Should Rogan, RFK Jr & Peter Hotez Debate? | Krystal Kyle & Friends

welcome everybody to Crystal Kyle and friends today we're going to be talking to Emily jashinski of counterpoints now I heard that some people were saying yes uh we'd like to see Kyle and Emily debate culture War stuff well they didn't specify what they wanted to see in terms of the conversation but that was kind of my assumption so yeah we got some viewer comments over our

breaking points that were like love to see a Kyle and Emily show because sometimes I'll do the show with Emily and sometimes Ryan will do the show with Sagar so sometimes we do interesting mixes over there just based on who needs to be out that day so I was like you know what that actually would be interesting because Emily does a little more cultural stuff than

Sagar and I focus on and you do a bit more cultural stuff especially right now on your channel than we do so I was like that could be that could be a good combo so we decided to to give the people what they want and have Emily on the show you guys are getting what you want and I will say that in my defense that I

view it as purely defensive you don't need to have a defense the reason why would you want to cover no but my focus normally is what was not that for a very long time it was more economic stuff and things of that nature but I just see this rise of the far right and how hard they're leaning into the culture War so I'm like well somebody's

got to say something to say you guys are wrong well you're singing what is a really troubling like backsliding so even on just the issue of gay marriage you know there was uh after the scotus decision there was a sense of like all right sort of mission accomplished on this not only in terms of the politics of it it's off the table but this is not

a focus of the right anymore and then with the rise of you know their freak down over for Trans kids first but then trans everybody and then that has bled into Rising you know Rising opposition to gay marriage among the right so it just feels like from where the Republican party was even in 2016 when Trump was selling like Pride merchandise to now there's been a

huge backslide that you can't just you know you can't just ignore it absolutely and that's why I'm talking about it so before we get into that though it should be an interesting discussion slash debate with Emily I'm looking forward to it yeah it'll be fun um so the first thing I wanted to talk about is the thing that was like the number one issue on Twitter

and the internet over the past I don't know three or four days or whatever so let me give everybody the backstory to this the submarine right well I was obsessed with that yeah I was absolutely obsessed with that you guys covered it as well but no I'm talking about other than the submarine because you're right that is the number one story I saw on my Twitter

timeline people debating debates right and whether or not it's ever worth it to really engage in debate debates and the idea was should you or should you not quote unquote debate cranks right so that's the meta question I want to get to that in just a second but first let me give everybody the back story as to how we got here okay there's this guy by

the name of Dr Peter Hotes who has previously been on Rogan's podcast I believe at least two times um this guy is a vaccine scientist he's been involved in making the patent-free coveted vaccines um and this guy shared an article on Twitter was a vice article that basically said hey Spotify has stopped even trying to stem Joe Rogan's vaccine misinformation so he tweeted that out and

Joe responded to it and said I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars to a charity of your choice if you debate RFK Jr on my show right who he had just had on yeah correct and and uh Peter hotels I don't know if you've watched the podcast or didn't but he read the article and he was basically like yeah you know I've seen a lot of

this stuff coming from Joe so I'm sharing this article so Hotes then declines and basically says I don't want to be on the Jerry Springer Show his argument is like you know I get I don't know if he made this argument explicitly but RFK had a solo podcast with um Rogan and I think his feeling was well just bring me on for another solo podcast right

uh and Joe was insistent on no debate and then a bunch of other uh creators got involved and they're like I'll give a hundred thousand dollars I'll give 250 000 and then the number kept going up and up and up and at least to this point it looks like Hotes has not said okay um I'll I'll debate it so there's three questions here that we need

to get to number one the main point of that uh Vice article was basically like Pro censorship like right somebody needs to do something about this horrendous vaccine misinformation um number two is debating worth it and should Dr Hotes debate um RFK Jr and then number three and this is the part that I think most people are leaving out in this conversation is like talking about

some of the specific claims of RFK Jr to decide whether or not it actually is factually false or true right okay so let's take them one by one first go your thoughts on the censorship portion of the article I mean obviously like that one's an easy one I don't agree that that's the approach that that's the correct approach to quote unquote misinformation we've had so many

examples of where our social media companies have tried to be the Arbiters of Truth and have fallen flat on their face and I think in a democracy or on the side of free speech and in this on the side of Engagement and I guess that's my overall view is listen I have no um I don't delude myself about the number of people who are actually open

to listening to an exchange of ideas and truly changing their mind but I have to believe for us to have a like functioning democracy and as someone who actually believes in the voice of the people and considers herself a populist like you have to believe that there's some group of people out there who are willing to listen to evidence and listen to someone's view that they

disagree with and be moved on that so I do think that in general in general and there are specific instances that you could you know debate the merits of but in general engagement with a touchy topic or engagement with figures who are controversial who are saying things that are flat out wrong which I think that RFK Jr is is a much better approach than just trying

to silence censor like push out of the the conversation yes on the censorship portion I agree with you um I really don't think that these social media companies uh or podcasting Outlets or whatever should be in the business of uh having a Ministry of Truth and determining who's right and wrong and acting accordingly accordingly I will say though I am okay now and I've grown to

this position I didn't always have this position but I am okay with just the like the little labels underneath that are sort of like bother me that doesn't bother me it's like here's what the actual you know most medical bodies are actually saying about X Y or Z or here's what the most experts are saying about historical event why right I have no problem with that

being underneath I don't think that's particularly effective I don't think most people are going to click it it's more of a cover your ass than I am I I understand that but I also I have no problem with that because I do think sometimes people say insane things and it says you give the misimpression of like well this is actually the straight truth and it's like

well not really and here's a little something to show you that there is another side to this that you might want to consider what did you think about soccer and I had a little bit of a debate on the show about the community notes feature of Twitter what's your opinion of that um I mean I guess that sort of falls under the banner of what I'm

talking about right now yeah you could you could disagree and say hey it should only be done by people who have some degree of expertise he's to put sort of a label underneath or you could say do it democratically or whatever uh I don't know I'm 50 50 on how you want to go about doing it or if you do both of those things at the

same time but I think you it's okay to have that because at a certain point um I really don't think that like the free Marketplace of idea ideas and the cream always Rises to the top and the correct answer is going to win out that's just objectively untrue at this point we've seen that sometimes the dumbest most insane most idiotic theories are the ones that actually

get the most eyeballs and get people starting to believe it yeah I I have actually found the community notes featured useful at times because I mean you think about it like your scrolling Twitter you see some claim and it's at least a flag when people have appended notes there that make some sense it's at least a flag to be like let me dig into that like

let me question that let me not just take that at face value especially listen we all have our blind spots or things that fit into like our ideological view of the world that we're more susceptible to believing something that is false on so I have found it personally I have found it useful as a way of being like let me just check into this a little

bit further yeah and also I've noticed this too with the community notes sometimes they give it's it's like gives you missing context right might not make the you know the claim isn't totally different but it's a lot more nuanced than it was first appear and so that is a positive thing in my opinion yeah okay so now let's get to the second part which is the

debate angle to this this is the one where people seem to have the most um uh hardcore decisions and I've reached the most hardcore conclusions uh yeah but what are you laughing at I just it's just like to me it's funny that that ends up being the focus of this whole I know I I agree with that yeah like you guys are missing the forest for

the trees or whatever they're saying because I don't even know if I got that right yeah you got it right I was gonna say farce through the trees because that sounds better but it's far as further trees right yeah very weird anyway yeah so on the debate portion my take is this look I'm under no Illusions about how well debate works I honestly think it's more

of a performance than anything else it is and usually the person who's more charismatic and just more likable or more confident yeah it ends up winning yeah that's usually how it works so it's really not the way to ultimately determine truth having said that um I don't like the totally defeatist annihilistic attitude of like you can never uh you know engage with it because then you

legitimize the opinion which is something a lot of people say and look I I want to be kind because I kind of get it like CNN used to have these debates between somebody who believes in global warming like uh Bill Nye the Science Guy versus Marcia Blackburn the congresswoman who's a climate science tonight yes and they would debate it as if it's a 50 50 proposition

when it's not or they would debate you know intelligent design versus evolution and that's not really an actual debate and you're giving the misimpression that it's a 50 50 issue when it's not however having said that it's like what do you do if these bad ideas that are incorrect are just spreading unchecked is it just like unilaterally disarm and you're not allowed to engage with it

because if you engage with it you're like somehow by definition making it stronger I don't necessarily agree with that I think sometimes you're in a position where you have to respond to it but I will say this for Peter Hotes specifically I don't blame him for saying I don't want to do the debates I don't think he'd win it yeah I think he might be right

on factual stuff but I don't think he's going to deliver it in a way that is going to land better than the way RFK does it so what I wish he would have done is said I'm not good at debate just you know full disclosure I'm not good at it yeah so I'm gonna bring in this person who I I trust their judgment I think they're

right on the issue and they all stand they have the communication they have the communication skills to do it that's what I think would have been and people still would have spun it like the fact that you specifically don't want to debate is because you know you're wrong I don't buy that at all yeah I don't buy that at all I don't think anyone is under

like a moral obligation to debate any one person sin on any one particular program so yeah with regard to hotels like if he feels like he's not up to the Challenger for you know he may be more of the view I don't directly know but he may be more of the view of like don't platform the views and more of the sort of pro-censorship incline and

so he may be coming at this from an ideological position that I don't hold but like I said I don't think any one person is under some sort of like moral obligation to debate any particular topic even if it's a topic you have expertise in even if it's a topic you've weighed in on even if it's a topic you've done other media appearances on that doesn't

doesn't land with me with regards to there's two pieces here there's like the principle of do you platform these views and do you engage with these views and is it problematic if you engage with people who have you know quote-unquote problematic views which again I I genuinely think RFK Jr on vaccines I think his views are I'll get i'll get a wrong in a second but

so do you engage with that's like a principal thing I I just disagree with people who say as a matter of principle you don't do that okay I do think there's a tactical question of when is it useful right what's the setting what's the context in front of what audience with what moderator with you know who's in there and how prominent are the views or the

person that you're going to be going up against and I think if it's something that's really Fringe that is truly a sort of like you know crank ideology that doesn't have a lot of purchase the Earth with the American public the Earth is flat yeah they're you're not really doing anything beneficial Holocaust denialism you are kind of hypotenialism giving oxygen to something that didn't have a

lot of oxygen but you know with the anti-vax stuff it's so prominent it's so widespread you have to Grapple with it in one way or another and if you have somebody who can debate it effectively and is right that is a good way to go about it the cat is already out of the bag it's already out of the bag it's gone it's not happening for

a while I mean it's it's gotten supercharged with covid and the other thing in terms of RFK Junior I mean this is somebody who's pulling 20 percent in a Democratic primary has a huge online fan base is becoming increasingly prominent has a very powerful voice you know his organization is also you know influential in terms of the whole anti-vaxx world so I don't think with him

in particular I don't and with that Viewpoint I don't think you can just say like oh we can't give it oxygen it's past that point it's got the oxygen now you do need how you handle it how do you handle it you do need people who are experts and who are effective communicators to at least do their best I also think that um like Joe has

inserted himself in this in a sort of um I don't know what the right word is but in adversarial way right that makes it seem like if he were to host the debate he would be really unfair on the side of RFK Jr and from seeing it and you know he he obviously let RFK Jr say what he wanted to say Joe has said his own

things about vaccine specifically the coveted vaccine and eye rematch or whatever but from watching Joe in these sorts of interactions in the past I don't think that he would be like why wildly unfair to whatever expert came on and tried to debate this subject and the man has the largest podcast in the world surely there is some percentage of that audience that might have listened to

the RFK Jr podcast and been kind of like oh he's got some points on this stuff that would have their views shaped that are sort of like not hard in their views that could have their views reverted if you had someone who was effective on to go Point by point of like all right you cited this study but here's actually the problem with that and here's

the retraction and here's the point that undermines the point that you're making I do think that there are some Minds that could be changed so to read to recap here and then we'll get to the final point which is the specific RFK claims on the censorship question I'm against it you're against it that's not the way to go about it I'm fine with the community notes

thing or a banner that says here's you know better information on that yeah but that's as far as I'm willing to go on the debate question I I'm Pro debate but I would understand if Hotes does want to do it because I just don't think he's a good communicator I just don't think he's a good debater I think he would get railroaded even though I agree

with him more on the substance so I think a better debater should step in for him and debate the question like on Pro debate but just I wouldn't use him just because I think he would do a disservice even if he's factually correct okay but I haven't watched him enough to say to be honest with you I've seen enough of him where I don't you know

he's got he's some people just have that thing where you don't want to pay attention when they talk and they're they come across as like you're just like no and he's got that to me to me now that could be Niche on my perspective I think he's done a lot of great work he does patent free vaccines which is literally the thing that everybody was saying

we should be doing if you want to defeat big Pharma you go to the person who does the patent free vaccines right he's not making money off it the big farms it'll come to make money off it so in some ways he's a hero in some ways the anti-factor should be the ones who are like well at least this guy's doing it the right way yeah

right he's not you know price gouging as a result of it anyway I digress from that let's get to the to the main question now because a lot of people are using this exchange to then go aha so you know RFK Jr is right because he's stuck in the debate and that look all I have to say to you if that's your take is get off

the internet like you have toxic internet brainworms yeah and so I actually I went through a lot of the claims just because and just a cursory look you know just doing basic Google search and reading a couple different sources yeah so one of the big claims that he was making over and over is that vaccines cause autism Dr Andrew Wakefield is the guy who really brought

this into everybody's Consciousness and he had a couple studies on this well he had his medical license revoked because the studies were wrong they were retracted for being flawed and they weren't just a little flawed they were massively flawed they didn't even have a [__] control group in his first anti-vac study so I think the thing that frustrates a lot of people who are pro science

and watching this unfold is that like he's not even close to right but you're getting but you're giving you're giving people the impression like oh you can't just he's so his ideas are so unbeatable that you can't even engage with him and it's like that's just fundamentally not true so um and on the vaccines cause autism point the claim is well it caused autism because they

have mercury in them or more specifically thimerosal and the thimerosol was taken out of the vaccines in 2001 right that's the first point the second point is even if it wasn't there are two kinds of mercury there's methyl Mercury which is hazarus and then there's ethyl Mercury which isn't and it was the non-hazardous version that was in the vaccines yeah so like we're not even we're

not even close to a good claim here and any basic research you're going to walk away going oh well that's questionable at best yeah well and there's another point that he makes and I don't watch his Rogan appearance so I can't say whether he made this in um in that particular appearance but I've seen him make it a number of times that's like you know autism

rates really started to rise at this certain point diagnostic well two things so in the 90s when you know there was this spike in uh instances of autism and there's only a few things that you could attribute it to and this is one of them right but there's two things number one yes the Diagnostics and like the definition changed so suddenly you had more people meeting

the definition and you had more diagnoses than you had before number two after thimerosal is taken out of the vaccines the rates of autism continue to rise saw prevented vaccines or excuse me prevented autism if I'm using this guy's logic right exactly if I marry us all back in I mean it's a it's a classic fallacy correlation doesn't equal causation and so when you take the

thing out that you said was the bad thing and the race of autism still rise that's very inconvenient for your theory that that was the original cause correct now he also goes on to be fair because I went through a bunch of the claims that were like the bigger claims in the podcast he makes these big claims about Wi-Fi and how or 5G or whatever and

how it causes leaky brain Etc and from my uh research on it uh Wi-Fi is definitely radiation okay and there's short wavelengths for radiation and there's long wavelengths the short wavelengths are considered bad the long wavelengths are considered relatively safe so this is the long wavelength kind but to be fair we really don't know there may be problems associated with Wi-Fi there's some evidence that it's

possible but this is one of the more like it's an agnostic area so when people say like it definitely doesn't that's actually we don't know that right but the problem is RFK is the opposite extreme where he's like it definitely does and it's like no not necessarily we don't I don't understand why some people aren't comfortable which is agnosticism on some fronts sometimes it's okay if

you don't know the intellectually honesty thing to do is to say I don't know which gets to my biggest problem with RFK Jr is that he oftentimes makes these claims very confidently in a bombastic way and the second I look them up they crumble under minimal scrutiny yeah this thing he's been going around saying uh you know the US has given eight trillion dollars to Ukraine

that first of all we spent seven trillion in the entire war in Iraq and that's when you extrapolate out to the year 2053 and you include the interest yeah you're telling me we sent more money than we spent in our entire 20 plus year in the war in Iraq then we did you in Ukraine so when I look it up the highest number I get and

most of the estimates are way lower than this also it's like 100 to 150 billion is where most people say the most you that I've seen is maybe 200 billion is the amount that we sent Ukraine you are [__] 40 times off and you're saying it like it's an iron-clad Stone Cold Fact so I actually believe Peter hotez when he says I don't want this to

be the Jerry Springer Show I'm not doing a service if I debate this with you my only disagreement would be I get it you're not going to debate you're not as good of a communicator but for the love of God send somebody in there who is a good communicator who is an expert on these things yeah and then you guys have the debate because you know

it honestly forgot it's not going to be that difficult to say here's where you're wrong Jamie pull that up and then they pull it up because there's one point in the in the podcast with RFK where Joe says Jamie looked that up because the claim is you know Wi-Fi causes leaky brain it has all these problems with it or whatever Jamie pulls up but this isn't

Jamie's fault because he didn't know it looks like a super legit website right but they go to like I don't forget the name of Children's Health fund or something like that or environmental health fund something like that it's a website and it says that that claim is true but that website is one of RFK Jr's website and there's no disclosure about it like he's connected to

that website yeah and you know Joe sees that and God bless him but he's like oh my God it's true we got to get rid of Wi-Fi and it's like oh for the love of God you need to get on somebody who's educated in these things who's an expert and who is a good communicator who is charismatic and can go back against the claims because to

your point I do think if somebody said hey that's wrong and here's why that's wrong and Joe's there if you show Joe hey here's a reputable source that says it's wrong I do think he'll be like okay maybe that is wrong got it or at least move to agnosticism right right but unfortunately rfk's out there and he's saying the things he's saying and there's just no

good check on him and it's like you pick the most like doofy people imaginable to to you come and fight me it's like even if hotels was right about everything he said everybody's gonna be like Boo Boo screw this guy boo yeah yeah he just doesn't have that aura about him the Charisma about him very possible but I I don't accept the just complete nihilism of

in no circumstance on any platform of any person who does debate change much it's just purely about performance Etc I mean yeah I do think some of these claims need to be effectively checked and I just want to say too about rfkg Junior who I've now interviewed a couple times and had you know had some tense exchanges with had some good exchanges with I don't doubt

his sincerity I don't doubt that he believes the things that he is saying and there are certain things that I agree with him on but if I had to say you know this is a man whose dad and uncle were murdered at while he was very young and both of them probably through some deep State conspiracies that's going to make you more inclined throughout your life

to probably believe in some of the conspiracy theories that because you know now Clips are surfacing of him saying things about like you know the Genesis of the AIDS crisis that seem insane and obviously the vaccine stuff goes way back and um you know things about ethnic-centric bio weapons from China he just seems like he's very inclined to believe anything that is outside of the mainstream

View and I think there are a lot of people part of why he is finding this traction is because there are a lot of people who have had who resonate with that who are so mistrustful of everything that if it comes from outside of a mainstream Source they're actually more likely to trust it than you know something that's been verified but and it reminds me of

know that's even less science-based there are even bigger stakeholders that's even less regulated and they're even bigger snake oil salesmen and so I think I mean specifically on Healthcare I know for a fact he falls into that trap of thinking that the like quote unquote alternative medicine is actually better in some instances than the traditional medical establishment but that same sort of energy pervades a lot

of his views and a lot of the views I think of his online support yeah by the way there's a term for what you were just describing which is one of my biggest pet peeves in the online space it's I call them terminal contrarians where their default is like the the whatever's outside the mainstream has to be right it has to be right and it's like

that is just as big a group think as the people who in a sycophantic way believe everything mainstream media says yeah the thing that RFK said which was the most true which people have lumped into the bin of all of his wrongness is like yeah my dad was killed by the or my uncle was killed by the CIA it's like wait no don't add that into

the you know all the other crazy stuff he says that one's actually accurate so but that's me this is why how mainstream media does a disservice in you know going after these types of people is that they'll just be like literally everything you say like they won't even do the Nuance that I just did where I was like on the Wi-Fi claim it's agnostic right we

don't know yet but he could be right it could be wrong right yeah they don't do that agnosticism they do that you're wrong about everything even the thing you're right about right or acknowledged with the coveted vaccine that it didn't have the protection that it was initially sold of as of like you won't even get coveted if you get the vaccine well that turned out to

not really be true did it protect against severe illness and hospitalization and death yes was it everything that it was sold as no so but if you're unwilling to acknowledge that then you give power to people who are willing to acknowledge that and then they're willing to say a whole lot other stuff that is all not true guys you're only getting a little snippet of the

show Crystal and I debated Emily joshinski on a whole bunch of culture War stuff and it was a lot of fun Crystal and I want to do a lot more of these debate style things for Crystal Kyle and friends so uh please consider supporting the Show links in the video description box below go to sub stack if you pay five dollars a month you get the

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