# They Watch Joe Rogan (so you don't have to)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 11 Mar 2025, 48 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64763750/podcast792_knowrogan.mp3

Cecil Cicirello and Michael Marshall host the new podcast, "The Know Rogan Experience." They're enduring Joe and his bros and reporting the important stuff back to us. VIDEO of this interview: Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: He is one of the great minds of our time.
[1:00] Speaker 3: Is keen intellect, his analysis of the culture, and his
[1:04] Speaker 3: conversations with other great thinkers of our time. I think
[1:08] Speaker 3: the history books will remember Joe Rogan with awe and
[1:13] Speaker 3: wonder and to talk about that, I've got the co
[1:17] Speaker 3: hosts of a new podcast about the man, the myth,
[1:21] Speaker 3: the legend. The show is called The No Rogan Experience,
[1:26] Speaker 3: and I've got the hosts joining me today. Cecil welcome,
[1:31] Speaker 3: Michael welcome. Good to have you both.
[1:34] Speaker 4: Thanks v absolutely pleasure to be here.
[1:35] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:35] Speaker 4: Absolutely.
[1:36] Speaker 3: Was my introduction not generous enough? Should I have given
[1:41] Speaker 3: more accolades.
[1:42] Speaker 2: An adoring fan podcast, that's all it is. Just we're
[1:46] Speaker 2: just two adoring fans who have actually never listened to
[1:49] Speaker 2: Joe Rogan before, like say, a month ago, and yeah,
[1:53] Speaker 2: so that's that's where the podcast is. Basically, we haven't
[1:56] Speaker 2: listened to him ever, and we both decided to do it,
[1:59] Speaker 2: and now we're hip deep in Rogan and hip deep
[2:03] Speaker 2: in some other things too.
[2:05] Speaker 3: So what was the inspiration. I went back and did
[2:07] Speaker 3: a whole broadcast on the mel Gibson interview because oh yeah, yeah,
[2:12] Speaker 3: and that's kind of when I was really getting into it.
[2:15] Speaker 3: I mean beyond our FK, which I think was last year,
[2:17] Speaker 3: and that was a freaking nightmare. But mel Gibson, right,
[2:22] Speaker 3: and the news networks were treating mel Gibson like he
[2:25] Speaker 3: had great and keen insights, and of course Joe Rogan's
[2:28] Speaker 3: I think now he's the number two podcast?
[2:31] Speaker 2: Was it?
[2:32] Speaker 3: Mindus touch? I think de throned him out. Have you
[2:34] Speaker 3: guys been watching the rankings at all?
[2:36] Speaker 4: Or oh yeah, we very much watched the rankings. I
[2:38] Speaker 4: think the thing is we've done the mel Gibson episode ourselves,
[2:41] Speaker 4: and I think for me, I'd only really consumed any
[2:45] Speaker 4: of Joe Rogan's content when it came up in the
[2:47] Speaker 4: little snippets that would like float around social media in
[2:51] Speaker 4: my fairly liberal bubble at essentially, so I'm not an
[2:54] Speaker 4: avid Joe Rogan consumer. And what I realized was just
[2:57] Speaker 4: watching the Mel Gibson episode, for example, see a little
[3:00] Speaker 4: clip of it, and it would make international news. It'd
[3:03] Speaker 4: be leading parts of the agenda, the narrative of the conversation,
[3:06] Speaker 4: but it'd be a very small bit out of context.
[3:08] Speaker 4: And so what we really wanted to do is to say,
[3:10] Speaker 4: the way to fairly criticize this is to actually see
[3:13] Speaker 4: what context it was in, so nobody could say, well,
[3:16] Speaker 4: you don't know what else they talked about. You don't
[3:18] Speaker 4: know what Joe's really like. So we thought we'd get
[3:20] Speaker 4: to know what Joe's really like. And it's been it's
[3:22] Speaker 4: already been an adventure and we're only two months into it.
[3:25] Speaker 3: It sounds traumatizing. I can't imagine subjecting myself. Aren't the
[3:29] Speaker 3: shows three hours long?
[3:32] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they could be the first. One of the
[3:34] Speaker 2: first ones we did was four hours and twenty six
[3:39] Speaker 2: minutes long. And you can't just listen to it once.
[3:42] Speaker 2: You have to listen to it multiple times. So I
[3:44] Speaker 2: listened to that show three times. That's over twelve hours
[3:48] Speaker 2: a time that I dedicated to Joe Rogan. And it's
[3:52] Speaker 2: impossible just to listen to it once get and get
[3:54] Speaker 2: all the nuance and everything that that happens, because just
[3:58] Speaker 2: because Joe's conversation may be simple, the sort of interactions
[4:01] Speaker 2: in the backgrounds and the sort of things that they
[4:03] Speaker 2: bring up, all that stuff is really complicated. And to
[4:06] Speaker 2: try to do this justice you have to really do
[4:09] Speaker 2: a lot of listen to what they say, think about
[4:13] Speaker 2: it for a minute, pause the recording, do some internet searches,
[4:16] Speaker 2: do some research, look on some websites to see what
[4:19] Speaker 2: they're talking about, and then see if you can bring
[4:21] Speaker 2: that back into what their conversation is about, and see
[4:25] Speaker 2: where they're getting their information from, what they're talking about,
[4:28] Speaker 2: maybe where they're talking points are coming from. And so
[4:31] Speaker 2: it's just an exhaustive, really exhaustive sort of process that
[4:36] Speaker 2: we go through to listen to this. But yeah, his
[4:38] Speaker 2: shows are just and they go on forever. Everybody. I
[4:42] Speaker 2: don't think I've listened to a show that's under two
[4:44] Speaker 2: hours yet.
[4:45] Speaker 3: Any broadcast that requires two, two or three p breaks.
[4:50] Speaker 3: You know what. We're going to go to the bathroom now, right, right, Yeah, well,
[4:54] Speaker 3: I'm going to I'm going to talk more about the
[4:56] Speaker 3: no Rogan experience, but first let me do my due diligence.
[4:59] Speaker 3: There those who don't know who you are, So how
[5:01] Speaker 3: about a quick introduction for each I'll start with you, Cecil.
[5:05] Speaker 2: So I'm Cecil Ciccarello. I've been podcasting, I guess for
[5:08] Speaker 2: about twelve or thirteen years. I started another show beforehand
[5:11] Speaker 2: that sort of failed, so longer than that, but really
[5:15] Speaker 2: I sort of got involved in the atheist skeptical sphere
[5:18] Speaker 2: right around then started a show called Cognitive Dissonance with
[5:21] Speaker 2: a very good friend of mine, Tom, and we've been recording,
[5:24] Speaker 2: you know, weekly since then. I do another comedy podcast
[5:28] Speaker 2: with another group of atheists from the Scathing Atheist. It's
[5:31] Speaker 2: a show called Citation Needed, and we've been doing that
[5:34] Speaker 2: show for about eight years. So I've been podcasting for
[5:36] Speaker 2: quite some time and also been dealing with sort of
[5:39] Speaker 2: the skeptical realm and the atheist realm of sort of
[5:42] Speaker 2: influence out there.
[5:44] Speaker 3: Michael Marshall they call you marsh is that right?
[5:48] Speaker 4: They do?
[5:49] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[5:49] Speaker 4: So I started the most syde Skeptics Society in two
[5:53] Speaker 4: thousand and nine with a couple of friends, and there
[5:55] Speaker 4: were a few too many Michaels knocking around at the time,
[5:57] Speaker 4: so I went with marsh as a Nicknam and well,
[6:00] Speaker 4: I've been podcasting. I started Skeptics with a K podcast
[6:03] Speaker 4: in twenty and nine. So you're fifteen over fifteen years now,
[6:08] Speaker 4: and I'm I'm the editor of the Skeptic magazine in
[6:10] Speaker 4: the UK. I'm a full time skeptical investigator for a charity.
[6:14] Speaker 4: But I think the reason that I was particularly drawn
[6:16] Speaker 4: to this project, and the reason Cecil contacted me about
[6:19] Speaker 4: taking part, is because I had another show called Be Reasonable,
[6:23] Speaker 4: where I tried to have civil but firm discussions with
[6:26] Speaker 4: people we completely disagree with, because I think it's really
[6:28] Speaker 4: important that we have dialogue. We understand what people think,
[6:31] Speaker 4: we don't let them off the hook when they're saying
[6:33] Speaker 4: something that isn't true. But we also like approach things
[6:36] Speaker 4: with an understanding rather than a mockery. And so that's
[6:39] Speaker 4: kind of what I've been doing for much of the
[6:40] Speaker 4: last fifteen years, and this seemed like the right time
[6:43] Speaker 4: to be applying that sort of skill set to one
[6:47] Speaker 4: of the most listened to and influential media voices in
[6:50] Speaker 4: the entire English speaking world.
[6:52] Speaker 3: Essentially, how do you engage with people who have wacky
[6:58] Speaker 3: opinions and sometimes destructive and even bigoted points of view?
[7:02] Speaker 3: How do you do that without bursting into flames? And
[7:07] Speaker 3: I'm asking because I need instruction. I've been trying to
[7:10] Speaker 3: de escalate. I've been trying to talk to people I disagree,
[7:14] Speaker 3: even vehement disagreements, because I don't think we're going to
[7:18] Speaker 3: change the culture by hitting people over the head with
[7:20] Speaker 3: a sledgehammer. Yeah, but I really, really really want to
[7:23] Speaker 3: hit people over the head with a sledgehammer. Marsh How
[7:26] Speaker 3: do you do that? Well?
[7:28] Speaker 4: I think I might actually be missing the gene that
[7:31] Speaker 4: wants to people over the head with a sledgehammer. I
[7:33] Speaker 4: might be fortunately mutated in that direction. But I think
[7:36] Speaker 4: it's also that I think if we're going to do
[7:39] Speaker 4: the best job that we can at helping people sense
[7:43] Speaker 4: check their version of reality and see where there's gaps
[7:45] Speaker 4: in it, the first thing we need to do is
[7:47] Speaker 4: to understand what it is they actually think. So I've
[7:49] Speaker 4: spent time hanging around with flat Earth as I've into
[7:52] Speaker 4: a full weekend of Flat Earth Convention, because when that
[7:55] Speaker 4: movement was rising, I wanted to know what do flat
[7:58] Speaker 4: earths actually think? Not to what not what do I
[8:00] Speaker 4: assume they think, or does the newspaper assume they think?
[8:04] Speaker 4: But what are they actually saying to each other? How
[8:06] Speaker 4: are they persuading each other? Be exce If I can
[8:08] Speaker 4: understand those arguments, I can understand how they'll persuade the
[8:10] Speaker 4: person who isn't fully committed. And so I approach those
[8:14] Speaker 4: conversations with a genuine I think it's really important to
[8:17] Speaker 4: prot it them with a genuine sense of interest and
[8:20] Speaker 4: investment in the person and what they think, so that
[8:23] Speaker 4: they don't get a sense that you're there just waiting
[8:25] Speaker 4: for them to stop speaking so you can land a
[8:27] Speaker 4: gotcha question on them. You need to actually have a proper,
[8:30] Speaker 4: proper dialogue with it. And you also need to understand
[8:33] Speaker 4: that if this is a complete stranger, you are not
[8:34] Speaker 4: going to be able to change their mind over the
[8:36] Speaker 4: course of that cause of that conversation, And the most
[8:38] Speaker 4: you'd be able to do is to leave them with
[8:40] Speaker 4: some thoughts to go away with, and maybe they'll have
[8:43] Speaker 4: some thoughts and maybe they'll reassess some things, or they'll
[8:46] Speaker 4: kind of have a huh moment when they realized that
[8:48] Speaker 4: they didn't quite understand a thing as well as they
[8:50] Speaker 4: used to, but as well as they thought they did.
[8:52] Speaker 4: But you won't change their mind. If it's someone in
[8:53] Speaker 4: your life, you can change their mind. You can slowly
[8:56] Speaker 4: work them out of the rabbit holes they find themselves in,
[8:59] Speaker 4: but you have to do that by remaining kind of
[9:03] Speaker 4: committed to the relationship so they know that the friendship
[9:07] Speaker 4: isn't going to be jeopardized while they're in the process
[9:10] Speaker 4: of this kind of this journey, and that the social
[9:14] Speaker 4: cost of changing a mind is really lowered. If they
[9:17] Speaker 4: get the sense that you're going to dunk on them
[9:19] Speaker 4: because they said that they admit that they're wrong about something,
[9:21] Speaker 4: they'll never admit that they're wrong. So you have to
[9:23] Speaker 4: give people the space to grow and to change their mind,
[9:26] Speaker 4: and also let them understand that there's not as big
[9:29] Speaker 4: a cost of doing that as they might otherwise worry
[9:31] Speaker 4: that there is.
[9:32] Speaker 3: So you mentioned the flat Earth community. Joe Rogan was
[9:37] Speaker 3: once a moon landing denier. We didn't land on the moon,
[9:42] Speaker 3: truly a great intellect. Have you guys gotten into some
[9:47] Speaker 3: of the conspiracy theories that Joe Rogan has promoted either
[9:51] Speaker 3: then or now.
[9:52] Speaker 2: There is I would say a stream of conspiracy theories
[9:55] Speaker 2: pretty much every single show. The common ones seem to
[10:00] Speaker 2: be that the jfk assassination comes up quite often. They
[10:05] Speaker 2: talk about it all the time. I think Joe at
[10:07] Speaker 2: this point in his career is really talking about government
[10:11] Speaker 2: and how government obfuscates things, and how he is sort
[10:15] Speaker 2: of very at least very recent up until recently, was
[10:17] Speaker 2: very anti government. So I think Joe very much is
[10:22] Speaker 2: thinking about those things, and what comes up often are
[10:26] Speaker 2: sort of government conspiracy. So they talked about nine to
[10:28] Speaker 2: eleven recently on a show Weed. He often talks about
[10:33] Speaker 2: COVID conspiracies. That's one of the main things that comes up.
[10:36] Speaker 2: I would say almost every show he has to bring
[10:39] Speaker 2: up something about some sort of COVID conspiracy, whether you
[10:42] Speaker 2: know the lab leak theory, or he talks about how
[10:45] Speaker 2: big Pharma just wanted to sell us a vaccine, how
[10:48] Speaker 2: Faucy funded research, gain of function research. He talks about
[10:53] Speaker 2: those things quite a bit. So we hit some and
[10:55] Speaker 2: then on occasion we'll catch another one, a weird one.
[10:58] Speaker 2: We'll just pop up where he'll just mention someone has
[11:02] Speaker 2: found the arc of the Covenant in Africa and it's
[11:05] Speaker 2: making people go blind and giving them cataracts, and it's
[11:09] Speaker 2: just sort of an offhanded comment. I'm sure you heard that,
[11:12] Speaker 2: Seth when you listen to Mel Gibson show. That was
[11:15] Speaker 2: a piece of Mel Gibson Show where they were talking
[11:17] Speaker 2: about the Ark of the Covenant. So it's got very
[11:19] Speaker 2: very wide range of conspiracies, but there are still several
[11:23] Speaker 2: conspiracies mentioned every single show.
[11:26] Speaker 4: And I think if we talk about values, I think
[11:28] Speaker 4: this kind of does speak to where Jewels values come from.
[11:31] Speaker 4: Because he's talked at one point very explicitly said, whenever
[11:34] Speaker 4: I see something in the media getting quite big, getting
[11:37] Speaker 4: quite trendy, being talked about, I assume it's there to
[11:40] Speaker 4: distract you from something else, which is a value set
[11:44] Speaker 4: of kind of distrust the media. Don't just accept everything
[11:47] Speaker 4: at face value. But it's dialed up way, way, way
[11:49] Speaker 4: too hard. It's way beyond eleven. Because when he's talking
[11:53] Speaker 4: about the UFOs that were being seen around New Jersey
[11:56] Speaker 4: and assuming that those were drowns. The second that that
[11:58] Speaker 4: started to make the mainstream, Joe's talking about how well
[12:01] Speaker 4: this is going to be a distraction from something else
[12:03] Speaker 4: whereas sometimes the media will just report on things that
[12:06] Speaker 4: are happening because that is kind of their job, and
[12:08] Speaker 4: if something big is happening, they're probably going to report
[12:10] Speaker 4: on that. And just assuming that everything they say is
[12:12] Speaker 4: a distraction is a bad way to embody the value
[12:15] Speaker 4: of let's not always take them mediate face value. So yeah,
[12:18] Speaker 4: he will have his value set and that will lead
[12:20] Speaker 4: him to these conspiratorial positions, but he won't ever, he
[12:23] Speaker 4: won't ever ask the right questions. Even when it came
[12:25] Speaker 4: to the Ark of the Covenant, his question wasn't how
[12:27] Speaker 4: do they know that it's been found, and how do
[12:29] Speaker 4: they know people have been falling ill? And how do
[12:31] Speaker 4: they know it is what it is or anything like that.
[12:33] Speaker 4: His questions were, well, what could be given people cataract?
[12:36] Speaker 4: Is it radiation coming out of the arc? And it's like,
[12:38] Speaker 4: if we don't know that the arc is there, there's
[12:40] Speaker 4: no point trying to speculate what it is about the
[12:42] Speaker 4: ark that's harming people.
[12:43] Speaker 3: Joe, come on, I think he was talking to Mel
[12:45] Speaker 3: Gibson about pseudo archaeologist Graham Hancock, who believes that much
[12:50] Speaker 3: of what we enjoy today as civilized human beings comes
[12:54] Speaker 3: from the survivors of the Lost City of Atlantish know,
[12:59] Speaker 3: any Joe Rogan just wants to have conversations. How do
[13:03] Speaker 3: you approach that claim?
[13:05] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he does just want to have conversations,
[13:07] Speaker 4: but he only really these days wants to have conversations
[13:09] Speaker 4: with people who already agree with the positions that he holds,
[13:12] Speaker 4: or are going to advance the positions into a more
[13:16] Speaker 4: extreme version.
[13:16] Speaker 2: Of what he holds.
[13:18] Speaker 4: I haven't yet seen him have a conversation, particularly with
[13:20] Speaker 4: someone he disagrees with.
[13:22] Speaker 2: In any real way.
[13:23] Speaker 4: I mean, we're going to go into the back catalog
[13:24] Speaker 4: and see those, But the fact that several months into
[13:27] Speaker 4: this project we have to even go to the back
[13:29] Speaker 4: catalog to find anybody who isn't advancing exactly the same
[13:32] Speaker 4: kind of line or worldview shows that his booking strategy
[13:37] Speaker 4: is heavily skewed towards a certain side of the aisle
[13:40] Speaker 4: or a certain sensationalist version of reality. So yeah, I
[13:45] Speaker 4: don't really get the sense. There are occasionally times that
[13:47] Speaker 4: Joe will push back on some of the things his
[13:50] Speaker 4: guests says, but you can see the difference between how
[13:54] Speaker 4: he'll react to someone he likes saying something he vaguely
[13:57] Speaker 4: disagrees with. He'll be incredibly gentle, incredibly tent, where as
[14:00] Speaker 4: soon as they're talking about someone he dislikes, the gloves
[14:04] Speaker 4: are off and it's immediately as harsh as possible, as
[14:08] Speaker 4: uncharitable as possible. Joe works incredibly hard to justify the
[14:13] Speaker 4: points of view and the positions of anybody he in
[14:16] Speaker 4: some way likes or agrees with, and that's a bit
[14:18] Speaker 4: of a red flag that what's happening here isn't proper
[14:21] Speaker 4: critical thinking or run by his conversation.
[14:23] Speaker 2: He'll often have people too that are sort of of
[14:27] Speaker 2: the same circle. So there's this sort of what I've
[14:30] Speaker 2: noticed so far is that there's a big sort of
[14:33] Speaker 2: free speech contingent. And you see this on this group
[14:35] Speaker 2: of people called the intellectual dark Web. So this group
[14:38] Speaker 2: of people talks about free speech and how that's sort
[14:41] Speaker 2: of the most important thing. So he'll have on people
[14:43] Speaker 2: like Eric Weinstein or Lacks Freedman, or Warren's Warren Smith
[14:49] Speaker 2: or Smith Warren, I forget his name, even He's sounds forgettable.
[14:53] Speaker 2: But in any case, those people will will all sort
[14:56] Speaker 2: of pair it many of the values that Joe believes,
[14:59] Speaker 2: and in many way they're just sort of sub podcasts
[15:02] Speaker 2: to his podcast. They have a lot of the same
[15:03] Speaker 2: They do a lot of the same type of work
[15:05] Speaker 2: that he does, where they have these long form conversations
[15:08] Speaker 2: where you have to take pee breaks during the conversation,
[15:11] Speaker 2: and then they will just work there. They will have
[15:13] Speaker 2: on the same types of people, and they will often
[15:16] Speaker 2: talk about how this marketplace for ideas where that we're
[15:20] Speaker 2: in open forum. But what really happens is the people
[15:24] Speaker 2: that get booked are people that really just agree with
[15:26] Speaker 2: the same sort of set ideologies that all these other
[15:29] Speaker 2: people agree with.
[15:30] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I always like to try and be
[15:31] Speaker 4: as charitable as possible about it. But the uncharitable version
[15:34] Speaker 4: of that is that it's kind of an exercise in
[15:37] Speaker 4: narrative building and permission structure building. Is that you always
[15:41] Speaker 4: talk to the same people. You take them from this
[15:44] Speaker 4: one small podcast here, they do the rounds across a
[15:47] Speaker 4: lot of affiliated podcasts or sort of very similar similar shows,
[15:50] Speaker 4: and before you know it, you've said the same thing
[15:51] Speaker 4: to the same audience ten different times, and it stopped
[15:53] Speaker 4: becoming this new thing that we should scrutinize and stuff
[15:56] Speaker 4: becoming just a bog standard part of the of the
[15:59] Speaker 4: conversation that is no longer there to be subjected to scrutiny.
[16:03] Speaker 4: Because it's been repeated so many times, You've become a
[16:05] Speaker 4: truism and I think I think we do see quite
[16:07] Speaker 4: a lot of that, even from what we've seen so
[16:08] Speaker 4: far from Joe.
[16:10] Speaker 3: In just a second more with Cecil and Michael, co
[16:14] Speaker 3: hosts of The No Rogan Experience podcast. Hang on, I'm
[16:24] Speaker 3: going to be in Orlando, Florida at the Florida Freethon
[16:27] Speaker 3: Conference this coming weekend, and there are still tickets FreeFlow
[16:33] Speaker 3: dot org, fr e e f l O dot org.
[16:39] Speaker 3: Continuing now with Michael and Cecil Joe Rogan, analysts and
[16:44] Speaker 3: hosts of the new podcast, The No Rogan Experience. What
[16:50] Speaker 3: do you think explains his popularity? This is going to
[16:52] Speaker 3: be a subjective answer, I know, but I know that
[16:54] Speaker 3: we live in a culture that when publications put something out,
[16:59] Speaker 3: they usually have to write for what an eighth grade
[17:02] Speaker 3: level of education. We have no attention span. We get
[17:06] Speaker 3: distracted by the bright shining thing. I had somebody call
[17:09] Speaker 3: it ADLs attention deficit look shining, and that's kind of
[17:13] Speaker 3: the culture that we are in. And I'm like, where
[17:16] Speaker 3: are the great thinkers? Where are the great entertainers? How
[17:18] Speaker 3: in the actual how has Joe Rogan put this be?
[17:23] Speaker 3: How in the world is he at the top of
[17:25] Speaker 3: the podcast ladder? Have you guys ask yourself this question?
[17:29] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think some of it
[17:32] Speaker 4: is the stuff that he's saying is uncomplicated in some ways,
[17:36] Speaker 4: it lacks new ones, and I think the world's an
[17:39] Speaker 4: incredibly messy place. One of the reasons we started this
[17:42] Speaker 4: project was because we felt that Joe Rogan had in
[17:44] Speaker 4: some ways a fairly large influence on the way political
[17:48] Speaker 4: discussions were going on going into the American election and
[17:51] Speaker 4: coming out of the American election, and we wanted to kind.
[17:53] Speaker 3: Of keep that's terrifying exactly.
[17:55] Speaker 4: But the problem with political discussions and political conversations is
[17:58] Speaker 4: to really understand the world as it truly is, you
[18:01] Speaker 4: have to be able to appreciate kind of shades of
[18:03] Speaker 4: gray and nuance and detail. And the reality is normally
[18:08] Speaker 4: harder to understand and harder to get to the bottom
[18:10] Speaker 4: of and uncertain with it. And if you want to
[18:14] Speaker 4: paint a very two dimensional version of that that's quite
[18:16] Speaker 4: easy for people to digest. You can sensationalize it in
[18:20] Speaker 4: a way that doesn't really need that same level of
[18:22] Speaker 4: kind of scrutiny and charitability to the other side and
[18:25] Speaker 4: fairness or any of those things that are intellectually genuinely hard.
[18:29] Speaker 4: And I think when a lot of people understandably have
[18:32] Speaker 4: a lot of priorities in their life, not all of
[18:34] Speaker 4: which involve keeping fully abreast of every single thing that
[18:36] Speaker 4: happens in the news. Because you're trying to feed your
[18:38] Speaker 4: kids and get them to school, and do your job
[18:40] Speaker 4: and pay the rent and all these kind of things
[18:42] Speaker 4: that are the everyday pressures, people don't have necessarily the
[18:45] Speaker 4: time to then invest in staying deep into the nu once.
[18:49] Speaker 4: And so you can either have a very unfulfilling engagement
[18:53] Speaker 4: with the complicated version of reality, or you can watch
[18:57] Speaker 4: an incredibly simplistic, relatively casmatic broadcast which gives you this
[19:03] Speaker 4: very sensationalist version of how the world works that you
[19:06] Speaker 4: can understand. It's it's traditional, it fits into these these stereotypes,
[19:10] Speaker 4: it's very hyper masculine. At a time when there's something
[19:14] Speaker 4: of a crisis around what masculinity is or should be,
[19:16] Speaker 4: as it's going through a reappraisal about how it works
[19:18] Speaker 4: in society, Joe kind of stands as a bulwark against
[19:22] Speaker 4: all that kind of progress I woant to argue, and says, actually,
[19:25] Speaker 4: the world is far more straightforward than that. It's just
[19:28] Speaker 4: the very simple set of rules that you need to
[19:30] Speaker 4: understand about how the world works, and you can you
[19:32] Speaker 4: can function perfectly well from there and thrive. And I
[19:34] Speaker 4: think that's part of his appeal, Cecil.
[19:37] Speaker 3: He is a charitable man the way the way he
[19:41] Speaker 3: phrased that, because in my mind, I'm like, lazy people
[19:45] Speaker 3: are attracted to shiny dumb ship and he's like, well,
[19:52] Speaker 3: some of us have.
[19:54] Speaker 4: To hold that attraction bag.
[19:58] Speaker 3: Cecil.
[20:00] Speaker 2: I agree with marsh about very specifically about how simple
[20:03] Speaker 2: it is, because the conversations really, you know, they can
[20:06] Speaker 2: get very deep and complex and into the weeds with
[20:09] Speaker 2: certain guests. But when I think about the sort of
[20:12] Speaker 2: simplistic conversations that he has, and very specifically the sort
[20:15] Speaker 2: of masculine leaning conversations that he has, I think that
[20:19] Speaker 2: if you look at his demographic, his demographic is mostly
[20:21] Speaker 2: males that listen to him. These are people who are
[20:24] Speaker 2: looking to get reinforced and sort of the ideas that
[20:27] Speaker 2: they already believe. And I think also to be honest,
[20:30] Speaker 2: and I'm gonna be real honest here. You know, I
[20:32] Speaker 2: am a skeptic. I've been a skeptic for many years.
[20:35] Speaker 2: But I got my start listening to podcasts and things
[20:38] Speaker 2: like that because I enjoyed I wanted to learn more
[20:41] Speaker 2: about crop circles and cryptids and things like that, because that,
[20:43] Speaker 2: to me at my age, when I was listening to
[20:45] Speaker 2: that stuff was interesting. I was like, Wow, what is
[20:48] Speaker 2: this mystery? What is this secret? And just like a
[20:50] Speaker 2: good conspiracy theory and things like that, when somebody seems
[20:53] Speaker 2: like they have the thread and they can pull that thread,
[20:56] Speaker 2: that's compelling to a lot of people. And they hear
[20:59] Speaker 2: that and they see him and they see what he's
[21:01] Speaker 2: talking about, and you know, if he has on people,
[21:04] Speaker 2: he'll have on somebody who is like, has an interesting background.
[21:08] Speaker 2: And then we'll also throw in some of these, you know,
[21:11] Speaker 2: conspiracy theories and then they can talk about like we
[21:13] Speaker 2: had a Special Forces guy on who went through his
[21:16] Speaker 2: whole idea on why JFK was assassinated. Now it's none
[21:20] Speaker 2: of it's based in fact, it's all just him just
[21:22] Speaker 2: shooting from the hip. But you get a perspective from
[21:26] Speaker 2: somebody who knows some very specific information on how they
[21:30] Speaker 2: think something happen, and that's compelling to some people. So
[21:33] Speaker 2: I think that there is this sort of simplicity but
[21:36] Speaker 2: also this sort of sensationalism that I think is really
[21:39] Speaker 2: easy to consume when you talk about, you know, what
[21:41] Speaker 2: Joe Rogan is doing and who he's trying to reach.
[21:44] Speaker 2: I think collaterally he reaches a bunch of other people,
[21:47] Speaker 2: but I think his main audience is people who I
[21:49] Speaker 2: think are you know, maybe a little confused or a
[21:51] Speaker 2: little bit wondering like what their masculinity should be. And
[21:55] Speaker 2: then they're they're seeing Joe Rogan as sort of like
[21:58] Speaker 2: a pinnacle, as somebody who is sort of perfe and
[22:01] Speaker 2: I think a lot of those people, if you look
[22:02] Speaker 2: at a lot of those people in the sphere, that
[22:04] Speaker 2: is one thing that they hammer home. They talk a
[22:06] Speaker 2: lot about what it means to be a man, what
[22:07] Speaker 2: it means to be masculine, hyper masculine values. So those
[22:11] Speaker 2: types of things are really important to that group of people.
[22:14] Speaker 3: So does this reflect kind of a Joe bro largely
[22:18] Speaker 3: thirty and under white male demographic, Have you guys getten
[22:21] Speaker 3: into the audience today?
[22:23] Speaker 2: Not really? I mean, like I haven't done like a
[22:25] Speaker 2: deep dive study, but when you look at the types
[22:28] Speaker 2: of things he's talking about, I think it's pretty easy
[22:30] Speaker 2: to see that like that, that would probably be an
[22:33] Speaker 2: easy target to get. And then when we heard from
[22:35] Speaker 2: you know, we heard from the media after the election,
[22:39] Speaker 2: they talked a lot about very specifically how much sway
[22:42] Speaker 2: Joe Rogan had in that particular in that election and
[22:46] Speaker 2: in the election cycle. We had Trump on and he
[22:48] Speaker 2: talked to a lot of different people, He had jd.
[22:50] Speaker 2: Vance on, he had Elin Musk on sort of in
[22:53] Speaker 2: rapid succession right before the election, so he very specifically
[22:57] Speaker 2: planned those out to have those people on, and a
[22:59] Speaker 2: lot of people think that might have been something that
[23:01] Speaker 2: really did push the election the way it did.
[23:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, Jesus, can you imagine listening to Joe's voice and
[23:08] Speaker 3: Trump's voice for three I mean.
[23:10] Speaker 4: We're gonna do that, because we are literally going to
[23:11] Speaker 4: do that.
[23:13] Speaker 2: On a second, are we gonna have our first fight here,
[23:15] Speaker 2: marsh I don't want to do Oh gosh, I hate
[23:19] Speaker 2: listening to him already. I already genuinely on Sunday as
[23:23] Speaker 2: when I start preparing for the show, I have to
[23:26] Speaker 2: psych myself up to listen to his show. I had
[23:29] Speaker 2: to like walk around the house and do everything that's
[23:32] Speaker 2: on my to do list that I even thought I've
[23:34] Speaker 2: pushed off for months. At this point, I'm like, oh,
[23:36] Speaker 2: I should really paint that wall. I will get the
[23:38] Speaker 2: paint out for hours and paint a wall before I
[23:41] Speaker 2: would listen to Joe Rogan.
[23:42] Speaker 3: He just wants to sniff the fumes to psychologically prime himself.
[23:46] Speaker 3: You know. Joe is always I always feel like he's
[23:48] Speaker 3: being played at the wrong speed. You know, He's always like, Wow,
[23:53] Speaker 3: that's interesting if it helps.
[23:56] Speaker 4: I have only ever listened to Joe Rogan at double speed.
[23:58] Speaker 4: I've never gone low with him tible speed. I can't
[24:01] Speaker 4: do that.
[24:01] Speaker 3: Wow. Well what do you think about that? Wow? And
[24:05] Speaker 3: then he goes to his off screen fact checker, which
[24:09] Speaker 3: I don't think there's much fact checking. I think what
[24:11] Speaker 3: he does is he goes to a search engine and
[24:13] Speaker 3: throws shit on a screen. Do they fact check at all? Like,
[24:17] Speaker 3: actually fact check?
[24:19] Speaker 4: They do, but it's really really pretty flimsy. It's not
[24:22] Speaker 4: what I would describe as fact checking. It is very
[24:24] Speaker 4: much kind of goal to the first thing that you
[24:25] Speaker 4: can find, and occasionally that will disagree with Joe's version
[24:29] Speaker 4: of things, And there are some tense, semi tense moments
[24:33] Speaker 4: where the producer Jamie has thrown something up that just
[24:36] Speaker 4: completely destroys something that Joe has just said. And Jamie's
[24:38] Speaker 4: not even necessarily, I think, trying to do that. It's
[24:41] Speaker 4: just the first thing he's found. And then Joe has
[24:42] Speaker 4: to kind of reconcile how to still come out of
[24:45] Speaker 4: this looking like he knows what he's talking about, and
[24:46] Speaker 4: he never does the intellectually honest thing of saying, oh,
[24:49] Speaker 4: I was completely wrong. But there are other times that
[24:52] Speaker 4: Jamie will kind of bring things up, and because it's
[24:55] Speaker 4: the first thing he founds, it's from sources that if
[24:58] Speaker 4: he pulls the screen and like zoom in, you can
[25:00] Speaker 4: see the source is not something they would ever consider
[25:03] Speaker 4: a credible source. Otherwise. There was a show we did
[25:05] Speaker 4: with where he's talking to Tucker Carlson about some black
[25:09] Speaker 4: nationalists who were accused and were trialed for being essentially
[25:14] Speaker 4: Russian agents in Florida, pirrating kind of Russian narratives and
[25:17] Speaker 4: receiving money from the Russian government. And to fact check that,
[25:20] Speaker 4: Jamie brings up a news article explains they did nothing wrong.
[25:23] Speaker 4: And the news article is from a website which is
[25:25] Speaker 4: called World Socialist Website ws WS. I don't know that
[25:31] Speaker 4: that's normally a go to source for Joe Rogan or
[25:34] Speaker 4: his fans. I don't think they strive to find what
[25:36] Speaker 4: these socialists take on any particular news sources. But a
[25:39] Speaker 4: new story is. But this time that was very, very
[25:42] Speaker 4: important to them that they read that entire article out
[25:44] Speaker 4: to show that these people did nothing at all wrong.
[25:46] Speaker 4: And Tucker was totally fine for backing them to the hilt.
[25:49] Speaker 3: But you speak a little bit too, really against the
[25:52] Speaker 3: darker shade of this. Tucker Carlson totally signaled boosting this awful, bigoted,
[25:58] Speaker 3: terrible human being. He keeps excusing his friendship twenty year
[26:03] Speaker 3: friendship with Alex Jones. You know, I know Alex Jones. Yeah,
[26:07] Speaker 3: he's a good guy and man, the media has been
[26:09] Speaker 3: really hard on him. I'd look at joke on Jesus Christ.
[26:13] Speaker 3: How tone deaf can one person be about this hate
[26:17] Speaker 3: monger you guys have an opinion about I don't know,
[26:21] Speaker 3: not just the conspiracy stuff, but the biggots, the hate
[26:25] Speaker 3: speakers who are being platformed by Rogan.
[26:28] Speaker 2: Rogan does that'll quite a bit. I mean, like there's
[26:30] Speaker 2: people on his show that you'll hear and you'll think, well, gosh,
[26:33] Speaker 2: this person has like a really bad view of I mean,
[26:36] Speaker 2: we had just like he said, we just talked about
[26:40] Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson's view is just terrible on so
[26:44] Speaker 2: many different levels. And he's you know, you say that
[26:48] Speaker 2: Tucker is signal boosting Joe, but I think it's I
[26:51] Speaker 2: think there's sort of a symbiosis here. They're they're both
[26:54] Speaker 2: signal boosting.
[26:55] Speaker 3: No, I meant that Joe was signal boosting Tucker.
[26:58] Speaker 2: But oh, okay, yeah, and you're right too, because Tucker
[27:02] Speaker 2: got fired, right, So Tucker gets fired and then he
[27:04] Speaker 2: starts his own podcast, so he's looking to increase his
[27:07] Speaker 2: reach and he's trying to work that way. So like, yeah,
[27:10] Speaker 2: these guys signal boost each other. But yeah, there's a
[27:12] Speaker 2: lot that's like a it's a lot of people with
[27:14] Speaker 2: bad ideas and bad backgrounds you look into. Like one
[27:17] Speaker 2: of the things that will happen is is we'll we'll
[27:19] Speaker 2: start the show, and when we start the show, we'll say, hey,
[27:21] Speaker 2: what do we know about this person? And and oftentimes
[27:25] Speaker 2: they'll be you know, some sort of bad firing in
[27:27] Speaker 2: their past because of things that they've said, or beliefs
[27:30] Speaker 2: that they've held, or you know, the things that they've
[27:33] Speaker 2: said in the past have been really controversial and kind
[27:36] Speaker 2: of horrible and sometimes racist, and so we'll catch some
[27:39] Speaker 2: of that stuff and they're passed off as someone who
[27:42] Speaker 2: you didn't think would be you know, have this sort
[27:45] Speaker 2: of murky background. But you if you don't know who
[27:47] Speaker 2: they are, you're just hearing them for the first time.
[27:49] Speaker 2: You don't know anything about them. So he we haven't
[27:51] Speaker 2: got I haven't gotten done like a deep dive into
[27:53] Speaker 2: all of his guests before, but I have seen graphs
[27:56] Speaker 2: that have shown that, you know, he definitely platforms a
[27:59] Speaker 2: lot of people from the f are right, which is
[28:01] Speaker 2: you know, it's a little problematic when you think about
[28:03] Speaker 2: the thing. It certainly feeds into the ideas that he has,
[28:07] Speaker 2: and it seems like those are the type of people
[28:08] Speaker 2: he goes back to the well for quite often.
[28:11] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's also it's
[28:13] Speaker 4: not just the bigotry, and there is an awful lot
[28:15] Speaker 4: of bigotry. There's the assumption that women are less qualified
[28:18] Speaker 4: than men. There's an awful lot of horrible things constantly
[28:22] Speaker 4: being said about trans people out of nowhere, so that
[28:24] Speaker 4: bigotry comes up all of the time. That's like a
[28:26] Speaker 4: running drum beat in the background of the show. But
[28:28] Speaker 4: then I think the other thing that is noticeable that
[28:31] Speaker 4: I wasn't expecting is how much normalizing and mainstream there
[28:35] Speaker 4: is of political narratives that are not backed up in
[28:39] Speaker 4: evidence and not credible at all, specifically around things like
[28:42] Speaker 4: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I think at this point there's
[28:45] Speaker 4: been maybe six of our episodes or five or six
[28:48] Speaker 4: of our episodes have touched on how Russia is pretty
[28:52] Speaker 4: much innocent in Ukraine, what really happened. At one point,
[28:55] Speaker 4: Joe brings up apropos of nothing, that what happened initially
[28:59] Speaker 4: in Ukraine, that the US backed a coup to try
[29:01] Speaker 4: and overthrow the Ukrainian government, and that was what was
[29:06] Speaker 4: the threat deliberately provoked by America towards Russia that started
[29:12] Speaker 4: the Russian inversion. And we actually went back and checked
[29:14] Speaker 4: to see where did that idea come from? And one
[29:17] Speaker 4: of the sources for the idea was a German newspaper
[29:20] Speaker 4: article or an article in a German newspaper about how
[29:25] Speaker 4: all of this aggression was started by USA backing a
[29:29] Speaker 4: coup in Ukraine. And that article was written by Vladimir Putin,
[29:32] Speaker 4: and that is Joe's source. Now, obviously Joe hasn't gone
[29:34] Speaker 4: off and read a German newspaper article written by Vladimir Putin.
[29:37] Speaker 4: So we'd look to see where did your first come
[29:40] Speaker 4: across this idea on his shore, and we could find
[29:42] Speaker 4: the episode where one of his guests brought this opinion
[29:45] Speaker 4: to jaw and you can see that was in November,
[29:47] Speaker 4: I think of last year. And then two months later
[29:50] Speaker 4: Joe is repeating this verbatim as if this is just
[29:54] Speaker 4: a well established fact and not a piece of propaganda
[29:57] Speaker 4: that's been laundered at him through several different chains, but
[30:00] Speaker 4: originating with Vladimir Putin, and now it's being said on
[30:03] Speaker 4: Joe Rogan show, and lo and behold, it turns up
[30:06] Speaker 4: in Trump's speech or Trump's conversations a little while afterwards.
[30:09] Speaker 4: So this mainstream of really quite reality denying political narratives
[30:15] Speaker 4: is really obvious and really really clear when you start
[30:18] Speaker 4: to actually pick apart what's happening on a Joe Rogan episode.
[30:22] Speaker 3: Speaking here with Cecil and Michael, who are hosts of
[30:25] Speaker 3: the new podcast, The No Rogan Experience Kate Now No Rogan.
[30:31] Speaker 3: We're getting to know Joe Rogan and Lucky Us. So
[30:37] Speaker 3: I want to talk about platforming. Like as a host,
[30:41] Speaker 3: I've always said, no one will ever tell me who
[30:43] Speaker 3: I can and cannot have on the show, and I
[30:45] Speaker 3: reserve the right. I mean, if I decide I want
[30:47] Speaker 3: to talk to a white supremacist on this broadcast, I
[30:50] Speaker 3: reserve the right to do that. I'm going to bring
[30:52] Speaker 3: somebody else. But at the same time, it's, you know,
[30:55] Speaker 3: a cost benefit. I'm having to see context, what do
[30:59] Speaker 3: I want to accomp who's my audience? There are all
[31:01] Speaker 3: these other questions, you know, and my plan will it
[31:04] Speaker 3: benefit them much more than it benefits the larger conversation
[31:09] Speaker 3: or my goals as a host? And there are some
[31:12] Speaker 3: people that I wouldn't want anywhere near a microphone. How
[31:16] Speaker 3: do you feel about platforming? You know, if someone is
[31:19] Speaker 3: going to sit in a guest chair on a show
[31:22] Speaker 3: like Rogan's or yours, are there some people who should
[31:25] Speaker 3: simply be denied any microphone under any context, or if
[31:30] Speaker 3: you want to talk about that, I.
[31:32] Speaker 2: Think Marsha and I are going to have really different
[31:33] Speaker 2: opinions on this because Marsh hosted a show that literally
[31:37] Speaker 2: had people just talk about their bad ideas. But I
[31:40] Speaker 2: think what I would say is I'm fine. I think
[31:43] Speaker 2: if someone wants to have someone on that has, you know,
[31:46] Speaker 2: could have the most odious of ideas it's terrible, awful
[31:49] Speaker 2: human being. I think you can have them on as
[31:52] Speaker 2: long as you are willing to push back against all
[31:54] Speaker 2: those ideas, and afterwards, maybe even do a follow up
[31:57] Speaker 2: show where you talk about, you know, the things that
[31:59] Speaker 2: may you missed in the moment, where you said, you
[32:01] Speaker 2: know what, I missed this in the moment, but this
[32:03] Speaker 2: person said this last time and that's not true, or
[32:05] Speaker 2: you know that's really hurtful to certain groups or whatever
[32:08] Speaker 2: it is. I think, you know, like, as long as
[32:10] Speaker 2: you're going to do that due diligence to actually push
[32:12] Speaker 2: back on really bad ideas, then platforming, I think is
[32:15] Speaker 2: not as it's not as bad. I think what the
[32:18] Speaker 2: problem is when it comes to Joe Rogan is he
[32:20] Speaker 2: doesn't push back on anything, so the person will come
[32:23] Speaker 2: on spout some of the most craziest, weirdest ideas or
[32:26] Speaker 2: awful ideas or blatant misinformation, disinformation and there's never a
[32:31] Speaker 2: moment where anybody has any kind of fact checking, or
[32:35] Speaker 2: there's never a moment where anybody pushed back on anything
[32:37] Speaker 2: really ethically. So I think that it's that when it's
[32:41] Speaker 2: Joe Rogan doing it, I just think he does it irresponsibly.
[32:43] Speaker 2: I think there's a responsible way to do it, and
[32:45] Speaker 2: he just doesn't. He fails.
[32:47] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I actually, as much as you introduced that,
[32:49] Speaker 4: I think I'm on a similar page. But I, as
[32:52] Speaker 4: you say, I did have a show, I do have
[32:53] Speaker 4: a show be reasonable where I have spoken to white supremacists.
[32:57] Speaker 4: I've spoken to people who promote cansecule. I've spoken to
[33:00] Speaker 4: all sorts of incredibly nasty people. But I haven't spoken
[33:03] Speaker 4: to people that I like and agree with on the
[33:05] Speaker 4: show because that's not what the show is. And so
[33:07] Speaker 4: I don't have a worry about platforming someone in those situations,
[33:11] Speaker 4: because when someone says, you know, you've had Jared Taylor
[33:14] Speaker 4: from American Renaissance, who's an absolute white supremacist on the show,
[33:17] Speaker 4: do you worry about platforming him? No, because the platform
[33:20] Speaker 4: he's sharing is with the guy like last month that
[33:23] Speaker 4: I talked to who thinks that in fifteenth century suffolk
[33:26] Speaker 4: to alien children emerge from a cave with green skin,
[33:29] Speaker 4: and that's the platform. You're on the platform with flat
[33:31] Speaker 4: earthers and people who believe that they're talking to the
[33:33] Speaker 4: dead and all this kind of stuff. So like, it's
[33:35] Speaker 4: pretty clear that if you're on this show, it's not
[33:37] Speaker 4: because I think you're super cool and that everything you're
[33:39] Speaker 4: saying is right. It would be trickier if I mixed
[33:42] Speaker 4: that up and said, well, sometimes this person is someone
[33:44] Speaker 4: I wholeheartedly endorse, and sometimes this is someone I'm just
[33:47] Speaker 4: having on for the conversation. If it's not totally clear
[33:50] Speaker 4: from the outset which is which, and if you aren't
[33:52] Speaker 4: framing it as Cecil says with the right level of
[33:54] Speaker 4: pushback when it is someone that you completely disagree with.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we all stand on the same side
[33:59] Speaker 3: of this, right. If there's light, I think there needs
[34:02] Speaker 3: to be heat inappropriate.
[34:04] Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's not as much about platforming as it
[34:07] Speaker 4: is about legitimizing. If your platform is going to legitimize
[34:09] Speaker 4: someone's views and bring those views unchallenged to an audience
[34:12] Speaker 4: they wouldn't otherwise find, that is an issue. And I
[34:15] Speaker 4: think one of the things that I think Rogan is
[34:19] Speaker 4: potentially quite dangerous for is that some of the people
[34:22] Speaker 4: he will he will have on his shore are one
[34:25] Speaker 4: or two steps away from incredibly damaging views. And if
[34:27] Speaker 4: you see him on Rogan, they miss him totally normal.
[34:30] Speaker 4: So you'll follow them off to their show, and once
[34:32] Speaker 4: they're on their shore, you're seeing the guests that they
[34:34] Speaker 4: will have on and actually those views are even more
[34:36] Speaker 4: abhorrent and are really not get them pushed back on,
[34:38] Speaker 4: and Rogan kind of opened the doorway into those spaces.
[34:41] Speaker 4: So I think if you're going to platform someone should
[34:44] Speaker 4: really be thinking about that side of things now.
[34:46] Speaker 3: I mean, if he's interviewing our FK Junior's brainworm, but
[34:49] Speaker 3: he's not bringing in actual virologists and immunologists. I don't
[34:54] Speaker 3: know if Rogan's the forum to teach, you know, science
[34:59] Speaker 3: to the general public, but I mean it could be done.
[35:02] Speaker 3: I suppose you know, you can. I mean, I've had
[35:04] Speaker 3: people scientists on this show and it's a casual conversation
[35:07] Speaker 3: where we're being educated. But you know the fact that
[35:10] Speaker 3: he can find time for RFK Junior, but he's not
[35:13] Speaker 3: giving at least equal time to people who have PhDs
[35:16] Speaker 3: in their field. Who are you know, respected career scientist
[35:19] Speaker 3: working in those fields. It just makes me absolutely crazy.
[35:24] Speaker 2: Well it's not just that it's it's an RFK is
[35:28] Speaker 2: on but every third show he will say the words
[35:31] Speaker 2: Anthony Fauci is evil. So he will he will attack
[35:35] Speaker 2: someone like Anthony Fauci and say, like, look at all
[35:39] Speaker 2: the harm that this person did, and look at how
[35:41] Speaker 2: evil he is. And he sits in a congressional hearing
[35:45] Speaker 2: he and he lies, and he's just a liar and
[35:47] Speaker 2: he's evil. So it's not even that he's just promoting
[35:51] Speaker 2: RFK and all the bad ideas that RFK thinks. It's
[35:54] Speaker 2: that he's he's going one step further by demonizing people
[35:58] Speaker 2: that could be a counter to RFK.
[36:00] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. And I think that's true of
[36:02] Speaker 4: Trump as well. So when we talk about the fact
[36:04] Speaker 4: that Joe Rogan likely in all likelihood had quite a
[36:08] Speaker 4: sway in the election, however big that might be, I
[36:11] Speaker 4: don't think it's necessarily the bit where he had Trump
[36:14] Speaker 4: on the show for how of many hours? I don't
[36:16] Speaker 4: think that's what did it, because however many people watch that,
[36:18] Speaker 4: that's kind of a one off. The bit that actually
[36:20] Speaker 4: would have been more valuable to Trump and to his
[36:23] Speaker 4: side of that fence were the times that every single
[36:27] Speaker 4: time afterwards that Trump's name gets mentioned on the Joe
[36:30] Speaker 4: Rogan Show, it is nothing but priz. So whatever Trump
[36:33] Speaker 4: said on that interview is now gospel and will be
[36:36] Speaker 4: repeated so many times across multiple interviews that it becomes
[36:40] Speaker 4: just a truism. It's absolutely unchallenged in any way. This
[36:44] Speaker 4: is now just a part of the fabric of reality.
[36:46] Speaker 4: So I think if you want to if your job
[36:49] Speaker 4: is to try and seed a narrative, it's not even
[36:51] Speaker 4: necessarily the being on Joe Rogan that does it. It's
[36:54] Speaker 4: getting the point into Joe Rogan's head to the point
[36:56] Speaker 4: where he will apropos of nothing, bring it up several
[36:59] Speaker 4: interviews down the line, divulced from its soul, so you
[37:01] Speaker 4: can't even see the fingerprints of where he got it from.
[37:04] Speaker 4: That's the bit that I think has the most effect
[37:07] Speaker 4: in terms of cementing these counter ideas in people's minds.
[37:11] Speaker 2: And like a dog that you have to feed a
[37:13] Speaker 2: pill to, people will take the bread that they stuff
[37:17] Speaker 2: that pill in or the peanut butter they put that
[37:19] Speaker 2: pill in is free speech, or that the government censorship
[37:23] Speaker 2: if they can get around these things. They can basically
[37:25] Speaker 2: they can they have their own pitch book. They can
[37:27] Speaker 2: just put it up on the screen and just play
[37:29] Speaker 2: whatever they want and pitch whatever they want. Mark Andresen
[37:32] Speaker 2: does this. He comes on and he talks about how
[37:35] Speaker 2: the government is trying to censor free speech by debanking people.
[37:39] Speaker 2: But we found that none of that is actually true.
[37:41] Speaker 2: They're debanking people that are politically exposed, but very specifically.
[37:45] Speaker 2: There's a chance that if they debank someone, they're probably
[37:49] Speaker 2: related to more more likely related to crypto than something
[37:53] Speaker 2: else like that would be you know, free a free
[37:56] Speaker 2: speech violation or saying something that the government doesn't agree with.
[38:00] Speaker 2: It just he allowed. All he has to do is
[38:02] Speaker 2: if he comes in and he says to Joe, this
[38:05] Speaker 2: is about free speech. The microphone is his, and Joe
[38:07] Speaker 2: will do as you suggest, Seth and just sit there
[38:09] Speaker 2: and go wow, wow, crazy, wow, amazing, Oh my god,
[38:14] Speaker 2: that's awesome or that's crazy, and he'll say it constantly.
[38:16] Speaker 2: He doesn't interject, and the person will just be able
[38:19] Speaker 2: to say whatever they want. He did the same thing
[38:20] Speaker 2: with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg came on. All he had to do
[38:24] Speaker 2: was talk about free speech for a few minutes and
[38:25] Speaker 2: then he just basically read the Facebook terms of service
[38:28] Speaker 2: to people. For two hours. He just talked about how
[38:31] Speaker 2: great Facebook is and what Facebook is doing, and how
[38:34] Speaker 2: Facebook is going to open up free speech for everybody,
[38:36] Speaker 2: and Joe just let him do it, because the thing
[38:38] Speaker 2: is is all you have to do is push the
[38:40] Speaker 2: right button and he'll let you in. He'll just let
[38:42] Speaker 2: you in, and you can use his microphone as much
[38:44] Speaker 2: as you want.
[38:45] Speaker 4: Especially when it came to Zukobug. What I thought was
[38:47] Speaker 4: really interesting about that one was zukebub framed this as
[38:50] Speaker 4: free speech, and Joe was just not in any way
[38:52] Speaker 4: therefore going to push back. But what he was actually
[38:55] Speaker 4: talking about was how evil the evil European Union has
[38:59] Speaker 4: come for Facebook and levied these billions of dollars worth
[39:02] Speaker 4: of fines against them. But at no point did Joe say, well,
[39:05] Speaker 4: what are those fines for? Because if you'd have asked,
[39:07] Speaker 4: he'd have found out that this was a corporation abusing
[39:10] Speaker 4: the privacy data of its users, and Joe Rogan otherwise
[39:14] Speaker 4: would be anti corporations abusing your private data. This is
[39:18] Speaker 4: the kind of thing that Joe Rogan would normally be
[39:20] Speaker 4: completely against, and he sat down opposite the guy who's
[39:23] Speaker 4: been fined, who's company's been finding billions for this, and
[39:26] Speaker 4: it never crosses mine to ask because he's been placated,
[39:29] Speaker 4: he's had his little belly rubbed with the talk of
[39:31] Speaker 4: free speech. And we just see this so often. People
[39:34] Speaker 4: can just smuggle their entire agenda into a Joe Rogan
[39:38] Speaker 4: Shaw if first they just pay lip servers to the
[39:40] Speaker 4: kind of values that switch off Joe's ability to ask questions.
[39:46] Speaker 3: More with Cecil and Michael of the No Rogan Experience
[39:50] Speaker 3: podcast will continue next. Thank you so much for your
[39:59] Speaker 3: support me on this broadcast by being a patron commercial
[40:03] Speaker 3: free shows and you get them early every single week
[40:07] Speaker 3: Patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews. Continuing now with Cecil
[40:13] Speaker 3: and Michael, co hosts of the No Rogan Experience Podcast.
[40:20] Speaker 3: So if the shows go three to four hours before
[40:23] Speaker 3: I send all of my viewers to find you, and
[40:27] Speaker 3: you spend all of this time prepping your shows aren't
[40:31] Speaker 3: twelve hours long? Right?
[40:33] Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no. We try to limit it. We
[40:35] Speaker 2: try to cut it out because there's a lot of
[40:37] Speaker 2: there's a lot of trash in there, so we'll cut
[40:38] Speaker 2: it out. We do play clips of Joe, and we
[40:41] Speaker 2: normally play, you know, certain clips. We have segments on
[40:43] Speaker 2: the show every week we try to talk about sort
[40:46] Speaker 2: of one logical fallacy or one idea that he's getting wrong,
[40:49] Speaker 2: and we keep that as a segment. We normally do
[40:51] Speaker 2: a main segment where we talk about sort of what
[40:53] Speaker 2: the main thrust of the show is about, and then
[40:56] Speaker 2: normally on Patreon afterwards, we'll do a sort of gloves
[40:58] Speaker 2: off portion where we just to collect the ons and
[41:01] Speaker 2: ends we had comments about that didn't really fit in
[41:03] Speaker 2: the main show, and we do a discussion about that
[41:05] Speaker 2: that probably swears a little more than the main show,
[41:08] Speaker 2: but it's it's it's really we don't spend an extense.
[41:12] Speaker 2: We're not gonna make you listen to a four hour
[41:14] Speaker 2: show because we listen to all of Joe Rogan with you.
[41:16] Speaker 2: That's that's not our that's not the show.
[41:18] Speaker 3: I think I think I may title that this broadcast,
[41:22] Speaker 3: I may call it they watched Joe Rogan so you
[41:24] Speaker 3: don't have to.
[41:26] Speaker 4: That's that's exactly it. That's why we did the show
[41:28] Speaker 4: is because not everybody there's a lot of people who
[41:30] Speaker 4: want to know what the most influential media voice around
[41:34] Speaker 4: is saying, but don't want to have to actually listen,
[41:36] Speaker 4: and so we do the listening, but we don't. It's
[41:39] Speaker 4: not a comprehensive minute by minute fact check, not at
[41:41] Speaker 4: least because that would be quite boring to listen to.
[41:43] Speaker 4: So we try and say, well, here's a big story
[41:45] Speaker 4: that came up, and here's we're gonna go in depth
[41:48] Speaker 4: on that to show you that this is what happens
[41:50] Speaker 4: when you start to examine things in depth. But we
[41:52] Speaker 4: also try to do in a way that if you
[41:54] Speaker 4: were a dual Rogan fan but you were curious as
[41:57] Speaker 4: to Joel always say, I don't get everything right. I'm
[41:59] Speaker 4: not effect I'm flawed. I will get things wrong sometimes.
[42:03] Speaker 4: If you're a rockin fan and you want to know
[42:04] Speaker 4: what he's getting wrong and in what ways he's wrong,
[42:06] Speaker 4: you can come over to the show and hopefully it's
[42:08] Speaker 4: not set up in a way that you'll be immediately
[42:11] Speaker 4: put off by us being kind of these immediately obvious
[42:14] Speaker 4: biased hacks. We're trying to be as fair as possible.
[42:17] Speaker 4: We even have a segment where we say what did
[42:19] Speaker 4: you like about this, and we try and find something
[42:21] Speaker 4: we actually liked about the show that can be quite difficult,
[42:23] Speaker 4: but we do try.
[42:24] Speaker 3: How much of that is covering his ass. It's like
[42:26] Speaker 3: Elon with X. He will go and make the most
[42:29] Speaker 3: outrageously false claim, and his own community notes comes in
[42:34] Speaker 3: and says, ah, this is bullshit, and then his defense says, well,
[42:39] Speaker 3: you know, I throw it out there and if it's wrong,
[42:42] Speaker 3: people will correct it. But it's not really on me.
[42:45] Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think it is covering him. I
[42:48] Speaker 4: think he does also believe it, so I think it's
[42:50] Speaker 4: playing dual purpose. He likes to see himself as this
[42:53] Speaker 4: kind of just a free wheeling goofball who just saying
[42:56] Speaker 4: the things that come to mind. And I imagine if
[42:57] Speaker 4: we dip back far enough into his archive that was
[43:00] Speaker 4: a better reflection, that would be a better description of
[43:02] Speaker 4: what he was doing. But these days he's making direct,
[43:05] Speaker 4: factual claims about the world, and he's incorrect in many
[43:08] Speaker 4: of the cases about that, or is allowing his guests
[43:11] Speaker 4: to spew things that are completely incorrect. And the idea
[43:14] Speaker 4: of saying, well, what do why know, I'm just a
[43:15] Speaker 4: comedian doesn't work when you have a following that's larger
[43:19] Speaker 4: than a lot of newspapers and journalists who have editorial
[43:23] Speaker 4: standards of checking through multiple sources and things, so he
[43:26] Speaker 4: absolutely should be spending more time checking stuff. I think Also,
[43:30] Speaker 4: he also gives lip service to the idea that he's
[43:33] Speaker 4: willing to admit when he's wrong. He talks about how
[43:34] Speaker 4: important that is, but we've seen on the show, even
[43:37] Speaker 4: when there's an opportunity for him to do that, where
[43:38] Speaker 4: it would cost him almost nothing to do it, he'll
[43:41] Speaker 4: instead try and like wheedle out of it and explain why, actually,
[43:44] Speaker 4: that's not a good explanation about why I'm wrong. There's
[43:46] Speaker 4: something else that you haven't found that proves me right.
[43:48] Speaker 4: So even in that moment when it would cost him
[43:51] Speaker 4: nothing it would actually benefit him to admit when he's wrong,
[43:54] Speaker 4: he still refuses to do that.
[43:55] Speaker 3: I feel like I need to donate to your channel
[43:57] Speaker 3: just for the use of the word wheedle to new
[44:00] Speaker 3: one Wheedle, thank you for that one. Any final thoughts
[44:04] Speaker 3: and where do people find the No Rogan Experience broadcast
[44:08] Speaker 3: either one of you wants to see.
[44:09] Speaker 2: I do have some final thoughts if you are familiar
[44:12] Speaker 2: with any of the properties that I do normally, the
[44:15] Speaker 2: stuff that I've been doing for many years and still
[44:17] Speaker 2: kind of do is dunking on people, and this is
[44:19] Speaker 2: a very different kind of show. So I want to
[44:22] Speaker 2: warn people, like, if you're expecting sort of a cog
[44:24] Speaker 2: disc cognitive dissonance, sort of a lot of swearing, a
[44:28] Speaker 2: lot of joking, a lot of you know, we're dunking
[44:31] Speaker 2: on something that is relatively easy. This isn't that show.
[44:34] Speaker 2: This is a This is a totally different sort of thing.
[44:36] Speaker 2: And like Marsh said, I think, you know, I don't
[44:39] Speaker 2: feel like we're going to get anybody on the edge
[44:42] Speaker 2: if we if we go with sort of the traditional
[44:44] Speaker 2: way that I've handled a lot of the podcasts that
[44:47] Speaker 2: I've done. So that's one of the reasons why I
[44:49] Speaker 2: approached Marsha in the first place, because he's he's always
[44:52] Speaker 2: done skepticism, you know, sort of compassionate skepticism, and I've
[44:56] Speaker 2: always I've always really admired the way he's approached this stuff.
[45:00] Speaker 2: He's the first one I approached when I had the idea.
[45:02] Speaker 2: So I just want to make sure to mention that
[45:04] Speaker 2: before I plug the show, so I don't have a
[45:06] Speaker 2: bunch of people showing up being like, Wow, this feels
[45:08] Speaker 2: a lot more tame than your other stuff. Yeah, it
[45:10] Speaker 2: is and it should.
[45:12] Speaker 1: Uh.
[45:12] Speaker 2: The show is very easy to find. You can go
[45:14] Speaker 2: to No Rogan k and ow dot com, so No
[45:17] Speaker 2: Rogan dot com you can find us. You can search
[45:19] Speaker 2: for the No Rogan Experience on any your podcast players
[45:21] Speaker 2: and you can find us there. The show comes out
[45:24] Speaker 2: every Tuesday and we currently have this will be our
[45:27] Speaker 2: eleventh episode. We're recording tomorrow.
[45:30] Speaker 3: Ichall, what's it like being in the room with Cecil
[45:32] Speaker 3: when he's acting like an adult? I mean, because I'm
[45:36] Speaker 3: used to cogdiss, so he just all bets are off.
[45:38] Speaker 3: These guys go hard. There is just you know, irreverence
[45:42] Speaker 3: is the order of the day. And now he's de
[45:44] Speaker 3: escalating and he's tam and wow.
[45:48] Speaker 2: I think he's a sensitive soul.
[45:49] Speaker 4: He doesn't let people to know it, but deep down
[45:52] Speaker 4: he's a sensitive soul. I've always felt that about him
[45:54] Speaker 4: and about so it's nice to see give it. It's
[45:57] Speaker 4: fa Cecil out the opportunity to let his his purely
[45:59] Speaker 4: sense of the sensible side out, and then over on
[46:02] Speaker 4: Coggs he can have an absolute riot of the time
[46:04] Speaker 4: and we'll all love hearing that side of it there
[46:06] Speaker 4: as well.
[46:06] Speaker 3: Any final thoughts from you before we wrap it up.
[46:09] Speaker 4: Michael, I'm not sure really, So I think I've really
[46:14] Speaker 4: I wasn't sure what to expect from committing to this
[46:16] Speaker 4: because I'm over here in the UK, so I'm not
[46:18] Speaker 4: getting kind of the full effect of the Joe Rogan,
[46:22] Speaker 4: the roganification, if I can kind of coin a word
[46:25] Speaker 4: of politics. But what I've been genuinely surprised by is
[46:29] Speaker 4: how much we can spot a pattern and a narrative
[46:32] Speaker 4: that weaves together the way that Joe's mind works and
[46:35] Speaker 4: the things he's seen. And the more that I see that,
[46:38] Speaker 4: the harder it is to maintain that this is someone
[46:40] Speaker 4: with no agenda, as he says. So, yeah, it's been
[46:43] Speaker 4: It's been interesting, and I think the more time we
[46:45] Speaker 4: spend on it, the more we'll we'll we'll get a
[46:47] Speaker 4: picture and we'll get to truly know Joe Rogan. What
[46:50] Speaker 4: will do once we know Joe Rogan? I don't know,
[46:51] Speaker 4: because that will be some time for now, but yeah,
[46:53] Speaker 4: we will, we will get to know him.
[46:55] Speaker 3: Is this once a week you guys go or how
[46:57] Speaker 3: often once a week every Tuesday week? Okay, the No
[47:00] Speaker 3: Rogan experience. You will experience it and you will say wow,
[47:06] Speaker 3: And I will also link it in the description box.
[47:08] Speaker 3: Cecil and Michael, you're a pleasure to talk to and
[47:11] Speaker 3: good luck with the show. We'll send everybody your way.
[47:13] Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, thanks so much, thank you.
[47:16] Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[47:19] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
[47:23] Speaker 1: t shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo, links to atheist
[47:27] Speaker 1: pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events
[47:30] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.