alt Hacker NewsI think this article really nails it. Adams' ego and self-satisfaction contributed to his susceptibility to the forces of the internet. It could happen to anyone.
What I remember that is notable about Scott Adams is way back he had The Dilbert Blog and it was pioneering in it's early adoption of the internet. Adams wrote his takes and theories back then, too. But he once wrote that he was going to scale those back, because they were not productive: he would lose followers for being controversial. But later something happened with the feedback loop of social media, because he eventually started to court controversy. I do think that the internet sucked him in.
Think he was always unusually susceptible to the feedback loop of social media.
Long before he was trying to be a political figure, criticism of his book resulted in this glorious piece of peak internet forum nonsense in which he responded to criticism by registering an anonymous account to say things like "I hate Adams for his success too" and "he's a certified genius which is hard to hide" until the mods decided to call him out...
https://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Educatio...