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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?

#331

Post by clutchdude »

leereeves wrote: post #329
clutchdude wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess - I would also guess that one not getting promoted might also be related to the lack skills at leadership, etc. Given his thoughts on leadership: Well, my theory is that all leadership is a form of evil, because the whole point of managing people is getting them to do stuff they don’t want to do on their own. You don’t need a manager to tell people to eat chocolate chip cookies, because they want to do that.…

If that were the reason, then why would his boss tell him it was about race?

Correction:

  Why would Scott Adams say that his boss told him it was about race?
That is the assumption of this discussion.

To me, we're beyond whether his race was a factor in promotion - he by direct provided self description is probably not a good candidate. But I'll guess beyond that.

Maybe his boss wanted to keep him in his current position but needed a scapegoat to blame as a factor beyond both their control. Keep in mind this would have been more acceptable to suggest in 1970s/1980s than 2022.

Maybe Scott Adams is making this all up or taking a partial comment and constructing his own flawed narrative around it, or, in the very least, neglecting key context to fully understand it.

Again, I don't know what you want me to say here. I never brought up the origination of Dilbert nor understand where you are driving this discussion to.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#332

Post by voakbasda »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #301
voakbasda wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had the exact same conversation with HR. Someone takes offense at something and they use it as leverage to suppress any further potential offenses, despite the fact that trying to avoid offending others is completely futile. Because once you accept that kind of policy, you become a target of abuse from others willing to claim offense at just about anything.

So what did you say though??

I can't even remember. Certainly, nothing intended to cause offense. And that's where things go off the rails. Intent matters. This is how comedians can get away with saying things that a normal person cannot, because a "performance" puts things in a different context. And this gets to my point: it is easy to take offense at most anything people say, if you twist it out of context and put your own spin on it.

As mentioned in another comment, the "first mover advantage" matters when it comes to these matters. The person that initially frames the issue will be given more credence in most cases, because we as a culture have pretty much taken a shit upon the whole notion of "innocent until proven guilty".

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#333

Post by horsawlarway »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #98
horsawlarway wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my take. Personally - I think Scott Adams is more than a little bit batshit insane, but I certainly don't think he's punching down in the strips presented here.

In the strips shown in the article it's easy to see who he's punching at. If it was up at corporate HR policy, we would see Catbert. Instead we see Dilbert's peers. Dilbert works by personifying roles. It doesn't do much in the way of role subtext.

I disagree - it's very clearly trying to mock the policies that allow this kind of behavior.

Those policies aren't coming from the peers.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#334

Post by tim333 »

fknorangesite wrote: post #274
rayiner wrote: post #97

> Dave is hired merely as an act of workplace tokenism before wrapping up with what appears to be an attempt at a thinly-veiled transphobic joke. That particular strip is actually a hilarious joke that is probably lost on people who have never been in the position of being the minority who isn’t meeting expectations for “adding diversity.” It’s not directed to trans people at all, but rather pokes fun at some people’…

Quoted post unavailable.

Maybe but identifying as a different race is a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transracial_(identity)

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#335

Post by cat_plus_plus »

jacobolus wrote: post #325
hanifc wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very uncharitable and needlessly aggressive take.

The recommendation of «you shouldn’t let your quieter coworkers speak unless they interrupt their way into the conversation in meetings because that will set them up for failure when their future coworkers talk right over them» is a pretty uncharitable and needlessly aggressive attitude toward those quieter coworkers.

Raising one's hand to speak is generally taught in kindergarten and future coworkers will likewise expect that everyone mastered this basic skill. These days there are raise hand buttons in video conference software. When raising hand is not applicable, a quick "excuse me" is not considered a big imposition on either current speaker or person who wishes to speak next.

I used to be too shy to talk on the phone, coming to US from a country where I only had phone conversations with relatives by coming to a communication center at time prearranged via a telegram. I got over that and if someone accommodated me instead, they wouldn't have done me any favors, because things like this are generally expected and accommodations will not always be available.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#336

Post by [deleted] »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #304
jacobolus wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Other people in the world are inconsiderate assholes, therefore I should be an inconsiderate asshole to help my coworkers prepare for the inevitable. And if they can’t handle it, too bad.” By the same token do you cheat at every game with your children to teach them the cold truth about society?

I certainly don't give children participation awards for losing games played by the rules. There are rules for speaking in meetings, and they don't include passive-aggressive silence with no indication that you would like to speak. If you gave an indication through words or gestures, then yes you should be given a chance in a reasonable time.

[deleted]

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#338

Post by rayiner »

tim333 wrote: post #334
fknorangesite wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Maybe but identifying as a different race is a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transracial_(identity)

It’s not even an unusual thing. Do my kids identify as white, like their mom, or “brown,” like me? It shouldn’t matter, but in the progressive world view it does.

The problem is that progressives, like racist conservatives, don’t see race as only skin deep and attach a bunch of other social and political stuff to it. So whole “identifying as a different race” makes no sense from a traditional liberal view, it is almost a necessary concept within the progressive worldview.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#339

Post by caeril »

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…

> I remember catching myself in some meeting talking over a quiet woman who had probably been wanting to talk for quite a while.

As a man who used to be very quiet/timid, and get talked over constantly, I'm fairly unsympathetic to this specific anecdote as having anything at all to do with bias.

Quiet people get talked over. Period.

Re: What the Hell Is Up with Dilbert?

#340

Post by gingerrr »

a4a4a4a4 wrote: post #130
gingerrr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the definition of the word conservatism is "commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change". If you're worried about society changing, there is no definition of the word "progressive" you fulfill unless it's your tax bracket. Words have meaning, even in the mouths of sophists.

> If you're worried about society changing, there is no definition of the word "progressive" you fulfill unless it's your tax bracket. If you saw the "progressive" movement take a turn toward something you consider immoral, like say, eugenics, would you consider yourself non-progressive for opposing it? Or does "progressive" include some kind of moral judgement, which leads to a "no true Scotsman" situation, where "o…

Determining something as progressive requires a more historical perspective - for an alarmingly high percentage of our history as social creatures, eugenics were accepted as science (or divine judgment). It's only in the last century that we have started to unpick those ideas as repugnant, and it's not a universal opinion.

If a progressive movement started advocating eugenics, they would be advocating a return to previous social mores - that's conservatism in a nutshell. Just because that movement also happens to hold "woke" ideas doesn't change the direction they want to carry progress.

This isn't a moral gotcha for anyone who has more historical memory than a goldfish - the problem is that most people don't seem to care to, so they come up with contrived examples like yours bc they can't keep the thread of human history for longer than a generation.

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