The Dilbert Afterlife

Thanks to everyone who sent in condolences on my recent death from prostate cancer at age 68, but that was Scott Adams. I (Scott Alexander) am still alive1.

Still, the condolences are appreciated. Scott Adams was a surprisingly big part of my life. I may be the only person to have read every Dilbert book before graduating elementary school. For some reason, 10-year-old-Scott found Adams’ stories of time-wasting meetings and pointy-haired bosses hilarious. No doubt some of the attraction came from a more-than-passing resemblance between Dilbert’s nameless corporation and the California public school system. We’re all inmates in prisons with different names.

But it would be insufficiently ambitious to stop there. Adams’ comics were about the nerd experience. About being cleverer than everyone else, not just in the sense of being high IQ, but in the sense of being the only sane man in a crazy world where everyone else spends their days listening to overpaid consultants drone on about mission statements instead of doing anything useful. There’s an arc in Dilbert where the boss disappears for a few weeks and the engineers get to manage their own time. Productivity shoots up. Morale soars. They invent warp drives and time machines. Then the boss returns, and they’re back to being chronically behind schedule and over budget. This is the nerd outlook in a nutshell: if I ran the circus, there’d be some changes around here.

Yet the other half of the nerd experience is: for some reason this never works. 

I am 25 and I did everything right

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26 Useful Concepts for 2026

6. Shower Test:

We’re socially conditioned to chase what we think everyone else wants. But your true heart’s desire can often be found in the thoughts you gravitate to while undistracted, such as in the shower. As Walt Whitman said, “If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.”

7. Eustress:

People have more comforts and conveniences than ever, yet reports of unhappiness are at an all-time high. One reason is that discomfort isn’t an obstacle to happiness, it’s the path to it, for it’s only by enduring struggles that we develop the resilience necessary for lasting contentment.

The second is true for me.

Loserdemic

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The Canadian Political Class Is Ideologically Incapable of Rebuilding The Military

A recent Angus Reid poll found that there is broad support for conscription … but only amongst those parts of the population who wouldn’t be forced to serve. The young men who would actually be made slaves of the state are generally against the idea. Young women (along with, to be fair, women of every age but the elderly) are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea, no doubt in part because they sense that conscription in a feminist society would scoop up as many women as men, and whatever they say about equality, women are not, in general, eager to crawl around in the mud while .50 cal rounds zip over their heads…

On the same day that the ambition to get 400,000 Canadians into uniform was leaked, the First Woman To Be the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Jennie Carignan, attended a ceremony of apology for the CAF’s history of systemic racism and racial discrimination. Gen Carignan broke down in tears at the lectern, overcome by the numinous ecstasy of the Spirit of Saint Floyd washing her soul clean of sin…

Back to the weeping general. She has an interesting backstory. Following her elevation to the apex of the military chain of command, RUMINT2 surfaced to the effect that she had demonstrated cowardice in the face of the enemy. The story goes that in 2019 she was deployed to Iraq, where she was placed in charge of a NATO training school. In January 2020 her position came under rocket fire and she panicked, had her luggage (including a collection of carpets she’d purchased) packed aboard a helicopter, and attempted to evacuate the base before the troops, thereby earning her the designation “Iraqi Evaci”. Her attempted desertion was supposedly stopped at the last minute by a senior American general, who chewed her out and ordered her back to her post. Shortly after that she was relieved of her command and returned to sender, only to be promoted a few months later to take the newly created position of head of “Chief Professional Conduct and Culture” … informally known to the troops as the DEI division…

Reinvigorating Canadians’ willingness to serve their country and rebuilding Canada’s military into a force that can win wars would both require the Canadian political class to repudiate the ideological territory of globalism, feminism, multiculturalism, mass immigration, and gender-bothering that they have made themselves synonymous with. However, they can’t reverse course without discrediting themselves, and so, they won’t.

It’s a long article with much more along those lines – highly entertaining and disturbing. I encourage you to read it in full. Seems relevant to our last post. And there’s one more Canada post to come! Something from Degrassi High must have stuck. I wonder if they get Home and Away over there. Hope not.

i’m obsessed with women and tired of pretending i’m not

In high school, all I wanted was a girlfriend.

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People prefer bigotry to infantilization

Whether it’s a bug or a feature of our psychology, a lot of men would rather prefer an honorable enemy — a person who might hate you, but nevertheless takes you seriously — than someone who might ostensibly be on your side, but actually treats you like a child.

Not to overstate my case, but I really do think this is one of the central facets of a lot of divides — both in the political sphere, and the gender sphere. Take the No Kings rally, for example. Once more, it’s ironic; the protests were filled with geriatrics, and yet the whole atmosphere looks… childish..

Additionally, it’s one of the central features of male flight in certain domains. As the Overton window of acceptable discourse narrows, men feel increasingly stifled by the childishness of the atmosphere. As a result, they can either tell everyone else to grow up, or they can leave. Most men save themselves the headache, and choose the latter.

Why China Cannot Liberalize

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Welcome to this week’s roundup of interesting things from around the traps.

What to Ask Yourself Before you Start Caring

In my teens and early 20s I cared about a lot of stuff. I’d scroll the news, find something worthy of outrage, and turn to someone nearby to say “You see this?? Mitt Romney’s really done it now!”. The bus driver would then nod politely and gesture for me to take a seat. Frankly, it was a time of much tutting and reacting with not a lot to show for it…

…cutthroat realism might sound like you’re throwing your hands up and letting the world walk all over you – but in reality it does the opposite. Most people that care about everything do nothing. They get riled up and outraged about the new hot topic, before forgetting about it and ranting about the next. There’s no strategy to their action because they’re always having their attention pulled in every which way. They can’t focus on anything long enough for them to gain any sort of traction. It’s all just Facebook statuses and tense family dinners.

The Decline of Deviance: Where has all the weirdness gone?

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This week’s roundup of interesting things from around the traps

People Listen to Public Health Authorities

In one sense, this is heartening: we are finally turning a corner on peanut allergy! In another, it’s alarming. People can be convinced to follow correct advice, but they’ll also gladly follow advice that’s unfounded and incorrect if it seems to have authority behind it. We know this is definitely true for nutrition, where people will follow advice even when it likely does nothing but waste money.

Related: Everything you know is wrong

My gripe is that governments and experts seem to go off half-cocked in around 80% of cases. The only advice that’s held up well over the last 50 years is to do some exercise and eat your veggies.

If you’re going to engage in any public health interventions that will change how millions of people live, you’d better be sure.

Can We Arrest Fox News Hosts for Disinformation? Here’s What the Law Actually Allows

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Today in history, January 15: Australia’s London Bridge fell down

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China to regulate CEO romance micro dramas, warns against content promoting materialism, flaunting of wealth: report

The creators should avoid wrapping absurd stories under the guise of realism and using absurd artistic techniques as an excuse to fabricate overly bizarre plots that lack genuine value, Guangdianshijie said, as such practices could distort the public’s perception of Chinese entrepreneurs and harm the profile of the entrepreneurial community.

The guidelines said creators should tell the stories of Chinese entrepreneurs from both history and contemporary times, rather than being limited to themes of romantic entanglements and family disputes, noting that in particular, creators should avoid promoting marriage concepts that clinging to the powerful, wealthy individuals and families.

The guidelines pointed out that management of CEO romance micro dramas should be strengthened. Specific measures include reducing the quantity, improving the quality, and avoiding the use of terms like “domineering CEO” as appealing titles to attract viewers.

Are ‘domineered CEOs’ like their minataurs?

By the way, are your beloved women also watching those AI-generated short dramas now?

Rule of the Five Percent

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Also new coffee poured, p-hacking ignored, a bird that soared, Crooks’ social media ignored and utilitarianism is a fraud. *Examines fingernails

The Nobel Prize goes to… war on Venezuela

The Nobel Committee has decided to make the case for Trump’s war on Venezuela, giving its “Peace Prize” to Maria Corina Machado, a US government-funded regime change activist who’s helped lead several failed coups, violent street riots that have left scores dead, and appears to have promised her country’s oil and mineral wealth to a consortium of MAGA aligned billionaires in exchange for financing her campaign of political arsonism.

Hailed by the Nobel Committee for supposedly attempting to achieve “a peaceful transition” in her country, Machado has personally appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead a military invasion of Venezuela.

Trump Threatens “Hell to Pay” in Honduras If Presidential Election Results Change

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374 bagpipers play AC/DC song together to break world record

An event in Australia saw an ensemble of 374 bagpipers playing “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” by AC/DC and breaking a world record in the process.

The Great Melbourne Bagpipe Bash in Victoria gathered 374 players to perform the song at Federation Square, just a few blocks from where the music video for the Australian rock band’s original version was filmed in 1976.

Melbourne teen, 13, involved in alleged attempted carjacking has seven charges dropped because of his age

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The Great Feminization

The most relevant differences are not about individuals but about groups. In my experience, individuals are unique and you come across outliers who defy stereotypes every day, but groups of men and women display consistent differences. Which makes sense, if you think about it statistically. A random woman might be taller than a random man, but a group of ten random women is very unlikely to have an average height greater than that of a group of ten men. The larger the group of people, the more likely it is to conform to statistical averages.

Female group dynamics favor consensus and cooperation. Men order each other around, but women can only suggest and persuade. Any criticism or negative sentiment, if it absolutely must be expressed, needs to be buried in layers of compliments. The outcome of a discussion is less important than the fact that a discussion was held and everyone participated in it. The most important sex difference in group dynamics is attitude to conflict. In short, men wage conflict openly while women covertly undermine or ostracize their enemies….

The point of war is to settle disputes between two tribes, but it works only if peace is restored after the dispute is settled. Men therefore developed methods for reconciling with opponents and learning to live in peace with people they were fighting yesterday. Females, even in primate species, are slower to reconcile than males. That is because women’s conflicts were traditionally within the tribe over scarce resources, to be resolved not by open conflict but by covert competition with rivals, with no clear terminus…

The field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and, to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tug at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic. 

Why aren’t we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?

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What’s Worse?

I was chatting with my sister the other day, catching up, and she said something funny that resonated. “At least you’ve been through the worst, cancer. I said cancer wasn’t the worst thing, For me, divorce was far, far worse…

With Cancer, for me, there was an end, one way or another, and a path back to how I was before or somewhere better. I had hope, love, and support.

With Divorce, the damage is far wider and irreparable. There is zero way back. Learning to let go helps, but the path forward is rocky and uncertain. It’s a road you walk alone for the most part.

Hyper-Low American Church Aesthetics

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Left Vs Right As Bickering Backseat Kids

And like bickering couples and backseat kids, stuck together in a society but eager to takedown their rival, left and right have been getting very good at figuring out what will bother the other side, especially the more numerous and powerful moderates on the other side. People often try to model left and right as having essential ideologies expressed in terms of what their policies try to achieve in the world. But it seems to me that they are better modeled as trying to achieve various random ally agendas, and trying more systematically to poke at whatever will most bother their rival, to induce from them what will seem to outsiders as unreasonable over-reactions.

Climatism as an oligarchic strategy to cement power and preempt rivals

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Billionaire Bill Ackman convened stormy Israel ‘intervention’ with Charlie Kirk, sources say

The Grayzone has spoken to five people with intimate knowledge of Kirk’s meeting with Ackman, which was held in early August under the guise of a summertime Hamptons lunch. According to one source, Kirk was left upset after the gathering turned into an “intervention” where he was “hammered” for his increasingly skeptical views on the US special relationship with Israel, and for platforming prominent conservative critics of Israel at his TPUSA events.

When his hosts presented him with a detailed list of every offense he supposedly committed against Israel, Kirk was “horrified,” said one person. At one point, according to another source, Ackman angrily chastised Kirk for his disobedience…

Multiple sources including a Trump administration official have revealed to The Grayzone that Kirk personally visited Trump inside the White House to lobby him against attacking Iran. Trump “roared” at Kirk, one said, and shut down the conversation.

Don’t Be the Guy

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So … is AI writing any good? …. PART 2!

Below are 8 pieces of flash fiction, all of them ~350 words. All of them were written to the prompt: “write a piece of fiction based on ‘a demon'” – for the AI there were additional very brief suggestions concerning tone &/or setting to generate variety, an example might be “make it romatic and set on a cliff top”.

I have prompted the AI to use rude words, em-dashes and such on occasion in some of the pieces. And if you were going to decide the case based on bad language or grammar quirks, we’ve already lost. Please base your selection on the quality of the writing and your belief that a human was behind the keyboard.

these pieces were written by writers with significant experience whose books have many readers. They were written fairly quickly and don’t represent the writers’ finest work, but they were taken seriously and not written off-hand or carelessly…

I correctly guessed 4/8, so exactly the same as by chance.

The top-rated piece was AI-generated. I don’t know which one it was, but my favourite piece turned out to to AI.

Christmas in Saudi Arabia, inside a walled American compound. Riyadh, 1979 🇸🇦

📷: Dorothy Bonvillain pic.twitter.com/WU0aR1nxWd

— MENA Visuals (@menavisualss) March 9, 2025

More Random Than We Realize

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Daniel Andrews [remember him?] is under fire for his appearance alongside dictators and autocrats in China

The question nearly everyone — Labor friend or foe — is asking is, why would Daniel Andrews turn up for a class photo alongside autocrats and dictators?

Many people were surprised to see the former Victorian premier standing behind China’s Xi Jinping, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Even some of Mr Andrews’s most ardent supporters are flummoxed by the images of the triple election-winning Labor luminary smiling alongside several international pariahs at a major military parade.

Since his retirement from Spring Street two years ago, Mr Andrews has been busy building his private business, mainly as a consultant with strong links to Chinese companies.

Many suspect he is making plenty of money. He’s also held roles with Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s Fortescue Metals — again working with China…

He brushed off the moniker “Dictator Dan” after the COVID-19 lockdowns to win his third consecutive election in 2022, which is why his appearance alongside Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un is so tin-eared for a politician.

Victoria unveils homosexual helpline after spate of ‘paedo sting’ gay dating app attacks

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YouTube secretly used AI to edit people’s videos. The results could bend reality

Something seemed off in one of his recent posts, but he could barely tell the difference. “I thought, ‘am just I imagining things?'” 

It turns out, he wasn’t. In recent months, YouTube has secretly used artificial intelligence (AI) to tweak people’s videos without letting them know or asking permission. Wrinkles in shirts seem more defined. Skin is sharper in some places and smoother in others. Pay close attention to ears, and you may notice them warp. These changes are small, barely visible without a side-by-side comparison. Yet some disturbed YouTubers say it gives their content a subtle and unwelcome AI-generated feeling.

There’s a larger trend at play. A growing share of reality is pre-processed by AI before it reaches us. Eventually, the question won’t be whether you can tell the difference, but whether it’s eroding our ties to the world around us.

Will Iran possess a nuclear weapon before 2041?

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Aboriginal group claims legalising pepper spray will deepen racial divide

The NT government this week announced a 12-month trial allowing members of the public to carry low-percentage Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) spray for self-defence as part of a broader effort to stop rampant aboriginal crime…

But peak indigenous healthcare organisation the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory said on Wednesday it “condemned” the trial and claimed allowing the use of pepper spray for self-defence would “place more lives at risk”.

“Weaponising people and allowing wider access to a harmful substance like OC spray won’t fix violence – it will fuel it. This decision will cause harm, deepen community distrust, and exacerbate already dangerous racial divisions,” CEO Dr John Paterson said.

“This is another example of the systemic criminalisation of Aboriginal people. It puts more vulnerable people in harm’s way, instead of addressing the root causes of violence and disadvantage…”

UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill

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Breast augmentation

The longitudinal study Excess Mortality from Suicide and other External Causes of Death Among Women with Cosmetic Breast Implants (2007), reported that women who sought breast implants are almost 3.0 times as likely to commit suicide as are women who have not sought breast implants. Compared to the standard suicide-rate for women of the general populace, the suicide-rate for women with augmented breasts remained alike until 10-years post-implantation, yet it increased to 4.5 times greater at the 11-year mark, and so remained until the 19-year mark, when it increased to 6.0 times greater at 20-years post-implantation. Moreover, additional to the suicide risk, women with breast implants also faced a trebled death risk from alcoholism and drugs abuse (prescription and recreational).^[38][39] Although seven studies have statistically connected a woman’s undergoing a breast augmentation procedure to a greater suicide rate, the research indicates that augmentation^[40][41] surgery does not increase the suicide rate; and that, in the first instance, it is the psychopathologically inclined woman who is likelier to undergo breast augmentation.^{[42][43][44][45][46][47]}

Author Richard Brittain attacked reviewer with bottle

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If It’s Worth Your Time To Lie, It’s Worth My Time To Correct It

…I think “okay, but everyone knows that something vaguely similar is true” is an especially dangerous case of this.

Maybe I don’t agree that the similar thing is true.

Maybe the similar thing is true, but it’s got some big problem (eg is impossible in practice, costs too much, would have too many side effects) that the original catchy example doesn’t.

Maybe the similar thing isn’t really similar along the axis that matters most.

If, instead of saying the true similar thing, you say a different false thing, then that denies me the opportunity to examine the true similar thing in detail, ask you questions about it, or challenge it directly. Which was plausibly your point all along, because there must have been some reason it was worth your time to lie.

12 Angry Men: A Subversive Masterpiece

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