[quote]four60 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]four60 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]four60 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]four60 wrote:
Really, Defense Contractors VS Soldiers. hahahaha Oh boy. Guys really you need to shut up.
One is a Service the other is a JOB and the guy with the job can just say I quit. The guy with the JOB is paid Much Much better and if your talking CEO with a gov contract we Are talking BILLIONS.
So what are you comparing??? Veterns day Vs what???
Please stop this act of Cronic Masturbation…Or at least rub harder and Cum already[/quote]
You really have no absolutely no clue as to the ways in which my example is entirely analogous. I’m not comparing the nature of the two jobs at all, a point that seems to be completely lost on you.
My point is that when something is used for good, we generally celebrate those who do the good, not those who created the product, especially when the product was not created specifically for the use it has in this abstract “good” I’m talking about. We celebrate doctors who save lives, not the owners of some plastics factory. We celebrate the efforts of soldiers who fight to protect this country, not the CEOs of the companies making the weaponry our soldiers use.[/quote]
No I get it. My question is what place does your Observation have in this subject. You want to make a point that the object was not made to better man?[/quote]
You’ve framed things nicely in your last sentence. I question in what ways his “accomplishments” have bettered Man. How does an iPhone inherently make any of us better persons? I fully understand that iPads and whatnot CAN be used for good. But I reject the notion that his products inherently make us better human beings simply by virtue of what those products are.[/quote]
No Object can make you a better Human. Some may aid in making you Better physically or aid in moving you around. But Nothing I do or Anything You do will make a better person.
Its how that person Takes what we do and how they view our actions that can aid in making them better humans.
I stated at the top of this thread that I use his products to conect with my family who is spread all over this planet. I have 2 nephews serving. One was in Iraq he is home. The other is now in Korea and in seconds me from the road his mother from NY. His other uncles from the south can reach him and send pictures and video of his family. Does this make him a better person, does it make me a better person.
No but it feels good.
and thats enough for me.[/quote]
I understand your point, and it holds some validity. But I respectfully disagree. Perhaps it’s just a semantics issue, but I do believe that what I do CAN make another person a better human being. I wouldn’t use the word “make” simply because it implies some level coercion, but I firmly believe that what I do can and does inspire others to be better people. I became involved in all of the things I do mainly due to the influence of my father and several people I have met in sobriety. I saw what their actions and efforts did not only for those who they helped, but also for themselves. And I wanted that as well. I wanted to become a better person not only for the sake of those who I help, but also for my own sake.
Perhaps that removes a large part of the altruism involved with what I do, but so be it. And I’m glad for your sake and your family’s that being in more regular contact with them makes you feel good. But there are other ways in which technology and just consumer goods in general make our lives easier, and this makes us feel good. But this brings me to a key point in all of this. Other than scenarios like yours, does making ourselves feel better really make us better people? The flip side of the “making ourselves feel better” is that in many ways this comfort comes at the expense of others. If I put all of my energy into making things easier for ME, I’d have no time for others. It’s selfishness, nothing more. And I think that’s the main thing that Jobs’ products do. They make OUR lives easier, but they do nothing to encourage us to help others.
And why would they? They’re consumer goods, material possessions, that’s all. So while Jobs deserves praise for what he did within his own world of computers and marketing and so forth, in the grand scheme of things he’s still just the producer of a material possession. So I think we should use some perspective when we start throwing around superlatives about the guy.
Tell your nephews I applaud their courage and my gratitude for their sacrifices is without boundary. And I hope they enjoy the coffee I’ve been mailing to Iraq and Afghanistan for the last year or so.[/quote]
If they are like me a cup of joe in the morning is better than sunshine.
Now I know you want to believe that what you do “Can make a better human being” but it can only do 2 things. Inspire and Inform. Thats it. And for the most part that is all any of us can do. Including Jobs.
The word you used in your statement “selfishness” I hear this from people that give or want you to give. It could be anything Time, Money, Promises. But its used to indicate that the act of "Making yourself feel good is a bad act or a selfish one. And that if you give it becomes “Selfless”.
Its BS. And thats the truth. We are Human. And when we give its a very selfish one. To make ourselves feel good. Your father inspired you and the things you seen informed you of the world and your giving back does make you feel good. Either about yourself or your actions. So while there may be some selfless actions in what you do there is also a selfish reason.
Jobs made Billions, He helped many.
You Teach, some will listen some will not.
We can only inform and inspire people we can never make them better people. Our best actions can make a Doctor a Farmer or a Hitler. Its up to the person that takes what you offer to do the rest and make themselves better.[/quote]
You’re right, but you seem to forget that not all attempts at inspiring and helping others have the same impact. Some efforts and actions and inspirations make it very easy for people to come to some sort of decision about the path of their lives on their own. Others are not effective at all. So not all efforts can be boiled down to something as simple as “well, the knowledge or the action is in their hands now.”
Some people help a little, some help a lot. And they don’t have the same impact across the board. Some people help purely for the good feeling they derive from it for themselves. Others help for much more altruistic reasons; the good feelings about themselves that they may feel are simply a byproduct of a larger desire to help others. And I think people can easily see the difference between the two.
The person who volunteers mostly for what it does for himself generally doesn’t stick around long enough to have a lasting impact because there are always other things out there that make us feel good. The ones who are driven more by altruism than selfishness stick things out, because the reality is that sometimes helping others does NOT make us feel good. I don’t particularly feel good inside every single time I help someone. Many times I am depressed or sickened by what I see. But I don’t avoid this sort of thing simply because it has the potential to make me feel less than good.
And the people I work with know this difference as well. Trust me, homeless people aren’t lacking for perceptiveness. They know all too well that they are not the type of people most would want to spend free time around. So they understand that someone who sticks it out, who doesn’t come and go intermittently whenever they feel some twinge of self-loathing, are there because they truly care.
And this may not have any discernible, tangible impact on their lives or their welfare. But the knowledge that there are people out there who care enough to make a sacrifice on their behalf can never be a bad thing to them. Does this inspire them to greatness? Rarely, if ever. But it makes them feel good, and it does so in ways that are much more tangible than any product Jobs has put on the market.
I’ll tell you a quick story. As many people here know, I used to be quite the drug addict and alcoholic. I was pathetic; I even went so far as to puke into a large cup every morning because my stomach was so fucked from booze, and rather than throw it out and waste the booze in it, I would drink it. Seriously.
When I finally came to the point where I needed help and I was willing to seek it out, I informed my friends that I would be going away for a little while and that I wasn’t going to be doing any drinking or drugging anymore. They wished me well, and I haven’t heard from ANY of them since. Not once was I ever visited in rehab, not once did I receive a call inquiring about my health or my progress. Not once did any of the people I considered to be my closest friends make any attempt to help me through a very trying time in my life.
Now, most of that has to do with the fact that when I said I had a problem, this hit really close to home for them. Because if I had a problem, then they had problems as well, because our drinking and drug use patterns were identical. But nonetheless, I felt abandoned and alone. Combine this with cocaine and alcohol withdrawal and all its inherent psychological chaos and I began to feel like SHIT. Like no one cared, like I was helpless, like I was worth nothing. The people who I thought cared about me literally ignored and avoided me at all costs. That is a VERY tough thing to come to terms with when you’re trying for the first time in your life to stay sober.
What helped me through this time were the efforts of people in a 12-step program who spent a lot of time and energy that they did not have to spend to get me to meetings, to invite me places, to be there when I needed someone to talk to. This had a huge impact on me, it inspired me in many, many ways. I started to coach Pony Baseball and I coached kids who still contact me every now and then to tell me what a positive impact I had on them, that they went from being a nobody who played an inning or two to playing four years of high school baseball and are now playing in college…all because I didn’t give up on them.
And I owe the impact that I had on THEM to the impact that certain people had on ME. And I didn’t continue to expand my volunteer work after that because I wanted to feel better. It’s nice that that happens for me, but I do it because I remember how it made me feel to be helped by others who didn’t have some sort of selfish, ulterior motive first and foremost in their minds. It’s a nice reward to feel good, but it isn’t my motivating factor.
So I reject the notion that all we can do is inform and inspire. Well, no, I don’t reject THAT, I only refuse to accept that all attempts at inspiration carry the same weight. So it’s not ALL we can do, because we can do it better and with more dedication and to put more effort into it and to remove selfish reasons from our motivation has a much more lasting impact on those we help. Carbiduis volunteering his time at the local Boys and Girls Club simply doesn’t have the same impact that I have there. And there are others much more dedicated than I, and their impact dwarfs mine.