#1311 - David Pakman

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Hello, David. Here we go, we're live.

David Pakman (0:03)

We're doing it.

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Yes, we're doing it. What's going on, man?

Don't be. I enjoy your show. I really do.

David Pakman (0:08)

Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

It's a pleasure to watch.

You're a very smart guy, man. And like I said, we're just talking about it. You're very reasonable. In this world, I think there's so much of this, the YouTube political world, the YouTube commentary world where people are so fucking toxic.

You know, there's so much negativity, there's so much what they call dunking on people. There's so much dunking. You do a little dunking.

David Pakman (0:32)

Some of it's warranted.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

It is warranted, yes. But I don't know if it's beneficial.

David Pakman (0:37)

To the people doing the dunking?

Joe Rogan (0:39)

Yes, or even to the cause. I think it is temporarily. Well, sometimes it's good because it shows, it mocks people's positions and it makes people realize, yeah, that is a ridiculous position. So if you're on the fence or if you're not really quite sure how you feel about things and you see someone get mocked for a ridiculous position, then maybe you've even shared for a little bit.

Maybe you haven't explored it deeply and you see someone who has explored it deeply sort of expose all the flaws in this line of thinking. It's good. But my thing, what I'm, and I interview a lot of people on the right and a lot of people on the left, and I just hate all this conflict that I'd say the unnecessary conflict, I think is when you watch television today and you see Antifa fighting with Trump supporters and all this weird conflict, I don't necessarily think that most of it is necessary.

David Pakman (1:40)

Necessary? Well, I think the devil's in the details. So as an example, if you want to bring together, I don't know, people who are on opposite sides of the climate debate, for example.

Joe Rogan (1:51)

Good luck.

David Pakman (1:52)

Sure. Right. Well, part of that you could argue is if one side just does not accept science, how can you really bring those people together? Doesn't mean you need physical conflict to resolve it. In fact, I completely agree with you. The physical conflict is totally counterproductive. But at a certain point on some issues, I understand why there's like an intractability to the debate, where it seems completely impossible to move forward. Because whichever side you're on, I would argue that I'm on the right side of these issues, and others would disagree.

When you're far apart in a way that you can't even agree as to like what the starting point facts are about the conversation, how do you even, how do you start?

I have some ideas as to how I try to do it, but it's very tough.

Joe Rogan (2:37)

It is very tough. I just don't think dunking on people always, like constantly shitting on people is necessarily the way to do it.

David Pakman (2:44)

Yeah, and I think it's important to distinguish between just straight up ad hominems where someone is wrong and bad, because I think they're a bad person or they're an idiot or whatever, to recognizing when somebody is a participant in bad faith in a conversation, to when someone has maybe fallen prey to audience capture or whatever else might be kind of influencing what and how they're doing. I think that those criticisms are legitimate, but you got to stay away from just ad hominem.

Joe Rogan (3:15)

Yes, yes, I agree. And I think that it's just so common today.

It's also extremely attractive. The YouTube algorithm, as far as comments go, I mean, it actually kind of encourages it. And so does Facebook. So does, you know, anytime there's a social media platform, that is ad dependent, one of the best ways to get people to engage is to have something they disagree with, so they can get angry.

David Pakman (3:44)

Yes, until it becomes no longer brand safe, according to whoever's running the platform, right? I mean, you go back to April 2017, where I woke up and saw that my YouTube channel made 19 cents the previous day.

And I text Kyle Kalinsky, and I say, I think there's like a glitch. Is it like, it says I made 19 cents, and he says, it says I made 35 cents or something like that.

Something's going on. And it was the beginning of like Adpocalypse 1.0. And that was a rough three week period. And so it's, you know, encourage the debate and the battle of ideas, so to speak, and all of this stuff until advertisers get worried. And they say, you know, our ads are showing up on stuff. That's a little bit touch and go for us.