kestrel

Waves of BS

Personal entry follows.
///

I settled in to watch a video compilation of, "15 of the Craziest Theories on the Joe Rogan Podcast." I don't have much else to say beyond it's a shame that so much entertainment can become confused with fact.

On the one hand, you have a historian and archaeologist on an episode, discussing the presence of Antarctica on maps from the 15th century - long before Antarctica was "officially" discovered - which is an authentically interesting bit of historical and geographical knowledge. Then on the other hand, you have multiple instances of Joe Rogan explaining his own theories on time travel, alternative universes, black ops, and UFOs.

The way I see it, the pattern proceeds thusly:
1. Meat-head listens to podcast.
2. The content encourages them to do some creative thinking.
3. Since the podcast host said it, and some other retired bodybuilder chuckled and agreed with him, it must actually be fact, and indeed a "repressed truth" that those in control want to remove from public consciousness.
4. Anyone who questions the veracity of such claims is an unenlightened "sheeple," regardless of the bat-shittery and ridiculousness of such a claim, and/or the fact it's an unexamined "theory."

Never mind that item 3 is quite a leap. But assuming that everything a podcaster discusses on their show is in fact a truth, as opposed to merely a different point of view worth considering and/or simply entertainment and mind-wandering is intellectually flawed.

I've encountered a few people who listen to podcasts all day long while doing manual labor: gardening, equipment operation, and so on. Tendencies I've observed with these people include:
- dreadful attention span
- a holier-than-thou, intellectually-superior attitude for nearly any subject
- appreciation and promotion of bat-shit craziness of various intensities on the regular
- hostility towards investigative questions
- cherry-picking of evidence to support their own arguments and dismissal of the contrary viewpoints of others
- a general lack of accepting responsibility and remaining accountable for their actions

Or maybe this one guy I'm stuck working with is just an insufferable prick, even without his shitty podcasts.

I'm dismayed that I feel it's worth my time to rant about this. I can feel my patience eroding with every rising of the tide, and I need to flee to solitude and then comfort-eat my self back into shape again. Every weekend. This is a pattern that cannot continue.

///

kestrel.diary [at] tutanota.com