Rick Rosner: Every night, Carole and I watch some quality TV downstairs. Tonight, it was The White Lotus, the latest episode, plus the opening monologue of SNL. After that, we do squats, I do sit-ups, maybe some curls, and then, after an hour downstairs, we move upstairs and watch another 30 to 40 minutes of …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How does informational cosmology account for time? Rick Rosner: There are various ways of framing time. We’ve talked about the set of all possible moments in all possible universes. Each moment implies a set of possible next moments, just as each moment implies a set of possible previous moments. We always experience …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1302: Informational Cosmology, Quantum Time, and Simulation Hypothesis
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Evolutionarily, why do we care more about dogs and cats than people sometimes? Rick Rosner: Because dogs and cats give unconditional love. Same reason people love Disneyland—Disneyland doesn’t judge you, doesn’t ask anything from you, except to pay for an overpriced ticket. In Disneyland, everyone smiles, and it feels like love. Dogs …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1301: Why Humans Love Pets More Than People
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The Democrats lost not only substantially, but significantly, in the last election. Let’s quantify it. Every state—all 50 states—the Democrats did worse than they did in 2020. So, how did left-wing social and political movements screw up the election? Rick Rosner: Jake Tapper, the journalist on CNN, coauthored a book that’s coming …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1300: Democratic Failures in 2024 and the Path to 2028 Victory
Rick Rosner: So, in the book, we’re going to have Skynet Day. The U.S. and Russia each have about 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads under New START limits, but their total stockpiles—including retired warheads—are much higher. Not all of them are battle-ready. Maybe a third are immediately functional, but most could likely be made ready quickly. …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1299: AI, Nuclear Deterrence, and the Future of Human Labor
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you want to contribute anything on antisemitism? Rick Rosner: We can start by discussing how antisemitism and crazy beliefs about Jews exist. You ran through dozens of conspiracy theories about Jews. Compared to their population size, the number of conspiracy theories about Jews likely places them at the forefront of any …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1298: The Centrality of Conspiracy Theory Psychology in Antisemitism
Rick Rosner: So, to some extent, my career—my continued employment at Kimmel—has been shaped by my attempts to write about myself for decades. Eventually, I semi-gave up and started writing about another character with many of my traits. Writing directly about myself would inevitably involve throwing others under the bus. While I am forthcoming about …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1297: Comedy, Self-Disclosure, and the Evolution of Porn Culture
Rick Rosner: So, we can think of three major existential threats to humanity: AI run amok Climate change Nuclear war And then there’s the more manageable threat of an asteroid impact. Can you think of any other major risks? Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Supervolcanic eruption. Biological weapons. Solar flares. Gamma-ray bursts, global economic and societal collapse, …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1296: Existential Risks, AI Alignment, and Global Stability
Rick Rosner: Musk is posting bullshit on his personal website, which is X. Today—February 19—the latest bullshit is that his team of investigators supposedly uncovered $1.9 billion of fraudulent money that was funneled through Stacey Abrams, the unsuccessful candidate for Georgia governor. It’s horseshit. They’ve pulled stunts like this before—claiming that millions of dead people …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1295: Musk’s False Claims, High-IQ Communities, and Mental Decline
Rick Rosner: So, AI—when you ask it appropriate questions—makes no bones about eventually supplanting human cognition. What passes for common sense now tells you the same thing: we have figured out how to create "thinky stuff." Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We've made our own natural predator. Rosner: And we know that "thinky stuff" in biological beings …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1294: AI, Scaling Laws, and Political Chaos
Rick Rosner 