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My son used to listen to Rogan all day long. When Rogan switched to Spotify he stopped because he has premium YouTube but not premium Spotify but the damage was done. He had become and adherent of the so called Dark Web and those revolting Weinstein brothers, among others. Eric Weinstein, President if Theil Capital has the temerity to talk about dirty Capitalists and he gets away with it because of his woefully undereducated and chronically butt hurt audience.

Anyhow, the net result of all of this is that my family is fractured. My daughters (both liberal feminists and both in health care) won’t talk to him. I do, but I had to adopt rules of engagement after I hung up on him for the second time. So Joe Rogan is number 2 on my s£it list, just under the Orange Menace.

Thanks for this take down. I hope Rogan sees it. He used to have a conscience. He did a fun interview with Cornell West once. Go figure.

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ugh, so sorry to hear that

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The same thing has happened to my son-in-law’s family. Only he and one of his siblings is not in the cult but everyone else — parents’, sibling, nieces — constantly drink the Kool Aid. It is so bad that last spring his father stopped to see their family knowing he probably had covid. (They thought he had been staying home and masking.) This was pre-vaccine. He infected my daughter and her husband. Luckily they didn’t get seriously ill but they felt terrible. He later told them he had done them a favor.

The rarely see each other anymore. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating.

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My granddaughter, unvaccinated and having had covid, came to visit on Christmas and I refused to see her. I told her why. She also tried to see her grandfather who has leukemia and is getting chemo. He and his wife made her stand on the front porch and talk through the door. My granddaughter is in veterinary health care and had a scholarship to Cornell. She's not some idiot, yet she refuses to get vaccinated because of the crap she hears on podcasts by morons like Gwyneth Paltrow.

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I'm sure Gwyneth Paltrow is vaccinated. However, she probably doesn't openly encourage it because it might go against her "all-natural" brand.

My mother is against having my brother's children getting vaccinated because she believes it will hinder their natural immunity.

I'm annoyed at how people like her have fallen for this line of thinking.

It's totally wrong to assume one's immunity can handle it alone.

That's why vaccines exist to help build immunity.

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Doesn't the vaccine just activate one's natural immunity? But like a study group instead of the actual disease?

So it's like cramming for the test instead of just walking in after partying all night instead. But with Covid instead of finals.

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It's a little bit like this: https://xkcd.com/2425/

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My God. That’s horrible. I’m so sorry to hear this.

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Thank you. I feel terrible for my son-in-law. My niece works for a Democratic polling analysis firm. Her mom is full cult. They have managed to still have a relationship but my niece has lost all respect for her mother. Her mom used to be one of the most sensible, level headed people I knew but she got pulled in first by Fox News and her sisters. Now she is on Parker.

If you met any of these people you would think they were perfectly normal and very nice — as long as politics never came up. Then the brainwashing would be shockingly obvious.

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I have no problem cutting off people, family or not, if their values are so supremely wrong and out of phase with my values and those of decent, rational people. Have already done so and sleeping fine.

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I hear that if you can use parental controls to make it so they can’t watch Fox things get better. I guess you have to take away the streaming audio, as well. It’s so confounding when smart people fall for this stuff.

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Totally head scratching meanness.

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Ugh. Sorry to hear that. Thank goodness your SIL found your daughter and her family.

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“De-platforming works.”

So, maybe the solution is to protest Spotify through mass subscription loss until they De-platform him. The precedence is already there.

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I missed the fact that he has moved to Spotify. As soon as I hit "Post" I am uninstalling Spotify and cutting off my subscription through PayPal. Obviously, I do not use it that often anyway or I probably would have known the tumor had moved there. Spotify is now dead to me. Buh-bye, Spotify.

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Given you’re hatred of him it’s a good thing you missed that deal. It was huge.

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DONE!

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Understand that reasoning, but I always think we shouldn't have to give up something we enjoy because of these idiots. We should instead promote what we actually enjoy about these services. Let the services see how much more they can make by being active in social works and diversity. If we give up, then the far right comes across as winning or being the way to make money.

I'm a huge sports fan, played a lot of sports growing up, and it's been a great way to bond with my children (they get a kick out of cheering on my University or teams as much as I do). I've been worried how a lot of the conservative thoughts have been getting more and more intertwined with sports, but I refuse to let them win. I'll combat it by working to support efforts of teams and clubs to diversify, to get involved in social issues regarding social justice and equality.

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I understand what you are saying, but I chose not to support any institution or media outlet that means I am even fractionally supporting material I believe is contributing to the undermining of our democracy. I would have killed my Xfinity cable service long ago, in favor of 100 percent streaming, due to their carrying Faux Newz, but my significant other can't live without it. I wish we had the ability to select a'la carte channels like some European countries, or so I hear. It makes me sick that a solitary nickel of what I pay is going to an enemy psyops weapon.

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Completely agree, and your money, your business. And full confession, I stopped using Instagram - for me, had limit all the negative information I was receiving. However, I still think, why did I have to give up the information I like, no more post on whiskeys and weightlifting tips (drove me nuts that after a few weightlifting posts, up would pop some far right nonsense because that's what the algorithm thought I wanted). Once you are gone, the businesses really don't care, they only care about the customers using their services. Just dislike the idea that the far right keep chipping away and winning more and more of the media environment because that's who the media thinks most people like.

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A third-rate comic famous for having a gross-out TV show. I remember him from his stupid fight with the comic Carlos Mencia where he accused the latter of stealing jokes. Of course, Rogan ignored the fact that the history of comedy fueled by stolen jokes. Then again, Mencia probably wasn't white enough for Rogan...but I digress.

Rogan, like Shapiro, is what passes for a genius to the incel crowd. Every aggrieved white man who gets up every morning angry that the universe didn't put a big enough crown on his head.

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author

Bingo

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Hi!

1) the gross out show secured the financial freedom to then have an ideas forum with no boss

2) he’s a *2nd*-rate comic, because he’s at least doing arenas now 😉

3) Mencia was stealing jokes from essentially unpaid comics of every ethnic background at The Comedy Store. Rogan basically (temporarily) sacrificed his career to do that, & is summarily respected across his profession for doing so. Modern comedy is not vaudeville, this was intellectual theft.

4) I never understand the incel/Rogan argument since his whole shtick is to get your S together & take responsibility. Incels just whine all day with no positive action.

5) Joe built his career through sheer hustle, & he preaches that everyday. He props people like (black Navy Seal) David Goggins, which is the opposite of “crown me I’m white”.

From learning martial arts to Mencia to now going against government overreach for a virus with 99.6% survival, Joe’s always fighting bullies. It’s the height of irony Eric & some other posters are tearing apart society & families because one of their members simply didn’t toe a propagated line.

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He may preach taking responsibility but he also preaches that if you wake up in the morning with white skin and a penis the world should belong to you and if other groups try to get in your way (by also taking responsibility and competing for what you want) they are being given a false advantage and you should whine all day about it. I have spent hours arguing with my son about all the crap he learned on that show and have listened to several hours of it myself so I am 100% confident in my view of Joe Rogan.

Your assertion that covid has a 99% survival rate gives you away. With almost million people dead and several million more suffering debilitating long covid and kids losing their parents, those numbers are rather meaningless. On the other hand, they are a great example of the kind of twisted logic Rogan peddles. Well played, and thank you.

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You like and respect the guy. That's fine by me. I like Prog Rock and if other people don't like it or insult it, it's no skin off my nose.

But seriously folks, I am more concerned with his particular take on Covid and vaccines than I am any of the other stuff. Why? Because I don't share his thoughts on the subject. I don't think science and opinion are the same. I don't think every person who comes along with a contrary opinion has the same weight as a multitude larger population of doctors. I'm sorry, but I don't.

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Jan 7, 2022·edited Jan 7, 2022

No it’s the people who support selfish destructive liars like Trump who are pulling apart society and frankly don’t even believe in society because “my individual freedom” is all. So glad that nearly a million deaths and long term illness for many who had Covid can be so easily dismissed.

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"a mostly male audience of roughly 10 million that wallows in victimhood while the host lashes out at imaginary forces trying to keep the White Man down in America." -- I was especially struck by that phrase. As Robert O. Paxton has observed, the "cult of victimhood" (my term) is one of the primary driving forces underlying the populist support for Fascsism.

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Limpdick seemed to actually believe his own bullshit - or at least he was a good-enough actor to come across that way. Fifth-rater wannabe/neverwillbe Rogan, a failure at most everything he's tried, doesn't have the talent to come across as anything other than a conniver who would sell his mother for a dime. But then, the losers that fill his audience probably don't have the smarts to notice that. Every no-talent from Nugent to Dennis Miller went to pander to that crowd to enjoy the "success" their essential talentlessness combined with overweening ego could never actually achieve.

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Rogan is an effing freak of nature, as are his fans. He is one of those testosteroid misfits who sell "bro-science" to thick-headed, steroidal cretins whose downstream health consequences matter less to me than the contents of the average septic tank. If he keeps up his slide into Limbaugh-like grift and evil he should be deplatformed by YouTube. That is NOT censorship. YouTube is part of a private business with its own TOS. Play nice or get the hell out.

However, there is one point I would like to pass along. Actually, it's not my point, it's Thom Hartmann's. Thom has often noted that so-called "libertarians" are nothing more than Republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid. Their goals are all the same: cut all taxes, burn down the social safety net, drown the government in the bathtub as that pathetic, little turd of a man once said, etc., etc. Rogan is just exhibiting what he has always been - a right-wing, psychotic nut job cut from the same cloth as Trump and the garbage people who follow him.

Deplatforming him like Jones would be too light a remedy for that POS. He should be sued into living in a cardboard box by the Clintons and the families of all the people he has sickened or killed with the slime flowing from his "brain" out through the second anus on his face.

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Wow - I thought I hated the guy 🙂. He’s not a freak of nature, though, and neither are the millions of like minded men and a smattering of women who love him. Thanks to the internet’s ability to let people find their “tribe” and feel a sense of belonging, the fearful and (self)-disenfranchised have people. And they are dangerous.

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All true, but they are still misfits. There are 330 million people in this country. I believe Eric said Rogan has 10 million listeners. Percentage-wise, misfits. But dangerous, yes, which is why their tribe needs to be muzzled and driven back under the rocks from whence they came.

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Jan 16, 2022·edited Jan 16, 2022

Am genuinely curious as to your assessment of my response to "Mark S" above.

In the interim, I'll wait here under my rock for your no doubt erudite reply.

ELK (USNA '68)

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This thought has never made sense, & does more harm than good. You’re essentially saying some people should be launched off the planet instead of engaging in reasonable & honest discussions to find common ground (see my post to you above discussing that). Yes, I’m with you if a certain segment get so hyper-religious they can’t be reasoned with, but Rogan’s show is decidedly secular in that regard.

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Jan 16, 2022·edited Jan 16, 2022

YUP. That's me. A genuine freak of nature, aware of Dr. Robert Malone's invention of mRNA technology and his attendant warnings LONG before he showed up on Rogan.

I DO admit to being somewhat of a freak (intellectually): My SAT's were fat enough to get me into any Ivy League school, but my heart told me to serve, and I chose to forgo the Harvard / Yale/ Princeton mystique. (Dropping bombs from an F-4B on North Vietnam turned out to be a HIGHLY enlightening experience.)

To be blunt: You have chosen to believe the MSM/tech oligarch/Statist LIE that those of us who may have worn a "MAGA" (now MASA) ballcap; are somehow your intellectual inferiors.

To modify an old Navy saw: "You'd best verify the "boxing" of your personal compass, lest you end up at a destination 180 degrees OUT from where you thought you were headed." Cheers and blessings, ELK (USNA '68)

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He’s constantly going on about investing in the African-American community with government money. He wants universal basic income and universal health care. He denied Trump on his show twice during the campaign and forever after January 6 & has never voted Republican. He implores the vulnerable to get vaccinated & for everyone to reduce your comorbidities, he’s just simply concerned of a bifurcated society (losing jobs, travel restriction) for a virus with 99+% survival, & essentially new vaccine tech (mRNA). He always preaches acceptance of all identities & is virulently against racism. & he regularly hosts 3-hour physics & philosophy discussions with reputable scholars. If you don’t know all this, why are you so angrily commenting? Did maybe some people paint him in a poor light? Why? (It’s fascinating the most “purple” show on the planet is framed here as hard right wing).

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Libertarians, anti-vaxxers and wingnuts found common cause in Covid 19, and money whores like Rogan are cashing in. Glenn Beck proved that one had to be more extreme and dumber than Limbaugh to get traction over in Wingnuttia, and Tucker Carlson watched and learned. Alex Jones got rich fleecing the same rubes that Rogan is now pursuing. As is the case with the others, Rogan wants the money and doesn't care if the nonsense he spews literally kills his audience. In hell, Goebbels and Limbaugh are laughing.

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they really did and he’s def cashing in

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Speaking of money, why isn’t the media putting a spotlight on all those corporations that made such a big deal about not donating to all those Republicans who refused to certify the election but are now quietly donating to them again? The media have no problem going after Facebook and Twitter but they really need to inform people about all those corporations that are donating to the destruction of our democracy. The Washington Post apt motto “Democracy dies in darkness” is being ignored.

To give the post credit their editors have been allowing a lot more criticism of journalists than I have ever seen before. Jennifer Rubin, Greg Sargent, Paul Waldman and Margaret Sullivan have written some excellent, hard-hitting critiques. Sargent wrote a fictional article showing how the media would likely both-sides the reporting of a successful Trump coup in 2024. Everything is framed as a partisan dispute framed in a fact-free he said/she said form It is horrifyingly believable:

“How the both-sides media would cover a successful Trump coup”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/06/trump-coup-both-sides-media/

A few days before that he wrote about how damaging it is that the media accepts Republican obstruction as the norm:

“Precisely because this GOP opposition is a foregone conclusion, Republicans are too rarely asked by reporters to justify it. This in turn causes that opposition to become accepted as a natural, unalterable, indelibly baked-in backstop condition of political life.

That opposition fades into the background as a factor in what’s happening. It faces less serious scrutiny, and the story that’s foregrounded is that Democratic infighting is the only reason for congressional inaction.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/04/republican-united-opposition-democracy/

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Guys, I have a vocabulary question: What is the difference between “misinformation” and “disinformation”?

I try in my personal life to keep it simple, but these two words seem confusing and nuanced where we need clarity.

I don’t know Joe Rogan at all, but to me a lie is a lie, and someone who deliberately passes on a lie is a liar.

So is Rogan peddling misinformation, disinformation, or lies?

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Misinformation is false information that is spread because you believes it’s true (all those Facebook idiots). Disinformation is false information that is spread even though you know it’s NOT true (GOP, RW media, Trump). GOP spreads disinformation; their acolytes then spread misinformation.

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Thank you for the definitions.

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Lies

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And the sane, reasonable people have no comparable online voices to effectively counter the Joe Rogans.

My 24 year old granddaughter refuses to get vaccinated, not for political reasons but because she listens to crackpot "wellness" podcasts telling her all sorts of crap about how it's better to just get covid and get "natural immunity" from it. So she did. She is the smartest person I know, literally, yet she's plugged into podcasts all day at work, and she's just one example of how this garbage permeates all of society.

I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, but our government has few ways to protect the gullible, and therein lies the rub. Misinformation sells, especially when the salesperson applies the most basic tools - to appeal to people's fears, their vanity, their anger and their resentment. How does the truth win?

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Actually there are counter shows. Maybe swap her one if her podcasts for the Unbiased Science Podcast and set up a date to discuss. She might turn you down but you never know

https://www.unbiasedscipod.com/

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I don't listen to podcasts. I bloody hate them no matter whose they are. If Eric didn't have a transcript, I wouldn't be here.

My granddaughter lives in Kentucky, and I am in NY. She works all day and has no time for what I'm not inclined to do. I don't do discussions with her even if she had all day.

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Why do you hate them? There are a lot of terrific podcasts out there. I listen when doing chores or before going to sleep. A lot of shows are also available as podcasts so if you miss say Rachel Maddow at 9 pm you can still hear the show later on.

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Is it relevant? Sorry, but I don't have to explain why I find podcasts annoying.

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Well when a person makes a blanket statement like that dismissing a whole form of communication it raises curiosity. There are plenty of crap podcasts and some really excellent ones.

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For the same reason I hate radio and talk shows. Yap, yap, yap. And Rachel Maddow for sure.

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Spotify fed me Joe Rogan once. I signed out completely after five minutes and haven't signed back in since.

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Every adult in my family is vaccinated except for my mother. She doesn't want to get vaccinated claiming their production was rushed (not true), the MRNA technology is new (nope, it's been around for about 50 years), and her own fears about the side effects.

My father was a vaccine skeptic and didn't want to get vaccinated until he was getting feedback from people asking my brother if he (dad) was an anti-vaxxer.

Also, my father was convinced that Ivermectin was effective against Covid-19 (not true) that he & my mother took it and she made our household help take it, and they bought boxes of tablets that people were buying from them.

Right now, both of them are convinced the vaccines didn't work because there's still an ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. However, they both don't realize that the vaccines offer a layer of protection from getting the severe symptoms associated with the virus.

My father is also convinced the current Covid-19 surge from the Omicron variant will finally allow herd immunity to happen which again is wrong to assume since this variant wasn't as "mild" as it was initially claimed since transmits rapidly.

Anyway, where does Joe Rogan fit into my story? Well, it's because one of the sources of my parents' vaccine disinformation is a relative of ours. She sent to my mother the link to Rogan's interview with Covid-19 vaccine disinformation spreader Dr. Peter McCullough.

Anyway, it's been an almost frustrating two years having to deal with my parents' reluctance to get vaccinated and get into their heads that Covid-19 is a newer vaccine that the science will always be changing based on the latest research & data which affects vaccine production unlike previous illnesses that were treated with vaccines (e.g. mumps, polio, smallpox, seasonal flu, etc.)

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Jan 7, 2022·edited Jan 7, 2022

As far as I know, no one has ever accused Rogan of being a mental giant. It’s his rabid followers (Ala Limbaugh) that scare the hell outta me. Right when I thought it might be safe to come out into the sunlight, here we go again..

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Misinformation is more addictive than opioids and its death count will be far greater.

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author

a deadly combo for sure

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Another jerk who has sold his soul for fame, $$.

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Great piece by Perry Bacon in Wapo today about press getting on board w/reporting about the threats to democracy more, but not enough.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/07/pro-democracy-media-gop-threats/

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What's really sad about all of this first and foremost is MONEY and GREED. Everything about our country is money, this Rogan guy with his lies and making a ton of money on lies. If people who listen and follow fake news could still reason a thought they would see it for what it is. The hatred is real but think about this if the government is overturned who wins the rich people. Do you really think they will give a damn about their followers. It will go back to after slavery times none of us will have rights or voice to speak. As we know from the Bible money is the root of evil.

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