Debate me, bro. Friday, the world discovered VICE magazine somehow still exists after Anna Merlan published a hit piece on Joe Rogan following his conversation with Presidential candidate RFK Jr. (forbidden). VICE charged both men, and Spotify, with the crime of spreading vaccine “misinformation,” which inadvertently sparked a sprawling, deafening, still ongoing information war. At the center of it all — improbably, obnoxiously, but definitely somewhat hilariously — stands a rather dwarfish little “expert” rule enforcer by the name of Peter Hotez, in a bow tie and a charming Hobbit hat, who earnestly believes “antivaxxers” are worse than terrorists.

Amazing.

It began like this: Hotez, who previously guested on Rogan, shared Anna’s dumb article, and accused Rogan of spreading dangerous misinformation. Rogan responded with an invitation for Hotez to debate the “misinformation” claim with RFK on his show in exchange for a charitable donation of $100,000, RFK co-signed, and Elon amplified the conversation. As Hotez is a high priest of the vaccination church, and Elon gets a lot of attention online, this gesture was interpreted as an act of harassment by the “disinformation” industrial complex. David Frum, some sort of writer people apparently used to care about, insanely characterized Rogan’s invitation to debate as literally antisemitic. Tom Nichols went rarely viral after suggesting a medical ‘expert’ should never accept an invitation to debate with a non-expert on a podcast, and from there the drama quickly broke along predictable tribal lines. On one side, it was “debate me, bro, what are you afraid of?” On the other, it was “believe science, peasant.” An embarrassing display from everyone, which is just another way of saying we were all on Twitter. But the underlying tension here is, actually, important.