>> It's the end of the week, and so it's time to take out the trash. Okay, so I will be
going first. My garbage person of the week, this week is the garbage person for I believe
the first time in TDR history. And it is Joe Rogan. Why?
Well, if you follow the news, I think you already know why. But let me first, let me
feed the beast here. It gets hungry in its head.
>> Horrifying. >> Okay, so why, what's that?
>> You put the eyeballs on the top or turn it upside down and shove the garbage person
up in its mouth.
>> That's a good point. It's getting dangerous there. Anyway, why would he be the garbage
person? Well, it has to do with a bit of audio from his incredibly popular podcast. Listen
to Joe Rogan here. >> I actually love Portland. It's one of my
favorite places to perform.
Most of the people there are very nice but there's a madness going on there. You wanna
talk about madness of crowds, that exemplifies that right now.
>> Yeah, yeah. >> And to me-
>> Yeah. >> They've arrested people for lighting forest
fires up there. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> They've arrested left-wing people for lighting these forest fires, air quote activists. And
this is something that's also not widely being reported, that people have actually been arrested
for lighting fires up there. >> Okay, so I'm gonna focus on that last part.
So he points out that it's not widely reported.
Turns out there is a reason for that. It's that it's not true. It's not only not true
but it has been debunked. And it had been debunked days before he did that, widely debunked,
widely shared, easily accessible fact-checking on that claim that had been opportunistically
and partisanly spread by right-wing media sources like Breitbart.
I mean a lot of people saw these tweets from FBI Portland that said that reports that extremists
are setting wildfires in Oregon are untrue. Help us stop the spread of misinformation
by only sharing information from trusted, official sources. They go on to say conspiracy
theories and misinformation take valuable resources away from local fire and police
agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control.
Please help our entire community by only sharing validated information from official sources.
So yes, when they have to chase down these conspiracy theories, that damages their ability
to save lives, save property, and all of that. Both Reuters and FactCheck.org have conducted
further investigation, finding no evidence to back the claims, with the former noting
that local Oregon police departments have been working to quote debunk misinformation
spreading on social media platforms regarding the fake claims of forest fires.
And how bad has it become? It's become this bad. Over the past weekend, Facebook began
cracking down on the spread of this conspiracy theory, days before Rogan's podcast. It's
so bad that it's a conspiracy theory that even Facebook is fighting against.
>> It's not a conspiracy theory. It is a lie.
>> Okay, sure. >> Conspiracy theory is like a lot of people
got together to come up with this lie and perpetuate it. No, no, no, no, this is just
a lie. No one's deep inside the government making this happen. This is a bunch of liars
lying, that's it.
Don't even give it the credit to be a conspiracy theory. Theory is a word in science, that
it's more than a hypothesis. This is just a freaking lie.
>> Yeah, and it's a lie with a point because it wasn't just, I think that's what the fires
came from when it's not, which I guess you could just be wrong.
I would argue the reason that he ends up in here is because we have decided as a society,
indeed as a world, that he should be the biggest purveyor of news for our species. And so that's
what he is. And so he has a massive platform. And thus in the style of Marvel, with great
power comes great responsibility, you need to know what you're talking about, especially
when millions of people will go away from listening to that podcast.
That podcast that is 100, maybe 1,000 times bigger than this podcast and will say, that's
what it is. I don't have to worry about these fires. I certainly don't have to worry about
climate change because it's not climate change. It's left-wing air quotes activists because
he doesn't even believe that those protesters in the Portland area are actual activists
apparently.
He's spreading misinformation that is consequential in a number of different ways to manipulate
people into believing political things that are not accurate, okay? That is the definition
of garbage when it comes to media. >> Yeah, and let's connect it with another
thing in the news, Joe Rogan saying I'd like to moderate a debate with the presidential
candidates.
>> Yeah. >> And a lot of people say, this is a great
idea. This is an awesome idea. It's so exhausting. I like Joe Rogan. I like his comedy. I like
that he made people eat bugs. I like that he is-
>> That was a good show. >> Definitely, I like that he's smarter than
Dave Rubin.
I love that when he's- >> He's 100 times smarter than Dave Rubin.
>> Well, that's the thing is just because he's smarter than Dave Rubin the puppies you're
about to see because you passed the threshold. Those puppies are smarter than Dave Rubin.
Their minds are not reeling from such high level ideas in recovery mode.
But here's the problem with Joe Rogan is that the asset of Joe Rogan is that he will listen
and he'll have a conversation. But unfortunately, he doesn't have that instinct to then do the
research or retain anything else. He thinks he can do it all on the spot.
When if he just did a little bit more research, and then also if we kept it in the context
of him moderating a debate, it is very certain that Donald Trump being there would make him
feel so jazzed and so awesome that we are positively reinforcing the behavior that led
him to spread a debunked BS thing, a lie-
>> Yeah. >> Where we are saying here you go, just because
you're an every man who sits there and ask questions, that is not the job of a moderator.
The job of the moderator is to not let them get away with stuff if they're lying, or at
least identify what to press them on.
Because while he is equipped to combat things that sound like BS to him, he is not equipped
to detect all the BS that's happening. >> You're 100% right, yeah. He is perhaps
uniquely not qualified to do it because his draw why people like him is he lets people
come on and say things.
That's not what a debate is supposed to be about. Now, finally on this, is he lying?
I don't know. I doubt it. >> No.
>> He seems much more like the sort of guy that just gets things wrong because he believes
the wrong people that seems to be a sort of constant thread is that he tries to engage
with these things.
He's open-minded and all of that but unfortunately he exposes himself to people who are wrong
or manipulative or BS. So that seems more likely the issue is, as I alluded to earlier,
you're the biggest one ever anywhere. So you cannot be routinely wrong about things that
are incredibly consequential, let alone all the other potential problems in this area.
It's too important to get it wrong and I doubt a retraction or an apology will come. I hope
that it will because millions of people will hear that too. But it's certainly needed.
>> Yeah, there was another thing he did in the news recently where he was like, he talks
about deadnaming.
And he's like, and some people are like he's just pointing out how bad cancel culture is.
Yes, it's fine. Cancel culture needs three different titles for all the ways it's used.
There's cancel culture when someone else does it. There's cancel culture when you're defending
what you think should be negative consequences for everybody.
And then there's cancel culture that someone is like trying to give you a reason for dismissing
an entire discussion. Those are three different things and everyone calls it cancel culture.
It's so very frustrating. >> It's lumped together.
>> But this comes down to it. If he spent, I mean, he thinks that this thing of left-wing
activists setting, this lie that left-wing activists set a fire in Portland is so cool
that he wants to put all his energy into discussing that and him being cool cuz he's on the inside
of it.
But he needs to spend a little bit of effort researching to see if it's true. And he doesn't
do that, the same way when it comes to deadnaming. He wants to spend so much effort finding some
philosophical way for him to get a get out of jail free card for being a jerk rather
than spending two seconds to figure out what the criticisms are of people who deadname
trans folks.
That's it, just figure it out cuz I know he's decent at some point. He just doesn't, he's
still a performer. He's still a stand up and all stand ups are neurotic balls of garbage.
I mean it's true. I mean this is something- >> Do you say that as a stand up?
>> As someone who has done it before. Not like I don't do it, haven't done it much.
But yes, the comedic mind is the most completely neurotic and messed up mind. You have to find
out what's wrong with stuff and point out but so he still has that.
And that makes him want to defend himself rather than ever admit that he made a mistake,
but that's what's so frustrating. It's just misplaced effort.
>> Yeah, so we have a quick update. Look, this is just, this is the way of garbage people.
When we throw someone in the trash, it causes an effect in the world.
So as of two minutes ago, Joe Rogan, who I have to assume was watching the show tweeted,
I effed up on the podcast with Douglas Murray and said that people got arrested lighting
fires in Portland. That turns out to not be true.
>> But that- >> It wasn't true beforehand.
But that turns out to not be true. I was very irresponsible not looking into it before I
repeated it. That's good that he said that. I read one story about a guy getting arrested
for lighting fires, turned out to be true. But the other, as I read about people getting
arrested for lighting fires in Portland was not true, I repeated it without looking into
it.
It was a really effing stupid mistake that won't happen again, I'm sorry. I would just
critique that one story that he's talking about was about a person who was not affiliated
with those groups, who is lighting a tiny little fire in the median, not causing a forest
fire.
So there's some good stuff in the apology. Hopefully, he talks about it on the podcast
as well. >> Just so that, yeah, how many people it
takes, but if he hosted, if he moderated a debate, Trump would have gotten away with
it. >> Yeah, a tweet the next day wouldn't have
solved it.
Yeah, 100%, so good that he apologized. Hopefully, he does it on the actual platform that he
told the misinformation on. That'll do to whatever extent that it can be reversed, maybe
some of that will happen. We'll see, I don't know. It caused a lot of news coverage of
the story.
Some of that might have trickled down to right wingers. We'll see, but anyway, yeah, these
things are consequential. We gotta get it right, whether you're, small, medium, or the
biggest source of news on
the planet.