32 ms·

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 ab

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 9mo ago
[deleted]
henning 9mo ago
[flagged]
- alekratz 9mo ago
  Do you suppose there's any connection between how LLMs write and how humans write?
dstroot 9mo 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 9mo ago
  > I could never put into words my feelings as well as you just did. I loved his art. I did not love the man. There is a lot of this in the modern era, and probably will only get "worse". People need to sooner than later be able to reconcile this whole idea of "not liking the person yet can't help but like their art". Back in the day it was easy to ignore, and probably most of the bad stuff was easily hidden, not so much these days.
- rbanffy 9mo ago
  I find it really sad that I lost respect for him because of his political views. When someone you admire dies, it happens once. When you lose respect for someone, that person you admired dies over and over again, on every new disappointment. To me, he died many times in the past few years. Dilbert of the 1990s is dear to me and I really enjoyed the animated series. My sons tell me it prepared them for corporate life. I'm sad he left us this way. I wish I could admire him again.
  - LargeWu 9mo ago
    It's not just political views, though. Politics is "How much should we tax people?" and "Where should we set limits on carbon emissions?" or "Which candidate do I support" Politics is not "Black Americans are a terrorist group" and "Actually, maybe the Holocaust was not as bad as people say it was". The latter are core moral views, and we should not be so quick to dismiss them as merely political.
    - Amezarak 9mo ago
      Yes, placing your political views into the realm of moral views places them beyond contestation. For many people, most of their political views boil down to core moral views, including ideas about taxation and carbon. That’s why it’s not productive to just point at people and say they’re bad because they have bad ideas.
      - rbanffy 9mo ago
throw4436y54 9mo ago
This comment reminds me of when I talked to a few Chinese friends about their thoughts on Mao. They all acknowledged the failed policies which led to famine, yet they also admired that he basically gave Chinese people their pride back. They related him to an uncle figure who became a mean drunk.
- scyzoryk_xyz 9mo ago
  I'm just glad Dilbert's creator is in the same thread as Chairman Mao
  - RIMR 9mo ago
    It's a shame he's not around to get really upset about it.
    - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
      Of nothing else, he was impressive at melting down.
    - mikkupikku 9mo ago
      He'd probably be flattered, Mao was one of histories greatest influencer of minds after all.
- k__ 9mo ago
  Pride made it worth it?!
  - godzillabrennus 9mo ago
    Having married a Chinese person. Yes. Despite the massive issues with the cultural revolution and communism in general, they are taught to be aware that it was Mao who threw off imperialism. Chinese are self governing because of him. Right or wrong, that is how they feel.
    - 9mo ago
blackgirldev 9mo ago
[flagged]
- WolfeReader 9mo ago
  Hell yeah. Better to support artists who don't champion racism.
- wrqvrwvq 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - LargeWu 9mo ago
    Adams claimed Black Americans were a hate group and that white people should "get the hell away". As to ICE deporting criminal aliens, that's not what they're doing. They're kidnapping people off the street and out of their homes and cars, with no warrants. They're literally doing "Papers, please" style stops of anybody they even suspect could be an immigrant, including Native Americans. Just a few days ago in Minneapolis they abducted four homeless men who are members of the Oglala Nation. This all sounds pretty Gestapo like to me.
    - messe 9mo ago
      > They're kidnapping people off the street and out of their homes and cars Don't forget the murder.
    - oceanplexian 9mo ago
      That's not what he said, that's his take being presented through a media filter. His comments were in response to a Rasmussen Reports poll that asked people if they agreed with the statement "It's OK to be white". Around 26% of Black respondents disagreed (with some unsure), which Adams interpreted as meaning nearly half of Black Americans were not OK with white people. Is it reductive? Sure. Is it racist? Of course not. You're allowed to have opinions on the Internet as long as you treat others with respect.
      - 9mo ago
embedding-shape 9mo ago
> You don’t choose family Maybe it's because of my upbringing, and moving away from home when I was about 15, but why not? I think most people could actually "choose family" (or not, if it's better for you as individual). Why stick with people if they're mostly negative and have a negative impact on you? Just because you happen to share 0.0001% more DNA than any other human on the planet? Not to take away from the rest of what you say, it's a highly personal experience, and I thank you for sharing that heartfelt message to give people more perspectives, something usually missing when "divisive" (maybe not the right word) people end up in the news. Thank you for being honest, and thank you for sharing it here.
- deadbabe 9mo ago
  You can choose family and still choose wrong, you can have family assigned at birth and it could be the best. You get what you get in life and eventually it ends anyway.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    But here is used in a way of "Yes, I know his views hurt other people, and are more despicable than not, but he's family, what am I supposed to do? I can't ignore them", which is what I'm feeling a bit icky about.
    - teaearlgraycold 9mo ago
      And to top it off… he’s not actually the guy’s family is just a cartoonist he likes.
      - kritiko 9mo ago
        I think art is a lot like family - you don’t get to pick which works really resonated with you and influenced you, even if the artist turns out to be a “bad person.” And back in the day, Adams was a pretty crunchy California guy. Remember the Dilburrito?
    - 9mo ago
sgt 9mo ago
I want to like your message but I can't help think you generated this using AI and I can't upvote AI slop.
antonvs 9mo ago
> the clarity of thought I have difficulty reconciling this with the other side of the picture. It seems to me like true clarity of thought wouldn't have ended up in the places he did.
- leoc 9mo ago
  Having clear insight in some areas and big blind spots (or worse) in others isn't just typical, it's basically all but universal (if we leave aside people who have no particular insight into anything).
MBCook 9mo ago
I know what you mean. I really liked Dilbert, but I don’t think I read any of his other books. At some point I stopped reading because the RSS feed kept getting broken and it was just too hard for me to follow. I didn’t hear about Adams again until maybe 7-8 years ago when I found out about the sock puppet thing and he had seemingly gone off the deep end. From the meager amount I know, it only got worse from there. It makes things very odd. Given who he was/became I don’t miss him. But I did enjoy his work long long ago.
aaroninsf 9mo ago
> You don't choose family. > That also felt like family [emphasis added] See the problem? "Chosen family" is chosen. You weren't recruited.
pembrook 9mo ago
As someone who actively avoided cancel culture hysteria in the 2010s, can we have some context here? What did the guy say that has everyone stumbling over themselves to vaguely allude to it?
- dennis_jeeves2 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ImPostingOnHN 9mo ago
    Wow, what a coincidence! Everyone who doesn't agree with me is uninformed and has poor judgement too!
    - solaris2007 9mo ago
      [dead]
- yzydserd 9mo ago
  It’s linked to in the first sentence of the OP.
- reducesuffering 9mo ago
  Adams: "I'm going to back off from being helpful to Black America because it doesn't seem like it pays off. I get called a racist. That's the only outcome. It makes no sense to help Black Americans if you're white. It's over. Don't even think it's worth trying. I'm not saying start a war or do anything bad. Nothing like that. I'm just saying get away. Just get away."
  - cykros 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - sanktanglia 9mo ago
RIMR 9mo ago
It takes a lot of privilege to ignore a person's overt racism and only remember a person's more agreeable qualities. Whitewashing a person's legacy in this way is a disservice to all of the people that person directed hatred at, as if it didn't really happen. He was a racist person, and the people he was racist towards would prefer that people not forget that, even in death, because the problems that Scott Adams embodied at the end of his life did not die with him.
- tac19 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - quesera 9mo ago
    Whitewashing literally means applying a wash (which is white, typically being lime or chalk) over a surface. The wash covers whatever was underneath with a uniform coating that hides what's underneath. It's like paint, but ancient. Whitewashing has been a thing since before races (which are biologically meaningless) were called colors. As a metaphor, it means exactly the same thing -- hiding the parts underneath with something that covers them. Whitewashing is not sanitizing. Sanitizing something actually fixes it. A whitewashed surface is not implied to be sanitary. Lime is basic (high pH) so it also discourages (eg) mold growth, but it's not sanitary. More generally, not every word that includes the substring "white" is a part of the conspiracy. Whichever conspiracy you are demonstratively opposing here.
    - tac19 9mo ago
      Then everyone should embrace blacklisting, and master-slave system architecture. But they don't, and it's time to extend that sentiment all the way. We need to stamp out all hint of racism, lest we all be bigots.
      - quesera 9mo ago
        What should we call the color of walls when they are painted white?
pohl 9mo ago
Interesting that you literally chose him as family (albeit parasocially) when he's not actually family, and then somehow justify it by saying that one cannot choose their family. Pick a lane.
- RIMR 9mo ago
  My thoughts exactly! The "You can pick your friends, but you cannot pick your family" mantra is a good one, but this guy is talking about a cartoonist he likes. Scott Adams isn't your friend or a family member; he just draws Dilbert comics!
- kritiko 9mo ago
  “De gustibus non disputandum est” - no arguing taste. Art is like family.
- TheBigSalad 9mo ago
  I think he means that it was like family in the sense that he was there. You didn't choose him, Dilbert was just everywhere. And back in the day everyone loved Scott Adams, but then thing started to go bad over time and we all realized what was happening. It's similar to what a lot of families face - you love someone when you're younger but realize how messed up things are later. Or the person changes in negative ways. I don't see this as justifying anything.
IOT_Apprentice 9mo ago
[flagged]
- stetrain 9mo ago
  The comment does not say to ignore the ugliness.
OCASMv2 9mo ago
[flagged]
- FireBeyond 9mo ago
  Please give more positive ways to interpret these things he has said: > So I think it makes no sense whatsoever, as a white citizen of America, to try to help Black citizens anymore And: > So if you are wondering how men become cold-blooded killers, it isn’t religion that is doing it. If you put me in that situation, I can say with confidence I would sign up for suicide bomb duty. And I’m not even a believer. Men like hugging better than they like killing. But if you take away my access to hugging, I will probably start killing, just to feel something. I’m designed that way. I’m a normal boy. And I make no apology for it. I'd particularly love to hear how I should interpret this second one in a manner that isn’t just me being an “intolerant leftist”. Oh, and this one: > Learning hypnotism has been my greatest Jedi mind trick to get women to sleep with me. How are these not “deeply troubling” attitudes towards females and not “reader intolerance”?
  - faefox 9mo ago
    I wouldn't expect to hear back. GP is either a troll or a cultist or both.
  - eudamoniac 9mo ago
    What is "that situation" in the second quote?
    - FireBeyond 9mo ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20160116140056/http://blog.dilbert.com/post/133406477506/global-gender-war https://web.archive.org/web/20160116140056/http://blog.dilbe...
- cosmicgadget 9mo ago
  Bypassing the accuracy of this statement, it is extra hilarious because his Trump-era snake oil was persuasion. He apparently failed at the thing he valued most.
isodev 9mo ago
> His views, always unapologetic, became more strident over time and pushed everyone away. That also felt like family. I’m sorry, are you also racist or do you mean a different family? Scott Adams undoubtedly “won at life” but also somehow remained angry at the world. More of an example of things we shouldn’t do and things we should try to eradicate.
- LordDragonfang 9mo ago
  Many people have belligerent, racist older family members who only became more belligerent and racist over time. They're practically a stock character in jokes about Thanksgiving and Christmas.
  - monsieurbanana 9mo ago
    Again, not a real family member.
    - LordDragonfang 9mo ago
      > That also felt like family The word "like" is often used for similes, a type of figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind.
yokoprime 9mo ago
The persona he presented in social media was very angry and smug. I always liked reading dilbert growing up, but it’s difficult for me to read Scott Adams comics now without the echo of his angry rants in the back of my mind.
tartoran 9mo ago
> 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. Same to me when it comes his comics. There is an ugly part I did not like about Scott Adams but, that doesn't mean I will like his work (Dilbert) less. I have to admit it felt disappointing to find out about his vitriol online. Best wishes to his family and rest in peace for Scott. alway
- Aurornis 9mo ago
  Learning to appreciate someone's art while disagreeing with their politics is a rite of passage in the age of the internet. There are a few artists whose output I can't even enjoy any more because their vitriol became so out of control that I couldn't see their work without thinking of their awfulness, though. (Note: I'm not talking about Scott Adams. I'm honestly not that familiar with his later life social media)
  - mjr00 9mo ago
    "Can art be separated from the artist?" is an age-old debate. > There are a few artists whose output I can't even enjoy any more because their vitriol became so out of control that I couldn't see their work without thinking of their awfulness, though. I think this is common. Everyone separates art from the artist based on their own personal measurements on 1) how much they liked the art and 2) how much they dislike the artist's actions/beliefs. I'm sure a lot of people lambasting the GP for not completely rejecting Dilbert due to its creator still listen to Michael Jackson, or play Blizzard games, or watch UFC. There are musicians I listen to who have been accused of SA, but there are musicians I enjoyed but stop listening to because I found out they were neo-Nazis (not in the Bluesky sense, but in the "swastika tattoo" sense). I was never a Dilbert fan, but know it spoke to people like the GP commenter and completely understand why they'd be conflicted.
    - deleted 9mo ago
nonethewiser 9mo ago
>You don’t choose family Right. But he's not actually your family member. I dont disagree with your general sentiment but you are literally trying to pick your family.
- SauntSolaire 9mo ago
  The op didn't get to decide that Scott's work would be so important for him, or have as much influence on him as it did. There are a lot of things you don't choose, family being one of them.
  - nonethewiser 9mo ago
    Right - and he wasn't family.
- gexla 9mo ago
  At my age, he was about as close to family as you can get without being physically there. I grew up reading his comics in our newspaper while eating family breakfast. His work was a part of our family morning ritual. His work was part of pre-internet America when our channels were limited. Our thought and worldview were to some degree shaped by these limited channels.
stetrain 9mo ago
I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignoring it or refusing to call it out.
- Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - qarl 9mo ago
    Maybe. Or maybe people are just REALLY fed-up with assholes. Hard to say.
- GOD2026 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- estimator7292 9mo ago
  You're ignoring the family metaphor. GP is painting Adams as the old racist uncle everyone tolerates at family dinners. It's excusing Adams' racist behavior, in the same way you excuse your racist uncle to a partner the first time they come to dinner. It's not okay, and it's not okay to pretend it's okay.
  - relaxing 9mo ago
    [flagged]
  - rexpop 9mo ago
    There are a lot of racist uncles in tech.
- singingbard 9mo ago
  This took me a long time to work through: 1. People’s beliefs are strongly shaped by upbringing and social environment. 2. A belief feeling “natural” or common does not make it correct or benign. 3. What’s most commendable is the effort to examine and revise inherited beliefs, especially when they cause harm. 4. This framework lets me understand how any individual arrived at their views without endorsing those views. I think this is why responses often split: some treat explanation as endorsement, others don’t. Both reactions are understandable, but the tension disappears once you treat explanation and moral evaluation as separate and compatible steps.
extr 9mo ago
[flagged]
hatmanstack 9mo ago
I've always been a Dilbert fan, didn't get to any of his books until later. I think Scott was someone unafraid to share his thoughts, unfiltered. They were valuable to me because it gave me perspective on a way of thinking I would never have considered. I disagreed with the majority, but some had the subtle beginnings of truth that helped to expand my world view. I'm grateful he was part of the world, and will miss his comedy.
jacquesm 9mo ago
You don't choose the family that you are born into but you definitely choose which ones of them you keep around for the longer term.
- gexla 9mo ago
  Do you though? I guess it depends on how you define family. There's family that you rarely see and you call them family because of the social (even if weak) ties. And then there's family you grew up knowing. The impact of family early in you, never goes away. Your family early in life shapes us in ways we probably can't comprehend. Reading Scott's work was a family ritual at the breakfast table. I'm sure his work had some part in shaping me in a way that I can't delete.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
bastardoperator 9mo ago
[flagged]
- conartist6 9mo ago
  I didn't think that was AI writing at all. It used em-dashes, yes, but AI isn't capable of expressing such deeply human thoughts
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    GGGP normally uses '-' when they write comments.
- 6177c40f 9mo ago
  I find AI replies to generally be less annoying and more constructive than comments like this, TBH.
MarcelOlsz 9mo ago
Nice to read such a graceful comment, I saved it.
lisper 9mo ago
> The racism and the provocations were always there Were they? Can you cite an example? Because I also grew up with Dilbert, and I was never aware of it.
- cosmicgadget 9mo ago
  Dilbert May 2, 2022 is provocative.
  - lisper 9mo ago
    Can't argue with that, but Dilbert first appeared in 1989, and Adams publicly jumped the shark in February 2023. So May 2022 is hardly "always there".
    - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
      I think you are right on the "wasn't always there" front, though perhaps the commenter making the claim has some early work in mind. Personally, the Reddit AMAs (including sock puppets) were a pre-2023 indicator of his enKanyefication. Endorsing Donald Trump (who encompasses the stupidity and lack of self-awareness of the Dilbert antagonists) was another, though this may have been driven by a need for money/relevance.
  - nobody_r_knows 9mo ago
    What was it?
    - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
      https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+One+joke https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+One+joke
    - criddell 9mo ago
      https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/dilbert-presents-black-character-gets-dragged/ https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/dilbert...
estimator7292 9mo ago
> You don’t choose family Hard disagree. Blood is not thicker than water, though the original proverb is correct. You can choose to remove shitty racist people from your family. "Pineapple belongs on pizza" is an opinion we can all debate around the dinner table. "Brown people don't deserve human rights" is not. Nor should it be accepted and overlooked. Opinions like "white people are the only good people" are not acceptable. Saying and thinking that makes you a bad person. Accepting those views also makes you a bad person. Non-white people's rights are not a matter of opinion, nor is it up for debate. Put very plainly, you either believe that all people deserve the same rights and respect by default, or you're a racist and a bad person. There's no gray area, no "maybe both sides". All humans deserve the same basic rights. You either agree, or you're a bad person who does not deserve to participate in polite society.
jumpman_miya 9mo ago
[dead]
newsclues 9mo ago
Life and people are complicated and messy. It’s not easy to reduce people to good or bad. Celebrate the good in life, it’s too short to focus and well on the negative.
- paulryanrogers 9mo ago
  Dwelling on the negative is one thing. Acknowledging the bad with the good is often the point of obituaries and threads like this one. We don't need to whitewash the world to enjoy the good parts.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
juleiie 9mo ago
Why do you need to prompt chatgpt into writing an Eulogy? Are you just a bot or a real person? I don't think a machine can care about someone's death
Dady-Fredy 9mo ago
[flagged]
- nemomarx 9mo ago
  can you share the prompt and model for study here
  - Dady-Fredy 9mo ago
    Claude Opus 4.5. My family runs an electrical contracting business—nobody asks if my dad used power tools or did the wiring with his bare hands. The sentiment is mine, the craft got assistance. Scott would probably appreciate the systems-over-goals irony: I used a tool to do the job better.
    - nemomarx 9mo ago
      I like to keep track of which models still have a fairly distinct voice (for curiosity if nothing else), but I'd also like to see the prompt to know which part is your own sentiment and which part is fluff added in post. It's kind of like someone photoshopping every selfie because they're worried about minor flaws to me.
bawolff 9mo ago
Humans have a lot of trouble with realizing people aren't binary. People hate the idea that bad people can do good things.
- paulryanrogers 9mo ago
  Is that really true? Young children perhaps. IME most folks learn that people are complicated at least by adolescence once they realize their parents are imperfect. Of course there is the ever present temptation to resort to tribalism, which is pretty binary: in or out.
  - tbrownaw 9mo ago
    For example, the general attitude shift about Elon Musk following that cave rescue incident. Before that he could do no wrong, and after that he could do no right.
    - marcus_holmes 9mo ago
      I'm struggling to think of anything he did after the cave incident that could be construed as right? I don't think this is an interpretation problem. I think he genuinely started going down a path that most of us disagree with.
      - fartfeatures 9mo ago
        Neuralink is incredibly cool and that's just the first thing that comes to mind. You might be struggling to realise people aren't binary.
        marcus_holmes 9mo ago
        Neuralink scares the bejeesus out of me, for good reasons. But I'll grant you it could be used for good. And no, I'm very OK with non-binary people.
      - 9mo ago
tombert 9mo ago
I feel similar. Dilbert came out a bit before I was born, so from my perspective it always existed. Even before I had ever had any kind of office job, I was reading the Dilbert comics and watching the cartoon series, and had even read The Dilbert Principle. It was upsetting that he ended up with such horrible viewpoints later in his life, and they aren’t really forgivable, but as you stated it’s sort of like a relative you grew up with dying. I really hate my grandmother, because she has repeatedly said very racist stuff to my wife, so I haven’t talked to her in since 2018, and the only communication that I have had with her was a series of increasingly nasty emails we exchanged after she called my mother a “terrible parent” because my sister is gay, where I eventually told her that she “will die sad and alone with her only friend being Fox News”. It is likely that I will never say anything to her ever again; she is in her 90s now, and not in the greatest health from my understanding. When she kicks the bucket in a few years, I think I am going to have similar conflicts. Despite me hating her now, it’s not like all my memories with her were bad. There are plenty of happy memories too, and I am glad to have those, but it doesn’t automatically forgive the horrible shit she has said to my wife and mother and sister. I have thought about reaching out, but I cannot apologize for anything I said because I am not sorry for anything I said, and I do not apologize for things unless I actually regret them. Dunno, relationships and psychology are complex and I can’t pretend to say I understand a damn thing about how my brain works.
kgarten 9mo ago
“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.” Maybe I’m getting cynical, yet every time I see an mdash and rules of 3, it triggers the feeling of “This sounds like AI” … Here’s another example: “ I can avoid the ugliness—the racism, the grievance, the need to be right at any cost.”
- Dilettante_ 9mo ago
  LLM writing is bleeding back into normal peoples' styles. I've been having to catch myself from starting comments with some variation of "great point, let's drill down into that".
- kylecazar 9mo ago
  I've been a heavy emdash user for decades. I have never and will never pass AI writing off as my own -- it defeats the whole purpose for me. Please realize that many of us have been using them for a long time. I really don't want to stop.
  - kgarten 9mo ago
    I'm also not saying that the parent is AI generated. Just, that the text triggered for me my "Might be AI" alert. It's not only the em dash but the combination of em dash and rules of three (plus a couple of other hints).
    - kylecazar 9mo ago
      I get it, and for all I know this may actually be AI generated. Mine was as much a plea to the masses. But it's a lost cause, I find myself editing to explicitly sound human all the time now. I've had more than one person think my personal communication was written by an LLM. It's such a strange and unexpected problem to have.
    - comp_throw7 9mo ago
      I think your instinct is very likely correct - I also immediately tripped on the language.
protocolture 9mo ago
>For Scott, like family, I’m a better person for the contribution. This is the only issue I have with your statement. I have a lot of favourite creators who are noteworthy for something bad or another. I like their stuff. The bad stuff doesnt particularly affect me. We get on fine. I read Howard and Lovecraft. I enjoy the heck out of them. I used to watch reruns of the Dilbert cartoon. The issue here is sort of the implication that family is a net positive despite bad behaviours. Thats bs. Anyone who has had to push shitty assholes from their family isn't happy that they existed, or made better through their existence. Scott Adams is just a niche internet microcelebrity who made some funny comics and said some shitty things on his podcast. Blocking him is a lot easier than getting rid of an abusive family member, and his net effect on someone is going to be a lot lower.
krapp 9mo ago
He wasn't family. He created a product for money and you consumed it. Your relationship with Scott Adams was entirely transactional. Caring about the man this much is like caring about Colonel Sanders or Tony the Tiger, it's weird and kind of gross.
- pyuser583 9mo ago
  We have personal relationships with the authors whose work we read. Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Dostoyevsky have changed my life. Just as much as family. You can loudly say “no” and I’m loudly saying “yes.”
  - dragonwriter 9mo ago
    > We have personal relationships with the authors whose work we read. To the extent that is arguably true (and I’d argue it mostly is not, there may be a one-way effect and/or a parasocial attachment, but “personal relationship” requires two-way interaction, and confusing a parasocial attachment for a personal relationship is the start of...lots of bad things) those relationships quite literally do not share the “you don’t choose family” aspect that applies to (a subset of) family relationships.
- subjectsigma 9mo ago
  This has to be one of the more insane takes in the thread. Colonel Sanders and Tony the Tiger aren’t real people, Scott Adams is (was?) a real person. I listen to an artist who I feel changed my life with her music. When I heard she had attempted suicide I was deeply saddened. I had this irrational but deep feeling like I should have done something to help her, without knowing what that possibly could have been, since I don’t actually know her at all. Is that “weird and kind of gross” too? To care about people suffering and dying even if you don’t know them personally?
  - krapp 9mo ago
    >Is that “weird and kind of gross” too? To care about people suffering and dying even if you don’t know them personally? I promise almost no one one here spent so much as a second being concerned about Scott Adam's health until this thread came along, and now people are acting like they lost a parent. But what they're really mourning isn't the death of a person, but the death of a brand. Meanwhile ICE is shooting people in the face, the US is sponsoring genocide in Palestine, and real suffering and death abound but as far as Hacker News is concerned all of it's just "politics" that doesn't stimulate the intellect or curious conversation.
iwontberude 9mo ago
Dillbert was too passive, it really was annoying. Peter from Office Space was more liberating.
- mr_toad 9mo ago
  Dilbert was at the bottom of the McCloud hierarchy: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:852/0*1sY0ftV55FfIGW_-.jpg https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:852/0*1sY0ftV55FfIGW_-... But so were Alice and Asok; being aggressive and proactive didn’t get them anywhere. The ones at the top, like Catbert and Dogbert weren’t just aggressive, they were sociopaths.
myko 9mo ago
Personally, I disassociate with racist family when they refuse to acknowledge and work on their beliefs
MarsOrWars 9mo ago
Adam's arguing over a phrase "it's okay to be white" is ironic for an author, when the core misinterpretation was whether 'white' was an adjective or a verb. He thought it was a label for who he was, while others saw it as a certain way of acting.
weregiraffe 9mo ago
What parasocial relationship does to a mf

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

henning 9mo ago

[flagged]

alekratz 9mo ago
Do you suppose there's any connection between how LLMs write and how humans write?

dstroot 9mo 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 9mo ago
> I could never put into words my feelings as well as you just did. I loved his art. I did not love the man. There is a lot of this in the modern era, and probably will only get "worse". People need to sooner than later be able to reconcile this whole idea of "not liking the person yet can't help but like their art". Back in the day it was easy to ignore, and probably most of the bad stuff was easily hidden, not so much these days.
rbanffy 9mo ago
I find it really sad that I lost respect for him because of his political views. When someone you admire dies, it happens once. When you lose respect for someone, that person you admired dies over and over again, on every new disappointment. To me, he died many times in the past few years. Dilbert of the 1990s is dear to me and I really enjoyed the animated series. My sons tell me it prepared them for corporate life. I'm sad he left us this way. I wish I could admire him again.
- LargeWu 9mo ago
  It's not just political views, though. Politics is "How much should we tax people?" and "Where should we set limits on carbon emissions?" or "Which candidate do I support" Politics is not "Black Americans are a terrorist group" and "Actually, maybe the Holocaust was not as bad as people say it was". The latter are core moral views, and we should not be so quick to dismiss them as merely political.
  - Amezarak 9mo ago
    Yes, placing your political views into the realm of moral views places them beyond contestation. For many people, most of their political views boil down to core moral views, including ideas about taxation and carbon. That’s why it’s not productive to just point at people and say they’re bad because they have bad ideas.
    - rbanffy 9mo ago

throw4436y54 9mo ago

This comment reminds me of when I talked to a few Chinese friends about their thoughts on Mao. They all acknowledged the failed policies which led to famine, yet they also admired that he basically gave Chinese people their pride back. They related him to an uncle figure who became a mean drunk.

scyzoryk_xyz 9mo ago
I'm just glad Dilbert's creator is in the same thread as Chairman Mao
- RIMR 9mo ago
  It's a shame he's not around to get really upset about it.
  - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
    Of nothing else, he was impressive at melting down.
  - mikkupikku 9mo ago
    He'd probably be flattered, Mao was one of histories greatest influencer of minds after all.
k__ 9mo ago
Pride made it worth it?!
- godzillabrennus 9mo ago
  Having married a Chinese person. Yes. Despite the massive issues with the cultural revolution and communism in general, they are taught to be aware that it was Mao who threw off imperialism. Chinese are self governing because of him. Right or wrong, that is how they feel.
  - 9mo ago

blackgirldev 9mo ago

[flagged]

WolfeReader 9mo ago
Hell yeah. Better to support artists who don't champion racism.
wrqvrwvq 9mo ago
[flagged]
- LargeWu 9mo ago
  Adams claimed Black Americans were a hate group and that white people should "get the hell away". As to ICE deporting criminal aliens, that's not what they're doing. They're kidnapping people off the street and out of their homes and cars, with no warrants. They're literally doing "Papers, please" style stops of anybody they even suspect could be an immigrant, including Native Americans. Just a few days ago in Minneapolis they abducted four homeless men who are members of the Oglala Nation. This all sounds pretty Gestapo like to me.
  - messe 9mo ago
    > They're kidnapping people off the street and out of their homes and cars Don't forget the murder.
  - oceanplexian 9mo ago
    That's not what he said, that's his take being presented through a media filter. His comments were in response to a Rasmussen Reports poll that asked people if they agreed with the statement "It's OK to be white". Around 26% of Black respondents disagreed (with some unsure), which Adams interpreted as meaning nearly half of Black Americans were not OK with white people. Is it reductive? Sure. Is it racist? Of course not. You're allowed to have opinions on the Internet as long as you treat others with respect.
    - 9mo ago

embedding-shape 9mo ago

> You don’t choose family Maybe it's because of my upbringing, and moving away from home when I was about 15, but why not? I think most people could actually "choose family" (or not, if it's better for you as individual). Why stick with people if they're mostly negative and have a negative impact on you? Just because you happen to share 0.0001% more DNA than any other human on the planet? Not to take away from the rest of what you say, it's a highly personal experience, and I thank you for sharing that heartfelt message to give people more perspectives, something usually missing when "divisive" (maybe not the right word) people end up in the news. Thank you for being honest, and thank you for sharing it here.

deadbabe 9mo ago
You can choose family and still choose wrong, you can have family assigned at birth and it could be the best. You get what you get in life and eventually it ends anyway.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  But here is used in a way of "Yes, I know his views hurt other people, and are more despicable than not, but he's family, what am I supposed to do? I can't ignore them", which is what I'm feeling a bit icky about.
  - teaearlgraycold 9mo ago
    And to top it off… he’s not actually the guy’s family is just a cartoonist he likes.
    - kritiko 9mo ago
      I think art is a lot like family - you don’t get to pick which works really resonated with you and influenced you, even if the artist turns out to be a “bad person.” And back in the day, Adams was a pretty crunchy California guy. Remember the Dilburrito?
  - 9mo ago

sgt 9mo ago

I want to like your message but I can't help think you generated this using AI and I can't upvote AI slop.

antonvs 9mo ago

> the clarity of thought I have difficulty reconciling this with the other side of the picture. It seems to me like true clarity of thought wouldn't have ended up in the places he did.

leoc 9mo ago
Having clear insight in some areas and big blind spots (or worse) in others isn't just typical, it's basically all but universal (if we leave aside people who have no particular insight into anything).

MBCook 9mo ago

I know what you mean. I really liked Dilbert, but I don’t think I read any of his other books. At some point I stopped reading because the RSS feed kept getting broken and it was just too hard for me to follow. I didn’t hear about Adams again until maybe 7-8 years ago when I found out about the sock puppet thing and he had seemingly gone off the deep end. From the meager amount I know, it only got worse from there. It makes things very odd. Given who he was/became I don’t miss him. But I did enjoy his work long long ago.

aaroninsf 9mo ago

> You don't choose family. > That also felt like family [emphasis added] See the problem? "Chosen family" is chosen. You weren't recruited.

pembrook 9mo ago

As someone who actively avoided cancel culture hysteria in the 2010s, can we have some context here? What did the guy say that has everyone stumbling over themselves to vaguely allude to it?

dennis_jeeves2 9mo ago
[flagged]
- ImPostingOnHN 9mo ago
  Wow, what a coincidence! Everyone who doesn't agree with me is uninformed and has poor judgement too!
  - solaris2007 9mo ago
    [dead]
yzydserd 9mo ago
It’s linked to in the first sentence of the OP.
reducesuffering 9mo ago
Adams: "I'm going to back off from being helpful to Black America because it doesn't seem like it pays off. I get called a racist. That's the only outcome. It makes no sense to help Black Americans if you're white. It's over. Don't even think it's worth trying. I'm not saying start a war or do anything bad. Nothing like that. I'm just saying get away. Just get away."
- cykros 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - sanktanglia 9mo ago

RIMR 9mo ago

It takes a lot of privilege to ignore a person's overt racism and only remember a person's more agreeable qualities. Whitewashing a person's legacy in this way is a disservice to all of the people that person directed hatred at, as if it didn't really happen. He was a racist person, and the people he was racist towards would prefer that people not forget that, even in death, because the problems that Scott Adams embodied at the end of his life did not die with him.

tac19 9mo ago
[flagged]
- quesera 9mo ago
  Whitewashing literally means applying a wash (which is white, typically being lime or chalk) over a surface. The wash covers whatever was underneath with a uniform coating that hides what's underneath. It's like paint, but ancient. Whitewashing has been a thing since before races (which are biologically meaningless) were called colors. As a metaphor, it means exactly the same thing -- hiding the parts underneath with something that covers them. Whitewashing is not sanitizing. Sanitizing something actually fixes it. A whitewashed surface is not implied to be sanitary. Lime is basic (high pH) so it also discourages (eg) mold growth, but it's not sanitary. More generally, not every word that includes the substring "white" is a part of the conspiracy. Whichever conspiracy you are demonstratively opposing here.
  - tac19 9mo ago
    Then everyone should embrace blacklisting, and master-slave system architecture. But they don't, and it's time to extend that sentiment all the way. We need to stamp out all hint of racism, lest we all be bigots.
    - quesera 9mo ago
      What should we call the color of walls when they are painted white?

pohl 9mo ago

Interesting that you literally chose him as family (albeit parasocially) when he's not actually family, and then somehow justify it by saying that one cannot choose their family. Pick a lane.

RIMR 9mo ago
My thoughts exactly! The "You can pick your friends, but you cannot pick your family" mantra is a good one, but this guy is talking about a cartoonist he likes. Scott Adams isn't your friend or a family member; he just draws Dilbert comics!
kritiko 9mo ago
“De gustibus non disputandum est” - no arguing taste. Art is like family.
TheBigSalad 9mo ago
I think he means that it was like family in the sense that he was there. You didn't choose him, Dilbert was just everywhere. And back in the day everyone loved Scott Adams, but then thing started to go bad over time and we all realized what was happening. It's similar to what a lot of families face - you love someone when you're younger but realize how messed up things are later. Or the person changes in negative ways. I don't see this as justifying anything.

IOT_Apprentice 9mo ago

[flagged]

stetrain 9mo ago
The comment does not say to ignore the ugliness.

OCASMv2 9mo ago

[flagged]

FireBeyond 9mo ago
Please give more positive ways to interpret these things he has said: > So I think it makes no sense whatsoever, as a white citizen of America, to try to help Black citizens anymore And: > So if you are wondering how men become cold-blooded killers, it isn’t religion that is doing it. If you put me in that situation, I can say with confidence I would sign up for suicide bomb duty. And I’m not even a believer. Men like hugging better than they like killing. But if you take away my access to hugging, I will probably start killing, just to feel something. I’m designed that way. I’m a normal boy. And I make no apology for it. I'd particularly love to hear how I should interpret this second one in a manner that isn’t just me being an “intolerant leftist”. Oh, and this one: > Learning hypnotism has been my greatest Jedi mind trick to get women to sleep with me. How are these not “deeply troubling” attitudes towards females and not “reader intolerance”?
- faefox 9mo ago
  I wouldn't expect to hear back. GP is either a troll or a cultist or both.
- eudamoniac 9mo ago
  What is "that situation" in the second quote?
  - FireBeyond 9mo ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160116140056/http://blog.dilbert.com/post/133406477506/global-gender-war https://web.archive.org/web/20160116140056/http://blog.dilbe...
cosmicgadget 9mo ago
Bypassing the accuracy of this statement, it is extra hilarious because his Trump-era snake oil was persuasion. He apparently failed at the thing he valued most.

isodev 9mo ago

> His views, always unapologetic, became more strident over time and pushed everyone away. That also felt like family. I’m sorry, are you also racist or do you mean a different family? Scott Adams undoubtedly “won at life” but also somehow remained angry at the world. More of an example of things we shouldn’t do and things we should try to eradicate.

LordDragonfang 9mo ago
Many people have belligerent, racist older family members who only became more belligerent and racist over time. They're practically a stock character in jokes about Thanksgiving and Christmas.
- monsieurbanana 9mo ago
  Again, not a real family member.
  - LordDragonfang 9mo ago
    > That also felt like family The word "like" is often used for similes, a type of figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind.

yokoprime 9mo ago

The persona he presented in social media was very angry and smug. I always liked reading dilbert growing up, but it’s difficult for me to read Scott Adams comics now without the echo of his angry rants in the back of my mind.

tartoran 9mo ago

> 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. Same to me when it comes his comics. There is an ugly part I did not like about Scott Adams but, that doesn't mean I will like his work (Dilbert) less. I have to admit it felt disappointing to find out about his vitriol online. Best wishes to his family and rest in peace for Scott. alway

Aurornis 9mo ago
Learning to appreciate someone's art while disagreeing with their politics is a rite of passage in the age of the internet. There are a few artists whose output I can't even enjoy any more because their vitriol became so out of control that I couldn't see their work without thinking of their awfulness, though. (Note: I'm not talking about Scott Adams. I'm honestly not that familiar with his later life social media)
- mjr00 9mo ago
  "Can art be separated from the artist?" is an age-old debate. > There are a few artists whose output I can't even enjoy any more because their vitriol became so out of control that I couldn't see their work without thinking of their awfulness, though. I think this is common. Everyone separates art from the artist based on their own personal measurements on 1) how much they liked the art and 2) how much they dislike the artist's actions/beliefs. I'm sure a lot of people lambasting the GP for not completely rejecting Dilbert due to its creator still listen to Michael Jackson, or play Blizzard games, or watch UFC. There are musicians I listen to who have been accused of SA, but there are musicians I enjoyed but stop listening to because I found out they were neo-Nazis (not in the Bluesky sense, but in the "swastika tattoo" sense). I was never a Dilbert fan, but know it spoke to people like the GP commenter and completely understand why they'd be conflicted.
  - deleted 9mo ago

nonethewiser 9mo ago

>You don’t choose family Right. But he's not actually your family member. I dont disagree with your general sentiment but you are literally trying to pick your family.

SauntSolaire 9mo ago
The op didn't get to decide that Scott's work would be so important for him, or have as much influence on him as it did. There are a lot of things you don't choose, family being one of them.
- nonethewiser 9mo ago
  Right - and he wasn't family.
gexla 9mo ago
At my age, he was about as close to family as you can get without being physically there. I grew up reading his comics in our newspaper while eating family breakfast. His work was a part of our family morning ritual. His work was part of pre-internet America when our channels were limited. Our thought and worldview were to some degree shaped by these limited channels.

stetrain 9mo ago

I think it’s interesting how many responses to this comment seem to have interpreted it fairly differently to my own reading. There are many responding about “ignoring racism,” “whitewashing,” or the importance of calling out bigotry. I’m not sure how that follows from a comment that literally calls out the racism and describes it as “unambiguous.” Striving to “avoid the ugliness” in your own life does not mean ignoring it or refusing to call it out.

Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
[flagged]
- qarl 9mo ago
  Maybe. Or maybe people are just REALLY fed-up with assholes. Hard to say.
GOD2026 9mo ago
[flagged]
estimator7292 9mo ago
You're ignoring the family metaphor. GP is painting Adams as the old racist uncle everyone tolerates at family dinners. It's excusing Adams' racist behavior, in the same way you excuse your racist uncle to a partner the first time they come to dinner. It's not okay, and it's not okay to pretend it's okay.
- relaxing 9mo ago
  [flagged]
- rexpop 9mo ago
  There are a lot of racist uncles in tech.
singingbard 9mo ago
This took me a long time to work through: 1. People’s beliefs are strongly shaped by upbringing and social environment. 2. A belief feeling “natural” or common does not make it correct or benign. 3. What’s most commendable is the effort to examine and revise inherited beliefs, especially when they cause harm. 4. This framework lets me understand how any individual arrived at their views without endorsing those views. I think this is why responses often split: some treat explanation as endorsement, others don’t. Both reactions are understandable, but the tension disappears once you treat explanation and moral evaluation as separate and compatible steps.

extr 9mo ago

[flagged]

hatmanstack 9mo ago

I've always been a Dilbert fan, didn't get to any of his books until later. I think Scott was someone unafraid to share his thoughts, unfiltered. They were valuable to me because it gave me perspective on a way of thinking I would never have considered. I disagreed with the majority, but some had the subtle beginnings of truth that helped to expand my world view. I'm grateful he was part of the world, and will miss his comedy.

jacquesm 9mo ago

You don't choose the family that you are born into but you definitely choose which ones of them you keep around for the longer term.

gexla 9mo ago
Do you though? I guess it depends on how you define family. There's family that you rarely see and you call them family because of the social (even if weak) ties. And then there's family you grew up knowing. The impact of family early in you, never goes away. Your family early in life shapes us in ways we probably can't comprehend. Reading Scott's work was a family ritual at the breakfast table. I'm sure his work had some part in shaping me in a way that I can't delete.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

bastardoperator 9mo ago

[flagged]

conartist6 9mo ago
I didn't think that was AI writing at all. It used em-dashes, yes, but AI isn't capable of expressing such deeply human thoughts
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  GGGP normally uses '-' when they write comments.
6177c40f 9mo ago
I find AI replies to generally be less annoying and more constructive than comments like this, TBH.

MarcelOlsz 9mo ago

Nice to read such a graceful comment, I saved it.

lisper 9mo ago

> The racism and the provocations were always there Were they? Can you cite an example? Because I also grew up with Dilbert, and I was never aware of it.

cosmicgadget 9mo ago
Dilbert May 2, 2022 is provocative.
- lisper 9mo ago
  Can't argue with that, but Dilbert first appeared in 1989, and Adams publicly jumped the shark in February 2023. So May 2022 is hardly "always there".
  - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
    I think you are right on the "wasn't always there" front, though perhaps the commenter making the claim has some early work in mind. Personally, the Reddit AMAs (including sock puppets) were a pre-2023 indicator of his enKanyefication. Endorsing Donald Trump (who encompasses the stupidity and lack of self-awareness of the Dilbert antagonists) was another, though this may have been driven by a need for money/relevance.
- nobody_r_knows 9mo ago
  What was it?
  - cosmicgadget 9mo ago
    https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+One+joke https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+One+joke
  - criddell 9mo ago
    https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/dilbert-presents-black-character-gets-dragged/ https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/05/03/dilbert...

estimator7292 9mo ago

> You don’t choose family Hard disagree. Blood is not thicker than water, though the original proverb is correct. You can choose to remove shitty racist people from your family. "Pineapple belongs on pizza" is an opinion we can all debate around the dinner table. "Brown people don't deserve human rights" is not. Nor should it be accepted and overlooked. Opinions like "white people are the only good people" are not acceptable. Saying and thinking that makes you a bad person. Accepting those views also makes you a bad person. Non-white people's rights are not a matter of opinion, nor is it up for debate. Put very plainly, you either believe that all people deserve the same rights and respect by default, or you're a racist and a bad person. There's no gray area, no "maybe both sides". All humans deserve the same basic rights. You either agree, or you're a bad person who does not deserve to participate in polite society.

jumpman_miya 9mo ago

[dead]

newsclues 9mo ago

Life and people are complicated and messy. It’s not easy to reduce people to good or bad. Celebrate the good in life, it’s too short to focus and well on the negative.

paulryanrogers 9mo ago
Dwelling on the negative is one thing. Acknowledging the bad with the good is often the point of obituaries and threads like this one. We don't need to whitewash the world to enjoy the good parts.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

juleiie 9mo ago

Why do you need to prompt chatgpt into writing an Eulogy? Are you just a bot or a real person? I don't think a machine can care about someone's death

Dady-Fredy 9mo ago

[flagged]

nemomarx 9mo ago
can you share the prompt and model for study here
- Dady-Fredy 9mo ago
  Claude Opus 4.5. My family runs an electrical contracting business—nobody asks if my dad used power tools or did the wiring with his bare hands. The sentiment is mine, the craft got assistance. Scott would probably appreciate the systems-over-goals irony: I used a tool to do the job better.
  - nemomarx 9mo ago
    I like to keep track of which models still have a fairly distinct voice (for curiosity if nothing else), but I'd also like to see the prompt to know which part is your own sentiment and which part is fluff added in post. It's kind of like someone photoshopping every selfie because they're worried about minor flaws to me.

bawolff 9mo ago

Humans have a lot of trouble with realizing people aren't binary. People hate the idea that bad people can do good things.

paulryanrogers 9mo ago
Is that really true? Young children perhaps. IME most folks learn that people are complicated at least by adolescence once they realize their parents are imperfect. Of course there is the ever present temptation to resort to tribalism, which is pretty binary: in or out.
- tbrownaw 9mo ago
  For example, the general attitude shift about Elon Musk following that cave rescue incident. Before that he could do no wrong, and after that he could do no right.
  - marcus_holmes 9mo ago
    I'm struggling to think of anything he did after the cave incident that could be construed as right? I don't think this is an interpretation problem. I think he genuinely started going down a path that most of us disagree with.
    - fartfeatures 9mo ago
      Neuralink is incredibly cool and that's just the first thing that comes to mind. You might be struggling to realise people aren't binary.
      - marcus_holmes 9mo ago
        Neuralink scares the bejeesus out of me, for good reasons. But I'll grant you it could be used for good. And no, I'm very OK with non-binary people.
    - 9mo ago

tombert 9mo ago

I feel similar. Dilbert came out a bit before I was born, so from my perspective it always existed. Even before I had ever had any kind of office job, I was reading the Dilbert comics and watching the cartoon series, and had even read The Dilbert Principle. It was upsetting that he ended up with such horrible viewpoints later in his life, and they aren’t really forgivable, but as you stated it’s sort of like a relative you grew up with dying. I really hate my grandmother, because she has repeatedly said very racist stuff to my wife, so I haven’t talked to her in since 2018, and the only communication that I have had with her was a series of increasingly nasty emails we exchanged after she called my mother a “terrible parent” because my sister is gay, where I eventually told her that she “will die sad and alone with her only friend being Fox News”. It is likely that I will never say anything to her ever again; she is in her 90s now, and not in the greatest health from my understanding. When she kicks the bucket in a few years, I think I am going to have similar conflicts. Despite me hating her now, it’s not like all my memories with her were bad. There are plenty of happy memories too, and I am glad to have those, but it doesn’t automatically forgive the horrible shit she has said to my wife and mother and sister. I have thought about reaching out, but I cannot apologize for anything I said because I am not sorry for anything I said, and I do not apologize for things unless I actually regret them. Dunno, relationships and psychology are complex and I can’t pretend to say I understand a damn thing about how my brain works.

kgarten 9mo ago

“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.” Maybe I’m getting cynical, yet every time I see an mdash and rules of 3, it triggers the feeling of “This sounds like AI” … Here’s another example: “ I can avoid the ugliness—the racism, the grievance, the need to be right at any cost.”

Dilettante_ 9mo ago
LLM writing is bleeding back into normal peoples' styles. I've been having to catch myself from starting comments with some variation of "great point, let's drill down into that".
kylecazar 9mo ago
I've been a heavy emdash user for decades. I have never and will never pass AI writing off as my own -- it defeats the whole purpose for me. Please realize that many of us have been using them for a long time. I really don't want to stop.
- kgarten 9mo ago
  I'm also not saying that the parent is AI generated. Just, that the text triggered for me my "Might be AI" alert. It's not only the em dash but the combination of em dash and rules of three (plus a couple of other hints).
  - kylecazar 9mo ago
    I get it, and for all I know this may actually be AI generated. Mine was as much a plea to the masses. But it's a lost cause, I find myself editing to explicitly sound human all the time now. I've had more than one person think my personal communication was written by an LLM. It's such a strange and unexpected problem to have.
  - comp_throw7 9mo ago
    I think your instinct is very likely correct - I also immediately tripped on the language.

protocolture 9mo ago

>For Scott, like family, I’m a better person for the contribution. This is the only issue I have with your statement. I have a lot of favourite creators who are noteworthy for something bad or another. I like their stuff. The bad stuff doesnt particularly affect me. We get on fine. I read Howard and Lovecraft. I enjoy the heck out of them. I used to watch reruns of the Dilbert cartoon. The issue here is sort of the implication that family is a net positive despite bad behaviours. Thats bs. Anyone who has had to push shitty assholes from their family isn't happy that they existed, or made better through their existence. Scott Adams is just a niche internet microcelebrity who made some funny comics and said some shitty things on his podcast. Blocking him is a lot easier than getting rid of an abusive family member, and his net effect on someone is going to be a lot lower.

krapp 9mo ago

He wasn't family. He created a product for money and you consumed it. Your relationship with Scott Adams was entirely transactional. Caring about the man this much is like caring about Colonel Sanders or Tony the Tiger, it's weird and kind of gross.

pyuser583 9mo ago
We have personal relationships with the authors whose work we read. Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Dostoyevsky have changed my life. Just as much as family. You can loudly say “no” and I’m loudly saying “yes.”
- dragonwriter 9mo ago
  > We have personal relationships with the authors whose work we read. To the extent that is arguably true (and I’d argue it mostly is not, there may be a one-way effect and/or a parasocial attachment, but “personal relationship” requires two-way interaction, and confusing a parasocial attachment for a personal relationship is the start of...lots of bad things) those relationships quite literally do not share the “you don’t choose family” aspect that applies to (a subset of) family relationships.
subjectsigma 9mo ago
This has to be one of the more insane takes in the thread. Colonel Sanders and Tony the Tiger aren’t real people, Scott Adams is (was?) a real person. I listen to an artist who I feel changed my life with her music. When I heard she had attempted suicide I was deeply saddened. I had this irrational but deep feeling like I should have done something to help her, without knowing what that possibly could have been, since I don’t actually know her at all. Is that “weird and kind of gross” too? To care about people suffering and dying even if you don’t know them personally?
- krapp 9mo ago
  >Is that “weird and kind of gross” too? To care about people suffering and dying even if you don’t know them personally? I promise almost no one one here spent so much as a second being concerned about Scott Adam's health until this thread came along, and now people are acting like they lost a parent. But what they're really mourning isn't the death of a person, but the death of a brand. Meanwhile ICE is shooting people in the face, the US is sponsoring genocide in Palestine, and real suffering and death abound but as far as Hacker News is concerned all of it's just "politics" that doesn't stimulate the intellect or curious conversation.

iwontberude 9mo ago

Dillbert was too passive, it really was annoying. Peter from Office Space was more liberating.

mr_toad 9mo ago
Dilbert was at the bottom of the McCloud hierarchy: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:852/0*1sY0ftV55FfIGW_-.jpg https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:852/0*1sY0ftV55FfIGW_-... But so were Alice and Asok; being aggressive and proactive didn’t get them anywhere. The ones at the top, like Catbert and Dogbert weren’t just aggressive, they were sociopaths.

myko 9mo ago

Personally, I disassociate with racist family when they refuse to acknowledge and work on their beliefs

MarsOrWars 9mo ago

Adam's arguing over a phrase "it's okay to be white" is ironic for an author, when the core misinterpretation was whether 'white' was an adjective or a verb. He thought it was a label for who he was, while others saw it as a certain way of acting.

weregiraffe 9mo ago

What parasocial relationship does to a mf