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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Dilbert Creator Scott Adams: ‘I Decided to Pay’ High Price of Free Speech to Have a Conversation About Race

Dilbert is gone...not in some abstract sense , but dropped by syndicate, all papers. That's it..kaput.

“Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars, and books because I gave some advice everyone agreed with,” he tweeted. “Dilbert (and more) will only be available on the subscription site http://scottadams.locals.com when sorted out.”

First Kanye, and now Scott Adams. 48 hours to destroy your career. Like Kanye he didn't recant and instead doubled down, but at least he still has his twitter account. How many people are going to pay read Dilbert from Scott's personal website? Probably not enough to recover the lost revenue (as he said, he paid a high price). He still has his youtube account, but he's likely on thin ice there. At least he is good friends with Elon Musk, so his Twitter account should be safe. But damn. I feel mixed about this as to if this was a good move on his part ,or what he hopes to get from destroying his career, connections, etc.

sigh I guess I missed my chance to stock up on Dilbert hard copies. I'd grabbed the first few a couple years ago, and then got side tracked. I always had such a fondness for Dilbert in middle school.

God damned this shit keeps happening faster and faster. I need to make a list and commit to stocking up, pronto.

Dilbert Creator Scott Adams: ‘I Decided to Pay’ High Price of Free Speech to Have a Conversation About Race

I wish folks (on both the woke and anti-woke sides) would stop using that phrase. No, you weren't trying to have a "conversation" about race. You wanted to preach. I don't think Adams was actually open to argument, any more than the grifters who say we need an "honest conversation" (meaning, sit down in the pews, listen, and shut up) about race.

I feel mixed about this as to if this was a good move on his part ,or what he hopes to get from destroying his career, connections, etc.

He has FU money, and will continue collecting royalties for the rest of his life, even if Dilbert isn't as evergreen as Harry Potter.

I suspect that rather like JK Rowling, this wasn't a spontaneous decision, and he knew what the blowback would be.

I wish folks (on both the woke and anti-woke sides) would stop using that phrase.

I want to agree, but we did actually just "have a conversation", and the evident result is that Black people really are now being killed at significantly higher rates than they were before. The strategy that you, I, and most others have settled on is to ignore this fact and hope it goes away on its own, which it is unlikely to do, and which will definately result in many thousands of additional murders over the next decade or two, with all the cascading negative effects for the communities those murders are concentrated in. Judging by past results, this is likely to cause another "conversation" a decade or two from now, that causes the same problem again, and on and on it goes.

Adams is intentionally getting people upset, but the fact is that people should actually be upset, because the reality is upsetting. His actions are not actually a solution, but they are perhaps closer to a solution than anything you or I are willing to act on. Blacks need to take responsibility for their tribe's problems. They need to withdraw active support and solidarity from the portions of their community that have adopted an unrepentant criminal lifestyle, the same way whites have done. They need to support the police that suppress their community's criminals. They pretty clearly aren't going to do any of those things while they can get away with simply blaming racism for all their problems, and they are going to keep blaming racism for all their problems so long as its the only answer we allow as a society.

If the taboo is not broken, there is no hope for change. And of course the first people to break the taboo are those insulated from the consequences; why would we expect anything different?

They need to withdraw active support and solidarity from the portions of their community that have adopted an unrepentant criminal lifestyle, the same way whites have done.

This is the key. I believe America will only be "post-racial" when we get to the point where, when a chronically disordered individual who happens to be black "fucks about and finds out" with the cops, the majority of black Americans who have jobs and no criminal record shrug and say "play stupid games, win stupid prizes", like I do when the same thing happens to some toothless, tatted up white meth addict. The fact that so many intelligent and educated black Americans continue to feel identification and kinship with thugs and knuckleheads simply because they share a skin color is baffling to me.