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Comment by NickBusey | Hacker News Reader

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I find it interesting that the radical left seeks to silence rather than find a competitor. Ideas are just as marketable as products.

I've listened to Joe Rogan for years and have found it educational and entertaining. It's fairly easy to listen while not agreeing to everything with his guests' viewpoints. I believe the content is high-quality, researched, and thoroughly unique. If you do not like the content, you don't need to listen to it.

When everything is "hate speech", nothing is hate speech. We often forget our own freedoms, especially the freedom of choice.

It's a lucrative business to be an entertainer masquerading as someone who is educated about 1000s different topics to his fans.

He speaks whatever his fans want to hear so that their beliefs will be reinforced and will continue watching.

Nothing more...nothing less.

I highly doubt many are convinced he's educated in any way about his topics lol. Some interviews are just entertaining.

Joe's whole bit as an interviewer is the curious kid asking dumb questions and getting interesting answers because he manages to get the people talking about what they are interested in.

Joe gets teased by a ton of people for his dumb questions or how he goes off-topics, including for his Alpha Brain pseudoscience pill. But it's not a big deal to the fans.

I really dislike this idea that humans are all dumb and take all information at face value. Like little propoganda machines. Everyone in the west is trained since childhood to look through marketing, sales people, politicians, etc for the real message and not believe anything you hear. This is no different.

I don't think I can agree with that, and would maybe even go a step further and suggest that what keeps the various pillars of North American society functioning, is a passive damper on asking 'why', if not an active one. I wouldn't say that we're dumb or that all information is taken at face value, but my impression is that a lot of people don't think very much about any given topic. The numbers aren't really run that often, or only by a minority. Why do I need a house, why do I need a car, why is/isn't my local government doing anything and how can I verify that? Especially when you're younger—for parental or institutional efficiency—people are often told 'don't ask why, just do it'. I definitely also dislike the idea, but I don't think I'd give people quite as much credit, and I'd like to.

> Everyone in the west is trained since childhood to look through marketing, sales people, politicians

Not really. Very few are "trained" to look beyond, most people take everything at face value. Once they feel somewhat "betrayed", they go to the opposite end and start rejecting everything they hear, indiscriminately, unless it agrees with some of their core beliefs.

Not to mention that's the entire point of the podcast. Having people on to explain topics he knows nothing about. There's even a meme about how regardless of the topic, Rogans only input is "but have you tried DMT?" or something about chimps =P

Elk, Kettlebells, DMT.

I’m having a hard time making sense of this. He certainly isn’t without bias (no one is), but he has brought a wide variety of people on the show (Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Ben Shapiro). I don’t follow him heavily, but from the interviews I’ve seen, he just seems to try to get the guest to talk.

Yeah, I think Joe would be the first to say (and I believe he has said exactly this many times) "I'm a dumbass comedian, don't listen to me as an authority for any changes you make to your life, I'm stupid and this is just entertainment." I personally like how not only does he say stupid shit, but then the next day he says the opposite and talks about how he learned something new, they never speculate when they can just look something up on Google, etc. I think it has a lot of live integrity and fact-checking. Yes, sometimes they have figures on which are complete assholes. But they also have fringe people who are very smart who you would never hear from otherwise who have offered a huge range of insightful new theories. You don't listen to JRE to get "news", you listen to stimulate your mind in different directions, and get motivated to do something yourself. I don't want to be like Joe at all, but there is something motivating about how unapologetic he is about basically just being a dumbass comedian with a big platform and he's literally not doing anything of real value with it. It's art. I think it's one of the best things in media today.

> he has brought a wide variety of people on the show

That is exactly the problem. You can't be "fair" and balance out Neil deGrasse Tyson by giving equal time to a flat earther.

I have no issue with Alex Jones being given a platform in a forum such as the Howard Stern show, which is intentionally not taken seriously. But Joe Rogan has stepped away from his comedy roots and is talking authoritatively about health, physical fitness, wellness, etc. and in the same breath peddling supplements from Onnit without disclosing he has a financial interest in the company.

I would say it’s up to the viewer to decide what to take seriously. I wouldn’t listen to the flat earther for geographic information, but to better understand why they think that way. By better understanding their thought process, you have a better chance of explaining to them the holes in their theories. I personally don’t know why someone would be a flat earther, and am curious to know why.

You could look at it another way. A flat earther might watch his buddies episode, enjoy the Joe Rogan format, then watch the recommended Neil deGrasse Tyson episode. This would expose them to concepts that can help them see the error of their way.

I think it boils down to people thinking for themselves and deciding which episodes are for pondering vs which are for entertainment. Plus, who gets to decide what’s too “out there” for the show. A lot of the information dropped by Snowden was considered tin foil hat before the leak.

> at every opportunity

This is some The Onion level shit

Just asking for some (not totally out of context) quotes would mean you are just as worse as him obviously. In reality his "attacked transgender people" probably only refers to his opposition to trans-women competing as women in MMA, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have and is certainly not "attacking transgender people", thats idiotic.

His position on transgender athletes is one thing... his referring to Fallon Fox as a man, saying "that's a fucking man" is disrespectful at the very least... I'd label that transphobic. People seem to forget that he said that.

Yeah because reasonable people draw the line at women getting beaten up.

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