11 ms·

I’m honestly confused by the points of view that hold that unless a person was/is as pure as the driven snow they deserve to be scrubbed from the history books.

I’m honestly confused by the points of view that hold that unless a person was/is as pure as the driven snow they deserve to be scrubbed from the history books. Jobs, Churchill, Gates, Musk - I don’t understand. It’s as if proponents of that view believe that the only people deserving of recognition are those that were completely internally consistent, including by the times in which they are being judged (ie present tense). Humans are complex. None of us (or at least, very very few of us) are fully internally consistent. The personality flaws that cause the greatest consternation may also be those that lead to our greatest triumphs. If they are not criminal, why not recognise people for doing great things? And why is it so hard to say add the caveat that like all humans, they had their flaws?

p1necone 5y ago
I don't think parent is saying that Jobs should be "scrubbed from the history books", quite the opposite really. They're saying that we shouldn't just talk about all the positive things that Jobs did as if he was some kind of paragon - the history books should also talk about the bad.
- gibolt 5y ago
  He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. So he was an ass to work with... That doesn't void anything else that was done, nor should it be a highlight. Worth mentioning, sure. Visionaries are usually hard to deal with (perhaps because they are fighting against the grain). Most visionaries are wrong, but that diversity is what pushes us forward.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    To some degree yes... but to some degree you sound like you're claiming they did what they did in a vacuum. iPhone launched 2007. Android was announced in 2007 and released in 2008. Palm had large-screen phones with apps and a browser in 2002[1]. A lot of things happen around people that isn't completely due to them being them. We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. [1]: if not earlier. randomly skimming wikipedia finds e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices
    - carlosdp 5y ago
      > We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. I believe there's a logical fallacy that described this thinking. I definitely don't think the smartphone revolution was inevitable, at least not on the timetable it happened on because Jobs pushed it forward. Yea, Palm had large-screen phones, and yet most people didn't care and still didn't have smartphones. That could have kept repeating for a long time more, with just Blackberry holding the market and just for "business phones," if Apple hadn't come in with its consumer gravitas. It's easy to look in hindsight and think the future was inevitable, but it often wasn't.
      - strken 5y ago
        There was a tipping point just before smartphones where J2ME apps were surging in popularity and feature phones were getting cheaper and better, where it was obvious that something was going to happen. My phone had google maps, ebooks, the web browser opera mini, and a very slow gameboy emulator running on it as J2ME apps in 2006.
        netr0ute 5y ago
        The difference is that the iPhone ran a "full" OS without the "baby software" on every other device at the time.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        The iPhone was most certainly not the most full OS at the time.
        lmm 5y ago
        The opposite was true actually - the original iPhone couldn't run third-party applications at all. What it did have was a much bigger and better touchscreen that didn't need a stylus. (Even that wasn't really a technical innovation per se - rather it was the willingness to charge over twice as much as previous phones that made it possible).
  - Jedd 5y ago
    > He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. Steve Jobs? This is going to need a fair amount of substantiation, because those are some wild claims.
    - mattl 5y ago
      I assume the parent is referring to MobileMe, iPod socks and NeXTSTEP for PA RISC.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs may not have invented the personal computer, smartphone, or computer-generated animated movies, but he definitely popularized all of them
      - theonlybutlet 5y ago
        In the US yes, the rest of the world not so much. They were already popular or had other influences initially.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        You're relying a lot on "or had other influences". None of those things were invented by him, or by the companies he worked with. They were mass-marketed by him.
        theonlybutlet 5y ago
        Indeed but things like smartphones already had mass appeal in Europe and Asia, from the likes of Nokia in Europe and NTTDocomo in Japan.
    - hncurious 5y ago
      Here you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
  - drunkenmagician 5y ago
    I'm not sure I would say 'changed the human trajectory for everyone', but I certainly think its fair to say that he was instrumental in substantially disrupting/transforming or created new markets in the technology (personal and business) space. The Apple 2 and Mac certainly disrupted personal computing in numerous ways (although perhaps the PC clone is a better example here). The Next box was a commercial failure, but a technological step forward for software. Mobile phones / tablets were clunky and did not have a great touch or internet experience before the iPhone. Apps / app stores have enabled a whole new paradigm for how users access global distributed services (and before someone says - mobile web, that experiences still is generally, subjectively a worse user experience than most apps). While there are plenty of stories about his abusive behavior (usually to his staff) especially in his younger days, there are equally plenty of positive anecdotes about him as a human. Personally I don't think I would have enjoyed working for him, but I feel it would have been an experience I would have not regretted. Like all of us, he was flawed in some areas, good in others.
  - theonlybutlet 5y ago
    "transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet" That's some real hyperbole. We had phones and pc's already, it wouldn't of transformed our lives or changed our trajectory but yes he has been influential in shaping what that looks llike A cosmetic impact sure.
  - ksec 5y ago
    >So he was an ass to work with I am starting to wonder if this is a tech thing. Because if you talk to people in many other industry, you will have a high chances of seeing / meeting one. And there are plenty of people who worked with him have no problem what so ever. And all of them are ones that are willing to stand up for themselves and talk back to Steve. I mean, by the age of late 30 one should realise most of the work we have today are really really shit. This may not be apparent in tech. But it is commonly the case everywhere else. Trying to push for higher quality and inertia will absolutely drive a person insane.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  But also don't let that one attribute of the person taint and overshadow a lifetime of accomplishments. I've seen a lot of this in the last few years on these sites. You start a thread about someone with a lifetime of achievements, and someone will inevitably come out of the woodwork to remind everyone: "Buuuuuut he was sexist" or "Buuuuuut he sometimes beat his kids" or (going farther back) "Buuuuut he was a slave-owner", implying that one attribute nullifies everything else the person did. Yes, everyone has flaws. Nobody is perfect. Particularly when you use today's more sensitive moral yardstick to measure yesterday's actions! You're never going to find Mother Teresa (who, by the way, is also a target of these kinds of "but she also" nit-picks). History books should also talk about the bad, but it usually doesn't deserve even a single chapter, let alone be a major theme of the book.
  - robbiep 5y ago
    I think the best current example of this is the ‘cancel billionaires’ writ large in the billionaire race to space. Yes wealth inequality is probably one of the biggest issues of our generation. Yes it is probably unethical that people are able to amass such huge fortunes particularly in some examples less reflective of the current crop of tech billionaires through tax loopholes and the fact that if you have money its easier to get more money. Yes musk is a billionaire but almost all of his assets are tied up in company stock, so like how do you go about redistributing that? Also, why is the meme that if we still have world hunger we shouldn’t have a space program back again? As though the world isn’t large enough for us collectively to pursue more than one avenue of progress at once.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      The issue is not about a space program, the issue is that it's a space program that is largely redistributing wealth from the commons to rich billionaires, i.e. a significant portion of funding is coming from government, through contracts and/or subsidies. On top of that is that the billionaires are using their money to fly to space, instead of really changing the world for better, which they clearly good do. At the same time there is a significant portion of our community that idiolises these people and acts as if they are in fact changing the world for better.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > the history books should also talk about the bad I'm not so sure. For example, I'm quite interested in what made Einstein great, his work on physics. I have zero interest in his failures in his non-physics personal life.
  - dagw 5y ago
    I'm quite interested in what made Einstein great, his work on physics. I have zero interest in his failures in his non-physics personal life. Then you probably should be reading about his work in a science text book rather than a history book. For history books, the background and context of the people and events is as important as the events themselves.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      You have a point, but my meaning is I will not adversely judge his accomplishments by listing his failures in other aspects of his life. How Steve Jobs treated his daughter, for example, is between him and his family. Diminishing his business accomplishments because of that is simply small-minded.
      - saiya-jin 5y ago
        That's your perspective, which is fine and dandy but that's not everyone's view. I for a change am interested in whole picture, not just nit-picking parts of humans to idolize and glorify them. If I should respect someone's opinion or success in life, well that respect needs to come from someplace. And in my eyes its just harder to earn it compared to your viewpoint - excellence in 1 singular aspect isn't cutting it. There are properly awesome people out there through and through, in private and public alike, and those deserve my full respect. The others, not so much.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > There are properly awesome people out there through and through, in private and public alike, and those deserve my full respect. Or they've just managed to successfully hide their feet of clay, or you've just decided that you like their awesomeness so much you're going to overlook their peccadilloes. Name any accomplished person, and you'll find haters.
- psyc 5y ago
  We have biographies for that.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Which is essentially a subset of history books.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  I think there is plenty of volunteers heaping scorn on Jobs and Musk on every significant forum. Surely not everyone has to join them, or?
bbarnett 5y ago
History books often contain contentious or unusual behaviour. The same for people reminiscing about others. Jobs yelled at people, fired them, and apparently worse? I don't know all the specifics, but... Of those he yelled at, how many conversations, without yelling, were had first? How many were had one on one first, but he was ignored? How many pleasant, amicable conversations were had. What's the ratio? To hear some talk, apparently Jobs was walking around Apple HQ, just randomly screaming at, and belittling others, all day long?! This seems inaccurate. And the 'style of the time' is critical, as parent says. You cannot judge a person's leadership style by today's standards, that's absurd, instead, how would Jobs be rated against the average manager/boss of the time? In the 80s, I had many a manager/boss which would be know to yell and belittle people. People would also crack racist jokes, make fun of alternate life styles, and in many cases only doing it to fit in, not really even caring or thinking wrong of it. History must be viewed as a contemporary would.
howaboutnope 5y ago
> Humans are complex. None of us (or at least, very very few of us) are fully internally consistent. More importantly, humans are different. Some are heads and shoulders above others morally or in other ways, and judge them accordingly. > There exists in our society a widespread fear of judging that has nothing whatever to do with the biblical "Judge not, that ye be not judged," and if this fear speaks in terms of "casting the first stone," it takes this word in vain. For behind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done. The moment moral issues are raised, even in passing, he who raises them will be confronted with this frightful lack of self-confidence and hence of pride, and also with a kind of mock-modesty that in saying, Who am I to judge? actually means We're all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend that they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites, and in either case should leave us alone. -- Hannah Arendt, "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship" > why not recognise people for doing great things? In this case, because they can't be called "great things" without diminishing human greatness and actually greats -- they're just product, often in the service of selfish, banal, mediocre ends. Certainly with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook. None of their luminaries can even tie the laces of people who can tie the laces of great people. So why can't the money be enough, why do we need to fawn over people, too?
lucideer 5y ago
There's nothing in the above comment about scrubbing from the history books. It's about veneration. There's plenty of people who are remembered in history but just not lauded for their actions. All the commenter is advocating is for a better understanding of historical figures.
everdrive 5y ago
I'm very uncomfortable putting Jobs in the same camp as Churchill, and even putting him in the same camp as Gates and Musk. (although admittedly, those do seem to at least be more fair comparison.) The main problem with Jobs is that he developed a cult following that (at least in my opinion) was never deserved. Gates never developed this, and has rightly been criticized for his practices at Microsoft, while still being praised for his charity work in later years. Musk arguably has a similar cult following, and to add to that, I know very little about him, so maybe of three you listed, Musk is the most fair comparison.
- robbiep 5y ago
  I didn’t intend to compare Churchill to Jobs or the others in terms of achievements, it was more a comment on criticism I have seen of him in the last year which nullifies all of his accomplishments on the basis of racist comments, which, however unpalatable they may seem today, appear to have ben unfortunately quite in keeping with many of his peers of the day. (I know there were other actions of his that have been criticised as well but let’s just keep it to one example at the moment). So, maybe bad comparison but my intent was illustrative only
  - everdrive 5y ago
    >I have seen of him in the last year which nullifies all of his accomplishments on the basis of racist comments Ah, I have completely missed this particular controversy. I was been wondering if this was really a debate about cancel culture. In that sense, I hear you. I'm vehemently anti-cancel culture, and I don't particularly care if some prominent historical figure had the "wrong" views.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Jobs, Churchill, Gates, Musk - I don’t understand. One of them was an asshole. The other one was... a white supremacist to say the least. "Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job." [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts
- robbiep 5y ago
  You have misunderstood the point I am trying to make. I’m aware he has said and been responsible for things that are pretty distasteful today, and potentially by a bunch of people in his day. That doesn’t nullify his contribution to history, it just makes him another flawed human

p1necone 5y ago

I don't think parent is saying that Jobs should be "scrubbed from the history books", quite the opposite really. They're saying that we shouldn't just talk about all the positive things that Jobs did as if he was some kind of paragon - the history books should also talk about the bad.

gibolt 5y ago
He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. So he was an ass to work with... That doesn't void anything else that was done, nor should it be a highlight. Worth mentioning, sure. Visionaries are usually hard to deal with (perhaps because they are fighting against the grain). Most visionaries are wrong, but that diversity is what pushes us forward.
- Groxx 5y ago
  To some degree yes... but to some degree you sound like you're claiming they did what they did in a vacuum. iPhone launched 2007. Android was announced in 2007 and released in 2008. Palm had large-screen phones with apps and a browser in 2002[1]. A lot of things happen around people that isn't completely due to them being them. We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. [1]: if not earlier. randomly skimming wikipedia finds e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices
  - carlosdp 5y ago
    > We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. I believe there's a logical fallacy that described this thinking. I definitely don't think the smartphone revolution was inevitable, at least not on the timetable it happened on because Jobs pushed it forward. Yea, Palm had large-screen phones, and yet most people didn't care and still didn't have smartphones. That could have kept repeating for a long time more, with just Blackberry holding the market and just for "business phones," if Apple hadn't come in with its consumer gravitas. It's easy to look in hindsight and think the future was inevitable, but it often wasn't.
    - strken 5y ago
      There was a tipping point just before smartphones where J2ME apps were surging in popularity and feature phones were getting cheaper and better, where it was obvious that something was going to happen. My phone had google maps, ebooks, the web browser opera mini, and a very slow gameboy emulator running on it as J2ME apps in 2006.
      - netr0ute 5y ago
        The difference is that the iPhone ran a "full" OS without the "baby software" on every other device at the time.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        The iPhone was most certainly not the most full OS at the time.
        lmm 5y ago
        The opposite was true actually - the original iPhone couldn't run third-party applications at all. What it did have was a much bigger and better touchscreen that didn't need a stylus. (Even that wasn't really a technical innovation per se - rather it was the willingness to charge over twice as much as previous phones that made it possible).
- Jedd 5y ago
  > He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. Steve Jobs? This is going to need a fair amount of substantiation, because those are some wild claims.
  - mattl 5y ago
    I assume the parent is referring to MobileMe, iPod socks and NeXTSTEP for PA RISC.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs may not have invented the personal computer, smartphone, or computer-generated animated movies, but he definitely popularized all of them
    - theonlybutlet 5y ago
      In the US yes, the rest of the world not so much. They were already popular or had other influences initially.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        You're relying a lot on "or had other influences". None of those things were invented by him, or by the companies he worked with. They were mass-marketed by him.
        theonlybutlet 5y ago
        Indeed but things like smartphones already had mass appeal in Europe and Asia, from the likes of Nokia in Europe and NTTDocomo in Japan.
  - hncurious 5y ago
    Here you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
- drunkenmagician 5y ago
  I'm not sure I would say 'changed the human trajectory for everyone', but I certainly think its fair to say that he was instrumental in substantially disrupting/transforming or created new markets in the technology (personal and business) space. The Apple 2 and Mac certainly disrupted personal computing in numerous ways (although perhaps the PC clone is a better example here). The Next box was a commercial failure, but a technological step forward for software. Mobile phones / tablets were clunky and did not have a great touch or internet experience before the iPhone. Apps / app stores have enabled a whole new paradigm for how users access global distributed services (and before someone says - mobile web, that experiences still is generally, subjectively a worse user experience than most apps). While there are plenty of stories about his abusive behavior (usually to his staff) especially in his younger days, there are equally plenty of positive anecdotes about him as a human. Personally I don't think I would have enjoyed working for him, but I feel it would have been an experience I would have not regretted. Like all of us, he was flawed in some areas, good in others.
- theonlybutlet 5y ago
  "transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet" That's some real hyperbole. We had phones and pc's already, it wouldn't of transformed our lives or changed our trajectory but yes he has been influential in shaping what that looks llike A cosmetic impact sure.
- ksec 5y ago
  >So he was an ass to work with I am starting to wonder if this is a tech thing. Because if you talk to people in many other industry, you will have a high chances of seeing / meeting one. And there are plenty of people who worked with him have no problem what so ever. And all of them are ones that are willing to stand up for themselves and talk back to Steve. I mean, by the age of late 30 one should realise most of the work we have today are really really shit. This may not be apparent in tech. But it is commonly the case everywhere else. Trying to push for higher quality and inertia will absolutely drive a person insane.
ryandrake 5y ago
But also don't let that one attribute of the person taint and overshadow a lifetime of accomplishments. I've seen a lot of this in the last few years on these sites. You start a thread about someone with a lifetime of achievements, and someone will inevitably come out of the woodwork to remind everyone: "Buuuuuut he was sexist" or "Buuuuuut he sometimes beat his kids" or (going farther back) "Buuuuut he was a slave-owner", implying that one attribute nullifies everything else the person did. Yes, everyone has flaws. Nobody is perfect. Particularly when you use today's more sensitive moral yardstick to measure yesterday's actions! You're never going to find Mother Teresa (who, by the way, is also a target of these kinds of "but she also" nit-picks). History books should also talk about the bad, but it usually doesn't deserve even a single chapter, let alone be a major theme of the book.
- robbiep 5y ago
  I think the best current example of this is the ‘cancel billionaires’ writ large in the billionaire race to space. Yes wealth inequality is probably one of the biggest issues of our generation. Yes it is probably unethical that people are able to amass such huge fortunes particularly in some examples less reflective of the current crop of tech billionaires through tax loopholes and the fact that if you have money its easier to get more money. Yes musk is a billionaire but almost all of his assets are tied up in company stock, so like how do you go about redistributing that? Also, why is the meme that if we still have world hunger we shouldn’t have a space program back again? As though the world isn’t large enough for us collectively to pursue more than one avenue of progress at once.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    The issue is not about a space program, the issue is that it's a space program that is largely redistributing wealth from the commons to rich billionaires, i.e. a significant portion of funding is coming from government, through contracts and/or subsidies. On top of that is that the billionaires are using their money to fly to space, instead of really changing the world for better, which they clearly good do. At the same time there is a significant portion of our community that idiolises these people and acts as if they are in fact changing the world for better.
WalterBright 5y ago
> the history books should also talk about the bad I'm not so sure. For example, I'm quite interested in what made Einstein great, his work on physics. I have zero interest in his failures in his non-physics personal life.
- dagw 5y ago
  I'm quite interested in what made Einstein great, his work on physics. I have zero interest in his failures in his non-physics personal life. Then you probably should be reading about his work in a science text book rather than a history book. For history books, the background and context of the people and events is as important as the events themselves.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    You have a point, but my meaning is I will not adversely judge his accomplishments by listing his failures in other aspects of his life. How Steve Jobs treated his daughter, for example, is between him and his family. Diminishing his business accomplishments because of that is simply small-minded.
    - saiya-jin 5y ago
      That's your perspective, which is fine and dandy but that's not everyone's view. I for a change am interested in whole picture, not just nit-picking parts of humans to idolize and glorify them. If I should respect someone's opinion or success in life, well that respect needs to come from someplace. And in my eyes its just harder to earn it compared to your viewpoint - excellence in 1 singular aspect isn't cutting it. There are properly awesome people out there through and through, in private and public alike, and those deserve my full respect. The others, not so much.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > There are properly awesome people out there through and through, in private and public alike, and those deserve my full respect. Or they've just managed to successfully hide their feet of clay, or you've just decided that you like their awesomeness so much you're going to overlook their peccadilloes. Name any accomplished person, and you'll find haters.
psyc 5y ago
We have biographies for that.
- dagw 5y ago
  Which is essentially a subset of history books.
inglor_cz 5y ago
I think there is plenty of volunteers heaping scorn on Jobs and Musk on every significant forum. Surely not everyone has to join them, or?

bbarnett 5y ago

History books often contain contentious or unusual behaviour. The same for people reminiscing about others. Jobs yelled at people, fired them, and apparently worse? I don't know all the specifics, but... Of those he yelled at, how many conversations, without yelling, were had first? How many were had one on one first, but he was ignored? How many pleasant, amicable conversations were had. What's the ratio? To hear some talk, apparently Jobs was walking around Apple HQ, just randomly screaming at, and belittling others, all day long?! This seems inaccurate. And the 'style of the time' is critical, as parent says. You cannot judge a person's leadership style by today's standards, that's absurd, instead, how would Jobs be rated against the average manager/boss of the time? In the 80s, I had many a manager/boss which would be know to yell and belittle people. People would also crack racist jokes, make fun of alternate life styles, and in many cases only doing it to fit in, not really even caring or thinking wrong of it. History must be viewed as a contemporary would.

howaboutnope 5y ago

> Humans are complex. None of us (or at least, very very few of us) are fully internally consistent. More importantly, humans are different. Some are heads and shoulders above others morally or in other ways, and judge them accordingly. > There exists in our society a widespread fear of judging that has nothing whatever to do with the biblical "Judge not, that ye be not judged," and if this fear speaks in terms of "casting the first stone," it takes this word in vain. For behind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done. The moment moral issues are raised, even in passing, he who raises them will be confronted with this frightful lack of self-confidence and hence of pride, and also with a kind of mock-modesty that in saying, Who am I to judge? actually means We're all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend that they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites, and in either case should leave us alone. -- Hannah Arendt, "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship" > why not recognise people for doing great things? In this case, because they can't be called "great things" without diminishing human greatness and actually greats -- they're just product, often in the service of selfish, banal, mediocre ends. Certainly with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook. None of their luminaries can even tie the laces of people who can tie the laces of great people. So why can't the money be enough, why do we need to fawn over people, too?

lucideer 5y ago

There's nothing in the above comment about scrubbing from the history books. It's about veneration. There's plenty of people who are remembered in history but just not lauded for their actions. All the commenter is advocating is for a better understanding of historical figures.

everdrive 5y ago

I'm very uncomfortable putting Jobs in the same camp as Churchill, and even putting him in the same camp as Gates and Musk. (although admittedly, those do seem to at least be more fair comparison.) The main problem with Jobs is that he developed a cult following that (at least in my opinion) was never deserved. Gates never developed this, and has rightly been criticized for his practices at Microsoft, while still being praised for his charity work in later years. Musk arguably has a similar cult following, and to add to that, I know very little about him, so maybe of three you listed, Musk is the most fair comparison.

robbiep 5y ago
I didn’t intend to compare Churchill to Jobs or the others in terms of achievements, it was more a comment on criticism I have seen of him in the last year which nullifies all of his accomplishments on the basis of racist comments, which, however unpalatable they may seem today, appear to have ben unfortunately quite in keeping with many of his peers of the day. (I know there were other actions of his that have been criticised as well but let’s just keep it to one example at the moment). So, maybe bad comparison but my intent was illustrative only
- everdrive 5y ago
  >I have seen of him in the last year which nullifies all of his accomplishments on the basis of racist comments Ah, I have completely missed this particular controversy. I was been wondering if this was really a debate about cancel culture. In that sense, I hear you. I'm vehemently anti-cancel culture, and I don't particularly care if some prominent historical figure had the "wrong" views.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Jobs, Churchill, Gates, Musk - I don’t understand. One of them was an asshole. The other one was... a white supremacist to say the least. "Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job." [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts

robbiep 5y ago
You have misunderstood the point I am trying to make. I’m aware he has said and been responsible for things that are pretty distasteful today, and potentially by a bunch of people in his day. That doesn’t nullify his contribution to history, it just makes him another flawed human