I'll agree that "interesting thoughts" may be up to interpretation, but imma fight you on the charisma thing. I looked up "flat affect" in the dictionary and there were no words, only a full-page headshot of Lex Fridman.

I'm simply pointing out the answer to your "I don't understand why people like him" question. If you can't understand why people don't share your hatred for something, then odds are that the disconnect is because they don't share your reasons for hating it.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Lex because I think he is really good at building connections, staying intellectually curious, and helping peopl open up, but he is absolutely not big with charisma! I don't know if he normally talks so flat or not, but in the podcast I don't think he could be more flat if he tried. He's also not great at asking questions, at least not spontaneously. Seems really good at preparation though.