Glenn Greenwald comments on Joe Rogan controversy | Hacker News Reader

Glenn Greenwald comments on Joe Rogan controversy

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19 pointssva_31 comments

Greenwald's quote of Orwell in this thread, about press censorship by the compliant British media, is definitely worth reading.

The specific tweet is: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1490061112330575872

The quote comes from Orwell's proposed preface to Animal Farm, entitled The Freedom of the Press, which can be found here in its entirety:

https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go

(Greenwald quotes the two paragraphs beginning with "Any fairminded person".)

Except that Rogan's program isn't about "unpopular ideas" or "inconvenient facts". Let alone "challenging prevailing orthodoxy". If you seriously think Rogan's content falls in that category - then you'd probably say the same for the kind of pronouncements made by the Flat Earth Society as well.

In what sense is disputing vaccines not challenging prevailing orthodoxy? I think most people who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy will probably be wrong. But, it seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected.

Because there's no substance to these "challenges".

It's just about pushing buttons and creating the appearance of controversy - nothing more.

It seems like only people who correctly challenge it get respected.

It's not about that. There's "wrong", and "not even wrong".

Rogan's pronouncements fall squarely in the latter category. In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others.

So anything challenging orthodoxy needs to be substantive to be tolerated as free speech? Who decides what is substantive? Even shit clickbait-y speech deserves tolerance just like "substantive" speech, whatever that means.

I really don't like Joe Rogan and his brand of wishy-washy pseudointellectualism, but based on the sheer variety of people he's had on over the years, dismissing all of his content as clickbait and contrarian for controversy's sake is a mischaracterization. Who else has interviewed both Bernie Sanders and Alex Jones? Even if you don't like him I think he at the very least deserves respect for having such a wide range of guest on his show, and it's disingenuous to dismiss him entirely as unsubstantive.

"In addition to inducing people to harm themselves and others". Again, who decides what is harmful?

Again, who decides what is harmful?

Anyone with a 9th grade education or so.

Which is sufficient to discern that his advice to 21-year olds as to whether they should get vaccinated is patently unsubstantiated -- and likely to cause harm.

Great, I have a 9th grade education and decide it's not harmful.

If a comedian/UFC commentator is communicating more effectively than the CDC, my first thought isn't cancel the comedian.

What is the end-game here? There is amount of "canceling" that suddenly leads people to be more rational and critically thinking.

First, you seem to be shifting the goalposts a bit. We've gone from "Rogan isn't challenging orthodoxy" to "Rogan's challenges to orthodoxy aren't substantive in my view".

Second, perhaps I'm just not understanding you, but your comment doesn't read to me as coming from someone who has listened to Rogan's podcast. Rogan doesn't monologue about his views on the vaccine. He has on domain experts with controversial opinions and has a conversation with them.

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".

And just let it... sit there.

The recent vaccine-focused episodes, to my knowledge, feature the guests Robert Malone and Pierre Kory. Both are medical doctors with a history of academic papers on vaccines and critical care. Malone has also been involved in vaccine safety trials and with pioneering research in mRNA vaccines. I think you need to do a bit more than let the phrase "Domain experts" "sit there" if you hope to be persuasive.

Both are certifiable cranks. No matter what they published in the past.

It seems an awful lot like you're just declaring, without evidence, people who disagree with you as cranks. You think your view should be obvious, but you also aren't able to articulate it very well, or at all - beyond asserting your point and that those who disagree with you are non-substantive cranks.

Nothing to do with disagreement. It's pretty obvious from what the two of them have been saying on the public record.

Sorry to be blunt - if you take these guys seriously (let alone as "domain experts"), you're terribly naive. You're being played, and played very hard.

In the spirit of being blunt medical doctors specializing in vaccines and critical care are, by definition, domain experts in the domains of vaccination and critical care.

What Rogan said is not the important thing here (I don't even know what he said, because I've never listened to any of his content). What's important, as Greenwald said, is that the White House Press Secretary asked Spotify to "do more" to silence people like Rogan. That disregard by the government of basic press freedom is troubling. It could be Rogan today, but someone you care about tomorrow.

I see what you're driving at -- but on balance I just don't see a slippery slope here.

Whether the executive branch is technically entitled to make such pronouncements or not -- or whether they "should" -- their rationale is that this isn't so much a basic press freedom issue, as a shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater issue.

I can see some pushback on that stance -- but not all that much. And at the end of the day - it's not like their pronouncements have any coercive weight. It's just an instance of them using their office as a bully pulpit (which every presidential office has, to one degree or another).

That is to say: an exercise of their own freedom of speech.

And I definite get GG's point also -- that the government's "stance" doesn't need to be coercive for it to be effective.

But he's missing the boat, nonetheless. He's making Rogan out to be the likes of Galileo or Andrei Sakharov. Or a real-life Winston Smith. I don't where Greenwald thinks he's going with that -- but that's where (to my ears) his language becomes manipulative and intellectually dishonest.

So everyone is just ignoring this? https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/feb/05/joe-rogan-ap...

And this https://streamable.com/tzczna

Not sure what you mean but it's being reported on everywhere?

Either way Joe Rogan says some incredibly dumb, ill thought out things, but it's clear the MSM are out to get him now. Mob rule has now taken control.

It's worth pointing out that "cancelling" Rogan (getting him kicked off Spotify) would increase his audience back to what it was[1].

I don't know how you can call it censorship when his audience would become larger if he goes back to independent self-publishing.

1. https://www.theverge.com/22632213/joe-rogan-experience-spoti...

I guess twitter is useless without a login these days.

I can read it OK, without a Twitter account, using Firefox with the uBlock Origin addon.

You can block the login prompt with a ublock filter, if you happen to use that extension:

  twitter.com##[id^="layers"] > [class^="css-"]:has([dir^="auto"]):not(:has([aria-expanded])):has(a[href^="/"]):has-text(/Log in|Sign Up/)

  twitter.com##html[dir]:style(overflow: auto !important;)

Whatever set of standard filters I've configured with uBlock Origin already seems to do that. I've never had to add a special filter to block Twitter's logon (and I've never had a Twitter account).

I just did a forced update of my uBlock filter lists and it seems to block the login nag by itself now. Weird, since it should have updated itself automatically.

Thanks, I'd rather just skip than put in any effort whatsoever. Twitter doesn't have much to offer me.

I read it in a a private tab in Firefox on Android, works a treat, no need for extraordinary measures.

Check an extension called Nitter Redirect.

There's way too much geographic concentration of power in tech and government. The efficiencies don't seem to be worth it.

Why is this flagged?

Dark PR firm doing its job.

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