(2021-01-31) Solana Prisoners Of Scale

Mike Solana: Prisoners of Scale Joe Rogan has been a favorite target of media scorn for years.

the most popular podcast in history

The natural question is how do we destroy him? Fortunately, there’s a pandemic to exploit, half the country has discarded all notions of open discourse as a value, and Rogan made the mistake of noticing how wrong our public health “experts” have been about pretty much everything. He shared his perspective. He invited guests on his show to share their perspective. He neglected to kiss Fauci’s ring.

The Rogan discourse has been heating up since this past summer’s drama over Ivermectin

Earlier this month, a few hundred random doctors, the majority of whom do not actually appear to be practicing, signed a letter demanding Rogan be deplatformed for his crimes against “the science,”

provoked 76-year-old ex-relevant musician Neil Young to issue Spotify an ultimatum

Property rights are sacred, now, according to left-wing influencers who also want socialism. “Free speech,” according to free speech detractors, is a constitutional thing with no bearing on tech companies. But this is only accurate in the narrowest, most tedious possible sense.

How do we reconcile a pro-censorship worldview with the fact that many of the voices supported by our censors keep getting things dangerously wrong?

Yes, a private company is allowed to censor, but just because it’s a company doing the censorship doesn’t make the behavior not censorship (Is this an accurate definition?)

the Rogan controversy calls to mind a different thing for me. Namely, does this man seem tired to anyone else?

The popular expectation single influencers never be wrong about anything, ever, even when they publicly own their natural human fallibility, as Rogan has done repeatedly and again this week in a kind of soft apology tour, is unprecedented.

We’ve never expected so much from celebrities, and sure, our celebrities have also never been this influential.

Dumb question maybe, but are any of these influencers happy?

Today, close to a quarter of young people want to be professionally famous on social media. The question of what that job will do to them matters.

In 1959’s “It’s A Good Life,” an old episode of The Twilight Zone my dad insanely allowed me to watch as a child, a little boy with god-like powers seals his town off from the rest of the universe, then sets about his primary interest in life, which is of course to play

Last week, I realized this is also basically the plot of Hype House, a new Netflix documentary that follows a handful of massive, young social media celebrities as they grapple with love, friendship, and the impact of internet fame on their lives. Long-story short, it really seems to suck.

The relentlessly-measured status of social media (follower counts, shares, engagement), corresponding almost one-to-one with the ability of social media influencers to earn money

That child actors are negatively impacted by their profession is something of a truism. Are crazy people attracted to celebrity, or does celebrity make people crazy?

But it’s also worth remembering not everyone on the internet is asking for attention. Sometimes a random ass furniture store employee simply dates the wrong girl. His new name is West Elm Caleb.

The element of interest is how the mob reacted, which was first and characteristically completely untethered, and then ultimately, after the damage was done, repentant.

The internet used to be a thing we occasionally entered, like an amusement park. Now it’s a digital world we live inside that shapes our physical reality. What is the new social code of conduct for this new world?

Our “free speech” debate is perhaps more interesting in the context of a new social code than it is in the context of our quagmire legal conversation.

if you ever demanded “misinformation” be banned that we now consider acceptable or even settled science — cloth masks don’t work, the beach is safe, vaccinated individuals can get and spread the virus, this shit probably came from the Wuhan coronavirus factory who are we kidding — maybe just attempt a little humility for a minute, and leave the witch burning to the experts.

(There are no experts)

Long live Rogan.