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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   1129 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

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Scott's sort-of obituary for Scott Adams is one of the best things he's written in ages.

He makes a few references to Adams' potentially getting too mentally calcified with age to maintain his contradictory ideals and personas and just lost self-awareness of what parts of the joke he was supposed to be 'in' on, and who was laughing with him vs. at him.

I now do wonder how Scott expects to avoid this particular outcome or if he's accepting it as probably baked in and just wants to make sure he leaves the greatest possible legacy he can, on top of his kids.

Great stuff though. One thing that deflated Adams' image in my mind was when the gorgeous Instagram model he married in 2020 divorced him about two years later. Like, if you're going to advertise as this professional persuasive hypnotist guru... and you can't 'persuade' the young hottie to stick around in your life for more than a couple years, I suggest that your skills are overstated. Indeed, this sure reads like he got hypnotized into a situation by some of the oldest persuasive tools in human history: a woman with an hourglass figure and decent makeup skills.

Think its fair to say that his overall impact has been positive by any utilitarian calculation.

I now do wonder how Scott expects to avoid this particular outcome or if he's accepting it as probably baked in and just wants to make sure he leaves the greatest possible legacy he can, on top of his kids.

I don't know if you saw everyone on Twitter clowning on Scott's post about how he's lost complete control of his kids. I'm pretty sure Scott already fell into... whatever you call that outcome.

Oh I saw it, I'm just not convinced it was a clear L for him.

There was some back-and-forth (particularly from Jeremy Kaufman) regarding how much actual discipline you can and should impose on your toddlers.

I doubt kids that have his genes will turn into uncontrollable feral monsters.

I doubt kids that have his genes will turn into uncontrollable feral monsters.

As someone who has to constantly push back on my wife's inability to have boundaries with our 6 year old, and all the attendant issues it causes, no amount of "genes" makes up for allowing your child to never be forced to respect boundaries. These are choices, and the wrong ones make your life infinitely worse.

It got me thinking if I'll be able to. The number of highly respected boomers I loved who have calcified is high. It's difficult to think of those who stayed flexible, and the number can be displayed on a single hand.

Maybe the lesson is to line yourself up before 50, to make the glide onto the landing strip as graceful as possible.

The number of highly respected boomers I loved who have calcified is high.

It's not even boomers. I'm seeing people in their mid 40s that are gaining the befuddled NPC look that I usually associate with boomers. Take note incels, that's the real wall, and the men are in danger of smashing into it too.

As middle age is encroaching upon my never-escaped-the-90s flesh, this scares me so very much. I already have lots of stupid brain malfunction moments, with increasing frequency. Not sure if age, medical side-effect, chronic health condition, or lifestyle-related ... but the next time I try to use my work badge to unlock my house, and my house key to pay for lunch, I can only really hope it's not in the same day, at this point. I know that's not precisely what you're talking about, but it's closely enough related that I am reminded of one by the other.

Yeah I'm seeing at least as much of this in the millenials I know -- at this point I think @beej67 is onto something with the egregores and feel compelled to treat some form of unconventional zombie apocalypse as a real possibility. There are pod-people all over the place.

My man, the oldest millennials are mid 40s.

I am aware -- the ones I know well are quite a lot younger though, being the [early] kids of my GenX friends.

One guy who just turned 30 is kind of pressuring me to start a compound and supply weapons in case Trump invades [somewhere pretty near to the butthole of] Canada -- it's strikingly similar to the Facebook-addled Boomers in my life, except he's actually got a lot to live for (decent job, good girlfriend, etc) and no excuse around senility.

The brainrot is real. I don't know how much of it is phones, short form content, people not reading anymore, microplastics clogging up our brains, metabolic dysfunction from shitty diets, or what.

I will say, reading more, eating better, exercising regularly and fasting has helped my mental clarity enormously.

I will say, reading more, eating better, exercising regularly and fasting has helped my mental clarity enormously.

IME, same. Doing any of these intentionally under normal conditions is really difficult. Luckily, AI makes researching options easier... something about what I said feels contradictory in context.

Maybe the lesson is to line yourself up before 50, to make the glide onto the landing strip as graceful as possible.

I think that's all you can do under current tech constraints.

lol now I'm wondering whether kids in the future will be dealing with a 120-year-old Bryan Johnson who can't accept future social rules b/c he's 'stuck' in the 2030s mentally, despite having the body of a 30-year-old.

For my case, I'm just trying to create habits now that seem to correlate with decent neuroplasticity later. Martial arts and hard exercise, learning languages, good quality sleep, and playing with kids and friends all seem to help.

If Bryan isn't a drooling senile mess at 120, then he's probably benefited from some kind of drug that rejuvenates the brain and restores neuroplasticity too. Taking LSD or shrooms helps with that today, even if it's not going to cure dementia.

This was a wonderful read, thank you for linking. This part had me feeling REAL called out:

The variety of self-hating nerd are too many to number. There are the nerds who go into psychology to prove that EQ is a real thing and IQ merely its pale pathetic shadow. There are the nerds who become super-woke and talk about how reason and objectivity are forms of white supremacy culture. There are the nerds who obsess over “embodiment” and “somatic therapy” and accuse everyone else of “living in their heads”. There are the nerds who deflect by becoming really into neurodiversity - “the interesting thing about my brain isn’t that I’m ‘smart’ or ‘rational’, it’s that I’m ADHDtistic, which is actually a weakness . . . but also secretly a strength!” There are the nerds who flirt with fascism because it idolizes men of action, and the nerds who convert to Christianity because it idolizes men of faith. There are the nerds who get really into Seeing Like A State, and how being into rationality and metrics and numbers is soooooo High Modernist, but as a Kegan Level Five Avatar they are far beyond such petty concerns. There are the nerds who redefine “nerd” as “person who likes Marvel movies” - having successfully gerrymandered themselves outside the category, they can go back to their impeccably-accurate statisticsblogging on educational outcomes, or their deep dives into anthropology and medieval mysticism, all while casting about them imprecations that of course nerds are loathsome scum who deserve to be bullied.

The bit just before that, man.

Every nerd who was the smartest kid in their high school goes to an appropriately-ranked college and realizes they’re nothing special. But also, once they go into some specific field they find that intellect, as versatile as it is, can only take them so far. And for someone who was told their whole childhood that they were going to cure cancer (alas, a real quote from my elementary school teacher), it’s a tough pill to swallow.

Reaction formation, where you replace a unbearable feeling with its exact opposite, is one of the all time great Freudian defense mechanisms. You may remember it from such classics as “rape victims fall in love with their rapist” or “secretly gay people become really homophobic”. So some percent of washed-up gifted kids compensate by really, really hating nerdiness, rationality, and the intellect.

Literally my course from high school valedictorian, to 85th percentile college student, to barely-above average law student.

Then I kind of came back around by embracing the 'suck' and interrogating myself honestly about my 'shortcomings' and inflated self-expectations and calibrating my goals to what would be truly achievable (funny enough Slate Star Codex was a major influence in that period!).

Also, this line is an insanely deft cut to the jugular, holy cow.

Adams was willing to sacrifice everything for the right to say “It’s Okay To Be White”. I can’t help wondering what his life would have been like if he’d been equally willing to assert the okayness of the rest of his identity.

Every nerd who was the smartest kid in their high school goes to an appropriately-ranked college and realizes they’re nothing special. But also, once they go into some specific field they find that intellect, as versatile as it is, can only take them so far. And for someone who was told their whole childhood that they were going to cure cancer (alas, a real quote from my elementary school teacher), it’s a tough pill to swallow.

Man, I am so profoundly lucky I had two teachers that I think changed my life.

The first was my middle school social studies teacher. In the mid 1990's she had finished her service in the Navy or Army, I can't remember, and become a teacher. She was black pilled as fuck about the future of the country and constantly told us we weren't going to have it as easy as our boomer parents. For whatever reason it made a deep impression on me and I adjusted my expectations accordingly.

The second was my high school calculus teacher. I slept through his class and consistently got top scores. He wrote me a whole ass page long note on the back of one of my tests, because I was never awake in class for him to talk to. It was all about how he'd seen kids like me before, who were never properly challenged and developed poor study habits. That if I didn't reform my ways, I'd either flunk out of college or flounder professionally. Coming from any other teacher, I probably would have blown off the advice. But he always had my back, and generally had an attitude of "If he gets A's, he can sleep through class if he wants" with me. His message of support, but concern, resonated deeper than 12 years of just having teachers yell at me to get my shit together.

Because there is this really toxic part of nerd culture, where the motto is "Work smarter, not harder". But then they melt down in seething rage when someone works smart and hard and utterly mogs them on their own turf.

It was all about how he'd seen kids like me before, who were never properly challenged and developed poor study habits. That if I didn't reform my ways, I'd either flunk out of college or flounder professionally.

I could have used one of those. Mostly for the wakeup call of "everything is intuitive and easy for your now because the training wheels are on, and your intelligence is covering for your shortcomings in discipline and work ethic."

Law School was the clear inflection point there. Turns out you CAN pass tests by pulling all-nighters to cram the entirety of the coursework the day before the Exam. But when you're graded against people with more consistent habits and effective strategies, you can only hope to keep pace by sheer desperate improvisation.

I didn't really learn the right lesson, though.

This period:

came back around by embracing the 'suck' and interrogating myself honestly about my 'shortcomings' and inflated self-expectations and worked on calibrating my goals to what would be truly achievable

Was when I finally got on the right track.

"Work smarter, not harder". But then they melt down in seething rage when someone works smart and hard and utterly mogs them on their own turf.

lol. "I'm not lazy, I'm just more productive with the time I DO use for work."

"Ookay, well I'm approximately as productive as you with my time, and I spend more of it working... what now?"

That said, the extreme other end of that mentality is the "Sigma Male Grindset" approach where effort is all that matters, whether that effort is spent on something useful and important? Who cares! Getting paid is the only metric that registers.

Thankfully I now have a boss who tolerates my quirks well enough as long as I close enough files to keep the cash flowing.

Yeah, I felt very attacked by that passage.

IMHO it's not one of the best things he's written in recent years (I'd put Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know and Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know above it, for the research), but it is his best writing in recent years.

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