He's just another Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh etc. We've had personality talk show hosts for decades and will continue to have them in the decades to come. The media landscape is not fundamentally changing.
And how much Spotify paid him is not a reflection of his mainstream popularity. It's a reflection of how much the LTV of his audience is worth. Two very different things.
> It's a reflection of how much the LTV of his audience is worth.
That may not be it exactly either. What they are paying him to do is bootstrap the spotify podcasting ecosystem. Spotify hopes the publicity will bring in people who don't listen to Joe Rogan as well.
> What they are paying him to do is bootstrap the spotify podcasting ecosystem.
Similar to what Sirius paid Howard Stern to do for them, circa 2004 (for $500 million), for their personality / talk content. Sirius needed a major anchor.
It's pretty unfair to compare him to Limbaugh, Rogan's brand is not based on being an ideologue. Certainly he has an opinion, but he frequency brings on guests with diametrically opposing views and is quite courteous and introspective towards them.
It makes sense when you consider that before Spotify, he/his team were having to chase down that money with no guarantee, subject to the whims of sponsors and audience and YouTube.
Now the money is guaranteed and they can just focus on the content in the show. Sounds like an amazing deal.
I think the effort is mostly around copystrikes. YouTube demonetizes and removes his videos whenever he plays even a snippet from a copyrighted work. If Spotify's lawyers handle those issues then Rogan can focus more on the show.
NYT is currently publishing a series of podcasts called "Rabbit Hole" which, in its latest episode, portrayed PewdiePie as a misunderstood guy who is definitely not a white nationalist or alt-right. That said, what you are saying could be true at the same time. I don't read the paper and certainly don't care to follow the PewdiePie story.
NYT was all over WSJ’s takedown of PewDiePie like a fly on a turd. It’s not really that charitable of them to correct the record now that they’re done milking their clickbait controversy for ad revenue.
I keep seeing Joe Rogan's name on Reddit and sometimes on HN. Why does he seem to strike a chord with the demographic that hang out on Reddit and HN? Why is his podcast good? Is he really a good moderator? Does he provide good insights to the listeners about people he interviews or topics he discuss in his podcast?
In my brief viewing he pretends to be unbiased. Unfortunately that generally consists of bringing on nut jobs like Alex Jones and pretending their fabricated claims are just as worthy of discussion as actual subject matter experts bringing facts and logic.
Downvoting because you like Joe Rogan? Fitting there's no actual RESPONSE, because what I posted is accurate. Joe Rogan: "Alex Jones is just misunderstood" - the guy who ran with the Sandy Hook conspiracy and was likely a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide. Joe Rogan's "unbiased" approach is toxic.
Everything is worthy of discussion and everyone's opinion is valuable no matter how much I may dislike them/disagree with them.
I feel like this because the alternative is having a gatekeeper who tells everyone whose opinion is worth spreading and whose should be silenced and I prefer living in a non-totalitarian society.
Unless I'm that gatekeeper of course: I'm down for subjugating society to my personal preference of what's right and wrong.
edit: I may think that Alex Jones is an idiot but I still want him to be able to get as much exposure as someone I like.
Everyone's opinion is NOT valuable. That thinking is exactly why 5G towers are being burned down. The media - Joe Rogan included - has decided that your OPINIONS carry the same weight as scientific FACT and "let the listeners decide". That'll absolutely attract viewers from all walks of life - and it's a disservice to all of them.
I get what you're saying but letting the people decide what policy to follow is what a democracy is all about: if enough idiots in a sovereign nation decide to go "fuck 5g" then that's exactly what that nation should do. Do I think it's stupid and wrong? Yes. Do I think they should be allowed to choose that? Yes.
So you're suggesting we let people be misinformed? Where do you draw the line? Do we let our teachers teach the earth is both flat and round and "let the students decide"? The earth is the center of the universe and just a part of the milky way? The holocaust happened and didn't happen?
You can't possibly expect people to make rational decisions about science they don't understand. And letting people straight up LIE and expect the common man to spend hours researching a topic they probably don't even understand to figure out they're being lied to is RIDICULOUS. There's a reason why we have ethics in journalism...
Who/what decides who is “misinformed”. Again, there needs to be a gatekeeper if you go that direction, and that direction leads to exactly what the mainstream media of today is.
The fact you’d advocate putting someone on tv to tell the world that 5g towers cause covid—19 and give them the same courtesy as a scientist explaining factual information about the world around us tells me you’re either delusional or upset that the media “gatekeeps” fascists and racists.
Who decides what’s misinformed? Science, the same thing that allows you to post on HN.
Just because you think the state should allow any discussion and any opinion, doesn't mean you need to think its content is worthy or valuable. Do you think nazism should get as much exposure as something you like? Creationism? Flat-earthism? Any fringe idea with five believers?
Creationism is not a fringe idea! I think that illustrates the major flaw of your mindset. If you screen off entire categories of ideas as not worth thinking about, you're going to get a systematically incorrect view of the world.
Why would screening off entire categories of ideas lead to a systematically incorrect view of the world? Or why would entertaining those ideas lead to a less incorrect view of the world?
Which pressures them into either keeping it to themselves or being pressured by society to change their beliefs. The “respect everyone’s opinion” is how we got Charlottesville. Tolerance can and should have limits.
> When asked the single-question version, just 18 percent of U.S adults say humans have always existed in their present form, while 81 percent say humans have evolved over time.
For example, most of these folks wont say the Earth is 10,000 or 6,500 years old. When asked they'll say the planet is much older.
Yes, actually. I legitimately think that no viewpoint or idea should be censored no matter how distasteful I may find it to be.
Would I prefer to live in a nazi or communist society? No, but I prefer to live in a society that in theory can, in a worst case scenario, turn into either of those eventually than in one that cannot.
edit: unless we include some sort of utopian society where we're ruled by some perfect AI or where everyone has perfect information access and decision-making of course but that's science fiction.
I'm not talking about censorship. I'm talking about all ideas getting equal exposure. If you follow that "equal exposure" idea to its conclusion, then what should be taught in "biology" class for example is evolution, protestant creationism, catholic creationism, sunni creationism, shia creationism, scientologic creationism, last thursdayism etc ad nauseam. Now, there isn't much to talk about regarding last thursdayism. But if everything should get equal exposure, then logically you must teach as much about evolution as last thursdayism, which is to say not a lot. So eventually you'd reduce ideas to the minimum viable size of an idea . And then there might be so many ideas that you'll die of old age before you're done being taught all the ideas.
> Downvoting because you like Joe Rogan? Fitting there's no actual RESPONSE, because what I posted is accurate.
I downvoted because of this comment:
> Unfortunately that generally consists of bringing on nut jobs like Alex Jones and pretending their fabricated claims are just as worthy of discussion as actual subject matter experts bringing facts and logic.
By what process did you arrive at this conclusion (which I assume is a personal opinion, even though it is presented in the form of a fact)? In a system as complex as global human society, where we have almost no understanding (or even knowledge of the existence) of some of the most important sub-processes contained within, how do you believe that you have individually arrived at the objectively correct ("what I posted is accurate") assessment of what "is" "worthy of discussion"?
> "Alex Jones is just misunderstood" - the guy who ran with the Sandy Hook conspiracy and was likely a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide. Joe Rogan's "unbiased" approach is toxic.
Do you actually think that Alex Jones' comprehensive worldview is fully understood, both by yourself and others? What data have you used to arrive at your conclusion? The the single "fact" that he "ran with" the Sandy Hook conspiracy and "was likely" a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide? Surely you wouldn't form a confident conclusion on an infinitely complex subject (the understanding of someone's comprehensive worldview) based on one individual data point, would you?
I don't pose these questions in a rhetorical manner by the way - I would genuinely like to hear an "actual RESPONSE", if you are willing to provide one.
How do I know an apple will fall to the floor when I drop it? Surely, I don't need to understand the infinitely complex workings of the entire universe to form a confident conclusion. That's not how any decisions regarding our "global human society" is made. Even science (we can debate (and epistemologists do) whether this is truly the case or not; there is no complete theory of knowledge) does not present itself as having absolute facts, but I think we can mostly agree that scientific knowledge has a more accurate representation of of the correlation between "chem trails" and the sexual orientation of frogs that Alex Jones does...
>> The concept of predictive power, the power of a scientific theory to generate testable(!) predictions, differs from explanatory power and descriptive power (where phenomena that are already known are retrospectively explained or described by a given theory) in that it allows a prospective test of theoretical understanding.
>> A classic example of the predictive power of a theory is the discovery of Neptune as a result of predictions made by mathematicians John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier, based on Newton's theory of gravity.
>> If a theory has no predictive power, it cannot be used for applications.
Considering this, does:
>>> "A MAGA hat is just another way of saying "Mexicans are rapists"
...have predictive power? A useful technique I use to measure the intelligence of a theory is to implement it in the form of a boolean function. Try it out with that statement, just for fun, and see if your opinion on it changes at all.
Or, before we get ahead of ourselves...what does that sentence actually mean? It's purpose and origin are rather obvious (at least to me), but I'm interested in its literal meaning. Since the original author seems to have lost interest in the discussion (despite the prior "Fitting there's no actual RESPONSE..." complaint), perhaps you can decipher the literal meaning for me?
> Surely, I don't need to understand the infinitely complex workings of the entire universe to form a confident conclusion.
You need to understand the complex workings of whatever system you are working with well enough to produce testable predictions. If you do not have that, then you should not be forming confident conclusions. Very often, "it is not known" is the correct answer, and it wasn't all that long ago that most technical people could manage that stance. But as they say, time marches on.
> That's not how any decisions regarding our "global human society" is made.
You are absolutely correct - and observe the result: a scary number of people who work largely in pure logic all day long, are no longer able to differentiate between actual facts and heuristic predictions their subconscious spits out, at least on certain topics. A large percentage of the population is no longer capable of applying logic across diverse domains in a mentally disciplined manner, and they are also unable (and unwilling) to realize this. How did this happen seems like a good question.
> Even science (we can debate (and epistemologists do) whether this is truly the case or not; there is no complete theory of knowledge) does not present itself as having absolute facts
Science itself doesn't present itself as having absolute facts, but people who believe they are followers of science, or scientific thinkers, regularly speak as if science does have absolute facts, including here on HN on certain topics (generally, anything culture war related).
> but I think we can mostly agree that scientific knowledge has a more accurate representation of of the correlation between "chem trails" and the sexual orientation of frogs that Alex Jones does
He sometimes has "toxic" lefty guests also though. I don't see his showing being biased.
If anything listening to Alex Jones for half an hour made me realize how nutty Jones is. Because I never would have searched out Jones on my own. Nor am I interested in what Vox has to say about Jones.
It's a good thing to hear other points of view without frothing at the mouth and demanding they are shut up. It's also a good thing to separate the point of view from the person. Because you disagree doesn't mean the person is evil and should be stricken from the book of life. This point seems to be lost in much of modern discourse.
>Because you disagree doesn't mean the person is evil and should be stricken from the book of life.
Because I disagree? Of course not, disagreement doesn't make someone evil.
What makes him evil is running around claiming the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre were lying about their children dying as a conspiracy theory to take people's guns away. I can't think of a more spineless, thoughtless, ridiculous thing to do than attack people who just lost their children.
He parroted that shit again and again for money. "Disagreement" has nothing to do with the stain on society that is Alex Jones being an evil person.
I only recently discovered him, and the biggest thing I noticed is that he lets his guests talk. Probably because he's not constrained to a particular amount of time, but I find gems in his interviews of people that I don't from the same people interviewed elsewhere
> And Joe has been quite savvy at tailoring both his content and his image for them.
Way to make it sound nefarious. There's no greedy or malicious intent behind this, no script that these interviews follow to appeal to advertisers or viewers the way most media is carefully cultivated with surveys, talking points and focus groups to most effectively deliver a partisan message. These interviews give about as raw and unfiltered access to the guests as you can get, to let the experts talk about their subject, and that's Rogan's intent. Rogan himself isn't a carefully crafted media personality, but pretty genuine, flaws and all. If that's what you mean by "tailoring", I'd say we could all use a little more media like that.
The only kind of "tailoring" that appears to happen is Rogan sometimes listens to feedback on the kind of questions and discussions some listeners want to see.
The comment your replying to as written doesn't imply any nefarious intent. And you go on to talk knowing my to Joe Rogans state of mind, which you cannot know. This is a weird comment; it sounds almost shilling for some reason.
I'd disagree. Claiming "Rogan has been quite savvy in tailoring content" for a specific audience is clearly implying intent.
The distinction is between deliberate tailoring for some ulterior motive we could speculate about, or that Rogan's content is genuine expression of his interests to whatever degree that's possible.
It implies intent to tailor something for an audience. Every business in existence (hyperbole) tailors something for their audience. What it doesn't imply is nefarious intent.
We can definitely speculate on whether there was nefarious intent, but the comment along the lines of tailoring something for a specific audience doesn't imply any intent in the tailoring, nefarious or otherwise.
1. The preceding sentence that I quoted specifically said the target was "young, white males". This already has nefarious undertones given current cultural trends, eg. look up media coverage for anything that targets "white males".
2. The claim that this group is the target, and in fact makes up most of the demographics is always asserted without any evidence. His audience is definitely predominantly male, but where's the evidence they're predominantly white? Once again, given the wider cultural context, this focus on white males has a negative undertone.
3. Finally and most importantly, it's asserting that Rogan is not simply being authentic and genuine, which contradicts Rogan's own words about his podcast. Which means the claim that his content is actually tailored again has very negative implications.
As I said before Joe Rogan as a concept isn't all that new. There have been many variations of the "raw, honest, uncut" talk show host formula.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it but it's naive to think that they just fall into hundred million dollars deals without being savvy. All of these talk show hosts very much understand their audience and what they do and don't want. And again there is nothing wrong with that.
> And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it but it's naive to think that they just fall into hundred million dollars deals without being savvy.
I never said he wasn't savvy, I said that savviness wasn't directed at "tailoring content" or his "image" in a way that's duplicitous as you were intimating, and that's typical for traditional media.
Rightly or wrongly, Rogan believes and does the things he says he believes and does, and he's genuinely interested in his guests and only interviews people who interest him. It just so happens that plenty of people find Rogan personable, the people he interviews interesting. In a world with over 7 billion people and with low barriers to entry, like streaming on YouTube, it's statistically inevitable that a Joe Rogan would appear.
Most companies or individuals with media driven personalities use tailoring to target an audience. It is a marketing tool used by the smallest content producers to the largest ones. I wouldn’t take it as a nefarious comment or dismissive remark. It is simply a tool in the marketing kit.
You see tailoring in the images on Instagram, the word choice on their website, the sound bites or clips chosen on their YouTube pages etc. They consider their target audience all aspects.
He has intriguing diverse guests and let them do most of the speaking, for an extended period of time.
It's refreshing.
There are plenty of people I would never have listened to otherwise, because they are outside my bubble or just because they would represent something against my view of the world.
But because I also saw people I view as interesting or people I already knew from somewhere else, and because they have the time and space to elaborate, I gave the others a chance.
This allowed me to be exposed to new topics, points of views, etc, in a relaxing and human format.
Just like regular media, it's full of bullshit. But I'm full of it too.
It does, however, feel way more genuine than regular media.
In any sane world, you wouldn't be getting downvoted, but here we are. One side wants heavy censorship and modern day book burnings, one doesn't. Joe doesn't, so he's evil to the left of today. It's a little bit unreal, but then again one might have seen it coming..
I don't listen to him, but he is basically the essence modern masculinity. Reddit and HN skew very heavily on the male side, so it's not surprising he's this popular.
I personally think of him as King of the Bros and think it's kind of sad that he's become the model man, but it is what it is.
What’s not sad about mediocrity being held up as a model? Someone once asked “Is Joe the smartest dumb person or the dumbest smart person?” That question captures him so well.
Mediocrity? He's just licensed his podcast for three years for over $100m. He's a very successful comedian. He's one of the most well known personalities in the MMA world. If that's what you judge as mediocre I'd love to know what you judge as successful.
But that’s also sad, that the amount of a signed contract is what makes someone worth emulating today. Beyond sad: it’s tragic. The world is full of all kinds of people who happen to make money. That shouldn’t make them all models.
There's plenty of people way smarter than him, making way more money and making the world objectively a worse place. I don't really see much substance in this sadness point.
If some people out there has Rogan as role model I honestly, comparing him with most media figures, I can't be bothered.
He has a format that people enjoys, and he's not trying to make people swallow any narrative. That's good in my book.
Joe Rogan is successful across multiple domains. He's the UFC's main color commentator, a successful TV personality, a successful touring comedian, a state champion in martial arts, has a podcast worth $100 million etc. etc.
I won’t disagree with Joe being sort of “bro-like”, but I will disagree with him being the “model man”. I occasionally watch his show and have several friends who do, and none of us would say we aspire to be like Joe Rogan. Like many have said here, it’s simply the fact that sometimes he has good guests on (many physicists, biologists, tech people) and he actually lets them talk, which is a refreshing change from the shocking-soundbite driven news media that had been dominant for so long. Respecting this aspect of his show is completely different from viewing Joe as some sort of role model.
Lots, if not all, of those people are available by themselves though and usually in much better form. To use a famous example, watching Musk's talk on Neuralink, or the orignal MCT/ITS talk was fascinating, but watching him "smoke" weed or pronounce the name of his kid is pretty boring.
99.9% of people listening to JRE have no idea what the ‘original MCG/ITS talk’ is. Rogan’s usefulness is that he is often the first exposure to a person or idea.
> Lots, if not all, of those people are available by themselves though and usually in much better form.
For anyone that enjoys the medical / health guests on Rogan's podcast, I'd recommend "The Peter Attia Drive" podcast. (Not to be confused with Peter Attia's appearance on Rogan's podcast).
Many of the same guests are on both, but on Attia's, they are speaking to an MD and start at a way higher level.
It's a great fit for my 100/200 college level basic understanding of biology and chemistry, it usually starts from there and goes up. There's quite a bit I don't follow exactly because of that, but I certainly prefer that than a dumbed down version of everything.
> watching him "smoke" weed or pronounce the name of his kid is pretty boring.
Agreed, but those were not the only things Musk did in each of those episodes and they contained a lot of content (that didn't involve just smoking weed) that was probably interesting to people outside of the HN crowd who wouldn't watch Musks's actual Neuralink presentation or the original MCT/ITS talk.
The thing I always think about Joe Rogan and his podcast is that there will always be a huge audience for a talkative meathead, but Joe is about the best possible version of a popular meathead we could ask for.
- He gets high-profile guests across a decently wide spectrum and at an overall high volume. >95% of his interviews don't interest me, but for the 5% that do - say, John Carmack - the name is the main draw. These people just don't get interviewed all that often so it's an event regardless of the MC. Probably the same for his entire audience, just different 5% slices.
- If you know the old mystery TV anthology show Columbo, he does a similar routine to the titular character: He plays the unassuming everyman and then asks unexpectedly smart/pointed questions, using simple terms but with reasonably deep implications. His interviews seem generally well-prepared. They don't go particularly deep on any subject matter, but if you're familiar with the subject matter they still prompt interesting responses from the guests - you can see someone like Carmack or Musk go into rubber-duck debugging mode trying to digest complicated thoughts into succinct answers and that has an interesting information side-channel to it (it tells you what they really think is important to say or highlight, and Rogan seems to be aware of this - he is good at getting the bits they personally find important).
- Related to the above, the macho/masculinity slant aside he acts humble and un-obnoxious. I might feel differently if I watched any episode with a guest I really dislike (because he seems to be more accommodating than challenging/critical, for sure), but in the episodes I watched I wasn't annoyed with him.
- Part of his prep is also clearly to read up on recent/controversial things related to a guest and probe for it during the interview, so there's the shock value/titilation factor that adds to the entertainment. His skill is that both him and the interviewee anticipate this but he still puts his subjects at ease enough in the moment to make the responses compelling. It has your brain constantly working to sort through what is guarded and what is not (=real), just like quality reality TV (everyone knows reality TV is scripted -- the entertainment is in trying to identify the sliver of authenticity in people's emergent behavior on camera).
I think the "wide spectrum" part is really important. I'm on the far left by American standards and Rogan still has a lot of interviews that interest me even though I think he's more traditionally associated with conservative-ish or libertarian-ish views.
Classical liberalism is basically the opposite of liberalism as it is mostly understood in the West today.
Interestingly, you see this most in Australia, where the Centre/Right party is called the Liberal Party.
But it hasn't been used like that since the 1970s really, except in the "Liberal Democracy" sense. I think that has actually caused a lot of issues where the US right says they don't support Liberal Democracy, whereas - generally speaking, with the exception of the authoritarian arm - they mostly do.
people probably don't like this nitpick because the core meaning of "liberal" is relative, just like "left" and "right". "liberal"/"conservative" may have a different connotation than "left"/"right" depending on context, but they have roughly the same meaning. you always need to know (at least implicitly) what position is being compared against to know what "liberal" means.
But that's exactly what I'm arguing against! The core meaning of liberal is not relative, it's a pretty well defined ideology (with multiple strands, to be sure, but still).
The whole reason you think the meaning depends on the context is because you have been mislead to believe that liberal == left-wing, or something approaching that.
This is completely and utterly false, hence my "nitpick". Changing the meaning of these words causes the exact type of confusion you seem to be suffering from!
Left-wing is a term with a very loose definition, and depending on the Overton window, "liberal" places somewhere on the left/right axis. "Liberal", however, does have a well-defined meaning, since it refers to a specific ideology, unlike "the left".
TLRD: "liberal" is not a direction on an axis, rather it's a point on an already existing axis, the left/right one.
do you not remember when all of cancel police on twitter got mad at Bernie for accepting Rogan's endorsement in the primary? he can call himself whatever he wants that doesn't mean it's true.
- No gotcha questions. On TV, the interviewee might be on for 5 minutes and the interviewer asks a bunch of preloaded questions, especially "gotcha" questions if there's a political divide. Rogan never tries to undermine his guests.
- The conversations usually last as long as they need to. His show sometimes go over 3 hours if it's necessary. I don't ever listen for 3 hours and feel like I've wasted my time.
- Joe is clearly good at making his guests feel comfortable, which brings out a different side of people that you might not see in a traditional setting. How is anyone supposed to be uptight around a pot smoking, MMA fighting comedian who asks you if you've used DMT?
It is a similar trick Hello! Magazine uses. Allow guests to be themselves and in a positive light, with no scary surprise. The guests open up and share more about themselves and what they are up to.
Hello! don't roast people so they get A list people open their homes and hearts. Hence they are a safe place for people of celebrity significance to be shown in.
In British English 'trick' can mean many things. You can do a trick on a skateboard but the usage I have is
a clever or particular way of doing something.
"the trick is to put one ski forward and kneel"
I hope that clarifies the British English usage. Elsewhere 'trick' probably means deception but in British English there are other uses, e.g. the trick to explaining something is to cite Wikipedia.
I understand knack not to mean a learned skill but instead a natural aptitude. For example, a knack for humor, figuring out mechanical things, putting people at ease, debugging code, etc.
TV/Radio is slave to the show clock and ads, where-as Rogan isn't. I don't think I've seen ads because I use ad block, but if there are, they just stop the show for a minute or so. TV producers and anchors have to plan around all that and it interrupts your attention and affects how they deliver. Pretty much everyone on TV is trained this way and used to this. Rogan would be bad if he had TV's format and ads. To say nothing of being on YouTube and being able to ignore FCC regulations compared to TV/Radio. The format is just so much nicer. Colbert doesn't even get 2 hours and he is massively successful.
A lot of people mistakenly thing that Joe is not very smart because he asks "dumb questions". I think it's the exact opposite, he leads his guests with well chosen questions that he probably already knows the answer to, but the guest can surely elaborate on from deep experience.
When I see mainstream media interview people that are expert in topics I'm well versed in, the questions are cringe worthy at best.
For comparison with someone trying to create a similar show, Lex Fridman regularly asks some stupid, stupid questions. He's clearly approaching his guests from his own personal perspective, and not letting the individual perspective of their guests be front and centre.
He’s definitely smarter than he lets on, but there are lots of funny moments where he clearly has no idea what the guest is talking about.
Elon Musk: We need some kind of like, mind-viral immunity. So that’s, that’s a bit concerning.
Joe Rogan: Mind-viral immunity. Meaning that once something like Neuralink gets established, the real concern is that it’s something, that, I mean you said it’s Bluetooth, right?
> For comparison with someone trying to create a similar show, Lex Fridman regularly asks some stupid, stupid questions. He's clearly approaching his guests from his own personal perspective, and not letting the individual perspective of their guests be front and centre.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.
I had high hopes for Fridman's podcast after the JRE revered him as a sort of young, genius, intellectual version of JRE. He's highly respected among JRE online communities, I think because he presents himself the way most JRE listeners expect a generic smart person to sound. Yet every time I listen to him, I'm left scratching my head.
It feels like he's working hard to copy-and-paste the JRE format, but like many other imitators it exposes why Rogan is so popular in the first place: Rogan is a expert conversationalist who makes both the guest and listener feel at ease, like the listener is part of the conversation. His charisma isn't entirely obvious until you start comparing him to imitators.
I'm still hopeful that Lex Fridman's podcast will get more enjoyable over time as he relaxes a bit and masters the art of the podcast. He's been able to get some high profile guests on his show, so the potential is there.
It's strange, there are some interviews where he seems to reach a much better rapport with his guest. These tend to be guests who are also in the computer science and software domain. I think his biggest hinderance is his reliance on his notes and his apparent fear of looking dumb or unprepared. I get it, I'd probably do the same thing if I were interviewing the same calibre of people but I think he just needs to relax a bit and look for common ground with his guests. Maybe there's too much fear of missing the opportunity to ask certain questions of these high profile people but it's a bit of a turn off. Rogan seems to get this right, maybe even going too far sometimes by not being afraid to just shoot the shit and talk about random incongruous interests. It shows you a side of his guests that you would never get to see elsewhere and it's a lot more humanizing than just question-answer style interviewing.
I have a similar gripe with Eric Weinstein's podcast mentioned in TFA.
I've quite enjoyed the episodes I've listened to, however they can be difficult to parse at times - somewhat defeating the oft-mentioned benefit of listening to a podcast while performing other activities.
He is obviously very intelligent, but often uses language and analogies that appear to be aimed more at showing off this intelligence than engaging the guest or audience. It distracts from the point he or his guest is attempting to make, which is frustrating.
Yes if I had to sum it up in one word "authenticity" would be it. It seems like he truly doesn't care what other people think of him. If he thinks something, he'll say it (but not in an arrogant way like Trump). If the "mainstream media" doesn't approve of a guest on his show, doesn't bother him, he's still willing to hear them out - and more importantly will call them out on their bullshit. He doesn't even pretend to give in to the identity politics bullshit that for whatever reason I can not comprehend has taken over the public narrative.
This is not something you see on mainstream media, where everyone is carefully crafting their words and hedging every statement to ensure they offend as little people as possible, ultimately saying little of interest and disillusioning the public because everyday people feel that no one in power is a real human being who understands them. When someone will just bluntly say the obvious that for whatever reason the establishment won't, it's refreshing.
In addition, he is radically open-minded in a way that's very rare from these kinds of hosts, and people in general. Most people are very rigidly set in their ideologies, which leads to many people sounding like carbon copies of one another (boring). Rogan will consider any idea no matter how outlandish. And he is very curious and asks insightful questions, while knowing when to shut up and let the guest speak (helps that the interviews last 1.5-3 hours).
Also as a comedian, he's significantly more entertaining than your average dry newscaster.
I'm not glorifying Rogan here, just trying to articulate why I enjoy his show, despite the fact that I don't really listen to many other podcasts. He certainly is not perfect and has his weaknesses - for example when discussing technical topics he doesn't dive as deep as I'd like (eg. Elon Musk, John Carmack, Neil DeGrasse Tyson). But overall, he does a great job of bringing interesting guests and getting interesting conversations out of him, so it's not surprising to me that he's so successful.
His type of long form interviews would be simply impossible on traditional television (even though it's a podcast, I always watch on Youtube as do many others). He tapped into an unexplored demand that lives directly in the blindspot of the traditional media.
Edit to add: it's pretty hard to imagine a TV broadcaster would try to tap into this niche, imagine a TV channel that has 3 hour interviews uninterrupted by ads (experience using ad blockers), on a wide variety of topics, no filter, across a wide varity of political views.
it's funny, it'd be easy for TV to do it. There's a lot of empty 24hour news channels out there.
Putting a 3 hour interview on at 10pm and running it till 1am and then on repeat at 10am the next day would be a pretty simple way to build out some really intersting content.
The only thing you'd need would be discipline to keep the producers from cutting into it.
But there's a lot of channels out there. There's a lot of space.
Traditional TV executives would never go for it. Even if they did, the inflexibilty of regular TV schedules would still be inferior to listening when you want. Plus as you mention they would have the discipline to not cut into it.
He strikes a chord with a lot of people simply because he puts out so many shows. I think it would be hard to look at his list of guests from the past few months and not find anything that interests you.
High profile guests, long form content. Rogan's not really a great moderator (for example, he doesn't even read the books of his guests). He's not asking insightful questions. He can even be a bit dense. But he's open-minded, curious and "normal".
If I'm settling into some work and don't want to listen to music, I can put on Rogan and know I've got 3 hours of filler. You can pay attention only to the parts you want to and not be concerned you're missing anything important. After hundreds of hours, part of what makes it special is continuity and familiarity.
>Rogan's not really a great moderator (for example, he doesn't even read the books of his guests). He's not asking insightful questions. He can even be a bit dense. But he's open-minded, curious and "normal".
I don't really like Rogan personally but this behavior is intentional and quite smart in my opinion. Rogan (and his team) preps quite a bit, the vibe he is going for is an everyman who does not know anymore about the situation than you do. This is not reality. The idea is that this style makes the listener not feel stupid or embarrassed to learn about the viewpoints of the interviewee. He's among the most listened to interviewers in the world, so I guess it works.
A BBC reviewer [1] of his podcast picked up on this as well and called him the "Bruce Springsteen of chat" and said:
"His listeners get him, like him; maybe even want to be him. He's not a show-pony, or a light-entertainment phoney: he's the all-American do it yourself modern man, tough but intelligent."
Does he lie when he claims he has? I've heard him discuss books with guests on many occasions, though I'm sure he hasn't read everyone's books given the number of guests he has now.
In a 3 hour interview format, I don't think he really needs to. The interview itself is a similar medium, and by not already knowing all of the details, it probably makes it easier to genuinely bring along listeners from zero information to a full picture.
I find that Joe Rogan can be sometimes hit or miss, but for the most part, he has some interesting guests, the conversation with his guests are "natural" and does not seems forced, and I find that he knows how to ask good questions
He is a good listener, that is something I lookout for when listening to his shows. He can teach you a lot about how to listen and talk to people who you disagree with.
He has a lot of humility, he admits when he is wrong or if he doesn't know something. But also he is not shying away from calling BS when he hears it.
I would divide his show into 3 categories:
- his comic fiends - a casual convos with a bit insight into comedians world + tons of shit talking
- MMA + hunting guests/talks
- random invitational guest - literally random - he would talk to dem/rep candidate, dieting, book writers etc. anything that is interesting.
also he has fight companion shows for mma fights.
I listen primary to invite guest shows, occasionally to others but those get bit repetitive.
There are a few more categories in there 4) conspiracy theory guests that he wants to get more information out of or find out if they're full of shit 5) subject matter experts on topics that he's interested in, and more recently 6) the ones that feel like they're looking for the Rogan Bump and have probably been told to "go on Rogan" by their publicists, I have mixed feelings about this group since it's good to see them react to Rogan's interview style but it also feels like he sometimes softballs them out of deference or maybe just general politeness.
He just has a very natural talent for appealing to a vast range of interests/tastes/preferences in the audience.
I once heard him half-jokingly say he's at the intersect between the meat-heads and the pot-heads. I.e., those into MMA, bodybuilding, cars, hunting (a giant audience) and those into psychedelics, new-age philosophy, yoga, nature (also a giant audience). And there's a lot in between those categories (people into more mainstream science/astronomy, entertainment, business, politics, health etc).
I probably only listen to 1 out of 10 or 15 of his episodes, but that still has me listening to him for an hour or two every week or two, and so I still feel more familiar with him than most other media/public figures these days.
The top answers are good at explaining why he is popular in general. As for why he’a mentioned here: he has the number 1 podcast in the world. So, it’s natural to see him mentioned. His audience also skews male (~70%), and so do the audiences of reddit and HN.
So you would expect to see a fair bit of mentions. Finally, he interviews people from many walks of life, so you can expect an episode to be relevant to a variety of conversations.
So I don’t think he necessarily has an outsized share of the HN/reddit demographic. He’s just damned popular, and easy to mention.
Personally, for me it's because he gets big names on his shows and, much like on Stern, they like to open up, and unlike other hosts of other shows in different media, Joe is not trying to outshine them either intentionally or with annoying idiosyncrasies.
Take Jimmy Fallon for example. Can't watch 1 minute of that guy without wanting to smash my TV. His incessant laughing, at everything the guest says whether it really is funny or not is insufferable.
I don't know if Jimmy is fake laughing or not, but the net result, is that the show's flow is constantly interrupted by that cackle. Also, Jimmy is kind of a sycophant. Afraid to disagree or challenge and opinion. It makes for a boring show.
Then you got other hosts like Kimmel and/or Colbert who are trying to be super political which is obnoxious.
Then you've got people like James Corden who are, again, not comfortable shutting up but need, instead, need the center of attention along with the guest and instead of having real conversations, they need to do segments that are essentially games like the carpool karaoke.
I know it's different formats but it's an example how certain hosts drown out the guest whether intentionally or not.
The appeal of Joe's podcast is in the conversations and the minutiae of those conversations, and even when the guest, isn't necessarily interesting at first, if they converse long enough they're bound to go into an interesting topic.
Also, I don't necessarily agree with Joe's politics or other opinions but I always enjoy his podcasts mainly cause he's a good conduit for his guests to open up and start waxing about whatever they normally wouldn't on other shows.
Also, let's not forget, Joey Diaz. So many classic moments with Joey and Joe.
Only listened to one Joe Rogan episode: with John Carmack. He doesn't know shit about the field but he did wonderfully inviting him. Don't know if it's his editing or questioning or JC himself but it was great.
1) He is a good listener, that asks questions that non journalists would ask. Listen to Ezra Klein interview the same guest and you see the exact opposite type of interview. Klein comes off as more "intelligent" and more "informed", his questions are more journalist in nature, and he has usually read the book (opposite of Rogan). I like both Rogan and Klein, but I get the Rogan appeal, and I think Klein interviews can come off annoying sometimes (the 10th "That's a great question Ezra" is trite)
2) He is not a political partisan. It is refreshing to hear someone who is not "toeing the dem/rep line" (or is it towing). A lot of people in here are saying he is alt-right, which is a joke, he is not at all.
3) He has great guests for all walks of life
4) He comes off as a normal guy (but clearly is actually in the top 1% at this point)
5) He is a comedian, and does not care about political correctness and gives two shits about cancel culture
-He was one of the early entries in the era of the podcast.
-He is pro-pot-smoking, drug-taking, conspiracy talk, and generally being open-minded about everything, sometimes to his detriment. Especially early on he was very curious about a wide range of things, but as he has aged and bought into his own press I think he's become a bit less openminded.
-His podcast format is basically a couple of friends shooting the shit, often while stoned or drunk, but his "friends" are typically smart interesting experts in a particular subject matter. When that is the case he will usually let them do most of the talking.
-Due to the above format, Rogan rarely questions or challenges his quests in a manner that might make them look bad or feel uncomfortable/defensive. Though if what they are saying goes against his own internal beliefs or views, no matter how ill-informed, he will push back aggressively. In general, he's not very knowledgable or well-read outside of Twitter/YT/etc which helps the conversation flow.
-At the same time due to his success and the power of his show most of his guests will bend over backward to not question anything he asserts as fact or make him look dumb/misinformed. They all want to be invited on again as its massive for their career/product they are selling/etc. This helps make the conversations interesting but also light and fluffy to be easily consumed.
-He appeals to an overly male skeptic type audience that is fascinated by the fringe across news, information, media, science, history etc.
-He cranks out a ton of content with lots of different guests which is really the key to his success. Rogan has been wealthy and successful since the 1990s and has a unique and interesting lifestyle that affords him the ability to do his show exactly how he wants, invite any guest he wants, and do it often. So whether you are into MMA, hunting, scientists, tech CEO's, alt-right political figures, comedians, conspiracy wonks, etc...there is a sub-genre of content available for you to binge.
Disappointing ad hominem, expected a better analysis about viewpoints instead of the people he invites. Joe Rogan is unique not because of his guests but what he talks about with his guests, these topics are not covered by the mainstream.
If the institutional gate keepers want to declare a new main stream than also embrace people with a more nuanced point of view instead of this fully scripted narrative they publish 24/7.
When was the last positive article published by the NYTimes about Russia, the Republican party or even number 45?
I wish the main stream isn't as compromised as it is. Until then I have to listen to Joe Rogan & the portal to tap into nuanced thoughtful content.
I think that is more a quantification of the unmet need mainstream media creates by not discussing topics like DMT and the simulation hypothesis. The long form of content enables conversations even about the most fringe topics.
The Overton window doesn't magically shifts when millions of people are serviced by a 3th party outside the Overton window.
Exactly, the mainstream has always been there; but the "mainstream" media has long been talking down to it rather than with it, and this void in respect of the common man and woman is something that centrist people like Rogan fill by just being open to a variety of opinion and ideas, and refusing to demonise people because they don't sign up to ivory tower prescriptions and proscriptions.
It will be interesting to see how it goes. On the one hand, this could be a lot like Stern going to satellite radio: he went from being one of the biggest personalities in media to someone I don't ever think about.
At the same time, it's super interesting that Rogan negotiated a deal which appears to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for Spotify to licence his content for 3 years, after which point he could put it all back on YouTube if he wanted. The fact that he had that kind of leverage as an independent creator who started by recording his friends clowning around at his house and now has presidential candidates knocking at his door begging for an interview shows the power of independent media
I have been watching his podcast for a while but I won’t follow him to Spotify. I would switch to Spotify if Spotify would create a proper Apple Watch app with LTE streaming. Unfortunately, Spotify seems intent on trying to “punish” Apple.
I think the JRE brand will be diminished but only time will tell.
Don't get it mistaken. Spotify hate all of their users, not just the Apple crowd. They tinker with their app too much, and with seemingly little value.
Yep, I'm still pissed about removing long press to preview
At least the Spotify UX is still better than Apple Music! I'd love it if Spotify would let you sort your playlists by last listened to like Pandora somewhere in the app. Currently I have to search and scroll every time to nearly the bottom of the library to find my Workout playlist which I use religiously at the gym.
I don't get the love for video podcasts. I find it far more efficient to just listen while doing something else (such as driving or working at my computer).
As long as I can get Rogan on my podcast app, nothing really changes for me.
To each their own. JRE is the only podcast I watch. You miss detail on his show if you can’t see the discussion. The episodes with Elon Musk come to mind. Seeing his facial expressions and reactions is more powerful than just hearing it. And, obviously, seeing him smoke a blunt was surreal and not something you can capture in an audio feed.
My point was that you could enjoy JRE the way you wanted to. Now you’ll have to enjoy it the way Spotify tells you to. As far as I know his episodes will be pulled off other platforms in September.
Agreed. But I did enjoy watching the podcast more when they actually showed the videos they were talking about. Now they still talk about videos, but never show them due to copyright concerns. That can be a bit annoying, although I know it's not JR's fault.
Stern had bonuses to grow the sirius audience if I remember correctly. Amazing considering Sirius had like 600k subscribers at the time!
Stern was at his height in 2001-2004 I think was peaking at 25m listeners in the mornings on terrestrial radio. Which was fucking massive. Dropped off huge on day 1 at Sirius and I don't think ever recovered most of his audience.
Interesting that audience size != what's a good deal for the broadcaster. Like music however I suspect the REAL value is in the 'back catalog'.
> Like music however I suspect the REAL value is in the 'back catalog'.
Really?
As a semi frequent JRE listener, if I missed an interesting guest I'll still go back and listen, but I'm not particularly motivated to go and listen to an interview from 1 year ago, or any historical one for that matter.
It needs to be current for me, I'm not convinced it has the replayability of music, or a tv show like friends say.
There's a 3rd option between latest vs replay called older episodes you haven't watched yet.
He has almost 1500 episodes covering thousands of hours. Many people listen to the back catalog while waiting for the latest episodes or more content from the interesting guests and topics.
Really? If a guest I'm interested in did an interview two years ago and none since, I don't really have a choice, I'm going to listen to that interview.
If Reddit, HN and similar sites are any indication, you're right. Views, clicks, comments, etc., fall of a cliff for content older than N units of time.
The ones with Duncan Trussell are highly rewatchable if you like him. He's always talking about philosophy and mysticism and other crazy shit he reads/talks about with others on his podcast. He just teamed up with the creator of Adventure Time to animate some of his podcasts for a show called The Midnight Gospel on Netflix, so they age pretty well.
Is the back catalog valuable without a system like YouTube's? There are countless small clips of the Joe Rogan show that are constantly recommended by the algorithm. Is there any indication that Spotify is capable of replacing that?
Yes, as in "it's possible", the same as it's possible for an unknown author to be a best selling author (like JK Rowling). No as in it's an outlier or the exception. How many cases like this do we have? , esp. considering the consolidation of mass media in a few companies?
The point I believe is that you can't say that "independent media" is now such a strong force when the amount of people that have achieved success within that field is incredibly small (compared to existing large media). Can agree or not, but i believe it's the point.
I disagree. There are many YouTube political commentators pulling in more daily views than CNN. Younger people hate the typical mainstream media outlet because they know it's full of propaganda.
Yes. Someone stating their honest-to-god opinion and how they came to it is not propaganda but organised attempts to push certain narratives are. Individuals can definitely shill for their side, but then they wouldn't be very popular with the audience.
I don't have data, but I suspect if you surveyed the viewing habits of people 25 and under you would find they spend a massively disproportionate amount of time on youtube/podcasts/twitch compared to traditional media.
With moves like this one, and also the acquisition of Gimlet for 200+ million, I think we're starting to see the shift of these kinds of outlets from the periphery to the center of media.
Don’t make too many assumptions about Stern just because he dropped off your radar in ‘06. His show on SiriusXM continues to be renewed (though it might actually end soon - he’s getting exhausted).
As of 2015 his contract was worth $80 million PER YEAR and the estimates were that his audience is around 3.5 million highly engaged listeners. Yes, a fraction of what JRE gets in downloads, but hey...$80 million per year.
Not to say that $80 million/3.5 million listeners is anything to scoff at, but it's hard to argue that his cultural significance is vastly diminished. Others have said he was reaching 25 million listeners at his peak so 3.5 million is quite a step down from that.
Now that might be just fine for Howard Stern, like it might be just fine for Joe Rogan, but I think it's fairly likely that this kind of deal does come down to trading cultural cache, and one's status as a household name for cold hard cash at the end of the day. In that sense, Rogan's move to spotify might be more like a popular touring act being put to pasture as a headliner in Vegas than it represents him taking on the mantle of mainstream media.
I suspect Rogan will see somewhat less of a drop-off than stern since the barrier to entry for Spotify is significantly less than satellite radio, but I suspect we will see that the medium has been a major component of his success: his show is pretty good when it's free and when it's everywhere. In other words, like Howard Stern was the best thing you could find when flipping channels on the way to work, Joe Rogan's content is often worth a click in a sea of mediocre content. Whether people will actively seek it out remains to be seen.
As much as I hate to admit it, I think more casual users use Spotify than use podcasts. Anything that isn’t available in my podcast player is invisible to me personally. But I’m probably in the minority. Just like anything that doesn’t have an RSS feed is invisible to me. But again, I realize that I’m in the minority.
I sort of wonder if I would like using Spotify for podcasts. One thing that I like is that I have one button on my phone which I press when I want to listen to music, and another when I want to listen to podcasts. If I have mixed content, and for instance if autoplay will sometimes play music and sometimes a podcast I feel like this will make Spotify worse for music as well.
This isn't an issue on Spotify. You can't heart/star a podcast in the same way you can add music to your library. Podcasts have a separate library tab. The playback interface actually changes as well, instead of shuffle/repeat you have skip forward/back 10 seconds like an audio book.
I have premium, so one gotcha maybe whether you can download podcasts for free? I would be annoyed if I had to sit through both Spotify's ads and the product placement in podcasts. (does Spotify insert inline ads into podcasts as well?)
From what I understand, no. The initial purpose of getting podcast is not for advertising, but every minute someone spends listening to a podcast is a minute they are not spending listening to music that Spotify has to pay the music industry. They won’t embed advertising in third party podcast - for now.
It’s assumed that the second phase is to allow podcasters to embed ads to allow them to monetize their podcasts, but it will be opt in.
I feel like generic embedded advertising would be a step backwards in podcast monetization. It seems to me that interstitial adds in podcasts are incredibly powerful because they are usually in the voice of the pod-caster, so on average the listener is probably going to be much more attentive to the add since it's closely related to the content they're actively paying attention to. Without that people will just tune them out like every other ad
You probably spend most of your time listening to popular podcasts with a large enough listenership that they can get advertisers. There are thousands of smaller podcasters that can’t get advertisers.
Also, most podcast ads are for direct response ads where the effectiveness of the ad campaigns can be tracked somewhat via coupon codes and that either are for large purchases (Casper, Warby Parker) or for subscriptions where the lifetime value of the customer and churn rate can be estimated.
You don’t hear that many brand advertisements on podcasts. That’s the market Spotify wants to go after.
Besides, an advertiser doesn’t need fine grained targeting to know that for instance anyone listening to “The Talk Show” or “Accidental Tech Podcast” is a probably a computer geek with lots of disposable income.
> As of 2015 his contract was worth $80 million PER YEAR
Yeah and stephen marbury went to china and made millions, but he became irrelevant. We all know why stern went with sirius, for the money. But he became culturally irrelevant in the process. But the writing was on the wall. He was getting old and "shock jock" is a young man's game. So he was going to get irrelevant no matter what.
The long-form format is a huge part. The regular media is not incentivized to air a 3-hour interview with a thoughtful interviewer. No, you'll get a 2-minute clip on CNN designed to extract click-bait soundbites from the guest.
Fox News has been the hyper-profitable and true mainstream media for awhile now. They make a lot of money because they're pandering to a slight minority opinion that is often not well supported by other organizations. Put another way: they manufacture and distribute information that otherwise wouldn't exist and this is actually in very high demand by people with a message. In short, supply is scarce for reactionary messaging and when effective communicators do emerge in that market they immediately find a ton of interested parties throwing money at them.
Rogan is an extension of that phenomenon, and it's the reason he makes lots of money. He's a lot like Limbaugh or Hannity in his career path; by showing a willingness to cater to authoritarian reactionary views, he's opened himself up to a lot of media opportunities.
What's weird about the narrative around Rogan is that he was ever "alternative" to begin with. He's been indistinguishable in methodology from the average conservative pundit for some time. His guest lists are very similar to the average conservative pundit. That he used a different broadcast media isn't that significant. He panders to the same sorts of audience segments in a younger audience.
Joe Rogan is an “average conservative pundit?” He’s an agnostic who is antagonistic to the Catholic Church. And, from his Wikipedia page:
> He has described himself as being "pretty liberal" and supports gay marriage, gay rights, women's rights, recreational drug use, universal healthcare, and universal basic income, while also supporting the Second Amendment. He also has criticized American foreign policy of military adventurism.
He’s basically Howard Dean; and to the left of Joe Biden for the most part.
You can't just redefine the political spectrum every four years and pretended there's no history or global context.
Bernie Sanders is a slightly left-of-centre person in a global context with slightly left-of-center politics which appeal more to the libertarian landscape then to the Communist, Anarchist or even Mutualist landscape.
The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become.
> The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become.
This is disputable. Did you have thoughts on the story a from a couple months ago about the Swedish journalist making the point that Sanders supporters would be considered far left in Sweden:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-b...
1) Bernie sanders thinks that we should have a tax system that is more progressive than Sweden, has higher capital gains taxes than Sweden, higher corporate taxes than Sweden and an individual wealth tax which Sweden does not have.
At least on the issue of taxation, it's clear that he is to the left of that country (and basically every other country on the globe).
2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week.
3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point).
To be honest I can't think of any issue off the top of my head where Bernie Sanders is to the right of Sweden's current policies.
Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms? That is very hard to imagine.
> At least on the issue of taxation, it's clear that he is to the left of that country (and basically every other country on the globe).
Sorry, but the basis for comparison isn't "What policies currently exist" but "what the 'left' in those regions claims is the next course of action." Otherwise, you're suggesting Sweden is somehow the yardstick of the global left, which is confusing. They're somewhat famously on the wrong side of several issues associated globally with the left, like sex work.
> 2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week.
Sanders's platform remained extremely light on details of this policy. Anytime a critique of a policy includes the words "virtually" you're equivocating.
> 3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point).
It's not clear to me if this is "left" or "right". "The Government Pays for Everything" is not inherently a "leftist" position or even a Libertarian (classical) position. Nor is, "The Individual Is Responsible For Health Care" essentially a rightward or authoritarian (classical) position.
> Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms?
I uh... really can't engage with a hypothetical like this? I have no idea what fictional New Somehow Fully Citizen Bernie Sanders would do? But I suspect he'd advocate for the use of military force against other countries to secure prosperity for his new hypothetical fellow citizens, since he holds that position in America.
Otherwise, you're suggesting Sweden is somehow the yardstick of the global left
I didn't suggest this. You did: "labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden".
You also mentioned Finland. TBH I just picked the first one on your list. I could have made very similar comparisons between Sanders and Finland. I stuck to only one for brevity.
Sanders's platform remained extremely light on details of this policy.
"Oppose all efforts to undermine or overturn Roe v. Wade, and appoint federal judges who will uphold women’s most fundamental rights." (under Women's Rights on https://berniesanders.com/issues/)
It's not clear to me if this is "left" or "right".
It is generally accepted that the greater government intervention in the health care system the more "left" you are. The more health care is left up to individuals and private enterprise the more "right" you are.
> I didn't suggest this. You did: "labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden"
Sorry, that was unclear. Swedish leftism in politics. Not currently enacted Swedish law.
> It is generally accepted that the greater government intervention in the health care system the more "left" you are. The more health care is left up to individuals and private enterprise the more "right" you are.
This is just flatly wrong. Chomsky, for example, believes in non-government health care solutions and cites numerous ways individual communities have pursued this. We might imagine short-term pursuing these interventions because they reduce harm, but there are massive segments of the left that are deeply uncomfortable with a state run health care system.
When your politics are to the left of currently enacted Swedish law (and the law of virtually every other country on earth) you're not really a "slightly left-of-centre person in a global context."
Maybe this was true in 1995, when Bill Clinton killed the left wing of the Democratic Party. But that refrain has become obsolete. Progressive democrats’ brand of socialism plus open borders is probably one of the furthest left mainstream ideologies in a western country. Green New Deal would be massively to the left of anything that has happened in Europe since the continent flirted with actual socialism in the 1970s. Implementing Warren’s or Sanders’ proposals would push government spending as a percentage of the economy past Sweden into Denmark territory. (And Denmark current social democratic government is far to the right of American democrats on immigration issues.)
EU members (a broadly popular and enviable status) have much more open borders and broader refugee responsiblities that anything that has gotten out of draft status in the house or Senate.
What's more, leftists are split on the actual subject of borders. Communists like them, everyone else hates them, excepting decolonialists who essentially want them enforced only for indigenous peoples.
It's very odd to suggest that the EU open immigration policy and One Currency is somehow not an open borders policy.
The EU system is not an open borders policy any more than the US system is one. EU countries have made the deliberate decision to enter into a political union. Membership into that union is an arduous process that involves meeting myriad benchmarks. EU citizens are one polity, governed by supreme EU law, and who vote in EU-wide elections. Legally, it’s not much different than the US federal system. But the EU’s external borders are no more porous, and the politics of guarding those borders is significantly to the right of US progressives. The EU took more refugees, sure, but that’s within the framework of otherwise low undocumented immigration. Adjusted for population, the US has had many illegal border crossings per month as the EU did all of last year.
For example, US progressives want to decriminalize illegal entry. But illegal entry is a crime in the three largest EU countries (France, Germany, and the U.K.) and all of the Scandinavian countries: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php. Likewise, progressives want free healthcare for people here illegally. That’s left-wing even by European standards. Spain’s socialist government restored universal healthcare for undocumented immigrants, which a previous conservative government had eliminated. Macron is trying to reform France’s universal healthcare to restrict benefits for illegal immigrants. And Germany and most of Scandinavia only provide undocumented people emergency services, just like in the US. Countries like Denmark and New Zealand have recently combined left-wing economics with right-wing immigration policy. New Zealand’s Ardern, a darling of American liberal media for her liberalism in healthcare and women’s and LGBT issues, campaigned in reducing legal immigration, and came to power by forming a coalition government with the “New Zealand first” party. Denmark’s new social democrat PM is to the right of Trump on immigration issues.
The platform espoused by people like Sanders and Warren is very liberal in comparison to mainstream ideologies in other western countries. Not only do they want to spend 50-60% of GDP on the government, like the Scandinavian countries, but they want to enable massive immigration, which the Scandinavian countries generally do not support. They are also anti-corporation and anti-free markets, which the Scandinavian countries generally embrace.
You're both talking about the Schengen Area. There's a lot of overlap with the European Union but members of one aren't necessarily members of the other.
The peculiar part about the comparisons you're making is that even the German AfD, who are regarded by everyone outside the AfD as only slightly to the left of the Nazi Party, would back away from putting as many immigrants in camps and prisons as we've done. The Fox News/AM radio listener demographic will experience a lot of heartburn in the months and years after the Trump administration as we unwind our current immigration policy and replace it with something sane - and literally anything we do will probably be viewable through a certain kind of lens as a move "leftward" - but none of that should be regarded in isolation as a measurement of the country's political leanings. It will just be about repairing damage.
Certainly in relative terms Bernie Sanders would represent some aspects of progressive politics. However it's very important to know how regressive American politics are.
While the loss of life is extremely unfortunate, the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now. Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world we also can't deal with aglobal pandemic because we simply lack the infrastructure for Public Health and we've spent 20 years arguing about whether we should have it.
Bernie Sanders's policies are slightly right of Macron, and he's pretty much the poster child for neoliberal centrism globally. He wants the same thing many other similar capitalist Nations have, which is essentially using tax dollars to ensure business prosperity by offsetting high-risk costs like healthcare.
Looks like May 14 and later are still projections. It's now May 25. Given the spikes we've seen since states have started reopening, I'd want to see more up-to-date stats.
I certainly agree that predictions are hard. And things could go in another direction. I'm just saying that the progress of the disease to date has not been an "object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure."
It's outrageous, bordering on disingenuous, to compare anyone to Italy and Sweden and go, "See? Your health care infrastructure isn't so bad."
Sweden deliberately elected not to use their infrastructure. Italy was the first critical European outbreak and their difficulties were information most other nations had.
Why not look at South Korea or Mongolia? You know, actual success stories.
You're mixing up two very different things. When you talk about Sanders and "health care infrastructure" people naturally assume you're talking about hospitals, insurance coverage, etc. That naturally raises the response of "well, Italy has socialized medicine, like Sanders wants, and that hasn't really helped it."
South Korea's success does not have anything to do with left versus right--which is the topic at hand--or even really health care infrastructure. South Korea has experience dealing with respiratory virus outbreaks from China. It also has a population that is able to follow instructions and defer to authority, unlike people in western countries.
Comparisons of the US to South Korea or Japan are "outrageous, bordering on disingenuous." In terms of social organization and ability to get things done, comparing New York City to Italy is actually very generous.
> You're mixing up two very different things. When you talk about Sanders and "health care infrastructure" people naturally assume you're talking about hospitals, insurance coverage, etc. That naturally raises the response of "well, Italy has socialized medicine, like Sanders wants, and that hasn't really helped it."
Quite the opposite. You're the one doing that. I didn't name specific mechanisms and instead said "infrastructure" precisely to avoid this conversation. It doesn't matter how it's implemented; what matters is that effective medical care and clear information can reach citizens in times of crisis.
All the examples folks have named have clearly shown a total failure to do this. So despite how many great resources they may have amassed, they could not mobilize that into an effective civic infrastructure.
You're the one who wants to argue about socialized medicine. From the look of it, that's because you want to gloss over the profound failure of the US to do anything resembling a credible disaster response or address the profound inequalities that exist in American health care.
> South Korea's success does not have anything to do with left versus right
I agree!
> which is the topic at hand
No, the topic is, "Is Rogan a reactionary?" The answer there is yes, and even recently he's been sympathetic to the ludicrous claims that doing nothing is a reasonable strategy during this pandemic. The man is a conspiracy theorist. He has been in the past and he'll continue to be so in the future because he's a reactionary and that's how they operate.
> South Korea has experience dealing with respiratory virus outbreaks from China. It also has a population that is able to follow instructions and defer to authority, unlike people in western countries.
South Korea had to enact an emergency law letting cities detain people for violating stay at home and mask orders because compliance was bad. I don't know why you think these pacific asian counties are "obedient" but that's... Not a good characterization. I will follow the site guidelines and assume you have an unconscious bias there as opposed to an active one.
> Comparisons of the US to South Korea or Japan are "outrageous, bordering on disingenuous." In terms of social organization and ability to get things done, comparing New York City to Italy is actually very generous.
New York was a worse individual outbreak than any Italian city from the last numbers I saw, so doesn't this invalidate harryh's comparison?
NYC has been hit the hardest in the world, there weren't enough masks and ventilators, and testing wasn't available except to those in the most dire conditions (despite what the politicians claimed).
Also I don't think it's a fair comparison to compare the entire countries given the enormous size differences, the drastically lower population density of the U.S. (outside NYC), and again the lack of testing which is definitely drastically underestimating the real amount.
Also the bigger problem in the U.S. is that tens of millions are uninsured and/or have health plans tied to jobs that they lost, have no sick leave, and are criminally overcharged for basic health services leading to medical disaster being the #1 cause of bankruptcy. This kind of precarity and suffering isn't captured in coronavirus case statistics.
We'll need to wait and see for data on UK and France. Those countries certainly botched up their handling similarly (although not quite as long as we have).
Comparing us to Sweden (which has essentially elected to do nothing at all except politely suggest large gathering should be cancelled and decline to enforce that suggestion) or Italy (the first European pandemic outbreak site, with a large population of older people who cohabitate with younger families, and extremely dense outbreak zones)seems like a low enough bar to be called "failure" given the economic resources the US has at its disposal.
Bernie is significantly to the left of Macron. Macron is a pro-business former investment banker who has campaigned on reforming labor unions in France, privatizing entities like SNCF, and deregulation generally.
Macron is also an excellent example of why the notion that American politics is significantly more conservative Thani n Europe is overstated. In the first round, Macron won 24% of the vote. Fillion (center-right), Dupont-Aignan (Gaullist), and Le Pen (far-right) together had 45% of the vote. That is, nearly half the French electorate was to the right of Macron. The same is true in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. All are headed by staunch neo-liberals, and have been for some time. Boris Johnson just blew out his socialist challenger; Merkel's hand-picked successor is now a leader of one of Germany's right-wing parties.
Sanders' brand of liberalism is antediluvian. The "social-democratic" countries he admires have moved to a model better described as "welfare capitalism." See: https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/01/17/.... The conservative Heritage Foundation consistently ranks Denmark in the top 10 when it comes to economic freedom. While Sanders rails against corporations and calls for sweeping regulations, Denmark, Sweden, etc., have lowered corporate taxes to below U.S. levels and dramatically deregulated their economies. Over the past two decades, while Sanders stood still, almost the whole of Europe became more like America: they privatized state-owned industries, pursued aggressive deregulation, and increased individual choice. For example, while Sanders opposes charter schools, Sweden and Denmark have school vouchers for private schools, just like American Republicans want to do.
As to COVID-19: it has been an eye-opening illustration of how socialized medicine doesn't help a whit when it comes time to dealing with a global pandemic. COVID-19 deaths per day per million peaked in the U.S. at half of what it did in Spain, Italy, and the UK: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi....
Look, this shouldn't be seen either as for or against socialized medicine. Sweden has that, but their political infighting rendered their infrastructure moot, and they're now the single worst offender.
It has to do with if the systems in place are accessible and capable of responding in times of crisis. South Korea and Mongolia have very different looking political structures and medical infrastructure, but their ability to effectively provide and enable their infrastructure to those who need it sets them leagues apart from the US and Sweden.
You're the one who mentioned America's supposedly "ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure." Whatever political problems we had in terms of coordinating a response, our "health care infrastructure" itself held up admirably. NYC got hit harder than Italy, but unlike Italy did not run out of hospital beds.
No, it hasn't. Suggesting unutilized capacity is "our infrastructure" working as intended is a ludicrous metric. It can be gamed simply by refusing to provision some capacity. The numbers that matter are what actually prevents death and injury (and the count of death and injury that represents the human costs of these failures).
America still isn't testing at sufficient scale. Contact tracing isn't happening at scale. The federal government is actively discouraging these effective strategies.
Also: Italy faced a national outbreak, New York did not. It's simply a category error to expect overflows even if those numbers do matter to you.
The whole point of universal healthcare is that everybody gets access to care, regardless of their employment status or wealth, and doesn't have to pay exorbitant fees or declare bankruptcy for it.
Also testing in the U.S. during the last couple months of the coronavirus pandemic was very hard to get and extremely inadequate. None of my friends in NYC who requested tests were able to get access to tests.
I mean it's all relative I guess. Bernie Sanders was by far the most progressive U.S. presidential candidate in this election, so that would put Rogan's "progressiveness" in the country's minority.
Anyways I think this is a stupid argument. My point wasn't to debate his progressiveness, just to point out how absurd it is to call a Bernie Sanders supporter "conservative".
Within American politics (who else's politics would we be talking about here?) Rogan is squarely on the left. As evidenced by Biden, he's to the left even of many Democrats. (Remember, a big chunk of the Democratic Party is religious African Americans, half of whom are opposed to gay marriage, and hispanic Americans, many of whom are opposed to abortion.)
I think Biden is too far left, so being to the left of him is definitely not an "accomplishment." But my point is about the meaning of words. In discussing an article about an American media personality, describing Rogan as a "conservative pundit" is simply incorrect.
Maybe if I did that I'd be more concerned. I said he profited from and resembled one, but that he's an American centrist with strong reactionary sympathies.
If your entire engagement here has been to dispute that I said this, then wow have we both wasted a lot of time.
Reactionary conservatism is not limited to religious communities in America.
As an extreme example Richard Spencer said he was an atheist in many of the violent Nazi communities don't refer to a literal or specific God but rather a racial will. It's difficult not to call those people reactionary.
I do think people are misunderstanding my comparison. I think Joe Rogan is a reactionary, but I don't know if he's a conservative. I know that he profits and Norma sleep from the same machine that creates other conservative media. In that sense I don't think he's very different from Limbaugh, Hannity or Crowder or Shapiro.
The average conservative pundit supports Bernie Sanders? I hate to just fire off a gotcha, but I honestly don't understand how to interpret the idea that Joe Rogan is similar to a Fox News pundit.
Several of the conservative podcasters have come out for Bernie Sanders and Yang had broad support from a lot of them as well. This isn't because they're somehow more left; it's because Bernie Sanders cut much more along anti-capitalist libertarian.
While we're not used to hearing a ton from that wing of the libertarian party in the media, they've been regaining ground in their political spaces over the last 5 years.
Timmy Pool purports to be a leftist / Sanders supporter but his audience are fringe rightwing/alt-rightists who after listening to his show for awhile tend to become full blown alt-right.
Part of his schtick is that he claims to be a leftist while concern trolling for the alt-right.
Not saying Joe does this but claiming to support Bernie and then publicly saying you'd prefer to vote for trump than Biden doesn't make me confident in his progressive bonafides.
This is probably not an appropriate conversation for Hacker News but essentially you can vote Democrat in America and still be a reactionary conservative and those are not inconsistent positions.
American politics is shifted so far to the right that any honest categorization of it suggest that almost no "leftism" actually exist in the politics. America's notion of liberalism is largely defined economically.
Looking is clearly a Centrist with strong reactionary leanings. He has all the hallmarks of this. For example he's historically been very soft on conspiracy theory culture and is even been part of some of those movements himself. He clearly profits from the same system that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro also profit from.
Nor do hosts of said shows need to believe the profitable aspects of their work to profit from them. Ben Shapiro does not seem like the kind of person who's so stupid that he believes that a permanently flooded house could be resold, but he's definitely said that and then subsequently defended it. I also suspect that Crowder doesn't believe many of the things that he says, but it's his business.
> American politics is shifted so far to the right
I saw this and stopped reading. Just about spit out my coffee. Do people really think American politics are shifting to the right, when somebody like Bernie Sanders for President was unimaginable 15 years ago, yet is somewhat popular today?
But it's worth noting Obama was considered a "progressive" candidate. While his appointment was a meaningful milestone for American race politics, his actual politics were... disappointing to many leftists and progressives.
An awful lot of conservative people were moved by certain aspects of Bernie Sanders rhetoric. The notion that Bernie Sanders was a deep leftist is propaganda by the authoritarian right. compared to the majority of politics elsewhere in the world he's a Centrist. many leftists in America viewed him as a compromise candidate, not a representative candidate. This is probably because he's much closer to an anti-capitalist Libertarian position. Thus he cut across many traditional political aisles along a different axis.
And if you think for a few minutes I'm positive you can proposed people who are much further "left" of the political spectrum in American politics then Bernie Sanders. AOC comes to mind.
AOC wasn't running for president. Bernie Sanders was THE most progressive candidate running for U.S. president in 2020. I mean he identified himself as a socialist.
He didn't quite do that, but even if he did that wouldn't matter. He's a slightly left of center in a global sense, anymore than it'd make sense to call Biden "the progressive" candidate.
I'm not disputing you on U.S. politics being conservative on the global scale, just that it's not fair or accurate to call Rogan a "conservative" when he's voting for the most "socialist" candidate on the ballot in his country and endorsing policies like a universal basic income, something considered "leftist" in basically every single country including the Scandinavian countries who have still yet to implement it.
Sure overall perhaps he's still a "conservative" on the global scale, but by that definition the entirety of U.S. politics is conservative (including CNN, MSNBC, etc), and that speaks more to the state of politics in the country itself than Joe Rogan.
> 'm not disputing you on U.S. politics being conservative on the global scale, just that it's not fair or accurate to call Rogan a "conservative" when he's voting for the most "socialist" candidate on the ballot in his country
Fair, but please note I called him a reactionary. I said he profits from the same sources as conservatives. I've said elsewhere in this thread, I think he's a "centrist" which is "conservative" anywhere else.
UBI has an interesting status in Libertarian circles, but I'm not going to go any further off topic here.
You realise he's hugely popular outside of the US? In other words I doubt Fox News and American conservative politics has very much to do with his popularity. It maybe affects some of audience but there is a large contingent that doesn't care about that nonsense.
> But there is also a very practical reason Rogan can say whatever he thinks: He is an individual and not an organization. Eric Weinstein, another podcaster and a friend of Rogan, told me, “It’s the same reason that a contractor can wear a MAGA hat on a job and an employee inside Facebook headquarters cannot: There is no HR department at ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’.”
I think that might be the takeaway for me: modern companies have over-optimized for political correctness. I wish more companies would be honest about their politics and that of their employees.
Why would a company actively alienate half of their customers by publicly aligning with one party or the other, when they can just donate quietly with the same effect? I have friends that still don't eat at Chick-Fil-A after the CEO political donations scandal.
A MAGA hat is just another way of saying by "Mexicans are rapist", which was part of the whole MAGA launch. I totally understand why an organization, that employs a very diverse workforce, wouldn't want this kind of opinion being expressed.
I wish that people that advocated for less political correctness would actually list the opinions that they would want to see expressed publicly. What is specifically something that you wish was being said in public discourse that is not allowed now?
Well, for example, it'd be nice if people were allowed to say "make America great again". It seems like a serious problem if such a vague, generic statement is interpreted as a coded message about Mexicans.
Most isolated people on the left still believe Trump was referring to nazi's/white nationalists as "good people" when he made that "good people on both sides" comment. If they would just step out of their bubble for one moment they would realize they've been lied to. NYT articles like this are IMO designed to keep people from wanting to leave the bubble.
No, folks on the left were pointing out, correctly, that calling folks who willingly marched with nazis who were chanting "blood and soil" good people was a serious dog whistle to rightwing extremism.
Except he didn't. He specifically condemned them. Some journalist took part of his statement, cut off the rest and riled up a bunch of people over a false narrative. I still see someone in the media who should know better by now repeat this lie on occasion.
Saying you condemn the nazis while absolving the folks who marched with them _is_ a dog whistle to rightwing extremism. That's the entire point.
If they were good people they would've called the nazis out and kicked them out of their march, or refused to march with them. Instead they marched with the nazis.
It's pretty surreal to have just finished reading the blog post[1] on this topic, that was posted just a little bit higher, then to come here and see it played out.
> He stated his assumption and then spoke to the assumption.
This is a pathetic attempt to absolve trump of his clear racism and dog whistles to extremists. If he assumes wrongly it's okay to say whatever he wants? That points even more directly to a dog whistle. Shame on whoever wrote that as a defense.
Joining up with a bunch of white nationalists to march in support of a statue of a man who is famous for waging a traitorous war against the United States in support of the institution of slavery doesn't make one a "very fine person", indeed quite the opposite.
False equivalence - the blood and soil folks were marching and chanting explicit nazi phrases and pushing nazi ideas, there were no "good people" in that crowd - the point of the march was to push that agenda.
You're referring, I think, to the folks in the Women's March who joined the march but had a past of making anti-semitic comments. Those people did not show themselves to be anti-semites during the march, so the folks marching with them would not have known to disengage or call them out at the time (though they were widely called out afterwards, if you care to look into it). Contrast this with the folks trump called good people - the entire point of that march was to push nazi rhetoric, and the folks who joined them knew that, even if they don't self identify as nazis.
Thought Experiment #1: What would happen if you said some of things at work that Trump has said on Twitter in front of someone in HR. What do you think would happen?
Thought Experiment #2: If you were a manager and your team was as a chaotic, unqualified, and had the turnover that the WH has, what do you think would happen?
"You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group …".
Do you mean this quote?
He meant the silent white supremacists, who protested quietly (with long guns, and who afterwards were pretty proud of themselves that they haven't mowed people down despite having been hit by bricks).
There's a 207 page long review assembled by a commission about the events, and it found no peaceful pro-statue protesters.
I'm not even American, but to give a counter example, Black Lives Matter is also a pretty benign sounding expression that received a lot of vitriol.
And even common words can get very negative associations over time. Sometimes language has to change because of that. It's a pity, especially if you like the specific term, but that's life.
> Black Lives Matter is also a pretty benign sounding expression that received a lot of vitriol.
Because on both sides of the barricade, there are partisans that interpret everything as dog whistling. Whether it is "Black Lives Matter" or "It's OK to be white", same thing.
If you see any difference between those two, I suggest you read mistermann's comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23301679 and think about it really hard. If you are willing to confront your bias, that is.
One of them was a reaction to a well-evidenced trend of excessive police force against black people. The other one is literally a neo-nazi dog whistle intended to promote the theory that there is a conspiracy against white people in western society and draw well meaning white people into nazi ideology. I'm not biased on this point, I simply know the facts. I suggest you read the ADL's coverage of it, and similarly "think really hard". https://www.adl.org/blog/from-4chan-another-trolling-campaig...
If you went through the process that the comment says, you might find out that you do not simply know the facts and that you are in fact biased. Do check your sources, their agenda and how that affects their framing of their reporting.
I have to wonder why you're so determined to defend a phrase coined by neo-nazis, used by the Ku Klux Klan and other known white nationalists, and whether or not you have a bias of your own.
Do you see how absurd it is to present an anti-racist slogan and a racist slogan as equivalent? Your logical contortions require the removal of all context from the discussion. Context is important. In this case, the context is that the overwhelming majority of this phrase's usage is as a white nationalist slogan. You're deliberately ignoring this in an incredible attempt to paint anti-racist activists as equivalent to racist activists.
There is a conspiracy against white people in Western society.
On social media, no one would bat an eye at the quote "white people are trash". The quote "black people are trash" is (correctly) an instant ban. If Sarah Jeong wrote that she "loved being cruel to old brown people", she would not be working for the NYT. Take any socially accepted joke about white people, and replace white with any other race to make it no longer socially acceptable.
There is a different standard applied to white people than other races. That's an objective fact.
You can argue that this is justified due to differences in societal power, which is not an unreasonable argument at all, but to deny that it exists is willful ignorance.
The reason that "it is okay to be white" is so effective is that it does have poignancy to young, impressionable white people who inhabit an online world filled with vitriol directed at them, so when you then call it a "racist" statement, it only serves to alienate them and drive recruitment to the alt-right. The correct response to "it is okay to be white" is not "that's a racist statement that you can't say" but "yes, obviously, moron".
White nationalism is really just the dumbest shit ever, but this complete and utter refusal to understand the root causes of the movement only helps them. It is, quite literally, what the terrorists want.
I think the name of the group received a lot of vitriol because they paraded down every major US city chanting "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon." - insinuating that police officers should be "fried like bacon".
Of course there are idiots on Twitter that debate the semantics of the name - but those are largely teenagers and young adults.
...pretty well? I don't know if we work in different areas or what, but in my experience tech companies are very accepting of non-Trump-aligned political expression. I've seen people wear communist slogans to work before and they've never gotten in trouble for it.
That appears to be false. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/05/amazon-pr... Unless you mean that union organizing is Trump-aligned political expression. I also wonder what the "communist slogan" was that you saw? In all places I've worked at wearing a shirt like that would be taboo.
> I wish that people that advocated for less political correctness would actually list the opinions that they would want to see expressed publicly.
I suspect a big part of the reason people don't bother is because it's an exercise in futility - they could do it, but it is a fair amount of work to list out a decent set of topics that should be discussed, along with reasoning for why, but then the person who asked for it, who likely truly believes they are doing so with complete sincerity and an open mind, isn't likely to actually consider them anyways.
For example, I could ask you to "unpack" this statement:
> A MAGA hat is(!) just another way of saying "Mexicans are rapists", which was part of the whole MAGA launch.
Such a seemingly simple "truth", provided one is unaware of (or "ignores", in real time conversational discussion and thinking) the incredibly complex neurological processes (and the model they are based on, and the lineage of the data in that model) that occur within the subconscious human mind, before completely transparently popping simple answers and "truths" up to the conscious process, often accompanied by some(!) data to quickly form a "good enough" post-hoc-rationalized explanation for the "logic" (it isn't - subconscious heuristics don't run on logic) upon which the "truth" (heuristic prediction) is based.
To test whether this theory may have some validity, you could try to unpack your statement into a purely logic/reason based statement that ~proves that it is ~true. I predict (we shall see if my prediction is correct, based on your response, or lack of response) that not only will you not be able/willing to do it, but if you did, before too long you would realize that many of the supporting perceived to be first-principle "facts" you'd instinctually want to use in your proof, have a bit of a magical quality to them...like, you know that they are true, but if you sit down and really examine them, you'll find that they aren't actually true (always true, with no exceptions), and also that you don't really know where they came from, or how they got into your mind (and tagged as facts) in the first place.
I suspect you'd have no problem "seeing" how this approach could work on people who hold racist and similar beliefs, but in my experience there is a significantly lower likelihood of you being able to see the effectiveness of this technique if the shoe is on the other foot...if instead it is your mind's attention and considerable processing power, being pointed at itself. It seems like there is some unseen process that disallows actions like this (which is a rather fun and interesting philosophical question to ponder: assuming there is such a guarding process, what is the nature of it, and where did it come from).
> A MAGA hat is just another way of saying by "Mexicans are rapist", which was part of the whole MAGA launch.
That's not at all what people wearing MAGA hats want to represent, and the fact you can't understand that is exactly the problem you guys have in the USA and why Trump will probably be reelected
The whole point of political correctness is that there are a set of opinions that are unpopular enough that it's OK to inflict social isolation (or sometimes worse) on those who express them.
Even if those opinions are really horrible opinions, political correctness is still bad, because social isolation just makes the problem worse. Sure, you can't engage every crazy idea with a detailed rebuttal. But it's much more effective to befriend or relate to the person on other points, develop mutual respect, and through osmosis you will both understand each other a bit more, and each temper your views.
This is how families work. Hopefully you don't (hypothetically) hate your aunt because she occasionally says something that sounds racist. Maybe she has done many wonderful things in her life, and so you just kind of accept it as part of the complexity being human. You don't have to believe the statements are good, but you also don't have to obsess on them to the point of defining her by the statements.
The other reason political correctness is bad is because the rules are arbitrary enough, and the punishments are arbitrary enough, that you are never quite sure when they are going to turn against you. For a while it was politically incorrect to say "black", but now that's normal again and "African-American" is a bit more awkward[1]. There was no grand vote or decree to change it... it just changed like a fashion.
I honestly don't see how someone who travels at all could be one of the enforcers of political correctness. People in other countries say politically-incorrect (in the American sense) stuff all the time unless they have been trained otherwise.
[1] The median black family here has a lot more history in America than the median white family, so it seems a bit insulting to add a qualifier before "American".
Please stop spreading lies. He never said Mexicans are rapist. He said:
"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best," Trump said. "They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Seriously, have you watched the speech? I'm guessing you haven't, so here is a little more context around what he said. He wasn't just referring to Mexicans, he was talking about immigrants in general crossing over the Mexican border.
DONALD TRUMP: When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.
The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.
Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.
It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably— probably— from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.
I thought “keep religion and politics out of the workplace” was advice that had been in place for a while? Not sure that staying away from sensitive political discussion while at work is a modern trend.
> It's not that long ago that a significant fraction of people worked on farms and did what they wanted.
Up until 1860 or so, most people across the world were working on farms. And most of those people were at best sharecroppers, if not serfs or slaves. Something tells me there wasn't a lot of freedom going around :-)
>“keep religion and politics out of the workplace” was advice that had been in place for a while
Sure, but said Facebook employee has a greater chance of having action taken against him for wearing a MAGA cap than for wearing an Antifa shirt. Of course Facebook have all rights to do so since they're a private corporation but that sort of thing is what GP was talking about.
Sure, and I'll probably get into greater trouble at the lunchroom of a conservative law firm if I read the Communist Manifesto rather than Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, and I probably shouldn't whip out one of Dawkins books at a church gathering.
What has always confused me about this discussion about say, a left leaning bent at Facebook or whatever is that this has always been the norm in virtually every conservative place, which is like 90% of provincial small towns, from which all the liberal and creative people have to run away in the first place.
An interesting point, but I don't think that's actually true. I doubt there are many places where you'd actually get in trouble for reading the Communist manifesto.
(But admittedly, this is spoken as someone who mostly has exposure to more liberal workplaces - so I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)
Some of problems they mention on content are real, but ugh I hate the pace of podcasts (even if I adjust the speed, the problem is I don't want a constant rate) and much rather read. Are the reading > listen types really a dying breed?
It's nice to see someone else say this. I would much rather read than listen (or watch, as well). Perhaps it's because I can go at my own pace, and easily go back and to review something already said or connect ideas, but I just find it a struggle to stay focused on listening/watching anything for that long.
I'm not particularly a fan of Rogan - too shouty/sweary/jockish, and I can't read this paywalled article, but its good to see a centrist voice breaking through the oftentimes liberal-left stranglehold on mainstream media.
More voices like that will help to keep them honest, which is dearly needed at times.
I discovered his podcast about 6 weeks ago, but only listened to a few of his recent guests. I liked the episodes I listened to, but I won't bother with Spotify, there is enough great stuff out there. This is much my attitude about "inconvenient" web sites with rollovers, painful Javascript, popups, etc. - I simply immediately leave if content is not easy to digest. I don't mind advertisements but I don't want ads to try to take over my browser.
I hope that Spotify works out for Joe Rogan. He seems like a very nice guy.
I've never been a Joe Rogan fan, I've only followed him in the news whenever he pops up or in some short clips that get milled around social media. So my opinion of him might be misinformed, but I've only ever gotten the impression that Rogan only ever really cares about selling a "neutral" but enticing experience. The focus isn't serious discussions or prodding the arguments of his guests, it's just about him playing the "dumb but curious everyman" as a stand in for the audience letting whoever has the most appealing mantra freely speak their mind. I think this identity as someone who just listen and doesn't question is genuine to him, but it also makes a great selling point as "politically neutral" or "both sides" speak.
Some of these ideas are genuinely worthwhile, but when those same thoughts are given even equal weight to the ravings of Alex Jones or Ben Shapiro - I don't see how anyone who is looking for intellectual rigor can derive value from consuming his podcast. If that's a good or bad thing is a value judgment someone has to make personally.
Given it's hosted by a comedian and has a diverse range of guests from entertainers to scientists to wackos, I've always thought of it as a show meant to entertain (which occasionally informs). I don't think it has ever pretended to be somewhere for robust intellectual discussion.
I almost included a point on this in my original comment. You’re right but I get the impression those are the same type of people that think only “intellectuals” like them can truly understand Rick & Morty.
I used to listen to Tim Ferris years ago, even bought the 4 hour workweek but for whatever reason I eventually lost interest. I think he was a bit predictable and bland also a bit too deep into "Tech" culture.
Never really paid much attention to Sam Harris so might have another look at him.
One of the most interesting things about Joe Rogan is that he's not a one trick pony e.g. Comedy/Fighters/TV personality etc. I find him more interesting as a result.
Worth looking into Tim Ferriss again. He's done so many episodes of his podcast now that there is a wide range of guests. I'd say if it leans towards any subject it wouldn't be tech but maybe health/body related subjects.
The difference for me is that Harris and Ferris don't make as much room for the interviewee, will often talk more than their guests, and their shows in-general focus more on their own guru egos and view points.
Rogan doesn't self-promote on his podcast, and he creates space for his guests to go deep on their specialties.
I don't think that's a really fair characterization to say he tries to remain "neutral" because he does take stances on things, sometimes very radical. In his last interview with David Pakman (a man who by the way runs a progressive Youtube talk show, not exactly a politically neutral guest) he said that Twitter should probably be regulated like a public utility, and perhaps even purchased outright by the government. That's a fairly radical stance, and even if it was said more in jest or posed as a hypothetical that is certainly not someone a host selling a "neutral" experience would say.
If you are equating Alex Jones and Ben Shapiro to each other than it doesn't seem like you hold yourself to this intellectual rigor that you expect Joe Rogan to adhere to. How can you expect more from others when you don't seem to practice what you preach?
I never said I expected Joe Rogan should adhere to intellectual rigor, rather that people shouldn't expect that from him in any shape because that's not necessarily the point of his show.
I do not think Jones and Shapiro are equal on every front, I think Shapiro is certainly the more sane and sensible one of the two, but as I mentioned in another comment - I think both are equal commentators selling a specific narrative and view of reality to a specific demographic. To me they both twist and bend the truth, or simply flat out lie, to sell their view of reality to a type of person.
This is true but I think getting less so as Joe is getting more confident in opining his ideas, look no further than his latest takes on the covid response
Alex Jones is a great example. Who let's Jones rave on for 3 hours? No one. Broadcasters are not going to want to be associated with him. Rogan just lets him go. I disagree with 95% of what Jones says but I'm not going to take anyone's word for it. I watch the 3 hours and then conclude on my own Jones is nuts. Free speech isn't just lip service on that show and kudos for that cause it's rare.
Bonus for Rogan is controversy/media coverage which attracts viewers. Rogan is savvy about the media and Internet.
I have to say those 3 hours are some of the best entertainment I've ever seen. It's completely crazy loony stuff, but I was literally laughing out loud.
I mean from all the conspiracy theories to asking Eddie Bravo to choke him out... It is absolutely hilarious.
So who's going to let him rave for 3 hours? Someone who wants to entertain millions of people. This isn't a criticism of Rogan, more that that main stream media would never allow that type of thing. For a start they don't have 3 hours. Yet it's at 19m views as of now.
I mean, I'm watching Tiger King right now, that's pretty much the same level of entertainment. I don't see the issue with Alex Jones being given 3 hours.
I don't get the appeal either. Joe Rogan is the personified midwit, he manages to make conversations with even the most interesting guests dumb and bland.
How is it that you put Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones in the same category? Your bias is clear and so I can see why Joe Rogans openness might not appeal to you
Because I think they're both figures who are focused on catering to a specific audience with a specific type of bunk. With Jones its incoherent, conspiracy riddled rants on his show to sell more "health supplements" and "survival gear", with Shapiro its fast talking emotional whataboutism to promote his media sites and books. I would lump left leaning figures like Gwyneth Paltrow and her company Goop, or any other similar figure pushing "alternative medicines", with them as well.
Even if I take your description of them their not in the same category. Conspiracy theorist and someone who promotes their own site and books is in the same category? You might disagree with Ben Shapiro and that’s fine but he’s not purposefully pushing misinformation.
Frequently, if you paste the link into "archive.is" or "outline.com", you can create (and post!) a link to such content yourself. Outline.com doesn't work for NYT articles, but archive.is currently does: http://archive.is/YamoB
On NYT and many other sites you can bypass the paywall by editing the URL and adding a '.' between the .com and the rest of the URL (nytimes.com./2020/...)
Title is one of those obviously farfetched and barely supported assertions that the editor must have forcefully decided upon late in the game.
Just proves nothing has replaced old mainstream media exactly, it has merely dwindled the more slack it gets for willfully risking a misunderstanding to take place.
The definition of Mainstream Media is still the same, as a setter and destroyer of definitions, since it has vast retrospective powers for editing out context to control the degree of controversy seen by the masses. Helped along by a collective of adversarial journalists able to limit discussion with a barrage of assertions and hold sway over mass sentiment through an implied consensus.
A one man interviewer does not give any semblance of consensus, it is at best a battle of convictions, but at least you can argue a conviction head on, no arguing with a consensus -- no learning from one either.
I enjoy Joe Rogan's podcast, but I'm not going to start using Spotify just to listen to his podcasts. Hell Spotify isn't even available in my country. I'm sure the episodes will leak out elsewhere, and if I run into them I'll listen. If Spotify really goes hard on the copyright striking and I don't see the podcasts anymore, well then I guess I'll miss out.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 277 ms ] threadAnd joe rogan has almost 1500 old episodes (did they take them down?)
Iirc, it's planned by the end of the year. His podcast will be Spotify exclusive from then.
Rogan reportedly makes 30 million per year from the show already. He makes more than TV talk show hosts. He really is the new mainstream.
And how much Spotify paid him is not a reflection of his mainstream popularity. It's a reflection of how much the LTV of his audience is worth. Two very different things.
That may not be it exactly either. What they are paying him to do is bootstrap the spotify podcasting ecosystem. Spotify hopes the publicity will bring in people who don't listen to Joe Rogan as well.
Similar to what Sirius paid Howard Stern to do for them, circa 2004 (for $500 million), for their personality / talk content. Sirius needed a major anchor.
Now the money is guaranteed and they can just focus on the content in the show. Sounds like an amazing deal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/podcasts/rabbit-hole-PewD...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/tech...
Downvoting because you like Joe Rogan? Fitting there's no actual RESPONSE, because what I posted is accurate. Joe Rogan: "Alex Jones is just misunderstood" - the guy who ran with the Sandy Hook conspiracy and was likely a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide. Joe Rogan's "unbiased" approach is toxic.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/14/joe-rogan-s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5qbaxYhbL8
I feel like this because the alternative is having a gatekeeper who tells everyone whose opinion is worth spreading and whose should be silenced and I prefer living in a non-totalitarian society.
Unless I'm that gatekeeper of course: I'm down for subjugating society to my personal preference of what's right and wrong.
edit: I may think that Alex Jones is an idiot but I still want him to be able to get as much exposure as someone I like.
You can't possibly expect people to make rational decisions about science they don't understand. And letting people straight up LIE and expect the common man to spend hours researching a topic they probably don't even understand to figure out they're being lied to is RIDICULOUS. There's a reason why we have ethics in journalism...
Who decides what’s misinformed? Science, the same thing that allows you to post on HN.
When people discuss creationism they're usually talking about Young Earth Creationism which is absolutely a fringe idea
> When asked the single-question version, just 18 percent of U.S adults say humans have always existed in their present form, while 81 percent say humans have evolved over time.
For example, most of these folks wont say the Earth is 10,000 or 6,500 years old. When asked they'll say the planet is much older.
Would I prefer to live in a nazi or communist society? No, but I prefer to live in a society that in theory can, in a worst case scenario, turn into either of those eventually than in one that cannot.
edit: unless we include some sort of utopian society where we're ruled by some perfect AI or where everyone has perfect information access and decision-making of course but that's science fiction.
I downvoted because of this comment:
> Unfortunately that generally consists of bringing on nut jobs like Alex Jones and pretending their fabricated claims are just as worthy of discussion as actual subject matter experts bringing facts and logic.
By what process did you arrive at this conclusion (which I assume is a personal opinion, even though it is presented in the form of a fact)? In a system as complex as global human society, where we have almost no understanding (or even knowledge of the existence) of some of the most important sub-processes contained within, how do you believe that you have individually arrived at the objectively correct ("what I posted is accurate") assessment of what "is" "worthy of discussion"?
> "Alex Jones is just misunderstood" - the guy who ran with the Sandy Hook conspiracy and was likely a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide. Joe Rogan's "unbiased" approach is toxic.
Do you actually think that Alex Jones' comprehensive worldview is fully understood, both by yourself and others? What data have you used to arrive at your conclusion? The the single "fact" that he "ran with" the Sandy Hook conspiracy and "was likely" a major contributing factor in one of the parents committing suicide? Surely you wouldn't form a confident conclusion on an infinitely complex subject (the understanding of someone's comprehensive worldview) based on one individual data point, would you?
I don't pose these questions in a rhetorical manner by the way - I would genuinely like to hear an "actual RESPONSE", if you are willing to provide one.
You need a model with predictive power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_power
>> The concept of predictive power, the power of a scientific theory to generate testable(!) predictions, differs from explanatory power and descriptive power (where phenomena that are already known are retrospectively explained or described by a given theory) in that it allows a prospective test of theoretical understanding.
>> A classic example of the predictive power of a theory is the discovery of Neptune as a result of predictions made by mathematicians John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier, based on Newton's theory of gravity.
>> If a theory has no predictive power, it cannot be used for applications.
Considering this, does:
>>> "A MAGA hat is just another way of saying "Mexicans are rapists"
...have predictive power? A useful technique I use to measure the intelligence of a theory is to implement it in the form of a boolean function. Try it out with that statement, just for fun, and see if your opinion on it changes at all.
Or, before we get ahead of ourselves...what does that sentence actually mean? It's purpose and origin are rather obvious (at least to me), but I'm interested in its literal meaning. Since the original author seems to have lost interest in the discussion (despite the prior "Fitting there's no actual RESPONSE..." complaint), perhaps you can decipher the literal meaning for me?
> Surely, I don't need to understand the infinitely complex workings of the entire universe to form a confident conclusion.
You need to understand the complex workings of whatever system you are working with well enough to produce testable predictions. If you do not have that, then you should not be forming confident conclusions. Very often, "it is not known" is the correct answer, and it wasn't all that long ago that most technical people could manage that stance. But as they say, time marches on.
> That's not how any decisions regarding our "global human society" is made.
You are absolutely correct - and observe the result: a scary number of people who work largely in pure logic all day long, are no longer able to differentiate between actual facts and heuristic predictions their subconscious spits out, at least on certain topics. A large percentage of the population is no longer capable of applying logic across diverse domains in a mentally disciplined manner, and they are also unable (and unwilling) to realize this. How did this happen seems like a good question.
> Even science (we can debate (and epistemologists do) whether this is truly the case or not; there is no complete theory of knowledge) does not present itself as having absolute facts
Science itself doesn't present itself as having absolute facts, but people who believe they are followers of science, or scientific thinkers, regularly speak as if science does have absolute facts, including here on HN on certain topics (generally, anything culture war related).
> but I think we can mostly agree that scientific knowledge has a more accurate representation of of the correlation between "chem trails" and the sexual orientation of frogs that Alex Jones does
Bravo.
If anything listening to Alex Jones for half an hour made me realize how nutty Jones is. Because I never would have searched out Jones on my own. Nor am I interested in what Vox has to say about Jones.
It's a good thing to hear other points of view without frothing at the mouth and demanding they are shut up. It's also a good thing to separate the point of view from the person. Because you disagree doesn't mean the person is evil and should be stricken from the book of life. This point seems to be lost in much of modern discourse.
Because I disagree? Of course not, disagreement doesn't make someone evil.
What makes him evil is running around claiming the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre were lying about their children dying as a conspiracy theory to take people's guns away. I can't think of a more spineless, thoughtless, ridiculous thing to do than attack people who just lost their children. He parroted that shit again and again for money. "Disagreement" has nothing to do with the stain on society that is Alex Jones being an evil person.
And Joe has been quite savvy at tailoring both his content and his image for them.
Way to make it sound nefarious. There's no greedy or malicious intent behind this, no script that these interviews follow to appeal to advertisers or viewers the way most media is carefully cultivated with surveys, talking points and focus groups to most effectively deliver a partisan message. These interviews give about as raw and unfiltered access to the guests as you can get, to let the experts talk about their subject, and that's Rogan's intent. Rogan himself isn't a carefully crafted media personality, but pretty genuine, flaws and all. If that's what you mean by "tailoring", I'd say we could all use a little more media like that.
The only kind of "tailoring" that appears to happen is Rogan sometimes listens to feedback on the kind of questions and discussions some listeners want to see.
The distinction is between deliberate tailoring for some ulterior motive we could speculate about, or that Rogan's content is genuine expression of his interests to whatever degree that's possible.
We can definitely speculate on whether there was nefarious intent, but the comment along the lines of tailoring something for a specific audience doesn't imply any intent in the tailoring, nefarious or otherwise.
1. The preceding sentence that I quoted specifically said the target was "young, white males". This already has nefarious undertones given current cultural trends, eg. look up media coverage for anything that targets "white males".
2. The claim that this group is the target, and in fact makes up most of the demographics is always asserted without any evidence. His audience is definitely predominantly male, but where's the evidence they're predominantly white? Once again, given the wider cultural context, this focus on white males has a negative undertone.
3. Finally and most importantly, it's asserting that Rogan is not simply being authentic and genuine, which contradicts Rogan's own words about his podcast. Which means the claim that his content is actually tailored again has very negative implications.
Every /person/ in existence tailors something for their audience, and this is now indistinguishable from genuine interest.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it but it's naive to think that they just fall into hundred million dollars deals without being savvy. All of these talk show hosts very much understand their audience and what they do and don't want. And again there is nothing wrong with that.
I never said he wasn't savvy, I said that savviness wasn't directed at "tailoring content" or his "image" in a way that's duplicitous as you were intimating, and that's typical for traditional media.
Rightly or wrongly, Rogan believes and does the things he says he believes and does, and he's genuinely interested in his guests and only interviews people who interest him. It just so happens that plenty of people find Rogan personable, the people he interviews interesting. In a world with over 7 billion people and with low barriers to entry, like streaming on YouTube, it's statistically inevitable that a Joe Rogan would appear.
You see tailoring in the images on Instagram, the word choice on their website, the sound bites or clips chosen on their YouTube pages etc. They consider their target audience all aspects.
I agree. I'm saying Rogan isn't one of them, at least not in the traditional sense that you mean. That's part of what makes his podcast compelling.
It's refreshing.
There are plenty of people I would never have listened to otherwise, because they are outside my bubble or just because they would represent something against my view of the world.
But because I also saw people I view as interesting or people I already knew from somewhere else, and because they have the time and space to elaborate, I gave the others a chance.
This allowed me to be exposed to new topics, points of views, etc, in a relaxing and human format.
Just like regular media, it's full of bullshit. But I'm full of it too.
It does, however, feel way more genuine than regular media.
The comment is not downvoted now.
Given a bit of time, substantive comments that get early downvotes generally get restorative upvotes and end up back in the black, so to speak.
I personally think of him as King of the Bros and think it's kind of sad that he's become the model man, but it is what it is.
If some people out there has Rogan as role model I honestly, comparing him with most media figures, I can't be bothered.
He has a format that people enjoys, and he's not trying to make people swallow any narrative. That's good in my book.
For anyone that enjoys the medical / health guests on Rogan's podcast, I'd recommend "The Peter Attia Drive" podcast. (Not to be confused with Peter Attia's appearance on Rogan's podcast).
Many of the same guests are on both, but on Attia's, they are speaking to an MD and start at a way higher level.
It's a great fit for my 100/200 college level basic understanding of biology and chemistry, it usually starts from there and goes up. There's quite a bit I don't follow exactly because of that, but I certainly prefer that than a dumbed down version of everything.
Agreed, but those were not the only things Musk did in each of those episodes and they contained a lot of content (that didn't involve just smoking weed) that was probably interesting to people outside of the HN crowd who wouldn't watch Musks's actual Neuralink presentation or the original MCT/ITS talk.
- He gets high-profile guests across a decently wide spectrum and at an overall high volume. >95% of his interviews don't interest me, but for the 5% that do - say, John Carmack - the name is the main draw. These people just don't get interviewed all that often so it's an event regardless of the MC. Probably the same for his entire audience, just different 5% slices.
- If you know the old mystery TV anthology show Columbo, he does a similar routine to the titular character: He plays the unassuming everyman and then asks unexpectedly smart/pointed questions, using simple terms but with reasonably deep implications. His interviews seem generally well-prepared. They don't go particularly deep on any subject matter, but if you're familiar with the subject matter they still prompt interesting responses from the guests - you can see someone like Carmack or Musk go into rubber-duck debugging mode trying to digest complicated thoughts into succinct answers and that has an interesting information side-channel to it (it tells you what they really think is important to say or highlight, and Rogan seems to be aware of this - he is good at getting the bits they personally find important).
- Related to the above, the macho/masculinity slant aside he acts humble and un-obnoxious. I might feel differently if I watched any episode with a guest I really dislike (because he seems to be more accommodating than challenging/critical, for sure), but in the episodes I watched I wasn't annoyed with him.
- Part of his prep is also clearly to read up on recent/controversial things related to a guest and probe for it during the interview, so there's the shock value/titilation factor that adds to the entertainment. His skill is that both him and the interviewee anticipate this but he still puts his subjects at ease enough in the moment to make the responses compelling. It has your brain constantly working to sort through what is guarded and what is not (=real), just like quality reality TV (everyone knows reality TV is scripted -- the entertainment is in trying to identify the sliver of authenticity in people's emergent behavior on camera).
Classical liberalism / neoliberalism are not left-wing ideologies. They are, at best, centre-right if the Overton window is set to Western standards.
Edit: I love being downvoted because I care about the meaning of words. I clearly stepped on some American nerves. Thanks HN.
Interestingly, you see this most in Australia, where the Centre/Right party is called the Liberal Party.
But it hasn't been used like that since the 1970s really, except in the "Liberal Democracy" sense. I think that has actually caused a lot of issues where the US right says they don't support Liberal Democracy, whereas - generally speaking, with the exception of the authoritarian arm - they mostly do.
The whole reason you think the meaning depends on the context is because you have been mislead to believe that liberal == left-wing, or something approaching that.
This is completely and utterly false, hence my "nitpick". Changing the meaning of these words causes the exact type of confusion you seem to be suffering from!
Left-wing is a term with a very loose definition, and depending on the Overton window, "liberal" places somewhere on the left/right axis. "Liberal", however, does have a well-defined meaning, since it refers to a specific ideology, unlike "the left".
TLRD: "liberal" is not a direction on an axis, rather it's a point on an already existing axis, the left/right one.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/24/politics/bernie-sanders-joe-r...
"Rogan, a libertarian-leaning broadcaster with a public persona in the mold of Howard Stern"
- No gotcha questions. On TV, the interviewee might be on for 5 minutes and the interviewer asks a bunch of preloaded questions, especially "gotcha" questions if there's a political divide. Rogan never tries to undermine his guests.
- The conversations usually last as long as they need to. His show sometimes go over 3 hours if it's necessary. I don't ever listen for 3 hours and feel like I've wasted my time.
- Joe is clearly good at making his guests feel comfortable, which brings out a different side of people that you might not see in a traditional setting. How is anyone supposed to be uptight around a pot smoking, MMA fighting comedian who asks you if you've used DMT?
It's like saying serving good food and making your guest feel at home is a trick for a successful diner.
In British English 'trick' can mean many things. You can do a trick on a skateboard but the usage I have is
a clever or particular way of doing something.
"the trick is to put one ski forward and kneel"
I hope that clarifies the British English usage. Elsewhere 'trick' probably means deception but in British English there are other uses, e.g. the trick to explaining something is to cite Wikipedia.
When I see mainstream media interview people that are expert in topics I'm well versed in, the questions are cringe worthy at best.
For comparison with someone trying to create a similar show, Lex Fridman regularly asks some stupid, stupid questions. He's clearly approaching his guests from his own personal perspective, and not letting the individual perspective of their guests be front and centre.
Elon Musk: We need some kind of like, mind-viral immunity. So that’s, that’s a bit concerning.
Joe Rogan: Mind-viral immunity. Meaning that once something like Neuralink gets established, the real concern is that it’s something, that, I mean you said it’s Bluetooth, right?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way.
I had high hopes for Fridman's podcast after the JRE revered him as a sort of young, genius, intellectual version of JRE. He's highly respected among JRE online communities, I think because he presents himself the way most JRE listeners expect a generic smart person to sound. Yet every time I listen to him, I'm left scratching my head.
It feels like he's working hard to copy-and-paste the JRE format, but like many other imitators it exposes why Rogan is so popular in the first place: Rogan is a expert conversationalist who makes both the guest and listener feel at ease, like the listener is part of the conversation. His charisma isn't entirely obvious until you start comparing him to imitators.
I'm still hopeful that Lex Fridman's podcast will get more enjoyable over time as he relaxes a bit and masters the art of the podcast. He's been able to get some high profile guests on his show, so the potential is there.
Too often he can't quite put the question he wants to ask into words, and if he prepared slightly better it would improve the podcast a lot.
I've quite enjoyed the episodes I've listened to, however they can be difficult to parse at times - somewhat defeating the oft-mentioned benefit of listening to a podcast while performing other activities.
He is obviously very intelligent, but often uses language and analogies that appear to be aimed more at showing off this intelligence than engaging the guest or audience. It distracts from the point he or his guest is attempting to make, which is frustrating.
This is not something you see on mainstream media, where everyone is carefully crafting their words and hedging every statement to ensure they offend as little people as possible, ultimately saying little of interest and disillusioning the public because everyday people feel that no one in power is a real human being who understands them. When someone will just bluntly say the obvious that for whatever reason the establishment won't, it's refreshing.
In addition, he is radically open-minded in a way that's very rare from these kinds of hosts, and people in general. Most people are very rigidly set in their ideologies, which leads to many people sounding like carbon copies of one another (boring). Rogan will consider any idea no matter how outlandish. And he is very curious and asks insightful questions, while knowing when to shut up and let the guest speak (helps that the interviews last 1.5-3 hours).
Also as a comedian, he's significantly more entertaining than your average dry newscaster.
I'm not glorifying Rogan here, just trying to articulate why I enjoy his show, despite the fact that I don't really listen to many other podcasts. He certainly is not perfect and has his weaknesses - for example when discussing technical topics he doesn't dive as deep as I'd like (eg. Elon Musk, John Carmack, Neil DeGrasse Tyson). But overall, he does a great job of bringing interesting guests and getting interesting conversations out of him, so it's not surprising to me that he's so successful.
Edit to add: it's pretty hard to imagine a TV broadcaster would try to tap into this niche, imagine a TV channel that has 3 hour interviews uninterrupted by ads (experience using ad blockers), on a wide variety of topics, no filter, across a wide varity of political views.
High profile guests, long form content. Rogan's not really a great moderator (for example, he doesn't even read the books of his guests). He's not asking insightful questions. He can even be a bit dense. But he's open-minded, curious and "normal".
If I'm settling into some work and don't want to listen to music, I can put on Rogan and know I've got 3 hours of filler. You can pay attention only to the parts you want to and not be concerned you're missing anything important. After hundreds of hours, part of what makes it special is continuity and familiarity.
I don't really like Rogan personally but this behavior is intentional and quite smart in my opinion. Rogan (and his team) preps quite a bit, the vibe he is going for is an everyman who does not know anymore about the situation than you do. This is not reality. The idea is that this style makes the listener not feel stupid or embarrassed to learn about the viewpoints of the interviewee. He's among the most listened to interviewers in the world, so I guess it works.
"His listeners get him, like him; maybe even want to be him. He's not a show-pony, or a light-entertainment phoney: he's the all-American do it yourself modern man, tough but intelligent."
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52748804
Does he lie when he claims he has? I've heard him discuss books with guests on many occasions, though I'm sure he hasn't read everyone's books given the number of guests he has now.
In a 3 hour interview format, I don't think he really needs to. The interview itself is a similar medium, and by not already knowing all of the details, it probably makes it easier to genuinely bring along listeners from zero information to a full picture.
He has a lot of humility, he admits when he is wrong or if he doesn't know something. But also he is not shying away from calling BS when he hears it.
I would divide his show into 3 categories: - his comic fiends - a casual convos with a bit insight into comedians world + tons of shit talking - MMA + hunting guests/talks - random invitational guest - literally random - he would talk to dem/rep candidate, dieting, book writers etc. anything that is interesting.
also he has fight companion shows for mma fights.
I listen primary to invite guest shows, occasionally to others but those get bit repetitive.
I once heard him half-jokingly say he's at the intersect between the meat-heads and the pot-heads. I.e., those into MMA, bodybuilding, cars, hunting (a giant audience) and those into psychedelics, new-age philosophy, yoga, nature (also a giant audience). And there's a lot in between those categories (people into more mainstream science/astronomy, entertainment, business, politics, health etc).
I probably only listen to 1 out of 10 or 15 of his episodes, but that still has me listening to him for an hour or two every week or two, and so I still feel more familiar with him than most other media/public figures these days.
So you would expect to see a fair bit of mentions. Finally, he interviews people from many walks of life, so you can expect an episode to be relevant to a variety of conversations.
So I don’t think he necessarily has an outsized share of the HN/reddit demographic. He’s just damned popular, and easy to mention.
Take Jimmy Fallon for example. Can't watch 1 minute of that guy without wanting to smash my TV. His incessant laughing, at everything the guest says whether it really is funny or not is insufferable.
I don't know if Jimmy is fake laughing or not, but the net result, is that the show's flow is constantly interrupted by that cackle. Also, Jimmy is kind of a sycophant. Afraid to disagree or challenge and opinion. It makes for a boring show.
Then you got other hosts like Kimmel and/or Colbert who are trying to be super political which is obnoxious.
Then you've got people like James Corden who are, again, not comfortable shutting up but need, instead, need the center of attention along with the guest and instead of having real conversations, they need to do segments that are essentially games like the carpool karaoke.
I know it's different formats but it's an example how certain hosts drown out the guest whether intentionally or not.
The appeal of Joe's podcast is in the conversations and the minutiae of those conversations, and even when the guest, isn't necessarily interesting at first, if they converse long enough they're bound to go into an interesting topic.
Also, I don't necessarily agree with Joe's politics or other opinions but I always enjoy his podcasts mainly cause he's a good conduit for his guests to open up and start waxing about whatever they normally wouldn't on other shows.
Also, let's not forget, Joey Diaz. So many classic moments with Joey and Joe.
1) He is a good listener, that asks questions that non journalists would ask. Listen to Ezra Klein interview the same guest and you see the exact opposite type of interview. Klein comes off as more "intelligent" and more "informed", his questions are more journalist in nature, and he has usually read the book (opposite of Rogan). I like both Rogan and Klein, but I get the Rogan appeal, and I think Klein interviews can come off annoying sometimes (the 10th "That's a great question Ezra" is trite)
2) He is not a political partisan. It is refreshing to hear someone who is not "toeing the dem/rep line" (or is it towing). A lot of people in here are saying he is alt-right, which is a joke, he is not at all.
3) He has great guests for all walks of life
4) He comes off as a normal guy (but clearly is actually in the top 1% at this point)
5) He is a comedian, and does not care about political correctness and gives two shits about cancel culture
-He is pro-pot-smoking, drug-taking, conspiracy talk, and generally being open-minded about everything, sometimes to his detriment. Especially early on he was very curious about a wide range of things, but as he has aged and bought into his own press I think he's become a bit less openminded.
-His podcast format is basically a couple of friends shooting the shit, often while stoned or drunk, but his "friends" are typically smart interesting experts in a particular subject matter. When that is the case he will usually let them do most of the talking.
-Due to the above format, Rogan rarely questions or challenges his quests in a manner that might make them look bad or feel uncomfortable/defensive. Though if what they are saying goes against his own internal beliefs or views, no matter how ill-informed, he will push back aggressively. In general, he's not very knowledgable or well-read outside of Twitter/YT/etc which helps the conversation flow.
-At the same time due to his success and the power of his show most of his guests will bend over backward to not question anything he asserts as fact or make him look dumb/misinformed. They all want to be invited on again as its massive for their career/product they are selling/etc. This helps make the conversations interesting but also light and fluffy to be easily consumed.
-He appeals to an overly male skeptic type audience that is fascinated by the fringe across news, information, media, science, history etc.
-He cranks out a ton of content with lots of different guests which is really the key to his success. Rogan has been wealthy and successful since the 1990s and has a unique and interesting lifestyle that affords him the ability to do his show exactly how he wants, invite any guest he wants, and do it often. So whether you are into MMA, hunting, scientists, tech CEO's, alt-right political figures, comedians, conspiracy wonks, etc...there is a sub-genre of content available for you to binge.
If the institutional gate keepers want to declare a new main stream than also embrace people with a more nuanced point of view instead of this fully scripted narrative they publish 24/7.
When was the last positive article published by the NYTimes about Russia, the Republican party or even number 45?
I wish the main stream isn't as compromised as it is. Until then I have to listen to Joe Rogan & the portal to tap into nuanced thoughtful content.
The Overton window doesn't magically shifts when millions of people are serviced by a 3th party outside the Overton window.
At the same time, it's super interesting that Rogan negotiated a deal which appears to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for Spotify to licence his content for 3 years, after which point he could put it all back on YouTube if he wanted. The fact that he had that kind of leverage as an independent creator who started by recording his friends clowning around at his house and now has presidential candidates knocking at his door begging for an interview shows the power of independent media
I think the JRE brand will be diminished but only time will tell.
Yep, I'm still pissed about removing long press to preview
As long as I can get Rogan on my podcast app, nothing really changes for me.
My point was that you could enjoy JRE the way you wanted to. Now you’ll have to enjoy it the way Spotify tells you to. As far as I know his episodes will be pulled off other platforms in September.
Stern was at his height in 2001-2004 I think was peaking at 25m listeners in the mornings on terrestrial radio. Which was fucking massive. Dropped off huge on day 1 at Sirius and I don't think ever recovered most of his audience.
Interesting that audience size != what's a good deal for the broadcaster. Like music however I suspect the REAL value is in the 'back catalog'.
Really?
As a semi frequent JRE listener, if I missed an interesting guest I'll still go back and listen, but I'm not particularly motivated to go and listen to an interview from 1 year ago, or any historical one for that matter.
It needs to be current for me, I'm not convinced it has the replayability of music, or a tv show like friends say.
He has almost 1500 episodes covering thousands of hours. Many people listen to the back catalog while waiting for the latest episodes or more content from the interesting guests and topics.
Yes, as in "it's possible", the same as it's possible for an unknown author to be a best selling author (like JK Rowling). No as in it's an outlier or the exception. How many cases like this do we have? , esp. considering the consolidation of mass media in a few companies?
With moves like this one, and also the acquisition of Gimlet for 200+ million, I think we're starting to see the shift of these kinds of outlets from the periphery to the center of media.
As of 2015 his contract was worth $80 million PER YEAR and the estimates were that his audience is around 3.5 million highly engaged listeners. Yes, a fraction of what JRE gets in downloads, but hey...$80 million per year.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/business/media/howard-ste...
Now that might be just fine for Howard Stern, like it might be just fine for Joe Rogan, but I think it's fairly likely that this kind of deal does come down to trading cultural cache, and one's status as a household name for cold hard cash at the end of the day. In that sense, Rogan's move to spotify might be more like a popular touring act being put to pasture as a headliner in Vegas than it represents him taking on the mantle of mainstream media.
I suspect Rogan will see somewhat less of a drop-off than stern since the barrier to entry for Spotify is significantly less than satellite radio, but I suspect we will see that the medium has been a major component of his success: his show is pretty good when it's free and when it's everywhere. In other words, like Howard Stern was the best thing you could find when flipping channels on the way to work, Joe Rogan's content is often worth a click in a sea of mediocre content. Whether people will actively seek it out remains to be seen.
I have premium, so one gotcha maybe whether you can download podcasts for free? I would be annoyed if I had to sit through both Spotify's ads and the product placement in podcasts. (does Spotify insert inline ads into podcasts as well?)
It’s assumed that the second phase is to allow podcasters to embed ads to allow them to monetize their podcasts, but it will be opt in.
Also, most podcast ads are for direct response ads where the effectiveness of the ad campaigns can be tracked somewhat via coupon codes and that either are for large purchases (Casper, Warby Parker) or for subscriptions where the lifetime value of the customer and churn rate can be estimated.
You don’t hear that many brand advertisements on podcasts. That’s the market Spotify wants to go after.
Besides, an advertiser doesn’t need fine grained targeting to know that for instance anyone listening to “The Talk Show” or “Accidental Tech Podcast” is a probably a computer geek with lots of disposable income.
Yeah and stephen marbury went to china and made millions, but he became irrelevant. We all know why stern went with sirius, for the money. But he became culturally irrelevant in the process. But the writing was on the wall. He was getting old and "shock jock" is a young man's game. So he was going to get irrelevant no matter what.
In my case, I'll probably stop listening because my specific podcast app (podkicker) doesn't look like it can pull from spotify (maybe none can).
Rogan is an extension of that phenomenon, and it's the reason he makes lots of money. He's a lot like Limbaugh or Hannity in his career path; by showing a willingness to cater to authoritarian reactionary views, he's opened himself up to a lot of media opportunities.
What's weird about the narrative around Rogan is that he was ever "alternative" to begin with. He's been indistinguishable in methodology from the average conservative pundit for some time. His guest lists are very similar to the average conservative pundit. That he used a different broadcast media isn't that significant. He panders to the same sorts of audience segments in a younger audience.
> He has described himself as being "pretty liberal" and supports gay marriage, gay rights, women's rights, recreational drug use, universal healthcare, and universal basic income, while also supporting the Second Amendment. He also has criticized American foreign policy of military adventurism.
He’s basically Howard Dean; and to the left of Joe Biden for the most part.
Bernie Sanders is a slightly left-of-centre person in a global context with slightly left-of-center politics which appeal more to the libertarian landscape then to the Communist, Anarchist or even Mutualist landscape.
The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become.
This is disputable. Did you have thoughts on the story a from a couple months ago about the Swedish journalist making the point that Sanders supporters would be considered far left in Sweden: https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-b...
At least on the issue of taxation, it's clear that he is to the left of that country (and basically every other country on the globe).
2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week.
3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point).
To be honest I can't think of any issue off the top of my head where Bernie Sanders is to the right of Sweden's current policies.
Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms? That is very hard to imagine.
Sorry, but the basis for comparison isn't "What policies currently exist" but "what the 'left' in those regions claims is the next course of action." Otherwise, you're suggesting Sweden is somehow the yardstick of the global left, which is confusing. They're somewhat famously on the wrong side of several issues associated globally with the left, like sex work.
> 2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week.
Sanders's platform remained extremely light on details of this policy. Anytime a critique of a policy includes the words "virtually" you're equivocating.
> 3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point).
It's not clear to me if this is "left" or "right". "The Government Pays for Everything" is not inherently a "leftist" position or even a Libertarian (classical) position. Nor is, "The Individual Is Responsible For Health Care" essentially a rightward or authoritarian (classical) position.
> Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms?
I uh... really can't engage with a hypothetical like this? I have no idea what fictional New Somehow Fully Citizen Bernie Sanders would do? But I suspect he'd advocate for the use of military force against other countries to secure prosperity for his new hypothetical fellow citizens, since he holds that position in America.
I didn't suggest this. You did: "labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden".
You also mentioned Finland. TBH I just picked the first one on your list. I could have made very similar comparisons between Sanders and Finland. I stuck to only one for brevity.
Sanders's platform remained extremely light on details of this policy.
"Oppose all efforts to undermine or overturn Roe v. Wade, and appoint federal judges who will uphold women’s most fundamental rights." (under Women's Rights on https://berniesanders.com/issues/)
Also the sentiment on his twitter feed is clear:
https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3ABernieSanders%20abortion...
Finally, Planned Parenthood gives Sanders a 100% rating: https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/congressional-scorec...
It's not clear to me if this is "left" or "right".
It is generally accepted that the greater government intervention in the health care system the more "left" you are. The more health care is left up to individuals and private enterprise the more "right" you are.
Sorry, that was unclear. Swedish leftism in politics. Not currently enacted Swedish law.
> It is generally accepted that the greater government intervention in the health care system the more "left" you are. The more health care is left up to individuals and private enterprise the more "right" you are.
This is just flatly wrong. Chomsky, for example, believes in non-government health care solutions and cites numerous ways individual communities have pursued this. We might imagine short-term pursuing these interventions because they reduce harm, but there are massive segments of the left that are deeply uncomfortable with a state run health care system.
You shouldn't, but you certainly can. It's why so many Americans don't realize that their country's politics doesn't even have a left.
EU members (a broadly popular and enviable status) have much more open borders and broader refugee responsiblities that anything that has gotten out of draft status in the house or Senate.
What's more, leftists are split on the actual subject of borders. Communists like them, everyone else hates them, excepting decolonialists who essentially want them enforced only for indigenous peoples.
It's very odd to suggest that the EU open immigration policy and One Currency is somehow not an open borders policy.
For example, US progressives want to decriminalize illegal entry. But illegal entry is a crime in the three largest EU countries (France, Germany, and the U.K.) and all of the Scandinavian countries: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php. Likewise, progressives want free healthcare for people here illegally. That’s left-wing even by European standards. Spain’s socialist government restored universal healthcare for undocumented immigrants, which a previous conservative government had eliminated. Macron is trying to reform France’s universal healthcare to restrict benefits for illegal immigrants. And Germany and most of Scandinavia only provide undocumented people emergency services, just like in the US. Countries like Denmark and New Zealand have recently combined left-wing economics with right-wing immigration policy. New Zealand’s Ardern, a darling of American liberal media for her liberalism in healthcare and women’s and LGBT issues, campaigned in reducing legal immigration, and came to power by forming a coalition government with the “New Zealand first” party. Denmark’s new social democrat PM is to the right of Trump on immigration issues.
The platform espoused by people like Sanders and Warren is very liberal in comparison to mainstream ideologies in other western countries. Not only do they want to spend 50-60% of GDP on the government, like the Scandinavian countries, but they want to enable massive immigration, which the Scandinavian countries generally do not support. They are also anti-corporation and anti-free markets, which the Scandinavian countries generally embrace.
The peculiar part about the comparisons you're making is that even the German AfD, who are regarded by everyone outside the AfD as only slightly to the left of the Nazi Party, would back away from putting as many immigrants in camps and prisons as we've done. The Fox News/AM radio listener demographic will experience a lot of heartburn in the months and years after the Trump administration as we unwind our current immigration policy and replace it with something sane - and literally anything we do will probably be viewable through a certain kind of lens as a move "leftward" - but none of that should be regarded in isolation as a measurement of the country's political leanings. It will just be about repairing damage.
While the loss of life is extremely unfortunate, the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now. Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world we also can't deal with aglobal pandemic because we simply lack the infrastructure for Public Health and we've spent 20 years arguing about whether we should have it.
Bernie Sanders's policies are slightly right of Macron, and he's pretty much the poster child for neoliberal centrism globally. He wants the same thing many other similar capitalist Nations have, which is essentially using tax dollars to ensure business prosperity by offsetting high-risk costs like healthcare.
The US is currently expected to have fewer per capita deaths from COVID19 than the UK, France, Spain, Italy & Sweden.
See: https://covid19.healthdata.org/
Sweden deliberately elected not to use their infrastructure. Italy was the first critical European outbreak and their difficulties were information most other nations had.
Why not look at South Korea or Mongolia? You know, actual success stories.
South Korea's success does not have anything to do with left versus right--which is the topic at hand--or even really health care infrastructure. South Korea has experience dealing with respiratory virus outbreaks from China. It also has a population that is able to follow instructions and defer to authority, unlike people in western countries.
Comparisons of the US to South Korea or Japan are "outrageous, bordering on disingenuous." In terms of social organization and ability to get things done, comparing New York City to Italy is actually very generous.
Quite the opposite. You're the one doing that. I didn't name specific mechanisms and instead said "infrastructure" precisely to avoid this conversation. It doesn't matter how it's implemented; what matters is that effective medical care and clear information can reach citizens in times of crisis.
All the examples folks have named have clearly shown a total failure to do this. So despite how many great resources they may have amassed, they could not mobilize that into an effective civic infrastructure.
You're the one who wants to argue about socialized medicine. From the look of it, that's because you want to gloss over the profound failure of the US to do anything resembling a credible disaster response or address the profound inequalities that exist in American health care.
> South Korea's success does not have anything to do with left versus right
I agree!
> which is the topic at hand
No, the topic is, "Is Rogan a reactionary?" The answer there is yes, and even recently he's been sympathetic to the ludicrous claims that doing nothing is a reasonable strategy during this pandemic. The man is a conspiracy theorist. He has been in the past and he'll continue to be so in the future because he's a reactionary and that's how they operate.
> South Korea has experience dealing with respiratory virus outbreaks from China. It also has a population that is able to follow instructions and defer to authority, unlike people in western countries.
South Korea had to enact an emergency law letting cities detain people for violating stay at home and mask orders because compliance was bad. I don't know why you think these pacific asian counties are "obedient" but that's... Not a good characterization. I will follow the site guidelines and assume you have an unconscious bias there as opposed to an active one.
> Comparisons of the US to South Korea or Japan are "outrageous, bordering on disingenuous." In terms of social organization and ability to get things done, comparing New York City to Italy is actually very generous.
New York was a worse individual outbreak than any Italian city from the last numbers I saw, so doesn't this invalidate harryh's comparison?
Also I don't think it's a fair comparison to compare the entire countries given the enormous size differences, the drastically lower population density of the U.S. (outside NYC), and again the lack of testing which is definitely drastically underestimating the real amount.
Also the bigger problem in the U.S. is that tens of millions are uninsured and/or have health plans tied to jobs that they lost, have no sick leave, and are criminally overcharged for basic health services leading to medical disaster being the #1 cause of bankruptcy. This kind of precarity and suffering isn't captured in coronavirus case statistics.
Comparing us to Sweden (which has essentially elected to do nothing at all except politely suggest large gathering should be cancelled and decline to enforce that suggestion) or Italy (the first European pandemic outbreak site, with a large population of older people who cohabitate with younger families, and extremely dense outbreak zones)seems like a low enough bar to be called "failure" given the economic resources the US has at its disposal.
Macron is also an excellent example of why the notion that American politics is significantly more conservative Thani n Europe is overstated. In the first round, Macron won 24% of the vote. Fillion (center-right), Dupont-Aignan (Gaullist), and Le Pen (far-right) together had 45% of the vote. That is, nearly half the French electorate was to the right of Macron. The same is true in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. All are headed by staunch neo-liberals, and have been for some time. Boris Johnson just blew out his socialist challenger; Merkel's hand-picked successor is now a leader of one of Germany's right-wing parties.
Sanders' brand of liberalism is antediluvian. The "social-democratic" countries he admires have moved to a model better described as "welfare capitalism." See: https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/01/17/.... The conservative Heritage Foundation consistently ranks Denmark in the top 10 when it comes to economic freedom. While Sanders rails against corporations and calls for sweeping regulations, Denmark, Sweden, etc., have lowered corporate taxes to below U.S. levels and dramatically deregulated their economies. Over the past two decades, while Sanders stood still, almost the whole of Europe became more like America: they privatized state-owned industries, pursued aggressive deregulation, and increased individual choice. For example, while Sanders opposes charter schools, Sweden and Denmark have school vouchers for private schools, just like American Republicans want to do.
As to COVID-19: it has been an eye-opening illustration of how socialized medicine doesn't help a whit when it comes time to dealing with a global pandemic. COVID-19 deaths per day per million peaked in the U.S. at half of what it did in Spain, Italy, and the UK: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi....
It has to do with if the systems in place are accessible and capable of responding in times of crisis. South Korea and Mongolia have very different looking political structures and medical infrastructure, but their ability to effectively provide and enable their infrastructure to those who need it sets them leagues apart from the US and Sweden.
America still isn't testing at sufficient scale. Contact tracing isn't happening at scale. The federal government is actively discouraging these effective strategies.
Also: Italy faced a national outbreak, New York did not. It's simply a category error to expect overflows even if those numbers do matter to you.
America is now running more tests per capita than the socialized healthcare systems of Western Europe. These systems don’t do contact tracing either.
The argument here is not that the US healthcare system is perfect, but rather that socializing it is not going to solve any problems it has.
Also testing in the U.S. during the last couple months of the coronavirus pandemic was very hard to get and extremely inadequate. None of my friends in NYC who requested tests were able to get access to tests.
Anyways I think this is a stupid argument. My point wasn't to debate his progressiveness, just to point out how absurd it is to call a Bernie Sanders supporter "conservative".
The truth is that Sanders cut across a different axis than a lot of Democrats.
I think an awful lot of American leftists disagree strongly with you. Being left of Biden is hardly an accomplishment.
If your entire engagement here has been to dispute that I said this, then wow have we both wasted a lot of time.
As an extreme example Richard Spencer said he was an atheist in many of the violent Nazi communities don't refer to a literal or specific God but rather a racial will. It's difficult not to call those people reactionary.
I do think people are misunderstanding my comparison. I think Joe Rogan is a reactionary, but I don't know if he's a conservative. I know that he profits and Norma sleep from the same machine that creates other conservative media. In that sense I don't think he's very different from Limbaugh, Hannity or Crowder or Shapiro.
"and Norma sleep" is a hilarious interpretation of "enormously".
While we're not used to hearing a ton from that wing of the libertarian party in the media, they've been regaining ground in their political spaces over the last 5 years.
Part of his schtick is that he claims to be a leftist while concern trolling for the alt-right.
Not saying Joe does this but claiming to support Bernie and then publicly saying you'd prefer to vote for trump than Biden doesn't make me confident in his progressive bonafides.
American politics is shifted so far to the right that any honest categorization of it suggest that almost no "leftism" actually exist in the politics. America's notion of liberalism is largely defined economically.
Looking is clearly a Centrist with strong reactionary leanings. He has all the hallmarks of this. For example he's historically been very soft on conspiracy theory culture and is even been part of some of those movements himself. He clearly profits from the same system that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro also profit from.
Nor do hosts of said shows need to believe the profitable aspects of their work to profit from them. Ben Shapiro does not seem like the kind of person who's so stupid that he believes that a permanently flooded house could be resold, but he's definitely said that and then subsequently defended it. I also suspect that Crowder doesn't believe many of the things that he says, but it's his business.
I saw this and stopped reading. Just about spit out my coffee. Do people really think American politics are shifting to the right, when somebody like Bernie Sanders for President was unimaginable 15 years ago, yet is somewhat popular today?
But it's worth noting Obama was considered a "progressive" candidate. While his appointment was a meaningful milestone for American race politics, his actual politics were... disappointing to many leftists and progressives.
He's voting for Bernie Sanders, and you think he's a "conservative pundit"? I don't think you know what you're talking about.
And if you think for a few minutes I'm positive you can proposed people who are much further "left" of the political spectrum in American politics then Bernie Sanders. AOC comes to mind.
Sure overall perhaps he's still a "conservative" on the global scale, but by that definition the entirety of U.S. politics is conservative (including CNN, MSNBC, etc), and that speaks more to the state of politics in the country itself than Joe Rogan.
Fair, but please note I called him a reactionary. I said he profits from the same sources as conservatives. I've said elsewhere in this thread, I think he's a "centrist" which is "conservative" anywhere else.
UBI has an interesting status in Libertarian circles, but I'm not going to go any further off topic here.
This has to do with a scarcity of friendly and popular media outlets for authoritarian, reactionary, and conservative views.
I think that might be the takeaway for me: modern companies have over-optimized for political correctness. I wish more companies would be honest about their politics and that of their employees.
I wish that people that advocated for less political correctness would actually list the opinions that they would want to see expressed publicly. What is specifically something that you wish was being said in public discourse that is not allowed now?
If they were good people they would've called the nazis out and kicked them out of their march, or refused to march with them. Instead they marched with the nazis.
[1]https://www.scottadamssays.com/2019/04/30/the-fine-people-ho...
This is a pathetic attempt to absolve trump of his clear racism and dog whistles to extremists. If he assumes wrongly it's okay to say whatever he wants? That points even more directly to a dog whistle. Shame on whoever wrote that as a defense.
Joining up with a bunch of white nationalists to march in support of a statue of a man who is famous for waging a traitorous war against the United States in support of the institution of slavery doesn't make one a "very fine person", indeed quite the opposite.
While you may not believe trump is a racist sending dog whistle after dog whistle to white nationalists those white nationalists seem to think so: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/12/politics/white-supremacists-c...
You're referring, I think, to the folks in the Women's March who joined the march but had a past of making anti-semitic comments. Those people did not show themselves to be anti-semites during the march, so the folks marching with them would not have known to disengage or call them out at the time (though they were widely called out afterwards, if you care to look into it). Contrast this with the folks trump called good people - the entire point of that march was to push nazi rhetoric, and the folks who joined them knew that, even if they don't self identify as nazis.
See the difference?
Thought Experiment #2: If you were a manager and your team was as a chaotic, unqualified, and had the turnover that the WH has, what do you think would happen?
Do you mean this quote?
He meant the silent white supremacists, who protested quietly (with long guns, and who afterwards were pretty proud of themselves that they haven't mowed people down despite having been hit by bricks).
There's a 207 page long review assembled by a commission about the events, and it found no peaceful pro-statue protesters.
And even common words can get very negative associations over time. Sometimes language has to change because of that. It's a pity, especially if you like the specific term, but that's life.
Because on both sides of the barricade, there are partisans that interpret everything as dog whistling. Whether it is "Black Lives Matter" or "It's OK to be white", same thing.
But whatever, enjoy your day.
Do you see how absurd this kind of reasoning is?
On social media, no one would bat an eye at the quote "white people are trash". The quote "black people are trash" is (correctly) an instant ban. If Sarah Jeong wrote that she "loved being cruel to old brown people", she would not be working for the NYT. Take any socially accepted joke about white people, and replace white with any other race to make it no longer socially acceptable.
There is a different standard applied to white people than other races. That's an objective fact.
You can argue that this is justified due to differences in societal power, which is not an unreasonable argument at all, but to deny that it exists is willful ignorance.
The reason that "it is okay to be white" is so effective is that it does have poignancy to young, impressionable white people who inhabit an online world filled with vitriol directed at them, so when you then call it a "racist" statement, it only serves to alienate them and drive recruitment to the alt-right. The correct response to "it is okay to be white" is not "that's a racist statement that you can't say" but "yes, obviously, moron".
White nationalism is really just the dumbest shit ever, but this complete and utter refusal to understand the root causes of the movement only helps them. It is, quite literally, what the terrorists want.
Of course there are idiots on Twitter that debate the semantics of the name - but those are largely teenagers and young adults.
The opinions are there, you just chose to not see them.
I suspect a big part of the reason people don't bother is because it's an exercise in futility - they could do it, but it is a fair amount of work to list out a decent set of topics that should be discussed, along with reasoning for why, but then the person who asked for it, who likely truly believes they are doing so with complete sincerity and an open mind, isn't likely to actually consider them anyways.
For example, I could ask you to "unpack" this statement:
> A MAGA hat is(!) just another way of saying "Mexicans are rapists", which was part of the whole MAGA launch.
Such a seemingly simple "truth", provided one is unaware of (or "ignores", in real time conversational discussion and thinking) the incredibly complex neurological processes (and the model they are based on, and the lineage of the data in that model) that occur within the subconscious human mind, before completely transparently popping simple answers and "truths" up to the conscious process, often accompanied by some(!) data to quickly form a "good enough" post-hoc-rationalized explanation for the "logic" (it isn't - subconscious heuristics don't run on logic) upon which the "truth" (heuristic prediction) is based.
To test whether this theory may have some validity, you could try to unpack your statement into a purely logic/reason based statement that ~proves that it is ~true. I predict (we shall see if my prediction is correct, based on your response, or lack of response) that not only will you not be able/willing to do it, but if you did, before too long you would realize that many of the supporting perceived to be first-principle "facts" you'd instinctually want to use in your proof, have a bit of a magical quality to them...like, you know that they are true, but if you sit down and really examine them, you'll find that they aren't actually true (always true, with no exceptions), and also that you don't really know where they came from, or how they got into your mind (and tagged as facts) in the first place.
I suspect you'd have no problem "seeing" how this approach could work on people who hold racist and similar beliefs, but in my experience there is a significantly lower likelihood of you being able to see the effectiveness of this technique if the shoe is on the other foot...if instead it is your mind's attention and considerable processing power, being pointed at itself. It seems like there is some unseen process that disallows actions like this (which is a rather fun and interesting philosophical question to ponder: assuming there is such a guarding process, what is the nature of it, and where did it come from).
That's not at all what people wearing MAGA hats want to represent, and the fact you can't understand that is exactly the problem you guys have in the USA and why Trump will probably be reelected
Even if those opinions are really horrible opinions, political correctness is still bad, because social isolation just makes the problem worse. Sure, you can't engage every crazy idea with a detailed rebuttal. But it's much more effective to befriend or relate to the person on other points, develop mutual respect, and through osmosis you will both understand each other a bit more, and each temper your views.
This is how families work. Hopefully you don't (hypothetically) hate your aunt because she occasionally says something that sounds racist. Maybe she has done many wonderful things in her life, and so you just kind of accept it as part of the complexity being human. You don't have to believe the statements are good, but you also don't have to obsess on them to the point of defining her by the statements.
The other reason political correctness is bad is because the rules are arbitrary enough, and the punishments are arbitrary enough, that you are never quite sure when they are going to turn against you. For a while it was politically incorrect to say "black", but now that's normal again and "African-American" is a bit more awkward[1]. There was no grand vote or decree to change it... it just changed like a fashion.
I honestly don't see how someone who travels at all could be one of the enforcers of political correctness. People in other countries say politically-incorrect (in the American sense) stuff all the time unless they have been trained otherwise.
[1] The median black family here has a lot more history in America than the median white family, so it seems a bit insulting to add a qualifier before "American".
"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best," Trump said. "They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
So your point is that instead he stated that the Mexicans that are arriving next to you are bringing drugs, crime, and are rapists.
Ah but among all the criminal rapists selling drugs... some might be good people.
Got it.
DONALD TRUMP: When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.
The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.
Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.
It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably— probably— from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.
Does someone saying "MAGA" also equate to them saying "The Fed should lower interest rates", just because Trump said that one time?
You have to be careful to differentiate an association made by political opponents of "MAGA".
It's not that long ago that workers discussed so much politics that they got together and had shootouts with their employers.
Up until 1860 or so, most people across the world were working on farms. And most of those people were at best sharecroppers, if not serfs or slaves. Something tells me there wasn't a lot of freedom going around :-)
Sure, but said Facebook employee has a greater chance of having action taken against him for wearing a MAGA cap than for wearing an Antifa shirt. Of course Facebook have all rights to do so since they're a private corporation but that sort of thing is what GP was talking about.
What has always confused me about this discussion about say, a left leaning bent at Facebook or whatever is that this has always been the norm in virtually every conservative place, which is like 90% of provincial small towns, from which all the liberal and creative people have to run away in the first place.
(But admittedly, this is spoken as someone who mostly has exposure to more liberal workplaces - so I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)
I go to work to do my job and get a paycheck, ideally without drama. I don't give a day's ass about your MAGA hat.
I really wish we could get an editorial/opinion tag on articles.
If you classify Joe Rogan as a 'shock jock', then I can only assume you've never listened to the show. The content is nothing like those you mention.
More voices like that will help to keep them honest, which is dearly needed at times.
I hope that Spotify works out for Joe Rogan. He seems like a very nice guy.
Some of these ideas are genuinely worthwhile, but when those same thoughts are given even equal weight to the ravings of Alex Jones or Ben Shapiro - I don't see how anyone who is looking for intellectual rigor can derive value from consuming his podcast. If that's a good or bad thing is a value judgment someone has to make personally.
I agree, but many vocal fans on Twitter and YouTube disagree.
One thing about Joe Rogan is that he covers a far broader spectrum of people than anyone else. Who has Alex Jones/Elon Musk/Neil deGrasse Tyson on?
To be frank I find most "robust intellectual discussion" stultifying e.g. hacker news has exactly this problem.
Sam Harris and Tim Ferriss have great long form interviews with interesting people.
Never really paid much attention to Sam Harris so might have another look at him.
One of the most interesting things about Joe Rogan is that he's not a one trick pony e.g. Comedy/Fighters/TV personality etc. I find him more interesting as a result.
Rogan doesn't self-promote on his podcast, and he creates space for his guests to go deep on their specialties.
I do not think Jones and Shapiro are equal on every front, I think Shapiro is certainly the more sane and sensible one of the two, but as I mentioned in another comment - I think both are equal commentators selling a specific narrative and view of reality to a specific demographic. To me they both twist and bend the truth, or simply flat out lie, to sell their view of reality to a type of person.
Bonus for Rogan is controversy/media coverage which attracts viewers. Rogan is savvy about the media and Internet.
I mean from all the conspiracy theories to asking Eddie Bravo to choke him out... It is absolutely hilarious.
So who's going to let him rave for 3 hours? Someone who wants to entertain millions of people. This isn't a criticism of Rogan, more that that main stream media would never allow that type of thing. For a start they don't have 3 hours. Yet it's at 19m views as of now.
On the other hand i am sure people will keep uploading his stuff ti youtube.
Just proves nothing has replaced old mainstream media exactly, it has merely dwindled the more slack it gets for willfully risking a misunderstanding to take place.
The definition of Mainstream Media is still the same, as a setter and destroyer of definitions, since it has vast retrospective powers for editing out context to control the degree of controversy seen by the masses. Helped along by a collective of adversarial journalists able to limit discussion with a barrage of assertions and hold sway over mass sentiment through an implied consensus.
A one man interviewer does not give any semblance of consensus, it is at best a battle of convictions, but at least you can argue a conviction head on, no arguing with a consensus -- no learning from one either.
But, on the other hand, I am glad I have Spotify subscription cause now I get to continue to enjoy him.