RIP: Scott Adams Dead At 68

 Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, has died at age 68 due to prostate cancer. The New York Post relates:

    Adams became famous through “Dilbert,” the comic strip that poked fun at corporate culture with keen insight into the absurdity, cruelty and incompetence of management inside large organizations.

    In his last decade and a half, however, Adams achieved wide influence through his business advice and political analysis. 

    His 2013 best seller, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,” is one of the most influential and entertaining business books of recent years. 

    In it, Adams introduced the concept of using systems, rather than goals, to achieve success in life. He also advised readers to accumulate skills — a “talent stack” — rather than traditional credentials.

    In 2015, Adams began commenting on politics after observing the first Republican presidential primary debate. When then-candidate Donald Trump responded to a moderator’s question that accused him of mistreating women by interjecting, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Adams took notice. 

    A trained hypnotist, Adams predicted that Trump, then a huge underdog, would win the nomination — and the presidency.

[snip]

    Adams emphasized that he was not a Republican: “I’m further left than Bernie Sanders,” he reminded viewers. He even endorsed Clinton in 2016 — for his own safety, he said. But he drew a conservative audience that soon included Trump’s own advisers. 

[snip]

    In 2023, he was accused of racism when he commented on a Rasmussen poll in which only 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement: “It’s OK to be white.” 

    Adams quipped that it would be good to move away from people who felt that degree of hostility. He immediately found himself “canceled” — his comic strip dropped, his publishing contracts terminated.

    He began self-publishing his books, including “Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success.” He relaunched an edgier version of “Dilbert” on the independent Locals platform, and felt liberated to express his more controversial political views — such as that the 2020 election had likely been “rigged,” given the increasingly evident corruption of nearly every other government system.