“Marriage is a partnership in which you work together to benefit from being with another person.”
“Marriage is a partnership in which you work together to benefit from being with another person.”
“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.”
"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."
Scientific breakthroughs have often depended on timing, privilege, or sheer luck. From Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin to Isaac Newton’s plague-era “miracle year,” history shows that chance favors the prepared mind. Yet, privilege—like that of Prince Louis de Broglie or Tycho Brahe—also played a decisive role. In stark contrast, today’s scientific progress is undermined not by fortune but by politics and misinformation. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, has advanced anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, opposed germ theory, and fueled deadly consequences, from Samoa’s measles deaths to threats against cancer vaccine research.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner examine human strengths like abstract thinking, endurance, and reproductive success, alongside evolutionary flaws—such as brain vulnerabilities, adrenal overactivation, and limited big-data capacity. They explore how modern life misaligns with our biology, creating stress and irrationality, while AI emerges as our likely cognitive successor.
Rick Rosner, fully vaccinated and on Paxlovid, describes his eleven-day COVID bout: negative Tuesday, positive again Sunday, mild symptoms, and fear of long-term effects, ongoing spread. He’s cut exercise 20%, avoided severe disease risk through vaccination, and highlights endemic COVID patterns, immunity levels, variant naming shifts, and data access challenges.
Rick Rosner shares his experience catching COVID after successfully avoiding it for over five years. Symptoms were mild, mainly a sore throat, possibly due to recent vaccination. He discusses Paxlovid’s benefits and side effects, precautions he’s taking, including reduced exercise intensity, and his hope for minimal long-term effects on cognition.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Rick Rosner about the nature of therapy, particularly couples counseling. Rosner shares his extensive experience in therapy, noting the importance of unbiased therapists. He reflects on the complexity of discussing current events, like the Israel-Palestine conflict, within therapeutic environments, recognizing the emotional weight it carries for many, including American Jews. Rosner expresses frustration over politicization in counseling and stresses the need for impartiality. He relates this dynamic to personal communication challenges with his wife, emphasizing the role of therapy in fostering constructive dialogue about personal and external issues, including political tensions, without ideological bias.
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?