For a brief moment in time, I attempted to blog under a different domain and Internet handle to be unencumbered by a "personal brand." These short posts were more documented streams of thought than fully written articles.

Joe Rogan is a comedian. I saw him in Washington, D.C. probably about a decade back. Hilarious. Rogan's comedic style is absurdist. He attempts to use absurd language and scenarios to draw out the idiocy in the mundane and to poke fun at observed structures in society. Rogan has said multiple times that he's not a smart guy, but he just memorizes stuff that smart people say.

A few comedy specials back I noticed that he was going out of his way to overemphasize that the jokes he was making were only jokes and nothing more. He seemed to be well aware of the "cancel culture" around absurdist statements and tried to use his comedy special to tone down any audience (or Internet vitriol) before anything was stirred up. I found that odd at the time, but completely understand it today.

Rogan is also a left-libertarian who supported Bernie Sanders mostly because he felt that Sanders was the most consistent politician running.

Why am I writing about all of this? Because Rogan is a comedian who has used his fame to start discussions and he's willing to start those discussions with just about anyone—for better or worse. This has led to him giving equal air time to science as well as buffoonery, and has seen him stray off into exploring conspiracy theories (e.g., the moon landing was fake), and questioning the current COVID vaccine drive. He's said a lot of stupid things in his podcast. Sure.

One thing Rogan is not? A medical doctor. I get why people want Rogan to stop with the anti-vaxxer sentiment. I wish he would too. I understand why some are calling on Spotify to eject Rogan (or censor him)—even though I disagree with censorship. But I'm often left pondering one simple thing: If people are getting their vaccine advice from Joe Rogan, we have a completely different problem that needs to be addressed.

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