The Expert vs the Podcaster...

Sam Harris's analogy nailed the issue of believing a subject matter expert over a podcaster.

Paraphrased: 'When experts play tennis, they must play by the rules or they'll be destroyed by their peers and even deplatformed. When podcasters play tennis, they can get away with playing without the net'.

There is no place to hide when the expert gets it wrong, either by accident, by design or by deceit.

When the podcaster is outed as plain wrong, they can run to safety by claiming they're 'just someone who's asking questions ... not an expert'.

The podcasters' MO is to put it out there straight up that they're not experts. Once that's out of the way, they then wax lyrical about the subject they admit they know nothing about, yet expect their opinions to be equally as valid and respected as any expert.

This sleight of hand has made the likes of Joe Rogan, Dave Smith and dozens of others attain a status of authority they don't deserve.

So much for the alternative media digging for the 'truth'...

In the end, they're as bad or worse than the legacy media they claim always lie.

And, as Murray correctly pointed out, 'If you go on the Joe Rogan show and start talking about MMA knowing nothing about it, Rogan will be quick to out you. If you agree that you know nothing about it, but just want to talk about it for hours on end anyway, and still have your opinion respected, Rogan is quick to harshly disabuse you of your delusions.

Yet Rogan will have complete frauds on his show spouting subject matter bullshit that he likes to hear, and sit at their feet, occasionally grunting 'WOWWWW', or 'PHREWWWW' at their drivel and then spend the next month or more defending the bullshitters against subject matter experts, and even denigrating them in their absence.

Leroy wrote on Apr 18^th, 2025 at 9:45am:

So, you only listen to people you like, or would be predisposed to like, then.

Before his descent into partisan politics, Rogan played 'the dumb guy just asking questions' and his episodes where he had actual subject matter experts on were/are more than worth listening to.

What happened recently, I'd bet, was he got bought by Trump fanatics, like Rogan's closest friend, Dana White (watch that name... it'll come up time and again when it comes to people flipping for Trump), and Elon Musk, and has now become a Trump 'extremist'.

His occasional foibles, like his obsessive admiration for and defence of Graham Hancock, were a warning sign that his 'dumb guy just asking questions' schtick was a facade, but they were few and far between among his 'experts' podcasts.

Rogan has gotten so extreme in his defence of Musk that even his comedian mates are questioning his motives for doing so.

As for not listening to Rogan, I rarely listen to his podcasts with comedians... they're just about a couple of 'dumb guy' comedians cracking jokes and having a laugh... not worth 3 hours of time listening to.

Leroy wrote on Apr 18^th, 2025 at 9:27am:

He did. He was referring to the Douglas Murray/Dave Smith episode on the Joe Rogan Experience.

Both Rogan and Smith made the claim that everybody had a right to voice their opinion, something Murray was not disputing, and also hold that when they're called out, it's OK to say, 'we're just dumb guys asking questions', yet rant about it for hours while constructing the pretense of having considerable knowledge of the subject matter.

In other words, when they're called out, they claim, in Harris's analogy, a right to 'play tennis without a net' and sill be taken seriously as a 'tennis player' equal, in that, to professionals.

I'm guessing that it's soon going to dawn on Rogan that he's out of his depth when arguing for bullshit to be platformed, if it hasn't already.

Rogan's show is so wildly popular that even he will recognise that he has a responsibility to get the facts straight on matters he knows little to nothing about, as he does with MMA discussions about which he is an acknowledged expert.

Nom de Plume wrote on Apr 18^th, 2025 at 1:56pm:

I'd say that when it came to who would understand the role of a British Prime Minister, that's exactly what Murray is arguing.

The question would be whether Johnson is commenting in a politically unbiased manner, or whether he is commenting as a Tory and a PM who has privileged, confidential knowledge.

The same must be applied to Murray on Israel.