Scott Adams's Blog, page 393

The Common Crisis

What do these crises have in common:

Economic crisis
Water shortages
Global warming
Healthcare
Energy

Okay, they probably have lots of things in common. But the answer I was looking for is "food."

Imagine for a minute that everyone in the United States stopped overeating and became vegetarians, perhaps with some fish thrown in the mix for protein and Omega-3. We all know that situation can never happen, so this is just a thought experiment.

Healthy eating would have a huge impact on healthcare costs

Happy Negative Christmas

I just invented a new holiday. It's called Negative Christmas. On this day, rather than giving gifts, you can force a family member or friend to discard one item that he or she already owns. The selected item might be a hideous shirt that you consider an abomination, or that pair of bedroom slippers that are an insult to all footwear. The idea is that the unrecipient should be better off without the item you ungift.

For example, let's say you have a single friend who has a collection of Star Wars

The No Fear Aphrodisiac Hypothesis

Even ugly rock stars have groupies. Kid Rock comes to mind. It's the same with famous actors and powerful politicians. The usual explanation for this phenomenon is that evolution predisposes women to seek alpha males who can produce excellent children and then protect them.

But that doesn't explain the occasional ugly guy with no job, and no ambition, who has inexplicable success with women. My hypothesis is that the common factor is a lack of fear. When women see a man who is apparently not afr

The James T. Kirk Solution

If you're familiar with Star Trek, you know that a young Star Fleet cadet named James T. Kirk had an innovative approach to a training exercise that no one had ever beaten. (I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most Dilbert Blog readers are familiar with Star Trek.)

That Star Fleet training exercise essentially asked young Kirk, "What would you do if this happened to you?" In my post from earlier this week, I asked readers if it was moral to kill a guy who was 99% likely to kill you in a

Whose Problem Is It?

When people tell me their problems, I immediately feel like I need to solve them. I wonder if that impulse is an American cultural thing. Obviously every individual is different, but it seems as if we Americans like to get involved in other people's business.

I think about that impulse when I noodle about the North Korean situation. Realistically, is there anything the United States can do to influence North Korea that China isn't already doing in its own self interest? North Korea is dependent

Morality by the Numbers

Responses to my post from yesterday seemed nearly unified in agreeing that it is immoral to kill someone who has a 5% likelihood of someday killing you in the future. Most people agreed that in order for self defense to be a moral act you need the danger to be more immediate. And if you use the 5% threshold of danger you can justify killing just about anyone now so they won't accidentally drive over you in their car later.

Most of you agree that if someone pulls a gun and says, "I'm going to sho

Killing That Guy Who Might Deserve It

If a guy tells you there is a 5% chance he might kill you someday in the future, do you have a moral justification to kill him today?

My answer is yes. You would have a big legal problem, but from a moral standpoint, it's close enough to self defense in my book.

But what if the guy is a bit hard to read on the subject of whether he might kill you in the future. Let's say you can't estimate the odds of it happening because you're not even sure if he means it, or maybe he has some motive in making

Time as Religion

Sometimes I like to dredge up an argument I have made before if I think I have a new and better way of expressing it. So I apologize if this looks like a repeat.

People keep sending me links to articles about how time is an illusion and not a quality of the universe. Apparently that is the common view of physicists. Scientists prefer concepts such as warped space-time and whatnot. I won't pretend to understand any of that. The point is that science doesn't recognize time -- in the way we understa

Money and Knowledge

There is a strong relationship between knowledge and money. In some situations money and knowledge are economic equivalents. If you have enough money to meet your basic expenses, you would often be willing to trade money for knowledge.

People often take low-paying jobs if there is an opportunity to gain valuable knowledge that can be translated into better opportunities down the road. And obviously people pay money to go to college and gain knowledge. It is often said that knowledge is power, bu

Calling the Bottom

In January I wrote a post about Captain Sullenberger safely landing his plane in the Hudson River. At the end of the post I said it was a sign that the economy had reached bottom and would soon improve, thanks largely to what I predicted would be an upsurge in consumer confidence. I think people needed exactly that sort of story to regain their faith in humanity.

http://dilbert.com/blog/?Search=Sullenberger

As you can see from this historical chart of the S&P 500, my prediction might turn out to b