Unmasking the Real Steve Jobs

Source: Activist Post - 9/10/13
Jack Singularity
 

You know the myth. That Steve Jobs is the greatest entrepreneur of our time. He co-founded Apple Computer. He was the driving force behind the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad.

This is somewhat incongruous for right-wing conservative reactionaries to accept, because Jobs was also a pot-smoking hippie who dropped out of college. But they too join in hailing him as a great innovator.

But now in the news we learn that the NSA was behind Jobs all the way. Internal NSA documents casually refer to Apple customers as ‘zombies’ and Jobs himself as ‘Big Brother.’

Do I need to explain what this means? Jobs was never an anti-government maverick. He was complicit in the creation of the modern surveillance state. He was their tool, perhaps even their guiding light.

How about we take a critical look at Jobs? Not the pot-smoking hippie who dropped out of college – I happen to have respect for him over those things. But what about the rest of the myth?

Jobs didn’t create the Apple Computer. Steve Wozniak did. Wozniak designed the motherboard, integrated the monitor and floppy drive and keyboard. He was the one who sketched on napkins.

One time Wozniak designed a circuit board for Atari, which Jobs delivered. Atari was so pleased, they paid a huge bonus. Jobs neglected to inform Wozniak of this, and pocketed the entire bonus himself.

While Wozniak designed new circuitry at the newly formed Apple Computer, Jobs made himself a pain in the ass and was eventually fired from his own company. Nobody shed any tears.

When he returned years later, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. And so the story is told of how Jobs singlehandedly turned the company around with his innovative ideas.

But wait, there were MP3 players before there was the iPod. The real difference between the two systems was that iPod worked with iTunes files, which were encrypted to enforce corporate copyrights.

There were smart phones before the iPhone. They had touch-screens and apps and were a lot cheaper. What they didn’t have was closed-source software with a back door for NSA surveillance.

The iPad is an overpriced brick that can’t do multi-tasking or accept USB input. But it does have that NSA back door, courtesy Big Brother, and moreover ordains Corporate America gatekeeper of its apps.

Jobs never innovated technology. He innovated new methods of control. At that, his primary role during his ‘Second Coming’ was to rehearse presentations scripted by NSA propagandists.

Jobs is no hero, ethically or entrepreneurally. The pot-smoking Buddha-meditating piscatarian hippie dropout was actually just another ‘anti-establishment’ figurehead for the establishment to hide behind.

The secret to his success wasn’t creativity, it was that the corporate media promoted the myth of Apple Computer as a challenge to the establishment. The reality is that Apple is the establishment.

I wonder why they killed him in the end. He did everything they asked him to do. Maybe his ego got too big. Or maybe there’s karma after all.

This article first appeared at Jack Singularity's blog