The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century

Dilbert: Business #3

by Scott Adams

Step aside, Bill Gates! Here comes today′s real technology guru and his totally original, laugh-out-loud New York Times bestseller that looks at the approaching new millennium and boldly predicts: more stupidity ahead.

In The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert′s Top Secret Management Handbook, Scott Adams skewered the absurdities of the corporate world. Now he takes the next logical step, turning his keen analytical focus on how human greed, stupidity and horniness will shape the future. Featuring the same irresistible amalgam of essays and cartoons that made Adams previous works so singularly entertaining, this uproariously funny, dead-on-target tome offers half-truthful, half-farcical predictions that push all of today′s hot buttons - from business and technology to society and government.

Children - they are our future, so we′re pretty much hosed. Tip: Grab what you can while they′re still too little to stop us.

Human Potential - we′ll finally learn to use the 90 percent of the brain we don′t use today, and find out that there wasn′t anything in that part.

Computers - Technology and homeliness will combine to form a powerful type of birth control.

Genres: Humor, Business, Nonfiction, Comics, Comedy, Management, Satire

258 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 1997

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Adams was born in Windham, New York in 1957 and received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Hartwick College in 1979.

He also studied economics and management for his 1986 MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

In recent years, Adams has been hurt with a series of debilitating health problems. Since late 2004, he has suffered from a reemergence of his focal dystonia which has affected his drawing. He can fool his brain by drawing using a graphics tablet. On December 12, 2005, Adams announced on his blog that he also suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes the vocal cords to behave in an abnormal manner. However, on October 24, 2006, he again blogged stating that he had recovered from this condition, although he is unsure if the recovery is permanent. He claims to have developed a method to work around the disorder and has been able to speak normally since. Also, on January 21, 2007, he posted a blog entry detailing his experiences with treatment by Dr. Morton Cooper.

Adams is also a trained hypnotist, as well as a vegetarian. (Mentioned in, "Dilbert: A Treasury of Sunday Strips 00).

He married Shelly Miles on July 22, 2006.

Reviews

[Sam Kuntz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dilbert Future does not follow a clear storyline, but rather goes off in many different directions. The only rule that the author set, it feels, is to continue having predictions peppered throughout the book.

The whole book has a nice sarcastic touch too it. It is also very cynical, but not too much so.

I always like comedy that makes fun of a large group of people, and this is no acception. It makes me feel like I know something they don't, which is true, because "induhvisuals" probably won't read this book.

I got this book from a little library that is a short walk away from our home, and I originally was not going to pick it up, but then I remembered that I enjoy the Dilbert comics in the newspaper and I ended up picking up the book.

I am reading this book over twenty years after it was published, and something that I find funny, is that some of the predictions he made were actually somewhat correct, but for every one that he got right, there were ten that were jokes.

I enjoy the little comics in each of the chapters, I think they add a lot to the book.

Some parts of the book are inappropriate, I did not enjoy reading those parts because it seemed as though he added the swear words and parts about sex to get a certain demographic of people to keep reading.

I love Dogbert. He appears both in the comics and sometimes in the actual book. I like the idea that dogs find humans to be idiots and attempt to profit off of their stupidity.

I did not like how angry the author seemed. He seemed to hate everyone and everything around him - even his friends.

One last thing, this book is kind of dated. It was written in the 1990s, and it shows in the writing.

All in all, while I enjoyed reading this book, I do not recommend it to people who do not like cynical and sarcastic books. -Leumssmas Ztnuk

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should have just stuck with the cartoons as the text was all filler, with the main points of humour some of the now outdated talk of telephone lines and assorted setups.

That would have been harmless enough but like someone who reveals themselves to be a racist he reveals that he's a believer in the law of attraction/affirmation. Oh dear.

[melydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scott Adams is a cartoonist. He is not a stand-up comedian nor is he Dave Barry, though this book makes it quite clear that he really wants to be. Still, there is a reason he tells jokes in three-panel comic strips instead of 30-minute monologues. Here he addresses various aspects of life and makes tongue-in-cheek predictions, interspersed with Dilbert cartoons. It was obviously written in sections rather than as a whole, and the entire time all I could think about was how much more fitting these musings would be in somebody's blog than a hardbound tome published by Harper Business, especially since so many of the predictions have gone out of date since its publication (such as his erroneous predictions for the futures of the cable modem and ISDN). There were some vaguely amusing parts but nothing was anywhere near laugh-out-loud funny, and I had to yawn a bit at the tired "women really rule the world" section - that idea was beaten to death decades ago and hasn't gotten any funnier in the meantime. Frankly, the most humorous parts were the cartoons, and if I wanted to read those I could have just picked up a collection.

The final chapter, "A New View of the Future," was inappropriate in this context. For this section Adams "turned the humor mode off" and discussed his personal philosophies. They were interesting but did not fit whatsoever with the rest of the book. His ideas on perception and cause and effect would also have been much more compelling had he bothered to actually research any of the theories and experiments he mentioned. I understand that the goal of this section was nothing more than to make the reader think about the universe a little differently, but it would have been much more effective had he spent an hour at the library finding a couple of references to cite. Saying things like "I'll simplify the explanation, probably getting the details wrong in the process, but you'll get the general idea" does not instill in me a desire to take him very seriously. That said, I am giving thought to trying out those affirmations.

Despite the incongruity of the chapter, I still enjoyed it about as much as I did the rest of the book, but for different reasons (the first part was vaguely amusing, the second vaguely intriguing). Ultimately this felt like a Dilbert collection trying to be a Dave Barry book. I think I'll stick with the comic strips from now on.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like snarky, self-depreciating humor, Dilbert is for you. I love it! The only reasons that this is 4 stars instead of 5 is
1. I read it too late. If I had read this book when it first came out, it would definitely have achieved 5 star funny. As it stands, it is a bit outdated with some of the "predictions" actually having come to fruition already but it is very appropriate for a "Throw-back Thursday Facebook" recollection and
2. Adams goes off the deep end a bit in the last chapter. I'm not sure if he thought no one would read through to the end of the book or what but it gets a little bizarro.

Adam's writes this book using predictions of the future in many different aspects. He uses his comics to illustrate his points. I will share some of my favorite quotes and predictions.

-"I can run faster than cheap panty hose on an itchy porcupine."

-"To me, computers are like tangerines, in the sense that I can't make a good analogy about either one of them right now."

-There is a whole chapter about how life will NOT be like Star Trek and what it would look like if it were. The inner geek in me squealed and of course I had to read parts to my husband.

-"PREDICTION 16- In the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel"

-"PREDICTION 28 - In the future, women will rule the world in all democratic countries. I base this predictions on two facts that cannot be disputed. 1. Women already control the world. 2. Who's going to stop them?"

-"...women get to squish men's fragile egos like Fudgsicles on a Los Angeles freeway." "...cry-free time of the month..."

-good old fun making of North Dakota

-sniff evidence

From the above cited, you should get a good feeling if you will enjoy this book or not. I did love it.

[Omkar Ekbote · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a nutshell, this is just Scott Adams being good ol' Scott. 10 years after we wrote this book, most of his predictions have (surprise surprise) not come true! But nonetheless, its amusing to read about them and admit that in some dark corner, you too wished for those!

The last chapter though - is Scott Adams NOT being Scott Adams. Its almost like his (good) twin brother wrote it: its scientific, insightful and thought-provoking. I'm not saying the rest of the book doesn't do that (it provokes a very different kinds of thoughts), but this is definitely in stark contrast.


When Scott says he's "going to to turn the humor mode off" for the last chapter, he really means it.

[Jules Farrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a strong 3 until that last chapter which absolutely blew me away. Totally unexpected!

Adams makes some pretty great predictions, a few were very wrong but alot were incredibly accurate for a book that was written in 1997.

I'm going to unscramble my brain and then I'll come back and write a few of the on point predictions 😅

[Toronjastico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entiendo que leí este libro muchos años después de que salió, pero aún así hay que decir que me pareció aburrido. En definitva su humor funciona mejor en las tiras cómicas que en un libro.

[rhodeswarrior · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ages terrible

[Andrés Córdova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few people make me laugh like that. And at the end, a very surprising chapter that can change ones life.

[Enrique Nares · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro escrito el siglo pasado (en mil novecientos y muchos ...) y cuyas profecías(varias) fueron ciertas y hoy que lo termine de leer, en el 2020, me doy cuenta y confirmo que seguimos teniendo las mismas amenazas, temores e ilusiones que ayer cuando terminábamos el siglo/milenio.

Si va a leer un libro de profecías, recomiendo "El futuro de Dilbert" será divertido :)

[Luis Belisario · Rating 5 out of 5]

the 14th chapter worth twicw the entire book

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great. It was funny from the start, and I wouldn’t expect any less from Scott Adams. Disclaimer: I like his comics, and I would count them among my favourites, but it’s pretty hit or miss. Some I get right away and find hilarious and others I don’t. But this book was much funnier than any of his cartoons. Only maybe the first few chapters were laugh-out-loud funny the entire time, but later chapters did have a few great moments. It ended on a rather serious note. But it was all very good and interesting. Now you have to look at this book in a historical context—it’s meant to predict the future, and it was first published in 1997 (the same decade I was born, in fact), and you have to recognise that a LOT has changed in the past two decades. I don’t even think he mentions cell phones because they weren’t quite ubiquitous yet, although computers were. I think pagers were about as portable as he got in terms of personal tech. But that said, some of his predictions came true, some definitely didn’t, and some still might. It’s really cool to think about, because it offers true historical insight (in a way I can actually comprehend, i.e. through humour). I can relate how he describes the 1997 world to what I know about my parents’ lives around the time of my birth. In some ways the world was a lot simpler then, but in other ways it was still more complicated than I could comprehend (when he talks about ISDNs or some acronym that I kept confusing with ISBN). And in a very basic way, not much has changed at all. A lot of his predictions were for the very grand future, and those things may still yet come to pass. Some of his predictions involved technology branching off in ways different from what ended up happening. Some of his predictions were basic enough to hold true in probably all circumstances. (His most frequent assertions were that people were inherently stupid, lazy, and horny.) Some predictions I’m sure he made just for the fun of it, or rather wishful thinking. Those probably won’t come to pass. But it was all very relatable. I think this book will be enjoyed many years into the future. This was my first Dilbert book—I don’t even have a collection of the comics, I am ashamed to say, though I definitely will someday (I shall raise my kids on comics as I was). I actually just noticed that it was the third in a series; it happened to be the first my library had available to loan to me. So I shall definitely be reading more of them. I have another waiting on my shelf. I laughed a lot, learned a lot, and was thoroughly satisfied and entertained.

See the full review on my book blog, Awesome Book Assessment.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century” is another one of Adams’ books which looks at the insanity many of us face each day as we head to work for a large corporation. It also looks at the future and offers a humorous perspective on the future of work, society, and the “induhvidual”.

Reading this book is like a one-on-one session with Scott Adams. His perspective is not thinly veiled behind a cartoon strip, though there are many sprinkled throughout the book to better illustrate his points. Most of what he writes is fairly humorous, and other parts are just odd. In particular the last chapter “A New View of the Future” delves into the unexplained and unusual.

If you read “Dilbert” often, then most of this book is very similar, though it is a different approach than receiving his observations through the comic strip. It also means that there isn’t all that much that will surprise you, as you will have encountered many of the described absurdities before. Personally, I find the comic strip a more enjoyable method of receiving Adams’ observations, but that is not to say that this is bad, it simply isn’t as good in my opinion.

The last chapter is where the book provides something new, and for me it was the best part, not because I necessarily agree with some of Adams’ conclusions, but because he breaks away from his standard fare, and does make one think about a few of the many mysteries which are far from explained at this time.

Overall it is a quick and easy read, which gave me an enjoyable few hours. I wouldn’t say it was a great book, but there are far worse ways to pass the time. Given the choice, I would take a book of the comic strips over this, but then again it is a chance to encounter Adams in a different format.

[Nazatul Akhma Fuaddin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really envy people who could spin something so serious and nerdy into something hilarious! I’ve seen Dilbert comic strips before but was never really into it. I guess having known management terms and practice would make you appreciate the jokes better. The last chapter of the book was a bit heavy though. But it just goes to show that Scott Adams is a deep-thinking man of science and not simply a silly cartoonist. I was surprised to learn that Scott Adams himself is a great believer of Affirmation and has been practicing it long before The Secret phenomenon was spread.
Dilbert books would make a great gift for anybody in mid-management level or perhaps those who'll be graduating for their MBAs *hint hint*


Favourite Quote:
I’m more a sprinter than a marathoner when it comes to many aspects of life... over short distance... I can run faster... But over long distance, I’m not so impresive

… the smartest professionals will avoid becoming either managers or employees. They’ll have clients instead of bosses. They will be blissfully independent.

The attractive graduates of big-name schools earn obscene salaries, buy expensive stuff, and die in freak accidents.The ugly ones enter academia. Either way it’s tragic.

… people being willing to take the time to put information on the Net without the benefit of payment. Why will people do that? They will do it because that’s our most basic human nature: People like to talk more than they like to listen.

[David Steyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book on May 21st, 1997. I know that as its been sitting on my shelf since the first time I read it and the original receipt from Bookstar was in the book. Lots of changed in the last 23 years including the fact that Scott Adams does not have the hair he had, Bookstar is closed, and many of the hopes and dreams I have were squashed like bugs. However this is supposed to be a review of the book and not my life.

I rated this five stars as I love Dilbert. Unlike everything I listed above that has changed, things in the office environment have not. Many of the things Scott predicted have not even come close to coming true, but maybe they have. The Networked Computer (LOL) the PC won! But then again not a lot you can do on your latest computer, aka iPhone / Android without the network, so maybe the NC won. It all about perception which was an interesting commentary at the end of the book.

Scott has also talked about Affirmations. So I am going to try it. I guess I should have tried it 23 years ago and maybe I would have finally won the lottery or been a bazillionaire. Anyway the book was written so long ago you can take a voyage through time and wonder how scarily accurate he was or how hilariously wrong. Either way its a fun journey. It was also a nice humorous read as opposed to something more serious like Implementing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework using COBIT 2019.

[Gaurav Mathur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had very high hopes, as I admire Dilbert strips in general and am a big fan of The Dilbert Principle A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses Meetings Management Fads Other Workplace Afflictions, so, this was a bit of a disappointment.

In the first half, it became so boring that I was skipping the text and only reading the strips, and even they weren't so good. But the book really redeemed itself in the second half, somewhere around the chapter on the future of Marketing.

It's a bit dated, written in 2000, so some predictions are not that great. He did not see the coming of the iPhone and the shift to simple and yet technically advanced devices. But then again, some of them are spot on, like -

The Internet and video technology will make it easy to share what we know with the world, and boy, will we share.

And this was before Facebook or Twitter.

And what to say about the last chapter. No humor there, but it is immensely interesting, and I recommend you read it. Overall, one can say it's a 3.5/5 - based on 2nd half and the last chapter.

[Blank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I basically breezed through the end, but I get the general gist. Scott Adams is brilliant and funny.

Sometimes.

[Mischelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is just too funny til it gets too serious at the end. There's a some comic strips that had me rolling. One is the strip of Dilbert having a doll in the image of his boss sitting on the monitor. After the boss leave's Dilbert's cubical, Dilbert tells the doll to stop popping in his cubical and whacks the doll off the monitor. I had tears in my eyes at that one. I feel like that with every boss and supervisor I've ever had.

Another one is the strip of Dilbert filling out a expense report. The Accounting dept had tied him up for spending about $10 on lunch when he is suppose to kill a pigeon. My company is gonna get like that soon because they are so damn cheap!!

I love this book! Some of Adams predictions have come to pass. He puts them in a very humorous kind of way. I didn't like the last chapter. It was too serious for such a funny book.

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall not Adams best work.

First half, seems like a stream of random thoughts, as if he is attempting to quickly fill a book with random ideas, something to meet publisher's deadline, also you get the feeling that some of his humor is better as more visual.

Second half, he gets back to what (at least I think) makes his strip at times truly brilliant, humor about work place absurdity--ideas such as "negative work", who is well suited for telework, the Dilbert Principle about management, lack of respect for employees, why vtc's make no sense or why the transporter in Star Trek would work in real life--really trust your molecules to people who cannot seem to refill paper trays or the coffee maker.

[Kris Jou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scott Adams hasn't been easy to like in recent times for various internet activities I'd rather not detail. Which kind of ruins some of the enjoyment I had for his comics and his books. The Dilbert Principle is still one of the funniest non-fiction books that I had read, and I would gladly revisit it to see if it holds up to my initial thoughts. Alas, Dilbert Future doesn't match Principle. It started off well enough as Adams predicts the future of technology and corporation, and aside from mention of obsolete gadgets, he's mostly prescient. It all stopped having much entertainment value later when he becomes more philosophical, to the point where the whole exercise of reading felt too New Age-y and weird.

Wow, I only realized now that this book is over two decades old.

[Chetna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read.
Not for the jokes but rather all of Scott Adams' concepts.
The take on the life in other planets is hillarious, that how it is just the intelligent people living in some sectors of earth. I so totally agreed with The incompetence line and how engg degree has expiry period while eco fundas can be applied anywhere!Future of work had to be great being the forte.

It does have its share of whats-there-to-laugh moments, though. But with Dilbert, i don't find them unexpected.

Also, being more than a decade old, some predictions might be a nit passe. Deal with it.

But chapter14 takes the prize of all. Very griping.
Recommended!

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Adams has no great faith in human nature. He’s certain that three things about human nature will remain constant: selfishness, stupidity, horniness. Because of that, the future envisioned by Star Trek devotees just ain’t gonna happen.

Hilarious, acerbic, acidic, Mr. Adams doesn’t give you ways of dealing with your fellow men as removing you from their gun sights while keeping a sharp eye on their rotten behavioral tactics. His keen insight for human foibles remains unabated and this book is just a reminder of how humor doesn’t leaven misery so much as rides atop it like a cowboy on a bucking bronco.

[Ahmad Al-mutawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب مسلي وساخر من كل شيء له علاقة بالعمل

يصف الكتاب علم الأعمال والشركات والمكاتب والموظفين والبيروقراطية وعدم الشفافية التي يتوقع حصولها في المستقبل بطريقة ساخرة ولاذعة ولكن في كثير من الأحيان يستشهد بأمور حصلت في منتصف التسعينات من القرن الماضي (وقت صدور وطباعة الكتاب) في حين أن أمور ذكرها المؤلف نعاصرها الآن بعد عشرين س��ة من تأليف الكتاب.



المؤلف يسخر من فئة من الناس الأغبياء ولديه رصيد كبير من قصص هؤلاء الناس الأغبياء في مجال وبيئة العمل. المؤلف لم يستثني نفسه من السخرية

الكتاب يصلح لمن ليس لديه الوقت لقراءة رواية طويلة لأنه يمكنك أن تقرأه من أي فصل. أنا بدأت من الفصل التاسع وأكملت للنهاية، ثم عدت لأبدأ من الصفحة الأولى وصولاً عند نهاية الفصل الثامن.

[Tvrtko Balić · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. The jokes don't always land, but most of them do. It is not always consistent and is without real substance, the primary purpose of all predictions is to be funny, but it is funny. What brought it down from four stars to three was mostly the end, by the end Adams gets more serious and strays of into The Secret like bullshit, but the book as a whole is still fun. If you're a fan of his humour, I would recommend this book. And even though it is on the lower end of what you might expect from him, it can still make you think and reading twenty year old predictions about the future is amusing.

[Suman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fact that this book was written a couple of decades ago doesn't make it very futuristic because we have lived that future. But he pokes fun at everything and there's enough funny there for a few laughs. I really enjoy the comic strips scattered across the book. It takes a genius to bring out so much meaning only through a few lines in the strip. He talks about everything - from bosses to future technology to cubicle culture. Some of it also comes across as true since a lot of people did give up the cubicle life and start something on their own- the wave of entrepreneurship that we witnessed in this current decade.

[Doc Opp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott Adams is really a genius. Not only does he write funny comics, and funny prose, but he manages to work in meaningful social commentary to trick people into thinking! Anyway, this book has some disturbingly accurate predictions as well as some crazy, off the wall ones. The first 13 chapters are a joy to read. It only gets 4 stars because of the 14th chapter where Adams switches from humorous social commentary to new age philosophy which is interesting but not appropriate for a book of this sort. All in all, a really fun book though.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

741.5973 Dilbert series - Subtitled: thriving on stupidity in the 21st century. Adams draws hilariously absurdist conclusions from his peripatetic observations. His targets include genetically engineered children, the chaos theory, life on other planets, euthanasia, frequent flier programs, clothes, and bicycle seats. Although Adams admits that it is impossible to know the future because the unexpected usually happens, he also argues that we will always be able to depend on the existence of stupidity and its predictable effects.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fun Dilbert comic read. Despite not working in that career type I've always found the Dilbert comics pretty funny, even as a kid. The two books I've read of his (so far) have been no different.

This book was funny and a bit poignant (him discussing Terrorism, when this was written in 1998), but the end of the book goes into a bit of a tail-dive with the paranormal stuff. Not sure the point/reasoning behind it's inclusion, and its not exactly meant to be funny and just is a poor way to wrap up the work.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Más allá de lo divertido de los relatos (ok, el humor estadounidense no es para cualquiera), al leerlo 20 años después de editado, me resultó notable cómo a través del objetivo principal del libro, burlarse del eventual desarrollo humano en (aquel entonces) el futuro, Adams expone numerosas certezas que podemos comprobar en la actualidad en cuanto a tecnología, hábitos sociales, mundo laboral, etc.
Como constante víctima del sistema, Dilbert es el espejo silencioso donde nos miramos para reírnos de nosotros mismos.

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand that, when people are writing a humor book, you shouldn't assume they believe everything they are writing. Still, there are some incredibly problematic chapters in this book, one where he insists that voting is stupid and a waste of time, and then one where he says women secretly run the world and then ascribes all the stupid things that happen in the world to women. It may all be intended as humorous, but at the end of the day, this book just isn't that funny. Its got a lot less comic strips in it than the other Dilbert books, and its very disappointing.