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To add, he also said elsewhere that he didn't like his job and was phoning it in and focusing increasingly on his art. He thought he was passed over because of

by maxbond 9mo ago

To add, he also said elsewhere that he didn't like his job and was phoning it in and focusing increasingly on his art. He thought he was passed over because of his gender for a promotion... When he was openly phoning it in and writing comics about how his work culture sucked. Why would you promote someone with their foot out the door and who was badly misaligned with the organization? One or the other maybe (someone who doesn't like the work culture might be a good pick to improve it) but both? Why would you even be upset about it when your art is blowing up and going full time on it is clearly the right move? Similarly he felt his TV show was cancelled after two seasons because it wasn't PC, but his show wasn't getting good viewership and had a terrible time slot. That's a pretty typical trajectory for a TV show, it's like complaining your startup failed. He wrote a lot about explicitly magical thinking. Sort of along the lines of The Secret; that he could achieve things where the odds were against him through sheer force of will and wishing. That's not necessarily a problem but it does set you up for denial when things don't always go your way. And the denial is dangerous. The later chapters of his life were marked by tragedy. His stepson died of overdose. His marriage collapsed. He lost the ability to speak and had to fight like hell to get a proper diagnosis and treatment (he later recovered). He went through COVID like the rest of us. Unfortunately these events would seem to have hardened and radicalized him. I think we can understand and empathize with that without condoning it. I hope he found his peace in the end.

machomaster 9mo ago
[flagged]
- maxbond 9mo ago
  > He was directly told that he won't be promoted because he was a white man. I think Adams was lying. I don't think they ever told him that. For instance in contemporary interviews about his show being cancelled he gave reasonable explanations. Only later did he claim his show was cancelled unjustly. He also wrote a book with the subtitle, Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter. I think as his views hardened he didn't feel obligated to tell the truth, and/or that his lies were in service of a deeper truth. So I think he sincerely believed he had been passed over because of he was a man, but that that conversation never took place and he knew it. > If I remember correctly, it had more to do with his sex and not his race. You're right. I've updated the comment. Thanks for the correction. > Why would he work his ass off after that? He was phoning it in before that.
  - saalweachter 9mo ago
    Hell, he could have been told that he wasn't promoted because of his sex/race/whatever by his direct superior who supported Adams' promotion but was overruled by his higher ups/the committee. "Older white guy boss tells younger white guy Adams that he doesn't have a future because the company is only promoting <slurs> and <slurs>." is something I would totally believe happened. Source: if you're a white guy, other white guys tell you all sorts of things you'd think they'd keep to themselves.
    - mrguyorama 9mo ago
      Or, as how it usually happens, the guy who told him "You aren't getting promoted because you are white" was just wrong himself I don't know why people always seem to forget that essential default. People say things that aren't true all the time.
      - saalweachter 9mo ago
        Oh yeah, I meant that to be implicit in what I was saying. I have zero problem believing that his boss or whoever told him that, or that said person was just talking out their ass.
      - machomaster 9mo ago
        People's words and explanations have greater significance when the observed reality supports it. I am sure it wasn't only the words that convinced Scott Adams, but the observed reality of who is being promoted and who is not.
        mrguyorama 9mo ago
        >I am sure it wasn't only the words that convinced Scott Adams, but the observed reality of who is being promoted and who is not. Humans regularly misinterpret reality. It's why as a species we couldn't figure out jack shit until we started removing ourselves as arbiter of truth. We are terrible at evaluating information and making conclusions. My dad is pissed at a company for passing him over because "They only hire gay people in management" and not because.... he doesn't have an MBA and the people they hired do. Or that he doesn't know how to do anything more than low level management in general. Or that he is bad at big picture planning. Nope, definitely the gays and this woke DEI. My brother spent most of his life livid at "affirmative action" and seemingly blaming it for his limitations. Rather than blaming the fact that he did drugs instead of leveraging his intelligence to do well in school, dropped out of community college for no reason, and has never even applied to a real institution of higher learning or attempted to educate himself. Some people just suck at recognizing their faults and make up boogeymen to blame.
- plorkyeran 9mo ago
  To put it simply, I do not believe his recounting of events. I think that he convinced himself that was the case, but the conversation did not actually happen as he remembers it.
  - dijit 9mo ago
    I understand this might be unpopular, but I’ve been told exactly this… directly, to my face, on multiple occasions. The last time it happened, I asked for it in writing. Unsurprisingly, that request went nowhere. Whether it happened to Adams specifically, I can’t say. But I can state with absolute certainty that this happens, because it’s happened to me repeatedly. Either it’s more widespread than people want to acknowledge, or I’m unusually unlucky. And yes, it’s a radicalising experience. It’s taken considerable effort and time to regain my equilibrium when discussing these topics.
    - maxbond 9mo ago
      Could you share more about the context? When? For what position? In what sort of organization? Personally the only time this has happened to me was when I applied to be a bartender and was told there was a quota for men and women and they had recently hired a man. And I just let that one go, partly because it was a lark and not a career move, partly because I could see the logic in it and chalked it up to the inherent seediness of the enterprise, and partly because my identity had opened a lot of doors for me in the past ("you look like Mark Zuckerberg" was a comment I got when I was hired at my first startup, in a sequence of compliments about my qualifications) so I wasn't bothered by it closing one. I'm open to hearing other experiences though. I'm reserving judgment until I understand the context.
      - dijit 9mo ago
        Sure, and, cards on the table, I will not redact company names because I don't really see the point, these are my experiences not rumours. Here's two, there's one more but it's a bit too awkward to type out on my phone; Elastic: there were two Lead SRE positions open, I was recommended to apply, so I applied (friend still works there). I passed the interviews and was offered the job, the other job was filled by someone internal; they rescinded the job offer after having a candidate who was just as qualified but was female. I was offered a position under her. I would have been happy to take the lower position if I hadn't been offered the other one (and accepted) and if it hadn't been on the stated basis that it was because they wanted a woman and that's why, nothing about personality, culture fit, approach or even skill fit. Ubisoft Massive: I applied for an Architect position (a promotion), I was told that I need not bother applying as the position was only going to be filled when we found someone with a non-white ethnic background, and preferably a girl. This was not long after being told by HR that "my next hire had better be a woman" after hiring a 45+ year old white Swedish guy, so I should have known. -- For balance; I'll say that my ethnicity has helped me too once, I got a job at Nokia partially because I was natively English speaking, so it's all swings and roundabouts.
- solid_fuel 9mo ago
  > He was directly told that he won't be promoted because he was a white man. Even if that was true (I don't believe his allegation), that's just _one company_. He obviously considered himself a very intelligent and capable person, so it seems the obvious next step would be to go work basically anywhere else? The Dilbert comics never seemed to push the ideal of company loyalty, so I don't think he felt trapped by obligation there. One only needs to look at the upper management and board of any fortune 500 to disprove the idea that only non-white women are getting promoted.
dpkirchner 9mo ago
I wonder if any of his then-peers who were also white men got promoted? I'm betting it was non-zero.

by maxbond 9mo ago

machomaster 9mo ago

[flagged]

maxbond 9mo ago
> He was directly told that he won't be promoted because he was a white man. I think Adams was lying. I don't think they ever told him that. For instance in contemporary interviews about his show being cancelled he gave reasonable explanations. Only later did he claim his show was cancelled unjustly. He also wrote a book with the subtitle, Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter. I think as his views hardened he didn't feel obligated to tell the truth, and/or that his lies were in service of a deeper truth. So I think he sincerely believed he had been passed over because of he was a man, but that that conversation never took place and he knew it. > If I remember correctly, it had more to do with his sex and not his race. You're right. I've updated the comment. Thanks for the correction. > Why would he work his ass off after that? He was phoning it in before that.
- saalweachter 9mo ago
  Hell, he could have been told that he wasn't promoted because of his sex/race/whatever by his direct superior who supported Adams' promotion but was overruled by his higher ups/the committee. "Older white guy boss tells younger white guy Adams that he doesn't have a future because the company is only promoting <slurs> and <slurs>." is something I would totally believe happened. Source: if you're a white guy, other white guys tell you all sorts of things you'd think they'd keep to themselves.
  - mrguyorama 9mo ago
    Or, as how it usually happens, the guy who told him "You aren't getting promoted because you are white" was just wrong himself I don't know why people always seem to forget that essential default. People say things that aren't true all the time.
    - saalweachter 9mo ago
      Oh yeah, I meant that to be implicit in what I was saying. I have zero problem believing that his boss or whoever told him that, or that said person was just talking out their ass.
    - machomaster 9mo ago
      People's words and explanations have greater significance when the observed reality supports it. I am sure it wasn't only the words that convinced Scott Adams, but the observed reality of who is being promoted and who is not.
      - mrguyorama 9mo ago
        >I am sure it wasn't only the words that convinced Scott Adams, but the observed reality of who is being promoted and who is not. Humans regularly misinterpret reality. It's why as a species we couldn't figure out jack shit until we started removing ourselves as arbiter of truth. We are terrible at evaluating information and making conclusions. My dad is pissed at a company for passing him over because "They only hire gay people in management" and not because.... he doesn't have an MBA and the people they hired do. Or that he doesn't know how to do anything more than low level management in general. Or that he is bad at big picture planning. Nope, definitely the gays and this woke DEI. My brother spent most of his life livid at "affirmative action" and seemingly blaming it for his limitations. Rather than blaming the fact that he did drugs instead of leveraging his intelligence to do well in school, dropped out of community college for no reason, and has never even applied to a real institution of higher learning or attempted to educate himself. Some people just suck at recognizing their faults and make up boogeymen to blame.
plorkyeran 9mo ago
To put it simply, I do not believe his recounting of events. I think that he convinced himself that was the case, but the conversation did not actually happen as he remembers it.
- dijit 9mo ago
  I understand this might be unpopular, but I’ve been told exactly this… directly, to my face, on multiple occasions. The last time it happened, I asked for it in writing. Unsurprisingly, that request went nowhere. Whether it happened to Adams specifically, I can’t say. But I can state with absolute certainty that this happens, because it’s happened to me repeatedly. Either it’s more widespread than people want to acknowledge, or I’m unusually unlucky. And yes, it’s a radicalising experience. It’s taken considerable effort and time to regain my equilibrium when discussing these topics.
  - maxbond 9mo ago
    Could you share more about the context? When? For what position? In what sort of organization? Personally the only time this has happened to me was when I applied to be a bartender and was told there was a quota for men and women and they had recently hired a man. And I just let that one go, partly because it was a lark and not a career move, partly because I could see the logic in it and chalked it up to the inherent seediness of the enterprise, and partly because my identity had opened a lot of doors for me in the past ("you look like Mark Zuckerberg" was a comment I got when I was hired at my first startup, in a sequence of compliments about my qualifications) so I wasn't bothered by it closing one. I'm open to hearing other experiences though. I'm reserving judgment until I understand the context.
    - dijit 9mo ago
      Sure, and, cards on the table, I will not redact company names because I don't really see the point, these are my experiences not rumours. Here's two, there's one more but it's a bit too awkward to type out on my phone; Elastic: there were two Lead SRE positions open, I was recommended to apply, so I applied (friend still works there). I passed the interviews and was offered the job, the other job was filled by someone internal; they rescinded the job offer after having a candidate who was just as qualified but was female. I was offered a position under her. I would have been happy to take the lower position if I hadn't been offered the other one (and accepted) and if it hadn't been on the stated basis that it was because they wanted a woman and that's why, nothing about personality, culture fit, approach or even skill fit. Ubisoft Massive: I applied for an Architect position (a promotion), I was told that I need not bother applying as the position was only going to be filled when we found someone with a non-white ethnic background, and preferably a girl. This was not long after being told by HR that "my next hire had better be a woman" after hiring a 45+ year old white Swedish guy, so I should have known. -- For balance; I'll say that my ethnicity has helped me too once, I got a job at Nokia partially because I was natively English speaking, so it's all swings and roundabouts.
solid_fuel 9mo ago
> He was directly told that he won't be promoted because he was a white man. Even if that was true (I don't believe his allegation), that's just _one company_. He obviously considered himself a very intelligent and capable person, so it seems the obvious next step would be to go work basically anywhere else? The Dilbert comics never seemed to push the ideal of company loyalty, so I don't think he felt trapped by obligation there. One only needs to look at the upper management and board of any fortune 500 to disprove the idea that only non-white women are getting promoted.

dpkirchner 9mo ago

I wonder if any of his then-peers who were also white men got promoted? I'm betting it was non-zero.