The religion war

What Hacker News says

1. tomfluffJun 2011
   The Religion War - Scott Adams

   Really great read though recommend reading God's Debris first for better understanding of the characters

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2. nearbuyJan 2026
   Keep reading. The central thesis of the article/eulogy is that Adams wanted to be successful at something more serious than Dilbert but was bad at everything else he tried.

   It talks about his first new business attempt with the Dilberito, which was terrible. It quotes, it "could have been designed only by a food technologist or by someone who eats lunch without much thought to taste".

   Then he tries to run a restaurant, which he is also bad at. Even Adams realizes he is bad at it. "After every workday, Adams and the waiters get together and laugh long into the night together about how bad a boss Adams is!"

   Then he tries his hand at writing philosophy, which he is also terrible at. The article spends two long sections describing just how bad his books "God's Debris" and "The Religion War" are.

   Then the article describes how Adams claimed himself to be a master hypnotist/manipulator in the most delusional and cringey way possible.

   Then the article talks about Adams' many terrible political predictions. E.g. "His most famous howler was that if Biden won in 2020, Republicans “would be hunted” and his Republican readers would “most likely be dead within a year”."

   Then there's how he responded to liberals beginning to see him as an enemy when he was predicting Trump would win the 2016 election: "As he had done so many other times during his life, he resolved the conflict in the dumbest, cringiest, and most public way possible: a June 2016 blog post announcing that he was endorsing Hillary Clinton, for his own safety, because he suspected he would be targeted for assassination if he didn’t"

   Then in 2023, Adams stupidly gets himself cancelled.

   > There are plenty of quotes like this one

   No, there aren't. While the article/eulogy says a number of positive things about Adams, that very faint praise at the beginning is the only place the article describes him as being even only-slightly-above-average intelligence at anything other than Dilbert.

   What it does mention several times is that Adams thought himself cleverer than everyone else. For example (describing Adams' thoughts):

   > Thesis: I am cleverer than everyone else.

   > Antithesis: I always lose to the Pointy-Haired Boss.

   > Synthesis: I was trying to be rational. But most people are irrational sheep; they can be directed only by charismatic manipulators who play on their biases, not by rational persuasion. But now I’m back to being cleverer than everyone else, because I noticed this. Also, I should become a charismatic manipulator.

   But the tone here is mocking Adams and not endorsing his view.

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3. cavisneJan 2017
   Scott Adams (dilbert creator) called this in 2004 https://www.amazon.com/Religion-War-Scott-Adams/dp/074074788...
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4. cpswanJun 2012
   Here's what happens next:

   1. Drones become more and more popular as kids/hackers toys

   2. Eventually a drone is used in a real terrorist plot

   3. Our politicians over react and ban drones

   4. We all write tweets and blogs about what clueless morons our politicians are because the whole thing has been widely understood since (before?) Scott Adams wrote 'The Religion War'

   5. Drones don't get unbanned for use outside of police/law enforcement because of whining from the hacker community

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5. MaysonLJun 2012
   since (before?) Scott Adams wrote 'The Religion War'

   David's Sling by Marc Stiegler(1988) comes to mind as a precursor.

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