I started watching Landman on Paramount Plus, set in Texas's boomtowns, a modern tale of fortune-seeking among roughnecks and billionaires in the world of oil. Paramount Plus has decided to be the manly-man streamer. Taylor Sheridan seems to write about rugged people doing rugged shit and that seems the demo.
“The mRNA vaccines only interact temporarily with RNA and protein production inside individual cells. The mRNA never enters the nucleus, never touches DNA, and is broken down quickly. Nothing permanent happens. But here’s what really gets me. Even if you accept their framing, why does nobody point out that COVID.”
“It is called papering the opposition.”
“I kept thinking about leverage—the mix of insight and access. Chappelle is exceptionally smart and perceptive, and his life has given him exposure to an enormous range of people and experiences. The point is that Chappelle has access and perspective. MAGA politicians and Trump have access, but not real insight.”
“Putin is unlikely to agree to that outcome. Trump is seventy-eight and was never known for sustained intellectual discipline. He is not unintelligent, but he is mentally undisciplined. He will likely keep acting in increasingly blatant ways until the midterms or remaining institutions restrain him. Through courts, lawsuits, or polling.”
“I would choose cryonic preservation. Your blood and water are replaced with cryoprotective solutions, then your body is cooled to liquid-nitrogen temperatures to avoid ice crystals that destroy tissue. Revival remains speculative—no one has ever been brought back—but if identity can be preserved, I believe it is worth attempting.”
“Catching fake IDs was my favourite part of working the door. Maybe one in ninety tried to sneak in, but some nights it felt like everyone. The worst part was finding a 19-year-old surrounded by creeps who saw her inexperience. Stopping a fake ID sometimes meant stopping something worse.”
“But instead of the checks being for three hundred and fifty dollars, they are for three cents. Literally two and three cents. Carol took in a stack of checks that were more than an inch high—more than a hundred checks and they totaled $7. And that's the kind of residuals.”
AI replaces good work with bad work, yet people expect limitless growth. Rosner argues the real mistake is assuming human cognition is excellent. If consciousness is evolutionary rather than sacred, artificial systems could eventually reach our clumsy level. The question is not whether AI becomes conscious — but how competently.
"On a packed holiday flight, Rick Rosner watches an 11-hour coughfest unfold, his wife later testing positive for COVID. In conversation with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, he turns airborne contagion, toilets, penis enlargement, and aging eyes and ears into one anxious, darkly funny meditation on modern bodies trapped in crowded spaces."
Rick Rosner 