>I respect Scott Adams for his comic, but his blog is (in my opinion) a bunch of mass-produced rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings¹, trading out quality for (a very large) quantity
Not so sure about the "rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings". He writes his opinions and gives arguments. Nothing "pseudo" about them, though they could still be (and often are) wrong, either factually or as a reasoning.
>It's very unlikely that somebody with "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor" will get his success just because of such qualities.
Well, if they also knew about business workings, and did business-related comic strips at a time when nobody else (or very few) was doing them, then they might. Humor, like drawing, is honed over time anyway.
>A very ridicolous example of whom was when he was proving that Trump will be successful because, based on his observations, leaders who were great in the long term, typically had a rough start.
Well, his prediction did pan out, when all pundits said otherwise. Could be dumb luck, but he has been lucky often enough.
Theirs [the pundits'] arguments then, would be even worse "pseudo-rational arguments" that Scott's: because on top of claiming rationality, facts, legitimacy, and statistics on their side and being presented with fanfare on prime time (unlike a mere personal blog), they were also proven wrong.
I'll probably regret posting this at some point because Scott Adams is smart (just not particularly aligned with my own moral compass). I don't think he is AS smart as he thinks he is but that doesn't mean he isn't smart, it just means he has a particularly large ego.
See, I predicted Trump would win as well. It seemed incredibly obvious to me despite it being the worst possible outcome I could imagine. I based my "prediction" on my time spent in the US and a gut feeling. I guessing Adams did as well, and found ways to justify it (not exactly unique to him).
Adams tends to think in terms of "persuasion" as a skill. In that sense, he probably sees the world transactionally and cynically. I have heard him debate people with a good command of the facts and a similar combination of ego and articulation. He comes off as smug, too confident, and more like a small fish in a big pond than he does when he is just writing on his blog or "destroying" someone in social media.
Was it the inherent quality (or lack thereof of the book) of mere resistance to counter opinions and certainty that "this can't be any good since it's ideologically opposite" though?
No, I am genuinely interested on the opposing take, but as far as I remember he was just babbling some ridiculous thing over and over. It didn't make any intellectual sense, whether you're right-wing/left-wing, populist/liberal.
To be frank, I find his arguments a little flaky and hand-wavy, of the "self-help guru" variety, but there's usually some interesting perspective or tidbit there that I wouldn't have thought otherwise...
Not so sure about the "rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings". He writes his opinions and gives arguments. Nothing "pseudo" about them, though they could still be (and often are) wrong, either factually or as a reasoning.
>It's very unlikely that somebody with "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor" will get his success just because of such qualities.
Well, if they also knew about business workings, and did business-related comic strips at a time when nobody else (or very few) was doing them, then they might. Humor, like drawing, is honed over time anyway.
>A very ridicolous example of whom was when he was proving that Trump will be successful because, based on his observations, leaders who were great in the long term, typically had a rough start.
Well, his prediction did pan out, when all pundits said otherwise. Could be dumb luck, but he has been lucky often enough.
Theirs [the pundits'] arguments then, would be even worse "pseudo-rational arguments" that Scott's: because on top of claiming rationality, facts, legitimacy, and statistics on their side and being presented with fanfare on prime time (unlike a mere personal blog), they were also proven wrong.