The 'simulation' argument is actually very persuasive if you look into it. Quoted below from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis:
[Begin quote.]
Bostrom's trilemma argues that one of three unlikely-seeming propositions is almost certainly true:
1. "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", or
2. "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running simulations of their evolutionary history, or variations thereof, is very close to zero", or
3. "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one."
The trilemma points out that a technologically mature "posthuman" civilization would have enormous computing power; if even a tiny percentage of them were to run "ancestor simulations" (that is, "high-fidelity" simulations of ancestral life that would be indistinguishable from reality to the simulated ancestor), the total number of simulated ancestors, or "Sims", in the universe (or multiverse, if it exists) would greatly exceed the total number of actual ancestors.
Bostrom goes on to use a type of anthropic reasoning to claim that, if the third proposition is the one of those three that is true, and almost all people live in simulations, then humans are almost certainly living in a simulation.
[End quote.]
* Note I don't care at all about Friedman and have listened to exactly one of his podcasts (Carmack).
I don't mean to bash him too much though, I think it's hard interviewing experts in areas they have spent their whole lives in and not to feel less informed in comparison.