5 ms·

Adams has gone a bit nuts in recent years and has become quite a controversial figure. Like, Ive seen him in political flamewars on Twitter responding to criti

by Pxtl 7y ago

Adams has gone a bit nuts in recent years and has become quite a controversial figure. Like, Ive seen him in political flamewars on Twitter responding to criticism with pictures of his abs. He was a little weird for a long time, but his divorce in 2014 kind of unmoored him.

jtms 7y ago
oh that’s a shame. I used to really like his work back in the day - thanks for the answer
teddyh 7y ago
As far as I know, his “cancellation” stems from one thing, and one thing only: He says that Trump is skilled at being convincing (and explains how, at length). This, in the eyes of others, makes him a Trump apologist, and must therefore be shunned. If you had a link to that weird tweet I would like to see it; it would be interesting to see if I agree with your characterization.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  It's not just the Trump thing. He loves to butt heads with the social justice types in a way that makes him look awful. Wrote some creepy antifemist blog-posts too. In the wake of a shooting (can't remember which) he tried to push his WhenHub product as a journalism tool. And his fence-sitting support of Trump has always been "now I'm no Trump fan but here's a long list of things Trump is good at and I'll be very defensive about criticism". I was a huge Dilbert fan, so watching his decline sucks.
  - teddyh 7y ago
    Again, actual references to your allegations would be useful.
    - Pxtl 7y ago
      https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1155679797223182337 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/11556797972... https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/759398459224920064 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/75939845922... Also the sockpuppet incident: https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal/ https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_s... There's also the Affirmations thing - the guy believes in his own brand of The Secret, where writing something down over and over again and wanting it bad enough will magic the universe into making it happen. http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 The guy is kind of a mess. At this point he's his own worst enemy, PR wise.
      - teddyh 7y ago
        All right. Let me respond point by point. > > It's not just the Trump thing. He loves to butt heads with the social justice types in a way that makes him look awful. Wrote some creepy antifemist blog-posts too. > https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... That article, about a blog post of his, is a hit piece which takes the most inflammatory-sounding quote and displays it out of context. I think his explanatory post (https://www.scottadamssays.com/2011/03/27/im-a-what/ https://www.scottadamssays.com/2011/03/27/im-a-what/), which includes the whole original blog post, explains everything quite clearly. Note that even the original blog post text includes a clarification that precisely the quoted inflammatory-sounding text does not mean what one might be tempted to believe if one were to read it out of context. > > In the wake of a shooting (can't remember which) he tried to push his WhenHub product as a journalism tool. > https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1155679797223182337 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/11556797972... It’s a free app, where people can declare that they have been witnesses to a newsworthy event, and journalists can use the app to find said witnesses and even talk to them using the app. What’s not to like? It’s like mentioning your gas-powered generators rental service during a widespread power outage. It might be slightly self-serving, but it’s useful information, and it’s not like he’s price gouging or taking any specific advantage of people’s misfortune. In fact, the very people who were impacted by the shooting can choose to earn money by setting an hourly price for journalists to interview them. Or they can set the price to zero if they just want to get the information out. > > Like, Ive seen him in political flamewars on Twitter responding to criticism with pictures of his abs. > https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/759398459224920064 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/75939845922... That tweet was a response to someone else’s tweet saying “this coming from the guy who thinks pop news nutrition is same thing as science.” – a picture displaying his health status was a perfectly relevant response (a mite adversarial, but this is Twitter) to something which, mind you, was an irrelevant off-topic ad-hominem personal attack. This is what you call “criticism”? > Also the sockpuppet incident: https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal/ https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_s... Yeah, OK, that one was weird. > There's also the Affirmations thing - the guy believes in his own brand of The Secret, where writing something down over and over again and wanting it bad enough will magic the universe into making it happen. > http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 What? No. Here’s a direct quote from that very link: “At this point, allow me to correct a mistake I made the first time that I described my experience with affirmations. If you only hear the objective facts, it sounds as if I believe in some sort of voodoo or magic. That’s not the case. While I do think there is something wonderful and inexplicable about affirmations, I have no reason to conclude it is any more than a pleasant hallucination.”
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "Trump is skilled at being convincing" Isn't that an odd thing to say, from a completely objective, dispassionate, and non-partisan perspective? Perhaps it just seems obvious to me because I am familiar with the page on 538[1] where they track approval ratings in parallel with (I think) every other administration that was heavily polled. Every other president has had their ups and downs, no matter how controversial or how partisan people were. But with this one, the percentages for and against seem practically set in stone at approximately the same ratio as the election. That seems to indicate he's convincing almost nobody who likes him or who dislikes him to change their minds. [1]https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
  - belorn 7y ago
    It might look odd but to me it is no difference in saying that charismatic religious leaders are good at convincing people, even if the vast majority that represent non-believers think that the person is nuts. I am sure that I am not the first person looking at the polarization of US politics and finding similarities to religion, and with religion it makes sense that the more conflict there is between religions, the more set in stone people's beliefs become. It is likely even a effective strategy for religious leaders in position of power to fuel that conflict in order to cement their followers' conviction even further.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      People make similar comments a lot, but something sounds off to me about this sort of summary. We haven't been gradually moving towards this quasi-religious situation, as evidenced by past polling, which I linked to. It's just this administration. So I think the evidence suggests that something about the current president is fundamentally different, maybe that he is for most people a symbol or placeholder and not a person. Although, looking again at the polls from 2008-16, it might be that the current situation is something that happened gradually during that time period, and 2016 was not really a discontinuity. Edit: Also, my point was it doesn't seem like he's changed people's minds. Being a religious leader may or may not mean you converted people.
  - 7y ago
briefcomment 7y ago
He's still very lucid, creative, and open-minded. If you have the energy to not get offended by ideas, he's a good read.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  Absolutely. He's a heck of a writer. I loved his older books. But for me his problems have made him intolerable.

by Pxtl 7y ago

jtms 7y ago

oh that’s a shame. I used to really like his work back in the day - thanks for the answer

teddyh 7y ago

As far as I know, his “cancellation” stems from one thing, and one thing only: He says that Trump is skilled at being convincing (and explains how, at length). This, in the eyes of others, makes him a Trump apologist, and must therefore be shunned. If you had a link to that weird tweet I would like to see it; it would be interesting to see if I agree with your characterization.

Pxtl 7y ago
It's not just the Trump thing. He loves to butt heads with the social justice types in a way that makes him look awful. Wrote some creepy antifemist blog-posts too. In the wake of a shooting (can't remember which) he tried to push his WhenHub product as a journalism tool. And his fence-sitting support of Trump has always been "now I'm no Trump fan but here's a long list of things Trump is good at and I'll be very defensive about criticism". I was a huge Dilbert fan, so watching his decline sucks.
- teddyh 7y ago
  Again, actual references to your allegations would be useful.
  - Pxtl 7y ago
    https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1155679797223182337 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/11556797972... https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/759398459224920064 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/75939845922... Also the sockpuppet incident: https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal/ https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_s... There's also the Affirmations thing - the guy believes in his own brand of The Secret, where writing something down over and over again and wanting it bad enough will magic the universe into making it happen. http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 The guy is kind of a mess. At this point he's his own worst enemy, PR wise.
    - teddyh 7y ago
      All right. Let me respond point by point. > > It's not just the Trump thing. He loves to butt heads with the social justice types in a way that makes him look awful. Wrote some creepy antifemist blog-posts too. > https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... That article, about a blog post of his, is a hit piece which takes the most inflammatory-sounding quote and displays it out of context. I think his explanatory post (https://www.scottadamssays.com/2011/03/27/im-a-what/ https://www.scottadamssays.com/2011/03/27/im-a-what/), which includes the whole original blog post, explains everything quite clearly. Note that even the original blog post text includes a clarification that precisely the quoted inflammatory-sounding text does not mean what one might be tempted to believe if one were to read it out of context. > > In the wake of a shooting (can't remember which) he tried to push his WhenHub product as a journalism tool. > https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1155679797223182337 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/11556797972... It’s a free app, where people can declare that they have been witnesses to a newsworthy event, and journalists can use the app to find said witnesses and even talk to them using the app. What’s not to like? It’s like mentioning your gas-powered generators rental service during a widespread power outage. It might be slightly self-serving, but it’s useful information, and it’s not like he’s price gouging or taking any specific advantage of people’s misfortune. In fact, the very people who were impacted by the shooting can choose to earn money by setting an hourly price for journalists to interview them. Or they can set the price to zero if they just want to get the information out. > > Like, Ive seen him in political flamewars on Twitter responding to criticism with pictures of his abs. > https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/759398459224920064 https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/75939845922... That tweet was a response to someone else’s tweet saying “this coming from the guy who thinks pop news nutrition is same thing as science.” – a picture displaying his health status was a perfectly relevant response (a mite adversarial, but this is Twitter) to something which, mind you, was an irrelevant off-topic ad-hominem personal attack. This is what you call “criticism”? > Also the sockpuppet incident: https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_scandal/ https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/scott_adams_sock_puppetry_s... Yeah, OK, that one was weird. > There's also the Affirmations thing - the guy believes in his own brand of The Secret, where writing something down over and over again and wanting it bad enough will magic the universe into making it happen. > http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 http://mindhacks.org/scott-adams-affirmations/135 What? No. Here’s a direct quote from that very link: “At this point, allow me to correct a mistake I made the first time that I described my experience with affirmations. If you only hear the objective facts, it sounds as if I believe in some sort of voodoo or magic. That’s not the case. While I do think there is something wonderful and inexplicable about affirmations, I have no reason to conclude it is any more than a pleasant hallucination.”
perl4ever 7y ago
"Trump is skilled at being convincing" Isn't that an odd thing to say, from a completely objective, dispassionate, and non-partisan perspective? Perhaps it just seems obvious to me because I am familiar with the page on 538[1] where they track approval ratings in parallel with (I think) every other administration that was heavily polled. Every other president has had their ups and downs, no matter how controversial or how partisan people were. But with this one, the percentages for and against seem practically set in stone at approximately the same ratio as the election. That seems to indicate he's convincing almost nobody who likes him or who dislikes him to change their minds. [1]https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
- belorn 7y ago
  It might look odd but to me it is no difference in saying that charismatic religious leaders are good at convincing people, even if the vast majority that represent non-believers think that the person is nuts. I am sure that I am not the first person looking at the polarization of US politics and finding similarities to religion, and with religion it makes sense that the more conflict there is between religions, the more set in stone people's beliefs become. It is likely even a effective strategy for religious leaders in position of power to fuel that conflict in order to cement their followers' conviction even further.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    People make similar comments a lot, but something sounds off to me about this sort of summary. We haven't been gradually moving towards this quasi-religious situation, as evidenced by past polling, which I linked to. It's just this administration. So I think the evidence suggests that something about the current president is fundamentally different, maybe that he is for most people a symbol or placeholder and not a person. Although, looking again at the polls from 2008-16, it might be that the current situation is something that happened gradually during that time period, and 2016 was not really a discontinuity. Edit: Also, my point was it doesn't seem like he's changed people's minds. Being a religious leader may or may not mean you converted people.
- 7y ago

briefcomment 7y ago

He's still very lucid, creative, and open-minded. If you have the energy to not get offended by ideas, he's a good read.

Pxtl 7y ago
Absolutely. He's a heck of a writer. I loved his older books. But for me his problems have made him intolerable.