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by gorgonzolachz 1610 days ago
You don't need to trust him, but I think you're making a false equivalency there. The reason Joe Rogan apologizes, is that some of his takes are WILD. The whole thing about the wildfires last year being set by left-wing activists was a truly insane statement, and I have no idea where he found that information or what possessed him to say it on his show.

On the other hand, the media generally doesn't make ridiculous pie-in-the-sky takes. Every once in a while they get it wrong (sometimes dangerously so) but not with anything near the same magnitude or frequency that a comparatively uneducated influencer does. And they do apologize, for small inaccuracies with an editor's note at the bottom and for large inaccuracies with a retraction published in the next edition of the paper. Newspapers HATE printing retractions, and they try very hard never to say something that would require it.

Joe rogan has no such compunctions - in fact, he's on the same playbook as so many influencers and provocateurs before him. If you say enough crazy stuff, and only apologize for the worst of it, people are eventually going to give up trying to get you to denounce any statements you've made which are only mildly crazy. Here's a great example [0] - Joe apparently said you shouldn't worry about taking the vaccine if you're young and healthy, and when he apologized he called himself a moron and said he was talking about OTHER people. That's insane: getting vaccinated regardless of age means a brush with covid is less severe, thus saving you a trip to the hospital - and a hospital bed is saved for someone who actually needs it (covid-related or not).

I empathize with your apathy, but I would strongly urge you to think about the difference between a news corporation that hires professional fact-checkers to confirm their articles and has a two-source policy on news, and a guy who wilfully admits he's a moron before continuing to spout potentially harmful views against vaccinating yourself during a pandemic.

[0]https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/joe-rogan-retracts-cor...

Edit: whoops, you edited your comment after I started to reply to you. I'll make this brief: Robert Malone may have invented mRNA vaccines, but he's still anti-vax and believes the vaccines made from his technology (or some derivative thereof) make covid worse. On his episode of JRE he said something called "mass formation psychosis" existed, and had something to do with COVID(?!?) which is a bald-faced lie. You can be an excellent scientist on the frontier of medical research and still be an idiot who has no business spreading your personal views. If Joe had fact-checked him, his opinions would have folded, but he didn't.

5 comments

>On his episode of JRE he said something called "mass formation psychosis" existed, and had something to do with COVID(?!?) which is a bald-faced lie.

Mass formation psychosis is a thing that does exist. It just means shared delusion. Psychologists steer clear of religion, but if you are atheist, beliefs in Gods would be a good example.

It basically just means erroneous groupthink. It absolutely has something to do with COVID, but people obviously argue over which side is delusional, or at least more delusional.

North Koreans believe that running the fan at night will make you sick and might kill you.

It's all a govt delusion to reduce power consumption at night, including blackouts in the name of "public safety".

Not picking on them, because Americans have way more delusional thinking when it comes to things like food safety, but its hard to use a delusion as an example/ proof to the deluded that... they're deluded.

Your first and third paragraph contradict each other
That first line (the one that starts with ">") is indicating that they are quoting someone else. It is not their statement.
How so?
>>On his episode of JRE he said something called "mass formation psychosis" existed, and had something to do with COVID(?!?) which is a bald-faced lie.

It's not a lie. It's arguably unsubstantiated. The response to COVID, like shutting down schools for two years [1] to the enormous detriment of education [2], has been insane in its disproportionateness, and the claim that a type of mass hysteria is responsible is totally within the realm of the plausible, and the contra is certainly not the kind of clear cut fact that can justify calling the position a "bald-faced lie".

Classifying everything that opposes a particular agenda as the kind of indisputable lie that has no place being aired on any platform, is the path to a totalitarian society that censors views that are out of favor with the establishment.

[1] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-milli...

[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector...

> Joe apparently said you shouldn't worry about taking the vaccine if you're young and healthy, and when he apologized he called himself a moron and said he was talking about OTHER people. That's insane: getting vaccinated regardless of age means a brush with covid is less severe

It's actually not insane at all:

https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...

What's insane is calling such statements insane when the evidence isn't yet there to reach such a conclusion.

> On the other hand, the media generally doesn't make ridiculous pie-in-the-sky takes.

I have to disagree with this too. A lot of takes on Trump were pretty ridiculous. He's probably among the worst Presidents ever, but the blatant exaggerations during the Trump years were ridiculous.

> The whole thing about the wildfires last year being set by left-wing activists was a truly insane statement

Right or wrong, it was most definitely NOT insane: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/us/california-wildfires-g...

Where does it say that the accused was a left-wing activist? If we find out he is registered as a republican does it mean it was set by a right-wing activist?
It doesn't mention his political affiliation. Doesn't matter, it's not insane to consider he might be. Anyway there are numerous other arsonists.

NY Times article: https://archive.md/I1TXF

You clearly forgot about Russiagate. The claim that Trump was colluding with Russia was all over the news for over a year with constant coverage every day. The Washington Post has now retracted dozens of articles, rewritten huge parts of stories, and basically admitted it was all a sham.

That was a huge, huge pie-in-the-sky take. The media is absolutely not above their own lunacy. Green Greenwald, the reporter who broke the news about Snowden, agreed that it was "this generation's WMDs in terms of media malfeasance."

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1459242600179933190

My point is that the media is absolutely capable of getting things immensely wrong on incredible magnitude.

> The Washington Post has now retracted dozens of articles, rewritten huge parts of stories, and basically admitted it was all a sham.

To my knowledge it hasn't. I believe they continue to stand by their reporting. It's possible I missed a major retraction but I have no clue why they would have retracted their stories.

Go and Google Matt Taibbi’s summary of all the new articles about Russiagate that were wrong and/or have been retracted. It’s quite lengthy with all the sources.

Here it is: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official...

Most if not all the Russiagate claims have turned out to be false, but more critically, the media who reported them either willfully didn’t bother to validate the information or ran with it knowing it was false.

The best one was the FBI getting a search warrant based on an article by a reporter referencing an FBI source. How’s that for bullshit? Drop an anonymous tip to a reporter then use their article as proof your suspicion is valid.

Your source uses the word "correction" once (in searchable text), #18, about the detail of whether the Republican opposition research into Trump actually hired Steele, when (according to your own source) instead they hired the firm that hired Steele, but he didn't actually join the project until Clinton took over payment. It's good that it got corrected, but it's hardly something significant.

Your source uses the word "warrant" in one section (in searchable text), #12, where the reporting was accurate in that warrants had been issued. Whether the warrant should have been issued is a different question.

You'll note I qualified searchable, because I have no desire to read the entire massive text of bullet points, although I did try to find relevant ones and your best example. I did try to scan it for other corrections (because this site believes in "text in screenshots), and they were all either minor [0] of they were correct reporting [1].

[0] Example: All 17 intelligence agencies didn't say X, only the agency who coordinates information between, oversees and synthesizes their information did (and the big three of CIA, FBI and NSA)

[1] Example: Report on Day X, Government investigating Y. Report on Day X + N, Government investigation into Y turns up Z. Sometimes the Z is "nothing". You know, or the warrant reporting example above.

> You clearly forgot about Russiagate. The claim that Trump was colluding with Russia was all over the news for over a year with constant coverage every day.

That coverage was accurate. There was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

It is clearly described here for example: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0126

> The Washington Post has now retracted dozens of articles, rewritten huge parts of stories, and basically admitted it was all a sham.

This is false and you provide no evidence for it.

> Green Greenwald, the reporter who broke the news about Snowden, agreed that it was "this generation's WMDs in terms of media malfeasance."

Greenwald is a disgraced journalist turned professional provocateur. I’m not surprised that you have to resort to quoting him to support an argument as ridiculous as “Russiagate was pie-in-the-sky”. You might as well quote Tucker Carlson.

> https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1459242600179933190

This references two Washington Post articles which have been corrected. The correction was specific to the identity of one source in the famous Steele dossier which made some of the more outlandish and salacious claims in the dossier. There is no other retraction. In particular none of the facts of the dossier are retracted. In any case, the FBI has since conducted their own investigation and published their findings. As far as I know the FBI has not retracted those findings and the press has not retracted any reporting on those findings. So what exactly are you talking about when you mention “dozens of retracted stories”? Where is your evidence?

> Greenwald is a disgraced journalist turned professional provocateur.

Says who? He's unpopular (with the media), now he attacks the media; what gets to decide he's "disgraced"?

I regret using the term “disgraced” because it’s hard to assess objectively as you point out, and superfluous to my argument, which is that 1) he is wrong in those quoted tweets, and 2) he is a polarizing figure who is not known for his objectivity and therefore, quoting his factually wrong statement as only evidence does not support the argument presented here.
Conflating Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson: wow I am just speechless at this.

I guess one thing these two do have in common is that you do not like them.

> That was a huge, huge pie-in-the-sky take.

The President’s son is on record saying he was interested in getting info from Russia. If Trump didn’t collaborate, it wasn’t from lack of interest or effort. It was wrong, but not a pie-in-the-sky take.

There is a huge difference between a candidate "Getting information from Russia" [1] and coordinating on election misinformation campaigns with Russian Intelligence agencies.

[1] which provably did happen, except it was the Hillary Campaign that knowingly did so: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier

Have you reviewed the article you linked? The Steele Dossier was compiled by a British source, and the one claim that's generally agreed on is that the Russian Govt highly favored Trump over Hillary. I'd recommend the summary to get aquatinted, then the subsection "Risk of contamination with Russian disinformation considered"
I have, and I have followed the actual reporting on it; The wikipedia article shows a significant amount of bias. The Dossier was compiled by a British source from hearsay from a Russian Citizen who had contacts in Russian Intelligence. Some directly, but his major source only had the information as hearsay. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-recko...