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What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

meghanboilard.substack.com

231–240 of 416 posts

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#231
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…

I work at FANG.

My manager had director level approval to hold out job openings to women only. They same manager complained that they were sick of “men and Asian women” making up the team. They asked me for resumes but said they only wanted non-male, non-white or LGBTQ resumes. They were recognized as a diversity champion in the company.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it was conservative to worry about the rise of Trump and the Alt Right? It's conservative to wish Roe had remained on the books? > Words have meaning, even in the mouths of sophists. Indeed.

> So it was conservative to worry about the rise of Trump and the Alt Right? No, because as we saw in the 1930 and 40s this strain of virulent fascism is not new, but sadly quite traditional - this was the conservatism bubbling through in reaction to modern liberalism. > It's conservative to wish Roe had remained on the books? If Roe had been an office worker they wouldn't have even qualified for early retirement, th…

> this strain of virulent fascism is not new

To the world? No. To recent American politics? Yes, very much so.

There is no problem with taking the long perspective in your definitions, so long as you are consistent about it, but:

> If you're worried about society changing, there is no definition of the word "progressive"

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#233
post #8

Remember "Doonesbury." Might've been funny once but degraded into political polemics for the last decade or more. Once you've got an audience the temptation to use their trust to persuade them of, well, anything; seems to be hard to resist. Moreso when you have opinions that others emphatically do not share. I can think of dozens of "liberal comics" that never tried to be funny, that were merely political propaganda…

> Might've been funny once but degraded into political polemics for the last decade or more. What are you talking about? Doonesbury has been a proudly, and heavily, political comic since the 1960s.

> What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

What are you talking about? The OP made it clear that it was once funny and then it devolved into partisan preaching that lacked humor entirely. Never once did OP claim it wasn't political in the first place, why would you assume that?

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#234

The easy answer to the title question is that Scott Adams gained enough wealth that he lost touch. That seems to be a common experience of commercially successful artists. The author never explores this explanation.

If people with Fuck you money don't start saying "Fuck you!" then what's the point?

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep that can be good. Sometimes. I can't agree with you that this kind of training is very good, however. It is often very political and propagandist. But I value taking good things from everywhere. E.g. I am not a Christian but I know there are some good things in their teachings as well

> It is often very political and propagandist

I don't get the "political" angle - what's political about getting people to think about others? maybe it's a bit heavy-handed in a corporate-do-goody-virtue-signaling way, but "political"? it's not like you're doing workshops arguing what the upper marginal tax rate should be

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was considerate of you to do that, on the other hand adults also need to learn to be assertive to succeed in social aspects of work. If you were cutting her off or not paying attention to a raised hand, sure try to change that. But otherwise you are not doing her any favors for her long term career growth, where she will have to participate in meetings with confident, knowledgeable and busy people focused on work…

Why is it not also an option to change the way the workplace works? As another commenter already posted, assertiveness doesn't equal knowledge or importance. If our society tends to prioritize things like assertiveness in men and tends to see these characteristics as negative in women, AND if we see these things as necessary and good in the workplace, how doesn't this disadvantage women? Why do women have to change for the workplace, why can't we change workplaces to be better suited to people of different characters?

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#237
post #210
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just conservative talking points because in the real world, nobody actually does that. I present you Sergia, our (in)famous 60 years old trans. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5544173/Argentinian...

Hearsay from an unnamed relative printed in a tabloid is evidence? Even if it were true, what does a single case prove?

Well, sure it is a tabloid, but it's a real news from here. And I'm pretty sure it started a trend, even if it's not big enough to be reported yet.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#238
post #5

Remember "Doonesbury." Might've been funny once but degraded into political polemics for the last decade or more. Once you've got an audience the temptation to use their trust to persuade them of, well, anything; seems to be hard to resist. Moreso when you have opinions that others emphatically do not share. I can think of dozens of "liberal comics" that never tried to be funny, that were merely political propaganda…

Doonesbury was never funny.

It has its moments but you have to assume Garry Trudeau is a phenomenally insufferable person.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#240
Looking at the strips in the article, it looks like he is still doing what he always has: satirising work-place culture by exaggerating it. It just happens that work-place culture in many places is "woke" culture now. Perhaps it is one sighted with where his focus, though I can't judge that based on a cherry picked selection of strips such as this.
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