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1. mrweas+C2[view] [source] 2026-01-13 16:50:11
>>schmuc+(OP)
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 work and go down a path most of us at least hadn't foreseen and die having alienated his fans.

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2. jakevo+0b[view] [source] 2026-01-13 17:16:20
>>mrweas+C2
I followed his blog back when he started this descent, and I have a theory that it was hill climbing.

He used to blog about pretty innocent stuff; his wife making fun of him for wearing pajama pants in public, behind the scenes on drawing comics, funny business interactions he'd had. But then he started getting taken out of context by various online-only publications, and he'd get a burst of traffic and a bunch of hate mail and then it'd go away. And then he'd get quoted out of context again. I'm not sure if it bothered him, but he started adding preambles to his post, like "hey suchandsuch publication, if you want to take this post out of context, jump to this part right here and skip the rest."

I stopped reading around this point. But later when he came out with his "trump is a persuasion god, just like me, and he is playing 4d chess and will be elected president" schtick, it seemed like the natural conclusion of hill climbing controversy. He couldn't be held accountable for the prediction. After all, he's just a comedian with a background in finance, not a politics guy. But it was a hot take on a hot topic that was trying to press buttons.

I'm sure he figured out before most people that being a newspaper cartoonist was a downward-trending gig, and that he'd never fully transition to online. But I'm sad that this was how he decided to make the jump to his next act.

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3. afandi+9d[view] [source] 2026-01-13 17:23:41
>>jakevo+0b
Can you define “hill climbing”? Is it a metaphor?
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4. jakevo+vf[view] [source] 2026-01-13 17:30:07
>>afandi+9d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing <-- applying this for getting more and more engagement
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5. johnny+v52[view] [source] 2026-01-14 02:12:57
>>jakevo+vf
Ahh, so that's what I've internally called "The Sharpiro Effect" really is. Though it's still a bigger shame that a philosophy professor would need to resort to this compared to a newpaper cartoonist.
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