Social Media Has Collapsed Good Debate
Joe Rogan’s podcast is an awful venue for serious disagreement. But the alternatives aren’t much better.
Last weekend, the vaccine scientist Peter Hotez criticized the influential podcaster Joe Rogan for hosting Robert F. Kennedy Jr., lamenting the fact that a podcast with millions of listeners lent its megaphone to a notorious spreader of vaccine misinformation.
In response, Rogan Hotez to come on his show and debate RFK Jr. with no time limit, offering to donate $100,000 to charity as an incentive. Although Hotez declined, RFK Jr. , leading Elon Musk to that Hotez was scared of debate. Given the audiences that Rogan and Musk command and the following that RFK Jr. has cultivated, the tweets sparked a kind of pressure campaign that ratcheted up quickly. Within hours, their Twitter acolytes were hard at work trying to shame Hotez into saying
