5 ms·

Question towards Steve Jobs on a Cupertino City Council Meeting in 2011: "[How do] city residents benefit from [Apple's new campus]?" Jobs: "Well, as you know

by Eduard 10y ago

Question towards Steve Jobs on a Cupertino City Council Meeting in 2011: "[How do] city residents benefit from [Apple's new campus]?" Jobs: "Well, as you know, we're the largest taxpayer in Cupertino. So we'd like to continue to stay here and pay taxes. [...]. Because if we can't, then we have to go somehwere like Mountain View [and] the largest tax base will go away. This wouldn't be good for Cupertino." https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=11m1s https://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M?t=11m1s

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Can you blame him? There's nothing sleazier than municipal governments, at least once they reach a certain size. They all see the business class as a gravy train to ride instead of finding ways to do a better job with the already large budgets they have. Chicago doesn't have a Jobs to control it, so its endless tax raises to pay for sweetheart public union pension deals and other backroom corruption. I think the internet-friendly narrative of government being bullied by evil corporations is a fairly unrealistic. Its usually the other way around. I find it amusing that so many have an undying love for Jobs' judgement in business, technology, etc but his political dealings give them pause because it goes against the left's idea of how the world works. Jobs didn't act like this to be difficult, he said and did these things because its one of the more effective ways to control a city government that can hurt or even destroy your business trivially.
- tamana 10y ago
  Size has nothing to do with it. Plenty of small sleazy munis too
- PavlovsCat 10y ago
  While we're talking generalities, here's something more serious. > What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government. -- Noam Chomsky
  - strictnein 10y ago
    Oh boy... a Chomsky quote. > "so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on" Yeah, that's never in the news.
    - PavlovsCat 10y ago
      Oh, an ad-hominem and a straw man, and of course total avoidance of the core point. What a surprise.
      - rfrey 10y ago
        What? There's no ad-hominem there. And what straw man? Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported. Maybe he's right, maybe you're right, but there's no straw man. Sometimes I feel like people have browser plugins that randomly pluck sins from the Wikipedia page for logical fallacies.
        wutbrodo 10y ago
        > What? There's no ad-hominem there. I don't like Chomsky either, but "Oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and the implication that it's somehow less valid because of its provenance is pretty much the definition of an _ad hominem_.
        PavlovsCat 10y ago
        > What? There's no ad-hominem there "oh boy, a Chomsky quote"? That implies no connotation there to you? There is no ad hominem you notice then. > Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported Does that address the central point, or does it take one sentence out of context, then takes it literally without seeing the woods for the trees? Call it a straw man, call it not getting the point and splitting irrelevant hairs, same difference. Yes, all sorts of things do get reported, nope, doesn't change anything about the gist of the quote. Here's a random comment from you to explain it better: > your remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl. Does that mean that's what they are literally saying, saying word by word the exact same sentence any 7 year old would say? Is the discussion about throwing? You didn't say "similar to", you said "no difference", after all. It gets worse, notice that you said "7 year old", not "roughly 7 years old". So a person who is exact 7 years old, no day, no minute, not even a second, not even tenth of a second older... but hey, it would take too long for any child to say a few words while they are still exactly 7, we could even wonder if that exact moment can even be found. So that clearly makes no sense. Imagine getting such a response of someone either acting dumb or not getting it, and when you call it out as such, you get MORE games and a downvote. You would notice the problem quite easily, why don't you notice it here? Maybe because you don't even feel forced to seriously think about it; the difference is not that the Chomsky quote has been dealt with even just one iota more seriously or more honestly, the difference is in where the status quo lies, and what power doesn't care about or even supports. When you are on its side, one can get away with "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and other such nonsense. Just like you could accuse someone of throwing like a girl around jocks no questions asked. Nobody will ever take you to task for your response to me. It's not like you just called anyone a racial slur, you just supported someone dismissing words with utter sophistry. Nothing to even skip a beat over, right? And the interwebs is positively littered with that, that's kind of one of the reactions Chomsky evokes. You might call him a litmus test. And you know, I said "ad-hominem and straw man" because I didn't want to insult anyone's intelligence with this rant. It's not that I can't back up what I say in however much detail you need, I just find it unproductive. Just like I tend to collect and re-post quotes that say things I agree with; which I could say in my own words, in more words and less elegantly. Why do that, when there is a "quote for the occasion"? When people interpret a quote as saying "this is true because X says it", that's their problem, I don't operate that way.
jinushaun 10y ago
Oh yeah, I remember that guy from the hearing. It's incredible he still has a job. His remarks were so sleazy and obviously corrupt.
WavingThe44 10y ago
In my limited experience, any kind of negotiation where the parties have a weak or a bit of an adversarial relationship, will probably degenerate into this kind of shin-kicking and posturing about walking away on both sides.

by Eduard 10y ago

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

Can you blame him? There's nothing sleazier than municipal governments, at least once they reach a certain size. They all see the business class as a gravy train to ride instead of finding ways to do a better job with the already large budgets they have. Chicago doesn't have a Jobs to control it, so its endless tax raises to pay for sweetheart public union pension deals and other backroom corruption. I think the internet-friendly narrative of government being bullied by evil corporations is a fairly unrealistic. Its usually the other way around. I find it amusing that so many have an undying love for Jobs' judgement in business, technology, etc but his political dealings give them pause because it goes against the left's idea of how the world works. Jobs didn't act like this to be difficult, he said and did these things because its one of the more effective ways to control a city government that can hurt or even destroy your business trivially.

tamana 10y ago
Size has nothing to do with it. Plenty of small sleazy munis too
PavlovsCat 10y ago
While we're talking generalities, here's something more serious. > What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propaganda is what's called "anti-politics". So that anything that goes wrong, you blame the government. Well okay, there's plenty to blame the government about, but the government is the one institution that people can change... the one institution that you can affect without institutional change. That's exactly why all the anger and fear has been directed at the government. The government has a defect - it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect - they're pure tyrannies. So therefore you want to keep corporations invisible, and focus all anger on the government. So if you don't like something, you know, your wages are going down, you blame the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500. You just read what they tell you in the newspapers... so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on, all you know is that the bad government is doing something, so let's get mad at the government. -- Noam Chomsky
- strictnein 10y ago
  Oh boy... a Chomsky quote. > "so you don't read about the dazzling profits and the stupendous dizz, and the wages going down and so on" Yeah, that's never in the news.
  - PavlovsCat 10y ago
    Oh, an ad-hominem and a straw man, and of course total avoidance of the core point. What a surprise.
    - rfrey 10y ago
      What? There's no ad-hominem there. And what straw man? Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported. Maybe he's right, maybe you're right, but there's no straw man. Sometimes I feel like people have browser plugins that randomly pluck sins from the Wikipedia page for logical fallacies.
      - wutbrodo 10y ago
        > What? There's no ad-hominem there. I don't like Chomsky either, but "Oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and the implication that it's somehow less valid because of its provenance is pretty much the definition of an _ad hominem_.
      - PavlovsCat 10y ago
        > What? There's no ad-hominem there "oh boy, a Chomsky quote"? That implies no connotation there to you? There is no ad hominem you notice then. > Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported Does that address the central point, or does it take one sentence out of context, then takes it literally without seeing the woods for the trees? Call it a straw man, call it not getting the point and splitting irrelevant hairs, same difference. Yes, all sorts of things do get reported, nope, doesn't change anything about the gist of the quote. Here's a random comment from you to explain it better: > your remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl. Does that mean that's what they are literally saying, saying word by word the exact same sentence any 7 year old would say? Is the discussion about throwing? You didn't say "similar to", you said "no difference", after all. It gets worse, notice that you said "7 year old", not "roughly 7 years old". So a person who is exact 7 years old, no day, no minute, not even a second, not even tenth of a second older... but hey, it would take too long for any child to say a few words while they are still exactly 7, we could even wonder if that exact moment can even be found. So that clearly makes no sense. Imagine getting such a response of someone either acting dumb or not getting it, and when you call it out as such, you get MORE games and a downvote. You would notice the problem quite easily, why don't you notice it here? Maybe because you don't even feel forced to seriously think about it; the difference is not that the Chomsky quote has been dealt with even just one iota more seriously or more honestly, the difference is in where the status quo lies, and what power doesn't care about or even supports. When you are on its side, one can get away with "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and other such nonsense. Just like you could accuse someone of throwing like a girl around jocks no questions asked. Nobody will ever take you to task for your response to me. It's not like you just called anyone a racial slur, you just supported someone dismissing words with utter sophistry. Nothing to even skip a beat over, right? And the interwebs is positively littered with that, that's kind of one of the reactions Chomsky evokes. You might call him a litmus test. And you know, I said "ad-hominem and straw man" because I didn't want to insult anyone's intelligence with this rant. It's not that I can't back up what I say in however much detail you need, I just find it unproductive. Just like I tend to collect and re-post quotes that say things I agree with; which I could say in my own words, in more words and less elegantly. Why do that, when there is a "quote for the occasion"? When people interpret a quote as saying "this is true because X says it", that's their problem, I don't operate that way.

jinushaun 10y ago

Oh yeah, I remember that guy from the hearing. It's incredible he still has a job. His remarks were so sleazy and obviously corrupt.

WavingThe44 10y ago

In my limited experience, any kind of negotiation where the parties have a weak or a bit of an adversarial relationship, will probably degenerate into this kind of shin-kicking and posturing about walking away on both sides.