Scott Adams is the author of the Dilbert cartoon series. He also writes a daily blog where, as near as I can tell, he tries to instigate people into vehemently attacking or defending some point of view in an argument that cannot be resolved. The topics he presents are often thought-provoking, and he makes interesting (if inflammatory) arguments.
My guess is that this is one way he plumbs the public psyche for material – he can get a reasonable approximation of which topics generate the most emotional response. It would make the kind of television that I can’t bear to watch – people being goaded into espousing a position they haven’t fully considered, and then sticking to their guns as their argument is torn to shreds around them. But I can conveniently avoid that part of it by not delving into the comment strings.
“Aggravavor” is the term my kids use when one of their siblings is doing the psychological equivalent of poking them with a stick – as in “Daddy, Jack’s being an aggravavor. He won’t stop singing I want my mullet back.” Scott Adams is an aggravavor on his weblog.
But he’s an entertaining and sometimes informative aggravavor. I enjoyed his 3-part post on global warming, enough to share the links here: