Posted on 10/07/2011 1:30:39 PM PDT by toma29
Steve Jobs is dead. A tech genius has passed on. Sad. Certainly a devastating loss to Steve Jobs' close friends and family members, as well as to Apple executives and shareholders. The rest of you? Calm down.
Among my Facebook friends yesterday, more than one wrote publicly that they were "crying" or "can't stop crying" or "teared up" due to Steve Jobs' death. Really now. You can't stop crying, now that you've heard that a middle-aged CEO has passed, after a long battle with cancer? If humans were always so empathetic, well, that would be understandable. But this type of one-upmanship of public displays of grief is both unbecoming and undeserved.
Real outpourings of public grief should be reserved for those people who lived life so heroically and selflessly that they stand as shining examples of love for all of humanity. People like, for example, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who—along with his family—was bombed, beaten, and stabbed during his years of principled activism in the US civil rights movement. Shuttlesworth died yesterday, the same day as Steve Jobs. He did not die a billionaire.
Death, of course, is not a competition. All deaths are sad for the living. Everyone deserves to be mourned, and well-known people will inevitably be mourned more loudly than others. But it is actually important to keep our grief in perspective. When we start mourning technocrats as idols, we cheapen the lives of those who have sacrificed more for their fellow man.
Steve Jobs was great at what he did. There's no need to further fellate the man's memory. He made good computers, he made good phones, he made good music players. He sold them well. He got obscenely rich. He enabled an entire generation of techie design fetishists to walk around with more attractive gadgets.
(Excerpt) Read more at gawker.com ...
I’m curious as to what the reaction would have been had it been Bill Gates instead of Steve Jobs?
Both were giants, regardless of which side you were on in the PC vs. Mac debate, certainly Bill Gates would have deserved all of the kudos that Steve Jobs received.
But somehow I don’t think that would have been the case.
To those hanging out in front of Apple stores:
Get. A. Life.
Well, considering all the scumbags people seem to adore in this country, they can do worse than mourning someone who epitomized American individualism, ingenuity, and entrepeneurism. He did what he did as a private citizen, not as some government wanker.
These people are commuting back and forth from the the Infest Wall Street protest!
And Jobs was not a god but a brilliant albeit ruthless business man.
“Both were giants, regardless of which side you were on in the PC vs. Mac debate, certainly Bill Gates would have deserved all of the kudos that Steve Jobs received.
But somehow I don’t think that would have been the case.”
Good point. I suppose it’s in part because the gadgets Gates invented didn’t become objects of idolatry by millions of shallow worshippers.
"He was a man, take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again."
But I agree, the crying and the competition for most grieving fan is typical baby boomer angst and emotionalism..
And to put it mildly, which one of the two would have scored more with the chicks?
I tend to agree with you.
Given the adoration for all the idiot celebrities and sports figures we find these days in the USA, it’s almost heartwarming to see a relentless capitalist get some love from the youngsters.
At the passing of the Apple Founder, it has been determined it’s just another “Job” lost...
I agree with both of you.
JOBS.... A three letter word...... J-O-B-S
I also need to mention that when people have no God, they will still find someone to worship.
Better Steve Jobs than Lady Gaga, Tiger Woods, or Michael Jackson.
I never heard that, do you have some references?
He did have pancreatic cancer.
In 10 years it will be Steve who?
MP3 players will be in the same junk box with 8 tracks.
iPAD & MacBook will be piled in the same corner with 286 computers.
Pixar may be the only lasting technology as it evolves into
lifelike photoshop animation to totally eliminate actors and sets.
He’s dead, Jim.
Now pick up the pieces of your shattered lives and move along.
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