There’s a good chance you’re reading this article on your iPhone. Or maybe your iPad. Or your MacBook.
A single Apple store is about as valuable as the White House.
How is this even possible?
All it takes is one girl on a date playing with her iPhone to realize that Apple is deeper into the soul of the average American than you could possibly fathom. People literally spend hours at a time playing Angry Birds, The Sims, and iMessaging their friends. Of course, all while trying to drive, walk, or do other tasks. They piss their lives away in front of a liquid crystal display.
#YOLO, right?
It’s simple. Apple has completely infiltrated American culture. It has become as much of a part of our society as the NFL. An outsider could look at an American and size them up simply by the version of iPhone resting in their palm (granted this is also probably true in other countries, guess I’ll find out soon).
The question is – how has Apple done it?
It’s quite simple. By appealing to the masses of American culture.
Illusions
The Ritz-Carlton is one of the most famous and luxurious brands of hotels in the world. When I was in college and working a retail job, I remember I was forced to read a book during store downtime – The New Gold Standard.
The book is actually an excellent read if you want to succeed in customer service and sales. In other words, it teaches how to do a damn good job of kissing ass, making sales, and making people happy. Naturally, Apple modeled their entire “Genius” bar after a hotel concierge desk.
They staffed said bar with customer savvy, friendly people. Many of whom are utterly incapable of explaining any technology to a consumer. However, that doesn’t matter, simply because of the illusion that has already been built by the time the user walks into the store.
When one walks into an Apple store, it very much seems like a happy hour. There are loads of people socializing, playing with the latest gadgets, and all the employees are dressed in casual jeans and t-shirts. The person walking into the store naturally thinks that due to the mass number of people, Apple must automatically be a great company.
By the time they have navigated the entire store, and spoke to the employees who are hand-fed notes from a luxury hotel brand, the consumers are so impressed that they are lining up outside of the store on the next iPhone launch for 12 hours in the pouring rain.
Brilliant Marketing
Apple has marketed their products so that they seem to be much, much more than simple shiny computers, phones, and tablets. If you watch some commercials and propaganda that Apple puts out, they sell their products as if they are literally human – as if they are a part of your life.
Their marketing campaigns focus much more on how the iPhone enhances your life as opposed to how it is just another cool gadget. Their entire line – iPhone, iPad, iMac – all flow perfectly with each other – me, me, me. It enhances your life and makes things easier for you.
Apple has successfully sold consumers on the need for their products to simply live, instead of as an enhancement.
Truthfully, it’s brilliant.
Stupidity And Laziness Sell
This is the main reason Apple has managed to poison so many young American minds with their technology and propaganda.
From a young age, young Americans like myself are taught to look for the easiest way out. Hard work, dedication, and perseverance are becoming less and less noble qualities. Instead, shortcuts through life are not only encouraged, but expected but many of today’s youth.
Children think they are entitled to a car when they turn 16 years old.
Kids think because they averaged a 3.0 in high school, they’re entitled to a full ride college scholarship.
Because they graduated college, they’re entitled to a job.
Since they can’t find a job since they have a liberal arts degree, they’re entitled to a free government ride.
However, you aren’t owed shit.
Nothing is easy, as people on welfare can attest to.
Apple exploits this laziness and sense of entitlement in it’s marketing. In addition to selling the need for their products, Apple has successfully managed to sell itself simply based off of the supposed ease of use of it’s flagship products. Can’t figure out how to email on your PC? Well, Apple’s mail program will fix that. Can’t edit photos? iPhoto can do that for you. Want to make a movie? Sony Vegas is too difficult, so fire up iMovie.
Americans are simply too lazy to take the time to apply themselves to learning.
Truthfully, it is America’s greatest weakness as we continue to move further and further towards a leftist society, full of hipsters wearing skinny jeans and riding skateboards while they get their workout from typing on iMessage. Quite frankly, I think the executives at Apple are brilliant for marketing the way they do, and continuing to gouge people with the prices on both their products and their culture.
Apple, Inc., has continue to dangle a poisonous, but incredibly tempting piece of fruit in front of the hands of the American public. Little do Americans realize that these products continue to deteriorate our culture – making us a shell of our former social selves.
Dinner parties have been replaced by Words With Friends, real life conversations have been replaced with iMessage, and a friendly game of pickup basketball has been reduced to slinging birds into rocks across a liquid crystal display.
As cultures become more and more reliant on technology, someday, having a high score in the latest version of Angry Birds will be as much of a status symbol as driving a Porsche. One day, my Candy Crush score will be more impressive than my guitar abilities. A man will be judged more on his ability to spike attraction via text message as opposed to seducing a girl in person.
Hopefully, it does not come to that. One day, perhaps our culture will wake up from the poisons that Apple has spread.
One can only hope.
Read More: Apple Should Have Never Hired A Female Handbag Executive
I agree a lot with what you’ve written…except for the whole “America is becoming leftist” thing. Maybe we’re becoming “leftist” in the sense of culture (feminism, LGBT acceptance, etc), but talk to any Socialist or Marxist and they aren’t celebrating the direction in which American society is going economically speaking. I mean the fact that this “leftist” society is being engineered by a billion-dollar corporation should tell you this isn’t “Leftism”.
The leftism is generally to keep the masses happy…. and give the politicians something to jawbone about…. As Brad Pitt said in Killing Them Softly… “America is a business… and I want to be paid.”
The shame is though that the Obama socialism, is not good and has caused the real capitalist system quite a problem…. Eventually US Treasuries will lose confidence due to flagrant over spending… and we’ll all be fucked….
The Government is so bloated… California alone has something like 150 different Government depts. You can’t take a crap without some agency wanting to test it (and charge you a huge fee.)
It’s not exactly the USSR but still….. when government employs more than half the working population, you have to wonder where all the tax dollars from the private sector are going to come from to pay for all this ?
At least half of all Government is unnecessary…. the UK tried this experiment in 1950s and 1960s and it completely killed the country, they are only just starting to recover now!
If by half you mean 80% is unnecessary (especially as tested against Constitutional authority for these parts of government to even exist), then I agree.
“Eventually US Treasuries will lose confidence…”
Eventually is today my friends: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-14/it-begins-past-week-foreigners-sell-record-amount-over-100-billion-treasurys-held-fe
$104 billion sell-off this past week compared with $13.5 the week before and a $1.5 billion avg the 4 weeks before that. I’m sure Russia accounts for most of the 104.
Yeah, I didn’t understand that leftist line either. If record amounts of wealth inequality and a completely materialistic society where people define themselves through their consumer purchases is leftist, then what is rightist?
yeah, my point exactly. not too mention historically low tax rates, four decades of deregulation and free trade legislation, and major cuts to the social safety net.
i think im just gonna stop debating politics on these articles, and just glean them for their truths about women and sex.
Well, I just got banned from The AV Club after many years commenting there for a thing I said about women in an article about women, and some gay commenters were offended because I did not included them in my comments/theory since, I wrote “they are only 3% of the population”. They banned me. Maybe, this is what in this site the authors call “leftism”. Because the US is right-wing in economics, I hope all can see that. But culturally, it is “the PC society from Hell”. Closer to Orwell´s doublespeak than to anything else. I don´t think that Chomsky would be in love with this state of affairs. One of the commenters even asked for which company I work for. You know what for.
I find that Smartphones are a complete waste of money . I have a Nokia C2 that does everything I need it to do. You can call me old-fashioned but the only thing these newGen smartphones do is make procrastination easier. How a person can camp outside an Apple store is ridiculous, its not like smartphones will ever be out of stock in the near future.
got me a lg dare. People ask why not upgrade and I’m like why with current plan i have more than enough minutes. Don’t use my phone for the internet nor as an mp3 player. Smartphones a good way to make your phone bill a 100+ dollars for no reason.
In 2000 I built my first multi-screen PC for specific software tasks that benefited from having tools and monitors on one window and the main work page on a second window.
What I experienced was a massive jump in productivity just for emails, spreadsheets and browsing the internet….
The mouse was a major leap forwards in computers.
But for some unexplained reason you rarely see dual monitor PCs, everyone is still stuck with one screen and in the last 10 years has moved into smaller and smaller screen, touch screens, no keyboard…
it’s totally insane, the loss of productivity is ignored.
Are you running the matrix code?….awesome setup.
I’d say he’s multitabling online poker
Apple and what it has contributed to society is quite simple: it has produced the modern day Bread And Circus to keep the masses stupid and entertained. Unfortunately it has done so very effectively that with developing nano tech humans will be part biological and part computer chip board living entities within 100 years.
I agree. Smartphones, TV sets, Social Media etc. are just tools the elite use to keep us occupied while they enact psychological/economic/social warfare
Nobody is keeping you occupied except yourself. Nobody has ever forced an iPhone into my hands. Fact is I do terribly well without one in my life (or any smart phone).
Sorry, but that’s not the point. No man is an island. I am not infected by the iphone madness either (though I use a blackberry for business), but as a member of society, I am very much affected by these collective decisions. The situation with people staring at their phones is critical. I have seen NYC go from fun, rowdy anarchy in the 90’s to zombie apocalypse today. Just ghosts staring at their phone.
Yes, they do. I have heard that in some places you will not get into a job if you don´t have a Facebook profile, so the people doing the hiring would find that suspect.
Occulus Rift is the true futurist soma. It’s the beginning of people living their lives in a virtual world.
When I was in academia I saw the gradual dumbing-down of everyone. Even university professors are all addicted to their iPhones now. My supervisor was not able to follow through the math in one of my 2-page reports and asked me to explain it to him. From what I read of other people’s experiences, this isn’t uncommon. Yes, it’s that bad.
It makes you very passive… I was at Disneyland Paris on NYE (long story), and I could not believe how passive and closed off everyone was…. 10,000 people and not a cheer or a smile… just waiting and waiting for the midnight animations to start…. phone in hand, rather chat online… it’s like a disease…. numbs the brain.
Apple’s products were specifically designed for the masses. I’ve seen 4 year old kids pick up an iPad and just start using it with no problems. Personally, I think it’s sheer brilliance. To develop a piece of technology that can be used that way is flat out impressive. I also don’t know why you assume that messaging has replaced actual human contact, because I simply don’t think that’s the case. It allows me to have access to ideas and thoughts I’d never otherwise have access to. It allows me to continue to develop my ideas in ways I’d never have been able to. This kind of stuff has a lot of potential. Just because there’s downsides doesn’t mean that there isn’t any upside either.
On another note, HARD WORK IS NOT A NOBLE QUALITY! The hardest working people in the world are subsistence farmers. Smart work>>>>>>hard work. If I can do something in 1 hour that takes you 20 hours, I’m gonna end up on top. There are so many flaws with this article. Quite frankly, this article straight up sucks.
Messaging as in basic internet you’re right. Messaging as in text and facebook and other social media however and he does have a point. Those things have come to consume basically all females younger than 60, and a decent portion of young men as well. When out experiencing life, or trying to, how much can you possibly be getting out of it if you’re staring down updating your FB wall?
I agree, it’s all about BALANCE with texting.
FB, Instagram and other ego boosting sites are a waste of time…
RoK is different because men share their wisdom and knowledge, hence why it’s skyrocketing in popularity.
Yep, plus I feel no compulsion to keep it up to date when I’m not “at work”. Once the guy pulls the birds tail and the end of the day is nigh (sorry, Flintstones reference) the electro-crap gets shut off and the world opens up. The way it should be, one would hope, though I confess I’m a bit of a dinosaur myself in this regard, speaking of Flintstones.
I’ve used Facebook to discuss ideas, philosophy, share interesting links, look at papers, and all sorts of similar stuff with people halfway across the world. There’s two sides to every single coin. The real problem is that our thought process are designed for a world wherein we interact in tribes of 100-150 people and they’re not designed for a world wherein we have the ability to interact with millions of people in one second. What technology has done is make the world more unequal. It disproportionately benefits the intelligent and lucky while everyone else gets left behind, but the society we live in today is still a remarkable achievement in many regards. I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I still live much better than the kings of yesterday, which is not something to be discounted so easily.
You’ve made for a good discussion here, casinobox.
But I can see the strengths on both sides.
I’d rather have pointless cat videos in abundance if it enables just a few to arise to their potential.
But there should be a way to have it both ways. It seems to be giving up too easily to say that in order for anyone who wants to read Emerson to be able to at any time, we must sacrifice and debase the culture completely.
In a proper culture it should be pretty simple to discourage those who will contribute nothing and smooth the path for those of potential.
Looking back in life, just a few minutes observing a group of kids, it’s pretty easy to tell which ones have the spark of natural curiosity and which are destined to be lifelong herdbeasts.
Or better yet, walk into an 8 year old kid’s room, talk with him for two minutes, and you know all you need to.
Visit a teenager’s facebook page for 30 seconds, you know all you need to.
I agree with your lack of respect for the things valued by corporations. Focusing on drudgery, stuck in a state of learned helplessness, is for slaves and livestock.
People who idolize cubicle morality are the truest worshipers of ants and termites.
wrong. making technology and information freely available to the masses is the reason why every shit-for-brains out there has a tumblr page with pictures of cats and food, it’s the reason why you can’t post a dissenting opinion on youtube without it escalating into a shitstorm of self-righteousness and it’s the reason why society as a whole is devolving into a mass of ADD-infected morons – the vast majority of people are just too stupid to be trusted with advanced technology! eventually they’ll fuck it up for the rest of us as well. and look at the internet now. arguably mankind’s greatest invention and it’s an awkward mess of cats videos and balloon-porn. whooptie fucking doo!!!
First off, ADD isn’t a disorder, so you should stop treating it like one. It’s just an evolutionary adaptation for hunter gatherers.
Making technology available for the masses also makes it available for people like me, who find positive ways to use it. If I wanna go and read Ralph Waldo Emerson or Adam Smith or whoever, I can literally get it at the touch of a fingertip. You’re saying they could fuck it up for the rest of us, but it could go the other way around too. Who knows what the next brilliant kid could do and could bring? If you don’t like what the masses pay attention to, then don’t pay attention to it. Most of what the masses have (and still do) enjoy is just noise anyways.
With regards to Facebook and Twitter, there’s all sorts of useful stuff on there if you choose to pay attention to it. That being said, the masses don’t use Facebook and Twitter for useful things, but if you block them from using it well, then you block the next brilliant person or the next entrepreneur or next great thinker or whoever. The fact that you can find the works of history’s greatest thinkers at the click of a button isn’t something to get mad about. It’s a wonderful tool to improve yourself. Just because others choose to use it to waste their time doesn’t mean that it should be banned or the world would’ve been better off if it had never been made.
not buying it. brilliant people have, since the dawn of time, found a way to get shit done even in the face of adversity. call me unreasonably optimistic but i think we’d – as a species – have found our way forward even without cat videos, tumblr and facebook.
as a sidenote, i don’t get why you glorify ADD. if you can’t focus on a task for more than 5 minutes at a time, what chance do you have to hold a steady high-level job? i never did see an executive-type fella being all fidgety like a squirrel.. my 2c.
I’m not glorifying ADD (I actually have very severe ADHD which I never got “medicated” for), but there are certain advantages. ADHD can be very beneficial in areas that involve risk-taking or quick thinking. Is ADHD good for a high-level corporate job? Probably not. However, there are situations where ADHD can be very beneficial. The most sad part about ADHD is that we’ve got kids who have nothing wrong with them being “medicated” for something that isn’t a disease or a disorder. Rather than getting stuck on one method or way, is it sometimes better to try to find shortcuts and other creative ways? Why is it automatically assumed to be an advantage to get stuck in one long, boring procedure rather than to jump around and try different methods until one works. There’s a reason why ADHD is so much more prevalent in men than it is in women–it’s simply just an evolutionary adaptation that’s become a disadvantage in places where you’ve gotta sit still and do boring shit (i.e. the corporate world).
I agree that the cat videos, using Tumblr and Facebook to attention whore, and shit like that aren’t good, but you can’t get something for nothing. For every one person using technology to do shit like that, there’s another person that’s using Facebook and other methods of social media to discuss ideas and philosophy with people halfway across the world. It’s a learning tool and a much better one than listening to some ego-headed feminist bitch (many teachers in public education) yap for hours on end on shit she’s clearly wrong about. For many of us, technology just provides us another tool in the toolkit. There’s two sides to every coin.
You’re retarded. Now here’s your gold star.
You’re clever aren’t you. Using personal attacks and having no logic to back it up. That’s like 90% of men.
You’re en embarrassment to this site. If you have nothing intelligent to add, don’t add ignorance.
How is it any skin off your nose if people have tumblr pages with pictures of their cats?
You’re pretty fucking self-righteous yourself, sparky.
Exactly, this is typical luddite tripe. The author should just go move in with the Amish, which is not something I disagree with at all. I have considered being Amish.
Are you late for your shift at the Genius Bar?
It sounds like Apple’s marketing division has affected your judgment. I know kids who were 8 years old who could write BASIC and use MS-DOS back in the day. But we wouldn’t call MS-DOS brilliant because that hasn’t been marketed to us ad nausuem.
As someone who has Apple products, I can safely say they’re really no better than the PC-based products I use.
The article is absolutely right that stupidity and laziness sell. Half the population has an IQ below 100. Manufacturing pretty gadgets that perform little more than mental masturbation to suit the whims of the lowest common denominator produces the biggest profits.
The point of the article was to point out what damage that pissing your life away in front of a liquid crystal display is doing to society. But, it’s very profitable.
I don’t use Macs. I’m a PC guy, but I don’t hate on Apple. For some people, it works great. I prefer Google products to Apple any day of the week.
Yep.
Sam Walton once famously said
“Sell the classes, sleep with the masses. Sell to the masses, sleep with the classes”.
Word.
Will not allow iDiot products in this house. Computers and phones are tools, not toys. If they can be used to enhance productivity or creativity, then I’m all for them.
However, it seems to me that most of these devices are used for consumption rather than creation.
Consumption of media is wasting valuable time. Time that in ages past, kids would go outside and do things. Build something, fix something, draw or sculpt something. Those kids developed real self-esteem by accomplishing things.
Kids of today ‘accomplish’ things by getting to a higher level on a video game, or by getting likes for their memes or selfies.
If you ask me, the self-esteem dervied from today’s distractions is a poor replacement for real accomplishment.
I fear for the future of this country, as our young males are not learning how to do things. They’re wasting their time learning how be feminine, staring at screens, eating shit food, and seeing their testosterone levels drop through the floor due to poor diet, sedentary lifestyles, drugs, and of course all the estrogen mimic chemicals that they’re exposed to due to their lifestyles.
We are so fucked.
Agreed. This polemic struggles to extrapolate some overarching failing of society in general based on the core virtue of Apple’s products: they’re easy to use with refined, well-engineered interfaces and one never needs to go spelunking thru a fucking manual.
My computers have always been PCs starting with a 486 & Win 3.1. I learned about manually setting IRQs to get devices to work together happily and all the other tedious minutiae of the early Windows days. It was kinda-sorta interesting at the time because everything was new. Was aware of the raging PC/Mac Holy Wars but mostly ignored it because I detest religion.
Years later when I got my first Apple product – an iPod – was pleasantly surprised at the interface. Could figure it out without needing help, and it just worked. When my old dumb flip phone did a flip into a storm drain grate upon one vacation departure, I stopped at the cell store & decided to take a shot on the iPhone 3 instead of a Windows phone. Again, the thing just worked. No muss, no fuss. Since then, many of my friends and acquaintances piss and moan over their non-Apple (mostly Android, it seems) phone hassles and problems.
It’s not about being in thrall to a marketing campaign, being a hipster, a slave to fashion, or a victim of laziness. It’s about being an adult with a job and needing my communications device to just fucking work all the time and having zero inclination to fuck with it in my free time. That’s a value I’ll pay more for; you get what you pay for.
Blaming Apple for how stupid teens behave while using their product is like blaming Glock for Plaxico Burruss’ blowing his nuts off.
you make some valid points… HOWEVER the US remains at the forefront of many technologies and is loaded with entrepreneurs and business minded people. The American work ethic trumps the Europeans hands down, Aussies and Kiwis are too busy surfing and chewing the fat, British are lazy and sloppy by defaul and neither have any customer service ethic…. Indians are messy and lie too much, Asians have twice the work ethic but half the imagination… Arabs are too angry (it’s hot there) and too mired in social / religious BS, Latin America is swamped with the ignorance of Christianity and the pride of nouveax riche…
what’s left then if you want to get things done – even Canadians have a certain amount of British style insecurities…..
there’s a reason why most of the great movies, music, technology, you name it – comes from the US – and it’s not just work ethic, drive, ambition and imagination… it’s also the culture of ease… you can do this… fedex will get your shit from a to b with making out a fuss (try that in europe and you’ll have to deal with rude and lazy customer service that treat you like you are the problem). You want a hotel or a rental car or want to find clients or supplies, or have meetings with people… they are generally welcoming, interested, engaging AND absolutely interested in making money above all else.
The same is not the case in many other cultures… you have to always be massaging their pride and playing so many games, that the actual business never gets done with proper attention.
Put Steve Jobs in the UK, Australia, Asia or even Canada, NZ or AU and he would never have got started.. it would have been one miserable patronising fucker after the next that got in his way.
wrong. the US got this way because it’s a nation of lazy-ass people who are always looking to find ways to lessen and shorten their workloads. it was just self-interest: wanting to find the easiert shortest way to get shit done. in itself a nice idea, i’m not knocking it, but please spare me the patriotic masturbatory bullshit
I’m not American and I wouldn’t live there because the tax regime is nuts…. but I can see the difference…. I grew up in the 80s in the UK… that was the definition of lazy ass people… unions mandated 3-4 people for a 1 man job…..
If your package goes missing with Fedex in the UK – it’s basically your fault and rude workers will more or less tell you to fuck off… in the US you get happy, decent, helpful people (less today than 10 years ago sure) but people at least pretend they give a fuck about smiling and having a half decent day….
Try walking into a bar in France, Germany, UK, Spain etc…. you’re greeted with an attitude no different to the jail canteen… who the fuck are you and why don’t your fuck off and not disturb me. That’s the look and vibe you get across most of Europe much of the time.
where u live?
somebody’s never encountered a black female worker in a store or restaurant. LOL
Yeah, we should all go back to working from dawn till dusk on the farm or in a coal mine so we won’t be so lazy.
Oh, wait: that’s fucking stupid.
Lessening and shortening workloads is PROGRESS, you idiot. Why don’t you go freeze in the dark with the greentards?
Keep in mind that talent from all over the world have been immigrating to the US,thereby increasing the intellectual and entrepreneurial pool.
However,even though the US is still the best place for Entrepreneurs,the US government is hell bent on making the US less conducive to such activity.
If people are actually aware of the extent of how incredibly fucked up the US government is ,it would really boggle the mind how America is still a First world nation,let alone a Superpower. America has been moving on in-spite of the colossal effort of her leftist government to sink her.Just imagine if there were a constitutional government,how far ahead this nation would be,without all the sadistic government interference in the market.We’d be already colonizing mars,have cured all major diseases,people would own their own planes like they do cars,3D printers would already be advanced enough such that you download and print out your own furniture , and most of all,the American feminazi land whale would be an extinct species.
No real advancement your country has made came from private capitalists. Well, maybe the Ford T and the PC, the IBM one. The rest, the Internet, NASA, etc, came from the State. Capitalists are good at making stuff. When it is profitable. To take risks into something that could be great? Not so much. That is why we have universities and the State.
No real advancement your country has made came from private capitalists. – The Stupid… it BURNS!!
As for this: Capitalists are good at making stuff. When it is profitable.
[sigh] Thank you, Captain.
“No real advancement your country has made came from private capitalists”.
Oh Pablo, Pablo, Pablo. Your examples are so silly and reasoning so asinine regarding your ultra idiotic socialist talking points that you’d have a far better chance of convincing Tuthomis to re-swallow the blue pill than you will ever have of putting up an intellectually honest anti-capitalist argument.
I don´t need to. 1929, 2008, TAARP, Goldman Sachs.
Look, I think most people know that there is something wrong, and some people know more or less what it is. Why there is no change? Because the people with power would not like to lose it. And I get it, it could be like this forever, with periods of Welfare State to maintain the mass more or less happy mixed with periods of intense redistribution upwards, like the last years in the US (what Citibank called in its insider study: “the plutocracy”).
Something is gonna give some day, and I prefer it to be directed to a system we want than to fascism (1920 –> 30s Germany) or totalitarianism (1917 –> 1930s Russia). It could be an anti-monopolic “small companies” capitalism, it could be a democratic mechanism in each big corporation, it could be a system of market socialism (cooperatives), it could be a redistribution of profits. Nobody knows. But it will happen, the question is when and in which direction.
Ignorance of Christianity? Do you even pay attention or do you perpetually have your blinders on? It’s only recently that parts of the west have become post-christian, and the west didn’t seem to have a problem developing and technologically advancing while being christian.
northern europe was not catholic in hundreds of years – the US was never catholic. Catholic = guilt. Other versions are not as aggressive.
The colonial nations often preserved more fanatical aspects of their religion (ever heard of the spanish inquisition – i guess not)
that combined with indigenous superstitions and a certain amount of poor education leaves people in a perpetual state of fear.
i lived there 4 years, how many years did you live in latin america ?
I won’t try to argue with your experiences, but would you be confusing the Catholic faith with Christianity?
a lot of what you said was half right half bullshit but you’ve got one goddamn thing right about America that makes it way ahead of the soggy isles over here. Taking risks. You guys crash and burn like motherfuckers all the time and it makes you stronger. You win or fail, and that makes you incredibly antifragile. Whereas in the uk, everything is tepid. the politics, the people, the women, the economy. fucking everything is lukewarm tryhard/trynotatall.
there is some shit british do better than others 1) pharmaceuticals [glaxosmithkline] 2) nuclear sector and civil engineering 3) finance [and all the corporatism that follows that] 4) basically most engineering projects 5) the harrier jump jet 5.5) having crap weather 6) finding excellent and unique insults 7) cynicism, cruel comments, sarcasm, and having the ability to take the piss out of everything, even though we get fucked over later with lack of freedom of speech
The British lost their spine after world war two…Britain has invaded every country in the world apart from 20…. it took until the late 50s until war rationing ended in the UK… that means the war effectively lasted 15+ years. That ruined the diet and the lifestyle and the feeling of wealth and bred a generation that was used to government control.
following on from the late 50s into the 60s and 70s Britain became almost as communist as the USSR. National health care, social security, massive union power…. by the time Maggie managed to break it in the mid 80s, shit we’re talking about nearly 50 years since ww2 started… two generations pretty much down the drain.
Add in huge immigrants…indians, jamacians, since 2000 – some two million square minded polish with little integration…. Britain lost it’s back bone…it lost any ideal of nation pride…. but it’s still there if you look for it….
especially in the mad expats like me…..
the same process is going on in the US right now… loss of national pride, loss of spirit, stupid governments build monster white elephants and debt…. add in a blast of immigrants and the original American spirit will become and individual thing… and America will look like cross between 1950s UK and 1990s Argentina…
I’m not sure if I would equate the use of intuitive & easy to use software with laziness? Learning the ins and outs of a relatively complex NLVE like vegas is a waste of time if you just want to edit a simple video every so often. That’s the real point with software like iMovie it makes the machine more accessible, and that’s great especially if it fosters a creative endeavor.
Telling someone to go out and learn the ‘proper’ software stinks of computer nerd elitism.
Computer nerd elitism means jobs for computer nerds. Keep the masses computer illiterate and unable to use the full functionality of devices, an you’ll require the computer nerd to help you out, thus, giving him a paycheck. From the computer nerd’s perspective, I see nothing wrong with this. He is only doing what benefits him like all organisms should.
BRILLIANT article. You didn’t even touch on the proprietary aspect of Apple. I mean it’s 2014 and you still *require* iTunes to delete songs off your iDevice — this is but one of the many many ways Apple tries to lock users in to their platform forever (same with their non-standard keyboard shortcuts — learned the Apple shortcuts? Every other non-Apple computer you interact with will be “hard” and “confusing” ).
Apple hardware is still cream of the crop, but I agree that their obsession with keeping everything proprietary undermines their software. Transferring songs from an old hard drive to my new iPod has been a headache. I now just download the music I want off of Amazon Cloud, and it’s almost too easy to use in contrast.
If by “cream of the crop” you mean aesthetically pleasing — I can agree. If you mean that it’s actually “better” hardware, you’re dead wrong.
Spend $3000 on a “computer” that you can’t upgrade because it’s in a custom designed trash can instead of a standard ATX/ITX chassis. These days you’re lucky if you can upgrade the RAM and hard drive in an Apple. Their desktops/laptops are the only thing worth comparing since their smart phones are already out classed in literally every way by Androids by the time they launch.
And then there’s an entire Apple product line that’s put together with glue and retention clips, rather than screws …
apple raped me
You forgot to install the iOS “security update” that lets you schedule when Apple rapes you.
Also, you forgot to install the six apps that provide protection during your mandatory scheduled Apple raping, but that’s OK if you’re still a “device virgin” and the battery hasn’t been completely discharged.
Otherwise, Apple saves information about how, where, and when they’ve raped you, so the best defence after you’ve been raped by Apple is simply to stay in the place where they’ve raped you before. You may also be able to find a “jailbreak” for your Apple device that allows other inmates to rape you, which may not be a better situation for you, especially if you tend to ask the Apple Store for “store credit” good toward future rapes.
well, you did click on the “i agree” button in the eula…
ok so it wasn’t apple, it was a dominatrix who used a smartphone as an anal dildo. it is called letter-boxing because of the shape of the phone.
I see it trending the other way. Being old enough to have some experience analyzing society I have found that you can gauge future (10-ish) year trends by current advertising. There is a segment of advertising today that focuses on young folk getting away from technology and making it seem cool. Consider the car ad where the three young men drove and drove and drove across the nation until they found a place *without* cell phone reception, then got out and (I think?) fished or something like that. That’s the future. We will be defined, in time, in terms of coolness in how far we eschew technological chains.
It’s not happening now, in fact all normal indicators seem to show the opposite, but it’s going to I’d wager. There is a growing meme of “disconnected is the new cool” being born, and one only need watch a bit of advertising hinting at this to see what may well turn out to be the future.
I’ve seen similar results regarding other trends as well, and they always start like this, get picked up by more and more advertisers trying to set the new trends, which is where the money is, in new and fresh, not in what everybody else is currently doing.
Could be utterly wrong, but I suspect I’m not.
As to the article, yes and no. Apple DID come up with brilliant technological cum psychological developments. Recall the MP3 players of the late 1990’s, which required a virtual PhD to operate? Well, welcome to the iPod with one button and bam, it took off, just for that reason. That was absolutely brilliant and frankly, needed. Complexity is fantastic, but not if you just want to listen to some beats while working out, and Apple figured that out first. Everything AFTER that, of course, was basically pure marketing derived from the same concept, simplification. But…as you note, nothing new, so it’s just pure marketing now. And…all directed towards women, at least in my view. I personally could give two shits about the difference between a 5 and 5c, knowing in my soul that there is no appreciable difference that would make me invest another 4 bills into a new iPhone (not that I own one, I don’t).
I used to be big into gaming and realized the same thing. Games themselves used to be far more engaging, far more challenging, and required reading a manual. Now, everything is just a clone of other things with little learning curve and higher prices.
A part of me wishes that I could save the world, but knowing that I can’t, I can at least exploit it where i can.
Marketing geniuses. Steve Jobs was an admirable human being, but the outcry following his death was like the president had died.
that’s because hipsters around the world went: “well shit, who’s gonna design the new phone for me to stand out with??”
steve jobs was a douche, but he was a good observer of human nature. he realised that if you make a phone that’s both flashy and also absurdly simple to operate, he could appeal to the vast majority of people who are vain, stupid and eager to show off their ‘originality’. thus, he made the iphone to appeal to vain, narcissist hipsters. is it a huge surprise that the number one consumers of i-crap ARE WOMEN??
i think it goes a bit beyond that… microsoft and even google efforts are appalling… nothing is finished….. menus and setting are impossible to find and frequently changed from one version to the next…. and the hardware, awkward buttons, cheap parts, not well thought into…..
look at car makers, gun makers, motorbikes, planes… even furniture… people put a lot of care and effort into the final presentation…. imagine a BMW where the rear view mirror keeps falling off, or sometimes randomly you have to get in the passenger side door because the driver door jams…. … that is mircosoft….
techies don’t tend to finish things … they are slobby, night workers that go until they drop…. and then move onto the next thing…..
steve was not a techie… he’s one of the few guys in tech that had design sense…. that had attention to deal, and neat and tidy.
Quote: “Is it a huge surprise that the number one consumers of i-crap ARE WOMEN??”
Anything that can be connected with fashion and stupid shit to will gateway into the female consumer market.
Look dude, I know you’re bitter that your unemployment check isn’t big enough for you to afford an iPhone, but you’re only making yourself look ridiculous here.
ah, yes.. i-crap..i can just see the ads:
“were you tragically born without a personality? then come to the crapple store, where you will be sold a-generation-old hardware running a simplistic operating system, all for a meager 100% increase in price over competitors. also, did i mention it’s white and shines?? crapple – for the self-absorbed woman in you!”
Anyone read The New Yorker profile of Peter Thiel awhile back?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/28/111128fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all
Thiel argues that the iPhone has given us a false sense of futurism. We’ve had the freedom over the last 40 years to innovate with bits all we want; yet other kinds of engineering face so many restrictions these days that progress in them has become effectively illegal. That explains why we have Apple products on the one hand, and a crumbling material culture on the other hand. We can text each other all day, but California’s governor scolds his state’s residents to take fewer showers and flush their toilets less because the state has neglected water banking to sustain civilization during droughts. In other words, Apple’s digital technology looks like it belongs in the 21st Century, but water supplies, plumbing and sanitation have started to head back to the 19th Century.
Thiel would like to reset our project for building “the future” to something similar to what we saw in science fiction circa the 1950’s, and start over to get us to a properly advanced state all around. However, to do that you would also need to stomp hard on the seeds of destruction in the 1950’s which led to our current dysfunctions, namely, the normalizing of female sexual freedom. I don’t think it happened coincidentally that we have a generation of “feral women” suborned by feminism and promiscuity on the one hand, and on the other hand an adversarial legal and political environment which continues to deplete the last century’s stock of tangible capital while enforcing restrictions on making more of it and making it better. We need a society which recognizes, like our allegedly “ignorant” and “superstitious” patriarchal ancestors denigrated by feminists, that men’s cognitive strengths do the real work in making a materially decent life possible.
You win the thread!
Actually, I see smartphones as a variation on The Yes Men’s “Management Leisure Suit” …
http://www.rtmark.com/yesfinland.html
“The purpose of the ‘Management Leisure Suit’ … was to allow managers, no matter where they were, to monitor their distant, impoverished workforces and to administer shocks to encourage productivity — assuring that no “Gandhi-type situation” [would] develop again.”
The US govt. (Please read The Fed) is purposely decreasing the living standards of US citizens. The goal is to turn everyone into a low cost factory/office worker in the long term so that the US economy can regain its international competitiveness.
The Fed is doing exactly the same thing in all dollarized economies in Central and South America.
iPhone is a worthless piece of garbage. We need education, healthy food/environment, art, sports and individual freedom. Not angry birds or instagram.
Steve Jobs was a Glorywhore.Don’t confuse that with a Glory hole,which is Hipsters on side of the wall and Apple Inc on the other.
It not nearly as complicated as all that. Apple sells an image based on things that are desirable for obvious reasons: youth, creativity, uniqueness, sensitivity, creative class aspirations. These are a few things that white people have quasi religious feelings about so its no surprise that Apple has its own page at SWPL. Although its gone through some permutations, Apple has always tried to cultivate an elitist appeal in contrast to IBM PCs for the unwashed masses down in shipping and receiving, etc. This isn’t that different from how Abercrombie sells an image based on youth and raw sexuality. I suppose they both represent the spirit on a particular moment in western culture, Abercombie took off during the 90s while the (2nd) golden age of Apple was the 00s. At each point, some values become more important while others waned.
I don’t know how people are still buying this image of uniqueness when everyone and their dog has apple devices.
Propaganda – Edward Bernays
http://www.whale.to/b/bernays.pdf
This book is crucial to understand how modern advertising and marketing work. It is written by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud. He used all the work on psychology that Freud developed to do great evil. This is why people work jobs they hate to buy shit they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Fuck propaganda.
Great book.
Bernays is the guy credited with making smoking mainstream among women, bacon become part of the American breakfast and convincing the American public to support the pointless World War 1.
In his twilight years he repented, realizing he was complicit in making America more diseased, fat and militaristic. The damage was already done.
A touch unfair to pin this all on Apple. At least in my opinion.
Many people are glued to their android phone just as much as those who have an iPhone. I guess he focused on apple because they started it.
It sounds like this guy spent a lot of time learning how to use a PC and now his hard efforts have been in vain because of Apple (btw, I’m not an Apple fanboy.) Grow the fuck up.
Or, he’s noticing a trend of people who follow trends hard without thinking it through all the while thinking they’re special snowflakes. Think of your average hipster with an apple logo plastered on his bicycle bag.
Its the same as a motor car or any other consumer durable. At one time there was a guy in the town, just down the street that would fix your engine, washing machine, computer, etc. Note there is a finite life span engineered into the product. Look at a modern engine, it’s encased in a box under the hood, oil, washer fluid and battery are all that’s accessible. If anything else goes wrong its straight back to the dealer for an expensive tune up. Likewise with Apple. Anything goes wrong with an apple product back to Apple. Battery life expectancy decreases, back to Apple….. by that stage its probably better to just get a new iPhone, Touch, etc……
Very good and appropriate article. Honestly, the MacPro is the only thing worth purchasing from Apple. All their software is second best to other options on the market (Logic < Pro Tools; Final Cut < Avid; etc). The iPhone and iPad work, but there are cheaper solutions. Their laptops have slowly become cheap over the years. The MacPro is really the only high end product that they make.
Seeing adult men argue over which phone company is the best is a sad sight, its up there with men arguing over sports teams. These phone providers and sports teams don’t care for us, so why do some people demonstrate such biased loyalty towards them?
It’s all about belonging in my opinion, this cultish behaviour seems natural to humanity and the smartest people are those at the top brainwashing you to support them and fight their battles for them.
Buy a phone because you like it and it serves its purpose well, not out of unwavering loyalty, although I doubt I need to remind many of the readers of this site. This site has introduced me to a community of socially aware people that can’t be found in day to day life, long may it last.
granted this is also probably true in other countries
It is true in western europe, every girl has an iphone glued to her hand, 99% of the time on a social media app.
I appreciate Trouble’s enthusiasm about red pill issues, but after a few subpar articles he has written, I would suggest perhaps he gain a little more experience before attempting to teach other red pill men. How much can a 22 year old new college grad who recently discovered the red pill actually teach us? Offer different perspectives, yes, but not “teach” much, per se.
Social media is collectivist by design, and promotes conformity and group-think. It takes the fire out of man’s individuality and stokes female narcissism.
As for the hardware, well, they’re handy, but also another distraction.
It can also promote dissent. Social media has actually made me become less conformist. For example, I’m reading works by the Transcendentalist school right now and people like Ralph Waldo Emerson really influenced me to be less conformist. It allows me to read shit like the paper below and develop my ideas. There’s two sides to every coin. It seems like most of the people on this site are kind of older, which is why most of you don’t see the positive aspects of things.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm
I agree with you, even though I am older, and not very tech savvy.
I still use an old school blackberry. No apps, no social media. I only need email, security, battery life and durability. I’m not sure why any man would want an iphone or Galaxy. These devices were designed for women…pretty little things that let you waste time in search of instant gratification.
1) To flaunt wealth?
2) To use apps and score some poon
3) To learn how to use one/program for one to make money
” I’m not sure why any man would want an iphone or Galaxy.”
I’ve read some truly stupid comments in my day, but this one wins by a landslide. Wow. Stunning.
you’re completely right but i can’t hate apple, or more specifically steve jobs. guy was a goddamn genius. in selling, marketing, ergonomics [making shit out of one aluminium sheet is a herculean engineering feat ] and [in the case of a macbook pro] making the goddamn thing future proof. seriously, look at the build quality, i have friends [not fanboys, i dont even own one myself] who have macbooks that are 7 or 8 years old and they still work fine as intended. this was achieved by apple being obsessive control freaks on every part of their design and charging a premium for that. they do it with hardware and software.
i can’t hate them, i’m goddamn envious of them.
but yes smartphones are killing women faster than even feminism is
I still use a PC I bought in 2004, it “still work fine as intended”.
Apple charge premium because their marketing allows them to.
I agree with you that apple has really dumbed down society and there are many kids in basic poverty, but somehow still manage to have an iPhone. I also disagree with the article and think that it is a great thing if used properly. I was in an office that switched from PC to Mac and all productivity went up. No longer did we spend so much time on IT. When you set up email on Outlook you might be there for an hour if the settings are not just right. With apple mail you enter the email and password and it just works, 9 times out of 10.
LSD
LOL typical butthurt Windope user
Mac zombie
It’s not just an American thing. I’ve been in China for the past few days, and rush hour on the metro consists of millions of people glued to their screens, alone in a very large crowd. We definitely need to figure out how to control our new digital reality or we will fuck ourselves up. Full disclosure: I’m uploading this comment from my iPhone.
I actually did notice the “Genius” Bar people did seem a bit less knowledgeable than one would expect, altho Ive been there several times, so I have experience with them. However, they do know more than a cynic might see.
And that actually is a good observation that Apple Stores seem like a social club. The lighting is actually reminiscent of the bar/club in Tron Legacy:
http://www.movieviral.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/endofline.jpg
I thought being afraid of effective marketing was a liberal thing. Me, I have yet to get a cell phone. But if I do get one, I’ll probably just get it online. After having a relative show me the ins and outs of theirs.
“In societies where the modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was once directly lived has become mere representation.”
“The images detached from every aspect of life fuse in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished.”
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967)
Useless article. It’s classic yellow journalistic writing. Take a neutral event and attach a negative spin to it. Yawn.
Apple is neither good nor bad. It’s just technology. The idea that it’s evil because it’s “too easy to use” is laughable.
All you do in the article is write about Apple and then start throwing in random negative trends, then throw in a totally unsupported spin that it’s somehow evil.
Why not talk about how dishwashers are evil, or TV, or automobiles? You could write exactly the same crap about any of them.
Write something substantive next time.
Same thing that happened to computing happened to cars. Do any of you have any idea how much skill is needed to start, operate and maintain a Model T Ford? The people running GM understood immediately that in order to keep sales increasing, they needed to make a car easy to operate, so people other than “car guys” could operate a car. GM was a pioneer in auto transmissions, power brakes, power steering, power windows and the like. GM also understood how style appeals to people. GM was the first car company to do an annual model change.
Apple, led by Jobs, did for computing what GM did for motoring. I don’t blame Jobs for this, it was a good strategy that earned him a lot of money. What I object to is Job’s shitty treatment of people around him. Jobs was the kind of prick who would park in handicap spaces. He refused to support his daughter and her mother. The girl and her mother lived off welfare while Jobs had billions in the bank. In the early days of Apple, when money was tight, Jobs refused to compensate his very low paid workers with company stock. Woz share his stock with key people to keep them from leaving.
Bottom line: Jobs was a good businessman, but a failure as a human being.
The guy donated $50million to build hospitals in California. What a prick….
$50 million to Jobs was pocket change, and the tax benefit probably more than made up for it. BTW, $50 won’t build a fair sized outpatient clinic, to say nothing of an actual hospital.
All of societies’ ill are caused by the iPhone…what a stupid article.
The quality of ROK articles is really taking a dive.
The newest version of iPhone registers users’ fingerprints.
Regardless of whether you are a US citizen or not, iPhone transfers your fingerrprints records to a database, which is and can can be linked to the databases of US immigration (which possesses records of the fingerprints of every foreigner who enters the US), the US government institutions in charge of issuing ID and drivers’ licenses and the NSA (which tracks Internet use).
That is how iPhone assists the US corporate government in its projects of imperialist expansion and control of US citizens.
Ask yourself: How is it that such a useless function such as unlocking your iPhone with your fingerprints receives so much attention in its marketing campaign? Why does iPhone want you to focus on that?
People want better iPhone cameras and a larger storage capacity and better speakers, not that stupid alternative for unlocking your phone.
Apple works like a cult. Seriously. In both cases people invest themselves and money in them. leaving a cult hurts. Leaving apple hurts, it actually causes pain. Apple knows this, it’s genius.
People defend their investments. If this article causes you pain, and you have invested in Apple products, consider that.
The other side of Apple / cult comparison is that ex-cult members make the strongest anti-cult proponents. Because they lost their investment and they know they were conned.
“A single Apple store is about as valuable as the White House.
How is this even possible?”
This is possible because an Apple store is result of the free market and it benefits humanity whereas the White House is just the opposite.
Are you a Luddite or just ignoring the advances made in computing by one of the most inventive companies in the world today?
I’m sure you’re using a mouse – you can thank Apple for bringing that from Xerox PARC to the world.
I’m sure you’re using a graphical UI of some kind – thank Apple for that, too.
Photoshop? Made for Apple’s GUI.
Direct to Plate Pre-press? Aldus Pagemaker for the Apple GUI.
Video games? Apple had some of the first via cassette tapes. (Yes, cassette tapes!)
Oh, and the ‘evil’ smartphone? Apple again with it’s Newton precursor.
I’m a Cisco Network Architect so I’m a command-line beast but I’d rather have a graphic UI any day for the other things I do outside of routers and switches. It’s just easier.
Now you’re welcome to go back to the days of CLI Unix and memorize thousands of lines of obscure commands to get the most mundane of tasks done but I’m happy to stay in the 21st century and enjoy the technology I’ve seen developed, enjoyed, and made a career by, over the last 45+ years of my life.
Jesus, this article is just as sad as those Libtards that harp about “Faux Newz iz de devil” all day.
Congrats on wiring possibly the most herp derp article on his website.
Blaming society = blaming the victim. Society members are first children and then adults. Therefore holding ‘society’ responsible for anything is effectively blaming children. The way to change society is to change how we parent. So stop sending your kids to public school, and stop allowing the bullshit you see in “society” into your home.
This article is a kind of bitching and moaning about superficial, boring people whom if you have any self respect, you should ignore and not spend more any time around than you have to.
That should be the point of this article. Something like, ignore people who use Apple products, unless they very easily and obviously convey some higher value. So sick of bitchy articles on this site. I am going to start contributing.
First of all Mac makes superior products. Ever had a PC hard drive crash and lose 5 years of work? Yes they are a cultish with their marketing, but this website is kind of a cult. Without the economic growth in the tech sector this country would be in even more deep shit than it already is. Lastly what’s more American than innovating, remaking or inventing entire new industries, and being a world leader?
-Android User
Apple make a “good” product, not a superior one. In any sector Apple plays, there’s a technologically better alternative for another major vendor. Apple computers are overpriced, and, if you want the best, you buy from someone else (at a much lower price per MHZ/GB). Apple and PC hard drives are identical, there’s absolutely no difference between what Apple and Dell (for example) put in their desktop/laptop computers. Apple uses that same CPUs as a Dell as well (and often the same internal hardware in their other devices as far less expensive options).
Where Apple does differentiate is in their operating systems. They are generally easier to use and more stable than the alternatives. However, for that ease of use and stability, you pay a LOT more and lose quite a bit of flexibility. A PC can do things that no Apple device can (unless, of course, you dual boot or run virtualization software, negating most of the advantage of Apple and increasing complexity quite a bit).
Apple has hit on a few things that have made them very successful.
People are stupid and won’t take the time to learn how a PC works/how to maintain them.
People follow the herd.
Apple devices are luxury products and, as such, not subject to the normal laws of “whoever has the best product, wins”. Think of a iPhone as a Gucci purse. Is it better than any other purse? No. But people see you with that purse and make assumptions about your status in life; making it a veblen good.
However, IMHO, Apple needs to come out with the next big thing, and they need to do it soon. Everyone has an iPhone, they are becoming more common that other devices and therefore, losing their cachet. Droid devices have long ago surpassed them for speed/screen size/resolution/camera, etc. A Samsung 5S draws more looks than an iPhone in most US cities today, that’s bad news for Apple.
To blame Apple for the way the ignorant masses make use of its genius is disingenuous and myopic. Years ago (1990) I worked at Chjna Lake Naval Weapons Center in the California desert. Every one of our engineers and scientists used a Mac for their work. Why? Because they did what they were supposed to do, easily and reliably, allowing the thinkers to focus on their ideas, not on getting the damn technology to work.
It’s not the tools, it’s what you do with it.
Never owned an Apple product, and never will.