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Joe and I Don’t Understand
I don’t understand. I’ve never had patients send me links to podcasts about high blood pressure or gastroparesis, but with COVID, it’s every day. I’ve never been threatened by insurance companies that if I use a certain drug to treat a certain disease, they will remove me from their plans. I’ve never been threatened by the CDC that I could lose my medical license if I don’t repeat whatever it is they’re saying today. This is so odd. I really don’t get it.
Joe Rogan must be thinking the same thing. Some group has demanded that Spotify no longer carry Mr. Rogan’s podcasts (which average 11 million listeners EACH), with a letter which includes the following passage:
The episode has been criticized for promoting baseless conspiracy theories and the JRE has a concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals.
So they’re worried about an entertainment streaming service hosting a podcast by a stand-up comedian because they disagree with one of his guests. Strange that they chose this particular guest. Think of some of the other guests that Mr. Rogan has spent three hours with:
Bob Lazar is a physicist who claims to have worked on covert operations within Area 51 that were focused on reverse engineering alien technology taken from alien spaceships in the possession of the United States government. Who knows, right?
He discussed with Graham Hancock his belief that human civilizations extend back much further than what is accepted in academia. Graham also theorizes that these civilizations excelled in arts, science, and technology at levels we can not even comprehend. These civilizations and their progress have since been wiped clean entirely due to dramatic shifts in the earth’s composition.
He’s had Sam Harris on, who proposes that science can be used to identify values, which he defines as “facts that can be scientifically understood: regarding positive and negative social emotions, retributive impulses, the effects of specific laws and social institutions on human relationships, the neurophysiology of happiness and suffering, etc.”
I could go on and on. He’s had a lot of guests (around 1,800) with a lot of controversial beliefs. That’s why he has them on — their outside-the-box thinking makes them interesting, and makes for entertaining podcasts. I’m not criticizing these guests or anyone else. They may be right about some of these things, even though their beliefs are considered to be outside mainstream thought. I admire Mr. Rogan for at least listening respectfully to them, even though I suspect he doesn’t buy all of what they say, either. At least he listens.
And he is allowed to listen. Until the guest discusses COVID and says something that is not in step with whatever the CDC says this week. Then, Mr. Rogan is not allowed to listen. And neither are you. And neither is anybody else.
Once a guest says something provocative about COVID, then Mr. Rogan changes from a stand-up comedian to a threat to humankind.
I find it fascinating that liberals hate Mr. Rogan. He voted for Bernie Sanders, but he’s hated by leftists.
Why? Because he listens.
He has people on his show that he doesn’t necessarily agree with, but he politely asks questions, and respectfully listens to their answers. Leftists hate that.
And conservatives love it.
And leftists are open-minded, and conservatives are closed-minded.
I think that leftists really believe that. I think they honestly believe that they are open-minded, and at the same time believe that people shouldn’t be allowed to discuss opinions that those open-minded leftists disagree with. Maintaining both of those thoughts in your head at the same time should be impossible, but I think it’s common.
I don’t understand. Neither does Joe.
I should be allowed to say what I want. So should Joe Rogan. You disagree? Fine — let’s talk about it. We’ll probably both learn something. Maybe we’ll learn a lot. Maybe we’ll learn less.
But we can’t learn anything when we can’t talk freely.
I had a patient tell me that she was glad that the “COVID fake science” theories were being taken off of Twitter and YouTube. I asked her when, in history, has censoring ideas, and destroying those you disagree with — when has that, in retrospect, been a good idea? When have the book-burners ended up being the good guys? Has that ever happened? Ever? Perhaps — but I can’t think of an example. She couldn’t either, but she was peeved for my temerity.
Tough. It’s ok to be peeved. That’s what happens when you disagree. We argue our point. Sometimes we get peeved.
But when we’re not allowed to disagree, then things tend to escalate beyond “peeved”.
Disagreeing is better than stifling. Let the pot boil sometimes. If you try to contain it, it will blow up. Eventually. Every single time.
This is scary stuff.
Published in General
John M. Barry, if you insist!
: D
That is a brilliant nutshell explanation of our current healthcare system.
It’s a tragedy.
All in a day’s work for the Hegelian Problem-Reaction-Solution theatre we face every day.
I’m going with hubris and pride.
Orthodox people can’t handle heterodox ones. I’m not a big listener of Joe Rogan, but, he serves the useful purpose of providing a variety of views to his audience; precisely the opposite of what most podcasters provide, a preaching to the choir. Perhaps, that’s why he has the gigantic following.
“When have the book burners ever ended up being the good guys?”
Well you know, this time fascistic/communism will turn out better than before. Because last time around, it was not done properly, right? \sarcasm on
It was simply implementation difficulties. This new version of Gates 2.0 will feature a more realistic Blue Screen of Death.
The death will be even deathier!
Voltaire:
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.
That is exactly how I read it: an ivermectin ban.
😡🤬⚔️
And yes, all about money.
😡😡🤬🤬⚔️⚔️
does it not seem like collusion between pharma and insurance providers??
I don’t know how this one has to do with money because Ivermectin is not an over-the-counter drug. Drug company Merck is losing lots of money if Ivermectin is not allowed to be prescribed for Covid.
Ivermectin is off patent and hence Merck doesn’t make much money at all compared to an on patent drug. Its available over the counter in the third world.
Though most of the money to be made off of drugs is in the United States, not in the third world. It doesn’t make sense that Merck would want to curtail their own sales in the richest country. By contrast, according to a cursory Internet search, it seems that many pharmacies are seeking to profit off the huge demand for Ivermectin by skirting the prescription process and compounding their own versions of the drug and selling it.
Merck has a new “Pfizermectin” pill they’re rolling out. Its a bust of course, but who cares if it makes money?
Remdesivir: come for the taste, stay for the kidney failure.
Remdesivir: Run. Death is near.
Reminds me of a St. Padre Pio story. A woman asked him one day to say something nice to him. His answer? “Woman, death is near.”
Merck isn’t in charge of the covid shots, so banning other products opened the door for the Phizer EUA to run the show and corner a bit chunk of money from the mandates. (Not just Phizer, but one example)
I don’t quite understand your explanation, especially because I don’t know what the Pfizer EAU is. Who exactly is making money off of the banning of Ivermectin, and how?
When the only treatment you allow people for the Coof is the clot-shots, the makers of the clot-shots are going to make a lot of dough. When those same companies bear no liability for the damage done by their clot-shots, why, goodness! Most corporations can only dream of being so well-treated by the government.
But there are plenty of other medications and treatments that are approved for Covid patients, some are even extremely cheap. For some reason Ivermectin and Hydroxychloriquine have been singled out for banishment among many drugs that were not.
Has anyone talked about phenazopyridine (Pyridium)? I took some at a very low daily dose for a while and I didn’t get covid AND all my finger nails stopped splitting and my toenail fungus went away. Whodduh thunket.
Added: This was a year and a half ago, and it still is fine.
In another dimension, that’s called Moral Hazard.
Golf in Paradise?
Examples? I was under the impression COVID was largely going untreated until hospitalization.
That’s certainly been the case. “Get rest, don’t call us until you can’t breathe” has been the standard response from the medical-industrial establishment.
Imagine how many might still be alive if they’d been given therapeutics as soon as symptoms developed.
The official COVID song of the CDC is Miles Davis Kind of Blue.