[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Why drag ad hominem into a reasonable discussion about Apple?

My question about seeing a pattern of selective interpretation in your posts is not only germane; it is specific to the way you've disputed other people's points over the past several pages. It's a comment on method, not the kind of person you are.

Here's what you've been doing:

Taking the most far-fetched interpretation of any logical argument by an opponent, presenting it as if said remote interpretation were exactly what the opponent meant, then responding it as if you were actually refuting the opponent's point.

Page after page, post after post, this is the disingenuous technique you've used to dismiss other people's points and arguments.

I can understand your creating a straw man over the course of a discussion. Nearly everyone slips from time to time. What I can't understand is your choosing to become an assembly line of straw men. No cause -- not even your belief that Jobs was a colossal derailment of consumer progress -- is just enough to warrant summarizing other people's points in a consistently misleading manner.

And I can say the same thing about you. Remember post #141?

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

It's important to differentiate between Jobs' talents and successes, his failings and limitations, and his moral ambiguity. All three aspects are not interchangeably bad or good.

I have no idea what brought this on and why you would bring morals as a point (and later, in post #163 say that I am apparently making a moral argument).

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Hans' point is merely logical: Jobs would have found other creative people to galvanize, bully, steal from and improve upon. Those same creative people would likely not have found another Jobs. To say so is no more a trivialization of those people's talents than it is a justification for Jobs' tendency toward mystification, hype and dictatorial self-assertion. Despite all that, he was good at some important things.

I never said that the creative people would have found another Jobs, I said that without Apple they would have worked for another company.

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

The man was a gifted organizer, salesman and conceptual simplifier. He might be dead, but (even if he annoyed you beyond patience) to discount his gifts is to fail to recognize and possibly absorb the strengths of a former rival. It's easy to see how Guy Kawasaki might have learned from Jobs but eventually decided to work for Google.

I don't know where you got the idea that Jobs annoyed me. And I am not discounting his gifts.

And in post #144:

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Here's the problem, Sil_liS: At this point, most of us were already aware of the examples you're offering (fixed iPhone screen size; Jobs' appropriation of ideas from Xerox/Parc and others; iDevices not having been created in a vacuum, etc.).

I didn't say that the screen size needed fixing. I don't believe in the idea that there must be only one screen size. I was pointing out the lack of variety, which is good for maximizing profits, but not good for the consumer.

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

The difference is that you and I form antipodal conclusions about the trajectory of the data overall.

I could try to convince you of my POV and you mine, but each of us is still going to leave with his own opinion of Jobs' role. I think it will be much easier to discuss his contribution in 50 years when his personality and the dominance of Apple aren't deterrents to objectivity. We do the same thing now with similar catalysts and can be dispassionate (Coco Chanel, Henry Ford, Robert Moses, Louis Comfort Tiffany).

I don't care about Jobs' personality, it was never a point for me in this discussion.