Comment by pc86
2 days ago
My chief complaint is not only that it's spitting into a headwind during a rainstorm, but also just the performative nature of it. Someone enjoys Adams' (Adams's?) work, presumably for years or even decades. He says something gross. That person then, in order to deprive this multi-millionaire of a few dollars, not only deprives themselves of something they ostensibly enjoy[ed], but also has to turn it into a moral or ethical question so they can either feel better about it themselves, or feel superior to people who a) don't really care what Adams said or did, or b) care but are capable of separating the art from the artist.
It's the same kind of performative virtue signaling that led someone at the New York Times to call him racist twice in the first two sentences of his own obituary.
In fact, some of every dollar you spend _must_ go to people you would find reprehensible if only you knew them better. Bought a Slurpee at 7-11? There's almost certainly someone in that corporation who will share ever-so-slightly in the revenue your $0.98 of sugar water brought in.
Ignore is not only bliss, but necessary.
Adding onto this, we all pay some forms of taxes one way or other and those taxes are sometimes used by govts to then either be lost in corruption or scandals or the govt itself spends it on something you might not appreciate if you know the full context of details (especially when they pertain to war)
> Ignore is not only bliss, but necessary.
It honestly depends on the time, if we as a society wants change, some amount of uncomfort is needed to better shape it for the needs/affordability of the average person but also a lot of people don't want to face that uncomfort so they wish to be ignorant partially being the reason that some of the issues are able to persist even in a democratic system
No ethical consumption under capitalism and all that, but I'm pretty sure giving money to Scott Adams is much more optional than paying taxes.
2 replies →
> also has to turn it into a moral or ethical question so they can either feel better about it themselves,
You phrased this as an either-or thing, so I am actually genuinely curious....what exactly is wrong with this attitude?
We as people do a lot of things in our lives that probably don't make a difference, but that makes us feel better as individuals. Genuinely, what's the harm in cutting something out of your life because it makes you feel better?
I don't have any problem with not giving Adams just because you don't like him. Even if I think it's a bit silly, it's certainly your right, and while I would rather enjoy art I enjoy regardless of the artist's beliefs, not everyone feels that way and that's fine. What bothers me is the performative nature of it, having to tell everyone about it to let them know how good of a person you are, and acting like people with a different viewpoint are somehow lesser or worse.
Just look at this thread, several comments about "oh yeah that's what people without morals always say." As if whether someone spends $10 on an old book of Dilbert comics has far-reaching moral implications.
>Adams' (Adams's?)
I had to look it up as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_genitive
Your link just redirects. I think the section linked below is better. I was surprised to learn that there's at least some amount of disagreement on the details depending on the context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Singular_nouns_endi...
The same page also covers the broader subject more generally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Possessive_apostrop...
> One would therefore say "I drank the glass's contents" to indicate drinking from one glass, but "I drank the glasses' contents" after also drinking from another glass.
Every time I stop to appreciate these details that I never really have to think about I feel sorry for those forced to pick up English as a second language. Formal latin should have remained the language of academics and international trade. We really screwed up.
>Formal latin should have remained the language of academics and international trade. We really screwed up.
I think if formal Latin was really that great a language, it would have endured much longer. Latin is a horribly complicated language, and this is probably a big reason why "vulgar Latin" came about, and why Latin-influenced languages evolved from it (Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.), yet were neither actual Latin themselves, nor as complicated.
There's a good reason English is so popular these days, and it's not just US dominance. English is a really easy language to learn poorly. It's hard to get all the little details right (like this apostrophe stuff), especially for formal writing, and it's hard to really master it, but it's really easy to learn it at a basic level and become decently conversational with it. You'll make lots of mistakes at this level, but it doesn't matter because with the way the language works, listeners will still understand you just fine. It's not like highly inflected languages where conjugating something incorrectly suddenly changes the meaning completely.
A complicated language like formal Latin makes sense if you want your language to be more like a rigid technical specification: it leaves much less room for ambiguity. But this is not at all easy for speakers of other languages to learn well enough as a 2nd language for international trade.
I'm shocked at how much the term "racism" is coming up. I followed him on Twitter and watched some of his YouTube and I didn't see any racist content. In fact, he did not align with the racist rhetoric and slogans which came out around COVID, that's why he was slandered as racist (ironically). He was just defending his own race. Everyone is entitled to defend their own race and culture if done respectfully and without fanaticism; which was the case here.
It's important to note that the specific comments the NYT are referencing is when he was discussing a survey in which only 53% of black people surveyed agreed with the statement "It is okay to be white." He started discussing what happens to a society when nearly half of one race can't bring themselves to say it's okay to be a member of another race.
There are plenty of podcasts where plenty of people say truly racist things. Saying "47% of black people saying it's not okay to be white is a problem" is not one of them.
I sort of have to admire the kind of person that comes right out with "I have no firm principles or beliefs, and nobody else should either". That's certainly an ethos, I suppose.
Because yeah, if you can't imagine ever genuinely standing up for anything, of course the idea is gonna feel fake and embarrassing.
People genuinely feel his behavior sucked, dude, and it's not "performative" to say so, it's normal human social behavior. Shaming and scorn are powerful tools and we use them to set norms.
So no, nobody cares if Scott Adams doesn't get $4 and has a sad. People care a lot about making it clear that egregious and ugly beliefs will be met with scorn. If that makes you feel bad, well, good. That's the point.
Nailed it. A notable behavior of people with weak morals / no principles is to loudly proclaim that other people with principles are "performative" or "virtue signaling".
And a notable behavior of performative virtue signaling bores is saying that anyone who doesn't share in the performance (even if they agree with them in principle) have weak morals and no principles.
2 replies →
It's funny to end a comment with "That's the point" when you so egregiously missed my point that I have to believe it's intentional and you're approaching this entire discussion in bad faith political hackery. Have a good day, but I doubt it.