Steve Jobs has always been an icon of the hip. Apple products are sold as being cool and modern. Microsoft is for dorks and losers, but Apple is cool. It's a good bet that many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are Apple fanatics with iPhones, iPads and iMacs. After all, these are pretty cool people who are trying to get us to put people first and stick it to the Man, man.
Watch this video with a notepad and pen and carefully track their clothing and hairstyles so you, too, can be in with the latest street fashions.Meanwhile, Steve Jobs the man was a greedy, grasping tyrant. Apple's
net profit margin is almost three times
Exxon's. Steve Jobs'
philanthropy could be measured with a thimble.
His temper and workplace violence was legendary.
I think Steve Jobs makes the perfect icon for the Occupy Wall Street crowd. What better way is there to say, "I'm a naive child who has no idea how things actually work" than to chant anti-corporation slogans while texting on your iPhone?
There are more than hipsters using apple products. These folks don't come even close. yes Steve was a prick. So are most driven folks who are convinced that they are right about everything. Singular vision seems to do that. Look at Trump, look at Gates prior to his marriage. Historically industrialists only did things for society when they were old and cared about their legacy.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that Jobs drove innovation. We had the computer mouse when we did because of macs. Yes the technology came from elsewhere, but windows came about as a direct result of the mac os. Smart phone popularity and all the goods and bars that come with it are not due to the blackberry, but due to the iPhone. He made products form non technical people. That made then wide spread.
Steve Jobs' philanthropy could be measured with a thimble.
ReplyDeleteI'd qualify it to "public philanthropy" just to be safe, since I try not to go on record with any donations I do...but it is rather funny. Not that I think much of joining a club to promise to give away half of what you own, but that's a whole 'nother rant.
As far as I can see, he was a pretty standard hipster-- felt entitled to be nasty because he was so right/good/powerful/what-have-you, liked having control, very focused on being "cool" and tending towards a cult of personality. Pretty much had to-- they couldn't claim greater utility, being open to everyone, ease of upgrading, price advantage, etc.
So they're pretty, the cool brand and very easy to use for those things they do.
It worked. *shrug*
(It is very funny to listen to two computer fanatics arguing, though-- invariably, the Mac fan will start hammering about how "mean" Microsoft is, then turn around and excuse any example of Apple's misbehavior.)
Yep, Jobs was a visionary and we all benefit from his work.
ReplyDelete"Historically industrialists only did things for society when they were old and cared about their legacy."
I don't know enough of them to say this. A lot of my buddies in Cursillo are very successful and they're also genuinely wonderful, giving people. I think the whole "the super rich are selfish" meme comes from people who don't want to admit that some people are just better than they are. If you can claim they are scuzzy in some way, you can still feel superior.
The point of this post was to suggest that instead of marching on Wall Street, they should have een marching on Cupertino.
Yeah, Foxie, you don't really know about his private philanthropy.
ReplyDeleteKT,
ReplyDeletesaw this for the first time tonight. Best South Park send up Apple done so far.
I was thinking about this this weekend. I bet you could easily put together a list of questions qualifying the evil corporate greed, etc that these people are "presumably" protesting. The answers you get would squarely define Apple as evil. Then ask the hipsters if Apple was evil, and I'm sure the answer would be a polar opposite.
ReplyDeleteThere is little difference between Microsoft and Apple in a "being the man" point of view. Apple works hard to lock the consumer into the Apple way. Hardware quality is secondary to design. Planned obsolescence is a primary focus of that design.
Mac hardware will have a longer useful life than a Windows machine, but that is due to the MacOS over Windows.
Why are we limiting "doing things for society" to philanthropy, whether public or private.?
ReplyDeleteI'm of the mind that the jobs and wealth that he created both directly and indirectly because of his innovations pretty much exempts him from being judged by how many checks he scratched out to charity.