https://x.com/Cernovich/status/2006841435304366141?s=20
Not everyone knows how much Mike boosted my Twitter presence in the early days, and thus my opportunity to influence for positive effect. I love you, Mike Cernovich. You are a true original. May the world someday know the impact you have had.
Scott Adams, facing death, shows us how to live.
Someone recommended “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” by Scott Adams. I had burned out on mainstream books, but picked it up, and was hooked. He had put into words a way of living, similar to one I had found, except his approach was systemic and analytical. Better than my own slapdash notes. Outside of religious texts, Adams was and is as close to a “guide to life,” as you’ll ever find. And even if you’re religious, you still live in this world, and would be wise to learn how to navigate it.
Scott is closing in on the end of his life, and even now he is creating new beginnings.
I’d better write this now, I won’t be able to when it’s too late.
After losing Charlie Kirk, a lot of us are wondering how we can possibly write another obituary. While there’s much to complain about the internet and social media, those mediums expanded the sizes of our communities, our influences, and indeed our families. Too often we find new ways to hate people, instead of finding new people to love.
Scott Adams comes up in conversation at every social event I host. “How is Scott Adams doing? Will he make it?” We all talk about streams we watched and lessons learned. It’s a memorial except he’s still alive. Scott would love to hear that, which is why I have said so repeatedly. I’ve lost too many people, via death or fallings-out, to leave feeling unexpressed.
He’s been a surrogate father figure and mentor to millions of people.
Scott Adams is not liked, he is loved.
People don’t “like” Scott Adams, they aren’t “a fan of his.” They love this man. And I do as well. I’m still living in denial of his fate. We all are.
We’d been making a film about the meaning of life, and while Scott Adams had been in both of our other films, we hadn’t booked him for Meaning yet. Then we found out he was going to take the ride of assisted suicide. Foolishly, we had assumed he’d always be around. Nobody ever dies, right? Your dad will be there to take your call the next time you phone home. Your friends aren’t going anywhere. That’s how we too often live. We could book Scott later.
We reached out and he graciously agreed to be interviewed. We all knew it was going to be our last interview together. Scott and I are both efficient with our time. When a moment is over, it’s time to go do something else. Obligations call. The crew pushed this one as long as we could.
After the interview wrapped up and the gear was packed and it was time to go, there was an awkward pause. I broke it.
“Scott, we love you.” He said thank you. “No, Scott, we love you, I mean it, we all do. We love you.”
None of us broke down crying, not that there would have been any shame in that, but we no doubt all soon will.
Well then, what is the lesson of Scott Adams?
On a practical level, the lesson of Scott Adams is the power of showing up. Nobody works harder and on a more regular schedule. You can set your clock to Scott’s show. Too many of us wait for the muse of inspiration or the jolt of information to force us into action. Work, everyday, maybe in obscuring and without tangible benefits for years. Eventually you’ll hit your mark and go beyond.
Scott plugged away with his streams from a small account (after a huge career via Dilbert) and soon became must-watch, and then transcended his role to becoming something much more.
On a spiritual level, we might ask, why do we love Scott? It’s not because he’s so smart (he is). There are not shortage of intelligent, clever, Machiavellian, and rich people with podcasts. When one of them dies, what is lost? All of that Ego and desire for adoration, and does anybody even care? When those people fall while living, who will be there?
Scott is loved because he’s devoted his life to service to humanity. “What is the meaning of life,” is the question we ask every interviewee, and Scott’s answer, “Be useful to humanity.”
Despite pain, sickness, and inevitable death, Scott is doing his daily streams, serving his country and all of humankind until his end.
He’s a light to the world and a mirror for all of us.
What exactly are we doing with the gift of life given to us by God. (Scott believes in the Simulation, but I believe God evens this all out in the Judgment.) Are we doing enough for others? Are we doing anything for others?
Like everyone else, I’m capable of throwing myself a pity party. Sometimes when life is going too well, and I don’t have real problems, I invent some. That’s where the Ego brings you, recursively worshipping itself, and when that fails, tormenting itself, as each path leads to its own attention.
May all of us live more like Scott Adams, and may God bless his immortal soul when he passes.
P.S. I ran this article through Grok for typos. The original version had “immoral” soul where I meant it to read “immortal.” I think Scott would have had a great laugh had that typo been left in.
Very sad to hear that things have taken a turn for the worse, and prayers up for Scott.
Scott’s blog was required reading for me long before he rose to wider political prominence outside of Dilbert. It had nothing to with politics but with the clarity of his thinking. Scott has a unique ability to analyze things with logic, precision, and a kind of simple, beautiful objectivity.
In 2015, he turned his attention to the 2016 presidential race and was the first person I know of who not only predicted a Trump win, but explained why at a fundamental level, specifically Trump’s powers of persuasion and his incredible ability to influence perception. Later, Scott moved from blog to vlog, and that too became required viewing.
There must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of us out here for whom Scott has been a daily companion. From him, we learned not just about politics, and not just about objective, evidence-based analysis, but also about more transcendent ideas. Things like the simultaneous sipping of the coffee, which did not merely create an impression of connection or group participation, but something genuinely unusual. A real shared moment. An exchange of energy.
That aspect of Scott’s work, rooted in simulation theory, consciousness, and perception, is probably underreported and underappreciated. Yet it may be one of the reasons so many people learned so much from him, often without fully realizing why.
What still blows me away, even now, is Scott’s loyalty and dedication to his audience. I have never seen anything like it, and I probably never will again. Scott does not need to do daily videos. He certainly does not need the money. One might say it’s a hobby he enjoys, and that is undoubtedly true, but it goes far beyond that.
As a case in point, I vividly recall when Scott was traveling in the South Pacific. Now, if I go traveling in the South Pacific, you will not be hearing from me for a while. But not Scott. He got up every day, in one hotel or another, at some ungodly hour, because he felt a responsibility to be there for all of us. That level of dedication and persistence is extraordinary.
And even now, he’s still here, still teaching, still inspiring, out there every day doing Coffee with Scott Adams, which in itself is nothing short of legendary. We are grateful for him every single day.
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