4 ms·

My main experience with jre recently was watching his interview with Robert Lazar. Lazar has considerable reputation in the UFO community and is a fraud and a c

My main experience with jre recently was watching his interview with Robert Lazar. Lazar has considerable reputation in the UFO community and is a fraud and a criminal (convicted pimp and sanctioned for selling illegal poisons through his chemical supply operation). One of the thing about Rogan's interview with Lazar is he fails to ask the obvious questions - such as "what are your credentials". 'Cause with Lazar, that question already takes you to dubious territory since Lazar's answer is "I have a PhD but MIT erased my records" (and his thesis advisor went along with this?). And this kind of left a nasty taste in my mouth concerning Rogan. Sure, his questions might be just naive but it seems more likely he's using that naive pose to avoid the mine fields of the guests he likes.

Keyframe 4y ago
David Fravor seems to speak favorably of Lazar, at least from what I've gathered from his JRE interview, but I see your point absolutely.
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Teever 4y ago
What I found most odd about the Lazar interview was that if you contrast it with the Robert Bigelow interview you see that Rogan is totally capable of being highly skeptical with his kooky guests and willing to hold their feet to the fire. The fact that he didn't with Lazar but did with Bigelow indicates to me that he favours Lazar, and considers his story to be genuine, and that kind of bias is detrimental to the interview process.
- twic 4y ago
  Considers his story to be genuine, or thinks the show will be more entertaining if he doesn't immediately discredit a fun kook?
- monkeywork 4y ago
  Rogan has addressed this since then saying basically he doesn't know if Bob is full of shit but knows that he (Rogan) wants to believe in aliens so much that sometimes he goes lighter than he should.
timr 4y ago
It's like I said: Rogan has had guests that I consider to be cranks. But Rogan is completely transparent about the guest list being people he finds interesting. That's not a high bar. Therefore, I don't outsource my critical thinking or judgment of character to Joe Rogan. I do feel for Rogan here...he's doing more-or-less the same thing he's been doing since the start, but now it's "wrong", because other people are expecting him to behave in a particular way. He builds an audience by being a good conversationalist with a huge variety of different, sometimes nutty, people, and suddenly uptight folks expect him to be Walter Cronkite.
- evol262 4y ago
  Kind of the thing with being in mass media with an enormous audience is that you lose the ability to just do what you've always been doing. I mean, he can, by abandoning his platform and starting over with something else, but the piles of money are too attractive. Public figures who can heavily influence discourse and thought have an ethical obligation to not give unchallenged credence and a drastically increased audience to their nonsense. If Rogan thought that Goebbels was interesting and let him do his thing for hours to an audience of millions, he would be held to a higher standard. If Rogan thought that Ted Bundy was interesting and let him tell "his side of the story" without challenging it with the truth, he would be held to a higher standard. This is a basic which we should expect of our society.
  - jgust 4y ago
    We can expect it but I'm not sure that means anything. I'd really like people to stop giving Tucker Carlson attention, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
    - lazyeye 4y ago
      The subtext is always the same. "The real problem is all the stupid, easily influenced people out there. Not smart (like us)".
  - nradov 4y ago
    The ethical obligation exists only in your own mind. Stop projecting. The rest of us are capable of thinking for ourselves and don't necessarily believe the random ramblings of a comedian or his guests. And your hypotheticals about Nazis and serial killers are totally irrelevant. You are arguing in bad faith and trying to inflame the discussion.

Keyframe 4y ago

David Fravor seems to speak favorably of Lazar, at least from what I've gathered from his JRE interview, but I see your point absolutely.

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Teever 4y ago

What I found most odd about the Lazar interview was that if you contrast it with the Robert Bigelow interview you see that Rogan is totally capable of being highly skeptical with his kooky guests and willing to hold their feet to the fire. The fact that he didn't with Lazar but did with Bigelow indicates to me that he favours Lazar, and considers his story to be genuine, and that kind of bias is detrimental to the interview process.

twic 4y ago
Considers his story to be genuine, or thinks the show will be more entertaining if he doesn't immediately discredit a fun kook?
monkeywork 4y ago
Rogan has addressed this since then saying basically he doesn't know if Bob is full of shit but knows that he (Rogan) wants to believe in aliens so much that sometimes he goes lighter than he should.

timr 4y ago

It's like I said: Rogan has had guests that I consider to be cranks. But Rogan is completely transparent about the guest list being people he finds interesting. That's not a high bar. Therefore, I don't outsource my critical thinking or judgment of character to Joe Rogan. I do feel for Rogan here...he's doing more-or-less the same thing he's been doing since the start, but now it's "wrong", because other people are expecting him to behave in a particular way. He builds an audience by being a good conversationalist with a huge variety of different, sometimes nutty, people, and suddenly uptight folks expect him to be Walter Cronkite.

evol262 4y ago
Kind of the thing with being in mass media with an enormous audience is that you lose the ability to just do what you've always been doing. I mean, he can, by abandoning his platform and starting over with something else, but the piles of money are too attractive. Public figures who can heavily influence discourse and thought have an ethical obligation to not give unchallenged credence and a drastically increased audience to their nonsense. If Rogan thought that Goebbels was interesting and let him do his thing for hours to an audience of millions, he would be held to a higher standard. If Rogan thought that Ted Bundy was interesting and let him tell "his side of the story" without challenging it with the truth, he would be held to a higher standard. This is a basic which we should expect of our society.
- jgust 4y ago
  We can expect it but I'm not sure that means anything. I'd really like people to stop giving Tucker Carlson attention, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    The subtext is always the same. "The real problem is all the stupid, easily influenced people out there. Not smart (like us)".
- nradov 4y ago
  The ethical obligation exists only in your own mind. Stop projecting. The rest of us are capable of thinking for ourselves and don't necessarily believe the random ramblings of a comedian or his guests. And your hypotheticals about Nazis and serial killers are totally irrelevant. You are arguing in bad faith and trying to inflame the discussion.