Dilbert - C or D?

this guy is a right wing creationist douche

Isn't he a Satanist?

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/a-feeling-im-be.html

^^^this is some high-end useful idiocy

If you let a guy like that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom
of speech.

Um, is this sentence a joke?

OK, the whole thing's a joke.

I was gonna say!

Doesn't sound like a right wing creatonist here:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/05/the-economics-p.html

Actuallt, if you read his blog, he sounds more like a science geek with some libertarian leanings rather than a right wing creationist. Where'd you get that idea?

A cartoon engineer, that's what he is.

Scott Adams, feminist

Ah, Dilbert. For so long, you have lingered there on the comics page, always ready to barrel-shoot the inanity of office culture with your humorously-coiffed characters and beleaguered engineers, locked forever in a corporate development hell that your humor at first mocked, and then later resembled.

Mostly, though, I haven't really paid attention to you at all, at least until today, when the internet discovered a post where Dilbert creator Scott Adams gave us all a piece of his mind in a post (since deleted) about men's rights, and the fact that he thinks men suffer a level of social injustice equal to women.

After all, women might get paid less than men in our society, but men die earlier, teen boys have to pay higher car insurance, and sometimes women want men to open doors for them, so it all comes out in the wash, right? I'm not making those examples up, either; those are his examples.

And then there's this:

"The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It's just easier this way for everyone. You don't argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn't eat candy for dinner. You don't punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don't argue when a women tells you she's only making 80 cents to your dollar. It's the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles." -Scott Adams

Wow. Just wow. To recap: He's comparing women asking for equal pay to the selfishness and unreasonableness of children asking for candy, or mentally handicapped people lashing out violently. He's saying that women's concern for pay equity is a petty desire levied by an irrational group of people, and he's also suggesting a very specific strategy for the men in the audience: Remember not to care.

If the above block of text reminds you of Dave Sim at all, that's because this rhetoric does exactly the same thing as Sim's in terms of infantilizing women and casting them as primarily emotional and irrational beings that men can only deal with by ignoring them most of the time, or sighing bitterly while turning up the volume on their sports game.

Women, amirite? To his credit, he recognizes that this is basically an insane comparison to make, but then not to his credit, makes it anyway. (Note: Saying something and then saying that you're not saying it doesn't magically unsay it.) He continues:

"I realize I might take some heat for lumping women, children and the mentally handicapped in the same group. So I want to be perfectly clear. I'm not saying women are similar to either group. I'm saying that a man's best strategy for dealing with each group is disturbingly similar. If he's smart, he takes the path of least resistance most of the time, which involves considering the emotional realities of other people. A man only digs in for a good fight on the few issues that matter to him, and for which he has some chance of winning. This is a strategy that men are uniquely suited for because, on average, we genuinely don't care about 90% of what is happening around us."

Adams' original blog entry (since deleted): http://tinysprout.tumblr.com/post/3713649989/scott-adams-dilbert-deleted-post

More commentary (and apparently a comment from Adams) here: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/03/24/scott-adams-to-mens-rights-activists-dont-bother-arguing-with-women-theyre-like-children/

haha omg

I can never tell when Scott Adams is serious and when he's trolling

If the above block of text reminds you of Dave Sim at all,

this was my first thought actually

Practically everything Scott Adams writes is dripping with about five levels of bitter, self-hating sarcasm, though, which makes it difficult for me to take this completely at face value.

Like, I would not at all be surprised if he was taking a Neanderthal tone in order to set up and pull the rug out from underneath people, which seems to go along with the shellshocked reactions some of these critiques are posting.

Having said that, I haven't read it yet so maybe the whole piece really is way out of step with his usual steeze, or just an epic failure in conveying appropriate tone, or maybe he is Dave Sim 2.0.

A woman had a show about bible secrets on the BBC the other week which was basically Chasing YooWHoo.

Adams since reposted the deleted blog entry and a "you are all idiots" followup. Perhaps downgrade from Dave Sim to Lileks territory?

what a weird guy

If any of you have a Salon account, could you do me a favor and head over to the articles by these binarian unibators and provide a link to my explanation of the Men's Rights controversy in its proper context?

I write material for a specific sort of audience. And when the piece on Men's Rights drew too much attention from outside my normal reading circle, it changed the meaning. Communication becomes distorted when you take it out of context, even if you don't change a word of the text. I image that you are dubious about this. It's hard to believe this sort of thing if you don't write for a living and see how often it happens. I'll explain.

(emphasis scott adams')

Dude has not been helping his case lately.

hoo boy

1. Adams has stated in his blog several times that evolution is a scientific fact. The citation someone gave here is in the context of his blog post explaining that the evidence for evolution smells wrong even if it isn't. That's an interesting point.

His prediction about evolution someday being rethought in scientific terms has to do with whether the arrow of time is an illusion. If time doesn't move forward, things aren't happening the way you think. That's an interesting point too. And it's a far cry from being an evolution denier.

^^^ certified genius I.Q.

so I guess the only requirement for claiming a genius IQ is smoking a lot of pot?

Well, he is in SF and all.

hahah this guy

in fairness, this is the funniest shit he's done in about 15 years

this makes me sad :-(

when i was a kid i read this book of prose fiction scott adams wrote called GOD'S DEBRIS in which a UPS guy delivered a package to an old man's home and the old man gave him this hundred-page-long speech about The Universe, which was mostly elementary einstein-era physics and probability theory with some stoney prognoses mixed in at the end and a whole lot of really odd categorical statements about obvious (like obvious even though i was 15 or whatever) personal resentments along the lines of "when an idiot and a genius disagree, generally the idiot will think the genius is wrong", and the whole thing had this utterly weird air of having been written by a person who'd decided that his respect for and understanding of Science and Rationalism was what separated him from the thick sea of morons who annoyed and obstructed him but did not actually have the intelligence or wit or generosity or even untainted curiosity to be an actual scientist and instead had to write boss jokes for the newspaper.

anyway the high point of this whole online thing is when someone on a reddit thread says that scott adams is dumb and scott adams under his ludwig von mises (lol of course) sockpuppet says:

You're talking about Scott Adams. He's not talking about you. Advantage: Adams.

dilbert is still one of the best daily strips, not that there's much competition.

Having dug a grave, he digs deeper.

Obviously an alias can be used for evil just as easily as it can be used to clear up simple factual matters. A hammer can be used to build a porch or it can be used to crush your neighbor's skull. Don't hate the tool.

lol

hoo boy

Dear Scott Adams,

You are on your own now, you big stupid nerd.

Middle-fingerfully,

DJP

I typed a vague rant of betrayal on behalf of teenage me, who mistook Adams' cynicism regarding clueless un-technical managers for some kind of anti-capitalist pro-science sentiment when apparently he was only ever yet another oblivious self-aggrandising jerk with an MBA, but then I remembered that it's already at least 12 years too late to give a shit. So.

(Admittedly I already sort of knew part of this from the final chapter of whichever 90s book where he tells readers to visualise good futures for themselves and write them out 100x daily to make them come true, but I guess a little part of me still wanted that to be some really weird trolling.)

oh hahaha I remember that; I thought it was the funniest fucking thing

doesn't surprise me to find the whole "men's rights" thing was done tongue-in-cheek, I used to read the Dilbert blog from time to time and I know most of what he says on there is not meant to be taken straight. this whole weird thing about him defending himself is bizarre, but he kind of admits on his blog that he doesn't really have much integrity when it comes to public forums. In a way I kind of understand why he did it, his blog is EXACTLY the sort of thing that people can take out of context and use to slam the guy, but explanation or not this whole thing is kind of disturbing

Was I the only person who was put off by Dilbert from the beginning? The "capitalist servitude is the lolz" attitude just seemed like smokescreen for maintaining the status quo. Pointy-headed bosses will always rule, so put up with it.

Always felt that Dogbert was Adams' way of inserting himself into the strip a la Dave Sim and Viktor Davis.

Adams was equal parts Dogbert/Catbert/Alice/Wally IMO

it is definitely not questioning the status quo. and that's ok because it still has decent jokes.

ha that's actually a good point, I don't see how a strip that is basically "my job is soul-crushingly stupid and nothing I do seems to change anything" even comes under consideration as something that could be challenging the status quo

Guess I have a thin-skin when it comes to this, but I also work as a programmer. Too close to home?

well, I'm also a programmer; I always viewed the strip like the coworker who's always bitching

Was I the only person who was put off by Dilbert from the beginning? The "capitalist servitude is the lolz" attitude just seemed like smokescreen for maintaining the status quo. Pointy-headed bosses will always rule, so put up with it.

There was a whole book written about this 14-years ago.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZD9A4VJXL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Its complaints are a little repetitive but on the whole it is a good read.

Admittedly I already sort of knew part of this from the final chapter of whichever 90s book where he tells readers to visualise good futures for themselves and write them out 100x daily to make them come true, but I guess a little part of me still wanted that to be some really weird trolling.

That was the Dilbert Future...I always wondered the same thing. He always is going on and on about pranking people at the office so the whole way I kinda thought he was pulling one over on us, but if you go back and re-read it, everything seems to sincere that it's a little hard to tell. The implications there were just a little too weird to comprehend. But he did manage to "re-wire" his brain and cure his "incurable" spasmodic dysphonia or something, so at least that's pretty impressive.

He always is going on and on about pranking people at the office so the whole way I kinda thought he was pulling one over on us, but if you go back and re-read it, everything seems to sincere that it's a little hard to tell. The implications there were just a little too weird to comprehend. But he did manage to "re-wire" his brain and cure his "incurable" spasmodic dysphonia or something, so at least that's pretty impressive.

― frogbs, Tuesday, April 26, 2011 2:54 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a good observation. he anticipated internet trolls.

this is a good one:

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-06-07

Is there a way to make a comic strip an ILX board description?

Technically yeah, but it breaks mobile ILXing so it's verboten.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states

https://i.imgur.com/dNtdf6c_d.webp?maxwidth=500&fidelity=grand

It would appear that his only option is to go fuck himself.

dave sim is not only a better artist than scott adams, he's far better at being a batshit insane misogynist than adams is

like scott i'm an asexual pan lesbian with a breeding kink who loves girldick, what are you even talking about?

a few weeks ago there was some article making the rounds about how Republican men were basically undateable, guess that one rang true with a lot of these guys lol

Step 1: DEI
Step 2: Open Borders
Step 3: ???
Step 4: More Sperm!

Dilead

Legit lol, nashwan. Perfect.

(I had been thinking of working up something like HornDogbert, but your riff is so much better. Thank you for your service.)

prostate cancer having a pretty good week

https://bsky.app/profile/realtuckfrumper.bsky.social/post/3lpjz4653wp2z

Certainly a reliable source.

Scott Adams or Newsweek? hmm… never mind

https://i.ibb.co/DPWpGsgf/image.png

(bugs and daffy turn to face the fourth wall and say in unison:)

BOER SEASON!

“Scott Adams DESTROYS Lyin’ Biden in announcement of imminent death!”

https://www.cnn.com/scott-adams-prostate-cancer-diagnosis-intl-hnk

sheesh, when even CNN thinks you're a racist...

on second glance, it's probably telling that my reaction to thinking about this today is "why would I believe anything Scott Adams says?"

the quote I've read is "if Scott Adams tells me the sky is blue, I'm sticking my head out the window to check"

imo the three possibilities are 1) he's doing an idiotic social experiment, 2) he's going to fake his own death and move to Thailand, or 3) he's actually dying and Dilbert will grow up fatherless. all three equally likely. even the obituary ain't gonna convince me he's actually dead.

surely he will cure himself via self-hypnosis

via new-formula vegan Dilberitos

Every time this headline pops across my screen, I spend five confused seconds wondering why Scott Adams claims to share a prostate with Joe Biden

Incredible take, no notes. pic.twitter.com/0RCgHj3dOZ

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 13, 2025

Not a galaxy large enough for this brain

(sorry for the MattY post but it's the only place I see the full Adams tweet)

you gotta admit the man's still got it