20 ms·

On Experiencing Joe Rogan

7 points by noduerme 5y ago

noduerme 5y ago
From the article: >>> Joe Rogan seems like an affable guy. He reminds me of many men I have met in the gym: cheerful bros who are open-minded to an alarming degree, meaning to the point where no idea is so insane that one can be sure they won’t find it persuasive. They could vote for Bernie, they could go Nazi, they could start believing in alien abductions or QAnon or chemtrails. They are not deep thinkers, so they can be excessively impressed by the fact “a study found” something, or “a doctor says” it. They are sincere in wanting to know the truth, they are not outright malicious, they change their minds (sometimes daily), but they are not trained in the research and critical thinking skills that are vital in sorting science from pseudoscience (or the loopy conspiracies from the true ones). >>> Admission, I've listened to Rogan here and there for a few years, rarely getting to the end of a podcast. I happened to pick one randomly last month, after not listening to any for awhile, and it was the one with the doctor who claims to have invented mRNA vaccines. I listened with an open mind, but my alarms went off as the guy started injecting more and more hyperbole and FUD into the conversation. There were a lot of things he said that made me go, "well, what about this?" E.g. my gf and my ex both missed their periods the month after the vax. But they came back, and there hasn't been some mass sterilization event that we'd surely be aware of if, as this guy claimed, the vaccine produced spike proteins in sufficient quantities and that those were attracted to and decimating womens' eggs and ovaries. What I heard was a guy trying to use his science degrees and a vague history in immunology to push a long-running antivax fearmongering tactic about women being sterilized, which as a conspiracy theory goes back to the old "great replacement" and antisemitic theory. And I was kinda angry listening to it, because my question to him would be, if it sterilizes people then how come Israel gave it to everyone? I'm pretty sure that Israel is in the business of keeping Jews alive and having (us) reproduce, and avoiding another genocide. But Rogan didn't ask anything, and I had to turn it off after about an hour and a half, because Rogan kept just saying "oh, wow." and "oh, no really?" Like... give the guy room to talk, sure, but the whole incredulous act and like, really, doctor, you don't say thing... it just struck me as BS. As insincere. And that episode I randomly listened to turned out to be the one that Neil Young went nuts about, and all that. So I listened to Rogan's apology and thought I'd try one more time tonight; and his newest is with a climate scientist from BP who talks like my dentist and is about as convincing, while Joe keeps going "oh no, really? And they're suppressing you? Omigod!" At some point you have to just accept that he isn't the openminded bro with no agenda that you want him to be, and he's actually just trolling and platforming trolls. OTOH maybe this is the point where a lot of gullible people kind of realize that (myself included).
- jfengel 5y ago
  They are sincere in wanting to know the truth, they are not outright malicious, I disagree with that last part. Or perhaps it's just that the author is making the word "outright" do a fair bit of work there. In my experience, there's a level of malice in the way they preferentially seek out the contrarian and deprecate genuine experts in favor of the ones who seem more exciting. They may like to imagine that they're doing no harm, but they will ignore the complaints of anybody experiencing harm. The longer they do that, the harder it is to attribute it to ordinary ignorance and self-centeredness, and it seems more likely to be an active malice that seems casual because it's so effortless. It's the "just asking questions" guy, like the guy who's "just asking questions" about whether six million Jews really died in the Holocaust. The first time, you can pretend it's sincere ignorance. The second time, it's so clear that you should never have given the benefit of the doubt.
- moistly 5y ago
  Reminds me of a saying: “Keep an open mind, but don’t let your brain fall out.”
- frazbin 5y ago
  Yep! If you pay money to Spotify, you are voting for this content in a big way. Use your speech.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Remember articles like this? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/its-time-for-a-little-perspective-on-russia https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/its-time-for-a-little... So please don't tell anyone about critical thinking skills. I know there are different standards in elections, but the journal is certainly guilty of making information less reliable for everyone. In contrast voices like Rogan are relaxing. I don't watch his show, but he probably deserves his listeners. He should not have to appologize to anyone. Not before some others with far more baggage do so as well.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I've never read Current Affairs, don't know their politics, and this wasn't posted to upvote them. I just thought the author was spot on in his analysis of Rogan's interview style. I found the article because I was halfway through listening to the climate change interview and I googled "Joe Rogan climate denier". [edit] But on reading that article, my only thought is that the writer would be a perfect interviewee on the Joe Rogan Experience. I can just picture Joe going, "wait, what? We invaded Guatemala? So we're the bad guys?"
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    I mean the question he poses may sound naive, but we have suffered propaganda because naive question were not asked. I get the criticism as such questions can indeed distort a discussion. But I don't think that is the current problem with disinformation.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      Yeah I don't know if you listen to Jon Stewart's podcast at all, but he talks a bit about Rogan and the difference between disinformation and misinformation. Rogan's definitely the latter. I don't think he's actively trying to spread lies, and he's frankly fun to listen to sometimes. It also annoys me that the woke train have suddenly gotten their panties in a knot over him when they've probably never listened to him. But as someone who has listened to him, I think where I got pissed off is exactly what this author is talking about... it's not that he has lousy people on his show, it's that he plays this role of the naive supplicant, and puts his guests on a pedestal where it seems like they're exposing some amazing secret truth. It's like old time radio, except that was at a time where it was accepted as fiction. Times where these kinds of conspiracy theories are widely aired on the radio as nonfiction or more than ghost stories are like, Rwanda, and Nazi Germany. I don't think he's malign (or like, maybe he is now? I don't think he used to be malign a couple years ago)... but it's like, you can't be that big and act that credulous toward crazy people on air for an audience of millions at the same time without their smell tainting you. I can see him having Louis Farrakhan on and being like "No way... Jews are the synagogue of Satan?" Or equally having, IDK, some supporter of the Myanmar military or someone who says Blacks were happier when they were slaves. And maybe it's okay to air all of those things in the name of free speech. But a dude who's willing to nod along with any of them, in the end, deserves to get some shit.
spupe 5y ago
Very good article, I agree with most of the author's viewpoints. I find the urge to censor someone like him much more dangerous than his own dumb show, and worryingly some very influential people disagree with that.
- forgatmigej 5y ago
  I don't think it was a very good article at all. In fact, it was terrible. The first paragraph is a unsubstantiated smear of his character.
frazbin 5y ago
A certain percentage of hacker news readers will appreciate this: if you subscribe to Spotify and have not yet listened to Joe Rogan, please do so-- just for 5-10 minutes. They're throwing a lot of money at him.. just check and see if it's the kind of thing you want more of your money associated with. For me it was a super easy decision, and I'm glad I listened to him for a bit, because otherwise I might have kept paying money to spotify. Again, this won't apply to everyone.
- lazyeye 5y ago
  No it won't, thank god.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
thesaintlives 5y ago
Joe Rogan - tells it like it is. No forced vaccine mandates, no social credit system and paper over the mouth does nothing...
- jfengel 5y ago
  I have found that the expression "tells it like it is" practically always means "affirms my biases".

7 points by noduerme 5y ago

From the article: >>> Joe Rogan seems like an affable guy. He reminds me of many men I have met in the gym: cheerful bros who are open-minded to an alarming degree, meaning to the point where no idea is so insane that one can be sure they won’t find it persuasive. They could vote for Bernie, they could go Nazi, they could start believing in alien abductions or QAnon or chemtrails. They are not deep thinkers, so they can be excessively impressed by the fact “a study found” something, or “a doctor says” it. They are sincere in wanting to know the truth, they are not outright malicious, they change their minds (sometimes daily), but they are not trained in the research and critical thinking skills that are vital in sorting science from pseudoscience (or the loopy conspiracies from the true ones). >>> Admission, I've listened to Rogan here and there for a few years, rarely getting to the end of a podcast. I happened to pick one randomly last month, after not listening to any for awhile, and it was the one with the doctor who claims to have invented mRNA vaccines. I listened with an open mind, but my alarms went off as the guy started injecting more and more hyperbole and FUD into the conversation. There were a lot of things he said that made me go, "well, what about this?" E.g. my gf and my ex both missed their periods the month after the vax. But they came back, and there hasn't been some mass sterilization event that we'd surely be aware of if, as this guy claimed, the vaccine produced spike proteins in sufficient quantities and that those were attracted to and decimating womens' eggs and ovaries. What I heard was a guy trying to use his science degrees and a vague history in immunology to push a long-running antivax fearmongering tactic about women being sterilized, which as a conspiracy theory goes back to the old "great replacement" and antisemitic theory. And I was kinda angry listening to it, because my question to him would be, if it sterilizes people then how come Israel gave it to everyone? I'm pretty sure that Israel is in the business of keeping Jews alive and having (us) reproduce, and avoiding another genocide. But Rogan didn't ask anything, and I had to turn it off after about an hour and a half, because Rogan kept just saying "oh, wow." and "oh, no really?" Like... give the guy room to talk, sure, but the whole incredulous act and like, really, doctor, you don't say thing... it just struck me as BS. As insincere. And that episode I randomly listened to turned out to be the one that Neil Young went nuts about, and all that. So I listened to Rogan's apology and thought I'd try one more time tonight; and his newest is with a climate scientist from BP who talks like my dentist and is about as convincing, while Joe keeps going "oh no, really? And they're suppressing you? Omigod!" At some point you have to just accept that he isn't the openminded bro with no agenda that you want him to be, and he's actually just trolling and platforming trolls. OTOH maybe this is the point where a lot of gullible people kind of realize that (myself included).

jfengel 5y ago
They are sincere in wanting to know the truth, they are not outright malicious, I disagree with that last part. Or perhaps it's just that the author is making the word "outright" do a fair bit of work there. In my experience, there's a level of malice in the way they preferentially seek out the contrarian and deprecate genuine experts in favor of the ones who seem more exciting. They may like to imagine that they're doing no harm, but they will ignore the complaints of anybody experiencing harm. The longer they do that, the harder it is to attribute it to ordinary ignorance and self-centeredness, and it seems more likely to be an active malice that seems casual because it's so effortless. It's the "just asking questions" guy, like the guy who's "just asking questions" about whether six million Jews really died in the Holocaust. The first time, you can pretend it's sincere ignorance. The second time, it's so clear that you should never have given the benefit of the doubt.
moistly 5y ago
Reminds me of a saying: “Keep an open mind, but don’t let your brain fall out.”
frazbin 5y ago
Yep! If you pay money to Spotify, you are voting for this content in a big way. Use your speech.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Remember articles like this? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/its-time-for-a-little-perspective-on-russia https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/its-time-for-a-little... So please don't tell anyone about critical thinking skills. I know there are different standards in elections, but the journal is certainly guilty of making information less reliable for everyone. In contrast voices like Rogan are relaxing. I don't watch his show, but he probably deserves his listeners. He should not have to appologize to anyone. Not before some others with far more baggage do so as well.

noduerme 5y ago
I've never read Current Affairs, don't know their politics, and this wasn't posted to upvote them. I just thought the author was spot on in his analysis of Rogan's interview style. I found the article because I was halfway through listening to the climate change interview and I googled "Joe Rogan climate denier". [edit] But on reading that article, my only thought is that the writer would be a perfect interviewee on the Joe Rogan Experience. I can just picture Joe going, "wait, what? We invaded Guatemala? So we're the bad guys?"
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I mean the question he poses may sound naive, but we have suffered propaganda because naive question were not asked. I get the criticism as such questions can indeed distort a discussion. But I don't think that is the current problem with disinformation.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Yeah I don't know if you listen to Jon Stewart's podcast at all, but he talks a bit about Rogan and the difference between disinformation and misinformation. Rogan's definitely the latter. I don't think he's actively trying to spread lies, and he's frankly fun to listen to sometimes. It also annoys me that the woke train have suddenly gotten their panties in a knot over him when they've probably never listened to him. But as someone who has listened to him, I think where I got pissed off is exactly what this author is talking about... it's not that he has lousy people on his show, it's that he plays this role of the naive supplicant, and puts his guests on a pedestal where it seems like they're exposing some amazing secret truth. It's like old time radio, except that was at a time where it was accepted as fiction. Times where these kinds of conspiracy theories are widely aired on the radio as nonfiction or more than ghost stories are like, Rwanda, and Nazi Germany. I don't think he's malign (or like, maybe he is now? I don't think he used to be malign a couple years ago)... but it's like, you can't be that big and act that credulous toward crazy people on air for an audience of millions at the same time without their smell tainting you. I can see him having Louis Farrakhan on and being like "No way... Jews are the synagogue of Satan?" Or equally having, IDK, some supporter of the Myanmar military or someone who says Blacks were happier when they were slaves. And maybe it's okay to air all of those things in the name of free speech. But a dude who's willing to nod along with any of them, in the end, deserves to get some shit.

spupe 5y ago

Very good article, I agree with most of the author's viewpoints. I find the urge to censor someone like him much more dangerous than his own dumb show, and worryingly some very influential people disagree with that.

forgatmigej 5y ago
I don't think it was a very good article at all. In fact, it was terrible. The first paragraph is a unsubstantiated smear of his character.

frazbin 5y ago

A certain percentage of hacker news readers will appreciate this: if you subscribe to Spotify and have not yet listened to Joe Rogan, please do so-- just for 5-10 minutes. They're throwing a lot of money at him.. just check and see if it's the kind of thing you want more of your money associated with. For me it was a super easy decision, and I'm glad I listened to him for a bit, because otherwise I might have kept paying money to spotify. Again, this won't apply to everyone.

lazyeye 5y ago
No it won't, thank god.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

thesaintlives 5y ago

Joe Rogan - tells it like it is. No forced vaccine mandates, no social credit system and paper over the mouth does nothing...

jfengel 5y ago
I have found that the expression "tells it like it is" practically always means "affirms my biases".