9 ms·

Based on the recent Stratechery Neil Young advocates against GMOs which is the “anti-science” position on that issue. I think independent of my views on Rogan

Based on the recent Stratechery Neil Young advocates against GMOs which is the “anti-science” position on that issue. I think independent of my views on Rogan personally this kind of ultimatum to silence someone is just wrong. The free speech position is the principled one. Spotify wouldn’t be in this position if they weren’t trying to aggregate podcast ownership and ruin the open ecosystem anyway. Still, if I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position and tell these other people to fuck off (imo).

mulmen 5y ago
Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression). Neil Young can do whatever he wants with his content (speech), just like Rogan. This is competition in the free marketplace of ideas. You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yes there is. Young and Mitchell should argue their position on its merits, not throw a hissy fit and take their toys and go home.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    They are arguing their position on its merits. This case is being tried in the court of public opinion.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I view it as a freedom of speech issue because one side is advocating for another side to be silenced. These musicians aren’t just pulling their content - they’re trying to use power to shut someone else down. To me that is clearly a freedom of speech issue.
- gonehome 5y ago
  Yeah, for clarity Young and Mitchell are totally within their right to pull their music as an exercise of their speech and I’m fine with that. What I find distasteful is the framing of “Rogan or me” as a way to pressure Spotify to pull Rogan from the platform. Sure Spotify could do that, but they shouldn’t.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    It wasn't an ultimatum. Young directed his management to pull his music and explained why.
    - gonehome 5y ago
      "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them ... They can have Rogan or Young. Not both." I read this as if you want me get rid of him, but I’ll paste it here for clarity. Others may see it differently.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        You left out the important part. "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform". Probably he would reconsider if they dropped Rogan. He didn't expect it or ask.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        gonehome 5y ago
        I honestly don’t think that matters? He said pull my music and explicitly said you can have one of us not both.
        pseudalopex 5y ago
        So he should pull his music and tell no one why?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Of course anyone who believes in freedom of speech would agree that Young and Mitchell have the right to pull their music. That doesn’t change the fact that one can disagree with that decision.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    > That doesn’t change the fact that one can disagree with that decision. Obviously, but that's not the topic at hand. > I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position There is no "free speech position". Spotify, Rogan, Young, and Mitchell are all exercising their right to free expression here.
    - mmcgaha 5y ago
      Sure there is; Young and Mitchell have made an active decision to shutdown their own speech or the speech of another. The difference is taking an action against another vs taking an action against yourself. I am sure that you will agree that determining your own outcome is freedom but forcing an outcome for others is oppression.
      - mulmen 5y ago
        They are not shutting down their speech. They are exercising it by choosing who to associate with. The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government. I realize this is a cliche but it is critical to understand. Freedom of speech means you can say "I don't like what that person says and they shouldn't say it." And everyone else is free to agree with you or not.
        School-Cotton 5y ago
        > The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government. Nobody in this thread was talking about the First Amendment. The concept of freedom of speech is much broader than its particular realization in US constitutional law.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  > Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression). Yes, they can protest. But they can't demand to shut up others (Rogan) which is what they seem to be doing. Personally, people should double down on their protest, hope others join against Joe Rogan's batshit insane science. But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that. Isn't it bullying?
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    What evidence is there Young or Mitchell would deny Rogan the right to pull his podcast from any platform with their music?
    - eej71 5y ago
      None. But no one is making that claim.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        > None. But no one is making that claim. They did. > But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that.
        eej71 5y ago
        You are half right! (I didn't write the text you challenged). But I did misread the OP's comments. He does make that claim. Clearly Joe could pull his content if he wanted.
        gonehome 5y ago
        pseudalopex is just being a pedant - op clearly meant that Young can use Spotify and Rogan is not trying to stop that.
- finite_jest 5y ago
  > But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. There is. Rogan is not trying to remove Neil Young's music from anywhere. I've heard this unfruitful line of argument too often recently. Besides being unfruitful, I think it is based on a subtle fallacy/diversion. The idea of free expression reasonably includes the right to criticize the principle itself. For example, in the US, you absolutely have the legal right to criticize the First Amendment. However, by doing so you would rightly be labelled as being against free expression. If you like free expression, I think you should be cheering for Spotify and Rogan in this case.
  - philistine 5y ago
    Imagine a TV network hosting a show called neo-nazis throwing eggs at Jews at 8pm, and then you at 9pm for an important discussion on your favourite subject. You’d have every right to rethink your association with that platform, and demand they not air the neo-nazis if they want to have you on. This is not about free speech. It’s about freedom of association. You can’t force Neil Young to be associated with Joe Rogan if he doesn’t want to, and you can’t argue he doesn’t have a right to tell Spotify they can’t have both of them.
  - rektide 5y ago
    Young wasn't trying to remove Rogan's music. He was exercising his positive liberty, to act as he wanted: which was to not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous. Young had (nearly) no expectation of causing change. There's a possibility he thought this really would, right now, have enacted change, but I highly doubt he was so deluded. Young simply knew he couldn't be party to such a system, and said he was unwilling to remain affiliated with it in it's current dangerous fallen state.
    - finite_jest 5y ago
      > Young wasn't trying to remove Rogan's music. I very much disagree. We could be a bit more accurate/pedantic by saying "he's trying to mount pressure to remove Rogan's podcast from Spotify" instead, but that doesn't change much. > not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous. I cancelled my Spotify a long time ago, but I don't think it's much of a social platform. If you don't want to interact with Rogan, you simply can. I think you could even mute an artist, so Spotify wouldn't even suggest their content to you.
- baryphonic 5y ago
  > You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. I'm not sure I agree. Young and Mitchell (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) are certainly free to participate on Spotify or not. They certainly cannot be forced to. However, if Rogan were booted from Spotify based on their threats (or others), he would certainly be a loser. Further, if someone demands a second party take some action against a third party by making a quid pro quo threat, that is not clearly protected speech. If the threat involves revealing defamatory information, it constitutes blackmail; if the threat involves criminal harm, it is extortion; and if the threat involves breach of contract, it may be tortious interference, a civil tort. This is not to argue that Mitchell & Young are committing a crime, because they clearly aren't (though they may possibly be perpetrating a civil tort against Rogan depending on his contractual terms with Spotify and their demands), but that threats are not necessarily protected speech in the same category as merely making–or withholding–personal self-expression.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    > (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) We're talking about them now. > threats They didn't threaten. Young directed his management to remove his music. Mitchell said she decided to remove hers. Is your problem they said why?
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      > We're talking about them now. Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        > Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking. We're talking about them as people who just said something. Young sold half his music rights for $150 million last year. He signed a deal with SiriusXM within days after he left Spotify. Mitchell won a Grammy in 2016 and was nominated this year. Their music continued to be relevant to someone obviously.
- edanm 5y ago
  > But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. I believe you're arguing semantics here. When people say "freedom of speech", they're referencing (sometimes unknowingly) hundreds of years of discussion in philosophy, politics, etc. A big part of that debate is whether censorship of so-called "bad" ideas is a good thing or a bad thing for "the public". One side here is trying to pressure, commercially and via public opinion, a big platform. They're trying to pressure this platform to not publish certain information because it is "bad". Of course they have a right to do so! But I think it should be fairly clear that they are the side that is "against" freedom of speech, because they are literally against Spotify publishing certain information. What's more, this isn't happening without context. This is happening in a world in which there is a lively debate happening around whether platforms should be liable for content that they allow to be published, in a world in which increasingly people are hesitant to associate with other people for voicing opinions they don't like.
  - philistine 5y ago
    Money. Money is the most important thing in this discussion. Spotify is not merely providing information in the classical sense, they have decided to massively invest in Joe Rogan. To signal that their podcasting efforts are centred around his dangerous entertainment product. It’s absolutely reasonable to consider this bad form, and wish for Spotify to revise. Would we have this discussion about free speech if Spotify invested 100 million in a neo-nazi? No, we’d be appalled about the money. It’s always about the money.
    - edanm 5y ago
      That's a very good point.
woodruffw 5y ago
My understanding of the GMO debate is that there are two kinds of GMO development: there's GMO for the purposes of making crops themselves hardier, more nutritious, etc., and then there's GMO for the purposes of making crops more resistant to novel pesticides, herbicides, etc. The agricultural industry likes to conflate the two, since the latter is much harder to defend. I have no idea what Neil Young actually believes (and I don't especially care), but I do know that it's possible to be pro-GMO (or even just neutral) in the first sense and anti-GMO in the latter sense. And that's the position that I've seen otherwise scientifically informed people take. (This is ignoring some other reasonable responses, such as "what do GMOs have to do with Spotify?" and "why do you think that being anti-GMO makes you anti-science?", but there are only so many hours in the day.)
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  There are also other pro science reasons to be against GMO crops. A couple example. GMO based industrial farms grow monocultures that ultimately reduce the variety of foods people traditionally grew and ate, leading to less varied diets and loss of culture. GMO crops also have yields that are unsustainably high, leading to disruption of water cycles (see Ogalalla aquifer depletion).
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    If GMO opponents stuck with the slogan "the yields are too high" they would be a lot more respectable. At least it's an honest position to hold.
- gonehome 5y ago
  It has to do with speech, that people often hold stupid positions that are not aligned with the truth but we don’t usually demand that they’re silenced. [0] The GMO case was an example of a position Young may hold that is likely political and wrong. There are many examples across the political spectrum. [0] I’d argue this is because as a society we understand the risks here with speech restriction leading to less truth on net.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
magicalist 5y ago
> which is the “anti-science” position Young didn't justify his position with some appeal to science in the abstract, so not sure what this point is but whataboutism.
marstall 5y ago
can't tell from your post - are you OK with major platforms publishing vaccine disinformation? Overall is that good for society? Whether you are or not, is it ok for people to decide to peace out from that platform and move to another one, based on their own beliefs? Don't see where any silencing is occurring at all.
zzzeek 5y ago
Neil Young doesn't have a GMO podcast nor any kind of political show on Spotify, nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health. Your point is completely irrelevant.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  > nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health GMO panic is at the heart of a lot of COVID vaccine refusal, so I think it at least has a somewhat negative effect on public health.
  - sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
    TBH I can't blame people for being weary of GMO in general after the decades of pumping people full or garbage hormones and whatever else it's a trust issue not a "science" one
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      GMO crops are exactly not "garbage hormones", and people consume them all of the time without complaint. I don't see anyone picketing the yogurt cases in their local super markets. Lot's of hormones survive intact through digestion and can enter the blood stream, but your body doesn't absorb the genetic material of food[1]. DNA is fragile and it's really hard to get foreign DNA into a cell, much less the nucleus. Our cells evolved a lot of specific defenses to prevent that. This is why DNA vaccines are so hard to develop and administer. Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy. TL;DR it's really hard to get DNA into eukaryotic cells (yours) and you definitely can't do that with food. [1]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223102128.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223102128.h...
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        > Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy. Yeah, so what? Nobody said anything else. It's still "a trust issue not a 'science' one", because most people are scientifically illiterate and probably always will be. To make a majority trust science (again [?]) in stead of distrusting it will have to be done by some other means than educating everyone into scientists.
aaomidi 5y ago
Free speech? On a platform that is explicitly designed for profit? Despite knowing the story about how wealth and money works and how class mobility is essentially non existent? Americans and American-lite people have just adopted this weird view on free speech that doesn't really make sense when you actually realize it's all about wealth and money.
pupppet 5y ago
> The free speech position is the principled one. He will still have his free speech off Spotify. Don’t confuse freedom of speech with freedom of promotion.
gilbetron 5y ago
fReeDoM oF sPeeCh is so ridiculous but 10x in this situation. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, this has to do with not backing a platform that is ok with misinformation. Rogan isn't a guy that wants all sides heard, he's just trying to get even more rich than he currently is. He knows his audience and he caters to them no matter the ethical cost. Neil Young doesn't want to be associated with it. This is as much about freedom of speech as Fox News cutting off people who go off agenda.

mulmen 5y ago

Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression). Neil Young can do whatever he wants with his content (speech), just like Rogan. This is competition in the free marketplace of ideas. You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Yes there is. Young and Mitchell should argue their position on its merits, not throw a hissy fit and take their toys and go home.
- mulmen 5y ago
  They are arguing their position on its merits. This case is being tried in the court of public opinion.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I view it as a freedom of speech issue because one side is advocating for another side to be silenced. These musicians aren’t just pulling their content - they’re trying to use power to shut someone else down. To me that is clearly a freedom of speech issue.
gonehome 5y ago
Yeah, for clarity Young and Mitchell are totally within their right to pull their music as an exercise of their speech and I’m fine with that. What I find distasteful is the framing of “Rogan or me” as a way to pressure Spotify to pull Rogan from the platform. Sure Spotify could do that, but they shouldn’t.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  It wasn't an ultimatum. Young directed his management to pull his music and explained why.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them ... They can have Rogan or Young. Not both." I read this as if you want me get rid of him, but I’ll paste it here for clarity. Others may see it differently.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      You left out the important part. "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform". Probably he would reconsider if they dropped Rogan. He didn't expect it or ask.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - gonehome 5y ago
        I honestly don’t think that matters? He said pull my music and explicitly said you can have one of us not both.
        pseudalopex 5y ago
        So he should pull his music and tell no one why?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
School-Cotton 5y ago
Of course anyone who believes in freedom of speech would agree that Young and Mitchell have the right to pull their music. That doesn’t change the fact that one can disagree with that decision.
- mulmen 5y ago
  > That doesn’t change the fact that one can disagree with that decision. Obviously, but that's not the topic at hand. > I were Spotify the move is to take the free speech position There is no "free speech position". Spotify, Rogan, Young, and Mitchell are all exercising their right to free expression here.
  - mmcgaha 5y ago
    Sure there is; Young and Mitchell have made an active decision to shutdown their own speech or the speech of another. The difference is taking an action against another vs taking an action against yourself. I am sure that you will agree that determining your own outcome is freedom but forcing an outcome for others is oppression.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      They are not shutting down their speech. They are exercising it by choosing who to associate with. The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government. I realize this is a cliche but it is critical to understand. Freedom of speech means you can say "I don't like what that person says and they shouldn't say it." And everyone else is free to agree with you or not.
      - School-Cotton 5y ago
        > The first amendment does not protect you from the actions of other private parties, it protects you from the government. Nobody in this thread was talking about the First Amendment. The concept of freedom of speech is much broader than its particular realization in US constitutional law.
systemvoltage 5y ago
> Young and Mitchell pulling their music is literally freedom of speech (free expression). Yes, they can protest. But they can't demand to shut up others (Rogan) which is what they seem to be doing. Personally, people should double down on their protest, hope others join against Joe Rogan's batshit insane science. But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that. Isn't it bullying?
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  What evidence is there Young or Mitchell would deny Rogan the right to pull his podcast from any platform with their music?
  - eej71 5y ago
    None. But no one is making that claim.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      > None. But no one is making that claim. They did. > But, I will never stand behind people wanting to deny him the exact rights they're exercising. Young and others are doing exactly that.
      - eej71 5y ago
        You are half right! (I didn't write the text you challenged). But I did misread the OP's comments. He does make that claim. Clearly Joe could pull his content if he wanted.
        gonehome 5y ago
        pseudalopex is just being a pedant - op clearly meant that Young can use Spotify and Rogan is not trying to stop that.
finite_jest 5y ago
> But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. There is. Rogan is not trying to remove Neil Young's music from anywhere. I've heard this unfruitful line of argument too often recently. Besides being unfruitful, I think it is based on a subtle fallacy/diversion. The idea of free expression reasonably includes the right to criticize the principle itself. For example, in the US, you absolutely have the legal right to criticize the First Amendment. However, by doing so you would rightly be labelled as being against free expression. If you like free expression, I think you should be cheering for Spotify and Rogan in this case.
- philistine 5y ago
  Imagine a TV network hosting a show called neo-nazis throwing eggs at Jews at 8pm, and then you at 9pm for an important discussion on your favourite subject. You’d have every right to rethink your association with that platform, and demand they not air the neo-nazis if they want to have you on. This is not about free speech. It’s about freedom of association. You can’t force Neil Young to be associated with Joe Rogan if he doesn’t want to, and you can’t argue he doesn’t have a right to tell Spotify they can’t have both of them.
- rektide 5y ago
  Young wasn't trying to remove Rogan's music. He was exercising his positive liberty, to act as he wanted: which was to not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous. Young had (nearly) no expectation of causing change. There's a possibility he thought this really would, right now, have enacted change, but I highly doubt he was so deluded. Young simply knew he couldn't be party to such a system, and said he was unwilling to remain affiliated with it in it's current dangerous fallen state.
  - finite_jest 5y ago
    > Young wasn't trying to remove Rogan's music. I very much disagree. We could be a bit more accurate/pedantic by saying "he's trying to mount pressure to remove Rogan's podcast from Spotify" instead, but that doesn't change much. > not be on a platform with people he perceived as ultra-shitty & socially-ruinous. I cancelled my Spotify a long time ago, but I don't think it's much of a social platform. If you don't want to interact with Rogan, you simply can. I think you could even mute an artist, so Spotify wouldn't even suggest their content to you.
baryphonic 5y ago
> You're absolutely entitled to your opinion on these actions and you're free to support Spotify or Young or Mitchell or any combination of the three. But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. I'm not sure I agree. Young and Mitchell (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) are certainly free to participate on Spotify or not. They certainly cannot be forced to. However, if Rogan were booted from Spotify based on their threats (or others), he would certainly be a loser. Further, if someone demands a second party take some action against a third party by making a quid pro quo threat, that is not clearly protected speech. If the threat involves revealing defamatory information, it constitutes blackmail; if the threat involves criminal harm, it is extortion; and if the threat involves breach of contract, it may be tortious interference, a civil tort. This is not to argue that Mitchell & Young are committing a crime, because they clearly aren't (though they may possibly be perpetrating a civil tort against Rogan depending on his contractual terms with Spotify and their demands), but that threats are not necessarily protected speech in the same category as merely making–or withholding–personal self-expression.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  > (how many decades ago were they culturally relevant?) We're talking about them now. > threats They didn't threaten. Young directed his management to remove his music. Mitchell said she decided to remove hers. Is your problem they said why?
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    > We're talking about them now. Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      > Not as artists that have anything currently to say, though. We're talking about them as people who are trying to keep someone else from talking. We're talking about them as people who just said something. Young sold half his music rights for $150 million last year. He signed a deal with SiriusXM within days after he left Spotify. Mitchell won a Grammy in 2016 and was nominated this year. Their music continued to be relevant to someone obviously.
edanm 5y ago
> But there is no "freedom of speech" side here. I believe you're arguing semantics here. When people say "freedom of speech", they're referencing (sometimes unknowingly) hundreds of years of discussion in philosophy, politics, etc. A big part of that debate is whether censorship of so-called "bad" ideas is a good thing or a bad thing for "the public". One side here is trying to pressure, commercially and via public opinion, a big platform. They're trying to pressure this platform to not publish certain information because it is "bad". Of course they have a right to do so! But I think it should be fairly clear that they are the side that is "against" freedom of speech, because they are literally against Spotify publishing certain information. What's more, this isn't happening without context. This is happening in a world in which there is a lively debate happening around whether platforms should be liable for content that they allow to be published, in a world in which increasingly people are hesitant to associate with other people for voicing opinions they don't like.
- philistine 5y ago
  Money. Money is the most important thing in this discussion. Spotify is not merely providing information in the classical sense, they have decided to massively invest in Joe Rogan. To signal that their podcasting efforts are centred around his dangerous entertainment product. It’s absolutely reasonable to consider this bad form, and wish for Spotify to revise. Would we have this discussion about free speech if Spotify invested 100 million in a neo-nazi? No, we’d be appalled about the money. It’s always about the money.
  - edanm 5y ago
    That's a very good point.

woodruffw 5y ago

My understanding of the GMO debate is that there are two kinds of GMO development: there's GMO for the purposes of making crops themselves hardier, more nutritious, etc., and then there's GMO for the purposes of making crops more resistant to novel pesticides, herbicides, etc. The agricultural industry likes to conflate the two, since the latter is much harder to defend. I have no idea what Neil Young actually believes (and I don't especially care), but I do know that it's possible to be pro-GMO (or even just neutral) in the first sense and anti-GMO in the latter sense. And that's the position that I've seen otherwise scientifically informed people take. (This is ignoring some other reasonable responses, such as "what do GMOs have to do with Spotify?" and "why do you think that being anti-GMO makes you anti-science?", but there are only so many hours in the day.)

throwawaysea 5y ago
There are also other pro science reasons to be against GMO crops. A couple example. GMO based industrial farms grow monocultures that ultimately reduce the variety of foods people traditionally grew and ate, leading to less varied diets and loss of culture. GMO crops also have yields that are unsustainably high, leading to disruption of water cycles (see Ogalalla aquifer depletion).
- akvadrako 5y ago
  If GMO opponents stuck with the slogan "the yields are too high" they would be a lot more respectable. At least it's an honest position to hold.
gonehome 5y ago
It has to do with speech, that people often hold stupid positions that are not aligned with the truth but we don’t usually demand that they’re silenced. [0] The GMO case was an example of a position Young may hold that is likely political and wrong. There are many examples across the political spectrum. [0] I’d argue this is because as a society we understand the risks here with speech restriction leading to less truth on net.
johnchristopher 5y ago

magicalist 5y ago

> which is the “anti-science” position Young didn't justify his position with some appeal to science in the abstract, so not sure what this point is but whataboutism.

marstall 5y ago

can't tell from your post - are you OK with major platforms publishing vaccine disinformation? Overall is that good for society? Whether you are or not, is it ok for people to decide to peace out from that platform and move to another one, based on their own beliefs? Don't see where any silencing is occurring at all.

zzzeek 5y ago

Neil Young doesn't have a GMO podcast nor any kind of political show on Spotify, nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health. Your point is completely irrelevant.

ch4s3 5y ago
> nor is opposition to GMO technology an immediate grave threat to public health GMO panic is at the heart of a lot of COVID vaccine refusal, so I think it at least has a somewhat negative effect on public health.
- sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
  TBH I can't blame people for being weary of GMO in general after the decades of pumping people full or garbage hormones and whatever else it's a trust issue not a "science" one
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    GMO crops are exactly not "garbage hormones", and people consume them all of the time without complaint. I don't see anyone picketing the yogurt cases in their local super markets. Lot's of hormones survive intact through digestion and can enter the blood stream, but your body doesn't absorb the genetic material of food[1]. DNA is fragile and it's really hard to get foreign DNA into a cell, much less the nucleus. Our cells evolved a lot of specific defenses to prevent that. This is why DNA vaccines are so hard to develop and administer. Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy. TL;DR it's really hard to get DNA into eukaryotic cells (yours) and you definitely can't do that with food. [1]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223102128.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170223102128.h...
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > Conflating things like rbST or rBGH in milk with novel genes in corn is nothing but scientific illiteracy. Yeah, so what? Nobody said anything else. It's still "a trust issue not a 'science' one", because most people are scientifically illiterate and probably always will be. To make a majority trust science (again [?]) in stead of distrusting it will have to be done by some other means than educating everyone into scientists.

aaomidi 5y ago

Free speech? On a platform that is explicitly designed for profit? Despite knowing the story about how wealth and money works and how class mobility is essentially non existent? Americans and American-lite people have just adopted this weird view on free speech that doesn't really make sense when you actually realize it's all about wealth and money.

pupppet 5y ago

> The free speech position is the principled one. He will still have his free speech off Spotify. Don’t confuse freedom of speech with freedom of promotion.

gilbetron 5y ago

fReeDoM oF sPeeCh is so ridiculous but 10x in this situation. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech, this has to do with not backing a platform that is ok with misinformation. Rogan isn't a guy that wants all sides heard, he's just trying to get even more rich than he currently is. He knows his audience and he caters to them no matter the ethical cost. Neil Young doesn't want to be associated with it. This is as much about freedom of speech as Fox News cutting off people who go off agenda.