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The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
I'm not sure why is it so. But I love listening to Lex. Unlike many podcast hosts, the way he lets his guests talk is amazing. His questions are well-crafted. His voice is definitely soothing to listen over a long commute!
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Those are very strong words. Why?
The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude, the poor quality of the questions that he asks, the fact that he reads questions from a sheet in front of him instead of listening to his guests and having a real conversation with them, the way in which he comes across as disingenuous in most interactions... I could go on (and I know that a lot of this is subjective).
Interesting. I don't see much in the way of arrogance when I watch these. What you call "deadpan delivery and lack of personality" I attribute to his being Russian, and just having a somewhat stereotypically Russian style of delivery.
The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
This clearly is a podcast for quite technical people. His guests most of the time (like, almost always, except the cases he invites somebody because he was on a JRE) are people notable for their technical contributions. They discuss some very technical stuff the guest is known for and is literally the best possible person to teach us about. Instead he skips technical questions almost completely and opts for "what's the meaning of life"?! Come on!
When the discussion happens to be pretty technical (mostly, because the guest himself is more of a no-nonsense type of guy) it sometimes feels like some basic background necessary to understand the further explanation was skipped. I assume that it's my fault, since this is supposed to be common knowledge and host doesn't want to interrupt the guests to clarify such nonsense. And later on I understand, that Lex didn't understand that part either, but didn't make any attempts to clarify. Isn't that the point of an interview?..
I wouldn't want to offend him, but often I think "oh, such a waste!" listening to his podcasts. So much stuff is left unanswered.
So, yeah. Nice guy, but no so good interviewer. And way too romantic.
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And you're well served with this response, as the actual work he did is basically not reproducible. No matter how many best selling books made into movies; it's still bullshit. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I read it on advice of a good pal, and it sure seem…
I believe this is overstated and makes it sound like all of his work is bs, when the majority of the book is just fine. (I could be wrong and would be happy to be proven so. Just not a fan of the all-or-nothing attitude people apply toward this book when that doesn't seem warranted.)
Besides, why go through all that trouble if there are heaps of good psychology books out there that aren't plagued with errors as this one? Since our time is so limited, I think it is a good heuristic to avoid any non-fiction book that it is known to contain errors.
The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
This is too harsh in my opinion, but I agree that he isn't really a good host. I don't find him off-putting at all (actually the opposite, he seems to be a nice guy), but I really dislike the questions he asks. This clearly is a podcast for quite technical people. His guests most of the time (like, almost always, except the cases he invites somebody because he was on a JRE) are people notable for their technical cont…
On the technical depth point, I agree. A lot of folks tell me they love the "meaning of life" questions. I love both the technical and the philosophical. My hope is to more and more try to go deep technically with the ML, CS, math, physics folks on the topic of their expertise, and find productive points of passionate disagreement or insight. This isn't easy, and I fail often, but I'm working hard to improve.
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Lex here. I hear you. I'm working hard to improve. The parts about arrogance and disingenuousness I hope are not true, but I appreciate comments like this because they help me reflect on it, and see that there might be truth to it. Your words hurt but in the end are a gift, so thank you. I'll do my best to improve.
You should probably add that you're Lex in your HN profile.
The few times I've tried to read Kahneman's book I must admit that I stopped pretty early. I found his writing style too authoritative, without presenting much evidence for the theories he lays out.
And you're well served with this response, as the actual work he did is basically not reproducible. No matter how many best selling books made into movies; it's still bullshit. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I read it on advice of a good pal, and it sure seem…
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And you're well served with this response, as the actual work he did is basically not reproducible. No matter how many best selling books made into movies; it's still bullshit. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I read it on advice of a good pal, and it sure seem…
I've heard something similar here on HN before (still didn't read the book myself), and what baffles me: wasn't he awarded the Nobel Prize for that work? Are those just political bullshit nowdays as well, like Oscars?
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And you're well served with this response, as the actual work he did is basically not reproducible. No matter how many best selling books made into movies; it's still bullshit. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I read it on advice of a good pal, and it sure seem…
I believe this is overstated and makes it sound like all of his work is bs, when the majority of the book is just fine. (I could be wrong and would be happy to be proven so. Just not a fan of the all-or-nothing attitude people apply toward this book when that doesn't seem warranted.)
If you take with the first implication, it's plausible, useful as one more datum. But it seems like replication problems make the hard distinction approach more problematic.