Ask A Genius 1602: Trump, Nobel Symbolism, and Ethical Conflict

Rick Rosner: Invoking the Insurrection Act could expand domestic deployment authority, but it does not allow a president to cancel federal elections. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That leads to ethics: two narratives, one faith-based and transcendental, the other humanist and empirical. Who is winning, and at what cost in the U.S.?

Ask A Genius 1594: Venezuela, Power, and Why Language Made Humans Dangerous Generalists

“When bad actors face no practical constraints, that is always dangerous. Language let us compress reality into symbols, freeing our minds to roam more widely. That same generalist power makes us adaptable—but it also means our systems can fragment when pressure rises. The slope does not always look slippery, until it does.”