[LINK] Jobs article

[jim birch]

An (actually) interesting article on iGod, deceased, aka Steve Jobs in the
New Republic:

But “not political” may be the wrong term to describe him. There is a
curious passage in his interview with *Wired, *in 1996, where he notes:

When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy.
The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little
older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give
people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought.
Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a
revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what
they want. It’s the truth.

There is a hint of contempt, even of misanthropy, in this observation; and
also of the marketer’s view of the world. Reform as a category of thought
did not seem to exist in Steve Jobs’s universe, even if he was always
tweaking his products. That an entirely different institutional and
political arrangement might be possible; that it might result in better
television; that this new kind of television might still be enjoyed by the
population and play an important civic role in the national discourse—none
of this occurred to him.

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/100978/form-fortune-steve-jobs-philosopher?passthru=NjBmMzkyYjk0Y2ZlMTY0MzgxYmIzMjY3NDhlMjRiOWM

Jim