Rick Rosner: Look at the population curve. It is not heading toward zero anytime in the next 800 years. If we have that long to adapt, it is not a crisis—or at least not an existential one. You asked whether we’ll see more healthy single-parent families, adopted kids, and similar setups—especially with the rise of …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Is all this panic around marriage rates, the political divergence of young men and women, and lower birth and coupling rates a crisis? You’ve been talking about what you would call a coupling crisis—lower coupling, lower birthrates, the political and social divergence between men and women, growing feminist versus anti-feminist polarization, delayed …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You’ve worn a dress on a show before—yeah? With Lance. Would you rather fight with Lance half-naked, quarter-naked, or in a dress? Rick Rosner: Fighting Lance naked would be funnier, but we decided against it—where would we even show that? I guess I’d be fine either way. I’ve got this older, skinny …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1343: Why Cleaning Horse Poo Is Easier Than Dealing with Horse Farts
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 