My philosophical noodlings on this blog, and in a few of my books, has produced wonderfully entertaining angry reactions from people who – and this is just a guess – are self-important, humorless, autofellating, ass hats.
Some people are quite certain that I am misusing my minor celebrity status to confuse the masses and turn them into creationists or pyramid worshipers. Is it intentional, they wonder? Do I really believe the things I write? Or am I simply stupid, as it appears.
The most entertaining self-important, humorless, autofellating, ass hat (SHAAH for short) is a biologist named PZ Myers. He’s made it a personal mission to misunderstand me and then get very angry about his misunderstandings. He has a sizeable following and is highly entertaining, in an entirely accidental way. Here’s a link to his most recent opinions about me:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/will_scott_adams_never_learn.php [no longer active]
I have seen many conjectures on the Internet about my true motives in writing about free will, God, affirmations, and intelligence in the universe. Here are the top theories about me:
1. He believes he is Spinoza and Isaac Newton all rolled into one, but he is actually very, very stupid. And lazy. And he doesn’t read enough.
2. He doesn’t believe what he says; he’s just stirring up shit and enjoying watching the sheeple fight it out.
3. He is trying to cleverly persuade people to believe in Intelligent Design, or God, or some damned new age thing.
4. He is trying to persuade people to become atheists.
5. He is trying to increase his ad revenue by courting controversy.
6. He is trying to be Deepak Chopra Junior, spouting a bunch of nonsense and trying to convince the gullible masses that it is profound.
I probably ought to feel bad that the list of theories does not include “He is a brilliant philosopher who wants nothing more than to make the world a better place.” I suppose we can safely keep that theory off the list.
In the interest of full disclosure, my blog hits go through the roof when I discuss these topics. The page views can be triple that of a normal day. But that’s not why I do it. My total blog income is trivial, even if you triple it.
I can’t rule out theory 1, that I am very, very, stupid and uninformed. That’s exactly the sort of thing that a person can’t know about himself. You really need to rely on other people for that diagnosis. Frankly, I’m rooting for that theory to be true; it would be comforting to be a member of the majority.
Then there’s the question of whether I believe what I say. This is a tricky question because people have wildly different opinions of what I’m actually saying. For example, do I believe in psychic powers, or did I simply write a story about a fascinating encounter with a self-described psychic in my book, The Dilbert Future? Interpretations vary.
I can only guess at my own motives for writing on these God-related topics. My understanding of the human mind is that our reasons are just rationalizations for our urges. I try to resist writing on these topics until the urge to do it pushes out all the other urges. I can’t explain the “why” of it. But I can tell you what I enjoy about it.
The part I like the most is the comments. I like the smart comments because they make me think. I like the dumb ones because they fascinate me and make me feel smart at the same time. I like the funny comments because they make me laugh. And the whole process makes me feel connected to something larger than myself.
Unlike most pundit-types, I don’t have a heavy investment in being right. I like to propose a line of reasoning and see what people think. If it exposes my ignorance – or more commonly, the reader misunderstands it and assumes ignorance, also known as the SHAAH method – that doesn’t bother me much. I have some sort of genetic abnormality that allows me to experience high levels of insult and embarrassment and find amusement in it. I’m lucky that way. I would go so far as to say it’s the secret of my success.