Scott Adams endorses Trump, becomes respected pundit

Not by me, but last time I talked to my parents they had to point out how warm and sunny it is by them in Atlanta. :rage: :wink:

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NOM must have really stepped up their eschatological game.

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Iā€™ve flounced back, now that the candyā€™s all distributed. :wink:

I cannot argue with this, because it accurately reflects my reality - except for the part where he claims normality. I donā€™t claim to represent any norm, mean, average, or extremity. I am just me, possibly but probably not unique.

And I do prefer hugging to killing, but when Iā€™m not hugging, I do things like hunt food animals and engage in full contact combat (armed, unarmed, armored, unarmored, Iā€™ll do any of that if thereā€™s no hugging or killing available). Every year or so I get together with literally thousands of men and women who feel the same way, and we all fight each other at once. Itā€™s great! But if I could choose to be both honestly appreciated and physically intimate with a woman instead, thatā€™s a no-brainer. For me, fighting and killingā€™s not as good as real human physical and emotional interaction. But Iā€™d sure rather fight than argue or dig ditches, and I never have any problem finding another person whoā€™s ready and willing to fight.

So I canā€™t get real offended by Adamā€™s statement. How do I know what is and isnā€™t ā€œnormal?ā€ How can any of us know?   Fightingā€™s historically pretty popular with men, and killingā€™s pretty popular with those who like to eat.

I didnā€™t mean to imply that, and apologize. I see now you could read what I said that way, but it was not intentional.

Normally, I read the links you offer, even if they are lengthy. But when I read someone elseā€™s analysis of Dilbert it always makes me upset, and when I read the comics or watch the show, I chuckle at the bleak, dark humor. So I eschew the former in favor of the latter. Itā€™s just a comic strip.

Anyone who has been ā€œhazedā€ understands that psychology. In my experience people who want to flip unequal systems are far more common than the type of person who can truly equalize a system. Hopefully my experience is not representative of the human normā€¦

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In other words, you didnā€™t actually look at the context, where its normality is the entire point. If you object to the gawker review provided, fine, there is Adamsā€™s actual post. He talks about how men talk over women in meetings because they keep talking, how we have a matriarchy where access to sex is controlled by women, and how denial of sex opportunities rather than religion is how ISIS gets men to kill. When you also consider other things he says, like the one about Clinton dropping menā€™s testosterone by taking menā€™s building, you find a pattern.

So I donā€™t think you have any reason to dismiss the other people here as imagining things. Adamsā€™s writing has been seriously and indefensibly misogynist. And now, as per the topic of the thread, he has also gone off the deep end with this election ā€“ claiming for instance that Trumpā€™s racism is all imaginary, because he doesnā€™t see any. His twitter has an amazing series of claims that so many people calling him crazy at once is proof the Clinton campaign is out to get him personally.

It really is everything being described here and more. 2016 has given us some really strange things.

Maybe youā€™re not disputing that, but then, what are you saying? Possibly your point was to avoid ā€œpolitical purity testsā€, but Iā€™m not sure thatā€™s what anybody is doing here. Certainly Iā€™m not going to say you should never find Dilbert funny, if itā€™s your sense of humor, just as you can still enjoy the eldritch horrors of Lovecraft. But then you can do that and still notice the authorā€™s writing is not as nice to everyone as it is to you, right?

And if someone canā€™t, say if they recognize too much of his misogyny in comics like the above to enjoy them, are you really going to fault that as insisting on purity?

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Scott Adams is a professional humorist, whose body of work relies on presenting caricatures of reality that are exaggerated to the point of absurdity as though that were everyday normality.

He gives you a world where dogs talk, garbagemen build time machines, and the director of Human Resources for a multinational corporation is a sadistic cat - but nobody see this as strange. Itā€™s completely, thoroughly deadpan, and relies on gross caricatures and stereotypes.

I find this amusing. I donā€™t take any of it as having meaning beyond making me laugh.

I looked at what was posted here, and I canā€™t state definitively that it is wrong. I am giving only my perspective, and not speaking for all men, but the idea that ā€œnormalā€ men are violent and likely to do incredibly stupid things if prevented from seeking love and physical affection is not controversial to me. Having this presented as a gross stereotype in typical Adams style does not offend me.

No, but Scott Adams has always been very considerate and nice to me (even though I have only dealt with him via the Internet, just as I have only dealt with you that way) and Iā€™m not going to sit silent while everyone else says heā€™s Beelzebub. Heā€™s a comic writer, and I am not the kind of person who attacks soap opera stars because I think the characters they play are real.

Iā€™d also speak up for you, if the situation were similar. Consider me the Loyal Opposition.

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I think he must be trolling. I mean, most of the stuff heā€™s saying these days is just so over the top.

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Thatā€™s because unlike institutional sexism, sadistic cats in charge of HR departments donā€™t actually exist in the real world. Your argument seems to boil down to ā€œScott Adams has always been nice to me, a man, so I donā€™t understand why you, a woman, are accusing him of being a misogynist just because heā€™s said all of these unkind and discriminatory things about women, both in his comic and on his blog.ā€

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Thereā€™s a part in American Splendor where Joyce Pekar says in response to Harvey saying doom & gloom is just his perspective on life and Joyce says: ā€œAnd see, I thought I was marrying somebody with a sense of humor.ā€ - I think of this quote a lot these days when I think about Scott Adams. And I really feel like Joyce Pekarā€¦

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So you believe the ā€œScott Adamsā€ who blogs is also a comic creation of Scott Adams the writer?
(a satire, perhaps?)

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This here is the shit that got @shaddack banned, isnā€™t it?

@shaddack wasnā€™t talking about hunting for food, and neither is Scott Adams.

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I agree.

I believed that before people started calling him a monster a jerk with terrible views on women, and I believe it still. Itā€™s his job, the source of his income. Like Colbert, he gives us an exaggeration and distortion of his real character, I imagine.

Does anyone else remember alt.pave.the.earth or alt.chrome.the.moon? I enjoyed those, too.

Edit: Correction from @Phrenological accepted.
Edit: also @Melizmatic

Being an insufferable dickhead ā‰  being a ā€œmonster.ā€

Spin it anyway you like; in many peopleā€™s opinions, dude is a dick.

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Well, thank you, but I actually hope you wouldnā€™t. I mean, speaking up for any good qualities you may have noticed, I would be grateful. But not the Trump-Pence approach where you pretend I donā€™t say things I say or at least I never meant anything I meant. That is to nobodyā€™s credit. Not me, not you, not your audience.

People often call satire to excuse things like misogyny, but itā€™s not satire to say what you mean in a humorous way. I really donā€™t see any indication he is like Colbert, making fun of things he doesnā€™t really intend, either in the works posted here or anything else Iā€™ve read from him. When challenged he generally seems to insist on his wisdom. If itā€™s parody, itā€™s unusually poor, because I know he can be funny. But there comes a point where pretending to be an ass is just being an ass.

There are people who really do believe the kinds of misogyny, double standards, and conspiracies laid out here. I think a lot of posters here have experience with them, and so far, the only reason I can think to claim Adams isnā€™t among them is because you trust him more than you trust everyone else to recognize them. I hope your experience with him justifies it.

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To add to your point, saying ā€œitā€™s just a comicā€ negates the long term psychological impact pop culture has on society at large.

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ā€œBut but, canā€™t you see?! He was NICE to me!ā€

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What? He means every word of it.

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It helps to not caricature what other people say in your rush to minimize the legitimately shitty things he says. Heā€™s a jerk with terrible views on women. Heā€™s not a monster, but he looks up to them because heā€™s an authoritarian and seeks out ā€œmanly menā€ because he is frightened by strong women.

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For serious. If what Adams is saying is ā€œover the topā€, then how does one characterize the even-more-extreme stuff being spouted by non-celebrity MRAs? Star-Trek-esque ā€œblow out the instruments in a shower of sparksā€ off-the-scale? We Hunted The Mammoth is only tolerable to read because David Futrelle manages to give the Alt-Right/MRA/deplorables/etcā€™s horrible viewpoints a good sarcastic lambasting in his posts where he takes them to pieces, and Adams is tame compared to many that Futrelle takes to task.

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Problem is, a good trolley makes it just believable enough that you fall for it. I guess heā€™s got a lot of people but heā€™s crossed the line for me.

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But unlike Colbert, he pulls this kind of shit a lot and then always falls weakly back on some variation of ā€œooh, I wanted to provoke this reaction; it was just a social experiment; only someone as intelligent as myself could understand what I really meantā€ etc etc.

Satire needs to have a point, not just be the half-hearted whining of a comic writer.

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