Ask A Genius 897: New Places and Faces
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/02/09
[Recording Start]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You said you hate flying because you’re about to go to Europe with your wife. I responded that I hate flying too, and that’s a good topic because I wouldn’t say I like flying. I don’t like any travel; I’m a homebody. I want to be at home. I like it when it’s necessary.
Rick Rosner: I like being in new places, but I hate having my routines interrupted and also like Boeing was handling its internal quality control like the feds are supposed to want to keep an eye on what you’re doing if you’re making planes and over the past several years, they just had a door plug blow out on I think one of their 737s because they forgot to screw it down. Three years ago, they lost two 737s because the software fought with the pilot and caused the plane to crash. Remember those accidents?
Jacobsen: Oh yeah.
Rosner: So, I mean, planes can still crash. I mean, a lot of shit can happen, and the odds are very low, but I don’t like that part of it and then being in an uncomfortable position for 11 hours to Europe. Well, you just did that to Ukraine.
Jacobsen: It’s a way longer flight because it’s going around the country because of the war, in a literal sense around the borders or in a multi-destination sense because you can’t go straight into the country.
Rosner: Was your plane entire?
Jacobsen: Yeah.
Rosner: Did you have an empty seat next to you so you could at least stretch out a little?
Jacobsen: I found Canadian Airlines much better than Polish, significantly better.
Rosner: At any time, did you have an empty seat next to you so you could put your legs up or move into a more comfortable position?
Jacobsen: Yes, but then an entitled white woman asked to take it because she had a child. The child was delicate; the child was old enough. She just wanted that seat, so the gentleman beside me with a gap between it for three seats in that particular section of that row was eyeing yet going, ‘Don’t do it.’ Being overly friendly, I said, of course, ma’am, and that became a flight from Warsaw to Toronto with a child kicking my seat the whole time and crying, not a young child, maybe six or so.
Rosner: Did the mom even try to get the kid to behave?
Jacobsen: Didn’t even try. It was a nightmare. I was so exhausted from the war, happy to be alive first of all and then getting out, and I was this entitled Westerner.
Rosner: How is the kid kicking your seat if you gave up an empty chair?
Jacobsen: She was stuck with her child and another guy in the seats before us. One guy between this gentleman beside me at the window, and I left because he was misplaced. She then saw that as an opportunity to take the back row and move us two to the seat in front of us where she and her daughter were with the other gentleman. So, it’d be three in the front, two in the back, and the two in the back would be her and her daughter, with a space in between. So, they had extra legroom, and they had extra armroom.
Rosner: That sucks. Did you turn around at any time and say I did you the favour of giving you those seats, and now your kid is just making my flight miserable?
Jacobsen: I didn’t even do that; I restrained myself.
Rosner: You’re probably a better person for having done that. Also, that lady, I mean, was she an asshole, or was she just overburdened? You said she was entitled.
Jacobsen: She looks like an overweight McDonald’s mom, like an American stereotype. It wasn’t perfect. I don’t know what your country is exporting to the world anymore.
Rosner: Yeah. The ugly American tourist stereotype has been around since the ’50s.
Jacobsen: Oh, that isn’t very good. The Europeans have become more Americanized, but it depends on the country. Iceland doesn’t like America much because of the Trump phenomenon when I was there. They’re the most gender-equal country in the world, like 10-11-12-13 years running, according to the World Economic Forum Index of gender equity or gender equality. So, they’re doing very good. Canada’s certainly up there, but they have done a few other things that, in their trajectory, they made the right decision, whereas North Americans made the wrong decision. They don’t think much of Americans. It depends on the particular country. I’m sure Victor Orban’s Hungary might have a different sense of things there, but that’s their business. He is Trump Lite; he stripped away a lot of democracy…
Rosner: I mean, Trump is undoubtedly criminal; I would guess that Orban’s criminal and Netanyahu’s probably criminal, Putin’s certainly criminal. There are a lot of criminals either in power or close to power in countries that are important to us right now.
Jacobsen: Well, these are all men you’re mentioning. I have not met a woman who would do such a shitty job in leadership in my life; I haven’t. I think the lowest common denominator in some role of the dice in a democratic voting system ends up in power. I know H.L. Mencken was certainly a cynic.
Rosner: I wonder if H.L. Mencken knew how gerrymandering would come to work.
Jacobsen: That’s also true, yet I don’t know many women who would stoop to those levels.
Rosner: We have quite a few in Congress, but none of them will get as much power as Trump did. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene, and we’ve got Lauren Boebert; she has to switch congressional districts to a safer Republican District if they can be reelected. We’ve got Nancy Mace in the Senate, we’ve got Marsha Blackburn, and we’ve got a bunch of lunatics and hacks.
Jacobsen: I’m aware of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren.
Rosner: Joni Ernst is in the Senate, and Kristi Noem is the governor of South Dakota.
Jacobsen: So, I will add to the previous statement. Those women I have not met; I am aware of them through the media, yet their media presence is going to be cleaned up by conservative talk or extreme moments in speech.
Rosner: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, was Trump’s formerly despicable First Press Secretary.
Jacobsen: I’m aware of her, too. So, I’m aware of about two-thirds of the people you mentioned.
Rosner: And Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC, is also terrible. Her name used to be Ronna Romney, but she changed her last name so she wouldn’t bother Trump. Anyway, it’s mostly men, but women can be terrible, too.
Jacobsen: Take it as overlapping distribution curves of awfulness. The statistical phenomenon that explains this is the psychological construct of variance. There is more variance in men than in women.
Rosner: I mean, asshole fascist populations are also misogynistic.
[Recording End]
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