BREAKING: Joe Rogan’s new format is here…
… and the most successful and undoubtedly most controversial Podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” might never be the same.
As the political-correctness movement has attempted so many times to get Joe Rogan off the public space they seem to at least have reigned him in now. There’s no need to describe the latest controversies, that have finally led to a seemingly dire change within the format, everyone knows. And Joe Rogan, after his public statements, has in fact implemented one change he promised:
After each Episode with a publicly considered “controverse” personality, someone who fully or partly disagrees with the Mainstream narrative about societies “Hot Topics” he provides space on his platform for someone informing the public about the “accepted” version of things. He did so with his current two episodes.
The Contender
In episode #1776 his guest was Steven E. Kooning, a theoretical physicist that has written a book called “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.” and they talk extensively about certain, seemingly data-driven points that at least seem to be contradictory to some extend of the official statements with which we are faced in these highly politically charged times we live in.
Koonin states within the podcast that climate change is happening (no denial here), but he doubts the official degree and how much of it humanity is actually responsible for (which he deems to be 50%, when asked) and provides arguments for his views on the topic.
The Defender
In his current (as of February 17th) episode #1777 Rogan invited Andrew Dessler on the stage, a renowned climate scientist and professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University. He has, as well, a broad portfolio and was the author of several books, one of them the award-winning “Introduction to Modern Climate Change”.
With a little bit of an advantage on his side he could build arguments against Koonin’s theses and based them as well on under stable, seemingly data-driven points (I say seemingly in both cases, because I didn’t read the data mentioned myself and therefore can’t verify at this moment) and provided an extensive, but understandable amount of information as well.
My personal opinion about the new format
Well, I was skeptical, to say the least. The Joe Rogan Experience was about to experience a major change. He made good on his word (and that’s something we all should acknowledge, wether we are fans or foes) and the impacts of the latest controversies are notable.
Joe Rogan took much more of an “Interviewer” approach in both episodes and I was briefly shocked when he basically refused to talk about his opinion in episode #1776 by saying something to the degree of that he basically has to, or is going to shut up about this topic (paraphrasing). So they didn’t just reign him in in terms of content to some degree, but this is the first time that I’ve heard Joe Rogan outspokenly censoring himself. That’s something I never expected to hear from him, to be honest.
The so called “Mob” won — or did they?
As I stated before: I was skeptical! But after listening to both episodes in a row I guess I’m not so sure anymore that this is a bad change in itself. Yes, it’s troubling that he censors himself! It’s troubling that too some degree the public got their say in what contents Joe Rogan can provide! But they accidentally made something happen that was basically almost impossible before:
They made it necessary to get their people on the Joe Rogan Experience!
And that means that people, who would have refused to engage in a platform like this are now, at least to some degree, “forced” to enter the public discourse on a medium which they despise. And this actually grants the audience a possibility which the notion of “harmful information can not be allowed to interact with or it spreads” clearly contradicts: It opens the door for a more balanced forming of an informed opinion on a topic, where both sides are presented — a stage for the audience to make up their own minds instead of being told what the correct opinion is by trying to bury everyone that disagrees. And even the possibility of actual debates was briefly mentioned.
With that in mind I actually think, that what still seems like a success for the politically correct movement could turn out to become a blessing in disguise, not just for the audience but for Joe Rogan as well. Because it is his platform that almost accidentally may have just opened the door for a long awaited and desperately needed start of open dialogue between two fronts that didn’t talk to each other for far too long!
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