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Joe Rogan continues to provide some of the most interesting conversations in the world. Yes he seems to have gone down some conspiracy rabbit holes, but he gets interesting people in a seat and has a long ass conversation with them.
Recently he had Vance. A few things popped to me.
-You'll never convince me Vance isn't part of the SSC/Rationalist diaspora, when he goes off of politics he just oozes it.
-For the UFO fans he says he'll keep looking into it but he doesn't have a lot of hope.
-He did a good job defending some of his more questionable personal and political actions (the demon comment, election issues, the current Iran tactics). Less good with some other things like quashing the filibuster.
-Vance states he is an Epstein conspiracy theorist (but not in the popular way), in the interview he focuses more on the financial aspects of whatever Epstein got up to and focuses away from the pedophile stuff, hard to tell if he really believes nothing is there on that end.
-Joe Rogan's haters continue to be annoying and non-credible, he pushes Vance more than I remember seeing him come at most of the political guests I've watched (but is accused of being glazing).
I've been fortunate to be around for or involved in private conversations with "notable" people, it's fascinating. At the same time I'm not a notable person, so even when that's happened I have to just accept the circumstances and hang back. We live in a time where JRE and other things like "In Good Company" (and even smaller things like the brief podcast Enes Y did) give unprecedented access to the thoughts and plans of the profoundly powerful. Previously you had to sit for a public speech or pay for a dinner, now we can really get a bit of a slice of what Vance is about.
What a wonder.
This isn't anything recent by the way. He has believed, among other things, the flat earth, the US faked the moon landing, and 9/11 (or at least tower seven) as an inside job. One of his oldest friends is Alex Jones. He doesn't go down some conspiracy rabbit holes. He's been a conspiracy theorist since almost the beginning
Given that the astronauts were sitting on top of three thousand tons of rocket fuel, where does he think the were headed? (And if NASA had faked the moon landing, why haven't they faked a Mars landing by now?)
I dabble in moon landing conspiracy theories and I wonder about that. Could you shoot a mostly empty rocket over the horizon and claim it was a moon launch? Obviously that wouldn’t get you the radar track, but could that get you the visual?
This will fool muggle masses, but the masses do not matter too much.
There is already conspiracy theory that all rocket launches are fake, and space travel
a/does not exist, because space is fake, you ain't getting through the firmament
b/happens on flying saucers powered by Nazi developed vril antigravity technology, thing so advanced it makes rockets look like dugout canoes
The problem with fake moon landing is that USSR, China and other powers would have to go with this charade. If moon landings are fake, whole cold war was fake, and this means totally fake, with both sides controlled by the same illuminati cabal. Few moon landing revisionists are willing to go so far.
Otherwise, US would for brief propaganda point give their rivals loaded gun pointed on their head.
Imagine USSR or China (or some other great power of the future) landing for real on the alleged Apollo spot, and announcing to the world that there is nothing out there - no flag, no moon buggy, no footprints, no bags of astronaut poo.
The Soviets spent the next half decade getting discount American grain shipments that kept their economy from falling apart. And the Chinese had just managed to get the Americans on board as a partner against Soviet expansionism. I don’t think either one would want to make a meal of any suspicious radar tracks.
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