The very same competion we all compete in, every day? Well then. 
True. But Iâm not happy about it, and I want a way out.
What does this mean?
Capitalism?
I know what you are getting at, so please understand I am not being a willfull jerk. Buy where are the original iphones still in use? Where are the iphones from three years ago?
And of course this is just an opinion, but I believe that Stonehenge, mt rushmore, the Brooklyn bridge, The Night Watch are legacies. Consumer electronics on a planned obsolescence trreadmill? No. Ymmv.
I canât speak for original iPhones (I was not an adopter), but my parents are still using iPhone4. And I totally get why. I still maintain a couple of IRIX boxes so I can still run some licensed software. But maybe the reason nobody builds pyramids or 'henges any more is that legacies are great for infrastructure, but something like a phone/pocket computer is going to change as quickly as the planting and harvesting seasons the builders needed Stonehenge for in the first place. Infrastructure is not the harvest.
I wonât say thatâs just capital-P Progress, but hardware and software have been changing in tandem since their conception. Why wouldnât we anticipate obsolescence? Why not plan for it? Why shouldnât a company like Apple or Samsung try for a greener way of building a device than their first shipping versions? I know this is not the way the term is used, but maybe that usage is useless here.
What I find weird is that anyone who argues that unix is more relevant than anything Jobs did, as though these things arenât completely orthogonal to each other. Most of the reactions to the book in this whole thread strike me as the sort youâd expect when people who donât understand somethingâs popularity are suddenly confronted with its reality: lost.
Itâs not that theyâre stuck in the past: the kernel changes plenty, and I remember when you could install linux with floppies. But, even dead, Jobs is relevant in ways they canât be and (arguably) are not supposed to be.
(Incidentally, my computer crashed while typing this message, and yet I was able to come back to it on restart without losing a single sentence. Boing Boing has the best comment system on the internet. Well done.)
4 Likes
Thatâs awesome 
I think we both understand each others positions, so I wonât belabor the point. Cheers!
1 Like
Well, capitalism does have a knack for producing abundance with technology, but with caveats about quality.
Apple, in that sense, is almost an outlier (perhaps this is why Apple is often comparedâludicrouslyâto North Korea).
I guess I still donât understand what you mean.
Yep, apart from BeOS, IRIX remains my favorite.
Actually, most of the reactions to the book in this thread (aside from the sub-conversation about his legacy, or whatever) are along the lines of âInsanely Great? Maybe at being a complete and utter asshole.â
Foolish Owl said,[quote]But Steve Jobs was a winner in a competition that threatens to destroy humanity, and possibly all life on Earth[/quote]
Iâm guessing that she or he was referring to capitalism or industrialism. I canât think of anything else Mr. Jobs was doing which could be destructive enough to meet the specified level. He might have destroyed a few individuals here and there, but for all of humanity you need a large system, to say the least. Whereas capitalism (or industrialism) gives us massive negative externalities like global warming, environmental destruction, world war, etc. etc. etc., which could always be ramped up.
Yes. Or more specifically, Jobs was a spectacularly successful capitalist.
People tend to praise Jobs with talk about how well-designed Apple products are. But being an excellent engineer, or an excellent designer, may make you a comfortable living, but it doesnât mean that youâve got the kind of control of wealth Jobs possessed. Weâre all stuck participating in a capitalist system, whether we like it or not, but when youâve âwonâ to that degree, you can no longer claim that the faults of the system have nothing to do with you, because youâre actually signing off on the decisions that make life hell for other people.
The rat race?
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
