Dilbert loses newspapers, publishers, distributor, and possibly its website

[MK14]

So, Scott Adams, has his regular (perhaps daily), video blog.  Open to any fans of his, if they want, where he says some stuff.  A bit like he would, if he had friends round, for morning coffee and a group chat, about things.
Which many people do (video blogs), in the modern world.

No one is forced to watch it, he is not ramming stuff down peoples throats.  As Dave has said, if you follow his stuff, regularly.  It is a gentler, less dramatic experience, where he discussing various things.

So, one or more people object to something he says, they then cause a big stir on social media and things and they get the guy 'cancelled'.

Respectfully disagree.

If what you suggest was actually the case, I'd be inclined to agree with you.

But there have been several interviews with both Adams and people who know him well where it is apparent that Adams intentionally went down this path and fully expected to get 'cancelled'.  He admitted the Rasmussen poll results he pushed were questionable before he even taped the show.  To me, that is not the same thing as just sitting around expressing your personal opinion.

With any freedom comes the responsibility to use it wisely.   IMO "he chose poorly".

Because of watching a little bit of Scott Adams videos, and reading some stuff.  I think you may have partly got the wrong idea.

My understanding (or feeling about it, N.B./Disclaimer I've watched way, way too little of his stuff, for what I'm about to say, to have even a gentle level of guaranteed accuracy here), is what he (Scott Adams), meant.  Was that he was going to say what he thought, and he doesn't care if the 'cancel' culture and things, get angry with it, and cancel him/Dilbert.

So, although it is still intentional, it is not so much, intentional, to gain extra free advertising and hence make more money.  But intentional, so that they can have the freedom of speech rights, to put their point of view across.

Which is a subtle, but rather important distinction.

EDIT: His recognition of the poll result, being possibly misleading and/or partly or fully wrong.  Could be him choosing, his favorite option, that the poll result was valid (just like a politician, typically would be expected to do), rather than meaning he caused this 'cancel' fracas, intentionally.

In fairness to your post.  I'm NOT clear, how intentional or not, it has been.  So I'm still open, to believe it either way (i.e. he did it intentionally, or he decided he just didn't care, they can cancel him if they want to).

[tszaboo]

But there have been several interviews with both Adams and people who know him well where it is apparent that Adams intentionally went down this path and fully expected to get 'cancelled'.

Yeah, he was admitting in the interview that he expected to be cancelled. And he did it anyway, because opening a discussion about it is important. And he is right.
One of his example was in that specific interview: If you are getting hired because of DEI, then good for you, hoverer, a more qualified person (who doesn't get the job) will hate you for it. And you always will be labeled as the diversity hire, behind your back. Reasonable question, swept under the rug for now.
There was a bunch of other ones, but we were asked by Dave not to discuss it here.

[Nominal Animal]

How can you make the rules fair (as possible) for each individual and have them result in unequal outcomes? That's a contradiction of logic.

I've already mentioned how nonintact homes in early childhood (by age 8) is a very strong predictor of having a criminal record as an adult.

Thus, if you apply the law to all individuals equally, and there are cultural or sociological reasons why certain ethnicities or cultural backgrounds have statistically more nonintact homes in early childhood, for example single mothers, you will end up with them statistically overrepresented among those with a criminal background.

In other words, there is no reason a perfectly egalitarian law and culture would yield equal statistics among groups of people.
Equality of opportunity does not lead to equality of outcome, because individuals vary in their characteristics.

Personally I'm with John Donne, "No man is an island.."

And I refuse to be treated as a member or representative of any group, and insist on being treated as an individual, based on my own actions.

[Zero999]

How can you make the rules fair (as possible) for each individual and have them result in unequal outcomes? That's a contradiction of logic.

I've already mentioned how nonintact homes in early childhood (by age 8) is a very strong predictor of having a criminal record as an adult.

I wish smileys were smarter and didn't do that. . .

It could be partly biological, although this is controversial and suggesting so is a cancellable offense:

• Higher levels of testosterone in some ethnic groups than others. This hormone has a strong positive correlation with sexual and violent crime.
• Genetic predisposition to higher/lower intelligence.
• Low levels of vitamin D can retard brain development, especially in the womb.

It's probably mostly social, but any of the above could be contributory factors.

[TimFox]

Meanwhile, I fall back to xkcd for my comics:
https://xkcd.com/1357

[Nominal Animal]

Meanwhile, I fall back to xkcd for my comics:
https://xkcd.com/1357

I never liked that one (although I love many XKCD ones), because it conveniently avoids the entire issue: that it is not that people stop listening to you because they themselves don't like what you are saying, but because they fear repercussions by the agitators.

It's like having people discuss something around a nice round table, but having men with baseball bats stand behind each person ready to make sure they know the consequences if they discuss anything I don't like.  They, too, are absolutely free to discuss anything at all.

[james_s]

Meanwhile, I fall back to xkcd for my comics:
https://xkcd.com/1357

I never liked that one (although I love many XKCD ones), because it conveniently avoids the entire issue: that it is not that people stop listening to you because they themselves don't like what you are saying, but because they fear repercussions by the agitators.

It's like having people discuss something around a nice round table, but having men with baseball bats stand behind each person ready to make sure they know the consequences if they discuss anything I don't like.  They, too, are absolutely free to discuss anything at all.

Exactly. And when people talk about "free speech" they are not just talking about the First Amendment, which provides specific protections in a specific nation. The concept of free speech is something far larger than that.

[Nominal Animal]

It is difficult to perceive the whole situation, though, when you happen to agree with those doing the "enforcement".

It's just so easy to assume that the enforcers do represent everybody –– or "everybody with a modicum of sense" –– and are not really relevant.
I know I have had to learn to examine the situation and my own perceptions to detect when that happens, for sure.

[EEVblog]

Meanwhile, I fall back to xkcd for my comics:
https://xkcd.com/1357

I never liked that one (although I love many XKCD ones), because it conveniently avoids the entire issue: that it is not that people stop listening to you because they themselves don't like what you are saying, but because they fear repercussions by the agitators.

Yep, avoids the real problem.
And when the social media platforms are almost all either controlled by the left wing who like nothing more than taking an opportunity to virtue signal by taking pro-active measures themselves to censor one side (e.g. Patreon's "off platform" policy, and Twitters "Manifest observable behaviour" policy pre-Elon). Or they are so afraid of the mob that they will bow to any pressure from the woke mob.
It's no coincidence that practically all of the "cancellations" are on one side of politics.

[aeberbach]

Oh, and about Bill Watterson, this just was in my YT feed this morning.
What a difference with the professional troll we are discussing about.

He fought against his characters being used as a cheap stamp to sell crap, and won. And he hates Garfield. Great man!

[TimFox]

Meanwhile, I fall back to xkcd for my comics:
https://xkcd.com/1357

I never liked that one (although I love many XKCD ones), because it conveniently avoids the entire issue: that it is not that people stop listening to you because they themselves don't like what you are saying, but because they fear repercussions by the agitators.

Yep, avoids the real problem.
And when the social media platforms are almost all either controlled by the left wing who like nothing more than taking an opportunity to virtue signal by taking pro-active measures themselves to censor one side (e.g. Patreon's "off platform" policy, and Twitters "Manifest observable behaviour" policy pre-Elon). Or they are so afraid of the mob that they will bow to any pressure from the woke mob.
It's no coincidence that practically all of the "cancellations" are on one side of politics.

Meanwhile, politics and society in the US grow more polarized, and both sides try to "cancel" that with which they disagree.
Why do you say "practically all", instead of "more"?

[SiliconWizard]

The "cancel" movement is 100% political. It's not about individual choices, it's all about choices made for a group of people, and the power of canceling is the power of the group and whoever directs it.

We more or less all have "canceled" others one way or another in our lives for various reasons - too strong divergence of opinions that just talking with them becomes impossible, people that get excessively annoying, whatever. But that's not the same thing. That's just individual choices we all make, and that's part of our basic freedoms. We just choose whoever we want to hang out with or not, and it can change over time.

The cancel movement we've been witnessing for a few years now is nothing like that. It's not about individual choice and our basic freedoms, it's all about the drive to make others share the same choices at all costs. It's the opposite of freedom, it's social control. It's all driven by the mob mentality and usually directed by political motives.

[EEVblog]

Meanwhile, politics and society in the US grow more polarized, and both sides try to "cancel" that with which they disagree.
Why do you say "practically all", instead of "more"?

Becaue I'm stating an observable fact.
Name a prominent left wing person who's been "cancelled" from platforms and social media and been debanked, etc in recent years. You'd be lucky to have the count exceed the fingers on your one hand.

Also name a "left wing" leaning platform that formed recently because of all of these "left wing" cancellations and those people needing a place to go.
Yet on the "right" you have Locals, Subscribestar, Bitchute, Rumble, Truth social, etc.
The only one I can think of that gained some "left momentum" is Mastodon. And that's not because they were cancelled from Twitter, it's because they all threw a hissyhit that their left leaning cancelling machine was taken over by Elon Musk who cleaned house and made it an even playing field, so they jumped ship.

[james_s]

Nobody should be trying to "cancel" anyone. There is a very important difference between not attending/watching/listening/purchasing to something or even speaking out against it, and trying to destroy/silence/shut down something you don't agree with or attack others for listening/watching or indirectly associated with or even just failing to speak out against something. It is an absolutely undeniable objective fact that people are regularly threatened, intimidated or otherwise bullied over something they may have said or an opinion they ostensibly hold or because they are somehow associated with someone. That is totally unacceptable in a free society.

If you don't like what somebody says, don't listen to them, don't follow them, don't attend their events, don't like them, tell everyone that will listen how you think so and so is wrong/misguided/stupid/etc. If you feel strongly enough about it, speak up with a counterpoint, that's freedom. Cancelling is something else entirely, and I'm not sure if people actually can't see this distinction, or willfully ignore it

[TimFox]

I don't follow social media.
In regular politics, the main cancellation going on is to keep unfavorable ideas (as seen by either side) away from schools and colleges.

[EEVblog]

I don't follow social media.

And that's why you have no idea what's been happing over the last decade.

[james_s]

I don't follow social media.
In regular politics, the main cancellation going on is to keep unfavorable ideas (as seen by either side) away from schools and colleges.

Dave's question still applies. How many people with far left wing views have been uninvited from speaking at universities? How many cases have there been of students rioting or shouting down someone with far left views? How many people have been fired from their job for expressing a far left opinion? I can't think of a single one, however I'm more than willing to accept any cases you can point out. As someone who is neither particularly left or right I notice this, and I notice the glaring double standards.

[TimFox]

I don't follow social media.

And that's why you have no idea what's been happing over the last decade.

I do not find social media relevant to my continuing needs.

[TimFox]

I don't follow social media.
In regular politics, the main cancellation going on is to keep unfavorable ideas (as seen by either side) away from schools and colleges.

Dave's question still applies. How many people with far left wing views have been uninvited from speaking at universities? How many cases have there been of students rioting or shouting down someone with far left views? How many people have been fired from their job for expressing a far left opinion? I can't think of a single one, however I'm more than willing to accept any cases you can point out. As someone who is neither particularly left or right I notice this, and I notice the glaring double standards.

The egregious examples of "shouting down" tend to come from students and similar left-leaning groups (a phenomenon that predates this century).
The political examples tend to come from the other side of the polarization.

[Nominal Animal]

I don't follow social media.

Neither do I, but some of the people I'd like (or need) to interact with, use social media as the source for adopting opinions wholesale.  That's why and how social media affects me too.

[james_s]

The egregious examples of "shouting down" tend to come from students and similar left-leaning groups (a phenomenon that predates this century).
The political examples tend to come from the other side of the polarization.

That doesn't answer the question. What examples do you know of where right wing students have shouted down or threatened a speaker with far left views?

Same with the political examples, can you list one? As much as I disagree with Trump supporters I was appalled at the case where a child wearing a red MAGA hat was assaulted by someone that stole his hat. In another case an elderly couple was attacked and harassed upon exiting a Trump speech. There was an unarmed man marching with a pro Trump group in Oregon that was gunned down in cold blood by a self described "antifa" leftist. Ironically the victim was openly gay, and yet those that would normally be screaming hate crime were nowhere to be found. There were multiple cases over the past few years where right wing groups staged a peaceful event somewhere and lefists showed up uninvited and attacked them trashing the event. I'm embarrassed by this behavior, aren't you? I am very much NOT a Trump supporter so I hate being forced to defend him or his followers by the behavior of the deranged far left.

[james_s]

I do not find social media relevant to my continuing needs.

Then why are you commenting on something that is primarily occurring via social media? You effectively state that something is not happening, then when pressed for examples you essentially say you don't know because you don't follow. If you don't follow and don't know then how can you claim it isn't happening or isn't an issue?

[EEVblog]

I don't follow social media.

And that's why you have no idea what's been happing over the last decade.

I do not find social media relevant to my continuing needs.

And that's fine. But don't go around claiming you know about cancel culture politics on platforms and social media when you clearly don't.
It has been blindingly obvious to everyone for the last decade that practically all the social media and platform "cancellations" happen to those on the "right" leaning side of politics.
Countless innocent creators like myself have been caught up in this, for example when Patreon had it's big purge of "right leaning" or "conservative" or "anti-SJW" creators if you will, we ended up losing a ton of Patrons as collateral damage as people left the platform in droves.
Literally the US president was de-platformed from Twitter under this mad cancellation craze.

Then you had the covid craze and that led to countless cancellations and de-platformings, once again of people of conservative shall we say "pro-freedom" nature.

[TimFox]

The egregious examples of "shouting down" tend to come from students and similar left-leaning groups (a phenomenon that predates this century).
The political examples tend to come from the other side of the polarization.

That doesn't answer the question. What examples do you know of where right wing students have shouted down or threatened a speaker with far left views?

Same with the political examples, can you list one? As much as I disagree with Trump supporters I was appalled at the case where a child wearing a red MAGA hat was assaulted by someone that stole his hat. In another case an elderly couple was attacked and harassed upon exiting a Trump speech. There was an unarmed man marching with a pro Trump group in Oregon that was gunned down in cold blood by a self described "antifa" leftist. There were multiple cases over the past few years where right wing groups staged a peaceful event somewhere and lefists showed up uninvited and attacked them trashing the event. I'm embarrassed by this behavior, aren't you? I am very much NOT a Trump supporter so I hate being forced to defend him or his followers by the behavior of the deranged far left.

I admitted that most "shouting down" events recently have been by left-leaning student types.
With regard to Trump political events, are you unaware of violence, often suggested by the speaker, against press and protesters by the "right wing"?
A biased summary, from a quick Google search:  https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech

[TimFox]

I do not find social media relevant to my continuing needs.

Then why are you commenting on something that is primarily occurring via social media? You effectively state that something is not happening, then when pressed for examples you essentially say you don't know because you don't follow. If you don't follow and don't know then how can you claim it isn't happening or isn't an issue?

I do not believe that "cancel culture" is limited to social media, and I commented on my perceptions of "cancellation" in the larger culture and society.
There are more things on heaven and earth than are found on social media.