Comment by georgeburdell
2 days ago
Adams had a normal range of beliefs. Postulating that they arose from some extrinsic and extra-personal source is a condemnation of your own limited views. People get older and begin to care less about conformity, including keeping controversial thoughts to themselves, as society loosens its reins as your needs are met (to make money, to find a partner, to have a family, etc.)
The law of attraction / master persuader/ I can hypnotize large audiences stuff isn't that normal, I think?
If you want an explanation for why he would try ivermectin for cancer treatment he had a lot of beliefs in that vein for a long time. I consider that tragic for him.
He was into NLP (the hypnosis theory) from way back.
James Hoffman, the coffee YouTuber, had an interesting comment on how he tried to use that in one of his 90s barista competitions, but seemed skeptical of it now. Scott remained a believer.
It's a communications skill, like, say, making powerpoint slides. If you get good at it, you will swear by it. But if can't gain skill, it's easy to think it's bogus. If you're deeply interested I can go into detail as to what it's about and not about. Or you can buy some books, get a trainer, or take a class.
Tl; dr: it's about adding a second layer to your communication which attends to the subconscious, not unlike art. It was originally for therapy, but unfortunately a lot of businessdorks in the 90s got into it and perverted it.
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AFAIK he tried it in addition to regular treatment but I could be wrong.
He got into a heated debate with his audience about COVID vaccines and ivermectin (he was pro vaccine and said they were idiots). Later he admitted he was wrong, when more evidence came out.
> The law of attraction
The Secret has sold 30 million copies.
And at the end of the day, it's prayer. 'Prayer helps, somehow' is a very common worldview.
A lot of the people who comment here are techie provincials who literally have no understanding that the things they believe, or at least the things they recite as their beliefs, are ideas that might be analyzed and judged against reality.
>Adams had a normal range of beliefs.
Manifesting things into reality through writing them often enough is FAR from a normal belief. Dude was a bit looney from the get go
>>> Manifesting things into reality through writing them often enough is FAR from a normal belief.
Hey, propaganda is a thing and it works. That's totally and example of manifesting things into reality through writing them often enough.
I think the commentor was talking about Adams's support for Trump. While maybe not normal on Reddit, HN or San Francisco, it's normal enough that more than half the voters agreed with Scott Adams.
No Im talking about the ending chapters of Dilbert Future. Some real interesting stuff in there.
Less than half. 49.8%, in fact.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
Hackernews readers have a habit of downvoting descriptive comments because they read them as normative
Prayer is basically that isn't it? Also, "the secret."
Most people in the industrialized world zealously believe what they are told to believe, even if it goes against what's in front of their own eyes. So making things true just by saying or writing them is not that odd.
> Adams had a normal range of beliefs.
You’re probably thinking of politics. You may not have read some of his more philosophical and metaphysical works, which were downright kooky. For example he thought that the universe was the dust of a god that had killed itself.
What’s normal about bigotry? It’s brain damage.
There's some very, very rich irony in your comment.
Pattern matching is very much a defining trait for humans.
Sadly it's quite common in the human population.
> What’s normal about bigotry?
uh I don't know, try asking almost any person who was born pre-1960? Doubt they all had brain damage. Not that it was necessarily a good thing, but it was certainly 'normal' in many eras throughout time.
> try asking almost any person who was born pre-1960? Doubt they all had brain damage.
Actually, they probably did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead
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