I think if they were good enough to be considered to be looked at more, fair, why not reward eing good enough tostill come far enough. Good motivation to keep going i guess. The trunner up prices seem topromisind ones to throw them a bone. Through art tools might have been a better idea Just his reaction is bad, not a " too bad, i keep working on it, at least i got there" no its about beating odds "
😅 had completely missed the significance of the camera, but bet as a kid, the message I could've easily gleamed from that, would've been that they think my drawing skills are so bad I should take up photography
I loved his comics when I was younger, I was definitely one of those people who assumed he was ribbing capitalism. I was shocked when I heard what he's actually like. This was a great listen!
I started reading Dilbert in like, 92, or 93. I thought it was a cool strip for a long time and hadn't an inkling of his racism. I mean, he had Asok, a character I liked. And the lady engineer was shown as being smarter than most of the guys - not Dilbert of course, but most of them. I miss Ratbert, he was cute.
I read his books, I loved his comics, it was always funny. Yet knowing his books gave some hints on the way he thinks. A lot of magical thinking (especially in Dilbert Future), oversimplification and "I'm not a scientist, just a dumb-ass comic writer, BUT" talk. Seeing him going this way was like listening to rap music in my youth, thinking they didn't mean it and were just joking. Finding out they were oftentimes not was somewhat troubeling, too. ;-) Edit. Then again, recalling his books back then, it could have gone either way. Because even if he did already believe a lot of nonsense and bullshit, he was always critical of those thoughts and didn't fully embrace them, always leaving room for "could be, could not be" thoughts. So judging from his state of mind back then, he could also have become a critical, open spirit that just likes to question the reality around him and is able to see things with a critical distance. The way he's gone, becoming this mad Trump-supporter that kept praising his genius - that's when I turned away from it and stopped reading his website - I did not see that coming.
After looking at some of his proposed solutions in one of his earlier books, I get the impression that he wasn't ribbing capitalism itself so much as saying it could be executed a lot better. He seems to believe that capitalism run "correctly" is amazing.
@@Regdren And he'd be correct, a well regulated capitalistic system can do amazing things. It is what got us into space. - Issue is that capitalism also erodes those regulations over time and corrupts the system to perpetuate itself at the expense of everything else. Like what you can see basicly.. everywhere.
It's truly insane that Adams as a kid decided to give up on Christianity because he thought that the story of Jonah and the whale was too unbelievable, only to then turn around and decide that he must be the product of aliens impregnating his mom as part of some kind of experiment.
Especially because the story of Jonah and the Whale isn't even that unbelievable as far as Bible stories go (there was a guy in 2021 I think who was swallowed by a whale and spat up alive, and supposedly a whaler back in the 1700s or 1800s was eaten by his prey and carved out of its stomach by his crewmates, but I haven't been able to find very many sources for that particular story). It's ridiculous, sure, but it's not completely fantastical, just highly, highly unlikely.
Totally. One of his "Coffee with Scott" shows (sometime around summer 2020) he mentioned that the stupidest person he'd ever met in his life was his father, and that it was okay for him to say so since his father was dead...
The irony of all these Dilbert M-preg jokes is that the finale of the Dilbert TV show ended with Dilbert pregnant and giving birth to a (partially) alien baby. So, there is Dilbert M-preg art, and it was produced by Scott Adams.
Always wondered how Sergio drew so tiny when I was a kid reading Mad magazine. Then I learned about camera work in magazine production and used a reducing lens when I was drawing a newspaper comic so I wouldn't waste time with detail that wouldn't survive reduction. Completely genuine and generous with advice and encouragement, Sergio drew for me a sketch of Groo to give my partner/editor to prevent demanding unnecessary detail. Sergio Aragones is the ultimate, he draws in seconds what takes other artists minutes, in hours what would take others days. His people and animals have expressive character and his worlds have mechanical and cultural authenticity. He often draws from reference photos and objects, unlike many artists with a habit of missing deadlines.
Had the great pleasure to meet him at a convention once and was able to get to talk to him for a few minutes. It was so nice to see his genuine happiness in me telling him how much his comics meant to me growing up.
... which reminds me that Robert should do a "Bastards" episode on Rhonda Byrne and/or whoever was responsible for making the Law of Attraction/"The Secret" mainstream. It's so much worse than just silly pseudoscience. It ultimately blames the victim for ANY circumstance (even a child who gets sexually assaulted, or a town that gets destroyed by a hurricane) for somehow choosing to manifest this reality. It discourages medical treatments by promoting the idea that one can choose health (look into the case of "Oprah" viewer Kim Tinkham). It's actually more toxic than fundamentalist Christianity, which is saying a lot. I can't believe that practitioners are unaware that people have literally died as a result of these magical belief systems.
I dunno, fundies are about the nadir of religious lunacy. At least the whole 'believing hard enough will fix things' bit has the advantage of the placebo effect behind it.
Yes. This ideology is still really commonly perpetuated online today and holy crap does it mess you up if you have clinical depression. Bright sided by Barbara Erin rich is a really good book about it that helped me a lot
Look, I’m sorry about thinking Catrina into existence, okay? I just thought New Orleans was kind of unsafe compared to the Netherlands and what would happen if a storm system hit it head on. Besides, the televangelists probably did the heavy lifting with all their praying for the city to be destroyed! You can’t just go around blaming the people that read The Secret when fake priests on tv literally bragged about how their god was responsible and it was because they prayed hard enough! …which, come to think of it, is basically using the lessons of it enmass. Wait, is The Secret just a deity-less religion? Like nulltheism or something instead of monotheism/polytheism?
Scott Adams has the prime weakness that lead to conspiratorial thinking: believing that he is smarter than everyone else therefore only he knows how the world works. I used to work in IT and I enjoyed Dilbert .
It is indeed the core behind such a mindset, which is also why it’s almost impossible to talk them out of the conspiracy (because they’ve already convinced themselves that they’re the smartest/everyone else is dumb, so why should they listen to what anyone else says?)
@@yellowblanka6058I had a lot of very smart friends growing up (including the valedictorian of a class of over 1000) and although I liked the comic I never got the feeling that he was particularly smart. Smarter than average, yeah, but not smarter or more talented than some of my classmates, and there were definitely people much smarter than my classmates out there. Thanks, internet, for making it so dang easy to find people more skilled than we will ever be 👍
I had the immense pleasure of getting to read through the entire collection (the official 4-book full collection) with my young sons twice because they wanted to read it every night. I loved it at 10 years old. I might love it even more at 43 years old.
Adams' "Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies" was a formative read for me. By which, I mean that I adopted the title as a lifestyle. Steal office supplies, people. As a role model, I encourage you to steal office supplies.
I've never consciously decided to steal from a workplace. But I've also never needed to visit an office supply store in order to purchase paper, pens, sticky notes, etc.
I mean, good crowd and channeling his frustrations thre is good, but i think i like the hobby cartoonist that did get fired for his past, and then released hiswork there sketches XD But as target audience, good one. He just could have been not ..
It did, but it's also conservative in a key way: That strained relationship is presented as simply the natural order. The engineers are at the bottom of the social hierarchy, management are overpaid and isolated, the company bureaucracy is impenetrable. This is the way of things, and must be accepted as it is. Occasional petty acts of rebellion may be achievable, but changing the status quo is simply unthinkable.
@@vylbird8014 I was initially surprised when I heard that adams was hard conservative because I remembered his strip often felt anti-authority or anti-establishment, but upon reflection it was more about how "Everyone else is either stupid or evil and I'm the only one who's reasonable and intelligent". It wasn't just his boss, I think pretty much every single character other than Dilbert himself was evil or incompetent or unreasonable in some way
@@arcadeinvader8086 I think you're trying to make sense of things in retrospect, but I don't agree with the things said here. For a start, a comic strip can't have a revolution where the rightful people take control over production, that would be the end of the comic. Secondly Dilbert was rarely the smartest guy in the room, Dogbert was. Even most other guests were smarter, they were baffled at the incompetence of the boss, but Dilbert realized that he no longer gets surprised, like most office workers he gave up long ago. The truth is that the comic was mostly leftist in its message and that most likely Adams simply changed when he got enormously wealthy from it.
I was kind of into Dilbert when I was younger. My mom was an engineer for many years, and in the early days (before Scott began to get really obviously problematic) she greatly empathized with the cubicle dwellers' struggle with the pointy haired boss. And since she passed her interest in science and engineering down to me, I also found them pretty amusing. However, even in the early days, I noticed some vaguely right-wing stuff that kind of weirded me out. There were more than a few strips where Adams complained about the social mores of feminism (i.e., that tiresome right-wing 90's schtick about women wanting equality until the cheque comes at dinner, portraying women's support groups as supposedly being groups of crazy women complaining about how everything men do is a conspiracy to undermine them as people, etc.) that made me wonder if there was something unpleasant going on under the hood of this whole enterprise. Turns out, it was even worse than I suspected...
I remember reading a lot of Dilbert when I was younger. I didn't notice too much of the right-wing stuff because I was raised in a conservative family but I did catch things like how Alice went from originally being smarter and harder-working than any of her male coworkers to simply being angry and violent. Then some time during the W administration, Scott wrote an editorial supporting Intelligent Design and at that point I lost all respect for him.
@@TryingToDoBetter01I’m going to guess he got some money either via inheritance or a reasonably successful small business, and either doesn’t want to pay as much taxes or doesn’t want to have to pay his employees fairly and provide health insurance etc. - that or he’s scared of the “woke” boogeyman.
@@yellowblanka6058 yeah, I’m middle aged now, with masters degree, making six figures, but refusing to turn my back on others less fortunate. Most of the other middle aged white guys I know that make six figures or there shouts and no college, but a successful small business of some sort, they like to say something like “your heartless if your not liberal when twenty and stupid if your not conservative after forty”. I argue with them that you’re heartless and stupid if you are conservative because the whole ideology is based on lies. America was strongest post WWII, when the marginal tax rate on the wealthy was in the 70-94% range, and we had strong social safety nets, but rampant racism. The conservatives of today remember how good it was then, but think it was good because of segregation and white superiority, not fiscal and monetary policy. Many of them proudly don’t read any books, let along studied academically. The whole thing is built on lies.
Yeah, that's the vibe I got from him too. He was predicting a Trump win and I think when it actually happened he got even more high on his own supply and somehow thinks because he predicted one thing one time that means all his dumbshit conspiracy theories are all true.
I bought a couple of his comic anthologies back then, and remember the author's note sections of the books evolving from "here's some funny anecdotes about drawing the strip" to "here are my deeply weird theories about society and why I (and through the transitive property, my readers) am smarter than everyone else."
Thank you for this. At about 50min in when you started explaining Scott's embrace of Affirmations, it finally clicked for me why he was so enamored of Trump. I knew for years Trump worshipped Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking, so learning how Scott came to the same kind of thinking made the connection. Trump is so locked in, he has a pathological inability to admit anything he did/thought/said was wrong or that he bears any direct responsibility for bad results of actions he initiated. It's why he keeps subordinates around him at all times, so he has someone to blame.
I remember reading the bits about affirmations in one of his books (read loooong ago) I tried it out. The results were...eh. But connecting them to Trump...that makes all the sense in the world now.
The Law of Attraction ultimately blames the victim for ANY circumstance (even a child who gets sexually assaulted, or a town that gets destroyed by a hurricane) for somehow choosing to manifest this reality. It's toxic stuff and it makes perfect sense that narcissists are attracted to it.
I had the exact opposite experience with weather. I grew up in Arizona, saw my dad get skin cancer, saw my sister nearly die from heat exposure, and had a family dog die because it ate food that had ants in it and the ants bit the dog to death from the inside. Then we escaped to Minnesota and I vowed to never travel south again. East, west, or north, but never south.
all of those instances are awful and my heart goes out to you and your family. the last one is terrifying, because i didnt know that you (or at least a pet) could die from eating ants, and the ants biting you from the inside.
@@Reverend_Salem It was technically just speculation on our part. We came home after some errand to find the dog lying motionless on the ground next to its food bowl, with ants crawling into/out of both the bowl and the dog's mouth. The ants in Phoenix aren't like the ones you find in the north. They're absolutely vicious and will actively attack large creatures if their nest is disturbed in any way. One of the habits I was taught that I still haven't kicked is knocking my shoes against the ground before putting them on. That was mainly for the scorpions and black widows that infested that horrid state, but it also helped prevent ant bites.
@@actinopterygiis Want more? How about the fact that you couldn't go swimming between the hours of 11 and 2, because you *would* get a sunburn, regardless of prep. Or my younger sister almost being run over in the parking lot by an old person driving too fast who proceeded to cuss us out. Or the "knocking the shoes" story in the post above. How about the giant black crickets that infested every house. When we were finally taking that final trip out of that hell-hole, I remember being confused as to why my older sister (12 at the time) was crying. She was already missing her friends. I was just glad to be out of there with the promise of never having to go back. Literally the only thing I miss from my time there was the orange trees we had growing out back of our second house. Fresh oranges are amazing. But then I discovered hydroponics and I now have two oranges growing on my very own indoor orange tree. So fuck Arizona and the entire South. (And yes, most of that was completely unrelated to your comment. I just felt like ranting more. :))
I shaved my head and donated my long hair as a kid, and my mom sent a picture in to the local paper. They printed it. It was not a big city but definitely a lot bigger than Scott's town. The idea of that being a "taste of fame" is hilarious. Wow, the acclaim i got from some random feature no one remembers, *intoxicating.* If that's part of your origin story, my guy, you sad.
... you did the little captions on the pictures in Cracked? I still laugh at the one from the article about stars simply captioned "A helium atom that really has no idea what it's in for."
i promise you a dude who ends up a racist weirdo saying something to the effect of "beating the long odds started to seem easy" as a kid is extremely sinister, like the DNA of "why can't they just bootstrap their way out of the hood" forming
@@xenn4985bruh you types say shit like "Of Course Our Lives Should Be Easy, Whites Are God's Chosen" and expect us to think you're a hard working rational critical thinker when it comes to the wellness of black families just say the quiet part out loud. you want slaves because you think royalty is your birthright. stop being cowards
@@xenn4985 Okay, many people have won the lottery, so what's the excuse for the ones who don't? Hard work should be encouraged. Success is possible, but not guaranteed. Barriers can sometimes be overcome, but why should we just accept that society/history has placed additional unnecessary barriers in front of some people? Why shouldn't we as a society endeavor to reduce artificial obstacles to success for all people? Wouldn't all of society benefit if we weren't constantly sabotaging a subset of the population?
To the affirmations discussion, If you say ‘i’m gonna write a book’ every morning, and that helps you write a book, great. The secret type people are like ‘i’ll write that i’m gonna write a novel everyday, and the novel will spontaneously come into existence.’
@41:40 I think that's the key: Scott Adams doesn't talk _to_ people, he talks *AT* them, and thus hasn't changed or grown as a person in many decades. My dad used to be a lot like him, it's exhausting. My Dad's name is Scott too, actually. Whenever a normal person meets someone like that for the first time, they often think "oh wow, your dad is really cool/interesting/fun!", but that's only because they haven't been around him for longer than a couple hours. If they did, they'd know that what they just experienced? Yeah, that's all there is to him. There's nothing deeper. You can say anything you want to him, and it might _seem_ like he's listening.. but he's not. He's thinking of a "response" to whatever you're about to say.. except by "response" I really mean "a continuation of the thing they were talking about previously, as if you literally hadn't said anything at all.." FWIW, Scott could change if he wanted to. My dad changed, and he's the most stubborn dude I've ever met! On the topic.. have you guys ever met a chill Scott? Because I'm beginning to suspect they're all raging assholes. I knew cool guy who I _thought_ was named Scott, but it turns out it was his middle name and his real name was Tim so idk 🤷♂
Have a friend like that. In his case at least it was a serious case of self centered personality. Not selfish though, which is puzzling. But being around him for more than a couple of hours is indeed hard work. Maybe a mild form of autism? The only Scott I've known was this Australian lad that was as chill as they come.
Can relate?! And yes he is still frustrating but did change. Also stubbern. I apreciate he did change, , dont expect to people become what you want but they grow. alsop glad your dad did change, yeah people can at least to a degree change, if they are willing t listen to good advice and pressure to, do, yeah. nop one is lost if they ar willing to engage with their problems reflective even omewhat.
As someone on the autism spectrum... holy shit, his childhood was so much like mine, and I had similar weird delusions of grandeur and was also a valedictorian with really bizarre beliefs. Everything about him just screams autism to me. I was so much like him growing up, I really dodged a bullet not ending up like him. I had literally the same exact thing happen of becoming an atheist but delusionally thinking that I was the only atheist in the world and thinking everyone else was dumber than me. I was into computer programming instead of art but still, I was so much like him growing up, just, holy shit, I was also on that weird villain arc at first. Unlike him, I ended up left-wing instead of right-wing. I also reacted differently to him to realizing I had weird delusions. Instead of just embracing delusions and having even more of them and thinking that they're an equally valid way of looking at reality, I was kinda like, no. Delusions are bullshit, they are wrong, they are false, I need to root them out of my crazy-ass mind and stop being such a kook, try to find my way to sanity. Like I used to genuinely believe I was the only sentient person on Earth and everyone else was a biological automaton, a so-called "philosophical zombie" who couldn't actually experience real emotions and... yeah, glad I didn't believe that for too long, that could have led to some really villainous stuff. Another difference is he ended up making lots of money and I didn't, so naturally, my class interests align with fellow low-income people like myself, while he originally aligned himself with libertarians and then fascists, going down that famous libertarian-to-fascist pipeline just like Alex Jones, Elon Musk, and so many others. I instead went down the lib-to-leftist pipeline and am very glad I did because I learned so much, and leftist critiques are such a great way of accurately explaining the real world around us and why things happen the way they do. Anyway I'm just super glad I didn't end up like Scott Adams the Dilbert guy, who is very clearly autistic. I can just tell from his story and what I have seen, everything about him. I recognize my own type, I know the diagnostic criteria. His thinking is rigid and inflexible yet unorthodox and he doesn't conform to social norms, he doesn't understand other people, he takes everything literally, he has strange obsessions, he tries to be extremely logical but gets basic things wrong, he has a tendency to arrive at delusional conclusions through his unorthodox thinking, he feels misunderstood by society and struggles with basic human interactions... all symptoms of autism I share too, 100%. I'm so lucky I didn't end up like him or like the other rich autistic bastards who really piss me off, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and a bunch of others, who also share all those tendencies. Elon Musk clearly the worst of them right now. I actually used to like the Dilbert cartoon and thought it was an anti-capitalist comic strip that parodied the idiocies of corporate culture, incompetent bosses, and self-important libertarian tech bros who think they know everything. It kinda hit me hard when I looked at Scott Adams's website for the first time, years ago, and found out he was actually one of those self-important libertarian tech bros who think they know everything, and that he was actually advocating the dumb bullshit he actually believes in his comic rather than parodying how dumb it sounds. Him getting on the libertarian-to-fascist pipeline since then has really been fascinating to watch because of how he keeps posting through it and goes into such detail about his batshit crazy theories. A couple times I thought maybe I could talk some sense into him by commenting constructive criticism on his blog because it seemed like maybe there were some faint glimmers of sanity in his writings and maybe some way I could reach him and talk him out of believing his own bullshit. I used to be a lot like him when I was a teenager so I kinda felt bad for him since I could tell his delusional beliefs were actually making him quite miserable, and they were also making him spread terribly wrong political ideas to, admittedly a niche audience. Like on Twitter, people would constantly note his bullshit and make fun of him and he would just block them and he would even name search anyone who said anything bad about him and block them. He can't handle any criticism of his delusions because deep down he knows they are wrong but is too afraid to admit it. I know what that's like from experience. I eventually mostly lost interest in him after it was clear he was beyond saving, but I really appreciate this wonderful 2-part series on this weird kook Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, who I have also been fascinated with for years, ever since I found out he wasn't actually poking fun at libertarian tech bro dipshits but was literally just saying dumb nonsense he actually believed, with the humor in his comic strips mostly unintentional, a self-parody. Most comics with jokes in them are deliberately written that way, an unintentional self-parody comic strip only happens when a total lunatic writes a comic. Basically just Scott Adams, Ben Garrison cartoons, and of course Chick tracts by Jack Chick. OK so there are several people who make insane right-wing comics that are unintentionally hilarious, but I legit thought he was doing a parody of weird capitalist kooks from an anti-capitalist perspective until I found out he was a weird kook himself.
As a kid of the 70s/80s later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, Scott's childhood sounds very familiar. I even had a personal mythology that I was a consciousness from Charon inplanted in my zygote. Like you, I too was overly influenced by compassion vs hatred. I shudder to imagine what my brain would have done if brought up in a Southern Baptist paradigm.
@@drtaverner Yeah in my case, I temporarily thought that the only good explanation for my consciousness and why I thought I had it but nobody else did was that I was secretly God incarnate but had used my powers to incarnate myself as a human. I thought I had temporarily given up my omnipotent powers to live a human life and experience it firsthand to get a better understanding of the humans that I, as God, had created and ruled over. In this temporary lifetime, according to my theory, I still had my original personality as God intact but had abandoned my powers as well as most of my omniscient knowledge. But I had made sure to make myself highly intelligent, the most intelligent person on Earth, with an unlimited brain capacity, and I would gradually learn more over time and figure out all the things I used to know when I was omniscient, eventually figuring out how to get all my omnipotent powers back. During the brief time I believed this theory, I thought my academic success and everyone I know always telling me I was the smartest person they knew and possibly the smartest in the world, which people often said to me when I was a kid around that age, it kinda got to my head and fed my ego and made me think I was literally God incarnate. I was also bullied a lot and I thought that this was the same type of suffering that my son Jesus had gone through in the past, and that it wad necessary for me, God, to go thru the same trials and tribulations that Jesus went through so I could better relate to humanity instead of just seeing them as inferior beings who often end up in hell instead of heaven for minor offenses, so I could reform my own system to be more humane if it turned out that would be best, but I needed to experience human cruelty and suffering firsthand as well as the good aspects of human nature to analyze whether other people deserved to go to hell or whether I should let everyone into heaven. I also wanted to figure out if humans had free will and could think for themselves or if they were just basically biological robots whose behavior was predetermined, entirely governed by cause and effect, without the ability to make their own decisions. Since if they were just biological automatons with no free will, they wouldn’t be morally culpable for their actions, and I would be the one at fault for creating them that way. My belief system gradually fell apart when I started finding more and more contradictions and inconsistencies with it and ways it didn’t really seem to match my observed reality well. It just became more and more obvious that the type of God I imagined myself to be didn’t make any logical sense at all and that if I were really God and really omniscient, I wouldn’t actually need to experience life as a human because I would already know everything, and I wouldn’t need to solve these mysteries of whether other people have free will or not because I would already know everything. And the whole idea of sending people to hell forever seemed wrong to me, especially if they had no control over their actions, so I was kinda confused. I figured, the only way hell makes any sense is if other people’s suffering isn’t real, because that way they wouldn’t actually be suffering in hell, it would only appear like that. I knew my own suffering was real, though, from personal experience, because it definitely felt real!
@@GeneralPublic Yeah, everyone being impressed with our intelligence seems like we're special until we discover that intellect is not an achievement any more than our height or skin-tone. Somehow we don't get credit for anything we _do_ accomplish because, of course we can do x or y, look how tall, smart, whatever we are. Hell, we _should_ be doing even better, cooler things or our brains are a _waste._ At least, that's how I felt. My interests didn't matter, I should be performing some kind of miracles. For a while around, 10 or 12 I actually thought I was a reincarnated Arthur Pendragon come to save the world. There was the Reincarnation of Aleister Crowley period which I thankfully got over. It's just our brains trying to understand why we're _different._ We need these elaborate backstories until someone explains that it's _really_ because of our distant Yeti heratige. 😏 Or autism. Often it turns out to be some form of autism. Our concepts of God change as well until we discover the truth that JHVH-1 is a space alien who still threatens this planet. It's a long journey to get there though. Praise "Bob" and his questionably holy name.
I also won art contests as a child. I even won second place at the Calgary Stampede western art contest in the rural youth category. My take from this was that my hard work paid off, not that I had rigged the universe in my favour.
Yes! Usually, my takeaway in these situations was that my hard work had either paid off or that I was good at the thing I had succeeded at. It would've never occurred to me to then try to find an "angle" or "game the system," and I only looked for shortcuts with things I really hated, like math.
I came 13th nationally in a art competition. Won a hundred pounds of book tokens for the school library, and a ren pound book token for myself. I never let it go to my head, because I knew it was even the best art in my class let alone in the nation. It's just to be considered for a prize you had to send in tokens for like 40 tubes of Colgate, and Mum went out and bought a ten year supply. I got a brief blush of attention out of it, my mum was proud, the English teacher was thrilled with the funding, but the world kept turning. I was still an unlovable nerd. The world had always been pay to win.
I had a drawing published in the paper when I was a second grader. My takeaway was to not understand what the adults making the paper had wanted, because I just drew a picture like I usually would have. My parents were proud and it was cool to see it on newsprint. But I didn't assume I had some kind of golden ticket to success because of it.
When I won in the drawing contest, I got 500 bucks, and tickets for my whole family to the Stampede. There was an opening party for the art pavilion with free food. For a farm family of 6 people, this was really nice. The Calgary Stampede is really expensive so yeah, the money was cool, but I was really happy that I could do that for my family.
Oingo Boingo is unironically my favorite band. Their farewell concert is freaking amazing. They finally figured out how to play together, just for them to break up.
MAD was super important for my getting into art and drawing, just as much as the superhero comics I was reading at the time (and the art was generally leaps and bounds better in MAD).
It's so sad comic-cons seem to be dying. I met Vaughn Bode's surviving relatives, and the guy who draws "Bob The Angry Flower". I penciled a strip overnight and gave it to him the next day, "Bob The Happy Well-Adjusted Flower". Trust me, it was funny. I never heard back from him.
What if his managers really did tell him he was denied the promotion for diversity reasons, but they lied to him? Like what if he was terrible to work with and they just said "we need an excuse to deny him this promotion so that he doesn't become antagonistic towards me." And they just realized, "Oh, he's racist, we can just say it was the minorities and it won't be our problem anymore."
You might be interested to know that there's a book called "You Got Nothing Comin'" by a guy named Jimmy Lerner. Jimmy was a co-worker of Scott Adams They were both cubical drones at AT&t at the same time. Learner went on a bender after a rough divorce and ended up killing a guy in the Las Vegas hotel. The book is about how a nerdy little office dork survived a Nevada prison. It's one of the best books you'll ever read.
@missingsig Tbf it's a well reviewed book but yeah looking at the backstory it does seem like he just tortured a little guy to death while he was on a bender and only ended up doing like 2 years in jail for it.
After Dilbert Adams revealed himself to the world, I rather wanted to uncover when his descent began. The only problem was, he was never even close to important enough to me to bother actually doing the research. This excellent series fulfills that wish of mine without requiring me to even lift a finger, and for this I most heartily thank you. It turns out he never descended, he just kept skating in parallel until he felt it was the right moment to make an official and historic fool of himself.
Listening to this episode made me think of Doug Tennapel, creator of Earthworm Jim. Also a bigot and homophobe who’s work is forced to stand apart from its creator. Not on this level but still fairly significant to 90s kids.
Scott Adams went to college with the sole intent to commit suicide due to unbearable physical pain. He arrives at college and is introduced to pot which cures his unbearable physical pain. Suicide averted. If you must hate something, hate pot.
I always though Dogbert was the character that felt closest to an authorial or self-insert voice. And even as a teen this made me feel sad and uncomfortable because Dogbert was an unscrupulous amoral meglomaniac for whom everything always just kinda worked out.
I remember one book where he described his own work when younger. Finding an organizational hole and being forgotten in it. He described not being an engineer himself, but listening to the engineers and their culture.
What a pleasant surprise. I thought the title looked like it might be fun to listen to at work, and then you introduced your guest, absolute legend Randy Milholland. Subscribed.
Back in the 80s someone would put out a list every year of the highest-paid entertainers and Charles Schulz was always in the top 10, usually top 5, like between Michael Jackson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's the context for Adams saying it was a career that paid well. I don't think any brand but Disney had as much merch as Peanuts until we entered the current dystopian world of entertainment IP.
Peanuts started it, but I think it was the Garfield craze and what it did for Jim Davis that led to the last great Renaissance for newspaper comics. Adams should have just been proud of his chance to ride that train for a while and retired, but I'm sure he's convinced himself he was responsible for things far better creators did.
When you were talking about his taking up affirmations and the Power of Positive Thinking... it reminded me of that California incel gunman, the son of a movie director. The kid definitely thought he was entitled to things. Multiple times he'd spent tens of thousands on lotto tickets and hype himself up into a frenzy about how he was sure to win because of Positive Thinking and affirmations. Then it would all crash down when he didn't. It's like, we need to stop presenting this as some kind of magic spell; it's just a tool to help you focus; but I also get the feeling that a lot of predators use it as a tool for the manipulation of gullible rubes.
I have not met very many successful people that used the power of negative thinking. Maybe the occasional retired government director but never a person from the private sector.
@@andrewmclaughlin2701You comment on every thread, and it’s all completely vapid BS. It feels like you run people’s comments through an AI conversation bot, then use that as an AI prompt for a response.
56:35 another problem with Scott claiming he didn't get promoted at the banks because he was a generic white man is this comes after he's admitted he was bad at anything his first job asked him to do, and just before he brags about spending his time at his second job coming up with tricks to get away with not working . And all of this, of course, is after we've learned he has a view of reality where he needs to master One Weird Trick to glitch the universe into giving him stuff. So maybe that gives him some credibility problems.
I mean it sounds a bit like on the autism spectrum how enstranged he seems from understanding humans, but honestl, really more grew up in a really weird cult vibes. And he eems too functional despite him being weird so more weird cult upbringing estraangement.orign. in any case 100 narsicist.
@@marocat4749 , I had a similar thought when they told the alien pregnancy story---but, I know a ton of deeply-empathetic autistic people who care about other's feelings and well-being, so his issues can't be blamed on autism alone! He absolutely has a powerful narcissistic streak; no debate there. He seems to see everything and everybody as existing for his benefit and personal use.
It is really noteworthy how often these anecdotes recount events of Scott’s life which cause me to think “yeah, buddy, I’ve been there, it happens to a lot of us, that’s life,” only to describe him as going on to think those events were Grand Revelations of Cosmic Truth Which Make Him The Specialist Boy Ever. Almost comical degrees of self-importance with this guy.
"Why the hell would someone write an entire book critiquing Scott Adams, that's such a silly thing to do. Anyway, this concludes the first in our series of 1 and a 1/2 hour podcast episodes critiquing Scott Adams." But seriously, interesting discussion. I'm a casual Dilbert fan and one of the people who was confused by Adams turning out to be a crazy racist Trump supporter, since I'd have placed him as a soft lefty with maybe libertarian leanings. But I've not read Dilbert strips in nearly a decade and presumed maybe he'd just been warped with time. So this was a fascinating insight into the clues that have been there all along. Also I still think the cartoon was pretty good. Although in retrospect I guess the recurring joke of that generic Soviet-bloc mud country was kinda racist...
Interesting thing, when I was a sad, scared and lonely teenager (so... Like 20 years ago, blrrrgh) I wrote fan emails to both Scott *and* Randy. Oddly enough, I got a reply from both. Scott's reply was a quick impersonal line of text, while Randy responded with a heartfelt response that really did me a lot of good... aaaand may or may not have prevented me from attempting poorly thought out murder on my abusive stepfather. So... Yeah 😅 Something Positive and Choo Choo Bear have always held a very special place in my heart through the years.
My father had almost all the Pogo books. The parody of the John Birch Society was called "The Jack Acid Society", formed by Deacon and Molester Mole. (The former had a tendency to speak in Gothic font.) I also vividly remember one of the books poking fun at Khruschev and Castro (as pig and goat respectively).
@@jackprier7727 Nowadays most people have never heard of Walt Kelly or Pogo. His work ranked with the best of any comics artist. Maybe its topicality caused it to seem more dated than it should, but his swipes at the John Birch Society feel tragically relevant nowadays.
His focus on making a career while still a child kind of gives off a Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation’s “job in a mill at 9 years old” vibe. There’s a very capitalist mindset being developed. There’s a few kinds of entrepreneurial people. There’s the standard ones who try many different things, most of which fail but they find some success that allows them to make a living. There’s then those that never get that traction and fail. There’s those lucky ones that strike gold at the first ask and never have to worry again. And then there’s the failures that can’t fathom why they failed and find someone to blame. Adams doesn’t seem to fall directly into one category here though. He seems like the one who worked hard enough to eventually make it, but I get the impression he thought he was one of the luckiest ones who reach mega-stardom. His failure to fulfil this destiny, to reach the popular conscious like Peanuts did, it’s turned him into the kind of person that can’t understand why he hasn’t achieved all of his ambitions and then finds some conspiracy against him that results in becoming a right-wing loon. Delusions of grandeur in a child. Absolutely wild.
As a retired Navy guy, I loved your navy references, and yes, the Navy dropped the ball. Not sure I'd liken it to Pearl Harbor though. But I did snort loudly at that one.
I won a radio station's giant Christmas stocking once. My enduring memory was that I was forced by my mum to share the sword in a scabbard with my cousin (I was pirate mad and wanted the whole thing) so that he got the scabbard and I got the sword, or the other way around. What didn't happen was that I became convinced I could always beat long odds.
Interesting how a kid who grew up with a one person income household with the house, stay at home mom, and all on a government salary, and he somehow becomes conservative, which in the current world, the conservatives believe that government workers who aren't making enough that 2 average government salaries can't afford a home and conservatives want to privatize the post office. The post office used to be a wonderful place that took care of small towns across the country with communication that was affordable, banking options, and even travel for kids back in the day.
Scott Adams is like... textbook Mediocre White Man Mediocres Up. He never had to face any real barriers in his life, not even when he was a kid. And it made him believe he was so much more important and powerful than he is.
Now I can say that this episode about the Dilbert guy is more therapeutic for my religious trauma growing up than I expected, and that's a fun and unexpected sorta collection of words to say
I am a civil engineer that worked for a large consulting firm for about a decade. I bought a Dilbert desk calendar every year because those comics mocked the corporate system, of which I was a cog, and because it was an easy Christmas gift for my wife. I was unaware for many years that Scott Adams was a lunatic. I will never give Scott Adams another cent.
I'm only 40 - 45 mins in, and everything I've heard describes someone who developed a strong sense of self-importance real early in life that wasn't really challenged for a while, and when it finally was, everything after that was an effort to regain and maintain that self-importance. That's my two cents, anyway.
Suicidal throughout teens secondary to extreme pain...goes to university with sole intent to commit suicide due to pain being unbearable...introduced to pot and the pain dissipates...he went through hell at a young age and pot made him achieve a life of wealth
Legacy media is losing money. Dilbert retires from the shrinking profits available in syndicated cartooning. Dilbert lives on through subscription service and is no longer forced to stay within the confines of what the syndicate permits. lol
The comment about how the book could change your perceptions indicates he wasn't as open minded by his shrooms as he likes to think. Also, the idea that Donald Trump can win an argument in a room full of people who aren't actively being paid to let him win is comical. He got a reputation for being litigious not clever.
What a pleasant surprise this video was! I had never heard of this podcast before, and I unfortunately have steered clear of a lot of podcasts hosted by men in the past few years because a lot of really bad guys are making podcasts these days, but I'm glad I gave you a shot. You're talking about some really interesting stuff, and your morals/personality/worldview are a breath of fresh air compared to what I have been conditioned to expect.
@@carlrs15 Lots of anti-SJW podcasts by edgy manlets who make a certain "I take my dad's wedding tux to court" onion boy look strong and tough in comparison, this person got surprised this isn't another "let's complain about woke" channel.
Years ago, I was watching Paula Poundstone (on my computer screen) with a studio audience, and someone who looked very much like Scott Adams spoke up from that audience. I don't recall what he said, but I remember it sounded rude. The audience gasped, then Paula raised her hand and said "I'll handle this!" My aversion to conflict kicked in and I changed the channel. So maybe someone could follow up on all my deep research.
y'know, nowadays the first thing I think about re: Scott Adams is how he wrote in "Seven Years of Highly Defective People" (one of his comic compilations where he helpfully annotates some of his "best" "work" so you can discover what, er, deep thoughts went into the comics) about how he got a bunch of flack from people when he introduced the character Tina because she was too stereotypical (I think the assertion was "she acted like the stereotypical angry feminist" which iirc the point was that she WAS and he was daring people to get mad), and instead of pausing, considering if maybe he screwed up somewhere, he did the sort of thing that only a person who's MASSIVELY butthurt (or specifically trying to rub people's faces in how much he's offended them and how much he thinks that's rad) would do and created the very short-lived character "Antina," who he said was designed as being the exact opposite of Tina. He recounts getting flack afterward for her being a stereotypical portrayal of lesbians or something. look my memory is not good but I remember the basics of the story and that it was a real shithead thing to do that ends up seeming minor on the shithead scale compared to everything else about the guy in more recent years The second thing I think about is the Dilberito and I think I need to bump that one up to number one so at least I can laugh a little more often.
Just got to the part where you called him a 'main character' and that's what I'd been saying in my head since he had the 'realization' that he was uniquely able to beat the odds.
Adams not being able to deal with the Norman Solomon criticism and get over it reminds me of Trump never getting over being referred to as a "short fingered vulgarian" in a magazine in the late 80's. Trump would occasionally send the guy pictures of himself with his hands circled writing, "Not so short" on the page. For DECADES. It is a sure sign that the authors hit on something that both Adams and Trump are insecure about and blabbed it to the whole world.
O man...can't believe Randy Milholland came on board for this! I've loved Something Positive for what feels like forever. (Painfully, torturously, like forever...definitely feeling old. But at least Something Positive gets me smiling just as it always has.) Watched Milholland slowly grow from excellent smartass into superb story crafter. You both have great literacy on the subject of cartooning and cartoonists. As for Adams...nice pick apart. I have to admit...I wondered where he went so off base...but I never really connected dots and looked for other troubling warning shots. A lot is forgivable...little things that, while I differ in opinion, I didn't see them as rooted in some genuinely harmful mindset. But I was caught off guard when he dropped into crazed cult of personality worship and virulent tirades. Worse...he followed the trend of wealthy people being downright furious that people somehow don't agree with them. The sense of persecution, victimization and martyrdom...would be more appropriate for someone not sitting in a mansion with investments that ensure their well being while being told 'no', but instead being beaten, jailed or killed for their actions. These are people who have forgotten that its possible to 'not win', and that at no point are they entitled to approval...but actually have to earn it now just as they earned it before. A taste of how most of us feel daily is more than they can emotionally handle...and it doesn't look pretty. Your examination was thorough, informative, and still hilarious. Thank you!
I have loved Something Positive for years, so excited to hear Randy on a podcast! I also read all the Scott Adams books when I was younger, but I missed all the warning signs... when he went full racist it threw me hard. Then again, I am so used to celebrities coming out with a dark side that I cherish the ones who actually seem regular
As a tech worker in the nineties I honestly thought Dilbert was hilarious. He ran out of relatable material around the same time he started apparently going insane. I missed the warning signs as well….
Re: Scott becoming an atheist. The strange thing is not that he didn’t know there were other atheists. Rather, it’s the thought process (unsurprising given who we know Scott became) according to which he’s so special, so brilliant, that he must’ve been the first and only person to discover that biblical stories are absurd.
@@verdancyhime This I have to agree with. The feeling that you are being captivated and manipulated is bewitching. The more you deny it... There are a lot of hypnosis fetish channels that are like this. People LOVE to be overpowered, made helpless. However I still can't work out to what degree all of it is just roleplay vs. actual surrender. The thing specific to NLP is that it has some people buying into it as a rigorous scientific discipline.
Regarding the bit about atheism not being able to "predict the future", I wonder if he misunderstood the idea that scientific theories should make predictions, and mistakenly believed that if atheism is "scientific", it should be able to make predictions in the same way that e.g. general relativity does.
"Very mind altering drug, anxiety." You know though, that always gave us depressives a leg up with this I think. Like, I first started experiencing some varying realities at, what, 14? The feel as a depressed person or anxious person of the 'haze' coming down over your vision and suddenly, sometimes from one sentence to the next, everything just SUCKS... it's very mind fucky indeed. There have been times I've just been IN IT and things are truly DIRE and I can be a wholly different person in different circumstances, with different chemicals floating in my brain and different stimulus hitting my sensorium. I can be a very separate me. It's literally shifted my perception from one second to another, I can feel my brain spinning up to come up with an EXCUSE and because the bad feels hit first before the reason and I can tell that the reason isn't *really* the reason. It's like my brain is spinning a wheel of options and I feel it. I feel more confident in the me I am, having to constantly defend them from the me I could be under the influence of my own wildly swinging brain chemicals. It's taught me which of the people I COULD be is best for me. Wow vitamin deficiencies impact your personality more than you think though, heads up on that. Eat your vegetables, B vitamin deficiency legit makes you go crazy.
There was an episode of Dilbert where Dogbert was scamming NASA by painting pretty star pictures. Back in the day I just thought it was a funny joke, now I just want to ask Scott if he believes that telescopes exist.
"I do in fact own Popeye. I am destroying him, according to everyone Breitbart" I mean, in my 36 years on this planet, I've never had any reason to read Popeye before, but this is about the best recommendation I could get.
50:13 I think what you're describing is that weird "speaking things into existence" thing. That's where you do the "say this specific thing while focusing and it'll happen". I think the whole affirmations thing is retraining how you think about yourself by speaking kindly to yourself. So hearing yourself say out loud things like "I am pretty, I am smart, I am loved" kinda helps combat anxiety/intrusive thoughts and rewires your brain out of self hate. It isn't a magic cure, but like in addition to medication and therapy, it can help ease some self hatred to tell yourself you like yourself. (Even if you start off lying to yourself when you say it, saying it enough can help you feel it). Edit: i should probably disclaimer that i haven't tried the affirmations thing. I've just heard it described that way, and i think it's like a real therapy type deal, not crystal healing manifestating things into the universe.
Another example of someone successful, but who knows it was luck and having nice people around him, is Arnold Schwarzenegger. His speech at a college is full of anecdotes about friends who helped him in his early days.
@@andrewmclaughlin2701No, he’s smart enough to be able to self reflect many years later and see some of the reality of his good fortune. Which, based on your comments, is something you lack.
I don't know if Sergio Aragones was living in a small town a bit north of LA, in the earlier 90s, and I'd see him hanging out around town all the time. I'd been collecting MAD throughout my teens, and had a special edition from the mid 80s, that was dedicated to his margin cartoons. I decided to keep in my car, hoping to bump into him. I finally did one day, and built up the courage to go talk to him, about his art. He was really cool, just in general, but he actually took my magazine, and gave me a little background behind a few cartoons, or his character concepts. WE talked about some of his other work, and other cartoonists, and even asked if I wanted him to autograph my magazine. I probably squealed a little, but I mostly played it cool. He walked off, found a sharpie, and not only signed it, drew up a one of kind margin cartoon in it, as well. What a guy, seriously.
I used to live near him and his house was always referred to as the weirdo house because he had memorabilia out front. Before his Trump turn he didn’t have a fence. Now he has a tall fence and gate lmao
Okay, so, did anyone consider the irony of not winning a *drawing* contest, and then getting a *camera* as a runner-up prize? That's ice cold.
I think if they were good enough to be considered to be looked at more, fair, why not reward eing good enough tostill come far enough. Good motivation to keep going i guess. The trunner up prices seem topromisind ones to throw them a bone. Through art tools might have been a better idea
Just his reaction is bad, not a " too bad, i keep working on it, at least i got there" no its about beating odds "
@@marocat4749how drunk were you commenting this?
Have to get reference images somehows
That's in the ballpark of classic Simpsons joke, I like it.
😅 had completely missed the significance of the camera, but bet as a kid, the message I could've easily gleamed from that, would've been that they think my drawing skills are so bad I should take up photography
I loved his comics when I was younger, I was definitely one of those people who assumed he was ribbing capitalism. I was shocked when I heard what he's actually like. This was a great listen!
Thank you for listening to the pod!
I started reading Dilbert in like, 92, or 93. I thought it was a cool strip for a long time and hadn't an inkling of his racism. I mean, he had Asok, a character I liked. And the lady engineer was shown as being smarter than most of the guys - not Dilbert of course, but most of them. I miss Ratbert, he was cute.
I read his books, I loved his comics, it was always funny.
Yet knowing his books gave some hints on the way he thinks. A lot of magical thinking (especially in Dilbert Future), oversimplification and "I'm not a scientist, just a dumb-ass comic writer, BUT" talk.
Seeing him going this way was like listening to rap music in my youth, thinking they didn't mean it and were just joking. Finding out they were oftentimes not was somewhat troubeling, too. ;-)
Edit. Then again, recalling his books back then, it could have gone either way. Because even if he did already believe a lot of nonsense and bullshit, he was always critical of those thoughts and didn't fully embrace them, always leaving room for "could be, could not be" thoughts. So judging from his state of mind back then, he could also have become a critical, open spirit that just likes to question the reality around him and is able to see things with a critical distance.
The way he's gone, becoming this mad Trump-supporter that kept praising his genius - that's when I turned away from it and stopped reading his website - I did not see that coming.
After looking at some of his proposed solutions in one of his earlier books, I get the impression that he wasn't ribbing capitalism itself so much as saying it could be executed a lot better. He seems to believe that capitalism run "correctly" is amazing.
@@Regdren And he'd be correct, a well regulated capitalistic system can do amazing things. It is what got us into space. - Issue is that capitalism also erodes those regulations over time and corrupts the system to perpetuate itself at the expense of everything else. Like what you can see basicly.. everywhere.
It's truly insane that Adams as a kid decided to give up on Christianity because he thought that the story of Jonah and the whale was too unbelievable, only to then turn around and decide that he must be the product of aliens impregnating his mom as part of some kind of experiment.
'Jesus ain't real cause I AM THE JESUS'
Especially because the story of Jonah and the Whale isn't even that unbelievable as far as Bible stories go (there was a guy in 2021 I think who was swallowed by a whale and spat up alive, and supposedly a whaler back in the 1700s or 1800s was eaten by his prey and carved out of its stomach by his crewmates, but I haven't been able to find very many sources for that particular story). It's ridiculous, sure, but it's not completely fantastical, just highly, highly unlikely.
But have you seen his mom?
@@DoveAlexa , et al, troll elsewhere, or learn why it is a bad idea to start a fight here...your call.
wild how hostile folk get over sky daddy.
It seems obvious to me that the key element of Adams' "Alien Experiment Theory" was denial of any connection to his father.
Totally. One of his "Coffee with Scott" shows (sometime around summer 2020) he mentioned that the stupidest person he'd ever met in his life was his father, and that it was okay for him to say so since his father was dead...
@@i_am_a_fancy_cat he also says in his "Loserthink" book that he has trauma from some bad childhood events that he won't talk about.
The irony of all these Dilbert M-preg jokes is that the finale of the Dilbert TV show ended with Dilbert pregnant and giving birth to a (partially) alien baby. So, there is Dilbert M-preg art, and it was produced by Scott Adams.
No fucking way. He kept the alien baby shit in his head all the way to adulthood
Always wondered how Sergio drew so tiny when I was a kid reading Mad magazine. Then I learned about camera work in magazine production and used a reducing lens when I was drawing a newspaper comic so I wouldn't waste time with detail that wouldn't survive reduction. Completely genuine and generous with advice and encouragement, Sergio drew for me a sketch of Groo to give my partner/editor to prevent demanding unnecessary detail. Sergio Aragones is the ultimate, he draws in seconds what takes other artists minutes, in hours what would take others days. His people and animals have expressive character and his worlds have mechanical and cultural authenticity. He often draws from reference photos and objects, unlike many artists with a habit of missing deadlines.
Had the great pleasure to meet him at a convention once and was able to get to talk to him for a few minutes. It was so nice to see his genuine happiness in me telling him how much his comics meant to me growing up.
Groo is such absolute genius of a comic, a character and concept
Aragonés is definitely the GOAT
Man, all this talk of newspaper comics is hitting all my nostalgia buttons. The Calvin & Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book was formative for me.
Oh, I LOVED C&H as a kid. I recognized so much of myself in Calvin, and in a lot of unflattering ways, but that just made him so much funnier to me.
All these little points are like: "What if Survivorship Bias was a person?"
... which reminds me that Robert should do a "Bastards" episode on Rhonda Byrne and/or whoever was responsible for making the Law of Attraction/"The Secret" mainstream. It's so much worse than just silly pseudoscience. It ultimately blames the victim for ANY circumstance (even a child who gets sexually assaulted, or a town that gets destroyed by a hurricane) for somehow choosing to manifest this reality. It discourages medical treatments by promoting the idea that one can choose health (look into the case of "Oprah" viewer Kim Tinkham). It's actually more toxic than fundamentalist Christianity, which is saying a lot. I can't believe that practitioners are unaware that people have literally died as a result of these magical belief systems.
There's also that Abraham woman on TH-cam who claims she invented the secret, and Teal Swan, who runs an online cult and suicide baited her followers.
I dunno, fundies are about the nadir of religious lunacy. At least the whole 'believing hard enough will fix things' bit has the advantage of the placebo effect behind it.
Yes. This ideology is still really commonly perpetuated online today and holy crap does it mess you up if you have clinical depression. Bright sided by Barbara Erin rich is a really good book about it that helped me a lot
Look, I’m sorry about thinking Catrina into existence, okay? I just thought New Orleans was kind of unsafe compared to the Netherlands and what would happen if a storm system hit it head on.
Besides, the televangelists probably did the heavy lifting with all their praying for the city to be destroyed!
You can’t just go around blaming the people that read The Secret when fake priests on tv literally bragged about how their god was responsible and it was because they prayed hard enough!
…which, come to think of it, is basically using the lessons of it enmass.
Wait, is The Secret just a deity-less religion? Like nulltheism or something instead of monotheism/polytheism?
I agree that I would love to hear Robert cover The Secret, altho if you want a quick podcast fix, If Books Could Kill has a great episode on it.
Scott Adams has the prime weakness that lead to conspiratorial thinking: believing that he is smarter than everyone else therefore only he knows how the world works. I used to work in IT and I enjoyed Dilbert .
Are you not smarter than everyone else with this post?
It is indeed the core behind such a mindset, which is also why it’s almost impossible to talk them out of the conspiracy (because they’ve already convinced themselves that they’re the smartest/everyone else is dumb, so why should they listen to what anyone else says?)
I call those types of people _auto-felatilists._
That’s what happens when you grow up in a very small town, and are the Valedictorian of your class of 30-some students, lol.
@@yellowblanka6058I had a lot of very smart friends growing up (including the valedictorian of a class of over 1000) and although I liked the comic I never got the feeling that he was particularly smart. Smarter than average, yeah, but not smarter or more talented than some of my classmates, and there were definitely people much smarter than my classmates out there.
Thanks, internet, for making it so dang easy to find people more skilled than we will ever be 👍
Man, Scott really does have a terminal case of Main Character Syndrome.
Clearly the genius responsible for Watterson, Breathed, and Larson retiring.
Uh ... wait ...
Yes, Calvin & Hobbes is still definitely the best! Being out of print for almost 30 years changes nothing.
Agreed.
Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County affected me deeply. The art of C&H is still so gorgeous and wonderful!! :3
Partial to a bit of Far Side.
I had the immense pleasure of getting to read through the entire collection (the official 4-book full collection) with my young sons twice because they wanted to read it every night. I loved it at 10 years old. I might love it even more at 43 years old.
Its a good thing my dad bought three hardback issues of c&h. Still great
Adams' "Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies" was a formative read for me. By which, I mean that I adopted the title as a lifestyle. Steal office supplies, people. As a role model, I encourage you to steal office supplies.
Often you dnt need to steal them,just leftver that you can take if asking.
I like taking pens thou
I got to the same destination via the 1987 King Missile song Take Stuff from Work.
I've never consciously decided to steal from a workplace.
But I've also never needed to visit an office supply store in order to purchase paper, pens, sticky notes, etc.
@@sixstringedthing It's not stealing if the office supplies in question were actually purchased using the surplus value of your labor.
@@SamwiseOutdoorsSamwise you are truly living up to your name.
Dilbert resonated with the IT crowd, especially by pointing out the strained relationship between workers and their often massively deluded managers.
I mean, good crowd and channeling his frustrations thre is good, but i think i like the hobby cartoonist that did get fired for his past, and then released hiswork there sketches XD
But as target audience, good one. He just could have been not ..
It did, but it's also conservative in a key way: That strained relationship is presented as simply the natural order. The engineers are at the bottom of the social hierarchy, management are overpaid and isolated, the company bureaucracy is impenetrable. This is the way of things, and must be accepted as it is. Occasional petty acts of rebellion may be achievable, but changing the status quo is simply unthinkable.
@@vylbird8014 I was initially surprised when I heard that adams was hard conservative because I remembered his strip often felt anti-authority or anti-establishment, but upon reflection it was more about how "Everyone else is either stupid or evil and I'm the only one who's reasonable and intelligent". It wasn't just his boss, I think pretty much every single character other than Dilbert himself was evil or incompetent or unreasonable in some way
You either die a hero or live long enough to be a dyspeptic crank.
@@arcadeinvader8086 I think you're trying to make sense of things in retrospect, but I don't agree with the things said here. For a start, a comic strip can't have a revolution where the rightful people take control over production, that would be the end of the comic. Secondly Dilbert was rarely the smartest guy in the room, Dogbert was. Even most other guests were smarter, they were baffled at the incompetence of the boss, but Dilbert realized that he no longer gets surprised, like most office workers he gave up long ago.
The truth is that the comic was mostly leftist in its message and that most likely Adams simply changed when he got enormously wealthy from it.
I was kind of into Dilbert when I was younger. My mom was an engineer for many years, and in the early days (before Scott began to get really obviously problematic) she greatly empathized with the cubicle dwellers' struggle with the pointy haired boss. And since she passed her interest in science and engineering down to me, I also found them pretty amusing. However, even in the early days, I noticed some vaguely right-wing stuff that kind of weirded me out. There were more than a few strips where Adams complained about the social mores of feminism (i.e., that tiresome right-wing 90's schtick about women wanting equality until the cheque comes at dinner, portraying women's support groups as supposedly being groups of crazy women complaining about how everything men do is a conspiracy to undermine them as people, etc.) that made me wonder if there was something unpleasant going on under the hood of this whole enterprise. Turns out, it was even worse than I suspected...
I remember reading a lot of Dilbert when I was younger. I didn't notice too much of the right-wing stuff because I was raised in a conservative family but I did catch things like how Alice went from originally being smarter and harder-working than any of her male coworkers to simply being angry and violent. Then some time during the W administration, Scott wrote an editorial supporting Intelligent Design and at that point I lost all respect for him.
I need to re-read some Dilbert, obviously. I used to love it when I was on the left.
@@worldcomicsreview354when you were on the left? So you’re now on the right? What led to this change?
@@TryingToDoBetter01I’m going to guess he got some money either via inheritance or a reasonably successful small business, and either doesn’t want to pay as much taxes or doesn’t want to have to pay his employees fairly and provide health insurance etc. - that or he’s scared of the “woke” boogeyman.
@@yellowblanka6058 yeah, I’m middle aged now, with masters degree, making six figures, but refusing to turn my back on others less fortunate. Most of the other middle aged white guys I know that make six figures or there shouts and no college, but a successful small business of some sort, they like to say something like “your heartless if your not liberal when twenty and stupid if your not conservative after forty”. I argue with them that you’re heartless and stupid if you are conservative because the whole ideology is based on lies. America was strongest post WWII, when the marginal tax rate on the wealthy was in the 70-94% range, and we had strong social safety nets, but rampant racism. The conservatives of today remember how good it was then, but think it was good because of segregation and white superiority, not fiscal and monetary policy. Many of them proudly don’t read any books, let along studied academically. The whole thing is built on lies.
I read some of his early nonfiction in the late '90s and it was definitely "I'm smarter than everyone else, how sad for humanity."
He's a strange man.
He's a midwit, slightly above average intelligence but not intelligent enough to know how limited his intelligence is.
Yeah, that's the vibe I got from him too. He was predicting a Trump win and I think when it actually happened he got even more high on his own supply and somehow thinks because he predicted one thing one time that means all his dumbshit conspiracy theories are all true.
Guarantee he's a libertarian.
I bought a couple of his comic anthologies back then, and remember the author's note sections of the books evolving from "here's some funny anecdotes about drawing the strip" to "here are my deeply weird theories about society and why I (and through the transitive property, my readers) am smarter than everyone else."
@@carlfishyyou are describing The Dilbert Future to a T
Thank you for this. At about 50min in when you started explaining Scott's embrace of Affirmations, it finally clicked for me why he was so enamored of Trump. I knew for years Trump worshipped Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking, so learning how Scott came to the same kind of thinking made the connection. Trump is so locked in, he has a pathological inability to admit anything he did/thought/said was wrong or that he bears any direct responsibility for bad results of actions he initiated. It's why he keeps subordinates around him at all times, so he has someone to blame.
I remember reading the bits about affirmations in one of his books (read loooong ago) I tried it out. The results were...eh. But connecting them to Trump...that makes all the sense in the world now.
The Law of Attraction ultimately blames the victim for ANY circumstance (even a child who gets sexually assaulted, or a town that gets destroyed by a hurricane) for somehow choosing to manifest this reality. It's toxic stuff and it makes perfect sense that narcissists are attracted to it.
You know nothing
It is creepy that being delusional and loving Trump is so intertwined. I think its because delusional minds seek eachother out.
@@gregutz4284 give it up already buddy you've forfeit your life to a willful lunacy and walk the fool to your end
I had the exact opposite experience with weather. I grew up in Arizona, saw my dad get skin cancer, saw my sister nearly die from heat exposure, and had a family dog die because it ate food that had ants in it and the ants bit the dog to death from the inside. Then we escaped to Minnesota and I vowed to never travel south again. East, west, or north, but never south.
all of those instances are awful and my heart goes out to you and your family.
the last one is terrifying, because i didnt know that you (or at least a pet) could die from eating ants, and the ants biting you from the inside.
i live nyc all my life i am 65 years old and i would never leave
ants biting a dog to death from the inside sounds like something straight from a horror movie. jesus christ.
@@Reverend_Salem It was technically just speculation on our part. We came home after some errand to find the dog lying motionless on the ground next to its food bowl, with ants crawling into/out of both the bowl and the dog's mouth. The ants in Phoenix aren't like the ones you find in the north. They're absolutely vicious and will actively attack large creatures if their nest is disturbed in any way.
One of the habits I was taught that I still haven't kicked is knocking my shoes against the ground before putting them on. That was mainly for the scorpions and black widows that infested that horrid state, but it also helped prevent ant bites.
@@actinopterygiis Want more? How about the fact that you couldn't go swimming between the hours of 11 and 2, because you *would* get a sunburn, regardless of prep. Or my younger sister almost being run over in the parking lot by an old person driving too fast who proceeded to cuss us out. Or the "knocking the shoes" story in the post above. How about the giant black crickets that infested every house.
When we were finally taking that final trip out of that hell-hole, I remember being confused as to why my older sister (12 at the time) was crying. She was already missing her friends. I was just glad to be out of there with the promise of never having to go back.
Literally the only thing I miss from my time there was the orange trees we had growing out back of our second house. Fresh oranges are amazing. But then I discovered hydroponics and I now have two oranges growing on my very own indoor orange tree. So fuck Arizona and the entire South.
(And yes, most of that was completely unrelated to your comment. I just felt like ranting more. :))
I shaved my head and donated my long hair as a kid, and my mom sent a picture in to the local paper. They printed it. It was not a big city but definitely a lot bigger than Scott's town. The idea of that being a "taste of fame" is hilarious. Wow, the acclaim i got from some random feature no one remembers, *intoxicating.* If that's part of your origin story, my guy, you sad.
... you did the little captions on the pictures in Cracked? I still laugh at the one from the article about stars simply captioned "A helium atom that really has no idea what it's in for."
i promise you a dude who ends up a racist weirdo saying something to the effect of "beating the long odds started to seem easy" as a kid is extremely sinister, like the DNA of "why can't they just bootstrap their way out of the hood" forming
Okay but many have bootstrapped their way out of the hood, so whats the excuse for the ones who dont?
He's not racist. Lol
@@xenn4985bruh you types say shit like "Of Course Our Lives Should Be Easy, Whites Are God's Chosen" and expect us to think you're a hard working rational critical thinker when it comes to the wellness of black families
just say the quiet part out loud. you want slaves because you think royalty is your birthright. stop being cowards
@@xenn4985 Okay, many people have won the lottery, so what's the excuse for the ones who don't? Hard work should be encouraged. Success is possible, but not guaranteed. Barriers can sometimes be overcome, but why should we just accept that society/history has placed additional unnecessary barriers in front of some people? Why shouldn't we as a society endeavor to reduce artificial obstacles to success for all people? Wouldn't all of society benefit if we weren't constantly sabotaging a subset of the population?
@@gregutz4284 He's extremely narcissistic and entitled which has some overlap with bigoted thinking.
To the affirmations discussion, If you say ‘i’m gonna write a book’ every morning, and that helps you write a book, great.
The secret type people are like ‘i’ll write that i’m gonna write a novel everyday, and the novel will spontaneously come into existence.’
@41:40 I think that's the key: Scott Adams doesn't talk _to_ people, he talks *AT* them, and thus hasn't changed or grown as a person in many decades.
My dad used to be a lot like him, it's exhausting. My Dad's name is Scott too, actually. Whenever a normal person meets someone like that for the first time, they often think "oh wow, your dad is really cool/interesting/fun!", but that's only because they haven't been around him for longer than a couple hours. If they did, they'd know that what they just experienced? Yeah, that's all there is to him. There's nothing deeper. You can say anything you want to him, and it might _seem_ like he's listening.. but he's not. He's thinking of a "response" to whatever you're about to say.. except by "response" I really mean "a continuation of the thing they were talking about previously, as if you literally hadn't said anything at all.."
FWIW, Scott could change if he wanted to. My dad changed, and he's the most stubborn dude I've ever met!
On the topic.. have you guys ever met a chill Scott? Because I'm beginning to suspect they're all raging assholes. I knew cool guy who I _thought_ was named Scott, but it turns out it was his middle name and his real name was Tim so idk 🤷♂
I did know a couple of very chill Scotts. Nice guys.
@@allanalogmusicat78rpm Well that's good to hear, thanks for letting me know lol
Have a friend like that. In his case at least it was a serious case of self centered personality. Not selfish though, which is puzzling. But being around him for more than a couple of hours is indeed hard work. Maybe a mild form of autism?
The only Scott I've known was this Australian lad that was as chill as they come.
Can relate?! And yes he is still frustrating but did change. Also stubbern. I apreciate he did change, , dont expect to people become what you want but they grow.
alsop glad your dad did change, yeah people can at least to a degree change, if they are willing t listen to good advice and pressure to, do, yeah. nop one is lost if they ar willing to engage with their problems reflective even omewhat.
@@cyrnecoIt's apparently a symptom of ADHD.
As someone on the autism spectrum... holy shit, his childhood was so much like mine, and I had similar weird delusions of grandeur and was also a valedictorian with really bizarre beliefs. Everything about him just screams autism to me. I was so much like him growing up, I really dodged a bullet not ending up like him. I had literally the same exact thing happen of becoming an atheist but delusionally thinking that I was the only atheist in the world and thinking everyone else was dumber than me. I was into computer programming instead of art but still, I was so much like him growing up, just, holy shit, I was also on that weird villain arc at first.
Unlike him, I ended up left-wing instead of right-wing. I also reacted differently to him to realizing I had weird delusions. Instead of just embracing delusions and having even more of them and thinking that they're an equally valid way of looking at reality, I was kinda like, no. Delusions are bullshit, they are wrong, they are false, I need to root them out of my crazy-ass mind and stop being such a kook, try to find my way to sanity. Like I used to genuinely believe I was the only sentient person on Earth and everyone else was a biological automaton, a so-called "philosophical zombie" who couldn't actually experience real emotions and... yeah, glad I didn't believe that for too long, that could have led to some really villainous stuff.
Another difference is he ended up making lots of money and I didn't, so naturally, my class interests align with fellow low-income people like myself, while he originally aligned himself with libertarians and then fascists, going down that famous libertarian-to-fascist pipeline just like Alex Jones, Elon Musk, and so many others. I instead went down the lib-to-leftist pipeline and am very glad I did because I learned so much, and leftist critiques are such a great way of accurately explaining the real world around us and why things happen the way they do.
Anyway I'm just super glad I didn't end up like Scott Adams the Dilbert guy, who is very clearly autistic. I can just tell from his story and what I have seen, everything about him. I recognize my own type, I know the diagnostic criteria. His thinking is rigid and inflexible yet unorthodox and he doesn't conform to social norms, he doesn't understand other people, he takes everything literally, he has strange obsessions, he tries to be extremely logical but gets basic things wrong, he has a tendency to arrive at delusional conclusions through his unorthodox thinking, he feels misunderstood by society and struggles with basic human interactions... all symptoms of autism I share too, 100%. I'm so lucky I didn't end up like him or like the other rich autistic bastards who really piss me off, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and a bunch of others, who also share all those tendencies. Elon Musk clearly the worst of them right now.
I actually used to like the Dilbert cartoon and thought it was an anti-capitalist comic strip that parodied the idiocies of corporate culture, incompetent bosses, and self-important libertarian tech bros who think they know everything. It kinda hit me hard when I looked at Scott Adams's website for the first time, years ago, and found out he was actually one of those self-important libertarian tech bros who think they know everything, and that he was actually advocating the dumb bullshit he actually believes in his comic rather than parodying how dumb it sounds. Him getting on the libertarian-to-fascist pipeline since then has really been fascinating to watch because of how he keeps posting through it and goes into such detail about his batshit crazy theories.
A couple times I thought maybe I could talk some sense into him by commenting constructive criticism on his blog because it seemed like maybe there were some faint glimmers of sanity in his writings and maybe some way I could reach him and talk him out of believing his own bullshit. I used to be a lot like him when I was a teenager so I kinda felt bad for him since I could tell his delusional beliefs were actually making him quite miserable, and they were also making him spread terribly wrong political ideas to, admittedly a niche audience. Like on Twitter, people would constantly note his bullshit and make fun of him and he would just block them and he would even name search anyone who said anything bad about him and block them. He can't handle any criticism of his delusions because deep down he knows they are wrong but is too afraid to admit it. I know what that's like from experience.
I eventually mostly lost interest in him after it was clear he was beyond saving, but I really appreciate this wonderful 2-part series on this weird kook Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, who I have also been fascinated with for years, ever since I found out he wasn't actually poking fun at libertarian tech bro dipshits but was literally just saying dumb nonsense he actually believed, with the humor in his comic strips mostly unintentional, a self-parody. Most comics with jokes in them are deliberately written that way, an unintentional self-parody comic strip only happens when a total lunatic writes a comic. Basically just Scott Adams, Ben Garrison cartoons, and of course Chick tracts by Jack Chick. OK so there are several people who make insane right-wing comics that are unintentionally hilarious, but I legit thought he was doing a parody of weird capitalist kooks from an anti-capitalist perspective until I found out he was a weird kook himself.
Pretty fascinating stuff! Thank you for all the time you spent writing this up for people to enjoy 😃
As a kid of the 70s/80s later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, Scott's childhood sounds very familiar. I even had a personal mythology that I was a consciousness from Charon inplanted in my zygote.
Like you, I too was overly influenced by compassion vs hatred. I shudder to imagine what my brain would have done if brought up in a Southern Baptist paradigm.
@@drtaverner Yeah in my case, I temporarily thought that the only good explanation for my consciousness and why I thought I had it but nobody else did was that I was secretly God incarnate but had used my powers to incarnate myself as a human. I thought I had temporarily given up my omnipotent powers to live a human life and experience it firsthand to get a better understanding of the humans that I, as God, had created and ruled over. In this temporary lifetime, according to my theory, I still had my original personality as God intact but had abandoned my powers as well as most of my omniscient knowledge. But I had made sure to make myself highly intelligent, the most intelligent person on Earth, with an unlimited brain capacity, and I would gradually learn more over time and figure out all the things I used to know when I was omniscient, eventually figuring out how to get all my omnipotent powers back.
During the brief time I believed this theory, I thought my academic success and everyone I know always telling me I was the smartest person they knew and possibly the smartest in the world, which people often said to me when I was a kid around that age, it kinda got to my head and fed my ego and made me think I was literally God incarnate. I was also bullied a lot and I thought that this was the same type of suffering that my son Jesus had gone through in the past, and that it wad necessary for me, God, to go thru the same trials and tribulations that Jesus went through so I could better relate to humanity instead of just seeing them as inferior beings who often end up in hell instead of heaven for minor offenses, so I could reform my own system to be more humane if it turned out that would be best, but I needed to experience human cruelty and suffering firsthand as well as the good aspects of human nature to analyze whether other people deserved to go to hell or whether I should let everyone into heaven. I also wanted to figure out if humans had free will and could think for themselves or if they were just basically biological robots whose behavior was predetermined, entirely governed by cause and effect, without the ability to make their own decisions. Since if they were just biological automatons with no free will, they wouldn’t be morally culpable for their actions, and I would be the one at fault for creating them that way.
My belief system gradually fell apart when I started finding more and more contradictions and inconsistencies with it and ways it didn’t really seem to match my observed reality well. It just became more and more obvious that the type of God I imagined myself to be didn’t make any logical sense at all and that if I were really God and really omniscient, I wouldn’t actually need to experience life as a human because I would already know everything, and I wouldn’t need to solve these mysteries of whether other people have free will or not because I would already know everything. And the whole idea of sending people to hell forever seemed wrong to me, especially if they had no control over their actions, so I was kinda confused. I figured, the only way hell makes any sense is if other people’s suffering isn’t real, because that way they wouldn’t actually be suffering in hell, it would only appear like that. I knew my own suffering was real, though, from personal experience, because it definitely felt real!
@@GeneralPublic Yeah, everyone being impressed with our intelligence seems like we're special until we discover that intellect is not an achievement any more than our height or skin-tone. Somehow we don't get credit for anything we _do_ accomplish because, of course we can do x or y, look how tall, smart, whatever we are. Hell, we _should_ be doing even better, cooler things or our brains are a _waste._ At least, that's how I felt. My interests didn't matter, I should be performing some kind of miracles.
For a while around, 10 or 12 I actually thought I was a reincarnated Arthur Pendragon come to save the world. There was the Reincarnation of Aleister Crowley period which I thankfully got over.
It's just our brains trying to understand why we're _different._ We need these elaborate backstories until someone explains that it's _really_ because of our distant Yeti heratige. 😏 Or autism. Often it turns out to be some form of autism.
Our concepts of God change as well until we discover the truth that JHVH-1 is a space alien who still threatens this planet.
It's a long journey to get there though. Praise "Bob" and his questionably holy name.
I don't have autism so I'm glad someone who does also listened to the childhood section like "huh..."
His journey of self-awareness is heavy with “I am very smart” vibes. Loved the episode!
I also won art contests as a child. I even won second place at the Calgary Stampede western art contest in the rural youth category. My take from this was that my hard work paid off, not that I had rigged the universe in my favour.
Yes! Usually, my takeaway in these situations was that my hard work had either paid off or that I was good at the thing I had succeeded at. It would've never occurred to me to then try to find an "angle" or "game the system," and I only looked for shortcuts with things I really hated, like math.
I came 13th nationally in a art competition. Won a hundred pounds of book tokens for the school library, and a ren pound book token for myself. I never let it go to my head, because I knew it was even the best art in my class let alone in the nation. It's just to be considered for a prize you had to send in tokens for like 40 tubes of Colgate, and Mum went out and bought a ten year supply. I got a brief blush of attention out of it, my mum was proud, the English teacher was thrilled with the funding, but the world kept turning. I was still an unlovable nerd. The world had always been pay to win.
I had a drawing published in the paper when I was a second grader. My takeaway was to not understand what the adults making the paper had wanted, because I just drew a picture like I usually would have. My parents were proud and it was cool to see it on newsprint. But I didn't assume I had some kind of golden ticket to success because of it.
When I won in the drawing contest, I got 500 bucks, and tickets for my whole family to the Stampede. There was an opening party for the art pavilion with free food. For a farm family of 6 people, this was really nice. The Calgary Stampede is really expensive so yeah, the money was cool, but I was really happy that I could do that for my family.
Oingo Boingo is unironically my favorite band. Their farewell concert is freaking amazing. They finally figured out how to play together, just for them to break up.
from 2020 to 2021 oingo boingo was almost all that i listened to. love their farewell concert album. wish i was there.
Tried to get into them but I find the sound of the 80's studio production of their records too grating. Plus Danny Elfman's a sex pest.
I grew up reading my dad's classic MADs. Got to meet Sergio Arragones at Comic-Con a few years ago. Fangirled like crazy. He was very nice.
MAD was super important for my getting into art and drawing, just as much as the superhero comics I was reading at the time (and the art was generally leaps and bounds better in MAD).
@@DestroyYouAlot it really warped my humor. I mean that as praise.
It's so sad comic-cons seem to be dying. I met Vaughn Bode's surviving relatives, and the guy who draws "Bob The Angry Flower". I penciled a strip overnight and gave it to him the next day, "Bob The Happy Well-Adjusted Flower". Trust me, it was funny. I never heard back from him.
Young Scott dismisses Bible stories as absurd. Fair enough.
Young Scott believes his mother was impregnated by aliens. Wut. Now hold on a minute...
What if his managers really did tell him he was denied the promotion for diversity reasons, but they lied to him? Like what if he was terrible to work with and they just said "we need an excuse to deny him this promotion so that he doesn't become antagonistic towards me." And they just realized, "Oh, he's racist, we can just say it was the minorities and it won't be our problem anymore."
The author of Dilbert should know that whatever excuse your boss gives you for why you didn't get a promotion is probably BS.
@@bradhombre6912this is the one
lol big fack comment.
You might be interested to know that there's a book called "You Got Nothing Comin'" by a guy named Jimmy Lerner. Jimmy was a co-worker of Scott Adams They were both cubical drones at AT&t at the same time. Learner went on a bender after a rough divorce and ended up killing a guy in the Las Vegas hotel. The book is about how a nerdy little office dork survived a Nevada prison. It's one of the best books you'll ever read.
@missingsig Tbf it's a well reviewed book but yeah looking at the backstory it does seem like he just tortured a little guy to death while he was on a bender and only ended up doing like 2 years in jail for it.
@missingsig Ah, the Frank Dux school of writing autobiographies.
@@AgentXaoshe did 12 years total, still got off easy for murder though.
A shame it's heavily embellished, the guy he killed was a 5'4" former medical equipment salesman who may not have been armed.
congratulations on financially supporting a murderer. no thanks
After Dilbert Adams revealed himself to the world, I rather wanted to uncover when his descent began.
The only problem was, he was never even close to important enough to me to bother actually doing the research.
This excellent series fulfills that wish of mine without requiring me to even lift a finger, and for this I most heartily thank you.
It turns out he never descended, he just kept skating in parallel until he felt it was the right moment to make an official and historic fool of himself.
too biased
Listening to this episode made me think of Doug Tennapel, creator of Earthworm Jim. Also a bigot and homophobe who’s work is forced to stand apart from its creator. Not on this level but still fairly significant to 90s kids.
Oof, I was not aware of this.
Welp, that just ruined my fond memories of Earthworm Jim
American Christianity is something I find terrifying. I say this as a Roman catholic
The Mad Magazine artist they're talking about who just died was Al Jaffee.
One of the worst side effects of being raised in a very strict Christian house, is how easy it is to believe in magic, conspiracies, and fantasy.
As a child I thought Adams was self inserting as Dillbert...now I realize that he was at best the Pointy Haired Boss and more likely Dogbert.
Scott Adams went to college with the sole intent to commit suicide due to unbearable physical pain. He arrives at college and is introduced to pot which cures his unbearable physical pain. Suicide averted. If you must hate something, hate pot.
aka "Dildog" 😂
I always though Dogbert was the character that felt closest to an authorial or self-insert voice. And even as a teen this made me feel sad and uncomfortable because Dogbert was an unscrupulous amoral meglomaniac for whom everything always just kinda worked out.
I remember one book where he described his own work when younger. Finding an organizational hole and being forgotten in it.
He described not being an engineer himself, but listening to the engineers and their culture.
Between Scott and Chris-Chan I'm starting to think that winning stuff as a kid just ruins you forever.
I mean. I won things as a kid and I'm nobody, so there's that.
@@kaitlynnp582 I second this
Really? You think winning stuff ruined Chris-chan and not the over a decades worth of gangstalking and harassment of a mentally ill person?
What a pleasant surprise. I thought the title looked like it might be fun to listen to at work, and then you introduced your guest, absolute legend Randy Milholland. Subscribed.
I want to see a Choo Choo Bear vs. Dildog comic.
Back in the 80s someone would put out a list every year of the highest-paid entertainers and Charles Schulz was always in the top 10, usually top 5, like between Michael Jackson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's the context for Adams saying it was a career that paid well. I don't think any brand but Disney had as much merch as Peanuts until we entered the current dystopian world of entertainment IP.
Great respect and admiration for Watterson for never going that way. He made plenty money (more than deserved) but refused to do merch. Great fella.
Peanuts started it, but I think it was the Garfield craze and what it did for Jim Davis that led to the last great Renaissance for newspaper comics. Adams should have just been proud of his chance to ride that train for a while and retired, but I'm sure he's convinced himself he was responsible for things far better creators did.
When you were talking about his taking up affirmations and the Power of Positive Thinking... it reminded me of that California incel gunman, the son of a movie director. The kid definitely thought he was entitled to things. Multiple times he'd spent tens of thousands on lotto tickets and hype himself up into a frenzy about how he was sure to win because of Positive Thinking and affirmations. Then it would all crash down when he didn't. It's like, we need to stop presenting this as some kind of magic spell; it's just a tool to help you focus; but I also get the feeling that a lot of predators use it as a tool for the manipulation of gullible rubes.
I have not met very many successful people that used the power of negative thinking. Maybe the occasional retired government director but never a person from the private sector.
@@andrewmclaughlin2701You comment on every thread, and it’s all completely vapid BS. It feels like you run people’s comments through an AI conversation bot, then use that as an AI prompt for a response.
Goddamn, hearing about "Dildog" made me laugh harder than i have in a long time
56:35 another problem with Scott claiming he didn't get promoted at the banks because he was a generic white man is this comes after he's admitted he was bad at anything his first job asked him to do, and just before he brags about spending his time at his second job coming up with tricks to get away with not working .
And all of this, of course, is after we've learned he has a view of reality where he needs to master One Weird Trick to glitch the universe into giving him stuff. So maybe that gives him some credibility problems.
Does this mean Graham Linehan also meets the threshold for bastardy?
Guy completely pointlessly ruined his own life 😂
Down with that sort of thing!
@@nodtothestrange1008 Dude speedran ruining his own life, tbh.
@@andrewgrant6516 - I HEAR YOU'RE A TRANSPHOBE NOW, GRAHAM.
There's an episode of Respect the Dead about it on Caelan Conrad's channel. I think you might enjoy it
He comes across as a narcissist. Revelations about general humanity are treated as paradigm shifting breakthroughs for Scott.
I mean it sounds a bit like on the autism spectrum how enstranged he seems from understanding humans, but honestl, really more grew up in a really weird cult vibes. And he eems too functional despite him being weird so more weird cult upbringing estraangement.orign.
in any case 100 narsicist.
@@marocat4749 , I had a similar thought when they told the alien pregnancy story---but, I know a ton of deeply-empathetic autistic people who care about other's feelings and well-being, so his issues can't be blamed on autism alone!
He absolutely has a powerful narcissistic streak; no debate there. He seems to see everything and everybody as existing for his benefit and personal use.
@@dinosaysrawr lmfao
It is really noteworthy how often these anecdotes recount events of Scott’s life which cause me to think “yeah, buddy, I’ve been there, it happens to a lot of us, that’s life,” only to describe him as going on to think those events were Grand Revelations of Cosmic Truth Which Make Him The Specialist Boy Ever. Almost comical degrees of self-importance with this guy.
You don't understand, when that robot bear misprounounced Scott's name it was clearly a sign from godbert.
"Why the hell would someone write an entire book critiquing Scott Adams, that's such a silly thing to do. Anyway, this concludes the first in our series of 1 and a 1/2 hour podcast episodes critiquing Scott Adams."
But seriously, interesting discussion. I'm a casual Dilbert fan and one of the people who was confused by Adams turning out to be a crazy racist Trump supporter, since I'd have placed him as a soft lefty with maybe libertarian leanings. But I've not read Dilbert strips in nearly a decade and presumed maybe he'd just been warped with time. So this was a fascinating insight into the clues that have been there all along.
Also I still think the cartoon was pretty good. Although in retrospect I guess the recurring joke of that generic Soviet-bloc mud country was kinda racist...
I also am a casual fan of Dilbert, and I enjoyed the show as well. I didn't think he went crazy, but yeah, his remarks were low, even for him...
Interesting thing, when I was a sad, scared and lonely teenager (so... Like 20 years ago, blrrrgh) I wrote fan emails to both Scott *and* Randy. Oddly enough, I got a reply from both. Scott's reply was a quick impersonal line of text, while Randy responded with a heartfelt response that really did me a lot of good... aaaand may or may not have prevented me from attempting poorly thought out murder on my abusive stepfather.
So... Yeah 😅 Something Positive and Choo Choo Bear have always held a very special place in my heart through the years.
lmfao ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
My father had almost all the Pogo books. The parody of the John Birch Society was called "The Jack Acid Society", formed by Deacon and Molester Mole. (The former had a tendency to speak in Gothic font.) I also vividly remember one of the books poking fun at Khruschev and Castro (as pig and goat respectively).
I miss Pogo.
He also criticized the military industrial complex and his they used fear of nuclear war to lead people astray.
My dad loved Pogo too, and had a bunch of the books. He would read them to me as a kid.
MY dad had all of em, too. The very best of the best of the best in its depth of observational humor-
@@jackprier7727 Nowadays most people have never heard of Walt Kelly or Pogo. His work ranked with the best of any comics artist. Maybe its topicality caused it to seem more dated than it should, but his swipes at the John Birch Society feel tragically relevant nowadays.
His focus on making a career while still a child kind of gives off a Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation’s “job in a mill at 9 years old” vibe. There’s a very capitalist mindset being developed. There’s a few kinds of entrepreneurial people. There’s the standard ones who try many different things, most of which fail but they find some success that allows them to make a living. There’s then those that never get that traction and fail. There’s those lucky ones that strike gold at the first ask and never have to worry again. And then there’s the failures that can’t fathom why they failed and find someone to blame. Adams doesn’t seem to fall directly into one category here though. He seems like the one who worked hard enough to eventually make it, but I get the impression he thought he was one of the luckiest ones who reach mega-stardom. His failure to fulfil this destiny, to reach the popular conscious like Peanuts did, it’s turned him into the kind of person that can’t understand why he hasn’t achieved all of his ambitions and then finds some conspiracy against him that results in becoming a right-wing loon. Delusions of grandeur in a child. Absolutely wild.
Got in a twitter argument with Adams before, dudes unhinged
The Dilbert series finale literally has Dilbert impregnated with an alien.
I worked in Tier 1 professional esports for just shy of 5 years, my mom STILL thinks videogames were/are a waste of my time 🤷🏼♀️
As a retired Navy guy, I loved your navy references, and yes, the Navy dropped the ball. Not sure I'd liken it to Pearl Harbor though. But I did snort loudly at that one.
1. Pearl Harbor
2. USS Vincennes shooting down civilian plane
3. USS Iowa Turret explosion
4. USS Cole bombing
5. Not destroying Scott Adams
@@FreeEduardGrigoriann
6. The mark 14 torpedo
7. Not replacing 'Anchors Away' with 'In The Navy'
@@Senthiuz 8. Banning the short film "Launch 'Em!" by the crew of the USS Hancock in 1956.
I won a radio station's giant Christmas stocking once.
My enduring memory was that I was forced by my mum to share the sword in a scabbard with my cousin (I was pirate mad and wanted the whole thing) so that he got the scabbard and I got the sword, or the other way around.
What didn't happen was that I became convinced I could always beat long odds.
You may be able to beat the long odds, but you'll never beat mum logic.
Interesting how a kid who grew up with a one person income household with the house, stay at home mom, and all on a government salary, and he somehow becomes conservative, which in the current world, the conservatives believe that government workers who aren't making enough that 2 average government salaries can't afford a home and conservatives want to privatize the post office. The post office used to be a wonderful place that took care of small towns across the country with communication that was affordable, banking options, and even travel for kids back in the day.
Scott Adams is like... textbook Mediocre White Man Mediocres Up. He never had to face any real barriers in his life, not even when he was a kid. And it made him believe he was so much more important and powerful than he is.
Well, he's more important and powerful than you are.
Scott Adams with told to his face that he wouldn’t get the promotion because he was white more than once
Jack Cassidy: 23 years special forces, cartoonist, bass player for Jefferson Airplane? What can't this guy do?!
Survive a Columbo episode
I guess when you spend your childhood reading Dilbert with rose tinted glasses all the red flags just look like flags.
You were the editor who did the article picture captions during Cracked's golden era? I loved those!
"the downside to encouraging people is that some of them might be scott adams" lmao
'If you have a choice between reading Scott's book or doing drugs, DO DRUGS'
One thing is for sure. Scott Adams is no Gary Larson.
Now I can say that this episode about the Dilbert guy is more therapeutic for my religious trauma growing up than I expected, and that's a fun and unexpected sorta collection of words to say
I am a civil engineer that worked for a large consulting firm for about a decade. I bought a Dilbert desk calendar every year because those comics mocked the corporate system, of which I was a cog, and because it was an easy Christmas gift for my wife. I was unaware for many years that Scott Adams was a lunatic. I will never give Scott Adams another cent.
Oh thank you! I have always wanted to know WTF with Adams, but was damned if I was going to put any effort into researching it.
This video is a public service
I'm only 40 - 45 mins in, and everything I've heard describes someone who developed a strong sense of self-importance real early in life that wasn't really challenged for a while, and when it finally was, everything after that was an effort to regain and maintain that self-importance.
That's my two cents, anyway.
Suicidal throughout teens secondary to extreme pain...goes to university with sole intent to commit suicide due to pain being unbearable...introduced to pot and the pain dissipates...he went through hell at a young age and pot made him achieve a life of wealth
“Kind of had a lifelong license to print infinite money and decided to give that up to get really angry…”
Scott Adam’s / Notch double feature?
Legacy media is losing money. Dilbert retires from the shrinking profits available in syndicated cartooning. Dilbert lives on through subscription service and is no longer forced to stay within the confines of what the syndicate permits. lol
@@andrewmclaughlin2701 help me understand your use of the word "lol" here. what specifically caused you to "laugh out loud"
@@inimitableminimalist Dark Triad Trait.
The comment about how the book could change your perceptions indicates he wasn't as open minded by his shrooms as he likes to think.
Also, the idea that Donald Trump can win an argument in a room full of people who aren't actively being paid to let him win is comical. He got a reputation for being litigious not clever.
As someone dealing with the Texas summer right now, I really felt that sentiment.
"What is the Navy going to do ? I'm on land !"
The Seabees would like a word, sir.
I want to live in the alternate universe where Dogbert's character was the original name.
What a pleasant surprise this video was! I had never heard of this podcast before, and I unfortunately have steered clear of a lot of podcasts hosted by men in the past few years because a lot of really bad guys are making podcasts these days, but I'm glad I gave you a shot. You're talking about some really interesting stuff, and your morals/personality/worldview are a breath of fresh air compared to what I have been conditioned to expect.
huh?
@@carlrs15 Lots of anti-SJW podcasts by edgy manlets who make a certain "I take my dad's wedding tux to court" onion boy look strong and tough in comparison, this person got surprised this isn't another "let's complain about woke" channel.
@@neoqwerty Yeah! What you said!
Definitely this is a great podcast. Robert Evans is a very interesting person who thinks critically with a sense of humor.
Avoiding most podcasts hosted by men because of the alt right dip shits?
Lol, ok.
Years ago, I was watching Paula Poundstone (on my computer screen) with a studio audience, and someone who looked very much like Scott Adams spoke up from that audience. I don't recall what he said, but I remember it sounded rude. The audience gasped, then Paula raised her hand and said "I'll handle this!" My aversion to conflict kicked in and I changed the channel. So maybe someone could follow up on all my deep research.
Now I want to know what Paula said.
If Scott Adams were as smart as he apparently thinks he is, he'd recognize that it's not a good idea to address others as if we were all morons.
y'know, nowadays the first thing I think about re: Scott Adams is how he wrote in "Seven Years of Highly Defective People" (one of his comic compilations where he helpfully annotates some of his "best" "work" so you can discover what, er, deep thoughts went into the comics) about how he got a bunch of flack from people when he introduced the character Tina because she was too stereotypical (I think the assertion was "she acted like the stereotypical angry feminist" which iirc the point was that she WAS and he was daring people to get mad), and instead of pausing, considering if maybe he screwed up somewhere, he did the sort of thing that only a person who's MASSIVELY butthurt (or specifically trying to rub people's faces in how much he's offended them and how much he thinks that's rad) would do and created the very short-lived character "Antina," who he said was designed as being the exact opposite of Tina. He recounts getting flack afterward for her being a stereotypical portrayal of lesbians or something. look my memory is not good but I remember the basics of the story and that it was a real shithead thing to do that ends up seeming minor on the shithead scale compared to everything else about the guy in more recent years
The second thing I think about is the Dilberito and I think I need to bump that one up to number one so at least I can laugh a little more often.
Just got to the part where you called him a 'main character' and that's what I'd been saying in my head since he had the 'realization' that he was uniquely able to beat the odds.
“I know art school didn’t work out for you, but have you tried public speaking?”
Adams not being able to deal with the Norman Solomon criticism and get over it reminds me of Trump never getting over being referred to as a "short fingered vulgarian" in a magazine in the late 80's. Trump would occasionally send the guy pictures of himself with his hands circled writing, "Not so short" on the page. For DECADES. It is a sure sign that the authors hit on something that both Adams and Trump are insecure about and blabbed it to the whole world.
ok fack it
Incidentally, Unitarianism isn't a Christian denomination.
O man...can't believe Randy Milholland came on board for this! I've loved Something Positive for what feels like forever. (Painfully, torturously, like forever...definitely feeling old. But at least Something Positive gets me smiling just as it always has.) Watched Milholland slowly grow from excellent smartass into superb story crafter. You both have great literacy on the subject of cartooning and cartoonists. As for Adams...nice pick apart. I have to admit...I wondered where he went so off base...but I never really connected dots and looked for other troubling warning shots. A lot is forgivable...little things that, while I differ in opinion, I didn't see them as rooted in some genuinely harmful mindset. But I was caught off guard when he dropped into crazed cult of personality worship and virulent tirades. Worse...he followed the trend of wealthy people being downright furious that people somehow don't agree with them. The sense of persecution, victimization and martyrdom...would be more appropriate for someone not sitting in a mansion with investments that ensure their well being while being told 'no', but instead being beaten, jailed or killed for their actions. These are people who have forgotten that its possible to 'not win', and that at no point are they entitled to approval...but actually have to earn it now just as they earned it before. A taste of how most of us feel daily is more than they can emotionally handle...and it doesn't look pretty. Your examination was thorough, informative, and still hilarious. Thank you!
I stopped reading web comics years ago as life moved on, I had no idea it was still on going! I have a GREAT binge to do.
Release the Dildog cut!
I have loved Something Positive for years, so excited to hear Randy on a podcast! I also read all the Scott Adams books when I was younger, but I missed all the warning signs... when he went full racist it threw me hard. Then again, I am so used to celebrities coming out with a dark side that I cherish the ones who actually seem regular
As a tech worker in the nineties I honestly thought Dilbert was hilarious. He ran out of relatable material around the same time he started apparently going insane. I missed the warning signs as well….
Re: Scott becoming an atheist. The strange thing is not that he didn’t know there were other atheists. Rather, it’s the thought process (unsurprising given who we know Scott became) according to which he’s so special, so brilliant, that he must’ve been the first and only person to discover that biblical stories are absurd.
I have never ever ever heard a story that went in a good direction after somebody mentioned NLP.
I do NLP in a fetish context as a phone sex operator and that's actually pretty fun and chill.
@@verdancyhime This I have to agree with. The feeling that you are being captivated and manipulated is bewitching. The more you deny it...
There are a lot of hypnosis fetish channels that are like this. People LOVE to be overpowered, made helpless. However I still can't work out to what degree all of it is just roleplay vs. actual surrender.
The thing specific to NLP is that it has some people buying into it as a rigorous scientific discipline.
Regarding the bit about atheism not being able to "predict the future", I wonder if he misunderstood the idea that scientific theories should make predictions, and mistakenly believed that if atheism is "scientific", it should be able to make predictions in the same way that e.g. general relativity does.
the 1999 Dilbert animated series was surprisingly good
Diversity killed the Dilbert animated series.
"Very mind altering drug, anxiety."
You know though, that always gave us depressives a leg up with this I think. Like, I first started experiencing some varying realities at, what, 14? The feel as a depressed person or anxious person of the 'haze' coming down over your vision and suddenly, sometimes from one sentence to the next, everything just SUCKS... it's very mind fucky indeed. There have been times I've just been IN IT and things are truly DIRE and I can be a wholly different person in different circumstances, with different chemicals floating in my brain and different stimulus hitting my sensorium. I can be a very separate me. It's literally shifted my perception from one second to another, I can feel my brain spinning up to come up with an EXCUSE and because the bad feels hit first before the reason and I can tell that the reason isn't *really* the reason. It's like my brain is spinning a wheel of options and I feel it.
I feel more confident in the me I am, having to constantly defend them from the me I could be under the influence of my own wildly swinging brain chemicals. It's taught me which of the people I COULD be is best for me. Wow vitamin deficiencies impact your personality more than you think though, heads up on that. Eat your vegetables, B vitamin deficiency legit makes you go crazy.
I always liked Dilbert exactly as much as I liked Cathy
There was an episode of Dilbert where Dogbert was scamming NASA by painting pretty star pictures. Back in the day I just thought it was a funny joke, now I just want to ask Scott if he believes that telescopes exist.
"I do in fact own Popeye. I am destroying him, according to everyone Breitbart"
I mean, in my 36 years on this planet, I've never had any reason to read Popeye before, but this is about the best recommendation I could get.
50:13 I think what you're describing is that weird "speaking things into existence" thing. That's where you do the "say this specific thing while focusing and it'll happen".
I think the whole affirmations thing is retraining how you think about yourself by speaking kindly to yourself. So hearing yourself say out loud things like "I am pretty, I am smart, I am loved" kinda helps combat anxiety/intrusive thoughts and rewires your brain out of self hate. It isn't a magic cure, but like in addition to medication and therapy, it can help ease some self hatred to tell yourself you like yourself. (Even if you start off lying to yourself when you say it, saying it enough can help you feel it).
Edit: i should probably disclaimer that i haven't tried the affirmations thing. I've just heard it described that way, and i think it's like a real therapy type deal, not crystal healing manifestating things into the universe.
This is my first intro to behind the bastards. It appeared randomly in my feed, and its been a fun listen while mindlessly farming shit.
Oh No! What will the black community do without that bastion of support from the Dilbert guy? Oh the humanity!
Another example of someone successful, but who knows it was luck and having nice people around him, is Arnold Schwarzenegger. His speech at a college is full of anecdotes about friends who helped him in his early days.
It was not luck, Schwarzenegger is smart enough to keep the dullards thinking it was luck and nice people that made him successful.
@@andrewmclaughlin2701No, he’s smart enough to be able to self reflect many years later and see some of the reality of his good fortune. Which, based on your comments, is something you lack.
childhood drawing comics, winning kid's competitions and getting a sense of entitlement/specialness toward winning from it, kinda chris-chanish D:
I don't know if Sergio Aragones was living in a small town a bit north of LA, in the earlier 90s, and I'd see him hanging out around town all the time. I'd been collecting MAD throughout my teens, and had a special edition from the mid 80s, that was dedicated to his margin cartoons. I decided to keep in my car, hoping to bump into him. I finally did one day, and built up the courage to go talk to him, about his art. He was really cool, just in general, but he actually took my magazine, and gave me a little background behind a few cartoons, or his character concepts. WE talked about some of his other work, and other cartoonists, and even asked if I wanted him to autograph my magazine. I probably squealed a little, but I mostly played it cool. He walked off, found a sharpie, and not only signed it, drew up a one of kind margin cartoon in it, as well. What a guy, seriously.
I used to live near him and his house was always referred to as the weirdo house because he had memorabilia out front.
Before his Trump turn he didn’t have a fence. Now he has a tall fence and gate lmao