Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Are American billionaires and political elites becoming more odious or less odious? Rick Rosner: It depends on your time frame. For one thing, we didn't always have billionaires. But if you're talking about the top one-hundredth of one percent of Americans, your time frame is a century, 50 years, or even 70 …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1238: The Odious Gilded Age with Electric Cars and Nike Sneakers
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Do you think Twitter has been devolving since Musk took it over? Rick Rosner: It has. Twitter went downhill after Musk bought it. What, three years ago? It used to be where I followed hundreds of comedians and saw hundreds of jokes daily. It was fun and less political. When Musk came …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1237: Tripartite Religion of the H-1B
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why don't you like cardio? Rick Rosner: Why don't I like cardio? I don't like cardio because it's uncomfortable and boring. With weights, I used to read between sets at the gym before COVID-19, and that made the gym a little less boring. I'd only read for about 20 seconds to be …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1236: Why does Rick hate cardio?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you ever watch The Lord of the Rings? Rick Rosner: Parts of it—it puts me to sleep. Superhero movies do the same thing. I fall asleep for about an hour and 20 minutes, sleep for 10 minutes, and wake up refreshed, but still not caring about what I missed. It's even …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1235: The Lord of the Rings and PodTV
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We began collaborating 14% into the 21st century. Now, we are 25% into it. If you start counting the 21st century from the year 2000—which is slightly inaccurate but often done—we have completed 25 years. That means we are one-quarter of the way through the 21st century. Purists might argue that we …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1234: When is the end of our worlds?
Rick Rosner: I can’t recall why exactly, but someone on Twitter (I don’t remember their name) once gave a short talk where they mentioned that everyone they know with an IQ over 180 has trouble avoiding “doofus traps.” I love that term. It stings a bit because I’ve fallen into plenty myself—I used to call …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1233: What counts as doofus traps for smart people?
Rick Rosner: All right, so some trends—most competing with each other to change the world, improve the world, or potentially harm the world—are fairly obvious to the point where people almost distrust them because they've been discussed so extensively. One is AI combined with quantum computing and the disruptions they bring, including AI-driven disinformation, cyber …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1232: Trends and Their Interactions
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you usually celebrate your birthdays? Rick Rosner: We don't go out or gather with others for New Year's or my birthday. Carole likes to mark my birthdays, however. For Hanukkah, she gave me a gift certificate to Michael's Crafts since I'm running low on some glues. Jacobsen: Glues? Rosner: Yeah, …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1231: How do you usually celebrate your birthdays?
Rick Rosner: Yesterday, the Mega Millions lottery awarded someone $1.2 billion. If you choose the payment spread over time, which almost nobody does because it's a bad deal, you'd get about $550 to $560 million as a lump sum. I forget if that's before or after taxes, but it's a significant amount either way. What …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1230: What about investments and windfalls?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What game show would you have liked to be on but never had the chance? Rick Rosner: I've been on Jeopardy! once and lost, and I've been on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire twice. You can't go on Jeopardy! More than once, so that's off the table. I was on Jeopardy! …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1229: What game show would you have liked to be on?
Rick Rosner 