Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/23/watch-edward-snowden-on-the-jo.html
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Did a submission of mine finally get green lit? Probably not, based on the title… I not even half way into it.
Watch…the Joe Rogan Experience
mmmmm…no thanks.
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You know I watched the How to Radicalize a Normie - and I generally like and agree with that guys videos.
However, when it comes to Rogan, who has a wide gamut of guests, why is it assumed somehow only a right wing guest will help radicalize people, but not a left wing guest?
David Pakman is a progressive who has had some far right guests on his show to challenge them, is he also contributing to radicalization?
I do agree with his point about the networking - because someone who is embroiled in right-wing youtube might be repeatedly visiting Rogan due to his guests they like. BUT if they are following him, the are also going to be viewing the left wing guests on his show.
Anyway you’re doing yourself a disservice. Snowden is mostly monologueing and really summarizing the history well.
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Joe Rogan is not a name I’ve given any attention to at all, he only came up on my radar with the Bernie Sanders interview…
He barely gets a word in edgewise, in this piece. Snowden, though, comes off as he always has, well spoken, thoughtful, intellegent, and careful with his truth.
Every time I hear Snowden mention Nancy Peloci, it helps me grasp that she does not want Trump’s exit from power to impact her power.
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Joe Rogan is pretty much the definition of “apolitical” commentator who doesn’t self-evaluate and tends to claim to hold no stake in politics while clearly having a stake in politics he doesn’t actually try to educate himself on. It’s pretty clear in the video why that favors the active terrorist cells in the US compared to the political left.
Meanwhile, someone like David Pakman at least places a political label on himself that isn’t contradictory on its face. I know nothing about Pakman, but I’ve ended up seeing too much Rogan in the name of trying to “get” it - but just having a consistent and seemingly defensible political stance makes it appear to be an improvement over a famous stoner being “fair and balanced” in his man cave.
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Ed likes to talk. Never seen a Rogan interview where he says so little.
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Does the pressing issue of how much dank weed Snowden smokes get addressed?
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I have a feeling that there was a significant delay / latency in their conversation, which good video editing has hidden, and that Joe might have found himself trying to avoid stepping on Snowden, hence he was overall less chatty, or waited for clear openings to pipe up.
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I agree and disagree with your comments. He does try to be apolitical, but I disagree that he doesn’t try to educate himself. He has clearly had a progression of thought on issues, and I’ve seen examples where he gives a synopsis of the issue that is accurate.
It is fair criticism that he doesn’t challenge some guests/issues. Though at times he does. I think one of his weaknesses is he thinks he isn’t that smart, even though I believe he has educated himself on a lot of issues. But that insecurity means he hesitates to challenge experts in their field. But he does get more bull headed if the issue is in his wheelhouse.
But I think his long form discussion is much needed in media. Letting Sanders or Snowden talk about what ever they want for an hour, with out countering with bullshit rhetoric is important.
I don’t agree with every guest he has on there - but guess what - I can also choose to not listen to them. Though often times in this long form format, you can learn a thing or two about these people, their beliefs, and their tactics. Because of the format walls sometimes ease down cracks form in their facade. It exposes them, some times.
So Rogan is far from a perfect person, but I do genuinely think he is approaching this from the liberal perspective of the marketplace of ideas. This means allowing garbage ideas to be presented, because 2 shows later you have a counter argument that destroys it. And while I agree this can be problematic if you’re already embroiled in the right-wing youtube and only listening to one faction - but for everyone else, you get to see these ideas played out and you will see these right wing talking points challenged. If a right-winger follows him, where else is a long form, positive Sanders interview/video going to pop up in their feed? Anyone who watches that who gave it half a chance is going to walk away with a different perspective than they had before.
But let’s just assume Rogan is garbage - fair enough. Guests like Sanders and Snowden and many of the science guys he has on are not. I went from a casual once in a while fan, to listening to 2-3 shows a week. I’ve learned a lot from guests. This Snowden interview is a reminder of all the fucked up things I knew in bits and pieces, but my mind has pushed aside for some reason.
Pakman is an Argentinean Jew progressive who does political commentary. I don’t listen to his long form - I think that’s a pod cast some where, but his 8-10min reviews on issues are on youtube. Some of it is a bit click baity and some of it is for entertainment, but he does seem to be pretty accurate on the analysis of Trump issues. I like him because he is very reasonable on most issues.
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Well said.
Not every guest is a home-run, and his interviews which are MMA/comedy/drug/hunting/conspiracy - focused can be fairly tedious. But he’s had some of the most interesting guests of any podcast that I’ve heard. Theoretical physicists, evolutionary biologists, astrologists, politicians and CEOs, just to scratch the surface.
I find usually give more attention to his guests who I disagree with, because they have a fairly open forum to state their positions AND have them soundly tested. He not only interviewed Jack Dorsey, but was able to have him on again, across from an independent journalist who was familiar with Twitters recent actions.
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I’m not sure that internet comments are the best place to have a nuanced discussion about why it’s a terrible idea to platform harmful and hateful ideas in a context that implies that those awful ideas somehow have equal value or type of impact as alternative concepts the host is seeking to contrast against. But, also, there are hundreds of hours of in-depth video interviews with Edward Snowden, Bernie Sanders, and nearly any other guest Joe has taken on, available so many other places. And you can still enjoy his show, even if I’m not a fan. 
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I used to listen to his show. When he invited right-wing guests on his show, he made absolute fools out of them.
Rogan is a fantastic interviewer with a very wide-ranging intellect. Count me a huge fan. That said, he definitely has blind spots when it comes to his right-wing guests. He gives them a platform to sound reasonable but doesn’t know enough to push back when necessary. So he ends up de facto supporting them, which is not a good look and is routinely turned against him by those who don’t like him (many of whom have never listened to him and don’t know anything about him).
He has leftwing guests on as well, though definitely not as many and not as often. But Abby Martin is a frequent guest, and he’s had on Bernie Sanders, Cornell West and many other progressive voices. Where he’s lacking is in serious academic representation for progressive ideas. He’ll have on “liberal” academics who oppose pathological post-modernism but won’t have on genuine progressives who can explain where post-modernism came from and why its major contributions – unpacking white supremacy, male supremacy, and Christian supremacy – remain relevant and cogent.
And he has a bad, old-school habit of referring to every woman as a “girl” or “chick.” I don’t think he intends to be sexist but he’s blind to the fact that he is. But that’s not uncommon in people who think themselves liberals. While conservatives embrace and rationalize their intolerance, liberals tend to deny it in themselves.
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Joe Rogan self-depiction of his personal politics is ludicrous. He says he is a liberal not in the classical liberal sense, but in the sense that he agrees with a lot of “the left” but he also talks about how important libertarian views on self-reliance and personal freedoms are but he never actually takes a stand on policies he agrees with. The issues he takes the deepest stand on are safe, manly issues that he gets to be a manly about while he rides the middle road as hard as possible on almost anything.
And as far as presenting Joe Rogan as the marketplace of ideas, I would strongly disagree. A marketplace implies that there is a place for ideas to compete, not just to be given an uncritical space free of skepticism. For a program that wants to provide a massive platform, that means being able to challenge both your own conceptions on an issue and the guest presenting those ideas - and on that front Joe Rogan could not fall flatter on both cases. He largely accepts what he is told at face value, values anecdote over evidence, and hardly ever challenges everything.
Also, you are still more or less sidestepping how someone like Joe Rogan gets known for being a recruitment tool for the alt-right. As in, he is literally used as a “normie” source used by people to clip him ranting about how antifa at Charlottesville was the same as the Nazis, or about the problems with feminism because one thing he found near him, or whatever else he said to fill the massive amount of time on the air. He may deny this (which is just ignoring the blunt truth of the matter), or he might realize that his most popular episodes are ones with Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson so he doesn’t turn down any intellectual dark web twitter account with a certain number of followers.
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I agree with some of your points, and agree to disagree about others. As I said he’s far from perfect and I am not going to wast too much time defending him.
My overall point is if you are missing out on this and some other interviews just because for your distaste for Rogan and/or some of his guests, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.
I will also say that while I agree some people use him as a “normie” to then present right wing clips and the like, one can do the same thing with left wing guests. You can also get some of those same sound bites from CNN or other main stream media sites, because these people are giving right wing pundits voices as well. If you don’t believe me, just Google Richard Spencer and watch mainstream media outlets softball interview him. It may be shorter and slightly more challenged, but it is also wildly more popular. And people who are more palatable, like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have an even wider platform from main stream media.
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Uncle Sam demands summary judgement on Snowden memoir: We’re not saying it’s true, but no one should read it
Well this is the best reason to read it, no?
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