Perhaps you do speak for the majority. I am a fairly heavy Podcast consumer (I run a lot and like to listen to them), and JRE is consistently among my top two (always a battle with the ever great Rich Roll) because of the sheer diversity of guests he has on. I don’t care for MMA or most of the comedians so I skip those but that’s fine because Rogan is so prolific that there will be something interesting in the next few days, max.

I find the controversy about JRE to be massively overhyped like the controversy over Howard Stern back in the day.

I'd like to second this. While I didn't follow Rogan to Spotify, he had an interesting guest every week or two and a guest every weekday.

Considering that most podcasts I listen to release weekly or even less often, that's pretty good.

Do you think referring to Rutger's basketball players as "nappy headed-hoes" was in line?

It sounds like you barely have any idea of what Stern's controversy was about.

You seem to be confusing Don Imus, another radio shock jock, with Howard Stern.

You're right, my mistake.

That wasn't Stern...?

It sounds like you barely have any idea of what Stern's controversy was about.

No, it sounds like I mixed up two shock jock radio personalities.

The gall.

I like to listen Lex Fridman also

Over-sexualization is a bit different than legitimizing COVID denial and quack medicine and so are the consequences of each.

Really? The guy with the psychedelic third eye logo is legitizing something?

https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/148718316166680576...

You think anyone actually looks or cares about the logo when a person has a massive following and a name? It's not logo that is the trademark of his brand, but the name. It's really stupid argument when the concept of people following celebrities has been a thing for years...

Why don’t we limit all people with millions of reach to only be able to speak about government approved things?

I mean it’s a massive risk having people in society who actually have lots of followers, they can say anything!!

We need to control influencers!

/s

The idea that Rogan could "legitimize" anything is hilarious. He brings people like Alex Jones on his show, it's incredibly obvious that you shouldn't take everything you hear on the show seriously.

The problem is Rogan does legitimize many things for a lot of his listeners. I listened to that one COVID episode making news and it's hard not to think "this guy knows what he's talking about" and I have graduate degrees in epidemiology and microbiology. How is a lay person supposed to critically think about his guests and their views?

You gotta remember the average 'layperson' is just as smart as you. Do you need people worrying about what information you see or hear? It's like worrying people will be corrupted by South Park, gangster rap, etc., etc. There's plenty of crackpot doctors that make all sorts of claims- is it blasphemous to doubt that the Food Pyramid, and three meals a day, are the correct way to eat? People can handle their own shit.

There's a difference between not following the food pyramid and not getting vaccinated. It comes down to health of the public vs health of the individual. Someone's decision to intermittent fast doesn't affect anyone other than the individual. The decision not to vaccinate can affect many, many other people.

But, that's not a valid argument anymore since the vaccine is freely available and not so effective at stopping the spread. Anyway, people live in such different circumstances- some people may live in near isolation already, it's a jump to judgement to condemn someone without taking into account their situation. The largest spreaders are probably people with the most social connections, many of which are vaccinated- you could demonize people for all sorts of life choices that led to viral spread.

> People can handle their own shit.

I’m not for censorship; just pointing out this is clearly not true.

Thousands of died (and continue too) when they could have just been vaccinated.

Everyone dies, and nearly every death could have been temporarily postponed had the person done something differently. Choosing how to live and how desperately to fight for those extra minutes is part of handling your own shit. Helping and caring for people makes life worth living, but if people don't want what's being offered that's their choice.

I agree it’s their choice; however, there are clearly better/worse choices and that’s what i mean by not handling their own shit.

Basically, I don’t think people (including myself) sit around and carefully consider the evidence or think critically about their own beliefs. For the most part, we digest what we hear and that’s that.

Sad but true. People seem to confuse celebrity with credibility.

I don't really care about JRE all that much, but I know there are people out there that resonate with his line of 'thinking'.

> People seem to confuse celebrity with credibility

It's a common pattern in America. Got a whole Presidency out of it.

... two, actually. Maybe even three, depending on who's writing the biography.

Three so far if you include both celebrities (Reagan, Trump).

Which episode are you referring to? What specifically did "this guy" say that was illegitimate? For someone who's not a regular listener these vague allegations are quite annoying because it's impossible to tell whether you have a valid point or are just trying to push something for political reasons.

It was the talk with Peter McCullough. Two that stand out to me.

1. He stated that Japan began using ivermectin as first line treatment for COVID and it stopped their wave. This is easily discredited by visiting the official site for approved treatments and seeing that ivermectin is not on there (https://www.pmda.go.jp/english/about-pmda/0002.html).

2. He also made a claim this was a planned pandemic and points to table-top exercises by NIH and CDC two years prior to the pandemic that spoke about a coronavirus emerging from China and resulting in lockdowns. Is it really evidence? SARS.... a coronavirus emerged from China in 2003 and resulted in lockdowns in China. So was the CDC "planning" the pandemic or just working through previous experience. Additionally, I'm sure they've run exercises on vector borne viruses spreading into the US given climate change and the spread of various mosquito species into the Southern US (think Zika). I'm sure they run a ton of exercises, 99% of which don't come true... but one ends up happening and all of sudden that's proof this was all planned?

Two things that are easily explainable or discredited, but the average Joe isn't going to realize this. This whole "just asking questions" argument isn't great because it's not a debate, no one is fact checking these guests. Joe doesn't put up any creditable responses or rebuttals.

Excuse me, does not all communication carry with it the 'problem' of legitimizing or delegitimizing something?

That's like, a big part of why all primates, fucking, communicate?

If your argument was valid Fox News et al would not be so popular.

Many many people take Alex Jones very seriously

Alex Jones actually is a very serious performance artist who never breaks kayfabe, like that one old magician that Christian Bale's character in the Prestige respected for perpetually keeping up his act while in public. There is a lot of overlap with what Jones is doing and something like professional wrestling.

I don't much care for his style, but I think one day, maybe long after his death, people will give Jones the respect he deserves as an artist. A well-flowing rant is not an easy thing to improvise, and he is just a machine for generating them. To paraphrase a quote about jazz, you don't just wake up one morning, pick up a microphone and start raving about the new world order.

There is a real art to conspiracy theorizing. You can't just make things up. You have to take random true things and stitch them together into sort of framework that's wild and entertaining enough for your audience while still seeming plausible. You have to shade them in with sinister undertones. It's a sort of dark impressionism.

He is his own brand of genius.

I remember seeing some of his earlier stuff before the modern info wars and its not exactly laid back but the production value was more of a radio show. Most people don't know but he played a raving conspiracist in A Scanner Darkly, but he basically became that charter on Info Wars. With some of the info from his ex-wife's interview, I think his public persona slowly started to take over his real identity as it grew.

And waking life, phenomenal film

A lot of what you say, I read it and say it's actually very consistent with him believing it.

People who suffer delusions often aren't stupid or even unconvincing. A lot of that intellectual effort you're describing, piecing together plausible details to justify their falsehood, can go into it. Someone I know who suffers these issues had a reputation in the family for being creative, a good storyteller... The hospitalizations and psychiatric diagnoses came later.

Alex Jones was right about Jeffrey Epstein, the jet, the island, and all the child abuse that has happened there.

Yet he is wrong about nearly everything else.

If you want a deep dive on Alex Jones and all his lies and schemes, the podcast Knowledge Fight has been documenting InfoWars for years.

He was right about Bohemian Grove in the 1990s. He gets some things right, and some things wrong. He’s about as right as most media organizations.

As someone who lived directly across the river from the Bohemian Grove for about a decade, I can tell you with certainty that the only thing he was right about is that it exists and its members are wealthy. There's nothing secret about the existence or timing of the gatherings, as they're discussed in the local paper. Jobs are advertised for caterers and cleanup crews. The people hired always return, just like any other summer camp type job.

"He’s about as right as most media organizations."

Is this true? Do you have any analysis to back this up, or is it just something you made up because it makes you feel good?

This is a great point -- where can we find some INDEPENDENT FACT CHECKERS that happen to have the same political bias as me to dispute the above? I'm extremely uncomfortable that people have different opinions here.

Jones is a well documented liar and grifter. This is not a difference of opinion.

A broken clock is right twice a day. And it's not like Epstein was some unknown figure before the Miami Herald reported on him, there were public 2008 articles about his jail time, which also mentioned his public figure ties[0].

0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/02/usa.internatio...

He is 'right' about a lot of things, but what he does is take one tiny nugget of somewhat real information and then build on it and spin it in any way he wants.

I have real-world coworkers who were arguing about Ivermectin as a legitimate treatment to COVID19 and were clearly Joe Rogan fans.

Yet people take Alex Jones seriously.

If the listeners are adults of voting age, I see absolutely no problem with that. If you think that people are too stupid, I think we should talk about stripping their voting rights. If people are too stupid to consume misinformation aren't they too stupid to vote?

I'm on your side, let's strip jre listeners' voting rights

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, and we ban that sort of account because it's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fuck you. ban me then. The comment I was responding to was the same asshole.

If you listen to joe rogans explanation, every single one of those uses of the word was taken out of context. He wasn’t using it in a racist manner, he was talking about someone’s use of the word. Even the Planet of the Apes reference was taken out of context. After he uses the term Planet of the Apes in the podcast, he immediately realized that it sounded racist and apologized because that wasn’t what he meant. And then goes on to say how he had an enjoyable experience. That all gets cut out to make him seem as racist as possible when he’s simply not racist at all.

> Rogaine also has plenty of sexist schtick[1] to rival Stern

Do you have anything from him later than the late 1980's?

Nobody on Rogan's podcast denied COVID.

Right. He invited people who abuse their credentials to spread vaccine misinformation. And when he invites actual experts, Rogan refuses to acknowledge counterarguments - the discussion devolves into "X, look it up" and when they look the up the stats, he just says "I don't know about that".

His podcast went from "(self-proclaimed) stupid man talks with people and gets them to explain stuff" to "(self-proclaimed) stupid man talks with people and gets them to explain stuff EXCEPT when it's about COVID he's suddenly 'done the research', usually invited 'guest experts' are anti-vaxxers AND when he invites real experts, he argues with them on irrelevant technicalities".

> And when he invites actual experts, Rogan refuses to acknowledge counterarguments - the discussion devolves into "X, look it up" and when they look the up the stats, he just says "I don't know about that".

You mean instances like this [1] where Rogan openly admits he's wrong? Even though, it turns out later, he wasn't totally wrong after all [2], and there's still some unexplored nuance that isn't captured by reductive soundbites?

Everything you've said reveals that you haven't actually watched Rogan's podcasts. "Arguing on irrelevant technicalities" is called "learning". All models are wrong, but some are useful, and questioning the boundaries of models so you understand their scope is important.

[1] https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1481836566427414529

[2] https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1481993190718771201

He admitted in this instance, so what? The issue is that he spent tens of episodes speaking about this crap with the fervor of someone who did actual research and his yes men (guests, team) just nodded their heads in agreement. Or he nodded his head as con men said total bullshit. The damage is already done.

He always admits when he's wrong. You clearly know nothing about him.

> The damage is already done.

What damage exactly? Point it out and be specific please.

Exactly. Here's a prime example: Rogan incorrectly stated on his show (as fact, not as his opinion or belief) that children who receive the vaccine have a 4-5x higher risk of getting myocarditis.

His guest, who has the correct info, claims that children have a much higher risk from getting myocarditis from COVID than getting it from the vaccine.

Rogan says "I don't think that's true, no no no, I don't think that's true. Let's look that up"

They look it up, Rogan is definitely in the wrong. The risk is 8x higher from COVID than the vaccine.

Does Rogan admit he's wrong? No, he states:

- "Well, that's not what I read before." - "And anyway, where are we reading these things?" and then rambles nonsense.

This is a pretty transparent way of signaling to his audience that even in the face of actual data, you should just find some justification to believe the stupid conspiracy-level thing you want to keep believing.

https://twitter.com/FullContactMTWF/status/14816386894154629...

Josh Szeps is not an expert. This is just your confirmation bias at work because you dislike Rogan. And here's Josh Szeps' take on their exchange:

https://twitter.com/joshzepps/status/1481834278271225864

I corrected it to "the person with the correct info" - it doesn't affect the point of what I wrote. I dislike Rogan because in listening to him, this is almost all he ever does: let conspiracy theorists and grifters speak on his show with no resistance (often even encouraging them), while providing this type of resistance to people with competence, then pretending he's some kind of neutral party providing a level playing field.

The problem is that "conspiracy theorists" and "grifters" in your mind are mainly just "people you disagree with". The problem is that not everybody agrees with that assessment, nor does that have any bearing on whether Rogan should be allowed to have such conversations.

Everyone complaining about Rogan's conversations is making the argument that they are harmful, but not a single one of these complaints is accompanied by any actual evidence of harm. Do you have any such evidence?

Only in a world where facts don't exist and truth is just a matter of opinion are conspiracy theorists and grifters simply people you disagree with.

And in any case, it doesn't have any bearing on the fact that Rogan claims to be some kind of innocent, open-minded guy who wants to talk to all kinds of people, when in fact he has clearly chosen a side on most issues and treats guests differenly in order to push people to that side.

The question is not whether facts exist, but whether you actually have all of the facts and thus are accurately applying those labels. In my experience, people rarely do apply them accurately, hence, this reduces to you just disagreeing with these people's opinions.

Which is all besides the point. If you think they are grifters and conspiracy theorists, you are free to simply not listen to the podcast. The real question here is whether anyone else should be able to listen to it, or whether it should be censored due to actual harm. I asked if you have actual evidence of such harm, and this is the only question that needs an answer.

But children are at very low risk of getting sick from covid19. According to David Zweig, a mainstream journalist, writing on Bari Weiss's substack, the risk of getting the virus in the <20 population is much smaller than the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine.

To the parent: please give an example of the vaccine misinformation being spread by Joe Rogan. Do you know who was actually promoting vaccine misinformation? Joe Biden & Kamala Harris, back when it was a "Trump vaccine" https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/campaign-press-rel...

To @p49k, you are a BSer. Joe Rogan apologized on twitter and even linked to The Guardian article where he got the "misinformation" regarding myocarditis. Here' a retweet by the guy that corrected him in the episode: https://twitter.com/joshzepps/status/1481834278271225864

> To people who think that @joerogan is closed-minded or that he’d get pissed when I disagree with him, here’s Exhibit A. I love the guy

Go ahead and link to a clip where he or his guests are denying the existence of COVID.

At this point we can say: Maybe Spotify deleted them.

It's almost as if censorship has downsides.

To the OP: you can rest assured that I watch most episodes with actual scientists and scholars, even the controversial scholars that sometimes spew nonsense. At no point did anyone deny that COVID was real, or deny that it was a serious problem.

At best, you can say they disagreed with the mainstream on how exactly severe it would be, who was most at risk from this danger, and how exactly to handle those risks. You know, entirely reasonable conversations that literally everyone around the country was having at the time, and probably still are having around the dining table.

On the other hand as a male in my 30s spotify recommends Joe Rogan and Jorden Peterson to me approximately every 5 minutes.

I can't watch a YouTube video without getting a JP recommendation.

I had honestly assumed after JP ended up nearly dying in a shady Russian "alt therapy" detox facility for his benzo addiction, at least partially due to the all-meat diet his crank daughter developed, the fervency of people suggesting him as some sort of "authority" would die down. Jokes on me I guess.

You seem to be missing or intentionally ignoring some additional facts:

* his addiction was caused by the increase in his prescribed dosage (so he could cope with his wife's cancer diagnosis and treatment - which was initially considered terminal by her doctors) * he had to look for alternative treatments after his wife's cancer treatment has started working and he tried to cut back on his dosage, unsuccessfully (he tried to go practically cold turkey by his own admission, which made it worse, you can criticize him for not handling it properly) * to my knowledge, he's still doing the all meat diet to this day, along with his daughter (since it keeps her symptom free after years of severe autoimmune disease)

Most opponents to Peterson don't know the first thing about him. It's quite sad because they're the same types that think COVID misinformation is something to worry about.

North American doctors like to overprescribe stuff like opioids or benzos. Wouldn't you think he is more of a crank if he denied his doctor's treatment?

I don't know how people do youtube without ublock origin...

They're not talking about paid ads

uBlock Origin can block more than just ads. It has "annoyance" filters, premade lists for cookie popups, and a lot more.

On top of the lists, each user can block annoying things they dislike easily. Just right click the recommended videos section and automatically add it as a uBlock Origin rule.

Can you block recommendations on ublock? I haven't seen that.

You can block anything with uBlock, so, yes. Learn how to use the picker tool (looks like an eyedropper.)

You might enjoy the extension SponsorBlock, which will auto-skip the sponsored segments within the video itself.

I'm curious -- since monetization depends on ads, and youtubers also derive income from sponsored segments, doesn't a blocker deprive them of income? Or is the blocker undetected?

I mean, I pay for Youtube Premium, so they're getting paid for my views regardless.

The addon does the equivalent of scrub forward in the video, which... I don't think creators (and therefore the sponsors paying them) have any way of seeing that some segment of their video is being skipped. Everybody is happy!

I just don't need to see yet another outdated 2 minute segment for N*rdV*N or K*wi Co.

I don't get much out of Joe Rogan but I love JP.

I fit pretty well into that group, though I stopped watching it before the move to Spotify. It originally felt like interesting guests talking about interesting things, but after a while I was hearing too much of Rogan's theories and perhaps some more conspiratorial content.

Data point: not for me. I don't watch YouTube and listen to whole podcast episodes rather than clips.

I don't care about Joe Rogan enough to deal with Spotify.

This describes my experience exactly.

Same same

Yeah I only watch when he has a guest I'm interested in. He has a great one with Elon Musk. Not many get Elon talking like that. The Babylon bee did a terrible job interviewing Musk. It showed that the host is important.

Very spot on. Separately Idk why people don’t use 3rd party podcast apps, much better support than Spotify imo.

I haven't heard JR podcasts at all and haven't been tempted, even when I heard of him 2018-2019.

Change of platforms didn't bother me at all, I never watched him on YouTube, but his drift to the conspiratorial right that culminated in vaccine hesitancy eventually made listening unbearable.

the only Joe Rogan clips my friends and I watch, even as MMA fans, are the ones we watch for the "lulz" where he makes fun of and questions the anti-vaxxers. Oh those were days.. just two years ago.. when he was semi respectable. Now the Youtube algorithm doesn't even throw him out to me anymore.

When I heard of JRE many years ago, I said to myself, "do I care to hear the endless opinions of the former host of Fear Factor? Nope." And that was that, never even decided to give it a try with so much other potential content available.

The main value JRE has is in its guests.

The host is a broken record increasingly with an agenda who flies an "I'm a moron" disclaimer in the same breath as speaking authoritatively on whatever controversial fire he wishes to give more oxygen to.

At least nowadays most the interesting guests go on other podcasts when they're making the rounds, so JRE's unique value has greatly diminished.

> The host is a broken record increasingly with an agenda who flies an "I'm a moron" disclaimer

This is the same trick Jon Stewart used on The Daily Show to great effect. “I’m just a comedian” indeed. People just happened to like his takes.

There's a big difference between "I'm a comedian, I'm just poking fun at the truth" and "I'm a moron, I can't reliably interpret truth from fiction".

Not sure why you care what I say, I’m just an HN commenter!

I trust you so much more than I would ever trust Bill O'Reilly.

I think I half agree with you. A lot of Jon's segments were just straight up mean -- well beyond playful mockery which made him hard to watch sometimes and he got away with it because of the comedian label. Where I disagree is that he was always open about his politics and knew that his show was "serious takes with light hearted delivery" and made it a point to not talk about topics from a position of ignorance. When you hear him talk off-camera it's clear that he really cares about getting it right and saying something intelligible through the jokes.

When I listen to Joe it's different, I'm not saying he couldn't run with the bit of "I don't know nuthin' about nuthin'" and come from a place of empathy and curiosity which would be cool. But what it is in practice is "I'm a moron and you shouldn't listen to what I think I don't know what I'm talking about buttttt and then speaks authoritatively on some politically charged topic he's supposedly ignorant of."

Jon Stewart also is arguably the spiritual originator of assaulting the "Fake News" media, though I don't think he ever used those specific words.

Jon Stewart is responsible for an entire generation of millenials thinking that pointing out political hypocrisy was enough.

Is that right? My peers were largely rabid fans of his daily show, but that's gen X. I thought millenials were a bit young for that.

It works because it's true. The joke's on the audience that takes seriously what someone with a comedian background says after "I'm a comedian, but..."

Totally. The irony of this is lost on so many.

> When I heard of JRE many years ago, I said to myself, "do I care to hear the endless opinions of the former host of Fear Factor? Nope." And that was that, never even decided to give it a try with so much other potential content available.

And the time commitment. I have a friend who's a big fan and kept pushing me to listen, but I just plain don't have the time to listen to a meandering 3 hour podcast, even if I was interested.

I have no data to back this up, but I think few people who listen to long podcasts sit down and pay attention solely to them for the entire duration. Personally I listen when I’m doing chores or commuting, and I constantly stop and pick it back up at a later time.

So how deeply informed by experts do you gauge that you are if the majority of what you read or hear is short-form? Do you think there's a cost to that that I guess you've decuded or defaulted to being an acceptable level?

>> ...but I just plain don't have the time to listen to a meandering 3 hour podcast, even if I was interested.

> So how deeply informed by experts do you gauge that you are if the majority of what you read or hear is short-form?

Huh? You're jumping to conclusions and, frankly, saying foolish things. In addition to just plain being wrong, there's literally no way you could validly infer anything about "the majority of what [I] read or hear" from what I wrote.

You seemed to miss my point.

Do you believe that you learn more by hearing/watching, or reading less?

You seemed to say you don't have time for long-form content? Did I misunderstand what you originally said?

> You seemed to say you don't have time for long-form content? Did I misunderstand what you originally said?

That's not what I said, and you did misunderstand. What I did say is that I didn't have time for a "meandering 3 hour podcast," specifically referring to Rogan's.

Joe Rogan's meandering 3 hour podcast is clearly not the universe of "long-form content."

Gotcha. Well, could there not be benefit you're missing out on, of getting a better understanding of someone to see how they hold themselves while speaking on different topics?

For example, Jordan Peterson is very sharp and articulate on certain topics - but then I notice on certain topics where he hasn't had 15-20+ years of deep analysis/study on, his less polished views show, and is where he gets most of his flak, say on Bitcoin or climate change I personally find value in seeing this broad, meandering view of someone - it in part helps me understanding him as a role model better, likewise observing the growth/personal evolution process further.

What kind of 3-hour long content do you tolerate and that you don't consider to be meandering? Do you have a few examples you could share?

> Gotcha. Well, could there not be benefit you're missing out on, of getting a better understanding of someone to see how they hold themselves while speaking on different topics?

Of course, but there's nearly 8 billion people in the world, so you have to make choices.

Pretty reductionist. He made himself a success in more than one industry. And you haven’t listened to him. So what qualifies your opinion of him more than his opinion about anything?

I'm a regular listener, but he 'made himself a success in more than one industry' only if you count "TV presenter" and "radio presenter" as different industries. Most of his comedy specials are self-published.

I’m conflicted about him too, but the man tours with Dave Chapelle. He’s inarguably a successful comedian. He was a working MMA trainer. An actor in a sitcom. A TV presenter. The voice of the UFC. Host of one of the most popular podcasts.

He’s open to many criticisms, but dismissing his potential to have valid opinions because he was a TV presenter doesn’t seem like a strong argument. Especially if one is unwilling to listen to at least a few of his shows. I, myself, listened regularly 10 years ago (it was fun and funny) but can’t really stomach him anymore. I do check-in and listen to whole shows though. Clips almost never do his actual positions justice.

Also, we’re told to consult our doctors, etc. His controversial guests had PhDs. So, credentials alone don’t necessarily qualify people.. and that’s in either direction: having them (PhD credentialed guests), or not having them (Joe).

Punching at him for his job(s) is a weak attack.

Don't forget cofounder (that still is a big deal here on HN, right?) of a supplement company (Onnit) that was acquired by Unilever.

He sold out Madison Square gardens in 2021. He’s a very successful comedian.

Why is willful ignorance something to be touted?

Joe, while no genius, is smarter than he gives himself credit for. He’s not touting ignorance, he is being humble and implying that his audience should think for themselves.

And avoiding accountability/culpability for his actions though, right?

Imagine that, you were able to decide not to listen to a show you didn't care for without demanding that it be banned for everyone. You must teach the world these mysteries.

People don't like JRE because what he has to say but because he let's his guests speak. It's an an alternative to mainstream media's endless opinion stories and yelling how to live instead of reporting on things.

I'm not advocating one way nor another for JRE, but talk about judging a book by its cover (parent comment)

That's kind of a misplaced thought since the show isn't a monologue. It's a dialogue hosted by a friendly and intellectually curious person.

It's the guests.

He's like Oprah in her peak: He's disarming, humble, and has a knack for getting even the stiffest guests to open up. And some of the most fascinating guests are people you've never heard of.

If Oprah were _incredibly_ misinformed about the basic way the world works.

Some would say Oprah is. She gained popularity initially hosting a "Jerry Springer" lite type of talk show in the 80s/90s. She's since given platforms to people like Dr Oz who's hawked pseudo-medicine, Marianne Williamson (former presidential candidate) who tries to sell alternative medicine and pseudo-spirituality.

It doesn't have to be a 1 to 1 comparison but there's plenty of people out there that would say along one or more dimensions that Oprah is no better, better, or the same as Rogan.

I don't think that's an accurate take on Rogan. At least to say that he is less informed than Oprah.

I'd bet good money on Oprah at any point in her life beating Joe Rogan at Jeopardy, or a trivia board game. Or a 5k, for that matter.

Based on the 5K observation, you clearly have never once listened to the show, or have any first-hand knowledge of Rogan.

He's extremely physically fit, does massive amounts of cardio, and does backcountry hunting trips with only a backpack.

There is nothing more church ladyish than commenting on a subject based purely on secondhand knowledge.

I'd pay to see that

Probably can't make this kind of show on a national cable network anymore: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Deathmatch

So for you the only people worth paying attention to are those who just have just jumped into well paid meaningful jobs and never had to work their way up from the bottom.

Worked at Mcdonalds.. not worth listening to, took a job as a cleaner out of school... don't waste my time. Only people with prestigious employment histories are worth the time of day.

Well he's interviewed Elon Musk and John Carmack. How do you rate yourself in comparison?

…and 1-2 of those podcasts were probably Elon Musks appearances.

I watched every UFC for many years and loved Rogan the jiu jitsu geek. the new radicalized Rogan I have no patience for. I dont need to be indoctrinated into gun nut conspiracy culture, I already live in the South.