| ▲ | andrewclunn 3 hours ago |
| Good to know that "Don't speak ill of the dead," is now truly dead. Ironic that an online post trying to push a political point is attempting to frame itself as rising above. There is no middle ground. There is no common decency. |
|
| ▲ | afavour 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The reaction to Adams death is simply a reflection of how he lived his life. There’s this curious demand (often though not exclusively from right leaning folks) for freedom of speech and freedom from consequences of that speech. It doesn’t work that way. You have the freedom to say reactionary things that upset people as much as you want. But if you do, then you die, people are going to say “he was a person who said reactionary things that upset people”. |
| |
|
| ▲ | ubertaco 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've never entirely understood "don't speak ill of the dead"; it seems like a vastly-scoped rule with far too many exceptions (and that can prevent learning any lessons from the life of the deceased). Forgive the Godwin's law, but: did that rule apply to Hitler? If not, then there's a line somewhere where it stops being a good rule (if it ever was one to begin with) – and I'd feel confident saying that there's no real consensus about where that "cutover" occurs. To me, comments like "the entire arc of Scott Adams is a cautionary tale" rings less of vitriol and more of a kind of mourning for who the man became, and the loss of his life (and thus the loss of any chance to grow beyond who he became). That rings empathetic and sorrowful to me, which seems pretty decent in my book. |
| |
| ▲ | negzero7 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Because the dead can't respond or defend themselves. That's why you don't do it. And it's the framing of the statement that is the problem. They didn't say "I disagreed with Scott" or "I didn't like Scott"; they framed it in a way that made it seem like truth. "the entire arc of Scott Adams is a cautionary tale" makes it seem like he did something wrong and there is some universal truth to be had, when it's really just this person disagreed with Scott's political views. It's persuasion, which ironically I think Scott would have liked. | | |
| ▲ | thomasfromcdnjs 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Kind of crazy your original post got flagged, it was completely reasonable. --- > which ironically I think Scott would have liked Agreed, RIP. | |
| ▲ | twixfel 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > they framed it in a way that made it seem like truth "the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people; just get the fuck away" It is true that this is an evil and racist thing to say. > when it's really just this person disagreed with Scott's political views white supremacism isn't just a small policy difference. If you hold hateful beliefs in which you believe certain people are inferior based on superficial traits like skin colour, why should you expect to be treated with respect? I disrespect such people because I don't respect them, I am if nothing else being sincere. | |
| ▲ | Itoldmyselfso 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | He was - Anti-evolution (https://scienceandculture.com/2018/12/scott-adams-intelligen...) - Racist (https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/02/23/dilberts-scott-adams-...) - Misogynist (https://web.archive.org/web/20220822171610/https:/www.scotta...) - Anti-vaccine (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jan/26/scott-adam...) - Questioned holocaust numbers (https://forward.com/fast-forward/538571/dilbert-cartoon-crea...) - He also ironically supported the cuts to cancer research. Yeah I'd go with little more than "I respectfully disagreed with him" on that one chief, there's no need to try to pretend these views of his are perfectly acceptable political disagreements that warrant some kid-glove treament. | | |
| ▲ | bigstrat2003 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm a grown up. I can handle it if someone has different views from my own, it's not a big deal. | | |
| ▲ | twixfel 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | How is it grown up to not recoil from people holding abhorrent views? If you can't judge people for the things they say and do, then... what's left? | | |
| ▲ | tinfoilhatter 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Why is questioning a historical event abhorrent behavior? Every historical event is fair game except for one, even historical events where far more people died due to their religions or cultural affiliations. There's only one we aren't allowed to question however. We even have special made-up terms to describe people that question this one specific event. We don't do it for any other historical event. Why is that? | |
| ▲ | moralestapia 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Everyone's views, evern yours, are abhorrent to at least some other person on the planet. The grown up thing is to accept that and still be able to hold meaningful dialogue. | | |
| ▲ | twixfel 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | >Everyone's views, evern yours, are abhorrent to at least some other person on the planet. Yes and I accept that they won't respect me. I do not demand that they respect me, it's fine, of course they won't respect me if they find me abhorrent. I don't care. >The grown up thing is to accept that and still be able to hold meaningful dialogue. Not really, I don't debate every one and every topic. It's totally valid to just write people off as bastards based on their behaviour and move on with your life. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | EnergyAmy 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your first link seems like he was just trolling. He says "intelligent design" and then defines it in a way that nobody else would. > What he means by intelligent design is the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. We are overwhelmingly likely to be “copies” of some other humans who intelligently designed us, in a virtual reality. That seems to have been pretty common with him. "I believe in X. And by X I mean Y. Look at all these people talking about X, aren't they stupid?" |
|
| |
| ▲ | Noaidi 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I've never entirely understood "don't speak ill of the dead" Agree. Much more hurtful to speak ill of the living. I can even see both R's and D's as people suffering in the duality of the world and have compassion for them. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” | | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is even encoded in our laws. It is definitionally impossible to defame the dead, for example. |
| |
| ▲ | Hamuko 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You don't even really need to invoke Godwin's law, since you can just ask the same question about financier to the billionaires Jeffrey Epstein or beloved British presenter Sir Jimmy Savile (presented without speaking ill of the dead). |
|
|
| ▲ | petesergeant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why shouldn’t you speak ill of the dead? |
| |
| ▲ | card_zero 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I suppose you shouldn't jeer at them for being dead, for a start, and you should make allowances for their being dead when judging their actions. Treat them fairly. | | |
| ▲ | tremon 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | They weren't dead yet when they did the actions for which they are judged, right? | | |
| |
| ▲ | bena 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's mostly because the dead cannot defend themselves. You are attacking someone who you have no fear of reprisal from. | | |
| ▲ | f30e3dfed1c9 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This has been mentioned a few times in this thread. But it doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially in the case of someone famous. If two or three days ago, not knowing he was sick (which I didn't), I had said to someone "That Dilbert guy seems to be sort of a whack job," why would it matter that he was alive to hypothetically defend himself? It's extremely unlikely that he would ever be aware of my comment at all. So why does it matter that he's alive? | |
| ▲ | cthalupa an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I didn't fear reprisal from Scott Adams when he was alive, either. And there are plenty of people willing to step in for Scott and defend him, as evidenced by the contents here. Someone dying doesn't mean the consequences of their words and actions disappear and acting like we should pretend that death washes away those consequences is silly. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | dyauspitr 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You can’t have a middle ground when your tenets offer up personal harm to a significant portion of the population. |
