All of us are right and wrong to varying degrees. I don't think Joe Rogan cares much for people that stop listening because he doesn't reinforce their politics. He never has.
He's also spoken about the whole point of him having FU money is that he is able to say whatever he wants and not care about the blowback.
I'm not anti-vax, but ultimately, my body, my choice. People who are risk averse are free to self-quarantine for any duration they please. Us, the unvaccinated, are happy to live freely and face any associated risks - just like people who decide to ride motorcycles, play combat sports, or eat homegrown food.
How do you come to that conclusion? Specifically your conflusion that Joe Rogan is "anti-vax" from your sample of him replying "I'll go no". If that's all it takes for you to label someone, is someone saying "I'll go no" to a homosexual encounter also anti-gay? Is someone who doesn't agree with their governments policy anti-government? Might want to relax a bit...I hear opinions are like certain body parts. We've all got them, including Joe Rogan, and getting up in arms about it doesn't help you or anyone else.
I certainly don't listen his program on a regular basis. But it's ironic that you're calling me out as unsourced; because the most important instance of a harmful anti-vax stance on his program comes not from his "domain experts" but from Rogan himself (as I verified before diving into this thread).
BTW, I just need to repeat that most curious phrase you used that phrase, presumably in reference to Rogan's guests: "domain experts".
> I'm comfortable enough with my intellect that I can listen to these (or not) without having my brain turned to mush
It's an interesting turn of phrase, because there's a very real pipeline in which people with less-trained critical thinking skills listen to Rogan -> cannot distinguish openness from endorsement -> believe Rogan is endorsing anti-vaxx voices -> contribute to an aggregate increase in community transmissibility of communicable diseases with proven neurological impacts -> said diseases turn immunocompromised people's neurons to "mush" at an increased rate, through no fault or Rogan-listening of the victims' own.
Rogan has consistently made a decision to prioritize the "vibe" of his podcast over pushing his interview subjects in a way that would make it clear that his provision of a platform is not endorsement. Sure, he challenges things as you have mentioned, but when he challenges anti-vaxx voices no more or no less than he would a guest who, say, had an opinion about hunting he didn't like, that creates a responsibility that I think does scale with audience size.
From the article:
>>> Joe Rogan seems like an affable guy. He reminds me of many men I have met in the gym: cheerful bros who are open-minded to an alarming degree, meaning to the point where no idea is so insane that one can be sure they won’t find it persuasive. They could vote for Bernie, they could go Nazi, they could start believing in alien abductions or QAnon or chemtrails. They are not deep thinkers, so they can be excessively impressed by the fact “a study found” something, or “a doctor says” it. They are sincere in wanting to know the truth, they are not outright malicious, they change their minds (sometimes daily), but they are not trained in the research and critical thinking skills that are vital in sorting science from pseudoscience (or the loopy conspiracies from the true ones). >>>
Admission, I've listened to Rogan here and there for a few years, rarely getting to the end of a podcast. I happened to pick one randomly last month, after not listening to any for awhile, and it was the one with the doctor who claims to have invented mRNA vaccines.
I listened with an open mind, but my alarms went off as the guy started injecting more and more hyperbole and FUD into the conversation. There were a lot of things he said that made me go, "well, what about this?" E.g. my gf and my ex both missed their periods the month after the vax. But they came back, and there hasn't been some mass sterilization event that we'd surely be aware of if, as this guy claimed, the vaccine produced spike proteins in sufficient quantities and that those were attracted to and decimating womens' eggs and ovaries. What I heard was a guy trying to use his science degrees and a vague history in immunology to push a long-running antivax fearmongering tactic about women being sterilized, which as a conspiracy theory goes back to the old "great replacement" and antisemitic theory. And I was kinda angry listening to it, because my question to him would be, if it sterilizes people then how come Israel gave it to everyone? I'm pretty sure that Israel is in the business of keeping Jews alive and having (us) reproduce, and avoiding another genocide.
But Rogan didn't ask anything, and I had to turn it off after about an hour and a half, because Rogan kept just saying "oh, wow." and "oh, no really?" Like... give the guy room to talk, sure, but the whole incredulous act and like, really, doctor, you don't say thing... it just struck me as BS. As insincere.
And that episode I randomly listened to turned out to be the one that Neil Young went nuts about, and all that. So I listened to Rogan's apology and thought I'd try one more time tonight; and his newest is with a climate scientist from BP who talks like my dentist and is about as convincing, while Joe keeps going "oh no, really? And they're suppressing you? Omigod!"
At some point you have to just accept that he isn't the openminded bro with no agenda that you want him to be, and he's actually just trolling and platforming trolls. OTOH maybe this is the point where a lot of gullible people kind of realize that (myself included).
Lol, at the people downvoting you. No retort even.
Joe Rogan talks about the largest range of controversial topics I've ever seen. He's willing to entertain ufo's, dmt, early hominid history, jfk assasination conspiracies, how plastics affect hormones, moon landing conspiracies, sasquatch, mermaids, the list goes on and on, the crazier the better. If people want to listen to him let them. If they want to say he's full of shit let them. But why are they so enraged if that's just who he is.
He talks about the weirdest things out there because its interesting, why even bother taking such an offensive stance against someone that talks about these things, it brings a world of possibilities? Like you're offended that a man who talks about sasquatch as if it could be real asserts the possibility, not as a matter of fact but just the possibility, that the state mandated policies towards the pandemic might not be the best policy? Again a man who says, you know what, ufo's might be real, sasquatch could be real dude. I mean the bar is low, real low, but yet they're offended?
There is actually a whole subreddit dedicated to laughing at the mindless pro-state zealotry of those who blindly follow the state's guidelines due to fears instilled from the pandemic. I forget who said it but anti-antivaxxer affiliation (can't say pro-vaccine, because there are many rational people who are pro-vaccine but anti-mandate and not anti-antivax) if you look at the conditions that cause history to repeat itself, its actually a rebirth of religions of the past.
So while you say religious heretics, there is a lot of truth to it. Since we live in an age of science, however, religious arguments will not suffice. Instead the zealotry follows the pope of this religion, an authority figure who instead of representing god, represents science (in fact the pope's own words unadulterated), a science which he has full authority over both in its dissemination and interpretation to his congregation.
If you're curious why people are so irrational about this, look no further than other examples religious zealotry, and realize its a very real phenomenon that repeats itself over and over throughout history because of the psychological traits of a certain, I would say pretty large, subset of people who have not learned to suppress very natural human cognitive biases.
The trouble with Joe Rogan is that he tends to invite people on who agree with his existing worldview (in this case, vaccine skepticism), and he tends not to challenge them whatsoever, so they are allowed to spout whatever nonsense with zero pushback. I don’t think this is out of malice by the way, I think he just doesn’t realise they’re spreading misinformation.
> I completely disagree with his stance on vaccinations but I also disagree that he's some sort of major source of disinformation.
Just to play with this a bit. Joe Rogan is unvaccinated himself, and he at least has recommended young people not to get vaccinated.
In the meantime ICU beds are/have been occupied by overwhelmingly unvaccinated people (proportionally) pushing out other urgent medical care, all over the world.
I agree that we can't blame everything on something/someone specific, but JRE is the biggest podcast on the planet, so I think it's fair to say he's probably one major source (among others).
It's funny. There where 101 articles when he had "anti-vax" people on. 0 articles when he had "pro-vax" people on. He can make 15 three hour episodes that none gives a fuck about, but then 1 episode that everybody loses their shit! :D
It seems that there is some kind of disparity between how Joe Rogan is being portrayed.
He had Sanjay Gupta on just a couple of months ago.
Joe Rogan isn’t anti-vaccine. His stance on the Covid-19 vaccine is if you’re older, fat, or with an existing comorbidity you should go get vaccinated. For everyone else it isn’t strictly necessary and shouldn’t be a requirement.
It basically comes down to individualist versus collectivist. If you’re a collectivist you think JRE is spreading misinformation.
I had to argue with my brother about Joe Rogan for about a year until he got vaccinated (before the pandemic it was arguing with him about not sending randos on the internet money for perpetual motion devices), so I'm used to it. A big part of spreading disinfo is badgering people until they give up, so I've already resigned myself to doing this forever.
Joe Rogan isn't as fair and balanced with his guests as you're giving him credit for. He doesn't equally listen to "everyone" or have "everyone" on his show. When was the last time Joe had a pro-vaccine expert on his show to ask them about the real science of vaccines? It doesn't happen.
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