Comment by quietbritishjim
2 days ago
> How or why Scott Adams went completely of the rails is perhaps something we'll sadly never understand.
It started at roughly the time of his divorce, so it's hard to imagine there's not a connection. But, of course, you're right that we'll never know.
His 18yo son overdosed on fentanyl in 2018.
I don't want to excuse his opinions but that's the sort of event that can change a person.
He did online chats, and did one immediately after. It's a tough watch. https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1046764270128484352
He and been way off the rails for decades before that.
In fact, growing up in the very affluent part of my city, I saw a bunch of kids die using opiates to mentally escape the weird family fiefdoms where they [p/m]atriarch inexplicably wouldn't ever need for money, so went completely off the rails mentally. I was prescribed a bunch of opiates (including fent) after a bad ski accident, and can tell you that they basically work by turning down the volume on life around you. I can understand why someone would turn to them to mentally escape a bad family life.
About the only good thing I can say about recreational Xanax is that those kids are generally still alive in contrast to the ones who preferred opiates.
People are dying from recreational Xanax because it’s more and more cut with fent.
That is awful.
But his (first) divorce was in 2014 and his blog posts already seemed bitter around that time.
Edit: as another comment points out, it was a few years even earlier than that so I stand corrected.
His (in)famous sockpuppetry on Metafilter happened back in 2011, so he was a bit off well before his divorce or stepson's death.
Here's the link to that for context if anyone else is curious: https://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Educatio...
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He was already quite vocally pro-Trump during the primaries and 2016 presidential run.
He wasn't though. He was simply analyzing the communication styöe of Trump, using his hypnosis knowledge, and explained why and how it was better (more efficient) than the competitors. This turned out to be true, giving him the win, just like Scott Adams predicted.
The description of reality is not at all the same as supporting it. "Is" vs. "Ought to be".
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Can definitely see how that'd warm someone up to a politician who is crippling drug enforcement capabilities, addiction treatment programs, and addiction research... errr wait.
I suspect that having a family and knowing that blowback from your behavior will affect them is a moderating factor for a lot of people.
I suspect growing up in an era where community, the newspaper, radio and TV spewed religious, racist, and sexist content gradually increased sensory memory related neural activity that fostered biochemical and epigenetic effects that over time become effectively immutable.
Not sure why we are being coy about the triggers. Society of his youth and the biology are well documented.
So explain the existence of liberals and Democrats in America.
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