Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Boxers or briefs? Rick Rosner: Boxer briefs. Old-school boxers were baggy—your balls could go anywhere, stick to your leg. If you're older and your balls hang lower, you could accidentally sit on them and hurt yourself—or worse. Briefs keep everything tucked up, protecting you from injury. They also create a fabric layer between your …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Given the contemporary challenges to democratic systems—including widespread disinformation, growing political polarization, and the strategic disenfranchisement of various demographics—do you foresee any future scenarios in which societies, perhaps under the guise of protecting democratic integrity, might implement a higher minimum voting age? Could such a shift be rationalized within a technocratic or …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: One of the things I mentioned yesterday was how much of the integrity of space—the shape and cohesiveness of the universe—is due to its internal informational structure, and how much might be due to an external mechanism reinforcing it. For example, does the information in the mind keep it structurally integrated, or …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So—what are your thoughts on panpsychism? The idea that consciousness is ubiquitous and that everything in the universe possesses at least some minimal degree of consciousness? Rick Rosner: No. No. No. No. That is one of the countless misconceptions about consciousness. You need a very specific—well, let us say, specialized—arrangement of matter …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Could you fathom a universe that is still functional but oscillates in its progression through time—so that time is not strictly linear? Its net vector in spacetime still points forward, as in a directional "arrow of time," but the progression jumps around: something like t₁, t₃, t₂, t₄—stuff like that? Rick Rosner: …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I have done a book project with the humanists in the Philippines. This is true: the Humanist Alliance Philippines, International. One name that repeatedly came up in my research and interviews years ago was Duterte. So, the ICC also issued a warrant for Duterte. The Philippines is not a tiny country. What …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership, Israel's government sharply criticized United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres after he made remarks perceived as critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. Israeli officials, including Ambassador Gilad Erdan, said Guterres should resign. While there was strong rhetoric—including declaring him "persona non grata"—this was not a formal …
Rick Rosner: To go back—how bad do you think things are in the U.S. right now? And, consequently, how does that affect Canada? Scott Douglas Jacobsen: It depends partly on how far the damage spreads. You mentioned the near term—but even near-term effects can be long-lasting. For instance, tariffs are almost never short-term measures. I …
Rick Rosner: One more topic. Our brown dog—she's 14 years old—has geriatric vestibular disorder. One or more of her Eustachian tubes gets blocked, which causes dizziness, head tilt, and circular walking. It is concerning and inconvenient to manage. She gets nauseated from the vertigo and has difficulty eating because she cannot properly position her head …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1334: Pet Ethics, Abstract Universes, and the Golden Rule
Rick Rosner: I sent you an article on the idea of “smart stupids” or “stupid smarts”—basically people, like tech billionaires, who are highly intelligent or skilled in one domain, like engineering, but display ignorance in areas outside their expertise without realizing it. For example, on X (formerly Twitter), you will often see users with verified …
Rick Rosner 