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Comment by dbbolton | Hacker News Reader

I think it already undermined itself by using Jobs as the example of a genius. Da Vinci and Goethe were geniuses. Jobs was charismatic, had good business sense, and understood his markets, like virtually all successful CEOs, but I think "genius" is quite a stretch.

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True, but if one allows that genius is also a way to say "able to do something few others can" then Jobs would meet that definition, along with Elon Musk, etc.

At that point you've expanded your criteria to Hitler and Jesse Owens.

Hitler was a genius at politics and charisma. No one raises to power like without some sort of gift. He was also crazy and evil, but no one said all genius is used for good causes.

Hitler was an awful human being. But he was a genius orator. Jesse Owens was a physical genius, though we'd perhaps more easily say that someone performing a more complex skill was a genius, such as Steve Nash etc. In any case, I think it's interesting and useful to think there are many kinds of genius.

I'd like to see you lead a whole nation to believe your batshit crazy ideas. It takes a little bit of genius to do that.

and people who speed-solve rubik's cubes.

Your definition doesn't really fit in the context of the article though, since it applies equally to Ballmer.

The author was clearly trying to foil Ballmer (in the literary sense) by painting Jobs as a much more classical type of genius than what you described.

Also easier to be a genius, when you have an actual genius (Wozniak) creating things the world had never seen before.

THIS exactly. It's surprising how we're trying to place "genius" and "social/ extrovertism/charisma" as two ends of the same scale.

you just seriously insulted iSheeps.

I assume English is your second language? The plural is in fact iSheeple. (This is a very, very rare form of irregular noun. I'm not surprised you weren't taught it, nor that you haven't picked it up by osmosis. You just have to memorize it as a special case.)

Isn't it just a different word entirely? (English is also my second language)

> Sheeple (a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheeple

Yes, it is. This is my strange English humour failing to cross cultural boundaries (again), I'm afraid. The correct plural of "iSheep" is however still certainly "iSheeple"!

and so did I.

to3m is absolutely correct with sheeple term for them

and yes, it's not my native language indeed

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