Joe Rogan BLASTED as Anti-Free Speech and Pro-Cancel Culture

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It’s a fascinating theory: Humans are certainly smarter than the (now-extinct) homo erectus, yet the homo erectus managed to traverse the entire known world — including islands only accessible by watercrafts. Their brains were only half the size of ours, yet they successfully escaped from Africa and populated remote regions of western Europe and southeast Asia.

And they did it all between 1 and 2 million years ago!

Meanwhile, modern humans have been around for roughly 300,000 years. But until about 10,000 years ago, humanity’s accomplishments (aside from wiping out all that yummy, delicious megafauna) were embarrassingly limited: No agriculture. No metallurgy. No large cities. No writing. No great monuments. No enduring culture.

Modern humans didn’t even arrive in Europe until 45,000 years ago! For whatever reason, we just (mostly) stayed in Africa.

And then, suddenly, great leaps in innovation simultaneously appeared throughout the globe, including Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica. As far as we can tell, all four of these regions independently developed complex systems of written languages within 3,000 years.

Before that? Nothing, nada, zilch.

Over the last 10,000 years, we’ve gone from footprints on the African savannah to footprints on the moon. Even within our own lifetimes, we’re firsthand witnesses to the breakneck speed of human progress: We’re constantly — and relentlessly — focused on innovation, refinement, and technological improvement.

Which beckons the very obvious question: What the hell were modern humans doing for the past 290,000 years? What triggered this dramatic change over just the last 10,000 years?

British writer Graham Hancock has a theory: Perhaps a “lost” civilization shared advanced technology with ancient communities. Perhaps a cataclysmic event — such as a largescale flood — forced them to wander the globe, sharing their hi-tech knowledge of agriculture, language, metallurgy, and architecture with others. And just maybe, this is the “missing link” that explains why modern society evolved as it did.

Hancock’s theories have become quite popular. He’s been a repeat guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and his Netflix series, “Ancient Apocalypse,” has been renewed for multiple seasons.

Seven months ago, Graham Hancock debated archeologist Flint Dibble on “The joe Rogan Experience”:

Graham Hancock was destroyed. Obliterated. Humiliated. Discredited. 

When faced with an actual archeologist, his theories were systemically exposed as fraudulent, poorly reasoned, and scientifically implausible. Among the many objections Dibble raised:

• We have plenty of evidence of homo erectus and other archaic “humans,” yet no evidence of this more-recent advanced civilization: No monuments, no tools, no anything. Why would we have so much evidence for one, but not the other?
• With ice samples, we can detect when metallurgy began. If there was an advanced ancient civilization, they apparently didn’t use any nails or metal. There are a few examples of metallurgy in the 5th and 6th millennium BC, but it didn’t begin in earnest until 3,500 BC. 
• Wild seeds evolve differently than domesticated seeds: Wild seeds rely on wind, consumption, or getting stuck to animal fur to disperse and grow; domesticated seeds tend to be larger, tastier, and less prone to “shatter.” Going by the fossil record, if there was an advanced ancient civilization, they didn’t rely on agriculture either.

And so on and so forth.

Hancock cried foul. He claimed that Dibble lied and cheated.

His buddy Joe Rogan went even further: “The debunking of the debunking of Flint Dibble, you really nailed him on so many things that he was dishonest about…” Rogan also said, “[Dibble] came on and I thought it was going to be an interesting discussion but it turned out he played fast and loose with the truth.”

Finally, Flint Dibble had enough. Yesterday, he published a “public letter” (in video form) to Joe Rogan:

It’s a blistering, brutal critique of Joe Rogan’s selective bias. Dibble knows his stuff and takes Rogan to the woodshed:

Dear Joe Rogan: Last April you gave me the opportunity to come on your podcast and present real archeology and actual science to millions of people in a debate that I had with Graham Hancock, your friend, who’ve you supported for decades… Joe, you’re great at being funny for your fans, but you’re less great at judging science and as a comedian — not a scientist — that’s okay. I wish you’d recognize, though, that your approach to archeology is not open-minded. You listen to one side, and only one side. Your blind love for Graham goes back decades and it biases your perspective here. …Joe, you can pretend you’re all countercultural, but the reality is that YOU are mainstream media now. YOU are the one who decides who gets platformed and who gets canceled — and you know it. Joe, for someone who claims to defend free speech and oppose cancel culture, you’re clearly just trying to cancel me with this bogus, ad-hominem attack. [emphasis added]

I’m a Joe Rogan fan, but I’m definitely on Team Dibble here. Graham Hancock’s theories are certainly fun to contemplate. And at least on the margins, he’s probably correct: Humanity’s ancient-ancient history is largely unknown, so it would be surprising if there weren’t wild curveballs still to uncover. It’s absolutely possible there were other civilizations that helped shape our past, but after so many tens of thousands of years, our knowledge of them is lost — perhaps forever. 

And there’s no harm in continuing to search for them. Or speculating about them.

But that doesn’t give rise to a fantastical, multicontinental ancient culture that seeded the planet with all the tools for modern civilization!

Joe Rogan’s strengths are considerable. He’s inquisitive, likeable, loyal, and eager to learn. Hey, he’s the world’s most influential podcaster for a reason! Since Election Day 2024, the conservative movement has welcomed Joe Rogan into the MAGA fold with open arms.

But his weaknesses are considerable, too.

The Rogan-Dibble feud is a cautionary tale for conservatives: It’s important for a big tent, majority party to welcome the Rogan Bros into our camp, but let the buyer beware. Don’t accept anything on face value.

In the words of Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”