I don’t know if it is just my network of Facebook friends or what, but I’m getting a little sick of the public mourning in the wake of Steve Jobs’ death. (Edit – Clearly it is not just my friends who are fuckwits – see this gem sent by my friend, ADM) Honestly, if you left flowers at an apple store or stood outside one with an image of a candle on your iPad, you should be sterilized. Forcibly. Without anesthesia. You do not deserve to reproduce, and if your genes are actually carried forward, it will mean that mankind has devolved, even just a little bit.
A CEO of a big company died. You like the shit his company sold, and will continue to sell. Move on, you fools.
Don’t get me wrong, on some level I am indeed sad that he is dead. That level is pretty shallow though. He was 56 when he died. If I only make it that far, my kids will both attend my funeral while they are in high school. The thought of that makes me sad. So, on that level, I feel sad that he died… and that’s as far as it goes. But, that would apply to any 56 year old who died.
Meanwhile, it seems that at least half of my acquaintances are treating this like the dalai lama got hit by a bulldozer while he was giving CPR to the baby jesus, who planned to collaborate with him and Santa Claus to bring mankind to its final place of peace and brotherhood. Tributes, videos, weeping, that “here’s to the misfits” quote that he didn’t even write. I’ll admit, I like that quote:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple Inc.
As cool as it is, that was NOT written by Steve Jobs. It is a clever piece of marketing written by some faceless drone, or a team of them at TBWA Worldwide, which is part of the global marketing group Omnicom. You think a “rebel” or a “troublemaker” would make it at Omnicom? Or at Steve Jobs’ Apple, for that matter?
No, that piece of fabulous inspiration was written to con you — to make you say “yeah, that’s me. I’m different! I need a Mac!”
I’m not saying that I have a beef with Apple’s products. I’m writing this on a dual-screen iMac, and my iPhone doesn’t sit too far away. I use a MacBook Air at work. I have four additional MacBooks lying around here, and two iPads. These tools work for me. But, I’m no more going to mourn the death of the guy who ran the company that made them than I am going to mourn the passing of the CEO of Bank of America if he gets his comeuppance.
While the fanboy mourning and corpse fellating continues around you, especially if you’re participating in it (you fucking sheep), remember that commercial from 1984? The one where Apple compared itself to some mythical freedom fighter, breaking the chains of tyranny? I wish that I could pwn that view as resoundingly as Mike Daisey. Since I can’t, here’s his pwning.
Because of its enormous strength in both music sales and mobile devices, Apple has more power than at any time in its history, and it is using that power to make the computing experience of its users less free, more locked down and more tightly regulated than ever before. All of Apple’s iDevices — the iPod, iPhone and iPad — use operating systems that deny the user access to their workings. Users cannot install programs themselves; they are downloaded from Apple’s servers, which Apple controls and curates, choosing at its whim what can and can’t be distributed, and where anything can be censored with little or no explanation.
The Steve Jobs who founded Apple as an anarchic company promoting the message of freedom, whose first projects with Stephen Wozniak were pirate boxes and computers with open schematics, would be taken aback by the future that Apple is forging. Today there is no tech company that looks more like the Big Brother from Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial than Apple itself, a testament to how quickly power can corrupt. (source)
Here’s to the crazy ones! Here’s to the misfits. Oh, and here’s to the outsourcing of jobs and miserable labor conditions! Yeah, everything you buy from Apple prominently and proudly states “Designed in California,” on it. Clever way to skirt around the issue that this “American” company saves a bundle by manufacturing its products in the same shitty conditions as everything else you buy except wooden toys from Vermont.
Apple’s rise to power in our time directly paralleled the transformation of global manufacturing. As recently as 10 years ago Apple’s computers were assembled in the United States, but today they are built in southern China under appalling labor conditions. Apple, like the vast majority of the electronics industry, skirts labor laws by subcontracting all its manufacturing to companies like Foxconn, a firm made infamous for suicides at its plants, a worker dying after working a 34-hour shift, widespread beatings, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to meet high quotas set by tech companies like Apple. (source)
But, this is all just profit-seeking behavior, right? A CEO has a right to squeeze every dime from the public he wants to. After all, that’s the point of a corporation – to make money and to dominate their market, if they can. Jobs was no different than any other CEO, and lets not forget that.
Oh wait, he was a little different.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is known for his obsessive attention to detail and iron-fisted management style. He is often accused of making his subordinates cry and firing employees arbitrarily. But Jobs’ subordinates remain loyal. Several deputies–even those who have left the company–say they’ve never done better work. As one Apple employee told journalist John Martellaro, “His autocracy is balanced by his famous charisma–he can make the task of designing a power supply feel like a mission from God. (source)
So he was an autocratic, bullying, over-compensating, douchebag who brought plenty of evil to the world. He also was, in some part, responsible for creating the tools I use at work every day. So lets mourn him, just like we mourn the guy who invented the hammer or the wheelbarrow. Go about your business and stop being a fucking moron lemming.
Think different you fucking sheep.
