
Scott Adam's Controversial Deleted Post on Men's Rights - araneae
http://tinysprout.tumblr.com/post/3713649989/scott-adams-dilbert-deleted-post
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daimyoyo
One aspect of the continuing war on men that hasn't been covered yet is the
rampant, cancerous amounts of misandry that has infected the entertainment
industry as a whole, but especially the ad industry. All you need to see proof
of this is to watch the ads that aired during the Superbowl. With the
exception of beer commercials, most ads that weren't gender neutral featured
an idiot guy being educated by a smart woman. This trend has carried over to
the shows the networks use to make their profits. Every sitcom today has the
retard husband and the wise wife. Even ones like "king of queens" that were
created for male stars. Why? I understand that most household products are
purchased by women so the ads need to appeal to them but why is Kevin James
acting like a buffoon on HIS SHOW?

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impendia
Scott Adams chose to delete his post. For the blogger to repost it, IMHO,
shows a lack of respect.

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nkohari
Bullshit. If you write something and publish it to the world, you can't just
take it back. You can edit it, publish corrections, or clarify your position,
but you can't un-publish something unless you get lucky and no one noticed
before you deleted it.

Adams has been on the internet long enough to know better. And honestly, he's
made a habit of putting his foot in his mouth in the past few years. It was
just a matter of time before he said something _really_ stupid, like this.

Honestly, what shocks me the most is that he doesn't have some sort of
editorial review process. The man undoubtedly has a publicist of some sort...
for someone that well known to have no one between him and the publish button
is completely insane.

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cosgroveb
Arguably reproducing his entire blog post verbatim violates his copyright...

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user9756
I'd say this could fall under fair use... :)

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cosgroveb
It could be certainly. Fair use is determined on a case by case basis and one
of the factors is the amount of the work used in respect to the whole work. He
quoted the entire work...

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user9756
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_law)

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems the use could constitute educational, in a
journalistic sense. Also as the work was deleted it would be hard to argue any
lost economical value.

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jamaicahest
FYI: Scott Adams reposted it as part of a new entry
<http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/im_a_what/> along with an explanation as to
why he deleted it in the first place.

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planckscnst
I'd like to see the author's specific complaints about the post rather than
the simple statement that it's a "load of shit".

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eqdw
I agree. It's easy enough to criticize when you don't actually have to come up
with one

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eqdw
Scott Adams' comments are consistent with my life experience.

That is all

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jonezy
and i think that's what most people are afraid to admit.

Pretty much everything he said hits the nail on the head, and well opinion IS
opinion isn't it? I don't think he stated anywhere that the entire world was
wrong and had to think the way he does did he?

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noonespecial
Its interesting. This wasn't a slip of a phrase or "outburst" like error. This
was a sustained train of thought gone seriously awry. I wonder how long it
took Scott to say to himself "wait.. no.." and wander back to his computer to
delete this.

It just goes to show that everyone makes mistakes, even when it is ostensibly
their profession. Adams always rode the line between astute observation of
reality's offensiveness and being offensive himself. I'm surprised this hasn't
happened to him more often.

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tzs
What do you think is awry about the content of his essay? The only problem I
see with it is that it is written at too adult a reading level, making it
likely to be misunderstood by the average reader.

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noonespecial
That's it exactly. Its more than just a slipped phrase that may get
misinterpreted. Its a PR trainwreck, a veritable goldmine of things to
misquote, take out of context, and just plain spin the wheels of PC busybodies
everywhere.

Admas is a professional at managing exactly this type of situation. A flurry
of overexcited, hysterical comments and some extra publicity are usually
considered the win scenario for a blogger like him. I think he let this one
get way out of hand without (I guess immediately) considering the effect it
would have on his extended audience. Upon reflection he realized he'd overdone
it. He's not Zed Shaw, after all.

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Bud
Should edit the title; apostrophe goes after the s.

"Scott Adams' Controversial..."

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amccollum
Actually, it should be "Scott Adams's Controversial..."
(<http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp>)

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teyc
Sometimes we take a line of argument and simply write on and see where it
goes. Scott has obviously decided to trash it. Why would anyone choose to
retrieve it?

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DjDarkman
Women and men are not equal and never will be, period, anyone disputing that
is ignorant. There is no problem with treating two genders differently to a
certain point. Scott Adam was right, but he was overwhelmed by the zealots and
had no choice.

In my opinion: anything you write about this topic will offend an army of
people, so just don't do it, there are too many zealots out there who can't
stand people who have different opinions.

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TheAmazingIdiot
Adams has a few good points about this. I'm not saying that it's completely
right, but some ideas are.

1\. In Family Court, the man is seen as the bad one. Unless the woman is a
baby-eater or something disgusting, she will get custody, with the man getting
every other weekend or some such. He will also be charged to pay up to half
his income for the "child",. And there is usually little or no checks to make
sure it goes to the child.

2\. In terms of parental and mother rights: A woman has a multitude of
techniques in which to evade or eliminate pregnancy. These techniques can
include up to abortion (this is NOT an abortion debate). After the child is
born, the woman can also leave the child(ren) at a multitude of safe "drop
points" in which the child is considered abandoned without criminal charge.
The man, has very little recourse over children, even up to the woman having
birth. There is no way for a man to give up parental rights and also not pay
child support. The woman can do this at any time.

3\. Women's pay is not in parity with men's pay of an equal job with equal
skills. This is correct. The "solution" to this is to lower men's pay to that
of women. And in cases which the woman sues, (SCOTUS case
[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/05/29/340479/-SCOTUS:-Wom...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/05/29/340479/-SCOTUS:-Women-
In-Workplace-Screwed)) the woman is still screwed. Not surprising from SCOTUS.

But the comments comparing women with mentally handicapped and children...
Well... That (ahem) stands for itself. That shit is just indefensible.

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Mz
_There is no way for a man to give up parental rights and also not pay child
support._

My understanding is a man can, in fact, give up parental rights and not pay
child support. I know a man who did so (though I don't know all the details).
As I understand it, he had a brief fling with a woman who was separated from
her husband. The marriage was falling apart in part due to the fact that it
had not resulted in a child. The couple got back together and she found out
she was pregnant. But the baby didn't belong to hubby. It belonged to the man
she had a fling with while separated. She and hubby opted to stay together and
wanted to raise the child as their own. They wanted to get rid of Mr. Fling.
As I understand it, he was happy to sign away his parental rights as a means
to avoid ever having to pay child support.

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waqf
TheAmazingIdiot meant that there is no way for a man to _unilaterally_ give up
parental rights and also not pay child support. Assume, for instance, that
there's no husband in the picture, and that the woman wishes to keep the child
and would be happy to receive child support payments.

Then the man has no option other than to pay child support. A woman cannot be
forced into this situation, because she can abandon the child without penalty.

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Mz
There is some truth to that. But from what I have read, after a divorce, a
third of all men pay no child support, a third pay part of what they are
supposed to pay, and only a third pay child support in full (in short, I think
there is so much social pressure on men about this in part because men can and
do walk away from parental responsibilities much more often and much more
easily than women typically do). As a woman who really sees this issue quite
differently, I don't imagine this is the right audience to share some of my
views on the matter (especially with having thrown up last night and not slept
enough yet).

Peace.

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jordo37
I think the post is bull because by using the mentally handicapped and
children as his comparison point he puts women on the same level . I
understand that he's talking about strategies for dealing with the groups and
not the groups themselves, but if he wanted to make his argument more nuanced
and less chauvinistic I'm sure he could have found a different group to
compare if his real point was "considering the emotional realities of other
people" is the path of least resistance. Family for example, or perhaps
foreign cultures. I still fundamentally disagree that men and women really see
the world THAT differently, but at least its an argument where he isn't
calling half of the planet mentally handicapped.

