Oprah did some good things, but she also helped introduce a lot if pseudoscientific flim flam. Remember that doctor oz got his start on oprah.
And I think that’s fine.
One of the things I hate about primetime shows is that the anchors constantly cut people off and the whole conversation devolves into shouting.
FoxNews primetime is terrible at this, and Chris Cuomo is insufferable as well.
Also, a lot of the time he’s stoned, sometimes the guest is stoned too lol.
Probably some people died because of the show. Not sure if that really matters or not-- you could argue that we should let the quacks talk and mislead, but I’m not surprised that it pisses people off.
I agree that pundits are dumb. I play video games instead.
Why have people on if you’re going to cut them off? His podcasts are 2-3 hours long, so there’s plenty of time to rebut.
I think that’s the problem though. He doesn’t rebut.
I think some people would say just don’t have quacks on your show.
I don’t think Joe has the skills or interest to rebut bogus claims. And really a live interview is the worst possible way to debate science. You need at least to be able to read studies and run shit in excel. It can take hours or days just to understand one statistic.
To give a specific example, at one point the dude randomly says that the vaccine killed like 30,000 people. That’s a big fucking claim to make. If true, it would absolutely destroy everything we know about modern science. If false, the guy should be punched in the face, and lose his job and his retirement for spreading such massive bullshit. But what happens? Joe just sort of nods along like it’s a vaguely curious factoid.
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I assume he is referring to the VAERS data? Probably more than 30k people have died within 6 weeks of getting a covid vaccine, because we are a country of 330m people, and 3m people die each year, and we have given 2-3 vaccine doses in the last year to most people.
Yes, he was. And that would be my immediate response also. Nevermind the vaers data, have an actuary look at daily death rates and hospitalizations.
Then he mentioned some studies of the vaers data where it was concluded that vaers deaths were caused by the vaccine, which sounds like probable bullshit, but again it’s not like Rogan is going to say “that sounds like bullshit” or like they’re going to sit around rereading the study together.
I listened to the episode when there was outrage over it. The guy isn’t skeptic of vaccines as a whole, but particularly the COVID vaccine. He actually was double vaccinated for COVID before he believed that it had a negative effect on the heart. Seemed like prior to his takes on the COVID vaccine that he was highly regarded, but I don’t know. I didn’t really take him seriously.
Joe Rogan’s style is to bring on guests of different backgrounds, let them talk, and ask questions. It’s a podcast. I’m not sure how a podcast host/stand up comedian/UFC personality/etc is in any position to tell a cardiologist why he is wrong about hearts. Why is that Joe’s responsibility? I don’t listen to his podcast all the time, but occasionally tune in if I am interested in what the GUEST has to say, e.g. Elon Musk. I don’t tune in to listen to Joe because he’s not all that interesting, but he asks good questions.
I think Bill Maher does it well. Have the quacks on, but be informed enough as an interviewer to at least challenge them on the most glaring BS.
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Bill Maher was on the podcast like a week ago or so. He sounds a lot like Joe Rogan… I’ve only listened to about half of it so far.
Probably some people died, because he invited that guy on his show, giving him a platform to convince millions. I’m not going to say it is “his responsibility” because that’s a complicated moral judgment. I will say that I think it’s reasonable that people shit on him for doing it. And I believe they would have done the same if Oprah had encouraged an anti-vaxxer during COVID.
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That’s fair. I think it’s fine to crap on him for that, but when people are rallying to de-platform him, that’s where I draw the line. End of the day, people who are making decisions based off of guests on his show are making their own decision, and that’s on them. I will credit him that he does encourage older and unhealthier people to get the vaccine, for what that’s worth.
Because it is his show? And if he can’t ask the right questions because he is a moron, then find someone who supports the COVID vaccine to ask them.
I did see a clip from Rogan where I think he did bring someone on to challenge him on the heart issues, even for younger folks, with the claim that catching COVID causes a much higher rate of heart issues than the vaccine. The real problem is that these float around on Twitter and Facebook and go viral among the groups that want to hear the information they want to hear.
I don’t care a lot. I do think it’s depressing that the more people are allowed to share and understand information, the dumber they get. I’m not sure if deplatforming is the answer, or murder-suicide.
This post seems to have described the last 30 posts, so nice job. 
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It’s only his responsibility if he is a journalist.
It sounds like he is not. His podcast occupies a twilight between nonfiction and fiction. The same goes for much of fox news. Rush Limbaugh built a career there as well.
A lot of america lives in this twilight. It seems they cannot take reality, so they find people to tell them what they want to hear.
I do think it makes the world a worse place. That doesn’t mean it should be made illegal. But on the other hand, if you provide a platform for lies, you should expect blowback.
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There are really two+ platforms here. Rogan’s platform that he controls is his podcast, the platform he can not control is how clips of his show spread on social media, where any person can selectively edit the content that they want to show others. A daily viewer of the podcast may eventually get the whole story, either during the podcast, or when Rogan gets shamed for being a moron and brings on someone to address the misinformation. A twitter viewer will only get a piece of it that bubbles up from the algorithm…
And Joe Rogan’s podcasts don’t really have a full team behind it doing research for him. He pretty much just does it on the fly, occasionally asks someone to google stuff.
And yeah, Joe is not super educated, but his show is not an echo chamber. That’s why people listen in.
I like when Elon Musk was on there, and Lea Remini on scientology, and Ben Shapiro because frankly I had no intention of ever paying attention to Ben before.
He does a lot of scientists and mathematicians which I like too.
And yeah, of course, drugs and psychedelics, which is very relatable for a lot of his audience.
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