I just heard the news.
As the owner of three Macs and a metric buttload of Apple-branded peripherals, I got to know Steve’s handiwork over the years, and I grew to be one of his biggest critics. Steve was a “genius” because he learned quickly how to run his company like a religion, and in a P.T. Barnum kind of way, he’ll go down as the greatest tech visionary ever.
While every blog on the planet rushes to get in their obligatory “me too” obituary, and while news stations light up with ad-selling retrospectives, I’d like to take this opportunity to ask people to recognize that all lives have value.
Amanda Knox has gone free, and while our hearts bleed the reddest of blood for attractive, young, white girls, please remember that in 1997, DNA evidence revealed that 52% of all Illinois death row inmates were innocent. Based on similar evidence, we know that many innocent people have been killed here in the USA.
Few people noticed.
Poor, ugly men matter too, though.
While Steve Jobs’ death certainly comes as a shock to the business world, the death of a celebrity or wealthy person is no more or less sad than the death of anyone else. This includes the 11 people who committed suicide in Apple-sponsored sweathshops after bringing you the devices you so love to show off.
Apple is a corporation whose sole goal is to make money, and to further this end, they export thousands of jobs in favor of cheap labor overseas. Steve led a charmed life, the likes of which few of us could ever hope to imagine. Steve received the best healthcare, the likes of which few of us will ever see. Steve may or may not have been a swell guy, but he did well for himself and for that, I respect the guy. Aside from that, he was a human like billions of others.
I think we all understand the intrinsic marketing value and bandwagon effect of collective mourning, but events like these also serve as teachable moments.
Today, 7,000 people died in the USA.
Steve Jobs was one of them.
R.I.P Steve.
R.I.P. Nameless 6,999.
I still have my first computer, a Bell and Howell “Black Apple” 2+. I might have to keep it for a while longer.
RIP Steve.
Amen, Rex.
The 6,999 ‘other’ ppl that died thank you from wherever they are, if they can read this at all, which i’m sure they can’t, but still, very nice eulogy for the common man. You’re the Voltaire of the Blog universe. Kudos.
A blog in one of Canada’s national newspapers tried to compare Jobs’ achievements to those of da Vinci, Ford and Edison. I almost got ill right on the train. Most of the products Apple is lauded for existed before Apple repackaged and branded the piss out of them. PCs, Music sharing, MP3 players and cell phones (even big ones ingeniously marketed as Ipads) all existed before Apple.
Anyway, it is always sad to see someone die before their time but I am afraid that, as usual, the media is going to get way too carried away with this. Especially in a low news cycle.
pacific: Ford did not invent the automobile. Nor did Edison invent the light bulb. Both perfected either the design of the product, or the manufacturing process. What is do different about Steve Jobs?
btw, I have no horse in this race — I own no Apple products… though my wife swears by them.
Very good, thought-provoking post.
Condolences to Steve’s family and the friends and family of all others who have passed recently.