Fionan Murphy

[Cernovich @Cernovich]

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.

[jay plemons @jayplemons]

Scott Adams breaks down everything that had to happen at the same time for us to finally understand the world:

• Trump exposing fake news + winning 2024
• @elonmusk buying Twitter → turning it into X
• DOGE + @MikeBenzCyber revealing NGO/USAID distortions, censorship industrial complex, and international attacks on US speech
• @grok existing to summarize dense info (esp. Benz’s deep dives)
• Discovering color revolutions were turned against America

@ScottAdamsSays "We were this close to losing everything, and it almost seems like magic that all the right things happened at the same time.

It's very unlikely that all of those things would happen at the same time, but they did. Kind of amazing."

[Nick Delehanty 🇮🇪 @Nick_Delehanty]

🚨 🚨 🚨

Igo Café in Sallynoggin was paid €12.4million in Q4 alone for "Asylum Services".

It is now the SINGLE BIGGEST recipient of taxpayers money in the asylum scam. It is an open secret that the person operating this enterprise is David Mooney:

former strip- club owner
IRA informant
State protected witness
"Balloon head" (as described in court)
Garda impersonator
Accused in the Special Criminal Court of having a cocaine addiction & assaulting a female employee, which he denied.

How does a man like this become the LARGEST recipient of tax payers money in THE MOST controversial & expensive scheme in the history of the State and NOT ONE single media exposé on it all.

Honest tax-payers are being taken for nothing but fools.

[Nick Delehanty 🇮🇪 @Nick_Delehanty]

Why can’t we prioritise Irish homeless people?? 🇮🇪

“An Bord Pleanála has ruled that changing the use of a hotel into a temporary hostel for homeless accommodation requires planning permission, in a decision that will have implications for homeless services across the State. But it does not apply to centres for international protection applicants, which are exempt from planning”

Is any party calling this out??

[Coach JK @John_Kavanagh]

For Ireland if you got your news from @rtenews @IrishTimes etc today will be very confusing. If you instead followed @X it'll make sense.
The PEOPLE are the media now.

[Chris Williamson @ChrisWillx]

Toxic Compassion is the prioritisation of short term emotional comfort over long-term outcomes.

Over truth, reality, flourishing, everything.

It optimises for appearing to do good, rather than actually doing good.

This is seen in much of popular culture as the desirable, fair, empathetic thing to do.

People would rather claim that body fat has no bearing on health and mortality outcomes to avoid making overweight individuals feel upset.

Even if this causes them to literally die sooner or have a worse quality of life over the long run.

Parents would sooner allow children to play computer games or watch screens and access social media every night instead of dealing with the discomfort of taking it away from them.

Even if it ruins their brain development, social skills and self esteem.

People would rather say that children growing up in single-parent households suffer no worse outcomes than those from two-parent homes.

Even if this misleads parents, children and teachers about why kids behave the way they do.

Campaigners would sooner shout Defund The Police as a response to what they perceive as the unfair treatment of criminals.

Even if this results in more crimes being committed against people from minority backgrounds due to the abandonment of police officers from those areas.

Elon Musk recently responded to criticism about his political alignment and contribution to climate change.

He identified how big of a shift Tesla had caused in the Electric Vehicle market, and the downstream impact of that on the environment, saying that he’s done more for the climate than any other human in history.

“What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it.

And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good, while doing evil.”

The important tradeoff with all of these examples is between appearing good and actually doing good.

Telling people what they want to hear, giving them immediate gratification and avoiding saying anything that could cause distress prioritises the former over the latter.

The net effect is often wildly negative.

It’s the toddler who wants to eat ice cream every night.

Sure that might be what they want in the moment, but it’ll be wildly unhealthy over the long term.

I asked Jordan Peterson about this on our most recent episode.

“That’s exactly what the Oedipal situation is.

It’s the prioritisation of short term emotional comfort over long term thriving.

It’s going to hurt now, but the long consequences are positive.

If you give up your children to the world, you will keep them.”

The prospect of appearing bad while doing good is obviously not very enticing.

The opposite is Performative Empathy.

Saying whatever is required to look good, even if you don’t actually care.

And on the internet, the gap between words and actions has never been bigger.

You can be the least virtuous, meanest, most dishonest human on earth, but if you say the right things on social media, you look like a saint.

No one stress tests the words coming out of people’s mouths.

Which means that appearing good becomes more important than doing good.

Performative empathy is more rewarded than genuine empathy.

Posting about mistreated groups is more incentivised than helping mistreated groups.

puts flag in bio, has never actually donated to a charity

This isn’t me saying that you can’t do good whilst talking about it.

But that many (maybe even most) of the people who proselytise about how virtuous and caring they are, and how it’s everyone else who is evil, uncaring and the enemy are allowing their morality to stand on the shoulders of limited scrutiny.

“It’s like ‘look at how good I am’

Well if the ‘look at’ comes before the ‘how good I am’, it really wreaks havoc on the claim.” — @JordanBPeterson

Beware the people who prioritise saying good things, they might not be doing good things.

[Anthony Pompliano 🌪 @APompliano]

Elon Musk says he has done more for the environment than any human on Earth.

Explains that he cares about actually doing good in the world, not just having people perceive him as doing good.

Critics’ minds are melting.

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@ladbible @Robb_Wharton prick

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@libsoftiktok @HaltonDSB @diarmaidkeating

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@diarmaidkeating @ThePunnyWorld 😂😂

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@diarmaidkeating @EwanMacKenna @HMcEntee 🤡 🌎

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@briancoffey3 @elonmusk @teslaownersSV @Robb_Wharton 🤴 🐐

[Fionan Murphy @FionanMurphy]

@premierleague @DonalOsullivan oh boy

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[Business Insider @BusinessInsider]

Former Navy SEAL commanders @jockowillink and @LeifBabin say the '4 laws of combat' are easily adapted to the business world https://t.co/C1b9kozZJI

[Killian Nolan @KillianNolan]

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[Conor McGregor @TheNotoriousMMA]

MMA Vs Boxing.

[Conor McGregor @TheNotoriousMMA]

I am just trying to do my job and fight here. I get paid to fight ... https://t.co/xW1P3G2710

[Skellig Rangers GAA @SkelligRangers]

Great save by Podge Lovie #unbelievable 2-5 to 0-6 to skellig @radiokerry @Kerry_Official