Posted on 10/19/2011 7:45:21 AM PDT by bigbob
The blogosphere has been rife with remembrances of Steve Jobs over the last couple of weeks. I don’t have anything bad to say about him, but now that some time has passed, I’m just going to say it: I think the hoopla over him is over the top.
A few things to consider:
1. People write about Steve to write about themselves.
2. Individuals do not make history. Populations do.
3. You can tell a lot about a society by the people they honor.
4. Steve Jobs sheds more light on the nature vs. nurture debate than he does on the history debate.
5. Espousing the glories of genius gets us nowhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at bnet.com ...
I’m kinda that way too. Had an interaction after one West Coast Computer Faire (if you remember those!) with Jobs where he was rude and arrogant, but when I found I could buy an Apple II with a PROM burner cheaper than a Data IO, I found myself admiring their open architecture concept. Something they later abandoned, but USB and new technologies provided the same function. Of course Wozniak was also a big factor in those early days.
“Nature creates the POSSIBILITY for genius or creativity.That alone shows that some people simply have `it` and others don`t, no matter how much they may desire that.”
I don’t understand why it has to be one over the other. It’s obvious to the casual observer, me, that it’s both.
If you have a kid with bad DNA, all the nurture in the world won’t fix that kid. Whether it be lack of intelligence, or just damaged reasoning, (a bad kid, yes, there is such a thing as a bad kid). Nurture can mitigate it, but not fix it.
I agree that a single man can change history, but then we all do. And the greater the mob behind them, the greater the change. Hitler is a good example. And I do believe that had we not had Hitler, we may have had a war with the USSR around that time. That’s the problem with the “what if C=McClellan had been elected” question. Whatever happened, he would have been the “great man” that led whatever happened, e.g. allowed the seccession of the south.
And then during WWI we may have had an American front, where the north supported Germany and the South supported th brits/french. We don’t know. But without the conditions under which the “great man” got his support, he would not have been “great”. Europe was RIPE for a Hitler. The automotive industry was RIPE for a Ford. The computer tech industry was RIPE for a Jobs. Without that ripeness, we would not have heard of any of those men. Hitler’s art was atrocious.
Kevin M. Ritchie, the computer genius who co-wrote Unix and who wrote the C language also died.
He really was the inventive genius that marketing geniuses Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have pretended to be.
—And before you reply to tell me I’m wrong, do you think that the USA’s problems today are not caused by Obama, but the fault of all the population of the USA, including YOU!—
For the most part, yes. I believe, and have said for two decades now, that in a democracy you do not only get the government you want. You get the government you deserve. The electorate is the problem. How else would we get an Obama.
And have you ever voted your wallet? Then some of the responsibility lies squarely on your shoulders.
Voter fraud.
“You obviously don’t know Bill.”
But I know Jack!
Gates #1 goal was to make money, as it should have been. I don’t have a problem with that. But, lots of wonks want Microsoft to be like Linux. Leading edge, quirky, but innovative, and fun.
You go by what they do, not what they say. Windows NT server? Really? Server support for crappy old 16bit apps until Windows 7 64 bit. Same base kernel since NT? I use Windows 7. I like it. But for fun I play with Ubuntu. Amazing what a bunch of motivated people can do on their own.
I’m not here to bash Gates, or Microsoft. They fill a need. But, they are not worried about cutting edge. They are followers. They see trends, and try to copy and make money, or just buy the company in question!
—Voter fraud.—
I see that risk, but voter fraud only works if the race is relatively close. Obama should not have had the remotest chance of getting any but the most radical of voters to choose him. But a lot of people voted for him.
Whatever your experience was/is with Bill Gates ... it effected you negatively.
Christians are asked by Jesus to pray for our enemies, and to be forgiving as we have been forgiven.
The spirit of God lives in believers..
A good way to stat the day is to remember this truth.
Sound like an individual making history to me.
Who is talking about his partners?
—Sound like an individual making history to me.—
And so did Jobs. But it misses the author’s point, with which I happen to agree.
Bill is a technogeek.His whole schtick back in the 70’s was to get on the cover of Fortune Magazine and beat IBM at its own game. In many ways Bill gave us the tech industry as we know it.
Microsoft products have always been braod in that, un like Apple, they didn’t control the hardware so their products had to suffer on whatever hardware was out there. Apple could easily, and they did, sunset products on platforms. Microsoft had to make their products work on newer hardware with much of the hardware incompatible with other hardware. Not fun.
They are worried about cutting edge. The problem is that peope think something like an iPhone is cutting edge when it simply contains the hardware already avaialble and brain dead software that doesn’t do much.
Microsoft created many things, improved manyothers, and offers products most people don’t even know exists. Did you know they have over 500 products available in over 200 languages? Does Apple? Did you know Microsoft products work on millions of combinations of hardware? Apple definately doesn’t.
Heard of Hackint0sh?
Well, maybe someone else might have done what Einstein did, but while the mathematical developments of the 19th Century, and the Michelson-Morly Experiment might have been necessary for his theory, they were not sufficient. I think that there needs to someone who can make that leap. Why Darwin and not Wallace? Because Wallace was a social nobody and Darwin was a “somebody.” My brother-in-law devised a star map for the astronauts, and Buzz Aldin, who gave some input, took the credit. A man must have the chance, must be in a position to act greatly before he can become great. Anatole France had a short story of what life would have been like in France if the Revolution had been avoided. Old Captain Bonaparte would shared his stories with the village children of life in a French Army where command was limited to the high nobility.
Respectfully, this article is little more than someone spewing why their “genius” hasn’t been recognized by the world like Jobs’ was...
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