{"id":597,"date":"2026-01-14T12:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/?p=597"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:26:09","slug":"uncle-josh-on-scott-adams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/14\/uncle-josh-on-scott-adams\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Josh on Scott Adams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Adams, the creator of\u00a0Dilbert<\/em> and general troll, died yesterday at the age of 68.<\/p>\n

Dilbert<\/em> was helpful in building my cynical resistance to the inanity of cube-farm life when I was in technical support in the 90’s. His book\u00a0The Dilbert Principle<\/em> also had some very good ideas on how businesses should be run in a way that respects their employees. Needless to say, his advice is rarely taken. I know Adams cosplayed as a business consultant and spat out pure nonsense to sales people and executives and was taken far too seriously. I considered him a helpful troll in the hellscape of American information work. It was from this book I think I picked up the idea that your employer considers your chair more important than you.<\/p>\n

Then I gave up on him. In 2012 he publicly endorsed Mitt Romney and I didn’t see any valid reason in his arguments. I seem to remember them as being completely unreasonable.\u00a0Dilbert<\/em> lost its fanbase and then he got diagnosed with prostrate cancer.<\/p>\n

At least he didn’t (as far as I can tell) attempt to grift millions for his hospital bills.<\/p>\n

It’s funny to think that the man he was early in his career will be missed more than the man he became, or possibly revealed himself to be. I suppose I could have been mourning for him for at least 14 years now, but I generally stopped mourning the loss of people I never knew.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if we’ll understand why he threw so much away, or if he was always like that.<\/p>\n

So I can’t say rest in peace, nor can I say good riddance. It’s a shame our medical system is more concerned with getting rich rather than helping someone fight cancer.<\/p>\n

Goodbye, Scott. You were helpful for a while, then you became a stumbling block. I’m glad I learned to walk away from people like you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Adams, the creator of\u00a0Dilbert and general troll, died yesterday at the age of 68. Dilbert was helpful in building my cynical resistance to the inanity of cube-farm life when I was in technical support in the 90’s. His book\u00a0The Dilbert Principle also had some very good ideas on how businesses should be run in … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[7,70],"tags":[219,218],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-politics-are-local","category-armchair-philosophy","tag-dilbert","tag-scott-adams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}