I may have given out the first Donald Trump Memorial Award for Complete Lack of Self Awareness to the wrong person earlier today. Because, as much as Matt Forney deserves the award, Scott Adams may deserve it even more. For some of the same reasons, even.
Forney, you may recall, thinks that the EVIL JEWS of Twitter are shadowbanning him (that is, hiding some of his Tweets) for the crime of speaking truth to power, which in his case seems to involve a lot of calling people ‘f***ots” and “tr***ies” and suggesting they kill themselves.
Dilbert creator and dumb-opinion-haver Scott Adams similarly believes, or at least suspects, that the evil Hillary-lovers in charge of Twitter have “decided to suppress my free speech on the site, presumably because I have said good things about Trump’s talents for persuasion.”
He announced this suspicion, naturally, in a Tweet, which for some reason Twitter didn’t decide to suppress. Probably just to screw with his head, you know how devious those Twitter executives are.
Is Twitter shadowbanning me? If so, I see it as treason: https://t.co/7aYzHiZyyZ #Trump #Clinton
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 18, 2016
Wait, you may ask, how exactly would “shadowbanning” some but not all of a cartoonist’s dumb tweets constitute TREASON!!!!11!!?
In a blog post, Adams explains:
I won’t jump the gun and assume something nefarious is happening. But I will say that IF it is happening, I would regard it as treason. If one political party can use the machinery of social networks to reduce free speech, that is an attack on American values at the deepest level.
And this would mean WAR between Adams and Twitter.
As a patriot, I would feel obligated to help kill Twitter. (And you wouldn’t want to bet against me.)
Now, as far as I know, Adams isn’t planning on sneaking into Twitter’s offices like a ninja and stealthily dispatching all of its executives. Nah! He just wants to start some sort of shareholder revolt becuase TREASON AGAINST SCOTT ADAMS (some of the time).
I understand Twitter is looking for a buyer. If management is shadowbanning me, that would be breach of fiduciary responsibility, screwing both the shareholders and the employees who hope the company can be purchased. In my view, shadowbanning would make Twitter too toxic to own. That toxicity – treason in my view – would transfer to the buyer.
How will he know if Twitter is actually guilty of the part-time, Scott-Adams-specific TREASON he’s talking about? Well, he sent a note to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey demanding WHERE ARE MY TWEETS OR AT LEAST SOME OF THEM YOU (part-time, Scott-Adams-specific) BENEDICT ARNOLD??11!! Or words to that effect.
I don’t have confirmation from Twitter that this is happening, so I tweeted Jack Dorsey today to ask. I’m sure he’s busy, but I’m hard to ignore. If no response in two days, I’ll assume my Twitter followers are correct that my tweets are not always showing up in their feeds.
LINE IN THE SAND
When Adams shared these thoughts — on Twitter — about how Twitter might be SILENCING HIM, well, let’s just say that some people skeptical of his treason theory treated him to some gentle ribbing.
Adams accused them of “cognitive dissonance,” and being PAID SHILLS FOR SHILLARY (or whoever).
These are probably paid trolls coming after me now. Notice the similarity in attack. https://t.co/VjR3Be0WLX
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 18, 2016
Note the coordinated similarity of comments. https://t.co/vCdKwOxULU
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 18, 2016
HOW DEEP DOES THE CONSPIRACY GO??111!!!11!
Well, pretty deep, apparently. Because guess what: SOME OF MY TWEETS HAVE BEEN DISAPPEARING TOO!!!1 Seriously. A couple of my Tweets seem to have vanished from Twitter shortly after being posted.
INCLUDING ONE MAKING FUN OF THAT MGTOW DUDE TALKING ROMANTICALLY ABOUT WET HOLES!!!
I can only conclude that there is a vast conspiracy of Trump-hating yet also vagina-fearing MGTOWS at the helm of Twitter.
IT’S TREASON I TELLS YA
@ jokester
Arnold ended up with a mixed reputation over here; not least because he backed the wrong horse in relation to domestic politics.
The British Army wouldn’t have him back and he even got turned down for a job by the East India Company (and what does it say when even those guys think you’re a bit too dodgy!)
Still, as they say “Treason is merely a matter of dates”
In most cases, treason is a matter of who won….
So, what I’m reading here is that when Arnold said, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country,” we don’t actually know which country he meant!?
That’s… meta.
Edited to add: I just remembered that was Nathan Hale. Disregard, but leaving it up because that shit’s just funny.
@ iseult
I’m reminded of those aliens in Doctor Who who have been invaded so many times their national anthem is “All Glory to (insert name here)”
It’s also interesting to me that despite being foul, villainous traitors who dared take up arms against the rightful authority of King George, many of the Founding Fathers of the US are held in relatively high regard in the UK. There’s a statue of George Washington in Trafalgar Square, for instance.
I have to admit, I have trouble taking Adams seriously, meaning, I keep thinking he MUST be kidding with his nonsense…. NO ONE can be that divorced from reality… can they?? That or he’s fallen seriously down his own rabbit hole and is now living IN a “Dilbert” strip….
The central tragedy of Scott Adams is that he thinks he’s Dilbert, when in fact he was the Pointy-Haired Boss all along. It’s almost like a Philip K. Dick story, only with less killer androids.
To be fair, I suspect that was sheer stupidity rather than anything deiberate.
@Iseult – I think it was Nathan Hale who said that, not Arnold?
True dat!
Oh, we see the hilarity of his tweets, just not in the way he intended, that’s for damn sure.
Though, one does wonder: Why the fuck does he talk like a 90’s cartoon villain?
Take notes from Franziska, dude.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/d/d0/AA_Franziska_von_Karma_Thinking_2.gif
Look, you all are being uncharitable, and that’s just not cool. I’m proposing that we rectify that, by taking up a collection and buying Adams an Occam’s (TM) Razor. His logic and reasoning will become so much more cogent once he wields the mighty power of Occam! (TM)
*This is totally not a paid advertisement, although the CEO of Occam’s (TM) Razors did give me a backrub once.*
Actually, I would…but as was pointed out earlier, though it’s a pretty sure bet, it’s not worth the cash outlay.
And Twitter neither lives nor dies at the whim of a very mediocre, middle-aged cartoonist, much less one tossing off moronic and forgettable “observations”. I’m sure your followers won’t die from bated breath awaiting a never-to-be-delivered, 140-character-or-less slice of Deathless Prose™ from you. If they do, they’re even more pathetic than you and your little stompy feet. And that’s really saying something.
@Nick G
Sloppy or not, he was breaking the law. It’s on his campaign to scrub the mailing lists, not send out a spam blast and then say “whoopsie” afterwards. Had the MPs he solicited actually donated, I’m not convinced Trump would have conscientiously returned the funds unless caught and pressured to do so by the FEC.
Setting aside the titanic ego behind this statement, if I were looking to buy Twitter, the shadowbanning of people like Scott Adams would actually make it a more attractive prospect for investment. When you allow your social media platform to become a platform for hate, trolling, and bullying, it tends to shrink your customer base over time. It also makes it harder to attract new customers. Moderation would be one way of signalling that they’re committed to an inclusive, principled business model.
He really is the pointy-haired boss, isn’t he?
Hello.
You can even make a book about that, and call it “To Kill a Antiscottadamsbird”. Best seller assured.
Indeed. Your ego is so large that it is hard to avoid it.
– “No Scott Adams should be ignored !”
– “But the president is busy right now.”
– “No true Scott Adams should be ignored !!!”
So, he is good at repeating pseuso-science NPL words but fails to use psychology terms ? Yet, this is strange because “Master Persuaders” know exactly what cognitive dissonance is, and how it can be a tool to manipulate… sorry, i mean, to persuade their audience. Pua, notably. Some skip the leg day, some skip the psychology day. Do you even sarge, bro ?
Have a nice day.
Treason? Really?? He can start whining about 1st Amendment “treason” when someone plucks his ridiculous blog out of his sticky little fingers. Not that losing his blog would count, either, but then at least he could whine while annoying fewer people.
All it takes is a few glitches in technology to set these guys off, it seems. After hearing about the Twitter glitches here and noticing that my cable was also glitchy (it made watching West Side Story on TCM last night impossible until it was almost over) my first thought was maybe there were sunspots/solar flares or something. In any case, it was better by 9:45 PST.
I really enjoyed the video, though. An interesting mix of 60’s style keyboards and 80’s style vocals.
speaking of keyboards and vocals, are y’all following this?
http://www.30days30songs.com/
Just a reminder that Scott Adams has been caught – several times – registering fake ‘sockpuppet’ accounts on various websites in order to have his sockpuppets talk up what an awesome smart guy that Scott Adams is. A certified genius, according to new user ScottsSockPuppet01!
If that’s not a total Alpha Move, I don’t know what is.
Re: Arnold
I love Mike Duncan’s description of his time in the Continental as a brave and talented officer “who always thought he was 1 or 2 positions lower than he deserved. While he gets points for probably being right, he loses them for complaining about it constantly.”
ETA: also interesting to consider what a national hero he’d have been considered if he had died of his wounds at Saratoga.
I sometimes think that he’s attempting (very, very poorly) to pull an Andy Kaufman-style ‘living performance’ where you never know where the real person ends and the act begins. The problem is that the act isn’t funny, and the person is an egotistical dullard, so really, who gives fuck?
Also, Scott: An engineer who is unfamiliar who doesn’t understand the concept of glitches and bugs is a shitty, shitty engineer; it’s a good thing you’re now in the job of recycling office jokes with crappy art.
I actually have an indirect connection to Benedict Arnold. (One of my ancestors served as his aide-de-camp.)
There’s actually a monument to Arnold in the U.S. up at Saratoga. It’s called the ‘Boot Monument’ and it commemorates the leg he lost while leading part of the Continental Army there to victory. Arnold’s name is not mentioned anywhere on the monument.
I’ve read up on him some; it’s obvious he felt justified in what he did, because some of the members of the Continental Congress had been acting against him in rather politically motivated manners, and had basically got him removed from command after his last injury. Then again, Arnold was both an obvious social climber (which made the southern members of Congress who already considered themselves Barons annoyed) and tended to be rather brusque when he felt that he was in the right. Even when he was right, he tended to annoy the people he was working with.
Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
I used to like Dilbert in the 90s…
Was Scott Adams always like this or did he just hit his head really, really, *really* hard on something or what?
He could just be another one of the many, many people who apparently snapped after 9/11.
No, he was always like this.