Ask A Genius 1295: Musk’s False Claims, High-IQ Communities, and Mental Decline
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/03
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 were getting monthly Social Security checks. Complete bullshit. They didn’t even understand how to use the COBOL programming language properly, and they drew ridiculous conclusions.
The Stacey Abrams claim is just as fucking ridiculous. They’re saying she personally controlled $2 billion in fraudulent money—painting her as the kingpin of the operation. And to back it up, MAGA supporters are posting all over X that Stacey Abrams has a net worth of $3 million.
The implication? How could she possibly have made $3 million unless she had access to $2 billion and siphoned some off?
But if you actually look into Stacey Abrams, she has been a working lawyer for 25 years. She’s 51 years old and has written 18 books, two of them bestsellers—one of them even optioned for TV development.
If she made an average salary as a lawyer and writer over the past 25 years—say, $150,000 per year—and if she prudently saved $40,000–50,000 per year and invested wisely, there is no fucking way she wouldn’t be worth at least $3 million by now.
That’s not even that much money for someone in her position. It’s completely reasonable. But MAGA supporters—whose critical thinking skills have been obliterated by nihilists, by the burn it all down motherfuckers—are the ones spreading these talking points.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Should we define nihilist in this context?
Rosner: We’ll get to that.
Jacobsen: The people reading your blog aren’t idiots. You might get an occasional crazy person, but it’s not that. The people interested in these discussions—especially in high-IQ communities—are diverse. They span different ideologies, ages, religions, political views, mental health backgrounds, and so on. That’s entirely normal. That’s diverse. But to be drawn to the smartest fill-in-the-blank—whether it’s the smartest people, the smartest conversations, the smartest communities—there’s something going on there. It’s such a niche and unusual focus. IQ is a metric of mental stuff. It’s not everything. It’s just one way of measuring something intangible.
Rosner: Yes. It’s like baseball cards. It’s a weird thing to fixate on.
I get a lot of people tweeting at me personally, and sometimes I don’t even understand what they’re talking about because it comes from some oddly specific, hyper-informed niche perspective. Sometimes I’ll give it a like, sometimes I won’t.
My question to you is— we’ve been talking for about ten years now. I’m almost 65, and I’ve started questioning whether I’m in decline. I’ve talked about it before, but I don’t think I’ve asked you directly—maybe I have. Do I seem to be in mental decline compared to when we first met?
Jacobsen: No. You don’t seem mentally in decline. You seem calmer. Less crazy.
Rosner: Oh, cool. That’s good.
Jacobsen: When we first started talking, you had just been let go from Kimmel. So, so, I don’t think you’ve declined. I think you’ve moderated. You don’t seem crazy. You had certain patterns of obsessiveness before.
Rosner: Yeah, I was obsessed. I wanted to get on that damn TV show. It was front and center in my mind.
Jacobsen: Wanting things—fame, money, success—isn’t abnormal. People want that stuff. But the motivation behind it back then wasn’t healthy. That’s what’s changed. You still want it, but it’s no longer all-consuming. It’s not making you neglect other parts of your life.
Rosner: It feels consuming, but maybe I don’t express it as intensely. Also, I have an outlet now—I’ve got this fucking book. I’ve written so many fucking words. And I still have a ton left to write, but at least I have something down already.Maybe that’s the flywheel that absorbs my obsessiveness. It feels like a way to get what I’ve always wanted. But I’ve had other ways too. Anyway—fuck it.
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