Steve Jobs has died.

[greed]

Originally Posted by Magus

When they made a billion dollars.

I literally don't think it's possible to make a billion dollars and not fuck over someone somewhere, even tangentially.

Like I don't think Stephen King is a billionaire but if he were we'd have to keep in mind that they cut down half the rainforest to sell enough books for him to become a billionaire. And the people doing the cutting were probably child slaves or something.

And so billionaires are classed by "least evil" and as such Steve Jobs was probably one of the least evil. Like didn't him and Bill Gates try to outdo each other giving money to AIDS and cancer research and so on?

FYI Bill Gates is probably more evil than Steve Jobs on the scale of evil (even though I prefer Microsoft products).

EDIT: BTW what I said about the child cotton pickers, I can guarantee you that if you ever bought an "organic" cotton shirt or pair of jeans there's about a 97% chance the cotton was harvested by child slaves somewhere, probably Pakistan.

Billionaire are still people. Just really lucky ones who were willing to do horrible things to people for their own benefit. That's no reason to judge them any differently than other people. They don't have to be billionaires, they chose to be that greedy and ambitious and that apathetic about human suffering.

[BitVyper]

But I mean dying doesn't get you a super special magical pass out of criticism.

Dancing gifs are criticism the way Westboro Baptist picketing a funeral is criticism.

[Magus]

Ironically Mrs. Phelps tweeted about how happy she was to hear about Steve Jobs dying and going to hell.

The tweet was from her iPhone no less.

When the irony of the fact that she tweeted it from her iPhone was pointed out, she pointed out that "that's what God invented them for" (i.e. iPhones), declaring for the 3339930th time that she is insane.

Yes this involved an announcement that Westboro will indeed picket his funeral.

[Nique]

Originally Posted by Karesh

Wouldn't it be better to just delete the post then?

'I'm frustrated at how ridiculous the conversation is becoming. As it's pointless to try to reach an understanding with people who are being disingenuous, I'm out.'

Better?

[Nique]

They don't have to be billionaires, they chose to be that greedy and ambitious and that apathetic about human suffering.

A simple Google search, even about Steve Jobs specifically, reveals that this is not a simple issue of people being rich and evil.

Steve Jobs and Philanthropy on HuffPo, Deal Book, and noted philanthropist/ musician Bono's defense of Jobs' apparent lack of public donations on Bloomberg.

At at least one point in his life, Steve Jobs attempted to incorporate philanthropic causes into Apple in an official capacity though it never really panned out. It is considered odd for such a prolific billionaire to lack a public record of charitable giving, however Jobs was noted for maintaining an unusual level of privacy about personal matters and his family life. It has been speculated that Jobs may have donated anonymously to charities.

So harping on human rights/ workers rights issues here is preaching to the choir, (even though it is an issue worth talking about at length in a different capacity). Furthermore, doing so with an angle on Job's personal culpability and implied apathy of such issues without really knowing the circumstances of his personal life is in extraordinarily bad taste.

Pretending not to understand that at least some of what's going on in this thread violates pretty commonly accepted principals of decorum while at the same time making sweeping accusations about one individual's personal culpability in what amounts to slave labor is disingenuous to say the least.

That's no reason to judge them any differently than other people.

That's right. And first-world consumers are also responsible, on at least some level, for supporting deplorable working conditions. And... you know this is just off the top of my head so if it's not an air tight analogy I apologize, but no one made happy-dance smileys when large populations of such consumers are killed, let's say, like when Japan was hit by a tsunami.

Edit: One more thing. Let's me be clear that I think it would be equally insincere and ridiculous to venerate Jobs and speak only good of him until some arbitrarily determined point after his death and I don't think that it is wrong to incorporate details about Apple's history, even the sordid parts, into a conversation about Steve Jobs' death. But there's a way to do so with respect and sympathy for the fact that an untimely death for anyone is sad, that his death directly effects a lot of people, and that he was a man like any other who did good and bad things but probably tried to be basically pretty good and didn't want to die.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Wait, Bono is a philanthropist now? The same Bono who is guilty of massive tax evasion whih is crippling to the world's poor. You don't want him defending you.

[Fifthfiend]

Okay no I can't lie anymore I just love rich people.

4:20 white knight dead billionaires every day.

[Fifthfiend]

If you don't love Steve it's because you just didn't KNOW him the way I did.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

If you don't love Steve it's because you just didn't KNOW him the way I did.

Steve borrowed $20 from me once and never paid it back. What a cunt.

But like I've sat down and thought about it as you are asked me to and still don't have a good reason for not criticisng them the day after they die. Maybe I'm being dense here so explain it to me. Cause he's dead, what does he care? And there is a reason for criticising apple right now rather than in say a months.
The way I see it, people have been criticising apple for years but nobody has really paid attention to it, you have all this excess interest at the moment, you have the attention of peope who otherwise wouldn't pay attention- why don't you use that attention to maybe raise people's awareness to what is going on. When Steve Jobs dies islike the only time people are going to care about the inside world of Apple so by saying that is the one time you can't criticise Jobs and Apple you are inherentely defending their practices.

[Nique]

Originally Posted by Fifthvatar

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