[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How should people be skeptical about high range tests like the Mega or the Titan in ways that an individual with a long history of performing well in these tests would know better than individuals who have not taken them or being part of the societies, discussing them over years …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 749: Status of Admissions to Mega Society Now
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The quote is “Science is magic that works” - Kurt Vonnegut. Rick Rosner: That reminds me of the Arthur C. Clark quote that the technology of a sufficiently advanced civilization will be indistinguishable from magic [“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”] that is, if aliens came to earth …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass” - H.L. Mencken. Rick Rosner: Yeah I buy that. It reminds me of another quote, “No matter how famous or sexy the man, there's somebody who's tired of …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” - Voltaire Rick Rosner: Well, Christianity, I don't know how you figure, like we're in the middle of a Covid pandemic and people argue about whether people have died with Covid or from …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Addendum to Mencken. Rick Rosner: The 1930s, when Mencken was working weren't a nice era because it was deep in the depression. But it would be nice besides the misery of living in the depression to live in an era in which Puritans actually walked the walk. The people who …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “I don't have a girlfriend, but I do know a woman who’d be mad at me for saying that” - Mitch Hedberg. And the other one, I think, is H.L.Mencken “Puritanism; the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy” Rick Rosner: Fucking Mencken, a guy from 90 or 100 …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior” That was obviously not Aristotle; he had very different views to Plato. Rick Rosner: How old is that quote? Well anyway, that brings up all sorts of issues including the issue that got the chancellor of Harvard fired 20 years ago, …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The quote – “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” - William Congreve. Rick Rosner: I'm not super qualified to address this because we just had our 31st wedding anniversary plus we've been in couples counseling for like 27 years …
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The electron is a theory we use. It is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real. Rick Rosner: Is that Feynman again? Jacobsen: Yes. Rosner: So, that's his pragmatism again. As a kid, he would fix people's early radios. So he's a …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 741: Electrons as a Theory We Use
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: It’s Feynman again. ““From a long view of the history of mankind, seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 740: Feynman Again, Mr., Seriously
Rick Rosner 