Ask A Genius 1522: UN Two-State Vote, Kirk Fallout, Musk Protests, and Alien: Earth Flies

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/23

Do symbolic votes, culture-war theatrics, and sci-fi horror rhyme more than we admit?

In this round, Scott Douglas Jacobsen cues Rick Rosner on the UN’s two-state vote, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s incentive to prolong war looms. Rosner retracts earlier Poland-drone speculation, then parses reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk, alongside Jacobsen’s deadpan “heaven” satire. Protesters target Elon Musk’s Tesla Drive-In; the FBI director’s New York dinner irks critics. Rosner places small bets on Donald Trump’s approval and notes shooter Tyler Robinson’s standout ACT before an IHOP “memorial” meal. Back in Alien: Earth, acid-spitting flies that feed on electronics liquefy a synthetic, a mind-controlled sheep stalks, and containment failures mount.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Gaza—the UN resolution. Reuters reported that the United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly voted to endorse a declaration outlining “tangible and irreversible steps” for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

It was a seven-page declaration, the result of an international conference of the UN in July hosted by Saudi Arabia and France on the decades-long conflict. The United States and Israel boycotted the event. The final vote result was 142 in favour, 10 against, and 12 abstentions. That is only 164, while there are 193 member states in the UN General Assembly.

Very importantly, all Gulf Arab states supported it. Israel and the United States voted against it, along with Argentina, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and Tonga. In other words, most of the nations with a direct invested interest voted in favour of a two-state solution. They also condemned Hamas at the same time.

Rick Rosner: All right, well, that is good, but the UN has no teeth. They have had dozens of votes like this over the past 40 years, condemning Israel, with the U.S. refusing to do so. This will not affect Israel’s behaviour at all.

Israel is led by Netanyahu, a figure similar to Trump. His cabinet is aligned with the worst right-wing elements of Israeli politics. He needs to stay in office to delay his prosecution for corruption. He has been on trial for years. The trials are ongoing even as he serves as prime minister. He will keep the war going as long as possible, so that by the time a sentence is handed down and the appeals exhausted, he will be 79 or 80 and effectively beyond accountability.

Netanyahu’s strategy is to claim in Court that he is too old to go to prison. That is his plan. Israel is loathed by its enemies in the Middle East and would be regardless of its behaviour. So Israel is going to keep on doing what it is doing.

A sizable minority of Israeli citizens hate Netanyahu and hate the war, but grudgingly support him as leader while the war is going on. So things are going to keep happening the way they have been happening.

It started with Hamas slaughtering 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. We are now less than a month away from the second anniversary of Israel’s invasion, with more than 100,000 troops sent in. Israel has 300,000 soldiers available. They are not going to put all of them in Gaza, but that is the scale of what they can call up.

Hamas initially had around 30,000 fighters—it is difficult to determine the exact number. At least 10,000, maybe 15,000 to 20,000, have been killed, along with some 40,000 other Gazans. But Hamas’s numbers have been replenished. It might still have as many as 20,000 fighters. That is not nothing, but it is not a force that requires two years to “mop up.” Israel claims the war continues primarily because of the hostages.

At this point, there are roughly 50 hostages held by Hamas. The last time I looked, 20 were thought to still be alive. Israel claims that each side is interested in continuing the conflict. Hamas will keep fighting—they know they will be obliterated if they ever release the hostages. Netanyahu, as I said, wants to keep fighting to stay out of prison.

It is a deplorable situation. Jews around the world, I think, mostly hate what Israel is doing because it contributes to antisemitism and reduces Israel’s standing as a bastion of Jewish liberty.

Jacobsen: Comments?

Rosner: At this time, no. What I am asking is: are my opinions reasonable?

Jacobsen: Your opinions are opinions. For the most part, they are reasonable. I always run it through a fact check.

Rosner: Okay, but a bit ago, I said some stupid things about the drones, the Russian drones flying over Poland. I offered some possible explanations that, on second thought, were stupid. If I were conspiracy-minded, I might have suggested that…

I suggested, stupidly, that the Russian drones over Poland might have been a false flag from Ukraine—even though I did not believe it. That was a dumb thing to say. Any suggestion that it was an accident was also dumb, once I read more. It involved 19 drones, some of them flying deep into Poland. 

That was absolutely intentional. You cannot be sure precisely what Russia intended. Still, they certainly meant, among other things, to provoke Poland and thumb their nose at NATO. I felt bad about saying stupid things. I always feel a little bad, though. If I stopped myself from saying silly things, we would have 40% less content.

Jacobsen: Anything new on Kirk?

Rosner: No, it is more of the same.

The right keeps wanting to blame the left. You have to be careful. I can tiptoe right up to saying that Charlie Kirk was not the best guy without getting hit with a storm of backlash. And my little semi-jokes are bleak enough.

People did not know whether to get pissed at me or not. Stephen King had to apologize because he said that Charlie Kirk was in favour of stoning gays to death, Bible style. Then it turned out Kirk was quoting the Bible without explicitly endorsing it in that instance.

Stephen King had to retract the tweet. I said, stupidly and obliquely, that Charlie Kirk absolutely did not advocate stoning gays—but he did sell t-shirts for $39.95. Then I linked to his line of t-shirts. That is a lot for a t-shirt. But people either did not see the tweet or did not know whether to be offended. So I can do that kind of thing without getting in trouble. I also said that I deplore his murder, that it was tragic for his family and terrible for America.

And that it did not give him time to become a better man. The money rolled in—he had a net worth of $12 million—and he did not have time to change. Nobody really went after me for that. Saying he could have turned into a better man implies he was not the best possible man. I get about 500 views for things like that, which is fine.

I could pay Elon Musk $8 a month and increase my reach by a thousand percent. But then I would be giving Musk money, and his tweets have been getting more racist. So why fund that? It could also get me into more trouble.

Carole and I went to an art gallery opening in Hollywood, which turned out to be right across the street from the Tesla Drive-In. It is Elon Musk’s restaurant, or one of several. From the outside, it resembles a spaceship—round and covered with cladding. On adjacent buildings, they project entire movies onto screens, measuring approximately 30 by 30 feet. The movies are super noisy because they are open-air.

There are protesters out there every day. They make noise, they have inflatable figures waving their arms like car lot mascots, and a couple of giant blow-up Musk figures rigged so that the air pressure makes them give a Nazi salute over and over. There is also a man walking around in a small cardboard Tesla truck labelled “Auschwitz Mobile” or something similar. A dozen or more protesters are out there making noise, and cars honk in support.

Across the street, there is a gigantic apartment building, at least eight stories tall, with probably 250 units. The people who live there—who lived there before Musk built this thing—have to deal with the constant noise. They are pissed. Musk is a crazy weirdo.

Jacobsen: What else? The head of the FBI took time out from being at the crime scene to have dinner at a hard-to-get-into restaurant in New York City, roughly 1,900 miles away from the crime scene. And they did not catch anybody, because the shooter was turned in by his dad and maybe also his roommate.

Rosner: So, things are as they have been, except the temperature has been turned up. I have a small betting account where I discovered that the odds they are offering for Trump’s popularity on October 1—17 days from now—are pretty favourable. I can afford to buy the spread. You can estimate the percentile on Nate Silver’s site where Trump’s approval will fall.

I covered 43% and 44%, and today I spent another dollar to cover 45% in case this whole assassination attempt boosts Trump’s popularity. What else? One of the pictures of the shooter from before he became known as “the shooter” shows him as an innovative individual. He scored 34 out of 36 on the ACT. A 34 is especially impressive coming out of rural Utah, where you don’t pay for an expensive prep course—you just go in and take it cold. On the first try, that is a strong score. So he was a smart guy.

There is a picture of him in a diner with a plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. In honour of that, Carole and I went to IHOP for a Charlie Kirk memorial meal. I got the all-you-can-eat pancakes because they looked good in the picture. It is what Charlie would have wanted.

Jacobsen: Back to Alien Earth.

Rosner: I watched a little more. One of the synthetic kids got killed. You talked about the flies—you mentioned them. We saw them for the first time. A little disappointing, because they are just big flies, about six inches, and all they do is blow acid in your face, dissolve it, and then suck your juices out.

They made a point of showing that the guy who got killed was feeding them. They established that the flies eat a lot of inorganic matter. So even though the victim was synthetic, the flies could get nutrition from him.

The sheep is the one who ambushed them. The sheep has the eye-midge—the eye-octopus—in one of its eye sockets, controlling it. They do a lot of shots of the sheep looking at what is going on, being more intelligent than a sheep.

The guy is feeding all the animals—all the alien species—and the little tray door on the containment unit for the flies jams. He accidentally breaks it trying to open it, so he has to go in there with the tray of nutrients—whatever the flies eat.

He keeps the door wedged open with his foot, but then the sheep slams into the glass and startles him. He pulls his foot away—because he is a stupid kid—and he gets locked in the containment unit with the flies. They dissolve his face and eat his brain. That is how it played out.

It was more of the same, but you already have a creature with acid for blood.

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