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Scott Adams has died

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Re: Scott Adams has died

#641

Post by mcv »

SoftTalker wrote: post #505
mcv wrote: post #400

Scott Adams is a bit of a mystery to me. Like most here, I loved his comics in the 1990s and 2000s. I even joined the mailinglist for his werd rd and surely ironically intended Dogbert's New Ruling Class. Through Dilbert, he came across as a hero of underappreciated tech workers, and a critic of ignorant managers, so it feels really weird that he became such a supporter of the ultimate pointy haired boss. I remember…

Supremely confident, charismatic people are very attractive. There's no "mass hypnosis" about it, other than that it's something that's baked in to many of us. Obama had those qualities also, and won the Presidency twice despite lacking much experience or traditional qualifications.

I find him neither confident, charismatic, nor attractive. I still don't understand how anyone can believe such a blatant liar. Or like such a terrible excuse of a human being. But clearly there's something about what he does and how he acts and talks, that appeals to some people. Mass hypnosis is as good an explanation as any, if you ask me.

But that's not my point. My point is that Scott Adams identified it, which to me sounds like recognizing it as fake and manipulation. And yet he supported the guy. That's the thing I really don't get. Then again, JD Vance called him the American Hitler and is now his VP. Many of his most loyal lackeys have called him terrible things. People are easily corruptible, I guess. Or recognize in him a useful tool for their own worst goals.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#642

Post by scioto »

Waterluvian wrote: post #144

I got to interact with Scott just once on Twitter. I shared one of his strips in response to a tweet he made. My intent was tongue-in-cheek and very inline with the themes of his work, but he reacted very aggressively and then blocked me. It was a bit of a crushing moment because inside my head I was thinking, "I know and love this guy's work. Surely if I just engage him at his level without being a jackass, we can a…

As John Scalzi once said, "The failure mode of clever is asshole." [1]

That has prevented me from posting what I thought was a clever or cheeky response in case it didn't come across the way I wanted.

---

[1] https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-of-...

Re: Scott Adams has died

#643

Post by asdefghyk »

gcanyon wrote: post #386
throw4436y54 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to say the same thing about Ronald Reagan -- a president who did many questionable/bad things, but he lifted the U.S. out of the doldrums we experienced in the late '70s. Over time I've learned context about how those doldrums occurred, and more about what Reagan actually did, and the trade seems much less worthwhile. :-/

RE ".....Ronald Reagan -- a president who did many questionable/bad things..."

Not being in the common demographic of this site , I had to google this - as I was not aware of any ..... It educated me. It made me immedicably wonder where the current president would fit into ... since the google also had questions and claimed answers/OPINIONS too " who was worst US president etc... The current presidents situation is still being played out - obviously ...

Re: Scott Adams has died

#644

Post by dazzawazza »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #217

Scott Adams did me a considerable and unsolicited kindness almost 20 years ago, back in 2007. One day my site traffic logs showed an unexpected uptick in traffic, and recent referrals overwhelmingly pointed to his blog. Of course I recognized him from Dilbert fame, both the comic strip and The Dilbert Principle . I sent him a thank you email for the link, and he replied graciously. This began a conversation where he…

That's a great story. Thank you. I hope you've had the opportunity to give someone else a leg up.

Accepting that people change, and that people are inherently full of contradictions, is part of growing up... and changing.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#645

Post by cosmicgadget »

lisper wrote: post #625
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…

> The racism and the provocations were always there Were they? Can you cite an example? Because I also grew up with Dilbert, and I was never aware of it.

Dilbert May 2, 2022 is provocative.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#646

Post by mlindner »

RIP to Scott Adams, I'm much younger than most here talking about his work (I didn't enter the work force until the 2010s) but I still found Dilbert interesting.

I saw him most as a victim of cancel culture with people attacking him for things he wasn't and exaggerating his minor issues into much larger ones. There are billions of people in the world with views that are probably worse than Scott Adams' but people always feel the need to attack the nail that sticks out.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#647

Post by eudamoniac »

stetrain wrote: post #594
pembrook wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who actively avoided cancel culture hysteria in the 2010s, can we have some context here? What did the guy say that has everyone stumbling over themselves to vaguely allude to it?

"So I realized, as you know I've been identifying as Black for a while, years now, because I like to be on the winning team" "But as of today I'm going to re-identify as White, because I don't want to be a member of a hate group, I'd accidentally joined a hate group." "The best advice I would give to White people is to get away hell away from Black people, just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get awa…

Wow, as someone who has always heard he's a raging racist, that (with context in other comment) is just.... not super racist? It's much less bad than I expected.

I am Korean-American. If 47% of any group of people were unsure if it's "okay to be Asian" I would sure as hell avoid that group of people.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#648

Post by singingbard »

stetrain wrote: post #522
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…

I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignor…

This took me a long time to work through:

1. People’s beliefs are strongly shaped by upbringing and social environment.

2. A belief feeling “natural” or common does not make it correct or benign.

3. What’s most commendable is the effort to examine and revise inherited beliefs, especially when they cause harm.

4. This framework lets me understand how any individual arrived at their views without endorsing those views.

I think this is why responses often split: some treat explanation as endorsement, others don’t. Both reactions are understandable, but the tension disappears once you treat explanation and moral evaluation as separate and compatible steps.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#649

Post by michaelt »

stetrain wrote: post #522
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…

I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignor…

Generally the idiom "like family" implies very close and durable bonds of friendship and loyalty. That you'd drive several hours to help them bury a body, if they asked.

The idiomatic use is a much higher standard than literal family - members of the same family can hate each other.

As jchallis used the idiomatic term in the latter, more literal sense, I can understand people getting confused.

Re: Scott Adams has died

#650

Post by newsclues »

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…

Life and people are complicated and messy. It’s not easy to reduce people to good or bad.

Celebrate the good in life, it’s too short to focus and well on the negative.

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