as much that the guy is an incredible genius and is the only one with that position, but more of the fact that the critical voices almost entirely colluded.(This is de facto "proved" by the latest wave of western articles admitting that the narrative they adopted and pushed was done in an irresponsible fashion.See german press or even american outlets)
You are saying that on average, those going against scientific consensus are more often right than they are wrong? That sound like a load of bullshit.
And quantifying my statement is hard if you assume causality and you don't make distinction between levels of "radical thinking".Because i can give you 5-10 well-known historical figures who fit my description and make me look right, and you can say "here are 10000 conspiracy nuts from YT who make you look wrong".What I meant by 'are the ones who, on average, turned out to be right[...]' is that the more radical/higher level your thinking is, the better chances you are to be right if you made your case for them(again, I mentioned that those people do not change their stance with time,social status,environment).
Accepting scientific consensus >because< it is the consensus and upholding it as an orthodoxy is precisely why there's stagnation in many if not all the fields.And yes, the more radical,incorporating,exploratory you are in your thinking, the higher chances you probably have in being "right", assuming you are actually creating a superset of a scientific domain(i.e innovating) and not merely "go against the wave".To take my point home: 5000 flat earthers from YouTube who are undeniable wrong make my average "wrong" because they are going against the current scientific consensus.Is their thinking radical or incorporates existing knowledge into something more profound?Do they change the thinking about world, is it shockingly different?No, they're just saying the negation of a proposition, mostly based on 'loads of bullshit' without substance or regard to the consensus.We used to think the earth was flat.This is different from, say, "Here is a conjecture which lies at the limits of current knowledge about X[say gravity, or anything].You're all wrong at thinking about X/Y/Z in terms of A, my insight (often new) is better and vastly different."
The main issue here is that from a known understanding, a newer,different idea might seem wrong.It's the duty of the "contrarian" to prove his case.If one stays true to his motives and is not a hack it will serve them well.
> They had offered it to the United States National Museum, as the Smithsonian Institution was then known, in 1910. Officials at the Smithsonian, particularly Charles Walcott, were "anxious to redeem the reputation" of former director, Samuel Langley, who had spent thousands of government dollars trying to invent an airplane which he called an "aerodrome."
https://libraries.wright.edu/special/wrightbrothers/flyer/hi...
Your lack of knowledge about media "owning up" to their mistakes is not evidence they don't. Because they do.
I'm sure most people don't see the difference between actual Journalists (and not necessarily with a degree) and some dude talking crap on a microphone but there is.
> "In late 1987, Robert Malone performed a landmark experiment.
Well, so f what? This is 20% of the work that lead us today
Apparently having done that work (if that was actually his actual work) doesn't prevent him from misrepresenting his work spouting crap 30 years after that.
Best definition for Robert Malone is that "he had as much influence on the vaccine as Graham Bell had on the Lady Gaga's song Telephone"
Lipid-mediated polynucleotide administration to deliver a biologically active peptide and to induce a cellular immune response (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, R Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc and licensed to Merck. No. 7,250,404, date of issue: 7/31/07 Cited in 105 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Lipid-mediated polynucleotide administration to reduce likelihood of subject's becoming infected (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc and licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 6,867,195 B1. Date of issue: 3/15/05. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Generation of an immune response to a pathogen (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc and licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 6,710,035. Date of issue: 3/23/04. Citations: 39 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Expression of exogenous polynucleotide sequences in a vertebrate, mammal, fish, bird or human (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc, licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 6,673,776. Date of issue: 1/6/04. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Methods of delivering a physiologically active polypeptide to a mammal (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc, licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 6,413,942. Date of issue: 7/2/02. (cited in 150 articles). Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Induction of a protective immune response in a mammal by injecting a DNA sequence (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 6,214,804, date of issue: 4/10/01. Cited in 360 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Induction of a protective immune response in a mammal by injecting a DNA sequence (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc, licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 5,589,466. Date of issue: 12/31/96. Cited in 899 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Delivery of exogenous DNA sequences in a mammal (includes mRNA). Assigned to Vical, Inc, licensed to Merck. P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. US Pat. Ser. No. 5,580,859. Date of issue: 12/3/96. Cited in 1244 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Generation of antibodies through lipid mediated DNA delivery (includes mRNA). P Felgner, JA Wolff, GH Rhodes, Robert W Malone, D Carson. Assigned to Vical, Inc, licensed to Merck. US Pat. Ser. No. 5,703,055. Date of issue: 12/30/97. Cited in 419 articles. Priority Date: 3/21/1989.
Also all of those are result of the research directed by Felgner, granted to Vical (his own company), and highly hypothetical at the time. Unsurprisingly, most of those, if not all, have expired without putting a product in the market.
mRNA vaccine development has been incredibly incremental and spanning decades. Anyone claiming they're the inventor because they put a few pieces of the puzzle together is incredibly disingenuous.
Literally nowhere in the quote says that. An important step (if he actually was the main discoverer for those) but not "the inventor". He imagined it (in the same way I can imagine a flying car - but not invent it)
And Nature goes on: "But the path to success was not direct. For many years after Malone’s experiments, which themselves had drawn on the work of other researchers, mRNA was seen as too unstable and expensive to be used as a drug or a vaccine. "
Malone is mainly sour grapes https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-m...
I have almost no respect for media that does attacks on character rather than attacks on ideas.
That information kills children as it may make people disregard the obvious symptoms and fatally delay treatment.
Thanks for providing your opinion on the article, it's a good gauge on how his fans see things.
5G mind control and human tracking via MRNA vaccine. Robert W Malone, Bill Gates.
Thank you for letting me know I may be holding an incorrect belief. More research required for me :)
*he also denies that he's the inventor, of course
how often do "independent" media figures apologize or admit to making mistakes?
corporate media sucks, but their lies tend to be more about what they choose to present and what they choose to omit rather than made up facts.
You cannot, and shouldn't, sculpt a model of society where anyone who speaks out loud needs to speak with journalistic and scientific integrity. It cannot work; it never has, and it never will. Regimes which try to limit free speech fail, unfailingly.
You should push for more critical listening. The most surefire way to underdevelop your ability for critical thought and listening is to bubble the content you consume to only professional sources, mainstream news, and government spokespeople. So, don't listen to Rogan, or anyone else you disagree with; you're dumber for it. Not because everything he says is right; but because you'll slowly lose the skill of not just taking everything at face value, but thinking critically about why he's wrong, integrating the things said on his show with your own experiences, other media you've consumed, what scientists say, what politicians say, what random hackernews commentors say, and forming a holistic opinion about the world.
Not everyone has that skill; either by choice, accident, or otherwise. And that's the second skill you need to develop: being ok that some people will believe the wrong thing. They'll spread it. People will die; that's what people do. Think on how spectacular our world is; most of it exists in the only time in human history where freedom of speech is so protected; and some choose to desire to throw that precious right away to... save lives? Our collective freedom and values are far, far more important than life; I hope, beyond hope, that they'll outlive me.
Religion has done this world a lot of bad. In fact, many would be surprised with how recently the Vatican's crackdown on freedom of speech led to many scientists being unable to discover the nature of reality; that's what happens when we don't cherish freedom of speech. But, one thing it did do right, and with it one thing many have lost in our society: the collective recognition that there are goals for our species greater than life itself.
When someone says something wrong, or something I disagree with: I cherish your right to say it, here, in this forum. You shouldn't be labeled as disinformation; nor censored with a downvote. We should have a discussion.
Ah yes, Ben Shapiro will radicalize young men to... get married and start a family? I really don't understand the harm from the examples you mentioned. He offers alternative voices that don't get much attention by CNN or NYT. Literally every other media outlet will have the same 5 or 10 same talking heads and officials telling you the science du jour.
What's with these people with pitchforks for the Ben Shapiros and the "others" of the world?
I hear all these bad things about the "others". How crazy the "others" are. I believe it.
Then when I look into and research those "other" people they are usually totally reasonable.
I don't understand all the hate for the "others".
Covid struck and I became increasingly disappointed with the information I was receiving. It began conflicting with actual scientific research I was reading. I stepped outside my bubble. Boy is the world a bigger and more interesting place. Ben Shapiro promotes old timey family and economic values. That's it. His views would be mildly left to anyone in the 70s or 80s. Of course, to some, old timey family and economic values make him "literally Hitler." Not to me. I don't agree with most of his values but I also think he has a right to speak and discuss his views. He's clearly not crazy, and the world has space for people who believe in nuclear families and proletarian work ethics.
I'll never again make the mistake of not challenging the information I consume. I am now very suspicious of anyone who tells me that challenging authority is wrong.
He makes this statement in that article: "Any incident of white-cop-on-black-suspect violence must be chalked up to the racist system" -- as an attempt to discredit system racism. Only those on the far right believe this. I don't believe Ben himself believes this, but I do believe that he understands that his target market loves it. It's an absurd statement.
The whole article completely misses what system racism is about and why its a useful construct to eliminate racism. Again, Ben seems like a relatively bright guy who I think probably actually understands it. I think that his financial interest is in not understanding, convoluting it, and selling to a group that is willing to suck this up.
The old timey values group wants us to stop talking about all this race stuff. Blacks have it better now than ever before -- what more do they want?! And don't get them stated on the gays and Muslims. But Shapiro pushes it in a way that outright racists can read it and say, "Hey this respectable guy says what I think -- except he uses Harvard JD words to say it!"
> Only those on the far right believe this
I as hyperbolic as the phrase you are critical of, and equally absurd.
Ben Shapiro is pro-vax, does not believe the election was stolen, and has had the FBI arrest alt-right people who made death threats against him multiple times over the years. "Poster child of the movement?" Unless you consider alt-right to be completely the same as far-right, that was never the case. No movement makes death threats against their poster child.
It’s kind of a useless label at this point, since it’s thrown around so much.
So more a label that they slapped on themselves.
A white nationalist launched a webzine called “The Alternative Right”.
Then “His term was shortened to "alt-right" and popularised by far-right participants of /pol/, the politics board of web forum 4chan.”
So other people used the term alt-right and somehow it’s linked to a webzine?
But anyways, thanks for the link, I wasn't aware that at least wikipedia makes that connection. I've alway heard "alt-right" used as "a vague collection of far right people that fall outside the Republican Party". So they could include white supremacists, but aren't exclusively white supremacists.
That's not the bit that people have a problem with, and it's completely disingenuous to frame it that way. They have a problem with his views on transgender people, his views on gay people, his views on same-sex parents, and the views of the people he supports and spreads the agenda of.
To get frustrated that nobody is willing to do that with them.
This is so easy to say about someone you disagree with. But the other side will say the same about your heroes.
Almost anyone in the public eye will say things to get in the public eye. That's what they are good at. In politics, those things will be by definition controversial to some people. Not to mention the opposing media will purposefully twist what you say into controversial things.
I don't see how Ben shapiro is special in this in any way.
It's not just Malone; over 17k doctors and scientists have signed the Rome Declaration in support of his message: https://doctorsandscientistsdeclaration.org/.
It's basically cherry picking of small and crappy trials that have results misleading into thinking ivermectin does anything for covid.
They do very crude, naive, ad-hoc and cherry picked study selection, and metastudies is one of the most complex and difficult areas to do research on.
On the topic of ivermectin, it certainly displays positive outcomes... in countries with high helminth prevalence. So yeah, treating co-morbidities is certainly better than not treating them, not exactly shocking.
All that "you don't get to decide", "and that's where danger comes in".
I think the reasoning in your head is actually backwards, and you think that because JRE got Spotify contract he now has to "be doing their research" in fear of losing it. It's all about money, eh?
Meh! I would rather listen to people's original perspectives despite of potential inaccuracies, instead of lies fabricated by corporations via highly paid "experts".
It's very hard to take this seriously, because there's no evidence of it. The guy is an entertainer that built a platform that lets him talk to whoever he wants. There's no narrative being pushed.
Why should you or anyone else decide who should not have a voice for me to listen to?
Do I get to tell you who is to provocative to listen to?
But because our media is so entrenched the only challenge Rogan gets from conventional media are typical smeer campaigns that look disingenuous and erode trust even further. Vaccine hesitant people are never really addressed adequately by government or by conventional media. Distrust is at an all time high and the power structures of the world have never been so apparent to the every day man.
The solution to all of this is transparency, discussion and health policy that targets the problems rather than blanket policy that ostracises and discriminates.
Suppression will only make the situation worse because all of a sudden we on a slippery slope to totalitarianism where (automated) fact checkers are the primordial source of truth and authority.
Ostracising will only make the situation worse because all of a sudden we have very large portions of the community (upward of 25% in countries like Germany) now feel discriminated against, people cannot get on planes and travel to see loved ones, they cant go the cinema, they cant do basically anything, all because they object to handling of health policy. Further more politicians like Macron are stoking divisions even further and marginalizing these people by proclaiming they are non-citizens.
Shit, I cant really imagine a better way to fracture western society. In my mind the virus really did win.
This is the challenge Dennis Prager often offers to young college students in his audience. It is comically grotesque to see a senior professional debater and speaker take joy when he shuts down a young nervous challenger. Sure, you and I can think of quick responses, in the same way when we watch a boxing match and can see where the challenger made a mistake. But in a real life arena most of us would probably take a beating when matched against a pro.
A sincere debate can be had when one is willing to steel-man the other's argument but that's not an option when being right and winning is your opponent's brand.
People are not rational beings who will disregard an idea because it is incorrect. The debunking is instead an attack on the person's identity or one of their friends. What you really need to do if you disagree with somebody is befriend and get them to have an emotional attachment to the same ideas you do
Maybe to people who only follow crap on facebook and refuse to read "mainstream media" then misrepresent what they show. Mainstream medis is not saying what fb is parroting.
Because this has been ongoing for the most part. But hey it's boring and not written in capital letters so nobody reads it
> then it needs to be challenged, not suppressed.
You've just proven that people don't do that. Thanks. There's no better evidence than your post that people are too stupid to get out of their bubbles
> we have very large portions of the community (upward of 25% in countries like Germany) now feel discriminated against, people cannot get on planes and travel to see loved ones, they cant go the cinema, they cant do basically anything
Of course they can, they just have to stop being idiots. And if they won't do that by themselves the virus will do it for them
I start by listening to people before disagreeing with them.
I know that is a radical idea, but I think prejudice isn’t good.
Unfortunately, it's one-way only. You can't "get into the arena" disagreeing (for example) with the institution same-sex marriage without calls for deplatforming, Facebook bans and (for example) Neil Young trying to get your content removed.
> Joe Rogan [has PEOPLE I DISAGREE WITH] on his show.. THAT is where the danger comes in.
I dont think he's had a single guest on with fringe views. At least 30 to 40% of America is unvaccinated.
Hardly fringe.
Also, fringe does not equate with being wrong. The view that marijuana should be legal was once a "fringe" view.
According to modern standards of social media censorship, all of these "fringe views" would very likely lead to getting banned and/or silenced for "misinformation". The fact is that the accuracy of a belief has absolutely no relationship to how widespread that belief is. This is especially true when the government, big tech and their legacy media outlets work together to engineer a consensus view (or the appearance of a consensus view) that hews to their preferred narrative rather than reality.
Fringe views need a platform because they're right ALOT.
I've heard criticisms of Rogan for giving people like Jones a platform, but in the end I can't believe it helps Jones. He came off as a lunatic in the show I heard.
I'm sure he may have some fringe views but so does Neil Degrassi Tyson and everyone else.
Define fringe views.
Edit: I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on whether you've never actually heard of or seen alex jones, here's a quick rundown
How do you know you're not the one being radicalized?
Have you ever tried to listen to Alex in good faith even if you don't agree and try to understand his view at least? Or is your entire perception based off of John Oliver?
Do you think you could pick 20 seconds out of John Olivers footage and make him look like a crazy person?
> impressionable young men have been radicalized to a dangerous degree on the internet. Having the same views on his podcast as conspiracy theory sites, for example, will undoubtedly make it easier for the bad actors running these sites to radicalize JRE listeners
Some would say that claiming the outcome of free speech is radicalization...to be pure idiocy.
And this cancel culture lockdown mentality is possibly why mid terms are going to rough for the left.
ok, here's 5 full hours https://youtu.be/-5yh2HcIlkU
> How do you know you're not the one being radicalized?
How do you know you're not the one being radicalized?
> Have you ever tried to listen to Alex in good faith even if you don't agree and try to understand his view at least? Or is your entire perception based off of John Oliver?
I have, he's entertaining. I don't take a single thing seriously. I've spent some time researching on thing he's said, all of it was gross mischaracterizations and exaggerations on any topic. I won't spend any more. I'm not a journalist, that's their job.
> Do you think you could pick 20 seconds out of John Olivers footage and make him look like a crazy person?
That would be fantastic, go ahead. This isn't idolatry.
> Some would say that claiming the outcome of free speech is radicalization...to be pure idiocy.
Well, it is through free speech that radicalization does happen, however, nobody is talking about free speech here. because alex jones can still say whatever he wants. (as long as he can pay for libel/slander fines), you can exercise free speech. deplatforming has nothing to do with free speech.
When you have an audience numbering in the millions, and have a long term presence (unlike old school radio), you are a news source, whether you like it or not.
And you have a responsibility to be careful with your words, whether you want it or not.
In this age of boundless social media, where what is true, what is false and what is mis-leading is non-existent, it is pertinent for people like JRE to absolutely not go into topic they don't know or knowledgeable about.
I would really like to see him bring on Dr. Fauci, and have a good listen to him.
Joe's conversation with Dr Sanjay covered a variety of topics (Covid, marijuana policy, CNNs representation of Joe). On all these topics Dr Sanjay was definitely given an opportunity to make his argument - and I believe he probably reached a good number of people through Joe's platform.[1]
It is unfortunate that CNN's unprofessional representation of Joe's personal experience with Covid sucked up so much of the conversation around the episode. Dr Sanjay wasnt a part of this (until after the podcast...) And on the podcast he also took issue with CNN's coverage. Obviously this didn't go well over at CNN and I truly felt bad for Dr Sanjay being publicly steamrolled by the networks own talking heads in the days after. [2]
On their Covid discussion Joe raised some points that he has spoken about in other forums - they shouldn't surprise anyone. Primary among them are how we should account for natural immunity, clarity on the risk of side effects for children versus the risk of Covid, and treatments beyond vaccines (which given how frequently breakthru cases occur should be important conversation for pro/hesitant/anti vax alike).
These are things that Dr Sanjay (or Dr Fauci) should be able to have a meaningful discussion around. Dr Sanjay did a good job in my opinion (and his own opinion [3]) Honestly I think the feedback that talking heads should not speak with authority they don't have is something Don Lemon needs to reflect on. I think there is general disappointment in the mainstream press for not asking challenging questions and that it is related to the growing distrust of the 4th estate. Today's media has soundbytes, cheer leading puffery, and context free gotchas.
1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6rAgS1KiUvLRNP4HfUePpA?si=C...
2: https://youtu.be/oHWkvaQmxvI?start=124
3: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/13/health/sanjay-gupta-joe-r...
He doesn’t make any claim that is show is anything more than two people chatting. If anyone is using JRE as a trusted news source, then they are an idiot. You can’t stop people from being idiots, nor should we attempt to childproof the entire world on their behalf.
I guess you can't stop people from being idiots, but there's no harm in trying.
I have tuned in reasonably regularly. I think what they say on there is generally what the person saying it believes to be correct.
"Generally correct" is a much lower bar than "always correct". It might even be a bar that JRE can pass.
Edit: where they're talking about factual matters I mean, not where they talk about aliens, big foot, and other obviously outlandish ideas where they're clearly just shooting the breeze.
Irregardless of what Joe says about himself and the show being nothing more than a bunch of idiotic guys talking, the truth of the matter is he does have credible and subject matter experts come on his show and talk and give their viewpoint on their area of expertise.
However when those experts come on and they go against the MSM narrative then the focus becomes about Joe and his silly tactics as a way to dismiss or downplay the counter views for some.
You can claim he giving another side to the "Mainstream media", but does he give in depth interviews with scientists who are little more than quotes in the media? or is he more focused on giving the "Other side"
Eg, he just had that idiot Peterson spouting climate rubbish, has he had credible climate scientists on his show?
It's like a heart surgeon claiming architects have building design all wrong.
FWIW, I have no context on the specific claims made by Peterson, but I've increasingly seen a line of logic that suggests you need to have a PhD in a topic in order to think critically about it.
Sample Weather Channel Guy: - No history in psychology - Citing papers that are not highly respected under peer review
Sample Psychologist: - Has a long history in the field - Ideally has references available for their own claim
In this case, you'd probably want to err on the side of trusting the second person in the chart. What didn't happen, though, was a complete dismissal of the first person's claim based on credentials alone. If you have to make a decision on something quickly and authority is the only way for you to judge it, then sure, go for it. But appeal-to-authority doesn't belong in open-ended debates.
Edit: Apparently he had Peter Attila on who is pro-vaccine, but that's hardly a leading expert on the topic, and there's still a clear bias in the guests Joe invites to his show.
Joe Rogan isn’t anti-vaccine. His stance on the Covid-19 vaccine is if you’re older, fat, or with an existing comorbidity you should go get vaccinated. For everyone else it isn’t strictly necessary and shouldn’t be a requirement.
It basically comes down to individualist versus collectivist. If you’re a collectivist you think JRE is spreading misinformation.
> That's the entertaining and appeal of the show.
Facebook's press releases talk just like that. They also pretend to be "neutral".
But Rogan, Facebook and Spotify made choices with repercussions and consequences. They just don't want to bear responsibility/accountability for those consequences.
And, no, I don't use both Facebook or Spotify.
So by your own admission you haven’t listened to Rogan’s Spotify podcast?
The corporate media attacks on him make no sense to me.
It's a freaking podcast where he talks about sports, hunting, UFOs, the supernatural, comedians, ai, and yes conspiracy theory.
I enjoy the variety and the wild topics.
And since the beginning of Covid Joe Rogan has stopped being just a dude who hangs out and smokes with his buddies, something I used to love about the show. He is constantly and consistently political, making medical claims and other kinds of claims that are nonsensical. He’s started favoring certain types of guests, and avoiding the friends who call him out.
I used to argue vehemently that free speech can be infringed upon under no circumstance. I still will. But now I see the “other side” more clearly, that is, where is the line when someone has one of the largest platforms in the world and uses it to spread dangerous misinformation? He’s way past just some dude. I have friends who take what he says as gospel, because they want to learn how to be men and Joe is a man’s man. At the same time, he does make good arguments in favor of discourse, hearing different viewpoints, etc. so how do we handle this?
People have the ability to remember and compare similar statements and events. Double standards applied unfairly tend to get remembered for a very long time. I think the best thing would be to apply even standards across the board for “misinformation”, and tend towards less rather than more censorship.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-jim-acosta-virginia-soviet...
> CNN host Jim Acosta on Tuesday suggested Virginia was being run like a "Soviet-style police state" under new Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
> During a segment on his fill-in primetime show, Acosta, while making the comparison, cited an email tip line set up by Youngkin's administration in which parents can report teachers that teach "divisive" topics to their children, such as critical race theory, while also mocking the way Youngkin dressed.
which is hyperbole about hyperbole. Then you read it from realpolitics:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/01/26/cnns_acos...
> CNN's Jim Acosta recognized that the country is divided, and he had someone to blame during a Tuesday segment with Molly Jong Fast.
> "It seems Republican leaders have gone all-in on dividing the country in many ways," Acosta said.
> "I seem to remember Glenn Youngkin campaigning in a fleece vest in Virginia. He was running as a different kind of Republican. I was told there was going to be a vest, not a Soviet-style police state across the Potomac from Washington," he said about the new Virginia governor.
Who spend most of their time quoting what Acosta actually said in one block (while FoxNews shuffles the quotes around so it would fit their narrative). The news is basically trash these days. Of course, once it comes out that the governer basically instituted a tip line to out teachers who might be teaching something construed as critical race theory, all the non-far right wingers are already on board with Acosta's outrage.
>For the purposes of this Executive order “inherently divisive concepts” means advancing any ideas in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including, but not limited to of the following concepts (i) one race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith is inherently superior to another race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith; (ii) an individual, by virtue of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex or faith, is racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously, (iii) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex or faith, (iv) members of one race, ethnicity, sex or faith cannot and should not attempt to treat others as individuals without respect to race, sex or faith, (v) an individual's moral character is inherently determined by his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith, (vi) an individual, by virtue of his or her race, skin color, ethnicity, sex, or faith, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, ethnicity, sex or faith, (vii) meritocracy or traits, such as a hard work ethic, are racist or sexist or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.
Full text here:
https://www.governor.virginia.gov/news-releases/2022/january...
> They are clearly a mouthpiece for one of two sides, like other “news” organizations.
I've realized in my conversations with Rogan fans and Fox News fans alike, to them all lies are equal, everyone lies, nothing is true, so they pick the things they like as truths. These people will tell you Joe Rogan is an entertainer not to be listened to, and then spout off a bunch of opinions they got from his show as their reasons for all kinds of decisions.
They carried out a disinformation campaign using half-truths. They could complain that this tactic is valid because Ivermectin is ineffective for Covid. But they junked their credibility with the horse nonsense.
> The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.
All media sources hide behind "being just entertainment and not factual opinion" just like the New York Times or MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who, when she was sued for saying OAN is "paid Russian propaganda”, won the case because “The statement could not reasonably be understood to imply an assertion of objective fact, and therefore, did not amount to defamation”[2] even though MSNBC couldn't prove OAN was paid by Russia.
[1]: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Faceb... [2]: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/568213-oan-loses-appeal-i... "paid Russian propaganda”
These are adults you’re talking about - either you believe the have the capacity to validate what they here on their own or you don’t.
Humans are messy, someone will hear idea A (good) and turn it into idea B (bad). Some will be told the right thing and choose not to do it.
We don’t suddenly treat all adults like children (which is what censoring Rogan would be) just because a few decide to make stupid decisions.
That would be infinitely more engaging than a clickbait headline and 3 minutes from an “expert” on CNN/MSNBC/Fox.
Sounds like something an expert in a field would a) not have enough time to do, b) usually lack the charisma to do and c) draw them away from arguably more pertinent tasks, such as research?
I think a better course of action would be to stop believing one can be educated on topics they know nothing about, and without context, purely by passively absorbing information from podcasts.
"This sort of credulity is both Rogan’s biggest draw and his worst tendency. Rogan has built his brand around open-mindedness, which he passes off as “free thinking.” But in practice, instead of thinking about what his guests are saying to him, Rogan’s first instinct is to “mmhm” his way through topics that frequently stray into conspiracies, bigotry, or simple stupidity. Rogan’s guiding ethos doesn’t seem to be much more complicated than “seek out the controversial, and popular,” which has led him, during the pandemic, to repeatedly platform or publish misinformation about coronavirus and vaccines. "
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jordan-pet...
You mean his instinct is to let his guests speak and let the listeners make up their own mind? I wonder why Rogan is so popular.
> Rogan’s guiding ethos doesn’t seem to be much more complicated than “seek out the controversial, and popular,” which has led him, during the pandemic, to repeatedly platform or publish misinformation about coronavirus and vaccines.
Rogan has stated openly many times that his guiding ethos is literally to have people on that he finds interesting or wants to learn more about. I've seen nothing to really contradict this. This likely just intersects with controversial and/or popular in some or many cases, but it's disingenuous to then claim that this was the motive all along.
If he hosted some kind of a salon with competing views where he never took a stance and just let the conversation unfold that might be the case, but he regularly injects himself and varying degrees of "information" into the conversation to color and steer it. Each guest is in a vacuum where for their time on his show where they're more or less unchallenged and unfettered by reality.
To be clear I don't think his show should be censored, but I think his fans need to be a bit more honest with themselves and others. He makes people feel safe to settle in and listen to bullshit, believe the bullshit, and then say "it's just entertainment, this isn't where I get my opinions - by the way let me fill you in on all my obviously Rogan informed opinions."
Sure, when something requires clarification because it seems inconsistent with his understanding or what's common knowledge. Even an impartial moderator would do that. It still remains the case that his instinct is to let the guests talk, because he invited them there to learn more about them.
That said, Rogan certainly states his own opinions sometimes too, more so and more forcefully on certain topics that he's discussed many times and so he has developed more certainty. I used to watch more of his podcasts a few years ago, and he was much more open and less certain on some topics. Recently he's expressed more certainty on those topics because he's had so many discussions on them that his certainty is higher.
I would certainly welcome more guests with opposing views, but a lot of those people wouldn't go on his podcast simply because he "gives a platform" to their opponents.
At this stage of the pandemic we know that much of the MSM has done the same thing. I'm triple vaccinated, I have followed this pandemic since late January 2020, at the time when "coronavirus" as a hashtag was seen as a trump-ism and not present on Twitter's front page or wherever it is that they publish their hot hashtags.
Yeah, in a very specific meaning of "listen to everyone", as in he clearly listened to the people advocating Ivermectin to trait covid but not the vaccine, which to me seems like tribalism as such decision is not based on listening to anyone making a bit of sense.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DuxGhOJSa7X0AKvJGwwta?si=T...
And more than 17,000 doctors and scientists signed in support of Mallone's message: https://doctorsandscientistsdeclaration.org/.
It's egregiously ignorant to proclaim that his comments aren't taken seriously or don't have real life consequences. You don't get to dole out medical advice as a self-proclaimed expert and then hide behind "it's just entertainment, bro."
Also I've never heard him speak as an authority on anything other than stand-up comedy and MMA. Everything else I hear him ask his guests to clarify, like his recent episode with some skeevy psychologist/tech guy (Dr. Robert Epstein) who wasn't elaborating on dubious claims. At some point the guest was talking about Google "blocking the internet" and said condescendingly "Are you serious? You don't know this?" (my paraphrasing).
Joe just calmly responded with something along the lines of "Even if I do know this, my audience may not, so when I push back on you to elaborate or give more details or proof of a claim, it's not for me specifically". And yea, the guest was just a BS-er talking about big tech censorship, no Google can't block the internet, his claim ended up being about Google search and Chrome specifically.
On one of his recent podcasts, he supports fox news keeping it's guests from specific no-no topics because they don't want to loose their credibility.
The irony, obviously, being that Joe should also keep his guests and himself away from certain no-no topics. That's the thing though. Joe doesn't see himself as a credible news source, a voice of a movement, or any of those other things because accuse him of. It's mainly just him hanging out with his buddies smoke'n (sometimes literally) and joke'n.
That's the entertaining and appeal of the show.
Edit
It's my fault for grouping them into the same sentence, but I didn't claim (or mean to) that his show is just junk entertainment because it's just people talking. My claim is that's the appeal of the format.
He obviously has credible and knowledgeable guests on his show. I said Joe doesn't see himself as a news source or a voice of a movement. Martial arts, working out, and DMT, however, yes he probably thinks of himself as someone to take advice from there.