[OT] GameOver Mr. Jobs

[Peter Brigham MD]

Good post. It's time to be a realist. I read Jobs' essay as laying out  
his thinking reasonably clearly, but with some slanting -- probably  
this is just the way he is, remember the "reality-distortion field"  
after all. In particular, I'd have a little more respect for him  
without the distortions -- eg:

"What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available  
in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and  
iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an  
app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering  
perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to  
this video  from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox  
News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,  
Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many  
others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video."

I just checked, and my iPhone still doesn't play any NYTimes video,  
which has been a major disappointment for me for some time now.... I  
can only hope that Jobs is right and that Apple's pressure towards  
(presumably) more reliable video standards will eventually induce  
outfits like the Times to provide video in a different format.  
Meanwhile, in the real world, I'm still missing out on something I  
want. I've written to the Times to request a different video format, I  
guess that's what I can do, but last I heard from my nephew, who works  
as a video producer for NYT, that any changes won't be very immediate.

-- Peter

Peter M. Brigham
pmbrig at gmail.com
http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig


On Apr 29, 2010, at 1:17 PM, Bob Sneidar wrote:

> I think the source of whatever disagreements are being had in this  
> thread stem from a tendency for people to misperceive the nature of  
> the world they actually have to deal with day to day, and their  
> ability to make any real quantum change in it's nature. This is  
> driven by the seemingly inescapable sense that "men ought to be  
> better than this" but simply aren't, coupled with their own  
> inability do do much about even themselves, never mind everyone else.
>
> One of the reactions to this phenomenon that I see people exhibit  
> frequently, is to imagine a better world, and then try to live their  
> lives as though the world was more like the better one they imagine.  
> My personal opinion is that this is a fools game. Usually what  
> actually transpires, is that being unable to produce any real  
> substantive change themselves, they often latch onto certain causes,  
> and then pursue them to extremes which would shame all but the best  
> of saints. In doing so, they cannot help to implicate and alienate a  
> great many people for "not doing enough" toward their particular  
> cause. The net result is a kind of moral finger pointing usually  
> reserved for religious folk who say but don't do.
>
> Now apparently many people feel that Steve Jobs ought to be behaving  
> much more in accordance with the benevolence and altruism that their  
> perception of "the world that ought to be" requires, and are  
> disappointed that he doesn't. I call to witness all the claims of  
> his lack of consideration for "what developers want" claiming that  
> instead he is simply focused on the bottom line.
>
> I suppose in the world that ought to be, heads of corporations would  
> be free to pursue such lofty goals at will, while the masses admired  
> him for all he aspired to do. But we live in the real world, not  
> "the world that ought to be", and in that real world, people pay  
> Steve Jobs a lot of money. Those people expect him to do one  
> particular job. That job is to make Apple as profitable, in the near  
> term and in the long term, as he can possible make it. Most of the  
> time he can accomplish this by accommodating as many end users and  
> developers as possible, but this is not always the case. Sometimes  
> in the world that is, you have to take from Peter to pay Paul.  
> Peter's friends will undoubtedly feel angst at this, but then Paul's  
> friends would feel no less angst should the transaction not have  
> occurred.
>
> So my point here is that trying to live your live in "the world that  
> ought to be" is fine up until the point that you begin to require of  
> others to do the same. If imaging such a world motivates you to be a  
> better person in the real one, excellent. We need more of you. Just  
> know that my version of "the world that ought to be" is likely to be  
> on may points contrary to yours. We aren't going to get along very  
> well requiring each other to conform to each other's dreams and  
> visions.
>
> Instead, we ought to resign ourselves to figuring out how the real  
> world works, and then do our best to live in that world while not  
> compromising our own personal principles, or encroaching on anyone  
> else's rights or freedoms. I often tell starry eyed young people  
> with hearts full of hope recently deferred, "There is 'The World  
> That Is' and there is 'The World That Ought To Be.' You can only  
> live in 'The World That Is.'"
>
> Bob
>
>
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