Nobel Prize

It’s important to have goals. My goal is to win a Nobel Prize. I’m not fussy about which one. It could be for physics, chemistry, psychology, medicine, peace, or even that squirrely one for economics. I can rule out literature, because sooner or later the judges would read something I wrote.

I think I could win the award for physics with my theory that the universe is shaped like a timeless, motionless donut, and your consciousness is like an ant walking toward the center. Here I’m depending heavily on at least one of the Nobel judges being hungry during the judging. And it wouldn’t hurt if one of them is an ant.

I might win the award for chemistry for my discovery that Diet Coke and protein bars can be combined with a human being to create crap-like blog posts. I don’t know how many times I have to replicate that experiment before I get the recognition I deserve.

I could win the award for psychology for my groundbreaking discovery that the phrase “moist robots” can be used to dismissively describe all human activity that annoys me. You might think there are plenty of professionals in the field of psychology who are doing more prize-worthy research, but an equally valid point of view is that they are moist robots who hate animals and enjoy hanging around with nuts.

The Nobel Prize for peace seems the easiest to win. I already suggested that DreamWorks create a CGI version of Osama and have it tell al-Qaeda they each get 1,000 virgins in the afterlife if they eat sand until they die. If anyone has a better idea, they won’t win any prizes by keeping it a secret.

I might win the award for medicine for telling my friend Steve that magnesium supplements would reduce the swelling in his knees after exercise. It worked for me and it worked for Steve. So if you need a placebo and can’t find sugar pills, try magnesium supplements. They’re like magic.

The economics prize should be mine for my discovery that everything you need to know about investing can be put in nine bullet points. And I’m not the only one who thinks that. There’s also “some guy on the Internet” who agrees:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BBE57F0AA%2D03D9%2D4320%2DBC4D%2D83363B6372F6%7D&siteid=

The main reason I want to win the Nobel Prize for whatever-the-hell is because it would help in my ongoing quest to win all conversations. After winning the prize, the next time I have friends over to the house, I’ll steer the conversation toward the field where I won my award and wait for someone to say something I disagree with. Then I’ll say, “Let me get you a coaster for that drink.” I’ll disappear into the den and come out with my laminated Nobel Prize certificate and slip it under his beverage. Then I’ll lean back and say, “Please, go on.”

The inconvenient part about winning the Nobel Prize is that there is some social pressure to give the million dollar prize money to charity. I’d have to look at the rules, but I don’t think they can take back the prize if you announce you plan to use the money for plastic surgery, because you always wanted tusks.

Recently I placed 21st on a list of the Top 50 Thinkers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/article2823746.ece

Making the Top 50 Thinkers list is to the Nobel Prize what beatification is to sainthood. It’s okay, but nothing you’d want to laminate and use as a coaster. I know it won’t win any conversations because if I whip that list out, someone will point out that Donald Trump beat me out, and he uses dryer lint for hair.

So I wait.

Comments

[ankitverma]

send me ideas by the help of that I ALSO MAKE A PROJECT

[Ilia Chentsov]

Read the beginning as "It's important to have goats".

[Inmate # 7291969]

I was recently the recipient of the No-Bail prize for my groundbreaking work in determining just how much beer a human being can consume in a short period.

[Bill]

>The Nobel Prize for peace seems the easiest to win.

Not really... most of the winners had to kill a few hundred thousand people. That's a lot of work.

On second thought, killing people is easier than discovering anything important. I guess you're right.

[Matthew Kovich]

Hey, you beat Al Gore on that list (#41), and he's won a Nobel.

[Nimrod]

Dryer lint!!

[Karl H.]

The Nobel Prize for physics isn't awarded for theories. It's awarded for discoveries. That's one of the main reasons Einstein received the prize for his research about the photoelectric effect and not his relativity stuff.

[Ricky]

omg how could you beat steve jobs?!?!

[erkek arkadas]

it is very difficult to get a nobel prize.
you should work very hard :)

[Gary Olmstead]

Scott, if you think you can't win for literature, you haven't read anything by this years winner, Doris Lessing. But don't let that worry you, clearly the Nobel committee didn't either.

[Robert]

I can't take seriously any list that includes Al Gore as a top thinker.

[justin]

As others have pointed out, there is no Nobel prize in psychology. A psychologist, Daniel Kahnemann, did win the Economics prize once, for his work on the psychology underlying irrational economic decisions (e.g., risk aversion).

[omer rosen]

I always wondered what motivated those people who got awarded twice. The first time is really great. You go to Sweden, meet some strange people that speaks a strange language and participate in a ceremony over there at a palace or something.
The second time is quite a hassle for you. You need a new suit, fly 7 hours and that boring ceremony again. Not forgetting the usual question that you will be asked "to whom you donated the money?".
That is why I don't try to win this award. I know that is will lead to atleast two more and I don't need that burden.

Great post as usual.

[pay attention]

The list had to be weighted for audience reached. Trump isn't a thinker, merely a moist ego needing constant feeding, like a blast furnace. He’s not even close to Scott in entertainment value. Not surprising Scott beat Gore, the sloppy research and ignoring any inconvenient fact had to pull Gore down.

[Michael LaRocca]

Never take health advice from a cartoonist. You wrote something along those lines a while back, but I ignored that tidbit in favor of following your advice about magnesium supplements. After all this time, my elbow remains swollen from leaning it on the computer desk for 16 hours a day for too many days, so maybe I'll switch to Milk of Magnesia and see if that cures this shit. You still have my vote for the Nobel Prize. Too bad I can't vote. Since I live in Thailand, I wrote in Thaksin Shinawatra for US president on my absentee ballot, but what else can you expect from a moist robot, monkey brain? Don't you realize your book title insults monkeys everywhere?

[Paul Van]

On the basis that humor is the best medicine, you might be able to win the Nobel prize for... no, that won't work either.... Sorry

[Kevin]

Why win an award when you can create one and then award it to yourself?

Of course, you wouldn't be able to call it the Scott Adams' Prize...you'd have to pick a fake name. Something that sounds European and vague enough that it tricks people.

Then, simply award the prize to you. When people ask, "What's the Guttenburg Gold Circle of Power Award", scoff, roll your eyes and mutter, "uneducated masses" then throw something in about how "this is why we're still in Iraq".

[Noah Vaile]

I do believe that the most recent "Peace Prize" recipients prove that winning is little more than a matter of "how low can you go? and how loud can you be?" I believe that you are well placed for a shot at the peace prize in the near future. Or any other of the prizes for that matter. My only hope is that you or some other winner not only keeps the money but quickly dissipates it in an orgy of drink and prostitutes.

[Putin]

Funny, but please keep promoting your book... Or was it too obvious...

I think you should win the award for your whole weasel work! It's unique for as far as I've read...

[Jason Allen]

I think it takes a little more work than that to get a Nobel.

[Justin]

Oi vay, does anyone else see the idiocy of having the general public vote on greatest thinkers? Wasn't it you, scott, who made the point that people can't tell the difference between 1% and 1000% smarter than themselves? "definitive guide to the world's most influential living management thinkers"... That sounds like whos best at manipulating the public, not who thinks straightest. Which muct be true, because #15 got on there for selling obvious crap to morons. Smart, but not why he was voted in...

[dude]

There is no Nobel prize for psychology yet.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

To Rita Mae:

Technically Scott can win a Grammy anytime he narrates an audiobook and it is nominated, whether he wrote the book or not. Pretty sweet, eh?

[La Baule]

Those top 50: all men.

[Vern at Aim for Awesome]

Hi Scott. You sir, are a noted and flaming farkologist and I recognized you in a recent post (todays post actually) as such. Coincidental that I wrote about this on the same day you wrote about wanting to win a nobel prize? I wouldn't nominate you for it unless there was a farkology award category.

Should have thought about that before you got into farkology!

[rd]

1. i thought you are a moist robotism guru, not opponent
a biggish misunderstanding
2. why do you need to win conversations, conversations are about conversing ideas, knowledge, images, sounds whatever etc and generally pleasant, it's not like fight or argument or competition
3. why waive the literature prize, if it's the most plausible one
jelinek f.e won it, which is very strange

so good luck
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/index.html

[DRAMbo]

Hmm,

So 3500 votes, or .000053% of the planetary population participated in this survey. Assuming that only 1 in 1000 people is even qualified to participate, then only .053% of the eligible humans have determined the top 50 thinkers.

There is a term called 'statistical insignificance' to describe this sort of phenomena. I spend far too much time trying to educate management types about drawing conclusions based on this sort of 'study', although rampant rectal-cranial inversion makes this task quite difficult.

I'm not trying to detract from Scott's position on this list, only to point out that the sampling that contributes to the list is, in fact, statistically insignificant. How many other people make decisions based on studies that are mathematically meaningless?

(Rita Mae, I used the term statistically insignificant, even better than diametrically opposed. Fight the good fight, and don't take that dirt nap before it is your time.)

DRAMbo

[John Elliot]

> It keeps striking me - as a European - how self-centered you Americans are

As far as I can tell it's inherent to humans, and repressed according to social norms. Classical liberalism, which is one of the pillars of the rationalization for the selfishness of Americans, is a European invention. Influential European imports of the 20th century extolling the virtues of those ideals, like Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises, certainly had their part in contemporary thinking as well. It's not all some form of home-grown crazy that other cultures are immune to.

[The Sound of KOINK]

GJB sez: "It keeps striking me - as a European - how self-centered you Americans are ... Remarkable to say the least."

I sez: I've lived in all corners of the world and I never met more arrogance anywhere than I did in Europe. And GJB, your comment is further evidence of that. No wonder you guys have invaded and "conquered" each other for the past 3000 years. You all think you're better than the next guy.

[D. Mented]

To build on Chuck's theme, the nobel "peace" prize seems to be like Bush's "healthy forests" and "clear skies" initiatives; to win, you do the exact opposite of the title.
If you can find a way to cause or escalate a war, you're in the running. Then study the human behavior resulting from this war or escalation, and you might also be in the running for science, although there seems to be an annoying tendency in that category to look for some actual, applicable results.
D. Mented

[dale]

is it like the peoples choice award? can we all vote you in? is there a Nobel Sarcasm award?

[Mason]

Bill gates is number 2 on the list, and steve jobs is number 29.

[Tom]

The inconvenient truth about the Nobel Peace prize if that you are not well connected enough to win it. It has nothing to do with peace when you see guys like Arafat winning it. Its all politics so I recommend you start with politics in your quest for the Nobel Peace prize.

[Steven McDaniel]

You could go for the Yasser Arafat Nobel Peace prize. He did it by giving Bill Clinton a photo op and agreeing to say he would stop blowing up Jews for a while. (Meanwhile, his assurance lost a bit in translation into the Palestinian language if you study their broadcasts. It came out, 'Death to Israel.'

[Thomas]

Second post after I read the posts around on the peace price. The nobel peace prize is not a real nobel price. Unlike the other ones, it does not get awarded by the karolinga institute in stockholm, but by the state of norway. The original nobel prize is for science. Peace does not enter into it. The Peace Prize is for wimps. Scott would not want that...

[Dave R]

hah, top 50 thinkers and they put you above de Bono.... let's see him laterally think his way out of that!

Seriously though Scott, the Times ain't what it used to be....

[jeqp]

Isn't that really a list of the top 50 talkers, rather than the top 50 thinkers?

[greg]

The bad thing about losing to Donald Trump is that you lost to the "host of The Appprentice," not multi-billionaire real estate mogul. But you did come in ahead of Steve Jobs and some other cool dudes. How come they left Howard Stern off the list?

[tubaguy]

You might do like Al Gore and give the money to a charity headed by yourself.

And then you could use the money to pay yourself for the carbon credits you earned by planting trees in the amazon area you clear cut in search of oil.

I reaffirm - the king has no clothes!

[amenot]

Scott got a lot of brilliant ideas and thinking, however he is too funny to be taken seriously, but humor is his main strengh, it's a dilemna.
He can win a Nobel prize in some catagory some day.
I will vote for him if he will change mind about voting and evolution.

[Clair]

Be careful what you wish for. A good case can be made that not the swiftist person receives those awards. The last few are suspect.

[Thomas]

Much as I hate to say it, but you will have to rule physics out. I do like the donut idea and the ant that's running accross it, but somebody calculated precisely this kind of universe in 1915. Turned out that he was a little shakey about the donut part, but his theory worked in all kinds of four-dimensional geometries, because he knew he would have to formulate it that way, since it is possible that at some point (meaning in time and space), the universe might best be described in a donut way. He did call it torus, since he was german, but it boils down to donut without the starbucks vanilla party topping. His name was Einstein. And guess what, he never got the nobel prize for the general theory of relativity, but for some other insignificant crappy discovery which allows you to have electric doors and photovoltaic cells and other girlie tools. That's the point about nobel prizes. What application would a donut shaped universe have? Nobel prizes are awarded for practical applications. By law. The one in physics this year for example made your hard drive so small and yet capacious as it is. Another great finding of quantum mechanics itself, for the formulation of which no nobel prize was awarded. Turns out even Europeans are sometimes very pragmatic. But then this is about science. I would head for the one in Literaure, since your new Book, Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain, available at the biggest american online stores, shipping all over the world, stands out. I did not see anything that would even come close this year. The judges will read it and they will see that it is a practical application - of life itself.

[rewboss]

Speaking of thinking, I once took one of those online IQ tests and got 135, which I understand is 5 points short of genius.

That's all well and good, but I don't think IQ is really a good test of intelligence. It was all "What's the odd one out?" and "What's next in this series?" and nothing relates to real life. I don't often see seven men in a line with their heads at different angles and think to myself, "Gee, I wonder which one has his nose pointing a different way from all the others?"

A real intelligence test, in my view, would have questions like "When is your wedding anniversary?" and "Where were you when you last saw your keys?" because those are the questions that you really need to answer. They're also the questions I suck at, which just goes to show.

And with that wonderful revelation, I'd like to be nominated for a Nobel Prize in psychology.

Failing that, though, I guess the thing to do would be to invent new categories. If I could persuade the committee to introduce the Nobel Prize for forgetting to water the banana tree, I could win that one five years running (assuming an inexhaustable supply of banana trees).

[aiwn]

man, you beat Steve Jobs...
I gonna create a Fake-Scott-Adams Blog!

[~C4Chaos]

top 50 thinkers for *business*, Scott. for business!

i think you should try to shoot for the Templeton Award first ;) - http://www.templeton.org/

you'll get my vote. but then again, it's a waste of time to vote.

~C

[Captn Rob]

Scott,

Don't be so hard yourself. Being named 21st on the top 50 list is quite an accomplishment. Just think... What if you were the poor B%#tard that came in 24th. It's bad enough he has gone through life with a name like Warren Bennis, (write your own joke here) but then when he does bring out his accomplishment. All everyone mentions is "Wow, your dumber than that Dilbet guy!"

[Urbano]

There's no Nobel Prize for Psychology... ;-)

[Fergus]

I'm sure someone else mentioned this, but there is no Nobel prize for psychology(the one for literature often goes to philosophers). However, the one for medicine is technically for medicine and physiology.
That aside, very funny post.

[rita mae]

I like Steve Jobs. Is that okay? His story of birth and adoption is amazing. It just goes to show, you can make it if you want to bad enough. I guess he doesn't blame what happens to him on his childhood, huh? I've been preaching that all my life. Steve seems like a nice guy.

Now Edward de Bono? Lots of posting about him. His Wikipedia entry was impressive, but it didn't make me laugh. (All right his name could produce a giggle, but is it pronounced like the Irish singer Bono, or is it Bone-o?)

Rita Mae

[simpsons fan]

You also to be original, Homer Simpson already came up with the donut shaped universe long before you.

[bcammack]

What is it with this "let's hate Al Gore" stuff? Is it just anti-intellectualism? I can think of nothing else based on my own knowledge of his contributions and accomplishments.

[Sing]

Your "nine bullet points" mirrors that of Dave Ramsey.

[jim]

I'm sorry. My vote goes to whoever it was that invented the Flavia office coffee maker.

[joshua]

you beat al gore and he won the nobel prize, that's got to mean something, right?

[Ivan]

I read your 9 points and are brilliant. The only problem is that a Nobel Prize should be given to something that has universal application. Your ideas are good for USA, but remember (do you notice it?), there are other places in the world:
1. Make a will: In some places is better to pass your property to your family before you die. But quasi universal.
2. Pay off your credit cards. This one is universal.
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support. In many countries you can't find this or, if you live in those countries, you can't afford to pay an international policy.
4. Fund your 401k to the maximum. What is it: 401 kilometers, 401 kilos, 401 kakatuas? Not an universal thing
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum. IRA? leo-Rectal Anastomosis? Ireland terrorists? Sorry. Not universal.
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it. Many want but can't
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account. Oh yes, and live half a year eating grass and hiding of your bank or landlord.
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement. They don't accepta 2 USD accounts.
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio. Agree. Universal.
My point is: they are good, but not easy, and in many countries you have to work hard just to find something equivalent that is not eaten up by inflation, stupid laws or crooked bankers/politicians/glorius leaders and other lizards.

[DutchMonkey]

After what I feel has been a dry spell, I'm glad you're back to writing hilarious posts.

This was one of the better ones.

[Telanis]

Joooooooke

[terry k]

Having a "brilliant" idea is not enough to win a Nobel Prize. You also have to do a lot of ass kissing. My suggestion for you is to open a restaurant at the Karolinska institute in Sweden and stay there and draw Dilbert for the enjoyment of all the people who nominate and/or vote for the winners. Free alcohol at your restaurant would probably be another good idea.

[Choco]

Why win a Novel Prize? why be No.1 in the thinkers list? (specially when there are some induhviduals listed). Ok affirmation is a good incentive to trying to be happy, but, after all, you are happy when you Want to be happy.

I can always print my fake Nobel Prize Certificate and laminate it so I can mock my friends, that would make me happy.

Anyhow, I'm only a Cat that lives 100% of my time inside my house (A cat commenting in a blog?? is he stupid or what?? -whell tell that to catbert..)

Most of the time I'm happy playing with my toy mouse and laying in my couch, no need for nobel prize.

If any of you is able to read/write in spanish, you are wellcome to my blog.

http://chocoelgato.blogspot.com

[Robert Hamilton]

Scott, I've heard that anyone can nominate anyone else for a Nobel Prize. So.. maybe if a copy of your new book shows up in my mailbox via overnight mail...A certain money hungry cartoonist we know might find himself nominated before too long..I'm jus sayin'...

[Brad]

I would suggest a Nobel Prize for Blogging, but you are more likely to win the Nobel Prize for Psychology. Last night, I literally made myself sick by eating a donut. I vowed to toss them out this morning. I just read the first part of your post and now have to eat another donut. Thanks a bunch.

[Angus]

You should get the first Nobel Prize in awesome.

[Alan]

I am very pleased to see that you beat Al "does it feel hot to you" Gore.

He is not as smart as he thinks he is.
You are as smart as you thinks you is.

[Jack]

I see Edward de Bono is on the list (number 40). I want that guy's name.

[Mokkery]

You just had a contest where you gave away a framed Dilbert cartoon that was "worth" $1500.

That means that you get a $1500 tax deduction for a 30 second doodle with a nice frame.

The winner will have to pay taxes on the $1500. If he's in a 30% bracket it will end up costing him $450, not to mention the time he spent writing your free blurb.

...and you don't have a fuckin' Nobel Prize yet?!!

What do you have to do, sell Bibles to atheists before they recognize your genius?

[Bri]

Since you’re on the topic, what I like about Nobel prizes is that anyone can and is nominated. That’s why a lot of quacks and cranks are able to trumpet the fact that they’ve been nominated. What they don’t tell you that they were either self-nominated or had one of their stooges nominate them.

Yes, I know– a sense of shame is not something you’d find in the job description of a quack/crank, anyways, but still you would think even having a thimble sized amount of shame would deter you from making the claim as if you were a serious nominee.

Now about you wining the prize–why not?

In its history the Nobel Committee has made worse choices. (Thanks to Google, these Nobel Horribles can be easily identified)

Say that you won– what would you do with the money in reality? You are in the enviable position of being able to burn thousand dollar bills to heat your home and still be richer than 99.99 percent of us. Ah, what would it be like to be situated in life where money (or its lack) is no longer a consideration in your life decisions?

Anyways, after the taxes are taken out, the prize wouldn’t even be enough to pay for a moderate sized house (at least not in the Northeast). Not that a man of your means would live in a moderate sized house. Your pets, maybe, ut not you.

So, for you, if you won a Nobel prize, it would be at best a conversation piece. Sorta like Stacey’s–“How’s the restaurant going, Scot?” Scott (Hands in pockets, rocking on heels):”It’s going, its going....”(Scott pauses and thinks: “...going right into bankruptcy if we get another one of those salmonella scares from our Semi-Fresh Shellfish Saturdays”)

How about donating that money towards research into how this country’s voters have elected administrations which have freely allowed the nation’s manufacturing and service sectors to be exported, leaving ths country an emptier and emptier economic shell. (I don’t know about the rest of the nation, but the northeast is getting very, very jittery).

In light of what is happening with the real estate and stock markets, I think the shit’s about to hit the fan.

That’s why I’ll putting up my umbrella, and getting ready for the storm. Any Nobel prize-worthy advice for what us cubicle workers can do?

[Sondra]

Dave Barry contends that he won because the piece he wrote that won stated that he would share the prize with the judges. Just sayin'....

[Mark Thorson]

The easiest way to win a Nobel
prize is to do something
extremely politically correct.
The global warming movie got
one for Al Gore, and it
wouldn't be surprising if
George Clooney gets one
someday for raising awareness
about Darfur.

What you could do is find your
own "pet" cause and totally
solve it, after a long period
of raising awareness about it.
No sense trying to be a hero
before everyone knows what
your project is. First, make
a lot of noise about it, then
step in with your boundless
millions and solve the
problem. It should be a
problem that is easy for
people around the world to
understand, and which has a
straightforward solution that
just involves throwing money
at it. Preferably, it would
be a situation that does not
involve shooting, especially
shooting at you.

If I recall correctly, rising
sea levels are threatening
the existence of a chain of
inhabited islands, the
Andaman islands, I think.
You could organize a group
to raise awareness about the
problem, appeal to the U.N.,
etc. After a few years of
making a pest of yourself on
TV talk shows, etc., just
step in with enough cinder
blocks and concrete to raise
the islands by 5 feet.

Be self-effacing, share credit
with your organization, say
how you couldn't have done it
all yourself without the help
of millions of little people.

Hire a PR agent to schedule
your appearances on talk shows
with fawning hosts that give
you continuous praise while
you modestly say things like
how if everybody saved a
nation from global warming,
it wouldn't be a problem for
very long. Be sure to make a
lot of appearances in Europe,
because I don't think they
have Oprah over there.

[Ron Hardin]

``Moist robots'' is offensive to women.

[Josh Meyer]

Here's a high five for not using the word penis today.

6 more days and I'll put in my recommendation for a Nobel Prize.

[Steve]

Listen to me and I will get you a Nobel Prize:

1. Shoot for the Peace prize.
2. Pick an area you have some interest in (knowledge and expertise is nice, but secondary). My suggestions: water scarcity, lifting people out of poverty using rational methods, promoting entrepreneurs in the 3rd world, etc.
3. Form a foundation
4. Promote the heck out of it-Write a book, do tours with Rock Stars, visit with foreign dignitaries, etc.

That will give you a reasonable chance at winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Then just dpnate the money to your foundation.

But you should really give me a slice of it. 10% would be good.

[Ric]

But you beat out Steve Jobs. Next time you drive down to Cupertino make sure you stop by the offices to rub it in his face.

[Eric]

I bet you win lots of conversations. You sound like Dave Barry: "I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me."
http://www.quotationcollection.com

[John Elliot]

Maybe you should just start your own prize and award it to yourself every year that you're alive. Name it the Gnobel Prize and call it a day.

[ID]

Never mind, I guess I should have looked at yesterday's blog first.
Okay forget what I said, you can get Nobel Prize now.

[Robby]

"Yeah, I am still waiting on a pulitzer for my paper "Why I think college is a load of shit." We are in the very same boat." --Drew Weaver

Try changing the title. Pulitzer judges will be a lot more favorably disposed towards a paper entitled "A Discussion of the Tendencies Toward Shittiness in the American College System." Or, better still, "A Pulitzer-Winning Paper."

[ID]

Nobel shnobel, what was yesterdays blog about? I know you are just sitting there enjoying withholding information, like a squirrel with a juicy nut.
Let me tell you my friend, you will not get a Nobel prize once the committe finds out about this!

[Mr. Wampus]

[jerry w. said, "Colbert (is he related to Dogbert?)"]

I wonder about that too. I also wonder does Dogbert pronounce his name the same way? Does he say, "dog-BEAR?" He seems pretentious enough that he might.

[Larry]

At least they didn't list you as "Stanford intellectual" (nr. 49). "Creator of Dilbert" sounds way better.

[Ian]

Forget Al Gore, you still beat out Steve Jobs! That's worth a laugh any day!

[GJB]

It keeps striking me - as a European - how self-centered you Americans are ... Remarkable to say the least.

[HippieDud]

American? - Peace Prize?

[Casey]

Sadly, I'm pretty sure you can't win a Nobel prize with a theory, whatever you've done needs to be proven. It's why Stephen Hawking hasn't won one yet, because the only way you could prove his theories is to go into a black hole, and it's tough to find volunteers for that.

[mads]

heyy- you kicked the shit out of al gore on that list and hes got one. there should be a nobel trophy. like an oscar, and acceptance speeches, and a red carpet, and non nerd celebrities, and the suspense of "and the nobel goes to". then maybe id watch.

[Mark]

Fart jokes probably give more happiness to society than boring stuff like physics and psychology, I suggest you stake your claim there and then arrange for an gaseous expansion of the categories to include "Amusing Stories About Flatulence". Those other categories are about 100 years old and totally out of touch. Besides did Jimmy Walker ever win for saying "Dyn-O-MITE!" a million times? I am sure Alfred Nobel would have more of a sense of humor than these Swedish stiffs.

[ryan]

"The Thinkers 50 biennial poll is the definitive guide to the world's most influential living management thinkers. Produced by Suntop Media, it received more than 3,500 votes from visitors to Times Online and thinkers50.com"

I'd like to see the actual amount of votes for each person.

3500 people .. a small drop in the bucket. but let's pretend that's a weighty amount.

so, top five likely got a disproportionately large chunk of those votes.

let's say:

No. 1 .. 650
No. 2 .. 550
No. 3 .. 450
No. 4 .. 350
No. 5 .. 250

That leaves 1250 votes. Split up, that's about 28 votes a piece for the remaining people. Of course it's a sliding scale, so let's say Scott got 18 votes. 18 people enamored enough with Scott to call him a Top Thinker. Hmmm .. I wonder what the average IQ of those 18 would be.

Sorry, Scott .. you seem happier than me .. had to try and tear ya down.

[niCk(MemBeth)]

DonalD Trump? Ouch that hurts. Makes that list mostly useless, wouldn't you agree?

[Shan]

I just thought of a good idea that you might want to add to your list of "random ideas that will eventually find their way into a Dilbert comic or a Dilbert book." I figured this would probably be the best place to post it. I have a problem that I was faced with and I present the solution that I use to get away from doing unnecessary work.

I am a scientific researcher. I work with a lady (who, of course, outranks me and thinks that she's my boss) who has a position that requires technical knowledge, but she somehow manages to hide the fact that she has no such knowledge by showing lots of pretty graphs to our boss (who also doesn't have much technical knowledge). She's constantly keeping tabs on what I'm doing, even though she usually doesn't understand what I'm doing. She likes to "delegate" a lot of pointless tasks to me and doesn't stop pestering me until I actually do them. Since (unlike her) I'm actually competent, I can get all of my work done early, but whenever I do that, she feels like I "need something to do" (i.e. cleaning up after the experiments that she doesn't have time to clean up after because her actual experiments take her 4 times as long as they should).

Here's my new solution: I stagger my printing schedule. For example, instead of printing a fifteen graphs at once (like I would normally do if I wanted to finish all of my work by 3pm and get assigned with random pointless work), I will print one graph every 10-15 minutes. In the 10-15 minutes in between, I kill time online (i.e. by reading your blog). That way, it seems like I'm constantly working on these graphs for 4 hours (which is believable to my co-worker, since it'd probably take her 6 hours to do it) when, in fact, I spend 3 minutes working on the graph and then I surf the Internet until enough time has elapsed so that it seems that I should be finishing the graph right about now.

[moiagain]

I went to check the history of that Top 50 Thinkers. You went from 31st (2001) to 27th (2003) to 12th (2005) to 21st (2007).
It looks like you peaked 2 years ago, before you started your blog. Looks like they read your blog and were less than impressed. Fortunately for you, it is a poll and I already voted with all my email addresses so I assume you're off to a good start for 2009.
Just keep plugging your nomination as zealously as you have been plugging your book "Stick to drawing comics, monkey-brain"
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591841852?ie=UTF8&tag=dilbertcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1591841852 )

[ShirtBloke]

Is winning the Nobel Prize that what moist robots are programmed to fantasise about, once they've achieved their programmed goal of having so much money in the bank that they no longer have to fantasise about the normal stuff?

Does Bill Gates fantasise about winning the Nobel Prize? He's turned from moneymaking to altruism in recent years, so maybe so.

And what do Nobel Prize winners fantasise about? Having so much money in the bank that they no longer have to fantasise about the normal stuff?

[MattF]

The Nobel prize for psychology is the one you should aim for, since it's a figment of your imagination.

[moiagain]

That list of Top 50 Thinkers was a vote. If you were a real Thinker, you'd have pulled a Stephen Colbert on that one: You ask your bloggers to vote for you and pull up to #1. It should be easy since only 3500 bothered voting this time.

Next time (it's a biennial poll) I expect nothing less than 1st place.

Nobel Prize.... How many votes do you need for that? We probably can pull it off if it works like the Olympics Committee.

[Adele]

Except your finance plan is specific enough to only apply to US residents/citizens/Idunnos. I'm British, so it's a jumping-off point, but really doesn't tell me more than I already knew (by which, yes, I do mean "explicitly knew").

Any chance of an international plan?

[chuck]

Clear you don't actually need to advance the cause of world peace in order to actually win the Nobel peace prize.

In 2005, the prize was given to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). or their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.

George W. has been doing the same thing for last 6 years by bombing the crap out of anyone he thinks might want to develop nuclear weapons.

In 2001 it was given to Kofi Annan. This must have been a fix. The only way it could have been a bigger fix would be if they gave the prize to Mrs. Nobel.

In 1994 the prize went to 3 terrorists:
Yasser Arafat
Shimon Peres
Yitzhak Rabin
- their plan for peace in the Middle East is working so well that when suicide bombers blow up 20 people it doesn't even make the headlines anymore.

In 1989 it went to the Dalai Lama. This guy has done nothing his entire life. Ok, that's peaceful.

In 1978 it went to Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin - 2 more terrorists.

In 1973 it went to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Thu - 2 war criminals.

In 1938 it went to the OFFICE INTERNATIONAL NANSEN POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS (NANSEN INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR REFUGEES). They did such a good job promoting peace and the next year war broke out. 60 million dead. Nice job a-holes.

[J. Clark]

You topped out Steve Jobs and you know he can get any woman in the world by offering to let them in the cool iPod commercials. Your wife may not approve, but threaten to draw her into your comic, that should stop her yappin'

[Dan]

On your 9 point plan.
Why make a will (if your single no dependents etc)?
Why the 30 70 split on the stock/bond investement of "spare" cash?

Other than that i'm happy to say i'm following your plan already.

[Edward Boyce]

You do realize that there's no Nobel Prize for psychology? If you remember a Nobel being awarded for something related to psychology, it probably won in the medicine category.

[E]

Scott,

That is actually a great suggestion. Get Spielberg to produce 57 videos of a fake bin Laden telling terrorists groups worldwide to buy Starbuck's franchises, or convert to being Southern Baptists.

If they spent a few weeks trying to figure out which one was the real bin Laden, instead of blowing things up, that is a good thing.

Plus it would be entertaining as hell.

You could have bin Laden leading the macarena... etc... the possibilities are all but endless.

On a semi-serious note, your one pager on personal economics is the BEST THING EVER. I've given that to 1000 20 year olds, hope they can focus long enough to read it.

[LA Clay]

There is ,as I see it, a flaw in your fundamental philosophy. You seem to keep trying to go from minor celebrity status to major celebrity status. Once you are there it is very hard to go back.

It took me years to go from a "Mr. Name" to a "Mr. no-name" Trust me, as a no-name, life is better.

[friskybeaver]

You realize your top thinkers list received "more than 3500 votes"? That means less than 70 per person on average, hardly a significant number. If you convinced everyone who comments on this blog to vote, that would, in all likelihood, put you in first.

[Dave]

An IgNobel might be more achievable. And would get just as much respect, from people who matter, ie Me.

[Jarrod]

But you did beat Steve Jobs and Edward de Bono. Thats pretty impressive in itself, I mean lots of people will have heard of Edward de Bono and not you.

As to no hollywood or politicians it is a list of influential thinkers in the world of business.

Thinking a little more about this list it is about influential business thinkers. Can someone point to a business or organisation that Mr Adams has actually influenced. Has anyone actually read dilbert and said: "I know I am going to base my entire business on the philosophy of dilbert".

Is Dilbert as influential as Drucker?

[Raphael]

Man, I read daily the comics AND blog of the 21st top thinker!
That's gotta mean something!!
Maybe I should check if Prahalad has his own blog...
Good post!

[Mark]

If there's no time, how does the ant move?

Failed at fence #1

As for your "moist robots", "Bah!" works just as well and takes less effort.

As for the nine bullet points, it depends on whether there are only nine buillets in the clip...

[King Verbal]

I'm sure many others will join me in pointing out that you beat Steve Jobs. Steve. Jobs. The only guys richer than Steve Jobs are Bill Gates and God. So that sort of wrecks the impressiveness of the list for me. Also, Al Gore made the list. Wait, didn't he invent the internet? :-)

[QwKDrw]

"It's good to have 'inspired' goals." You know, "inspired" by something greater than ourselves.

But I've got to say, your suggested use for a "laminated Nobel Prize certificate" is richly funny
!!
http://www.givemeamomentblog.blogspot.com/

[David]

I want to win a Nobel Prize so I can park in the special spaces at Berkeley. I think that beats your reason, although I suppose you can borrow mine if you really want to.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

You could do what Jann Wenner did - create your own award program and have the committee nominate and bestow you with the award.

[Guipo]

That was alot of setup to just brag about being on the top twenty thinkers.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

The economics idea is sound, all you have to do to convince the Nobel committee is:
1.)have 2600 people follow your plan strictly for twenty years
2.)have 2600 other people follow another "accepted" plan
3.)have 2600 people have no plan, i.e. buy lotto tickets, go to Vegas, live beyond their means, no insurance, no savings, etcetera
4.)Publish.
5.)Rub the results in several economists faces in public, be real arrogant.
6.)Sell it as a computer program, book, other media
7.)Suffer from some tragic malady, write a book about it and have your wife portrayed in movie version by Angelina Jolie or her natural children
8.)Have someone nominate you to committee in Stockholm.
9.)Collect your award, be real gracious about it, 'til you get back home, then rub it in people's faces so much they cancel awarding the Economic prize to anybody else (technically it's not part of Alfred Nobel's endowment, some bankers made it up because they thought there should be an award for economists,so they dedicated the award to the memory of Alfred Nobel,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Economics)
10.) Really crow about the fact that you were the last recipient of the Economic Prize, claim after you solved how to solve middle class poverty, they didn't feel the need to give out the award to anyone else.

[rita mae]

Again I am amazed. I read Paul Farrell's article from MarketWatch and at first thought he was talking about God. Then I realized there is no God. It is you.

Great thinkers? Bill Gates #2? Donald Trump #20? Scott Adams #21? I haven't seen Gates or Trump putting their feet to the fire and taking it in the 'nads like you do everyday.

I vote (oops, pardon the "v" word) for awards for Scott as follows:

Nobel prize winner for anything/everything
AAAS Award
Grammy Award
Oscar Award
Tony Award
Edgar Award
Hugo Award
Any others I may have missed.

{Okay, maybe not the Grammy. You don't sing, right?}

What is the award for making people do your monkey dance? The Isadora Duncan Award!!! Yeah! Scott could win that hands down for making us all dance.

Rita Mae

[Real Live Girl]

When you win, you should (legally) change your name to "Nobel Prize Winner Scott Adams." And blow the rest of the prize money on monogramming every stitch of clothing and linens you own (including dish towels), and trumpeters who can hearald your arrival wherever you go. You know, in case we forget.

Or you can spend the prize money in Vegas on hookers, booze and blackjack - like all the previous winners. It's a Nobel tradition.

In the meantime, start picking off the names that appear before yours on that list. Tell people that after getting his annual Christmas card, Donald Trump OBVIOUSLY isn't aware it's "i before e except after c." Or that Alan Greenspan doesn't know how to split the check so that the rest of the table isn't always paying for his Pink Lady cocktail.

In short, sabotage your competition my friend until they all move down lower on that list. I'm pretty sure once you reach #1, you're a shoo-in. I'll be waiting too; you future Nobel Prize winning bastard you. :)

[Trogdor]

Doughnut shaped universe?

You'd have to share your award with Homer Simpson. He has already publicized that theory considerably.

[Raskolnikov]

Regarding the "Top 50 Thinkers" list, you could easily jump up 5 or 6 spots if you did a couple of simple things. First, write a book about "the future", then your byline becomes "Creator of Dilbert turned Futurist".

Secondly, don't underestimate the power of an affected English accent. Would Richard Branson be on that list if he sounded like Billy Carter? I don't think so.

[Diana W]

Congrats on ranking 21st! Wow, billions of people on the planet and you rank 21. Have you sent that list to all your old bosses and teachers? What I like about the list though is how they describe several of the people. Donald Trump isn't a real estate and business tycoon, but the "US Apprentice Host". And the guys at 13 are "Funky Business duo from Sweden." You should have your title changed to "Brilliant Dilbert Blog Pundit". Pundits are much more likely to get Nobel Prizes.

[Laserauge]

Seems they forgot Martha Stewart on that list.

[The Chief]

Looks impressive....until you realize you only placed 20 spots above algore in that list.

I mean come on - even the dryer lint-hair on Donald's head is brighter than algore.....

[Stefano]

If you will win the nobel prize, I'll definitely believe in the power of affirmation.

[Simon]

How does an ant get to the middle of a donut; is that where strings come into it?

Come to think of it, why would an ant go to the middle of a donut? Have you ever seen an ant crawl over the sugary torus of a donut to get the the void in the middle?

[Drew Weaver]

Yeah, I am still waiting on a pulitzer for my paper "Why I think college is a load of shit." We are in the very same boat.

[Lindsay D]

So now I also have a new goal in life...or rather, goals.
#1) Get to know Scott Adams on a personal level
#2) After Scott wins his Nobel Prize, also win Nobel Prize in same category as Scott.
#3) After winning said prize twice, get invited over to Scott's house.
#4) Engage in conversation, lapse into field where we won our Nobel prizes, and wait for Scott to disagree with me.
#5) When Scott says he wants to get some coasters, say, "That's OK, I've got this covered." Whip out my own lamenated Nobel Prizes and continue on with what I was saying.

[The BGM]

I personally think your best work deserving of a Nobel Prize is contained in your classic blog, 'Why is music legal?'.

Hail Scott!

[jerry w.]

You might as well hold off on your push for the prize, at least until the writer's strike is over.

There's no sense in winning if you have no venue to flaunt it on, what with Letterman,

Leno, Colbert (is he related to Dogbert?), Stewart and the rest just airing re-runs.

I guess you could post something here about it, but that would reduce the space

available to promote your book. However, the book could then be advertised as "by the

Nobel Prize winning author" and include a life size plastic coaster replica of the award.

Anyway, it's not like a Nobel will get you laid. If you don't believe me you could just ask

Mother Teresa about that, that is if she wasn't already blowing dust farts.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Jan]

VOTE NOW!
http://www.thinkers50.com/?page=vote

[Jan]

You don't just wait. You repeat and repeat and repeat it, which helps you work towards it.

If an actor can be president and Bill Gates can be nr2 on a "great thinkers" list, then I don't see why an insightful cartoonist couldn't win a Nobel prize.

Good luck!

[friskybeaver]

I think you're more likely to pull in an Ig-Nobel Prize. Or maybe a Darwin Award?

[Backpacking on Little Money]

Scott,

If you say publicly you want the Nobel you're instantly disqualified. It's their Catch-22.

[DanW]

I think it is interesting that no politicians are on the list. Nobody from Hollywood either.

And no. Al Gore does not count. (for either category)

[Canadian Cousin]

If Al Gore won, You must be on the short list.

[Paul K]

Or, you could funnel your fortune into 'influencing' the Nobel Committee to create a "Philosotainment" award. Then just sit back and wait for the announcement.