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>Rogan is laddish and generous with everyone he sits across from I think this is a big problem for him. I cherry pick some episodes to listen to (depending on

by giarc 6y ago

>Rogan is laddish and generous with everyone he sits across from I think this is a big problem for him. I cherry pick some episodes to listen to (depending on the guest). I listened to the Alex Jones interview and was totally appalled by how much he agreed with Jones' wingnut theories. But I've also heard his interview with Alex Honnold (free solo climber) and it was great. I'm afraid his openness with some guests, and his wide audience will just introduce more people to people like Alex Jones.

chadlavi 6y ago
This is exactly the reason I've never been a fan of his. First of all, Jones didn't just happen to show up for the recording that day; he was either invited on the show on purpose or his publicist asked and Rogan's production said yes. You're responsible for the sort of people and ideas you expose your audience to, especially when it's predominantly teenage boys. Second, as you mentioned, he didn't challenge any of Jones's insane beliefs. Providing an unquestioning platform for dangerous people like that really does a lot to whitewash their reputation and make their ideas more palatable to a wider audience. It's very dangerous. At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism.
- tc313 6y ago
  > At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism. But it's NOT masquerading as journalism. That's Rogan's excuse, whether you accept it or not: He's just a bro having conversations with interesting people.
- chance_state 6y ago
  Apparently they've been friends for 30+ years. >At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism This is the problem: people coming to the podcast expecting it to be some intellectual journalistic endeavor, when Rogan has never promised anything of the kind. It's a bro-y meat head drinking and smoking weed with some guests. People take it way too seriously and impose their ideas of how Rogan should run his own show.
  - giarc 6y ago
    But with millions of viewers, does he not have some moral responsibility to question Jones' view that Sandy Hook was faked?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - banads 6y ago
      That was the first thing he asked about.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      I'm curious why you think he does? Im also curious why you think he didnt when i've seen that episode and he basically laughs in his face about it. You got the timestamp for this where he just lets alex run his mouth with unsubstantiated bullshit?
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > This is the problem: people coming to the podcast expecting it to be some intellectual journalistic endeavor. This misconception is furthered by some of his fanbase (who apparently have never experienced actual high-level intellectual dialogue). I have repeatedly seen discontented young men contrast Rogan to content for women and claim that the latter is just vacuous cosmetics talk and gossip, while "Rogan is all about deep stuff like philosophy".
    - DaniloDias 6y ago
      1) I don’t like stupid people 2) stupid people like ‘X’ 3) X should be banned.
    - nprz 6y ago
      That is absolutely a misrepresentation of the average JRE listener. Look at the youtube comments under any clip of the show and you'll see close to all are just making fun of Joe. Nearly every meme shared about the show is making fun of Joe's lack of intellectual rigor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrf7mX_R6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrf7mX_R6M
- pharke 6y ago
  I think this comment more or less epitomizes the lack of understanding of conversational media and is probably the reason why traditional media is failing so badly right now. People can think for themselves, they don't want a self-righteous gatekeeper to spoon feed them the bits of information that they think are correct, relevant, or acceptable. People don't want more spin and more production value and more hot takes and more dunking. Censorship is ultimately counter productive in the same way that sterilizing everything in your environment is for your immune system, you need exposure to a variety of information and viewpoints including incorrect, toxic and down right whacky ones in order to learn the metacognitive skills that you can use to think about how that information impacts you and the viewpoints you hold. If you just funnel the "correct" information into people you wind up with a bunch of infantile paper tigers that can only parrot back what they've heard and collapse in a heap of sputtering rage the moment their prepackaged world view is challenged. Nobody is pretending that Joe Rogan is a journalist, least of all himself. He isn't there to challenge anyone's beliefs or to discover the truth or fiction of what his guests are saying. That's your job you lazy fuck, as he would say.
  - tacitusarc 6y ago
    Though he actually actively fact checks them, and himself, during interviews. I am not aware of any other interviewer doing that.
  - ausbah 6y ago
    People can think for themselves and censorship is ultimently counterproductive, right - but what should be done when people "think for themselves" and come to horrendously wrong conclusions? Clearly the likes of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists have done some amount of the above and come to the wrong conclusions, so something is obviously wrong in their thought process that led them thinking in such a way. I'm not sure what is the best way of correcting people's broken though processes and beliefs like those are, I don't think just stating evidence at them really works. At the very least I fail to see what value is to be gained by letting such thoughts be granted a platform to continue the cycle of flawed reasoning.
    - 6y ago
- nprz 6y ago
  They've both known each other since the early 2000s and appear to be somewhat friends, so it's no surprise they've both gone on each others shows. I think Joe expects his audience to interpret Jones much of the same way he appears to, which is entertaining but insane.
- pdubs1 6y ago
  >You're responsible for the sort of people and ideas you expose your audience to, especially when it's predominantly teenage boys. Eh, it takes two to tango: Speaker, and listener. The listener also has a responsibility (or the listener's legal guardian in the case of "teenage boys"-- or youth in general). The responsibility to decide if they want to continue engaging in listening. Constitutional rights and all. Plus, no one is forced to listen. Adding a prefix or suffix of "bro" to things indicates your bias-- and is likely a projection of misandry (and virtue signaling, predicated by a social engineering campaign which placed those thoughts within your mind, as "virtuous").
Damorian 6y ago
Is this really bad though? If people like Alex Jones have bad ideas, it will be evident when they discuss them. I don't see how censorship is a better alternative.
- dkdk8283 6y ago
  Censorship is not a viable alternative. Even if someone holds extreme views they have the right to talk about it. Views shift and change over time. Change is good.
  - Wistar 6y ago
    Perhaps I am misunderstanding but, I think being choosy about the guests one hosts is not censorship.
    - banads 6y ago
      Alex Jones was censored (deplatformed) by all the major platforms, which acted in unison against him. Joe Rogan bringing him on his podcast helped break that veil of censorship.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Alex Jones was rightly ignored by major platforms. He voices far out opinions to take advantage of his audience and doesn't have anything actually interesting to say.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        banads 6y ago
        He wasn't ignored, he was deplatformed. >He voices far out opinions to take advantage of his audience and doesn't have anything actually interesting to say. Agreed, though corporate mass media in general also takes advantage of their audience and likewise has nothing interesting to say.
geebee 6y ago
I think it's a both a weakness and a strength. In an era of cancel culture, I think there has been a counter movement to avoid cancelling people, which may lead to an over abundance of tolerance and politeness toward genuinely noxious people. I wouldn't argue Joe Rogan hasn't stepped over the line. But since nobody will ever toe the line perfectly, I've become more tolerant toward people who err on the side of hearing someone out, rather than shutting someone down, and I suspect a lot of other people have too. I call this "rotten cherry" picking, where you scour someone's background and find the top 10 worst things about them, and use that to introduce the person. The conversation goes like this. T: "Frederick Douglass wrote insightfully about slavery during the..." C: "Frederic Douglass? You mean that sexist, anti-immigrant, anti-native American guy?" T: "Wait, what? What did he say?" C: "Well let me tell you", (gleeful in C's eyes pulls out his laminated card of the worst 10 things Douglass said about women, Irish immigrants, and condescending jokes about American Indians). See, a lot of us have been through enough of this that we'd like hear for a few hours from the person who just got cancelled through rotten cherry picking. And yeah, this means that now and then, we will end up hearing out someone who shouldn't have been (an this, in turn, will be rotten cherry picked against the person who gave them that platform).
- cousin_it 6y ago
  I'm mostly puzzled by the inconsistency: "big companies have more power than individuals, and we should decide more things democratically, but when big companies deplatform individuals, it's ok due to companies' rights".
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    I thought customers say what corporations do by leaving. Certainly large platforms like Patreon have alternatives for customers looking for product that Patreon doesn’t sell.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    Modern politics is ultimately driven by rationalization. Each team cheers when a large powerful entity's actions pisses off the other team, because it's the only concession they're going to get. Compare with how the plague got a political party.
TheHypnotist 6y ago
He's entertaining. Getting information from him requires a level of scrutiny, everyone on his show has an agenda. Think of it like when actors go on late night television to promote their movie.
cameronbrown 6y ago
Most conspiracy theories have elements of truth backing them. It's what makes it believable.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  There was 0.000000% truth behind the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. No basis in fact whatsoever. If you don’t believe me, ask the guy who went there with a semiautomatic weapon and discovered the complete lack of truth for himself.
  - s9w 6y ago
    Such comments are silly because if someone would offer even the slightest insight of how that might not be entirely like that, he would be killed on the spot. edit: as in killed by HN downvoters
  - Synaesthesia 6y ago
    Right that's a total conspiracy theory. But people are ready to believe it because they're so disillusioned with the elites, they're ready to believe they're total psychopaths and pedophiles, because they sense there is something wrong with the system. One of the most amusing conspiracy theorists is David Icke, I don't know if you've ever read any of his books. They're hilarious and crazy, but as always you can find elements of truth in between everything.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    The basic truth there is the complete unaccountability of the elites. People chase extreme power for some vice, and sex is one of the oldest. More concretely, Epstein. Holding an abstract truth in your head is tough when it's pitted against simplistic narratives pumped out by cross-spectrum mass media. Creating and subscribing to an unsubstantiated story with glaringly baseless details is ultimately harmful to understanding (for one, it's a straw man), but appeals to most people's need for straightforward answers. They know they're being had, they know the (competing) mainstream narrative is false, and so they congregate around a popular counter-narrative regardless of its truth.
waheoo 6y ago
What are you talking about? He disagrees with most of the junk alex spouts. Hell, most of that podcast is joe trying to pull him out of the deep end. Its a hilarious episode, and the comic comentary bits are gold.
- giarc 6y ago
  It was a few years ago I listened to it, but I came away thinking Joe gave him the time to spout the theories and didn't push him on it. He has interviewed him a few times, not sure which one I listened to.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    People are free to talk, listen and make their own conclusions. This constant need to judge and control what others see is both tiring and dangerous.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      Yup, i dont like the cop out "im a comedian" line very much but at the end of the day he has a point. This line of thought that he has some social responsibility is fucking moronic. This very article points out that he is so well listened too because it is uncensored, unlike the main stream media of today, where they report of very narrow views and dont dare to explore anything interesting. Dont the new york times have a social responsibility to do some fucking journalism? Cant they say, im a journalist, im just reporting facts, shut the fuck up about whatever idiologic bullshit your whinging about in my twitter feed? The hypocrisy is astounding.
cinbun8 6y ago
He takes an issue with people being appalled though. Why give him a platform? - https://youtu.be/-5yh2HcIlkU?t=48 https://youtu.be/-5yh2HcIlkU?t=48

by giarc 6y ago

chadlavi 6y ago

This is exactly the reason I've never been a fan of his. First of all, Jones didn't just happen to show up for the recording that day; he was either invited on the show on purpose or his publicist asked and Rogan's production said yes. You're responsible for the sort of people and ideas you expose your audience to, especially when it's predominantly teenage boys. Second, as you mentioned, he didn't challenge any of Jones's insane beliefs. Providing an unquestioning platform for dangerous people like that really does a lot to whitewash their reputation and make their ideas more palatable to a wider audience. It's very dangerous. At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism.

tc313 6y ago
> At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism. But it's NOT masquerading as journalism. That's Rogan's excuse, whether you accept it or not: He's just a bro having conversations with interesting people.
chance_state 6y ago
Apparently they've been friends for 30+ years. >At best it's lazy brohangs masquerading as journalism This is the problem: people coming to the podcast expecting it to be some intellectual journalistic endeavor, when Rogan has never promised anything of the kind. It's a bro-y meat head drinking and smoking weed with some guests. People take it way too seriously and impose their ideas of how Rogan should run his own show.
- giarc 6y ago
  But with millions of viewers, does he not have some moral responsibility to question Jones' view that Sandy Hook was faked?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - banads 6y ago
    That was the first thing he asked about.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    I'm curious why you think he does? Im also curious why you think he didnt when i've seen that episode and he basically laughs in his face about it. You got the timestamp for this where he just lets alex run his mouth with unsubstantiated bullshit?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > This is the problem: people coming to the podcast expecting it to be some intellectual journalistic endeavor. This misconception is furthered by some of his fanbase (who apparently have never experienced actual high-level intellectual dialogue). I have repeatedly seen discontented young men contrast Rogan to content for women and claim that the latter is just vacuous cosmetics talk and gossip, while "Rogan is all about deep stuff like philosophy".
  - DaniloDias 6y ago
    1) I don’t like stupid people 2) stupid people like ‘X’ 3) X should be banned.
  - nprz 6y ago
    That is absolutely a misrepresentation of the average JRE listener. Look at the youtube comments under any clip of the show and you'll see close to all are just making fun of Joe. Nearly every meme shared about the show is making fun of Joe's lack of intellectual rigor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrf7mX_R6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKrf7mX_R6M
pharke 6y ago
I think this comment more or less epitomizes the lack of understanding of conversational media and is probably the reason why traditional media is failing so badly right now. People can think for themselves, they don't want a self-righteous gatekeeper to spoon feed them the bits of information that they think are correct, relevant, or acceptable. People don't want more spin and more production value and more hot takes and more dunking. Censorship is ultimately counter productive in the same way that sterilizing everything in your environment is for your immune system, you need exposure to a variety of information and viewpoints including incorrect, toxic and down right whacky ones in order to learn the metacognitive skills that you can use to think about how that information impacts you and the viewpoints you hold. If you just funnel the "correct" information into people you wind up with a bunch of infantile paper tigers that can only parrot back what they've heard and collapse in a heap of sputtering rage the moment their prepackaged world view is challenged. Nobody is pretending that Joe Rogan is a journalist, least of all himself. He isn't there to challenge anyone's beliefs or to discover the truth or fiction of what his guests are saying. That's your job you lazy fuck, as he would say.
- tacitusarc 6y ago
  Though he actually actively fact checks them, and himself, during interviews. I am not aware of any other interviewer doing that.
- ausbah 6y ago
  People can think for themselves and censorship is ultimently counterproductive, right - but what should be done when people "think for themselves" and come to horrendously wrong conclusions? Clearly the likes of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists have done some amount of the above and come to the wrong conclusions, so something is obviously wrong in their thought process that led them thinking in such a way. I'm not sure what is the best way of correcting people's broken though processes and beliefs like those are, I don't think just stating evidence at them really works. At the very least I fail to see what value is to be gained by letting such thoughts be granted a platform to continue the cycle of flawed reasoning.
  - 6y ago
nprz 6y ago
They've both known each other since the early 2000s and appear to be somewhat friends, so it's no surprise they've both gone on each others shows. I think Joe expects his audience to interpret Jones much of the same way he appears to, which is entertaining but insane.
pdubs1 6y ago
>You're responsible for the sort of people and ideas you expose your audience to, especially when it's predominantly teenage boys. Eh, it takes two to tango: Speaker, and listener. The listener also has a responsibility (or the listener's legal guardian in the case of "teenage boys"-- or youth in general). The responsibility to decide if they want to continue engaging in listening. Constitutional rights and all. Plus, no one is forced to listen. Adding a prefix or suffix of "bro" to things indicates your bias-- and is likely a projection of misandry (and virtue signaling, predicated by a social engineering campaign which placed those thoughts within your mind, as "virtuous").

Damorian 6y ago

Is this really bad though? If people like Alex Jones have bad ideas, it will be evident when they discuss them. I don't see how censorship is a better alternative.

dkdk8283 6y ago
Censorship is not a viable alternative. Even if someone holds extreme views they have the right to talk about it. Views shift and change over time. Change is good.
- Wistar 6y ago
  Perhaps I am misunderstanding but, I think being choosy about the guests one hosts is not censorship.
  - banads 6y ago
    Alex Jones was censored (deplatformed) by all the major platforms, which acted in unison against him. Joe Rogan bringing him on his podcast helped break that veil of censorship.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Alex Jones was rightly ignored by major platforms. He voices far out opinions to take advantage of his audience and doesn't have anything actually interesting to say.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - banads 6y ago
        He wasn't ignored, he was deplatformed. >He voices far out opinions to take advantage of his audience and doesn't have anything actually interesting to say. Agreed, though corporate mass media in general also takes advantage of their audience and likewise has nothing interesting to say.

geebee 6y ago

I think it's a both a weakness and a strength. In an era of cancel culture, I think there has been a counter movement to avoid cancelling people, which may lead to an over abundance of tolerance and politeness toward genuinely noxious people. I wouldn't argue Joe Rogan hasn't stepped over the line. But since nobody will ever toe the line perfectly, I've become more tolerant toward people who err on the side of hearing someone out, rather than shutting someone down, and I suspect a lot of other people have too. I call this "rotten cherry" picking, where you scour someone's background and find the top 10 worst things about them, and use that to introduce the person. The conversation goes like this. T: "Frederick Douglass wrote insightfully about slavery during the..." C: "Frederic Douglass? You mean that sexist, anti-immigrant, anti-native American guy?" T: "Wait, what? What did he say?" C: "Well let me tell you", (gleeful in C's eyes pulls out his laminated card of the worst 10 things Douglass said about women, Irish immigrants, and condescending jokes about American Indians). See, a lot of us have been through enough of this that we'd like hear for a few hours from the person who just got cancelled through rotten cherry picking. And yeah, this means that now and then, we will end up hearing out someone who shouldn't have been (an this, in turn, will be rotten cherry picked against the person who gave them that platform).

cousin_it 6y ago
I'm mostly puzzled by the inconsistency: "big companies have more power than individuals, and we should decide more things democratically, but when big companies deplatform individuals, it's ok due to companies' rights".
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  I thought customers say what corporations do by leaving. Certainly large platforms like Patreon have alternatives for customers looking for product that Patreon doesn’t sell.
- mindslight 6y ago
  Modern politics is ultimately driven by rationalization. Each team cheers when a large powerful entity's actions pisses off the other team, because it's the only concession they're going to get. Compare with how the plague got a political party.

TheHypnotist 6y ago

He's entertaining. Getting information from him requires a level of scrutiny, everyone on his show has an agenda. Think of it like when actors go on late night television to promote their movie.

cameronbrown 6y ago

Most conspiracy theories have elements of truth backing them. It's what makes it believable.

snowwrestler 6y ago
There was 0.000000% truth behind the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. No basis in fact whatsoever. If you don’t believe me, ask the guy who went there with a semiautomatic weapon and discovered the complete lack of truth for himself.
- s9w 6y ago
  Such comments are silly because if someone would offer even the slightest insight of how that might not be entirely like that, he would be killed on the spot. edit: as in killed by HN downvoters
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  Right that's a total conspiracy theory. But people are ready to believe it because they're so disillusioned with the elites, they're ready to believe they're total psychopaths and pedophiles, because they sense there is something wrong with the system. One of the most amusing conspiracy theorists is David Icke, I don't know if you've ever read any of his books. They're hilarious and crazy, but as always you can find elements of truth in between everything.
- mindslight 6y ago
  The basic truth there is the complete unaccountability of the elites. People chase extreme power for some vice, and sex is one of the oldest. More concretely, Epstein. Holding an abstract truth in your head is tough when it's pitted against simplistic narratives pumped out by cross-spectrum mass media. Creating and subscribing to an unsubstantiated story with glaringly baseless details is ultimately harmful to understanding (for one, it's a straw man), but appeals to most people's need for straightforward answers. They know they're being had, they know the (competing) mainstream narrative is false, and so they congregate around a popular counter-narrative regardless of its truth.

waheoo 6y ago

What are you talking about? He disagrees with most of the junk alex spouts. Hell, most of that podcast is joe trying to pull him out of the deep end. Its a hilarious episode, and the comic comentary bits are gold.

giarc 6y ago
It was a few years ago I listened to it, but I came away thinking Joe gave him the time to spout the theories and didn't push him on it. He has interviewed him a few times, not sure which one I listened to.
- manigandham 6y ago
  People are free to talk, listen and make their own conclusions. This constant need to judge and control what others see is both tiring and dangerous.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Yup, i dont like the cop out "im a comedian" line very much but at the end of the day he has a point. This line of thought that he has some social responsibility is fucking moronic. This very article points out that he is so well listened too because it is uncensored, unlike the main stream media of today, where they report of very narrow views and dont dare to explore anything interesting. Dont the new york times have a social responsibility to do some fucking journalism? Cant they say, im a journalist, im just reporting facts, shut the fuck up about whatever idiologic bullshit your whinging about in my twitter feed? The hypocrisy is astounding.

cinbun8 6y ago

He takes an issue with people being appalled though. Why give him a platform? - https://youtu.be/-5yh2HcIlkU?t=48 https://youtu.be/-5yh2HcIlkU?t=48