Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 185 posts

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#41

Post by Scalestein »

Barrin92 wrote: post #6

My problem with Rogan isn't political in nature but with his uncritical attitude towards his guests, and his mixture of inviting respectable scientists (say, Roger Penrose, Robert Sapolsky) and then two episodes later inviting someone like Alex Jones, some complete quack or conspiracy theorists. Together with his lack of keeping the guests straight it creates a pretty toxic sludge that makes it impossible for casual…

I don't really get the 'truth from the garage' vibe from Rogan's podcast. To me the space he creates by not strongly challenging his guests and by keeping the guests list so varied is that of a sort of neutral ground that people can sample other viewpoints from. Almost all other podcasts are easily filtered into the left/right buckets, end up with their respective entrenched audience and help build that audiences bubble. If someone listens to Rogan's podcast they might hear some quackery along the way but they certainly won't end up in a bubble. I prefer sifting through the sludge to find what resonates with me rather than having hosts do it for me.

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#43

Post by manigandham »

freshhawk wrote: post #35
dilyevsky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ymmv but for myself I prefer not to have my hand held entire life and explained “the one true way” I’m supposed to think. There’s a ton of programming out there that already does this (for your personal definition of “the one true way”)

Me too, that's why when someone tries to feed me bullshit, like Joe Rogan has many times, I decide to ignore them, because they are untrustworthy and misinforming me. And I happily share that information with others, because that's the nice thing to do. That's what people who don't need their hand held do. And if you didn't write Joe Rogan off a long time ago then, I hate to tell you, you do still need some hand hold…

People watch for the guests, not just Rogan.

Your morally superior attitude of telling others what's correct is exactly what people dislike about other shows. People who "don't need their hand held" can separate the information from the host and think for themselves.

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#44

Post by dilyevsky »

freshhawk wrote: post #35
dilyevsky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ymmv but for myself I prefer not to have my hand held entire life and explained “the one true way” I’m supposed to think. There’s a ton of programming out there that already does this (for your personal definition of “the one true way”)

Me too, that's why when someone tries to feed me bullshit, like Joe Rogan has many times, I decide to ignore them, because they are untrustworthy and misinforming me. And I happily share that information with others, because that's the nice thing to do. That's what people who don't need their hand held do. And if you didn't write Joe Rogan off a long time ago then, I hate to tell you, you do still need some hand hold…

> because that's the nice thing to do.

I can already tell from your comment what a nice wholesome person you are

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#45

Post by donmcronald »

catmistake wrote: post #39
stolenmerch wrote: post #4

I think Joe Rogan is so popular because he openly espouses ideas that MANY people feel and believe. It almost has to be the case. Basically, I think he believes that everyone should be free to do what they want as long as they aren't hurting anyone -- unless they are trying to hurt each other in a fight, which is where the trans debate he's had is born from. It's a sort of "liberaltarian" approach that holds a lot of…

I think it is far simpler than that. He is macho, and that is popular due to evolution. The meanest monkey has the most offspring, but the meanest monkey has turned into the one no one wants to fight, so he can risk being cuddly, but it is a act. The meanest monkey is still there. FWIW Libertarianism is super trendy, but misguided, because, in a nutshell, it leads to tragedy of the commons, and ultimately, pure socia…

Libertarianism is great if you own one of the big sticks.

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#46

Post by mcgt »

Barrin92 wrote: post #6

My problem with Rogan isn't political in nature but with his uncritical attitude towards his guests, and his mixture of inviting respectable scientists (say, Roger Penrose, Robert Sapolsky) and then two episodes later inviting someone like Alex Jones, some complete quack or conspiracy theorists. Together with his lack of keeping the guests straight it creates a pretty toxic sludge that makes it impossible for casual…

Those scientists must've felt some appeal going on Rogan's show, despite guests like Jones. That's probably why they agreed to it. How does that feed into a culture of anti-intellectualism?

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#47

Post by Antoninus »

Barrin92 wrote: post #6

My problem with Rogan isn't political in nature but with his uncritical attitude towards his guests, and his mixture of inviting respectable scientists (say, Roger Penrose, Robert Sapolsky) and then two episodes later inviting someone like Alex Jones, some complete quack or conspiracy theorists. Together with his lack of keeping the guests straight it creates a pretty toxic sludge that makes it impossible for casual…

This type of ethical dualism can be dangerous to your critical thinking long term. Implying that he needs to keep his guests straight suggests an agenda to be pushed. Having either Jones or Penrose on the show does not give it credibility or take it away.

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#49

Post by vannevar »

Scalestein wrote: post #27
vannevar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man argument. There's a big difference between simply vetting your guests to weed out quacks, and pushing some single-minded idea of orthodoxy.

Who decides what counts as a quack? One of the things I find compelling about the format of the show is that the long format really exposes people, for better or worse. If you want to find out whether Alex Jones is a quack there is probably no better evidence than watching his appearance on Rogan's podcast. Same is true for Milo Yiannopoulos (often deemed an alt-right troll) who basically had his career wrecked from…

No doubt, you can draw the line at different points. And obviously, in terms of audience and profit, Joe has found a sweet spot, with enough crazy people to be interesting but not so crazy as to make it a nonstop freak show. My point was that there's a wide band there, and that simply excluding a guest whose beliefs are demonstrably incorrect or morally reprehensible is not the same as pushing a single orthodox belief. Hence my reference to the Straw Man Argument.

Re: As Joe Rogan’s platform grows, so does the media and liberal backlash – why?

#50

Post by pm90 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #40
alexashka wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you comparing Joe Rogan's 'toxic sludge' to? Let's have a list of programming that's excellent by your standards that also has millions of listeners for each episode for comparison.

I don't listen to that many podcasts. Tyler Cowen has an excellent podcast called Conversations with Tyler, Russ Roberts is a long time podcaster/blogger with a focus on economics, Lex Fridman has a good science/compsci focused podcast and Sean Carroll's Mindscape as well as Ezra Klein's podcast I think have almost always high quality, fairly diverse guests. I'm well aware none of these have the audience that Joe Rog…

Agreed that those are excellent podcasts! Ezra Klein is one of my favorites and I am always delighted by how he seems to productively engage with people on his show. His guest list is also pretty diverse although it is mostly intellectuals.

I don’t think much is lost to the world by not engaging with Trolls or Quacks. There seems to be a weird kind of “both sides” going on where people seem to think that they should be heard from whereas there are so many interesting folks I would rather choose to listen to instead.

Post reply on HN