Being a comedian does not magically relieve a person from their responsibility to not credulously spread around dangerous pseudoscience during a pandemic. Plus, that's simply not very funny. By the way, GP did not say "be more serious", as you likely know. They said he should take his enormous reach more seriously.
That metaphor doesn't work though because Joe Rogan is a person, not a monkey. Give a person a machine gun and if they shoot someone you do blame them.
"Being a comedian does not magically relieve a person from their responsibility to not credulously spread around dangerous pseudoscience during a pandemic."
Yeah, I think it does. Has he been cancelled? Nope. Does he stop making jokes about almost anything? Nope. Do you listen to his podcast? Nope.
You know how he became so popular? From talking and being open minded. That's _all_ he does. He ain't doing it to be an influencer yet "journalists" actually waste time writing articles like this. I guess the haters need something to read too?
Sure experts can make mistakes. Which is why it makes an enormous amount of sense to avoid taking the opinions seriously from people that are not even experts because they are significantly more likely to make mistakes based on incomplete knowledge or poor understanding of it.
Imagine drowning: If we were talking about expert lifeguards vs. some random beach goer and you had to choose which would try & save you, would you choose the expert lifeguard or the random person?
And sure, Lao Tzu may be right about compassion. It's also irrelevant in this discussion.
Every influential social network already has disclaimers with links to authoritative information about C-19 for those who choose to inform themselves.
"Visit the covid 19 information center to learn more"
These are all over and post on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc whenever certain keywords trigger it.
I think this is not enough. We need to replace all right of center entertainment with videos of Dr Fauci reminding us to wash our hands, wear masks, get our shots and do the right thing by staying home. Not enough people are getting this message.
