Steve Jobs is dead! A sad day for hipster douchebags everywhere!

[Triple Zero]

Ok, so we basically agree on what is and isn't appropriate, we just disagree on the nature of the article. You see it as reveling in Jobs' death. I see it as legitimate criticism of how Jobs' personality informed Apple's business model. Now we're getting somewhere.

Are we talking about the "What everybody is too polite to say about Jobs" article by Gawker, or the "I'm glad he's gone" one by RMS?

Because the former is (IMO) not really revelling in his death, but neither is it completely legitimate criticism.

And the latter is (obviously IMO) revelling in his death, while also bringing criticism that is a lot more legitimate.

The former is a big media corporation that really doesn't have a very clean conscience itself, jumping on the media bandwagon, playing the platform wars game, on the one hand catering to the apple fanboi's with a nice obituary and to the other side with the other article and its not-quite-legitimate criticism, that is obviously nothing more than a kneejerk response to all the fawning fanboi's.

The latter is an autistic fundamentalist crazy OSS zealot that probably reasoned "Steve Jobs died. I should write about that" which predictably turned into a fiery rant about the evils of closed source software focused on Steve Jobs with lots of righteous-feeling indignation and no regard for any sort of feelings, etiquette or social mores.

Both are tasteless in their own unique ways.

That said, in my very personal opinion, I'm not entirely sure how I'd feel about people dancing on Thatcher's grave either, how wicked a witch she might have been. Same for Bin Laden or Bush. I'd cheer if they defeated Al Qaeda, or the bigoted corruption that is rampant in the US Gov. Maybe I'd even cheer if Bin Laden's assassination would have actually accomplished anything. And I'm certainly not going to defend him and his wrongdoings against some scathing obituary, because he was really quite clearly an evil man.
But, in my opinion, there is something different about destroying evils. Evil isn't usually just the product of one man--ignoring serial killers, rapists, etc--in this really big complex world, the real big evils are produced by supra-human constructs, systems, corporations, committees, parties, bodies, boards, organisations but not singular physical organisms. Destroying those is quite a bit harder, nearly (but not completely) impossible, even. With Steve Jobs dead, doesn't mean Apple won't continue doing what Jobs is being criticised for in either article. With Bin Laden dead, doesn't mean Al Qaeda or whatever clusterfuck-du-jour in the Middle East will stop doing what it's doing. With Bush dead, nothing will change. With Thatcher dead there will be one vacated place in whatever upperest-class elderly home she's mindlessly dwelling now. It means nothing. You can be happy about it, is fine with me, but I think it's a meaningless empty happiness like an obese man celebrating the loss of body weight from cutting his fucking toenails.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Its funny that the people revelling in his death are people who hold passionate stances on the consumer products, and the intricacies of what those consumer product companies do. I guess it goes hand in hand with the first world problems stuff but they seems just as shallow as the company they hate so much.

Holy shit, completely. COMPLETELY.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Annnnd also what Trip said. That was really good.

[Cain]

While on the topic, fuck that loser Arch West.  He took the open source "tortilla" development, added a couple of different flavours and some shiny packaging for his pothead fans, then closed off all future development of the platform, by anyone.

Arch West is a monster and I'm glad he's gone. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

While on the topic, fuck that loser Arch West.  He took the open source "tortilla" development, added a couple of different flavours and some shiny packaging for his pothead fans, then closed off all future development of the platform, by anyone.

Arch West is a monster and I'm glad he's gone. 

Like a razor.

[Freeky]

Ten years ago, America had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs. Now they have no Cash, no Hope,  and no Jobs!



Thanks to Sam, the joke man.

BAHAHAHAH!

[kingyak]

Trip,

I'm talking about the Gawker article, and for the most part I read it as legitimate criticism. There are a couple of items (like the thing about his daughter) that are only tangentially related, but even those at least to some extent support the basic idea that some of Apple's polices are rooted in the fact that Jobs was a workaholic with a bit of a messiah complex.

Payne,
I'm intentionally using examples that aren't direct because I'm trying to figure out what the "rules" are for talking about someone's death. In the case of Davis and RFK, the soapboxes set up on their corpses were in fact soapboxes that they had stood on. They were still soapboxes, though, so obviously it is acceptable to use someone's death to help promote an agenda, ad least if it's the agenda of the dead person. I can agree with that.

I threw Adam Walsh into the mix because I've never quite decided how I feel about that one. For anyone too young to remember, Adam a kid who was kidnapped and murdered in the early 80s. He became sort of the poster child for missing children, in part because his father, John Walsh, became an advocate for missing children. This eventually led to a successful TV career for Walsh as the host of America's Most Wanted. While Walsh's initial activism was certainly based in legitimate grief and a desire to spare other parents from going through a similar ordeal, I've never decided whether or not Walsh at some point was just milking his family's tragedy for personal gain.

As for 9/11, I think I said in the post that it's not exactly the same thing, but I think the fact that we've spent 10 years wallowing in the tragedy without looking at the motivations behind the attacks are rooted in the same kind of "be polite, there are dead people around" attitude.

Let's try two analogies that are a little more direct:
1) If Bill Clinton drops dead tomorrow, are reporters allowed to talk about NAFTA? What about Monica?
2) When Col. Sanders died, would it have been appropriate for someone to write an article about the fact that Sanders was a racist? What if that racism directly informed KFC's hiring practices?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Ah. Pd doesnt show up very well on my phone and i cant click links nor see pics/avatars/post times. Lively threads are hard to follow sometimes. (i also cant quote)

I hope you're not using an iPhone. If so, I take offense at your disrespect for the dead.

No. My phone is not in any way, shape, or form, smart. I don't need a smartphone.

[Payne]

Let's try two analogies that are a little more direct:
1) If Bill Clinton drops dead tomorrow, are reporters allowed to talk about NAFTA? What about Monica?
2) When Col. Sanders died, would it have been appropriate for someone to write an article about the fact that Sanders was a racist? What if that racism directly informed KFC's hiring practices?

If it's important enough to warrant a debate, then it can wait till the body is cold and prefarably in the ground. That is my ONLY point ITT.

If it's true now, it will still be true in a week and the discussion can take place in a somewhat more rational sphere.

[kingyak]

Ok, then the place you're losing me is this post:

Yeah. If you've got something against someone, whether justified or not, it's a bit crass to say it before the body is even cold.
Unless of course, it's a joke. Jokes are never "not allowed". But right on top of the actual death, they'd better be bloody funny ones, because grief hasn't got much of a  sense of humour.

ETA: Depending on the person, that is. And what they did. I expect I shall be dancing down the street, singing "Ding dong the Witch is dead" the moment I hear of Margaret Thatchers demise. And I bet I won't be the only one. Expect Street Parties, from coast to coast, on a Jubilee scale. Then shortly afterwards, a huge "Let's dig her up and put her head on a pikestaff" Party, Oliver Cromwell style.  I'm think I'm going to start work on a truly fitting obituary, and blackmail that stupid Hippy we've got for an Archbishop of Canterbury, into reading it for her funeral. 

THIS.

Also, Scotland will cease to exist, either through the effects of everyone having such a massive party that the extremely thin veil of "society" gets shredded or because Scotland has defined itself as so anti-Thatcher for so long that they'll simply pop out of reality.

The only reason I can think of tho avoid criticizing a person after their death (barring a belief that their ghost is hanging around getting offended) is because it might offend that person's friends and loved ones. But here you seem to think it's ok to joke about someone's death, which I'd think people close to the deceased would find more offensive than legitimate criticism.

You also seem to be fine with dancing on Margaret Thatcher's grave (and potentially Dubya's as well). What makes her different from Jobs, other than the fact that you like her less? The OP and the guy who wrote the other "I'm glad he's dead" article that was mentioned apparently feel the same way about Jobs as Badbeast does about Thatcher, so why is their grave dancing any less valid?

[BadBeast]

For a start, the old Bitch isn't quite dead yet.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I tend to measure evil in terms of survival-related harm to people. In those terms, how would you define Jobs as evil, compared to GW Bush and M Thatcher?

[Faust]

You also seem to be fine with dancing on Margaret Thatcher's grave (and potentially Dubya's as well). What makes her different from Jobs, other than the fact that you like her less? The OP and the guy who wrote the other "I'm glad he's dead" article that was mentioned apparently feel the same way about Jobs as Badbeast does about Thatcher, so why is their grave dancing any less valid?

IIRC Steve Jobs has never been involved in the death of my countrymen, nor did he set back the peace process thirty years and escalate tensions directly resulting in deaths of both politically involved people and collateral damage.

[Triple Zero]

I tend to measure evil in terms of survival-related harm to people. In those terms, how would you define Jobs as evil, compared to GW Bush and M Thatcher?

The incredibly factual and legitimate criticism in the Gawker article did point out that Steve Jobs literally built iPhones from the backs of Chinese kids.

I believe that after you've harvested about, 3 or 4 iPhones from an Asian spine, there will be survival related harm.

[P3nT4gR4m]

For a start, the old Bitch isn't quite dead yet.

STFU! I was having a good day and then you go and remind me of that  

PS: I sincerely hope that when I dance on the old bags grave that her spineless cunt of a husband and her two idiot kids get real fucking offended (perhaps suicidally so) Put it this way - anyone who'd take offence to me dancing (or pissing) on the wicked witches grave? I want to offend those bastards, in the worst possible way