Lex Fridman podcast

ToeMissile

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"Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power."

First saw Lex on an episode of JRE a few years ago and his podcast quickly became my go to. I really like the greater technical depth that he goes into with the guests.


His list of eps w/ the most views on youtube is a pretty good sample:
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Taging Mist Mist since I saw her recently mention an episode.
 
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Mist

Mist

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Lex's less-viewed podcasts are the better ones imo. The ones where he's interviewing other scientists and engineers are just great. The recent ones with Peter Wang and Brian Keating were especially good. The Cyberwar one was pretty good too for anyone who wants a background of how the 0-day economy works.

The ones with Stephen Wolfram get incrementally more nuts in particular and very worth listening to.

I usually don't listen to the ones with the big-name guests, but the Zuckerberg one was interesting, I'll give it that. Mark is a bit more of a human being than normal, and came off as a kid who just wants to build cool stuff, just doesn't really give a shit that some of the cool stuff he built is society-destroying.
 
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ToeMissile

ToeMissile

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Mist said:
Lex's less-viewed podcasts are the better ones imo. The ones where he's interviewing other scientists and engineers are just great. The recent ones with Peter Wang and Brian Keating were especially good. The Cyberwar one was pretty good too for anyone who wants a background of how the 0-day economy works.

The ones with Stephen Wolfram get incrementally more nuts in particular and very worth listening to.

I usually don't listen to the ones with the big-name guests, but the Zuckerberg one was interesting, I'll give it that. Mark is a bit more of a human being than normal, and came off as a kid who just wants to build cool stuff, just doesn't really give a shit that some of the cool stuff he built is society-destroying.
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Definitely a ton of great eps from people that get little to no mainstream recognition.

The ones you mentioned were great, it’s hard to pick favorites but a couple random ones that jump out at me scrolling through the list




 
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Araysar

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Just listened to his podcast from few days ago with Jack Barsky (former KGB agent). Really interesting. Talks about KGB training, a little bit about his missions and infiltration into US, he was stationed in NYC. They also talk about Putin and his time in KGB and a bit about geopolitics. When I fired up the podcast I was hoping they would talk about Yuri Bezmenov and they eventually do in the last hour. It's pretty interesting and Barsky offers some interesting insight. Spoiler: Barsky thinks Bezmenov was a fraud.

 
ToeMissile

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Araysar said:
Just listened to his podcast from few days ago with Jack Barsky (former KGB agent). Really interesting. Talks about KGB training, a little bit about his missions and infiltration into US, he was stationed in NYC. They also talk about Putin and his time in KGB and a bit about geopolitics. When I fired up the podcast I was hoping they would talk about Yuri Bezmenov and they eventually do in the last hour. It's pretty interesting and Barsky offers some interesting insight. Spoiler: Barsky thinks Bezmenov was a fraud.

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I watched the clip where he talks about his decision to quit and how he was found out. Definitely looking forward to this one.
 
LiquidDeath

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I've been listening to his interview with Richard Haier and have lost a lot of respect for him. I was hopeful for a new podcast after a few episodes, but as he talks about how uncomfortable he is with acknowledging genetic differences in intelligence (but not with anything else, like athletic ability) and whines about scientists needing to be accountable for publishing data or results that potentially "harm" people I just can't see myself listening anymore. He seems like a good dude, but it also looks like he doesn't have what it takes to actually delve into these topics and make them interesting.

*EDIT* I would listen to a podcast by Richard Haier, though. He is a goddamn boss. He has no problem directly stating facts and the consequences of ignoring them.
 
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wormie

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LiquidDeath said:
I've been listening to his interview with Richard Haier and have lost a lot of respect for him. I was hopeful for a new podcast after a few episodes, but as he talks about how uncomfortable he is with acknowledging genetic differences in intelligence (but not with anything else, like athletic ability) and whines about scientists needing to be accountable for publishing data or results that potentially "harm" people I just can't see myself listening anymore. He seems like a good dude, but it also looks like he doesn't have what it takes to actually delve into these topics and make them interesting.
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It was a terrible interview. Especially the first 30-40 minutes. Lex just didnt understand what the fuck Richard was saying and kept making it about his views. At one point Richard even mentioned that people in academia, due to having higher than average intelligence, are unable to understand what it is like to be lower IQ and therefore constantly do not understand discussions about such things. It seemed to me an indirect remark in order to tell Lex to stfu and stop being retarded. Fucking thing sucked (at least the first half) which is too bad because Haier is usually a good listen.
 
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Mist

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wormie said:
At one point Richard even mentioned that people in academia, due to having higher than average intelligence, are unable to understand what it is like to be lower IQ and therefore constantly do not understand discussions about such things.
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They should just hang out here more.
 
Araysar

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LiquidDeath said:
I've been listening to his interview with Richard Haier and have lost a lot of respect for him. I was hopeful for a new podcast after a few episodes, but as he talks about how uncomfortable he is with acknowledging genetic differences in intelligence (but not with anything else, like athletic ability) and whines about scientists needing to be accountable for publishing data or results that potentially "harm" people I just can't see myself listening anymore. He seems like a good dude, but it also looks like he doesn't have what it takes to actually delve into these topics and make them interesting.

*EDIT* I would listen to a podcast by Richard Haier, though. He is a goddamn boss. He has no problem directly stating facts and the consequences of ignoring them.
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Yeah, I got the same impression listening to his episode with Haier. He must have prefaced his comments with about 20 disclaimers at different times to the effect" I'm not a racist please believe me!!!"

I also don't like his fixation on "love" as a topic across various guests, I'm not even going to bother writing some eloquent thing to explain why. It's just some pussy beta shit.
 
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Araysar

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wormie said:
It was a terrible interview. Especially the first 30-40 minutes. Lex just didnt understand what the fuck Richard was saying and kept making it about his views. At one point Richard even mentioned that people in academia, due to having higher than average intelligence, are unable to understand what it is like to be lower IQ and therefore constantly do not understand discussions about such things. It seemed to me an indirect remark in order to tell Lex to stfu and stop being retarded. Fucking thing sucked (at least the first half) which is too bad because Haier is usually a good listen.
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Yeah definitely started picking up on that about 30 minutes in. Dude, how many times do you need to be explained what the "g factor" is?
 
wormie

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I dont know why I listen to this faggot, it certainly isnt for his take on anything. Every time he asks his guest to "steel man" the argument his guest is arguing against, I want to reach over and strangle him. That and his human love bullshit. Mother fucker, the topic is economic system (or w/e), who gives a fuck about love you retarded fuck.

Here is a comment stolen from HN (Lex Fridman Podcast #309 – John Carmack | Hacker News) that sums up my thoughts on Lex:

The main problem is that Lex is a terrible host.
I tried multiple times to give a fair shake, but Lex seems to never to any research on the guest, almost never has anything interesting to go back and forth on with guests, and seems mostly there to have a wall for guests to talk to, but somehow is less interesting than the wall.

There is no exchange of ideas, its just the guest being able to say whatever they want without any pushback.

I have no idea why interesting guests get called onto this show, other than just having a place to talk to a lot of listeners
 
Mist

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wormie said:
I dont know why I listen to this faggot, it certainly isnt for his take on anything. Every time he asks his guest to "steel man" the argument his guest is arguing against, I want to reach over and strangle him. That and his human love bullshit. Mother fucker, the topic is economic system (or w/e), who gives a fuck about love you retarded fuck.

Here is a comment stolen from HN (Lex Fridman Podcast #309 – John Carmack | Hacker News) that sums up my thoughts on Lex:

The main problem is that Lex is a terrible host.
I tried multiple times to give a fair shake, but Lex seems to never to any research on the guest, almost never has anything interesting to go back and forth on with guests, and seems mostly there to have a wall for guests to talk to, but somehow is less interesting than the wall.

There is no exchange of ideas, its just the guest being able to say whatever they want without any pushback.

I have no idea why interesting guests get called onto this show, other than just having a place to talk to a lot of listeners
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I think you're completely wrong on just about every front. Lex definitely knows a lot about most of his guests. He is just not interested in gotchas, petty partisan politics or trivia.

People trash the media for being biased and partisan, and Lex is absolutely not interested in being like that. He takes very few sides of his own (usually) and encourages his mostly very intelligent guests to imagine being on the other side of an argument, and then asks them to think about broader things. The love, meaning of the universe, etc questions are a bit of a meme but Lex approaches his show from a historical viewpoint, he thinks that someday decades from now people might reference these interviews to learn about these individuals, long absent the context of the day-to-day political nonsense we've devolved into, so he wants to touch on some universal themes instead. This is not a show about throwing grenades over the petty argument-of-the-week in the latest news cycle, or up-your-own-asshole IDW nonsense.

That said, his wishy-washiness does occasionally get so extreme that it becomes annoying.
 
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wormie

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Mist said:
I think you're completely wrong on just about every front. Lex definitely knows a lot about most of his guests. He is just not interested in gotchas, petty partisan politics or trivia.

People trash the media for being biased and partisan, and Lex is absolutely not interested in being like that. He takes very few sides of his own (usually) and encourages his mostly very intelligent guests to imagine being on the other side of an argument, and then asks them to think about broader things. The love, meaning of the universe, etc questions are a bit of a meme but Lex approaches his show from a historical viewpoint, he thinks that someday decades from now people might reference these interviews to learn about these individuals, long absent the context of the day-to-day political nonsense we've devolved into, so he wants to touch on some universal themes instead. This is not a show about throwing grenades over the petty argument-of-the-week in the latest news cycle, or up-your-own-asshole IDW nonsense.

That said, his wishy-washiness does occasionally get so extreme that it becomes annoying.
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Not sure why you bring up IDW or politics or throwing grenades and looking for gotchas. No one was talking about that here. What I am talking about is why Lex sucks shit as an interviewer and the fact that if his guests werent interesting, his show would be unbearable. He never pushes back on his guests opinions. Even when he clearly disagrees with his guest, he doesnt challenge what he is being told. His interviews would be much better with him removed entirely and just having his guests speak to a wall. Him not questioning anything makes him look like he is ignorant on whatever topic being discussed and it fucking grating. Show would be 100% better if he said nothing.
 
Mist

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wormie said:
Even when he clearly disagrees with his guest, he doesnt challenge what he is being told.
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You've been well-trained by the liberal media. Good interviewers aren't supposed to inject themselves and their beliefs into an interview. People used to pride themselves on not inserting their own politics into shows (Jay Leno and Johnny Carson were both famous for this) but these days it's so expected. I couldn't tell you what Lex believes or whether he's even particularly ideological, and that's what makes this show bearable vs so many others. The least appealing moments of this show would be when Lex would go into vague mini-rants about Fauci which felt so fake and done specifically to dogwhistle to a specific segment of the audience, and the show got better when he stopped doing it.
 
wormie

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You've been well-trained by the liberal media. Good interviewers aren't supposed to inject themselves and their beliefs into an interview. People used to pride themselves on not inserting their own politics into shows (Jay Leno and Johnny Carson were both famous for this) but these days it's so expected. I couldn't tell you what Lex believes or whether he's even particularly ideological, and that's what makes this show bearable vs so many others. The least appealing moments of this show would be when Lex would go into vague mini-rants about Fauci which felt so fake and done specifically to dogwhistle to a specific segment of the audience, and the show got better when he stopped doing it.
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Why do you keep bringing politics into it? What show are you watching/listening to? It's clearly not this one.
 
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