> he is more intent on building his subscriber count than actually asking tough questions.

It's quite a sad indicator of the state of knowledge in the world where Fridman is considered the more "intellectual" of pop podcasters when the most popular podcasts are crap like Rogan, Shawn Ryan, Candace Owens, and Call Her Daddy.

Because Fridman will literally have a guest with platform A, like Netanyahu, and agree on 95% of his controversial points with little pushback. And then immediately after have on Yuval Harari, with the opposite opinion on those controversial points... and agree with 95% again with little pushback. Fridman softballs and is almost useless except as a megaphone. You'd rather have him cut out and have Netanyahu and Harari debate on their own merits.

I don't actually see a problem with that ...

He is uncritical, yes. But he doesn't deny being uncritical.

It's a useful "service" to get people with diametrically opposite viewpoints to talk freely, and he does that well

The interviewer doesn't need to impose their world view on the guest, or the audience -- it's OK to let the audience make up their own minds.

Contradictions aren't inherently bad, either ... "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", etc.

It's a false dichotomy. Terry Gross does a great job of getting her subjects to talk freely, while still asking hard questions.

It's not useful if you don't push back on people who have agendas and who are willing to lie their teeth off to promote whatever grift they're pushing.

> The interviewer doesn't need to impose their world view on the guest, or the audience -- it's OK to let the audience make up their own minds.

What if the guest lies or omits crucial facts? How is the audience supposed to know that? Fact checking is the very basis of responsible journalism.

What if I go to a dinner party and someone lies or omits crucial facts?

I guess take it for what it is -- it's a conversation recorded on YouTube ... maybe don't be fooled by the suit and the mics. Anyone can buy those, there is no certification AFAIK :-)

(I'd also say that 95% of journalism you see on TV is not much different than a conversation recorded on YouTube, i.e. they don't do fact checking themselves.)

The dinner party isn't broadcast to millions of people. With a great audience comes great responsibility. "Just let people talk" doesn't cut it. Of course, there is also lots of bad journalism in traditional media.

> maybe don't be fooled by the suit and the mics. Anyone can buy those, there is no certification AFAIK :-)

:)

Staying their and listening to people make false claims over and over again without challenging them on any of the lies or grandstanding is not a service to anyone. At the very least, no one should be looking at a Lex Friedman interview hoping to hear the truth of any kind.

> Because Fridman will literally have a guest with platform A, like Netanyahu, and agree on 95% of his controversial points with little pushback. And then immediately after have on Yuval Harari, with the opposite opinion on those controversial points...

Isn't that his whole schtick? Letting people voice their different opinions? Yes his questions are soft. And yes, I'd love to see Netanyahu and Harari debate - can you make that happen?

Friedman is, like many people in this age of podcasters and influencers, another fool who's not only out of his depth in most interviews, but too self-centered to do anything to change it.

His political analysis when interviewing people in that area is laughable. When interviewing chess players it's clear even to me, a mediocre player who barely reaches 1500 in lichess, that he's totally out of his depth and wasting precious time asking generic questions.

Unfortunately the only good interviewer of this generation is the chiken wing guy.

Dwarkesh is basically doing what Lex tried to do early on before he became Rogan-lite. Looking at Lex’s range of topics in the last year it’s no wonder he’s out of his depth

Fridman gets his guests to open up, which is valuable, but yes he does that by being uncritical of basically all guests ...

For example, I didn't know who Vivek R was before a month or so ago, and I watched the Fridman interview with him. I actually thought he came off very well ... He got to hit his high notes

Then I watched this Ezra Klein interview, and I got a better picture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY6NGom3gvU

Vivek got challenged a bit there, in a good way. I saw a lot more of the holes and inconsistencies

(Ezra Klein seems to be a reasonable centrist, more like the reporters of 20-30 years ago. After reading NYTimes since the 90's, I stopped taking at least half of NYTimes seriously maybe around 2015. They were/are literally trolling in their Op Eds for clicks, and greatly expanded that section. But there is still some stuff worth reading)

I also watched parts of Fridman's interview of Milei, and didn't form a strong impression, maybe because of the translation.