Scott Adams is not autistic
Apr. 18th, 2011 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupTo the best of my ability, here is my summary of Scott Adams's (of Dilbert fame) master plan:
Step 1: Have a blog.
Step 2: Deliberately blog about many controversial things.
Step 3: Realize nuance is for little people. Phrase things in the most inflammatory way possible.
Step 4: When called on this, offer one or more of the following defenses: "you're taking that out of context [by which he means not just surround paragraphs, but everything he's ever written]", "I'm just asking questions", "free will is a myth", "that's a fallacy". The fallacy one seems valid, but not in the context of how he handles being called on his own fallacy fouls.
Step 5: Finally bite off more than you can chew by comparing women's reasoning skills to those of children and retarded people
An aside: I don't think Scott Adams is nearly as misogynistic as that post would make you think. I'm much more disturbed by his public declaration of how he's lowered his wife's standards so far she's now happy if he gets most of the mustard off his ear. Blah blah blah it's a joke no. It's a humorous reinforcement of the model that women should treat men like children and it's insulting to all three.
I'm getting bored, so we're going to skip a couple of steps.
Step 9?: Everyone is angry at you. This has a real impact on your bottom line, something you had never thought of in all your deliberate attempts to piss people off in the past.
Step 10: A washington post essay you probably wrote months ago about entrepreneurship is published while people are still mad about the whole "women can't reason" thing.
Step 11:Step in to defend yourself with a sock puppet (look for posts by plannedChaos). In his defense of his defense, he says that if people know a statement comes from him, they'll reject it automatically, but if they think it's from a third party, they'll consider it rationally. That's an okay defense of popping into threads where he's called a creationist and pointing to posts where he's agreed evolution is the best fit for the current data. In fact, that's more than okay. But it's a lousy defense of pseudonymously saying "you're wrong because Scott Adams is a genius" (scroll down to the first comment by PlannedChaos). You also have to actually point to counter-evidence, rather than just asserting it..
Step 12: Assert that while the sockpuppetry was a little unethical, it was equally unethical for metafilter to out you, even though they have no stated privacy policy and seem to be centered around creating sane commentary on the internet. Continue explaining that you say crazy thingsfor attention to provoke thought.
So here's where I am: Scott Adams's blog has been incredibly useful to me. His post on magnesium was probably life changing, both in the immediate effects magnesium supplements had and in opening my eyes to how powerful nutrition was. A week after he compared my reasoning abilities to that of a child's, he shared a valuable tip on how to get to sleep that has been incredibly helpful. Those alone justify three years of reading him, even if everything else he'd ever written was actively bad. And it's not: he's often entertaining, and every once in a while there's an idea to follow up on.
But he in no way succeeds at being thought provoking. Blog idol Ta-Nehisi Coates is thought provoking. Overcoming Bias is thought provoking. Hugo Schwyzer and Econlog are thought provoking. They provoke thoughts by bringing up undecided issues and either sharing their current opinion and the reasoning behind it, or what's in their brain about that topic and that moment and asking for further thoughts. Shouting controversial opinions and stating that anyone who disagrees is not thought provoking. It is, at best, provocation.
Or more likely, attention seeking. I went back and read Issendai's post on narcissism vs. autism, and it's frighteningly accurate, especially the part about narcissists wanting negative attention, but only a very select kind, and getting angry when people are mad at them for the wrong things.
I'm extra frustrated because he's using all of my excuses: reading only the most recent taxation posts without reading my earlier writing on poverty would be taking it out of context. And I do try to lighten serious topics with humor.* And other people on the internet do use unfair debate tactics. So it comes down to "I"m not writing deliberately inflammatory statements on known controversial topics", but you have to take my word on it that it's not intentional.
*But mostly in footnotes.
Step 1: Have a blog.
Step 2: Deliberately blog about many controversial things.
Step 3: Realize nuance is for little people. Phrase things in the most inflammatory way possible.
Step 4: When called on this, offer one or more of the following defenses: "you're taking that out of context [by which he means not just surround paragraphs, but everything he's ever written]", "I'm just asking questions", "free will is a myth", "that's a fallacy". The fallacy one seems valid, but not in the context of how he handles being called on his own fallacy fouls.
Step 5: Finally bite off more than you can chew by comparing women's reasoning skills to those of children and retarded people
An aside: I don't think Scott Adams is nearly as misogynistic as that post would make you think. I'm much more disturbed by his public declaration of how he's lowered his wife's standards so far she's now happy if he gets most of the mustard off his ear. Blah blah blah it's a joke no. It's a humorous reinforcement of the model that women should treat men like children and it's insulting to all three.
I'm getting bored, so we're going to skip a couple of steps.
Step 9?: Everyone is angry at you. This has a real impact on your bottom line, something you had never thought of in all your deliberate attempts to piss people off in the past.
Step 10: A washington post essay you probably wrote months ago about entrepreneurship is published while people are still mad about the whole "women can't reason" thing.
Step 11:Step in to defend yourself with a sock puppet (look for posts by plannedChaos). In his defense of his defense, he says that if people know a statement comes from him, they'll reject it automatically, but if they think it's from a third party, they'll consider it rationally. That's an okay defense of popping into threads where he's called a creationist and pointing to posts where he's agreed evolution is the best fit for the current data. In fact, that's more than okay. But it's a lousy defense of pseudonymously saying "you're wrong because Scott Adams is a genius" (scroll down to the first comment by PlannedChaos). You also have to actually point to counter-evidence, rather than just asserting it..
Step 12: Assert that while the sockpuppetry was a little unethical, it was equally unethical for metafilter to out you, even though they have no stated privacy policy and seem to be centered around creating sane commentary on the internet. Continue explaining that you say crazy things
So here's where I am: Scott Adams's blog has been incredibly useful to me. His post on magnesium was probably life changing, both in the immediate effects magnesium supplements had and in opening my eyes to how powerful nutrition was. A week after he compared my reasoning abilities to that of a child's, he shared a valuable tip on how to get to sleep that has been incredibly helpful. Those alone justify three years of reading him, even if everything else he'd ever written was actively bad. And it's not: he's often entertaining, and every once in a while there's an idea to follow up on.
But he in no way succeeds at being thought provoking. Blog idol Ta-Nehisi Coates is thought provoking. Overcoming Bias is thought provoking. Hugo Schwyzer and Econlog are thought provoking. They provoke thoughts by bringing up undecided issues and either sharing their current opinion and the reasoning behind it, or what's in their brain about that topic and that moment and asking for further thoughts. Shouting controversial opinions and stating that anyone who disagrees is not thought provoking. It is, at best, provocation.
Or more likely, attention seeking. I went back and read Issendai's post on narcissism vs. autism, and it's frighteningly accurate, especially the part about narcissists wanting negative attention, but only a very select kind, and getting angry when people are mad at them for the wrong things.
I'm extra frustrated because he's using all of my excuses: reading only the most recent taxation posts without reading my earlier writing on poverty would be taking it out of context. And I do try to lighten serious topics with humor.* And other people on the internet do use unfair debate tactics. So it comes down to "I"m not writing deliberately inflammatory statements on known controversial topics", but you have to take my word on it that it's not intentional.
*But mostly in footnotes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 12:00 am (UTC)I'm glad you're able to step back and analyze this debacle in a coherent and--dare I say--thoroughly intelligent fashion. Breaking out the parts where he's useful as opposed to attention-seeking is a great skill to have. (Also, thanks for the links to actual thought-provoking blogs.)