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The last tweet is a little confusing. Teacher's unions? Really?

Consultant32452 3y ago
I used to watch Adams' podcast. It would require a lot of context to fully make sense. Suffice to say he thinks teacher's unions are a big component of the problem here and imo the primary value of his comment here could be conveyed if you remove the tail end of that Tweet which puts it on the teacher's unions.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  I’m not sure context helps him with his other outbursts. “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people,” the 65-year-old author exclaimed. “Just get the (expletive) away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/02/23/dilberts-scott-adams-white-people-should-get-the-hell-away-from-black-people/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/02/23/dilberts-scott-adams-... “The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently.” https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... Trump is like the founding fathers and Jesus. https://www.thedailybeast.com/dilbert-creator-on-how-trump-is-like-the-founding-fathers-and-jesus https://www.thedailybeast.com/dilbert-creator-on-how-trump-i... There is a bit of coverage in the wiki. He writes a good cartoon but he is radioactive in his views. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
  - Consultant32452 3y ago
    Terrible people are sometimes capable of saying things worth considering, and it's possible to consider one thing he says without endorsing or accepting other things he's said or even his personal context for the words being considered.
    - zlg_codes 3y ago
      It's difficult to defend a stance like one you're adopting, because of how quick to judge the general public is. They'd never know that someone like Ted Kaczynski actually held a PhD and wrote an interesting essay before committing to his campaign of terror. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski) It's rather strange that people will choose to wholly dismiss a person based on one thing, without realizing that even "evil" people have more facets than a simple bevel. Ted killed himself in prison a few months ago. What benefit could society have gained if someone had heard him out and took some measures to help the environment? Most people won't ask that question, because they have the intellectual and philosophical depth of a puddle. One of the most illuminating things in my life has been discovering what the "bad" and "evil" side of humanity actually thought, instead of the version that the authorities or victors give us. There's also this modern tendency to assume that whatever you read, you become. So superstitious.
      - weaksauce 3y ago
        > There's also this modern tendency to assume that whatever you read, you become. So superstitious. Sure... but there's also a wealth of information out there and filtering out people with known abhorrent views is a decent first pass filter. maybe alex jones or some other neo-nazi dimwit has a few good ideas here and there but why would I subject myself to listening to them(and also enriching them in the process) when I could listen to people that aren't generally awful people?
        setr 3y ago
        I think shallow views is a much better first-pass filter than abhorrent views; a sufficiently in-depth abhorrent view can and likely will have components worth taking from, even if their final conclusion is absurd (or just overreaching). An acceptable-but-shallow view and an abhorrent-but-shallow view are equally worthless; effectively as much value an upvote.
      - ilyt 3y ago
        > Ted killed himself in prison a few months ago. What benefit could society have gained if someone had heard him out and took some measures to help the environment? Most people won't ask that question, because they have the intellectual and philosophical depth of a puddle. Well it's not all that interesting question coz he wasn't exactly first or last preaching same thing about the environment, so there is a plenty of other people to listen to that do not happen to be crazy. But in general I agree that the trend of disregarding someone's entire contribution to everything they contributed based on this or that opinion that is currently regarded as "bad". After all, if you dig far enough (especially in time, kids/teenagers do/think some utterly dumb stuff) you won't find an innocent soul alive...
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The thing to understand about Scott Adams is that if he says something that sounds outrageous, he's probably trolling you. He'll in fact describe how to do this in order to generate publicity, or as a mechanism to expose hypocrisy or bad logic. But when he's in the middle of it he'll commit to the bit. Basically, someone says X, which is crazy, because if X then logically Y would be true and Y is not only wrong but offensive. So he'll publicly assert Y and get people to argue with him, but the only real way to show that Y is wrong is to admit that X is wrong, which was the point. And then the people arguing with him don't want to do that. They want to be offended by Y without admitting that X is wrong. So he has a bunch of fun with them because they've foreclosed themselves at the outset from winning the debate on the merits.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
      The thing to understand about this argument is that it is unfalsifiable nonsense. Anything he says that is wrong is him joking, you just can’t tell because he pretends so well! No, dude. He is wrong a lot and like a 5yo, when he realizes he cannot actually defend or explain something he did he falls back on “it was just a joke!”
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Of course he's wrong a lot. The point isn't that Y is right, it's that X and Y are both wrong but you can't admit to that if you're a hypocrite. And the "anything he says that is wrong is him joking" is the idea, because it works both ways. If someone says something which is actually wrong, you can make a convincing argument for why if you're willing to be logically consistent yourself. But there are also things which are politically offensive yet true, and having a reputation for this kind of trolling is what allows someone to say those things out loud. Because then you make the same claim: "Maybe I'm trolling you, if I am just provide the counterargument." Which you can't do if the counterargument requires you to admit that X is wrong and you refuse to do that, but you also can't do if there is no counterargument because Y is true. It doesn't matter whether "is he trolling this time" is falsifiable. What matters is if you can disprove his claim. If you can, go for it. If not, what does that say?
tomcam 3y ago
1. No evidence at all that teacher unions help students. Test scores have gone down drastically all over the country for the last 30 years or so. 2. The teacher unions are against school vouchers, which almost completely eliminates competition in the districts that need it most. A large majority of black families are in favor of school vouchers.

I used to watch Adams' podcast. It would require a lot of context to fully make sense. Suffice to say he thinks teacher's unions are a big component of the problem here and imo the primary value of his comment here could be conveyed if you remove the tail end of that Tweet which puts it on the teacher's unions.

lostlogin 3y ago
I’m not sure context helps him with his other outbursts. “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people,” the 65-year-old author exclaimed. “Just get the (expletive) away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/02/23/dilberts-scott-adams-white-people-should-get-the-hell-away-from-black-people/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/02/23/dilberts-scott-adams-... “The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently.” https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-feminist-outrage/ https://ew.com/article/2011/03/30/dilbert-scott-adams-femini... Trump is like the founding fathers and Jesus. https://www.thedailybeast.com/dilbert-creator-on-how-trump-is-like-the-founding-fathers-and-jesus https://www.thedailybeast.com/dilbert-creator-on-how-trump-i... There is a bit of coverage in the wiki. He writes a good cartoon but he is radioactive in his views. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
- Consultant32452 3y ago
  Terrible people are sometimes capable of saying things worth considering, and it's possible to consider one thing he says without endorsing or accepting other things he's said or even his personal context for the words being considered.
  - zlg_codes 3y ago
    It's difficult to defend a stance like one you're adopting, because of how quick to judge the general public is. They'd never know that someone like Ted Kaczynski actually held a PhD and wrote an interesting essay before committing to his campaign of terror. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski) It's rather strange that people will choose to wholly dismiss a person based on one thing, without realizing that even "evil" people have more facets than a simple bevel. Ted killed himself in prison a few months ago. What benefit could society have gained if someone had heard him out and took some measures to help the environment? Most people won't ask that question, because they have the intellectual and philosophical depth of a puddle. One of the most illuminating things in my life has been discovering what the "bad" and "evil" side of humanity actually thought, instead of the version that the authorities or victors give us. There's also this modern tendency to assume that whatever you read, you become. So superstitious.
    - weaksauce 3y ago
      > There's also this modern tendency to assume that whatever you read, you become. So superstitious. Sure... but there's also a wealth of information out there and filtering out people with known abhorrent views is a decent first pass filter. maybe alex jones or some other neo-nazi dimwit has a few good ideas here and there but why would I subject myself to listening to them(and also enriching them in the process) when I could listen to people that aren't generally awful people?
      - setr 3y ago
        I think shallow views is a much better first-pass filter than abhorrent views; a sufficiently in-depth abhorrent view can and likely will have components worth taking from, even if their final conclusion is absurd (or just overreaching). An acceptable-but-shallow view and an abhorrent-but-shallow view are equally worthless; effectively as much value an upvote.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      > Ted killed himself in prison a few months ago. What benefit could society have gained if someone had heard him out and took some measures to help the environment? Most people won't ask that question, because they have the intellectual and philosophical depth of a puddle. Well it's not all that interesting question coz he wasn't exactly first or last preaching same thing about the environment, so there is a plenty of other people to listen to that do not happen to be crazy. But in general I agree that the trend of disregarding someone's entire contribution to everything they contributed based on this or that opinion that is currently regarded as "bad". After all, if you dig far enough (especially in time, kids/teenagers do/think some utterly dumb stuff) you won't find an innocent soul alive...
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The thing to understand about Scott Adams is that if he says something that sounds outrageous, he's probably trolling you. He'll in fact describe how to do this in order to generate publicity, or as a mechanism to expose hypocrisy or bad logic. But when he's in the middle of it he'll commit to the bit. Basically, someone says X, which is crazy, because if X then logically Y would be true and Y is not only wrong but offensive. So he'll publicly assert Y and get people to argue with him, but the only real way to show that Y is wrong is to admit that X is wrong, which was the point. And then the people arguing with him don't want to do that. They want to be offended by Y without admitting that X is wrong. So he has a bunch of fun with them because they've foreclosed themselves at the outset from winning the debate on the merits.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    The thing to understand about this argument is that it is unfalsifiable nonsense. Anything he says that is wrong is him joking, you just can’t tell because he pretends so well! No, dude. He is wrong a lot and like a 5yo, when he realizes he cannot actually defend or explain something he did he falls back on “it was just a joke!”
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Of course he's wrong a lot. The point isn't that Y is right, it's that X and Y are both wrong but you can't admit to that if you're a hypocrite. And the "anything he says that is wrong is him joking" is the idea, because it works both ways. If someone says something which is actually wrong, you can make a convincing argument for why if you're willing to be logically consistent yourself. But there are also things which are politically offensive yet true, and having a reputation for this kind of trolling is what allows someone to say those things out loud. Because then you make the same claim: "Maybe I'm trolling you, if I am just provide the counterargument." Which you can't do if the counterargument requires you to admit that X is wrong and you refuse to do that, but you also can't do if there is no counterargument because Y is true. It doesn't matter whether "is he trolling this time" is falsifiable. What matters is if you can disprove his claim. If you can, go for it. If not, what does that say?

tomcam 3y ago

1. No evidence at all that teacher unions help students. Test scores have gone down drastically all over the country for the last 30 years or so. 2. The teacher unions are against school vouchers, which almost completely eliminates competition in the districts that need it most. A large majority of black families are in favor of school vouchers.