Comments for The Steve Jobs Phenomenon at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 18 May 2013 14:32:56 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-steve-jobs-phenomenon.html#comment-8466 Let's get back to Steve Jobs, who was glossed over. All I know is that, in a decade when pornography went mainstream, when children were taking assault rifles to school and killing everyone around them who couldn't duck in time, when the President was having an affair with an intern in the Oval Office, one company was making movies that I would allow my children to watch. That company was Pixar, and Steve Jobs owned it. Those movies were among the only things my children ever saw on television, save the World Series, some "Christian" movies, and of course, news coverage of September 11, 2001. My children are grown and I recently watched several Pixar movies and the all brought tears to my eyes -- had me weeping like a baby, in fact. Oh, about technology: yes, it's a problem -- an unavoidable one, as Marshall McLuhan informed us it would be. For most of my life, I've watched it grow more and more complex, overpromising and underdelivering; I've watched it demand more and more user involvement in the frustrating minutia of trying to get it to deliver on its promises. I have seen it be interposed between people and I've seen it used to manipulate and alienate people. I've always considered myself at odds with the "information revolution," and am usually the last person you know who buys into something new in that area. When I was laid off from my work in Financial Services, I began teaching elderly people how to use the computers their children bought them. My dearest client had a Macbook Pro -- I'd never touched an Apple product before. I had to teach her how to reply to the little videos her children and grandchildren were sending her. And watching her do this - seeing the joy it brought them to be able to stay in touch and have fun doing it - made a light go on for me. I went and purchased my first Apple product (an iPhone) and have made more use of it than of any other such tool I've ever owned. I will also acknowledge that techology is building the Kingdom of Antichrist. But as with every other onslaught of technology the human race has faced, it falls to Catholics to humanize it. - charles wright Wed, 12 Oct 2011 06:04:09 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-steve-jobs-phenomenon.html#comment-8465 Let's get back to Steve Jobs, who was glossed over. All I know is that, in a decade when pornography went mainstream, when children were taking assault rifles to school and killing everyone around them who couldn't duck in time, when the President was having an affair with an intern in the Oval Office, one company was making movies that I would allow my children to watch. That company was Pixar, and Steve Jobs owned it. Those movies were among the only things my children ever saw on television, save the World Series, some "Christian" movies, and of course, news coverage of September 11, 2001. My children are grown and I recently watched several Pixar movies and the all brought tears to my eyes -- had me weeping like a baby, in fact. Oh, about technology: yes, it's a problem -- an unavoidable one, as Marshall McLuhan informed us it would be. For most of my life, I've watched it grow more and more complex, overpromising and underdelivering; I've watched it demand more and more user involvement in the frustrating minutia of trying to get it to deliver on its promises. I have seen it be interposed between people and I've seen it used to manipulate and alienate people. I've always considered myself at odds with the "information revolution," and am usually the last person you know who buys into something new in that area. When I was laid off from my work in Financial Services, I began teaching elderly people how to use the computers their children bought them. My dearest client had a Macbook Pro -- I'd never touched an Apple product before. I had to teach her how to reply to the little videos her children and grandchildren were sending her. And watching her do this - seeing the joy it brought them to be able to stay in touch and have fun doing it - made a light go on for me. I went and purchased my first Apple product (an iPhone) and have made more use of it than of any other such tool I've ever owned. I will also acknowledge that techology is building the Kingdom of Antichrist. But as with every other onslaught of technology the human race has faced, it falls to Catholics to humanize it. - charles wright Wed, 12 Oct 2011 06:03:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-steve-jobs-phenomenon.html#comment-8441 Tricky question since the technology is so peripheral to the growth in the Spirit. But an Iphone might for example deliver the breviary readings for the day. The human operation of cooperating with grace is of a different order to the technology so at best it always plays a very minor role. Now someone can come back with 'well my car allowed me to get someone to hospital' - true but the real decision takes place in the heart of the Good Samaritan whether he uses a donkey or a car. We are so in the wash of thinking that technology can do anything that we have lost the sense of our own humanity. Saints know what their humanity means and why the Divine Son took on human form. There is no technology anywhere near that process. - Fr. Bramwell Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:32:57 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-steve-jobs-phenomenon.html#comment-8436 Another excellent article. Thank you Fr. Bramwell. A distillation of the last two paragraphs might be framed in the following layered question: How might/should/does each/any technology extend the abilities of the human person in time and space in ways that assist him in achieving some greater degree of victory in the struggle to cooperate with Grace? Alas, being each of us human, we know all too well, and all too intimately the myriad ways in which any technology can be made to serve the opposite end. - Denverite Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:45:50 +0100