The Dangers of Clip Culture w/James Lindsay | Joe Rogan

That's actually my point. So I was sent a video. I'm going to skip tracks to a different video because I want to make a point that we live in a We live in a mediated world now, right? A mediated epistemology is what I would call it. The media itself, social media, so all of us participating Are able to spin narratives around like a 30-second video. So the other day this guy sends me a video on Twitter and I watch it and it's some black guy With a microphone and you know like in a radio studio and he's like going and he's like, you know, these white people ain't gonna take it no more They ain't gonna take it. He's like yelling. He's like, ah, they're gonna rise up, you know, and it's obvious what you're watching. You're like, man, this guy's like These riots are out of control. And so I wanted to share it, but it was sent to me on Twitter and I couldn't figure out how. So I looked it up on YouTube And so I had like a 40-second clip sent to me and I'm like, you know about this riots and I wanted to show it to somebody And so I go and I find it on YouTube and I watch it and it's the same thing in 40 seconds and it ends But the video that I watched is several minutes and then the next thing the guy says is this president is divisive. This president is the problem It's so divisive. He's causing all his division and it's like holy shit. He's actually talking about Trump And then I kept watching and he's like president Obama has got to go at the end And so it depends on which part of that clip you see the story changes completely I watched the 40 seconds and I was like, holy shit. This is the riots and then oh my god It's about Trump and then boom now it's this dude railing about Obama several years ago And the video was sent to me because it was going crazy with the implication that it was about the riots But it was about Obama. That's crazy. So this is like the deal, right? We you what we're seeing isn't always the whole story And there's live in this clip culture now, which is a real problem, right? And we piece together the story we believe based on you know, our prior assumptions about it like the Covington case exactly Where the kid was just standing there and the Native American guy came up to him with the drum That's right. And he was smiling in the Native Americans face and they got a photo of it And it really looks like this kid's a prick and then he's taunting these Native Americans. Right just peacefully bang on their drums That's exactly right. So we live in this situation now where the I don't want to say the media like it's this entity because actually in a sense We are all participating these clips, you know that people are loading up on Twitter That whole context isn't there and you said, you know Does it just jack everything up to a higher frequency and absolutely it does because everybody can take that clip and then just upload their story Of what they want to have to be true Into that clip and it becomes like it's like in I mean, we're already talking about religion It's like a miracle like, you know back in 2000 3000 years ago, you know, some something weird happened And then you know people one person tells another and another print another and it's like and I swear, you know An angel came down from the sky and touched and he was healed and he could walk again, you know It's like a miracle story But mediated through partially informative video It's almost like you know, everybody's scared that deep fake is coming where they can basically put your face on whatever porn star or saying some horrible thing that you never said Or whatever that's definitely coming right? It's it's it is the precursor to that Mm-hmm because you can cut that clip just right and then all of a sudden it means one thing and if you cut it just another way It means something exactly the opposite or totally different and different groups that want to push a narrative which is like everybody Latches on to it and runs with it and this of course causes crazy polarization. Yeah, right so that same clip I saw I don't know that it would be a good example But you know You could take it as the riots and you know that get one that like I sick of the riots and so the right wings all over It like look at this guy, you know and then boom this president so divisive and now it's the left story and you cut it right there And the next thing you know, it's president Obama, you know and all of a sudden it's which side it switches sides again And it's also and it's also history Yeah, and then even the thing I watched it was longer was four and a half minutes And then the whole thing is like an hour So what really what was really the whole got the poll right whole point and so We're getting away from being able to understand because you know, our attention spans are so short you live in Twitter It's like you have the attention span of like a goldfish man. You can't pay attention to anything We're marinating and dopamine all the time brain doesn't work, right? So you don't have time to like parse anything together. You see this thing you're pissed off your retweet, you know snarky comment Don't you think that also just the the format of Twitter? Itself is just I think it's detrimental to people's mental health big time communicating through these small little Sentences and sorry and little paragraphs of 280 words. That's right characters. Yeah. Yeah, so it's like 30. Yeah. Yeah, and so This I actually called Twitter a deconstruction machine, which is straight out of this again the same critical Postmodern philosophy stuff and I kind of keep circling around deconstruction is the idea that It's the same thing as immediate mediated ideas that we're gonna take a thing apart make it look absurd or we're gonna show show it in a particular light and then You know pull it apart into it until you don't really trust its validity anymore And that's it specifically its purpose is to make it so that you don't trust the validity of the thing anymore And so anything you put on Twitter once you get an account of a certain size at least Anything like I have an account that's big enough now. So I experienced this regularly It's a 100% chance that some jackass is gonna say something that just messes with your head Right and or somebody's gonna take it out of context Yeah They're gonna tell you what they thought you mean and now that's the thing you mean or they're gonna screenshot it and it's gonna Go around and they're gonna like it's like I Mean you're famous enough where it's obviously happens to you all the time I'm sure it's like they take something that you say You know a podcast or you put on Twitter or your shows or whatever and they clip it up and then there's like you know Who Joe Rogan is but then there's like this new Joe Rogan that they created that's out in the universe, right? So they take you apart They deconstruct you They're the real Joe Rogan and your real intentions and your real meaning and then they put it out into the world and there's this new Joe Rogan that is horrible thing or the new Joe Rogan. Maybe that's a saint Well, I always tell people to like if you have an issue with some of the things that I say Guess what? I have an issue with some of the things I say If you were here with me when I say things and you disagreed I'd listen to your point I'm not an idealist or an ideologue. Yeah when it comes to Ideas and that's the concepts. I'm not married to anything that I say, right? So we need to be able to talk about it, right? So you say a thing and then I'm like but I think part of the problem is they can't talk about no They can't have to tweet about it So because they're not in the room and they don't have your attention Right, so then they get angry and that's part of the problem with podcasts as well as like right right now you and I are having A conversation. Yeah, but millions of people are listening to this conversation Yes, a lot of them that wish they could chime in and they don't get to that's what they do is they get angry And they put some stuff on Twitter. I understand the motivation. I understand the thought process behind it I really do but I personally can't engage because it's just too unhealthy