I'll take a stab. I'm not a "fan," but I do like to listen to him from time to time. He's ...
- Open to nearly any idea.
- (almost) Never talks down to the audience or his guest. Although the motivations are almost certainly different, this is a bit reminiscent of David Letterman always playing a bit of a fool. It's generally endearing to most people.
- Generally friendly and congenial.
In a world full of Joe Rogans, you wouldn't have very many good interviews. He's not adversarial, he's often not prone to, nor equipped to meaningfully disagree with a guest, and he's open to multiple, mutually contradictory opinions. But, the adversarial interview has gained in popularity for so long that it's become the norm. In this environment, he's a breath of fresh air. There really is a place for hearing someone lay out their views in a long, methodical way without being badgered every few minutes by an interviewer looking for a sound bite.
> - (almost) Never talks down to the audience or his guest.
I occasionally listen if he has a guest I am interested in. When talking to James Hetfield (Metallica), they got to talking about bees (Hetfield keeps bees).
After about 10 or 15 min, Hetfield says something like, "Sorry, I could talk about this stuff forever. Your listeners don't want to hear me talk about bees."
And Rogan says, "No, they'll listen. This shit is interesting."
For my part this is what makes him worth listening to. He just tries to find what his guest is interested in and passionate about and lets them go off on it.
Its refreshing vs more "Do you still talk to Jason Newstead? What about Dave Mustaine?" type interviews that Hetfield always gets.
I couldn't agree more. I learned so much from that interview, that literally no other interviewer would ever talk to James about. Besides beekeeping, they also talked about hunting and other outdoorsy stuff that I had no idea James did. That's what makes Rogan's show interesting to me.
Another thing is that there is virtually no time limit on the podcast interview. Sometimes they even go upto 3-4 hours long if need be. So, you don't feel like the interviewer is just trying to wrap up things. We get to listen to guests in more detail and guests also get the time to explain more complex things if need be (especially with Scientists and Mathematicians like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sir Roger Penrose)
The best part about the interviewing style of Joe Rogan is that the guests are feeling welcome and free to say what they think. Joe has his own opinion and both are free to be wrong, and stupid. This combined with the long format is a great way to discover guests and how they really are.
Traditional media is all about opinions and to tell you what you think. Quick! Put this idea in this box! If you think this then you must be that. There is not enough room for people to be wrong or explore alternative ideas. There is such angst, as if the society was so fragile that one badly categorized idea would make all the society crumble. Quick, it has to be correct on the spot before it spreads further!
The irony is that the article recognized that but then couldn't help himself to condescend to the public and Joe Rogan at the end. It gave a pretty good description of the Joe Rogan experience and then failed at replicating it.
Choice quote:
"a good point coming out of the wrong mouth doesn’t count for squat"
While I'm no fan of Alex Jones, the tone of the article towards the end saddened me. The article seemed like it was approaching a genuinely insightful conclusion, but veered at the end in a somewhat jarring contradiction of the conclusion the first half was approaching.
The author's primary complaint about Joe Rogan and his followers is that they show a lack of empathy by having too much compassion and seeing value in people who don't deserve it. Defining empathy as a the absence of compassion for bad actors and idea that the world would be a better place if only we were less willing to see value in people who think differently from us is something I would usually expect people to conceal in public writing, but here it's presented as obvious.
I posted another comment on one of my least favorite lines, but this one shocked me also. WTF are you talking about? It may not be harmless, but it does count for something. The author is glorifying ad hominem fallacious reasoning. This is just choir preaching for people that accept scarlett letter shunning at face value, without questioning. I don't agree with all of Rogan's "free speech" rants, but it's a more nuanced point. The author assumes we all agree that there should be a blacklist of people forbidden from public discussion.
The author also displays a stunningly ironic lack of intelligence here:
"Free speech and its consequences, particularly the deplatforming of right-wing political provocateurs, is a push-button subject for Rogan, and it’s where he gets himself into the most trouble. Especially when he talks about Twitter, a company that brings together Joe’s two biggest blind spots: his basic misunderstanding of the concept of censorship and his tendency to see the world through a thick cloud of Axe Body Spray. (No, Joe, Twitter banning white nationalists from its privately held publishing platform is not censorship—it might be a risky corporate policy, but it is not censorship.)"
The First Amendment and Censorship are related, but two distinct topics.
The author also seems to suffer from the common illness of believing he has the ability to read minds:
"Rogan’s most recent Netflix special is often funny because Joe Rogan is a professional stand-up comedian, but if you look past the jokes themselves and focus on the targets he’s choosing, the same patterns emerge. Hillary, the #MeToo movement, why it sucks that he can’t call things “gay,” vegan bullies, sexism. Of all the things in the world for a comedian to joke about right now, why these? “I say shit I don’t mean because it’s funny,” he says during the special, which is something all comedians say, and is sort of true but also sort of not. People reveal their deepest selves in the subjects they keep revisiting, and the hills they choose to die on. With Rogan, you can often see and hear the tension between what he knows he’s supposed to believe and what he really thinks. Joe Rogan may be all about love, but beneath the surface he’s seething."
He also seems to believe he Knows how people should Behave, and how to accurately measure aggregate harm in society:
"Joe likes Jack. He likes Milo Yiannopoulos. He likes Alex Jones. He wants you to know that he doesn’t agree with much of what they say, but he also wants you to know that off camera they’re the nicest guys. If we all have fatal flaws, this is Joe’s: his insistence on seeing value in people even when he shouldn’t, even when they’ve forfeited any right to it, even when the harm outweighs the good. It comes from a generous place, but it amounts to careless cruelty. He just won’t write people off, and then he compounds the sin by throwing them a lifeline at the moment when they least deserve it."
And then finally capping it off with this gem:
"My Joe Rogan experience ended because he wore me out. He never shuts up. He talks and talks and talks. He doesn’t seem to grasp that not every thought inside his brain needs to be said out loud. It doesn’t occur to him to consider whether his contributions have value. He just speaks his mind. He just whips it out and drops it on the table."
If you're trying to make a point about the author, you should state it. All I see except for the brief mention of censorship is a collection of quotes.
I was following the convention of putting my comments in plain text, and quotes from the article within quotation marks (with what I consider key portions italicized for (my) emphasis).
Apologies that that wasn't clear, hopefully this explanation clears up any misunderstanding.
The idea that you have to not only be the "right" mouth (whatever the hell that means) but also _prove_ that you're the "right" mouth are the exact type of thought crime / virtue signaling principles that I think Rogan and his audience rallies against.
The author even further cements their bias when writing about how Rogan constantly talks about his left-wing views, but that his "actions" somehow point him to being more right-wing (though the author only points to things Rogan has _said_, but I digress) - as if Joe needs to do more to prove he's a left-wing ally (aka "virtue signaling") and the occasional right wing guest makes him worthy for "re-education" to make sure he becomes the "right mouth" for the right points.
I think you're misunderstanding. It doesn't count for squat because it generally won't be listened to if it comes out of the wrong mouth. Much like this point has been misunderstood by a whole chain of people below you circle jerking over this comment, seemingly because they are generally inclined to defend Joe Rogan.
“There is such angst, as if the society was so fragile that one badly categorized idea would make all the society crumble. Quick, it has to be correct on the spot before it spreads further!”
I listen occasionally. I generally find his conversations interesting, and sometimes even enlightening. But it can be frustrating to hear 3 hours of unchallenged straw man beatdowns from his more polemic guests. There's an argument that it's actually not noble to let bullshit go unchallenged. That it's a tacit endorsement.
> There's an argument that it's actually not noble to let bullshit go unchallenged.
I like that he leaves it up to me to challenge the bullshit in my own mind. Sometimes I need to parse information with only one set of external biases influencing my cognitive process, instead of factoring in the interviewer's biases as well. They are likely both full of shit to some degree.
> That it's a tacit endorsement.
This is like thinking everyone should stand up for everything all the time. It's just silly.
>But it can be frustrating to hear 3 hours of unchallenged straw man beatdowns from his more polemic guests.
This is a philosophical position: do you see the interview as a way to learn or understand how someone else thinks on specific topics, or do you want to use the interview as a club to tell them why they are wrong (and virtue signal to your audience how right you are).
I find it much worse for a biased, or uninformed interviewer challenging a guest on every point they make (usually by relying on slogans, talking-points or simply a strawman of their position) - making the entire conversation an exercise in frustration for the interviewee and the listener.
>There's an argument that it's actually not noble to let bullshit go unchallenged.
Bullshit according to whom? Joe Rogan had Bernie Sanders on recently, I can tell you right now, a good half of what Bernie was saying was pure bullshit. I'm pretty sure Bernie supporters would disagree with that.
do you see the interview as a way to learn or understand how someone else thinks on specific topics
Except Rogan isn't necessarily even good at that. All you'll really learn about are the talking points they want to present to the world. Without pushing them on some issues or asking them to argue or defend those points it's impossible to understand how they actually think about the issues. Or as someone else in this thread put it, if you're not pushing back at any point then it's just an infomercial.
>Except Rogan isn't necessarily even good at that.
That's a subjective assessment. I think Rogan is very good actually, and there was circumstances when he skewered the interviewee by simply asking them to clarify their position. The recent example of this was his interview with Bari Weiss, who had the self-inflicted misfortune to simply assert that Tulsi Gabbard is an "Assad Toadie" and Joe Rogan, politely, asked her to clarify - and Bari fell over herself and couldn't even define what 'toadie' meant in context. I've never seen that kind of politie (and unintended) evisceration on network TV.
>All you'll really learn about are the talking points they want to present to the world.
It's actually quite hard to delegate to talking points in a 3 hour freeform conversation. I would argue that the alternative, the 60 Minutes-style interview format which wholly consists of talking points and sharp edits to fit a narrative. Those kinds of interviews are much more prone to simply generic speech as the interviewee tries as hard as they can to be uncontroversial because they know the interviewer is actively trying to catch them buggle some phrase, and then push this sound bite in every preview of the interview.
>Without pushing them on some issues or asking them to argue or defend those points it's impossible to understand how they actually think about the issues.
That's what makes him great. He's humble about his level of knowledge. He knows he's ignorant about many things. Referencing the Bari Weiss interview, how many interviewers would ever admit to not understanding a word or a concept and genuinely asking for a definition. This is in sharp contrast to "mainstream" interviewers pretending they are experts, when it is painfully obvious they are not.
>Or as someone else in this thread put it, if you're not pushing back at any point then it's just an infomercial.
You say that and maybe it feels that this should be true, but if you actually listen to his interviews, it just doesn't come of as an infomercial. I keep going back to contrasting mainstream interviews which in fact, do come off fake, wooden and infomercial-like.
>Something ironically the adversarial 1min sound bytes hadn’t achieved
My take on this is that some journalists just parrot the talking points of the party or some faction from the political party they are affiliated with. So when they interview Bernie, they will pepper Bernie with questions that, for example, the Warren or Biden campaigns provided them with. And those questions will always be leading questions of the form "Have you stopped beating your wife".
I think your criticism is valid, but to me it is still often more informative than comparable interviews in the press. I think the "classic adversarial interview" how you call it often lacks genuine criticism. The framing has become so predictable, that you don't even have to read much.
And interviewers talking down to the audience is especially annoying if you get the impression that they miss the larger picture, or even worse, you know more about the topic.
I think he is popular because standard news media interviews have become that bad.
I mostly agree with you, I just want to offer that a great critical interview is possible, and it meaningfully differs from an adversarial interview. (Sam Harris has some great critical interviews that are not adversarial, for example.) Further, adversarial interviews can be good, too. It's just that so many of them are lazy, terrible, and sanctimonious nowadays.
> There really is a place for hearing someone lay out their views in a long, methodical way without being badgered every few minutes by an interviewer looking for a sound bite.
If you like that kind of style, Tilo Jung might be an interesting watch. He's doing quite long (45m-2hour) interviews. His style is not adversial, but he certainly asks tough questions. The interviews are uncut, and he gives his guests a long time to answer each question.
Most of his content is in german, but here is a playlist of his English content:
The guy is pretty honest and open. I remember when he was commentator for the Khabib vs McGregor fight, all the other guys were saying McGregor was holding back and trying to preserve energy when he went into fetal position and Joe Rogan was like "nah, he's getting his ass beat."
It's strange, as someone who primarily consumed/consumes American media, I almost never see the "adversarial" interviews you discuss. I know they're commonplace on the BBC, but reporting in the States is largely a matter of someone having a guest on the air to push whatever they're pushing with little if any token resistance to anything.
I wish my media was more adversarial, especially in politics since so many politicians go on TV and spout complete nonsense with no challenge whatsoever by the people who really ought to know it's nonsense.
You're 100% correct. Joe Rogan's popularity has nothing to do with the fact that he's not adversarial. I was shocked to read that too, American interviewers are laughably tame, no one is ever held to account for egregious ideas or behaviors. And yes, most of the tough interviewers I've seen have been on the BBC (see Ben Shapiro's interview where he literally ran away or Boris Johnson's interview where he display an utter lack of understanding of trade law despite posturing as an expert.)
American media picks sides. Most lean left, a few lean right. When a guest with opposing views does decide to come on, you'll see a lot more challenge than the usual friendlies.
It has gotten so bad that the Democratic party regularly shames and rallies against even appearing on a non-friendly. Take Warren's refusal to go on Fox News [1], or Pete Buttigieg's refusal to go on Dave Rubin [2].
I hold Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard in high regard, for going on Fox News and Joe Rogan, and explaining their opinions to an audience & network with opposing ones
While it's important to take on the arguments from the other side, the reason many Democrats refuse to go on Fox News has little to do with them being conservative leaning, and far more to do with their general laid back attitude to reporting the truth. So much of what is presented on Fox as "news" is anything but, they'll take twitter threads from unverified accounts and spin entire stories from them, and that's not even going into the problematic ones like when they draw attention to and pay lip-service to outright nonsense like the Qanon conspiracies.
They're still head and shoulders above people like Alex Jones but they're just a setup and punchline relative to news as of late. I'm all for hearing the opposing sides but when all they seemingly have is petty name-calling, Whataboutism, or insane conspiracy theories, I'm just not interested.
I don't know if you followed the whole "Trump is a Russian Spy" narrative over the past two years, but I see little difference between MSNBC & CNN vs. FOX, except that they play for different teams. I do regret the rise of yellow journalism, but it seems to have occurred as a result of: 1) increased competition for American attention and segmentation of American public 2) 24/7 cable news format and 3) competition with alternative media like YouTube. Ultimately it's the segmentation and the complete fracturing of dialog between the different segments that has led to a breakdown in civility, interesting debate, and moderation.
Aaron Mate had a pretty funny take on the interesting contrast in curiosity and skepticism between media coverage of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory versus the Epstein story:
It's honestly shocking how much you can learn about what's really going on in the world from watching literal comedians compared to "trustworthy" "journalists". The news is such obvious theater, I suppose the boiled frog theory probably explains how we got to this point with almost no one noticing.
Jimmy Dore has been calling it out for years. And I think it's interesting, because he's a pretty progressive person, very left leaning, but he was able to see through the partisanship, which I give him a lot of props for. That doesn't seem easy for people to do these days.
To me it's not about Joe Rogan himself, but his guests. He gets great people on his show and lets them talk, and that's why I like his podcast so much. I don't listen to it because I especially like Joe (although I find him to be a rational human being), but because he has a big variety of interesting guests.
Most of the discussions on his podcasts sound healthy and sane, but sometimes he gets more wild/controversial ones which is always entertaining.
He just doesn't go to the extremes. No clickbait, no outrage, no suspicious promotions, he just feels down to earth which is refreshing in this day and age on the internet. It doesn't mean that he's always right, but he realizes this and doesn't try to push his opinions too hard.
I find that the "haters" that always criticize him are missing the point of the postcast which is to hear the guests, not Joe.
This is kind of how I feel about Tim Ferris as well. I think Ferris is pretty blatantly self-promoting during his interviews ("When I was writing 'The Four-Hour Body'..."), which turns me off. And he has a thing for Tony Robbins that is baffling. But he gets some fascinating guests, and he is very, very good at finding good questions to ask.
Agreed. Joe often provides exposure to remarkable individuals, that often do not get enough coverage in mainstream media. And talk about the diversity of guests
"If we all have fatal flaws, this is Joe’s: his insistence on seeing value in people even when he shouldn’t, even when they’ve forfeited any right to it, even when the harm outweighs the good. It comes from a generous place, but it amounts to careless cruelty. He just won’t write people off, and then he compounds the sin by throwing them a lifeline at the moment when they least deserve it."
I'm no fan of Joe Rogan, but this criticism sounds like high praise to me.
> Not in an age where people want to use (traditional/social) media to bully people into ideological agreement with them.
I.e., every age ever; the times when it seems less so are just the times when one faction has been so successful that public dissent from the mainstream view has been effectively suppressed, minimizing viisble conflict (that appearance is probably especially strong if that side is your own.)
In the context of the rest of the article it seems that the author composed that forgetting that their personal vantage point isn't the default. They seem to be saying that he tends to give CPR to figureheads of dying cultures not for the benefit of the author's social segment but for the benefit of the cult of Rogan.
I personally agree, but also find it hard to blame the guy too much. Anyone who has honestly engaged with trying to fundamentally change who they are knows that it's hard as shit. Can you blame the man for still being the brotastic brody bro that he was a few years ago? It turns out that yes, yes you can. I personally don't, but it is a terribly valid point to say that some comfortably privileged person's curiosity (or desire to satisfy their privileged preconceptions, depending on who you ask) should be outweighed by school shootings or the validation of the experiences of women and other minorities.
It really seems like there is such a disparate and massive quantity of fact and opinion out there nowadays that it's hard as hell even getting it all to fit together, much less managing to connect whatever views you cobble together with those that others wind up with. Cohesifying society in the midst of all of this feels like trying to put together a themed potluck by giving everyone literally a billion ingredients and hoping that their selections just each happen to be all taco themed or whatever. What a fucking mess.
The author is in no authoritative position to decide who does not deserve attention or an opinion. Everyone does, otherwise how will we disprove/prove claims we have no access to, or let opiners do it?
That seemed to be where the author really diverges from Joe. Joe's not going to give a holistic view (I think the author would agree), just usually a positive one. But the author didn't really make a great case for why this sort of absolute negativism, zero tolerance for 'bad', is any better than what Joe's presenting. He's definitely not pretending to be 60 Minutes.
FWIW I just recently started listening to JRE, and I kind of agree with the author at the end in that I'll probably skip the Jones episodes.
Leaders of society are obligated to do everything in their power to ensure that the public is well informed using the best available evidence. Joe Rogan wants to enjoy the privileges of his influence in society (money, fame), but disregards the duty he has, which comes with his position (criticism, censorship).
Society is built on the idea that we can trust leaders and domain experts to provide guidance on topics. And when people like Rogan grant elevate those who espouse views we know to be wrong, we all suffer. Conspiracy theories aren't limited to inconsequential topics, such as moon landing hoaxes. People pushing anti-vax theories have directly caused in the deaths of innocent people.
The problem with Joe Rogan is that he’s the standard bearer for that weird form of anti–intellectualism masquerading as intellectual curiosity.
For a bit of background: His first big “gig” was on a (rather incredible, imo) sitcom in the mid-nineties called NewsRadio. Somewhere in his audition he mentioned that he thought the moon landing was a hoax, which at the time was probably the craziest thing that the interviewers had ever heard (we didn’t have vocal flat-earthers on the Internet back then). So they decided that his part would be just that, the crazy conspiracy theorist engineer guy. Fast forward.
I bet a lot of us had some kind of phase in college where you started to learn a little bit about the virtues of skepticism, then later post-modernism and deconstructionism… Some folks go down that rabbit hole and the next thing you know you’re up at 2am bleary–eyed insisting that this glass of beer in your hand is corporeal. The guy across from you keeps repeating “well, prove it,” and that ostensibly makes him a smart guy.
And now we’ve got flat–earth conventions and “fake news” and Joe Rogan on the internet having earnest intellectual conversations with the entire gamut of thinkers, politicians, crazies and scientists. The problem is that at the end of the day, he is, as he’s willing to admit, kind of a dumb guy, and this style of discourse is just making everything else dumber.
Nah - I refused to be held to a standard that our identities don't change, that we're static beings, and that anything we said / thought 20-30 years ago still represents us today.
Whether or not he seriously considered the moon landing a hoax when he was on a tv show 25 years ago (!) is irrelevant, as he clearly doesn't believe it today. (He's also talked about how he faked that bit to get his character on the show during the audition, but that's mostly hearsay....)
If you disagree, think about the shit you said in high school and college, and how you'd feel if that had to represent you in a job application, for example.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here. I think it’s fine that he once believed something stupid, and then grew up and changed his mind or whatever. And I do think he's a pretty great entertainer.
My problem is that he’s reducing intellectualism to a game where you take skepticism to its logical extremes and we wind up with anti-vaxxers and a resurgence of polio.
The problem with that is most people don't have the time or inclination to open up and review and learn about every aspect of all the issues facing the world today. Because of that people with large audiences should be careful of trying to be a neutral platform for ideas in general because just by bringing a person on you're saying something about the worth of listening to that person.
For example news shows have for decades presented both sides of issues like climate change by having a representative from both the denial and the pro side on their shows on equal footing, out of a fear of seeming biased. That from the jump without framing puts the two sides on equal footing making it look like it's two equally supported side of the argument where it's not.
Ideally the fix would be for everyone to have and take the time to examine everything they're being shown on the news (though this gets hard because Google is much better for finding things that support your existing views than what goes against it and there's plenty of places out there with interests in misinforming, whether it's for their own business interests directly or it's just profitable to be the contrarian view point) but changing everyone's habits is hard so it's more effective to hold the people giving platforms to these fringe viewpoints and try to get them to realize that just putting a person on your show is taking a stance on saying these ideas are worth listening to (at the very least).
edit: In addition just bringing people on to a show has the effect of exposing them to new people who hadn't seen them before and may not know the context of who they are which can drastically change the interpretation of what they're saying.
> The problem with that is most people don't have the time or inclination to open up and review and learn about every aspect of all the issues facing the world today. Because of that people with large audiences should be careful of trying to be a neutral platform for ideas in general because just by bringing a person on you're saying something about the worth of listening to that person.
Nah - I don't want, need, nor trust someone else to tell me how to think - unless I ask for it (example: I won't read ALL of the the data/studies on vaccines, so I'll choose to trust the 99% of authoritative perspective on the topic that they're good for society.) Recall the metaphor that is often used against censorship:"Just because a baby can't chew his/her food doesn't mean I shouldn't be served a steak."
> just putting a person on your show is taking a stance on saying these ideas are worth listening to (at the very least).
This is pretty specious reasoning. Saying "this position exists or can exist" and that there are real human beings that hold that idea is not the same as _endorsing_ that position or idea, or even saying that every idea deserves equal weight.
People have time to discuss and learn. We are just not that stupid. And given we can make wages sane, there is ample time. Our First Amendment is predicated on that reality.
If they actually do not, and in my experience they do, but for sake of argument, say they do not, ok?
Then we need an actual public service with a charter to inform, not profit. That is something I totally support, and the very first thing it does is remedial education.
I am fine either way, but much prefer we educate people to think for themselves as I was educated in freaking grade school.
Yes, 6th grade. The topics were:
Advertising forms and compare contrast to propaganda forms. (This was awesome. Everyone loved it, and we all made our own ADS and propaganda to boot.)
Bias in news and opinion. Identify it, labor, big business, right, left, etc... determine whether the entity represents its bias honestly, or not. Why?
Seek diversity of info. Bias is always there. Not a problem once identified. Liars about bias often miss facts and publish low clarity info, making it hard to differentiate fact from opinion too. Never a bad thing to think about. Drives seeking diversity.
All the domestic major media today misrepresent their bias, and it is most often an economic misrepresentation. Almost nothing is published from the labor POV, for example.
The little backassward town I came from got this right. Was not hard, was interesting, useful and became a part of who we were and how we operate.
We could put an end to this garbage in a generation with similar education, coupled with a follow up on critical thinking basics. (Which I also got along with solid civics a couple years later.)
Our ongoing efforts to water down basic, primary education has costs and risks attached.
We are discussing those today. Time for a fix.
Given this perspective, the Rogan show is good value, frankly and honestly presented. Many do much worse, and they claim a lot more legitimacy too.
He actually discussed his moon landing hoax beliefs in a recent episode. He talked about how there were a lot of sound arguments going on at the time, and interesting valid evidence (like the proven faked photographs). He then said after some more more time and education he changed his views. All humans should get better at being ok with being wrong.
You summed up my issue's with him perfectly. I used to have a lot of the same dumb conversations he has with his guests with my roommates in college. The difference was our conversations were limited to a couple of dumb college kids and anyone else in the dorm room at the time. He has one of the most popular podcasts in the world and has the clout to attract some really powerful/smart people, but also some real scumbags who get to leverage his platform unchallenged.
Do you assume that the listener is incapable of challenging the guest? Just because Rogan doesn’t correct all of his guests absurdities doesn’t mean they go unchecked. After listening to the Alex Jones podcast, for example, I have come to my own conclusion that the guy is not worth paying attention to. I didn’t need the host to do that for me.
Dumb ideas need to be exposed as dumb by the hearer, not by some special class of elites who filter information for us.
There's clearly a decent number of people who listen to Jones all day on his own channel who don't make that realization so it's a fair assumption that there are people who won't come to the correct conclusion about Jones who hadn't been exposed to him before he went on Rogan's podcast.
It's not even strictly about filtering information it's about appropriately presenting the information, giving both sides of an argument equal time and legitimacy is how we've gotten such high levels of climate change denial in the US. News networks, afraid of being seen as taking a side by framing the denial side appropriately as the scientifically unsupported side, would just present two people each arguing their own sides with equal weight given to both the denial and the pro side which gives the appearance there's equal evidence supporting both points where really there split is pretty much all vs a few every specific studies that only support denial in a vacuum.
Pretty much, used to be every climate change story would have the 3 person panel setup with the host, a climate change denier and a climate scientist with the question of "is climate change a real threat."
I regularly see climate change stories, on TV, print, and the internet, and I can't recall any time in the last several years where any time/space, let alone an equal amount, was provided for dissenting opinions. At best, they might include mention of a strawman example of an opposing argument.
Perhaps you and I are consuming different news sources - do you have any recent examples demonstrating this equal allocation to both sides?
Then why do you need a host at all? Why even have journalists? If as you say listeners and viewers are perfectly able to get the truth out of speech, wouldn't the best to only have direct unfiltered speach with nonody in between?
The host provides an available platform to an audience. If I was a guest on a Joe Rogan podcast, I can be certain that some non-trivial amount of people will hear me. If I make my own one-off podcast and upload it to soundcloud, youtube, thepodcasthost, whatever, It is close to assured that I will have a lesser audience, if not close to no audience.
Joe Rogan's platform brings listeners to a topic, not to any specific opinion.
>anti–intellectualism masquerading as intellectual curiosity.
Joe can be kinda dumb, but there's nobody smarter than him that's conducting interviews where the guest isn't just a prop to get the interviewer's opinions across [1]. Those are even more flagrant masquerades at intellectual curiosity.
[1] People who cover esoteric topics that nobody pays attention to but the weirdos already obsessed with that subject matter don't count.
>probably the craziest thing that the interviewers had ever heard (we didn’t have vocal flat-earthers on the Internet back then)
Talk about fake news. The moon landing hoax is up there with the JFK assassination in terms of popular conspiracies. I'm in my early 40s and the Arthur C. Clarke / Kubrick moon landing conspiracy has been omnipresent since the late 80s early and early 90s; online and in real life.
Yeah that's a bit of my worry. Granted I've only listened to Rogan a few times so maybe my view is skewed.
I don't mind "Hey let's hear this idea out." but at some point hearing an idea out without really identifying that the idea or theory has so much BS behind it is kinda questionable.
He doesn't tell the interviewee they're full of shit, but he does ask pointed questions and won't agree if he doesn't agree.
See his interview with Candace Owens where she tells him he doesn't believe in climate change, he doesn't destroy her, but asks questions that make her look very intellectually lazy.
It feels like people in this thread are confusing "that's interesting" with agreement. Which isn't particularly intellectual on their own part.
I've seen people praise him for changing his mind about the moon landing being a hoax, but the fact that he accepted that idea at all to me is just totally indefensible. I can't take anyone seriously that could even countenance that for a second.
What is it "totally indefensible"? Frankly, the virtue that someone can change their opinions when presented with further convincing evidence is far more a sign of maturity than one who rigidly accepts something based on authority.
To make my point clearer, the vast majority of people accept their understanding of the world around them based on what others have explained to them or what kinds of media they have consumed. If those sources are faulty, our understanding will be similarly faulty.
I cannot intuitively, by myself, derive that the Moon landings are real nor that they actually happened. The technology to fake the videos (amongst the clearest evidence) is and has been around for longer than the Apollo program. The good character of the astronauts that landed (thus, they are believeable) has been emulated by figures in movies and actors and even politicians until they fell from grace. Large-scale lies by governments and other powerful entities have long been propagated and continue to be so (hence why we're even having this discussion, so I guess this a bit self-referential) include the doubts about environmental or health impacts of large-scale industry and commercial consumption.
Societies have long accepted ideas that are later proven to be regressive, backwards, or just plain wrong. Slavery of blacks, ownership of women, geocentric universe, 6000 year old world. Moreover, these things come-and-go, and we'll find ourselves backtracking on some ideas that we think are good now once the consequences catch-up to us (plastic, lifestyle choices, and more).
The fact is, lots of people hold contradictory world/universe views, beliefs, and more. People will never all be unanimously agreed on something. In fact, it may be considered a hallmark of our nature. Therefore, the virtue is not in accepting one blessed set unconditionally. It lies in being able to adapt and grow closer to truth once a clear, convincing evidence has been presented.
He’s amused by ideas. I think that’s where it came from.
I’ve been listening to him for years now, most often on BART. I can’t resolve his acceptance of Alex “he’s a really nice guy” Jones, but what I have come to terms with is this: almost everyone I really know has some crazy or indefensible belief. For many it’s their family or partner relationship. Dig into that, and people are living lives premised on an externally unacceptable belief. Have any finance people in your life? I guarantee their political beliefs are hard to swallow.
Joe puts his out there. He’s not embarrassed by himself. From there, he makes more sense.
That said, he has a platform. I think he’s a net positive.
>I can’t resolve his acceptance of Alex “he’s a really nice guy” Jones,
>Have any finance people in your life? I guarantee their political beliefs are hard to swallow.
I don't really enjoy Joe Rogan due to the college dorm room style mentioned above, but I don't understand this sentiment against Joe for being too accepting. There are people who get very unhappy whenever they are reminded that their opinions are not universal, and even further beyond them is a position that in my opinion is pretty dangerous: people who dislike anyone that doesn't share their militancy. People who really hate Joe Rogan because he fraternizes with the enemy are helping to contribute to America's polarization problem.
I've only seen clips of "late stage" Alex Jones where he's very clearly gone off the deep end, but it's interesting that earlier Richard Linklater cast him in "Waking Life" (2001) and "A Scanner Darkly" (2006) as a ranting blowhard shouting into a bullhorn.
I get the sense that Linklater saw him as basically a harmless crank local to Austin. I don't really know much about the arc of Jones' career but it seems his rantings carried him off into a very dark place indeed and one I assume Linklater would totally disavow.
I've seen myself make mistakes that in retrospect should be have been "obvious", and if you've ever taking a test (a la education), you've obviously made mistakes others deem "obvious" as well. Humans are complex beings, and I don't deny people opportunities to improve -- or even blacklist them.
Which leads me to why one such as yourself would be so adamant in your position to not include that empathy -- its not like moon hoaxers killed and murdered your family in 1990... right? I suspect its more of a philosophy you have regarding treatment of people in the bunch "gullible, anti-science" crowd. Anti-vaxxers, horoscope readers, etc. If thats the case, well, I too enjoy punching down.
I listen to some of Rogan's podcasts (usually not comedians or MMA commentary) because of the long conversation format. For me, it's more about who Rogan is talking to rather than being interested in listening to Rogan talk.
Whether it's POTUS candidates (Bernie, Yang, Gabbard), intellectuals (Dr. Cornell West, Eric Weinstein), interesting individuals (musicians, nutritionists, etc.), or the more 'controversial' guests you get to hear a 'real' conversation and understand more about the person he's talking to.
You can't get away with canned soundbites in this format, so I think it leads to less propaganda and BS and more considerate dialogue and thinking.
Whether Joe Rogan is the best person to host these conversations is negated by the fact that he's one of the only people doing this. To that end, I support him 100%.
One of Rogan's both strength and weaknesses as a host is that he never pushes back or challenges his guests on anything, asks really probing questions or even really prepares for the interview. He basically just lets his guests talk about whatever they want for as long as they want with him nodding along and throwing the occasional softball. This does lead a very natural flowing conversation where the guest can freely present whatever information they wanted to present.
I do however dispute your claim that this leads to "less propaganda and BS". Since Rogan never cares to really question or seriously push back against any claims being made, the guests are free to spout as much "propaganda and BS" as they want, safe in the knowledge the Rogan posses neither interest or the background to challenge them on any of it.
> Since Rogan never cares to really question or seriously push back against any claims being made, the guests are free to spout as much "propaganda and BS" as they want
True. Guests are free to BS as much as they want. I would still argue this happens less frequently as you might think and certainly compared to any other interview format/medium.
Rogan has stated many times that there are people who won't come on his show because of the long running time. I take this as evidence that either these would-be guests are either programmed for short-form interviews (e.g. soundbites, making claims they can't back up with any objectivity) or the claims they would make do not hold up to any amount of scrutiny.
In this sense, I think the runtime/medium is the filter for BS – not the interviewer.
> One of Rogan's both strength and weaknesses as a host is that he never pushes back or challenges his guests on anything, asks really probing questions or even really prepares for the interview. He basically just lets his guests talk about whatever they want for as long as they want with him nodding along and throwing the occasional softball.
As a long-time watcher of JRE, this just isn't true. He clearly sometimes prepares, and he does push back (especially if it's on a topic he's into). He has explicitly said that he used to push back too hard in the past, leading to argumentativeness, bickering, etc.
For some strong push-back towards a scientist deluded about the effectiveness of Aikido leading into an awkward argument see https://youtu.be/06olLYiMvM4?t=8985
On the recent podcast with Bernie he started pushing Bernie on his drug legalization stance. He didn't push as hard as I would like, but he definitely pushed.
He had a podcast with Jack from Twitter after which he received feedback that he didn't push Jack hard enough about censorship. He apologized for that, got Jack on again, but brought on someone with more knowledge about specific instances of censorship to make that case (Tim Pool).
Realistically even if Rogan were to push back, at the end of the day you'd just be watching a show through Joe Rogan's beliefs: he'd push back where he didn't agree and he'd let slide anything he agreed with.
Instead we have a show from the beliefs of each guest, and even if some guests are wrong (I'm sure every guest is wrong in some way), you do end up with a diversity of beliefs.
he'd push back where he didn't agree and he'd let slide anything he agreed with.
Then he'd be a terrible interviewer. Go look at any competent interviewer. When and how much they push back should be completely unrelated to their personal views.
Why can't he impartially present his guests ideas and let his audience decide for themselves what is BS and what is not? Whose job is it to police thought crimes?
If you want the mainstream viewpoint on whatever someone is talking about, go read or watch the mainstream, there's no shortage of people telling you what is acceptable already.
I'm not sure his guests are paying to be on the program, I don't think I've seen too many shilling for some product on his show.
But, even if you consider it an infomercial, I don't see what the problem is. Don't like what they have to say? Don't watch. Not sure you can trust his guests? Don't watch.
You don't have to have a product to be shilling something, and it doesn't have to be a paid infomercial to be an infomercial.
I feel interviewers who push their guests to confront and address the rougher edges and ramifications of their beliefs are more valuable to their listeners, and will preferentially watch/listen them instead as a result. You're welcome to disagree if you like.
The Intercept's Mehdi Hasan is a good example of someone who won't let a guest dodge a tough issue - his interview of Erik Prince is a must-see for the benefits of a more confrontational approach, IMO. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/mehdi-hasan-caught...
"Infomercial" is a weasel word in this context. An actual infomercial is a paid promotion, often with a direct marketing avenue attached to it. Rogan's podcast is neither of those, regardless of one's issues with presentation and interview methodology.
So, I said 'what's wrong with how he does what he does', you say 'because it's an infomercial', I dispute and then raise 'what difference does that make' and your answer is 'I don't like infomercials'.
So, because you don't like infomercials, Joe Rogan shouldn't do them?
> I feel interviewers who push their guests to confront and address the rougher edges and ramifications of their beliefs
I feel I'm smart enough to figure out for myself if someone's claims or beliefs have rougher edges and ramifications. I don't need someone to ask these questions, if they go unaddressed, I make a determination as to why.
For instance "Drink this koolaide and you'll go to heaven." I don't need someone to question that, I'll be sure to question it on my own. Did the person espousing such a belief do enough to substantiate their opinion during the interview or not?
> Since Rogan never cares to really question or seriously push back against any claims being made, the guests are free to spout as much "propaganda and BS" as they want
Who is Rogan to question or push back? And, if he were to do so, on what basis would you find the push back acceptable?
Could you provide an example of something you expected him to 'push back' against, and why you think he should have pushed back?
> wanting mainstream viewpoints
Clearly, it's implied that if there's something he should 'push back' against that is clearly 'propaganda and bs' then there must be some basis for evaluating this. That most likely is some mainstream viewpoint of which you might find objectionable to unfiltered discussion. Allowing objectionable discussion to take place is surely a thought crime that needs policing, in many people's view point. You might not agree with the wording or implied context, but not everything is about what you think, and I would characterize that as policing 'thought crime'.
on what basis would you find the push back acceptable?
On the basis that that is the interviewers role. Have you watched skilled interviewers? An interviewer pushing back against a statement is not a signal that he disagrees with the statement or believes there to be anything wrong with it. A skilled interviewer will often challenge statements they 100% agree with and believe to be true as a tool to strengthen and clarify the point.
if there's something he should 'push back' against that is clearly 'propaganda and bs' then there must be some basis for evaluating this.
You're putting the cart before the horse. The interviewer shouldn't be pushing back because they a priori believe a statement to be BS, but to test if the statement is BS. Questioning someone and giving them the opportunity to defend and clarify their viewpoint is surely the opposite of policing and filtering it.
Because there is no such thing as impartially presenting a guest's ideas?
Because figuring out what is BS can be hard? (Look at all the people who believe in the BS that is Young Earth Creationism.)
Because it's not a thought-crime to decide to not cover certain topics?
Consider a discussion about the need for forced participation in human experimentation, like deliberately freezing unwilling prisoners in experiments with the goal of discovering new means to prevent and treat hypothermia.
If someone wants to present that, and is denied, is that denial an enforcement of thought-crime? Is it possible to present that impartially, and what would that look like? Is it meaningful to present those ideas without also bringing up the history of unethical human experimentation, and the reasons for deciding what is ethical? Can it not be that the 'mainstream viewpoint' is actually the ethical one, and strongly opposed ones deeply unethical?
> For me, it's more about who Rogan is talking to...
> he's one of the only people doing this...
I skip a lot of episodes because I also don't care for the MMA talk and most of his guests, but these two statements pretty much sum up why I've been a long time subscriber to his podcast.
I read the article, thought it was interesting, spent a bit too much time ranting about Alex Jones, when in reality he makes up < 0.01% of JRE's podcast.
Joe Rogan just gets out of the way and let's people say their piece. He's super open, and inviting, that turns interviews into a casual conversation.
Yes, the article started out ok, then took a turn to predetermined, predictable, political dribble. I stopped reading it because the author started regurgitating typical script.
Exactly my thoughts. For me it was the bit about the Kevin Hart interview and how "rogan did not take him to task for his homophobic views from decade ago"... I was like ok this writer is Woke(tm) and everything is going to be flavoured by that.
No nuance. No grey areas. Just the Black and White of either you are woke or you are a nazi. No thanks.
What made me realize the author actually missed the point of Joe Rogan.
"...a key thing Joe and his fans tend to have in common is a deficit of empathy. He seems unable to process how his tolerance for monsters like Alex Jones plays a role in the wounding of people who don’t deserve it."
and
"If we all have fatal flaws, this is Joe’s: his insistence on seeing value in people even when he shouldn’t, even when they’ve forfeited any right to it, even when the harm outweighs the good."
As judged by who? This kind of whining is what drives his audience to him. Providing a platform for anyone is tremendously good for democracy. Hyde Park in the UK, or the wall in Blueberry Park in Daniel Pinkwater's excellent "The Snarkout Boys" series both spring to mind.
Yes, these political ideologies are "bad" (I'm not naming any here, fill in your own blank), but every idea, no matter how awful you find it, deserves a voice and public judgement.
When both Bernie Sanders, Ben Shapiro, and __Alex Jones__ happily go on the same podcast and have civil discussions, you're doing something very, very, right.
By parents whose children were slaughtered. Alex Jones intimidated, harassed and lied about those parents. They deserve our empathy. And you know what? So does Alex Jones.
But extending empathy to someone does not mean you give that person what they want. It's possible to empathize with Alex Jones for what he is: a deeply disturbed man who has hurt many people and who regularly engages in either outright lies or unhinged self-deception.
Being empathic does not mean we leave our brains at the door, it means being thoughtful and respectful and when Joe Rogan continues to provide a platform for Alex Jones he is showing an extraordinary lack of respect for the parents and families of the children who were killed.
True empathy extended toward Mr. Jones would be to reach out as a friend and tell him what he needs to hear: He needs to get serious help.
There are a lot of interviewers who would have both Shapiro and Sanders on, so your point on that is just not relevant. Most of those interviewers would not touch Alex Jones with a six foot.
I have a real problem with people "deciding" who "gets" to have a platform.
I have no problem with individual social media sites setting their own policies as to who they will allow a voice on their site.
I have a big problem when people go further than that, and try to prevent certain people from having any platform anywhere. They'll go after hosting, after advertisers, after anything they can to completely shut a person down.
It is so unbelievably naive to think that those tools of suppression won't be used against everyone at some point in the future. The collective track record of human governments throughout history with regards to human rights has been, and currently is, absolute dogshit.
Whether the true point of "common carrier" should be the internet backbone, I don't know. But there needs to be a point where anyone can run a site to put forth their views, no matter how any individual feels about those views. The problem with restricting speech is that everyone's idea of acceptable free speech infringements is different, and the devil is in the details with something so vitally important.
Like it or not, Jones is in the popular zeitgeist - or was. One could make the argument that Rogan having him on exposed him to people who hadn't gone down the Info Wars rabbit hole and now he's somewhat faded from relevance. Jones came off utterly unhinged, you're right. But isn't this a kind of control mechanism for what gets in the popular narrative?
>There are a lot of interviewers who would have both Shapiro and Sanders on, so your point on that is just not relevant.
Who? Shapiro, an orthodox Jew, is repeatedly slandered as a white supremacist. I'm pretty skeptical that mainstream interviewers who would love to interview Sanders would touch Shapiro. Not necessarily because they aren't interested, but because of the potential wrath from their regular viewers/listeners. Rogan just doesn't have that kind of polarized following, at least it doesn't appear so to me. Interviews with people like Sanders garner just as much interest as his interviews with e.g. Bret Weinstein. People show up because it's interesting, not because they're looking for confirmation of their own views.
He’s hilarious. He’s a big blowhard dummy, and if someone can’t watch his show for the entertainment value of laughing at him, then I very seriously doubt they have the mental defenses to watch mainstream political commentary without blindly downloading the opinions of the commentator into their own head.
I tried to listen to his podcast for a while after his Joe Rogan appearance, not because any of his views resonated with me, but because he's (unintentionally) hilarious. I couldn't keep listening because it's so full of ads. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous the ratio of ads to content. And when Alex does speak, he's so repetitive. It gets boring. He's better in occasional short bursts.
People who can, willing and want to go beyond the factoid soundbyte 0-24 screaming cycle?
> This kind of whining is what drives his audience to him.
Of course, but it doesn't make the "whining" invalid.
Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem. (That's why we have so many people who found shit on the Web and got so deep into the hole that now they are probably beyond repair. Basically just as extreme xenophobia/racism/bigotry/classism indoctrinated people in the past centuries now we have the Internet with its cacophony of bad ideas/memes.)
> Providing a platform for anyone is tremendously good for democracy.
Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.
> Hyde Park in the UK
Speaker's corner. The soap box. Such a noble idea.
Except, well, look how great the UK is doing.
> When both Bernie Sanders, Ben Shapiro, and __Alex Jones__ happily go on the same podcast and have civil discussions, you're doing something very, very, right.
Or .. just nothing. You are just an empty conduit, a blank screen.
Which is okay, sure, why not. It's just doesn't make the JRE "great". It makes it bad in the big picture, because it again provides an outlet for those people that are at risk of getting hooked into something extreme.
> People who can, willing and want to go beyond the factoid soundbyte 0-24 screaming cycle?
Not you, apparently
> Of course, but it doesn't make the "whining" invalid.
Not necessarily, but it's completely self-defeating.
> Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem. (That's why we have so many people who found shit on the Web and got so deep into the hole that now they are probably beyond repair. Basically just as extreme xenophobia/racism/bigotry/classism indoctrinated people in the past centuries now we have the Internet with its cacophony of bad ideas/memes.)
No, it's not. Uncritically discussing ideas in front of an engaged audience is literally the core of democracy. The Roman "Forum" was literally this.
> Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.
Depends on who you ask. The current president has gotten record numbers of people active and engaged in political discourse and policy. People are interested in what our country is doing. All other things being equal, isn't that a net positive for democracy?
> Speaker's corner. The soap box. Such a noble idea.
> Except, well, look how great the UK is doing.
You mean after essentially removing free speech? Yes, look how well they're doing now. Wow, great example.
> Or .. just nothing. You are just an empty conduit, a blank screen.
JRE adds value by providing an honest environment. You don't get that in the news anymore, as you admitted.
I think Trump got a lethargic population engaged in politics the same way a fire gets me engaged in fire drills - holy shit, we need to pay attention because someone set the house on fire.
And you're supporting the Forum, talking about how "letting anyone talk is good" - but you missed the caveat: Not all talk or opinion is equal. Terrible opinions and thoughts must always be challenged in public. That is the critique of Rogan. No one is saying that Alex Jones literally should not be allowed to speak, but that letting him speak to your curated audience of millions, without challenging their horseshit, makes you an enabler to those bad ideas.
Bad ideas as judged by me. And most people. Stop with this moral relativism line about how everything is equal. It isn't.
> No one is saying that Alex Jones literally should not be allowed to speak, but that letting him speak to your curated audience of millions, without challenging their horseshit, makes you an enabler to those bad ideas.
Actually lots of people are saying that. He was deplatformed from youtube, facebook, and twitter which is exactly why Rogan had him on the show. He is a personal friend and explains that many times. Having Alex Jones on his show is not some dumb idea enabling bullshit, all of his ideas are not completely wrong.
Let people come to their own conclusions. Why do you think people listening to him will not see for themselves? If they can't listen to a rational discussion and make an informed decision there isn't much credit to ones opinion anyway. Just banning him from media is a childish perspective in my opinion.
And what if the bad ideas suddenly aren't judged by you and "most people"?
Of course, challenge the terrible ideas. But challenge them in public, don't hush them in secret. If you can't win in front of a crowd, you've already lost.
Here's a little thought experiment for you. My great-grandparents were killed by communism. I think liberal economic policies lead towards communism, even though universal healthcare could save lives. According to you, if you and your invisible cohort don't like that idea, you should just shut me up, instead of debating me on the pros and cons.
You're in a bubble, where you're simply right, and obviously any sane person would agree with you.
That's not how it works. We can look at the same facts and derive different, valid, and sane positions.
> Uncritically discussing ideas in front of such a huge audience is a problem.
No it's not. Any kind of discussion can be valuable it doesn't need to conform to your one way of having a talk. Yes there are echo chambers all over the internet. This is not at all convincing that we need to ALWAYS have ALL critical discussions/arguments. You sound like you are either butthurt or taking it wayyy to seriously
>> Providing a platform for anyone is tremendously good for democracy.
>Umm, is it? Really? Was electing Donald such a great idea? Well, the media certainly made its deal with the devil.
Considering that Trump got elected in a time where actively shaming his viewpoints was the dominant approach in the mainstream media, it seems like your suggested approach is ineffective.
There are Trumpian viewpoints, and there are Trumpian-adjacent viewpoints that are more centrist and more extreme. The mainstream media lately is whipped into such a frenzy lately that it can't tell the difference. I listened to an NPR correspondent, a supposedly minimally biased source, call Trump a white supremicist two days ago. When the norm is so obviously skewed, right-leaning folks don't have the opportunity to hear meaningful critical discussion of their own wing- and when this is true, more extreme candidates have the opportunity to win.
It's faux intellectualism masquerading as intellectual diversity. Calling it diversity is like saying Subway has a diverse menu. Sure you can get ham, turkey, bacon, or meatballs on 6 different kinds of bread, but at the end of the day it's all just salads and sandwiches.
I'm not who you are responding to, but the gender skew is massive. This [1] is just someone on his subreddit doing their own calculations, but the sample size is 1128 men to 68 women. More recently it's like 10 to 1 [2].
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. One the one hand it's a podcast targeted toward men, which I'm fine with. On the other hand, his whole thing is about open-mindedness so it doesn't seem quite right for him to almost exclusively hear the views of men on his show. I also wonder if he has a harder time getting women to feature because of the demographics of his audience.
I have no idea what the demographic breakdown looks like along other axes as I couldn't find much info.
>I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. One the one hand it's a podcast targeted toward men, which I'm fine with. On the other hand, his whole thing is about open-mindedness so it doesn't seem quite right for him to almost exclusively hear the views of men on his show.
What are you not sure of exactly? Also, his guests are also picked via audience polls, someone writing in, or via random twitter interactions, etc.
In any case my point was that if you say "this lacks diversity" its you who has to actually bring the data. Expecting someone else to dig up the data to prove your point would be a bit odd.
Also You: > Expecting someone else to dig up the data to prove your point would be a bit odd.
I think you're demonstrating one of the aspects of anti-intellectualism prevalent in the Rogan community. You expect other people to provide data and evidence to change YOUR mind, but you won't provide data or evidence supporting your own position.
I have no "position", what are you even talking about? You introduced a claim in this conversation. It would be nice to have the data to back it up, but sure, you can feel or think whatever you want. If you don't care to defend your opinion or views, then it doesn't matter at all, and this thread is not really going to be productive for either of us.
Your "position" seems to be that my claim was incorrect. It's patently obvious that Rogan's guest list is primarily white males. Provide your own data if you feel otherwise. You seem to hold others to a higher standard than what you apply to yourself. You're right that you don't care to defend your opinion and this isn't a productive thread. Another user spoonfed the evidence to you and you are still trying to argue against reality while providing zero data.
> Yes, these political ideologies are "bad" (I'm not naming any here, fill in your own blank), but every idea, no matter how awful you find it, deserves a voice and public judgement.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "
"A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
Yes. Both of those deserve to be shouted from the rooftops, considered carefully, and then praised or cursed appropriately. If someone wants to hold one of those opinions, that's their right, and doesn't give them less value as a human being.
I actually think that tabooing those topics and refusing to even discuss them makes them a lot more powerful than they deserve to be.
If a topic is not discussed in public space enough, its counterpoints and refute arguments become less and less obvious and visible, which leads to people colliding with it for the first time not being mentally equipped to muster rational arguments against it out of their own brain due to not being mentally equipped or mature enough. Not everyone can recreate a hundreds of years of mental and cultural progress on the spot without any external references and talking points readily available.
So if you know nothing about holocaust and encounter a convincing-looking argument that it's a hoax, it's very easy to adhere to this idea and move on with your life thinking it's the truth, especially if you don't see any moral issues with it.
Tabooing controversial topics creates an ideological vacuum that is very easily gets filled with garbage. Especially if the the only actors willing to break the taboo are those who have questionable motives and pushing some sort of angle.
I think a great deal of his success comes from the fact that he's successfully combined two qualities guys would like to have: machismo and intellectual curiosity. If he was just an MMA fighter or just a comedian, he wouldn't get nearly the same kind of following.
Guys always respect a guy who can fight. But when that guy can also do comedy or hold shallow but intelligent opinions on a lot of topics, he gets a lot of respect from everyone.
Really? It's one of the most obvious social phenomena out there.
Women respect it too, for what that's worth. Short, weak men have low and still declining value from both genders.
Good looking prisoners (even those that violently target women) receive fangirl mail because they are edgy and attractive. Meanwhile 5'4" SWEs are probably full on incel more often than not.
That is just psychology. You can deny it, but its still there. You can try to shape it, and cover it up with prim and proper etiquette, but its still there. A thousand years of civilization has nothing on a hundred thousand years of caveman tendencies. Being able to fight is part of the male baser drive, much like competing/winning/chasing women. Its what got us to where we are. Also explains rugby, boxing, NFL.. soccer hooliganism, hockey fights, action movies, desire to ride motorcycles, self-flagellation/insisting on using Emacs, etc :P
Yeah, discipline and dedication to mastery of one's psychical self is for weirdos. Furthermore, what's the point of combat skills in a world with law and order? He should really just spend more time sitting on the couch consuming media.
One vote of massive respect is after Jack Dorsey was on the show and Joe's audience gave him hell for letting Jack get away with BS. Joe admitted that he didn't know enough about the topic.
So, Joe scheduled a do-over and had Tim Pool alongside, and Tim acted as the BS-detector. To Jack's credit, he and his lawyer showed up for the do-over (as opposed to just declining).
Will a MSM reporter admit they're in over their head? Not a chance. But there are different motivations. MSM reporters are after the ratings. If a screaming match unfolds, that's more important than anything else. I'd rather have the polite conversations that Joe Rogan leads. Get to know the guests, get to know how they think.
Joe is popular because he is essentially fearless. He brought Podcasting and the longform interview to the mainstream and is a modern day renaissance man. He has friends and acquaintances from many different worlds and social classes, from the humble to the avante-garde, and he treats them all equally with the respect they are due as human beings. He is responsible for the launching of countless podcasts, for the listening of billions of intelligent, and some not so intelligent but hilarious conversations, and force of nature in the change of global consciousness.
The podcast has changed a lot since it first started almost a decade ago. Podcasts were far from mainstream and the Fleshlight was one of the biggest sponsors. The things that didn't change were the long form conversations and insane number of hours poured into the show. Joe had a long time to build an audience and he put the hours in to get better (3000+ hours if I had to take a guess).
It also helps that he actually wants his guests to change his mind on subjects if they can rationally argue their position.
I like Joe Rogan for the very reason most here seem to criticize him - that he just has conversations with people without pushing an agenda. I learned so much about candidates this year just from listening to a few conversations. He doesn't try to 'gotcha', bring up something they did 5 years ago, etc. There are no shortage of people who do that, and to be honest, he probably wouldn't land the guests he does if he was one of them. In some ways, it feels like uneducated ol me(in the topics being discussed) just having a conversation with someone about something they are interested in.
I started watching his shows a few months ago. I like his long form format. It shows people who the media typically either worships or vilifies as normal, everyday people. His format allows me to ingest more information than the typical sound bite coupled with 5 minutes of predetermined punditry.
I watched an episode last night who was a conservative congressman. I disagreed with some of what he said but he presented his thoughts in a way that made the issues more complex than I had originally considered concerning foreign policy. Fox or NBC would simply take out a piece of what someone says and pundit it to death, omitting most of the nuance. In other words, the traditional media format steers the audience to an opinion while the long format allows a much broader consideration of a topic.
If I were to boil it down, his format allows viewers to consider much more of a topic than traditional news, which seems to try to force an opinion on you. It breaks down issues to the topic rather than the party position. (I lean D on some issues and R on others. I feel it's too simplistic to force my views into a single party's platform.
Anyway, it's something only new media can do today. I think Phil Donahue had a similar format way back when, but I was too young to be interested in it.
Because he does what he wants with his show. He doesn't have an agenda, doesn't depend on advertisers. He is free to talk about anything he wants. He has time. He is also very open to ideas and doesn't confront his guests.
I guess I contribute to his popularity since I've seen some of his interviews and subscribe to his YouTube channel. But the article seems to overanalyze it: for me, it's because he has a huge variety of guests, and some of them are pretty interesting. For instance, I really liked the Elon Musk and Andrew Yang interviews. The interviews are not particularly all softball questions nor especially combative. They're just _long_, and he's a passable interviewer, and so lots of good stuff comes up.
I haven't seen the majority of his stuff, so I wouldn't call myself a "fan".
I have never felt more like an out of touch middle-age white dude like I do just now....I know nothing about Joe Rogan. Of course I heard about the Musk interview...but I never knew the host was someone popular. I don't recognize his picture (I Googled him) from any movies or TV shows, and I have never heard him being discussed by any of my friends, relatives, or acquaintances.
He was on News Radio with Phil Hartman in the mid 90's and hosted fear factor. He's been around for some time now, definitely longer than most of his audience can recall.
Then it's hard to imagine why you think your age has anything to do with you not knowing who he is. He's been a public figure for more than two decades.
haha yeah he's pretty big, I first heard about him through his Jordan Peterson interviews, but he's pretty good. He's had sports nutritionists on both for and against keto etc, Alex Jones was hilarious and eye opening, so was Tom Delongue (the guy is nuts), James Damore, a number of comedians, Kevin Smith was great, and yeah he just lets them talk, you're free to form your own opinions, it's kinda refreshing and nice to fall asleep to when most youtube vids (even the talky ones) are shrinking to ~10 minutes.
No worries you are not alone, I presume he is mostly known in the US (Fear Factor, The Man Show, UFC - what are those? I didn't spend much time in front of TV in last 15 years, there was/is life to be lived).
Nobody expects for example americans to know some french or spanish comedians/hosts, and HN is predominantly american website.
He seems interesting but the lengths of podcasts mentioned in the article are showstoppers for me - I can't imagine dedicating 3-5 hours to this (and I can't properly listen to such conversation and do something else). That said, I got motivated to watch the Musk part, mainly for the Musk himself.
The article, albeit with its flaws, mentions interesting point - his popularity being the result of these uber-politically-correct days, where masculinity is often frowned upon, and white western guy should feel guilty for being who he is/was and keep apologizing (I am not western and not american so this is a foreign feeling to me, but I get where it comes from). Every action makes reaction, a nice example of this general principle.
I had heard about him a few times and I avoided listening to it for the same reason, the show lengths were a complete non-starter.
But I decided to give it a try and for the topics/guests that I found interesting the show lengths seem actually necessary to dive into the depth and breadth of topics that are covered.
I personally only listen to the episodes where I have an interest in the topics or the guests themselves i.e. the intellectuals, nutritionists, incredible athletes, and scientists.
In this way I use the podcast as more of a medium to experience the guests rather than listening for Rogan himself (although I do appreciate his generally progressive views and genuine intellectual curiosity).
Even if I tried I can't imagine devoting 3+ hours to a comedian or MMA fighter talking about whatever.
I think the author touches on this in the article, the audiences of the podcast are quite diverse and many are only interested in a subset of the content. The diversity and neutrality of Rogan allows it to act as a neutral medium to be exposed to an in-depth view of a variety of topics and people that you would not have the opportunity to experience otherwise.
I listen, his podcast is a great way to fill my commute. Here is what I think he does well:
-Give people room to "breathe" and get a sense for who a person is in every day life
-Expose a broader point of view/marketplace of ideas than the average media outlet
-seems to promote a general sense that everyone should strive for self improvement
-improve discourse for dissenting points of view
Here are some things that he doesn't do so well/don't like so much
-Can be one note(you need to do psychedelics/ayahuasca/intermittent fasting/twitter tribes)
-He touts that the long format is there to allow for nuance, but often there is not said nuance in the interview.
-Most times things wont be a deep dive.
I think that in terms of podcasting he has some of the most interesting guests to me, but I understand its not for everyone. I think Marc Maron is more of a traditional version of radio on demand format, and he has some good shows as well, but I find him more hit and miss. Sometimes Marc can be a bit exhausting to listen to when he is in an especially doom and gloom mood.
It seems like he is fast becoming a lightning rod for the far left, whom he is critical of.
I like Joe Rogan, and I think there's a handful of reasons why people love him so much:
1. He has strong principles. This is evident when you look at his involvement in the downfall of Carlos Mencia, despite being a relatively unknown comedian at the time.
2. The only filter is himself. He's not a part of a network, and thanks to you "fuck you money" he made from Fear Factor he doesn't need to answer to anybody. That allows him a level of independence to have who he wants on his show, and to talk about what he wants.
3. Passion. I do BJJ, and a lot of people have got into BJJ through Joe Rogan talking about it on JRE. It's funny how much of an impact he's had, considering there is very little footage of him actually sparring. For reference, he's got two black belts - one under Jean Jacques Machado in BJJ, and one under Eddie Bravo in his 10th Planet style of BJJ. Both instructors are as legit as they come, and they don't just hand out belts, so Rogan earned those belts. His passion for BJJ and MMA earned him his spot with the UFC, and a UFC post-Rogan will be a much-worse place.
4. He naturally leans to the centre. It's funny how some people on the left call him right-ring, and some on the right call him liberal, when I'd say he has individual views on multiple sides. He'll have a civil chat with Bernie Sanders on one episode, and will praise Trump for playing a good campaign against the Democrats on another. It's refreshing to see someone open his airtime to multiple different views, when even the likes of the BBC cannot represent both sides of a debate without extreme government bias.
5. He knows what he doesn't know, and he won't convince himself of something without fact. That attitude in a sea of people that push opinion as fact is refreshing.
Rogan is refreshingly centrist in a country that is alarmingly polarized.
The extremes of both sides seem to genuinely hate him.
I do wish he'd taken a tougher stance on Alex Jones though. I get that they're "real life friends" but the Sandy Hook stuff alone should have been enough to 86 his access to Rogan's audience.
Your last sentence kills it. Alex Jones is yet another voice. People who know he's crazy can be entertained by him. People who don't will listen anyway. He says interesting things. Frogs are gay.
The frogs are gay or whatever is fine. Calling people who had their children murdered liars is not. His audience hounded those parents for years. Really disgusting stuff. Friends or no friends you gotta shut that stuff down.
I'm overall a fan of what Rogan does but I think you picked a poor example for #1. He destroyed Mencia but every time the well-documented joke theft of Amy Schumer has been brought up, he has refused to directly call it out.
While it's definitely something I wish he was harsher on, I remember him addressing it a few times and raising some good points and contrasts between the two - purely paraphrasing and probably not fully accurate:
* Rogan felt that he shouldn't be "the comedy police", and that his level of fame would make calling anyone out much more difficult. I remember him saying that one of the stolen bits was from Dave Chappelle, and that if Dave wasn't going to call her out for it, he doesn't feel he should.
* While it's hard to dispute that jokes were stolen, most of what she had stole had been from sketch comedy, which happens fairly frequently.
* Additionally, on many of her shows she's had a team of writers, so accusing Schumer of stealing jokes isn't factually accurate when it could've been a writer that stole from CollegeHumor or Dave Chappelle.
* In stances where one-liners were lifted, Rogan echoed the points of Marc Maron, who said that one-liners are largely fair-game, because no routine hangs off of a solid one-liner.
IMO, there are some weak arguments, and some that I agree with - and that's pretty much everything I like about JRE.
Joe Rogan is a great interviewer; he doesn't have an agenda, he doesn’t interrupt, allows their guests to speak their mind, asks interesting questions, doesn't steer the conversation. He's a pretty open minded guy and simply enjoys talking to people.
I listen to Joe Rogan not because of Joe Rogan but because of what his guests have to say without feeling pressured.
Wow, that article was insufferable at times. For example:
> If we all have fatal flaws, this is Joe’s: his insistence on seeing value in people even when he shouldn’t, even when they’ve forfeited any right to it... He just won’t write people off, and then he compounds the sin by throwing them a lifeline at the moment when they least deserve it.
I've argued against alt right nutjobs, and have mixed feelings about the very last part, but it's insane to act like seeing value in people who've made mistakes is a "sin". The idea that people have forfeited all value as humans is disgusting to some of us, and part of the reason for Rogan's popularity. It's a little vacation from all the righteous indignation of late.
Joe Rogan is so popular because he let's other people be themselves. Live and let live. He doesn't try to enforce an opinion upon others. He sits back, enjoys himself and explores the depths of his guest by asking interesting and critical questions without giving much judgement.
People love watching the Joe Rogan Experience because they know that they will get to see the true self of the guest on the podcast.
In one moment Joe might say something which makes the audience think that he agrees with his guest's opinion, and in the very next sentence he might throw in something which might challenge the same thing they just said before. He's good at giving people a safe place to just talk freely and that is what people love.
He's done no harm to anyone, he's not using his platform to spread left/right wing views. He has guests from all corners of life and just let's them talk about their lives, experiences and views.
Somehow this comment says something about why JR is popular, and I think what JR is doing a good job that adds value, so you can guess what I think of the comment.
You probably think the comment sucks because it’s inconvenient that your popular host doesn’t curate his guests well or have strong debate skills to stop the most egregious shit from being said on his show because at the end of the day he’s still muscle headed Joe Rogan.
People are fawning over him because he doesn’t interject... but he doesn’t interject because he can’t formulate convincing and moral arguments on the fly.
So yet another article that tries to paint a picture of a person and his audience with:
1) No data on who the audience is, demographics, their beliefs, etc. (Outside of looking at a podcast download chart rankings.)
2) Not actually talking to the subject
3) Using anecdotes about friends as representative of the audience
I try to not hate on the MSM and all that jazz, as I have friends that work in the business and know how hard the job is, but articles like this that fail at basic journalistic principles under the guise of "editorializing" just makes people continue to lose faith in the medium.
This reads like a pretty long, above average blog post from a political / cultural commentator.
It's clear that the author really likes Rogan but finds it politically unacceptable to do so.
Joe is a solid interviewer because he's all about letting the interviee speak -- this can also be a flaw if you get the "wrong" guest, but on net Joe chooses a wide and at least interesting array of people to interview.
Discounting the comedy and MMA episodes (which albeit, there are a lot of) Joe has one of the most diverse sets of guests of any podcasts I listen to and doesn't try to dominate or editorialize too much (cough Kara Swisher -- who I love, but definitely can overpower her interviee on occasion)
If Joe Rogan wasn't accessible to the "dumb" people, we wouldn't see the level of consciousness rising on the low end in the general level of consciousness in humanity. But we are seeing that, it's just misguided so it ends up with flat earth anti-vaxx in it's adolescent stage, but this isn't to be feared or hated, but embraced as part of the psycho-spiritual development of those that lag behind. We're getting smarter as a collective organism, humanity, and this is part of the necessary growing pain. Joe Rogan was designed by God to be perfectly exactly what he is at this very moment. And by God, I mean a post-religious, post-rational, post-atheism definition of God. Richer than the definitions that have existed before the post-post-post modern age. (before the age of fake-news, fake-reality, etc.)
Hopefully that can land for some, it's a mindfuck.
While I don’t agree with all of his ideas, Joe Rogan himself doesn’t either. He’s changed his mind openly on many topics. I admire that. He’ll invite a guest he knows he’ll disagree with (e.g. Andrew Yang on Basic Income) and genuinely try to understand how they got there, without hammering on his own convictions. After three hours he walks away with a more nuanced take on the topic, and will openly admit to that. Where else do you see this these days.
Again, I don’t like all of his opinions, but from his podcast I also learn that I don’t have to, and actually, that that’s the way forward. People being able to talk to eachother even if there are profound disagreements.
He’s also not afraid to ask “stupid questions”, so that all questions get asked. Which is great because presumably not all listeners are expert in all things, either, and hearing it from a-z makes all the podcasts accessible.
This is fair, to be honest, and not really an insult imo. I've started listening to more of his backlog and a lot of it is just "the guys" having a good time. Listening to him and his pals argue about what they're doing for Sober October this year was hilarious. The MMA podcasts are also fun in the same way.
It seems to me that if Rogan hadn’t ever had Alex Jones on then the author would be a genuine fan. But because he has had Jones on more than once, that undoes any redeemable qualities he might see in Rogan. Which is kind-of ironic because that single-minded, “if you don’t believe exactly as I do about everything then you’re evil” world view is a major thing Rogan rails against.
I think he's a bit like Howard Stern in that his interview style tends to disarm guests. I think there's also something to be said about the long form interview where guests can fully discuss a topic without needing to dilute responses into sound bites.
I enjoy Joe Rogan from time to time and started watching after the episode of Elon Musk. Alex Jones moved his jaw in a very strange manner while talking and had to go to the bathroom 2 times during the show.
Because he asks great questions and gets out of the interviewee's way. And he gets amazing guests like Michael Pollan, Dennis McKenna, etc. I like Joe Rogan a lot and I think he deserves his success.
Joe Rogan is so popular because journalism is in major crisis. Joe is simply providing what Journalism is no longer doing.
Check it out; go on youtube search "Bernie Sanders" and filter for videos longer than 20 minutes.
You will get Joe Rogan first with 10 million views. Then a bunch of campaign videos which aren't an interview; it's Bernie preaching to the choir.
How about the debates? Well you can just watch the Joe Rogan video about what's wrong with that.
The root cause of the journalism crisis is that journalists are breaking the journalism rules. Journalists should only push accurate truth, should not be pushing any ideology, should be extremely fair and impartial. That's what virtually all of the journalists aren't doing anymore. Not even close.
It's all about the long form interviews. Each week, he puts out several of these long conversations with a very diverse set of subjects. Without being a centrist, his politics are pretty close to the middle, and he interviews folks across the spectrum.
The conversations are very natural. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but his common-sense approach has a way of keeping things interesting and often unexpected. One time he interviewed James Hetfield, the lead singer of heavy metal band Metallica, and they spent 20 minutes talking about beekeeping. It's okay, it was fun, and it's the kind of thing you can get away with in a three hour interview.
As someone who doesn't like Joe Rogan's content, but has listened to a fair amount of it, I think this comparison is unfair. Rogan might be a little myopic, and perhaps a little credulous, especially when it comes to drugs, but he's far more rational than Jones.
How is he even comparable to Alex Jones? Have you ever watched a full, normal episode or are you just watching clips taken out of context with a clickbait title on youtube?
I think it's because he welcomes everyone on the show, and just lets them talk. He's pro-gun but had a former Marine and cop explaining why guns are terrible, for example. He's also had Bernie Sanders on, and reaction to the video has been very good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng . Dr Cornell West is one of his personal heroes, had him on the show recently too.
At the end of the day, I suspect most of his audience is US-libertarian, right-wing though.
But seriously, repeating a 3 letter tag line to fit in is not "comedy".
I also don't think Joe is very funny, though a lot of his guests/friend circle is (Tom Segura, Christina P, Ari S etc). His strength is in free flowing conversational interviewing, hence why his podcast is leagues more popular than his stand up (relative to the pack).
Not OP, but I don't consider Rogan's advocacy of DMT to be a "meme". As someone who has experienced the benefits that psychedelics can bring to your life if you take proper care, I think anything that destigmatizes them is a good thing.
You need to take waaaaaaay less drugs. Or - considering that this is Hacker News and that raises the possibility you might not be on anything at all - you need to try some drugs.
Pushing right? In what regard?
I recently started listening to his stuff, around ep 1100 up to current stuff (skipping mostly over episodes centered around MMA, comedian, hunting guests).
From that he had few small rants about ppl calling him "right", which he seems to have quite strong feelings.
He openly supports Dem candidates, he is pro drugs, he is pro equality, he drives tesla and loves nature.
He seriously entertains idea of UBI (multiple episodes).
He gets called "right" wing because he talks to people of all spectrum and/or goes after ultra-left, ultra-right ideas.
I find it extremely interesting that UBI is considered a left policy. It's actually more right-leaning/libertarian IMO.
Firstly, a $1,000/mo UBI is essentially free if you roll the various other welfare into it (excluding food). Housing, part of disability and social security, medicare, medicaid, student loans, etc all go away. This would also greatly simplify the bureaucracy and reduce overhead for the programs leaving more people to do jobs actually productive to society.
The central theme of UBI is individual economic freedom. The general idea is that the government is going to be involved helping others regardless. Instead of shoving everyone into the same box, let people choose. No being stuck in government housing. Let the markets play that out. With guaranteed income, getting a housing loan should be much easier.
The US government already pays out on average $550 per month per person via healthcare alone. UBI goes a long way toward subsidizing health insurance and it could be garnished if "free" healthcare services like ER are used.
It's a moral call, but I don't believe we should spend millions to keep a person alive (and miserable) for another year or two when that money could help hundreds or thousands of other people. If a person can afford millions to keep theirself alive and miserable, go for it, but don't expect everyone else in the country to pay for it. This handles a lot of medicare and medicaid issues and would probably save money overall. With the boomer generation getting close to tapping out the system for those last couple years of life, the savings could be enormous.
Food subsidies remain separate simply because some people will always make foolish decisions. Foolish decisions with medical costs can be garnished, but food is a more immediate need. Separate food-only subsidies would be necessary to ensure against these decisions.
Another great outcome is children. Rather than giving the total sum over to the parents, a portion could be set aside for healthcare ensuring every child has healthcare no matter the circumstances. Another portion could be used to subsidize K-12 education which would undoubtedly result in improved resources in under-privileged districts.
Another portion would be set aside in savings to be paid out upon turning 18 or graduating. $300 per month for 18 years would give $64,800 in principle alone. No more student loans would be necessary. Student loans are perverse incentives that encourage colleges and universities to inflate bureaucracy and price (at a rate hundreds of times faster than cost of living and inflation combined). Moreover, colleges would have to justify why a potential student should spend their savings in school rather than getting a head start in life or opening a business.
Finally, a little money would be sent directly to parents to help raise children. This would not only help struggling families, but would help solve foster-care costs and give foster kids a huge leg up when they finally leave the system where savings and UBI would give at least some kind of support.
As you can see, UBI offers right-wing's push for more economic freedom, less bureaucracy, eliminating student loans, reducing government involvement in healthcare choices, eliminating government housing, etc.
If there were ever a right-wing proposal for social welfare, I imagine UBI is exactly what it would look like.
Dems != left. Dems can be centre right. Driving a Tesla makes you left wing? Pro drugs people can be Pro drugs on the right. He doesn't like antifa, which if you look at it antifa is disregarding or opposite of fascism. If you're not anti-fascist you are sitting on the fence and are silent, so are siding with the fascists.
> If you're not anti-fascist you are sitting on the fence and are silent, so are siding with the fascists.
Saying "if you don't support antifa you're a fascist" is like saying if you want to "make America great" you should vote for Trump or that patriots should support the patriot act.
Isn't what you saying, that given opinions of given person are not good enough qualifiers to describe if someone have left/right leanings?
If it is qhat you are saying then, what gives you right to say he is/is not right/left?
And how do you determine what does qualify to categorize someone as left/right?
Honest question. What in your opinion make Joe Rogan rightwing? Is it his stance on antifa?
Why do you even spend energy on categorizing Rogan’s politics? It doesn’t matter. This whole need of putting people into a category is ruining public discourse.
It’s easier to entirely dismiss anything someone says when you label them as something that you don’t identify with. It’s the lazy way out. For those interested, here he is talking about some of his positions. Make of it what you want.
He's an advocate of universal healthcare, and universal basic income. I'd say that's left-wing.
He hosts many people on the political right, and his interview style is generally sympathetic and non-adversarial, so it would be easy to mistake him for right-wing, in a world where conventionally people do not entertain political ideas other than their own.
Can't say I know the guy so well but the impression I've gotten is that he:
a) has a disproportionate number of right leaning types one who...
b) tend to be more likely to make absolute statements which he tends to let pass by without much argument
Now (b) is pretty subjective on my end so it's not worth discussing, but I wonder if there's been any kind of attempt to cover what way his guests tend to skew? Does it lean right because more left leaning types are unwilling to go on (out of a perception that he's right leaning) or does Joe/whoever picks the guests unintentionally skew the show by the kind of guests they find most appealing to talk to (not necessarily agree with).
That was my impression too. Just looking through recent interviewees (https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/list-of-people-interview...), I'm not sure that it's a valid one. Most of the interviews seem non-political, with comedians seeming to feature most commonly.
Maybe the sense of bias is driven more by what Youtube prefers to promote, or that right-wing interviewees generate more controversy and interest. In turn, that may incentivise right-wing characters to feature on the show or associate with Joe Rogen.
Ok I'm back. I'm European so probability is I see political spectrum slightly different to US sees it. In most interviews I have watched he's very down to earth in not supporting any left wing policies. He hates antifa which for me means you are silent when fascism comes crawling. I would categorise him as center. Don't call me right wing, well don't allow them to spread shit on your show and argue against it.
Antifa's methodology is to use direct action, including violence and harassment. The idea that one should attempt to silence or bully people who disagree with them is fundamentally illiberal.
To say that one cannot be left-wing without supporting political violence is authoritarian ideology not espoused by all leftists.
>He hates antifa which for me means you are silent when fascism comes crawling.
This is your misguided statement. Not only is it logically flawed, it's the, "if you aren't for us, you're against us" reasoning. Maybe you should research antifa a little more before you get in bed with them ideologically. I see a bunch of goons in masks punching people.
- Open to nearly any idea.
- (almost) Never talks down to the audience or his guest. Although the motivations are almost certainly different, this is a bit reminiscent of David Letterman always playing a bit of a fool. It's generally endearing to most people.
- Generally friendly and congenial.
In a world full of Joe Rogans, you wouldn't have very many good interviews. He's not adversarial, he's often not prone to, nor equipped to meaningfully disagree with a guest, and he's open to multiple, mutually contradictory opinions. But, the adversarial interview has gained in popularity for so long that it's become the norm. In this environment, he's a breath of fresh air. There really is a place for hearing someone lay out their views in a long, methodical way without being badgered every few minutes by an interviewer looking for a sound bite.