Rick Rosner talks about James Comey's cryptic "86 47" tweet sparked backlash, with critics accusing him of inciting violence against Trump. Experts argue the phrase more likely implies political rejection. The controversy echoes past misjudgments by Comey and others, as media attention shifts from substantive issues like Republican tax proposals.
*Interview conducted October/November, 2024.* Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I've heard commentary from Democrats suggesting that if they lose the next election, it will be the last Democratic election. I've also heard Elon Musk say that if the Democrats win, it will be the last Democratic election for the Republicans. So, let’s talk about it. Rick Rosner: …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1155: Demoblicans and Republicrats
Rick Rosner: I was born in 1960, so I saw the second wave of feminism more or less firsthand. It started kicking in during the late 70s, maybe mid-70s, or even early 70s as a reaction to the general culture and also to the chauvinism of the left. The anti-Vietnam War movement and other hippie and …
Rick Rosner: Okay, so this will be it because I'm pretty tired. It's about 20 hours until the debate between Biden and Trump. The betting market—I'll take one step back. The betting markets have Trump favored to win, although it's not clear if he's as favored as it appears. More people are betting on Trump, …
Rick Rosner: In the Spike Jonze movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his phone’s operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Spoiler alert, but the movie is already nine years old? I believe it was released in 2015. One of the factors leading to their separation is that the operating system becomes increasingly frustrated with …
Rick Rosner: So I watched all the episodes of America’s Sweethearts, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is it about? Rosner: It’s part of that team. It messes you up physically. They looked at one young woman who had to get a hip replacement after three or four years of being on the …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 973: Dallas Cheerleaders and Centaurs
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: All right, so today I saw the term integrated cognition pop up. I looked it up, and I don't know how common a term it is, but it refers to AI, and it's what we call multimodal. It's kind of the way we think, which is we have inputs from a number …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 972: Analytic Systems and Integration of Cognition
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How has the landscape of bullshitting evolved in the early 21st century? It’s been about a quarter century. How has it changed? Rick Rosner: In general, in American culture, the main change in bullshitting is that about a quarter of American adults have been broken. It’s no secret. For political reasons and …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 971: The Landscape of Bullshitting
Rick Rosner: I like making political bets because I feel like I can find odds that are askew in politics, where I can't find them in sports. I'm not good enough to find that stuff in sports. Most people aren't. I found online odds on who's going to win the presidential debate. Biden and Trump …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 970: Betting on Biden or Trump
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The mind of God, informational cosmology, and what if the universe is processing information, but it's not actually creating anything associated with a mind? It's not really consciousness-associated, it's just information processing on a large scale, like information shuttling without any explicit purpose. Rick Rosner: I doubt that's the case, though it's …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 969: The Mind of God, a mind of a god, and not quite
Rick Rosner 