Rick Rosner: The battle is between the obvious benefits brought by technology and the relentless bombardment of nonsense. This struggle is not unique to America—it’s happening worldwide. When you’re fighting dangerous forms of fundamentalism or totalitarian religious forces, if enough people can see the benefits of modernity, don’t you think they can be persuaded to reject some of that dangerous rhetoric?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Turned into what?

Rosner: Into individuals who reject the harmful ideas—people who, while they may still identify as evangelical Christians or fundamentalist Muslims, stop believing the increasingly dangerous narratives promoted by their religious and political leaders. You think?

Jacobsen: Yes. Are you suggesting that some religious beliefs can be false, Rick?

Rosner: I’m saying that certain interpretations or “flavours” of religion can contradict the ideals we hope religion will promote—goodness, fairness, and love.

Jacobsen: What is Elon doing again?

Rosner: They introduced something that functions like a social credit score. On Twitter, you can use Elon Musk’s AI—called Grok—to ask, “What’s my social credit score?” It provides a score from 0 to 100 based on how effective, entertaining, and aligned with community standards the content you post on X is. I asked for my score and got a 38 out of 100. A ton of people received the same score. For a while, “38” was trending on X. I even asked if everyone was getting a 38, and a few people responded to let me know they weren’t.

There it is.

Photo by Adam Jang on Unsplash

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, The Humanist, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332-9416), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Free Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.