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Comment by jmduke | Hacker News Reader

It is possible to admire someone without thinking they're flawless; or, perhaps, to admire certain traits/aspects of someone without admiring them altogether.

Michael Jordan was the greatest athlete of his time but an absolute asshole.

Martin Luther King had an affair (multiple? I forget.)

Musicians in general seem like pretty terrible people, with many notable exceptions.

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I think the distinction GP is trying to make is in this sentence:

> he was clearly also a deeply unethical business leader not to be emulated

MLK's affair has nothing to do with his contributions to the civil rights movement, the latter being the reason that (some) people admire him.

But GP is claiming that the very accomplishment for which (some) people admire Steve Jobs (his success) was obtained via unethical means that should not be admired.

I think it cuts both ways. People can choose not admire MLK just because of his flaws, regardless if they had anything to deal with his contributions to the civil rights movement. J Cole has a song that talks about this somewhat[0], first two lines in verse one sums this situation up nicely (and applies to Jobs too)…

Also, some people may choose to admire Jobs because of how he did whatever took to reach his goals regardless of ethics involved.

Evidently when Jobs was alive, he did what he did despite what people thought of him.

[0] http://rapgenius.com/J-cole-she-knows-lyrics

Correct. I think that people who go through unethical means to achieve their goals are to be avoided. I worry that people admire specifically the unethical aspects of Steve Jobs' leadership, which is why I declared my heuristic.

I see it different: there are a lot of people doing [relatively] unethical things all the time while preaching about ethics to business wannabes. It's not only about Steve Jobs.

They aren't revered near unto godhead

Your comment does not address mine. I pointed out why admiring Steve Jobs is an indicator of someone to avoid, not that I was upset Steve Jobs was not flawless.

That you use MLK to defend Steve Jobs troubles me.

I inferred from your comment that you think people who idolize Jobs should be avoided because he has strong negative personality traits/flaws/etc. I'm addressing that most people -- which include those who are famous and have achieved significant things -- have flaws.

I don't see how I'm defending Jobs. I certainly don't think he's a particularly good person, though I admire his achievements.

Admiring achievements via unethical means is like admiring a drug cartel leader for his ability to turn a profit...

> It is possible to admire someone without thinking they're flawless; or, perhaps, to admire certain traits/aspects of someone without admiring them altogether.

The problem with the Steve Jobs "legend" is that it is told in such a biased way that many people believe that:

  - he was a Genius
  - he succeeded against the odds
  - Poor Apple was copied by competitors after inventing everything, and had to resort to patents to defend themselves. *(Miserables music playing in background)*

Well, the actual story is pretty much completely different, Jobs was an aggressive shark who did not care about sucking the blood of people and unethical business practices, Apple mostly did not invent anything new at all and while they were certainly copied they copied as much themselves as the others.

Therefore I'm not sure if there is anything much to admire of Jobs once you remove the layers of lies surrounding his story.

There are many more hackers who would deserve their story to be told rather than him.

And if you're a big fan of apple, Steve Wosniak would be the guy to admire.

Agree.

I really dislike Apple, but admire Wosniak.

You need to get to know more musicians. 'Musician' in this context is synonymous with 'person'. There isn't a 'musician' personality.

I believe the parent means, basically, "rock stars" (or "pop stars"/"country stars"/"rap stars"/whatever), the Locutus-like avatars of the music-industry, who are given songs written by the producer's songwriter and told that they're "theirs."

I think Japan is a lot more honest about this, in that these people are just called "idols" and aren't expected to originate any sort of authentic thought or message; they're just transparently icons in the employ of greater corporate forces, who go on talk-shows, and get talked about by paparazzi... and sometimes perform music.

Incredibly even in 2014 "musician" still has a negative connotation among some socially conservative people.

The US music-products trade organization doesn't even use the phrase "musician" -- it uses "music makers". Try to find the word "musician" on http://www.namm.org/about

What an amazingly awful website.

There is admiring someone's work and there is admiring the person. I can admire the iPod as a revolutionary product (the one that changed the industry where others could not), without admiring anything in particular about Jobs.

>Martin Luther King had an affair (multiple? I forget.)

And why is "having an affair" a character flaw? Because christianity?

it's because you broke a promise you made to someone. breaking promises is generally considered bad/flawed.

It's a silly promise in the first place, which perhaps is why it's one of the most broken ones by billions of people.

What was wrong with MJ?

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