Mailbag: Giant Bomb Mailbag: Mikes, Malts, and the... Mintendo 64

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Double mailbag!

A mint malt Mintendo!

two mailbags in one day!

I never realized how dang loud the rest of this floor is

nice!

*Maltbag

the couch is getting used again hell yeah!

Is this the old upstairs office? we need a Ben's Lens office walk around next!

THE COUCH OF LEGEND

Clean those fingernails, Ben!

@janman That's a nice jacket.

Mike Rowe is a brutally honest, yet real dude. Hard to hear Brad hate on the poor guy.

Mike Rowe is a national treasure. Sad to think that someone even moderately vocal about fairly reasonable conservative beliefs would be talked down at like that. I'm far more conservative than he lets on to be, I'd love to hear what the staff thinks of me!

He also does a ton of good and helps a lot of people out. And he makes a hell of a lot of sense. He's had a few very weak accusations thrown at him because he believes in hard work, personal responsibility, being skeptical about consensus in science, etc but none of the accusations I've seen really hold any water when you glance at the context.

The most problematic thing I can think of that he said was talking on the issue of fatherless homes and children: which is all backed up by astoundingly strong statistics.

Everything else was people making shit up and tacking it to him with absolutely no basis.

If I had to guess it's his views on global warming that is being held against him but his stance is literally: science isn't always right the first time, science is where it is today because people are skeptical. Nothing else. Not really offensive.

Seemed like a real strong response even if you generally don't see eye to eye with him... he's fairly moderate as far as second ammendment supporting, skeptical, blue collar types go. And does a ton of good through charity.

I love Malta. never had it in a can, though.

@opusofthemagnum:

I didn't know Mike Rowe was a climate science denying guy, that's too bad. So I gave it a google:

If any of the GB dudes made a video this dum-dum I'd throw their bobblehead in the trash too.

(A perfectly legitimate product, according to eBay. They even spotlight the seller!)

Man, Jan is one cooool MF!

@clockwork_saint: Yeah I'm really not sure where that hate came from. Most of what Mike does is promote tradesman jobs and training, which is a really important issue that people don't tend to talk about.

@opusofthemagnum: Yes, skepticism is an important part of science. That's why actual climate scientists practice skepticism and have been conducting study after study after study and yet there is still an overwhelming consensus. Mike Rowe, along with all other climate change deniers are not "skeptics". They're paranoid conspiracy theorists at best (or willful anti-intellectuals at worst) who hide under the guise of "skepticism" to refuse the advice of scientific experts for either just the sake of controversy or to appeal to an audience of people with an irrational blanket hatred of science. If Mike Rowe (or ANY "skeptic") were truly a scientific skeptic he would conduct his own climate change research and find his own conclusions, but instead he just digs his heels into this *belief* that climate change isn't real and uses the excuse "science can be wrong!" to justify his beliefs. It's just like anti-vaxxers. The loose concepts "science can be wrong" or "skepticism is important" are weaponized to support non-scientific arguments. It's bad science and should be called out for the chicanery it is.

@opusofthemagnum: Yea, typical San Fran elitism/tribalism to look down on people who have even EVER SO SLIGHTLY differing opinions.

The guys usually do a pretty good job of not being political, because that's got nothing to do with video games, which is what brings us together here. Very sorry to see it pop up here and I hope it's a one off and not a trend. First time in a long time I'm not watching a GB video I started to the end.

I know they do it for the sake of the video, but I cringe slightly when they try drinks straight out of the box. I can't stand warm drinks. Of course it would taste better cold. It doesn't do it service to try it at room temperature. Malt beverages are pretty common in the "foreign/worldwide" section of the grocery stores I've been to, though, so not that big of a deal here.

Soup Soda sounds really good. I'm sure it wouldn't be but I'd still try it.

I'm pretty sure they've openly disagreed with this sentiment on a bombcast one time.

I think the profit motive behind climate change denial is really the root of the matter, THAT'S what's worst in this scenario.

Decades from now, I'll tell my grandchildren tales of the Day of Two Mail Bags.

Somone off the cuff saying they heard Mike Rowe express some troubling opinions is not the same thing as saying he is a bad person or advocating that people should think he is a bad person. Your connotation leap here seems more ridiculous to me then what Brad actually said.

This is a really silly comment and I pray not to be included in the "us" used here.

#maltedlife

Do we really have to wait till friday for robo labo content??

@fatalbanana: i never said anything about "advocating that people should think he is a bad person." i didnt think that happened at all. also brad can have his own opinion im not complaining about that, im just saying that forming your moral opinion of a person based off of a few things on the internet that you dont necessarily agree with is ridiculous. something that i think has been getting out of hand on the internet as a whole recently.

now YOUR connotation leap here, yadda yadda yadda i dont really care, its a dumb argument anyway.

Is the Global Warming thing the only thing Mike Rowe's done that's "bad"? Was a huge fan of his and Dirty Jobs but the way Ben and Brad immediately dismissed him in a childish manner made it sound like had done something way, waaay worse.

Mike Rowe went from The Dirtiest Jobs to the dirtiest job of all: car spokesman.

Mike Rowe thinks emojis signify the demise of language.

The guy's a fucking idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1f9Gr0xAhY

@elite49: If you're a climate change denier, that's bad because it means you have a very warped view of the world.

@oprahtrain: He's on record in multiple places saying lots of really dumb things and standing by them over the years. You can't just misrepresent people's criticisms as Twitter hearsay because he "seems like a genuinely good guy".

There's way worse things than being an idiot who doesn't believe in climate change but I can see the other things people have been saying already.

@garwalk: opinions is opinions man, im just saying you dont have to throw the man in the trash can, ill happily take him and his dumb bobbling head

Mike Rowe sucks hard, Brad is right.

Come for the mail, stay for the slick Mike Rowe burns

Great tone here. I see it's open season to trash people as long as they're the "right" ones to trash but if anyone tried to do it from the other side this would get shut down as hateful and intolerant and comments would get erased.

If not for double standards some people would have no standards at all.

I've liked Giantbomb so I can avoid hateful intolerant people so it's really frustrating to run into it here especially from the staff.

@thallium: send Mike a Brad Shoemaker bobblehead and maybe he’ll trash it live on his next Tucker Carlson appearance

@thallium: I mean, there definitely exist plenty people out there who deserve to be trashed as much as possible. There's nothing wrong with shaming and trashing people publicly as long as they deserve it.

"Tolerance" doesn't mean shitty people should get away with being shitty without fear of recourse. Public shaming and ostracizing are effective and good methods for dealing with racists, bigots, etc.

That said, I don't really know anything about Mike Rowe and can't find anything particularly intolerable through a basic Google search, so I can't speak to whether or not he deserves to be talked about in such a way. In general, though, there's nothing wrong with public shame and ridicule geared toward the right people.

Interesting to see the Mike Rowe Defense Brigade in here.

Mike Rowe is good human being.

Hey everyone! It turns out someone can do good things that are worthy of praise, AND that same person can express opinions which are unfortunate and are worthy of criticism. It's complicated! It's extreme! It's REAL LIFE!

Audio seems to be slightly out of sync with the video, both in the download version and on the site.