My takeaway from this article is that Mr. Adams has come to believe that being rude and offensive is the way to behave. Believing that Mr. Trump is a master persuader because of his bullying style is concerning.
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trump is a bigoted bully, not an effective persuader.
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“One of the things that you can learn from Trump’s approach is that energy is more important than being technically correct,” he said on Tuesday.
That is not a lesson to be proud of. It smacks of following a herd over a cliff rather than leading the herd to greener pastures.
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The secret sauce of Donald Trump is racism and nothing else. I will be unfollowing Dilbert on Facebook immediately.
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and misogyny.
88
For people who want an alternative to reaching media with your expertise: check out Help a Reporter Out or HARO.
https://www.helpareporter.com/
It's a win-win for journalists and experts.
20
I use to have a lot of respect for this guy. Living in Pleasanton at the time, I saw him twice. The first tooling around in his Datsun B210 with Dogbert license plates or eating at Fresh Choice. I also went to his now defunct restaurant where he was sitting at the bar. I sat next to him and pretended I didn't know him. I asked him what was good here. Before he could answer several of his staff rushed over to me to find out what I was doing. Anyway, he seems to have turned into kind of an idiot in his rich old age...
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Another obnoxious Trump devotee with no more empathy for other human beings than your average sociopathic serial killer and an uncontrollable urge to ‘tweet’ about it.
I don’t want or need to hear about him. Why the Times feels the need to provide these freaks free publicity and a wider audience is beyond me. Is it really just ‘all about the Benjamins’?
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@chambolle
An popular artist that supports this president is news.
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Trump is not a great persuader. More than half the country hates him. He’s a coward and a bully using twitter to distract the media and the public from talking about facts.
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OK to be wrong as long as you win. Great, now he is teaching this method of success. Trash.
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Ok, yes. Trump has powers of persuasion. So what?
6
Scott was an early investor in a little web service called Videoshare.com... pulled the plug when investors got nervous that it wasn't making any money quickly enough.
It was kind of cool... it let users upload videos and invite others to watch them. That was in the year 2000. Sound familiar?
I was employee 23. Sigh.
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"“If you think $5 is money; I don’t,” he said, laughing."
Then why don't you take the "pittance" from your app and distribute it to homeless people or a shelter? You either never had to hustle to pay bills or have forgotten what it's like to do so.
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One comic strip I'll pass on.
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Adams is the man who insisted that v-neck sweaters are a sign of the irreversible decline of American manhood, and it seems he wasn't joking. So what he thinks about anything isn't to be taken seriously.
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Well, at least he's honest enough to keep the tweet up as a "public record," a reminder, to himself.
What a bonehead idea.
Pushing out - selling - this stuff in the wake of a tragedy NEVER will never work out well.The media does not pay for this kind of "expertise." Not unless it is the National Enquirer. Even it may have given up on that.
Take it from a 30-year PR professional who had an even earlier career in newspapers. Scott Adams may have a lot of talents and cool things to do thanks to his name, his brand and his network. But public relations is not it.
16
Yipes. Mr Adams lives in a distortion field.
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Dilbert cartoon is good, but why do we seem to expect people who are exceptional at one thing to be more than average in the rest? Donald Trump is a "real estate genius" to hear him tell it, but if the last couple years have taught us anything it is that a "business super genius" is barely mediocre at running a government or a nation (let alone being 'leader of the free world'...). Scott Adams is entitled to try his business ideas, but far more business ideas fail than become great successes; he is not exceptional because he's a successful cartoonist, he's just like 'the rest of us' when it comes to other things. Good at some, less skilled at others, adding up to 'average'. "A Prairie Home Companion" aside, we can't all be "above average", by definition.
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Left of Bernie? I have a hard time trying to understand if he’s just punking everyone including Trump? He likes the pt Barnum in trump but not the policies? Or....
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Something a bit off-putting about an engineer who writes a book with "Facts Don't Matter" in the title.
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@JA
As an engineer, I totally agree.
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I'm amazed at all the commenters who are saying they will stop reading Dilbert as a result of Scott Adams's comment that Trump demonstrates that energy is more important than truth. Really? How does this change the comic strip? It's still the same strip. This is similar to the people who protest the playing of Mahler because he was a proto-Nazi. This fact doesn't change one note of his music.
Besides, isn't this one of the themes of Dilbert? It's not knowledge or talent or experience that's important in Dilbert's world; it's bodness and shamelessness that wins. Witness Dogbert and Wally.
Dilbert is still the funniest comic strip currently being published. The NYT should add it to it's comics page. :)
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@Thucydides I had no idea Dilbert wasn't already in history's dustbin.
It was funny 20 years ago, but I can't even remember the last time I saw a comics page.
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@Thucydides
It doesn't change it directly, but it makes it less attractive for papers to publish it.
I stopped looking at it during the 2016 campaign.
The few times I've been on his site, fir looking up older cartoons, I noticed that the quality has actually gone down. The figures are much more boringly and schematically drawn, almost as if he sticks them together from pre-made parts.
So, while not looking at his page was hard in the beginning, it's not anymore, at least for me.
11
I was sickened when I read this article. The lack of empathy is astounding. I also couldn't help but wonder if he has a wife and children. I certainly hope not.
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@Donna Bailey
He was married for a while. Late. Not long.
I noticed his descent from intelligent cynism into bitterness and contempt after that.
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All sociopaths, cult leaders, tyrants, etc. are characterized to a significant degree by persuasiveness. Question is, who are they persuading and what are they persuading them to do?
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@Brian I laughed when I read about his book on persuasion. Uhhhh certainly not going to work on me.
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Dilbert stopped being funny a looooooooong time ago. The creator realizes this and is using provocation to remain relevant. It is time to fade away for good, sir.
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Scott Adams is apparently so good at the art of persuasion as he has persuaded someone to write about him in the Times to basically help peddle his brand for free.
However, for a being a so-called trained hypnotist, I find it amusing that he himself has been so easily put under Trump's spell.
Another glib sycophant on the Trump train.
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For anyone who wants to know Scott Adams, all you have to do is watch his daily Periscope and decide for yourself. Audio (podcast) and video (YouTube) archives are easily available
Personally, I believe that most folks reading The New York Times would benefit greatly from his advice. Of course, why decide for yourself when you can let others decide for you?
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@Transposition "Personally, I believe that most folks reading The New York Times would benefit greatly from his advice. Of course, why decide for yourself when you can let others decide for you?" What are you asserting? Just curious. You seem to hint at something, but it's shrouded in mystery. Speak plainly and boldly!!
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"You can't recognize persuasion unless you've studied it."
Wow! I've never studied persuasion, but I know Scott Adams hasn't got it.
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I'm done with Dilbert. Join me.
29
From Techopedia: “Dilbert is a term most commonly used in IT to talk about an individual with an aptitude for engineering or technology, a “geek” whose prowess with computers is a trade-off for less-than-stellar social skills.”
Adams is Dilbert. And also proof that access to more information doesn’t necessarily make you more intelligent.
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Insensitive?
yes
But also, It seems Mr Dilbert is attacking the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters and exploitative tweets. the yahoos of the world
At least he's giving a little, unlike the tech companies that simply take as they please.
4
The Dilbert cartoon is pessimistic, cynical, nihilistic and disrespectful of institutions. It makes sense that Adams thinks it's OK that the institutions that hold our democracy together are under attack.
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"he also reprimanded readers for failing to understand what he was trying to say"
“The pushback I’m getting is fueled by the intense hatred of Trump"
People like Mr. Adams are under the impression that the only reason others don't agree with them is that they're misunderstood, when the reality is that they're actually well understood.
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Scott Adams seems to lack empathy as well as saying things that don't add up. For example, he says he is "left of Bernie" but voted for Trump. He admires Trump's persuasion abilities but forgot that Bernie was also an unconventional leader with good rhetorical skills. I think Adams may be addicted to fame and grandstanding. He decides what he believes based on how much publicity it will bring him.
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@Just paying attention Huh? Where do you get "but voted for Trump" from? Here's what the article actually says:
"In fact, the last presidential candidate he voted for was former Vice President Al Gore, he said."
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Trump's ability to gaslight large segments of the population is on display daily for all who are able to see it. Gaslighting is a form of persuasion, and as a student of persuasion, Adams admires Trump's extraordinary abilities in this area and how successfully he has employed them. Where Adams disappoints me is in his unwillingness to recognize and call out the moral turpitude that so often accompany Trump's efforts. Adams is obviously a cynic, and channeling that cynicism has worked very well for him professionally. But as someone who can still chuckle at Dilbert, I still find myself simultaneously saddened that its creator would rather see the absurdity he observes so astutely perpetuated, than find ways to change the causes of it.
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Like the tedious and redundant "Kathy," Adams' creature ran out of ideas shortly after its inception. Now "Dilbert" creator Adams lacks the wit to distinguish between persuasion and pandering. Trump never persuades anybody: He panders to their prejudices and bigotry. There's a reason for Gary Trudeau being on the comics page all these years: He's funny. "Dilbert" is usually squeezed into another section, where it doesn't suffer by comparison.
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@Joe Kernan I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Good job!
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I think one can appreciate something without appreciating its creator. Actors , Artists, and Athletes come to mind . Only a precious few of them are actually interesting individuals .
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@GPG In general, yes, but since the Dilbert comic strip became hopelessly stale several decades ago, in this particular case it really doesn't matter.
23
Despite the early general enthusiasm for Dilbert, I never actually liked it very much, and very soon it became far too tediously repetitive for me. I gave up reading it oh, maybe twenty years ago, maybe more. This was long before I'd heard anything about the views or life of its author, but when I learned that Adams's primary interest is acquiring money any which way, I wasn't particularly surprised. Now, quite possibly there is nuance to Adams's espousal of Trump's supposedly great oratorical skills (although as far as I can tell Trump is an obtuse, illiterate, and very crude and simplistic grifter and incompetent snake-oil salesman with at least one severe personality disorder who would have gotten exactly nowhere if he hadn't been born into tremendous wealth) and to the other controversial positions Adams stakes out, nuance that isn't done justice in this article. If so, I don't care: Adams already has enough of a mouthpiece he hasn't earned.
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@Jake Lose the pleonasms and tautologies, Jake; it quickly became tedious.
2
@Joe Kernan Didn't realize I was to be graded on prose style. My post, of course, was off the top of my head, and would be slightly better with one fewer "very" and a few more hyphens, but looking it over I happen to see exactly no "tautologies", and few, if, any, "pleonisms" (redundancies, that is)--unless I've used too many adjectives to describe Trump, which is certainly possible (hard not to get carried away with that guy). I have to wonder whether "tautologies" and "pleonisms" are your words of the day---maybe they look attractive to you but you haven't bothered to go so far as to discover their actual meaning.
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—
He is an admirer of President Trump, and he admits to borrowing some of the president’s style. “One of the things that you can learn from Trump’s approach is that energy is more important than being technically correct,” he said on Tuesday.
—
Style is more important than the truth??
Never reading Dilbert ever again.
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@KH
As an artist, I understand what he means. In the creative process sometimes you have to let it rip and “damn the torpedoes.” Unfortunately, the concept doesn’t directly apply to politics, where civic responsibility is also important. Those who can’t balance the two - like Donald Trump - shouldn’t be making policy and influencing people. This could also apply to business people who play fast and loose with the facts in order to secure loans.
16
I've always liked Dilbert and didn't know anything about its creator. Now that I do, I am repulsed.
Likes Trump and has met with him? Yech!
45
We all know a Scott Adams, someone annoying with more arrogance than talent, and most of us make an effort to avoid them.
I need a Berk Breathed palate cleanser after reading this.
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His cartoons stopped being funny a long time ago.
I guess he needs new ways to capitalize on human nastiness and/or stupidity.
31
I recently retired from an IT career and really enjoyed his comics. I admit I was baffled by his admiration of Trump, but it makes sense. His comics display real sensitivity about the way IT people think and feel.
However, I have noticed some people are drawn to people like Trump as kind of a superhero figure - he gets the girls, has fancy cars, dominates by his words and body language. I can't tell you the number of times I worked out a project and had some blowhard completely blow me out of the water.
I am a little dismayed that he's decided facts don't matter; for us in IT, it's easy enough to search for real data, but being completely agnostic about it is irresponsible and misanthropic, which I guess was the point of his work.
Given that, it's a plus that he's willing to fess up to his mistakes, which is something his superhero Trump isn't able to. I hope somehow he's able to distinguish between a professional expert who charges a fee for information, presumably to a paying audience, and witnessing a crime and reporting it, which is a civic responsibility.
Paid witnesses are generally considered tainted.
I guess the Peter Principle can pop up anywhere.
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Trump is a clumsy dinosaur, however he’s protected by his family’s wealth and the office of Presidency, beware imitators without similar insulation. Never has an official been so embattled, with so little policy success, there’s a steep price to his method of “communication”. Put aside the academics of “communication” for a book on history, Trump’s not unprecedented. Typical it ends badly for all parties involved.
16
Who is he trying to fool ? This guy is a classic Libertarian.
Period.
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I was going to buy his book "Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" until I heard he was a rabid Trump supporter. Instead I got it out of the library. It was happily returned well before the due date. Now I think about it, the title encapsulates Trump's career.
40
Let's just say if I was out on a date with this guy, I'd excuse myself to go to the 'little girl's room' (phraseology I think he'd appreciate). Then I'd ask the waitstaff if there was a way I could get out of the restaurant through the kitchen. I’d have no problem standing in the alleyway next to the reeking garbage cans waiting for a cab.
For a week or so it would be easy enough to block text messages, despite my not having Mr. A's technical expertise.
Live and learn.
51
Successful enough his soul can be seen. By others. Not himself of course.
17
I've always thought it would be a great idea if Mr. Adams, being a big fan of the president, would offer to put the daily intelligence briefing in cartoon form so Mr. Trump might take some interest in it. I didn't realize Mr. Adams had been invited to the White House--what an opportunity he wasted. He could have performed a tremendous public service.
Mr. Adams is a type who thrives on pointing out that people become overly outraged by things Mr. Adams has decided do not deserve such a high level of outrage. Then, he adopts a position that stokes the outrage--for the fun of it. So, because honest and ethical people are outraged that a grifter like Donald Trump has become president, he's decided to become Trump's biggest fan just to annoy people. What Mr. Adams doesn't get is that it shows a lack of any real values on his part.
Oh, well. I once worked as an engineer--I valued people who were 'technically correct' over the bombastic jerks of great energy who had zero clue what they were talking about. It's a little disappointing to find that Mr. Adams admires energy more than expertise, but I'm not surprised--I used to find his skewering of office politics/dysfunction to be amusing, until it became apparent that, in real life, he doesn't recognize any of the good, only the broken.
Sad, really.
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@CF
What a gem you just wrote: "to put the daily intelligence briefing in cartoon form so Mr. Trump might take some interest in it. "
I only hope that if you ever decide to pursue a career in writing for the media, you'd choose The Onion, or other satirical outlets, and not writing for some lowly politician or soulless profit-driven corporation. Use that wit for good.
13
Mr. Adams has no taste. Trump persuasive? Yes, if you're a frightened non-thinker whose fears are easily awakened.
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@SFR
I can see where Adams is coming from there. Trump certainly does seem to be very persuasive to a large segment of the population. I think the ways in which Trump has changed political discourse is terrible and dangerous, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth investigating or is uninteresting. Instead of sticking our head in the sand, shouldn't we try to understand why Trump is so persuasive to so many people even when he has repeatedly made verifiably false statements?
15
@sc - did you read the comment you were responding to? It answers your question about why Trump is persuasive: it is only for the "frightened non-thinker whose fears are easily awakened". I think it is you who are sticking your head in the sand.
15
Another person who thinks his success in one field (here, comic drafting and writing) makes him an expert in all others. Perhaps this is the true reason he feels an affinity for President Trump -- whose own combination of egotism and incompetence is spectacular. Use to enjoy Dilbert. Have a hard time doing so now.
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I stopped reading Dilbert after hearing Adams try to justify his support of Trump. Now with this latest news, I know I made the right decision.
96
Could not care less about this guy or what he does in the comfort of his own home, but to rub salt in the wound of people who are witnesses and may even be related or friends of victims, just gross.
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Left of Bernie but supports Trump? The creator of rational, decent, beleaguered Dilbert takes the side of his erratic, ignorant, egocentric lousy-haired boss ?
Way to go, Adams--making the world make less sense than it did before, just like it does for Dilbert. You just lost a reader.
Don't worry. Maybe you can build an indoor golf course too...someone special might come over and play.
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@R Mandl - Not really a surprise. Around 10% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump,.
11
He didn’t think about it....And he still wouldn’t be, exempt for the public pushback. He seems to view himself as a perceptive guy, but if you’ve heard his views on society and other people, you might wonder. I find his views on manipulating people a little disturbing, but his cluelessness about compassion for other’s suffering doesn’t surprise me in the least.
53
Well that explains how someone could be so cold and callous and actually a Ghoul, an admirer of President Trump. Need not say anything else.
41
"He is an admirer of President Trump, and he admits to borrowing some of the president’s style."
'Nuf said.
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I'd have to say that Mr. Adams has a peculiar way of looking at the world, and that's got to be why his comic strip is so good, and his political choice of president so comical.
Persuasive? Indeed. But it's easier to be persuasive when you're willing to lie, cheat, deceive, slander, and generally behave as a psychopath.
64
How callous and insensitive. Guess I’ll not be reading Dilbert anymore.
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@KLKemp
Me too!
11
I’m going to read it three times a day. That’ll show ya.
4
He says "energy is more important than being technically correct..." in explaining his support of Trump.
His cartoon characters are geniuses at creating false realities, cynically and destructively, if amusingly.
Guess he's the wrong guy to help us keep track of reality. Or decency.
51
What a grossly unpleasant individual.
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@Jolton
Money can’t buy empathy, or common sense.
36