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Who decides what counts as a quack? One of the things I find compelling about the format of the show is that the long format really exposes people, for better o
by Scalestein 6y ago
Who decides what counts as a quack? One of the things I find compelling about the format of the show is that the long format really exposes people, for better or worse. If you want to find out whether Alex Jones is a quack there is probably no better evidence than watching his appearance on Rogan's podcast. Same is true for Milo Yiannopoulos (often deemed an alt-right troll) who basically had his career wrecked from his appearance on the podcast. I think having guests from all over the political and 'quack' spectrum is a great example of sunlight being the best disinfectant. It is also a powerful bubble popping feature - very few media outlets entertain serious conversations with such a wide variety of guests.
- vannevar 6y agoNo doubt, you can draw the line at different points. And obviously, in terms of audience and profit, Joe has found a sweet spot, with enough crazy people to be interesting but not so crazy as to make it a nonstop freak show. My point was that there's a wide band there, and that simply excluding a guest whose beliefs are demonstrably incorrect or morally reprehensible is not the same as pushing a single orthodox belief. Hence my reference to the Straw Man Argument.
- dilyevsky 6y agoSo you’re praising him for keeping the balance but the show is somehow “problematic” as some folks like to say bc he invited that one crazy guest? Sounds like more of strawman to me. And yes jre style is very much softball questions I don’t think anyone really disputes that
- Scalestein 6y agoOh yes totally agree, certainly there are many guests who have been rejected from appearing on JRE and yet he is being touted as heterodox.
- vannevar 6y agoSo in your mind, the ideal show would be one where the guests are chosen at random? Otherwise, there is always the possibility that pernicious orthodoxy would play a role in setting the agenda. And of course it couldn't be on Spotify; the free version plays ads, which definitely push a consumerist orthodoxy. And it couldn't all be in a single language, because as we all know, each language embodies certain cultural orthodoxies. Quite the dilemma, putting together the show of your dreams. ;-)
- raxxorrax 6y agoHow about you just skip those episodes? I cannot understand your form of reasoning at all. You are morally reprehensible if you think your standards of acceptance should be used as a template.
- dqv 6y agoThank you for explaining this. De-platforming is an annoying liberal tick that ends up creating an information disparity. When trying to get more information the only thing that comes up are a few intelligentsia-approved articles that lack an accurate description of the de-platformed individual.
- happytoexplain 6y agoI see the "who decides" argument used a lot like this, where the implication is that the mere nature of something being subjective means one must not leverage discernment, or that a single authority must be able to be established. I feel like the engineering types of minds attracted to HN are more prone to accidentally committing this kind of fallacy, as it involves a bias towards black and white objective processes.
- Scalestein 6y agoI certainly think there is room and use for discernment in guest selection. My "who decides" is a bit of hyperbole in this case but my point is more that Rogan's podcast has a much wider band of guests across the political / scientific / psuedoscientific spectrum. It lets the listener be 'the decider' much more than most if not all other podcasts and media more generally.
- joshuamorton 6y agoYour memory is faulty here. Yiannopolous made his comments on a much smaller podcast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_Peasants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_Peasants), and the hosts challenged Milo in ways that Joe and JRE doesn't.