Post by @mxchara@cyberpunk.lol

2026-08-25 16:58 UTC

@davidculley@hachyderm.io yeah it's pretty obvious but only if you pay attention to what he's like on Twitter and who wants to do that? and he tries sometimes to make a joke of his flat affect and weirdness. one time he "joked" about having a body in the boot of his car, and I had to ask myself, Lex, are you "joking" about this because it's true? He also used to try to uphold the claim that he was affiliated with MIT but apparently that's not true, though he may have had a job with them or been attached to a research group

Replies (2)

@davidculley@hachyderm.io 2026-08-25 17:21

@mxchara@cyberpunk.lol Some US universities offer what's known as January classes during their 6-weeks-long winter breaks. They are just another way for US universities to make money. On that note, I also recommend this video by the YouTube channel Second Thought on how US universities became corporations.¹ These "January classes" are "bullshit classes". They're there for the students to have some fun in a more casual lecture. For example, if they are international students from China or some other far-away place and can't afford to travel home over the Christmas holiday and are stuck on the campus and would have nothing to do otherwise. These classes are "pass or no record" classes, not "pass or fail" classes. Meaning there's no risk to take the exam, if you fail them, there won't be any trace in your papers that you tried but failed. All the lectures Lex Fridman gave for MIT are such "January classes" during the winter break. These lecturers are also often unpaid. Yet Lex Fridman pretends he's a researcher at MIT. The scribblings on the blackboard on his profile picture aren't even his nor do they have to do with ML. They are from the previous class of another professor who didn't wipe the blackboard and Lex poses before these equations to make himself look like a researcher. Lex only ever wanted to be famous and have a large following. Making it look like he's a serious MIT researcher gave him the credibility for a headstart to become famous. Fridman wrote a paper once that was utter trash and whitewashed Tesla's autopilot feature. That's how he got into the inner circles of Elon Musk. But since the paper was completely unscientific, it was later retracted by MIT. They no longer show it on their homepage. Lex is no MIT researcher. I recommend this piece for a full breakdown of how Fridman is a fraud.² ¹ https://youtu.be/zipy9f7SrDc ² https://www.businessinsider.com/lex-fridman-podcast-anti-woke-elon-musk-ai #LexFridman

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@davidculley@hachyderm.io 2026-08-26 14:49

@mxchara@cyberpunk.lol Oh boy. Fridman wears a suit at every occasion (famously even in the Amazonian rainforest for his interview with Paul Rosolie) because, he says, it makes him feel like Richard Feynman, his hero. Putting aside that Feynman was an unfaithful hurtful asshole to women and shouldn't be a role model for men, no matter his contributions to the field of physics … … people started making the joke that Lex looked more like Agent 47, the main character from the 2000s video game "Hitman". In an effort to bond and connect with his audience, Lex leaned into that joke. I didn't know he made jokes about having dead bodies in his car. I had stopped following him at some point. He *is* good friends with Ivanka Trump and Mark Zuckerberg, and Musk of course. Having also interviewed JFK Jr. maybe he does indeed have the body of some whistleblower in his trunk, next to a dead bear cub, for an upcoming BBQ party with Aella. 😄 #LexFridman

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