Have you ever looked at your hand? No I mean REALLY looked...
March 21, 2019 12:17 PM Subscribe
We all know that guy (and it is usually a guy). He started out nominally liberal or apolitical and easygoing, became a libertarian, started believing in deep truths and conspiracy theories, and ended up contemplating a compound in the woods. Slate does a deep-dive into the Joe Rogan phenomenon and how it radicalizes wannabe "free thinkers." Sheeple need not apply.
Along with Jordan Peterson and Pewdiepie he's one of the biggest gateways to the alt-right for young white men.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:43 PM on March 21, 2019 [68 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:43 PM on March 21, 2019 [68 favorites]
The Joe Rogan Experience is the successor to Late-night talk shows and I hate it, I hate everything about it. It sits at the same cultural nexus, it has the same faux conversational tone, it has the same parade of self-important celebrities hoping to promote their projects and massage their images, and the same host winking and pretending he's on the audience's side.
Except I don't recall Johnny Carson ever blithely legitimizing shitballs the way Joe Rogan likes to.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
Except I don't recall Johnny Carson ever blithely legitimizing shitballs the way Joe Rogan likes to.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
Thanks for this; I've been trying to understand why, exactly, Rogan's podcast is so popular when I've always thought of him as not all that interesting or insightful - I was afraid it was a platform for exactly what the article describes. That being said, there are some wonderful quotes in the article and it is worth a read.
posted by nubs at 12:51 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by nubs at 12:51 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
But why are they so snively sneaky obscure about the true message? I was just dragged along to a dinner and lecture at an "independent foundation" and the talk was about art and other intellectual-ish stuff but in the discussion phase slipped in some very deniable (and on the surface almost reasonable) anti-brown-people comments. I suspect if I'd responded correctly I'd been encouraged back. For very upstanding people, kinda creepy.
As much as I loose patience with hardcore socialists at least they are utterly open.
(guess the 'why' was pretty poorly rhetorical)
posted by sammyo at 12:56 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
As much as I loose patience with hardcore socialists at least they are utterly open.
(guess the 'why' was pretty poorly rhetorical)
posted by sammyo at 12:56 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
I lost an old friend from high school about the time Trump got elected. He and I used to have some strange conversations over the years, because he was attached to some odd ideas about UFOs and Christianity, but somehow we always found our way back to being friends. The last conversation I had with him went so far downhill with stone cold crazy so fast I ended it. He never called back. I used to wonder what hole he'd found his way into rhetorically... I think it's probably this one.
posted by cybrcamper at 1:03 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by cybrcamper at 1:03 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
But why are they so snively sneaky obscure about the true message
Plausible deniability.
Oh, and the lulz, of course.
posted by slater at 1:04 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Plausible deniability.
Oh, and the lulz, of course.
posted by slater at 1:04 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
I just realized that I have been conflating Joe Rogan and Seth Rogan, and no wonder I was confused.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:05 PM on March 21, 2019 [40 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:05 PM on March 21, 2019 [40 favorites]
I watched NewsRadio in its entirety at least a couple times.
As far as I can tell Joe Rogan either already was his character on the show, or basically became that character. And he's gradually taken all the shittier aspects of that character and amplified them.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
As far as I can tell Joe Rogan either already was his character on the show, or basically became that character. And he's gradually taken all the shittier aspects of that character and amplified them.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
Well, I like Joe Rogan's podcast.
posted by riruro at 1:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by riruro at 1:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Plausible deniability.
Maybe, but you preserve plausible deniability when you know what you're doing is wrong. To claim one is to admit the other, so better to leave it all unsaid and not risk everyone thinking you're a fool who opened their mouth and removed all doubt.
posted by rhizome at 1:15 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Maybe, but you preserve plausible deniability when you know what you're doing is wrong. To claim one is to admit the other, so better to leave it all unsaid and not risk everyone thinking you're a fool who opened their mouth and removed all doubt.
posted by rhizome at 1:15 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Its drivel but its highly popular and influential drivel - our very own drugged up father Coughlin.
Rogan's show is one of those places where i think the idea of diasaffected, bored, and stressed out men who haven't had much exposure to idealolgy getting radicalized holds- its not the constant rage stroking of a Limbaugh , its more friendly, more shooting the shit, and in a medium that feels more intimate, you cand spend hours with your pal Joe. The whole Illuminati Mindset stuff just makes it more plausibly deniable
Anyway tell your friends to listen to stree/tfight instead which will at least encourage them to steal from thier boss and not become a neo-nazi
posted by The Whelk at 1:16 PM on March 21, 2019 [51 favorites]
Rogan's show is one of those places where i think the idea of diasaffected, bored, and stressed out men who haven't had much exposure to idealolgy getting radicalized holds- its not the constant rage stroking of a Limbaugh , its more friendly, more shooting the shit, and in a medium that feels more intimate, you cand spend hours with your pal Joe. The whole Illuminati Mindset stuff just makes it more plausibly deniable
Anyway tell your friends to listen to stree/tfight instead which will at least encourage them to steal from thier boss and not become a neo-nazi
posted by The Whelk at 1:16 PM on March 21, 2019 [51 favorites]
From TFA:
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:18 PM on March 21, 2019 [80 favorites]
In a February interview with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Rogan reflected on how his podcast has grown to the point where, unhappily, people now have expectations of him. “I didn’t fucking plan this. So now all of the sudden there’s this signal that I’m sending out to millions and millions of people, and then people are like, ‘Well, you have a responsibility,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, great. Well, I didn’t want that.’ ” Later he went on, “There’s certain people that I’ll have on, whether it’s Alex Jones or anyone that’s controversial, where people who get fucking mad. ‘Why are you giving this person a platform?’ OK. Hmm. I didn’t think about it that way, and I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. I think I’m talking to people, and you can listen.”The whole I didn't ask for the responsibility part of my privilege bullshit drives me crazy. It's like the pop stars and athletes who say, "I never asked to be a role model." It's like everyone is expected to think, "well, now that he's played his 'get out of responsibility free' card, I guess we just let him go."
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:18 PM on March 21, 2019 [80 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:20 PM on March 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:20 PM on March 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
> But why are they so snively sneaky obscure about the true message
I don't have an absolute answer (I don't think one can really be given that's universally true), but I was reminded recently that this isn't a new phenomenon.
The so-called "Know Nothing" party of the mid 19th century didn't get that label because they were morons—at least not initially. Like "teabaggers", it started off as their own label for themselves, and then became an epithet used by others.
But the origin of the name, at least allegedly, is that members weren't supposed to reveal their membership in the party or, presumably, anything about its goals/strategies/beliefs/etc. If someone asked you about it, you were supposed to say "I know nothing."
Now, secret societies were sort of A Thing in the 19th century, in a way they aren't today, so it's possible it wasn't all plausible deniability and we need to be cautious when drawing parallels, but given the pretty bald-facedly anti-Catholic (and anti-immigrant more generally) sentiments of the party, I think that was probably part of it.
A lot of the nativist movements today are pretty much taking pages right out of their playbook.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [20 favorites]
I don't have an absolute answer (I don't think one can really be given that's universally true), but I was reminded recently that this isn't a new phenomenon.
The so-called "Know Nothing" party of the mid 19th century didn't get that label because they were morons—at least not initially. Like "teabaggers", it started off as their own label for themselves, and then became an epithet used by others.
But the origin of the name, at least allegedly, is that members weren't supposed to reveal their membership in the party or, presumably, anything about its goals/strategies/beliefs/etc. If someone asked you about it, you were supposed to say "I know nothing."
Now, secret societies were sort of A Thing in the 19th century, in a way they aren't today, so it's possible it wasn't all plausible deniability and we need to be cautious when drawing parallels, but given the pretty bald-facedly anti-Catholic (and anti-immigrant more generally) sentiments of the party, I think that was probably part of it.
A lot of the nativist movements today are pretty much taking pages right out of their playbook.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [20 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming.
last podcast on the left? hardcore history?
mind you, both of those have hosts that are not my cup of tea, and last podcast may be too violent for kids (depending on how old your teens are), but they may provide an offramp for people with interests in Rogan which can then lead to even greener pastures down the line.
posted by wibari at 1:28 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
last podcast on the left? hardcore history?
mind you, both of those have hosts that are not my cup of tea, and last podcast may be too violent for kids (depending on how old your teens are), but they may provide an offramp for people with interests in Rogan which can then lead to even greener pastures down the line.
posted by wibari at 1:28 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
It's a bit of a dense text, but if you can make it through a week of To Beautiful To Live (TBTL) without becoming somehow hooked, I'd be surprised. It's a weekday conversation show between Luke Burbank (of Livewire and Wait Wait fame) and his bestie Andrew Walsh. They're two guys who are a bit inside-jokey (in a good way) and who are honestly trying to be the best people they can be. And they talk about it. Not all the time -- the show doesn't really have a theme other than "listen to these guys talking about life" but it's entirely toxic masculinity-free, or it strives to be and admits when it has been and talks about that.
I was doing a lot of long distance driving for work and kept up with it for something over 2 years. It's a bit of a time-drag (1.5 hours or so 5 days a way) so it's sort of fallen by the wayside now that I don't have enforced sit-and-listen time. But it's marvelous. And a great community, too! Their fans (the Tens) have meetups and do charity events and stuff.
posted by hippybear at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
I was doing a lot of long distance driving for work and kept up with it for something over 2 years. It's a bit of a time-drag (1.5 hours or so 5 days a way) so it's sort of fallen by the wayside now that I don't have enforced sit-and-listen time. But it's marvelous. And a great community, too! Their fans (the Tens) have meetups and do charity events and stuff.
posted by hippybear at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
This article doesn't chime with my experiences of JRE podcast at all.
If you ignore the comedians and MMA ones, it's generally it's 2 hours plus of enjoyable conversation about a topic with a long, long add for the Cash app. The article seems to be that the author sometimes disagrees with the guests.
posted by Damienmce at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
If you ignore the comedians and MMA ones, it's generally it's 2 hours plus of enjoyable conversation about a topic with a long, long add for the Cash app. The article seems to be that the author sometimes disagrees with the guests.
posted by Damienmce at 1:32 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming.
i'd suggest they learn how to read and research things - i'd suggest they take any claim that seems out of the ordinary with a grain of salt - i'd suggest they question things first and then accept them when they've looked around at differing opinions
i do not suggest they form their opinions on the words of anyone with a microphone, right or left
posted by pyramid termite at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
i'd suggest they learn how to read and research things - i'd suggest they take any claim that seems out of the ordinary with a grain of salt - i'd suggest they question things first and then accept them when they've looked around at differing opinions
i do not suggest they form their opinions on the words of anyone with a microphone, right or left
posted by pyramid termite at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
My boss is one of these Joe Rogan/Jordan Peterson "libertarian" guys who is really just a Nazi and doesn't realize it yet. He's slowly but steadily indoctrinating one of the developers on our team, who is a young guy in his 30s with no real formed intellectual platform of his own yet. I listen to him recommending alt-right gateway stuff to the dev every day. Oh, and the other senior guy on the team is a straight-up Trumper. But I think it's my boss who is the more dangerous of the two because he plays the part of being "a reasonable and thoughtful guy" very well. The day when I get to leave this job cannot come fast enough.
posted by briank at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [37 favorites]
posted by briank at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [37 favorites]
I'd recommend The Best Show with Tom Scharpling. He can come off as a grumpy white guy, but he's truly compassionate and very funny. He defuses anger rather than stokes it.
Also Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything. It's kind of into conspiracy theories, except the conspiracies are real: the surveillance state and such.
posted by rikschell at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Also Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything. It's kind of into conspiracy theories, except the conspiracies are real: the surveillance state and such.
posted by rikschell at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Oh yeah, To Beautiful To Live is an American Public Media podcast. Which is weird but cool. Public Radio FTW!
posted by hippybear at 1:34 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 1:34 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you ignore the comedians and MMA ones
And the bro humor and the conspiracy theories and the juvenile posturing and the stoned teenager-level understanding of . . . kinda everything?
posted by aspersioncast at 1:36 PM on March 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
And the bro humor and the conspiracy theories and the juvenile posturing and the stoned teenager-level understanding of . . . kinda everything?
posted by aspersioncast at 1:36 PM on March 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
i do not suggest they form their opinions on the words of anyone with a microphone, right or left
Spoken like someone who is not only not the parent of teen boys, but has never actually met a teen boy.
posted by The Bellman at 1:37 PM on March 21, 2019 [52 favorites]
Spoken like someone who is not only not the parent of teen boys, but has never actually met a teen boy.
posted by The Bellman at 1:37 PM on March 21, 2019 [52 favorites]
I used to listen to his podcast on occasion because I liked to hear about psychedelics and Bigfoot. But I quickly grew tired of him, after admitting he doesn't know much about a subject, then proceeding to have a loud opinion about the things he just said he doesn't know about. I didn't find out that he was turning weird alt-right (or just "asking questions") until after I had stopped. I see people all around my office, always young white men, watching him every day though. I'm a little afraid to know which of those people are just casual listeners to a comedy podcast vs. real alt-righters.
Also, he films in the building next door to my office. When Alex Jones was on recently I was so tempted to go over there and slash his tires or something. But he had a huge security detail. Like he was a politician under Secret Service protection. The paranoia isn't just for show like Jones claimed in court. He's nuts.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Also, he films in the building next door to my office. When Alex Jones was on recently I was so tempted to go over there and slash his tires or something. But he had a huge security detail. Like he was a politician under Secret Service protection. The paranoia isn't just for show like Jones claimed in court. He's nuts.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
The reason I hate Rogan is because he has legit guests and occasionally asks legit questions. Because he's not a frothing loon he gets away with a lot of bullshit that shouldn't.
posted by symbioid at 1:50 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 1:50 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
He's a walking Dunning-Kruger I think.
posted by symbioid at 1:51 PM on March 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 1:51 PM on March 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
Spoken like someone who is not only not the parent of teen boys, but has never actually met a teen boy.
i'll have you know that the convent i live in is very knowledgeable about teen boys, especially mother superior
posted by pyramid termite at 1:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [15 favorites]
i'll have you know that the convent i live in is very knowledgeable about teen boys, especially mother superior
posted by pyramid termite at 1:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [15 favorites]
>And the bro humor and the conspiracy theories and the juvenile posturing and the stoned teenager-level understanding of . . . kinda everything?
Bro's aren't allowed humour?
Alex Jones has appeared twice in 1,000 episodes. The second time because he had threatened Rogan very publicly in the days prior.
He also has had Johan Hari, Matt Walker, Henry Rollins, Macauley Culkin, Neil deGrasse, Kevin Smith, Steve Tyler, Peter Attia, Reggie Watts, Pauly Shore, Scott Eastwood, Dan Carlin, Anthony Bourdain, Jon Ronson and many more legit scientists and journalists. If it's your only source of information it's certainly unhealthy but I think it's unfair to paint Rogan as some kind of right winger. At worst he's guilty of being overly concerned about transgender athletes competing in women's MMA.
posted by Damienmce at 1:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
Bro's aren't allowed humour?
Alex Jones has appeared twice in 1,000 episodes. The second time because he had threatened Rogan very publicly in the days prior.
He also has had Johan Hari, Matt Walker, Henry Rollins, Macauley Culkin, Neil deGrasse, Kevin Smith, Steve Tyler, Peter Attia, Reggie Watts, Pauly Shore, Scott Eastwood, Dan Carlin, Anthony Bourdain, Jon Ronson and many more legit scientists and journalists. If it's your only source of information it's certainly unhealthy but I think it's unfair to paint Rogan as some kind of right winger. At worst he's guilty of being overly concerned about transgender athletes competing in women's MMA.
posted by Damienmce at 1:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
Does he have legit guests on? It seems like he has on legit-adjacent guests: media people willing to parlay a small amount of knowledge into the appearance of a full blown area of expertise.
This is self help for men, folks. But since the kind of men that listen to this show typically deride that sort of thing they don’t 1) know they are listening to self help and 2) don’t realize what is presented isn’t a revelation.
As to alternatives, maybe Chapo and Cumtown and the casts like that? Crude and juvenile, but more compassionate and less self-aggrandizing. Oh, and most importantly, not a gateway to “just asking questions” about the inferiority of women and people of color.
posted by scantee at 2:00 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
This is self help for men, folks. But since the kind of men that listen to this show typically deride that sort of thing they don’t 1) know they are listening to self help and 2) don’t realize what is presented isn’t a revelation.
As to alternatives, maybe Chapo and Cumtown and the casts like that? Crude and juvenile, but more compassionate and less self-aggrandizing. Oh, and most importantly, not a gateway to “just asking questions” about the inferiority of women and people of color.
posted by scantee at 2:00 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
I mean the only JRE I've really listened to was the Leah Remini and Henry Rollins ones, and they were pretty interesting? I greatly enjoy the "shooting the shit" format than a traditional talkshow format.
posted by littlesq at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by littlesq at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2019
I think back to my own teen years as a ham radio nut, where the closest thing to a Joe Rogan podcast was Wayne Greene’s editorials in 73 Magazine. It ran the gamut very similar to the article: UFOs, conspiracy theory (usually centered around the moon landing), unschooling, alternative medicine (strap this “plant growth stimulator” to your ankle and bio-electrify your way to good health!), and more. All steeped in the New Hampshire classic libertarian flavor. In addition to the magazines (he apparently made some money starting and selling a computer magazine in the early 80s), he seemed to do a brisk mail order business with a streak of hucksterism. I remember forking over five bucks for his foolproof method of passing the five word-per-minute Morse code exam, only to receive a photocopied pamplet telling you to memorize the Morse code table, copy it out during the test, write down the dots and dashes in the test recording, and use your memorized table to decode it. No real method of learning or mastering Morse code, just a quick enough fix to pass the test. That was the beginning of the end for me in viewing this guy as a genius pseudo-intellectual iconoclast. A cheap lesson for five bucks.
To tie it together, a Wayne Green or a Joe Rogan or even an Alex Jones all seem to be in a similar game: make you feel smart and set apart from the rest of the masses, while gladly taking your money in the process.
posted by dr_dank at 2:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
To tie it together, a Wayne Green or a Joe Rogan or even an Alex Jones all seem to be in a similar game: make you feel smart and set apart from the rest of the masses, while gladly taking your money in the process.
posted by dr_dank at 2:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Thanks for this. This guy's videos show up inexplicably among my YouTube suggestions (along with all the damn airplane videos! Enough already!). I've been afraid of clicking on them to find out who this clown is, and confirming Google's broken suggestions algorithms. I mean sure I'm a nerd, just not that kind of nerd.
posted by St. Oops at 2:10 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 2:10 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
MonkeyToes - surely the answer is to listen with them and then talk through your reactions?
posted by firebrick at 2:17 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by firebrick at 2:17 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Whelk's suggestion of turning impressionable young men on to the Street Fight Radio podcast is very solid. They're funny, relatable, and accessible in the same parasocial way Joe Rogan is, but they have a much more wholesome and positive philosophy on life, and they serve as a gateway to a much more compassionate and acceptable politics.
Chapo Trap House, as mentioned earlier, is probably the world's most powerful force at radicalizing teens away from the Joe Rogan/Alex Jones far right and into left politics instead. They have the kind of abrasive humor teen boys so often seek out, but they also have an intelligent analysis of present-day society and a positive program for making the world a better place. I seriously think of this show as total anti-fascist antibiotics.
For a nerdy and kind sort of teen, I'd totally recommend Srsly Wrong, which is probably the most sweet and empathetic politically oriented podcast I've ever heard.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:19 PM on March 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
Chapo Trap House, as mentioned earlier, is probably the world's most powerful force at radicalizing teens away from the Joe Rogan/Alex Jones far right and into left politics instead. They have the kind of abrasive humor teen boys so often seek out, but they also have an intelligent analysis of present-day society and a positive program for making the world a better place. I seriously think of this show as total anti-fascist antibiotics.
For a nerdy and kind sort of teen, I'd totally recommend Srsly Wrong, which is probably the most sweet and empathetic politically oriented podcast I've ever heard.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:19 PM on March 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
An argument with a friend on Facebook who was defending Liam Neeson was the final straw that got me to disable my FB account.
This is a guy who is smart and involved, but has the need to be iconoclast over this dumb shit that gets me arguing with people I would otherwise consider allies.
I have been considerably happier since doing so.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:26 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is a guy who is smart and involved, but has the need to be iconoclast over this dumb shit that gets me arguing with people I would otherwise consider allies.
I have been considerably happier since doing so.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:26 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think there's a good critical conversation to be had here, but not from this guy. Man. I'll admit that I find this well written and fairly spot on in that it gives a pretty workable description of Rogan's show. But I also hate it. Honestly...I've never gotten into Rogan (despite loving podcasts) but I almost want to binge some just to spurn this journalist. He makes some good arguments, but christ what an asshole.
It's a bit hard to pin down why, but the writer's tone is repugnant. Here's my best shot:
He reminds me of many of the intense, talkative stoners I knew in college, the sorts of people who were always yelling about how graphic novels were literature
Hey, fuck you buddy. And if you think it's weird to dismiss you because you randomly attacked comics as an artform in your screed about a podcaster, I think it's weird that you took time out from your screed about a podcaster to dunk on comics as an artform. Every line seems to drip with needless mean-spiritedness.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:26 PM on March 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
It's a bit hard to pin down why, but the writer's tone is repugnant. Here's my best shot:
He reminds me of many of the intense, talkative stoners I knew in college, the sorts of people who were always yelling about how graphic novels were literature
Hey, fuck you buddy. And if you think it's weird to dismiss you because you randomly attacked comics as an artform in your screed about a podcaster, I think it's weird that you took time out from your screed about a podcaster to dunk on comics as an artform. Every line seems to drip with needless mean-spiritedness.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:26 PM on March 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
I used to be super into comics. I am no longer super into comics, because of the sort of people who are also super into comics have morphed into the sort of people who find me subhuman. I find nothing wrong with that dunk unfortunately.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:29 PM on March 21, 2019 [37 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:29 PM on March 21, 2019 [37 favorites]
Well, that escalated quickly.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:30 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:30 PM on March 21, 2019
[List of guests exonerating Joe Rogan]
Looks like even there we've got (in no particular order)
Repeated sexual assault,
Repeated sexual assault,
"Sexual abuse is what makes people fat",
Pretty blatant racism,
Yikes racism,
anti-sex-trafficking scam-charity turned to doxxing trans women...
Real upstanding bunch, there.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:34 PM on March 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
Looks like even there we've got (in no particular order)
Repeated sexual assault,
Repeated sexual assault,
"Sexual abuse is what makes people fat",
Pretty blatant racism,
Yikes racism,
anti-sex-trafficking scam-charity turned to doxxing trans women...
Real upstanding bunch, there.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:34 PM on March 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
I will not deny that the conversations on Joe Rogan are entertaining. I like the podcast. Except for this part:
Rogan appeals to listeners who are aware enough to recognize that media consolidation is a bad thing yet naïve enough to mistake The Joe Rogan Experience for something other than a promotional tour stop for slicksters on the make.
and
Joe Rogan is fully invested in the idea that people—progressive liberals, mostly—are too quick to take offense at things that do not offend Joe Rogan.
and
a good number of Rogan’s guests seem to be marketing directly to those who crave enlightenment while rejecting the notion that it takes work to achieve it. Rogan himself is receptive to these nostrums. The man has long been an avid consumer and promoter of myriad brain, health, and energy supplements.
I threw it on in the background for a few months, and this weird feeling of ewwww kept disrupting the funny parts and I just...couldn't anymore. The Jordan Peterson/Sam Harris episodes made my skin crawl. I must have listened to 50-60 episodes late last year, and just...
This -
The whole I didn't ask for the responsibility part of my privilege bullshit drives me crazy. It's like the pop stars and athletes who say, "I never asked to be a role model." It's like everyone is expected to think, "well, now that he's played his 'get out of responsibility free' card, I guess we just let him go."
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 5:18 AM on March 22 [7 favorites +] [!]
drives me crazy too. Like
“Right,” said Rogan. “And the idea was his tweet caused his fans to attack her, which I think is, that’s a stretch.”
“That’s just ridiculous,” said Pool, and the two men proceeded to mutually establish that Yiannopoulos did not literally instruct his followers to attack Jones and that by repeatedly calling her ugly he was perhaps just engaging in a form of film criticism. “He was mocking this feminist version of Ghostbusters,” said Rogan. “That’s what he was doing.”
IT'S NOT A "STRETCH" IT'S THE ENTIRE FUCKING PROBLEM WITH MILO YIANNOPOULOS!!!! You fuckin' morons!
And then after 50-60 episodes, I noticed this -
by touting his esoteric guests while rarely booking anyone who might trouble his governing assumptions, Rogan gives the impression of breadth while depriving his listeners of depth.
TONS of familiar IDW faces, it's gotta be 20-25% of his shows, and not a single guest who disagrees with them. So much fucking Sam Harris/Jordan Peterson. Get a fucking hotel room already.
So, I turned it off. I'll be giving the other podcasts recommended in this thread a shot. Those of you who recommended alternatives have my everlasting gratitude.
posted by saysthis at 2:44 PM on March 21, 2019 [22 favorites]
Rogan appeals to listeners who are aware enough to recognize that media consolidation is a bad thing yet naïve enough to mistake The Joe Rogan Experience for something other than a promotional tour stop for slicksters on the make.
and
Joe Rogan is fully invested in the idea that people—progressive liberals, mostly—are too quick to take offense at things that do not offend Joe Rogan.
and
a good number of Rogan’s guests seem to be marketing directly to those who crave enlightenment while rejecting the notion that it takes work to achieve it. Rogan himself is receptive to these nostrums. The man has long been an avid consumer and promoter of myriad brain, health, and energy supplements.
I threw it on in the background for a few months, and this weird feeling of ewwww kept disrupting the funny parts and I just...couldn't anymore. The Jordan Peterson/Sam Harris episodes made my skin crawl. I must have listened to 50-60 episodes late last year, and just...
This -
The whole I didn't ask for the responsibility part of my privilege bullshit drives me crazy. It's like the pop stars and athletes who say, "I never asked to be a role model." It's like everyone is expected to think, "well, now that he's played his 'get out of responsibility free' card, I guess we just let him go."
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 5:18 AM on March 22 [7 favorites +] [!]
drives me crazy too. Like
“Right,” said Rogan. “And the idea was his tweet caused his fans to attack her, which I think is, that’s a stretch.”
“That’s just ridiculous,” said Pool, and the two men proceeded to mutually establish that Yiannopoulos did not literally instruct his followers to attack Jones and that by repeatedly calling her ugly he was perhaps just engaging in a form of film criticism. “He was mocking this feminist version of Ghostbusters,” said Rogan. “That’s what he was doing.”
IT'S NOT A "STRETCH" IT'S THE ENTIRE FUCKING PROBLEM WITH MILO YIANNOPOULOS!!!! You fuckin' morons!
And then after 50-60 episodes, I noticed this -
by touting his esoteric guests while rarely booking anyone who might trouble his governing assumptions, Rogan gives the impression of breadth while depriving his listeners of depth.
TONS of familiar IDW faces, it's gotta be 20-25% of his shows, and not a single guest who disagrees with them. So much fucking Sam Harris/Jordan Peterson. Get a fucking hotel room already.
So, I turned it off. I'll be giving the other podcasts recommended in this thread a shot. Those of you who recommended alternatives have my everlasting gratitude.
posted by saysthis at 2:44 PM on March 21, 2019 [22 favorites]
Metafilter: Joe Rogan-curious.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:49 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:49 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Maybe, but you preserve plausible deniability when you know what you're doing is wrong.
Or when you want to pretend you’re being naughty. Life is so much sweeter when you’re transgressing, even if the people in front of you couldn’t care less.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:55 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Or when you want to pretend you’re being naughty. Life is so much sweeter when you’re transgressing, even if the people in front of you couldn’t care less.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:55 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
A lot of Rogan apologists say he just interviews "interesting people". A cursory quick-scroll through the guest list for his podcast shows me maybe five or six names that immediately jump out as female names (though I'm sure there are more). This out of like 1300 episodes.
I'll admit I've watched a couple where he interviews people I used to think I liked years ago - Bill Burr, that fat guy, probably a couple of others - but yeah, I don't sustain bandwidth for that garbage any more.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:56 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
I'll admit I've watched a couple where he interviews people I used to think I liked years ago - Bill Burr, that fat guy, probably a couple of others - but yeah, I don't sustain bandwidth for that garbage any more.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:56 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
Homo neanderthalensis, that's awful and I'm sorry. I'm coming from a place where the first time I encountered positive gay or trans characters in media that wasn't JUST about them being gay or trans was in comics. I love the medium and I tend to be defensive of it. But the general culture has issues on the broad scale. Certainly don't want to suggest it doesn't.
/derail
posted by es_de_bah at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
/derail
posted by es_de_bah at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
the sort of people who are also super into comics have morphed into the sort of people who find me subhuman
posted by Homo neanderthalensis
I have to admit I'd never considered the role that comics might have played in the downfall of your people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis
I have to admit I'd never considered the role that comics might have played in the downfall of your people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
eh I get where you're coming from- I used to get really defensive about comics too. It's just after watching a white supremacist who once was a republican politician (tru fax) turn Cap into a nazi for the lulz, and seeing the hate mail female writers get when they dare to write female characters or *gasp* have a legacy character be something other than male or white... I'm sort of done with the scene for a while. I used to read old Kirby comics in my school library back to front. I just can't stomach it anymore.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
I have enjoyed hardcore history and was disappointed to see Dan Carlin show up on joe rogan’s garbage show.
posted by lazaruslong at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 3:08 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Regarding podcasts that are interesting leftist substitutes for Joe Rogan, I would also submit Relentless Picnic. Their Marketplace episode hooked me. I'm a little suspicious about whether they always know what they're talking about, but I really enjoy hearing their perspective.
posted by value of information at 3:10 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by value of information at 3:10 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
The man is a counterexample to all the arguments in favor of using psychedelic drugs.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:11 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 3:11 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
I suppose there's an argument to be had here about whether or not the medium is the message when it comes to comics. But I think a thread about Joe Rogan isn't the place. Honestly, that was kinda my point to start. I think it's a good conversation to have, but if an admin scrubbed it right now...I'd be like ok...right. Off topic.
posted by es_de_bah at 3:12 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by es_de_bah at 3:12 PM on March 21, 2019
If you’re in the Uk or interested in UK politics , I like Trashfuture - it’s conversational and dude crude while also being very funny and informed about left politics and theory and how ridiculous new media and tech culture is.
I’m not sure a teenage boy would like the Current Affairs podcast cause it is adult dorks talking dorkily and earnestly about politics and humanism but, I don’t know your teenage boys.
Sh!tpost and Qanon Anonymous are about the crazy internet subcultures and making fun of the types of people who show up on Joe Rogan - QAA might be the best fit cause it’s the one I am slightly embrassed about listening to cause it does seem to be at a very teenage boy level of humor but it is all about pointing out how ridiculous all these conspiracy theories are and the people who fall for them.
Grubstakers is a podcast about billionaires , how they made their money, their various back alley dealings, their crimes, etc. it also has a jokey tone and just gabbing vibe but is ...actually about something and pointing out no one has ever earned a billion dollars.
The Antifada positions itself as the anti Joe Rogan, very pro drug, pro theory, pro communist revolution, and with a female co-host- their history episodes are excellent, actually And is the only podcast where someone I know who has been on (early) Joe Rogan has later gone on to their show.
posted by The Whelk at 3:27 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
I’m not sure a teenage boy would like the Current Affairs podcast cause it is adult dorks talking dorkily and earnestly about politics and humanism but, I don’t know your teenage boys.
Sh!tpost and Qanon Anonymous are about the crazy internet subcultures and making fun of the types of people who show up on Joe Rogan - QAA might be the best fit cause it’s the one I am slightly embrassed about listening to cause it does seem to be at a very teenage boy level of humor but it is all about pointing out how ridiculous all these conspiracy theories are and the people who fall for them.
Grubstakers is a podcast about billionaires , how they made their money, their various back alley dealings, their crimes, etc. it also has a jokey tone and just gabbing vibe but is ...actually about something and pointing out no one has ever earned a billion dollars.
The Antifada positions itself as the anti Joe Rogan, very pro drug, pro theory, pro communist revolution, and with a female co-host- their history episodes are excellent, actually And is the only podcast where someone I know who has been on (early) Joe Rogan has later gone on to their show.
posted by The Whelk at 3:27 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Pointing teen boys to stuff like Chapo Trap House would probably inoculate them against alt-right stuff however because the bedrock appeal is the superiority that comes from "secret knowledge" there is a danger of turning into teenage Maoists or Trotskyists or whatever. Which even if you aren't bothered by the politics, it would be really irritating to live with one.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:29 PM on March 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 3:29 PM on March 21, 2019 [13 favorites]
"I got listed next to Richard Spencer as being a far right influencer. I'm Left! They're Liars!"
posted by philip-random at 3:31 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 3:31 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
"I got listed next to Richard Spencer as being a far right influencer. I'm Left! They're Liars!" yt
warning: devolves into a discussion of mass shooters and mental illness.
posted by philip-random at 3:33 PM on March 21, 2019
warning: devolves into a discussion of mass shooters and mental illness.
posted by philip-random at 3:33 PM on March 21, 2019
If your teenage boy turns into a Maoist tell him not Cleaning his room is the 13th form of liberalism.
If he becomes a Trotskyist just make him attend any trot meeting ever.
posted by The Whelk at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [33 favorites]
If he becomes a Trotskyist just make him attend any trot meeting ever.
posted by The Whelk at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [33 favorites]
I suppose there's an argument to be had here about whether or not the medium is the message when it comes to comics.
Marshall McLuhan thought that comics were a deeply valuable art form, one which required the audience to participate WITH the medium, filling in blanks because the depictions on the page were minimalist in regard to detail. The medium is indeed the message.
posted by hippybear at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
Marshall McLuhan thought that comics were a deeply valuable art form, one which required the audience to participate WITH the medium, filling in blanks because the depictions on the page were minimalist in regard to detail. The medium is indeed the message.
posted by hippybear at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
(Also If for whatever reason your teen would like an all lady lefty podcast, Season of the Bitch is excellent)
posted by The Whelk at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 3:35 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
I never watched that Fear Factor program he hosted, but I saw enough clips on various shows to know you either had to be a first-rate sadist, or without any kind of empathy to host (or even watch) a show that forced people to do those things. It was basically televised psychological torture, right? No big surprise the guy is lacking in a moral compass, or in a higher questioning intellect. Otherwise, how could you do that as an occupation?
I did like the implication at the end of the article that he knows a little bit of fear now, kinda nice bookend, whether it’s true or not.
posted by valkane at 3:41 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
I did like the implication at the end of the article that he knows a little bit of fear now, kinda nice bookend, whether it’s true or not.
posted by valkane at 3:41 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
Academic Marxism is basically the act of analyzing subjects from economic and class-based perspectives. Peterson willfully and knowingly conflates academic Marxism with Stalinism, as a means of discrediting the intelligentsia who call him an idiot.
I appreciate how clearly the writer put that.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
I appreciate how clearly the writer put that.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
The older I get, the more I have to say this, but I have never heard of Joe Rogan. And as a liberal computer guy, nthing the idea that a lot of people in my field are really dumb about everything but arguing about programming languages and video games. It makes me sad.
Also as I’ve mellowed I’ve lost any taste for snide, angry, and/or know it all types. A lot of talking heads are pricks in general. For example, im a pretty hardcore atheist, but Bill Maher is a prick and most of the white guys like Sam Harris who have written books about atheism are pricks.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [34 favorites]
Also as I’ve mellowed I’ve lost any taste for snide, angry, and/or know it all types. A lot of talking heads are pricks in general. For example, im a pretty hardcore atheist, but Bill Maher is a prick and most of the white guys like Sam Harris who have written books about atheism are pricks.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:09 PM on March 21, 2019 [34 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming.
If your boys really are coming at this from the premised free thinker self-image side of the discussion: sit down and listen with them to an hour or two of Jordan Peterson's actual college lectures (the venue where he has a real job he's accountable for beyond cultural crusader).
Then listen with them to as much of Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan as you can stand; it shouldn't take long to come up with examples of how Peterson presents differently on Rogan.
Talk with them about the differences you and they perceive, and reasons why those differences might be there. Oh, and depending on what you encounter above and what your kids are ready for, throw in Jordan Peterson doesn't understand Postmodernism and then talk about that.
The principle here is that you can't protect anyone from problematic content indefinitely, especially content that may well tickle their temperament or self-image with convenient and flattering partial truths. You *may* be able to inoculate them with an awareness of its problems, and a real capacity to think critically about what they're hearing.
Also, for my money, I think some of the subtle-est and best counter-programming to the bro-o-sphere isn't direct current cultural conversation at all, but good YA-accessible fiction. There's the suggestion it develops empathy, probably by helping readers model people different than them. Give them Avatar The Last Airbender, drop some Ursula Le Guin Earthsea cycle, find someone both cooler and woker than me to give you current diverse YA hotness, but myth-magic, substantial stories, and diversity are a pretty powerful combo and it works at a level underneath overt discourse.
posted by wildblueyonder at 4:13 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
If your boys really are coming at this from the premised free thinker self-image side of the discussion: sit down and listen with them to an hour or two of Jordan Peterson's actual college lectures (the venue where he has a real job he's accountable for beyond cultural crusader).
Then listen with them to as much of Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan as you can stand; it shouldn't take long to come up with examples of how Peterson presents differently on Rogan.
Talk with them about the differences you and they perceive, and reasons why those differences might be there. Oh, and depending on what you encounter above and what your kids are ready for, throw in Jordan Peterson doesn't understand Postmodernism and then talk about that.
The principle here is that you can't protect anyone from problematic content indefinitely, especially content that may well tickle their temperament or self-image with convenient and flattering partial truths. You *may* be able to inoculate them with an awareness of its problems, and a real capacity to think critically about what they're hearing.
Also, for my money, I think some of the subtle-est and best counter-programming to the bro-o-sphere isn't direct current cultural conversation at all, but good YA-accessible fiction. There's the suggestion it develops empathy, probably by helping readers model people different than them. Give them Avatar The Last Airbender, drop some Ursula Le Guin Earthsea cycle, find someone both cooler and woker than me to give you current diverse YA hotness, but myth-magic, substantial stories, and diversity are a pretty powerful combo and it works at a level underneath overt discourse.
posted by wildblueyonder at 4:13 PM on March 21, 2019 [12 favorites]
Can we just shoot about half the population into a round trip trip into near space and back while on LSD or DMT or something? Can we start with Joe Rogan? Followed by any and all politicians?
Wait, that sure sounds like I'm proposing the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm ok with that.
Also, what's with all the squares taking DMT and still not getting the message going round and going round? I find this troublesome, even while I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I would like to live in a world where our leaders are gently distracted by a pretty flower, or a well-sunned cat in the garden.
People who have a genuinely terrifying perspective of our fragile place in this strange, forbidding universe and our lonely little blue planet, spinning through space.
And if there's anyone that's an establishment plant, why not Joe Rogan, the dude that used to host the worst TV show ever? Seriously, that a-hole goaded people into eating cow entrails and cattle bile and worse.
posted by loquacious at 4:21 PM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
Wait, that sure sounds like I'm proposing the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm ok with that.
Also, what's with all the squares taking DMT and still not getting the message going round and going round? I find this troublesome, even while I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I would like to live in a world where our leaders are gently distracted by a pretty flower, or a well-sunned cat in the garden.
People who have a genuinely terrifying perspective of our fragile place in this strange, forbidding universe and our lonely little blue planet, spinning through space.
And if there's anyone that's an establishment plant, why not Joe Rogan, the dude that used to host the worst TV show ever? Seriously, that a-hole goaded people into eating cow entrails and cattle bile and worse.
posted by loquacious at 4:21 PM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
I've never heard him but I've always seen his podcast listed on PocketCasts as one of the most popular and I found the logo repellent enough to keep me away.
posted by octothorpe at 4:22 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:22 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
freecellwizard: A lot of talking heads are pricks in general. For example, im a pretty hardcore atheist, but Bill Maher is a prick and most of the white guys like Sam Harris who have written books about atheism are pricks.
I think part of the reason for Rogan's success is that he's definitely not the Bill Maher type of prick who is always trying to one-up and argue with his guests. Rogan is mellow. Whatever you've got to talk about, he's interested. As a model of emotionally intelligent conversation - active listening, really engaging with his conversation partner, being considerate of their point of view - he's actually pretty good. The problem isn't so much his style as it is the people and ideas that he spends his emotional intelligence on.
posted by clawsoon at 4:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [25 favorites]
I think part of the reason for Rogan's success is that he's definitely not the Bill Maher type of prick who is always trying to one-up and argue with his guests. Rogan is mellow. Whatever you've got to talk about, he's interested. As a model of emotionally intelligent conversation - active listening, really engaging with his conversation partner, being considerate of their point of view - he's actually pretty good. The problem isn't so much his style as it is the people and ideas that he spends his emotional intelligence on.
posted by clawsoon at 4:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [25 favorites]
This conversation with Elon Musk is breathtaking. Rogan is a great interviewer, Muskns÷ms cagey/polite in parts, and I have to take a break at halfway and sVe some for later. The E-type Jaguar is my fave dream car! The quote about Rogan's parents making a kid who looks like a thumb, funny but harsh.
posted by Oyéah at 4:36 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by Oyéah at 4:36 PM on March 21, 2019
As a model of emotionally intelligent conversation - active listening, really engaging with his conversation partner, being considerate of their point of view - he's actually pretty good.
yeah, with the right guest, in a stoner, aging bro sort of way.
I guess I must've left Youtube going once with a Joe Rogan bit on, because the darned algorithm keeps tossing me more of his stuff. Which I usually ignore, but every now and then, something grabs me as being just weird enough so I click on it ... and I guess it keeps feeding the beast.
His talk with Dale Earnhardt Jr went to some very interesting places if, like me, you've got a little NASCAR in your bones.
Also Macaulay Culkin.
posted by philip-random at 4:46 PM on March 21, 2019
yeah, with the right guest, in a stoner, aging bro sort of way.
I guess I must've left Youtube going once with a Joe Rogan bit on, because the darned algorithm keeps tossing me more of his stuff. Which I usually ignore, but every now and then, something grabs me as being just weird enough so I click on it ... and I guess it keeps feeding the beast.
His talk with Dale Earnhardt Jr went to some very interesting places if, like me, you've got a little NASCAR in your bones.
Also Macaulay Culkin.
posted by philip-random at 4:46 PM on March 21, 2019
"Sexual abuse is what makes people fat"
This is blatant misrepresentation, the finding was that getting fat can be a result of sexual abuse, that adverse childhood experiences can have long term health affects. But hey, easier to snark because the show doesn't fit your world view.
posted by Damienmce at 5:06 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
This is blatant misrepresentation, the finding was that getting fat can be a result of sexual abuse, that adverse childhood experiences can have long term health affects. But hey, easier to snark because the show doesn't fit your world view.
posted by Damienmce at 5:06 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
At worst he's guilty of being overly concerned about transgender athletes competing in women's MMA.
I mean, what's a little transphobia between friends? It's not like we're a favored punching bag at the moment or anything.
posted by hoyland at 5:11 PM on March 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
I mean, what's a little transphobia between friends? It's not like we're a favored punching bag at the moment or anything.
posted by hoyland at 5:11 PM on March 21, 2019 [44 favorites]
Metafilter: media people willing to parlay a small amount of knowledge into the appearance of a full blown area of expertise.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:19 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:19 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
When you have both good people and shit people and you give them equal time, you legitimize the shit people as worth listening to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [31 favorites]
[List of guests exonerating Joe Rogan]
Not to mention Jon fucking Ronson, Captain "but both sides are uncivil!" and, ah, liberal fictionalizer of his researcher interviews. An intellectual luminary of our age he is not, and I am really, really troubled by the laziness in his work.
posted by sciatrix at 5:40 PM on March 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
Not to mention Jon fucking Ronson, Captain "but both sides are uncivil!" and, ah, liberal fictionalizer of his researcher interviews. An intellectual luminary of our age he is not, and I am really, really troubled by the laziness in his work.
posted by sciatrix at 5:40 PM on March 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
Upon reflection I'd even recommend Maron to a mature teen. Marc is also trying to learn as he goes along and he's not the person he was even 5 years ago. Growth is possible, and conversations can facilitate it.
posted by hippybear at 5:42 PM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 5:42 PM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
(oh, thank you thank you for that jon ronson link!!)
posted by armacy at 5:43 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by armacy at 5:43 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
I didn't realize until just now that Adam Carolla and Joe Rogan are different people. I had the vague understanding of podcast guy who used to be part of an awful reality show. I'm surprised to find out that the MANSHOW guy turned out as the better of the two.
posted by es_de_bah at 5:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by es_de_bah at 5:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
(And The Psychopath Test is probably the less criticized of his books--So You've Been Publicly Shamed is notorious for its total lack of sympathy for the victims of whatever behavior triggered the shaming in the first place.
Ronson seems to enjoy feeling like he can get the real side of the story because he reaches out to the person many people are angry at, but he does a very bad job of verifying or really listening to why anger is happening in the first place.)
posted by sciatrix at 5:53 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Ronson seems to enjoy feeling like he can get the real side of the story because he reaches out to the person many people are angry at, but he does a very bad job of verifying or really listening to why anger is happening in the first place.)
posted by sciatrix at 5:53 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming
Harmontown.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 6:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Harmontown.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 6:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming
The Dollop?
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:42 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
The Dollop?
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:42 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
Mark Maron's on my shitlist right now, ever since I learned that he signed WTF to be distributed by iHeartMedia, aka Clear Channel.
posted by rhizome at 6:47 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 6:47 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Real people make compromises. We like what someone has to say, but heaven forbid they might make a distribution deal with an imperfect business partner...!
posted by PhineasGage at 6:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 6:54 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
aspersioncast: "I watched NewsRadio in its entirety at least a couple times. "
Between Rogan and Andy Dick, it's kind of hard to watch NewsRadio at this point, and that really sucks.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:20 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
Between Rogan and Andy Dick, it's kind of hard to watch NewsRadio at this point, and that really sucks.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:20 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
We’ll always have Stephen Root.
posted by valkane at 7:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by valkane at 7:33 PM on March 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
I still just associate Joe Rogan with the Tyrone Biggums Fear Factor sketch.
"You know, Joe Rogan?"
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:41 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
"You know, Joe Rogan?"
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:41 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Rogan has made himself a pretty cool job. So for Musk, he can read all he can find on that person and his accomplishments, as he reads he formulates questions, a lot of them, he does a lot of projection, and then figures out how to have a long conversation. I think he did a great job of this. I have never seen any other of his work, and I have never watched Elon Musk, speak, now that is remedied. I want what he is selling.
posted by Oyéah at 7:42 PM on March 21, 2019
posted by Oyéah at 7:42 PM on March 21, 2019
Ah okay this exact episode of the Antifada, Secrets Of The Illuminati (about the problems and futility of conspiratorial thinking) might be the best direct antidote
posted by The Whelk at 7:49 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 7:49 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]
Between Rogan and Andy Dick, it's kind of hard to watch NewsRadio at this point, and that really sucks.
I have some bad news about Dave Foley and I'm not sure how to tell you.
posted by traveler_ at 8:38 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
I have some bad news about Dave Foley and I'm not sure how to tell you.
posted by traveler_ at 8:38 PM on March 21, 2019 [8 favorites]
As to alternatives, maybe Chapo and Cumtown and the casts like that?
I think Chapo's ability to speak to that sort of audience is worth something, for sure. They may have a bro-ish side but they are very clear in their attitude of contempt for "intellectual dark web" types. I've seen people saying that they should try to get Felix in particular on Joe Rogan.
Cumtown is more of an ironyboy edgy comedy thing/podcast-as-friend-simulator, if you miss being friends with middle-school boys for some reason. And its fanbase seems to be an insane and mutually hostile mix of people who came from Chapo due to the hosts' personal connection, people who came from the sorta Opie and Anthony type NY comedy asshole scene, and people who came from MDE or something like that and are just in it for the racism. So I guess I'm just saying I certainly wouldn't encourage a young male to listen to it!
posted by atoxyl at 9:01 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think Chapo's ability to speak to that sort of audience is worth something, for sure. They may have a bro-ish side but they are very clear in their attitude of contempt for "intellectual dark web" types. I've seen people saying that they should try to get Felix in particular on Joe Rogan.
Cumtown is more of an ironyboy edgy comedy thing/podcast-as-friend-simulator, if you miss being friends with middle-school boys for some reason. And its fanbase seems to be an insane and mutually hostile mix of people who came from Chapo due to the hosts' personal connection, people who came from the sorta Opie and Anthony type NY comedy asshole scene, and people who came from MDE or something like that and are just in it for the racism. So I guess I'm just saying I certainly wouldn't encourage a young male to listen to it!
posted by atoxyl at 9:01 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
"Means TV’s founders have a second rationale for publishing on YouTube: to battle the “alt-right” on what has become its turf. White nationalists and the “alt-right” have come to dominate the political space on YouTube, exploiting the platform’s nihilistic algorithm with the aim to radicalize young, disaffected boys, curdling their adolescent anxiety into misogyny, then racism, then full-blown white supremacy.
“We wanted to start fighting the YouTube war with this. We’re tired of watching as Midwestern 12-year-olds get sucked into the ‘alt-right,’” said Hayes, noting that the “alt-right” dominance of the algorithm is so strong that it recommends one of the more potently toxic trolls even to Hayes," MEANS TV, WITH A BOOST FROM THE NYAN CAT, LAUNCHES A POST-CAPITALIST STREAMING SERVICE the promotional video
posted by The Whelk at 9:55 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
“We wanted to start fighting the YouTube war with this. We’re tired of watching as Midwestern 12-year-olds get sucked into the ‘alt-right,’” said Hayes, noting that the “alt-right” dominance of the algorithm is so strong that it recommends one of the more potently toxic trolls even to Hayes," MEANS TV, WITH A BOOST FROM THE NYAN CAT, LAUNCHES A POST-CAPITALIST STREAMING SERVICE the promotional video
posted by The Whelk at 9:55 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
Contrapoints is De-Radicalizing Young Right-Wing Men (Vice News Tonight)
posted by The Whelk at 10:06 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:06 PM on March 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
I don't know.
I don't think Joe Rogan is very funny; it's the only podcast I skip through all the ads. His delivery just doesn't do it for me. I do keep his show on my feed and probably listen to 5-10% of his episodes. (Seriously, he puts out so many episodes, 1 out of 10 is about all I can handle.) He does have a unique set of stylistic attributes that make his podcast worth listening to on occasion.
Good things about Joe Rogan:
• He doesn't think he's the smartest guy in the room. Unlike many podcast hosts, Joe doesn't try to outshine his guest. He has a Columbo-like quality of acting just dense enough to get honest opinions out of his guests.
• Because he is Joe Rogan he can get guests nobody else can pull. This also allows him to do uninterrupted podcasts for 3+ hours. His recent debate between Gary Taubes and Stephan Guyenet couldn’t have been done on any other podcast.
• Again, because he admits that he doesn’t know much about his subjects, he gives his guests enough rope to hang themselves. Take his recent interview with Elon Musk. Nobody is better at getting guests off of their pre-planned talking points. Also, many guests seem to have about 45 minutes of glib anecdotes you need to get through before you hear anything new.
Bad Things:
• Sometimes he should really just push back on bad ideas. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to see where some people go when they’re not feeling defensive.
• When he doesn’t get a concept, it can be excruciating to listen to. Sometimes he just can’t wrap his brain around what a scientist is saying and it does my head in. I’ll often stop his podcasts midway through and just delete them.
• I really don’t want to listen to 90-95% of his guests. I don’t care what Alex Jones has to say at this point. He’s the dude who convinced me that absolute free speech on social networks can be a terrible vector of brain rot.
• I do wish that the person doing Joe Rogan was somebody other than Joe Rogan. In the least worst reality, somebody like Jeremy Hardy (RIP) or Louis Theroux would host the most influential podcast in the world that is capable of getting a wide array of guests and talking to them for 3+ hours. In this world, we have Joe Rogan doing that.
I listen to: Jacobin Radio, Chapo Trap, Start Worrying, Details to Follow (on hiatus?), Team Human, The Intercept (sparingly), On The Media, Ezra Klein, Chris Hayes, David Harvey, Yascha Mounk (maybe not lefty enough now?) and a bunch of other shows on the left. I also have Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Econ Talk and Arthur Brooks on my feed because sometimes they interview interesting people nobody else does. Sometimes it helps me understand perspectives I hadn’t considered.
Podcasts are a tool; nobody is forcing us to listen to them. I’m certainly not going to avoid listening to a good interview for free just because some weasel on Slate writes a smug piece on alt right adjacent curious proximal overlap figures. I really like Slate, but this article isn't very good and I don't think it's entirely honest in its portrayal of some points.
I think it’s healthy to pursue disconfirmation of your ideas. Otherwise we end up with the same MetaFilter hate fests where we all congratulate each other for disliking the correct people.
*Sad that Jon Ronson is on the list of people we're not supposed to like any more. I really enjoy his work. I think it's humane and he tries hard to treat his subjects with respect.
posted by Telf at 2:18 AM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
I don't think Joe Rogan is very funny; it's the only podcast I skip through all the ads. His delivery just doesn't do it for me. I do keep his show on my feed and probably listen to 5-10% of his episodes. (Seriously, he puts out so many episodes, 1 out of 10 is about all I can handle.) He does have a unique set of stylistic attributes that make his podcast worth listening to on occasion.
Good things about Joe Rogan:
• He doesn't think he's the smartest guy in the room. Unlike many podcast hosts, Joe doesn't try to outshine his guest. He has a Columbo-like quality of acting just dense enough to get honest opinions out of his guests.
• Because he is Joe Rogan he can get guests nobody else can pull. This also allows him to do uninterrupted podcasts for 3+ hours. His recent debate between Gary Taubes and Stephan Guyenet couldn’t have been done on any other podcast.
• Again, because he admits that he doesn’t know much about his subjects, he gives his guests enough rope to hang themselves. Take his recent interview with Elon Musk. Nobody is better at getting guests off of their pre-planned talking points. Also, many guests seem to have about 45 minutes of glib anecdotes you need to get through before you hear anything new.
Bad Things:
• Sometimes he should really just push back on bad ideas. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to see where some people go when they’re not feeling defensive.
• When he doesn’t get a concept, it can be excruciating to listen to. Sometimes he just can’t wrap his brain around what a scientist is saying and it does my head in. I’ll often stop his podcasts midway through and just delete them.
• I really don’t want to listen to 90-95% of his guests. I don’t care what Alex Jones has to say at this point. He’s the dude who convinced me that absolute free speech on social networks can be a terrible vector of brain rot.
• I do wish that the person doing Joe Rogan was somebody other than Joe Rogan. In the least worst reality, somebody like Jeremy Hardy (RIP) or Louis Theroux would host the most influential podcast in the world that is capable of getting a wide array of guests and talking to them for 3+ hours. In this world, we have Joe Rogan doing that.
I listen to: Jacobin Radio, Chapo Trap, Start Worrying, Details to Follow (on hiatus?), Team Human, The Intercept (sparingly), On The Media, Ezra Klein, Chris Hayes, David Harvey, Yascha Mounk (maybe not lefty enough now?) and a bunch of other shows on the left. I also have Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Econ Talk and Arthur Brooks on my feed because sometimes they interview interesting people nobody else does. Sometimes it helps me understand perspectives I hadn’t considered.
Podcasts are a tool; nobody is forcing us to listen to them. I’m certainly not going to avoid listening to a good interview for free just because some weasel on Slate writes a smug piece on alt right adjacent curious proximal overlap figures. I really like Slate, but this article isn't very good and I don't think it's entirely honest in its portrayal of some points.
I think it’s healthy to pursue disconfirmation of your ideas. Otherwise we end up with the same MetaFilter hate fests where we all congratulate each other for disliking the correct people.
*Sad that Jon Ronson is on the list of people we're not supposed to like any more. I really enjoy his work. I think it's humane and he tries hard to treat his subjects with respect.
posted by Telf at 2:18 AM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
I have some bad news about Dave Foley and I'm not sure how to tell you
Give it to me straight, doc.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:07 AM on March 22, 2019
Give it to me straight, doc.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:07 AM on March 22, 2019
(I'm sorry I have to do this, but, I do. May this end my obsession with wearisome memes!)
MetaFilter: hate fests where we all congratulate each other for disliking the correct people.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:07 AM on March 22, 2019 [13 favorites]
MetaFilter: hate fests where we all congratulate each other for disliking the correct people.
posted by Chitownfats at 5:07 AM on March 22, 2019 [13 favorites]
In Testosterone Rex, Cordelia Fine talks about how we don't seem to be wired to perform stereotyped gender roles, but we do seem to be wired to be "gender detectives". There are times in our lives when we're really, really interested in what gender we are and what that means within our specific culture for how we're supposed to act.
I think Joe Rogan, whether he knows it or not, is an effective distributor of gender clues. The show is a total boyzone. I'm sure that he has women as guests occasionally, but the avoidance of girl cooties is strong with this one. If you want to know how to act as a man in male spaces, what ideas to have and how to respond to the ideas of other men, he has a coherent and unimpeachably masculine worldview.
The first Youtube result I got for him was this conversation with comedian Ron White. He says that Obama was the most presidential president the U.S. has had, someone you could be proud to represent your country, while some Trump supporters are crazy and get offended by everything. He says that comedians should be allowed to say anything, as long as they're funny; Bill Burr talking about domestic violence and Sam Kinison talking about starving children are both just fine, even though they're punching down, because they're funny.
In the first few minutes, you get the standard ideology of masculine desensitization. Don't "over"-react to anything. Obama exemplified masculine cool, so he's good. Comedians play with ideas that other people take seriously, so they're good. Social justice warriors and rabid Trump supporters get passionately angry, so they're not good.
I remember some articles from a few years back about what it takes to be a "cool girl" who fits in with the guys. Joe Rogan constructs the kind of social setting that you'd have to be a cool girl to fit into. You're offended by Jordan Peterson or Milo Yiannopoulos? Clearly you are not a cool girl. Why are you getting so worked up? Just chill. Next week we'll have Neil DeGrasse Tyson, it's all good.
He offers a safe, comfortable space for the fragile masculine psyche. Because he is unimpeachably masculine, you don't have to fear attack from other men for listening to him. And on the other side, you don't have to feel bad about unearned male privilege or other social justice issues, because the people who talk about that are just getting worked up about nothing, right? You can listen to interesting conversations - and the conversations are interesting! - while feeling good about being a man.
He is playing a role that sports commentators often play, though across a much broader range of subjects. I imagine him at Yale in 1910, the picture of the "well-rounded man" who is both athletic and interested in a broad range of ideas, but whose world is comfortably insulated from the hysterical complaints of the wrong sort of agitator. He would have most interesting conversations with Teddy Roosevelt, spiritualists, Jack Dempsey, writers from Punch, and a young man from Italy with intriguing ideas about government.
posted by clawsoon at 5:18 AM on March 22, 2019 [39 favorites]
I think Joe Rogan, whether he knows it or not, is an effective distributor of gender clues. The show is a total boyzone. I'm sure that he has women as guests occasionally, but the avoidance of girl cooties is strong with this one. If you want to know how to act as a man in male spaces, what ideas to have and how to respond to the ideas of other men, he has a coherent and unimpeachably masculine worldview.
The first Youtube result I got for him was this conversation with comedian Ron White. He says that Obama was the most presidential president the U.S. has had, someone you could be proud to represent your country, while some Trump supporters are crazy and get offended by everything. He says that comedians should be allowed to say anything, as long as they're funny; Bill Burr talking about domestic violence and Sam Kinison talking about starving children are both just fine, even though they're punching down, because they're funny.
In the first few minutes, you get the standard ideology of masculine desensitization. Don't "over"-react to anything. Obama exemplified masculine cool, so he's good. Comedians play with ideas that other people take seriously, so they're good. Social justice warriors and rabid Trump supporters get passionately angry, so they're not good.
I remember some articles from a few years back about what it takes to be a "cool girl" who fits in with the guys. Joe Rogan constructs the kind of social setting that you'd have to be a cool girl to fit into. You're offended by Jordan Peterson or Milo Yiannopoulos? Clearly you are not a cool girl. Why are you getting so worked up? Just chill. Next week we'll have Neil DeGrasse Tyson, it's all good.
He offers a safe, comfortable space for the fragile masculine psyche. Because he is unimpeachably masculine, you don't have to fear attack from other men for listening to him. And on the other side, you don't have to feel bad about unearned male privilege or other social justice issues, because the people who talk about that are just getting worked up about nothing, right? You can listen to interesting conversations - and the conversations are interesting! - while feeling good about being a man.
He is playing a role that sports commentators often play, though across a much broader range of subjects. I imagine him at Yale in 1910, the picture of the "well-rounded man" who is both athletic and interested in a broad range of ideas, but whose world is comfortably insulated from the hysterical complaints of the wrong sort of agitator. He would have most interesting conversations with Teddy Roosevelt, spiritualists, Jack Dempsey, writers from Punch, and a young man from Italy with intriguing ideas about government.
posted by clawsoon at 5:18 AM on March 22, 2019 [39 favorites]
Chitownfats,
That's my second 'Metafilter: Insert comment' of the week. I'm on a roll! The previous one was my prediction that the GOOPosphere would be pushing placentarianism soon. I guess things are looking up.
I'm going to preemptively apologize for the tone of my above comment. Too much petulance slipped into the end of it. Enjoy what you like. Nobody on Metafilter is forcing or preventing people from consuming whatever media they like.
posted by Telf at 5:19 AM on March 22, 2019
That's my second 'Metafilter: Insert comment' of the week. I'm on a roll! The previous one was my prediction that the GOOPosphere would be pushing placentarianism soon. I guess things are looking up.
I'm going to preemptively apologize for the tone of my above comment. Too much petulance slipped into the end of it. Enjoy what you like. Nobody on Metafilter is forcing or preventing people from consuming whatever media they like.
posted by Telf at 5:19 AM on March 22, 2019
clawsoon,
I agree with everything you wrote. My only point of contention you can't be everything to everybody. Your observations about Rogan are spot on. The market is rewarding Rogan for stumbling on to this niche. (What I mean is that he probably isn't consciously planning out his topics to maximize his audience. He just talks about what he likes: bowhunting, MMA, drugs, working out and conspiracy theories/skepticism.) It's not really his duty to cover anything else; other sources do it better.
He does a decent job of bringing on conflicting views. IE If he has somebody pushing a ketogenic diet, he will try to get someone to defend other nutritional models.
I'd love to see him get Contrapoints or H Bomberguy on. I think they could introduce him to new ideas in a way that would make sense to him and his hardcore audience. The above point about getting one of the folks from Chapo on the show would be equally good. Get Amber A'Lee Frost on and see how much overlap they have. He identifies as leftist libertarian but I bet he'd concede to a lot of social democratic views very quickly.
posted by Telf at 5:29 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I agree with everything you wrote. My only point of contention you can't be everything to everybody. Your observations about Rogan are spot on. The market is rewarding Rogan for stumbling on to this niche. (What I mean is that he probably isn't consciously planning out his topics to maximize his audience. He just talks about what he likes: bowhunting, MMA, drugs, working out and conspiracy theories/skepticism.) It's not really his duty to cover anything else; other sources do it better.
He does a decent job of bringing on conflicting views. IE If he has somebody pushing a ketogenic diet, he will try to get someone to defend other nutritional models.
I'd love to see him get Contrapoints or H Bomberguy on. I think they could introduce him to new ideas in a way that would make sense to him and his hardcore audience. The above point about getting one of the folks from Chapo on the show would be equally good. Get Amber A'Lee Frost on and see how much overlap they have. He identifies as leftist libertarian but I bet he'd concede to a lot of social democratic views very quickly.
posted by Telf at 5:29 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: hate fests where we all congratulate each other for disliking the correct people.
You are very very late for that boat.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:37 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
You are very very late for that boat.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:37 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
i do not suggest they form their opinions on the words of anyone with a microphone, right or leftYeah, this does kind of seem like abstinence-based sex-ed. A curious teen is going to explore different views and they’ll get plenty of stuff you don’t like from friends. Not to mention the well-known appeal of the “forbidden fruit.”
Spoken like someone who is not only not the parent of teen boys, but has never actually met a teen boy.
I’ve noticed the sub-thread about teenagers and podcasts and one thing about it is that all participants seem to accept the idea that intellectual freedom is good, so long as it doesn’t lead to the offspring forming an idea in conflict with the ideology of the parent. I feel the same way myself, but it is definitely a cognitive dissonance that I simply ignore most of the time.
For instance, I have been an atheist since escaping my hypocritical upbringing in an evangelical Xian household, and I would have felt like a failure if one of my kids decided to be a Mormon or Catholic or something. Did I really encourage them to explore the “spiritual space?” I said I did, but really? Not really. It would have felt like encouraging them to try cliff diving as a hobby.
I agree with the “try to discuss things with them” people, but know that there will be plenty of things they’ll be exposed to you will never even hear about, unless you have them wearing a body cam (note: the management does not recommend this solution).
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:38 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
So what is the deal with Dave Foley? Just the child support shittiness or has he gone alt-right on us?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:58 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:58 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
1. "there's no harm in debating ideas, you can't be afraid of an idea" is how bullshit gets perpetuated. For example, it's one of the arguments that has kept climate change denialism alive for almost forty years. Assuming that specious and false ideas will naturally fail in the Great Marketplace is..... well, that is not how the human mind works. Give bullshit a platform and a loudspeaker, repeat the lie enough times, and you'll find an audience who is sure that you must be repeating it for good reason. Alex Jones is poison, he spews out poison into the world, and if you give him a loudspeaker to do that, even to disagree with him, then you are helping him spew his poison.
2. Rogan's reputation for giving an equal platform to all voices is unearned. He's given his soapbox to fascists, bigots, and woo-hocking charlatans. If you interview Gavin McInnes twice, that says something about the ideas that you consider worthy of discussion. If Rogan ever interviews someone like William Barber or Lindy West or Ijeoma Oluo, even to disagree with them, I will be surprised.
3. The above comment about the absolute insistence on not getting heated is spot-on. One of the common threads to most brands of toxic masculinity is the insistence on not letting anything get to your emotions. Hence the "lol triggered?" shitlord mindset, hence the Ben Shapiro school of "DESTROYING feminists with LOGIC," hence the "honey badger don't give a shit" ethos of Breitbart and Milo Yiannopoulos, hence troll culture in general. It comes out in other ways, too. For Rogan, it's a sort of breezy credulousness where Everything Is A Lark And We're Just Keeping It Light Here, no matter how false or poisonous the discussion is.
4. As a young, directionless white man who was at the right age to be suckered in by Rogan's shtick when the podcast premiered, I would have disliked it if someone tried to steer me in a certain direction with a certain podcast. If you know a young person who trusts you, don't be afraid of speaking forthrightly. Just tell them honestly why you do not like Rogan's material and his worldview. Don't present it as your axe to grind or your mission to mold them, or as an argument that you are just itching to get into. It's just how you feel about it. All that depends, of course, on your relationship with this person, on their personality, and on how much they trust you.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 7:13 AM on March 22, 2019 [40 favorites]
2. Rogan's reputation for giving an equal platform to all voices is unearned. He's given his soapbox to fascists, bigots, and woo-hocking charlatans. If you interview Gavin McInnes twice, that says something about the ideas that you consider worthy of discussion. If Rogan ever interviews someone like William Barber or Lindy West or Ijeoma Oluo, even to disagree with them, I will be surprised.
3. The above comment about the absolute insistence on not getting heated is spot-on. One of the common threads to most brands of toxic masculinity is the insistence on not letting anything get to your emotions. Hence the "lol triggered?" shitlord mindset, hence the Ben Shapiro school of "DESTROYING feminists with LOGIC," hence the "honey badger don't give a shit" ethos of Breitbart and Milo Yiannopoulos, hence troll culture in general. It comes out in other ways, too. For Rogan, it's a sort of breezy credulousness where Everything Is A Lark And We're Just Keeping It Light Here, no matter how false or poisonous the discussion is.
4. As a young, directionless white man who was at the right age to be suckered in by Rogan's shtick when the podcast premiered, I would have disliked it if someone tried to steer me in a certain direction with a certain podcast. If you know a young person who trusts you, don't be afraid of speaking forthrightly. Just tell them honestly why you do not like Rogan's material and his worldview. Don't present it as your axe to grind or your mission to mold them, or as an argument that you are just itching to get into. It's just how you feel about it. All that depends, of course, on your relationship with this person, on their personality, and on how much they trust you.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 7:13 AM on March 22, 2019 [40 favorites]
Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam: Assuming that specious and false ideas will naturally fail in the Great Marketplace is..... well, that is not how the human mind works. Give bullshit a platform and a loudspeaker, repeat the lie enough times, and you'll find an audience who is sure that you must be repeating it for good reason.
Ayup. The second problem with bullshit is that it's so cheap to produce compared to truth. How does a pound of truth that took years of research to produce and that everybody has already heard and is bored with compete with tons of shiny new bullshit that's dirt cheap to make and post to Youtube? How does it compete when it has been a couple of generations since we saw for ourselves the horrors of fascism or polio, and the visceral lesson has faded from living memory?
posted by clawsoon at 7:25 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Ayup. The second problem with bullshit is that it's so cheap to produce compared to truth. How does a pound of truth that took years of research to produce and that everybody has already heard and is bored with compete with tons of shiny new bullshit that's dirt cheap to make and post to Youtube? How does it compete when it has been a couple of generations since we saw for ourselves the horrors of fascism or polio, and the visceral lesson has faded from living memory?
posted by clawsoon at 7:25 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
So what is the deal with Dave Foley? Just the child support shittiness or has he gone alt-right on us?
No it's just the child support shittiness as far as I know. But he keeps popping up as this martyr figure among MRA types.
posted by traveler_ at 7:28 AM on March 22, 2019
No it's just the child support shittiness as far as I know. But he keeps popping up as this martyr figure among MRA types.
posted by traveler_ at 7:28 AM on March 22, 2019
Hardcore History has two very strange threads that run throughout: one is a weird racial essentialism that you can hear Carlin trying to like gentle-step his way around in the recent Japan episode but not entirely successfully (it's much more blatant in early episodes), and the other is a tendency toward both-sides-ism that was most egregious when he decided to have Victor Davis Hanson on the show (and also fairly surprising after Trump got elected, and he decided to make an episode about how harming nazis is bad). In both cases, I think a rational adult could listen to these problematic bits and dismiss them on their merits, but I'd be loath to let a teen listen to them without actively engaging said teen about what they'd just listened to and asking, episode-by-episode, where they might disagree with the show.
Agreed. I left a placeholder to remind myself to go share analysis on the most recent Japan episode but haven't gotten around to it. Suffice to say that Blueprint and stuff on ancient cultures + the mini on nukes struck me as Carlin at his best, and the recent stuff.....not so much. But yeah, there's a windy thread that bothers me too.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:30 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Agreed. I left a placeholder to remind myself to go share analysis on the most recent Japan episode but haven't gotten around to it. Suffice to say that Blueprint and stuff on ancient cultures + the mini on nukes struck me as Carlin at his best, and the recent stuff.....not so much. But yeah, there's a windy thread that bothers me too.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:30 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I know too many men in their forties who have "economic anxiety" because they never achieved any personal growth since they were a stoner 20-something sure that their band was really about to take off. They're the exact same person they were then, only angry that haven't got theirs and fringy libertarian because of the weeeed, man. I've cut ties with longtime friends because they refuse to put the bong down long enough to, oh, support the children they have or because they went full "fuck the libs" with a dash of conspiracy theorists. I will no longer support men who refuse to grow the fuck up. And that's what the JRE reminds me of.
(Not all stoners, obviously, and I am in favor of legalization, but you know the type I mean.)
posted by Ruki at 8:02 AM on March 22, 2019 [8 favorites]
(Not all stoners, obviously, and I am in favor of legalization, but you know the type I mean.)
posted by Ruki at 8:02 AM on March 22, 2019 [8 favorites]
*This is the same thing I've said before on metafilter so if the whole message about listening to each other and trying our best seems tired or disingenuous, just skip it.
Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam wrote:
1. "there's no harm in debating ideas, you can't be afraid of an idea" is how bullshit gets perpetuated. For example, it's one of the arguments that has kept climate change denialism alive for almost forty years. Assuming that specious and false ideas will naturally fail in the Great Marketplace is..... well, that is not how the human mind works. Give bullshit a platform and a loudspeaker, repeat the lie enough times, and you'll find an audience who is sure that you must be repeating it for good reason. Alex Jones is poison, he spews out poison into the world, and if you give him a loudspeaker to do that, even to disagree with him, then you are helping him spew his poison.
Yeah, I think we've found that in the current internet, post facts era, the Market Place of ideas is partially bunk. Mainly people use the internet to reconfirm what they already believe and drill down deeper into their our silos.
Secondly, I think we can treat bad ideas, such as conspiratorial thinking as a sort of epidemiological risk factor. What I mean is, as with most public health issues, poisonous ideas are a complex, multifactorial problem. Not everyone exposed to flat earthism is going to contract flat earthism, but a certain percentage of people will.
The internet is so pernicious because it exposes so many more people to bad ideas that the overall chance of people contracting bad ideas is much higher.
The issue is, who gets to define a bad idea? Yes, fuck Nazis. Fuck racists and fascist nationalists. There might be two sides to every argument, but those sides are nowhere near symmetrical.
No, both sides are not equal, not even close, but this is a dangerous concept creep. My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say.
So yes, we need to do something to prevent the spread of poisonous ideas that lead to mass shootings and fascist torch burnings but there isn't a clear cut line for where we stop. I think we've had some clear cases of this on Metafilter. Sometimes a topic comes up about raising children, or sexuality or alternative medicine and a certain group of people will come hard one side or another and claim they have ethics, or science, or political righteousness on their side and that the other side should be punished for these wrong beliefs.
Again, it's easy to draw circles around certain bad ideas there might come a time when you find yourself on the wrong side of an idea and you'd like the right to express it. Nobody is going to agree with anybody else about everything, that would be creepy.
I'm not advocating the marketplace of ideas as the best model but we do need to be allowed to hash things out and get to the bottom of things. We do need a space for fruitful tension to figure things out. The way even progressive people talked about gender 5 years ago might seem retrograde now and the way we talk about gender now will seem hopelessly ignorant in 20 years. It's important that we have a place to make sense of it. (No Joe Rogan is not a good space for that.)
posted by Telf at 8:07 AM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam wrote:
1. "there's no harm in debating ideas, you can't be afraid of an idea" is how bullshit gets perpetuated. For example, it's one of the arguments that has kept climate change denialism alive for almost forty years. Assuming that specious and false ideas will naturally fail in the Great Marketplace is..... well, that is not how the human mind works. Give bullshit a platform and a loudspeaker, repeat the lie enough times, and you'll find an audience who is sure that you must be repeating it for good reason. Alex Jones is poison, he spews out poison into the world, and if you give him a loudspeaker to do that, even to disagree with him, then you are helping him spew his poison.
Yeah, I think we've found that in the current internet, post facts era, the Market Place of ideas is partially bunk. Mainly people use the internet to reconfirm what they already believe and drill down deeper into their our silos.
Secondly, I think we can treat bad ideas, such as conspiratorial thinking as a sort of epidemiological risk factor. What I mean is, as with most public health issues, poisonous ideas are a complex, multifactorial problem. Not everyone exposed to flat earthism is going to contract flat earthism, but a certain percentage of people will.
The internet is so pernicious because it exposes so many more people to bad ideas that the overall chance of people contracting bad ideas is much higher.
The issue is, who gets to define a bad idea? Yes, fuck Nazis. Fuck racists and fascist nationalists. There might be two sides to every argument, but those sides are nowhere near symmetrical.
No, both sides are not equal, not even close, but this is a dangerous concept creep. My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say.
So yes, we need to do something to prevent the spread of poisonous ideas that lead to mass shootings and fascist torch burnings but there isn't a clear cut line for where we stop. I think we've had some clear cases of this on Metafilter. Sometimes a topic comes up about raising children, or sexuality or alternative medicine and a certain group of people will come hard one side or another and claim they have ethics, or science, or political righteousness on their side and that the other side should be punished for these wrong beliefs.
Again, it's easy to draw circles around certain bad ideas there might come a time when you find yourself on the wrong side of an idea and you'd like the right to express it. Nobody is going to agree with anybody else about everything, that would be creepy.
I'm not advocating the marketplace of ideas as the best model but we do need to be allowed to hash things out and get to the bottom of things. We do need a space for fruitful tension to figure things out. The way even progressive people talked about gender 5 years ago might seem retrograde now and the way we talk about gender now will seem hopelessly ignorant in 20 years. It's important that we have a place to make sense of it. (No Joe Rogan is not a good space for that.)
posted by Telf at 8:07 AM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
Podcasts are a tool; nobody is forcing us to listen to them
Youtube seems desperate to shove this guy's show into my hands like it's a cursed monkey's paw or w/e
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 8:16 AM on March 22, 2019 [11 favorites]
Youtube seems desperate to shove this guy's show into my hands like it's a cursed monkey's paw or w/e
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 8:16 AM on March 22, 2019 [11 favorites]
My 18 year old son is a big Rogan fan. Found him through the comedy and MMA content of the show. He does talk with me regularly about whoever the latest guest was. I try to counterbalance anything that sounds a bit off to me, but he also enjoys doing that mental exercise himself so that's good. I was very pleased to see this post as I don't feel like I have a good bead on this podcast and its evolving position on the political spectrum and it has been giving me vague anxiety.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:17 AM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:17 AM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
Telf: My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say.
I wonder if there's a parallel to be had here with the way that the libertarian approach to economics pretends that power relationships don't exist. The extra-economic power relationships still happen in a libertarian economy, but instead of being placed into a system where we can see them and vote on them, they're made cryptic, only available to those who know where the hidden levers are.
I think the same thing happens with free speech: Speech is never completely free. There are always people dictating what can be said and what can't. Free speech absolutism merely hides that fact, pretends that the power to shut down speech doesn't exist. The alternative is to make that power explicit and have an open process for deciding what can be said.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 AM on March 22, 2019 [8 favorites]
I wonder if there's a parallel to be had here with the way that the libertarian approach to economics pretends that power relationships don't exist. The extra-economic power relationships still happen in a libertarian economy, but instead of being placed into a system where we can see them and vote on them, they're made cryptic, only available to those who know where the hidden levers are.
I think the same thing happens with free speech: Speech is never completely free. There are always people dictating what can be said and what can't. Free speech absolutism merely hides that fact, pretends that the power to shut down speech doesn't exist. The alternative is to make that power explicit and have an open process for deciding what can be said.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 AM on March 22, 2019 [8 favorites]
I'm late to the party, as ever, but I am FUCKING SICK of hearing about Joe Rogan and his ilk from my brother, who is 22 and exactly fits the bill as a formerly liberal and now conspiracy-obsessed devotee of these types. It's like a contagion: a few years back it was Zeitgeist/The Venus Project/Jacques Fresco every time I spoke to him (and I got it from older friends who ought to know better too) and it creeps me the fuck out.
I mean, I am non-religious and my friends and family are fairly secular, but it smacks of proselytising and preaching and I fucking hate it. I don't even need to know the details, just the fact that you feel obliged to try and convert me is all I need to know. No, I don't agree that SJWs/Cultural Marxism/"liberal fascists" are the problem. I don't want to hear about it. Finally they seem to have given up on me. But still it continues.
I'm sorry for the anger but this post has surfaced frustrations I've been having with friends and family over recent years that exactly mirror the rise of the alt-right and crypto-fascism and white-nationalism and it makes me feel physically ill. I'm sick of having to argue the case for basic humanity every single time. Like I'm continually trying to repair the damage that is being done, but I can't compete with charismatic talk show hosts and a roll-call of influential celebrities and it ends up being a losing battle.
This is in the UK, I should point out, where up until a few years ago we had avoided the scourge of the US "culture wars". And now look where we are. These ideologies are diseases and we should probably start regarding them as such.
posted by Acey at 8:50 AM on March 22, 2019 [13 favorites]
I mean, I am non-religious and my friends and family are fairly secular, but it smacks of proselytising and preaching and I fucking hate it. I don't even need to know the details, just the fact that you feel obliged to try and convert me is all I need to know. No, I don't agree that SJWs/Cultural Marxism/"liberal fascists" are the problem. I don't want to hear about it. Finally they seem to have given up on me. But still it continues.
I'm sorry for the anger but this post has surfaced frustrations I've been having with friends and family over recent years that exactly mirror the rise of the alt-right and crypto-fascism and white-nationalism and it makes me feel physically ill. I'm sick of having to argue the case for basic humanity every single time. Like I'm continually trying to repair the damage that is being done, but I can't compete with charismatic talk show hosts and a roll-call of influential celebrities and it ends up being a losing battle.
This is in the UK, I should point out, where up until a few years ago we had avoided the scourge of the US "culture wars". And now look where we are. These ideologies are diseases and we should probably start regarding them as such.
posted by Acey at 8:50 AM on March 22, 2019 [13 favorites]
>Parents of Joe Rogan-curious teen boys, I'd love to hear what other podcasts you can recommend as counter-programming
The Dollop?
Yes. The Dollop.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:52 AM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
The Dollop?
Yes. The Dollop.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:52 AM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say.
First, this is an example of euphemistic language hiding what's actually going on. Terms like "the other side" and "people we disagree with (without actually discussing the actual disagreement) serve only to muddy the waters in a linguistic form of bothsidesism.
Second, as was pointed out by clawsoon, groups like the alt-right, conservatives, etc. are already doing this in a number of ways. You're not going to bind their hands by binding yours, and we shouldn't be allowing people to deperson others in their arguments.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:00 AM on March 22, 2019 [15 favorites]
First, this is an example of euphemistic language hiding what's actually going on. Terms like "the other side" and "people we disagree with (without actually discussing the actual disagreement) serve only to muddy the waters in a linguistic form of bothsidesism.
Second, as was pointed out by clawsoon, groups like the alt-right, conservatives, etc. are already doing this in a number of ways. You're not going to bind their hands by binding yours, and we shouldn't be allowing people to deperson others in their arguments.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:00 AM on March 22, 2019 [15 favorites]
Telf: I'm not advocating the marketplace of ideas as the best model but we do need to be allowed to hash things out and get to the bottom of things. We do need a space for fruitful tension to figure things out.
I think the best approach is to ask oneself, is this interlocutor acting in curious good faith, or with an agenda? I think the revulsion to Rogan on here is that given the context in which his show is playing--with propaganda, hucksterism, and right-wing revanchism rampant like it hasn't been in a lifetime or two--his choice of guests and solicitude toward the worst of them strongly suggest which side he is on. For people who are progressive-of-center and fear where the political culture is going in places like the US and UK, this places him squarely on the risk spectrum, with good reason.
So, sure, generally speaking, you're right that everyone gets to consume whatever media they want, and let's not feel too good about ourselves for agreeing to hate person X, and everyone should act with humility, etc.. But there's a cultural struggle going on, and Rogan is clearly a knowing player in it, even though he pretends to be a neutral, chill, fun guy.
posted by wibari at 9:22 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think the best approach is to ask oneself, is this interlocutor acting in curious good faith, or with an agenda? I think the revulsion to Rogan on here is that given the context in which his show is playing--with propaganda, hucksterism, and right-wing revanchism rampant like it hasn't been in a lifetime or two--his choice of guests and solicitude toward the worst of them strongly suggest which side he is on. For people who are progressive-of-center and fear where the political culture is going in places like the US and UK, this places him squarely on the risk spectrum, with good reason.
So, sure, generally speaking, you're right that everyone gets to consume whatever media they want, and let's not feel too good about ourselves for agreeing to hate person X, and everyone should act with humility, etc.. But there's a cultural struggle going on, and Rogan is clearly a knowing player in it, even though he pretends to be a neutral, chill, fun guy.
posted by wibari at 9:22 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I feel like Carlin was trying to explain the fact that Japanese imperialism was sort of inextricably linked with a belief among the proto-fascist imperialists that they were a race apart, though. However, I do recall a prior episode where his discussion of the preponderance of Eastern vs. Western military strategies and successes throughout history veered into essentialism. He had to close his forum in no small part because it was overrun by those kinds of boys.
posted by Selena777 at 9:27 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 9:27 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Clawsoon:
I wonder if there's a parallel to be had here with the way that the libertarian approach to economics pretends that power relationships don't exist. The extra-economic power relationships still happen in a libertarian economy, but instead of being placed into a system where we can see them and vote on them, they're made cryptic, only available to those who know where the hidden levers are.
Great point. Too many deep systemic imbalances that people attribute to individual characteristics. Pervades everything.
Reminds me of the point raised by Ezra Kelin about political correctness only becoming a talking point when people challenge the current default way of thinking.
NoxAeternum:
I think this is a case of assuming you know what people are thinking and attributing bad faith to good faith actors. I've seen good people struggle with new concepts like white privilege or broader definitions of white supremacy. Finding tension between a new idea that you're trying to figure out and old ideas you were brought up with is tough.
I tried to give clear examples of ideas that divide progressives that aren't necessarily on the left right divide.
More examples include:
Evidence based medicine not accounting for certain externalities vs complementary medicine. Specifically Women's decisions to reject traditional medical interventions.
Respecting the rights of parents vs respecting the rights of people who can't or choose not to have children when certain needs are mutually exclusive.
Talking about social determinants of health and obesity vs not treating obesity as a health issue.
Acknowledging ethical issues in the pharmaceutical industry vs being anti science.
Talking about the biological factors of depression and other mental disorders/neural atypical expressions vs the decision to medicate vs the decision to correct vs the decision to embrace different people.
Whether it's ok to use violence when people express ideas you don't like or whether words constitute violence so physical violence is justified when people express certain ideas.
All the issues raised by the TERFs/Transgender topics.
These are all topics that have gotten heated in the past on Metafilter and they're not necessarily Nazi's vs angels.
*I think that above thought also relates to wibari's comment as well.
posted by Telf at 9:41 AM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
I wonder if there's a parallel to be had here with the way that the libertarian approach to economics pretends that power relationships don't exist. The extra-economic power relationships still happen in a libertarian economy, but instead of being placed into a system where we can see them and vote on them, they're made cryptic, only available to those who know where the hidden levers are.
Great point. Too many deep systemic imbalances that people attribute to individual characteristics. Pervades everything.
Reminds me of the point raised by Ezra Kelin about political correctness only becoming a talking point when people challenge the current default way of thinking.
NoxAeternum:
I think this is a case of assuming you know what people are thinking and attributing bad faith to good faith actors. I've seen good people struggle with new concepts like white privilege or broader definitions of white supremacy. Finding tension between a new idea that you're trying to figure out and old ideas you were brought up with is tough.
I tried to give clear examples of ideas that divide progressives that aren't necessarily on the left right divide.
More examples include:
Evidence based medicine not accounting for certain externalities vs complementary medicine. Specifically Women's decisions to reject traditional medical interventions.
Respecting the rights of parents vs respecting the rights of people who can't or choose not to have children when certain needs are mutually exclusive.
Talking about social determinants of health and obesity vs not treating obesity as a health issue.
Acknowledging ethical issues in the pharmaceutical industry vs being anti science.
Talking about the biological factors of depression and other mental disorders/neural atypical expressions vs the decision to medicate vs the decision to correct vs the decision to embrace different people.
Whether it's ok to use violence when people express ideas you don't like or whether words constitute violence so physical violence is justified when people express certain ideas.
All the issues raised by the TERFs/Transgender topics.
These are all topics that have gotten heated in the past on Metafilter and they're not necessarily Nazi's vs angels.
*I think that above thought also relates to wibari's comment as well.
posted by Telf at 9:41 AM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
Second, as was pointed out by clawsoon, groups like the alt-right, conservatives, etc. are already doing this in a number of ways.
Is it bothesidesism to point out that there are some on the so-called radical left already breaking a few eggs themselves? For instance, over on my Facebook the other day, there was a lot of enthusiasm for a not entirely tongue-in-cheek call for Jordan Peterson's immediate assassination (this in the wake of the Proud Islamophobe photo-op controversy).
There are always cultures wars a-happening. Sometimes, like now, they burn hotter than other times. And with war comes chaos, and fog. You can't really know anything for sure. I do think we need to acknowledge this.
I think it's telling (as the article points out) that Joe R's biggest stumble of late (with regard to this fan base) was his first show with Twitter's Jack Dorsey. Seriously, look at the DISLIKES there (7 to 1 against). Maybe he is just a useful idiot for some great conspiracy of evil, and this is how It (They?) correct him. Maybe.
I wonder what will happen next time Jordan Peterson shows up for a talk.
posted by philip-random at 9:41 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
Is it bothesidesism to point out that there are some on the so-called radical left already breaking a few eggs themselves? For instance, over on my Facebook the other day, there was a lot of enthusiasm for a not entirely tongue-in-cheek call for Jordan Peterson's immediate assassination (this in the wake of the Proud Islamophobe photo-op controversy).
There are always cultures wars a-happening. Sometimes, like now, they burn hotter than other times. And with war comes chaos, and fog. You can't really know anything for sure. I do think we need to acknowledge this.
I think it's telling (as the article points out) that Joe R's biggest stumble of late (with regard to this fan base) was his first show with Twitter's Jack Dorsey. Seriously, look at the DISLIKES there (7 to 1 against). Maybe he is just a useful idiot for some great conspiracy of evil, and this is how It (They?) correct him. Maybe.
I wonder what will happen next time Jordan Peterson shows up for a talk.
posted by philip-random at 9:41 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I frankly think that legal restrictions on speech are kind of a red herring, if your goal is to prevent people from being radicalized. Germany is probably the model for having a robust, genuine democracy that nevertheless has significant restrictions on freedom of speech. (Hate speech banned, Holocaust denial a criminal offense, certain neo-Nazi and Communist parties banned, and so on.) It didn't seem to make a difference to the AfD, though, they keep getting stronger.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:47 AM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 9:47 AM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
vogon_poet: Yes, I think Germany shows that the absolute freedom of speech found in the US isn't necessary for a healthy democracy. As clawsoon said, power imbalances are more anti-free speech than many laws would be. The rise of AfD is troubling and it can't be easily blamed one thing.
Regarding "bothsideserism", I feel like that's turned into a lazy trope that people use when they hear ideas they don't like and don't want people bring up points that are inconvenient to their argument. It doesn't make a point anymore than screaming about logical fallacies.
posted by Telf at 9:55 AM on March 22, 2019
Regarding "bothsideserism", I feel like that's turned into a lazy trope that people use when they hear ideas they don't like and don't want people bring up points that are inconvenient to their argument. It doesn't make a point anymore than screaming about logical fallacies.
posted by Telf at 9:55 AM on March 22, 2019
I still don't understand how anyone listens to looooong podcasts of any sort. As the late, great Ann Richards said in an earlier media era, "I don't have time to talk to anyone who has time to call a radio program."
posted by PhineasGage at 10:05 AM on March 22, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 10:05 AM on March 22, 2019 [7 favorites]
So the Soliders of Odin keep showing up at Canadian conservative events, and the cons are like, "why are they here? This isn't what we're about!" And I keep thinking, maybe if these particular bees are drawn to your particular type of honey, you shoud be taking a long look in the mirror, eh? Maybe it's not them, it's you.
I get some of that same vibe here from Rogan's few defenders. Like, maybe the fact that you're not seeing the negatives (upon which there's a virtual consensus otherwise) isn't because they're not there. It's time to look in the mirror.
From TFA:
(I cracked a book by Foucault recently and just gave up. Consequently, I do not have an opinion on Foucault. But if I was Jordan Peterson, you bet I'd have a lot to say!)
I think one of the reasons that Ayn Rand isn't taken seriously by serious people is that it's more than evident that she didn't do the hard work. Her ideas are at best tautological and at worst incoherent, but in general are completely bereft of any sign of having done any of the dirty work. In the same way, Peterson clearly hasn't cracked his copy of Das Kapital.
But Rogan? He gives these morons a platform and his listeners the opportunity to believe that they've acquired some insight. It must be very comforting for them to know that, after listening to a few hours of podcasts, they've surpassed all those cucks in grad school.
posted by klanawa at 10:11 AM on March 22, 2019 [22 favorites]
I get some of that same vibe here from Rogan's few defenders. Like, maybe the fact that you're not seeing the negatives (upon which there's a virtual consensus otherwise) isn't because they're not there. It's time to look in the mirror.
From TFA:
But a good number of Rogan’s guests seem to be marketing directly to those who crave enlightenment while rejecting the notion that it takes work to achieve it.and
Does he? Peterson is intent on demonizing the entire notion of Marxist analysis as intolerable and anti-Western, since, after all, Soviet Russia was Marxist and millions of people died in the gulags. This is a hell of a leap. Academic Marxism is basically the act of analyzing subjects from economic and class-based perspectives. Peterson willfully and knowingly conflates academic Marxism with Stalinism, as a means of discrediting the intelligentsia who call him an idiot.This, to me is at the core of everything. I never personally understood how difficult philosophy and poly-sci were until my partner did a MSW in a department that is heavily post modern. Fortunately, she is brilliant and worked like a dog, doing so well that they actually suggested she get on the path to becoming faculty (...but I digress...) but the point is, those ideas are hard and putting them together into a comprehensive understanding is a lot of work. The same can be said of Marxist analysis of course. You cannot, by being merely clever and precocious take a shortcut to a comprehensive understanding of these ideas. If you haven't done the work, you are, by definition unprepared to speak.
(I cracked a book by Foucault recently and just gave up. Consequently, I do not have an opinion on Foucault. But if I was Jordan Peterson, you bet I'd have a lot to say!)
I think one of the reasons that Ayn Rand isn't taken seriously by serious people is that it's more than evident that she didn't do the hard work. Her ideas are at best tautological and at worst incoherent, but in general are completely bereft of any sign of having done any of the dirty work. In the same way, Peterson clearly hasn't cracked his copy of Das Kapital.
But Rogan? He gives these morons a platform and his listeners the opportunity to believe that they've acquired some insight. It must be very comforting for them to know that, after listening to a few hours of podcasts, they've surpassed all those cucks in grad school.
posted by klanawa at 10:11 AM on March 22, 2019 [22 favorites]
Apropos of nothing: I was a precocious 18-year-old when I found and joined MetaFilter. Fast forward 14 years and here I still am, armchair leftist to the bitter end. I regret nothing.
posted by Acey at 10:42 AM on March 22, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by Acey at 10:42 AM on March 22, 2019 [19 favorites]
I think this is a case of assuming you know what people are thinking and attributing bad faith to good faith actors. I've seen good people struggle with new concepts like white privilege or broader definitions of white supremacy. Finding tension between a new idea that you're trying to figure out and old ideas you were brought up with is tough.
Just because you are struggling with something doesn't give you the right to hurt people. And I find that people operating in good faith acknowledge this and use this to help with the issues they grapple with, while those working in bad faith use their "grappling" as a shield to defend their bad behavior.
To give a case you brought up, TERFs are bigots, period. Their philosophy is literally built around transphobia and transgender erasure - it's literally in the name. There is no coexistence possible with TERFs, because they refuse to coexist with transgender individuals. And as such, at least from my perspective, the only way for a TERF to operate in good faith is to stop being one.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:42 AM on March 22, 2019 [19 favorites]
Just because you are struggling with something doesn't give you the right to hurt people. And I find that people operating in good faith acknowledge this and use this to help with the issues they grapple with, while those working in bad faith use their "grappling" as a shield to defend their bad behavior.
To give a case you brought up, TERFs are bigots, period. Their philosophy is literally built around transphobia and transgender erasure - it's literally in the name. There is no coexistence possible with TERFs, because they refuse to coexist with transgender individuals. And as such, at least from my perspective, the only way for a TERF to operate in good faith is to stop being one.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:42 AM on March 22, 2019 [19 favorites]
Johan Hari, Matt Walker, Henry Rollins, Macauley Culkin, Neil deGrasse, Kevin Smith, Steve Tyler, Peter Attia, Reggie Watts, Pauly Shore, Scott Eastwood, Dan Carlin, Anthony Bourdain, Jon Ronson
Do you notice any qualities that all these people share? I am so sick of having to wade through hours of blathering men to find a woman's voice on a popular podcast.
posted by zeusianfog at 10:54 AM on March 22, 2019 [28 favorites]
Do you notice any qualities that all these people share? I am so sick of having to wade through hours of blathering men to find a woman's voice on a popular podcast.
posted by zeusianfog at 10:54 AM on March 22, 2019 [28 favorites]
Rogan isn't smart enough to see the difference between Peterson's blather and Foucault's rigor. They are just two guys saying stuff about the way things have been and are.
These degrees of consistency are as visible to him as a light blue number on a peach background is to the color blind. (you know what I mean) This causes problems in taking him seriously.
posted by rhizome at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
These degrees of consistency are as visible to him as a light blue number on a peach background is to the color blind. (you know what I mean) This causes problems in taking him seriously.
posted by rhizome at 11:27 AM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Telf: Yes, I think Germany shows that the absolute freedom of speech found in the US isn't necessary for a healthy democracy.
Just one small correction: while Americans often like to think of their First Amendment as guaranteeing an "absolute" freedom of speech, it certainly is not (and probably has never been) the case. There's a whole bunch of various forms of speech that have been proscribed, including (but not limited to): defamation/libel/slander, harassment, incitement to riot, uttering death threats, various speech acts that might fall under the category of sedition, obscenity, copyright violations, etc... plus a whole separate section of stuff specifically for commercial speech (e.g.: false advertising, etc...).
The point is that as much as Americans like to think that their right to free speech is absolute, they've also always recognized that certain categories of speech can bring harm. So the difference between American and German (or French or Canadian or ...) free speech jurisprudence is not really a difference between "free" and "unfree" speech but rather more like whether or not things like holocaust denial are harmful enough to be one of the proscribed categories. Americans say no, other countries disagree.
posted by mhum at 12:08 PM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
Just one small correction: while Americans often like to think of their First Amendment as guaranteeing an "absolute" freedom of speech, it certainly is not (and probably has never been) the case. There's a whole bunch of various forms of speech that have been proscribed, including (but not limited to): defamation/libel/slander, harassment, incitement to riot, uttering death threats, various speech acts that might fall under the category of sedition, obscenity, copyright violations, etc... plus a whole separate section of stuff specifically for commercial speech (e.g.: false advertising, etc...).
The point is that as much as Americans like to think that their right to free speech is absolute, they've also always recognized that certain categories of speech can bring harm. So the difference between American and German (or French or Canadian or ...) free speech jurisprudence is not really a difference between "free" and "unfree" speech but rather more like whether or not things like holocaust denial are harmful enough to be one of the proscribed categories. Americans say no, other countries disagree.
posted by mhum at 12:08 PM on March 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
mhum: US jurisprudence allows curtailment of certain kinds of speech by, basically, saying they're not speech. E.g. the canonical example is "shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater". That's proscribable, not because you're not allowed to shout the word 'fire', but because the act of saying it in that particular context will have such predictable and immediate results. It's that action, which is being brought about through speech, that is being prohibited.
This may seem like an academic distinction, but it's fairly important within the context of what the government can and can't do in the US (barring an amendment to the Constitution or a sea change in judicial opinion in a fairly uncontroversial area of law), in particular what standard must be met to regulate an activity.
My understanding of the laws in Germany (I don't speak or read German, so my knowledge is all secondary) is that they don't make this distinction, and regulate speech more directly than would be permissible under the US Constitution. So, again absent either an amendment or a whole lot of judges doing a mental 180, it's not likely that something like the German model will ever be directly imported to the US.
I would also question, given US history, if the value of the US approach isn't being somewhat undervalued. While certainly nobody likes Nazis (except other Nazis) or hate speech, consider the statute invalidated in Brandenberg v. Ohio (which upheld the "imminent lawless action" standard): it prohibited "advocat[ing]...the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform". That's a pretty sharp double-edged sword, and I doubt it would be used, if it was still on the books today, primarily to go after Nazis and the KKK. In fact, someone advocating Nazi-punching could easily find themselves in hot water, and probably would. (Cf. Hess v. Indiana, where a protester mouthed off to a sheriff as a protest was being cleared, and would have had his conviction upheld if not for Brandenberg.)
So it's something that would need to be done with great care; I would personally not want to hand over control of something as broad as the statute tossed out by Brandenberg to random district attorneys (some of whom are, statistically, likely to be Nazi sympathizers themselves) to do with what they would. A better path is probably to find convincing relationships between certain patterns of speech and certain harmful outcomes, and thus demonstrate that the speech is proscribable as action via that relationship and the imminent lawless action test.
Perhaps someone could argue that within the context of a bulletin board known to be frequented by violent extremists (like the *chans), advocating violence is functionally the same as shouting-fire-in-a-theater, since any moron should know that there's likely to be someone on the other end of the screen who'd act on it. That strikes me as a line of argument that might be fruitful, but wouldn't open the door to gleeful table-turning by the authoritarians.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:03 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
This may seem like an academic distinction, but it's fairly important within the context of what the government can and can't do in the US (barring an amendment to the Constitution or a sea change in judicial opinion in a fairly uncontroversial area of law), in particular what standard must be met to regulate an activity.
My understanding of the laws in Germany (I don't speak or read German, so my knowledge is all secondary) is that they don't make this distinction, and regulate speech more directly than would be permissible under the US Constitution. So, again absent either an amendment or a whole lot of judges doing a mental 180, it's not likely that something like the German model will ever be directly imported to the US.
I would also question, given US history, if the value of the US approach isn't being somewhat undervalued. While certainly nobody likes Nazis (except other Nazis) or hate speech, consider the statute invalidated in Brandenberg v. Ohio (which upheld the "imminent lawless action" standard): it prohibited "advocat[ing]...the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform". That's a pretty sharp double-edged sword, and I doubt it would be used, if it was still on the books today, primarily to go after Nazis and the KKK. In fact, someone advocating Nazi-punching could easily find themselves in hot water, and probably would. (Cf. Hess v. Indiana, where a protester mouthed off to a sheriff as a protest was being cleared, and would have had his conviction upheld if not for Brandenberg.)
So it's something that would need to be done with great care; I would personally not want to hand over control of something as broad as the statute tossed out by Brandenberg to random district attorneys (some of whom are, statistically, likely to be Nazi sympathizers themselves) to do with what they would. A better path is probably to find convincing relationships between certain patterns of speech and certain harmful outcomes, and thus demonstrate that the speech is proscribable as action via that relationship and the imminent lawless action test.
Perhaps someone could argue that within the context of a bulletin board known to be frequented by violent extremists (like the *chans), advocating violence is functionally the same as shouting-fire-in-a-theater, since any moron should know that there's likely to be someone on the other end of the screen who'd act on it. That strikes me as a line of argument that might be fruitful, but wouldn't open the door to gleeful table-turning by the authoritarians.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:03 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
The thing I always think about when I hear people talking about Rogan is his appearance on Maron's WTF a while back. That episode really stuck with me because Rogan just radiated self-loathing in a way that I haven't heard very often, and kept decrying how much he hated himself for leaning into a shitty shtick to gain a cultural space for himself. And then he just kept on leaning into it.
My boss is a huge fan of the Rogan show now, as are a bunch of other people in my office, and good god am I tired of hearing about how great it is, how thought-provoking the Alex Jones episode was, how academia has it in for white men, and so on.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:23 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
My boss is a huge fan of the Rogan show now, as are a bunch of other people in my office, and good god am I tired of hearing about how great it is, how thought-provoking the Alex Jones episode was, how academia has it in for white men, and so on.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:23 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
As a Canadian, I'm partial to our "only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". That, to me, gives the opportunity for a nuanced deep dive by the courts into what sorts of speech have historically threatened democracy and the rest of the freedoms that our constitution is meant to uphold. (Of course we throw most of that away with the notwithstanding clause, but anyway...)
However, as everyone and their dog has noticed, government limitations don't mean much if there's a new way to spread information and incendiary bullshit that governments don't yet have a handle on. It's like when printing came to Europe and the next two centuries were full of millenarian crazies killing anybody who didn't agree with the take on Jesus that they'd read in some smuggled pamphlet or another.
posted by clawsoon at 1:26 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
However, as everyone and their dog has noticed, government limitations don't mean much if there's a new way to spread information and incendiary bullshit that governments don't yet have a handle on. It's like when printing came to Europe and the next two centuries were full of millenarian crazies killing anybody who didn't agree with the take on Jesus that they'd read in some smuggled pamphlet or another.
posted by clawsoon at 1:26 PM on March 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
Sort of off topic but the most recent This American Life is on Alex Jones and conspiratorial thinking. I find Sandyhook stuff very difficult to listen to, but it's a very good episode.
The second part is from Jon Ronson, so doubly relevant to this thread.
posted by Telf at 1:27 PM on March 22, 2019
The second part is from Jon Ronson, so doubly relevant to this thread.
posted by Telf at 1:27 PM on March 22, 2019
how academia has it in for white men, and so on
* looks around the university...
* sees white men everywhere in (and abusing) positions of power and authority...
Hmm...
posted by klanawa at 1:29 PM on March 22, 2019 [22 favorites]
* looks around the university...
* sees white men everywhere in (and abusing) positions of power and authority...
Hmm...
posted by klanawa at 1:29 PM on March 22, 2019 [22 favorites]
klanawa: I cracked a book by Foucault recently and just gave up
English translations of Foucault (and several other recent European thinkers) are notoriously terrible. I believe that more recent translations are considered more accurate and readable, but I’m far from an expert.
posted by Kattullus at 1:37 PM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
English translations of Foucault (and several other recent European thinkers) are notoriously terrible. I believe that more recent translations are considered more accurate and readable, but I’m far from an expert.
posted by Kattullus at 1:37 PM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I would also question, given US history, if the value of the US approach isn't being somewhat undervalued.
In context of a couple comments in this thread I'm feeling more like the non-U.S. approach is being overvalued in this conversation. It's not as if the U.S. is an outlier in seeing a rise of the far right. One of the main guys being used as an example in this thread is or was a professor at a major Canadian university, and most of them are more representative of the low-key, academic side of the far right than the openly violent side.
I think the other side of realizing that there's more to free speech than the "marketplace of ideas" concept, and that even the First Amendment has limits, is realizing that the fight against hateful ideas ultimately happens as a series of localized battles. Especially since some hateful ideas are... not really especially unpopular. I don't have an issue if a hypothetically ascendant left-wing government wants to ban Identity Evropa, but that's really a different conversation than the one about how to counteract right-wing messaging from Rogan guests.
posted by atoxyl at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
In context of a couple comments in this thread I'm feeling more like the non-U.S. approach is being overvalued in this conversation. It's not as if the U.S. is an outlier in seeing a rise of the far right. One of the main guys being used as an example in this thread is or was a professor at a major Canadian university, and most of them are more representative of the low-key, academic side of the far right than the openly violent side.
I think the other side of realizing that there's more to free speech than the "marketplace of ideas" concept, and that even the First Amendment has limits, is realizing that the fight against hateful ideas ultimately happens as a series of localized battles. Especially since some hateful ideas are... not really especially unpopular. I don't have an issue if a hypothetically ascendant left-wing government wants to ban Identity Evropa, but that's really a different conversation than the one about how to counteract right-wing messaging from Rogan guests.
posted by atoxyl at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
consider the statute invalidated in Brandenberg v. Ohio (which upheld the "imminent lawless action" standard): it prohibited "advocat[ing]...the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform". That's a pretty sharp double-edged sword, and I doubt it would be used, if it was still on the books today, primarily to go after Nazis and the KKK.
This has me laughing. Read your own link on Brandenburg - the ruling was literally the legal community's knee-jerk reaction to the idea that incitement laws would be enforced against a Klansman. They were so terrified of that situation, that they proceeded to neuter the ability of the government to deal with incitement to forestall that.
(Why yes, I do think that Brandenburg is in fact a shitty ruling that has caused harm, and that the reverence it receives is misplaced, caused by people not actually reading up on the case.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:27 PM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
This has me laughing. Read your own link on Brandenburg - the ruling was literally the legal community's knee-jerk reaction to the idea that incitement laws would be enforced against a Klansman. They were so terrified of that situation, that they proceeded to neuter the ability of the government to deal with incitement to forestall that.
(Why yes, I do think that Brandenburg is in fact a shitty ruling that has caused harm, and that the reverence it receives is misplaced, caused by people not actually reading up on the case.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:27 PM on March 22, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm going to point out that this thread had nothing to say about freedom of speech or the curtailing thereof, and that nobody suggested curtailing Rogan's legal right to say whatever he wants and talk to whoever he wants, until this comment turned it in that direction:
The issue is, who gets to define a bad idea? Yes, fuck Nazis. Fuck racists and fascist nationalists. There might be two sides to every argument, but those sides are nowhere near symmetrical.
No, both sides are not equal, not even close, but this is a dangerous concept creep. My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say
Rogan's freedom of speech is not in jeopardy, and no one was suggesting that it should be. This fear of censorship that Rogan, Peterson, Jonah Goldberg, etc keep bringing up is a straw man. What they are afraid of is being called out on shitty ideas. This thread, right here, is part of the Great Marketplace. We are hashing it out. No one's speech is endangered.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 3:49 PM on March 22, 2019 [25 favorites]
The issue is, who gets to define a bad idea? Yes, fuck Nazis. Fuck racists and fascist nationalists. There might be two sides to every argument, but those sides are nowhere near symmetrical.
No, both sides are not equal, not even close, but this is a dangerous concept creep. My main issue with this line of thinking is that if we're willing to break a few eggs making the world a better place, what happens when the other side uses similar tactics. More specifically if we start dictating what's ok to say, then people we disagree with will also dictate what we can say
Rogan's freedom of speech is not in jeopardy, and no one was suggesting that it should be. This fear of censorship that Rogan, Peterson, Jonah Goldberg, etc keep bringing up is a straw man. What they are afraid of is being called out on shitty ideas. This thread, right here, is part of the Great Marketplace. We are hashing it out. No one's speech is endangered.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 3:49 PM on March 22, 2019 [25 favorites]
Johan Hari, Matt Walker, Henry Rollins, Macauley Culkin, Neil deGrasse, Kevin Smith, Steve Tyler, Peter Attia, Reggie Watts, Pauly Shore, Scott Eastwood, Dan Carlin, Anthony Bourdain, Jon Ronson
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:04 PM on March 22, 2019 [9 favorites]
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:04 PM on March 22, 2019 [9 favorites]
For teen boys, I'd recommend Uhh Yeah Dude - it's what I wouldve found hilarious at their age, with no guests and no toxic agenda. The hosts haven’t always been unassailably correct in their attitudes over the last 10+ years but they're honest about it and they work on it. It's a very casual style of humour and good demonstration of how decent people converse.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:34 PM on March 22, 2019
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:34 PM on March 22, 2019
Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam,
Agree with you so much, I tried to articulate almost the exact same thing 15 hours earlier on this thread.
Enjoy what you like. Nobody on Metafilter is forcing or preventing people from consuming whatever media they like.
-Me.
Yeah MetaFilter is pretty good for talking about things. Again, I'm not sure if I really believe in the great market place of ideas anymore. See my above comments comparing bad ideas to a public health risk factor. Most people are just putting the cart before the horse anyhow.
The point I do try to make though, is that having the discussion is an important way for us to sort out what we believe. It's the back and forth that helps us to hone better ideas. That being said, I don't think the best ideas necessarily win out anymore. People are too good at convincing theirselves whatever they want to believe. Hence the whole positive correlation between education and vaccine hesitancy in high income countries or why climate change denialists often know more about the proposed mechanisms of climate change than do people who just accept the narrative or why flat earthers might be more conversant about the motion of planets than normal people on the street.
Let me be clear that I am vehemently pro vaccine, a firm believer in human-caused climate change and a heliocentric globular earther.
I think the issue is that people fall into monological belief patterns or what researchers call degenerating research. We're in a loop of constantly reinforcing whatever we believe and the internet feeds that.
The issue is that more information, as its available through the internet, won't fix peoples' bad ideas. That's why I'm always harping on about trying to constantly find sources of information that challenge your own beliefs and checking your emotional reaction against new ideas.
posted by Telf at 4:50 PM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
Agree with you so much, I tried to articulate almost the exact same thing 15 hours earlier on this thread.
Enjoy what you like. Nobody on Metafilter is forcing or preventing people from consuming whatever media they like.
-Me.
Yeah MetaFilter is pretty good for talking about things. Again, I'm not sure if I really believe in the great market place of ideas anymore. See my above comments comparing bad ideas to a public health risk factor. Most people are just putting the cart before the horse anyhow.
The point I do try to make though, is that having the discussion is an important way for us to sort out what we believe. It's the back and forth that helps us to hone better ideas. That being said, I don't think the best ideas necessarily win out anymore. People are too good at convincing theirselves whatever they want to believe. Hence the whole positive correlation between education and vaccine hesitancy in high income countries or why climate change denialists often know more about the proposed mechanisms of climate change than do people who just accept the narrative or why flat earthers might be more conversant about the motion of planets than normal people on the street.
Let me be clear that I am vehemently pro vaccine, a firm believer in human-caused climate change and a heliocentric globular earther.
I think the issue is that people fall into monological belief patterns or what researchers call degenerating research. We're in a loop of constantly reinforcing whatever we believe and the internet feeds that.
The issue is that more information, as its available through the internet, won't fix peoples' bad ideas. That's why I'm always harping on about trying to constantly find sources of information that challenge your own beliefs and checking your emotional reaction against new ideas.
posted by Telf at 4:50 PM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
No one is saying that Rogan should be prevented from speaking or interviewing his guests. They are saying that he is a shitty person and listening to him is a shitty thing to do. You may not be a shitty person, but just like a non-asshole can still drive like one, a non-shitty person can dig a shitty thing like support this waste of oxygen.
(Anyone who hosts someone who actively encourages parents to harm and kill their children is a shitty human being, no matter their political views. It's like having an advocate for drunk driving on the show and talking to him about his dogs. Those advocates have a right to say that they like dead children. I have a right to think it's shitty to support anyone who helps then get out the "dead children are a good thing" message.)
posted by Hactar at 5:36 PM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
(Anyone who hosts someone who actively encourages parents to harm and kill their children is a shitty human being, no matter their political views. It's like having an advocate for drunk driving on the show and talking to him about his dogs. Those advocates have a right to say that they like dead children. I have a right to think it's shitty to support anyone who helps then get out the "dead children are a good thing" message.)
posted by Hactar at 5:36 PM on March 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
Rogan's freedom of speech is not in jeopardy, and no one was suggesting that it should be.
Why are we arguing about the First Amendment in the thread, then? Not really being snide - per my last comment I agree that's not really the kind of speech issue this is but somehow it's what a bunch of people ended up talking about.
posted by atoxyl at 7:07 PM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Why are we arguing about the First Amendment in the thread, then? Not really being snide - per my last comment I agree that's not really the kind of speech issue this is but somehow it's what a bunch of people ended up talking about.
posted by atoxyl at 7:07 PM on March 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
NoxAeternum: I'm pretty familiar with Brandenberg, and yes, the titular Brandenberg was an asshole. Stipulated. But the law they got rid of was also pretty shit, and had Brandenberg gone the other way, I think it would have been used more often against people challenging the system than the reverse. That's why I think Brandenberg is well-paired with reading Hess. Hess got arrested for making a vague statement to a cop to the effect that the protesters would just come back later. His conviction was overturned specifically because of Brandenberg. I think that situation comes up with more regularity than Klansmen or Nazis, simply by weight of numbers if nothing else.
Maybe the Court should have waited for a better test case than a Klansman, though.
Anyway, it seems other people don't find this line of discussion as interesting as I do, so I'll not pursue it further.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:38 PM on March 23, 2019 [2 favorites]
Maybe the Court should have waited for a better test case than a Klansman, though.
Anyway, it seems other people don't find this line of discussion as interesting as I do, so I'll not pursue it further.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:38 PM on March 23, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty familiar with Brandenberg, and yes, the titular Brandenberg was an asshole. Stipulated.
No, Brandenberg wasn't an asshole, he was a fucking domestic terrorist because that's what being a Klansman makes you. And the fact that you reach for the former term to describe him instead of the latter is in large part why we we're at the point where we are because we are giving these individuals a linguistic benefit of the doubt that they frankly don't deserve, which prevents us from actually dealing with what is actually going on.
The reality of Brandenberg as it stands is that incitement is, for all practical intents and purposes, a dead letter. And while yes, that means that law enforcement cannot twist the words of minorities into grounds for charges, it also means that actual domestic terrorists are free to incite violence against their targets. And that is, in fact, a problem, and does genuine harm. Just because a specific law is worded poorly doesn't mean the underlying idea it's built on is in of itself a bad one, and that's the heart of why Brandenberg is a shitty ruling - it didn't just remove a bad law, but excised an entire concept from the law, all because our legal community (which has itself had a long, ignoble history of enabling domestic terror) was agast at the idea that a Klansman would be treated was what he was by the law.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:49 PM on March 23, 2019 [7 favorites]
No, Brandenberg wasn't an asshole, he was a fucking domestic terrorist because that's what being a Klansman makes you. And the fact that you reach for the former term to describe him instead of the latter is in large part why we we're at the point where we are because we are giving these individuals a linguistic benefit of the doubt that they frankly don't deserve, which prevents us from actually dealing with what is actually going on.
The reality of Brandenberg as it stands is that incitement is, for all practical intents and purposes, a dead letter. And while yes, that means that law enforcement cannot twist the words of minorities into grounds for charges, it also means that actual domestic terrorists are free to incite violence against their targets. And that is, in fact, a problem, and does genuine harm. Just because a specific law is worded poorly doesn't mean the underlying idea it's built on is in of itself a bad one, and that's the heart of why Brandenberg is a shitty ruling - it didn't just remove a bad law, but excised an entire concept from the law, all because our legal community (which has itself had a long, ignoble history of enabling domestic terror) was agast at the idea that a Klansman would be treated was what he was by the law.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:49 PM on March 23, 2019 [7 favorites]
I never heard or listened to this guy and had no idea who he is, but I started making a FPP about André the Giant, and so I found an episode of him interviewing Jake The Snake and talking about André.
The interview was OK, but anyway I decided not to do my post...
posted by growabrain at 8:13 PM on March 23, 2019
The interview was OK, but anyway I decided not to do my post...
posted by growabrain at 8:13 PM on March 23, 2019
How fitting that in 2019 the most popular podcast in the US interviews almost exclusively men (and almost exclusively white men), and we're all just supposed to thoughtfully scratch our chins and thoughtfully consider whether it's good or bad. I agree with Vic above, wake me up when he has Lindy West, Ijeoma Oluo, Rebecca Solnit, Lydia Polgreen, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Amanda Marcotte, Alexandra Petri, Maria Bamford, Jackie Kashian, etc. etc. etc. on. Or if he can't afford them, there are thousands of mid-level women and people of color working in journalism and comedy who he could be promoting. If he doesn't want to be perceived as alt-right, he could step the fuck up and actually act like it's the 21st fucking century.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:35 PM on March 24, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 3:35 PM on March 24, 2019 [16 favorites]
It's so hard to live in a world with so many people willfully working to make it worse whenever they can.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:50 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:50 AM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Speaking of Streetfight Radio, they’ve been tapped to do promotion for MEANS TV’s rollout, may the anti-alt-righ video platform bloom
posted by The Whelk at 5:38 AM on March 28, 2019
posted by The Whelk at 5:38 AM on March 28, 2019
MEANS TV releases a sampler pack of Left wing Youtube content
posted by The Whelk at 10:14 PM on April 5, 2019
posted by The Whelk at 10:14 PM on April 5, 2019
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posted by sammyo at 12:43 PM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]