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Except that Rogan's program isn't about "unpopular ideas" or "inconvenient facts". Let alone "challenging prevailing orthodoxy". If you seriously think Rogan'

by vanusa 5y ago

Except that Rogan's program isn't about "unpopular ideas" or "inconvenient facts". Let alone "challenging prevailing orthodoxy". If you seriously think Rogan's content falls in that category - then you'd probably say the same for the kind of pronouncements made by the Flat Earth Society as well.

ALittleLight 5y ago
In what sense is disputing vaccines not challenging prevailing orthodoxy? I think most people who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy will probably be wrong. But, it seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected.
- vanusa 5y ago
  Because there's no substance to these "challenges". It's just about pushing buttons and creating the appearance of controversy - nothing more. It seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected. It's not about that. There's "wrong", and "not even wrong". Rogan's pronouncements fall squarely in the latter category. In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others.
  - 4oo4 5y ago
    So anything challenging orthodoxy needs to be substantive to be tolerated as free speech? Who decides what is substantive? Even shit clickbait-y speech deserves tolerance just like "substantive" speech, whatever that means. I really don't like Joe Rogan and his brand of wishy-washy pseudointellectualism, but based on the sheer variety of people he's had on over the years, dismissing all of his content as clickbait and contrarian for controversy's sake is a mischaracterization. Who else has interviewed both Bernie Sanders and Alex Jones? Even if you don't like him I think he at the very least deserves respect for having such a wide range of guest on his show, and it's disingenuous to dismiss him entirely as unsubstantive. "In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others". Again, who decides what is harmful?
    - vanusa 5y ago
      Again, who decides what is harmful? Anyone with a 9th grade education or so. Which is sufficient to discern that his advice to 21-year olds as to whether they should get vaccinated is patently unsubstantiated -- and likely to cause harm.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        Great, I have a 9th grade education and decide it's not harmful.
  - megaman821 5y ago
    If a comedian/UFC commentator is communicating more effectively than the CDC, my first thought isn't cancel the comedian. What is the end-game here? There is amount of "canceling" that suddenly leads people to be more rational and critically thinking.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    First, you seem to be shifting the goalposts a bit. We've gone from "Rogan isn't challenging orthodoxy" to "Rogan's challenges to orthodoxy aren't substantive in my view". Second, perhaps I'm just not understanding you, but your comment doesn't read to me as coming from someone who has listened to Rogan's podcast. Rogan doesn't monologue about his views on the vaccine. He has on domain experts with controversial opinions and has a conversation with them.
    - vanusa 5y ago
      I certainly don't listen his program on a regular basis. But it's ironic that you're calling me out as unsourced; because the most important instance of a harmful anti-vax stance on his program comes not from his "domain experts" but from Rogan himself (as I verified before diving into this thread). BTW, I just need to repeat that most curious phrase you used that phrase, presumably in reference to Rogan's guests: "domain experts". And just let it... sit there.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        The recent vaccine-focused episodes, to my knowledge, feature the guests Robert Malone and Pierre Kory. Both are medical doctors with a history of academic papers on vaccines and critical care. Malone has also been involved in vaccine safety trials and with pioneering research in mRNA vaccines. I think you need to do a bit more than let the phrase "Domain experts" "sit there" if you hope to be persuasive.
        vanusa 5y ago
        Both are certifiable cranks. No matter what they published in the past.
        ALittleLight 5y ago
        It seems an awful lot like you're just declaring, without evidence, people who disagree with you as cranks. You think your view should be obvious, but you also aren't able to articulate it very well, or at all - beyond asserting your point and that those who disagree with you are non-substantive cranks.
greenyoda 5y ago
What Rogan said is not the important thing here (I don't even know what he said, because I've never listened to any of his content). What's important, as Greenwald said, is that the White House Press Secretary asked Spotify to "do more" to silence people like Rogan. That disregard by the government of basic press freedom is troubling. It could be Rogan today, but someone you care about tomorrow.
- vanusa 5y ago
  I see what you're driving at -- but on balance I just don't see a slippery slope here. Whether the executive branch is technically entitled to make such pronouncements or not -- or whether they "should" -- their rationale is that this isn't so much a basic press freedom issue, as a shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater issue. I can see some pushback on that stance -- but not all that much. And at the end of the day - it's not like their pronouncements have any coercive weight. It's just an instance of them using their office as a bully pulpit (which every presidential office has, to one degree or another). That is to say: an exercise of their own freedom of speech. And I definite get GG's point also -- that the government's "stance" doesn't need to be coercive for it to be effective. But he's missing the boat, nonetheless. He's making Rogan out to be the likes of Galileo or Andrei Sakharov. Or a real-life Winston Smith. I don't where Greenwald thinks he's going with that -- but that's where (to my ears) his language becomes manipulative and intellectually dishonest.

by vanusa 5y ago

ALittleLight 5y ago

In what sense is disputing vaccines not challenging prevailing orthodoxy? I think most people who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy will probably be wrong. But, it seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected.

vanusa 5y ago
Because there's no substance to these "challenges". It's just about pushing buttons and creating the appearance of controversy - nothing more. It seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected. It's not about that. There's "wrong", and "not even wrong". Rogan's pronouncements fall squarely in the latter category. In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others.
- 4oo4 5y ago
  So anything challenging orthodoxy needs to be substantive to be tolerated as free speech? Who decides what is substantive? Even shit clickbait-y speech deserves tolerance just like "substantive" speech, whatever that means. I really don't like Joe Rogan and his brand of wishy-washy pseudointellectualism, but based on the sheer variety of people he's had on over the years, dismissing all of his content as clickbait and contrarian for controversy's sake is a mischaracterization. Who else has interviewed both Bernie Sanders and Alex Jones? Even if you don't like him I think he at the very least deserves respect for having such a wide range of guest on his show, and it's disingenuous to dismiss him entirely as unsubstantive. "In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others". Again, who decides what is harmful?
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Again, who decides what is harmful? Anyone with a 9th grade education or so. Which is sufficient to discern that his advice to 21-year olds as to whether they should get vaccinated is patently unsubstantiated -- and likely to cause harm.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      Great, I have a 9th grade education and decide it's not harmful.
- megaman821 5y ago
  If a comedian/UFC commentator is communicating more effectively than the CDC, my first thought isn't cancel the comedian. What is the end-game here? There is amount of "canceling" that suddenly leads people to be more rational and critically thinking.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  First, you seem to be shifting the goalposts a bit. We've gone from "Rogan isn't challenging orthodoxy" to "Rogan's challenges to orthodoxy aren't substantive in my view". Second, perhaps I'm just not understanding you, but your comment doesn't read to me as coming from someone who has listened to Rogan's podcast. Rogan doesn't monologue about his views on the vaccine. He has on domain experts with controversial opinions and has a conversation with them.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    I certainly don't listen his program on a regular basis. But it's ironic that you're calling me out as unsourced; because the most important instance of a harmful anti-vax stance on his program comes not from his "domain experts" but from Rogan himself (as I verified before diving into this thread). BTW, I just need to repeat that most curious phrase you used that phrase, presumably in reference to Rogan's guests: "domain experts". And just let it... sit there.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      The recent vaccine-focused episodes, to my knowledge, feature the guests Robert Malone and Pierre Kory. Both are medical doctors with a history of academic papers on vaccines and critical care. Malone has also been involved in vaccine safety trials and with pioneering research in mRNA vaccines. I think you need to do a bit more than let the phrase "Domain experts" "sit there" if you hope to be persuasive.
      - vanusa 5y ago
        Both are certifiable cranks. No matter what they published in the past.
        ALittleLight 5y ago
        It seems an awful lot like you're just declaring, without evidence, people who disagree with you as cranks. You think your view should be obvious, but you also aren't able to articulate it very well, or at all - beyond asserting your point and that those who disagree with you are non-substantive cranks.

greenyoda 5y ago

What Rogan said is not the important thing here (I don't even know what he said, because I've never listened to any of his content). What's important, as Greenwald said, is that the White House Press Secretary asked Spotify to "do more" to silence people like Rogan. That disregard by the government of basic press freedom is troubling. It could be Rogan today, but someone you care about tomorrow.

vanusa 5y ago
I see what you're driving at -- but on balance I just don't see a slippery slope here. Whether the executive branch is technically entitled to make such pronouncements or not -- or whether they "should" -- their rationale is that this isn't so much a basic press freedom issue, as a shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater issue. I can see some pushback on that stance -- but not all that much. And at the end of the day - it's not like their pronouncements have any coercive weight. It's just an instance of them using their office as a bully pulpit (which every presidential office has, to one degree or another). That is to say: an exercise of their own freedom of speech. And I definite get GG's point also -- that the government's "stance" doesn't need to be coercive for it to be effective. But he's missing the boat, nonetheless. He's making Rogan out to be the likes of Galileo or Andrei Sakharov. Or a real-life Winston Smith. I don't where Greenwald thinks he's going with that -- but that's where (to my ears) his language becomes manipulative and intellectually dishonest.