Scott Adams is up to his old obliviously obtuse act again. You may recall that the creator of Dilbert is an apologist for creationism, a pathetic anti-atheist wanker, and a narcissistic sock puppeteer, but did you know he’s also an obnoxist sexist pig?
Oh, right, you did already know that.
OK, but now he’s revising his personal history and making up stories about being a poor oppressed man, crushed by the matriarchy.
Eventually, corporate America excreted me. My bosses explained that I was unqualified for any sort of promotion because I had boring DNA and a scrotum. That’s a true story, by the way. Reverse discrimination was a big thing in California in the nineties. And for what it’s worth, that was not the first time my scrotum had caused me trouble.
Yeah, the “reverse discrimination” thing is a give-away. It’s a load of hooey.
Now maybe, just maybe, some individual men were mistreated in such a way; women have the ability to be jerks, too. So you might suggest that possibly he was one of those few. Except Zeno did the research: a year after he was fired from his job in 1995, when it was still fresh in his memory, Adams published a completely different account of his dismissal.
I’d told all of my bosses I would resign if they ever felt my costs exceeded my benefits. One of the benefits, of course, was the positive PR. I get interviewed often. Anyway, in the spring of 1995 I got a new boss, and I reiterated my offer to resign if asked. A few weeks later he asked. The reason given was budget constraints. I’m pretty sure it was a local management decision, not one from the top.
It’s funny how his scrotum has now become nothing but a convenient bag to hold his contrived excuses.
I’d always assumed the boring was Nurture rather than Nature.
What a total shit fuck. *
*I could probably say something more eloquent if I took the time to think about it more. Maybe I could spend some time pointing out how obviously untrue his remarks are. Or what an entitled manchild he’s being. Maybe I could even spend time expounding on his complete inability to understand how he relates to the rest of the space time continuum. But I honestly think I nailed it in 5 words.
I suspect word of this article will get back to him, prompting him to write a silly defense… perhaps claiming that his first explanation was written before he was sufficiently brave to heroically speak out against the growing vaginocracy or some such drivel. Also, I suspect that his response will make no reference toward Zeno (the author of Land of Cows and Milk and Cows and Money and also Cows), but will instead be crying about coming under fire from that outspoken PZM guy. “How dare he ccatch me in a lie! He’s just a shill for the female agenda!” and etc.
an admission to utter averageness, or a dig at “diversity”, or…?
As far as I can tell, Scott Adams is a professional troll. He also claims to believe that evolution is false and humans were really created by time-traveling humans from the future. He’s one of those guys who deliberately says stuff no reasonable person would say, then claims the fact people got on his case about it proves something. He probably doesn’t really believe half this stuff, but he also doesn’t seem to believe that policy is anything but a game people play in order to feel clever.
It’s retroactive discrimination: it didn’t happen the first time, but the elves of the matriarchy went back in time and made it so.
Retroactive elves of the matriarchy is the name of my next band.
I work for a company that is known to be slightly discriminatory against women with regards to management positions. Even my own district, in the little liberal area I slumber in, has had a sordid history in this regard. So I play the world’s tiniest violin for those that whine about such Reverse Sexism. Especially since, like Adam’s story, it often turns out to be bullshit anyway.
I’m glad I never got too into Dilbert. Otherwise Adams becoming a colossal, clueless, sputtering sphincter on almost every subject under the sun would be disheartening.
My opinion of Adams started to crack when I read his ‘alternative theory of gravity’ in (I think) The Dilbert Future. He might have been joking, I suppose, and I understand his point that alternative ways of looking at things can sometimes be helpful or somehow equivalent for practical purposes, but I think he really thought that gravity is only the thing that sticks people to the floor and that he was making sense. My opinion smashed into a million shards when I read his views on ‘affirmations’: the idea that by writing down stuff you want to happen, you can somehow bring about that outcome. He equivocates a lot on the subject. He says he doesn’t believe there’s any magic going on, but that affirmations work anyway. Whether you believe in them or not.
And then came all the business PZ has mentioned. I stopped reading Dilbert, and I’m a computer scientist. It’s practically compulsory reading for computer scientists.
I suspect a combination, with the former being a potential “comedic” implication, and with a larger emphasis on the latter.
So… libertarian?
I think this kind of convenient misremembering is symptomatic of Teh Menz Brigade. Most commonly seen in “Elevatorgate is whatever the Slymepit says Elevatorgate is” Syndrome that afflicted many a fine JAQing off gentleman visiting our fine blog from afar.
Scott Adams actually brought me to Pharyngula.
100% serious.
I’d heard of PZ only in an off hand fashion from a few references by Phil Plait back when he had his Bad Astronomy blog (or at least before it moved). I did, however, read Dilbert; at latsos@8 says, it’s required reading for my profession. :)
Anyway, Scott mentioned on his blog that he was making this “PZ” dude dance. And he linked to a Pharyngula post, that I’m sure he thought would make his readers laugh along with him. I don’t even recall what it was exactly anymore, to be honest.
Well, I read PZ’s post. And despite having read pretty much every Dilbert cartoon, having read Scott Adams’ blog for ages, and not having ever read PZ before, it was immediately obvious to me that Paul Zachary Myers has more intelligence, wit, and integrity than Scott Adams can ever even aspire to. I became a regular reader here that day, stopped reading Scott’s silly drivel, and never once regretted it (it’s not that I always agree with PZ, but I always respect him, and the calibre of readers and commenters here a lot higher class too).
But I do still read Dilbert. I am occasionally troubled by this. I am, unsurprisingly, not overly fond of Scientology, but I still like John Travolta and I enjoy Tom Cruise’s movies. Mel Gibson’s meltdown has not managed to go back in time and ruin Mad Max for me. And Arnie’s blatant misogyny and near-homophobia doesn’t affect my enjoyment of his movies either.
I would, obviously, prefer that the artists whose work I enjoy did not hold opinions so diametrically opposed to my own, but at the end of the day I think it is possible to enjoy the art without condoning the artist. Though, as I say, it does occasionally trouble me.
Dammit, Holms, how did I ever miss such a perfect title!
But I agree that Scott Adams, if he bothers to say anything at all, will direct his objections toward PZ, preferring to concentrate his fire on a much bigger target.
Jadehawk
This one.
Ryan Cunningham
Yup.
I was disappointed when I about his affirmations-techniques. His position as Nerd overlord that he has carved from himself seems to be causing some Dunning-Kruger effects. If he was discriminated against it must have been one of the the other definitions of the word. However, I don’t see his statements as examples of selective memory or active misremembering. As they stand they are hardly enough proof for that.
One explains why he left his job. At that time Dilbert was already in 400+ papers. It’s not like he needed the job, at least he had no incentive to over-perform. He knew it which is why he asked his bosses to let him go if they felt he wasn’t worth keeping.
The first statement claims his bosses wanted to promote a woman. This might very well have been true. It’s still not discrimination so he’s being a whiny dick, but the second quote only conflicts with the first if you chose to read it that way.
I’m pretty sure I actually emailed him about that, pointing out his mechanism couldn’t explain orbits, as there’s no way Dilbert would move from one side of the planet to the other (I didn’t bother with anything technical like the inverse square law). I didn’t get a response.
Iain Banks bashes Californians for being self-involved. Scott Adams bashes Californians for being other-directed. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Left Coast is different, but shouldn’t there then be a consensus as to what that difference is? Are we all chanting “Om mani padme hum” or “We shall overcome”?
Scott Adams’ scrotum ∈ {things I never wanted to think about}
I concur with what Ace of Sevens wrote above @5.
I’d believe that… if he worked for Mary Kay cosmetics, as a door to door salesrep.
maybe.
California is everything.
We have racists here, we have self-involved rednecks, we have self-involved hippies, self-involved Republicans, and giving kind people also from those groups (other than the racists, perhaps.)
You can find a nice regressive town to live in in California without trying hard if you want to. Take Marysvale, for example. Seriously – please take it.
Whenever someone complains about California it’s because they either saw only the parts the hop-on-hop-off tourist buses went to, or more likely it’s simply because “it’s just not like home.”
Like a recent visitor from Tampa we had here who couldn’t understand why we allowed bikes on the roads (on the main bike route), or pedestrians in San Francisco blocking traffic, or why there wasn’t a massive parking lot at the Golden Gate bridge instead of parkland and hiking trails. He kept pointing out how stupid it was that we were overlooking a cash cow of parking fees.
Besides he couldn’t understand why people might be expected or even desire to walk.
Public transportation? Insane! Bike lanes, pedestrian crossings that work for pedestrians, trying to reduce traffic and pollution, NATURE WALK at Muir Woods? “You’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all…” he said.
People who bash California have either never been here or have been here but are the kind of people who still won’t eat anything that their mom didn’t cook.
[OT]
Jafafa Hots:
For perspective, it has nearly twice Australia’s population.
I can enjoy Dilbert without defending Scott Adams’ opinions. The result of people’s creative talents are not the people themselves.
Newton was an asshole. Freud was an asshole. And Martin Luther King was a truly great civil rights leader, but cheated on his wife.
Well, it was, maybe 10 years ago. It may be that every company I’ve ever worked for is an exception, but I’ve not gotten the impressions that anyone in the tech industry still reads Dilbert.
“Reverse discrimination”? So he admits that he thinks there should be discrimination, but it should only go in one direction, then?
I love Dilbert. It is the only comic I read. Now, having said that, I did not know that:
that the creator of Dilbert is an apologist for creationism, or,
a pathetic anti-atheist wanker, or,
narcissistic sock puppeteer, and definitely did not know he was an obnoxist [sic] sexist pig!
I have sheltered myself more than I realized. I have to pay better attention to your posts. Now I am going to have to make a whole reassessment of Adams and Dilbert.
I hate when you do this to me, PZ!
Scott Adams has been phoning it in for at least a decade. He seems to recycle the same old memes over and over. I admit I still read him in the newspaper, but I still read Marmaduke also.
For actually funny tech humor, google XKCD.
If you want some good, pro-science webcomics, here are a good couple to start with:
http://xkcd.com/
http://www.smbc-comics.com/
And every Sunday, http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/ runs an essay, normally diving into some branch of science, but they’ve also covered board-game design and the relationship between baseball and cricket, so that might be worth checking out.
The exact reason one of my cousins is circumcised.
My first thought when Adams said his scrotum was causing him trouble was to tell him he can have i t removed. But I would have to warn him that it would not help his stupidity.
Turning being obnoxious into a political ideology since…
California is everything…but it lacks those really big storm surges of the Mexican Gulf or the Minnesota* Nazis
*It was a long time since I watched Blues Brothers. It might have been some other state.
Someplace, someone is considering calling their band Scott Adams’ Scrotum even as you read this.
there is no fucking way I’m going to read a post with that title.
My scrotum and attached equipment has been getting me in trouble all my life.
” he also doesn’t seem to believe that policy is anything but a game people play in order to feel clever.”
This is what it is for his type. The “interesting intellectual exercise” of saying things because they seem plausible and you simply refuse to give any credence to what the evidence is pointing to as to how things work.
That line I quoted is also a pretty good description of libertarianism.
tsig
I’m not accusing you of meaning that entirely seriously, but it reminded me of this, which is worth sharing:
Nick Ross and the myth of the self-guiding penis
</OT>
Indeed. So many men’s rights arguments end up boiling down to “We must ALWAYS favor the man now otherwise it MIGHT be reverse discrimination. We all know that the MOST qualified is always a man, and so even if there are women who are qualified, to choose them when clearly you should want to choose a man is indeed reverse discrimination.”
Mark Chu-Carroll’s (sp?) post on it said it all: he was hiring to fill out his team, and a guy picked some dude from the pile of resumes as “the best.” Mark said he wanted to hire a woman, and the guy complained. Why shouldn’t we hire the best just because we want to hire a woman, was the complaint. But he went back and he found a woman whose resume was better. BETTER. The guy said so himself.
Mark asked him why that resume didn’t come out of the pile the first time as being the best resume.
Ultimately, it demonstrated to me that part of how “who is the best” gets evaluated already gives men an advantage that isn’t necessarily there. And that still doesn’t mean that there is only ever one possible option, and that given many qualified people, there may be other things that are considered when hiring.
Thanks for posting the Han Solo light switch after this article. I needed to read about something with way more class than Scott Adams.
I was, thankfully briefly, once drummer (and I can’t drum) in a hardcore band called Bob Vila’s Penis.
As usual, PZ Meyer (AKA The Bearded Taint) got all the facts wrong, or out of context. Kind of ironic for a science fan boy.
Here are some corrections, for the 1% of you who give a fuck.
1. I have been a non-believer in magic and gods since the age of eleven. That’s what The Bearded Taint calls “an apologist for Creationism.” That would be, um, opposite.
2. Questioning notions such as the definition of “intelligence” is threatening to some atheists such as Mr. Taint, and that gets me labelled as anti-atheist. By that thinking, every scientist who ever tried to replicate an experiment is anti-science because he isn’t taking earlier study tests as truth. Only idiots stop asking questions and accept everything they read.
And my regular blog readers understand that I challenge all universally accepted notions for sport and entertainment. Tourists to my site do get confused by that. They expect advocacy, and I generally don’t do that.
3. Sock puppetry can be used for good or evil. In my case, I was correcting these very same ridiculous Internet rumors under a fake user name because I know from experience that using my own name (as I do here) just causes idiots to come unglued. You’ll see that happen here. The sock puppet provided both privacy and a way to correct the facts without making it about the messenger. One of the rumors I corrected as a sock puppet is the rumor that I am a holocaust denier. I’m surprised PZ didn’t mention that one. (Not true, by the way.)
Obviously there is an evil way to use a sock puppet, such as plugging a product. Is that the same as correcting odious rumors on the Internet? Apparently it seems that way if you’re an idiot like the Bearded Taint.
4. As for the “obnoxious sexist pig” thing, most of you don’t know how the bottom-feeding part of the Internet (Jezebel.com, Gawker.com, Huffington Post, etc.) operate. The wannabe writers for those publications get their clicks, and someday more money, by picking celebrities and taking their writing or quotes out of context to make the ordinary sound despicable. It’s a common practice, and I’ve been targeted several times. I can assure you my views on gender are identical to the feminists who attacked me to forward their agendas. (And seriously, did you believe the feminists who accused me of being in favor of rape? Didn’t that seem just a little bit suspicious?)
I once thought The Bearded Taint was doing the same move, using my words out of context because my name would bring more clicks. But it seems he has now moved to full Confirmation Bias. I’m confident that Mr. Taint believes everything he wrote about me at this point, even though all of it is so easily researched on the Internet.
5. Lastly, my corporate “career” at the phone company ended when management told me they couldn’t promote a white male in the foreseeable future. That’s about when I started creating Dilbert on the side, as my new career hope. The corporate “job” ended a few years later when my boss asked me to leave, but by then I was zombie employee who only came to work a few days per week. I apologize for confusing Mr. Taint.
If you believe I am a Creationist, holocaust-denying, sexist, science-hating, sock puppet, you probably think I lied about my biography too. This little cloud of confirmation bias will follow me to my eulogy. But that’s part of the deal in my profession. I get that.
Scott Adams
…. And just for fun, what established bit of science do you ass-clowns hallucinate that I disagree with?
See if you can answer that question without taking something you imagine I said out of context. Simply state any fact, supported by science, that you believe I do NOT accept.
Good luck with that.
Scott, I used to be a fan of yours. Was even part of Dogbert’s New Ruling Class (Minister of Peanut M&Ms). Now? I’m ashamed and embarrassed I ever thought you were funny.
Both hilarious and sad. Very telling.
Non-believer and creationism are opposite. Non-believer and “ apologist for Creationism” are not.
Feminists attacked you to forward their agendas.
You seem to not approve of that.
Yet you claim to have identical views to these feminists i.e. the same agenda.
How exactly does that work?
Anyone else smell sophistry?
Wow Holms called it and NAILED it at #3 already! It’s like a script that keeps getting regurgitated and mistaken for new and fresh.
@Scott Adams:
Who’s PZ Meyer?
Wow, Scott Adams is a disingenuous asshole. Here’s Scott Adams defending his reputation via sockpuppeting, combating vicious Internet Rumor:
Oh, and Scott Adams on evolution:
Scott Adams and the typical “atheism is 100% certainty that there is no God” plus Pascal’s Wager:
Scott Adams on Teh Poor Horny Menz:
These are not “ordinary things” made to sound “despicable”. They are bog standard inanities and idiocies, even in context. All of the above can be found by following PZ’s links. With the exception of the sock puppeting quotes, all are fresh from Adams’ own blog. Just pretending otherwise to get even more of those sweet blog hits, Mr. Adams?
Isn’t it odd that the most effective way to portray Scott Adams as a stupid douche is show his own words?
Scott Adams is just Justin Vacula with an audience.
Sockpuppeting is not a tool that can be used for good or ill it is misusing a tool for ill
You fucking idiot
Who knew that in a career involving the drawing of lines might include stepping waaaay over them?
Come now, Ing, the man is a certified genius!
Rothron @ 15
I thought Felicia Day was “Nerd Overlord.”
…or was it Wil Wheaton?
@Akira
Scott is the pointy haired overlord
It is possible that Scott Adams is just so far above us that we, like gnats to his 11 foot tall hill giant, simply cannot comprehend the vast complexity and intricacies of his statements. Sure, our feeble minds might think “the only defense for that shit is just that he is trolling us with awful jokes” but Scott Adams is playing 12 dimensional chess with words. Our puny, insignificant brains simply cannot process the massive breadth and depth of Scott Adams’ cleverness and wit. We cannot see the distances that he sees. We cannot begin to grapple with the profundity and underlying truth and wisdom of his blog posts. We cannot begin to fathom the intellectual depths and complex moral rectitude of Scott Adams, the noblest of wordsmiths. We see him in simple terms that our simple mortal minds can comprehend, lest they be overwhelmed by the magnitude and splendor of his true form. We see only illusions. The feminist who begrudges feminists and thinks society suppresses male sexuality. The non-believer who insists that agnostic and atheist are in fact mutually exclusive groupings. The exile from corporate culture who knows more about evolution than scientists. But if we could see what Scott Adams sees, we would not sneer. We would not guffaw. We would kneel down and gouge out our eyes before him, lest our heads liquefy, and praise the power of the man who transcends it all. If only we could just get a hint, a peek out of a corner of our eye, of the true magnificence of Scott Adams, the most misunderstood hero and scholar our generation has ever seen.
Ing @ 56
He’s Londo Mollari?
(Yeah, I know. Adams did a cameo in a season 4 episode.)
Moar Scott Adams Truisms:
Sources (since the original has since mysteriously diskapeared):
http://manboobz.com/2011/03/15/scott-adams-to-mens-rights-activists-youll-never-win-an-argument-with-a-woman/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/03/24/scott-adams-to-mens-rights-activists-dont-bother-arguing-with-women-theyre-like-children/
http://www.salon.com/2011/06/20/scott_adams_dilbert_rape_remarks/
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/25/scott-adam-sexist-mens-rights/
How dare you folks take all those paragraphs and lengthy passages out of context.
4chan would straight kill you people, you know that? I mean, reading /b/ would literally be fatal for you, in the literal sense of the word literal, not in sense of the the 17 year old girl who literally died of embarrassment and is telling you about it the next day.
To be clear, I don’t recommend you go to 4chan, unless you’re trying to commit suicide.
Mostly though – I don’t see how anyone can take any of his blog posts so seriously as to be offended by them, or think they are dangerous in some way. He likes to play with ideas, bouncing them off the blogsphere the way my kid bounces a tennis ball off a wall when his sisters aren’t around to play with.
For example, Scott has proposed that this reality is a simulation being run by aliens somewhere. Not because it changes how any of us should handle life – because you aren’t going to break out of the Matrix and see the green symbols – but because it might explain some of the weirdness that is life, physics, etc. He’s kind of spitballing, and seems to be the sort of person who gets something from fleshing out some of his ideas by writing a full blog post out of them.
His disclaimer on a lot of his posts includes the suggestion that you shouldn’t base any aspect of your life on something a cartoonist says, and that you should read the content of his blog carefully.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate (above, and forgive me if I’m not getting the avatars and names right here) says that an original article has “mysteriously” disappeared. As I recall, he put up a post saying, essentially, “I took down the article because it was too much heat even for me.” At least one of the sources linked to has a post that might be from him says as much. Not so much mysterious, as explained.
I seem to remember a certain David Marshall baldly asserting that I did so, calculatedly and dishonestly, even after doing a more thorough quotation of everything within a one paragraph radius of the relevant passage.
A musing for any geniuses in the audience:
If someone claims something was “taken out of context” or that something is a “strawman”, most people just say “well, that’s settled then” and go on their merry way. I’ve seen it used and abused way too often to do so. The proper response to “out of context” and “strawman” isn’t “alright then, I guess you’re in the clear”. The correct response is “Show me”. If you are going to baldly assert that something is “out of context”, fucking prove it. Show the original context, show how that changes the meaning. Show your fucking work and don’t just assert that the original context changes everything without explanation. When creationists quote mine works, and the rest of us show that they are quote mines, we do so by pointing out the specific other words that make the quote mine disingenuous . Contrast the situation when atheists point out problematic Bible passages, and believers just flat say “out of context” and leave it at that. Or invent a context that changes none of the criticism. This shit is misused so often that I have almost as little concern for cries of “out of context” as I do for cries of “ad hominem”.
Sockpuppet?
@63: Seems likely, doesn’t it? After all, sockpuppeting isn’t a bad thing. Why not use it again?
@62: Is that badly or boldly?
Oh yes 4chan…that’s a great place to be. Great den of smarties there
@Derrill:
Fuck you and your “it’s satire so it’s funny” attitude, I’m sick of it and I don’t fucking care about the three post rule gods fucking dammit people are making me so fucking annoyed today,
Yeah, you must be new here.
So you are actually using the “it’s okay because he’s just trolling” defense?
Sorry, but “spitballing” about how women are whiny children and about how men are so very sexually oppressed isn’t any better than if he were seriously proposing the ideas. And as jokes or outright satire, “A Modest Proposal” it ain’t.
@64: Now, I see. It’s baldly. My knowledge of the english language has failed me once again. Sorry.
Ha, I gotta say, for a blog group called the freethoughtblogs, I see a painful amount of group think here.
Not like he does humor for a living and puts up a disclaimer to not take his nonsensical, just-for-fun musings seriously.
If these are the guys critics, it seems he must be doing Something right.
Yes, the thought that 4chan and /b/ may be vile and that some people may call it so… why the horror! The absolute, unadulterated humanity of it!
I’ve been around this interweb block a few times. I was a TotalFARKer, I hung out at Something Awful, I’ve been on 4chan… but then I grew up and stopped being such a fucking asshole and realized, “Hey, whether I ‘mean it’ or not, saying horrible things about people is a bunch of bullshit.” Clearly you’re not at that tiny level of maturity yet, so come back in 8 years or so…
Yes, of course. How very pedestrian of me. It’s “humour”! Therefore it has no influence on culture or the way people perceive things or anything like that! It’s like a tree falling in the forest when no one’s there to hear it.
postman, see definition 3.
(Don’t worry, normally my posts are rife with misspelllings and/or word omissions, so I don’t blame you for thinking that was a mistake!)
Ha, for an idiot who fancies himself some sort of Independenter-than-thou thinker, I see a ridiculously common meme.
(Also, it’s “groupthink”, you pioneer of thought. One word. A social psychology term, not just a word to use to thump your chest and brag about how smart and individual you are on the internet.)
@smith:
And fuck you too.
If I hear someone say “you just don’t get the joke” one more time, I’m going to fucking explode.
It’s not our fault if someone’s humor is indistinguishable from actually held beliefs. If someone’s humor is so advanced that it requires stepping into some realm of consciousness that only the select few can get, then they’ve fucking FAILED at humor.
(Seems like my number 73 was pointless. Should learn to type faster, refresh more.)
I suppose they are relying on a flipside to Poe’s law.
A sufficiently advanced humor is indistinguishable from right-wing rhetoric.
Or something.
Troll’s remorse. Talk about notpologies.
Is this “explanation” supposed to actually make Adams look better?
It’s fine, you don’t like his sense of humor, I usually don’t either. Often it’s boring and reused. What I do when I don’t like someone’s sense of humor is to watch or read something else. It’s a neat trick and saves me a lot of stress.
And anteprepro, you appear to be perhaps the only legitimately sleazy of the bunch since the rest of them are just saying his words and assuming everyone agrees with them that they are ridiculous. God knows he has said enough that ridiculing him isn’t hard if you want to take his words as actual representations of his thinking which you are free and possibly correct to do.
You quoting and responding to him:
“I can assure you my views on gender are identical to the feminists who attacked me to forward their agendas.”
“Feminists attacked you to forward their agendas.
You seem to not approve of that.
Yet you claim to have identical views to these feminists i.e. the same agenda.
How exactly does that work?”
Are you honestly telling me you are too stupid to know the difference between a personal agenda and an organizational/group agenda? He is obviously saying that individual feminist writers, whose overall project he claims to support, were trying to gain some personal fame by attacking him. He is clearly stating he supports the feminist agenda while disapproving of the fact a writer is trying to use his name to generate hits. Whether he’s lying or not about supporting feminism, playing that sentence up as if its nonsensical is intellectually dishonest and scummy on your part.
They wuz doing it for the CLICKZ!
Did you fail to notice that I am the one who quoted his words at most length, in largest qualities? Without comment? Clueless fucker.
Why do multiple feminists, sharing only their feminism, have the same anti-Adams personal agenda?
Yes, they are all just doing it for the sweet, sweet page views. How diabolical. I’m sure that there is a plenty of evidence to suggest that it was all a feminist conspiracy to get super amounts of attention from criticizing the words of legendary cartoonist Scott Adams. Instead of legitimately taking offense to his actual words. All just a disingenuous, money-grubbing scheme because obviously.
Right back at you, asshat.
And with “IT’S JUST FOR FUNSIES, GAWD” I have Douchebag Bingo!
What’s my prize?
Smells like a locker room in here…
———-
75, Katherine Lorraine, Tortue du Désert avec un Coupe-Boulon :
Bear the first to bear the second: Good point.
Bear the second to bear the first: Good point.
…
ad infinitum
Your very own Polanskimeter! Just don’t calibrate it in the vicinity of Adams and his fanboys!
A months free swill at the Pharyngula Saloon and Spanking Parlor.
Sounds disgustingly useful!
Funny stuff.
Nice dodge. I’m not even saying you’re wrong about them being legitimately offended and annoyed with his responses. I’m just saying you’re bullshitting in saying that he was being inconsistent there and you that knew you were and did it anyway. HE believed they are doing it for clicks as he stated. Thus, there is nothing inconsistent in being against the perceived personal agendas of a few writers and in favor of the broader one they represent. Unless you are arguing the few feminist writers who bothered to write about him somehow actually represent all of feminism.
Just admit you intentionally misrepresented what he said in order to make him seem even more ridiculous than his own words actually merited, give me my petty victory, and then we can happily get along with our day.
Did you know “SCOTT ADAMS” is an anagram for “GROTTY DOUCHECAKE”?
Disclaimer: This is Satire. I’m just throwing stuff out to see what sticks. Also, I’m questioning gravity.
I wonder if Smith25 is a sockpuppet. Supossedly SA is famous for such dishonesty.
User Friendly is another good one.
smith25, Derrill Guilbert
Can you assholes at least try to come up with some original material? Seriously, virtually identical whines turn up every fucking time some asshole is castigated for saying stupid bigoted bullshit. You’re not original, you’re not making any actual points, you’ve just decided that you get a bigger thrill from kissing up to shitheads than you do from trying to act like a decent person.
Gosh, smith25, don’t you like our sense of humor?
smith25@87:
How so? Show your work. If you’re right it shouldn’t be too difficult to demonstrate.
Reading what Scott Adams wrote here puts me in mind of watching GOB’s Jesus illusion in the new season of Arrested Development. (no spoilers!)
Most of you are fine as far as I can tell and I even agree with you that SA is probably dirtying the collective mind-pool.
@92
Just read further up, I already quoted the line I was discussing. Essentially anteprepro was conflating the agenda of a small group of feminists who wrote about SA as being that of all of feminism so that when SA said he didn’t approve of their agenda of writing about him for clicks, anteprepro used that to say that SA has to be lying when saying he supports feminism overall.
SA could easily be lying but there is no avoiding the conclusion that anteprepro is intentionally misrepresenting.
Hah. In a previous post, I should obviously have said “largest quantities” not “largest qualities”. Whoops!
Also, missed this:
I hope you will take your own advice, practice what you preach, and refuse to criticize anything, just like you are expecting us to do! If you see something you don’t like, don’t complain about it, don’t point out the thing that you find repellent, don’t bother expecting improvement or change! Just walk away, because that is a totally reasonable default response! Because anything else is to be frowned upon! Of course, considering that you can’t help but continue critiquing our posts, obviously just as little humor in them as we do in Adams’ screeds, if you aren’t actually bullshitting us and actually believe that this is how people should behave, that would require to stop posting here. I’m sure we will find that to be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Pathetic dodge. The idea that they have “an agenda” that involves demonizing him is utterly inconsistent with the fact that he also claims to agree to share the feminist agenda. What fucking agenda are we talking about you fucking douchenozzle.
When did you and Adams gain psychic powers? Adams knows that a select few feminists were out to get him for reasons other than feminism, viciously and callously criticizing him in order to get page views and internet fame. You know that I am out to get Adams by pointing out a contradiction that I somehow know isn’t a contradiction because I just hate him that hard. And yet we aren’t allowed to even insinuate that Adams isn’t really a feminist, because this is just yet another case of “e-psychiatry for me, but not for thee”.
FTFY
smith25@94:
Can you name three sites that post a lot of feminist writing that don’t appear on Scott Adam’s list? Which feminists aren’t criticized by Adams in that statement?
Also, please demonstrate how you know Anteprepro made this conflation intentionally as you say in your accusations.
(Obviously when I say “show your work” I’m indicating that you haven’t done so yet.)
ur so cool
uh huh. Sure it can..
Oh, that was Scott?
Weird, I remember it differently. Seems to me it was my pal Buzzy. That night Eddie had the Thai-stick and we hung out down by the creek and all the fireflies were out. Back in ninth grade. In 1973.
Hey, has Scott ever suggested that you look at your hand, but, like, really look at it?
ya think?
You know what, if that is how you are going to interpret that paragraph of Adams (and you actually do have a point after I read it again!), then I wasn’t just wrong, I was more charitable than I should have been to Adams.
Oh yes, he establishes that what he is talking about is people trying to get money for clicks. He refers to the “bottom-feeding part of the Internet”, lists fucking Gawker and the Huffington Post as examples, and then leads into the parts where he talks about “feminists” and their “agendas”. I was accidentally kind, assuming that these “agendas” was the “feminist agenda”. Because I did not attach the beginning of the paragraph to the end. I did not think that he would readily associate feminists with Gawker and the HuffPo. I did not think that he would readily associate “feminists” with the “bottom-feeding part of the Internet”. But he totally did. So, more bog standard shit really. The standard demonization of feminists while pretending to be a Real Feminist.
Really, there is no excuse: He gives examples of places that aren’t necessarily associated with feminism, calls them bottom-feeders, and then proceeds to label his detractors from those bottom-feeding places “feminists”. I think possible humorous contradiction that I originally pointed out was far more mild by comparison. So thanks smith, you really were right. Thanks for helping me find out that I didn’t mock and condemn Adams nearly enough.
To Scott Adams: When i first started reading your blog, I wasn’t sure if you were some sort of crank, or were pretending to be a crank because you thought it was funny that people care what celebrities think about issues outside their expertise. After a while, I came to the conclusion you thought that the ambiguity was funny. It hardly seems fair to castigate people for calling you a crank when you deliberately cultivated that image.
Let’s presume you are right and bloggers are being unfair in their characterizations of you in order to get attention. Why is it OK for you to say outrageous things about women to provoke discussion and gin up interest for your blog, but women can’t do the same to you for the same reason?
Ha, my word.
“Pathetic dodge. The idea that they have “an agenda” that involves demonizing him is utterly inconsistent with the fact that he also claims to agree to share the feminist agenda. What fucking agenda are we talking about you fucking douchenozzle.”
Again with the conflating. Do you not understand me? Am I typing to some kind of stupid brute? People can self-label whatever they want. That’s their right. I don’t have to accept that they are the official spokesmen for that group. That’s my right. Unless there has been some kind of democratic vote amongst all self-referring members, they do not automatically represent the group. I’m Canadian. If I say all Canadians hate Americans for being anti-Canadian, none of that is necessarily true.
SA can say that these self-referring feminists have a personal agenda to piggy-back on his fame. Right or wrong, he can and does seem to believe that. What he doesn’t have to do is believe that these women represent all of feminism. I can believe George Bush was a criminal retard without anyone assuming I mean all Americans are. Why can you not understand that SA can say these feminists had a sleazy agenda without you assuming he means all feminists do?
As for the sites he lists, they do a lot more work than just feminist. I have a bit more respect for some of the work they do than SA obviously does but they are the sites the people calling themselves feminists wrote on. Feminists can write on whatever sites they can get published on. Including scummy, bottom-swelling sites. If you are truly in favor of equality between the sexes than stop putting women on a pedestal. Even ones calling themselves feminist can be shitty.
Idiot.
Not even going to acknowledge that I admitted I was technically wrong? You successfully got me to admit that my wry observation might have been off base. Granted, it wasn’t actually because of you. You couldn’t argue your way of a paper bag. You kept repeating the same shit over and over, assuming ill intent and vastly exaggerating how serious the implications of my argument were. You were too incompetent to actually show me that I was wrong by presenting the relevant text. You gave me virtually no reason to actually take you seriously. But you still won! And yet you’re still talking. Guess your petty victory wasn’t enough to get you to shut the fuck up, eh.
Because he is calling all critics from these “sleazy” sites “feminists”. Without any indication that this accurate. Yes, there are some feminists contributing to those sites. But they aren’t feminist sites. In fact, I can least vouch for the HuffPo being incredibly fucking sexist.
Why can you not understand that SA babbling on and on about websites that aren’t explicitly feminist, and then suddenly calling his detractors “feminists” is a tad suspicious? Why can you not understand that it isn’t enough that he isn’t saying all feminists are sleazy bloggers when he it is just as bad that he is labeling every “sleazy blogger” that “targets” him a “feminist”?
I don’t actually care what your answers are, by the way. You’ve wasted enough of my time quibbling about nothing of great import as if it were earth-shattering. I’ve had quite enough hyperparsing Scott Adams’ comments as if we were thoroughly analyzing every interpretation of a Bible verse.
Scott Adams claims that his views on gender are identical to those of the feminists who attacked him. Well, if they are, he’s not very good at expressing those views. Given that, he shouldn’t be surprised to face criticism.
:D
It’s so sad. I was subscribed to the Dogbert’s Ruling Class newsletter when it wasn’t anything but text in an email on a listserv, man. I got in around edition number 4 or so. And then he turned into this. So sad.
So an evil cabal of feminists are trying to advance themselves… by disagreeing with a C-list at best, painfully unfunny cartoonist who hasn’t been anything approaching relevant in years. Whose books are not accepted at even the shittiest of secondhand bookstores. Oh, that fame. I see.
Feminazi conspiracies work in mysterious ways.
So, shorter Scott Adams: 1) I’m a professional humourist and “The Bearded Taint” is the best I can do for a funny name. Also I don’t believe in the things that my writings suggest that I do.
2) I challenge things I don’t understand because I’m so arrogant as to think my uninformed opinion is equal to the knowledge of people who get paid to understand things.
3) I am not a holocaust denier, but I do sockpuppet. We’ll call this one a draw.
4) I view women as sub-human because they did it first. Or something. I’d be lying if I said I could grok your manner.
5) I am a white male, and lazy. For this I deserve pity and accolades.
Mr. Adams, I humbly suggest you stop speaking and start learning. But what do I know, right? Perhaps if I had a pseudonym to agree with me I’d have more credibility.
I’m just hurt I was not offered such a brilliant chance to advance myself, an elite mission catapulting me into fame by pointing and laughing at a newspaper cartoonist who’s unlikely to be recognized by name by most, and who shows all the inventive, artistic vision of Jim Davis. I guess I’ll just have to ramp up my misandry, collect a few more severed genitals of Nice Guys and eat a few babies in order to get such a plum opportunity.
You know what makes me sad? Scott Adams had a huge impact on my intellectual development. To be more specific and more ironic Scott Adams made me a feminist because of his comics.
In the Dilbert comics I sympathized with Alice the skill engineer who was held back by idiotic corporate culture and flagrant sexism. The jokes in the comics about those subjects were at the expense of the heinous sexists jerks who held her back. I sympathized with Tina the tech writer who was made irate and irritable by her horrible working conditions and the horrible jerks who didn’t care about her. The jokes about her frustration that stand out clearly were always at the expense of the assholes who made her life hell. I sympathized with Carol, the Boss’ secretary, she was caught in a dead-end job working for an incompetent bungler whose only relief was petty revenge. The jokes revolving around her were the wish fulfillment of the powerless.
The frustrations that the characters suffered came in no small part because of their gender, and so I wanted to see them succeed and I wanted all the other characters to stop giving them shit just for being women. It saddens me that an author who I admired and learned from turns out to be such a horrible person. Scott Adams’ writings made me a feminist who cares about equality. Scott Adams has in fact made me someone completely unlike Scott Adams.
Whoa, that was totally harsh and uncalled for!
At least Jim Davis was smart enough to approve of Garfield Minus Garfield.
I read somewhere that Jim Davis didn’t start Garfield to create great art; he was in it for the money, and as a long-time advertising guy he had a plan for churning out the dollars. And you know…he did it.
Some clarifications:
1. In both of my corporate jobs, Crocker National Bank then Pacific Bell, my managers called me in and told me frankly that they couldn’t promote a white male in the foreseeable future (as in years) because there wasn’t enough diversity in management and they were getting heat about it. That wasn’t just my interpretation; both managers said it as plainly as I just did. And it applied to any job opening in the future.
2. How can I be an apologist for creationism while clearly stating my view that it is a myth? If I’m defending creationism, I’m doing a piss-poor job of it.
3. Some of you need a quick tutorial about context. For starters, you always need the entire piece. Entire paragraphs, or even several of them, as a some of you have quoted, will always be incomplete, and often misleading without the rest of the piece. And if you quote the entire piece that ran on Dilbert.com (where readers understand that my ideas are just for play) and put it just about anywhere else that people expect advocacy, it looks like trolling, or evil.
By analogy, the science writing in a sixth grade school book might be perfectly suited for kids, but if you published it in a serious science journal it would look like an idiot or a fraud wrote it. Context is also about who reads it where and when. My writing on Dilbert.com is meant as nothing but brain tickling, and I position it that way. On this site, or any site dedicated to advocacy, my writing looks like Satan’s flaming turd. I get that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the writing is broken. It is just misplaced.
And yes, I understand “how the Internet works.” That’s why I say that he who moves the content to a different site, and thus a new context, becomes the new author because the change in context changes the meaning.
4. I’m getting the feeling that most of the anger I’m seeing is related to my apparent arrogance in writing about topics I know little or nothing about. Perhaps that feels insulting or threatening to people who actually understand the topics. My regular readers know I frequently confess my total lack of knowledge in the topics I choose. I often write from the perspective of a confused lay person who just has some curiosity or questions. And I say as much, fairly often, but if I don’t say it on every post, that’s when I get in trouble. So that much is certainly on me. My regular readers know I embrace my ignorance, and part of the fun is that they wade in and set me straight. My process is meant to be interactive that way. When you strip out some paragraphs of my writing, or even an entire post, you lose that level of understanding as to what I’m up to.
5. For those who think I’m anti-woman, is that even a thing? Do you think I read about Hillary Clinton being our likely next president, or the fact that more women than men are in college, or that more women than men are becoming entrepreneurs, then think to myself that women aren’t pulling their weight compared to men? What idiot thinks that way in the year 2013? And I left off the whole “creating new human beings” part of the equation. Just ask yourself how likely it is that I hold the anti-woman views so many of you imagine.
Notice that no one has taken me up on my offer to state something that science supports that I don’t. Failing that, and all of you will, you might consider the alternative explanation, that some types of writing taken out of context are more misleading than others.
Or you could consider the alternative explanation, that your communication skills are piss-poor.
Scott, with regards to your fifth point there, yes, misogyny is incredibly common. It is, in fact the cultural default. Some people are more or less virulent in it, but we all are steeped in it, and do have to consciously unlearn it. The fact that you aren’t aware of how very common casual misogyny is speaks a lot to your own insulation from what sexism actually looks like.
Now, on to your statements about women and sexual assault. Even keeping in mind that you admit that you’re not at all knowledgeable about the subjects, have you ever wondered if maybe there might be something to the many, many women (and nonbinary-gendered people, and men) who are saying “Fuck, man, that is some serious misogynist bullshit!”? Like, instead of sputtering that you’re being so misinterpreted, can you maybe think a bit on why that keeps being a thing that is said, with inks to your work to back it up? And that maybe, as you admit, there are people who know more about it than you, and might therefore be right? Also, gotta say, I’m not so much seeing people wading in and setting you straight and there’ fun and learning, as people set you straight, and you yowl and whine and throw a temper tantrum that you’re just oh so misunderstood. That’s not interaction and entertainment as it is spoonfeeding a fussy baby 101-level information.
Scott, your basic schtick on your blog seems to be to say something deliberately calculated to piss people off, or tickle their brains if you prefer, then when people get pissed off, you say that wasn’t a reasonable reaction. Depending on the subject, you may act confused and hurt that you were misinterpreted or smug that you are so much more reasonable than these people who go off the handle. I guess we all fell for it and proved your point,whatever that it.
I’m really not at all interested in finding out either after you write assinine things referencing your scrotum.
But you go on thinking that we just don’t understand your dudely deepitudeness, rather than taking on board the fact that we are disgusted by your sexist remarks.
Not if it’s correct, it wouldn’t. It would look a bit inappropriate for the venue, but no one would think an idiot or a fraud wrote it.
If it’s wrong, however, that’s another thing entirely.
You yourself think that the only reason you couldn’t get promoted was that some kind of “woman quota” had to be met, not that it was at all possible for a woman to be better qualified than you. So yeah, it appears to be a thing, and you appear to be the idiot who thinks that way in the year 2013.
My opinion. It looks like a lot of people need to improve their reading comprehension, and probably think considerably more before writing. It seems a bit like someone seeing a swastika and going on a rant about Nazism without realizing that the symbol was in a different context.
Of course it’s also possible (though I deny the plausibility of it), that my reading comprehension skills are lacking.
Scott Adams takes umbrage with being called an apologist for creationism when all he is doing is spreading anti-evolution memes!
Scott Adams boldly claims everything is out of context! Every single fucking quote that isn’t a cut and paste of the entire article is “out of context”.
Scott Adams insists that all the bad things he is written aren’t really that bad because he was really unserious, just jacking off in public, and not sincerely believing anything he actually writes.
Scott Adams is baffled at the idea that people would think he was a misogyny because misogyny obviously doesn’t exist in this day and age! Obviously!
Apparently the problem with Scott Adams isn’t that he is a sockpuppeting egotist, a science denalist, an anti-feminist: He’s just a lackluster clown. If he got better at clowning, then none of this would be an issue, apparently.
Well due to your convenient lack of specifics, I guess we’ll never know.
But that was a joke . Whenever you look at me like that, it’s a joke .
You don’t think that, in your analogy, that the person using the symbol ought to recognize that it’s been completely co-opted by the Nazi connection and therefore might want to choose a different symbol to avoid that confusion? At least, if they want to be a decent communicator?
No it’s more like Scott putting on a SS uniform to prance about and then smugly explaining the Hindi origin of the swastika to the annoyed offended jews.
Wow, Scott Adams is such a #bravehero, guys. *flutters lashes*
You guys take yourself way to serious, get a life
Your concern is noted, kaileyre.
And you have nothing better to do than read threads about things you don’t care about and then complain to those people that they aren’t using their time wisely?
Holy hell. This would be hilarious if it weren’t tragic.
Both sides of this argument consider themselves to be part of communities that are intellectually free, conceptually progressive, deeper thinkers than the average netizens. From what I can tell, this is very much the case. And yet it didn’t take long for you lot to start calling each other douchebags. My rule of thumb is if you know what an ad hominem attack is, and you know why it’s a logical fallacy, then consider avoiding using them. I’m not talking about those attacking Scott Adams – that is, after all, what the spirit of this discussion is all about – but maybe we could all take a deep breath here.
I’m not waving the hippy flag, calling for brotherly love towards all folk for the sake of it. I’m motivated purely by pragmatism – insults make people angry, and people being angry explains the chronic misinterpretations and strawmen being thrown around. Both sides are guilty of this. Call Scott Adams a scrotum-knuckle if you must, but let’s keep things a tad civilised towards each other.
Now that I’ve lost all credibility in your eyes…
First of all, to the anti-Scott crowd… well, he has a few points. Some of you are misinterpreting what he is saying. For example, if he says “I couldn’t get promoted, then or in the forseeable future, specifically because I was a white male, and was told as much” and you reply with “you haven’t considered that these women were more qualified than you” (post 118) then you have missed the point. Unless you think he’s lying about that, which is a whole new accusation. And even if he was lying, it’s true as a general concept – it happens to less of a degree here but it does happen, and it pisses off the staunch feminists more than anyone (as it turns out they don’t like to be patronised).
To the pro-Scott crowd… that post about feminists and male urges and stuff was weird as hell. I’ve read his blog, I know what he’s like, and I even get the point he was trying to make. But he could have made that point in an entirely different, far less inflammatory way. He wrote it that way to get a reaction. All this is what he wants. After all, he linked to this discussion from his blog. His tone might have been “oh how quaint, my critics stir, no bother” but if he didn’t care, why post the link at all? You could practically smell his popcorn. He’s liking this conflict. He’s loving it.
Anti-Scotts, do you really think he is misogynist based on the feminist/male urges post? Because just as many male rights activists took issue with it. So he’s either not sexist or sexist against both genders, which could be called a number of things, but ‘misogyny’ isn’t one of them.
Anti-Scotts, you don’t all believe that sock puppetry in all its forms is malicious, do you? If so then you are suffering from a failure of the imagination. On an old message forum I once created a sock and played a game, using it to ‘vandalise’ the various rooms with ambigrams, in the style of Angels and Demons. Lame? Maybe. But it was fun, made all the more so watching people trying to figure out who the puppet really was. That’s just one example – we had a lot of fun with puppets.
But closer to the topic at hand, imagine a hypothetical person, if you will. You like this person. This person is famous. A lot of people hold opinions about this person that the person feels are way off. Every time this hypothetical person’s name is mentioned, in some crowds, people see red. So they can’t defend themselves as anything they say is shredded before reading. In this case, creating a persona with the perception of neutrality can convey messages that person can’t.
Do you still agree that sock puppetry in all its forms is the tool of Satan? Or is it reprehensible simply because Scott Adams is doing it?
Scott Adams is an attention-seeking twat who likes to take interesting ideas and dress them up in needless controversy. It’s how he gets his kicks, or something. But I don’t buy that he is anti-science or anti-woman. He views the world through the lens of whatever the economist’s version of the scientific method is. I know this because he is one of the many writers that gave me my grasp of logic and analysis*.
It sounds like the world’s biggest copout to say that taken over the majority of his blog, the so-called sexist comments are out of context. I guess it’s like if you have a mate who loves his wife, loves his sisters, values his female employees based on their merits, but very occasionally makes a sexist remark, does that make him sexist? Maybe. Maybe not. If asked, you’d assess that person based on everything you know about them. Context is tricky.
So there are my thoughts. Anti-Scott crowd, feel free to call me a scottpuppet. Both sides, feel free to call me a douchette or turdbit or whatever colourful terms come your way. While you’re at it, nitpick irrelevant details while ignoring the keys of my message. But you’re all smart enough to know that extremes of opinion rarely hold water, and that the situation is always more nuanced than it appears.
*if your first reaction is to insult my intelligence for having such a poor intellectual role model, then a) that’s not even remotely clever, b) that’s ad hominem, and c) that’s wrong
Hey MInstrel, you don’t know what an Ad Hom is.
If I had a genie wiping that phrase from the internets half formed lexicon would be wish #2
*scroll scroll scroll*
Yup you did.
Irrelevant. Scott Adams played off his sock puppetry as being “good” for two reasons:
1. If people saw Scott Adams defending Scott Adams, they wouldn’t listen.
2. He needed to respond to combat vicious internet rumors.
Except he either lied or exaggerated 2, because he didn’t so much combat rumors as self-promote . Which is completely disingenuous and not really a use of sock puppetry “for good”. This has already been addressed. Were you too busy lecturing BOTH SIDES to notice?
Also, avoid gendered insults (you’re new I take it?).
That’s a nice way to preemptively dismiss criticism.
Oh yes, “the truth is always somewhere in between”. Speaking of fallacies, try Golden Mean Fallacy.
(Seriously, the only consistent explanation of “nuance” that Adams and his defenders can find is that Adams was “doing it for the lulz”. So instead of being sincerely anti-evolution, sincerely sexist, he is just an insincere troll who likes to forward anti-evolution and sexist memes for shits and giggles. Is that somehow a less extreme opinion of him? Because I’m sure some people might think so, but I don’t think it’s an improvement)
Here’s my impression of Minstrel:
“I’m going to pretend that this crap I’m sitting in here in The Middle is magically The Truth.”
Not since the good old days of soc.men and soc.women have I seen so many people get so worked up about nothing. In every sense of the word, you people are hysterical.
Says the person getting so worked up about what we think…
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, fuckwit.
EVERY sense of the word, huh. So you think we all have uteruses which have come unmoored within our bodies and are wandering about, bumping into our other organs, causing us mental and emotional distress? Fascinating theory. Do you have any evidence for it?
So if this parade of people are all Sockpuppets like they appear to be do they represent Sockpuppetry being used for good or for evil?
I hereby declare myself to be The Paragon of Truth and you all to be Flaming Assholes.
Thank you for your time.
wigan:
So…men have uteruses, do they? How interestin’.
Well, it sure would explain that inexplicable chest pain I had earlier this year…
Says the person getting so worked up about what we think
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, fuckwit.
So you think we all have uteruses which have come unmoored within our bodies and are wandering about, bumping into our other organs, causing us mental and emotional distress? Fascinating theory. Do you have any evidence for it?
What’s amusing is that none of you seem to realize that you are doing nothing but proving my point.
Oh no. I have proved wigan’s point. That is terrible.
Wait, wigan had a point?
wigan:
Hahahahahahaha. Oh my. No, no we aren’t, Cupcake. You are providing amusement, however.
Well, some men do. Does not make them hysterical.
Scott Adams@112:
So if someone quotes anything less than the whole piece they are not presenting the context but if that person quotes the whole piece that “looks like trolling, or evil.”
You seem to have found a way to prevent any criticism of your ideas whatsoever. Too bad this strategy will only work on dimwits.
You’re a professional troll. Just embrace it like Weev did and everyone can move on. No one is obligated to think you’re a swell dude.
Nice to see Scott Adams and all three of his friends have the afternoon off or womething. Unless they’re employees, in which case I hope they get health care.
Myeck I strongly suspect you’re giving Adams too much credit, this entire cavalcade of nimcompoops smells of old stale socks.
And as a corollary, if you think “ad hominem” is just a fancy Latin term for “insult”, maybe using it doesn’t make you look as smart as you think it does.
Well, yes. He’s lying. Large corporations with HR departments and legal departments might well deliberately and blatantly break anti-discrimination laws in their hiring and promotion policies, but they’re not going to be stupid enough to admit it to the people discriminated against.
It’s possible, but risky, that Scott’s boss, knowing he was a terrible employee and never going to get promoted might try and save his feelings by claiming it’s all down to those evil feminists; Scott probably won’t sue, and if he does, the company can prove they’ve promoted plenty of other men cheaply enough. But even then, the manager would probably get fired for inviting the suit.
Some people @112 for example, should learn to stop digging.
No, really, this is fun for me.
1) subject/referent disagreement (you guys/yourself)
2) ‘to’ for ‘too’
3) ‘serious’ as adverb
4) comma splice
That’s pretty high density stuff.
Yes, it’s such a terrible tragedy. Otherwise, we could laugh about it. Somebody thinks Scott Adams is an egotistical dipshit. I can’t stop crying. Or else I’d laugh instead.
“Hey MInstrel, you don’t know what an Ad Hom is.”
Hey you’re right. Name-calling is even lower on Graham’s Hierarchy than a genuine ad hom.
It turns out I was giving you all too much credit. Sorry if that offended you.
“Irrelevant. Scott Adams played off his sock puppetry as being “good” for two reasons:
1. If people saw Scott Adams defending Scott Adams, they wouldn’t listen.
2. He needed to respond to combat vicious internet rumors.
Except he either lied or exaggerated 2, because he didn’t so much combat rumors as self-promote . Which is completely disingenuous and not really a use of sock puppetry “for good”. This has already been addressed.”
Fair enough. There can be a fine line between self-defence and self-promotion, but he definitely crosses it. I was more taking issue with blanket statements regarding puppetry – it has its uses, big and small, good and evil.
“Were you too busy lecturing BOTH SIDES to notice?”
And lecturing both sides is now suddenly such a negative thing? I am actually considering both viewpoints and finding fault with each. Curses to me.
“That’s a nice way to preemptively dismiss criticism.”
Thanks. You’re not nitpicking, but that’s not true for others. Was I too subtle?
“Oh yes, “the truth is always somewhere in between”. Speaking of fallacies, try Golden Mean Fallacy.”
Yeah, that fallacy can lead to some weird outcomes, but have you noticed that it kind of works for people? Consider that Scott’s blog attracts a lot of smart people and generates some very interesting discussions about science, society, whatever, most of which no one outside the blog hears about. So either all of these people are seduced by his charms and are blind to the obvious, or no, he isn’t the extreme anti-science, regressive scumsucker portrayed in this thread.
“(Seriously, the only consistent explanation of “nuance” that Adams and his defenders can find is that Adams was “doing it for the lulz”. So instead of being sincerely anti-evolution, sincerely sexist, he is just an insincere troll who likes to forward anti-evolution and sexist memes for shits and giggles. Is that somehow a less extreme opinion of him? Because I’m sure some people might think so, but I don’t think it’s an improvement)”
Yeah, I agree. Trolling can be fun for all concerned, it can be thought provoking, it can be a way to shake up a stale conversation. The sexist memes post did neither. He took a warped viewpoint and wrapped it in extreme language, most likely to provoke a result. It isn’t cool and it isn’t clever.
“Here’s my impression of Minstrel:
“I’m going to pretend that this crap I’m sitting in here in The Middle is magically The Truth.””
Excellent critique.
“Well, yes. He’s lying. Large corporations with HR departments and legal departments might well deliberately and blatantly break anti-discrimination laws in their hiring and promotion policies, but they’re not going to be stupid enough to admit it to the people discriminated against.
It’s possible, but risky, that Scott’s boss, knowing he was a terrible employee and never going to get promoted might try and save his feelings by claiming it’s all down to those evil feminists; Scott probably won’t sue, and if he does, the company can prove they’ve promoted plenty of other men cheaply enough. But even then, the manager would probably get fired for inviting the suit.”
That does make sense. It does seem entirely possible. But that doesn’t make Scott’s experience impossible – I’ve known managers who have said entirely inappropriate things to their staff (forget denying promotions, a gay friend of mine received death threats from his boss) but if it’s entirely off the record, no witnesses, no proof, what can you do?
Anyway, I wandered into this discussion with an appreciation of both sides. Not in a wishywashy, weak-agnostic-can’t-be-bothered-having-an-opinion way, but with the ability to see parts of each side’s point and the desire to see more. Apparently that’s worthy of ridicule from some of you. Others actually addressed my points. I actually like dialogues, that’s why I’m here.
Yeah, that wasn’t my point. Maybe my point was obscurely hidden in the next paragraphs. Or maybe it was hiding under a rock. Anyway, thanks for reading a whole sentence before replying.
[meta]
Minstrel, your delusion of competence amuses me no less than your credulity.
I’m not discussing your “point”. I’m making fun of your language.
This is pretty funny too:
But just funny. Not tragic at all.
Really? Vague, elitist amusement? Those are your rebuttals?
Taking your leads, I see that incompetence refers to “disagreeing with you about some things” and competence means “posting a bit, but not actually contributing to the discussion”. I mean, if between the two of you the most substantial post is 98, which added nothing, and the rest being grammar critiques and “I agree with so-and-so”, then don’t worry. I’m not offended.
Minstrel:
<snicker>
To what rebuttal do you refer? I concur with you (cf. #19): “Trolling can be fun for all concerned, it can be thought provoking, it can be a way to shake up a stale conversation. The sexist memes post did neither. He took a warped viewpoint and wrapped it in extreme language, most likely to provoke a result. It isn’t cool and it isn’t clever.”
Your competence is exemplified both by this determination and by your ensuing indulgence.
Why should you be? We both agree that Scott Adams is shown as neither cool nor clever.
That’s easy. You can sue.
If someone’s making death threats, that’s basically impossible to prove in court, true. But if they’re only promoting women, well, that’s going to leave some proof in the form of only women being promoted. If the company can’t point to a significant number of men promoted over that period, it’s going to be a short case.
Are you people serious? Would any of you like to see your comments taken out of context and then have people spew hatred and misguided analysis about it? I think not… you all need to grow up for crying out loud.
mario17847
What, act like a real whiiite man?
Out of context? Believe me, he’s made enough of these statements that we’re well aware of the context. The context makes it worse, not better. Besides, did you notice that he made some entirely self-contained comments right here? No context to be removed – the context, you’re soaking in it.
Scott the Super Genius:
In other words, you completely lack integrity. So I don’t know why you should get all worked up about criticism.
Minstrel:
So?
He sure gets upset when the predicted, nay, designed response to his drivel comes up.
Yeah, it does. We all carry unconscious sexism. The important thing is what one does when called out on it. One can either learn from it, or deny and double down out of wounded pride.
some other thing, I dunno:
Calmer than you, dude.
With regards to possible sockpuppetry on this thread, I’d need pretty good evidence to believe it. I was around the first time PZ called out Scott on one of his ignorant and equivocating posts on evolution. He has a legion of fans who can and will descend on a thread like this one and pigeon-crap all over.
It’s like I keep saying whenever the sock puppet accusation gets thrown out here: There are lots and lots of idiots out there. It is in no way surprising when two (or even MORE!) find their way to the same thread.
Oh dear.
First, let’s for the sake of the argument accept the silly idea that the IQ is actually a useful measure of intelligence (let’s flat-out ignore the fact that you can train your ability to solve IQ tests, for instance). Well, a genius isn’t necessarily right, and isn’t even all that much more likely to be right than an idiot.
That’s because intelligence has to be applied to knowledge to yield anything interesting or useful. Plenty of geniuses pondered the paradox of Zeno’s arrow for well over 2000 years simply because they didn’t know that their basic assumptions were wrong: infinite rows can sum up to a finite number, and infinitely small amounts of time do not exist! There is no paradox at all here, nothing for those geniuses to wrack their heads over, if only they had known.
Now let’s drop this silly, counterfactual assumption about the IQ again. Wasn’t Aristotle a genius? He believed that women have fewer teeth than men. Maybe his wife never grew wisdom teeth and he did – and he was stupid enough to believe that his wife had to be representative of all women; he failed to imagine that individual variation might exist. Or take Albert “Genius” Einstein and his silly insistence that God must not play dice because he just mustn’t. Failures of the imagination are well known to occur even among geniuses. Scott “Sockpuppeteer” Adams has failed to imagine the possibility that intelligence might not be a monolith where several abilities are all developed to the same extent in the same person.
A genius who fails to quantify uncertainties and adjustments, failing to distinguish them from complete chaos? Can you really call that a genius? I call it an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Dunning, meet Kruger.
…I have an urge for sex. I do not have an urge for rape.
Really, I don’t. Perhaps you find that hard to believe, but I don’t want an unresponsive or unwilling partner.
Are you talking about yourself, Mr. Adams, and blithely assuming that every man must be like you?????
While I am at it, I clearly produce more oxytocin than some women I know and some that have become famous.
Who is “we”? Not everyone lives in the southern US or wherever. I was brought up to hold doors for everyone behind me (and within reasonable distance), not to let them slam in their male noses like an asshole.
It is, in fact, a national emergency of the US that the macho culture there now believes learning is for pussies and enforces this new rule.
I must be an idiot – I don’t understand the point of such ingeniously transparent pseudonyms!
So? Do you have a point?
What is the point of doing this with ideas that are based on such obviously wrong foundations like a fictitious universal male urge to rape?
I wonder if trolling is the point.
But maybe you plainly haven’t noticed how wrong your premises are. Applying impeccable logic to false premises leads to false conclusions, even when a certified genius does it.
I think you’re trying to say that every troll is a genius with a random capital letter somewhere.
I don’t understand how, but, hey, he’s the certified genius here.
But… but… he’s a genius!1!!1! Publicly disagreeing with a genius totally boosts your carreer!!!1!one!
No. Comment 117 is right: it would look like a boring simplification, perhaps oversimplification, of something everybody already knows. A 6th-grade schoolbook not actually written by idiots would not look like an idiot or a fraud wrote it.
There are schoolbooks that are actually written by idiots. What they get wrong, however, are plain facts that are by no means beyond the grasp of a sixth-grader. They aren’t fit to be used in 6th grade any more than they’re fit to be published in a scientific journal!
But why bother? Why don’t you begin by educating yourself (even Wikipedia would help, seriously) so you can ask better questions that your readers could answer without giving you an entire 101 course?
That’s probably the most detailed description of trolling I’ve ever seen.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Three problems.
1) It’s quite an insulting assumption that all those other people, every one of them, just “see[s] red” whenever the protagonist’s name is mentioned. Surely some of them have the basic background intelligence to read what is said independently from who says it?
2) It’s counterproductive. If it’s ever found out, people will really see red, because they’ll jump at the dishonesty rather than the comparatively innocuous reasoning behind it.
3) Neutrality? “Certified genius”, LOL.
Dance, troll! Dance! :-)
What does that mean? I can’t find anything wrong about the comma in that sentence.
Graham’s what?
*google*
Ah, this. It’s silly. I’ve never seen name-calling intended as an argument – I’ve only seen it as a conclusion.
Comment 61 by D[…]ilbert.
Okie-dokie. What was the context for Scott Adams hate? What context would make it possible to spew bullshit about the male urge for rape as anything but raw sexism?
Are you just going to say it’s a joke? It “Tickles the brain”? Well then what’s the punchline? “Haha I want to rape people” is not funny. “Haha Bitchez are shit” is not funny. Sexism is not funny.
Actually, he counted teeth in horses, and assumed that the same patterns held in humans. So not even as smart as what you suggested.
Let’s pause to look at the score.
This entire saga started with the original claim, a few years ago, that “Scott Adams is an anti-science creationist,” or some variation. Once you believed that, it was easy to believe subsequent Internet claims, such as the frequent Internet claim that followed, that I deny the holocaust. No normal thinking person would deny the holocaust, but what about a guy who doesn’t believe in science? That sounds plausible. And his alleged anti-woman opinions from the middle ages? That sounds entirely believable too, at least from an anti-science, holocaust-denying creationist. It all fits.
Earlier in the week I challenged any of you to make a statement that is generally accepted by the scientific community that I don’t accept. Everyone went silent, and for good reason. I’m as pro-science as one can get. So I think we can all agree that “anti-science” accusation that The Bearded Taint popularized was nonsense from the start.
As for the topic of the Bearded Taint’s latest rant, that I lied about reverse discrimination ending my career because I lost my “job” in a different way: The smart readers here understand the difference between a career ending and a job ending. So that contrived controversy was never real. The Bearded Taint is consistent, but not in a good way.
You can see from the comments that the criticism didn’t stop when the anti-science angle starved to death. Instead, it morphed into “Then he must be a troll because he is clearly saying things to get a reaction.” My understanding of trolling is that it involves saying stuff for no reason other than to start an angry Internet fight. But enough of my blog readers have stopped by here to explain that what I often do on my blog is try to defend the most indefensible ideas, just for fun. As long as the readers are in on it, as they are, it’s nothing but entertainment. (It only goes to shit when the writing is moved to an audience who has no way to distinguish it from advocacy or trolling. Yes, context matters.)
As for the accusations that I’m sexist, perhaps we disagree with the definition of that word. Sexism, like any form of prejudice, is how healthy minds work. Minds look for patterns and predict the future based on those patterns. That’s a necessary feature of a healthy mind, not a flaw. The evil happens if you believe general patterns apply to every individual within the group, and that causes you to discriminate, which is of course bad. So I’m 100% guilty of forming patterns in my mind, just like every normal human, but no one has ever accused me of discrimination against an individual. I try hard to avoid that.
The newest allegation against me is that I lied about losing my career to reverse discrimination. I saw a good argument here that says no company would be dumb enough to discriminate against me and tell me to my face they were doing it. That invites lawsuits. Is my story plausible? If you have already accepted that I’m an anti-science, creationist, holocaust-denying sexist, it isn’t a stretch to imagine I’m a liar too.
The information you’re missing is that both of my bosses who told me I couldn’t be promoted because of my race and gender were also friends. And they disliked the policy as much as I did. (One was a woman, by the way.) I don’t think they would have been bothered a bit if I sued the company. They were practically vomiting on the policy that had been handed to them. And anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows I’m not the suing type. In this case, while I hated the way reverse discrimination affected me personally, I didn’t have a better plan for improving diversity, and I agree society benefits from diversity over time. I usually give a pass to anyone doing a wrong for a noble reason. I think history will give the reverse-discrimination era a pass for at least trying to make the world better in the long run.
As for the allegation that my mocking of the so-called Men’s Rights movement turned out to be offensive to women, and anyone who knows women, that is clearly true. The facts are that I wrote something that people found offensive. If that bothered you, I apologize for that, as I have in the past. I wrote the offending sentences with full knowledge that they would be provocative at first read, then I would explain my meaning in the rest of the post, thus showing people that it wasn’t so alarming after all. Based on comments on my sites and others, I think my approach worked on my blog, where regular readers know my pattern, but it failed hard when it was spread to other sites. I take responsibility for my part of that.
As for the sock puppetry, keep in mind that no one has suggested I spread false information. I think you all realize I was correcting some truly hideous rumors and misinformation in the most expedient (for me) way. If telling the world you are not a holocaust-denying science-hater is seen as self-promotion, I have no response to that. I just find it baffling.
The reasonable people may now leave this discussion. Your work is done. You had legitimate question and doubts and I answered them. The rest of you, do what you always do.
Scott Adams
We won’t think of the poor, innocent straw?
“Defending the most indefensible ideas, for fun”. Totally not trolling. Nosiree.
Fixed.
Then why whine about how mean they were to you about your genitals in the first fucking place? To defend the indefensible for shiggles? And yet we were also supposed to believe that you were being honest and sincere about the events, while believing that you were being comical and completely insincere regarding your suggested motivations for bringing it up? Bullshit. Largely because you are no Stephen Colbert, Scott Adams.
Those rumors and misinformation being that people disagree with you and not realizing that you are a super genius who should not be doubted.
Yeah, go fuck yourself. Anyone with half a clue can tell that all of your petty excuses are largely just damage control.
Should be “Won’t you think of the poor, innocent straw?”
It seems there are a lot of people on this thread that take themselves WAY to seriously… quit whining already! Who among you has NEVER made a comment that may have been taken the wrong way by someone else, or was taken in a different way than it was intended? Is there anyone that can honestly say that? I highly doubt it, so why get all hot and bothered by a comment just because you don’t happen to agree with it?
I read Scott’s blog every day (or as often as he writes,) and I find most of them to be humorous, while others I find to be boring, or just not something I’m interested in. Do I always agree with everything he writes? NO! Guess what I do then… forget about it, and move on to something else. I certainly don’t take the time to write inane comments about it, and why should I? I’m definitely not self-absorbed or narcissistic enough to believe that anyone really cares what I think… and I guess that’s my point in writing this.
Scott has always said that our opinions are based on their bias on the subject. We believe any research, quotes, or news stories that back up our beliefs, and tend to disregard those that don’t. That is so true, and you all have done a marvelous job in proving his point!
mario sez:
Well let’s now play: Name That Whiner.
And while you ponder the answer to my question, on the subject of proving someone’s point, here’s something I said on another thread yesterday (edited slightly):
Now, cue the music.
This is freaking hilarious!
Considering that you think Scott Adams is usually humorous, I’ll take that assessment with a grain of salt.
Trolololo lo lololo lololo…
There it is again, the plaintive self-defeating bleat of the apathetic and lacking of integrity.
Do you want a cookie or something?
You just did.
mario17847:
Cupcake, your lack of a point just got caught in a sticky conundrum.
So, they hated the policy, but were still willing to be a party to it in exchange for money, but if they were fired for handing you an iron-clad law suit, they wouldn’t have been bothered. Seems a little confused, but then, I’m not a certified super-genius.
If they really hated the policy that much, why not mail a copy of the policy to the Department of Labor? I’m pretty sure that would have resulted in a rapid policy change.
If they did say that to you, I suspect they were protecting your feelings by blaming your lack of promotion on illegal corporate policies rather than your personal competence. That way, even if you do sue, Pac Bell can just point to all the other men they promoted and get the case dismissed cheaply and quickly.
But here’s another option: your healthy brain works like everyone elses, to re-edit events so that you’re to credit for your successes, but not to blame for your failures; do you think that’s possible?
personally, I just keep coming back in the hope that I can learn yet more about what Scott Adams thinks about the subject of Scott Adams.
Hey, he should know, right?
A comma splice is where two independent clauses (each of which could function alone as a complete sentence) are joined by a comma instead of a semicolon.
I was really hoping for a MENSA card reference in this thread
well, now that you’ve opened the door, Rev, I’ve been wondering: where and how does one obtain one of these here Genius Certificates?
Does Scott really get under your skin that much? That’s truly amazing…
I see mario is still here not caring at all and not wanting to waste his time.
Lawksamercy, people caring about things! How gauche.
Being a passive consumer zombie is what all the hip kids are doing these days.
Feel like bringing this up
http://www.cracked.com/funny-3809-internet-argument-techniques/
Because, again Scott. Everyone knows what you’re doing and no one is impressed.
I beg to differ, Ing. Adams has mario very impressed.
@Myeck
I said no one
zeroes are easily impressed
But perhaps I’m being too binary
Alternative joke
Ye swell Adams is very self impressed
You know Mario what I find interesting is how much you feign apathy.
The usual opening salvo from you and a number of other people is along the lines of “lol look at all you losers taking sexism and racism seriously, Scott was Totes unserious”. Forgetting for a second Scott a) Wasn’t playing devil’s advocate, and b) Playing the devil’s advocate is more than spewing bullshit indistinguishable from sexism, what really comes through is how very seriously Scott and his fans take criticism of him, and especially ironically unserious mocking criticism.
This thread has been dead numerous times. There were many long hours with nary a post to be had. What reignited this thread EVERY TIME was Scott or one of his fans popping in here to say how unseriously they’re taking this and how little it matters to them. Had they, or you Mario, displayed actual apathy and done nothing at all this thread would be buried 3 pages down. You keep alive criticism of Scott Adams by ineffectually trying to answer criticism of Scott Adams. If you really want to show how little you care about this you should stop showing exactly how much you care.
Gumption, sticktooitiveness, hard work and knowing which side of your bread is buttered
that’s how
I guess we are supposed to be grateful that Scott and his superflous scrotum are providing anecessary psychosocial role for the community
I’ll be keeping my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel, and applying elbow grease to the uh to the you know uh squeaky wheel. or grindstone. the elbow kind.
Fact check:
I never claimed that my blog posts that are upsetting many of you gentle souls were intended as humor. I only blog humorously about 10% of the time. I blog with a goal of being interesting. I let the market decide how I’m doing.
Nor have I ever claimed that the Internet rumors about my beastly ways were unimportant to me. If you run any kind of business, it’s bad news when the Internet decides you’re an anti-science, creationist, holocaust-denying, woman-hating, sock puppet, liar, and whatever else I’m forgetting. That said, I confess to enjoying the hell out of the process (especially as a sock puppet). I find this whole thing extraordinarily interesting and somewhat enlightening. But no sane person would choose this path even though it has some excellent benefits.
For those of you who point out that my “you misunderstood me” defense sounds bogus, I agree completely. It sounds like total bullshit when you put it in the context of my many, many alleged evil acts. But how exactly does one address rumors if not by correcting them with facts? If you think ignoring them is a good strategy, you’ve probably never been accused of anything interesting. And if there is a more expedient method, I’m here to learn.
“I’m not a funny troll, I’m just a troll!”
*sad violin*
How do you keep repeating this without acknowledging that we know that you weren’t just sockpuppeting to combat “rumors”? Unless you consider people not considering you a “genius” a “rumor”.
Gee Scott, it’s almost like you think there might be a problem with being seen as a sexist, anti-science, sock-puppeting has-been.
Scott Adams:
Your appeal to insanity is desperate but futile; the simple explanation is that you are a bullshitter on a bullshitter’s path.
Your original claim: “The reason given was budget constraints.”
Your current claim: “My bosses explained that I was unqualified for any sort of promotion because I had boring DNA and a scrotum.”
(You’re a bullshitter, but a poor one)
For those that actually buy Adams’ bullshit so far, this interview regarding his “Pegs and Holes” post (mentioned upthread and referenced in links in OP) contains a wee bit too much defensiveness, condescension, and doubling down to be consistent with his claim regarding that piece:
It “failed hard when it was spread to other sites” because obviously they didn’t “get” it! Because obviously it was just Unserious mental masturbation! Nothing serious! Though, apparently serious enough for Adams to challenge people to an interview like it was a debate. It was actually serious enough to treat your interviewer with barely disguised contempt. Anything for kicks, I suppose.
I think the real problem is that Adams simply cannot stand real scrutiny. He has a merry band of loyal sycophants, a carefully cultivated audience, that just bats around the ideas with kid gloves. He can continue to inject ideas of varying levels of Seriousness, ideally by inserting a stale joke here or there, without fear of serious criticism or rebuke. He has plausible deniability and can dismiss any given thing as “just a joke” when it is inconvenient to defend, or dredge up any given thing and champion it as a sincere belief whenever it is convenient, as a way to say “look, I was right! Super genius is me!”.
The only problem with those “other sites” is that the people there don’t think that the deniability is any where near as plausible as the Dilbonians do.
(For those of you who actually want to read that article, be warned that the douchiness levels are pretty damn high)
B-b-but…humor!
Wait, I mean…
B-b-but…10% humor, 90% interesting!
No, wait, I’ve got…
B-b-but…my loyal fanbase gets it!
@ anteprepro
[source]
@John Morales
You are late to the discussion. We have already established here to everyone’s satisfactions that The Bearded Taint conflated “career” with “job.” My career ended when I could no longer be promoted from my relatively low level of management. My job at the phone company ended when I was asked to leave for budget reasons. Two different events.
@Sally Strange
I’ve never argued the “has-been” part of your bile-laden opinion. That view could be supported by the facts in several ways. I’m only addressing the factual inaccuracies. I’m entirely in favor of people having bad opinions of me when fact-based, and there are plenty of facts available to support the case. Why must we make up new facts when there are so many legitimate reasons to hate me?
@Everyone
It seems that the second-most obnoxious thing I’ve ever done involved my sock puppet calling me a genius. Sounds terrible out of context. In context, my intelligence level was relevant to the discussion the puppet was having online. The puppet simply added data. People who take an IQ test administered by MENSA and score above 140 are considered “genius” and may become members. If you like science, you should appreciate the objectivity of that process, give or take some biases in the test itself.
And I would think that even The Bearded Taint plus many of my critics score high on standard tests. No one claims that having a high IQ means you are always right, or even usually. But in a discussion of why any two people disagree, wouldn’t you agree that intelligence levels are relevant?
In my experience, disagreements happen when there is either a difference in information and experience, a difference in self-interest, or a difference in raw intelligence. If you want to understand why two people have different opinions, all three categories are on the table. That was the context of the genius quote. It was fact-based and appropriate to the discussion.
Yeah, I get that genius comes in many flavors, including musical, social, etc. But my puppet wasn’t in a musical discussion.
The obnoxious part of this is that non-geniuses think of Einstein and Edison when they hear the word genius. Compared to them, I’m a chimp. But the context of the sock puppet wasn’t about the theory of relativity. The context was whether I was intellectually capable of understanding whatever the critics were spouting.
Also keep in mind that the puppet plays a character. He can say things as a simple matter of fact whereas coming from my mouth it sounds like a huge social foul. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, context matters. Had the sock puppet showed up to the forum simply to shower me with praise, that would certainly be self-promotion. But if someone suggests that the source of disagreement is different intelligence levels, MENSA membership is entirely relevant. It isn’t conclusive, but certainly appropriate to that particular debate.
@Scott Adams:
Geniuses don’t call themselves geniuses. It appears narcissistic, disingenuous, and just a tad on the defensive side.
Wow.
The sadness of seriously citing MENSA membership aside, I must marvel at a rare actual ad hominem. In an argument, what is relevant is what facts each side brings to the table, and the logical consistency of their arguments. The different intelligence levels of the two sides are irrelevant. A smart individual can still be dead wrong on something, and will not even necessarily be better at arguing.
Adams, are you TRYING to get people to conclude that you’re a dumb asshole? Because you’re doing a terrific job of acting like one. Perhaps you need to consult the First Rule of Holes.
Linus Pauling was a genius. He won two Nobel prizes, and they don’t exactly give those away with Crackerjacks, you know?
Anyway, this certified, more-Nobel-prizes-than-Einstein genius decided that megadoses of vitamin C would both cure and prevent cancer. And a whole bunch of doctors and medical researchers with a grand total of zero Nobel prizes between them disagreed with him, based purely on non-genius chump reasons like “evidence” and “complete lack of a mechanism” and “double-blind placebo-controlled studies”.
Now, how relevant to the discussion is the fact that Pauling was undeniably smarter than any of his detractors? Should they just have said “well, I guess I’m just not smart enough to realise that you’re right”, or should they have argued the evidence and the facts?
PS: I qualified for Mensa (it’s not an acronym, by the way) when I was a kid. I even attended a meeting. And I left with a very pround feeling that an organisation of certified geniuses should be doing… something. All that assembled brain power, and rather than working to make the world a better place, they were talking about last night’s TV. At best, it was a buiness networking organisation, but where only a minority of the members were in any kind of business. I never bothered joining.
Mr. Genius @202:
Uh, no we haven’t. You really can’t get away with just speaking for everyone else in a thread that isn’t filled with sycophants and/or sockpuppets.
Certainly I don’t buy your after-the-fact attempt to justify your changing story with arbitrary redefinitions of terms.
WOW! A whole blog devoted to people who type with one hand…
Hey Scott what are you trying to prove here? No seriously, what was your genius plan?
You have done nothing but reinforce our view that you’re a serious asshole. You haven’t actually answered any criticism towards you, you’ve either flippantly dismissed it out of hand or tried to condesplain why it was really really okay to have a Sockpuppet self-aggrandize yourself. Maybe your fans and other sockpuppets will accept that but propping yourself up like that is not okay here and since you have not uttered anything resembling an apology you’ve not earned yourself any sympathy.
You’re right I don’t need to make up facts to have reason to dislike you Scott. You’ve provided more than enough reasons to regret ever seeing you as an influence in my life.
I remember him writing on how he likes being criticized by others but then shortly afterwards put a warning label on top of many of his blog posts to try to stop getting criticized. Similarly in this last post, he writes about this, “It’s more fascinating than annoying.” Curious then why he feels the need to keep defending himself.
He says, “My regular readers know I embrace my ignorance, and part of the fun is that they wade in and set me straight.”
I have seen a post get deleted on his blog just because he disagreed with it. They were not personal attacks or spam etc.
Here is what Scott Adams said on his sock puppet account:
“You’re talking about Scott Adams. He’s not talking about you. Advantage: Adams.”
Oh holy shit, he doubled down on using sockpuppets to talk about how he is a genius! And fucking still apparently believes “well, he’s a genius, so he’s probably right and you’re probably wrong” is a stellar, logical argument. Oh, how can he be such a clown and yet so completely fail at being funny?
Fascinating. Scotty posted a blog post about this on the 17th. Quoted in full for the Super Genius’s version of context (perhaps next time I will quote adjacent blog posts to start approaching the True Full Context). Emphasis is mine:
Talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Wow. I hereby nominate Scott Adams for the Biggest Wanker in the Universe award.
Calmer than you, dude.
Scott’s got some issues.
This thread, however, delivers.
This is GREAT!
Okay, here you go:
What was that? I just think that evolution looks like a blend of science and bullshit ~.
What? I just think that evolution looks like a blend of science and bullshit ~.
Guh? ~what established bit of science do you ass-clowns hallucinate that I disagree with?
Look up. ~what established bit of science do you ass-clowns hallucinate that I disagree with?
Are you thick?
——
Please check the appropriate box:
[_] Waassh! You took me out of context!
[_] Fossils (and EVILoution) are not “established bit[s] of science”! Checkmate!
[_] I said “I think” not “I disagree with” so I win again!
[_] EVILution is not, and I quote, “supported by science” as I’ve stated! Rematch! I win again!
@usernames are smart
Thank you for playing.
Science says evolution is a scientific fact.
Scott says evolution is a scientific fact. It easily meets the standard.
Conclusion: agree
Scott says evolution looks like bullshit to his non-scientist eyes.
Science is frustrated because evidently evolution looks like bullshit to half the country.
Conclusion: agree
Scott says the fossil records are the sketchiest-looking part of the evidence for evolution.
Scientists say there is a history of famously wrong conclusions from fossil records, a few notable scams, and continuous revisions of what evolved from what.
Conclusion: agree. Luckily there is plenty of other evidence.
Scott says a scientific fact can later be proven to be wrong, because science allows that. It would be a very rare event, but possible nonetheless.
Science says the same thing.
Conclusion: agree
Scott predicts that someday, perhaps in the next several decades, science will have such a deeply different understanding of the nature of time, matter, and the universe, that evolution – and just about every other thing we think we knew – will seem wrong. It’s a hunch based on pattern recognition.
Science has no unified opinion on that.
Conclusion: Science doesn’t deal with hunches, but individual scientists might have different hunches.
I picked evolution as my scientific fact that might be overturned by science someday because it is a hot topic that interests people. I could have picked gravity or particle physics or just about anything else. I have the same hunch about that stuff. I think science has some big surprises coming. Again, just a hunch.
Scott says his writing on the topic was not clear.
Scientists agree, at least the ones who noticed.
teehee
Scott Adams accepts that quote as an answer to his question? An answer to the question that he was thumping his chest over having not been answered? And the article that he accepts as an answer to his question was:
1. A post two clicks away through the relevant link in PZ’s initial fucking post.
2. Quoted by myself at post fucking 49.
Scott Adams apparently needs to be fucking spoon-fed. He will pitch a whiny fit about how hungry is and petulantly laugh and brag about how he will never eat his vegetables, until someone finally sits down and plays airplane with him to get the spinach into his mouth. As is typical of a certified genius.
Looks like that last agreement will be an agreement lasting quite a while.
(“This looks like bullshit” supposedly agrees with “What is wrong with all these people who think this is bullshit!?”.
“The fossil record is bullshit” supposedly agrees with “Yes, there have been some mistakes with the fossil record”.
Scott Adams is either bullshitting us or has no idea what he is fucking doing.
As is typical of a certified genius.)
Evolution isn’t the fossil record. Fossils can be misinterpreted and have been. That does not and would not imply life did not evolve. To say you think evolution is likely to be overturned is to say something about evolution itself, not about particular findings as they are (sometimes incorrectly) interpreted in the context of evolution. You would need to do a fuckload more than misidentify a fossil or mess up a date or whatever, to show that evolution itself is wrong. So at best your “hunch” comes out of nowhere, and at worst it looks exactly like creationist nonsense.
You could just say that you were wrong. Instead, you show how your vague and ignorant fucking hunches, if you had expressed them some other way, are totally right and agree with science. So if we lived in some alternate universe where you had expressed your hunches some other way, maybe what you said would have at least come close to being right. But we do not live there.
However, we should obviously read your hunches charitably, while you shouldn’t have to interpret science charitably or with comprehension or communicate about it responsibly. That just goes without saying. You’re a humorist, so the joke’s on you. It’s our mistake.
I have a hunch that being wrong is just not the sort of thing Scott Adams admits. I predict that science will change in some vague fashion, and Scott will continue to make the same (or at least, from our point of view, indistinguishable) totally right and totally vacuous pronouncements from his armchair.
Look ma, I smeared my own shit on the wall! Now people are angry, just as I predicted! I’m a genius! MUAH HAH HAH HAHH!!
@consciousness razor
So, exactly what I just said, but in an angry tone like you are disagreeing.
I love the Internet.
Gee whizz, your own personal Masturbatorium ™ .
An observation about Scott Adams: He fucking loves not quoting people. Every single comment here, all of the linked blog articles, not a quote or citation in sight. He loves the sound of his own voice and can’t be bothered to make fact-checking more convenient. For someone so concerned about “context” he completely forgoes even trying to tackle with the substance of what other people say or making it clear what exactly he is responding to, relying entirely on paraphrasing other people. He is no paragon of intellectual honesty.
Also entertaining to note, since Scott Adams did it again.
Adams at comment 202:
Holms at comment fucking three :
Zeno is mentioned in the fucking main post also, so there’s really no excuse. And, of course, there is the brilliance of Adams’ actual argument. The claim that “corporate America excreted me” obviously doesn’t imply that he stopped being employed by corporate America!
It bears repeating. Over and over. Adams is no paragon of intellectual honesty.
Yes, science says there have been a few hoaxes and wrong conclusions based on fossils, but science also says that the fossil record is one of the richest and most compelling threads of evidence for evolution.
Conclusion: Scott doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Scott, you should run for public office–you’d make a kick-ass politician!
Compared with
(Note I quoted the sentence before and after, to illustrate the words “his non-scientist eyes” (or the suggestion thereof) were not in his original statement. His statement is a STATEMENT OF FACT, without qualification, that he believes something.
He believes that evolution — an established fact of science, appears to be bullshit to him. Oh, but that’s because he’s not a scientist.
So, as long as he says he’s not a scientist (long after the fact), then he doesn’t disagree! Or he does, but it doesn’t count! Because he’s not a scientist, and only scientists can disagree with an established fact…of science!
I noticed something weird that seemed out-of-place. Here it is again:
What the fuck does that mean?
I’ll tell you: Mr. Adams thinks that because “science” keeps changing, so everything it posits is BULLSHIT. Science used to say the earth was flat. Then it said it was a sphere. Then it said it was a spheroid. Then an oblate spheroid! Where will it end?
No need to answer. Azimov’s got you covered. Sorry, Scott, you suck at critical thinking. I still think you’d make a great politician.
Today on “Scott Adams: Super-genius!”
I’m including this bit because if I don’t, I’m quoting ‘out of context’. Let’s face it, if you don’t see written down that Scott Adams: Super-genius thinks evolution is a scientific fact, than the rest of his awesome argument suffers.
Or something
Scott Adams: Super-genius is of the opinion, in this statement, that he believes that mice do not appear to be related to rats. Nor dogs to wolves, nor ducks to geese.
Oh, and here’s a tip: if you’re going to claim to be a genius (like Scott Adams: Super-genius), equating your opinions with typical opinions is not really the way to go about it.
Scientists say that there are a very few outright frauds (all revealed, of course, by Scott Adam: Super-genius… oh, wait, I mean by actual scientists, never mind). Plus some specifics that mere fossil evidence didn’t get right.
Revisions to existing information doesn’t actually make the information sketchy, BTW. It just means we’re getting better at figuring out what it means. Of course, that might not keep the information from looking sketchy to someone who was, for example, dead flat ignorant.
Fortunately, Scott Adams: Super-genius has included a list of major, well-verified, well-tested modern scientific theories that have been shown to me largely wrong (not revised in details, but majorly incorrect).
Oh, he didn’t? Heck.
But if Scott Adams: Super-genius were to try, he’d no doubt come up with plenty.
I am trying to determine in what way this sort of incredibly waffly, nonspecific ‘prediction’ differs from professional psychic bullshit. The only thing that comes to mind is that we’re not paying for this particular bullshit by the minute.
To put it another way: “Sometime in the future, maybe, things might look very different, dude!” is only deep-sounding if you’re 15 years old or very high indeed.
Or if you’re Scott Adams: Super-genius.
So, not because you have any actual idea of what you’re talking about, just because other people think it’s sparkley.
Gotcha.
Subtle indeed are the ways of the Super-genius.
Scott Adams: Super-genius also (for those who noticed) is engaging in desperate attempts to make what he said not appear to be vapid public mental masturbation of a deeply embarrassingly incorrect sort. To do otherwise might be to admit imperfection, nay even failings on the part of Scott Adams: Super-genius.
And that’s unpossible.
Just ask Scott, he’ll tell you.
(Again and again and again, he’ll tell you.)