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Dilbert creator Scott Adams says he will die soon from same cancer as Joe Biden

452 points by dale_huevo 1y ago

digger495 1y ago
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toomuchtodo 1y ago
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1924477866915315722 https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1924477866915315722
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
deleted 1y ago
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ravenstine 1y ago
That would explain his rather obvious lack of energy these days. Adams has become a controversial figure in recent years. Regardless of what you think of him, as someone who has worked in Corporate America for over a decade, there really isn't anything quite like Dilbert to describe the sort of white collar insanity I've had to learn to take in stride. My first workplace as a junior developer was straight out of Dilbert and Office Space. I have a gigantic collection of digitized Dilbert strips that best describe office situations I've run into in real life – many of them including the pointy haired boss. He's expressed a lot of what I would consider... stupid opinions these days, but I would be sad to learn he's no longer with us.
- mdp2021 1y ago
  > collection of digitized Dilbert strips that best describe office situations I've run into in real life Probably also because, like e.g. "Yes (Prime) Minister", part of the depicted did come from anecdotes, instead of fantasy.
  - jpmattia 1y ago
    > part of the depicted did come from anecdotes He spoke at MIT (early 90s?) and I remember him talking about making fun of PacBell colleagues in his comic: They would recognize themselves, ask him to autograph the comic for them, and then go away happy (thus making fun of them a second time.)
- jimt1234 1y ago
  100% agree ^^^ He went full Elon Musk, before Elon Musk. But yeah, back in the 90s/2000s, when my career in Corporate America started to settle in, his Dilbert comics brought my loads of comic relief. My favorite character was Wally; he always seemed to "fail up". I recall Wally meeting with the pointy-haired boss to tell him he'd returned from his 3-week vacation. The boss said, "You were out on a 3-week vacation?" Wally, the master, replied, "Sorry, I misspoke. I'm leaving now for my 3-week vacation." LOL
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Two of my favorites: Catbert on work life balance: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag" https://steemitimages.com/p/7258xSVeJbKnFEnBwjKLhL15SoynbgJKpQxRd1uovsgpaNPxJJJhY2hd17GVmjgRPeRhAGtKjnh23QM5qMvg8FdzwiKzrJ9xBnmc1ZBRV3PpLn3iThkm9XvdyAVHvDQg2ynCbjpYpBLEh?format=match&mode=fit https://steemitimages.com/p/7258xSVeJbKnFEnBwjKLhL15SoynbgJK... The other, I can never seem to find. They're all in a meeting, and the Pointy Haired Boss says, "This next task is critical yet thankless and urgent, and will go to whoever next makes eye contact with me". Everyone stares at the desk, and then Alice pulls out a hand mirror and angles it between the PHB and Wally.
    - teddyh 1y ago
      > Catbert on work life balance: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag" Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-05-05 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-05-05> > The other, I can never seem to find. Here you are: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-08-30 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-08-30>
      - FireBeyond 1y ago
        Thankyou!
    - jimt1234 1y ago
      Back in the 90s, I worked on a "side project" that screen-scraped the daily Dilbert strip and added it to an internal "employee portal" website. A lot of people liked it, including all the pointy-haired middle managers. However, after about a week, I was told to remove it immediately, not because of the legal/ethical issues around screen-scraping (stealing) the strip, but rather because this particular day's strip was about Dilbert's company laying off a bunch of employees so the company's executives had more money to buy vacation homes (or something like that), and, by coincidence, our company announced a massive layoff on that exact same day. The timing was totally coincidental, but perfect. Executives were furious; my boss told me he got yelled at by our VP. I loved it.
- jokethrowaway 1y ago
  It's not controversial to believe one lying politician over the other. Approximately 50% of your country does that. If you squint you'll see that both parties are an expression of the same statist ideology and there's very little difference between them. Now anarchists are a different breed but they're a ridiculed minority. Just because the tech scene became this lefty hell circle, we should not consider controversial a thought that is so widespread in today's culture that it puts a president in the oval office twice.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    > If you squint you'll see that both parties are an expression of the same statist ideology and there's very little difference between them. If you squint so hard your eyes are closed, maybe
  - code_for_monkey 1y ago
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    - platevoltage 1y ago
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      - code_for_monkey 1y ago
        it was some kind of roman salute, from the heart lol
        wat10000 1y ago
        It is a Roman salute! It's just 1920s Rome....
  - deleted 1y ago
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  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    Even if what you were saying is true (and its most certainly not), its funny how everyone who makes this argument always tends to fall on the conservative side, that in fact does significantly more lying as a verifiable statistic.
- jakevoytko 1y ago
  It was a little sad to watch him get radicalized in real time. I really enjoyed reading his blog before this started to happen. But then a few publications started quoting blog posts of his out of context as rage bait -- I remember he was particularly butthurt about some Jezebel posts that took things he said out of context. At this point, he basically started leaning into controversy for pageviews. He'd start linking to the controversial section of each post right at the top of the post. After a few months or so I had to unsubscribe, after years of reading his blog and Dilbert cartoons/books. He's become such a gremlin that I won't be 100% sure he's serious about this until he actually dies.
  - prepend 1y ago
    I liked his blog at first and thought it really declined with video and short form content. It’s like his written editing slowed him down and made him less clickbaity than when he could post a video with no editing in just minutes.
  - rhines 1y ago
    Yeah I remember binging his blog while between classes in university - he wrote well and had interesting thoughts on marketability, mastery, business, etc., all things that I was interested in as someone learning to be an adult and find his place in the world. Then Trump ran for president, and honestly the blog was still good - Adams had some genuinely good insights about why Trump appealed, and suggested that he might be using the Republicans to get into power but he really doesn't share their values and will shake things up for the better. But then somehow Adams' identity got wrapped up in the idea of Trump not being as bad as people think and he just supported Trump more and more even when it became clear that Trump did not have a master plan to liberalize the Republican party.
    - aredox 1y ago
      >[Trump] will shake things up for the better. Well, that was already the first sign of senility. Trump, at that point, was already a know quantity for decades: a crook and a con man.
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  I grew up dreaming of being a cartoonist, and while Gary Larson, Berkely Breathed, and Bill Watterson were my holy trinity Dilbert wasn't far off. Always admired Adams and his humor - and like you even more so once I ended up in the corporate computer world. Was sad to me to see someone so good at lampooning absurdity get sucked into such a toxic mindset, but I'll also be sad to hear he's gone and I'm sad to hear he's up against it.
- justinator 1y ago
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  - lsaferite 1y ago
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    - JohnFen 1y ago
      > by someone else using the phrase "just call a spade a spade" The phrase is referring to the tool. It is not a reference to the derogatory slang term at all. It dates back to Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica, and the earliest version of it that appeared in English was in 1542. All of that was centuries before "spade" also became used as derogatory slang. The phrase is no more racist than "like white on rice".
      - lsaferite 1y ago
        Oh, *I* am fully aware of the provenance of the phrase. I personally find it's push into the "best not used" category to be highly annoying.
    - justinator 1y ago
      I'll take your suggestion to heart and look into this term myself and see if I can't learn something new to better work within the present world. I'm more than happy to admit that I could very well have a blind spot for a sensitive term which I do not currently know about. I apologize to anyone if this was used offensively and thank you for bringing this to my attention.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
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- ActorNightly 1y ago
  >Adams has become a controversial figure in recent years. He has had some questionable views all throughout his life. In his book "The Dilbert Future", which was from 1997, the last 2 chapters are some wacky stuff about manifesting - i.e if you write something down 100 times a day every day it will come true and other stuff like that. And while that may seem a far cry from the alt-right stuff he eschews, its really not - inability to process information clearly and think in reality in lieu of ideology is the cornerstone of conservative thinking.
  - orionsbelt 1y ago
    Manifesting is not that wacky. Of course, you are not going to write down that you will win the lottery and then win. But most people are their own worst enemy and self limiting to some extent. Focusing on what you want in life, and affirming it to yourself over and over, is effectively a way to brain wash yourself to change your own self limiting behavior and it’s not surprising that this is often successful.
    - phlipski 1y ago
      I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!
      - HK-NC 1y ago
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    - tim333 1y ago
      Also telling other people can help as some of them may be able to help you get there.
    - ActorNightly 1y ago
      Figuring on what you actually want in life and working towards that is productive, yes. But that's mild compared to what he says. He basically says he can influence the stock market with affirmations. You should read the chapters. https://www.scribd.com/doc/156175634/the-dilbert-future-pdf https://www.scribd.com/doc/156175634/the-dilbert-future-pdf. Starts on 218.
- mcv 1y ago
  As weird as he is, his claim that Trump uses a form of mass hypnosis is still the best explanation for Trump's success that I've heard. But why then Adams would support Trump, who is clearly the ultimate PHB, is something I never understood.
  - abirch 1y ago
    If you've ever read Thinking Fast and Slow, Trump is great at appealing to System 1. He's spent his entire lifetime focusing on his branding and what people think of him. I dislike almost all of Trump's policies and his tactics; however, he's great at oversimplifying things and getting the visceral reactions he wants. Chapelle's SNL monolog about Trump is pretty spot on too.
    - mcv 1y ago
      I haven't read it yet, but I've got it right here, and I just finished my previous book.
      - abirch 1y ago
        It's such a great book. You can skip the first few chapters as the evidence for those chapters on priming hasn't been replicated: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/ https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... However, the fundamental ideas of System 1 and 2 have made me rethink so many things.
    - elcritch 1y ago
      He seems to play the media like a fiddle. It's insane how gullible so much of the media establishment is nowadays and play right into it.
      - astrange 1y ago
        They like it because he's good for views, and because US politics media runs on Murc's law (anything bad is the Democrats' fault for not stopping it).
- legitster 1y ago
  Dilbert also failed to keep up with the times. Despite publishing strips about AI or remote work or etc, you can still tell that he has spent so long away from that world that he no longer has any novel insight into it. All of the jokes come secondhand from anecdotes that he hears or reads about.
  - paulddraper 1y ago
    That's true. Dilbert is about the 90s.
  - dhosek 1y ago
    Sometime in the late 90s Dilbert pretty much became Pluggers but without the attribution to the readers sending in their ideas.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    I think Dilbert's cubicle nightmare frozen in time is somewhat charming.
    - willis936 1y ago
      Imagine the luxury of a cubicle in 2025.
      - sonofhans 1y ago
        You had cubicles? Luxury! Im my day, we put our spare-parts laptop on an old door for a desk and sat on a rickety metal chair on a concrete floor in an unheated warehouse. And we loved it!
        wombatpm 1y ago
        Oh you had a chair! In my day we had a desk scavenged from sticks and rocks. Our chair was a piece of pipe with a 2x4 on the end. You had to balance carefully lets you impaled yourself.
        1y ago
- ghaff 1y ago
  It's almost certainly hard to maintain the energy/inspiration needed for a daily comic strip/comic. I also think Scott Adams had trouble moving beyond the 1990s Pac Bell environment after he was no longer part of corporate (much less startup) life.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  He's also the earliest person to predict a Trump win in 2015, and was ridiculed for it, but turned out to be right.
  - Kye 1y ago
    Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a vintage meme at this point. He may have been the most famous person to say what so many of us expected first, but it just means he paid attention.
  - stevenwoo 1y ago
    One of Bernie Sanders campaign slogans in his first primary campaigns which started in 2015 was “Bernie Beats Trump” - the lack of enthusiasm around Hillary Clinton was palpable.
    - BJones12 1y ago
      My quick search suggests that slogan only showed up in 2019.
      - jskelly 1y ago
        I think all three of you are right. The official Bernie campaign did not use this as a slogan until the 2020 campaign (so 2019-2020)-- however, it was in use by supporters during the 2016 campaign (source: I was in the crowd of Bernie supporters at the 2016 Democratic National Convention when the guy standing next to me started the chant & it quickly spread. It was so interesting to see how quickly it spread from just one guy.)
    - aerotwelve 1y ago
      That slogan is from his 2020 primary campaign.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  I was a Dilbert fanatic for a long time. Adams, himself? Not so much. I think he tends to have a rather nasty outlook on humanity, and I had a hard time reconciling it. I do know that he was/is pretty much about as far away from Diamond Joe* as you can get. Interesting that they seem to be fighting the same battle. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_(The_Onion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_(The_Onion)
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    My one "boomer" take: Something I wish the younger generation would learn is that it's useful to be able to separate a work from its author. Some of my favorite films were produced by Harvey Weinstein. They're still my favorite films. The fact that a slimeball was a force behind making them doesn't detract from their content. I like Robert Heinlein sci-fi, even though, judged by today's moral yardstick, some of his views were... questionable. I still like Harry Potter even though J. K. Rowling went totally bananas. Troubled and/or terrible people can make great art and music, and it's OK to like the art and question the artist.
    - jason_oster 1y ago
      I have to disagree with this, sadly. Supporting the work is supporting the author so they can continue doing terrible author things. This is why boycotts are effective and "oh well, I'll just keep buying it anyway" is not.
      - dpkirchner 1y ago
        Additionally, boycotting is one of the vanishing rare ways we have influence over anyone richer or more powerful than us.
      - stackskipton 1y ago
        Depends on how you enjoy them. I'm re reading Harry Potter off and on. I already bought the books before JK Rowling expressed her views. My reading does not give her another dime. Same thing with Blu-Ray of Pulp Fiction though I believe Weinstein Company has given up all rights to most of their movies.
- lmm 1y ago
  > there really isn't anything quite like Dilbert to describe the sort of white collar insanity I've had to learn to take in stride. OneFTE was brilliant, and the creator explicitly talked about what he was doing differently from Dilbert - that you could mock the absurdities while still acknowledging the positives of the corporate life. And then he took the whole thing down :(.
throaway2501 1y ago
Dilbert was as much an era as he was an icon. Good luck in the great cube farm in the sky, Scott.
paulpauper 1y ago
damn . I wonder if it's possible for the cancer to spread fast enough that tests would not have helped, so from elevated PSA to metastatic cancer in the span of months, or a year? This could have been the case with Biden and Adams.
- unsnap_biceps 1y ago
  My understanding is that it's generally slow spreading, but it's also slow to show symptoms, so they could have had it for years without anything indicating that they're in trouble.
  - canucker2016 1y ago
    there's two types of prostate cancer - slow, so slow that you'll probably die of something else and fast. you don't want fast. even the chemical castration that they use won't stop the fast-type of prostate cancer if they don't catch it early enough.
- ainiriand 1y ago
  Check your prostate yearly past 45-50. Through check with ultrasound.
  - chasil 1y ago
    My physician stopped recommending any testing when I turned 50. I still ask for the PSA test. I've never been offered ultrasound.
    - ainiriand 1y ago
      Strange, that is what I was recommended while in Germany.
- tim333 1y ago
  The PSA test is pretty bad, not much better than 50/50 accuracy. I had raised PSA myself but it seems a false alarm. I bought some shares in a company with a 94% accurate test but it doesn't seem to have take off as a business thing.
jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
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- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  IMO his support from the get-go was tainted. His original original justification was, "I know what master persuaders do, and Trump does it. Therefore he's going to win, therefore I support him." The insight into persuasion was interesting (and clearly correct), but what a morally bankrupt rationale for supporting someone. If anything, a person with Scott Adams' interest (and skills?) in persuasion would be compelled to counteract those talents. He would've been a lot more respectable if he said, "I like Trump and I'm glad for my own political purposes that he's a master persuader."
  - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
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    - davidw 1y ago
      FWIW, Mike Godwin - the "Godwin's Law" guy - has said it's quite alright to compare this administration to that guy.
      - echelon_musk 1y ago
        > quite already ?
        davidw 1y ago
        Oops, sorry, typo. Fixed it, thanks.
      - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
        FWIW I don't subscribe to memes as a way to construct arguments. I didn't care what that person said the first time around and I don't care about it now either.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
Bummer. Despite his recent controversy I have enjoyed his humor for decades and will continue to remember him for this.
moomin 1y ago
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lupusreal 1y ago
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- mrweasel 1y ago
  I still love Dilbert. For years Dilbert and Userfriendly.org was part of my morning coffee. Working for a Telco Dilbert was crazy relatable, as a colleague pointed out: I'm fairly sure Scott Adams has a camera in our office. It's easy to say that he should have just shut up, done Dilbert and enjoyed the money, but if he honestly believe the things he's been saying I can understand it's hard to keep quite. Still, I can't help feel like something dramatic happened in his life, causing him to go completely of the rails.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    I'm not one of those guys who thinks he should shut up or be censored or something. I do think he's fairly nuts, but that doesn't invalidate the whole body of his work.
- unethical_ban 1y ago
  He looks fairly gaunt and hairless in the photo. Seems plausible. Well, I enjoyed Dilbert for years, in any case. It shares the throne with "Office Space" for representing the pre-remote-work era of corporate IT.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
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  - tim333 1y ago
    I'm somewhat familiar with J.K. Rowling's story and she does it because she feels it needs doing for the good of society.
    - throwaway29812 1y ago
      [dead]
CSMastermind 1y ago
Pointy-haired boss: "According to the anonymous online employee survey, you don't trust management. What's up with that?" <Dilbert looks back with a blank stare> --- Godspeed Scott. Thank you for all the laughs.
- al_borland 1y ago
  I actually had this happen back in high school. The teacher gave us “anonymous” surveys to gauge her performance. She analyzed the handwriting to determine which one was mine. I actively tried to change my handwriting as well, but I guess not well enough. I’ve never trusted a survey was actually anonymous after that.
  - yegle 1y ago
    A simple trick is to write with your non-dominant hand :-)
    - ikiris 1y ago
      Incomprehensible hen-scratch is pretty anonymous.
  - JohnFen 1y ago
    Yes, 100% this. I learned a similar lesson and will never risk trusting that any survey is anonymous again. I've seen the pattern repeat with other data collection as well -- "anonymous" data collection or "anonymized" data almost never is.
  - atonse 1y ago
    We've been tasked by a client for 2 years to create an anonymized survey, and my mind has gone to great lengths to devise a survey where even our own employees (or superusers with full DB access) cannot figure out who a respondent is. It's been a fun exercise in software architecture. Because I actually care about this. But we keep pushing this annual survey another year since we never seem to be ready to actually implement it (due to other priorities)
jonstewart 1y ago
My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in late 2018. A few years before that, the medical community had switched away from PSA screening, as it was thought more harm than good was being done from early stage intervention. My dad's still ok. He had some localized radiation to beat back the biggest tumors on his spine, then did a round of chemo. This past summer he did a fun immunotherapy treatment, not CAR-T... but something more like that than checkpoint inhibitors. Otherwise his tumors have been kept to almost nothing due to hormone therapy. Unfortunately, what eventually happens is you accumulate enough hormone therapty resistant cancer cells that the tumors start growing again in a meaningful way, and then there's not much that can be done. I assume this is the stage that Scott Adams has had and that he's been battling it for many years by now. With President Biden, it seems likely that his prostate cancer will respond to treatment, and if this is the case then he will likely die of something else, as is usual now for old men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
> “I’d like to extend my respect and compassion and sympathy for the ex president and his family, because they’re going to be going through an especially tough time,” Adams added. That in and of itself puts him above what I've come to expect from this low-bar dip in American culture. Good for him.
- defterGoose 1y ago
  Sure, but one wishes that it didn't need to arrive on the back of a face-to-face encounter with his own mortality. That understanding of a shared humanity is accessible in other ways, though cancer diagnoses do have a way of shoving it in your face.
  - slg 1y ago
    We have seen this pattern repeated with numerous people who share Adams' political opinions, in that this level of empathy only seems to arrive once they themselves go through a similar experience. People who have that empathy without the need of that direct experience tend to have different politics.
    - npunt 1y ago
      I think of it as being reactively empathetic instead of proactively empathetic. Comes from a place of incuriosity and probably fear of mortality and bursting the just world fallacy, among other things. It's a bummer so many are so stingy with their hearts, as though love is some finite resource.
    - verisimi 1y ago
      You think one's political opinions determine whether someone has empathy? Wow.
      - reshlo 1y ago
        > Here, we tested this putative asymmetry using neuroimaging: we recorded oscillatory neural activity using magnetoencephalography while 55 participants completed a well-validated neuroimaging paradigm for empathy to vicarious suffering... This neural empathy response was significantly stronger in the leftist than in the rightist group.[0] > Our large-scale investigation of the relation between political orientation and prosociality suggests that supporters of left-wing ideologies may indeed be more prosocial than supporters of right-wing ideologies... However, the relation between political orientation and prosociality is fragile, and discovering it may depend on the methods used to operationalize prosociality in particular... Nonetheless, we are confident that our investigation has brought us one step closer to solving the puzzle about whether our political orientation is intertwined with how prosocial we behave toward unknown others—which we cautiously answer in the affirmative.[1] [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/ [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506241298341 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506241298341
jfax 1y ago
Scott Adams is basically a sort of older version of Chris Chan. A cartoonist whose unreliable narration of own life became part of the whole performance. But thing is—boy who cried wolf—not sure if he actually has the prognosis of cancer he says he has? It sounds mean, I reckon he does have it, but his past descriptions of health problems were confusing enough that I wouldn't be surprised if he recovers next year and spins it into a story about how he found a cure.
- ineedaj0b 1y ago
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- RajT88 1y ago
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  - y-curious 1y ago
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  - arp242 1y ago
    I'd say that if you have lethal cancer, then you're allowed to be self-centred. I can see how $some_famous_person getting the same cancer as I have might be the trigger to share my own story. (No comment on whether it's truthful or now; I'm dimly aware Adams is the creator of Dilbert and has "gone Trump" over the last few years, and my knowledge stops there)
- moralestapia 1y ago
  Lol, the things you read on the site nowadays ... I don't think he's making that up. I absolutely don't think, 100%, not a chance in hell he's making this up. But I appreciate your comment, it's more data for me to engulf, you never stop learning about the human mind.
- evan_ 1y ago
  I’ll admit the same thought crossed my mind until I saw a recent video of him.
JakeStone 1y ago
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- diego_moita 1y ago
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  - windowshopping 1y ago
    Generalize almost any group in a derogatory way, get ready for downvotes. As if we can just group anyone and everyone whose employer's corporate policy favors cubicle layouts. Foolish.
  - IncreasePosts 1y ago
    Agreed. Humans are only worthwhile if they are non-formulaic and aren't repetitive.
aantix 1y ago
I don’t understand why PSA levels aren’t included as part of the standard blood work done with check ups.
- tombert 1y ago
  Not a doctor, but I thought that part of the issue is that PSA tests aren't terribly accurate, and have a lot of false positives.
- kgwxd 1y ago
  Today, my local news station said they used to. My guess is, carriers decided to keep the money instead.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Which carriers are you referring to? Commercial health plans are subject to a minimum medical loss ratio so they don't get to keep any more money by denying coverage for PSA tests. The general issue is that with only a few exceptions, most cancer screening tests haven't been proven to improve patient outcomes.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago
  Most people with prostates experience a rise in PSA levels as they age. There's no evidence that treatment, especially given how slow, growing prostate cancer usually is, results in a net positive benefit overall. The exception is younger people with aggressive cancer, but you can't exactly limit PSA screening only to young people with aggressive prostate cancer.
- henrikschroder 1y ago
  My understanding is that it's net negative to test too much. A lot of men die with prostate cancer, because only very few die from it. And if you belong to the former group, knowing about it or doing any kind of intervention means a massive loss in quality of life. So the best course of action overall is to close our eyes and stop looking. And hope you don't belong to the latter group.
GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
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- lysace 1y ago
  That pure hate of yours. :/ Ugly.
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    far less than dealt by the source. i'll take ugly, and i don't wish cancer on anyone. my thoughts are with his family.
    - lysace 1y ago
      Ahem: > and i don't wish cancer on anyone. vs > Get yourself a better doctor [in the context of: "Here's a nickel, Kid. Go buy yourself a real computer."] Do own your statements, Kid.
      - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
        it's a play on a dismissive character from the comic strip i linked in my post.
JCattheATM 1y ago
I was never really reading the strips, but I fell in love with the cartoon. It had a very unique tone with the same famous satire. Thankfully with all the voice actors and other talent that went into the show, it's easier to disconnect it from the hateful person Adams ended up revealing himself to be.
FrameworkFred 1y ago
I have to admit, I'm not up to speed on anything he's been up to lately, but I absolutely read and enjoyed Dilbert way back when. I'm sorry to hear he's not long for the world. Every time I see someone kitted out in VR gear, I think about his prediction that the Star Trek holodeck will be humanity's last invention and I'm very glad they don't have a button that can beam the next person waiting for their turn into a concrete wall.
tarunkotia 1y ago
I am a big fan of Dilbert and really liked one of his books "how to fail at everything and still win big".
aflukasz 1y ago
Some of you cite your favorite strips. I will too. Dilbert comes down to the caves where trolls (accountants) reside and gets a tour. The guide points to a troll sitting behind a desk, and mumbling in a stupor: "nine, nine, nine...". Guide: And this is our random numbers generator. Dilbert: Are you sure those are random? Guide: That's the problem with randomness - you can never be sure. Edit: Found it here: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-randomness https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-rand.... And thank you, Scott - many laughs thanks to you.
- teddyh 1y ago
  Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2001-10-25 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2001-10-25>
- ghurtado 1y ago
  That reads like a XKCD comic disguised as a Dilbert strip. Very nice. And also, what a cool read that was, thanks for sharing the article.
  - ThatPlayer 1y ago
    XKCD has a different random number: https://xkcd.com/221/ https://xkcd.com/221/
    - tarvaina 1y ago
      Stray thought: Why 4 and 9? Because the joke is funniest if the number is completely ordinary. 0 and 1 are special and so are all prime numbers. 6 is out because it's the maximum die throw. And one figure is more ordinary than two figures, or negatives, or decimals. That leaves 4 and 9.
      - Velorivox 1y ago
        How come prime numbers are special but squares aren’t? 4 and 9 both being squares seems to be a more striking commonality than your logic here…
pryelluw 1y ago
67 is too young to go from cancer.
- unsupp0rted 1y ago
  Every age is too young to go from cancer. Once we're done with it, we'll look back in confusion about how anyone could think otherwise.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 1y ago
I most enjoy his analysis of persuasion techniques and what works and doesn't work. When he first started writing about this, using Hillary v Trump as examples, Hillary suddenly changed her methods. I remember his remark about Hillary's campaign logo looking like directions to the hospital. I'll miss him.
w10-1 1y ago
Scott Adams' revolution was to get users to give him plot lines. He was the first to publish an open way to communicate with him in order to out the corporate crazies, and readers did in droves, explaining the inanity of their workplace and getting secret retribution for stuff they clearly couldn't complain about publicly. A good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom. Doing this seems to require identifying with your readers and their concerns. That could be disturbing to the author if the tide turns, or to the readers if they find out their role model was gaming them or otherwise unreal, but I imagine it is pretty heady stuff. I hope he (and anyone facing cancer) has people with whom he can share honestly, and has access to the best health care available.
- veqq 1y ago
  > a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Grand Budapest Hotel starts with the author stating that when you're an author, people simply tell you stories and you don't need to come up with them anymore!
  - xnx 1y ago
    This is a common trend now on TikTok for any "creator" with a moderate follower count. The template goes something like "I'm bored, tell me the thing you bought that you can't do without". The creator doesn't have to do anything, the followers create the content for them in the comments.
    - woleium 1y ago
      And another echo chamber is born.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  Remember this one? https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dilbertrwtemp.jpg https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uplo... "The clue meter is reading zero." Everyone at Motorola recognized it immediately.
Suppafly 1y ago
[flagged]
hermitcrab 1y ago
I found it hard to reconcile his charming and witty comic strips with some of the ugly things he wrote elsewhere. I would never usually throw a book away, but I made an exception for one of his books, because I didn't want anyone to see it on my bookshelf and I didn't want to give to anyone else.
- nightfly 1y ago
  He really let fame go to his head...
  - nosrepa 1y ago
    Was it the pool or the burritos that tipped you off?
- john-radio 1y ago
  I have a personal convention for books like that - I don't have any Dilberts on the shelf but a lot of Neil Gaimans, plus an artsy TTRPG book ("Maze of the Blue Medusa") that's also made by someone who is now widely considered a serial sexual assaulter - I don't (always) remove them from my shelves but I turn them upside down, like a flag indicating distress.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    The problem with taking them out of circulation is one less copy at the used book store and one more potential sale of a new copy.
    - brewdad 1y ago
      It’s 2025. That book is getting pirated before anyone goes out and buys a new copy.
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      This is why I've sold or will sell many of my more controversial books/authors for relatively cheap because, yeah, an extra used copy in circulation is possibly one or more fewer new book sales that author won't profit from. Some of them I don't mind if someone else enjoys that book itself for what it is/was at the time it was released, but it's nice to think that it next sale(s) might be a dollar or three the author won't see when they read that.
tedk-42 1y ago
Like many artists, it's hard to separate the art from the artist. Although I thought his comics growing up were quirky, I was probably too young to appreciate them (xkcd was more my thing anyway). Knowing more about him and what he says / thinks turns me off Dilbert entirely. I doubt he'll go as he says. Sounds like a plead for sympathy / attention.
sleepybrett 1y ago
[flagged]
adamredwoods 1y ago
If he expects this summer to be his demise, then it must have mutated and spread to vital organs. Metastatic cancer is the true killer. Cancer in your bones can linger for years without progression.
gwbennett 1y ago
So sad! Love you Scott!
cityzen 1y ago
“All my enemies — people who are Democrats mostly — are going to come after me pretty hard. So I have to put up with that," he said. Sad that this man is dying of cancer and letting his “enemies” live rent free in his head. I hope he can find some peace before he passes.
- BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago
  I interpreted this differently, because I’ve read a substantial amount of downright cruel comments regarding his life and this diagnosis. He was right about that, and I don’t fault him for wanting to try and reduce the amount of vitriol by holding off on announcing the diagnosis. Why deal with six months of vicious comments alongside well intentioned pitiful condolences when you could only have to deal with one or two month’s worth? I would have done the same thing. For what it’s worth, I think an exceedingly small number of people can actually refuse to let those who hate your guts “live rent free in your head”.
  - righthand 1y ago
    Terminally ill and terminally online is it then?
mindcrime 1y ago
Wow. Very sad news. :-( I know this will sound dumb, but it's really hard to put into words how much I enjoyed Dilbert in its heyday. I mean at one time Dilbert was one of three web-comics that I read religiously. It was Dilbert, User Friendly, and Sluggy Freelance. The comics weren't just "comics", they mattered to me. Seriously. Then UF quit publishing new episodes, and then Scott went all alt-right and Dilbert disappeared behind a paywall, and now only Sluggy is still standing. I guess. I have to admit, I quit reading regularly quite some time for reasons I can't even explain. Anyway... not sure what the relevance of all of this is. Just reminiscing about a day when the 'Net felt a lot different I guess. At any rate, while I'd become less of a "Scott Adams fan" over the last few years, this news still makes me feel absolutely sick. I wouldn't wish prostate cancer on anyone. :-(
CommenterPerson 1y ago
Adams did such a great job exposing the absurdities of the American white collar workplace, as seen by the underlings. So it is puzzling how he went over to the dark side of the pointy haired Boss. And the Boss's masters. I hope some pharma underling might have cooked up some good meds for Adams, despite all the pharma bosses and their backers.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Adams did such a great job exposing the absurdities of the American white collar workplace, as seen by the underlings. So it is puzzling how he went over to the dark side of the pointy haired Boss. Adams was an MBA, a manager that was resentful that his advancement in management was not as fast as he thought it should been when he left Crocker National Bank for Pacific Bell, and then resentful that he couldn't break into management at Pacific Bell, even while publicly mocking Pacific Bell management (I don't mean indirectly in the comics he was writing while working there, but directly in the media interviews he gave about the comics.) His only problem with the PHB was always that it was someone else sitting behind that desk, and not him.
karaterobot 1y ago
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that. In the early 90s, my family didn't get the newspaper, so my friend who lived in town would save the comics page for me to read every week. Dilbert was one of the big ones! It was funny and subversive, and I'll remember all the laughs Scott Adams has given me.
irjustin 1y ago
If you or anyone in your family history has had prostate, its worth keeping an eye on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801906 If the hypothesis turns out to be true, prostate cancer could be easily defeated before it has a chance to take a hold.
hackernoops 1y ago
[flagged]
deepsummer 1y ago
A lot of comments here mention his comics or his controversial pro-Trump opinions in the last 10 years, but I would like to emphasize and point out his influence he had over the lifes of so many people with his life strategies and explanations, microlessons, memes and ways to look at the world. Like * systems over goals: the theory that you shouldn't set yourself specific goals, but instead just find a system how to work towards your goals regularly * talent stacks: the theory that, in order to succeed in life, you don't need to be the best in one skill, but good enough in a useful combination of several skills that can be used together * the idea that managing your energy is more important than managing your time * the Adams rule of slow moving disasters: any kind of disaster that takes many years to manifest can be overcome by humanity. Scary are those disasters that don't give you enough time to react. * rewiring your brain: that by finding the right way to look at something, you can modify your own behavior. He wrote a whole book full of recipes to change your behavior and feelings. * despite not listening to Rap, a long time ago when Kanye West had one of his first successful songs, someone sent Adams the lyrics to some song and by looking at the lyrics Adams recognized West as a unique genius * you should never trust a video as proof of anything, if you can't see what happened before or after. It's most likely taken out of context. Just like most quotes are worthless without context. * "perception is reality": that how someone perceives a fact is more important than what actually happened * "simultaneous realities": realities are shaped by how people perceive them. And two people can disagree on something, while both are right at the same time, because they view the same thing through two different lenses and thus live in different realities. * TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome): the observation that many people hate Trump so much that they lose the capability of rational thought and either just shut their brain down when talking about anything related to Trump, or want to do the opposite of what Trump wants * "word-thinking": when someone find labels for things or people, and then forms opinions based on the label * detecting cognitive dissonance: when someone just shuts down their brain because the experienced reality doesn't match their expectation * "tells for lies", like analyzing people on TV and looking for clues that they lie * coining the term "fine people hoax" for a video snippet that was constantly repeated on media to show Trump having one opinion, even though when watching the whole video it was clear that he meant the opposite. * "logic doesn't win arguments", the rules of persuasion, and the theory of 'master persuaders' * he predicted Trump winning the 2016 election when Trump had just announced his campaign, long before the primaries, because he recognized a 'master persuader' in him. And there are probably many more things I don't remember right now, but his books and blog shaped my way of thinking, and I am using his way of looking at the world every day. I must admit I didn't really follow 'Coffee with Scott Adams' - I think he kind of jumped the shark when having to fill at least 30 minutes every day, and I am not that interested in politics. But that doesn't diminish his accomplishments.
th0ma5 1y ago
Kinda wild how no comments here suggest that this person's disingenuous nature has made many believe that this is made up. It will be discouraging to find out.
- deepsummer 1y ago
  As Scott Adams would tell you, it doesn't matter whether he made it up. If you believe him, that's your reality. If you don't believe him, your reality is that he's faking it. You can chose your reality and that act upon it.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    There are certain things that when you stop believing in them, they don't go away, and cancer is one of them.
- gblargg 1y ago
  I considered it when watching his podcast today. Low change, but if he was it would be for a noble cause. Maybe he's been recruited to work for a secret organization taking over the world and has to fake his death to quietly exit public life. /s
jagermo 1y ago
Sucks for him, I hope he recovers or manages somehow. On the other hand, he is not a good guy. If you want to go deeper, there are some episodes on Behind the Bastards dedicated to him. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-the-dilbert-guy-118786164/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
- ak_111 1y ago
  I appreciated Dilbert, but then he started showing up in my timeline amplifying pro-Gaza bombings tweets. I was surprised and disappointed with that as those Hasbara takes were the geopolitical propoganda equivalent to pointy-hair boss's office politics speech balloons ("the only way to rescue the hostages is to bomb everything, including the captors... and the hostages").
  - jagermo 1y ago
    oh, he was problematic waaaaayy before that, but that tracks.
  - gatlin 1y ago
    I'm using my real first name here and I hope he uses his remaining time to contemplate the ethnic cleansing he has championed. He isn't done yet; I pray he reverses.
    - gatlin 1y ago
      Curious that this comment went negative! HN mods, please address your pro-genocidal userbase.
  - jasonm23 1y ago
    smh at these people, Israel went full mask off and had the gall to blame "anti-semites" for... what exactly? Demanding justice for people they're bombing. Wild disgusting times. But Scott had gone full mask off a ways before that. It's very sad that people we once admired turned out to be disgusting.
Gud 1y ago
Scott Adam is the reason why I chose not to pursue a career in IT, despite my love for computers. Today I am an on site high voltage test engineer. People respect what I do and let me do my work in peace, mostly. Reading the horror stories I so often see coming from the IT world, I am grateful to use my computer skills mostly as a hobby. Although my computer and networking skills do come in useful in my profession, I’m glad it’s not the source of my income.
incomingpain 1y ago
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dropped-the-dilbert-comic-strip-after-a-racist-rant-by-its-creat https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dr... I wonder what he has been up to the last couple years.
sota_pop 1y ago
Always was a fan of Dilbert, but I especially enjoyed a short story he wrote called God’s Debris when I discovered it as a young undergrad. Sad news indeed.
reverendsteveii 1y ago
I thought he was going to be hunted for being a Republican. That's what he told us. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-says-001404374.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dilbert-creator-scott-ad...
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  I can't believe Joe Biden personally gave Scott Adams cancer and accidentally gave it to himself, too! I hope all of those Republicans feel safe now that the mean Biden administration stopped deporting them to torture prisons./s
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Once I became a software developer my mom gave me a Dilbert desk calendar every xmas. She had worked in tech startups since 1979 and loved Dilbert. She was the type of person to always try and bring the positive, never complain. I like to think that Dilbert gave he a chance to release some things/commiserate with me.
awkward 1y ago
In the 2000s at least, many cubicles had at least one Dilbert up. If you worked there for a while, you probably knew the story and it could get a chuckle out of you. Some people had two. More than four visible Dilberts, however, was a terrible sign.
aaroninsf 1y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIm_2MgdeA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIm_2MgdeA seems relevant

452 points by dale_huevo 1y ago

digger495 1y ago

[flagged]

toomuchtodo 1y ago

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1924477866915315722 https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1924477866915315722

toomuchtodo 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ravenstine 1y ago

That would explain his rather obvious lack of energy these days. Adams has become a controversial figure in recent years. Regardless of what you think of him, as someone who has worked in Corporate America for over a decade, there really isn't anything quite like Dilbert to describe the sort of white collar insanity I've had to learn to take in stride. My first workplace as a junior developer was straight out of Dilbert and Office Space. I have a gigantic collection of digitized Dilbert strips that best describe office situations I've run into in real life – many of them including the pointy haired boss. He's expressed a lot of what I would consider... stupid opinions these days, but I would be sad to learn he's no longer with us.

mdp2021 1y ago
> collection of digitized Dilbert strips that best describe office situations I've run into in real life Probably also because, like e.g. "Yes (Prime) Minister", part of the depicted did come from anecdotes, instead of fantasy.
- jpmattia 1y ago
  > part of the depicted did come from anecdotes He spoke at MIT (early 90s?) and I remember him talking about making fun of PacBell colleagues in his comic: They would recognize themselves, ask him to autograph the comic for them, and then go away happy (thus making fun of them a second time.)
jimt1234 1y ago
100% agree ^^^ He went full Elon Musk, before Elon Musk. But yeah, back in the 90s/2000s, when my career in Corporate America started to settle in, his Dilbert comics brought my loads of comic relief. My favorite character was Wally; he always seemed to "fail up". I recall Wally meeting with the pointy-haired boss to tell him he'd returned from his 3-week vacation. The boss said, "You were out on a 3-week vacation?" Wally, the master, replied, "Sorry, I misspoke. I'm leaving now for my 3-week vacation." LOL
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Two of my favorites: Catbert on work life balance: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag" https://steemitimages.com/p/7258xSVeJbKnFEnBwjKLhL15SoynbgJKpQxRd1uovsgpaNPxJJJhY2hd17GVmjgRPeRhAGtKjnh23QM5qMvg8FdzwiKzrJ9xBnmc1ZBRV3PpLn3iThkm9XvdyAVHvDQg2ynCbjpYpBLEh?format=match&mode=fit https://steemitimages.com/p/7258xSVeJbKnFEnBwjKLhL15SoynbgJK... The other, I can never seem to find. They're all in a meeting, and the Pointy Haired Boss says, "This next task is critical yet thankless and urgent, and will go to whoever next makes eye contact with me". Everyone stares at the desk, and then Alice pulls out a hand mirror and angles it between the PHB and Wally.
  - teddyh 1y ago
    > Catbert on work life balance: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag" Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-05-05 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-05-05> > The other, I can never seem to find. Here you are: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-08-30 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-08-30>
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      Thankyou!
  - jimt1234 1y ago
    Back in the 90s, I worked on a "side project" that screen-scraped the daily Dilbert strip and added it to an internal "employee portal" website. A lot of people liked it, including all the pointy-haired middle managers. However, after about a week, I was told to remove it immediately, not because of the legal/ethical issues around screen-scraping (stealing) the strip, but rather because this particular day's strip was about Dilbert's company laying off a bunch of employees so the company's executives had more money to buy vacation homes (or something like that), and, by coincidence, our company announced a massive layoff on that exact same day. The timing was totally coincidental, but perfect. Executives were furious; my boss told me he got yelled at by our VP. I loved it.
jokethrowaway 1y ago
It's not controversial to believe one lying politician over the other. Approximately 50% of your country does that. If you squint you'll see that both parties are an expression of the same statist ideology and there's very little difference between them. Now anarchists are a different breed but they're a ridiculed minority. Just because the tech scene became this lefty hell circle, we should not consider controversial a thought that is so widespread in today's culture that it puts a president in the oval office twice.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  > If you squint you'll see that both parties are an expression of the same statist ideology and there's very little difference between them. If you squint so hard your eyes are closed, maybe
- code_for_monkey 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - code_for_monkey 1y ago
      it was some kind of roman salute, from the heart lol
      - wat10000 1y ago
        It is a Roman salute! It's just 1920s Rome....
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  Even if what you were saying is true (and its most certainly not), its funny how everyone who makes this argument always tends to fall on the conservative side, that in fact does significantly more lying as a verifiable statistic.
jakevoytko 1y ago
It was a little sad to watch him get radicalized in real time. I really enjoyed reading his blog before this started to happen. But then a few publications started quoting blog posts of his out of context as rage bait -- I remember he was particularly butthurt about some Jezebel posts that took things he said out of context. At this point, he basically started leaning into controversy for pageviews. He'd start linking to the controversial section of each post right at the top of the post. After a few months or so I had to unsubscribe, after years of reading his blog and Dilbert cartoons/books. He's become such a gremlin that I won't be 100% sure he's serious about this until he actually dies.
- prepend 1y ago
  I liked his blog at first and thought it really declined with video and short form content. It’s like his written editing slowed him down and made him less clickbaity than when he could post a video with no editing in just minutes.
- rhines 1y ago
  Yeah I remember binging his blog while between classes in university - he wrote well and had interesting thoughts on marketability, mastery, business, etc., all things that I was interested in as someone learning to be an adult and find his place in the world. Then Trump ran for president, and honestly the blog was still good - Adams had some genuinely good insights about why Trump appealed, and suggested that he might be using the Republicans to get into power but he really doesn't share their values and will shake things up for the better. But then somehow Adams' identity got wrapped up in the idea of Trump not being as bad as people think and he just supported Trump more and more even when it became clear that Trump did not have a master plan to liberalize the Republican party.
  - aredox 1y ago
    >[Trump] will shake things up for the better. Well, that was already the first sign of senility. Trump, at that point, was already a know quantity for decades: a crook and a con man.
libraryatnight 1y ago
I grew up dreaming of being a cartoonist, and while Gary Larson, Berkely Breathed, and Bill Watterson were my holy trinity Dilbert wasn't far off. Always admired Adams and his humor - and like you even more so once I ended up in the corporate computer world. Was sad to me to see someone so good at lampooning absurdity get sucked into such a toxic mindset, but I'll also be sad to hear he's gone and I'm sad to hear he's up against it.
justinator 1y ago
[flagged]
- lsaferite 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - JohnFen 1y ago
    > by someone else using the phrase "just call a spade a spade" The phrase is referring to the tool. It is not a reference to the derogatory slang term at all. It dates back to Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica, and the earliest version of it that appeared in English was in 1542. All of that was centuries before "spade" also became used as derogatory slang. The phrase is no more racist than "like white on rice".
    - lsaferite 1y ago
      Oh, *I* am fully aware of the provenance of the phrase. I personally find it's push into the "best not used" category to be highly annoying.
  - justinator 1y ago
    I'll take your suggestion to heart and look into this term myself and see if I can't learn something new to better work within the present world. I'm more than happy to admit that I could very well have a blind spot for a sensitive term which I do not currently know about. I apologize to anyone if this was used offensively and thank you for bringing this to my attention.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  [flagged]
ActorNightly 1y ago
>Adams has become a controversial figure in recent years. He has had some questionable views all throughout his life. In his book "The Dilbert Future", which was from 1997, the last 2 chapters are some wacky stuff about manifesting - i.e if you write something down 100 times a day every day it will come true and other stuff like that. And while that may seem a far cry from the alt-right stuff he eschews, its really not - inability to process information clearly and think in reality in lieu of ideology is the cornerstone of conservative thinking.
- orionsbelt 1y ago
  Manifesting is not that wacky. Of course, you are not going to write down that you will win the lottery and then win. But most people are their own worst enemy and self limiting to some extent. Focusing on what you want in life, and affirming it to yourself over and over, is effectively a way to brain wash yourself to change your own self limiting behavior and it’s not surprising that this is often successful.
  - phlipski 1y ago
    I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!
    - HK-NC 1y ago
      [flagged]
  - tim333 1y ago
    Also telling other people can help as some of them may be able to help you get there.
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    Figuring on what you actually want in life and working towards that is productive, yes. But that's mild compared to what he says. He basically says he can influence the stock market with affirmations. You should read the chapters. https://www.scribd.com/doc/156175634/the-dilbert-future-pdf https://www.scribd.com/doc/156175634/the-dilbert-future-pdf. Starts on 218.
mcv 1y ago
As weird as he is, his claim that Trump uses a form of mass hypnosis is still the best explanation for Trump's success that I've heard. But why then Adams would support Trump, who is clearly the ultimate PHB, is something I never understood.
- abirch 1y ago
  If you've ever read Thinking Fast and Slow, Trump is great at appealing to System 1. He's spent his entire lifetime focusing on his branding and what people think of him. I dislike almost all of Trump's policies and his tactics; however, he's great at oversimplifying things and getting the visceral reactions he wants. Chapelle's SNL monolog about Trump is pretty spot on too.
  - mcv 1y ago
    I haven't read it yet, but I've got it right here, and I just finished my previous book.
    - abirch 1y ago
      It's such a great book. You can skip the first few chapters as the evidence for those chapters on priming hasn't been replicated: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/ https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... However, the fundamental ideas of System 1 and 2 have made me rethink so many things.
  - elcritch 1y ago
    He seems to play the media like a fiddle. It's insane how gullible so much of the media establishment is nowadays and play right into it.
    - astrange 1y ago
      They like it because he's good for views, and because US politics media runs on Murc's law (anything bad is the Democrats' fault for not stopping it).
legitster 1y ago
Dilbert also failed to keep up with the times. Despite publishing strips about AI or remote work or etc, you can still tell that he has spent so long away from that world that he no longer has any novel insight into it. All of the jokes come secondhand from anecdotes that he hears or reads about.
- paulddraper 1y ago
  That's true. Dilbert is about the 90s.
- dhosek 1y ago
  Sometime in the late 90s Dilbert pretty much became Pluggers but without the attribution to the readers sending in their ideas.
- rightbyte 1y ago
  I think Dilbert's cubicle nightmare frozen in time is somewhat charming.
  - willis936 1y ago
    Imagine the luxury of a cubicle in 2025.
    - sonofhans 1y ago
      You had cubicles? Luxury! Im my day, we put our spare-parts laptop on an old door for a desk and sat on a rickety metal chair on a concrete floor in an unheated warehouse. And we loved it!
      - wombatpm 1y ago
        Oh you had a chair! In my day we had a desk scavenged from sticks and rocks. Our chair was a piece of pipe with a 2x4 on the end. You had to balance carefully lets you impaled yourself.
      - 1y ago
ghaff 1y ago
It's almost certainly hard to maintain the energy/inspiration needed for a daily comic strip/comic. I also think Scott Adams had trouble moving beyond the 1990s Pac Bell environment after he was no longer part of corporate (much less startup) life.
WalterBright 1y ago
He's also the earliest person to predict a Trump win in 2015, and was ridiculed for it, but turned out to be right.
- Kye 1y ago
  Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a vintage meme at this point. He may have been the most famous person to say what so many of us expected first, but it just means he paid attention.
- stevenwoo 1y ago
  One of Bernie Sanders campaign slogans in his first primary campaigns which started in 2015 was “Bernie Beats Trump” - the lack of enthusiasm around Hillary Clinton was palpable.
  - BJones12 1y ago
    My quick search suggests that slogan only showed up in 2019.
    - jskelly 1y ago
      I think all three of you are right. The official Bernie campaign did not use this as a slogan until the 2020 campaign (so 2019-2020)-- however, it was in use by supporters during the 2016 campaign (source: I was in the crowd of Bernie supporters at the 2016 Democratic National Convention when the guy standing next to me started the chant & it quickly spread. It was so interesting to see how quickly it spread from just one guy.)
  - aerotwelve 1y ago
    That slogan is from his 2020 primary campaign.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I was a Dilbert fanatic for a long time. Adams, himself? Not so much. I think he tends to have a rather nasty outlook on humanity, and I had a hard time reconciling it. I do know that he was/is pretty much about as far away from Diamond Joe* as you can get. Interesting that they seem to be fighting the same battle. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_(The_Onion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_(The_Onion)
- ryandrake 1y ago
  My one "boomer" take: Something I wish the younger generation would learn is that it's useful to be able to separate a work from its author. Some of my favorite films were produced by Harvey Weinstein. They're still my favorite films. The fact that a slimeball was a force behind making them doesn't detract from their content. I like Robert Heinlein sci-fi, even though, judged by today's moral yardstick, some of his views were... questionable. I still like Harry Potter even though J. K. Rowling went totally bananas. Troubled and/or terrible people can make great art and music, and it's OK to like the art and question the artist.
  - jason_oster 1y ago
    I have to disagree with this, sadly. Supporting the work is supporting the author so they can continue doing terrible author things. This is why boycotts are effective and "oh well, I'll just keep buying it anyway" is not.
    - dpkirchner 1y ago
      Additionally, boycotting is one of the vanishing rare ways we have influence over anyone richer or more powerful than us.
    - stackskipton 1y ago
      Depends on how you enjoy them. I'm re reading Harry Potter off and on. I already bought the books before JK Rowling expressed her views. My reading does not give her another dime. Same thing with Blu-Ray of Pulp Fiction though I believe Weinstein Company has given up all rights to most of their movies.
lmm 1y ago
> there really isn't anything quite like Dilbert to describe the sort of white collar insanity I've had to learn to take in stride. OneFTE was brilliant, and the creator explicitly talked about what he was doing differently from Dilbert - that you could mock the absurdities while still acknowledging the positives of the corporate life. And then he took the whole thing down :(.

throaway2501 1y ago

Dilbert was as much an era as he was an icon. Good luck in the great cube farm in the sky, Scott.

paulpauper 1y ago

damn . I wonder if it's possible for the cancer to spread fast enough that tests would not have helped, so from elevated PSA to metastatic cancer in the span of months, or a year? This could have been the case with Biden and Adams.

unsnap_biceps 1y ago
My understanding is that it's generally slow spreading, but it's also slow to show symptoms, so they could have had it for years without anything indicating that they're in trouble.
- canucker2016 1y ago
  there's two types of prostate cancer - slow, so slow that you'll probably die of something else and fast. you don't want fast. even the chemical castration that they use won't stop the fast-type of prostate cancer if they don't catch it early enough.
ainiriand 1y ago
Check your prostate yearly past 45-50. Through check with ultrasound.
- chasil 1y ago
  My physician stopped recommending any testing when I turned 50. I still ask for the PSA test. I've never been offered ultrasound.
  - ainiriand 1y ago
    Strange, that is what I was recommended while in Germany.
tim333 1y ago
The PSA test is pretty bad, not much better than 50/50 accuracy. I had raised PSA myself but it seems a false alarm. I bought some shares in a company with a 94% accurate test but it doesn't seem to have take off as a business thing.

jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago

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sorcerer-mar 1y ago
IMO his support from the get-go was tainted. His original original justification was, "I know what master persuaders do, and Trump does it. Therefore he's going to win, therefore I support him." The insight into persuasion was interesting (and clearly correct), but what a morally bankrupt rationale for supporting someone. If anything, a person with Scott Adams' interest (and skills?) in persuasion would be compelled to counteract those talents. He would've been a lot more respectable if he said, "I like Trump and I'm glad for my own political purposes that he's a master persuader."
- jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
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  - davidw 1y ago
    FWIW, Mike Godwin - the "Godwin's Law" guy - has said it's quite alright to compare this administration to that guy.
    - echelon_musk 1y ago
      > quite already ?
      - davidw 1y ago
        Oops, sorry, typo. Fixed it, thanks.
    - jxjnskkzxxhx 1y ago
      FWIW I don't subscribe to memes as a way to construct arguments. I didn't care what that person said the first time around and I don't care about it now either.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

Bummer. Despite his recent controversy I have enjoyed his humor for decades and will continue to remember him for this.

moomin 1y ago

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lupusreal 1y ago

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mrweasel 1y ago
I still love Dilbert. For years Dilbert and Userfriendly.org was part of my morning coffee. Working for a Telco Dilbert was crazy relatable, as a colleague pointed out: I'm fairly sure Scott Adams has a camera in our office. It's easy to say that he should have just shut up, done Dilbert and enjoyed the money, but if he honestly believe the things he's been saying I can understand it's hard to keep quite. Still, I can't help feel like something dramatic happened in his life, causing him to go completely of the rails.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  I'm not one of those guys who thinks he should shut up or be censored or something. I do think he's fairly nuts, but that doesn't invalidate the whole body of his work.
unethical_ban 1y ago
He looks fairly gaunt and hairless in the photo. Seems plausible. Well, I enjoyed Dilbert for years, in any case. It shares the throne with "Office Space" for representing the pre-remote-work era of corporate IT.
ToucanLoucan 1y ago
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- tim333 1y ago
  I'm somewhat familiar with J.K. Rowling's story and she does it because she feels it needs doing for the good of society.
  - throwaway29812 1y ago
    [dead]

CSMastermind 1y ago

Pointy-haired boss: "According to the anonymous online employee survey, you don't trust management. What's up with that?" <Dilbert looks back with a blank stare> --- Godspeed Scott. Thank you for all the laughs.

al_borland 1y ago
I actually had this happen back in high school. The teacher gave us “anonymous” surveys to gauge her performance. She analyzed the handwriting to determine which one was mine. I actively tried to change my handwriting as well, but I guess not well enough. I’ve never trusted a survey was actually anonymous after that.
- yegle 1y ago
  A simple trick is to write with your non-dominant hand :-)
  - ikiris 1y ago
    Incomprehensible hen-scratch is pretty anonymous.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  Yes, 100% this. I learned a similar lesson and will never risk trusting that any survey is anonymous again. I've seen the pattern repeat with other data collection as well -- "anonymous" data collection or "anonymized" data almost never is.
- atonse 1y ago
  We've been tasked by a client for 2 years to create an anonymized survey, and my mind has gone to great lengths to devise a survey where even our own employees (or superusers with full DB access) cannot figure out who a respondent is. It's been a fun exercise in software architecture. Because I actually care about this. But we keep pushing this annual survey another year since we never seem to be ready to actually implement it (due to other priorities)

jonstewart 1y ago

My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in late 2018. A few years before that, the medical community had switched away from PSA screening, as it was thought more harm than good was being done from early stage intervention. My dad's still ok. He had some localized radiation to beat back the biggest tumors on his spine, then did a round of chemo. This past summer he did a fun immunotherapy treatment, not CAR-T... but something more like that than checkpoint inhibitors. Otherwise his tumors have been kept to almost nothing due to hormone therapy. Unfortunately, what eventually happens is you accumulate enough hormone therapty resistant cancer cells that the tumors start growing again in a meaningful way, and then there's not much that can be done. I assume this is the stage that Scott Adams has had and that he's been battling it for many years by now. With President Biden, it seems likely that his prostate cancer will respond to treatment, and if this is the case then he will likely die of something else, as is usual now for old men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

> “I’d like to extend my respect and compassion and sympathy for the ex president and his family, because they’re going to be going through an especially tough time,” Adams added. That in and of itself puts him above what I've come to expect from this low-bar dip in American culture. Good for him.

defterGoose 1y ago
Sure, but one wishes that it didn't need to arrive on the back of a face-to-face encounter with his own mortality. That understanding of a shared humanity is accessible in other ways, though cancer diagnoses do have a way of shoving it in your face.
- slg 1y ago
  We have seen this pattern repeated with numerous people who share Adams' political opinions, in that this level of empathy only seems to arrive once they themselves go through a similar experience. People who have that empathy without the need of that direct experience tend to have different politics.
  - npunt 1y ago
    I think of it as being reactively empathetic instead of proactively empathetic. Comes from a place of incuriosity and probably fear of mortality and bursting the just world fallacy, among other things. It's a bummer so many are so stingy with their hearts, as though love is some finite resource.
  - verisimi 1y ago
    You think one's political opinions determine whether someone has empathy? Wow.
    - reshlo 1y ago
      > Here, we tested this putative asymmetry using neuroimaging: we recorded oscillatory neural activity using magnetoencephalography while 55 participants completed a well-validated neuroimaging paradigm for empathy to vicarious suffering... This neural empathy response was significantly stronger in the leftist than in the rightist group.[0] > Our large-scale investigation of the relation between political orientation and prosociality suggests that supporters of left-wing ideologies may indeed be more prosocial than supporters of right-wing ideologies... However, the relation between political orientation and prosociality is fragile, and discovering it may depend on the methods used to operationalize prosociality in particular... Nonetheless, we are confident that our investigation has brought us one step closer to solving the puzzle about whether our political orientation is intertwined with how prosocial we behave toward unknown others—which we cautiously answer in the affirmative.[1] [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/ [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506241298341 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19485506241298341

jfax 1y ago

Scott Adams is basically a sort of older version of Chris Chan. A cartoonist whose unreliable narration of own life became part of the whole performance. But thing is—boy who cried wolf—not sure if he actually has the prognosis of cancer he says he has? It sounds mean, I reckon he does have it, but his past descriptions of health problems were confusing enough that I wouldn't be surprised if he recovers next year and spins it into a story about how he found a cure.

ineedaj0b 1y ago
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RajT88 1y ago
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- y-curious 1y ago
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- arp242 1y ago
  I'd say that if you have lethal cancer, then you're allowed to be self-centred. I can see how $some_famous_person getting the same cancer as I have might be the trigger to share my own story. (No comment on whether it's truthful or now; I'm dimly aware Adams is the creator of Dilbert and has "gone Trump" over the last few years, and my knowledge stops there)
moralestapia 1y ago
Lol, the things you read on the site nowadays ... I don't think he's making that up. I absolutely don't think, 100%, not a chance in hell he's making this up. But I appreciate your comment, it's more data for me to engulf, you never stop learning about the human mind.
evan_ 1y ago
I’ll admit the same thought crossed my mind until I saw a recent video of him.

JakeStone 1y ago

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diego_moita 1y ago
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- windowshopping 1y ago
  Generalize almost any group in a derogatory way, get ready for downvotes. As if we can just group anyone and everyone whose employer's corporate policy favors cubicle layouts. Foolish.
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  Agreed. Humans are only worthwhile if they are non-formulaic and aren't repetitive.

aantix 1y ago

I don’t understand why PSA levels aren’t included as part of the standard blood work done with check ups.

tombert 1y ago
Not a doctor, but I thought that part of the issue is that PSA tests aren't terribly accurate, and have a lot of false positives.
kgwxd 1y ago
Today, my local news station said they used to. My guess is, carriers decided to keep the money instead.
- nradov 1y ago
  Which carriers are you referring to? Commercial health plans are subject to a minimum medical loss ratio so they don't get to keep any more money by denying coverage for PSA tests. The general issue is that with only a few exceptions, most cancer screening tests haven't been proven to improve patient outcomes.
kelseyfrog 1y ago
Most people with prostates experience a rise in PSA levels as they age. There's no evidence that treatment, especially given how slow, growing prostate cancer usually is, results in a net positive benefit overall. The exception is younger people with aggressive cancer, but you can't exactly limit PSA screening only to young people with aggressive prostate cancer.
henrikschroder 1y ago
My understanding is that it's net negative to test too much. A lot of men die with prostate cancer, because only very few die from it. And if you belong to the former group, knowing about it or doing any kind of intervention means a massive loss in quality of life. So the best course of action overall is to close our eyes and stop looking. And hope you don't belong to the latter group.

GuinansEyebrows 1y ago

[flagged]

lysace 1y ago
That pure hate of yours. :/ Ugly.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  far less than dealt by the source. i'll take ugly, and i don't wish cancer on anyone. my thoughts are with his family.
  - lysace 1y ago
    Ahem: > and i don't wish cancer on anyone. vs > Get yourself a better doctor [in the context of: "Here's a nickel, Kid. Go buy yourself a real computer."] Do own your statements, Kid.
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      it's a play on a dismissive character from the comic strip i linked in my post.

JCattheATM 1y ago

I was never really reading the strips, but I fell in love with the cartoon. It had a very unique tone with the same famous satire. Thankfully with all the voice actors and other talent that went into the show, it's easier to disconnect it from the hateful person Adams ended up revealing himself to be.

FrameworkFred 1y ago

I have to admit, I'm not up to speed on anything he's been up to lately, but I absolutely read and enjoyed Dilbert way back when. I'm sorry to hear he's not long for the world. Every time I see someone kitted out in VR gear, I think about his prediction that the Star Trek holodeck will be humanity's last invention and I'm very glad they don't have a button that can beam the next person waiting for their turn into a concrete wall.

tarunkotia 1y ago

I am a big fan of Dilbert and really liked one of his books "how to fail at everything and still win big".

aflukasz 1y ago

Some of you cite your favorite strips. I will too. Dilbert comes down to the caves where trolls (accountants) reside and gets a tour. The guide points to a troll sitting behind a desk, and mumbling in a stupor: "nine, nine, nine...". Guide: And this is our random numbers generator. Dilbert: Are you sure those are random? Guide: That's the problem with randomness - you can never be sure. Edit: Found it here: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-randomness https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-rand.... And thank you, Scott - many laughs thanks to you.

teddyh 1y ago
Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2001-10-25 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2001-10-25>
ghurtado 1y ago
That reads like a XKCD comic disguised as a Dilbert strip. Very nice. And also, what a cool read that was, thanks for sharing the article.
- ThatPlayer 1y ago
  XKCD has a different random number: https://xkcd.com/221/ https://xkcd.com/221/
  - tarvaina 1y ago
    Stray thought: Why 4 and 9? Because the joke is funniest if the number is completely ordinary. 0 and 1 are special and so are all prime numbers. 6 is out because it's the maximum die throw. And one figure is more ordinary than two figures, or negatives, or decimals. That leaves 4 and 9.
    - Velorivox 1y ago
      How come prime numbers are special but squares aren’t? 4 and 9 both being squares seems to be a more striking commonality than your logic here…

pryelluw 1y ago

67 is too young to go from cancer.

unsupp0rted 1y ago
Every age is too young to go from cancer. Once we're done with it, we'll look back in confusion about how anyone could think otherwise.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 1y ago

I most enjoy his analysis of persuasion techniques and what works and doesn't work. When he first started writing about this, using Hillary v Trump as examples, Hillary suddenly changed her methods. I remember his remark about Hillary's campaign logo looking like directions to the hospital. I'll miss him.

w10-1 1y ago

Scott Adams' revolution was to get users to give him plot lines. He was the first to publish an open way to communicate with him in order to out the corporate crazies, and readers did in droves, explaining the inanity of their workplace and getting secret retribution for stuff they clearly couldn't complain about publicly. A good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom. Doing this seems to require identifying with your readers and their concerns. That could be disturbing to the author if the tide turns, or to the readers if they find out their role model was gaming them or otherwise unreal, but I imagine it is pretty heady stuff. I hope he (and anyone facing cancer) has people with whom he can share honestly, and has access to the best health care available.

veqq 1y ago
> a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Grand Budapest Hotel starts with the author stating that when you're an author, people simply tell you stories and you don't need to come up with them anymore!
- xnx 1y ago
  This is a common trend now on TikTok for any "creator" with a moderate follower count. The template goes something like "I'm bored, tell me the thing you bought that you can't do without". The creator doesn't have to do anything, the followers create the content for them in the comments.
  - woleium 1y ago
    And another echo chamber is born.
pfdietz 1y ago
Remember this one? https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dilbertrwtemp.jpg https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uplo... "The clue meter is reading zero." Everyone at Motorola recognized it immediately.

Suppafly 1y ago

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hermitcrab 1y ago

I found it hard to reconcile his charming and witty comic strips with some of the ugly things he wrote elsewhere. I would never usually throw a book away, but I made an exception for one of his books, because I didn't want anyone to see it on my bookshelf and I didn't want to give to anyone else.

nightfly 1y ago
He really let fame go to his head...
- nosrepa 1y ago
  Was it the pool or the burritos that tipped you off?
john-radio 1y ago
I have a personal convention for books like that - I don't have any Dilberts on the shelf but a lot of Neil Gaimans, plus an artsy TTRPG book ("Maze of the Blue Medusa") that's also made by someone who is now widely considered a serial sexual assaulter - I don't (always) remove them from my shelves but I turn them upside down, like a flag indicating distress.
- hinkley 1y ago
  The problem with taking them out of circulation is one less copy at the used book store and one more potential sale of a new copy.
  - brewdad 1y ago
    It’s 2025. That book is getting pirated before anyone goes out and buys a new copy.
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    This is why I've sold or will sell many of my more controversial books/authors for relatively cheap because, yeah, an extra used copy in circulation is possibly one or more fewer new book sales that author won't profit from. Some of them I don't mind if someone else enjoys that book itself for what it is/was at the time it was released, but it's nice to think that it next sale(s) might be a dollar or three the author won't see when they read that.

tedk-42 1y ago

Like many artists, it's hard to separate the art from the artist. Although I thought his comics growing up were quirky, I was probably too young to appreciate them (xkcd was more my thing anyway). Knowing more about him and what he says / thinks turns me off Dilbert entirely. I doubt he'll go as he says. Sounds like a plead for sympathy / attention.

sleepybrett 1y ago

[flagged]

adamredwoods 1y ago

If he expects this summer to be his demise, then it must have mutated and spread to vital organs. Metastatic cancer is the true killer. Cancer in your bones can linger for years without progression.

gwbennett 1y ago

So sad! Love you Scott!

cityzen 1y ago

“All my enemies — people who are Democrats mostly — are going to come after me pretty hard. So I have to put up with that," he said. Sad that this man is dying of cancer and letting his “enemies” live rent free in his head. I hope he can find some peace before he passes.

BuyMyBitcoins 1y ago
I interpreted this differently, because I’ve read a substantial amount of downright cruel comments regarding his life and this diagnosis. He was right about that, and I don’t fault him for wanting to try and reduce the amount of vitriol by holding off on announcing the diagnosis. Why deal with six months of vicious comments alongside well intentioned pitiful condolences when you could only have to deal with one or two month’s worth? I would have done the same thing. For what it’s worth, I think an exceedingly small number of people can actually refuse to let those who hate your guts “live rent free in your head”.
- righthand 1y ago
  Terminally ill and terminally online is it then?

mindcrime 1y ago

Wow. Very sad news. :-( I know this will sound dumb, but it's really hard to put into words how much I enjoyed Dilbert in its heyday. I mean at one time Dilbert was one of three web-comics that I read religiously. It was Dilbert, User Friendly, and Sluggy Freelance. The comics weren't just "comics", they mattered to me. Seriously. Then UF quit publishing new episodes, and then Scott went all alt-right and Dilbert disappeared behind a paywall, and now only Sluggy is still standing. I guess. I have to admit, I quit reading regularly quite some time for reasons I can't even explain. Anyway... not sure what the relevance of all of this is. Just reminiscing about a day when the 'Net felt a lot different I guess. At any rate, while I'd become less of a "Scott Adams fan" over the last few years, this news still makes me feel absolutely sick. I wouldn't wish prostate cancer on anyone. :-(

CommenterPerson 1y ago

Adams did such a great job exposing the absurdities of the American white collar workplace, as seen by the underlings. So it is puzzling how he went over to the dark side of the pointy haired Boss. And the Boss's masters. I hope some pharma underling might have cooked up some good meds for Adams, despite all the pharma bosses and their backers.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> Adams did such a great job exposing the absurdities of the American white collar workplace, as seen by the underlings. So it is puzzling how he went over to the dark side of the pointy haired Boss. Adams was an MBA, a manager that was resentful that his advancement in management was not as fast as he thought it should been when he left Crocker National Bank for Pacific Bell, and then resentful that he couldn't break into management at Pacific Bell, even while publicly mocking Pacific Bell management (I don't mean indirectly in the comics he was writing while working there, but directly in the media interviews he gave about the comics.) His only problem with the PHB was always that it was someone else sitting behind that desk, and not him.

karaterobot 1y ago

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that. In the early 90s, my family didn't get the newspaper, so my friend who lived in town would save the comics page for me to read every week. Dilbert was one of the big ones! It was funny and subversive, and I'll remember all the laughs Scott Adams has given me.

irjustin 1y ago

If you or anyone in your family history has had prostate, its worth keeping an eye on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801906 If the hypothesis turns out to be true, prostate cancer could be easily defeated before it has a chance to take a hold.

hackernoops 1y ago

[flagged]

deepsummer 1y ago

A lot of comments here mention his comics or his controversial pro-Trump opinions in the last 10 years, but I would like to emphasize and point out his influence he had over the lifes of so many people with his life strategies and explanations, microlessons, memes and ways to look at the world. Like * systems over goals: the theory that you shouldn't set yourself specific goals, but instead just find a system how to work towards your goals regularly * talent stacks: the theory that, in order to succeed in life, you don't need to be the best in one skill, but good enough in a useful combination of several skills that can be used together * the idea that managing your energy is more important than managing your time * the Adams rule of slow moving disasters: any kind of disaster that takes many years to manifest can be overcome by humanity. Scary are those disasters that don't give you enough time to react. * rewiring your brain: that by finding the right way to look at something, you can modify your own behavior. He wrote a whole book full of recipes to change your behavior and feelings. * despite not listening to Rap, a long time ago when Kanye West had one of his first successful songs, someone sent Adams the lyrics to some song and by looking at the lyrics Adams recognized West as a unique genius * you should never trust a video as proof of anything, if you can't see what happened before or after. It's most likely taken out of context. Just like most quotes are worthless without context. * "perception is reality": that how someone perceives a fact is more important than what actually happened * "simultaneous realities": realities are shaped by how people perceive them. And two people can disagree on something, while both are right at the same time, because they view the same thing through two different lenses and thus live in different realities. * TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome): the observation that many people hate Trump so much that they lose the capability of rational thought and either just shut their brain down when talking about anything related to Trump, or want to do the opposite of what Trump wants * "word-thinking": when someone find labels for things or people, and then forms opinions based on the label * detecting cognitive dissonance: when someone just shuts down their brain because the experienced reality doesn't match their expectation * "tells for lies", like analyzing people on TV and looking for clues that they lie * coining the term "fine people hoax" for a video snippet that was constantly repeated on media to show Trump having one opinion, even though when watching the whole video it was clear that he meant the opposite. * "logic doesn't win arguments", the rules of persuasion, and the theory of 'master persuaders' * he predicted Trump winning the 2016 election when Trump had just announced his campaign, long before the primaries, because he recognized a 'master persuader' in him. And there are probably many more things I don't remember right now, but his books and blog shaped my way of thinking, and I am using his way of looking at the world every day. I must admit I didn't really follow 'Coffee with Scott Adams' - I think he kind of jumped the shark when having to fill at least 30 minutes every day, and I am not that interested in politics. But that doesn't diminish his accomplishments.

th0ma5 1y ago

Kinda wild how no comments here suggest that this person's disingenuous nature has made many believe that this is made up. It will be discouraging to find out.

deepsummer 1y ago
As Scott Adams would tell you, it doesn't matter whether he made it up. If you believe him, that's your reality. If you don't believe him, your reality is that he's faking it. You can chose your reality and that act upon it.
- pjc50 1y ago
  There are certain things that when you stop believing in them, they don't go away, and cancer is one of them.
gblargg 1y ago
I considered it when watching his podcast today. Low change, but if he was it would be for a noble cause. Maybe he's been recruited to work for a secret organization taking over the world and has to fake his death to quietly exit public life. /s

jagermo 1y ago

Sucks for him, I hope he recovers or manages somehow. On the other hand, he is not a good guy. If you want to go deeper, there are some episodes on Behind the Bastards dedicated to him. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-how-the-dilbert-guy-118786164/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

ak_111 1y ago
I appreciated Dilbert, but then he started showing up in my timeline amplifying pro-Gaza bombings tweets. I was surprised and disappointed with that as those Hasbara takes were the geopolitical propoganda equivalent to pointy-hair boss's office politics speech balloons ("the only way to rescue the hostages is to bomb everything, including the captors... and the hostages").
- jagermo 1y ago
  oh, he was problematic waaaaayy before that, but that tracks.
- gatlin 1y ago
  I'm using my real first name here and I hope he uses his remaining time to contemplate the ethnic cleansing he has championed. He isn't done yet; I pray he reverses.
  - gatlin 1y ago
    Curious that this comment went negative! HN mods, please address your pro-genocidal userbase.
- jasonm23 1y ago
  smh at these people, Israel went full mask off and had the gall to blame "anti-semites" for... what exactly? Demanding justice for people they're bombing. Wild disgusting times. But Scott had gone full mask off a ways before that. It's very sad that people we once admired turned out to be disgusting.

Gud 1y ago

Scott Adam is the reason why I chose not to pursue a career in IT, despite my love for computers. Today I am an on site high voltage test engineer. People respect what I do and let me do my work in peace, mostly. Reading the horror stories I so often see coming from the IT world, I am grateful to use my computer skills mostly as a hobby. Although my computer and networking skills do come in useful in my profession, I’m glad it’s not the source of my income.

incomingpain 1y ago

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dropped-the-dilbert-comic-strip-after-a-racist-rant-by-its-creat https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159580425/newspapers-have-dr... I wonder what he has been up to the last couple years.

sota_pop 1y ago

Always was a fan of Dilbert, but I especially enjoyed a short story he wrote called God’s Debris when I discovered it as a young undergrad. Sad news indeed.

reverendsteveii 1y ago

I thought he was going to be hunted for being a Republican. That's what he told us. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-says-001404374.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dilbert-creator-scott-ad...

DrillShopper 1y ago
I can't believe Joe Biden personally gave Scott Adams cancer and accidentally gave it to himself, too! I hope all of those Republicans feel safe now that the mean Biden administration stopped deporting them to torture prisons./s

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

Once I became a software developer my mom gave me a Dilbert desk calendar every xmas. She had worked in tech startups since 1979 and loved Dilbert. She was the type of person to always try and bring the positive, never complain. I like to think that Dilbert gave he a chance to release some things/commiserate with me.

awkward 1y ago

In the 2000s at least, many cubicles had at least one Dilbert up. If you worked there for a while, you probably knew the story and it could get a chuckle out of you. Some people had two. More than four visible Dilberts, however, was a terrible sign.

aaroninsf 1y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIm_2MgdeA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZIm_2MgdeA seems relevant