Is it just me, or is Lex Friendman not particularly sharp?
His questions are not insightful and often guests are visibly frustrated with his ability to follow the conversation.
He has great guests but is too annoying for me to watch.
His questions are not insightful and often guests are visibly frustrated with his ability to follow the conversation.
He has great guests but is too annoying for me to watch.
Now, I've done my share of drugs but this just seemed very disrespectful and his guest clearly was not impressed with his stoner bro questions.
But more importantly, why do you feel the need to put someone down like this? Do you regularly talk about people in this way? Do people talk about you in this way? Just curious.
In several verifiable ways Stephen Wolfram is a genius that has produced great work. (Wolfram Alpha + cellular atomota).
However his communication style in his book 'A New Science' and the Lex Friedman podcast make it clear he optimises for a wow response from his audience more than concise and conclusive communication. For example his notion of 'computational irreducibility' is equivalent with the word 'reality' but sounds a lot fancier and revelatory without adding substance.
When people claim to be authorities they must be held to an extremely high standard. Stephen Wolfram talks at length, but also has substantial accomplishment behind him. Lex Friedman wants to be an authority but fails to demonstrate critical thinking, In previous episodes iv seen him consider how a new perspective was consistent with flat-earth beliefs.
TL:DR; Lex demonsttates little evidence of critical/scientific reasoning, but seems to believe lots of pseudo-scientific nonsense.
I wanted to hear more perspectives on this, and it seems like many people agree
That said my view is that interviewers should be like music or lighting in a movie. It's critical but if you ever find yourself really noticing it then something's gone wrong.
I find Tyler Cowen great, and maybe he spoiled me.