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Scott Adams has died

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Re: Scott Adams has died

#491

Post by tartoran »

jchallis wrote: post #188

Scott Adams died today. I want to acknowledge something complicated. He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared…

> He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared language for everything broken about corporate life.

Same to me when it comes his comics. There is an ugly part I did not like about Scott Adams but, that doesn't mean I will like his work (Dilbert) less. I have to admit it felt disappointing to find out about his vitriol online. Best wishes to his family and rest in peace for Scott. alway

Re: Scott Adams has died

#492

Post by twalla »

addaon wrote: post #445
twalla wrote: post #319

"If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things." I'm certain at least some small part of my own success can be attributed to my exposure to this idea, and for that I…

> 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. Is this idea that top 25% is "very good" at something innumeracy, or a subtle insight I'm missing? There's got to be a million skills that you could assess rank at -- writing embedded C code, playing basketball, identifying flora, PacMan, archery, bouldering… I can't imagine ever being able to not continue this list -- and you should expect to be in the top 25% o…

Ignore the numbers - the gist is being good enough at the right two or three things can create similar value for you as being the best at one specific thing.

Everyone (for the sake of my argument) wants to be an engineer at a FAANG but there are tons of folks making more money with more autonomy because they've found a niche that combines their good-enough technical ability with an understanding or interest in an underserved market.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#493

Post by nonethewiser »

jchallis wrote: post #188

Scott Adams died today. I want to acknowledge something complicated. He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared…

>You don’t choose family

Right. But he's not actually your family member.

I dont disagree with your general sentiment but you are literally trying to pick your family.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#494

Post by Angostura »

RajT88 wrote: post #393
spankalee wrote: post #290

I don't get "avoiding the ugliness" when someone dies. We need to acknowledge the ugliness and try to do better. Acting like "oh, he was trolling", or "it was just a small amount of hating Black people and women" is exactly how you get Steven Miller in the fucking White House. We need to make it shameful to be bigoted again, and that means calling out the bigotry even in death.

The thinking is that not "speaking ill of the dead" is not just respect, but doing anything else is pointless. You will not change them, and everyone present already made up their mind on their behavior.

So, no need to speak of them at all

Re: Scott Adams has died

#495

Post by OkayPhysicist »

mempko wrote: post #452

I've talked with Scott Adams. In private he seemed a lot more reasonable than in public. I always wondered how much of his public life was a show, a way to make money. But then the way he dealt with his cancer make me reconsider. Adams publicly acknowledged trying ivermectin and fenbendazole as alternative cancer treatments, which he later declared ineffective, before pursuing conventional medical care in his final m…

The problem is that the same personality trait that makes for good engineers, namely the hubris to think "just because this problem hasn't been solved by anybody else doesn't mean I can't solve it", also gets applied to everything else.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#496

Post by gs17 »

xrd wrote: post #343

When I first started working in tech 25+ years ago, I really enjoyed Dilbert. It was ubiquitous in my circles and seemed accurate. Then, I had my own startup, and as a manager of people, had to come to terms with a bunch of personality defects I brought in that I was blind to. Those blind spots really made me a bad manager. I'm grateful I got to learn about myself in that way. But, then I started to view Dilbert diff…

> Is it just me? I always felt like half of the people were stupid no matter what the situation. Did I miss a more complex part of Dilbert?

No, a lot of characters were clearly meant to be unlikable, but based on a kind of person that exists in real life. I don't think you were meant to care much for e.g. Topper.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#497

Post by nonethewiser »

throw4436y54 wrote: post #243
jchallis wrote: post #188

Scott Adams died today. I want to acknowledge something complicated. He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared…

This comment reminds me of when I talked to a few Chinese friends about their thoughts on Mao. They all acknowledged the failed policies which led to famine, yet they also admired that he basically gave Chinese people their pride back. They related him to an uncle figure who became a mean drunk.

More like a sober uncle who killed other family members.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#498

Post by rubenflamshep »

mrweasel wrote: post #182

I loved Dilbert, having worked for more than one Dilbert-like company the humor frequently resonated with me. How or why Scott Adams went completely of the rails is perhaps something we'll sadly never understand. Was this opinions he'd always had, but suppressed, did he somehow become radicalized or was it perhaps medically induced, e.g. a stroke or something. It was incredibly sad to see him throw away his life's wo…

Behind the bastards did an interesting episode on him. He was always kind of kooky: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ZlIuEIgLRNxfJWxiv4asn?si=w...

Re: Scott Adams has died

#499

Post by ilhanomar »

spankalee wrote: post #290

I don't get "avoiding the ugliness" when someone dies. We need to acknowledge the ugliness and try to do better. Acting like "oh, he was trolling", or "it was just a small amount of hating Black people and women" is exactly how you get Steven Miller in the fucking White House. We need to make it shameful to be bigoted again, and that means calling out the bigotry even in death.

[flagged]

Re: Scott Adams has died

#500

Post by jimmydddd »

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #464
spankalee wrote: post #290

I don't get "avoiding the ugliness" when someone dies. We need to acknowledge the ugliness and try to do better. Acting like "oh, he was trolling", or "it was just a small amount of hating Black people and women" is exactly how you get Steven Miller in the fucking White House. We need to make it shameful to be bigoted again, and that means calling out the bigotry even in death.

What exactly was the bad stuff? He was insensitive about empirical reality or he was literally wrong about something in the sense of being very confident about something despite having little data? Or something else? I only remember the cartons really but was aware some people seemed to be irked about him recently.

Some random internet poll said many people of race A agreed it was "not OK" to be a person of race B. Adams said if that were true, then people of race B should probably not hang out with people of race A that thought it was not OK to be race B. The internet did its thing and quoted him out of context, and tried to cancel him. He dug in his heels and doubled down. He also liked a certain president that many dislike. And here we are.
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