[AnthonyMouse]

The thing to understand about Scott Adams is that if he says something that sounds outrageous, he's probably trolling you. He'll in fact describe how to do this in order to generate publicity, or as a mechanism to expose hypocrisy or bad logic. But when he's in the middle of it he'll commit to the bit.

Basically, someone says X, which is crazy, because if X then logically Y would be true and Y is not only wrong but offensive. So he'll publicly assert Y and get people to argue with him, but the only real way to show that Y is wrong is to admit that X is wrong, which was the point.

And then the people arguing with him don't want to do that. They want to be offended by Y without admitting that X is wrong. So he has a bunch of fun with them because they've foreclosed themselves at the outset from winning the debate on the merits.

[lazyasciiart]

The thing to understand about this argument is that it is unfalsifiable nonsense. Anything he says that is wrong is him joking, you just can’t tell because he pretends so well! No, dude. He is wrong a lot and like a 5yo, when he realizes he cannot actually defend or explain something he did he falls back on “it was just a joke!”

[AnthonyMouse]

Of course he's wrong a lot. The point isn't that Y is right, it's that X and Y are both wrong but you can't admit to that if you're a hypocrite.

And the "anything he says that is wrong is him joking" is the idea, because it works both ways. If someone says something which is actually wrong, you can make a convincing argument for why if you're willing to be logically consistent yourself.

But there are also things which are politically offensive yet true, and having a reputation for this kind of trolling is what allows someone to say those things out loud. Because then you make the same claim: "Maybe I'm trolling you, if I am just provide the counterargument."

Which you can't do if the counterargument requires you to admit that X is wrong and you refuse to do that, but you also can't do if there is no counterargument because Y is true.

It doesn't matter whether "is he trolling this time" is falsifiable. What matters is if you can disprove his claim. If you can, go for it. If not, what does that say?

[lazyasciiart]

No, it’s not just that he is wrong a lot. It’s that when he is wrong he (and his fans) refuse to actually admit that he is making false claims and poor arguments, and pretends “I was joking!” is some kind of clever escape, and not a sign that nothing he says is worth engaging with. I don’t bother to disprove it when a five year old says “you stink” either, because they also couldn’t care less about the truth and logic of their statement.

[diydsp]

Maybe but "get the hell away from Black people" isn't a "claim"; it's explicit rich white boomer racism.

[roenxi]

Adams was looking at a poll that said 47% of black people disagreed with the statement "It’s okay to be white.". If that poll was reliable then that would be a profoundly concerning statistic and evidence of some pretty strong racism on the part of the community surveyed.

The level of "rich white boomer racism" (which is a bit racially charged in itself, but sure we can go with that) really hinges on how credible he found the poll. It was Rassmussen and also a pollster stirring up trouble so realistically he should have just dismissed it as a likely lie by not-reporting-the-real-context of the question being asked (I personally suspect dodgy framing). Adams should have picked up on that since it is his area, but the argument would have been reasonable if he was silly enough to believe the poll.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Adams should have picked up on that since it is his area, but the argument would have been reasonable if he was silly enough to believe the poll.

This is still in the same format as the above. His claim is that if 47% of black people disagree with the statement "it's okay to be white" then said white people should stay away from them. That's Y. Whether the poll is accurate isn't even the point -- and purposely choosing a poll with an artificially large number could be part of the troll.

X is the belief "it's not okay to be white." Which presumably doesn't actually have a 47% prevalence, but it's also not zero. What he's implying is that if a large proportion of black people actually believed this, his statement would be a completely plausible response from a significant proportion of white people. Which is a bad outcome. So believing X is bad, and increasing the prevalence of the belief X is bad, because if X then Y.

[dragonwriter]

> Adams was looking at a poll that said 47% of black people disagreed with the statement "It’s okay to be white.".

The thing about Black culture in America is that it is a product of very strong selective pressures to be aware of messages that carry meanings beyond what is on the surface, and, well, that one has a history:

https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/4chan-another-trolling-ca...

[roenxi]

If the black community is going to be persuaded by 4chan that "it is ok to be white" is a racist message that just suggests a mis-step by the leadership in the black community. The longer they tilt at the windmill the more silly they'll look.

If somehow that poll is picking up a real opinion then Adams has a point. That sort of racism has no place in modern society, it is acceptable to have any skin colour. And it is acceptable to assert that any skin colour is ok to have.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly the debate dynamic that Adams was likely trying to set up. The slogan is just too inoffensive and reasonable to complain about. The people trying to get worked up about it are just going to look bad.

[paulryanrogers]

The African Americans I've known are very in tune to race issues. And the poll question comes off as a racist dog whistle, like an extreme form of "all lives matter". So I wouldn't put a lot of faith the the poll results, certainly not enough to publicly advise avoiding an entire group of people based on their skin color.

[the_af]

A long time ago I reached the conclusion whoever plays "crazy" or "fool" long and consistently enough is in practice crazy/fool. It makes no difference what the person believes inside their mind, if they always play the fool, they are fools.

Scott Adams has been like this for a long time. Trolling or sincere makes no difference, if he acts like a bigot he is one.

[AnthonyMouse]

Wouldn't that make all satirists bigots? Is Stephen Colbert? Carroll O'Connor? It can't be that the only difference is whether someone is successfully trolled.

[the_af]

No, professional satire by definition doesn't count. In interviews they often tell you their real opinions or how they construct their character. I guess if they always stayed in character and never gave any interviews you could make a case...

You're begging the question re: trolling. You don't know they are trolls; you merely believe so. In fact, there's no way to tell real opinion from flamebait with the people under discussion. That's the whole point: if they always act like fools, they are fools.

[AnthonyMouse]

> In interviews they often tell you their real opinions or how they construct their character.

But that's exactly what Adams does.

> In fact, there's no way to tell real opinion from flamebait with the people under discussion.

Sure there is. If it's of the form "there is a valid argument against this, but it's inconvenient for partisans to make that argument" then it's flamebait.

[the_af]

I don't think that's the case for Scott Adams. You're giving him too much credit.

There's no way to tell the form you claim is flamebait. You assume it is, but you don't know for sure. If it requires too much assuming, it's indistinguishable in practice for the real thing.

An act that is kept up 24x7 is the real thing as far as I'm concerned.