Where Evil Reigns

In recent news the world has had a number of notorious people die recently. Of them was Steve Jobs, who got all the attention. On the back burner of the news was some people that are far more influential than Jobs. Of them were :

Dennis Ritchie, who died this Wednesday the 12th. Ritchie developed the computer programming language C, as well as helped develop UNIX. Without Ritchie, Steve Jobs would be nothing. It's a lot like without your mother you would not be here.

Frank Kameny died this Tuesday the 11th. Kameny is responsible for the first gay rights lawsuit and for starting the gay rights movement. He served our Country in WWII, eventual graduated with a PhD from Harvard and joined the FBI. He was fired from the FBI for being a homosexual, and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost. Then started the first gay rights group, which set up base in Washington DC, called the Mattachine Society. He was doing all of this a decade before Harvey Milk even moved to San Francisco.

Ralph Steinman died September 30th. He had done critical research on how the immune system worked, and discovered cells that were pertinent for the immune system to fight off pathogens. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology without their knowledge of his death, and was still given the award posthumously.

I'm sure there are more people who died recently that were far more important than Jobs. And, yet, who got all the media attention? Duh, Jobs. Personally, I do not mourn the loss of one of the most evil men in corporate America. Jobs contributed absolutely nothing to philanthropic work, non-profits, or charity. In fact, when Jobs came back to Apple he immediately ended all philanthropic work Apple worked on. When the iPhone was developed, Jobs had blocked all apps that would allow someone to donate to a charity. Yes, he went out of his way to stop charitable work. The only "charitable" thing Apple does is donate computers to schools. But note, this is not charity. It's a marketing scheme. They send computers to school with students who come from money (middle class and up). They do this with the intention of getting the students to go home and asking their parents for a Mac. Great marketing campaign, but it's absolutely greedy and selfish.

There is always the argument that goes a little something like this : but Jobs defined our computer culture, which means he defined our culture in general; without him you would not have your Droid, your Windows GUI, your iPod, or other amazing things he brought to our world. For one thing, my iPod broke, because Apple figured out how long they could make the iPod work before it broke, and the customers still have enough faith in the product to buy a new one... so I'm not getting a new one, because I don't have faith in the product. Second, if I may quote Maddox's Facebook :

"I am not defined by the products I buy. My computer is not a part of my identity. My computer is a tool. And like all tools, it's only useful if I make it useful. A brand is not a lifestyle. I don't owe gratitude to a billionaire I helped create. Steve Jobs was a business man who charges exorbitantly for his products. He didn't do us any favors. He didn't make us. We made him."

But of course, the media has to cry over the loss of Jobs (yes, that's a pun), and did not give two squats about about the loss of the man who started the gay rights movement, the developer of computation languages, and the scientist who discovered crucial aspects of how the immune system works (a development that may lead to the cure for HIV, the common cold, or autoimmune deficiencies).

But since the discourse lies in the wrong direction, and Minitruth controls the discourse in this Country, then it is fair to say evil reigns in the propaganda we stare at everyday on our telescreens. It's a sleight of hand to distract us from what were the actually important recent deaths by waving the avatar of evil in the faces of the public so they can mourn someone who was not that important. Is this evil's new agenda? If it is, we are doing a fine job of rising to that agenda.

Maybe I'm not getting at anything here. Maybe I'm just upset that three very important figures died recently and got cheated on the news coverage. In that case, then Palahnuik is right when he says, "The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is the press coverage." The only difference between being a demigod and being a dead nobody is the press coverage. I would just like to represent those who did far more for us than Steve Jobs could have ever done if he wasn't absolutely evil.

At least there isn't a street named after Jobs (that I know of).
R.I.P. Kameny, Steinman, and Ritchie.