This is really ridiculous. I am definitely someone who would fall into the category of “zealous Apple fan” but Steve Jobs was clearly an asshole of the highest order. Read the Walter Isaacson biography or his daughter’s memoir, Small Fry. Lisa Brennan Jobs has no reason to peddle “anti-Apple rhetoric”. She has a vested interest in the opposite! But her book tells her story about growing up with a massive asshole for a father.
The problem here is that I’ve brought up a scenario: people who frame Jobs as 100% one way or another (just like some people
frame Apple as one way or another.)
So what do you do? Frame him as one way - in this case in a bad light. Exactly as I stated some people do.
And what? You’re upset that I don’t value your opinion on the matter because you can’t process inconvenient shades of grey.
Sure quote Lisa, I could come back
and quote J Ive - because different people have had different experiences with him. It merely proves that shades of grey exist.
Still you seem incapable of seeing that people have different views of him. That perhaps he was good in some ways, awful in others.
Hence why I will never pay any credit to people who can’t look at, and pay appropriate credit to all of the information. Everything exists in a shade of grey.
> because different people have had different experiences with him
This is true, but also highlights an important asymmetry. Somebody who is an asshole only to some people is really an asshole all the time. They're just a smart asshole, aware of the need to secure others' cooperation or more generally manage others' opinion of them. By contrast, a nice person is no worse than neutral to (within epsilon of) everyone. They don't need to manipulate others into being allies.
> Everything exists in a shade of grey.
Both sides, eh? Even grey has different shades. Yes, we should consider all the information and reach nuanced conclusions, but there's nothing wrong with recognizing that someone's "default setting" was to treat others poorly and that others should not try to emulate them. The "brilliant asshole" archetype, of which Jobs was very much an exemplar, has done immeasurable harm to our industry, and a few stealth-PR "revelations" don't change that.
I'll say it once more: I don't hold value to opinions which need to place people/things into these absurd good/bad columns. It's naive, especially when one can trivially find opposing examples.
So do what works for you though, I really don't care - that's my point. I care about people who can hold a nuanced view, they're the ones who are going to inform me without some adopted bias coming into play. Deliberately filtering the available information to create a convenient strawman is cherrypicking.
Being able to have a backbone and say a person did good and bad things and articulate clearly what those things are takes courage. Especially when the bandwagon has decided on one way or another.
In this case we're talking about Steve Jobs, so I'll also restate it: People who act like this man was god's gift are similarly holding a view I don't value. I actually said that in my original comment, so you can clearly see my view here. Whether you're choosing to make him out to be all good, or all bad is creating a false image, a lie.
Now perhaps you might be asking? What's so bad about a little lie, why shouldn't a person just round off these people into good or bad boxes and call it a day, isn't that easier.
No, because such behaviours are a slippery slope. Perhaps your own personal life is what someone else would classify as deeply and morally wrong. Then perhaps you'd be the one to hope that others don't throw you into the trash based on the one-line assessment of a stranger.
