"Game Changers" strikes back on Joe Rogan's podcast

conversationstarters
vegetarian
debate
vegan
(Jack Bennett) #1

Let the games begin!

The game changer
(traci simpson) #2

I’m listening to it now. I started to watch this on Netflix but then stopped when they started talking about gladiators eating plants.

(Scott) #3

Oh goodie! Something new to listen to on my morning run. Just finished the earlier one with just Chris Kresser.

(traci simpson) #4

they are just arguing back and forth.

(Ken) #5

Haven’t watched it, but Gladiators were.known as “The Barley Eaters”. Evidently being fat provided extra protection in combat.

(Jenna Ericson) #6

I hadn’t watched Game Changers yet, so I did that and then listened to about 2/3 of this interview. My first thought about the movie was, who funded this? Does anyone know? The production value was definitely high, with a guest appearance from Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. It just looked perfectly choreographed to target young, athletic men concerned about maintaining an appearance of masculinity. They literally did an “experiment” that supposedly showed that vegans have larger and more frequent erections!!! I could not stop laughing! Saying this might make me sound like some kind of deep state lunatic, but is there any way this was funded by the government? He said he works for the military and was endorsed by the Defense Health Agency…idk, could also have been funded by big Agra.

Regarding the interview with Joe Rogan, I’ve gotta say it was pretty painful to listen to. I did get the impression that James Wilks is extremely passionate and totally believes in what he’s saying, but I didn’t hear any additional evidence to back up his claims, just rebuttals to what Chris had said about him. He actually reminded me of how I think a lot of people are about keto…we fall down research rabbit holes trying to figure ourselves out. I think he just fell down the wrong rabbit hole :slight_smile: He said he had spent over 1000 hours researching nutrition before doing the movie. He even said he looked at how the studies he found were funded to see if they were biased (which may be ironic/hypocritical depending on how Game Changes was funded). He kept mentioning “the scientific consensus” and how it basically supports a vegan diet, but I don’t think he was aware of the biases that are so deeply ingrained in the research community.

I do love what a good moderator Joe Rogan is. He was basically like, hey, this stuff is really complicated and at least we can all agree we should eat less processed food. I wish there were more levelheaded people like him in the world. #joeroganforpresident :slight_smile:

(Jack Bennett) #7

Regarding the funding, there has been talk that the movie is partially funded by James Cameron’s financial support, and that Cameron also has a large investment in a pea protein company (as well as other “green”, plant-based investments). So in a very real sense, it’s an indirect commercial for one of Cameron’s other investments.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-06-03/-avatar-director-sees-global-salvation-in-plant-based-investing

#8

I just listened to Chris Kresser get manipulated (tactically) and beaten up.

It was stressful to listen to. Like being in hearing range of a 3 hour domestic dispute at the neighbours’. First impression is that James Wilks is very intelligent, combative (he’ll keep hitting even after small concessions in position, and then come back with repetition to keep hitting), relentless and bordering on mental disorder symptoms.

From the start Wilks was in a fight. Kresser was in a discussion. Wilks was obviously coached in the “Appeal to Authority” logic fallacy, but it soon became evident that was a feint. He lured Kresser and Rogan in to a position he wanted them by getting them to agree to some of his rules (about scientific method). Then he kept hitting Kesser ad hominum ad hominum ad hominum. About 3 and a half hours in Kresser finally defends himself by saying, “I think that is a mischaracterisation”. He wanted more of an objective debate on the science they had both brought along.

Exactly.

#9

:joy::rofl:
wasn’t that pretty much the first bit?!
Yes, I know - that was hard to take. I don’t think I got much further than that.

I loved Chris Kresser’s talk with Joe Rogan from a few weeks ago, in part because it felt so even-handed to me. One of the big arguments against the film is that the producer (Cameron) owns a huge pea protein company - but I was so pleased when Kresser said something along the lines of: “it makes sense that since he’s passionate about this, he would start a company that lines up with his beliefs”
I.e. that in itself doesn’t discredit the movie (the content of the movie discredits the movie :slight_smile: )

(Edith) #10

I started to watch it, and then 15 minutes in I figured it was going to be more of the same. It was not a discussion, it was more like a bully session. Then, I saw how long it was and stopped watching.

(Scott) #11

I think this “Gladiators ate grains to get strong or to develop protective fat” is using imagination to its fullest. We just don’t know but let’s look at it with an open mind.

  1. They were prisoners or slaves so I don’t think they were getting a menu to pick dinner from.
  2. They were likely given what was cheap and plentiful.
  3. In kick boxing maybe fat is protective however a wound from any instrument like sword, mace or whatever they fought with would likely be fatal at some point. (Quick, take him to the field hospital)
  4. lifespan was estimated to be short but even this is probably a guess.

So to say they were fed this (vegan) superfood during training of Gladiators is purely fiction. IMO

#12

Some interesting things to bubble through include Wilks’ reliance on the standard ‘consensus’ of authoritative bodies that recommend plant-based guidelines. Without exploring the nuance of how those authorities have become plant food advocates.

Wilks had a throw away comment about Robb Wolf and Michael Eades having been interviewed for the film but not being included. Then a further jab that Wilks’ (vegan?) anthropologists would laugh in Wolf’s and Eades’ face. Interesting. I wonder if there may be more to that snippet?[1] It did make me question if the ancestral eating stuff we get fed might be inaccurate? Wilks was not going to tolerate any suggestion that our ancestors were anything but vegetarian.

Which brings me to the part early in the podcast where Wilks weaves away from a the question of the editing where meat is once again associated with cigarette smoking, thus once again making a debunked association with cancer. Wilks is wide eyed innocence saying it is not a direct association, knowing full well the preceding publicity and norm/meme establishing falsehood of the meat and cancer campaign. Wilks claims that the meat industry is playing by the tobacco industry handbook (with no acknowledgement that other food industries have inherited the same tactics (and business executives), i.e. the processed food industry).

In an ironic example of how special interests are promoted and protected with marketing tactics, Wilks describes how cigarette manufacturers used athletes ― “the ultimate symbols of fitness and health,” according to the movie ― and doctors ― trusted symbols of authority ― to sell cigarettes. This in a movie that, yes, uses athletes and doctors to market veganism.[2]

Wilks would winkle out admissions of fault from Kresser but he, Wilks, never had his ‘defences’ breached, he never conceded to agree that the messages in the film were vegan biased, for example. despite that message being self evident on watching the film. As it would justify, even in part, that the film is vegan propaganda. Wilks stuck to the message, stayed on message, that the athletes represented were ‘mostly plant-based’. Which is where Kresser sits on his views. So Wilks went straight into Kresser’s house and beat him up there. I was impressed once again at Wilks’ coaching/training in politics and/or debate.

That being said Wilks went on to use the tobacco industry ‘playbook’, by avoiding direct answers, and adding in interrupter talk-over loud voiced over-statements then moving away from them once they had disrupted an answer Kresser was trying to give, he created enough doubt and confusion to hide any concerns about the nutritional inadequacy of a vegan diet.

I found Wilks to be very manipulative. Taking minor contextualised concessions from Kresser about grams of protein and forest plots in scientific papers to build up and gradually over blow those concessions (weaknesses?) into statements (of victory) that defied the original context. This tactic was blatant and informs me a lot about how to interpret the statements he makes as the narrator in his film.

I do feel worried that people like Wilks are so adept at creating a conflict and admitting to the ugliness of their approach still to claim victory but dismiss the violence inherent in the act and the damage to the pursuit of truth created. He reminds me of an army commander who would sacrifice troops (truth) to capture a hill (a belief).

  1. " THE GAME CHANGERS is Vegan Propaganda on Steroids." Maybe this blog post in 2018 influenced cutting the Robb Wolf interview out of the film?
(Jack Bennett) #13

It would not surprise me if he (or his backers) invested some money and time in getting coaching in that very thing. Just another slice of the PR and marketing budget for the movie.

(Robert C) #14

I was not.

Here is James Wilks logic.

Chris Kresser had not run into forest plots before so cannot talk about or bring up any scientific studies to support his arguments.

Chris Kresser “But I have taken a masters level course in reading scientific studies.”

James Wilks thinks that is irrelevant and claims over and over again that Chris has no right to discuss scientific studies because he does not understand a particular type of plot.

I am a fan of Joe Rogan but, in this interview, he should have reined James Wilks in a bit - stopping the unnecessary and incorrect name calling and reputation bashing. Defending the movie is fine but attacking a person with huge and obvious tenuous leaps of logic - and then bashing the point over-and-over again is not fine.

If James Wilks was any good at debate, he would at least want to seem like he is trying to uncover or get to the bottom of some truth.

(Edith) #15

I don’t think people believe that any more. I believe they think debate is just to sledgehammer their own point and not truly listen to what the other side has to say.

(Robert C) #16

I agree - in many areas it has moved from “figure out what is right through honest open expression” to “silence your foe through intimidation or even by closing down the venue”.

Productive for their own echo chambers but, not much else.

#17

When the facts arent on ur side, u do what u gotta do.

#18

The science is far from being in. Time will tell who is right but Chris Kresser looks worse than a malnourished vegan.

In regards to what we should be eating. We’re all different with different immune systems and blood types. We would have been extinct long ago if we’re all meant to eat the same foods.

(Scott) #19

I had never heard of a forest plot, neither had Chris or joe. If that is the only qualification to read a study I get it but it is not. When James had to repeat that no less then ten times (could have been more) it made his point weaker. It also made him into that guy who needs to build himself up by knocking someone else down. Not into that.

#20

Debunking the debunking of the debunking

I feel better after Dr. Salad has come to support my biases.