his whole schtick is that he says polarizing things and then when everyone reacts to what he says at face value then haha, he got you, he wins, you're being persuaded. or something. basically he has a lot of money and fame so he trolls different political groups and everyone has forgotten what authenticity looks like so they take what he says at face value even though he really quite obviously rarely says anything with a completely straight face... then later he can completely walk anything he said back because he "learned new information". but in the meantime, others (like this organization) grift off his grift by reacting to it at face value. nobody really cares about the issues being discussed, it's all just clickbait/grifting, but everyone rolls with it, because this is what passes as intellectual discourse anymore.

> he trolls different political groups

Does he though? Where are examples of him trolling the right? It seems to me his trolling is in one direction consistently. As they say, you're still a goat fucker whether you really want to fuck the goats or you're just trolling.

his entire vaccine saga was an massive troll to "the right", are you serious?

Could you link to some discussion on this? I have been under the impression that he is solely “triggering the libs”.

you can look up the Ben Garrison comic about it to get a brief, obviously-biased overview. though depending on your political views, you might be inclined to think that it was just a broken Scott being right twice a day. however, as noted his brand was "triggering the libs" for a good long while there, and it seems he's returned to it now (though in reality he's triggering almost everyone), but for awhile there he did the face/heel turn and "triggered the cons", before turning again for his current schtick. we have a word for that and it's "trolling".

What? He is strongly anti-vax, and spreads standard right wing propaganda about covid:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jan/26/scott-adam...

Scott said that unvaccinated people feel better. Polifact say that unvaccinated people had a higher risk of being dead.

Would be more fun if Polifact included a section if dead people feel worse than alive people.

He said they feel better because they have natural immunity without the looming fear that the vaccine will kill then in 5 years. This is just projection because he’s scared about what he injected into himself. For those of us who aren’t scared of the vaccine, we are perfectly happy.

> This is just projection because he’s scared

https://dilbert.com/strip/2023-02-26

If you have a point, make it. Posting Dilbert strips is not a conversation.

Scott Adams literally spent an hour+ on his podcast talking about how he made the wrong choice in taking the vaccine because he was afraid of the effects in 5 years. That's him telling me he's afraid, not me saying he's wrong because he's afraid. His whole point is that the best position to be in is to have immunity from covid and to not be afraid of the effects of the vaccine. If Adams wants to let us in on his thinking process beyond his fears, he should probably let us know on his podcast. Until then I can only go off the arguments he makes.

I still claim that you can’t just declare that the reason he makes some argument or other is “he’s just afraid that X”. Argue with the point, not the person.

tbf, the vaccine was a topic that didn't really cleave along political lines. Adams is a Trump supporter, and Trump is a vaccine supporter. Many GOP governors supported the vaccine, even DeSantis. It's perfectly coherent to troll anti-vaxxers from a conservative perspective. Doesn't mean Adams really agreed with the left's pro-vax stance, and over time it seems he's gone to the position that the smartest people after all were the anti-vaxxers.

Govenors plus the people you mentioned is less than 40 people how is that representative of the right?

He definitely wants to fuck the goats.

I guess Adams won, he got me! Ha ha! Gosh darn it!

But he doesn't have my money. I quit buying Dilbert calendars and compilations years before Adams became edgy, because he started treating the Pointy Haired Boss sympathetically. By catering to his new class (multimillionairs), he lost the humor in the strip.

he's not grifting for Dilbert product sales primarily, he's chasing the high of being a Political Thought Leader (to some) in 2016.

Assuming it is a schtick (which I personally don't believe), it's nevertheless still unhelpful and obnoxious. It doesn't particular matter whether someone truly believes the terrible things they're saying or if they're just "trolling"; the result is the same. As Vonnegut says, we are who we pretend to be.

growing older most men undergo change in hormones, and viewpoint

I don't know how it works for others but this happened to me many times already. I went from being an extreme-right teenager to an extreme-left young adult and feel like I'm going through a moderate stage right now. I wonder how much my viewpoint will change decades from now.

Starting uneducated right and moving more educated left and settling middle is something I would say shows growth.

You know when you hear gay for the first time and find it weird and perhaps dirty, realizing that it isn't and that it doesn't concern me either.

Or traveling and understanding the world better.

Unfortunately, it seems to be having the opposite effect on Adams.

He changed during Trump’s election campaign.

Dilbert’s popularity has been slowly fading and with it Scott was becoming irrelevant and approaching retirement age.

He made a very slightly pro Trump comment on his blog, and then Trump’s rabid followers jumped in the forum and heaped praise on him, more than he’s seen in likely a decade.

Rinse, repeat a few times and the adoration of his new fanbase propelled him to be a Trump champion.

With Trumpism thankfully fading, he’s angry and bitter that he’s losing his influence.

>He changed during Trump’s election campaign.

In my view, much of the GOP-voting American population (and others) changed during Trump's campaign and presidency. Early in the campaign, Republican voters generally didn't like him, but by the election, and then as his time in office progressed, GOP voters became rabid Trump fans, even if they generally despised him before.

The reality is that they despised him throughout, it's just that they realised that they had to hitch their wagon to the Trump train, or risk losing their office due to his rabid followers opposing them during the next election.

Trump keeps the GOP in line through fear. Either the entire party follows his tune, or next election he splits it in half and they get slaughtered by the Democrats, or even possibly some independents. That would be the end of the GOP.

Disclaimer: this is the opinion of a foreigner who just takes a casual interest in American politics, because when the US sneezes, we catch a cold.

So they aren't racists just people with no principals or empathy?

>The reality is that they despised him throughout, it's just that they realised that they had to hitch their wagon to the Trump train, or risk losing their office due to his rabid followers opposing them during the next election.

No, that's not at all what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the American voters, not the politicians. The voters themselves became a bunch of rabid Trump followers, even when they weren't at the beginning of the campaign.

Yeah, he's a huge supporter of Trump actually, and that's really all you need to know about him these days. I read Dilbert religiously for years, but it kind of feel by the wayside. This is really a pretty big surprise, and I'd been unaware of his downfall over the past decade or so.

He was notably an early supporter of Trump while the mainstream weren’t seriously considering him competitive. It’s amazing he flew under the radar for this long.

Anyways I would not recommend white peoples systemically distance themselves from black people on the grounds of a casual poll of dubious accuracy which indicates at most mildly racist attitudes towards a group there is obviously a lot of history especially when one can manipulate polling answers in various ways and especially because I think virtually all racial groups have some level of racism. We don’t have to believe that nobody is racist to believe that we should try and be inclusive of other racial groups.

"Anyways I would not recommend white peoples systemically distance themselves from black people"

That's a bold position to take, I'm glad you have the courage to not be racist.

I'm watching this now, and it's worthwhile, at least if you want to profess an opinion. The section starts in minute thirteen, but if (like me) you don't really watch his podcast, it's probably worth it to start from the beginning, just to get a flavor of it.

Adams is definitely a modern satirist. And he is one in a time when edgy humor is absolutely radioactive. He has his FU money, though, and is obviously somewhat aspy (again, like me).

As to the survey question, which is the first in their survey, it's literally worded, "It's OK to be white." (agree, disagree, not sure, etc).

Those of us here are "with it" enough to realize that this incantation was born from a 4chan op (presumably meant to help uptight people look stupid). But, the survey respondents would generally be unaware of that context.

Rasmussen itself was pretty fearless in going there. Not fearless enough to add, "It's OK to be black.". But still, props given.

Adams is smart enough to know that this would be the end of Dilbert distribution in mainstream newspapers.

What's his motivation? Not sure. But puncturing the current bubble of awful isn't the worst start.

What would be better? He mentions education. Okay, start with that. What would it take to ensure that every child in America got an excellent education? Hell, even what would it take to ensure that every _black_ child in America got an excellent education? Everything we're doing right now is awful and counterproductive. We need to reset and follow the guidance of those who could plausibly improve the situation. That's not the cancel crowd.

Scott Adams on media reform:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/06/19/scott_ada...!

Tl;dr: Trump should moderate “both sides” because it would be entertaining.

This has been flagged, but for anyone still following, Adams' follow-on interview with Hotep Jesus is worth a listen. It's two hours of mostly Adams talking and fielding questions. (Jesus is a black podcaster, and I think it would be fair to call him conservative and occasionally a bit out there.)

One thing that's become obvious to me in recent years is that it's important to go to the source material if you really want to know what's going on. Media summaries (not to mention the Twitterati) are often misleading or incomplete.

What you mean by go to the source material in this situation is that you want me to hear him make an obvious racist statement like "Black America is a hate group" then have him justify his racism.

> I can’t tell are for effect / satire or whether he’s changed his point of view in a rational way or whether he’s becoming unhinged

Why are people here trying to give this guy a way out with satire? His comics are satire, but someone who has the audacity to stir the pot over this kind of shit clearly has little regard for the difficult topics in question

Sounds to me like he's unhinged and pulling a Kanye

I don't think it's satire or him becoming especially unhinged. It's more that he's against racial hate in general including black on which hate as well as the other way around.

He said "Black America is a hate group"

You said black America is a hate group. And now so have I. Dammit.

If you think the problem of racism is funny you're a piece of shit

Wikipedia is hardly a neutral source of information about personalities.

But is there a better one?

He _always_ (or at least since the 90s) had some pretty fringe beliefs; he believed in the "law of attraction" (an odd piece of magical-thinking woo; essentially, thinking things makes them happen) but not evolution, for instance.