zlacker

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.

>>mrweas+(OP)
Did he go off the rails? My understanding is that the zeitgeist is taking people’s opposing views online and distorting them, removing context, to outrage our own audience and align it to our cause.

Almost everyone is reasonable, it’s the contexts that our reasons are relevant to, which are different.

>>riazri+lf
I haven't followed everything Scott Adams has done recently (largely because most of his stuff ended up paywalled), but in the past I'd note that he'd have an interesting take on something, possibly hard to defend but not intrinsically "bad", but then he'd get lumped in as having a "bad" opinion by people that just wanted to create headlines. One example was his assertion that Donald Trump was a "master persuader", and much more skilled in his speech then people were giving him credit for. I remember, at the time at least, that he always prefaced it by saying it wasn't in support/antagonism of Trump, just an observation of his skill, but it quickly got turned into "Scott Adams is a MAGA guy." (Since then, I don't know if Adams ever became a MAGA guy or not, but it's an example of how at the time his statements got oversimplified and distorted). Anyway, I saw a lot of examples of that -- he'd have a relatively nuanced take probably expressed too boldly, but people wanted to just lump him in to some narrative they already had going.

I think Scott Adams' biggest problem in life (although partially what also made him entertaining), is that he'd kind of pick fights that had little upside for him and a lot of downside.

>>overga+6p
It would have been easy for you to check whether he was a "MAGA guy or not", which he was in the sense that he spent the last years of his life spreading neonazi adjacent rhetoric.

Some of it goes quite far back, even:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070222235609/http://dilbertblo...

>>cess11+HJ
I don't know, I feel like your link makes a better case for the parent's point than your own

>>anonym+fV
If your feelings tend to skew in favour of people suggesting that the jewish death toll in the Shoah was pulled out of the ass by someone, perhaps you'd have some to gain from keeping them in check.

>>cess11+ma1
That's quite a leap from "I am curious how that number was calculated" to inferring "it was made up" which I think further illustrates the point.

Maybe complain to these guys too, who were apparently still curious 14 years after that blog post?

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/documenting-numbers-of-...

Sources: Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust & Nazi Persecution, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum;

“Holocaust Facts: Where Does the Figure of 6 Million Victims Come From?” Haaretz, (January 26, 2020);

Ofer Aderet, “Nazis Boasted About Six Million Holocaust Victims. But It Was a Jew Who First Cited That Figure,” Haaretz, (April 21, 2020);

Joel Rappel, “Six million victims,” Jerusalem Report, (May 4, 2020).

>>anonym+Zy1
"Or is it like every other LRN (large round number) that someone pulled out of his ass and it became true by repetition? Does the figure include resistance fighters and civilians who died in the normal course of war, or just the Jews rounded up and killed systematically? No reasonable person doubts that the Holocaust happened, but wouldn’t you like to know how the exact number was calculated, just for context? Without that context, I don’t know if I should lump the people who think the Holocaust might have been exaggerated for political purposes with the Holocaust deniers. If they are equally nuts, I’d like to know that. I want context."

He could have easily figured this out but didn't, because he preferred to publish this neo-nazi adjacent rhetoric. Nazis use this talking point all the time, you see.

I.e. it's not at all about curiosity. Arguably Scott Adams was one of the least curious famous persons in history. His cartoons were based on office related cliches, and while that provides a bit of laughter and relief to people who have negative experiences from office environments it's not based on curiosity or interest in people.

>>cess11+ZN2
I am really confused how one can read Holocaust denial into words that literally say "No reasonable person doubts that the Holocaust happened" and "I want to know if people who think [it was] exaggerated ... are equally nuts"

>>anonym+9i3
You should probably quote where you think I made that claim.

>>cess11+rj3
Ok, I'll restate: I am really confused how one can claim as "neo-nazi adjacent rhetoric" words that literally say "No reasonable person doubts that the Holocaust happened" and "I want to know if people who think [it was] exaggerated ... are equally nuts"

> Arguably Scott Adams was one of the least curious famous persons in history.

That's a bold claim, and I would argue against it based on The Dilbert Future and God's Debris

I'll also re-quote OP: "...it's an example of how at the time his statements got oversimplified and distorted...[a]nyway, I saw a lot of examples of that -- he'd have a relatively nuanced take probably expressed too boldly, but people wanted to just lump him in to some narrative they already had going."

>>anonym+JI3
Because that is an extremely common neo-nazi talking point. It is tailored to people who aren't yet radicalised enough to accept denialism but puts them on a trajectory towards it, in a similar way that fossil fuel companies have designed their campaigns against climate action initiatives. 'Climate might be changing, but haven't it always? Who's to say what's really going on here, maybe they're trying to fool you again.'

It's also an extremely low effort take on the issue. That entire article can basically be summed up in a sentence, 'I know very little and I have no explanation for why no one is spoon feeding me'. It's characterised by a blatant lack of curiosity, and presenting things that wouldn't come across as particularly ambigous if you actually were curious about them as highly ambigous and contentious.

And this tactic is really, really common among far-right activists. 'I'm just a dumb dude asking innocent questions, are things really as they seem or could women be another species that you need a bit of manly coercion to perfect? Is it really the oil or is it natural causes, like this dude in a suit on the telly said it might be? How come there are so many jews among nobelists, isn't that weiuhrd...?'

Again and again he's proven that he does not have either the intellectual integrity and rigour to examine subjects he brings up, and that he somehow thinks he's the most appropriate person to do it. His attempt at Dilbert Reborn is itself a good example of this. I'm not sure whether it's a grift or material he tried to put some authenticity into but I also don't really care, he was told both in words and actions that he should be better and as far as I know never tried to be.