Your Own Personal Jesus
Every so often the subject of religion comes up. Like all segments of society, Wall Street workers have their personal belief systems and values. As we move deeper into the technological age, however, a funny new religion seems to be developing. One which idolizes not the technology itself, but it's creator.
Steve Jobs passed away and yes, that is sad. I would not go nearly as far as to say that it was a tragedy, however. The man died of a terminal disease which has claimed many of our loved ones. Yet, as the as the accolades pour in. I feel a question deserves asking:
What is all the fuss about?
Yes, I get that Apple is the company right now. I also get that Jobs was in many ways a visionary and a genius. I get all of the accolades and would arguing with nary a one. I want to emphasize that I too am sad that Steve Jobs has passed on. I don't or have never harbored ill will towards the man.
But when I read the editorials and see the slumped shoulders of hipsters everywhere, I can't help but to think, this is fucking retarded. Worshiping a salesman because he created a product. Okay, several products. Products which greatly enhance the already growing withdrawal into our own worlds of solitude. Products which though fun and usable are in no way crucial or even important to human life. Products which claim to bring people together, but really just pull us further apart.
Steve Jobs was not Mother Teresa or Mohandas Gandhi. You can liken him to Rockefeller or Carnegie if you wish, but he did not change the world. He invented, marketed and sold products. That is it.
He deserves love and respect in proportion to his achievements. What I find amusing in this whole tale is how he is being deified. In a time when so many intellectuals take great pride in their atheism and disavow any faith based system, Steve Jobs is being mourned like Jesus Christ. I cannot help but to snicker at the irony. The apex of idolatry.
Perhaps Jobs is really Job, having his wealth and health taken from him as a test of faith? Perhaps, God and Satan made a bet over the fate of Steve Jobs to test his true nature. Either way, I've really just been looking for an excuse to post the following video. Enjoy your weekend and don't be butt hurt unless you're getting fucked.
Yes, his technology is used by most for unimportant crap, but in the right hands some of this technology can change the world and I'm sure it already has. The evolution of computers and software has made an undeniably huge impact on how everything is run. I'm not acting as if he's a Jesus, but losing a visionary of his caliber is something to be very disappointed about.
Maybe. Or maybe every writer knows that if they make a controversial post about Jobs, it will get a lot of attention and discussion. I'm not really sure I get the comment about hipsters. And no, he isn't being idolized like Jesus Christ. No religions will be formed after his death. The reason that there is a lot of press about his death is because he stood as a symbol and was a lot more to most people than a 'salesman.' He was essentially at the forefront of entire new industry and fundamentally played a role in what computing and all of its accessories can do today. If you don't 'get what all the fuss is about,' you probably just need to do a little more reading. What is Jobs a symbol for: for one of the biggest company turnarounds in history after being fired from his own company, for creating products that customers didn't even know they wanted yet , for being a thought leader in many respects (see stanford speech), and for just having balls. Most salesman I know actually care about image. Have you seen the way Jobs dressed, or the fact that Apple didn't donate to charities.( See recent forbes article on this) But I'm sure you know all of this already; hopefully I helped add discussion to your 'controversial post.'
computers are our sixth sense. they are the way with which we interact with the world. we use them for work, communications, entertainment, information and jobs gave us computers that were well designed, reliable and actually fun to use.
anyone who has ever had to use a PC has learned to hate that fucking thing. when gates or dell die, no one is going to give a shit. jobs liberated us from having to use god -awful shitboxes with windows by giving us an awesome alternative. the effect of that contrast is powerful: he liberated us from having to use devices that fill us with hateful emotions by giving us devices that are delightful and awesome. that is why people love him.
i just moved over to a mac recently after deciding that msft and any pc maker will never rape me for another dime with their shoddy products. the only good pc maker was ibm and i was similarly sad when they shut down. i am sad today because without jobs insane eye for detail, i don't know if aapl will go the way of thinkpad.
i went from zero apple products to a countless number. i've dumped my wallet on that apple store sales counter. and i have never had a moment of buyer's remorse.
I really don't see what's so bad with PCs... it's really not that hard to take care of them and not download viruses and such. I haven't had a problem on any of my PCs that I didn't download random crap to.
Everybody has their own religion...whether it be actual religion, environmentalism, "the state" for communists, etc. For a certain band of tech geeks Jobs was indeed their god. However, the guy was a large part of inventing the personal computer, destroying the record industry as we know it, changing the entire way animated films are created, and to boot he made the best phone in the world (in my opinion). As far as Gods go it seems to me that he is at least as worthy of some others such as Jesus who barely did anything other then turn water into wine, walked on water, and briefly rose from the dead.
There isn't a lot of lately.
I completely disagree with this. I don't know how you define "changing the world," but I'd certainly say that his inventions were revolutionary. Add to that the fact that many millions of people (Apple investors, employees, customers, etc.) are better off for his having lived, and I'd say that his impact was pretty profound.
As corny as it sounds, Jobs sort of epitomized the "American spirit..." it's no surprise that people are sad that he's gone. Americans love a happy ending, and this isn't one.
Jobs did not invent any of Apple's products. The Apple II E was invested by Woz. The Macintosh was invented by Andy Herzfield and Bill Atkinson, despite ferocious opposition from Steven Jobs. The aesthetic design of Apples products was done by Jonathan Ives.
I must admit that Jobs was a talented retailer and knew how to suck Apple fanboys into buying his products.
double post
And they created the products, but didn´t invent them. All the technology they used was from other companies. As an example, everything they used to create the first user-interface was literally stolen from xerox. Starting with the mouse and finishing with how the interface was programed (and then Bill Gates stole it from apple). Steve Jobs was a visionary because when companies like xerox or IBM were rejecting that technology he bet on it and won. He has always known what people would want to buy. But that just makes him a very good salesman. The best salesman in the world one could argue. Nothing more and nothing less.
Steve Jobs seemed like kind of a dick.
I was talking to somebody who knew him personally, he came off like he didn't really care for Jobs as much as the people who never met him do.
and who are you again? what have you done lately? you're just a paid blog writer in a dumb ass monkey blog for goodness sake.
Great song.
^Agree with above, loved the DM reference
http://chzmemeafterdark.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/naughty-memes-untit…
thought this was relevant... brings up a good point too haha
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