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> Joe ask the "dumb questions." The questions you would ask if you as a laymen were sitting in front of a Nobel Prize winning scientist This is exactly why he’

by axg11 4y ago

> Joe ask the "dumb questions." The questions you would ask if you as a laymen were sitting in front of a Nobel Prize winning scientist This is exactly why he’s so popular. Most people are laymen. Joe doesn’t have a research team coming up with optimal talking points. He’s a regular minded guy asking regular questions. He achieves depth through the sheer length of interviews.

mbg721 4y ago
Joe is playing the same role as the youngest child at the Seder. It's a popular format because it serves a genuine human need. If no one asks the most basic questions, no one gets the most basic answers.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Well sure, but if the youngest child is primarily querying the schizophrenic uncle and taking his answers with complete credulity, then pawning them off on millions of other credulous people, it’s reasonable to feel that there’s a serious downside to such an act.
  - dominotw 4y ago
    will someone think of the credulous people.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society. Laws against fraud, for example, are among the oldest in existence, despite fraud overwhelmingly targeting the most credulous among us (for obvious reasons). This is a good thing, actually.
      - dominotw 4y ago
        > Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society. would this imply something is not right with our society because there aren't laws against listening to joe rogan.
        ethanbond 4y ago
        Nope! It implies that yes, someone should think of the credulous people. I don’t believe censoring Rogan is justified/wise/useful/etc. — even if it were it’d still be illegal anyway. But does that mean I think we should just throw credulous folks to the wolves with snarky remarks like “won’t someone think of the credulous people?!” We should think of the credulous people, and take society’s threats against them and their threat to society seriously.
  - seper8 4y ago
    Maybe the schizophrenic uncle is telling us the earth is not at the centre of the universe, should we censor him? Humanity has proven to be so wrong about so many things before, best let the discussion flow instead of trying to kill competing theories...
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      I didn’t suggest killing competing theories. Only pointing out that this analogy is missing some fairly important characteristics. You know, the ones people are actually worried about.
      - JKCalhoun 4y ago
        If "out of my butt" is the best support you have for your "theory", then it's not really a theory is it? Any of us could write an app that generated "theories" ... a few may even turn out to be correct or close.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      I am pretty confident that the appropriate place to distribute revolutionary new scientific models based in factual evidence isn't the joe rogan experience.
      - FredPret 4y ago
        You’d be hard-pressed to find a better one. Research shouldn’t be locked up behind paywalls and in ivory towers. It should be public knowledge and lots of basic questions should be asked about it.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        Sure. And a growing portion of research is made available through places like arxiv. The government is also pushing new regulations to make research publicly available when funded by the government, which is a dominant force in grant funding. This is wildly different than presenting findings on JRE. And, in general, revolutionary new scientific ideas are targeted at scientists rather than the lay public. Ideas like new models of the solar system don't tend to take hold because the public thinks they are cool but instead because they become inevitable within the scientific community. Being less able to go on JRE and talk about how awesome ivermectin to a massive listener base is isn't going to limit scientific breakthroughs in the future.
  - criddell 4y ago
    The thing about asking the schizophrenic uncle about things is that it becomes clear they're schizophrenic, even if the child asking is buying it all. A while ago I read that lots of people were upset with Joe Rogan for having Alex Jones on his show. I really didn't know anything about Jones other than what you see on cable news and Rogan I'm fairly neutral on. So I found an Alex Jones episode and played it. Jones came off as being entirely unhinged. It was not flattering at all. They were basically winding Jones up and then letting him explode.
    - remote_phone 4y ago
      They also fact checked EVERYTHING Jones said. They would interrupt the conversation and fact check him real time which I really liked.
      - aeneasmackenzie 4y ago
        And almost all the fact checks came back and Jones was right. They kept doing it after an hour of this stuff.
    - kranke155 4y ago
      The Alex Jones episodes are well known for being the wildest comedy ever aired on JRE. I think he sees himself a lot in the tradition of Stern and Opie and Anthony, where some outrageous stuff is cool. He doesn’t see himself as a media outlet but a guy who wants to have fun and push weird shit. Obviously it’s caused him trouble with the anti vacc guys he had and he’s sort of normalised his show a bit, but still I think he sees himself in that tradition. He’s not looking to be Dan Rather.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        IMO I think this is the root of both the valid defense and the valid critique of Rogan. He doesn’t seem to properly account for the fact that having the # of followers he has is itself a signal of credibility. It’s very hard to overcome that with offhanded “I’m a normal guy don’t listen to me!” remarks. I don’t feel he properly informs his users of just how fringe some of his guests are, and in fact once they’re on his show they’re actually not fringe (in the social proof sense of fringiness).
  - nradov 4y ago
    It's not an "act". For better or worse, you're hearing the real Joe Rogan. He would have the same conversations with guests even if the microphones were switched off.
throwaway290 4y ago
> Most people are laymen. This statement is not even false. One is inevitably a layperson in most things, even at one's job (like Rogan is at interviewing interesting people), but also usually not layperson in at least some things.
- FredPret 4y ago
  So for any given topic… most people are laymen
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    Depends on what the topic is and who is in the audience? You can't be a layperson full stop you can be a layperson at something, it's not applicable without a topic

by axg11 4y ago

mbg721 4y ago

Joe is playing the same role as the youngest child at the Seder. It's a popular format because it serves a genuine human need. If no one asks the most basic questions, no one gets the most basic answers.

ethanbond 4y ago
Well sure, but if the youngest child is primarily querying the schizophrenic uncle and taking his answers with complete credulity, then pawning them off on millions of other credulous people, it’s reasonable to feel that there’s a serious downside to such an act.
- dominotw 4y ago
  will someone think of the credulous people.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society. Laws against fraud, for example, are among the oldest in existence, despite fraud overwhelmingly targeting the most credulous among us (for obvious reasons). This is a good thing, actually.
    - dominotw 4y ago
      > Doing so is essentially a hallmark of a society. would this imply something is not right with our society because there aren't laws against listening to joe rogan.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        Nope! It implies that yes, someone should think of the credulous people. I don’t believe censoring Rogan is justified/wise/useful/etc. — even if it were it’d still be illegal anyway. But does that mean I think we should just throw credulous folks to the wolves with snarky remarks like “won’t someone think of the credulous people?!” We should think of the credulous people, and take society’s threats against them and their threat to society seriously.
- seper8 4y ago
  Maybe the schizophrenic uncle is telling us the earth is not at the centre of the universe, should we censor him? Humanity has proven to be so wrong about so many things before, best let the discussion flow instead of trying to kill competing theories...
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    I didn’t suggest killing competing theories. Only pointing out that this analogy is missing some fairly important characteristics. You know, the ones people are actually worried about.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      If "out of my butt" is the best support you have for your "theory", then it's not really a theory is it? Any of us could write an app that generated "theories" ... a few may even turn out to be correct or close.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    I am pretty confident that the appropriate place to distribute revolutionary new scientific models based in factual evidence isn't the joe rogan experience.
    - FredPret 4y ago
      You’d be hard-pressed to find a better one. Research shouldn’t be locked up behind paywalls and in ivory towers. It should be public knowledge and lots of basic questions should be asked about it.
      - UncleMeat 4y ago
        Sure. And a growing portion of research is made available through places like arxiv. The government is also pushing new regulations to make research publicly available when funded by the government, which is a dominant force in grant funding. This is wildly different than presenting findings on JRE. And, in general, revolutionary new scientific ideas are targeted at scientists rather than the lay public. Ideas like new models of the solar system don't tend to take hold because the public thinks they are cool but instead because they become inevitable within the scientific community. Being less able to go on JRE and talk about how awesome ivermectin to a massive listener base is isn't going to limit scientific breakthroughs in the future.
- criddell 4y ago
  The thing about asking the schizophrenic uncle about things is that it becomes clear they're schizophrenic, even if the child asking is buying it all. A while ago I read that lots of people were upset with Joe Rogan for having Alex Jones on his show. I really didn't know anything about Jones other than what you see on cable news and Rogan I'm fairly neutral on. So I found an Alex Jones episode and played it. Jones came off as being entirely unhinged. It was not flattering at all. They were basically winding Jones up and then letting him explode.
  - remote_phone 4y ago
    They also fact checked EVERYTHING Jones said. They would interrupt the conversation and fact check him real time which I really liked.
    - aeneasmackenzie 4y ago
      And almost all the fact checks came back and Jones was right. They kept doing it after an hour of this stuff.
  - kranke155 4y ago
    The Alex Jones episodes are well known for being the wildest comedy ever aired on JRE. I think he sees himself a lot in the tradition of Stern and Opie and Anthony, where some outrageous stuff is cool. He doesn’t see himself as a media outlet but a guy who wants to have fun and push weird shit. Obviously it’s caused him trouble with the anti vacc guys he had and he’s sort of normalised his show a bit, but still I think he sees himself in that tradition. He’s not looking to be Dan Rather.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      IMO I think this is the root of both the valid defense and the valid critique of Rogan. He doesn’t seem to properly account for the fact that having the # of followers he has is itself a signal of credibility. It’s very hard to overcome that with offhanded “I’m a normal guy don’t listen to me!” remarks. I don’t feel he properly informs his users of just how fringe some of his guests are, and in fact once they’re on his show they’re actually not fringe (in the social proof sense of fringiness).
- nradov 4y ago
  It's not an "act". For better or worse, you're hearing the real Joe Rogan. He would have the same conversations with guests even if the microphones were switched off.

throwaway290 4y ago

> Most people are laymen. This statement is not even false. One is inevitably a layperson in most things, even at one's job (like Rogan is at interviewing interesting people), but also usually not layperson in at least some things.

FredPret 4y ago
So for any given topic… most people are laymen
- throwaway290 4y ago
  Depends on what the topic is and who is in the audience? You can't be a layperson full stop you can be a layperson at something, it's not applicable without a topic