The real problem is that we live in a world where people aren’t smart enough to realise that muppets like Joe Rogan, are half witted conspiracy peddling nut jobs. And consequently, these half witted conspiracy peddling nut jobs become crazily rich, leading the even more dim witted masses down the path of bad, dangerous, or bigoted decision making.
We really are in a world that is that stupid, because the vast majority of people are really, really thick. And these days intelligence is no longer (if it ever was) a pre-requisite for success. We actually live in a society now where intelligence, rational thought, balance, pragmatism, and scientific evidence are ridiculed and rejected on a large scale.
The internet has been a revelation for the proliferation of knowledge and learning, but it also been a warp drive for the advancement of ignorance. Now, most people get their news from fringe sources or individuals with no burden of proof, no journalistic integrity, and no consequences for spreading lies and misinformation. The biggest influencers in our societies, those with the biggest reach and voice are people like your Rogans, Kardashians, and whatever other pop culture numpty you can think of. People who are the intellectual equivalent of a drunken stranger at the local pub on a Friday night, spouting some knee jerk nonsense they heard from a “bloke they know”. Just instead, they get paid on a mass scale for it, and use their platforms to push whatever their latest snake oil is.
I don’t even get involved with a debate about whether Spotify should host his podcast, because the fact that there is such demand for the consumption of the pseudo intellectual crap he peddles, to the point that it’s worth $100mm to them, is a far far bigger problem to me, than what he says. If people were smarter, there’d be no market for it. But they aren’t, so if it isn’t Rogan, it’ll be some other ill informed, ignorant plonker peddling bullshit. And people would continue to lap it up.
It’s easier just to accept that we are all fecked at this point. Because stupid people so massively out number the smart, that’s it’s borderline impossible to get humanity to make intelligent choices on a scale large enough to avoid the impeding climate, health, and geo-political disasters that are headed our way. Instead we will continue to brainwash idiots into voting against their own self interests, and sabotage the best efforts of the scientific community to protect their health, quality of life, and safety.