Almost everyone is reasonable, it’s the contexts that our reasons are relevant to, which are different.
This is 100% the case, with very infamous baddies, but people don't want to acknowledge it. It's a sad reality of this always on media we ingest. No idea what can be done, other than slowly ignoring more and more algorithmic stuff, and choose your own adventures based on content providers you have known for a long time, and still have their backbone intact.
Perhaps?
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.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
Some of it goes quite far back, even:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070222235609/http://dilbertblo...
When viewed in light of his Twitter persona, embrace of Trump / hard right politics in general, and his declaration that black people are a hate group, I really don't know why anyone would be eager to extend him the benefit of the doubt. He provided plenty of ammo himself, no media distortion needed.
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).
People are correctly pointing out that the phrase “it’s okay to be white” is used as a dogwhistle.
They are not literally saying that it’s not okay to be white. They’re saying that those who speak that phrase are projecting their racist ideology. People who say “it’s okay to be white” think that white people are under attack and that white people need to re-establish dominance. To them, equality is a threat.
Saying something publicly is an action. Depending on what you say, you can’t take it back. If you tell your wife you think her friend is hot and you want a threesome you can’t take that back.
I also think you as the commenter should think a little bit about what motivates you to defend this guy. Why does he as a dead famous comic book author need his reputation defended? Why is it so important that we don’t see him as a racist asshole? What do you get out of that? Why not just let his own mistakes speak for themselves?
Most people never get interviewed on cable news at all, so that’s not a meaningful baseline. When someone is publicly accused, explaining yourself publicly is a predictable response, not evidence of guilt.
> Saying something publicly is an action. You can’t take it back.
Of course you can clarify or correct yourself—people misspeak all the time. Whether that matters depends on whether listeners are interested in understanding or just in cancelling someone they don't like.
> Why do you feel the need to defend him?
Because I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of Scott Adams over many years, and I’m confident I understand his views far better than people judging him from short, out-of-context clips.
I don’t get anything out of this except insisting that the truth matters. Even when the person involved is unpopular or dead.
As someone who likes the Harry Potter series, I hear you. It’s tough to see your idols fall into being dumbasses.
If you sincerely think Scott Adams had zero bias, that he’s not a bigot, that he didn’t support “stop the steal,” that’s on your conscience and your value system. I choose to believe the impulse of what he said, not the 30 minutes of damage control afterward.
I’d say nobody asked the guy his opinions on such subjects and just wanted to read his funny office comics.
But that’s what happens with celebrities like this.
Sure — but I wouldn’t be if I thought he was a bigot. Having listened to hundreds of hours of him explaining his views, I’m far better informed than people judging him from short, out-of-context clips.
> It’s tough to see your idols fall into being dumbasses
I don’t treat public figures as idols. I also don’t think disagreeing with prevailing opinion automatically makes someone a “dumbass.” Sometimes it means they’re willing to take reputational hits for what they believe is right.
> If you sincerely think Scott Adams had zero bias
Nobody has zero bias. That’s an impossible standard.
> As someone who likes the Harry Potter series
For what it’s worth, I think J.K. Rowling is an example of someone who did the right thing at substantial personal and professional cost, particularly in defending women and girls. That’s not idol worship — it’s acknowledging moral courage when it’s inconvenient.
> That he didn’t support ‘stop the steal'
This is where the argument seems to shift from racism to political conformity. Disagreeing with someone’s politics isn’t the same thing as establishing that they’re a bigot.
When your politics are anti-democracy and pro-fascism, it isn’t a matter of “disagreeing with them.”
Politics aren’t detached from real life, they aren’t some hypothetical. They have real consequences, and they represent real values.
Now I know where you stand. You follow every conservative talking point 100%.
You are playing the “I am taking a nuanced view, you’re just a sheep following popular opinion” card while you yourself are just doing the exact same thing on the other side with no nuance at all. You and I are at worst no different from each other in our belief systems.
Scott Adams was a Trumper, therefore you support him.
JK Rowling is anti-trans, which is the right wing party line, therefore you support her.
Good talk. You know where you stand, I know where I stand.
That's the sort of thing an Catholic inquisitor would say. Denial proves guilt!
I'll get over it.
1. Poll says black people are not ok with with white people
2. Which makes them racist
3. Get away from racists
Turning this 180 degrees around is insanity.
> Sure — but I wouldn’t be if I thought he was a bigot.
That's not how that works.
Yes, they think that.
> and that white people need to re-establish dominance. To them, equality is a threat
No. When a specific group is singled out and attacked, whether they’re white, black, or brown, man or woman, that can not be a basis for equality.
People of all races can have legitimate grievances and harms. Im sure some racist black people said "black is beautiful", but that isnt a reason to forbid anyone from saying it.
I feel like this thread on Scott Adams is exposing how many people on HN are just overtly racist. You can enjoy his content before he went off the rails fine, but seeing some of the takes here feels like a bunch of people are one step away from arguing that segregation should come back.
> how many people on HN are just overtly racist
Like most people actually are... https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40124781
Regardless. Funny how quickly people of kindest hearts, tops of the virtue pyramid are to cancel someone for single misinterpreted wild sentence.
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.
Hard not to conclude women found him repellent.
It’s not like Scott Adams did nothing wrong and was pulled in front of an inquisitor. He said weird shit and then had to play a game of PR damage control.
He assigned this viewpoint to all black people and used it as justification for segregation.
Enlightenment is a fight against our tribal instincts. But some folks think we should return to warring tribes rather than striving for something better.
It’s funny how people with bigoted views can’t handle being canceled. Scott Adams literally predicted he would be “canceled” as he proceeded to say the things on his mind that he knew would cause controversy.
He was okay with saying things that hurt the reputation of others but he was ultimately not okay with hurting his own reputation once he self-inflicted his wound.
“It’s okay to be white” isn’t really the same as saying “black is beautiful” because of the context.
“It’s okay to be white” is spoken in the context of a majority group that has complete societal power over other minority groups, and is speaking the phrase in response to legitimate questions on the majority’s privilege over and treatment of those minorities.
It also makes a lot less logical sense for the group with the upper hand to complain. It’s distasteful: it’s like saying “It’s okay to be regional vice president! as if you are blind to the fact that you boss everyone else around.
”The white majority justice system incarcerates black people for marijuana possession at a higher rate despite a similar use rate.”
”Yeah but it’s okay to be white.”
A wise man once said "Can't we all just get along"
> 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."
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.
It’s actually worse when you’re doing it as your job because you’re supposed to know better and be proficient at that craft. It’s not like someone hot micced him having a private conversation with his buddies, this was a man who had been interfacing with the public for decades.
You are hitting the nerve here - California has one of the highest rates of hate crimes in US.
He was a collateral damage because at the time cancelling white people was the vogue. Fortunately society moved on a little since then (and no I don't support current president (and I fucking hate to get sucked into US politics everyday like this)).
We literally tried that already and it didn’t work out so well.
I hate to say this but you control your destiny when it comes to your reputation. If you want people to celebrate your life instead of celebrating your death, spend your life being nice to people lifting them up.
Scott Adams didn’t do that. We are all free to feel however we want to feel about him. Don’t worry, his feelings won’t be hurt, he’s dead.
The only people frothing about the mouth over it are people who hate him over politics, it's a convenient gotcha - nothing more.
Give him a generous read on his opinions if that’s what you want to do. To me, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
Modern white supremacists don’t just come out and say things directly because of how it’s obviously reprehensible, they surround themselves with plausible deniability and murky language like the kind you are citing.
Let’s not forget: Scott Adams was a cartoonist. He was not some kind of sociologist or researcher on race relations. He went out of his way to go on a podcast and speak these opinions with no first hand experience or knowledge in any way.
He lived in Pleasanton, California where less than 2% of residents are black.
He has no experience or qualifications to know a damn thing about the subject. He didn’t even live near any black people - how would he know that they hate him?
No, he just wanted to say racist shit. That’s my read. If you read it different, that’s up to you.
I see extremists (on both sides) do this all the time, you don't argue the actual point you just say its "adjacent to bad thing, thusly bad"
But it’s not up for debate that white college applicants, particularly from poor and middle-class backgrounds, were discriminated against by top universities who implemented race-based admissions policies. The numbers are public. There’s simply no question.