[HN Gopher] Lex Fridman Podcast #309 - John Carmack
___________________________________________________________________
Lex Fridman Podcast #309 - John Carmack
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 222 points
Date : 2022-08-04 19:23 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lexfridman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lexfridman.com)
| [deleted]
| HellDunkel wrote:
| I listened to a few episodes but can't help sensing some form of
| shallowness. The oliver stone episode was particularly
| disappointing. He basically talks to all celebrities within his
| reach about whatever he feels the want to talk about.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| John Carmack is a legend. Given he doesn't give interviews much,
| it's too bad he wasted one on Lex. Is he heading to Jordan
| Peterson next?
| md2020 wrote:
| Take this comment back to Reddit.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| What exactly do you mean? I strongly feel that Lex Fridman is
| a canonical anti-intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual, "in a
| sense" :P ), and I don't think that's unreasonable to point
| out on HN.
| dubsman wrote:
| markus_zhang wrote:
| John Carmack is and will always be one of the greatest
| programmers for me. His drive, motivation and work ethics are
| also very inspiring. Whenever I feel low the first thing I tried
| (sometimes failed) to pull me out is reading a few chapters of
| "Masters of Doom".
|
| I'll probably never be as productive as he has been, but I
| appreciate the games and impact he made.
|
| I also enjoy this podcast because this is one interview of
| Carmack that I can almost fully understand :P
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Like many here, I have mixed feelings regarding Lex.
|
| Last time I heard him, he started the podcast saying that he
| "fears nothing and no one", which of course means he's either
| extremely immature or a psychopath. I'm betting in the former.
|
| For whatever reason, he manages to get great guests, so I keep
| listening. I wouldn't say I tolerate him because he mostly
| doesn't get in the way of the interview much. Which is good, but
| the bare minimum for a good host.
|
| I used to listen to Rogan a few years ago, but it has become
| unbearable to me and the Spotify exclusivity deal was the push
| that I needed to stop completely.
|
| With Lex, I keep coming back, reluctantly, so I guess he's got
| something going with his show.
|
| Edit: oh, and Carmack is a legend, I'll listen to him with almost
| any interviewer.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| 5 hours long! I'm so excited to listen to this.
|
| Video version here:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4
| affgrff2 wrote:
| Lex Fridman's Podcast is what I listen to when doing sports,
| will take me weeks to get through it but I am really looking
| forward for this episode.
| yardie wrote:
| Lex Fridman's interviews are the only reason I'd put up with a
| longer commute. They are super dense and super long. Like
| listening to an audiobook every few days.
|
| The Tony Fadell interview was also interesting. A great review on
| the history of iPod and iPhone and what he was up to at Nest.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I've thought about hosting a podcast with a similar format to
| Lex's and yet I don't listen to podcasts much so I don't know
| what's missing from the scene.
|
| If there were another one like Lex's, how would you want it to
| be? What would you want to be the same, what different?
| debug-desperado wrote:
| Here' the flamewar money quote:
|
| (in reference to the pain of using multiple languages on a
| project) "At Meta we have a lot of projects that use React
| frameworks, you've got javascript here, and then you have C++ for
| real work, and you may have Java interfacing with some other part
| of the Android system, and those are all kinda horrible things."
|
| Of course just a few minutes later Carmack says that garbage
| collection is unequivocally a good thing for most programs, so
| C++ pros shouldn't puff up their chests too much!
| sva_ wrote:
| I just discovered this when I went to the store, and will
| probably take a nice long walk in the evening/night heat to
| devour at least part of this delicious release. What a nice gem
| to randomly receive. I'm curious to know what Carmack has been
| doing especially in regard to AI.
| starik36 wrote:
| I am gonna have to get a job with a commute. Podcast is over 5
| hours.
| jstx1 wrote:
| 5 hours?! I'm diving in (I try to fastforward when Lex talks).
| Carmack is one of the few people that actually inspires me a bit
| - like I listen to him and think "okay, I should be writing way
| more code than I do".
| s1k3s wrote:
| I'm out of the loop on game development, is John Carmack a "big
| brain" as presented on grugbrain.dev?
| fredrikholm wrote:
| That would be recursivedoubts, the author of HTMX.
| Centigonal wrote:
| John Carmack BIG brain. make Doom. make rockets too. work for
| oculus too, but then leave
| mandeepj wrote:
| > work for oculus too, but then leave
|
| Not sure about his current work status with Oculus, but he
| did not leave immediately; turned into a consultant or
| something like that - from CTO
| googlryas wrote:
| No, he's a metabrain who understands where one should be big
| brained and where one should be grug brained
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Not so sure. On a technical level at least, everything that I
| have read from him has been very concise and pragmatic. His
| programming advice is always to be as simple as possible
| because simple is fast. For example, the one I always remember
| is that in order to optimize that you should try to remove as
| many "edge case optimizations" as possible, so that everything
| runs always the same way, and then optimize _that_.
| exitb wrote:
| I do value simplicity very much, but this doesn't seem true.
| There's a reason why musl is slower than glibc, st is slower
| than xterm, OpenBSD is slower than Linux etc. It's great if
| the optimization via simplification works out like that, but
| usually it doesn't.
| meltyness wrote:
| id tech 3 is pretty elegantly organized, not to mention
| Carmack's contributions with bsp, netplay, finvsqrt, sss,
| megatexturing, presumably the current iteration of predictive
| rendering used by oculus kit. He's someone who knew the
| technology and the business top-to-bottom, and likely still
| does.
|
| Carmack is more like an academic than a smoke and mirrors exec.
|
| Having sat through as many as 9 keynotes in-person before that
| relationship went up in a blinding flash, I'll say I look
| forward to listening to this podcast in full.
| nemo1618 wrote:
| At around 17:30 John talks about Go in a way that convinces me
| that he understands the grugbrain mentality. He's definitely a
| pragmatic person who sees the value of simplicity in language
| design, particular when programming at scale.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| John Carmack is a programming god, and every time I hear him talk
| I wish I could be that smart. If you haven't seen Carmack's
| Reverse yet, you should:
| https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/210276-carmacks-reverse...
|
| Lex Friedman is also my favorite podcaster. His podcasts are the
| highlight of my week.
| ebbflowgo wrote:
| John is such a legend
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Haven't listened to this one yet but for people with sticker
| shock over the time commitment, Lex consistently does amazing
| podcasts with really sharp people over the course of a few hours
| and imo (being an avid podcast listener) it's one of the best out
| there.
|
| Edit to add: His recent episode with Jack Barsky (former KGB spy)
| was exceptional and worth a listen if 5hrs is too long of a test
| case
| mathattack wrote:
| I concur. Friedman is the only multi-hour podcast that I can
| handle. I will add that speeding it up helps.
| modeless wrote:
| And Carmack is known for making multi-hour extemporaneous
| keynote speeches that somehow remain interesting the whole way
| through. Should be a good one.
| kepler1 wrote:
| Are we listening to the same person?
|
| I find Lex Fridman to be wooden, robotic, non-sequitur, not
| smooth or charismatic, and (I admit, shallowly) not a pleasing
| speaking voice to listen to, and not that articulate actually.
| The main reason he gets famous guests is that he has a
| reputation for getting famous guests. He's like a Kardashian.
|
| I actively have to tune him out and suppress my wish that
| someone, anyone else were asking the questions.
|
| But it is what it is. We don't have voting rights on who random
| walks their way to being famous in this world.
| pizzathyme wrote:
| It sounds like you're evaluating the tone and charisma while
| others are evaluating the content and dialog.
|
| He is very wooden, but I agree with the others, his questions
| are incredible and cut straight to the point. For example
| while others (Tim Ferriss) might have asked Zuckerberg "How
| do you deal with negative sentiment around you and your
| work?" Lex asked something like "Many people believe that
| your products are destroying democracy, that social networks
| polarize us into bubbles, and you are one of the most hated
| men in America. How do you contend with that?" Wow and ouch!
| Amazing conversations
| drc500free wrote:
| I tried listening to his conversation with Brian Armstrong.
|
| He insisted multiple times that being "canceled by the woke
| mob" is something that the government does to you because
| they are afraid of losing power to common people on the
| internet. That's not just kind of wrong, or kind of skewed,
| that's a complete inversion of reality.
|
| You could replace him with a markov chain trained in the
| right wing conspiracy media bubble and get basically the
| same quality questions.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| He = Armstrong or Fridman insisting on being canceled by
| the woke mob? Unclear if you're saying that was Fridman's
| view or Armstrong's view and Fridman didn't push back.
| drc500free wrote:
| He = Fridman. Armstrong was much more clear and eloquent.
|
| Fridman really seemed to be going for applause lines from
| a very specific crowd, not anything particularly
| coherent. I think he's realized that his growth as a
| podcaster comes from the demographic that frequents hosts
| like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro, and the
| more he can get them engaged the higher his numbers will
| get. But the topics that demographic cares about aren't
| AI and ML.
| akamaka wrote:
| There are plenty of more talented podcasters than him, but
| the appeal of his interviews is that he asks simple, non-
| leading questions, often stupid ones (e.g. "what is a
| compiler"), but encourages the guest to talk and give really
| full answers. And he catches details they say, and follows up
| with questions that go deeper into the specifics, rather than
| just returning to a script of pre-planned questions.
| t-3 wrote:
| > follows up with questions that go deeper into the
| specifics, rather than just returning to a script of pre-
| planned questions.
|
| Maybe I just saw the wrong interviews, but I got the exact
| opposite impression from those I've seen. He was literally
| reading off a script of questions and not following through
| on interesting things the interviewee says or asking them
| to develop ideas or explain themselves. Can you point to
| any particularly good episodes that I can use to give him
| another chance?
| akamaka wrote:
| I liked his early programming-related ones the most:
| Chris Latner, Jeremy Howard, Bjarne Stroustrup, Jim
| Keller, Brian Kernighan. I actually haven't listened the
| bulk of his interviews (nothing related to crypto,
| philosophy, history, physics). Maybe those are done
| better by other podcasts.
| nomel wrote:
| I liked the Lee Cronin episode. But part of that is Lee
| Cronin.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Really? That's fascinating, if anything I usually think he's
| not rigid enough and too easily goes along with guest claims
| (the Oliver Stone episode stands out for not pushing back).
|
| Do you have a favorite podcaster/interviewer?
| deepzn wrote:
| Even though I didn't align or agree with Stone. It is
| refreshing not to hear the constant back and forth you see
| on TV's or just each network running their own agenda.
| Truth is a fine thing, nothing is black or white. I feel in
| these times it's more important that we stay open minded to
| ideas, speech and discussion.
|
| The act of pushing back, retaliation, or suppressing
| information actually increases the desire for said info and
| notoriety/fanfare of many people and ideas. In the Oliver
| Stone interview, they do discuss the best way to interview
| someone is with a blank canvas, and that is honestly
| refreshing. Let viewers develop their own opinions. But, a
| little more pushback or rather counter-arguments might have
| been welcomed, but that might change the tone of the
| interview into a more adversarial one.
|
| People need to get out of closed off echo chambers, be
| respectful of each other, and just agree to disagree, but
| still look at each other as a human being. The only way we
| progress through the 21st century.
| modeless wrote:
| I know what you mean but he has improved over time. His main
| fault is talking too much sometimes, I'd rather hear the
| guest. While some of his questions are lame, he usually makes
| up for it with some well researched and interesting
| questions. Not every question can be a winner in a five hour
| interview.
| justapassenger wrote:
| One thing I don't like about Lex is that he doesn't really
| challenge his guests (which is one of the reasons why he can
| bring many well known names, as they know they can mostly give
| their talking points).
|
| That's not a ding against him, as he has very wide range of
| guests, so he lacks expertise to challenge them, but something
| to keep in mind.
| dandanua wrote:
| Yeah, his interview with Pfizer CEO was essentially an
| advertisement. He also advertises cryptocurrencies a lot,
| like they are the next money system in the world. Largely
| downgrading all their harm and inabilities. The man just
| making his own fortune.
|
| On the other hand, the freedom that guests have is
| worthwhile.
| deepzn wrote:
| He's not perfect. Though I find it pleasant that he has a
| mostly neutral point of view as that's when you can get the
| most information out of a discussion. I think in many
| traditional media formats, the opposite is the case, which is
| what we're used to. Like for e.g. Charlie Rose, or any of the
| biased media outlets today.
|
| One can possibly argue that information has always been
| manipulated and public discourse as well since the dawn of
| civilization. So, I find having an interviewer be open to
| multiple possibilities or interpretations is refreshing.
|
| He's not completely neutral though, he has a slight liberal
| bias, and at the same time doesn't address criticism of said
| guest many times especially when they are a friend, like Joe
| Rogan, or Elon Musk. That being said, it is a scientifically
| progressive podcast that is very illuminating in many fields
| for non-experts, and the public. And I have learned a lot and
| enjoyed listening to it.
| cm2187 wrote:
| For those who do not know Lex, just to nuance this, I think it
| is interesting when dealing with technical subjects (like
| recently with Demis Hassabis). Outside of technical subjects,
| it is a bit of a mixed bag, from interesting (like Roger
| Reaves) to appalling (like entertaining Oliver Stone's bullshit
| conspiracy theories).
|
| This one is likely to be a technical one and certainly
| something I am keen to listen.
| api wrote:
| Lex did lose some points for that one. Oliver Stone wasn't
| even an interesting conspiracy theorist. Seemed like your
| clueless old relative who forwards you bad MS Paint memes to
| make sure you know what _THEY_ don 't want you to know.
| [deleted]
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yes, the Oliver Stone one in particular seemed egregious in
| how little he pushed back.
| tekla wrote:
| 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
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The interviews with academics and technical folks he does are
| fine because it's a domain where you can tell that he knows
| his stuff but he seems to have increasingly become an off
| brand Joe Rogan with political guests or nutritionists or
| even stranger guests on the channel, whose quackery goes
| largely unchallenged.
|
| The worst offender was probably Oliver Stone. That episode
| became a straight up megaphone for propaganda.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| He also interviewed Jo Boaler.
| winter_blue wrote:
| I found his interviews with Jim Keller (the CPU
| architect/engineer) to be really really good.
| nomel wrote:
| I saw it is as they both had a good intuition about each
| other, so they were both free to talk without the need for
| some "translation" barrier, which appear when two people
| are constantly struggling to put things in a frame of
| reference that they think the other requires.
| tunnuz wrote:
| Not to mention the adoration of Elon Musk, virtually everyone
| is asked to comment on him.
|
| However ... I do like that guests have a lot of time to get
| deep into ideas.
| [deleted]
| shimonabi wrote:
| He should keep his opinion to himself more. He hasn't yet
| accomplished anything significant in the world, so nobody
| really cares what he thinks about particular subjects. He
| comes off as pompous. I also don't like that he takes crypto
| seriously.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| Lex is a fantastic host. Probably the best one in podcasting
| right now. He pushes back all the time, but knows when to
| move on when there is disagreement. There's nothing worse
| than a host who needs to win arguments.
|
| I appreciate that he lets guests speak without any need to
| conform to a narrative. I can make my own opinion. I don't
| need the host doing it for me.
|
| I truly don't know where you get the impression that there is
| no exchange of ideas. I've experienced him going very deep on
| many, many different topics.
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| > He pushes back all the time
|
| I like Lex, but this is way overstating his pushback. He's
| mentioned himself how Rogan tells him he needs to push his
| guests more. He just prefers not to, because of an idea of
| love of the person...
|
| I also think he can push back more, but on the whole he has
| interesting people and it's kinda nice to see him ask some
| basic open ended questions and see how different guests
| react to it.
| [deleted]
| brailsafe wrote:
| It seems like you just prefer a different interview style,
| but that doesn't make him a bad interviewer. A good
| interviewer asks questions that they know a guest can speak
| at length in answering. An interviewer's job isn't
| necessarily an archaeology quest, it's to present to an
| audience.
| naikrovek wrote:
| 100% agree. But if you mention this, he will tell you that he
| is a college professor, and therefore you don't know what
| you're talking about.
|
| In 20 years, with luck, he will look back on himself today
| and just sigh.
|
| He simply does not follow what the majority of his guests are
| saying sometimes to the point of argument. Maybe "strong
| disagreement" is a better phrase. He will not understand what
| a guest says, then challenge it as if he did. It's
| infuriating to listen to.
|
| I mostly avoid his podcast now, because of it. I may listen
| to this one because John always says a lot of things that are
| interesting to me. Unless it's VR. Then, I don't give a hoot.
| Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote:
| I watched a few. I was really uncomfortable by how unprepared
| he was and frequent asking for explanations to basic
| statements.
| rngname22 wrote:
| He asks for those explanations for the audience, in case a
| listener is ignorant of the subject...
| Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote:
| In the first few minutes of the KGB interview he asks for
| an explanation of the Stasi. It was clear he didn't know
| what the Stasi was. He didn't just come across as
| unprepared he came across as someone who isn't even
| interested.
| jasode wrote:
| _> In the first few minutes of the KGB interview he asks
| for an explanation of the Stasi. It was clear he didn't
| know what the Stasi was._
|
| I think your perceptions of Lex will mislead you to
| assume he's asking out of personal ignorance instead of
| asking simple questions _he already knows the answer to_
| for the sake of the audience.
|
| As a result, you happened to pick a bad example as Lex
| already knew what the German Stasi was before that
| interview because he discussed it over a year ago with
| Michael Malice back in December 2020 (deep link to
| "Stasi" conversation):
| https://youtu.be/uykM3NhJbso?t=56m39s
|
| Lex does not tire out listeners with constant disclaimers
| in every interview by saying, _" I already know about <X>
| but for the sake of my audience, what does <X> mean?"_
|
| Thankfully, he just shortens all that to : _" What does
| <X> mean?"_
|
| ... but then that makes him look unprepared. But if he
| puts in that disclaimer every time, we'd complain he
| tries too hard to let us know he's smart about the topic.
| Either way, it seems you can't please everybody.
| spacediscojesus wrote:
| He clearly asks these 'entry-level' questions for the
| audience when he thinks it's helpful. I've been thankful
| of that a few times when a guest, speaking about a field
| that is far from my own, is asked to clarify something
| briefly. So I'll disagree with you here that it 'is clear
| he didn't know what the Stasi was'.
| basilisks wrote:
| Shouldn't he not assume that the audience knows everything
| about the subject already?
| nomel wrote:
| I'm glad he does. Apparently I'm less familiar, than you,
| with the details of the ridiculously wide range of topics
| he discusses. I enjoy not having to prepare to listen to a
| podcast, or go through the whole thing confused, with a
| list of topics I need to read about to understand what I
| just heard.
| TinkersW wrote:
| I am also confused how he became so popular, he seems pretty
| uninformed, my best guess is that his suit fools people into
| thinking that he must know what he is doing.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah it drives me crazy and I'm unable to listen to them.
|
| It's maybe mean to say, but I just don't think he's that
| smart and unfortunately it shows. It also doesn't help that
| he doesn't seem to be aware of it.
|
| He does get great guests though.
| crisdux wrote:
| I agree with this take mostly. There are many times I expect
| Lex to guide his guest to a particular conversation and he
| fails to do it. Rogan is better at this, to my surprise.
| Though Rogan has his bad days too, but generally he's better
| at it. I admit though, I am not an avid listener of either
| shows. I think a lot of this comes down to personal
| preference. The beginning of Lex's shows make me cringe
| sometimes.
| jcims wrote:
| Who do you find interesting to listen to for these kind of
| long form conversations?
| elcapitan wrote:
| I wish he was unprepared. The creepier moments of the show
| are when he starts talking of his own ideas which sound like
| someone made up a parody on naive technocratic optimism
| blended with teenage babbling of how all humans are going to
| love each other etc etc.
| huevosabio wrote:
| These are exactly my feelings with Lex Fridman Podcast.
|
| I tried with so many of his guests, the lineup is amazing!
| But every time I end up dropping early on the conversation.
| Surprisingly, I find him even worse than Joe Rogan as a host
| (surprising because Joe doesn't have a technical background,
| whereas Lex does). Joe at least is an apparently neutral host
| with some charisma and guests get to portray their ideas
| clearly. Lex somehow sucks all the fun out of the
| conversation.
|
| Contrast with, for example, Tyler Cowen which also hosts a
| wide range of interesting guests, and still is able to pose
| interesting questions and guide the conversations in way that
| are insightful for the listener.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Cowen is absolutely one of the best out there too, but I do
| wish he got in deeper with his guests! His blog Marginal
| Revolution is also consistently interesting and he has a
| good map of great spots to eat across the DMV
|
| https://marginalrevolution.com/
| https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/
| borroka wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about Cowen.
|
| On the one hand, I appreciate his breadth (but not depth,
| next point) of knowledge, his charisma, his pace, and his
| energy, all very admirable traits and qualities. I always
| listen to his podcasts.
|
| On the other hand, there are many things that bother me
| about him. What I write may appear overly critical, but he
| is a public figure and it goes with the territory. Nobody
| criticizes me -- I am a nobody.
|
| Some, perhaps more than a few, of his questions -- "I ask
| the questions I want to ask and not the questions you want
| to ask" -- more than curve balls seem like balls thrown off
| the field: "Try to hit this one!" To the point that his
| guests are puzzled, but they do not want to look ignorant
| or poor guests and do not react.
|
| He greatly overestimates his knowledge of science,
| technology, art, cooking and everything else excluding,
| maybe, economics. Let's take languages. He says he learned
| to speak Spanish, then I hear him speak a few words of
| Spanish, and what I get is that he knows a few Spanish
| words and phrases, which in my opinion is not the same as
| speaking the language. I throw together a few ingredients,
| but I am not a chef.
|
| When he talks with pace, conviction, determination and
| apparent curiosity -- I say apparent because I have never
| heard him change his look on anything, whatever he proposes
| is doable and there must be some low IQ person in charge or
| some sort of rent-seeking behavior to make it not happen --
| about what I know (biology, AI, my country, women's
| rights), he is far from having a solid grasp of the
| subject, despite his conviction, tone and determination.
| But no one objects because he interviews and is not
| interviewed -- sometimes he is, next point -- and his
| guests usually shy away from replying to questions and
| opinions, informed or uninformed, about classical music,
| paintings, Chinese cuisine and obscure African poets.
|
| He maintains his position through fog, smoke and utter
| confusion, which is admirable, but also rather unsettling.
| When interviewed, he has a ready answer for any question,
| which for some may demonstrate his knowledge, wit and
| intelligence, for others, like me, he seems to be pulling
| answers out of his backpack.
|
| He takes positions that he does not follow and marries
| himself to "causes" because they suit him. For example, he
| often speaks out against alcohol and legitimately so, but
| my impression is that it is convenient for him because he
| does not like to drink: would he follow his own
| recommendations if he liked alcohol instead?
|
| In an interview about his latest book (which, like others
| he has written, are rather forgettable, a pot-pourri of
| whatever crosses his mind on the subject), he said that "on
| average" exercise is a net benefit to longevity and mental
| capacity. But he doesn't seem to exercise, and he doesn't
| talk about exercise or moderation at the dinner table
| because, as far as I can tell, he doesn't like to exercise
| and likes to eat plenty. But it is clear that a glass of
| wine a day is not a "bad thing" (some say it has positive
| effects on longevity) and that being 50 pounds overweight
| (all fine, his choice and my point is not criticize his
| lifestyle) puts one at risk for diabetes, poor quality of
| life, and early death. But thanks to his assertive way of
| speaking and presenting his ideas, and his position among
| the "intellectual class" no one ever objects or asks though
| questions.
|
| There is a lesson there.
| yarg wrote:
| Joe has this whole meat-head misunderstanding the world
| thing, it's actually a very useful prompting mechanism for
| insights from his guests.
| latenightcoding wrote:
| Same here I find it crazy that Joe Rogan is better at
| interviewing scientists than Lex.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Interviewing is a skill and Joe had a long time to
| perfect it. That said after 300 podcasts Lex should've
| improved but he hasn't.
|
| He really needs to get a producer to provide him with
| constant feedback and to guide him in general; every
| great interviewer/newsperson had an even better producer
| behind them.
| kekebo wrote:
| My impression is that he often tries to 'steelman' the
| other side by purposely putting forth more simple-minded
| positions or questions than he actually holds. At least in
| AI territory it often seemed that way, noticeable when a
| guest mispeaks or mislabels a theory and Fridman corrects
| them, suddenly knowing the exact scientific term or
| implications.
|
| I don't think he's necessarily doing a great job with this
| approach, but I'm guessing that there's some attempt of
| method behind it, rather than him being negligently
| oblivious to the subject at hand.
|
| edit: grammar
| jcims wrote:
| It's funny how all of this works. I've tried many times to
| listen to Tyler Cowen after being introduced to him on
| Lex's podcast, I'm still subscribed even. I just can't do
| it, something about how he approaches the interview process
| grates on my nerves.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Similarly, I get the feeling that Lex Friedman wrote a list
| _generic_ questions beforehand that he will plow through
| regardless of what happens.
| rafaelero wrote:
| Lex has a special skill of making me roll my eyes every time
| he speaks. I hate that I always return to his episodes,
| though (he has amazing guests). The way I approach it is to
| jump the parts he speaks.
| lostdog wrote:
| It would be nice to have a cut of these videos with only
| the guest talking, and with all the goofy philosophical
| cruft deleted.
| ocius wrote:
| I would say it's a strength of his that the guests just get
| to say what they have to say. He always prepares a couple of
| questions in case the conversation stalls, but other than
| that, he let's the guest talk about their ideas, instead of
| sticking to a specific story he wants to cover.
| binkHN wrote:
| I concur with this. While Lex, IMHO, has FAR less
| personality than, for example, Joe Rogan, I'm not watching
| because of Lex; I'm watching because of the guest. I'm very
| happy to have the guest take over and, for the most part,
| lecture their thoughts and opinions. Lex allows this to
| happen.
| iotku wrote:
| >He always prepares a couple of questions in case the
| conversation stalls
|
| A lot of people underestimate how much effort it takes to
| keep a relatively smooth flowing conversation for a matter
| of hours. Ultimately if the words are flowing the host is
| doing a good job.
|
| In many cases for some of the more controversial guests Lex
| adds some disclaimers at the beginning, but it's not the
| host's job to argue every single statement.
| chaoticmass wrote:
| I always roll my eyes whenever Lex tries to shoe horn one of
| his favorite subjects into the conversation, like AI or
| robots.
| tunnuz wrote:
| _coughs_ Elon Musk _coughs_
| almostdigital wrote:
| It's interesting that Lex is so polarizing, I personally find
| him a great host.
|
| Him almost never doing research is objectively false though.
| He often reads books/articles/tweets written by the guests
| and asks about them for example.
| spurgu wrote:
| Yeah his style of letting guests freestyle is _different_
| than constantly challenging them on every point. It 's not
| better or worse.
|
| If that doesn't float your boat you can watch Carmack
| interviews by other people.
| fossuser wrote:
| For me it's not that he doesn't push back, it's that he
| often interrupts with some trite nonsense. So the guest
| is getting in the details of something specific and
| interesting and Lex will interrupt with something he
| thinks is profound that's meaningless and derails the
| explanation. The questions he asks I find similarly
| frustrating - like he's not really listening, or thinking
| about it in any depth.
|
| I get the sense he's constantly trying to prove how smart
| he is, and at least to me - it backfires badly. Hard to
| describe, but I guess it comes across mostly as shallow
| bullshit and it's _tedious_ to listen to him despite his
| great guests.
| nomel wrote:
| > I get the sense he's constantly trying to prove how
| smart he is
|
| I've listened to hundreds of hours, and I just don't get
| this at all. I don't think he has a selfish motive for
| the "interruptions". I think he's just saying what's on
| his mind, in a somewhat vulnerable way.
| porknubbins wrote:
| I wouldn't say hes a terrible host but he is a certain kind
| of host which is like the opposite of a Charlie Rose- who
| mostly glossed over the technical details of a person's
| accomplishments to get to their more personal motivations and
| universal human interest type stuff. From the 3 or 4 episodes
| I've seem focuses entirely on the technical and is good at
| that but not very good at drawing the guest out emotionally.
| But this method still has a lot of value for a technical
| podcast.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Same. I really want to like the guy, it feels like all of the
| credentials are there, all the stars are aligned, but his
| contribution always comes off as anemic and uninspired. There
| are plenty of times where I wish he would give more space to
| the guest instead of injecting something of his own that adds
| zero value.
| m_ke wrote:
| Not to hate on him but the credentials are not really
| there. He taught a fluff seminar course on self driving at
| MIT and used the brand of the university to line up a ton
| of great guests for an AI podcast that he then pivoted into
| a personal brand. From what I understand his research at
| Drexel was focused on HCI and from the interviews that I've
| seen it looks like he has a pretty shallow understanding of
| ML.
| icelancer wrote:
| > 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
|
| That's how you get guests.
| melenaboija wrote:
| And viewers. As of now he has 235 million views.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| I listen to Lex on 1.5X and usually have no problem
| understanding anyone.
| sph wrote:
| I'd have a hard time following Carmack's train of thought at
| 1.5x. It is impressive how dense and fast-paced his
| conversations are.
| fezfight wrote:
| Facebook is dying, so it seems less important now, but I'd have
| liked to hear in his own words how he felt supporting a company
| with such questionable ethics.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| He talks all about it in his Joe Rogan interview. From memory
| tl;dr: The positives of social media outweigh the negatives.
| fezfight wrote:
| Interesting, thank you, I'll look that up.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I believe that was good while ago, right? I'd like to see
| this opinion revisited.
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| He can meaningfully retire on facebook money. Good for him and
| I have no requirement for him to publicly criticize them. Also,
| facebook is the main company plowing money and top engineers
| into AR/VR. They also created react and pytorch. Facebook has
| had a massive impact on software.
| fezfight wrote:
| Sure but the question isnt how did he decide to fortify a
| successful company with his reputstion, but an unethical one.
| Successful does not mean ethical. They're so unrelated as to
| be orthogonal.
| sicp-enjoyer wrote:
| Do you think id was an "ethical company"?
| sph wrote:
| Whataboutism at its best. Why do you think id was not
| ethical, and are you seriously trying to argue that
| Facebook is as unethical as id software?
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| Pioneering technology that pushes society forwards often
| comes from unsavory industries. Its a reality of life and a
| critical piece of capitalism
| fezfight wrote:
| And thus it always should? No. Carmack could apply his
| genius elsewhere, but he chose not to. I'd like to hear
| him explain why.
| t-3 wrote:
| Do you honestly think there will be an explanation other
| than "they offered me a bunch of money to do $X"? Smart
| people aren't required to be self-righteous saints
| sacrificing themselves for the good of everyone else.
| fezfight wrote:
| If you ask me, his reputation was the thing that was
| sacrificed when he joined Facebook.
|
| His legacy is now: He was a brilliant pioneer in the
| first half of his career. Then he helped normalize and
| sustain an ethically dubious company.
|
| I care because I used to respect him and I can't quite
| make sense of his choice.
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| ^This is actually cancel culture thinking. Drawing a hard
| line in the sand over a moral/political issue, from which
| you disregard everything someone has done in their life
| is a hallmark of totalitarian societies
| anonymoushn wrote:
| > They also created react
|
| It's not really comforting to know that Facebook is the
| reason the browser's find feature doesn't work on any web
| site, no computer is capable of running google chrome to
| browse a microblogging web site at 60fps, and modal forms
| commonly disappear losing the data you've entered into them
| if you resize your browser so you can see another window from
| which you are retrieving the data.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Things that aren't React's fault:
|
| 1. Everything you mentioned in your comment.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| Implementing "responsive UI" using exclusively JavaScript
| and CSS-in-JS (rather than using CSS or not doing
| anything) was naughty and kludgey in 2010. The fact that
| it's now the "best practice" seems to have increased the
| rate at which forms delete themselves and the data users
| have typed in when the user makes the mistake of resizing
| the window (causing the user to briefly wonder whether
| computers have on the whole been worthwhile compared to
| the alternatives offered by mechanical printing presses,
| abacuses, papers, quills, and if one is feeling
| provocative, a typewriter, before repeating all the labor
| that they previously performed for their silicon master
| before it decided to unceremoniously discard it)
|
| Preventing the browser's "find" feature from searching
| the text on the page (causing the user to tear their hair
| out, bash their computer with a rock, borrow a wilderness
| survival book from the local library, drive to the
| countryside, abandon their vehicle at a rest stop, and
| renounce civilization once and for all) is a technique
| called List Virtualization and you can learn how to do it
| in React here: https://www.patterns.dev/posts/virtual-
| lists/. react-virtualized has over 1 million weekly
| downloads on npm.
|
| The benchmarks I was able to find comparing identical
| operations in different web frameworks look pretty bad
| for React as well.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I like the way you roll, anonymoushn. Gave me a good
| laugh.
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| Regardless, react "solved" front end UI development. It has
| reduced churn in frameworks, and essentially determined how
| to handle state, render components on a loop. It was a
| breakthrough in web technology.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| If by "solved" you mean destroyed what wasn't broken,
| sure.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| This would have been interesting but does not appear to be
| something Carmack would get into.
| fezfight wrote:
| Yeah. C'est la vie. Glad for his contributions over the years
| to open source.
| kingTug wrote:
| Lex Fridman misrepresents his role at MIT to make himself sound
| more accomplished than he really is, and the way he went about
| putting out his self driving car research directly to the press
| instead of going through peer review is shady. The guy is a
| cringeworthy grifter. He's trying to be viewed as some AI expert
| but he's totally full of shit. Elon made him famous and he got
| the Joe Rogan push. Absolutely droning interviewer in need of
| media training.
| sva_ wrote:
| How did he misrepresent his role at MIT? He never claimed to
| have gotten a degree there and he never claimed to be a
| professor there. He taught a course there though, as an
| independent researcher.
|
| I don't think he got famous through Elon Musk, but maybe
| through Joe Rogan to some degree (he already had hundreds of
| thousands of views before his first episode with Elon Musk.)
|
| How exactly is he a grifter? Sure he runs ads, like almost any
| podcast, but I don't think he's trying to sell anything or so.
|
| His interviewing style is peculiar, but that's a matter of
| opinion, and you're free to not watch his show. He undeniably
| has a lot of very interesting guests on, and that's probably
| the main reason why people watch his show.
|
| So what are you even saying?
| laluser wrote:
| I agree with you. I think OP is way off the mark here. I
| actually think Lex is super thoughtful and humble. Always
| giving praise to people and never bringing much of his
| academia efforts.
| m_ke wrote:
| He turned his youtube lectures channel on self driving into
| "MIT AI Podcast", which helped him get a ton of top ML people
| on and then pivoted that into "Lex Fridman Podcast" with a
| lot more IDW style crackpots mixed in, lending them
| credibility that they don't deserve.
| infamouscow wrote:
| So his crime is exploring other topics and expanding his
| podcast?
|
| You don't have to listen to podcasts you don't like.
| m_ke wrote:
| No crime, just a bit of a grift.
|
| It would be the equivalent of me starting the "YC
| Business Podcast" because I post on HN, getting all of
| the top CEOs on, then changing the name of it to "The
| m_ke pod" and expanding it to include a bunch of get rich
| quick scammers.
| laluser wrote:
| How does he misrepresent his role at MIT to sound more
| accomplished? I have watched a ton of his episodes and he
| hardly mentions anything about himself. He's fairly humble
| overall, especially compared to other podcasters in this space.
| redmen wrote:
| That's his thing though. He acts humble but behind the scenes
| he manipulates
| PostOnce wrote:
| MIT itself does the same shit, they make every minor toy
| cobbled together by just-recently-high-school students sound
| like something it's not.
|
| MIT Researchers Invent ________, where the blank is billed as a
| self-aware machine, when in reality it's Eliza re-implemented
| in PHP.
|
| In fact, if MIT students reinvented the wheel, the MIT press
| office would bill it as "MIT Researchers invent matter
| transporter".
| sva_ wrote:
| I get where you're coming from, and agree to some degree, but
| your example is just unrealistic hyperbole.
| PostOnce wrote:
| It's not though, they really do wildly exaggerate trivial
| things to aggrandize MIT; we could go digging for examples,
| there are many.
|
| It's understandable, reputation is valuable, both for
| organizations and for the individual.
|
| So, I can't blame Lex and I can't blame MIT, but I can say
| that I absolutely notice it.
| sva_ wrote:
| Could you point me to an example where they did a press
| release about a model from the (approx) 70s which they
| reimplemented in PHP? I mean anything like that, not this
| specific example. Because that just sounds so outlandish
| to me.
| PostOnce wrote:
| They can transmit thoughts directly into your head... via
| a computer monitor.
|
| They call it a "a brain-to-brain interface", doesn't that
| imply one brain is wired directly to another
| electrically?
|
| It opens with "The ability to send thoughts directly to
| another person's brain is the stuff of science fiction.
| At least, it used to be." ... again, via a computer
| monitor.
|
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/09/29/139965/the-
| first...
|
| I remember when they billed kids fucking around with
| shape memory alloy as something really grandiose, I'll
| see if I can find that and come back and edit this post
| to include it if I do.
| PostOnce wrote:
| Ah, I found one.
|
| "MIT Engineers develop magnetic soft-continuum thread-
| like robot with lubricating hydrogel skin"
|
| or in no-BS language: "Some college guys move coated wire
| with magnets"
|
| https://news.mit.edu/2019/robot-brain-blood-vessels-0828
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Attacking someone's character just because their name is
| mentioned and you don't like them is pretty boring
| conversation.
|
| If you're going to drive-by crap on someone, at least recommend
| podcasters that you do like assuming there are any, especially
| those that might appeal to Lex's audience.
| bigdict wrote:
| He is first author on a NIPS paper coauthored with two other
| people at MIT. That's a sign of legitimacy/accomplishment to
| me.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I just see him as a guy that has interesting conversations with
| interesting people. I don't understand the need to Joe Rogan
| him.
| [deleted]
| economist420 wrote:
| Wow so much unprovoked hate. Sounds like the issue is more with
| you than anything to do with Lex.
| deelowe wrote:
| I don't know, I kind of like his podcast and I'm glad he takes
| the more dry, analytical approach when compared to others.
| thesausageking wrote:
| How does he misrepresent himself?
|
| The MIT directory lists him as a "Research Scientist"[0] and he
| has solid set of papers he's published on self-driving cars and
| AI[1]. This is completely consistent with the way he describes
| himself: "I'm an AI researcher working on autonomous vehicles,
| human-robot interaction, and machine learning at MIT and
| beyond"
|
| [0] https://www.mit.edu/directory/?id=lexfridman&d=mit.edu [1]
| https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ&hl=en...
| cma wrote:
| He took pretty close to the Tim Ferris route of give a speech
| on soapbox in harvard square, then put "gave a speech at
| Harvard" on your resume.
|
| His MIT class was of the type that is more like an ungraded
| bookclub than a normal MIT course.
|
| What he did with the Tesla safety paper was far more
| ingratiating and conniving though.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Quite the contrary.
|
| https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ
| Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote:
| "Cringe" is the best word to explain what I feel when watching
| or listening to his videos. It's like Curb about Enthusiasm but
| without the humor.
| briga wrote:
| Seems to me like he's gotten along just fine without any 'media
| training', whatever that is. Calling him a grifter seems a
| little unwarranted
| redmen wrote:
| infamouscow wrote:
| Do you have any evidence to back that up -- or a counter-
| argument to the undeniable fact the podcast is a success?
| redmen wrote:
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| Do you realize you sound like a crazy person?
| kodah wrote:
| > And very naive man boy
|
| > You sound triggered.
|
| > You know what else has had undeniable success?
| Cigarettes and Facebook. Terrible argument.
|
| Just a note, I think you've violated the guidelines in a
| multitude of ways here. Since you're new, definitely have
| a read: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I enjoy his interviews, which are mainly about his guests, not
| about him.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yes. He may be a bit of a gray museum wall, but I don't go to
| the museum and think "gee, a pink polka dot background would
| really set off this Rembrandt painting."
|
| He doesn't get in the way, and that's more than can be said
| about a lot of people vying for attention these days.
| modeless wrote:
| Can't wait to find out what the heck he's been working on in AI!
| Seems to me like he would be best at scaling to extreme model
| size and making efficient use of available hardware, but it would
| be too expensive to keep up with the corporate labs as an
| independent researcher. And from what I've seen before it seems
| like his opinion is that scale might not be required.
| naillo wrote:
| Carmack is awesome. Rarely does an interview anymore but when he
| does he really delivers and gives us friggin 5 hours. Look
| forward to it.
| ge96 wrote:
| Nice, I think he did one with him in the past, that was also good
| timcavel wrote:
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-04 23:01 UTC)