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Scott Adams has died

• toomuchtodo 10mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
  • kenrose 10mo ago
    At 10:25am ET, HN is more up-to-date than Wikipedia (article hasn't been updated yet to reflect his passing).
    • deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    • vidarh 10mo ago
      Which is at it should be. Wikipedia isn't a news source, and especially for something like this should be careful about allowing edits to stand until they can cite sources.
      • someothherguyy 10mo ago
        However, it is a decent news aggregator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
    • throwawaysleep 10mo ago
      Wikipedia is waiting for news sources to confirm things.
  • sabellito 10mo ago
    > After a 2022 mass shooting, Adams opined that society leaves parents of troubled teenage boys with only two options: to either watch people die or murder their own son. That's something.
    • thinkingtoilet 10mo ago
      Both things can be true. Dilbert was a great comic strip and Scott Adams was a piece of shit.
      • nosianu 10mo ago
        Regardless of the truthiness of that statement, that sentence at most makes him say something wrong. How on earth is that sentence making him a "PoS"??? At worst, he sees a tragic binary option where others see better and more. Some of his other public statements, sure, but this one?
        • thinkingtoilet 10mo ago
          It's typical right wing "boys will be boys" mentality. Under no circumstance should boys or men be held accountable for their actions. The only options for boys with issues is to let them kill people or kill them. It's simply not possible the parents are doing something wrong or that we hold young men accountable. It contributes to how extremely fragile a scary percentage of young men are these days. Everything must revolve around them or violence is expected and understood. It's all this and much more from him.
          • nosianu 10mo ago
            > It's typical right wing "boys will be boys" mentality. What on earth??? There is not a trace in that statement that fist that description! Stop making stuff up that is not there. The text is right in front of you, no need to invent words never said or written. > Under no circumstance should boys or men be held accountable for their actions. Even more insane. None of that is anywhere in that sentence, not even with an "interpretation". In threads like these, some people are reacting to the shadows found in their own mind. Why don't you just stick to the mentioned statement? "Adams opined that society leaves parents of troubled teenage boys with only two options: to either watch people die or murder their own son." Nothing you said can be found in there. That is all something you added ("interpreted" does not quite fit it when you hallucinate something new entirely into existence).
  • DustinBrett 10mo ago
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    • mrbombastic 10mo ago
      this is still a thing?
    • ThePowerOfFuet 10mo ago
      Why?
      • DustinBrett 10mo ago
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  • wnevets 10mo ago
    > Later (incorrect) predictions repeatedly featured in Politico magazine's annual lists of "Worst Predictions", including that one of Trump, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would die from COVID-19 by the end of 2020,[98] that "Republicans will be hunted" if Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election > In a 2006 blog post, Adams asked if official figures of the number of deaths in the Holocaust were based on methodologically sound research. Jesus christ.
    • JBiserkov 10mo ago
      > Republicans will be hunted" if Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election I don't know how he got there from Biden's literal pitch to donors that "nothing will fundamentally change".
      • pjc50 10mo ago
        Projection. The Republican pitch was to start hunting their enemies, so he and a lot of other people assumed the reverse applied too.
        • tremon 10mo ago
          It's not about assumptions, it's rationalization. The tribal playbook requires one to demonize the enemy in order to justify what they want to do to them.
• nessbot 10mo ago
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  • bubbajones 10mo ago
    [dead]
• agrippanux 10mo ago
  There was a time when his insight was relevant and spoke to a lot of people. I hope he finds peace in whatever is next.
• enderforth 10mo ago
  I didn't always agree with Scott Adams on everything he did and said, but "The Dilbert Principle" taught me more about living in a corporation and management than any other book on business and his dilbert comics were a source of endless wisdom and amusement, which I use often today. Farewell Scott, you are now God's debris.
• prawn 10mo ago
  Prostate cancer. 68yo. From Wikipedia: "In November 2025, he said his health was suddenly declining rapidly again, and took to social media to ask President Trump for help to get access to the cancer drug Pluvicto. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replied saying "How do I reach you? The President wants to help." The following month he said he was paralyzed below the waist and had been undergoing radiation therapy." "On January 1, 2026, Adams said on his podcast that he had talked with his radiologist and that it was "all bad news." He said there was no chance he would get feeling back in his legs and that he also had ongoing heart failure. He told viewers they should prepare themselves "that January will probably be a month of transition, one way or another." On January 12, Adams' first ex-wife, Shelly Miles, told TMZ that Adams was in hospice at his home in Northern California."
  • 6stringmerc 10mo ago
    Wow that is really fast, in my view, and I wonder how many more of his cohort will similarly crash out. I don’t have an estate to get in order, so to speak. Then again, I also won’t pass along a house full of a lifetime of “collections” or “mementos” with little to no monetary value. The oncoming secondary market is about to be awash in Boomer junk. Nobody wants to send their precious collections to the dump or recycling. One of my biggest mental hiccups to work through of late is the changing nature of collective memories, fame, and idols. Scott is a great example who was “big in the 90s” and 30 years later his method (print cartoons and books) is basically dead and can’t be folllowed. Gen Z will be spared Scott, and probably Elvis and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, ABBA, and Garth Brooks comparatively speaking. This is a meandering way to note how fast we can be poof gone and life will move on with a pace quite breakneck.
    • rootusrootus 10mo ago
      > The oncoming secondary market is about to be awash in Boomer junk. Nobody wants to send their precious collections to the dump or recycling. Maybe, maybe not. My mother died a couple years ago, and while she was too old to be a boomer, she still had plenty of accumulated possessions in her estate. We sold as much as we could, kept the few things we wanted and had space for, and the rest went to recycling or the dump. I'd guess 90% went to the dump. The owner of that stuff may not want to send it to the dump. My mom would be mortified to hear some of the things she treasured held no value for anyone else, but when you're dead, you aren't making those decisions. The next generation probably isn't that sentimental about it.
• jmclnx 10mo ago
  Sad to hear, RIP
• masfoobar 10mo ago
  Very sad news.
• sebmellen 10mo ago
  Regardless of his political views, Dilbert was truly brilliant.
  • ghaff 10mo ago
    Dilbert definitely captured a 90s era corporate zeitgeist. But, after he departed PacBell, although there was the occasional strip that really nailed it, Dilbert never really moved on to modern SV/startup/open floor plan tech and it mostly felt like been there, done that. That said, Dilbert in its prime was easily in the top comics I enjoyed.
    • detourdog 10mo ago
      I discovered Dilbert because Omega Instruments distributed collections of his comics on individual cards.
    • shermantanktop 10mo ago
      That’s exactly it. I got into the industry right at that transition, at a startup that sold software into telcos. At the startups we found out what happens when Wally becomes the CEO…
      • ghaff 10mo ago
        Someone I knew taped a cloud-related strip to my half-cube wall. It was perfect. (I had been hired in early cloud-related days for that purpose.) But there were increasingly fewer things in that vein latterly.
• jgrahamc 10mo ago
  Sadly, Scott Adams' political opinions came to overshadow Dilbert, but I shall choose to remember him as Dilbert's creator and how Dilbert captured a moment in time and work so aptly. Back when Dilbert was massive my company ran the following ad in cinemas in Silicon Valley: https://imgur.com/a/ZPVJau8 https://imgur.com/a/ZPVJau8 Everyone seeing that ad knew what we were referring to.
• siliconc0w 10mo ago
  I read every Scott Adams book as a kid - insightful and approachable.
• VikingCoder 10mo ago
  Fuck cancer.
  • guywithahat 10mo ago
    Well put
• chrisco255 10mo ago
  Really love Scott for creating Dilbert one of the best all-time comic strips, teaching the psychology of persuasion, and for writing How to Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big. It taught me to focus on systems and habits as a preference over goals (goals are still useful, but can be unrealistic and less adaptable). Plus God's Debris was an interesting thought experiment about the origin of the universe. Really great thinker and humorist. RIP Scott.
  • dsjoerg 10mo ago
    Came here to say this, I really appreciated "How to Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big". I'm not here to judge the man or everything he did, I'm here to say thanks for the stuff I loved.
• ohyoutravel 10mo ago
  I always enjoyed Dilbert, one of the few of my friends who did as it was a bit of a specific sense of humor. But Scott Adam’s really, really fell off a cliff into some very odious takes in his recent years. Feels like he should have stuck to Dilbert, but he lived long enough to see himself become the villain instead.
  • DharmaPolice 10mo ago
    He always had dubious takes (he was anti-evolution for as long as I can remember) but that doesn't make Dilbert any less good.
    • ohyoutravel 10mo ago
      Very true, loved Dilbert. I guess I was unaware of his dubious takes early on because my only interaction was seeing the comics. Later on the interactions became Dilbert + Reddit post on how Scott Adams is an antivaxxer.
      • jpadkins 10mo ago
        Scott Adam famously got into heated debates with his anti-vax audience on vaccines. Calling him antivaxxer is misleading. He changed his mind on a vaccine after new evidence came out.
    • jquery 10mo ago
      Worth the read: “The Trouble With Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh” https://a.co/d/7b7Jnt6 https://a.co/d/7b7Jnt6 I couldn’t read Dilbert the same after that. Adams avoids, with surgical precision, things like unionization, while the author simultaneously supports downsizing despite seeming to mock it in his strips. Anyway, shame he’s dead, but to me he died a long time ago. I only feel sad when thinking about how I used to enjoy Dilbert.
      • avalys 10mo ago
        I don’t see the supposed hypocrisy of mocking the absurd and incompetent ways in which downsizing is handled, yet acknowledging that it is sometimes a net benefit to carry out.
• jazzypants 10mo ago
  It's a sad moment for me. I got into Dilbert at the tender age of eight years old. I don't know why I liked it so much when half the jokes went over my head, but I loved computers and comics, and I plowed through every book at my local library. It was my real introduction to software engineering, and it definitely influenced me in many ways that certainly shaped the man that I am today. I never agreed with him politically, and I honestly think he said some pretty awful stuff. However, none of that changes the positive impact that his comics had on my life. Rest in peace.
  • malux85 10mo ago
    “Engineers, Scientists and other odd people” chapter in the book “The Dilbert Principle” is one of the funniest things I have ever read
  • einsteinx2 10mo ago
    > I got into Dilbert at the tender age of eight years old. I don't know why I liked it so much when half the jokes went over my head, but I loved computers and comics Same! Or at least I got into them as a young kid I don’t remember the exact age, it was probably a few years older but definitely tweens max. I’m also not sure why I liked them so much, other than that I loved computers and always knew I’d end up working in the industry, so maybe it was like a window into that world that I liked. I also loved the movie Office Space, so maybe I just had a thing for office satire.
    • wombat-man 10mo ago
      very interesting to find other folks who jibed with this comic at a young age. My mom and aunt had cubicle jobs and the entire idea seemed very fun to me. I recall looking at my 4th grade classroom and thinking we could really benefit from some cubicles. Sadly I'm doomed to work in an open floorplan. I wasn't exactly a daily reader at the time, but I was sad to hear when dilbert was pulled, and why. I tried to send him some fan mail when I heard he had fallen ill, but the email of his that I found had been deleted.
      • 10mo ago
• rvz 10mo ago
  Very sad news, RIP Scott.
• mmastrac 10mo ago
  Dilbert was pretty influential for me in the 90s and early 2000s. I enjoyed those comics a bunch while I was kid. He seemed to struggle a bit with his fame, and apparently his divorce caused him a pretty big psychic trauma, which was unfortunate. His later personality was.. not my style.. and I dumped all of his books into little free libraries a few years back. The only things I really found interesting from his later work was focusing on systems rather than process. Can't deny the early influence, though. The pointy-haired boss will live on forever.
  • jpadkins 10mo ago
    Thanks for sharing all of his books with the next generation of readers via the free library. His influence will live on!
• shrubble 10mo ago
  He was on a livestream either yesterday or the day before, and was still interacting with people. He was generous with his time to the end.
  • tonymet 10mo ago
    this moved me, too
• TYPE_FASTER 10mo ago
  There was a super weird alignment at a previous job where the appearances, personalities, and seniority/rank of some of my co-workers matched characters in Dilbert to the T. It was really funny and almost eerie, like Scott Adams was hiding in a cube taking notes.
  • kristianbrigman 10mo ago
    IIRC he did get a lot of ideas from fans talking about their own workplaces …
    • collinvandyck76 10mo ago
      There were a number of Motorola-inspired ideas that made their way to Dilbert while I was working there in the late 90s.
  • ghaff 10mo ago
    The VP who "raises issues" reminded me perfectly of someone at a prior workplace.
  • alecco 10mo ago
    Once, for a whole week, every Dilbert cartoon matched something that happened in our office of ~50 people the day before. People started getting freaked out like we were in the Matrix or someone was feeding it to Adams.
• magicmicah85 10mo ago
  Always gave a sensible chuckle to his comics. One of my favorite scenes from the show was about "The Knack". My dad originally shared this with me, reminding me that I'm "cursed" for inheriting the knack from him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0
• tempsaasexample 10mo ago
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• ryandvm 10mo ago
  The entire arc of Scott Adams is a cautionary tale. To go from a brilliant satirist to becoming terminally online and just completely falling off the far right cliffs of insanity is incredibly sad. And unfortunately, this is plight is not uncommon. It is incredibly dangerous to make politics part of your identity and then just absolutely bathe yourself in a political media echo chamber.
  • Cuuugi 10mo ago
    The online world breeds extremism. It wasn't too long ago criticizing someone on their obituary was considered classless. This is the world we have made.
    • greenavocado 10mo ago
      Unwillingness to engage with others breeds extremism. There are many who are silenced if they do not fit into the social dogma. Those people eventually lose it if they can't find a productive outlet.
    • andrewmutz 10mo ago
      Completely agree. If you're motivated enough about a topic to post about it online, you're probably emotional about it and unable to see it in a clear-headed manner. The people I know who have the most reasonable political opinions never post about it online. The people who have developed unhealthy and biased obsessions are the ones who post constantly.
      • BugsJustFindMe 10mo ago
        > If you're motivated enough about a topic to post about it online, you're probably emotional about it and unable to see it in a clear-headed manner. > The people I know who have the most reasonable political opinions never post about it online. And here you are posting your opinions online! How fascinating. I hope you recognize the extreme irony in the fact that you were motivated enough about this topic to post about it.
      • 10mo ago
• tantalor 10mo ago
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  • rootusrootus 10mo ago
    Eh, it's hard to find fault with someone staring eternity in the eye and getting a little nervous.
  • deleted 10mo ago
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  • IncreasePosts 10mo ago
    You're going to find out all too late that pascals wager was correct. But it was Quetzalcoatl you should have been worshipping.
  • shrubble 10mo ago
    Pascal’s Wager is a refinement of Marcus Aurelius’ views; were you aware of that?
    • mrguyorama 10mo ago
      Why should anyone care?
  • hearsathought 10mo ago
    There are no atheists in the foxhole... I'll bet most people do in the end. Me. You. And most people in that situation.
  • machomaster 10mo ago
    I believe it was written in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
• elektrontamer 10mo ago
  May he rest in peace. His characters were quite charming and funny.
  • gcbirzan 10mo ago
    He, on the other hand, was an absolute piece of shit.
• mindcrime 10mo ago
  Sad news. Dilbert was a big part of my life for a long time, and brought much laughter and enjoyment to my life. But on the other hand, later in his life Scott said a lot of things I found frankly repugnant, and Dilbert more or less disappeared, all of which made me sad. But he was still an amazing writer of comedy at his best, and I hate to know that he has passed. Plus, every death is at tragedy for somebody - friends, family, loved-ones of all sorts - whether we specifically like someone or not. All of that said... RIP, Mr. Adams.
• TomMasz 10mo ago
  Never has so much goodwill been squandered so completely.
  • bell-cot 10mo ago
    Sadly, there are a great many contenders for that crown. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby
• ableal 10mo ago
  Thank you for the several decades of smiles over human foibles.
• HardCodedBias 10mo ago
  He was a brilliant observer and reporter on the behaviors of humanity. He will be missed.
• bigstrat2003 10mo ago
  Thanks for the laughs, Mr. Adams. May you rest in peace.
• mentallyfaulty 10mo ago
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• deleted 10mo ago
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• pie_flavor 10mo ago
  For those who do not know, Adams was still putting up daily Dilbert strips, just for paid subs on Twitter instead of in a newspaper. I think it's impressive he didn't stop until the end, even though AIUI he was in serious pain for a while. (He did stop doing the art himself in Nov.)
• deleted 10mo ago
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• DonHopkins 10mo ago
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• indianmouse 10mo ago
  Rest in Peace Scott. Thanks for everything! Irrespective of any political views, or whatsoever be it as a human, a brilliant creator has gone from the face of the Earth! I have always enjoyed Dilbert! Thanks for that! Fuck cancer... Fuck any disease that takes away human lives...
• schmuckonwheels 10mo ago
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  • dyauspitr 10mo ago
    Can’t have a black bar for someone with near genocidal views.
    • sgt 10mo ago
      That is news to me. Source? Controversial yes but he was a character.
      • dyauspitr 10mo ago
        “Get the hell away from black people” is close to suggesting next steps after that.
        • profdevloper 10mo ago
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          • dyauspitr 10mo ago
            If she had stayed away from Russian men none of this would have happened. You can turn anything racist which you’re choosing to do.
            • profdevloper 10mo ago
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        • dennis_jeeves2 10mo ago
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          • 10mo ago
• rdl 10mo ago
  I hate cancer. What a long and unpredictable path his life took. Too bad he isn't still with us. I really loved Dilbert (the Gen X defining comic), and especially his first couple books.
• deflator 10mo ago
  I think that a lot of us on here can give credit to Scott Adams for helping develop their cynicism, for better or worse. He was a role model to me for helping me to make sense of the corporate world and its denizens. This might not sound like a compliment, but it is. He was my Mr. Miyagi for mental resilience by providing good arguments for most people not being evil, despite how it might seem.
• rmnwski 10mo ago
  "The Day You Became A Better Writer" is still my favorite piece on writing. Short, simple, useful. Worth saving: https://archive.ph/yomrs https://archive.ph/yomrs
  • sph 10mo ago
    It's taken me years to learn some of this advice.
• nixosbestos 10mo ago
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• docdeek 10mo ago
  Sad news. Rest in peace.
• deleted 10mo ago
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• StoneAndSky 10mo ago
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• JimmaDaRustla 10mo ago
  This guy was always interesting...because he understood satire so well, he understood nuance and made comedy from it...then he became chronically online and went down insane alt-right rabbit holes. Even those of a logical mind may not have the fortitude to protect themselves from propaganda that exploit their victimhood.
  • jacquesm 10mo ago
    Unfortunately, examples abound.
• parrellel 10mo ago
  Loved Dilbert as a kid, even into college, but fell off it eventually. Even if he turned to right wing trolling, I'll always remember those big comic compilations fondly. Cancers a terrible way to go.
• TheAceOfHearts 10mo ago
  I disagreed with him politically, especially during the last few years, but I'm very appreciative of Dilbert and in particular the Dilbert cartoon. The Knack is one of those clips that I keep coming back to and sharing with friends whenever someone shows signs.
  • kristianp 10mo ago
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0
• Waterluvian 10mo ago
  I got to interact with Scott just once on Twitter. I shared one of his strips in response to a tweet he made. My intent was tongue-in-cheek and very inline with the themes of his work, but he reacted very aggressively and then blocked me. It was a bit of a crushing moment because inside my head I was thinking, "I know and love this guy's work. Surely if I just engage him at his level without being a jackass, we can add some levity to the comments section." My instinct was that maybe he really was just a jackass and I should label him as such in my brain and move on. But then my cat got sick last year and went from being a cuddly little guy to an absolute viscious bastard right up to the day he died. It was crushing. One day I realized it felt similar to my experience with Scott. I wondered if maybe Scott was just suffering really badly, too. I have no idea what the truth of the matter is, and I don't think that people who suffer have a free pass for their behaviour. But I think I want to hold on to this optimism.
  • munksbeer 10mo ago
    Confession: Quite frankly, this is a worry for me. I have noticed that I've become shorter with people and less tolerant as I've got older. I've started to feel some resentment in certain situations where I felt I was being unfairly treated. I recognise these feelings and things, which I am grateful for. So I work hard to correct this, and I hope I succeed, but I seriously worry about my brain changing and becoming someone quite unpleasant. You look at people from the outside, and it is so easy to judge, but we're all just a big bag of chemicals and physics. Personality change does happen, it could happen to any of us.
    • jacquesm 10mo ago
      As you get older time is more precious so you want to waste less of it. This is a factor, how much of a factor it is differs from person to person.
      • dennis_jeeves2 10mo ago
        As they say - "I don't suffer fools gladly"
• legitster 10mo ago
  I loved Dilbert back in the day, and even the books were witty and poignant. I would like to point out that the quality of his satire really feel of as time went on. He came from an office life in the late 90s and had a lot of insight into it's dysfunctions. But after decades of being out of that world, he had clearly lost touch. The comics often do little to speak to the current corporate world, outside of squeezed in references. As I see it, decline in quality and the political radicalization go hand in hand. You cannot be a good satirist and be so long removed from the world you are satirizing.
  • rideontime 10mo ago
    The political radicalization and the divorces. The strips he created after being fired by his syndicate are a bleak insight into his mindset in his final years. https://x.com/WyattDuncan/status/2011102679934910726 https://x.com/WyattDuncan/status/2011102679934910726
    • relaxing 10mo ago
      Oh wow. First time I’ve seen that shit. Taking his anodyne setup-punchline-sarcastic quip formula and applying it to aggressively unfunny shock material is actually low key brilliant, albeit unintentionally so. It’s like if Norm MacDonald didn’t posses a moral compass.
• mjmsmith 10mo ago
  Famously hard-hitting People magazine goes with "Scott Adams, Disgraced Dilbert Creator, Dies at 68".
• windowpains 10mo ago
  He was from a kinder more tolerant time, when people thought being non-anonymous online was safe. Sort of the same problem that others from his generation, Julian Assange, many others had. But I wonder if time won’t prove these people right. If you do put yourself out there you make enemies and open yourself to the hatred on many psycho basement dwellers. But if you don’t the world never knows you. All if that is too many words to say there’s a price to be paid for fame. Anyway, Dilbert was an important part of our cultural landscape and made a lot of people feel good despite the pains of cubicle life. To make people smile and feel better, that’s a pretty great achievement after all. Rip Scott, hopefully you’ll be making many folks smile in the afterlife too.
  • b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
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    • windowpains 10mo ago
      In the 90s you’d get flamed on Usenet for posting pseudo-anonymously. Even in early 00’s sites like /. Carried that forward with “anonymous coward” iirc.
• jimt1234 10mo ago
  An old, Dilbert-related comment of mine seems relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44034220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44034220 RIP Scott Adams.
• gortok 10mo ago
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  • SV_BubbleTime 10mo ago
    > However, Scott Adams as an individual was deeply problematic Can you talk about your conversations with him?
    • gortok 10mo ago
      He had a YouTube channel where he often (3071 episodes as of this count) opined on… well. Everything.
      • SV_BubbleTime 10mo ago
        Uh huh. And you not watching any of these episodes or at most a few, gave you the insight that as an individual he was “deeply problematic”. He said ONE THING in his entire career that you can point to as being racist, which, even as it is has context removed that it was in response to a black poll against white people… Just stop and admit you claim he was “deeply problematic” because he was a conservative. And to you anyone with conservative values gets that description.
• bschmidt900 10mo ago
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• ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
  NYT obituary: Scott Adams, Audacious Creator of the ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip, Dies at 68 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/arts/scott-adams-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/arts/scott-adams-dead.htm... non-paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/arts/scott-adams-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EFA.3DU_.qCUJ5AeC7mRp&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/arts/scott-adams-dead.htm...
• nunobrito 10mo ago
  Why is this post being shadowbanned? This topic has over 200 points, +180 replies and was published one hour ago. Admins: don't play around and be fair. Scott deserves respect and proper condolences.
  • 542458 10mo ago
    Youtube links always have gotten downweighting. Enough votes can overcome it, but there are a few domains that HN penalizes.
  • b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
    Scott deserves respect I think you'll find a large amount of disagreement there for such a controversial person.
    • nunobrito 10mo ago
      And here we find a far larger amount of people agreeing that he should be respected.
  • jacquesm 10mo ago
    Respect has to be earned.
  • Jtsummers 10mo ago
    > Why is this post being shadowbanned? If it were shadowbanned we wouldn't be able to comment on it. People have flagged it, it triggered the flamewar detector, or both. That's why it got downranked. If you think the topic of his death has been "shadowbanned" (for some non-standard definition of shadowbanned), check the front page. There's another discussion there about it.
    • nunobrito 10mo ago
      Shadowban is not the same as a traditional ban. It is a selective ban. This topic is not on the front page for me, yet it was on the front page for you. That is shadowban.
• vga42 10mo ago
  I was vacationing in New York, and we went to some pretty standard-looking mall bookshop somewhere near Poughkeepsie some time in mid 90s. And I bought an interesting looking comic book, something I had never seen before. I liked Dilbert for a long time, but Adams's Trump Dementia became so bad in the last decade that it completely tainted his legacy for me. His role in enabling Donald Trump to rise to power is undeniable, and his death makes me wish I had reserved a bottle of sparkling wine for the occasion. I yearn for the time when it was possible to never meet your idols.
• jcjn 10mo ago
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  • b40d-48b2-979e 10mo ago
    Why didn't you make this comment from your main account I wonder?
• kadabra9 10mo ago
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• alehlopeh 10mo ago
  Prostate cancer loves to metastasize into bones. Same thing happened to my father.
  • wincy 10mo ago
    And my uncle as well. He died at 65, mentally he was still sharp as a tack, it was so sad to see him gone so soon.
  • pfdietz 10mo ago
    I wonder if he had a BRCA mutation. That manifests in men as a much higher chance of prostate cancer, and of aggressive prostate cancer.
  • commandlinefan 10mo ago
    Take this as your reminder to get it checked. Takes a morning, lasts for 10 years.
    • trashface 10mo ago
      If you already had a relative with it (like a father) you need to check PSA more than every 10 years, and I personally think its not wise for any middle-aged man to wait that long between tests, considering PSA is just a blood test. My Dad had PC at 65. My older brother got a PSA test at age 41, was a bit over 1.0. Waited 10 years before getting another PSA (his doc was telling him to get one but he didn't), then it was 14. Had surgery, but its now metastatic. There are also forms of PC that don't raise PSA, though they mostly affect non-caucasians. A Urologist can do a physical test for it. Primary docs can do that test too, but since they do it it less often they can miss it.
      • commandlinefan 10mo ago
        > PSA is just a blood test. Um, well, the test I was referring to is quite a bit more involved than a blood test. But yes, get yourself checked.
• DyslexicAtheist 10mo ago
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  • deleted 10mo ago
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• hyperhello 10mo ago
  He drew Dilbert for decades. He had a lot of comics and books in him. In his later life he was clearly trolling and dabbling in stirring up social media for fun, and it was hard to tell where the lines between that and his personal identity were. Goodbye born entertainer and funny dork.
  • Bluescreenbuddy 10mo ago
    That was him. The past 10 years have only emboldened certain people into taking their masks off.
  • driverdan 10mo ago
    Promoting racism, bigotry, and hate is not trolling and should not be treated as lightly as you imply.
    • observationist 10mo ago
      Do the Thumper thing. If you can't find something nice to say, then don't say anything at all.
      • megabless123 10mo ago
        No. Racism and bigotry must always be pro-actively confronted.
        • sergiotapia 10mo ago
          [flagged]
          • observationist 10mo ago
            [flagged]
        • vincenzothgreat 10mo ago
          Can you give some examples of his racism?
• mrweasel 10mo ago
  I loved Dilbert, having worked for more than one Dilbert-like company the humor frequently resonated with me. How or why Scott Adams went completely of the rails is perhaps something we'll sadly never understand. Was this opinions he'd always had, but suppressed, did he somehow become radicalized or was it perhaps medically induced, e.g. a stroke or something. It was incredibly sad to see him throw away his life's work and go down a path most of us at least hadn't foreseen and die having alienated his fans.
  • d1sxeyes 10mo ago
    This is a kind and generous take. I couldn’t agree more.
    • johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      I'll just say that I didn't know until now that he was under cancer treatment and I wouldn't wish Cancer on 99.9999999% of the population. I have my opinions on home but he does not not meet that prestigious landmark.
  • quietbritishjim 10mo ago
    > How or why Scott Adams went completely of the rails is perhaps something we'll sadly never understand. It started at roughly the time of his divorce, so it's hard to imagine there's not a connection. But, of course, you're right that we'll never know.
    • dkarl 10mo ago
      I suspect that having a family and knowing that blowback from your behavior will affect them is a moderating factor for a lot of people.
      • venndeezl 10mo ago
        I suspect growing up in an era where community, the newspaper, radio and TV spewed religious, racist, and sexist content gradually increased sensory memory related neural activity that fostered biochemical and epigenetic effects that over time become effectively immutable. Not sure why we are being coy about the triggers. Society of his youth and the biology are well documented.
• apexalpha 10mo ago
  Since there are many fans here, perhaps people can share some of their favourite comics for the others.
• jchallis 10mo ago
  Scott Adams died today. I want to acknowledge something complicated. He always felt culturally like family to me. His peaks—the biting humor about corporate absurdity, the writing on systems thinking and compounding habits, the clarity about the gap between what organizations say and what they do—unquestionably made me healthier, happier, and wealthier. If you worked in tech in the 90s and 2000s, Dilbert was a shared language for everything broken about corporate life. His views, always unapologetic, became more strident over time and pushed everyone away. That also felt like family. You don’t choose family, and you don’t get to edit out the parts that shaped you before you understood what was happening. The racism and the provocations were always there, maybe, just quieter. The 2023 comments that ended Dilbert’s newspaper run were unambiguous. For Scott, like family, I’m a better person for the contribution. I hope I can represent the good things: the humor, the clarity of thought, the compounding good habits with health and money. I can avoid the ugliness—the racism, the grievance, the need to be right at any cost. Taking inventory is harder than eulogizing or denouncing. But it’s more honest.
  • deleted 10mo ago
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  • henning 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • alekratz 10mo ago
      Do you suppose there's any connection between how LLMs write and how humans write?
  • dstroot 10mo ago
    I will probably be downvoted for posting something that “doesn’t add value” but I have to say that is a beautiful post about a difficult topic. I could never put into words my feelings as well as you just did. I loved his art. I did not love the man.
    • embedding-shape 10mo ago
• fantasizr 10mo ago
  younger folks may not realize how many of his strips were cut out of the newspaper and taped to fridges, cubicles, and office breakrooms.
  • pjmorris 10mo ago
    In the 90's, I worked for a small consulting company with large corporate clients. We joked that we could assess the health of a company's culture by whether Dilbert cartoons were tapped up in cubicles. Companies without them tended to have not much in the way of a sense of humor, or irony, or self-awareness.
    • macintux 10mo ago
      I suspect there was a healthy medium: none meant cultural issues, while too many meant the entire company was dysfunctional to an extreme.
    • bityard 10mo ago
      The worst job I ever had was working for a manager who literally had a "no Dilbert cartoons in the workplace" policy. Other cartoons, fine, go crazy. But no Dilbert. That place wasn't just kinda like Initech in Office Space, it pretty much WAS Initech in Office Space, only way less funny and interesting.
      • rightbyte 10mo ago
        Yeah I think that Joel Spolsky wrote some blog post about Dilbert cartoons on walls being a red flag. However, surely no cartoons is surely more often down to stiff policy which in it self is a way worse red flag. (Black flag? At least on the beach)
      • antonymoose 10mo ago
        I worked for a Pointy-Haired Boss who used to pass out Dilbert strips he himself found funny and relevant to that person. Sadly, he could not recognize the PHB in himself.
  • 10mo ago
• timeimp 10mo ago
  Rest in peace, Scott. Your Dilbert era was scary with how accurate it portrayed real life. And your Coffee With Scott Adams era was impressive in explaining the goings on of life. You will be missed!
• riffraff 10mo ago
  I didn't like the person he became towards the end of his life, but Dilbert gave me a lot of laughs and was a perfect representation of what the corporate world looked like to my younger self. May he rest in peace.
  • pembrook 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • Xiol 10mo ago
      You don't need to know him personally when he was out there telling everyone who he was.
    • ks2048 10mo ago
      He was quite a public person and aggressively tried to shape public sentiments. It's perfectly valid to have an opinion on him without knowing him personally.
    • aaaBaaAAAb 10mo ago
      [dead]
    • aappleby 10mo ago
      It takes very little work to discover how shitty a person Adams was before he died. Hell, ask your favorite chatbot.
• renewiltord 10mo ago
  It was interesting watching him encounter the bureaucracy of healthcare provision in the US. He had a line to the President to get him somewhere but it doesn’t seem to have helped. https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1984915690634252352?s=20 https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1984915690634252352?s=20 His son died of a fentanyl drug overdose which is really tragic. Scott Adams was definitely a crazy person by the end of his time with all sorts of rants on this and that. But I always viewed this stage with pity rather than outrage. Being crazy after losing your child is perhaps just how things are. It’s just unfortunate that others treated him as sane.
  • nemomarx 10mo ago
    He said some particularly strange stuff about his son, but I choose to believe it was a complicated survivors guilt. losing a child is pretty up there for trauma. I'm not sure about the hypnotism and manifesting beliefs, but that might have been the start of some deeper mental health issue too.
  • schainks 10mo ago
    Agree. What an odd tweet. It feels like he couldn’t be bothered to bug Kaiser every day to get the IV scheduled or didn’t have anyone who could make calls for him? Maybe he was truly alone and had no one to trust IRL. I was a Kaiser Northern California member and yes their scheduling system was dysfunctional — they were the better of the options my employer offered. However, if you’re in need of treatment that is already approved, one phone call was always all you had to do book. Surgery was harder to book than anything, particularly for rare conditions.
    • estearum 10mo ago
      [flagged]
  • ceejayoz 10mo ago
    https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/02/scott-adams-prostate-cancer-pluvicto/ https://www.statnews.com/2025/11/02/scott-adams-prostate-can... / https://archive.is/W57Vg https://archive.is/W57Vg > In his May stream announcing his cancer, he said he’d used anti-parasitic medications ivermectin and fenbendazole to treat himself, but they didn’t work. There’s no evidence that ivermectin works as a cancer treatment. I don't really think bureaucracy was his downfall.
• 51Cards 10mo ago
  I loved Dilbert and I really believe that you often have to separate art from artist if you want to enjoy many things. He put a very unique perspective on corporate and tech environments that made me laugh. Sad to see a human pass but also sadder that later he expressed some disappointing opinions that diminished his contributions.
• elil17 10mo ago
  Feels like an appropriate time to remind folks of one of his stranger pieces of work, this board game commissioned by Lockheed Martin: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/60686/the-ethics-challenge-featuring-dilbert-and-dogbert https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/60686/the-ethics-challen...
  • neuroelectron 10mo ago
    Looks like a office worker themed version of Clue
• app 10mo ago
  Growing up I read Dilbert in the paper every morning. At some point I got one of the compilation books and for some reason in an epilogue Adams included his alternate theory of gravity which was essentially that gravity as force didn't exist and things pressed down on each other because everything was expanding at the same rate. He said he had yet to find anyone who could refute this. Even at 12 I could tell this guy was an annoying idiot. Loved the comic though.
  • jeffbee 10mo ago
    Yeah, at the end of one of his books, I forget which, he described how he could manifest reality, such as getting a specific score on the GMAT not by targeted studying but by staring as hard as possible at the mail before he opened it. Absolute lunatic.
    • jimmydddd 10mo ago
      --absolute lunatic. To paraphrase Adams, he always said manifestation was likely not "magic" but that when you tried it out for yourself, it *seemed* like it happened by magic.
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • isamuel 10mo ago
    I also remember this, and in fact I found an old Dilbert newsletter from 1996 ("Dogbert's New Ruling Class") where he describes it: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdb/1996Mar/0000.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdb/1996Mar/0000.ht... The simplest objection I can see is orbital mechanics.
    • app 10mo ago
      Thanks for finding this!
    • emmelaich 10mo ago
      from the same newsletter. How to be Funny. > Humor often comes from the weird thoughts and emotions involved in a situation, as opposed to the simple facts. The best fodder for humor can be communicated by a simple description of the situation and then saying "So then I was thinking..."
• DamnInteresting 10mo ago
  Scott Adams did me a considerable and unsolicited kindness almost 20 years ago, back in 2007. One day my site traffic logs showed an unexpected uptick in traffic, and recent referrals overwhelmingly pointed to his blog. Of course I recognized him from Dilbert fame, both the comic strip and The Dilbert Principle. I sent him a thank you email for the link, and he replied graciously. This began a conversation where he referred me to his literary agent, and this ultimately led to a real-world, dead-tree-and-ink book publishing deal[1]. He even provided a nice blurb for the book cover. I can't say that I agreed a lot with the person Scott Adams later became--I only knew him vaguely, from a distance. But he brought humor into many people's lives for a lot of years, and he was generous to me when he didn't have to be. Today I'll just think about the good times. [1] https://www.damninteresting.com/the-damn-interesting-book/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-damn-interesting-book/ Edit: I found the relevant Dilbert Blog link via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20071011024008/http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/10/the-single-most.html https://web.archive.org/web/20071011024008/http://dilbertblo...
  • goodthrow 10mo ago
    [flagged]
  • pixxel 10mo ago
    [dead]
  • dazzawazza 10mo ago
    That's a great story. Thank you. I hope you've had the opportunity to give someone else a leg up. Accepting that people change, and that people are inherently full of contradictions, is part of growing up... and changing.
  • daed 10mo ago
    Interesting that he basically called for a more idealistic version of the Green New Deal back then.
  • LeoPanthera 10mo ago
    The Wayback Machine is an international treasure.
• spankalee 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • ganelonhb 10mo ago
    nobody really cares about whether or not you’re going to mourn for someone, but I think it shows the content of your character that you felt the need to share that you won’t be mourning him because XYZ. Nobody is perfect, and I wager to guess even the almighty You has a few things in your past you wouldn’t want people to remember about you if you died slowly and painfully very publicly. Scott Adams said some really stupid, poorly thought out things about minorities and women, and he faced real world consequences for his actions. But he also died slowly and painfully of cancer, and he died crying out for help very publicly. That’s objectively very sad, and if you should ever share the same fate I truly and genuinely hope your loved ones are there and with you, and choose to forgive you of any of your perceived sins.
    • spankalee 10mo ago
      I hope that people remember me for exactly who I was, especially if I'm ever as terrible as Scott Adams was.
      • ganelonhb 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        • minihoster 10mo ago
          Not spending the last years of your life being a professional troll isn't a high bar that 99% of humanity doesn't clear. Nice monologue though.
          • ganelonhb 10mo ago
            k, keep me posted
        • 10mo ago
• Tycho 10mo ago
  I kept meaning to tune in again to his livestream before the end. It was always a good listen as he went over the news with his dry sense of humour and judgment on fact vs fiction.I liked how he kept going after they cancelled all the Dilbert syndication - good lesson in resilience. RIP.
• helpfulclippy 10mo ago
  Scott Adams shaped my sense of humor and perspective on a lot of things. Even in later years, when I disagreed with him immensely on a lot of things, I found that there was a thread of insight in what he said regarding how people experience reality and the power of words and images. Ultimately I tuned out, but before I did I followed his line of inspiration (which he was very public about, often naming books and authors) for a lot of that and was not disappointed. I was grateful that the insight was again sincere, and learning them didn’t take me to the places I did not want to go — the places he himself seemed to sincerely enjoy. It’s not hard for a lot of us to criticize who he became. He certainly had no shortage of criticism for others. I looked up to Scott a lot as a kid, and as an adult found him to be a man like any other, with limits and flaws… not merely in spite of his accomplishments, but often because of them. There’s a lesson there that I wish to carry too.
• jeffbee 10mo ago
  [flagged]
• bckr 10mo ago
  A family member has been living with prostate cancer for around a decade. Get screened and get treated.
  • dennis_jeeves2 10mo ago
    [flagged]
• rishabhd 10mo ago
  Well.. RIP.
• anonu 10mo ago
  One thing I appreciated from Scott was his "compounded skills" concept. He explained it: he wasn't a very good writer or illustrator. But he combined those skills with some humorous business insights to make Dilbert. That concept of merging skills stuck with me.
  • Onavo 10mo ago
    I got the same from patio11's blog posts too.
  • munificent 10mo ago
    I'm very fond of a quote from Tim Minchin that I'll paraphrase as: "I'm not the best singer or the best comedian, but I'm the best voice of all the comedians and I'm the funniest singer." Don't max one stat. Be a unique, weird combination of several.
    • SpaceNoodled 10mo ago
      Guess he never met Tom Lehrer
      • pstuart 10mo ago
        A fair point but still, Tim Minchin is the GOAT.
        • simondotau 10mo ago
          He absolutely is—but without any disrespect—it feels as though Tim Minchin has already given society all of his overlapping talents in music, comedy, and storytelling. Perhaps he has more to offer, but his recent work seems increasingly self-referential and less genuinely novel. He could retire now with undisputed GOAT honours within his niche, and I wouldn’t feel a sense of loss over what went unrealised. The symphonic tours and Matilda would stand as his magnum opii. For the talents of one man, it is more than enough. (That being said, to be proven wrong would be the greatest delight.)
• dvngnt_ 10mo ago
  [flagged]
• technothrasher 10mo ago
  This being a nerdy site, my first thought was that title was referring to Scott Adams the game designer famous for his text adventures in the 70s and 80s. Scott Adams the cartoonist makes me less sad.
• andyleclair 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • vincenzothgreat 10mo ago
    [flagged]
• tac19 10mo ago
  RIP. You will be missed.
• _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
  Every Christmas since I was a teen I would get a Dilbert desk calendar from my mom (who worked in software startups since 1979). When my mom was dying of cancer during COVID the people in our small, red state town yelled at her for wearing a mask. She could barely move to go shop, and she was harassed to tears. It all turned me from hippy libertarian (that moved from California to a red state) to fuck conservatives. It's so weird to find out the lessons I learned from people like Scott Adams, they never learned from/for themselves.
• Firehawke 10mo ago
  I try to consider how I feel about this, and all I come back with is an emptiness, a follow feeling. I'm not going to gloat, nor am I going to consider him even remotely a good person based on things he's said and done. I will never know him outside of his works and the things he's said and done, so I can only judge on those merits. I guess all I can really do is shake my head and wonder what could have been had he not completely lost his way; his death by cancer was likely (not guaranteed, but there's always some hope if treated early and properly) preventable, but he made a choice. I guess I'll just remember the early, funny, too-true-to-life material and try not to think too much about what happened after that.
  • jimmydddd 10mo ago
    --[not] remotely a good person? Depends on the metric I guess. Adams-- helped and cheeredd up thousands (millions?) of people, said racist stuff. --You (probably) or me --helped maybe one or two people, didn't say racist stuff.
    • BigTTYGothGF 9mo ago
      I'm reminded of the dril quote about drunk driving, or the LoGH one about Frederica being made happy.
• spankalee 10mo ago
  I don't get "avoiding the ugliness" when someone dies. We need to acknowledge the ugliness and try to do better. Acting like "oh, he was trolling", or "it was just a small amount of hating Black people and women" is exactly how you get Steven Miller in the fucking White House. We need to make it shameful to be bigoted again, and that means calling out the bigotry even in death.
  • spankalee 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • otabdeveloper4 10mo ago
      Well, mostly it's because you're turning an artist's death into a struggle session. Talk about yikes.
      • spankalee 10mo ago
        In replying to someone who was all "oh, let's just ignore the awful parts" about someone who turned their _entire persona_ into awful parts. C'mon.
  • pembrook 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    • SilverElfin 10mo ago
      What specifically does that mean?
      • _345 10mo ago
        People who are grievance farming basically, looking for ways to be upset at and complain about things, overreliance on the pathos, diminishing logos
      • 10mo ago
• jccalhoun 10mo ago
  Whenever I heard of Adams, I always remember that time in 2011 when he made a sockpuppet account on metafilter to pseudonymously praise himself. https://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos https://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos
• sidcool 10mo ago
  This makes me extremely sad. He'll make heaven a better place. RIP
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
• diego_moita 10mo ago
  I stopped paying attention long before he became a freak. After a couple of years his jokes became repetitive, formulaic, obvious,... For some people that might be a good thing. Chuckling at an old joke is like trying again the food or music they used to love when they were young. Being funny or revealing isn't the point, being familiar and reassuring is what matters. He had a moment at his time. A few more years and no one will remember him.
• twalla 10mo ago
  "If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things." I'm certain at least some small part of my own success can be attributed to my exposure to this idea, and for that I give my respects to Adams. As far as Adam's character (or lack thereof) is concerned, that's already being discussed elsewhere in this thread by others more eloquent than myself, so I'll leave that to them.
  • addaon 10mo ago
    > 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. Is this idea that top 25% is "very good" at something innumeracy, or a subtle insight I'm missing? There's got to be a million skills that you could assess rank at -- writing embedded C code, playing basketball, identifying flora, PacMan, archery, bouldering… I can't imagine ever being able to not continue this list -- and you should expect to be in the top 25% of roughly a quarter of those skills, obviously heavily biased towards the ones you've tried, and even more biased towards the ones you care about. It's hard to imagine anyone who's not in the top 25% of skill assessment in a dozen things, let alone two or more…
    • OkayPhysicist 10mo ago
      If you consider your denominator to be the population of practitioners, rather than "everybody", top quartile would be pretty good. To use chess as an example, the 75th percentile of the global population probably knows the rules and nothing else. The 75th percentile of chess players would be an Elo of 1800 and change.
    • twalla 10mo ago
      Ignore the numbers - the gist is being good enough at the right two or three things can create similar value for you as being the best at one specific thing. Everyone (for the sake of my argument) wants to be an engineer at a FAANG but there are tons of folks making more money with more autonomy because they've found a niche that combines their good-enough technical ability with an understanding or interest in an underserved market.
• znpy 10mo ago
  I will forever love the Dilbert cartoons. They were a masterpiece.
• olalonde 10mo ago
  He recently announced his plan to convert to Christianity, appearing to invoke Pascal's wager: https://youtu.be/ldiij_z3mUY?t=717 https://youtu.be/ldiij_z3mUY?t=717 I wonder if he managed to do it in time.
  • optimalsolver 10mo ago
    [flagged]
  • pizzafeelsright 10mo ago
    According to the letter read by his ex wife, yes.
• amai 10mo ago
  Scott Adams is dead, but Dilbert will be alive forever: https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com
• Tade0 10mo ago
  I remember stealing my dad's newspaper to read the included Dilbert strip and it shaped my understanding of corporate life. Fortunately it proved not to be this grotesque, but I have a few stories to share, like anyone who was ever put in such an environment. I recall having a "huh?" moment when I once saw the titular character say that there's no evidence for climate change. The strangest thing is that I hail from a particularly conservative region of the world and I've met many such Scotts Adamses in college (some of whom went on to work in FAANG companies). I don't share these views and I could never wrap my head around the idea that a clearly intelligent and often otherwise kind person could be like this.
• xrd 10mo ago
  When I first started working in tech 25+ years ago, I really enjoyed Dilbert. It was ubiquitous in my circles and seemed accurate. Then, I had my own startup, and as a manager of people, had to come to terms with a bunch of personality defects I brought in that I was blind to. Those blind spots really made me a bad manager. I'm grateful I got to learn about myself in that way. But, then I started to view Dilbert differently. It felt like only some of the characters deserved empathy. I bet Scott Adams would hate that I used that word to critique his comics. Is it just me? I always felt like half of the people were stupid no matter what the situation. Did I miss a more complex part of Dilbert? I haven't been able to separate who Scott Adams was, or more specifically, the racist things he said, from his cultural commentary, no matter what insights there are. And, I can't admire "4d chess" because it feels like it is bragging that you can predict the winner if you throw an alligator and Stephen J Hawking into a pen together.
  • gs17 10mo ago
    > Is it just me? I always felt like half of the people were stupid no matter what the situation. Did I miss a more complex part of Dilbert? No, a lot of characters were clearly meant to be unlikable, but based on a kind of person that exists in real life. I don't think you were meant to care much for e.g. Topper.
• RyJones 10mo ago
  One of my emails to Scott ended up in his first book; I was the one who emailed about carrying ice. Fair winds and following seas, Scott.
  • profsummergig 10mo ago
    Elaborate, please? (The excerpt that ended up in the book.)
    • RyJones 10mo ago
      here you go. https://blog.ryjones.org/adams https://blog.ryjones.org/adams
      • profsummergig 10mo ago
        That email he sent you... boy, the last paragraph is such a gem of persuasion.
• voidfunc 10mo ago
  Scott Adams was influential on me in my younger years but he was always a bit out there and that caught up with him eventually. The brain rot that took him in the last decade made him basically unreadable.
• gsibble 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • turtlesdown11 10mo ago
    Do you have his grave location by chance?
• jdboyd 10mo ago
  https://archive.is/ccbGQ https://archive.is/ccbGQ Since I get a paywall and it looks like no one has posted such a link yet. FWIW, I think the Inc article is better: https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/scott-adams-dilbert-dies-at-68/91286247 https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/scott-adams-dilbert-dies... But the link posted to HackerNews isn't the one getting the discussion traffic.
• rcarmo 10mo ago
  But Dilbert still lives on. As a telco person, Dilbert was always uncannily accurate -- to the point where I was once accused of telling Adams about a specific event :)
• OGEnthusiast 10mo ago
  Hugely enjoyed his work when I was younger. RIP to a great artist.
• mcv 10mo ago
  Scott Adams is a bit of a mystery to me. Like most here, I loved his comics in the 1990s and 2000s. I even joined the mailinglist for his werd rd and surely ironically intended Dogbert's New Ruling Class. Through Dilbert, he came across as a hero of underappreciated tech workers, and a critic of ignorant managers, so it feels really weird that he became such a supporter of the ultimate pointy haired boss. I remember how he predicted Trump's victory all the way back in 2015, early in the primaries. He argues that Trump (and Kanye, for that matter) were super-convincers who used mass hypnosis techniques. Sounds utterly bizarre, and yet mass hypnosis struck me as the only possible explanation of Trump's popularity. Because there were certainly no rational arguments for it. And yet, this seemingly critical (if unhinged) thinker who claimed to see through those alleged hypnosis techniques, somehow fell for it. I don't think I'll ever understand Scott Adams.
  • SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Supremely confident, charismatic people are very attractive. There's no "mass hypnosis" about it, other than that it's something that's baked in to many of us. Obama had those qualities also, and won the Presidency twice despite lacking much experience or traditional qualifications.
    • ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago
      > Supremely confident, charismatic people are very attractive. They're very attractive to vast masses of sheep, yes. They're not attractive to everybody.
      • SoftTalker 10mo ago
        > They're very attractive to vast masses of sheep And these are the people who elect them.
    • triceratops 10mo ago
      > Obama...won the Presidency twice despite lacking much experience or traditional qualifications. He went from Illinois state senator (7 years) to US senator (4 years) to President. A prodigious rise, but hardly non-traditional or inexperienced. The equivalent of a new grad at a FAANG becoming a director or VP within a decade.
• kamens 10mo ago
  The minimum recognition Scott Adams deserves should be having updated the world model of those who read his blog. It is hard to remember how thoroughly Trump's presidential run was seen as a joke in 2015. I bet most people can't remember and somehow think they always knew Trump stood a real chance. That is likely a lie. Scott made specific, reasoned, unique arguments about why Trump would win, with high conviction. This was at a time when it was about as non-consensus and unpopular as possible to do so (it wasn't just that people didn't want Trump to win, there was a complete dismissal of the possibility from both sides of the aisle). The fact that Scott was right, and continued to be right when forecasting much about politics, taught me a lot about the nature of the world we live in. Scott clearly understood something important that I did not at the time.
  • croes 10mo ago
    Or it’s survivorship bias
    • kamens 10mo ago
      Genuine question: did you read his blog and arguments in detail?
      • trymas 10mo ago
        Not OC, but: > Adams wrote about the incident (indirect link, via the Metatalk thread). He wrote that he makes contrarian predictions as calculated bets that in the unlikely event they pan out, he would get credit. [0] Also to add - from Adams’ wiki[1], there are more examples of a bunch of bold contrarian takes that never became true. I see you fulfilled one of his dreams and credited to him one of the guesses. [0] from another comment in this thread, exposing how Adams was praising himself from third character. Link to comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604240 Direct link from comment to source: https://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos https://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Scott_Adams,_plannedchaos [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams?wprov=sfti1#Political_views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams?wprov=sfti1#Politi...
• stevoski 10mo ago
  A fine time to acknowledge Scott Adams’ remarkably simple and clear financial advice: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/scott-adams-financial-advice/ https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/scott-adams-financial-advice/ I think it is pretty good. You can, of course, debate it - and HN being HN people probably will.
  • emil-lp 10mo ago
    Here it is, unabridged Make a will. Pay off your credit card balance. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support. Fund your company 401K to the maximum. Fund your IRA to the maximum. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it. Put six months’ expenses in a money market account. Take whatever is left over and invest it 70 percent in a stock index fund and 30 percent in a bond fund through any discount brokerage company and never touch it until retirement If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issue), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges you a percentage of your portfolio.
    • hearsathought 10mo ago
      Solid advice overall. But I have to disagree with the 401k advice. > Fund your company 401K to the maximum. Fund it up to amount your company matches. The maximum you can contribute to 401k is 40% of your salary I believe. I wouldn't contribute 40% of my salary to the 401k. Just the amount your company matches ( 5% or whatever it is for your company ). That 5% match ( or whatever it is ) is free money. It would be foolish to leave it on the table.
      • lateforwork 10mo ago
        So if your company doesn't match your contribution then contribute nothing to 401k?
        • ygjb 10mo ago
          Not American, but as I understand it, 401k's are tied to your employers 401k implementation and while you are employed you have little choice in how the funds are managed. If you are contributing to a third party managed fund (employer or otherwise) that is not being matched, then you are ceding control of your retirement funds for no practical benefit. You would be better off putting your savings into another tax shelter appropriate to your needs that you can control. If you aren't getting a matching benefit or other reward for using an employer managed investment, then you shouldn't. If someone doesn't have the time, inclination, or knowledge to understand the difference then investing in an unmatched 401k is still better than not saving at all :S
• jpadkins 10mo ago
  I am glad he came to Jesus before the end.
  • ks2048 10mo ago
    Can't tell if this is sarcasm. This was his statement (he says "I'm not a believer"), Next, many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I'm not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. So, here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won't need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry.
    • michaelsbradley 10mo ago
      Seems a bit off, but I don't say that in a judgmental way. If a person presented themselves for the Catholic/Orthodox catechumenate with the caveat "I'm not a believer but...", a director with a good humor would reply with something like: "Of course you're not, not yet, supernatural faith is a gift received in Holy Baptism." Now, if at the end of the catechumenate (several months) the person admits they can't really offer intellectual assent to what they've been taught, that it boils down to their wanting to hedge their bets and that's all, then the director is going to speak to the priest of the parish, and more than likely the priest is going to meet with the person and tell them they're not prepared for baptism. There are time crunched situations and emergency baptisms, for sure, but even then for an adult asking to be baptized, there generally needs to be a profession of intellectual assent ("I believe...") and an express openness to the gift of faith. Someone I know recently joined the Catholic Church, in the setting of a community that uses the "pre Vatican 2" forms. Here are the questions-answers that are asked in the public setting (liturgy/rite) of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in the older form: What are you asking of God’s church? Faith. What does faith hold out to you? Everlasting life. If, then, you wish to inherit everlasting life, keep the commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Now faith demands that you worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the Persons one with the other, nor making a distinction in their nature. For the Father is a distinct Person, so also the Son, so also the Holy Spirit; yet all Three possess the one nature, the one Godhead. Do you renounce Satan? I do renounce him. And all his works? I do renounce them. And all his attractions? I do renounce them. Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth? I do believe. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was born into this world and suffered for us? I do believe. Do you also believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting? I do believe. Receive the sign of the cross on your brow and on your heart. Put your whole trust in the heavenly teachings. And lead a life that will truly fit you to be a dwelling place for God. On entering God’s Church acknowledge with joy that you have escaped the clutches of death. Worship God the Father almighty, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, our Lord, who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Let us pray. I entreat you, blessed Lord and Father, almighty and everlasting God, to point out the way of truth and godly knowledge to these servants of yours who grope in uncertainty and doubt in the darkness of this world. Open their inner sight, the better to see you as the one God, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, in union with the Holy Spirit. May it be their good fortune to enjoy the fruit of this avowal both now and forevermore; through Christ our Lord. I sign you on the brow that you may take up the cross of our Lord. I sign you on the ears that you may listen to the heavenly teachings. I sign you on the eyes that you may see the grandeur of God. I sign you on the nostrils that you may sense the sweet fragrance of Christ. I sign you on the mouth that you may proclaim the word of life. I sign you on the breast that you may believe in God. I sign you on the shoulders that you may take on you the yoke of His service. I sign you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, that you may come to your eternal destiny and have life without end. [ Many more prayers and blessings ] Do you wish to be baptized? I do. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has caused you to be born over again of water and the Holy Spirit and pardoned you all your sins. May he now anoint you with the chrism that sanctifies in Christ Jesus our Lord, and bring you to everlasting life. Take this white robe and keep it spotless until you arrive at the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be rewarded with everlasting life. Take this burning candle as a reminder to keep your baptismal innocence. Obey God’s commandments, so that when our Lord comes for the joyous wedding feast you may go forth to meet Him with all the saints in the halls of heaven, and be happy with Him forevermore. Go in peace, and may the Lord be with you. You can read the full text here: https://latinmassbaptism.com/rite-of-baptism-for-adults/ https://latinmassbaptism.com/rite-of-baptism-for-adults/ The text of the rite is given fully in Latin, and then fully in English, so keep scrolling. Seems like their TLS cert is expired, but the website is okay. We should pray for the repose of Scott's soul, full of confidence in God's mercy.
• buellerbueller 10mo ago
  Scott Adams exemplifies both sides of my personal maxim that "Good things can be created by Bad people." IMO, it doesn't diminish the quality of the Good things.
• rrrip 10mo ago
  Scott's estate shared his final words via his X account. A Final Message From Scott Adams If you are reading this, things did not go well for me. I have a few things to say before I go. My body failed before my brain. I am of sound mind as I write this, January 1st, 2026. If you wonder about any of my choices for my estate, or anything else, please know I am free of any coercion or inappropriate influence of any sort. I promise. Next, many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I'm not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. So, here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won't need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry. With your permission, I'd like to explain something about my life. For the first part of my life, I was focused on making myself a worthy husband and parent, as a way to find meaning. That worked. But marriages don't always last forever, and mine eventually ended, in a highly amicable way. I'm grateful for those years and for the people I came to call my family. Once the marriage unwound, I needed a new focus. A new meaning. And so I donated myself to "the world," literally speaking the words out loud in my otherwise silent home. From that point on, I looked for ways I could add the most to people's lives, one way or another. That marked the start of my evolution from Dilbertcartoonist to an author of - what I hoped would be useful books. By then, I believed I had amassed enough life lessons that I could start passing them on. I continued making Dilbert comics, of course. As luck would have it, I'm a good writer. My first book in the "useful" genre was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. That book turned out to be a huge success, often imitated, and influencing a wide variety of people. I still hear every day how much that book changed lives. My plan to be useful was working. I followed up with my book Win Bigly, that trained an army of citizens how to be more persuasive, which they correctly saw as a minor super power. I know that book changed lives because I hear it often. You'll probably never know the impact the book had on the world, but I know, and it pleases me while giving me a sense of meaning that is impossible to describe. My next book, Loserthink, tried to teach people how to think better, especially if they were displaying their thinking on social media. That one didn't put much of a dent in the universe, but I tried. Finally, my book Reframe Your Brain taught readers how to program their own thoughts to make their personal and professional lives better. I was surprised and delighted at how much positive impact that book is having. I also started podcasting a live show called Coffee With Scott Adams, dedicated to helping people think about the world, and their lives, in a more productive way. I didn't plan it this way, but it ended up helping lots of lonely people find a community that made them feel less lonely. Again, that had great meaning for me. I had an amazing life. I gave it everything I had. If you got any benefits from my work, I'm asking you to pay it forward as best you can. That is the legacy I want. Be useful. And please know I loved you all to the end. Scott Adams
• mooglevich 10mo ago
  Dilbert was great, and one of my favorite comics for a long long time. But yeah. Adams turned out to be kinda a jerk, at best. Of late, I've kinda concluded that no single piece of art or single artist is so great that I can't live a full life without it, regardless of how much I love said work or artist. I think individuals should have the right to read and enjoy Dilbert, but I also think if you don't like him and can't let that go, don't give your limited time and attention to the comic. There are lots of other great comics out there!
• Deprogrammer9 10mo ago
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• alkonaut 10mo ago
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• mempko 10mo ago
  I've talked with Scott Adams. In private he seemed a lot more reasonable than in public. I always wondered how much of his public life was a show, a way to make money. But then the way he dealt with his cancer make me reconsider. Adams publicly acknowledged trying ivermectin and fenbendazole as alternative cancer treatments, which he later declared ineffective, before pursuing conventional medical care in his final months. Unfortunately by then it's too late. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo Something is wrong with us engineers. We need to have less magical thinking. More scientific and mathematical education.
  • OkayPhysicist 10mo ago
    The problem is that the same personality trait that makes for good engineers, namely the hubris to think "just because this problem hasn't been solved by anybody else doesn't mean I can't solve it", also gets applied to everything else.
• yellowapple 10mo ago
  I've lost enough loved ones to cancer to know that it's not something I'd wish on even the worst people. My opinions of Scott Adams are… complicated, to say the least, but above all I'm glad that he's no longer suffering. I understand he sought to convert to Christianity in his last days. I hope he succeeded in finding God — that he understood that there's more to faith in Christ than chanting “I do believe in Jesus! I do! I do!”, that it requires identifying and purging the hatred in one's heart and replacing it with the unconditional love Christ exemplified. That journey is hard enough when you've spent most/all of a lifetime trying to tackle it; deathbed conversions are even harder, with no time to put that newfound unconditional love into practice. No time for apologies to those harmed, no time for righting one's wrongs — only bare, raw remorse and shame. May Scott Adams rest in peace. May he be remembered honestly — both for what he got right and what he got wrong.
• tibbydudeza 10mo ago
  I loved his work and still do but he put himself front and center over his work and some of his fans like me realized he was actually a vile person. The best cartoonist is invisible like Banksy and the guy who did the Cow cartoons and Calvin & Hobbes.
• almosthere 10mo ago
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• ALittleLight 10mo ago
  The first email I ever wrote was to Scott Adams. He actually replied! I was a child and had just read and enjoyed one of his older books, maybe the Dilbert Principle. I came from a religious household and I was surprised by something in the book that revealed him to be an atheist. I looked up his email, or maybe it was in the back of the book, and wrote him a quick message about how and why he should convert. He replied to me (unconvinced) and I replied back, at which point he realized I was a child and the conversation ended. When I heard he was dying of cancer I wrote him another email, again offering my own unsolicited thoughts, this time on cancer and experimental treatments. He did not reply, but I thought there was a kind of symmetry to it -- I wrote him towards the start of my life and again towards the end of his. Interesting guy, I've enjoyed several of his books and the comics for many years. He had a big impact. Tough way to die.
• reop2whiskey 10mo ago
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• anthem2025 10mo ago
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• YackerLose 10mo ago
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• quercus 10mo ago
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  • butterisgood 10mo ago
    Or not.
• lgrapenthin 10mo ago
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  • saubeidl 10mo ago
    Because a horrible racist died and we don't want his vileness whitewashed.
    • lgrapenthin 10mo ago
      How brave of you
    • fleroviumna 10mo ago
      [dead]
• nonethewiser 10mo ago
  Here is the video of the comments he made which people are referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKx9_TceBMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKx9_TceBMQ
  • fleroviumna 10mo ago
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• fleroviumna 10mo ago
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• deleted 10mo ago
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• andyjohnson0 10mo ago
  As with many others here, I admired his early creative work, but found his political beliefs to be abhorrent. An illustration, I guess, that we are maybe all of a mixture. I'm sorry about the manner of his dying, even if the world may also be a marginally better place without the bile he inflicted on it. Still, I'm sorry he's died. He was only ten years older than me. And my favourite Dilbert cartoon is still the one about "eunuch programmers" [1]. [1] https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-11-09 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-11-09 (Edit: url)
  • teddyh 10mo ago
    Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-11-09 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1993-11-09>
    • andyjohnson0 10mo ago
      Thanks! Edited.
• hearsathought 10mo ago
  Why does every other comment apologize for adams' political views? It's like a bunch of people were conditioned or brainwashed into reflexibly regurgitation nonsense.
  • pizzafeelsright 10mo ago
    Long ago where one's politics is elevated to the position of identity the culture shifted and continues to shift. I realized early on through IRC that some people cannot have a professional or cordial relationship with someone opposed to their position. The moment someone found out I believed in the opposite of the group I was attacked.
    • iso1631 10mo ago
      I have no idea what the politics of the CEO of Boeing or Ford or Home Depot is. They don't stand on stages brandishing chainsaws, or writing op-eds about political viewpoints, thus I don't disagree with them on politics. Some CEOs do that and thus choose to associate their companies and their business with politics. If you make your politics part of your identity, as Adams increasingly chose to do throughout the 2010s, then it will become your identity, and that associates his output with his politics.
      • bschmidt700 10mo ago
        [dead]
      • brightball 10mo ago
        > stand on stages brandishing chainsaws That was a call out to Javier Milei who famously used a chainsaw during his campaigns in Argentina to talk about cutting waste and he's doing it very successfully while raising Argentina out of poverty & hyperinflation. Milei gave a chainsaw to Musk as a gift for DOGE.
      • pizzafeelsright 10mo ago
        I will agree, that promoting a specific ideology will put one at odds. What if you learn about Ford's deleted documents? Home Depot's preferential treatment for some people over others? Does this change your position of the quality of their product? I personally can do business and work with people who are outspoken of their hate toward my belief. I am kept around because of my delivery, despite my religion, which I am thankful. I do not hide my faith within the company but I do not actively speak out because I am conducting professional work.
• hackernj 10mo ago
  https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2011127129354744155 https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2011127129354744155
• phendrenad2 10mo ago
  Scott Adams was a legitimate genius. Nobody else could have made Dilbert. People are saying that he said some bad things. I just want to encourage people to look past the ramblings of a dying man, even in our hyperpolarized age.
• Uhhrrr 10mo ago
  This is one of my favorite strips of his: https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/dilbert-work-and-anti-work.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1.5 https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/... Another one was the one where he went to work in Marketing, and they were doing their research by yelling questions into a well. But I can't find that one.
  • teddyh 10mo ago
    > This is one of my favorite strips of his: […] Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1997-01-13 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1997-01-13> > Another one was the one where he went to work in Marketing, and they were doing their research by yelling questions into a well. But I can't find that one. Here it is: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1992-04-09 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1992-04-09>
    • Uhhrrr 9mo ago
      Thanks!
• mannanj 10mo ago
  I loved this guy. His writing and book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big particularly impacted me early and exposed me to First Principles, biases, and in particular not giving a f*k about what people care so much. he was one of those people who was attacked during COVID and labeled and propagandized against as a scapegoat for the failings of our unaccountable leadership - the cancel culture was unfair and unwelcome towards him. I resonated with that too. I hope his legacy lives on - it will in me.
  • cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    Weird, he was a huge fan of that unaccountable leadership.
    • mannanj 10mo ago
      There's more unaccountable leadership than just the side you follow.
• KaiserPro 10mo ago
  I grew up with dilbert being referenced. I was on the early internet, so things were odd. It was full of nuts and wierdos. Scott Adams stuck out to me because his cartoons were funny and sarcastic. His books felt like he was letting me in behind the scenes. He talked to me, the reader about dealing with large amounts (for the time) traffic to his website in a honest, funny and simple way. His books also had a link to his website, which was pretty unique for a non-technical book at the time. I also quite liked his TV show. I stopped reading them regularly as I grew up. I would see the odd salient dilbert in slack or email. during the trump primary, thats when I bumped into his other side. It was heart breaking to see someone who made what I thought was such observant cartoons shit out such bile.
• journal 10mo ago
  I think it's time hn added obituaries.
  • neuroelectron 10mo ago
    Here lays YC...
• GOD2026 10mo ago
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  • Vaslo 10mo ago
    Mods - see above - here’s a really low hanging fruit for bannable accounts
• GOD2026 10mo ago
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• nickstinemates 10mo ago
  RIP.
• defensem3ch 10mo ago
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• ilaksh 10mo ago
  In a weird way, I want to give him credit for saying out loud what he actually thinks. It's a good reminder for people to see it out in the open. The reality is that there are tens of millions of racists in the United States. In fact, they put a group of Christian Nationalist (Nat-C) white supremacists in the White House. It's not a Scott Adams problem in particular, and trying to make the issue just about him is a cop out. Loved Dilbert anyway.
• hybrid_study 10mo ago
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• whiddershins 10mo ago
  I appreciated Scott Adams, and am sad he has passed away. I learned a lot from him and his perspective helped me through difficult times. The comments here are very unfortunate. When someone dies, it is appropriate to speak of what you appreciated about them. That's it. That's all you need to say. And you aren't required to say anything at all. Apologizing for liking him because of x or y or explaining that you liked him despite z is in poor taste and, frankly, cowardly. I appreciated Scott Adams, and am sad he has passed away.
  • turtlesdown11 10mo ago
    Scott Adams was an unrepentant racist.
• LaGrange 10mo ago
  Bye, nobody will miss you. I’m trans, I’m autistic, and I caught on how bad he was day one, as his comics had a very specific slant to them that felt less like truly looking at workplace dynamics, and more acting misanthropic and aggrieved. I get you might have not caught on so soon - I’d call myself lucky - but you had plenty of time to figure out that not only he isn’t good, but also never was.
  • shwaj 10mo ago
    There are literally dozens of people in this very HN conversation that are missing him.
    • turtlesdown11 10mo ago
      > There are literally dozens
    • AlexeyBelov 10mo ago
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      • shwaj 10mo ago
        I feel a bit bad having written my comment, because the OP appears to be in some generalized pain about, let’s say, racist white men, fascism, or whatever. I can empathize with that, see how it lead them to write something ugly and evidently false about the recently deceased. Myself, I remember seeing a YouTube video of people being asked “is it OK to be white?”, the same polling question that Scott Adams reacted to (I suppose) angrily/fearfully when only 53% of black people responded affirmatively. The question landed differently in video form because you could see the individuals in question: they were clearly individuals, even if you could lump them into categories if you wanted to. I remember a few. There was an elderly black couple who looked happy in their long marriage, who I’d guess to be church goers, who found the question a bit preposterous: of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with the color of anyone’s skin. There were belligerent whites who bristled at the implication that someone would suggest that something was inherently wrong with them. There were white liberals who weren’t sure that there wasn’t something inherently wrong in them, their inner conflict plain on their faces. One black woman stands out in my memory, because I took minutes to pause the video and reflect on how she made me feel (as a white man who thinks it’s racist to judge anyone by the color of their skin). She was vehemently, virulently of the opinion that it’s not at all OK to be white. Or so it appeared; maybe she was doubling down for the camera. Her friend was embarrassed and didn’t feel comfortable to offer her own opinion. I found this woman’s ugly opinion to be personally hurtful, and I found it worthwhile to look inward to the parts that felt judged, that felt unseen, that felt afraid. I knew that it wasn’t representative of all black people, but it still hurt. I understand the history that lead (mislead) her to such an outlook, but that understanding didn’t lead to immediate empathy; I was repulsed by her ignorance and hate (not the color of her skin, it should go without saying). I closed my eyes and breathed until I found empathy for her. I just repeated the same exercise; the empathy came more easily this time. In light of this memory, I also have empathy for Scott Adams. When faced with rejection of whiteness, unfortunately he responded (very publicly!) with fear and (what has been characterized, and may be) racism. I don’t agree with him, but I understand the pain that he was reacting to. And therefore I can’t be so quick to judge him as a “piece of shit”, when there are numerous people (dozens! lol) in this conversation who have had direct personal experience with him, and found him to be a caring and helpful individual. Maybe he wasn’t a total piece of shit, maybe he was just afraid.
• asdefghyk 10mo ago
  at age 68, which is relatively young
• knicholes 10mo ago
  Why in the hell is there so much social signaling? "I really enjoyed his work for <reasons and experience here>, but <you don't need to include literally any of this because it's taking a moral high horse and trying to promote ones ego/values>"
• mlindner 10mo ago
  RIP to Scott Adams, I'm much younger than most here talking about his work (I didn't enter the work force until the 2010s) but I still found Dilbert interesting. I saw him most as a victim of cancel culture with people attacking him for things he wasn't and exaggerating his minor issues into much larger ones. There are billions of people in the world with views that are probably worse than Scott Adams' but people always feel the need to attack the nail that sticks out.
• keithnz 10mo ago
  I worked in a large company in the 90s and it really felt like Scott was spying on us with the comics he wrote. Such a great comic strip, and I liked his book the Dilbert principle. I followed his blog for quite a while then things started going off the rails a bit and I stopped following, I also ended up in smaller companies and Dilbert felt less relevant and I haven't really been following what has been happening with him. Kind of glad I didn't. I'm appreciative of the years of humor Dilbert provided in the 90s.
• turtlesdown11 10mo ago
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• gcbirzan 10mo ago
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• DonHopkins 10mo ago
  Speaking of evil trolls: The EVIL Scott Adams should not be confused with the GOOD Scott Adams who made Adventures for microcomputers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams_(game_designer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams_(game_designer) I found a great bug in Zork, the original one on MIT-DM, and it was also in the Infocom version. The troll that confronted you under the white house would gobble anything you gave to him. And he had an axe that he menaced you with. So I tried "GIVE AXE TO TROLL", and he ate his own axe, then cowered in the corner! So then I tried "GIVE TROLL TO TROLL" and he unceremoniously ate himself and POOF disappeared in a puff of logic. Unfortunately it forgot to clear the troll flag, and whenever I tried to exit the room, the troll would reappear, block me from exiting, and disappear. Decades later the Zork source code was leaked and I was able to verify that yes, there WAS a troll flag. Let's hope the EVIL Scott Adam's troll flag was cleared, and he doesn't ever reappear to menace innocent people, like he accused Black people of being a hate group, and said White people should stay the hell away from Black people! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23108936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23108936 #ROOM {"MTROL" "You are in a small room with passages off in all directions. Bloodstains and deep scratches (perhaps made by an axe) mar the walls." "The Troll Room" %<> #EXIT {"WEST" "CELLA" "EAST" #CEXIT {"TROLL-FLAG" "CRAW4" %,TCHOMP} "NORTH" #CEXIT {"TROLL-FLAG" "PASS1" %,TCHOMP} "SOUTH" #CEXIT {"TROLL-FLAG" "MAZE1" %,TCHOMP}} (#FIND-OBJ {"TROLL"})} <PSETG TCHOMP "The troll fends you off with a menacing gesture.">
• fukukitaru 10mo ago
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• seanclayton 10mo ago
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• yamal4321 10mo ago
  I did a quick look at Wikipedia - he has racist views, a vaccine denier, and to top it all off, of course, a Holocaust denier... I tried reading his comics—just some run-of-the-mill jumble for a corporate audience. So who is he? And why are there so much praise in the comments?
  • pcthrowaway 10mo ago
    > In a 2006 blog post, Adams asked if official figures of the number of deaths in The Holocaust were based on methodologically sound research This is probably a result of contracting brainrot by adjacency, but I wouldn't outright call this holocaust denial. Dilbert is an iconic comic, and perhaps the most culturally impactful "office humor"
  • krapp 10mo ago
    Hacker news is full of people who worked in tech in the 90s and vibed with the comic. And Hacker news has its share of racists, anti-vaxxers and Holocaust deniers for whom Scott Adams became not just a prophet but a soldier on their side of the culture war.
• russellbeattie 10mo ago
  Scott Adams is yet another example of the need to separate a person's work from their qualities as a person. It's just something we have to accept: Bad people can make great things. An example that I like (that doesn't include WWII Germans) is William Shockley. He was a pretty horrible person all told. He didn't kill anyone, he was just a shitty guy. And yet the world owes him a debt for accurately describing how semiconductors work at the atomic level. Silicon Valley basically wouldn't exist without him. Adams is like that as well. His work was funny and insightful, his politics were abhorrent. He will always have an asterisk next to his name in the history books because of it. (Not that anyone will care about Dilbert in another decade or so. Much of it today is already about a moment in business that is long past).
• cramcgrab 10mo ago
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• octaane 10mo ago
  His comics were often funny, and bleakly real. His politics and opinions were unfortunate. Bye Scott.
• err4nt 10mo ago
  Goodbye to our thought-provoking jester. There will never be another quite like him.
• kuil009 10mo ago
  As someone who enjoyed 'Dilbert' at times long ago, I offer my condolences with a sense of appreciation for the work itself
• techright75 10mo ago
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• vlod 10mo ago
  For those that liked Scott Adams might like some Lofi-like music by the artist "Akira The Don". He sampled some videos from Scott against Japanese anime. https://www.youtube.com/@akirathedon/search?query=scott%20adams https://www.youtube.com/@akirathedon/search?query=scott%20ad...
• mystraline 10mo ago
  Maybe his corpse can identify as 'living'? If you think that's repugnant, then I refer you to his comic where he parodies a black engineer as white. https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/uh21my/scott_adams_adds_new_black_character_to_dibert/ https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/uh21my/scott_adams_... The guy had a point about 1990s business culture, but lost that narrative down extremism and conspiracy theories. Guy was pure trash for the last 10 years.
  • SV_BubbleTime 10mo ago
    It’s not hilarious, but it’s a fair take on how seriously and stupidly non-falsifiable declarations are in a society that only functions on the objectivity of its laws. Its DEI and post-modernism colliding. That’s a fair take.
  • tbrownaw 10mo ago
    > Maybe his corpse can identify as 'living'? Kind of like the opposite of spending a year dead for tax purposes?
• dayyan 10mo ago
  Scott taught many how to think, which saved the United States.
  • Capricorn2481 10mo ago
    Wow this really tops everyone else for insane hyperbole. It was a comic strip.
    • rullelito 10mo ago
      So satire can't have a large cultural impact? Very interesting theory without much support.
      • dayyan 10mo ago
        - https://www.amazon.com/Loserthink-Untrained-Brains-Ruining-America/dp/0593083520 https://www.amazon.com/Loserthink-Untrained-Brains-Ruining-A... - https://www.amazon.com/Reframe-Your-Brain-Interface-Happiness/dp/B0CGC8LSS1 https://www.amazon.com/Reframe-Your-Brain-Interface-Happines... - https://www.youtube.com/@RealCoffeewithScottAdams https://www.youtube.com/@RealCoffeewithScottAdams
        • hackyhacky 9mo ago
          If that counts as "learning to think", you've got a really low bar.
      • Capricorn2481 9mo ago
        I think "Scott Adams saved America" is what needs support, but feel free to put words in my mouth.
  • YcYc10 10mo ago
    Care to elaborate?
    • dayyan 10mo ago
• NedF 10mo ago
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• vlod 10mo ago
  For those that want to know more context about his comments about race, it was based on a poll [0]. Make you're own mind up. YouTube is being unprecise with the start of link. Starts at 13m 20sec [0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/K6TnAn7qV1s?si=sfYWC6w0Hgf3m9cd&t=800 https://www.youtube.com/live/K6TnAn7qV1s?si=sfYWC6w0Hgf3m9cd...
• didgetmaster 10mo ago
  Once upon a time, you could enjoy the works of a creative person at face value; mainly because you didn't know much of anything about their personal life. That seems to have all changed in this age of the Internet; where every aspect of your life is exposed for all the world to judge (at least if you are famous). All your words (written or spoken) are presented as proof positive that you and your works are not to be tolerated; even if they are from your teenage years. It seems like you cannot say anything these days without offending a large number of people; some of whom will try to lead a boycott against you. I generally like to enjoy a good book, movie, blog, or comic strip without letting politics get in the way.
  • techblueberry 10mo ago
    Scott Adams intentionally made it his entire online persona. Im all for letting people be people, but if you’re literally going to do everything in your power to prevent me from ignoring it…
  • tombert 10mo ago
    > I generally like to enjoy a good book, movie, blog, or comic strip without letting politics get in the way. It's certainly easier once they're dead. I can't speak for everyone, but part of the issue is that we don't want to financially support anyone who is doing bad stuff, so once they're dead I don't have to worry about funding them. Hyperbolic example; suppose David Duke wrote a fantasy novel. Let's even assume that this fantasy novel had nothing to do with race or politics and was purely just about elves and gnomes and shit. Let's also assume that the novel is "good" by any objective measure you're like to use. I would still not want to buy it, because I would be afraid that my money is going to something I don't agree with. David Duke is a known racist, neo-Nazi, and former leader of the KKK, and if I were to give him cash then it's likely that some percentage of this will end up towards a cause that I think is very actively harmful. Now, if you go too deep with this, then of course you can't ever consume anything; virtually every piece of media involves multiple people, often dozens or even hundreds, many of which are perfectly fine people and some of which are assholes, so unless you want to go live in a Unabomber shack then everything devolves into my favorite Sonic quote [1]. So you draw a line somewhere, and I think people more or less have drawn the line at "authorship". [1] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2Fpf9KllbVnOu3oS1Ih2-7DYa47wqBsez4Pm3wELzxAWQ.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D9ae7c3b6246f8414582920892b6dfdb271af2d07 https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev...
• neuroelectron 10mo ago
  Going to miss you Clott Adams. Your self-depreciating humor is a benchmark we really need, especially in the black community, which to it's detriment, has been gassed up to the point were self-reflection is very difficult. Mysterious forces prefer it to be this way and despite us knowing that "black pride," like any kind of pride is a sin, it doesn't seem to be allowed to be addressed. Despite the internet building many places for such discussion, instead we get censorship in various forms including spam, bots, well poisoning, deboosting, filter bubbles, ineffective search, dark patterns, and so on. A cyberattack targeting an oncology journal has taken it offline that published a peer-reviewed study from Tufts and Brown University exploring links of COVID injections to newly diagnosed or rapidly worsened cancer shortly after COVID injections. Did this have anything to do with your cancer? It doesn't seem like this kind of question is allowed to be entertained either. In the early 2000s we would say that the Internet sees censorship as a network failure and routes around it. Now we see that was wishful thinking. The Network Effect prefers centralization and the government prefers subtle control and liability shields held by corporations.
  • lins1909 10mo ago
    What a hilarious comment
  • bdhe 10mo ago
    > A cyberattack targeting an oncology journal has taken it offline that published a peer-reviewed study from Tufts and Brown University exploring links of COVID injections to newly diagnosed or rapidly worsened cancer shortly after COVID injections. Did this have anything to do with your cancer? It doesn't seem like this kind of question is allowed to be entertained either. We had billions of COVID shots. Even if there was a weak correlation with 1% of the people going on to get rapidly worsening cancer we'd be seeing cancer spikes everywhere. Do we have anything remotely close to that in real life? Why'd you call him Clott Adams?
    • adornKey 10mo ago
      Seeing them and hearing about them in the media are different things. You have to look for data yourself - it won't come to you. I met several people working in cancer medicine, and they tell me that they're seeing the spikes. And some statistics showed very early that something is wrong. But chances are low you'll read anything about that in the media. Look around and see who is dying. It's an old saying about wars that people will not bother to check if something is going wrong before not at least 5-10% of the population have died.
• deleted 10mo ago
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• maxlin 10mo ago
  Good god this is not good news. I knew Dilbert as long as I could read. The man as a thinker only fairly recently. To no loss. The world is less without him.
• shevy-java 10mo ago
  No more Dilbert. :(
• focusgroup0 10mo ago
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  • f30e3dfed1c9 10mo ago
    "Here's a man who gave so much to the world." Let's not go overboard here. He wrote a comic strip that was less popular than "Garfield." Not exactly a stunning achievement.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo ago
      What exactly did you contribute to the experiment that is humanity?
      • f30e3dfed1c9 10mo ago
        Ooh you got me. I have never written a comic strip in which the protagonist, clearly my alter ego, is to all evidence an utterly unremarkable staffer at a large corporation who has a completely inexplicable superiority complex the size of a battleship. I'll carry this failing with me to my grave.
        • A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 9mo ago
          Note that you have not answered the question, which suggests you did not even do such a unremarkable thing as Adams.. Surely, you must feel shame for such a low expression of your potential.
          • f30e3dfed1c9 9mo ago
            I already told you: I'm gonna carry my failure to become one of the most notorious shitheads in the country with me to my grave.
• waterTanuki 10mo ago
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• accrual 10mo ago
  RIP Scott Adams. His humor was always slightly outside my realm but as I get older I appreciate it more. Mr. Adams was young too. RIP Mr. Adams. Thank you for your deep unreliquishing jabs at society.
• Artoooooor 10mo ago
  Now. When my company got double-dilberted (eaten by bigger company that got eaten by even bigger one) and became corporate bullshit. When the whole world goes Dilbert. Very bad news.
• butterisgood 10mo ago
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  • butterisgood 10mo ago
    I understand the downvoting, but recent events of the last year in the United States have reminded me that if you want people to mourn you after you're gone — not acting certain ways is a good way to get there. I cannot recall the cartoon, but there was a revelation of "why a character was such a bad actor" (a jerk). And the reply was ironically one of care — "I don't want anyone to miss me after I'm gone". As if to relieve the pain of loss they wanted others to feel relief. I wish I could recall the cartoon and the author.
• robotresearcher 10mo ago
  Adams seemed to me to have made a career out of a 'smartest guy in the room' schtick. Someone is always too smart to go along with the norms, such as Dogbert. They see through to what the normies can not. In 'The Religion Wars' there's explicitly 'The Smartest Guy In the World'. It's a version of a Mary Sue. The problems come when the author believes this about themselves. They probably are smart, and Adams' work is enjoyed because he cleverly recognizes and points out stuff that resonates with people. When this is strongly reinforced, too much, too long, I think it's really unhealthy for some people. Adams seemed to need to show that his thought could not be constrained by convention. He got strong, addictive attention for this. He wanted to be thought of as smart, rather than good. I think the antidote, or at least a protective, to this is being surrounded by people who impress you more than you impress yourself. [Edit: removed a couple of examples of other smart people to avoid stimulating their fans and haters]
• Jamesbeam 10mo ago
  I respect the work of Scott Adams as one of the greatest cartoonists of my lifetime, and I wish his family and friends the strength to move forward and to keep the good memories of him in their hearts and thoughts until they hopefully meet again. Everyone we lose to cancer is a tragedy. My very limited personal memories of him are not the one of a kind person, though. He might have had just a very bad day, but I had to endure this guy on a six-hour flight in the early 2000s, and after he insulted basically everyone from Hispanic people to people of colour and even shushed the lady behind us when she said she can’t listen to his bullshit anymore, I took a deep breath, looked him in the eyes, and told him I fought in two wars, and the only thing that happens if you keep hate for your "enemies" in your heart is that it will eat you from the inside. Let it go. I wished him the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other. He laughed right in my face and told me I don’t get it and that he is going to die of old age. He was for sure a fighter and stubborn of his own views. But in the end, he died at a young age, with hate-fuelled cancer inside his prostate and bones suffering from the same mental condition millions of people on the Internet do day by day. People are disturbed not by things but by their view of things. And People already knew 1846 years ago it is how it is. Marcus Aurelius started each day telling himself: ‘I shall meet with meddling, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, and unsociable people.’ Nothing has changed but the Theater. People now decide to be disturbed by their view of things over the internet, things that will not matter in their whole lifetime for them personally in real life, and Scott Adams is unfortunately the perfect example. He was disturbed by his view, that half of people of colour in the US were ungrateful and "anti-white", tho he lived to the age of 68 without ever being harmed by a single black person in his life, as far as I know. The death of Scott Adams is many things at once. A tragedy, a warning, and a foreshadowing of what happens if you cannot accept the world as it is and just be happy with what you got. Life is precious. Don’t throw it away keeping hate in your heart and enemies in your head, trying to change how the world works or what our species is, a bunch of assholes all sharing the same fate. Deal with it or die miserably like Scott. You have a choice here. Choose your friends, enemies and fights wisely is all the advise I can give anyone.
• sbochins 10mo ago
  I think in the end he’ll mostly be remembered for his support of trump and his abhorrent political views. He had a great comic strip that reasonated with people. He also wrote some interesting books. It’s a good reminder that your accomplishments can easily be wiped out by bad choices.
  • lynndotpy 10mo ago
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    • tptacek 10mo ago
      I don't believe he had the easily curable kind, or that there's evidence that he completely ditched conventional medicine --- he publicly appealed to Trump for Pluvicto, which treats mCRPC. In several unusual but not ultra-rare cases, CRPC among them, prostate cancer is a nightmare diagnosis. Worse, the kinds of prostate cancer most easily caught by screening tend not to be the aggressive kind, meaning aggressive cases tend to get caught in advanced stages. Respectfully, I don't think comments like yours are a good idea. I don't think RFKJ had much of anything to do with what happened to Adams.
      • lynndotpy 10mo ago
        RFK Jr isn't part of this, nobody mentioned him, and nobody claimed he completely ditched conventional medicine either. I'm not saying this to take on a confrontational tone, but this is a sensitive issue and it's worth keeping these things in mind. The ivermectin hysteria has been going on since 2020. There are still large political bubbles where people believe ivermectin is a cure-all, and he was in that bubble when he was diagnosed. The evidence is in his public statements. He is on video on the matter, and he has publicly stated elsewhere he that he tried ivermectin and fenbendazole at first. (They didn't work.) Here is him describing how he rejected ADT at first, and how taking it worked a lot: https://x.com/jayplemons/status/1939769665527718024 https://x.com/jayplemons/status/1939769665527718024 (I can't view the above video myself, since I have X blocked on my network, and the transcript is too long to post here. In short, he notes that he rejected ADT, but then started it when he realized it would ease his symptoms even if not cure him. He found his symptoms did indeed ease.) The problem isn't that he completely ditched conventional medicine, it's that he didn't start conventional medicine immediately. And his appeal for Pluvicto only came in November. Cancer is more survivable the earlier treatment starts. He delayed it for no reason at all. If he didn't start treatment at all, he probably have died earlier. If he didn't reject treatment at all, he probably would still be alive today, possibly even cancer-free.
• tonymet 10mo ago
  Praise to his ex wife Shelly Miles for supporting him through his hospice and final days. Scott Adams was a great guy, who seemed candid, approachable, funny and exceedingly sharp. Life is a gift. I pray he passed without too much suffering, and he's with God now. Rest in Peace Scott Adams.
  • tonymet 10mo ago
    side note to those who scorn him. Think about movies like Star Wars where the fallen resurrect as their younger image. In the 90s/early 2ks geeks all loved Dilbert & Scott Adams. It wasn't until the Trump campaign that folks became resentful. Maybe take this moment to put ill feelings aside and remember him as we all did -- as Dilbert's Dad.
• nevster 10mo ago
  I mean no disrespect by this but when I saw the headline on HN I immediately thought it was about Scott Adams the text adventure guy. And then I started watching the video and was a bit confused at first before it all clicked.
  • Gormo 10mo ago
    That Scott Adams is alive and well: https://x.com/ScottAdamsDev https://x.com/ScottAdamsDev, https://www.msadams.com/index.htm https://www.msadams.com/index.htm
• rhgraysonii 10mo ago
  The creator of Dilbert, a comic strip about a man who hates his job, written by a man who hated everyone, has died. Hacker News convenes an emergency session of its Philosophy Department to determine the optimal framework for grieving a racist cartoonist.
  • lyu07282 10mo ago
    The philosophy department of our post-political/ly illiterate community seem to mostly boil down to the question if his vile opinions and speech should matter, failing to comprehend the associated real world consequences of this bigotry. Particularly ironic considering he died of an illness he refused to be treated for due to his anti-scientific bogus medical beliefs, presently mirrored by the person in charge of health care in the fascist US government.
• khiemdn 10mo ago
  R.I.P Mr.Adam
• jdlyga 10mo ago
  I loved Dilbert in the 90s, and had no idea that Scott Adams got himself embroiled in controversy towards the end. Another funny guy that let his right leaning views become his entire personality.
  • JuniperMesos 10mo ago
    I don't think he let his right-leaning views become his entire personality. Getting embroiled in controversy is something that happens because of the way other people react to your views, not directly because of those views themselves.
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• jnaina 10mo ago
  I love the music of Michael Jackson, the comedy of Bill Cosby, and the biting brilliance of Scott Adams’ comics. I also accept the uncomfortable reality that each of these men had deeply ugly sides. That knowledge hasn’t erased my appreciation for their work, even if it has complicated how I see the people behind it. I reconcile these two aspects, by deploying them in separate Docker containers in my brain, air-gapped, sandboxed, and blocked by multiple layers of mental compliance checks.
• seivan 10mo ago
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• yatopifo 10mo ago
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• dzonga 10mo ago
  from Scott you learn to separate the idea from the person. biggest impact was probably talent stacking + affirmations I say this as a black person
• SanjayMehta 10mo ago
  I emailed him twice and he replied both times. One was an incident involving expense reports in a large company. The other was my manager's pep talk where he urged us to "increase our acceleration while keeping our momentum constant."
  • defrost 10mo ago
    Your manager called you fat and suggested you lose weight ? Nasty.
    • SanjayMehta 10mo ago
      Don't quit your day job.
      • defrost 10mo ago
        Bit late for that advice, can't say I ever had any conventional form of "day job". Do you know of any other feasible interpretation of the phrase "increase acceleration while keeping momentum constant"?
• rexpop 10mo ago
  Good riddance! He was a nasty bigot who promoted racism and misogyny. His comic was never that good. His cultural influence as a celebrity has been massively, disgustingly negative. The world is better off without him.
  • sgt 10mo ago
    Downvoted. You seem like a pretty bitter person. People are allowed to have opinions, just like your "crazy" uncle with whom you'd rather not discuss politics at thanksgiving.
• dsunds 10mo ago
  I grew up with Scott Adams. My very fist job as a junior dev in a corporation, pre dot-com, his comics resonated with me and my co-workers. My proudest achievement was finding a way through the corporate firewall to get his comics off the internet and post them internally. As I grew older his work became less interesting and less relevant as I moved to the pointy haired side. But as a natural skeptic his impact helped shape me and my career. It worked for me! I don't understand what causes such successful people to take a hard turn toward apparent bigotry. As you age you have to reconcile change and your place in history. I'll try to take lessons from Scott Adams and my other would-be heroes as I go and hope to leave the world better off in my small way.
• 46493168 10mo ago
  Scott had prostate cancer, probably for a few years since by the time he publicly announced having it (May 2025) there were signs of the cancer spread to his hip and lower vertebrae. Rather than treating it immediately with surgery, drugs, or traditional cancer therapy, he took ivermectin and other de-worming medication. He was begging RFK jr / trump to grant him access to an "experimental" cancer treatment in November. After being paralyzed and starting radiation therapy because the cancer had spread into his spine. The man's life is a prime example of how modern conservatism will rot your brain. Prostate cancer is one of the most survivable cancers in adults (especially men over the age of 60), and he died painfully over the course of years because he believed in grifters over doctors.
  • byyoung3 10mo ago
    That’s not modern conservatism. It’s just stupidity. Conservatism is misinterpreted as extremism and stupidity.
• brigandish 10mo ago
  There's something very revealing about the need to caveat an expression of admiration for someone's work with "of course, he was a terrible man", and it's not revealing about the man in question.
• dhruv3006 10mo ago
  A wonderful person !
• marsven_422 10mo ago
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• gigatexal 10mo ago
  He wrote a funny comic that pilloried the absurdities of corporate life and terrible bosses. And then he went crazy. Racist. The full throated support for Trump meant I stopped by thinking about him. Somehow dying of ass cancer seems like cosmic karma somehow. He soared to great heights and then threw it all away later in life. Such a shame.
• big-chungus4 10mo ago
  how does that have anything to do with hackers
• bitfilped 10mo ago
  The amount of closeted racism and blind defense in this comment section while knowing this is the peak represention of our industry makes me ashamed to be an engineer.
  • turtlesdown11 10mo ago
    It's a very common approach. Telling low performing white men they should blame black people and women for their woes is a soundtrack that resonates well.
• tomaytotomato 10mo ago
  RIP Scott Adams I recently purchased his 2026 calendar for a family member who works in the consultancy world, they really enjoy it. Starting my dev career in a big corporate telecom I used to attach Dilbert strips to the end of my presentations, sometimes people would laugh, others, normally execs didn't get the irony or commentary. Then when I went to more modern and cool startups the same Dilbert comic strips still apply which I found hilarious. A lot of our influences or heroes have faults and I hope we can all put them to rest and just remember Scott's great achievements with Dilbert and his many books on Management or Psychology. I will just leave this scene from the Dilbert TV show, that describes the engineering curse: "The Knack" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh6oM0
• LightBug1 10mo ago
  Brave putting that on youtube. Guaranteed not to be the most nuanced of responses. Enjoyed Dilbert growing up. Everything else? Not so much ... No further comment.
• deleted 10mo ago
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• ratbum 10mo ago
  Rest in piss
• brodo 10mo ago
  Behind the Bastards did a two-part Podcast on him: https://youtu.be/8nyEkHqP65c?si=oorC_viWbnZLH-wb https://youtu.be/8nyEkHqP65c?si=oorC_viWbnZLH-wb
• therobots927 10mo ago
  Rest in piss scott
• kderbyma 10mo ago
  So sad....I knew this was coming when he got ill recently....I will really miss him. I enjoyed his podcast, despite sometimes disagreeing quite a lot - he somehow was always someone who felt sincere in a way.
• gillesjacobs 10mo ago
  I liked his cartoons and he did no wrong.
• lkos 9mo ago
  One tangential observation: as a young software engineer, I became acquainted with Dilbert comics and liked them a lot. However, over time I realized that they contain a certain negativity that is not helpful. My work experience improved significantly after I stopped reading them.