Can we all just agree that if you're listening to the JRE (and frankly, probably almost any podcast) for anything other than entertainment you're doing something seriously wrong?
Speaking of podcasts, Behind the Bastards did a couple of episodes a few months back specifically all about Ivermectin and how it became the sudden wonder-drug of the unvaxxed and a part of that was the role that the AAPS played in it. Definitely worth a listen if you have some time.
Some of the misinformation mechanics made me think how ridiculously effective reverse psychology is...."here's the thing they don't want you to know/have" turns into people howling their loved ones get horse suppositories or what the fuck ever.
I'd maybe agree if the current state of mainstream media wasn't so completely abysmal. When all the funding comes from the corporations you're supposed to hold in check and is based on the number of clicks you can generate, there's almost no media that holds up uniformly as unbiased and credible. I'd argue that a better route is to factor in as many sources as possible, try to see past whatever biases they're holding and then make up your own mind. That's why I personally listened to the Harris podcast right after the JRE one about the overall state of Covid. Two different opinions, decide what makes the most sense yourself. With regards to JRE, he himself would tell you he's not here to be the voice of America, or whatever moniker his detractors try to pin on him. It's interesting, though, that such a huge swath of the population - particularly in certain demographics - have grown to see him as a news source, despite him not intending to become that. It's almost like the other institutions are failing, or something.
If you don't trust the mainstream media, then skip them and go to the source. Start reading the direct statements of the CDC, the NIH, Health Canada, the NHS, etc. There's no world in which JRE factors in to a healthy information diet.
100% agree about looking at the raw data directly. While I wouldn't say that JRE should be looked at for an information source - that's not what he's attempting to do and most of what he's saying in any given moment is completely off the cuff and unvetted - he (and other podcasters) are useful for other facets. For example, if he has a guest on and they speak for +3 hours, you really get a sense of what that person is like. Are they full of shit? Are they overall prepared? Are they sensible if they aren't reading from a script? The other thing I find podcasts useful for is taking an idea and kicking it around to see where it stands up and where it's weak. That's probably why Ben Shapiro "wins" debates so often...not because he himself is always better informed, and certainly not because his beliefs are necessarily correct, but because he's discussed them and kicked them around enough that he knows exactly where he stands and why he believes what he does. Should that podcast with JRE and McCullough be used as a place to get hardcore information for you to decide how to treat Covid if you're exposed? No. Not at all. Is it useful as a window into seeing why people are vaccine hesitant or what an alternative scientific viewpoint is? Yes, I think so.
I think you're drinking a lot of piss with a shot of vodka tossed in it and thinking it's beer. I mean to say the perspective and personality on display on JRE is just as produced and rehearsed and practiced as anything else, for all we know. And sitting through three hours of bullshit even if you know it's bullshit doesn't mean you're immune...some of it seeps through. You don't hear that much information and recall it and go "oh but that's not a fact, it was from JRE". It becomes part of your belief.
I mean, I don't wish the unvaccinated dead or banished from society, so maybe it IS queering my thinking on things.
It's less the what, but the why. Netts sister has a totally valid reason to avoid a vaccine. Tit fuck Tom who just doesn't believe in viruses and thinks he has no obligation to stop the spread....sure, we could do with less of him and his ilk. And the folks putting those damaging ideas in TFT's head probably deserve a bit of scrutiny and shared repercussions.
It depends. TWIV which is produced by Vincent Racaniello is a good source of information about viruses and immunity. Because it's an actual group of virologists and immunologists.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_121521.pdf/ Some of the crosstabs on this poll are nuts.
I think one of the things people aren't realizing with getting early treatment for covid is how that looks on a logistical level. You know how everyone was calling Biden stupid for leaving a whole bunch of military equipment over in Afghanistan, but if you actually looked at what it would have taken to remove all of that equipment, you'd realize it was cheaper and easier to just leave it? Same thing applies to this. Which thing do you think works better on mass scale. A vaccine which is shown to be highly effective against a virus which you can walk down to Walmart and get when you are not contagious with said virus or having to go to a medical center while infected with said virus to get dosed for an early stage therapeutic? People NEVER think things all the way through, they just come up with a solution and think it happens by waving a magic wand. It's the same thing with things like border walls or the war on drugs or ending homelessness or feeding the hungry. We saw a pretty good call out from Elon Musk about it. "I'll give you 5 billion dollars if you can show how the money is actually ending world hunger." Cue the crickets. As far as JRE goes, someone needs to rewind the clock on Rogan and point him back to right after he finished doing the Finding Bigfoot show. Something about that opened his eyes to, "Wow, there's a lot of people out here who are just fucking crazy and stupid and will believe anything and stick to those beliefs without question even when they are provided with information completely showing the opposite." It was right around then where he started to really go in hard about the fake moon landing shit and the 9/11 conspiracies. For some reason, not sure what happened, but he fell back down the rabbit hole again and is right back into the conspiracy theory blackhole.
While I appreciate the overarching point you're going for, likening the Covid planning to the debacle clusterfuck that was the Afghanistan withdrawal isn't helping the cause. One could make a strong argument that Afghan should have been treated like most other post-war foreign areas and a small military presence remain there indefinitely. It would have been cheaper and less of a humanitarian disaster than what occurred. If Biden is handling Covid like Afghanistan, we're screwed. Agreed, you have to focus your resources and pick the best solution first. I think, also, that an effective treatment once you catch it is also necessary. As I had said before...if they have an effective protocol that they're implementing, that's fantastic and wonderful news. It's been over two years, so let's hope they have some clear ideas on how to react. If instead it's a piecemeal effort by individual doctors trying shit to see what sticks, and the medical establishment recommends not even seeking medical help until you're really sick, and there's no solid proven treatment for severe Covid? Well, that's a big fucking problem. If we can produce four different vaccines in under 6 months, surely we can also have a consistent early treatment protocol. And, like I said, maybe we do and I just don't know about it. I hope we do. I'd be really curious about who JRE has reached out to that's said no, and why any of the current experts might be unwilling to go on. JRE's platform and reach is bigger than all the news outlets combined, and he targets the demographic they have the hardest time reaching. If I was a vaccine expert and thought they were totally safe and had the data to back it up, I'd be itching to get on his show and slam dunk any argument to the contrary. In Harris' case, his rationale for not doing that seems to be that even having the discussion is inviting problems; I disagree. I think if you could see a pro-vax, pro-mandate person absolutely slam-dunk Rogan or McCullough or whoever was debating on a platform that large, it would go a long way towards influencing the hesitant. All the people who think the Earth is flat and vaccines are a microchip from Bill Gates are already too far gone to sway. I'd bet money that JRE has reached out to multiple sources and got turned down by them all.
I bet you’re right. Look at how he treated Sanjay Gupta. Joe Rogan isn’t actually interested in learning something. He’s determined that he can bro-science his way out of it because it kinda sorta worked for him. He might be open to listening to what experts have to say, but as soon as they are done trying to explain something fairly complicated about epidemiology or how vaccines truly work, he then arrogantly chimes in with some oversimplified contrarian statement or some misread of the statistics. Forget about CNN’s horse medicine attacks on him. He’s been a dipshit about Covid since the very beginning. A real expert wouldn’t want to go on there and “debate” with him about Covid. Because Rogan isn’t a worthy adversary and he doesn’t know anything.