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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
