#1078: Joe Rogan(?)

Joe Rogan is well-known as a stand-up comedian and commentator, particularly for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, as well as for hosting the NBC reality show Fear Factor and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. His new show, Joe Rogan Questions Everything, premiered on Syfy in July 2013, and is his newest outlet for JAQ-ing off.

As so many celebrities and semi-celebrities Rogan has been weird for a time. His use of sensory deprivation and the isolation tank, for instance, has allowed him to gain various insights into the nature of consciousness and improvement of performance, health, well being and creativity – according to himself, of course (you can see him rant about it here). But his primary application for inclusion is his endorsement of virtually the whole gamut of conspiracy theories – yes, Rogan is just JAQing off, except that, as with most people JAQing off, he isn’t really just asking questions. He is finding holes in the official stories. And you know what that implies about his mindset. And to add fuel to the fire Rogan seems to bring up his conspiracy nuttery at pretty much every and any possible opportunity.

The moon landings? You can see him raise some “tricky” issues for Phil Plait here. (There is a summary of the event here and here, and discussions here and here). And completely in line with the results from research on memory bias Rogan couldn’t remember at all what happened a few weeks later and – despite being utterly refuted and debunked – misconstrued the discussion so as to conclude that no one were able to answer his questions, which they rather evidently were.

However, it counts strongly in Rogan’s favor that he has later apparently admitted that the moon landings were probably real. He hasn’t quite gotten there with regard to his beliefs that the U.S. government is behind 9/11, however (discussed with Rosie O’Donnell here), or with conspiracies surrounding Area 51, or – in particular – the weird Project Blue Book conspiracy, a series of studies of UFOs conducted by the US Air Force which they claim ended in 1970.

Diagnosis: Conspiracy nut, but Rogan does not appear to be as deeply mired (or as irrevocably lost to reason) as someone like Alex Jones. This may still end well, though it probably won’t.