Good try but not quite as impressive as the wailings over Steve Jobs.

Siri definitely has some quirky remarks, but I haven't asked her about Jobs' death.

>> ^Yogi:

Is Siri really like this...I don't know anyone who has her yet.

It's not just about dullness and being boring. Religious zealots confirmed in their beliefs and unswerving in their faith make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It's kind of like the creepiness of the uncanny valley with robots. "Letting go and letting God" is an abdication of your humanity - and it shows on the outside.

Gay people, in my subjective experience, are often the opposite. Full of quirky, imperfect, damaged humanity - or maybe you could even call it the holy spirit. I think I will.

Allow me to quote GK Chesterton:

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

To live like Jesus is a taller order than you seem to realize, and of course as I am sure you realize, most of us have failed to do so. You seem to have this idea that Christians believe that they are perfect, but that is a joke. We are actually far more candid with eachother about our faults than would even be socially acceptable in secular culture. We don't think we are perfect, and even the most devout of the brethern runs into doubts. Letting go and letting God isn't in the bible. What we do is trust God with our lives, it isn't sitting back and doing nothing. To do what Jesus gave us to do is a lot of hard work.

This is what you don't understand: We love God. The tragic thing about you atheists is that you do too, in your own ways. You all love the Creation. You are fascinated and mystified by the Universe, in awe of its manifold complexity and endless wonders. That is, if there is nothing attached to the experience. You value and treasure your freedom from authority, and guard it jealously; after all you think you only have one life to live. I can understand that. You want to be in control.

Yet, you're not in control. Look at Steve Jobs, he had about everything you could ever hope to have, and none of it did him the least bit of good. In the end, he illustrated the truth of this verse:

Matthew 16:26

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?


There is no control to be had, because no one is in control on this planet except for God. What you consider happenstance and coincidence doesn't really exist. So, we give God back what He already has. We decide to stop fooling ourselves and believe that we can beat the system, because the issue has already been decided. What you do in this life matters, because at the end you will give account for every idle word.

Someone has to be God, this what you don't understand. I doubt many of you have thought this through very deeply. Let's play your game for a moment. Let's say the Universe really is 20 billion years old, and life is able to evolve spontaneously from nothing. This means that some lifeforms have had a lot more time to develop than others, and the ones who were successful early and have mastered physical reality are going to be more powerful than anyone else. If any of this is true you most certainly already have a self-proclaimed divinity, one that may look upon a lifeform like us like cockroaches. The position of absolute ruler of existence is a power vacuum that will be filled by someone, and it is almost certainly filled already.

If God isnt in charge, you should be scared of who is. It is a far better thing to have someone who loves us personally and cares about our lives. The alternative is far worse, and something that should worry any thoughtful person. Because if God isn't in charge, and it isn't you and it isn't me; it is going to be someone else. You might not think God is perfect, but again, you love His reality, you just don't want to play by His rules. What you're unwilling to do is take a long hard look at yourself and see that if you are going to be honest about it, the problem is with you and not with Him. You most certainly have some terrific sounding excuses for how you justify rebellion against God, but none of them will match up to your conscience.

>> ^dag:
It's not just about dullness and being boring. Religious zealots confirmed in their beliefs and unswerving in their faith make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It's kind of like the creepiness of the uncanny valley with robots. "Letting go and letting God" is an abdication of your humanity - and it shows on the outside.
Gay people, in my subjective experience, are often the opposite. Full of quirky, imperfect, damaged humanity - or maybe you could even call it the holy spirit. I think I will.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, firstly, the Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth, so Jesus will be here. When He returns He will judge the world, the living and the dead, and establish His kingdom. Secondly, righteousness is credited to you because of faith in God, not as in something that you earned, or because you're so great. It's all to Gods glory..I'm no better than anyone else.
Romans 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
Three, people have this impression of sin as being fun and cool, and living a sanctified life as being dull and boring. Where ever God is will be the creative center of existence..there isn't going to be a lack of interesting things to do. Everyone seems to like the Creation, and this is just s ahadow of what is to come. It isn't going to be boring. Sin is temporary pleasure, flash in the pan, and it all leads to death, and it is the source of corruption in this world. There is nothing good about it at all.
>> ^dag:
I think I'd prefer to stay down here with the unrighteous. If you're only letting in the self-righteous and pious moralists - it's going to be pretty dull.
I think Jesus would rather stay down here with us too - to be honest. But you go on up with the righteous SB, save us a spot. We'll muddle on without you post-rapture.
>> ^shinyblurry:
So it's my fault you don't have any self-control? It doesn't matter what you think about me personally. The word of God is what is important:
1 Corinthians 6
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
>> ^Payback:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's never going to cease being a sin no matter how you dress it up. It is immoral and against the natural order of the Universe, as ordained by our Creator.

Oh fucking shut up already. No one here cares about your opinion on anything. Seriously.
I really wish the sift would completely remove you from my view when you're set to "ignore". Then I wouldn't be so fucking tempted to pop open your comments like the puss-filled, diseased boils they are.
Fucking troll.

Fixed.




>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

That title might rub people the wrong way so soon after Jobs' death.

>> ^deathcow:

wtf with teh Steve Jobs comments


My assumption is that he doesn't know about Apple's business practices beyond the advertising campaigns. He's likely getting at the idea how this new technology is breaking down the barriers to communication and people are able to organise themselves like never before.

wtf with teh Steve Jobs comments

First of all, Schiff didn't get schooled, unless you count him appealing to the disbandment of the EPA, FDA, and Board of Education as him schooling himself. The protester he chose to verbsterbate over was not interested in the kind of 'debate' Schiff was looking for. Or, perhaps, that's what it's supposed to look like with the dude in the suit staring down a protester in a keffiyeh, and Schiff got what he wanted, firing up his fellow suit-wearer base. Looks pretty allegorical to me, though.

Anyway marbles, crosswords: Crosswords' post regarding the arguments Schiff is making were more or less in line with the points Schiff spoke. #1 is more in line, @1:25s Schiff makes the argument that corporations 'need' to move their production elsewhere because Americans demand lower prices than corps can profit from if production is in the US. Crossroads' statement of Schiff's position as: "AMERICAN WORKERS ARE DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND LOWER PRICES THAN CORPORATIONS CAN PROFIT FROM" is entirely in line with what Schiff is saying, simply adding that workers in the US want more money than workers elsewhere, which I'm sure Schiff himself wouldn't argue with.

Crossroads' #2 argument is a bit more of an extension of Schiff's ideas however I think it emerges out of the sentiment expressed by Schiff about the CEO of Apple having a right to give people jobs wherever he wants. The point being made by the protester is that Steve has an obligation to the US, from which he has gained so much, to try to keep manufacturing jobs in the US (another argument for another time, please) to which Schiff says @1:05 "The American people don't own those jobs. Steve Jobs has a right to manufacture where he wants." Now Crossroads' "I WORKED HARD TO EARN EVERYTHING I GOT, SO I DESERVE TO KEEP IT ALL AND DO WHATEVER I WANT" certainly echoes that sentiment. Also, I think you can glean that sentiment from virtually all of what Schiff is saying, from the Apple manufacturing to the abolishment of the various gov't agencies (I can explain that specific point more if you'd like, but think it would be beside the point right now).

So I really do feel like Crossroads' paraphrasing of Schiff's statements is entirely within the realm of the reasonable. And even where they're pushing those boundaries to call them 'douchey' arguments certainly seems baseless. So, marbles, do you have any anything to say about the content of Crossroad's rebuttals to the arguments Schiff has presented?

>> ^marbles:


Well, I listened to the clip again and somehow I couldn't find these Schiff arguments. The only ones making "douchey arguments" are those framing partisan strawman instead of recognizing there's truth to both sides.


Yes I did paraphrase and generalize what Mr. Schiff said as they are common arguments made by proponents of unregulated markets and low/no taxation on the rich.

But they were arguments made by Mr. Schiff; the first one starts around 00:55 mark:

The protester asks "...why are you manufacturing your iPhone in China, and you don't have any of your manufacturing here in the united states?"

Mr.Schiff responds "...and I'll tell you why, because we made it, *interrupted* "do you think that's fair to the American people?" *continues*, "...the American people don't own those jobs, Steve Jobs has a right to manufacture where he wants, we have made it too expensive to manufacture here, the government, remember that the reason employers want to lower wages is because the customers want low prices, everybody in this park wants low prices. You can't have low prices...(cut)"

Argument two starts at 02:10 after he gets called a fool by the protester:

"...so I just stumbled into all my wealth, I run all these businesses..."

His response was more aimed at being called a fool and suggesting a foolish person can't be successful like he is, that they can't just stumble into success. My point is that success if oft claimed to be 100% or near 100% the efforts of the successful, wherein reality in most cases there are many contributing factors beyond the successful person's control, that are conveniently forgotten. So yes he could stumble into success with minimal effort on his part, just as he could fail despite lots of effort.

>> ^aurens:

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:
Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland
(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:
No public education ... Sounds exciting.



Aye aye, was being sarcastic

>> ^TheGenk:

While I don't want to belittle Steve Jobs' major role in Apple's success, all those documentaries and orbituaries are imho way too Jobs focused, as if he did everything by himself.
IMHO without Jonathan Ive and his design team the iPod would be just another mp3player, the iPhone just another mobile phone, etc..
Ah look at me, rambling on about humanities desire to worship Führer-figures.


Don't forget Steve Woz who is cooler!

While I don't want to belittle Steve Jobs' major role in Apple's success, all those documentaries and orbituaries are imho way too Jobs focused, as if he did everything by himself.
IMHO without Jonathan Ive and his design team the iPod would be just another mp3player, the iPhone just another mobile phone, etc..

Ah look at me, rambling on about humanities desire to worship Führer-figures.

Albert Watson did a brilliant job photographing Jobs.

Jobs didn’t look immediately at Watson, but looked instead at the set-up and then focused on Watson’s 4×5 camera “like it was something dinosauric,” Watson recalls, “and he said, ‘Wow, you’re shooting film.”

“I said, ‘I don’t feel like digital is quite here yet.’ And he said, ‘I agree,’ then he turned and looked at me and said, ‘But we’ll get there.’”



http://www.petapixel.com/2011/10/06/the-story-behind-albert-watsons-portrait-of-steve-jobs/

Watson's image has become a meme.

A short and varied list of Americans educated in public high schools before the creation, in 1980, of the Department of Education:

Steve Jobs
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ron Paul
Warren Buffett
Toni Morrison
Carl Sagan
Ernest Hemingway
Linus Pauling
Sandra Day O'Connor
John Steinbeck
Bob Dylan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Milton Friedman
Noam Chomsky
Oprah Winfrey
George Lucas
Jimmy Carter
Paul Newman
Amelia Earhart
Walt Disney
George Carlin
Elvis Presley
Neil Armstrong
Richard Feynman
Aaron Copland

(I could keep going, but I'm sure you get the point.)>> ^ghark:

No public education ... Sounds exciting.

Overshadowed by Steve Jobs' death, this man is responsible for far more innovation.