Wait, we're better than this on HN. If you have concerns about an argument being made it's important to articulate the concerns. Pointing out someone's career/reputation is an appeal to authority, and a form of bias.
It's possible that a comedian could be well informed from a staff, for instance, doing research. I am not familiar with John's arguments, but I wanted to address that dismissing him out of hand seems perfunctory.
No were not. We're just more polite and consider it customary to google up someone else who agrees with you that you can cite.
Humans are pretty consistent. The rules of conduct vary between tribes.
And FWIW John Oliver seems to be a pretty decent comedian. His filter bubble certainly informs his work and he's prone to bias but he's an entertainer by trade so I don't count those against him.
Sorry, that was probably too glib of a response. How about this: John Oliver has a history of making ill-informed rants that conveniently skip relevant facts or counter-arguments for the sake of having a pithy little segment that sounds funny and which complements his English mock-outrage. It is not a good argument against nuclear power and in fact it generally only takes a few minutes to point out the rows and rows of strawmen he has set up so that he can knock them down with comedic zingers.
John Oliver does accessible introductions to subject areas for non-experts. I don't recall the segment on nuclear, but in general his pieces are high-level, attempt to be accurate, and like other pop journalism, will inevitably disappoint experts in the field.
