6 ms·

(Not the Dilbert one)

ScottAdams 5y ago
Which is a good point. Back when the internet was starting to bloom I got a nice email from Scott Adams of Dilbert. Seems he had gotten a number of fan mails meant for me and was trying to find who to send it to. I also had a number of fan mails meant for him! We exchanged the mails and had a nice chat about it!
- JshWright 5y ago
  > Which is a good point. Especially as he seems to have kind of gone off the proverbial deep end with his political fanaticism in recent years...
  - zalequin 5y ago
    If you read his books, it’s obvious he’s doing that on purpose in order to get more attention (which eventually is converted to fatter bottom line for him). Essentially, the dude is a professional troll.
    - mmastrac 5y ago
      Totally agree, but it really felt like he had drunk his own kool-aid at times.
      - smilespray 5y ago
        First rule of drugs and propaganda: Don't get high on your own supply.
    - weswpg 5y ago
      His wife is extremely young and I can't look at them together without thinking something is really wrong there. He might be older than his father-in-law.
      - Veen 5y ago
        She is 33 and was 25 when they met. That is not "extremely young". She's a mature adult, and presumably she knows what she's doing.
        ModernMech 5y ago
        He’s an extremely wealthy divorcé in his mid 60s. She’s a 33 year old model… which is well past the top end of that career, with two children, who is now the VP of Adams’ WhenHub. I think it’s clear everyone in that relationship knows what they are doing. Doesn’t make it any less the fact that he’s old enough to be her father.
        Veen 5y ago
        Is this a American cultural quirk I'm not understanding? Who cares that he's old enough to be her father? Why is it interesting or relevant? He married an attractive younger woman. She married a rich older man. It happens every day all over the world. Its not the first marriage for either of them and they both already have children. It says very little about either person involved except that one likes attractive women and the other likes rich men with a sense of humor (if we assume the most cynical motivations).
        time_to_smile 5y ago
        > Is this a American cultural quirk I'm not understanding? As an American I would say: yes, it is. I suspect it has something to do with the rising neoteny of more recent generations coupled with America's persistent puritanical views on sex, but there has been an increasingly bizarre fixation on the age gap of couples. All teenagers have recently be re-defined as children, so much that it's common on places like reddit to view even attraction to say a 17 year old viewed as a form of pedophilia. For nearly all of human history men over 30 forming relationships with women in their late teens has been normal. This was even not too rare 30 or so years ago in the US. But there has been a rising moral panic about age and sex that leads to comments like the above.
    - delecti 5y ago
      Are you implying that makes it better? Because I couldn't disagree more. It's one thing if someone just holds different political opinions, it's another to see problems in the world, acknowledge their cause, and fan the flames anyway. Things like posting that Republicans are likely to be hunted [1] if Biden wins are the sort of thing that led to a literal coup attempt. [1] https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1278309835453284357 https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/127830983545328435...
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Eh... He's always had... peculiar ideas. It's just that previously his detachment from reality was mostly in relatively harmless directions ("The Secret" type stuff, lack of belief in gravity, etc). I would buy that his current delusions might be genuine.
    - Tade0 5y ago
      If this is true (I honestly don't know) then he's a master of the craft. And also unbelievably cynical, but looking at his work it's obvious that this is the case.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I think he'll probably recover. Satirists are among the best equipped of us to get out of these kinds of holes.
  - artificial 5y ago
    If you examine the news he covers he’s pretty balanced with slightly more left than right (both hover around 40%).
    - artificial 5y ago
      Ground news has a tool for breaking down Twitter news users interact with called Blindspotter. Kinda neat seeing how much independent media and bias is consumed. Not affiliated just a happy user.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents, and especially not generic flamewar tangents. They have a way of taking over and drowning out actually-interesting discussion with repetitive, nasty stuff. Therefore the site guidelines ask everyone to try to avoid them here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - JshWright 5y ago
      Yeah, that's fair... Thanks for the feedback (and for all you do for the HN community)
- dhosek 5y ago
  In the completely random department, your picture was (I think) on the cover of some Apple magazine back in the 80s (maybe SoftTalk?) and my geometry class got a great deal of enjoyment out of the fact that you and our geometry teacher could have been twins.
  - ScottAdams 5y ago
    I could indeed been on the cover. I hope he was a good teacher. I loved geometry and it was my first exposure to solving things logical. I remember it came naturally and I aced the course. QED
Igelau 5y ago
I almost didn't even click. My gut reaction to the headline was "what train wreck did the Dilbert author create this time and do I feel like seeing the carnage?" Eventually I decided I did and was pleasantly surprised.
- dang 5y ago
  Please keep flamebait tangents off HN, for the same reason that you don't toss lit matches in dry forests. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Igelau 5y ago
    It's not a tangent. The headline is potentially misleading and appears to be about a flamebait topic. Pay attention. Read. Comprehend.
    - dang 5y ago
      Not only was it a tangent, the analogy is as precise as one could get: the two topics are connected only at a single point (the coincidence of the name) and have literally nothing else to do with each other. Edit: you've unfortunately been posting a lot of unsubstantive comments lately. Would you please stop doing that? It's not what this site is for.
      - Igelau 5y ago
        You're deceiving yourself if you don't think the other Scott Adams has ever generated an eyerolling controversy better off left avoided. Moreso if you think that interpretation isn't possible from the headline and might mislead some. I'm not sure what to think since I'm fairly certain you're intelligent and have a good memory, but I'm also supposed to assume good faith. Per my comments, I honestly don't know what you mean. Karma score has been relatively high-to-neutral lately. So what's your metric for substance if it's not consensus? Do please stop insulting me with these insinuations.

Which is a good point. Back when the internet was starting to bloom I got a nice email from Scott Adams of Dilbert. Seems he had gotten a number of fan mails meant for me and was trying to find who to send it to. I also had a number of fan mails meant for him! We exchanged the mails and had a nice chat about it!

JshWright 5y ago
> Which is a good point. Especially as he seems to have kind of gone off the proverbial deep end with his political fanaticism in recent years...
- zalequin 5y ago
  If you read his books, it’s obvious he’s doing that on purpose in order to get more attention (which eventually is converted to fatter bottom line for him). Essentially, the dude is a professional troll.
  - mmastrac 5y ago
    Totally agree, but it really felt like he had drunk his own kool-aid at times.
    - smilespray 5y ago
      First rule of drugs and propaganda: Don't get high on your own supply.
  - weswpg 5y ago
    His wife is extremely young and I can't look at them together without thinking something is really wrong there. He might be older than his father-in-law.
    - Veen 5y ago
      She is 33 and was 25 when they met. That is not "extremely young". She's a mature adult, and presumably she knows what she's doing.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        He’s an extremely wealthy divorcé in his mid 60s. She’s a 33 year old model… which is well past the top end of that career, with two children, who is now the VP of Adams’ WhenHub. I think it’s clear everyone in that relationship knows what they are doing. Doesn’t make it any less the fact that he’s old enough to be her father.
        Veen 5y ago
        Is this a American cultural quirk I'm not understanding? Who cares that he's old enough to be her father? Why is it interesting or relevant? He married an attractive younger woman. She married a rich older man. It happens every day all over the world. Its not the first marriage for either of them and they both already have children. It says very little about either person involved except that one likes attractive women and the other likes rich men with a sense of humor (if we assume the most cynical motivations).
        time_to_smile 5y ago
        > Is this a American cultural quirk I'm not understanding? As an American I would say: yes, it is. I suspect it has something to do with the rising neoteny of more recent generations coupled with America's persistent puritanical views on sex, but there has been an increasingly bizarre fixation on the age gap of couples. All teenagers have recently be re-defined as children, so much that it's common on places like reddit to view even attraction to say a 17 year old viewed as a form of pedophilia. For nearly all of human history men over 30 forming relationships with women in their late teens has been normal. This was even not too rare 30 or so years ago in the US. But there has been a rising moral panic about age and sex that leads to comments like the above.
  - delecti 5y ago
    Are you implying that makes it better? Because I couldn't disagree more. It's one thing if someone just holds different political opinions, it's another to see problems in the world, acknowledge their cause, and fan the flames anyway. Things like posting that Republicans are likely to be hunted [1] if Biden wins are the sort of thing that led to a literal coup attempt. [1] https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1278309835453284357 https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/127830983545328435...
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Eh... He's always had... peculiar ideas. It's just that previously his detachment from reality was mostly in relatively harmless directions ("The Secret" type stuff, lack of belief in gravity, etc). I would buy that his current delusions might be genuine.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    If this is true (I honestly don't know) then he's a master of the craft. And also unbelievably cynical, but looking at his work it's obvious that this is the case.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I think he'll probably recover. Satirists are among the best equipped of us to get out of these kinds of holes.
- artificial 5y ago
  If you examine the news he covers he’s pretty balanced with slightly more left than right (both hover around 40%).
  - artificial 5y ago
    Ground news has a tool for breaking down Twitter news users interact with called Blindspotter. Kinda neat seeing how much independent media and bias is consumed. Not affiliated just a happy user.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents, and especially not generic flamewar tangents. They have a way of taking over and drowning out actually-interesting discussion with repetitive, nasty stuff. Therefore the site guidelines ask everyone to try to avoid them here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - JshWright 5y ago
    Yeah, that's fair... Thanks for the feedback (and for all you do for the HN community)
dhosek 5y ago
In the completely random department, your picture was (I think) on the cover of some Apple magazine back in the 80s (maybe SoftTalk?) and my geometry class got a great deal of enjoyment out of the fact that you and our geometry teacher could have been twins.
- ScottAdams 5y ago
  I could indeed been on the cover. I hope he was a good teacher. I loved geometry and it was my first exposure to solving things logical. I remember it came naturally and I aced the course. QED

Igelau 5y ago

I almost didn't even click. My gut reaction to the headline was "what train wreck did the Dilbert author create this time and do I feel like seeing the carnage?" Eventually I decided I did and was pleasantly surprised.

dang 5y ago
Please keep flamebait tangents off HN, for the same reason that you don't toss lit matches in dry forests. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Igelau 5y ago
  It's not a tangent. The headline is potentially misleading and appears to be about a flamebait topic. Pay attention. Read. Comprehend.
  - dang 5y ago
    Not only was it a tangent, the analogy is as precise as one could get: the two topics are connected only at a single point (the coincidence of the name) and have literally nothing else to do with each other. Edit: you've unfortunately been posting a lot of unsubstantive comments lately. Would you please stop doing that? It's not what this site is for.
    - Igelau 5y ago
      You're deceiving yourself if you don't think the other Scott Adams has ever generated an eyerolling controversy better off left avoided. Moreso if you think that interpretation isn't possible from the headline and might mislead some. I'm not sure what to think since I'm fairly certain you're intelligent and have a good memory, but I'm also supposed to assume good faith. Per my comments, I honestly don't know what you mean. Karma score has been relatively high-to-neutral lately. So what's your metric for substance if it's not consensus? Do please stop insulting me with these insinuations.