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What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

meghanboilard.substack.com

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Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#221

Post by mathattack »

jrockway wrote: post #132
ravenstine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes me wonder what the common experience is for others not just in tech but Corporate America in general. I myself have run into anti-white and anti-male phenomena, unconscious bias pseudoscience training, diversity pledges, and so on, as have now others in my peer group. Dilbert's commentary has so far been entirely appropriate based on my experience, hence it's puzzling to me when people think there's s…

I've taken unconscious bias training. I thought it was very good. I remember catching myself in some meeting talking over a quiet woman who had probably been wanting to talk for quite a while. My brain remembered the training, I shut up, and let her participate in the meeting as an equal. Without the training, I would probably be silently making people miserable. Now I don't do that, as much. You use the word "pseudo…

It’s entirely possible that all of the following are true:

0 - Many groups have historically and currently been victims of bias.

1 - Good anti-bias training makes us better managers and colleagues.

2 - Psychology research is on much weaker footing (replicability) than most of us would like.

3 - One of the quickest ways to limit your career at a company is to point out when they are going overboard on Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and policies.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#222

Post by tasty_freeze »

It is very odd that Adams says he is an "ultra liberal" because he believes women should have a right to choose to end a pregnancy. I have a hard time thinking of any liberal who thinks that position is "ultra liberal". It seems to be only an extremely conservative person thinks that position is ultra liberal.

Adams has often said nutty things then when there is blow-back falls back on "it was just a joke and some people have no sense of humor," then goes on to say things that indicate that he was serious about it all along. I try to avoid Adams, but the story I remember best is him claiming that he was voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because, "Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump"

He also said in 2020, "If Biden is elected, there's a good chance you will be dead within the year." That was just a standalone tweet, not the punchline of some joke. He followed it up with, "Republicans will be hunted."

Some ultra-liberal.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#223

Post by dragontamer »

Agamus wrote: post #209
dragontamer wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is her position on the Trump tax cuts? Bush's wall Street bailout / TARP? The trillions of COVID-19 aid passed by Trump? Anyone who is actually a fiscal conservative knows that the concept is completely dead today.

If I have it right, she feels a great deal of frustration and betrayal. But apparently not enough to give up hope that her idea is the best course to achieve progress for society.

But all the true fiscal conservatives have basically been kicked out of the Republican party.

Liz Cheney for speaking out against Trump. Paul Ryan for compromising too much. Jon Huntsman for having adopted Chinese kids.

I too am a fiscal conservative who largely identifies as Republican. Alas, it's very hard for me to say that today's Republicans represent me. No one actually tries to balance the budget and it's all about incredible social wars that kind of doesn't matter. (Like complaining about the number of lesbians in modern cartoons or whatever).

The fiscal conservatives that speak up fail the Republican purity test and are consistently kicked out. Literally all of them.

The few remaining fiscal conservatives have converted into cult of Trump, like Graham, to keep their voters placated.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#225

Post by [deleted] »

ravenstine wrote: post #11
AinderS wrote: post #4

Simple. Workplace complaints and management priorities have changed, and Dilbert followed. When Dilbert started, the government wasn't yet training employees how to "interrupt whiteness" [1], or Coca-Cola how to "be less white" [2], or Cigna simply forbidding hiring whites [3], nor did academia require mandatory diversity pledges for new hires and promotions [4]. Dilbert is doing what we are told art is supposed to d…

It really makes me wonder what the common experience is for others not just in tech but Corporate America in general. I myself have run into anti-white and anti-male phenomena, unconscious bias pseudoscience training, diversity pledges, and so on, as have now others in my peer group. Dilbert's commentary has so far been entirely appropriate based on my experience, hence it's puzzling to me when people think there's s…

[deleted]

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#226

Post by RajT88 »

> But in the process of addressing whatever the problem at hand is cold and analytically – whether it’s writing up a report or a securing a second date – he fails to consider the human elements involved.

I definitely know people like this. They believe that the way people should work internally is according to hard, cold logic, and that any sort of deviation from logic is a problem to be addressed with them.

The problem obviously is that people don't work that way, and never will. Not even the people trying to hold others to that standard - they just take their feelings and emotional needs and rationalize them into some logical framework without recognizing that they don't originate from that framework. ...To the extent that they acknowledge these things at all! It's a profound over-investment in classical intelligence, without any investment in emotional intelligence.

> But underneath that is profound loneliness – the kind only a genius in a world full of idiots could possibly understand.

Adams is lonely not because he's a genius, but because he likely drives the people in his life away. See: Above.

I have certainly seen such brilliant and logical people struggle with this. Getting into shouting matches over why the most rational thing to do is to date them and not break up.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#227

Post by CoastalCoder »

danaris wrote: post #197
CoastalCoder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely a perception that people forcing diversity training, pronoun protocols, etc. are in positions of power over regular employees. Perhaps attacking people in previously marginalized groups is punching down, but attacking HR DEI enforcers is definitely punching up.

That doesn't track. When people who are and have been marginalized, after centuries of fighting, finally get some of the establishment on their side, it doesn't suddenly become "punching up" to mock and satirize the efforts to get them the recognition, opportunity, and equity they deserve, even if said punches are, on the surface, aimed at individuals with positions of power.

I think you have an interesting point.

I think to explore this further we'd need a clearer definition of "punching up".

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#228

Post by a_shovel »

jrockway wrote: post #132
ravenstine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes me wonder what the common experience is for others not just in tech but Corporate America in general. I myself have run into anti-white and anti-male phenomena, unconscious bias pseudoscience training, diversity pledges, and so on, as have now others in my peer group. Dilbert's commentary has so far been entirely appropriate based on my experience, hence it's puzzling to me when people think there's s…

I've taken unconscious bias training. I thought it was very good. I remember catching myself in some meeting talking over a quiet woman who had probably been wanting to talk for quite a while. My brain remembered the training, I shut up, and let her participate in the meeting as an equal. Without the training, I would probably be silently making people miserable. Now I don't do that, as much. You use the word "pseudo…

"Unconscious bias" is a really strange thing to call pseudoscience. What would it even mean for unconscious bias to be pseudoscience? That believing oneself to be unbiased is absolute proof of being unbiased?

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#229

Post by juve1996 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37
AinderS wrote: post #4

Simple. Workplace complaints and management priorities have changed, and Dilbert followed. When Dilbert started, the government wasn't yet training employees how to "interrupt whiteness" [1], or Coca-Cola how to "be less white" [2], or Cigna simply forbidding hiring whites [3], nor did academia require mandatory diversity pledges for new hires and promotions [4]. Dilbert is doing what we are told art is supposed to d…

I've run into some real-world examples of this workplace weirdness, including a clumsily architected hiring plan that required certain roles to be filled by people meeting certain demographics (quickly shut down by legal once they caught on). But at the same time, I don't find Dilbert's take on these issues to be funny, nor do I really think that it's an appropriate place to combat these nuanced issues. 3-panel comic…

The demographic simply changed. I could see these comic strips doing quite well on Facebook for the 50 and up crowd in many areas of the country.

I don't agree with the point. But a lot of people do - and it's created a sort of conservative counter-culture that is irresistible to many people.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#230

Post by swalls »

NeonVice wrote: post #67
jacquesm wrote: post #38

He's gone off the deep end. I've seen the same happen with some friends and wrote about it, it's a sad thing when formerly intelligent human beings start losing it and fail to recover only to sink further and further into their own version of reality.

Funny how you criticize someone who pokes fun of people who fall into their own version of reality (and a giant corporate structure who encourages everyone to fall in line) as the one who is sinking into his own version of reality.

His actions are definitely of someone who is strongly connected to reality.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scott_Adams

(Of particular note: the "Predictions from a stable genius" where he goes truly off the deep end.)

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