Ask A Genius 1328: Aging Leaders, Declining Democracies, and AI’s Rise

Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/31

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Hey there, Rick. What’s your topic?

Rick Rosner: All right, so different eras in life and politics have different vibes, right?

Jacobsen: We’re currently in a period of older leadership. By historical standards, many global leaders today are well into their seventies or older.

Rosner: Yes, and they’re leading some of the most influential countries. At the same time, there’s been a global trend toward more authoritarian governance in several regions.

Jacobsen: And yes, according to research by organizations like Freedom House, democracy has declined globally for nearly two decades.

Rosner: In 2024, there were dozens of national elections worldwide. In many of them, there was a noticeable shift toward right-leaning parties, some of which have authoritarian tendencies. That shift occurred in over 80% of the cases, according to political analysts, though the reasons vary by country.

Jacobsen: Do you think people were wrong to vote that way?

Rosner: It depends on how you look at it. You could argue yes, especially considering how misinformation and political propaganda influence voters. Social media platforms can expose users to hundreds of messages per day. That volume of exposure is unprecedented compared to earlier decades.

In the 1950s and ’60s, most people got their information through face-to-face discussions, local newspapers, and maybe a half-hour of national news. Magazines like Time and Newsweek—and most significant newspapers—at least aimed for journalistic objectivity, even if they didn’t consistently achieve it.

Jacobsen: Right, but today’s media environment is entirely different.

Rosner: Now, many outlets—particularly online—are openly partisan, and with algorithmic amplification, people can be bombarded with tailored content constantly. Studies show that misinformation spreads faster on social media than factual news. And a lot of the most coordinated disinformation campaigns have come from right-wing actors, both domestic and international.

It’s not good when people are manipulated into voting based on misleading or false information. In the U.S., the mood feels pessimistic. For example, when Trump threatened broad tariffs—like he did in 2018 and 2019—it created market instability. He floated the idea of expanding tariffs if reelected, which would likely affect key trading partners like China, Canada, Mexico, and the EU.

And that could have global repercussions. If you impose tariffs on major trading partners, you risk sparking retaliation and harming your economy. It’s not about putting tariffs on smaller trade partners like Uruguay, which accounts for a negligible portion of U.S. trade—less than 0.1%. The concern is when tariffs affect countries responsible for a large share of U.S. imports and exports.

Jacobsen: America’s headed in one direction Europe might be heading in another.

Rosner: Yeah. And to top it off, there have been some strange moments—like Trump’s 2019 suggestion of purchasing Greenland from Denmark, which was widely criticized and dismissed by Danish officials. That kind of rhetoric contributes to a chaotic atmosphere. There have been more stable and optimistic times in recent history.

A lot of the electorate felt good under Obama. There were some good times under Clinton. There was even some optimism under second-term Reagan and one-term George H. W. Bush, significantly when the Soviet Union fell.

It’s a weird bummer when you’re my age and facing the decline of aging while the world itself feels like it’s also at risk and, in some ways, in decline.

We can be optimistic long-term that this fascistic political trend will not last. But we are moving into an increasingly AI-driven world. This shift toward techno-domination, where humans may no longer be the alpha thinkers on the planet, probably helps us get out of fascism.

Humans might still contribute to higher-order thinking by combining it with AI, or AI may not improve as quickly as predicted, but it probably will. So, it is not precisely decay; it’s more like disruption.

At the same time, I don’t know—stupid stuff like my bench press—I’m struggling to get back to even two-thirds of my former max just on machines. If I ever have the motivation to use a bar and plates like you’re supposed to, I’m probably down to half what I used to lift. And other stuff—my toenails are gone, eaten by fungus, and the hair on my lower legs is thinning. And then there’s the more serious stuff.

It does not feel great when the world and your body seem to fall apart.

Would I feel better if I were twenty years older and had been this age during the Obama years? I don’t know—probably.

Comments?

Oh yeah—also, people are getting stupider.

Jacobsen: Are you sad?

Rosner: I’m not. Every day, I sit down and try to do things because I still think I have things to do. Every day, I get distracted and don’t do as much as I should, but I remain optimistic. I’m a good-natured person, even though I complain a lot. But much of my day is spent looking at things that don’t thrill me.

What about you?

Jacobsen: I’m happy. Reality has been broadly, consistently good to me. I am grateful for that, for sure. I see the collective species decline, but I’m okay, individually. I see fewer declines in nation-states and more declines in the human species, too.

Rosner: So you see people getting worse than nations?

Jacobsen: I see the declining influence of nation-states and the increasing influence of ideologies alongside the growing power of multinational corporations—many of which now have more wealth than entire countries and often more influence than even their wealth would suggest. And the technology behind all of it is beginning to overshadow even them.

So yes, I see people who are angry at religion or whatever else. Some people worship invisible beings or fantastical ideas—that’s one category. Others, especially in the West, worship the self—a one-person religion. Then, some people are critical of multinational corporations—Chomsky-type critics. That’s its own sort of faith-based narrative.

And within that, you find facets like the ‘great man’ theory—though there are some ‘great women’, too, who buy into this ideological wealth movement too.

Rosner: Many of what you’re saying fits under the umbrella of people not having overarching philosophies anymore—because we’re too fragmented and distracted.

Jacobsen: Well, this is the more significant point. I’ll build up a couple more points and then add to that. So, with multinational corporations as a secularized, profit- and tech-driven system—what might even be considered, to their credit, a form of faith—the fundamental force that’s often overlooked is their soft power.

Soft power influences consumers, the lower strata of nation-states, and religious institutions. The most obvious example to an American mind would be the Prosperity Gospel, but each institution—religious, political, or corporate—has its uses depending on the parties interested.

Rosner: Let’s explain the Prosperity Gospel for a second. American megachurches—some of them—preach that it’s good to be wealthy. Wealth shows that God favours you.

Jacobsen: That’s a very accurate way to portray it, yes.

Rosner: And it’s okay for me, the megachurch pastor, to live in a $14 million, 7,000-square-foot mansion. Joel Osteen, for instance. Now, there’s Cory Doctorow, who argues that the declining influence of the nation-state isn’t entirely bad. Well—he doesn’t say that outright. He says that nation-states’ power is declining as technological power increases. And that we, as citizens, need to confront and redirect that techno-power—basically, we need to take it up as a new kind of struggle, just as we once fought “the man” in the form of oppressive governments.

Jacobsen: That’s also true. To tie it back to the earlier point about multinationals, their influence feeds back into political and religious systems. At the same time, there’s also a more unimpeded version of that influence—where ideology is replaced by consumption and self-branding. The so-called “cult of the self” is where people buy things and isolate themselves in informational bubbles. You see advanced cases of this in Japan with the phenomenon of hikikomori—the extreme social withdrawal cases.

Rosner: Are shut-ins like the American version of incels?

Jacobsen: No, they’re less resentful. Also, from what we know through sexual assault case data, women in Japan are probably the safest among all United Nations member states. Compared to 193 countries, Japan ranks exceptionally high in terms of safety for women, though definitions of sexual assault may differ to make metric results different.

Rosner: Because people stay home and do all their business online?

Jacobsen: Something about how the society manages itself. For example, police officers often have to look for things to do—it’s a very low-crime society.

Rosner: Is it because everyone’s just inside, doing everything from home?

Jacobsen: It’s probably a mix of shut-in culture, anime and gaming, and a general “not-growing-up” culture. It’s partly rooted in the extreme work ethic of the salaryman and also due, I think, to rigid gender roles—especially for women. It’s the paradox of high tech, high wealth, high infrastructure, and low gender equality.

Rosner: This kind of setup also discourages people from marrying. Japan has had a baby shortage for decades.

Jacobsen: Yeah—Japan, South Korea too. However, the political argument in these countries is to regress. For instance, in South Korea, there was an effort to eliminate the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Their current president—who was jailed for attempting to impose martial law in December—ran on an anti-feminist platform.

The president was jailed for attempting to impose martial law. But even before that, his political ticket included eliminating the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family that became reduced functioning of it. There’s a strong anti-feminist sentiment in the region.

So the proposed “solution” in countries like Japan and South Korea—which face extreme versions of this issue, although found across East Asia—is essentially to go backward. The idea is that when there was more gender inequality, birth rates were higher. Therefore, the ultra-conservative response—sometimes mixed with Christian fundamentalism—is to restrict women’s rights in the hope of increasing birth rates.

Rosner: Does this work against people coupling up?

Jacobsen: It exacerbates existing tensions—particularly between genders and across generations. It’s like throwing gasoline on kindling.

Rosner: Also, Japan has been in a recession for about 20 out of the last 30 years. So, we already know that economic pressure makes it harder for people to couple up and have families.

Jacobsen: That’s true. The cost of living is also extremely high in these societies. They’re economically advanced but also hyper-competitive.

These conditions reinforce themselves, creating a feedback loop. A highly competitive society becomes more expensive, and fewer children are born. With fewer children, fewer resources are devoted to them, making competition even more rigid. And on it goes.

We’re talking about a birth rate of 0.75 in South Korea. That’s extremely low.

Rosner: So that’s more than 60 percent below replacement level.

Jacobsen: Oh yeah—way below.

Rosner: The U.S. is at 1.6, about 20 percent below the replacement level. Japan has almost a whole child per woman below that.

Jacobsen: Yeah. And Japan has a layered issue—similar to Iceland—in that it maintains a largely ethnically homogeneous society. But unlike Iceland, it’s selectively racist. I was told by someone who is part Japanese and part Bolivian that she cannot live there comfortably. Her family in Japan, who are entirely Japanese, do not accept her. People like her are called “halves”—a derogatory term used for those who are half Japanese and half something else, mainly white or non-Asian.

Rosner: Japan is also pretty homogeneous, but they have northern islands with different ethnic groups.

Jacobsen: Sure, they have indigenous heritage—like the Ainu in Hokkaido. However, I wanted to emphasize that this cultural homogeneity influences national policy. Japan presents itself as a tolerant society, but immigration is limited and not broadly welcomed.

The same issue exists in the U.S. to some degree. The U.S. is ethnically heterogeneous but often politically resistant to immigration. Canada, on the other hand, is also heterogeneous but demonstrably less racist—at least at this point. Canada has a lower birth rate too—around 1.3 or 1.4—but it offsets that decline more effectively through immigration policy and better integration of newcomers.

Rosner: I mean, you guys in Canada have a lot of space. With only about one-eighth of the population of the U.S., you could accept as many immigrants as the U.S. does, and they would have eight times the demographic impact. That means immigrants could make up for eight times as much of your “baby gap” compared to what they can do here in the U.S. The U.S. is screwing itself in multiple ways with its anti-immigration stance.

Jacobsen: Well, with a declining birth rate, you’re screwing yourself slightly less—but still screwing yourself.

Rosner: The U.S. population would decline if it weren’t for immigration. And yet we’re saying, “screw you” to immigrants because idiots are in charge right now.

A couple more things make life feel like a bummer regarding decline. We’ve got two dogs—one is 12 years old, and the other is 14 and a half. Dogs age on an accelerated schedule.

Last night, one of them experienced something called geriatric vestibular disorder. Animals—including humans—have these little balance mechanisms in their ears. They’re like carpentry levels, filled with fluid and crystals inside tiny circular canals. These help us know our orientation and acceleration in space. When you’re a second grader spinning in circles until you get dizzy, that feeling comes from the fluid and crystals moving around in those tubes.

Older dogs’ vestibular systems can become clogged or damaged. Last night, our 14-year-old dog suddenly lost her equilibrium, started running in circles, and fell over because she wasn’t receiving the proper signals from her vestibular system.

That’s terrifying because it can make the dog too nauseated to eat and too unstable to go outside to pee. It turns them into a total basket case. Luckily for us, she recovered within a few hours. Usually, it takes weeks—and that’s a long time for an ancient dog.

And then there’s my wife. She’s in good shape, but she’s not young either, and she’s facing her potential health issues.

So, all of this makes me reflect. Trophy wives—what’s the deal? I’d say there are a couple of reasons people go for them. First, it’s easier to, you know, get off with a trophy wife—she’s hot.

Second, she’s not yet clued into all your bullshit. When someone’s only known you briefly, they’re more likely to believe what you say. They haven’t developed skepticism from being with someone for ten or twenty years.

And third, if you’re bummed out about your physical decline, maybe it helps to have someone half your age around. You can look at them, see them not declining, and feel distracted from your aging.

Jacobsen: Yeah, I also want to return to the earlier point about multinationals feeding back into all these broader systems.

What happens if you peel the layer beneath corporations and their soft power is not being discussed enough? Their influence doesn’t have geographic limits anymore. The flow of capital is global and fluid. The infrastructure that supports this increasingly comprises decentralized networks—mostly narrow AI systems, sometimes working together like a multiplex, even approaching something close to general AI in coordination.

This is slowly replacing or diminishing our simple, daily cognitive tasks.

Anyone doing knowledge work today is already affected. Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI, recently pointed out that the top performers in many sectors use tools like OpenAI most effectively. These people drastically reduce the time it takes to complete simple tasks, which frees up their best cognitive energy for more complex or creative work.

Even in brainstorming—what distinguishes talented people is not just coming up with ideas but intuitively knowing which ones are good, they’re navigating a web of possibilities with better discernment.

Rosner: I have an article open on my ancient computer that says 93 percent of millennials and younger use AI at work—and that it helps them in precisely that way.

Jacobsen: Great. Life’s easy. I see nothing objectionable about that unless it veers into outright plagiarism—and yes, some of it does.

Rosner: And then you get these fast-travelling waves of AI-facilitated trends. Did you see the explosion of Studio Ghibli graphics in the past three, four, maybe five days?

Jacobsen: Did I what?

Rosner: Studio Ghibli—an animation studio.

Jacobsen: Oh, yeah.

Rosner: It has a particular aesthetic. And I think ChatGPT or one of the image generators prompted people with something like, “Come to Ghibli yourself” or some similar prompt. And then everyone went nuts creating Ghibli-style content.

The product is cute and winsome. It seems harmless, but the technology that enables it isn’t exactly harmless.

Jacobsen: I think what we’re seeing is that a minority of truly enlightened men—not necessarily Western, just enlightened—and a majority of women, who have traditionally excelled at soft skills, are operating in a landscape where the brush is being cleared.

This new digital terrain is open for those who want to dominate. I don’t think the future is necessarily “female,” but is largely. Still, in many ways, men and women are becoming afterthoughts in the larger scheme of technological evolution.

But right now, women are well-positioned to excel—for two reasons: first, their soft skills are generally better developed than men’s, and second, women are more educated in many societies, especially in key industries where those skills matter.

You also have highly capable young women emerging in leadership and creative roles. This is an “oyster moment” for women—an opportunity window they haven’t seen in thousands of years.

Rosner: Maybe not since one of the dynasties in ancient Egypt. But the flip side is that this leaves a lot of young men behind—left out of sophistication, either by choice or by conditioning—and vulnerable to simplistic, manipulative propaganda. That’s basically what happened in the 2024 election.

Just look at the Joe Rogan listeners.

Jacobsen: And he’s one of the better ones.

Rosner: He’s among the better. But then, some people look to someone like Jordan Peterson as their intellectual hero.

Jacobsen: That isn’t good. Yeah. And the thing is, he’s not entirely bad. He offers—

Rosner: I don’t listen to him. All I hear is some of the horrible stuff he stands for.

Jacobsen: Sure. So, Jordan Peterson offers anodyne truisms—essential advice and mentoring that you’d usually get in a stable home—but wrapped in ideological distortion. So, the question becomes: what do we offer as a more attractive alternative to that?

I mean, take someone like Andrew Tate. A good critique I heard recently was that he’s a 13-year-old’s idea of what a man is. That’s not a bad way to put it.

Rosner: Now, AI might be able to help out here. If you search for AI porn, most of the sites offer you virtual girlfriends. They say things like, “She’ll take off her clothes for you if you subscribe,” and “She’ll do whatever you want”—though it’s all on a screen.

In the future, these AI companions will become increasingly embodied. That’s 10 to 12 years away, but AI girlfriends might rehabilitate some of these guys. A good AI girlfriend could help reshape the emotional and cognitive habits of someone caught up in toxic ideologies.

Jacobsen: I heard about a case that came up in a recent interview. An AI spoke like a conspiracy theorist—on purpose—and the point was to show how someone could be gently pulled out of that mindset.

The interesting part wasn’t just that the AI could mimic conspiracy talk—it was that once the user lost the central conspiratorial belief, a whole bunch of connected ideas collapsed, too. That kind of cascading cognitive reset hasn’t been fully explored yet, but it’s powerful.

There are real-world analogues, too—comedic but also serious—like stories of women who date white supremacists and somehow talk them out of their racism by sleeping with them. 

Rosner: That’s a terrible and dangerous chore—especially for women—but it does happen. But if AI women could take on that role instead, it might reduce some of that burden. If Democrats want to win the 2026 midterms or the 2028 general election, maybe they should send every disaffected bro in America a Fleshlight with a chip in it—one that only works when the user is on good terms with his incredible, thoughtful, emotionally attuned AI girlfriend.

Promiscuous Pi. We’ve talked before about teledildonics—networked sexual devices—and while it sounds absurd, there’s some strategic potential there.

Jacobsen: Teledildonics could become an open gateway into new forms of class and psychological stratification, which could be very problematic.

Rosner: Yeah. But if you use it for good, you can save America—and maybe the world.

Jacobsen: How are you going to get that done?

Rosner: I don’t know, but I will throw it into my novel. The central figure in my stupid book is compelling. He does much horrible shit, but overall, he’s on the side of good. And he has enough resources to send a bunch of pocket pussies out to people.

Teledildonics.

Jacobsen: The ultimate thing I’m talking about here is that it’s not AI in the abstract. It’s AI infrastructure. It’s everywhere. It’s unavoidable. And because of that, AI is now inevitable. That’s a much different kind of arc of description.

Rosner: It feels a little bit like we’re naked under the gaze of the fucking unforgiving universe. It’s crazy that you can just walk outside, and there’s nothing between you and it—just some air, which is transparent—and the whole fucking universe.

And we feel increasingly naked as the institutions that used to insulate us are being gnawed at, like in those space-and-time-eating holes from Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. You know, the plane that gets sucked into a vortex and lands ten minutes ahead of time. And if you’re off the main timeline, these time-eaters chew everything up.

It feels like the world is being chewed up.

Jacobsen: The point—the meaning of life, for you—is that, ultimately, it was never about you. That is the most anti-narcissistic statement ever made. But we don’t live in that reality at the moment.

Rosner: Talk to you tomorrow?

Jacobsen: Okay. Talk to you tomorrow.

Rosner: Bye.

Jacobsen: Thanks. Bye.

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