Scott Adams

Like anyone in the high tech industry who is of a certain age, I've been a faithful reader of Dilbert.

Any comic strip which is published 365 days a year will have its highs and lows, but Dilbert has, for 30 years, been pretty much the working-man's chronicle of life in the high tech industry.

The best Dilbert strips, in my opinion, are those which elegantly reveal the dirty laundry of our modern world, for example: Two Trash Containers.

More universally loved, I suspect, are those that strip away our inflated views of ourselves, and show us as we really are, such as: Our Most Valuable Asset.

Sadly, the best Dilbert strips are often quite cruel, for example: Cross-Train Me.

Anyway, it's impossible to follow a comic strip every single day of your life for 30 years and not become somewhat aware of the person behind that strip.

In this case, that person is Scott Adams.

Nowadays, along with his comic strip, Adams has been putting a VAST amount of energy into writing his blog, which he publishes on the same site as the comic strip.

And if, like me, you find yourself reading not just his comic strip, but also his blog, you've probably noticed how incredibly bizarre it's become over the last year. If so, you and I are not alone in wondering about this:

• Dilbert creator Scott Adams gets Trump like no one else

  He arrived on the pundit scene with a splash: He announced way back in the summer of 2015 that Trump was going to win the Republican nomination. He came to this knowledge not via fancy polling models or sophisticated political science analyses, but just by watching the election unfold through what he calls his “Master Persuader lens.” Adams is a trained hypnotist, and as such he can’t help but recognize the mesmeric brilliance of nearly everything that Trump says and does.

• ‘Dilbert’ creator says Hillary Clinton won debate, but ‘Trump won the election’

  “Dilbert” creator and social commentator Scott Adams declared Hillary Clinton the winner of Monday’s U.S. presidential debate, but with a twist — Donald Trump “won the election.”

• Scott Adams: Hillary Campaign Signaling It's 'Morally Justified to Assassinate' Trump, 'Likely To Trigger A Race War'

  I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms.

• Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Explains Why He Switched His Endorsement To Trump

  I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump

I don't really know why I find this all so fascinating, or even why I pay much attention to Scott Adams at all.

I used to just read the comic strip, and I didn't know much else about Adams. Apparently, his rather bizarre views have been well-known for many years, and I was just ignorant of all this.

At some point, about a year ago, he did a clever thing: he switched his website so that he no longer served the daily comic strip to RSS readers, but instead forced anyone who wanted to read the strip to visit his actual strip, where his blog articles are prominently placed.

Which had the intended effect: I started clicking through to the blog articles fairly frequently.

And then, once I saw them, I couldn't look away, like one of those morbidly-fascinated oglers at a neighborhood crime scene.

Unfortunately, what this means is simply that: I don't know if he's always been this way, or if he used to be normal and he's become ill.

Anyway, there it is, I've said what I came here to say.