For once, I agree with Mr. Steve Jobs
Posted on September 15th, 2011 in All and Everything
I don’t hate Apple. That would be a very stupid thing to do. I don’t even hate their users. I think that the users are either ignorant, too easily distracted by shallow things or plain computer-illiterate. There are very few people who get Apple things because of a specific, well detailed reason.
So when I heard that Mr. Jobs is stepping down as CEO of Apple I didn’t even twitch. Okay, whatever. No nihilist joy that they’re finally going down, no sadness because, as Apple or Jobs fanboys put it, “as a great entrepreneur you will forever remain in our memories and inspire us every step of our lives” or other gratuitous nonsense like that, probably uttered in the hope of getting noticed.
On that note, the first thing I noticed: everyone was hurrying to state something. To make a statement. An assertion.
Let’s face it, the farther you go from the “civilized world,” (i.e. the Western world) the less people care about Apple products. As a friend of mine said, in South Africa the iPhone has less than 1% market share. Most of the market is ruled by Nokia, because they make mobile phones that are cheaper and useful for phonecalls and text messages. Maybe casual browsing, instant messaging and so on. “Trendy” smartphones appear to be made for obsessive browsing and only casual phone usage (case in point – when I spoke to someone who had the first iPhone model, I could barely hear them, but they were so psyched about surfing on their new toy).
But even so, people from the less “civilized” corners of the world were posting all sorts of messages on the Internet, as if a lot of people were anticipating their view of the matter.
Mr. Jobs seems to have stepped down due to health problems. Regardless of how much I dislike the company’s philosophy, I can’t possibly wish that a person gets sick or dies or things like that. I wish him a long life and good health.
That doesn’t mean I agree with him, of course. He’s famous for not registering his fast, slick Mercedes car at all. He’s easy to identify because his car doesn’t have license plates and the model is some very fast, AMG-tuned version of an already powerful Mercedes model. I read that the specific model he owns is the fastest Merc in America.
So you drive a fast and slick car, you wear supposedly hip clothing, you use what you claim are the trendiest, slickest devices in the world and you don’t have license plates on your car?! Furthermore, you own the company creating said devices. I mean, from such a position one would be expected to show some decency. This is basic respect for the place you live in, just like most people respect others enough to not poop on the pavement and instead hold it until they get to their own homes. I don’t think the airplane carrying the US presidents, the famous Air Force One, would ever take off with some bits of paint missing. In theory, every part of an airplane contributes to the safety of the flight. In theory, the license plates also contribute to the safety of your car ownership. The position of president of the USA and supposedly, that of Apple CEO as well, is an institution that is supposed to inspire respect, so it should be as exemplary as possible at all times.
On the other hand, Mr. Jobs is also famous for parking in handicapped parking spaces. I find that completely acceptable. First of all, he owns the parking lot, but it’s not just that. I don’t think there ever was a case when someone with a disability drove a car into Apple’s parking lot, asked Mr. Jobs to please remove his car from the handicapped parking space and he didn’t. Or forced an actual disabled person to remove their car from that parking space so that he could park there. Some can argue that it’s simply classy to respect the rules your own empire created, thus giving a positive example. Yeah, but we’re talking about exactly one exception. And again, I have yet to hear about him inconveniencing a driver with a disability, in regard to that parking spot.
Anyway, I generally have different views on the world when compared to Mr. Jobs. When stepping down, he named a certain Mr. Tim Cook to succeed him in the position of Apple CEO. To me, someone who wouldn’t get an Apple device except maybe a desktop or a much older Mac laptop from the ’90s (and would most probably install another operating system on each of them immediately afterwards), that is not important news. It’s news only because a person has medical problems, like the famous actor Michael Douglas also had.
So of course the rest of the piece of news, the name of his appointed successor, was equally uninteresting to me. Until I found this post, on a Reuters blog, of all places.
It says don’t ignore Mr. Cook’s sexuality. Huh? Oh, he’s a homosexual man. So? Well, as the author puts it, “this is something we can and should be celebrating, if only in the name of diversity — that a company which by some measures the largest and most important in the world is now being run by a gay man.”
Not only does the author, a Mr. Felix Salmon, says that, but he also points a finger at the world for criticizing another person who mentioned this detail about Mr. Cook in a tweet.
What’s delicious about the Reuters blog post is actually in the comments. The absolutely correct reaction to the entire blog post is given by a user named Kanapapa (I wish there was a permalink button in the comments, but I couldn’t find it) and right next, there’s another good comment by user KateSanford.
Another user, named net4u, points out the obvious root of the problem by asking why the sexuality of gays is so important that it needs to be reported and why his sexuality is not worthy of a report. Well, that’s a very old problem. The media is a business who needs to make money to survive. So they will rarely report something positive, because it doesn’t sell – try to think of an example of a positive news story and after you realize it’s impossible or at least very hard, know that all the media you have been consuming got you here. The rule of reporting is always freak, “different” stuff. A crane collapsed. A house caught fire. Some actress tripped and almost fell during an award ceremony. Then they took it to the next level. People don’t like it when unpleasant or embarrassing things happen to them, right? So why not hunt the famous people and take pictures or videos of them while such things happens to them? The readers or viewers will love to see others suffer. Why is that? It’s simple, people are more or less miserable in this world. Most people want to live comfortably, with plenty of resources and a happy family. Some people already do live comfortably, but they want luxury. Others can afford the basic human needs but have to think well before buying something not immediately useful to them. All of these people want more. That is a form of misery. And they kinda like seeing the misery of others, probably because it comforts them to know that the important or rich or famous people also have their own miserable moments. And since these categories of people make up the bulk of the human population, voila! There’s the tabloid industry and the never-ending supply of consumers for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the Reuters article is tabloid journalism. It kind of is because of the topic, but at least it’s not infected with lots of exclamation marks and the frequently encountered keywords like controversial, shocking and that whole arsenal. Instead, the far more dangerous culprit here is the liberal idea that one should advertise their different sexuality just because it is different and it would somehow be like a heavy vote towards some society that they dream of, I mean these liberal people. They probably dream of a world in which everyone can do everything that anybody else can do, without any restrictions. Of course, that dream is impossible today, because people are getting less and less responsible by the day. I shouldn’t be paying attention when I drive a car, I shouldn’t be a responsible driver, it’s the car that needs to safeguard me from dying a horrible death because I wasn’t paying attention to the actual driving. Today, people think you’re unconscious if you drive a car without airbags, ABS, ESP and all that. As if the decades of cars built without any of these features didn’t really exist. No, it’s easy, you had to pay attention to driving. It’s called being responsible.
Or maybe they want “bulletproof recipe” restrictions. That doesn’t work, either, because people are very creative and they get obsessive about pretty much anything very easy, so they will find a way around restrictions every time.
So the blog post actually sounds like it’s coming from a typically bored North American who valiantly battles for the rights of social groups subjected to discrimination and all that crap you end up doing if you have too much money and got bored with having kinda everything you want. I’m not going to go into the subject of whether you’re born a homosexual or you choose to become one, but I will say that I think the truth is in the middle. Some will say homosexuals are born that way and can’t do anything about it. Others will dismiss them as insults to nature, genetic freaks, gay just so that they can be different and arrogant or other offensive terms like that. Where’s the middle? Okay, try to think of why they’re born that way. I won’t say more.
The kicker is that one would expect Mr. Jobs to be avid for cliches and stereotypes and maybe proudly announce that his successor is a homosexual. Or maybe the two of them releasing a joint statement, or something like that. Because Apple is the apex of cliches in this world. Shiny, slim, rounded, “intuitive” and all that crap. So the way they handled this, completely ignoring the fact, is worthy of a pat on the back. They might make overpriced devices for ignorants, but at least they aren’t lame about this.
So, yes. I agree with Mr. Jobs for naming someone based completely on his skills, someone who doesn’t wave his sexuality around like it’s some sort of logo. That can only help the stereotyping. Instead of having the stereotype that gays are somehow inferior to others, society would simply morph it into another stereotype, that gays should scream their lungs out each second that they’re gay. Oh wait, that already happened. Instead of social pressure to be heterosexual, there is now social pressure to be widely open about it, or else you’re in the closet and that’s not good.
You know what I’d like to see? A member of the LGBT community, like they are already labeled and thus obviously stigmatized, who doesn’t give a single, solitary, flying intercourse about what others think and who shares his sexuality only when appropriate: in a conversation with a person, telling it to friends, never caring if people pass the word that you’re like that, etc. Someone who refuses to go to gay pride parades. That, I would think, is a free man, not defined by context but instead, underlined by it.
There you go, folks. In case there was any doubt, Apple products are gay. Completely regardless of their boss’s sexual preferences. Because they have always been that way.
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