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FBI File Notes Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field
Hugh Pickens writes "Bloomberg reports that the FBI has released a decades-old file it kept on Steve Jobs, the deceased Apple co-founder, after a background check for a possible appointment by former President George H. W. Bush conducting interviews with unnamed associates of Jobs to judge his character, drug use and potential prejudices. 'Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs' honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,' according to the materials. Several people commented 'concerning past drug use on the part of Mr. Jobs,' according to the file including marijuana, hashish and LSD during the period 1970 – 1974. The file also noted that Jobs was not a member of the communist party."
As we all know, most CEOs are honest people who never twist truth or distort reality to achieve their goals.
Meanwhile, Google is officially becoming an enforcer of Motorola's patents and will demand a billion dollars a year in royalty fees, contrary to everything about patents that they complained about six months ago and everything their defenders have claimed about their values. But, yeah, it's good that this old Gawker story about mean Steve Jobs was posted instead.
Most people (we are not all paragons of virtue) do that. The difference was that Jobs was apparently good at it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Wondering if the FBI does background checks on Senate, Congress and Presidential candidates? Pretty sure 99.9% would have the same issues with "dishonesty". My favourite line from the TFA is "Others mentioned that Jobs couldn’t be trusted and that he was able to create a reality-distortion field." Wondering how strong this force field was and was it able to warp the time-space continuum?? :P
>> Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,
Sounds like a politician to me!
twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals
Sounds like Jobs would have been perfect!
Tons and tons of people have used a bit of hash and LSD in their past, but few will admit it to their employers if they work in the professional world.
It's not that these activities actually make a person of bad or suspicious - it's that many people _believe_ that they do. This turns casual and innocent drug users into liars because they have to protect themselves from the horribly ill-informed and paranoid power structure.
with the amount of business Steve sent to China, he should be an honorary member of the Chinese Communist Party
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Funny. Chris Dodd (MPAA) and Cary Sherman (RIAA) also twist the truth and distort reality. Shoud Apple hire these guys?
What kind of computer system were they using in 1991? By 1991 it wasn't very common anymore for users of email, Usenet, or FidoNet to do everything in all caps.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sure in support of Communism later.
None of those things are surprising or unexpected. None of those things, or even just the combination of those things, are unique or special to Jobs, or uncommon among humanity at all, let alone people of his generation and initial environment. Hell, the fact that he had an FBI file isn't even surprising or unexpected - I'm sure quite a few /.ers have FBI files just by virtue of where they've worked etc.
This is "news" in the same way that saying Mr. Jobs was a carbon based life form would been news.
Jobs was who most people expected he was, even when they had vastly differing opinions as to his worth as a human being.
I'm not trying to say that /, shouldn't report this stuff, but rather that I'm just surprised the guy's file was so mundane - you'd hope for *something* juicy.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Apple just filed a patent for methods of creating a "Reality Distortion Field". They are calling it iLie.
to achieve his goals.
The man outright stated he was willing to bankrupt the company he was in charge of making a profit for in order to avenge a perceived theft.
I would say the guy has reality, vengeance, and anger issues that rivals that of women I've let into my life.
Seriously, the guy had a very elegant approach to things, that's why Apple is very popular among those who don't mind having choices made for them, because despite the premium they're good solid choices as long as you don't have anything outside the box to accomplish. There's no doubt in my mind the guy had control issues, the fit he threw when the iPhone boot-loader was cracked, the fact he won't let you deal with multi-media data on external USB/FireWire drives on Mac OS X, the FUD he had the company spread about OGG/Vorbis, and the face Apple officially doesn't even acknowledge Linux exist even though it counts MS/Windows as a bonus feature combined with temper and obsessiveness stories that leaked about his first term as CEO tells me Jobs was likely a sociopath.
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no reality distortion field in our politicians. wasn't that the administration that had a secretary of the interior who wasn't concerned with pollution and resource depletion because he was expecting the rapture during his term?
I don't know the rules, but is it okay for the FBI to post the man's social security number? It's on nearly every page. 549-94-3295 if anyone was wondering.
This is "news" in the same way that saying Mr. Jobs was a carbon based life form would been news.
To be fair, that revelation would have surprised a lot of the Apple Faithful.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
In Jobs' defense, the interview subjects still recommended him for the high-level [government] appointment, which he didn't get.
"Honesty and integrity are not prerequisites to assume such a position," one of the interview subjects reportedly said.
Source
Whoever it was that said that to the FBI has serious chutzpah.
Exactly.
Also, Steve did publicly lie, repeatedly, about Apple never using Intel cpu's such as "...it will be a cold day in hell...".
Companies and individuals made huge investments in Apple products and Steve bold faced lied through his teeth. Overall he was a great individual but, like any human, he definitely had his no good, snake in the grass, piece of crap, lying moments.
There's a note that Jobs once held a TOP SECRET clearance while at Pixar. I wonder what Pixar was doing for the Government.
Good to know, that he was not a communist. I would have hated myself for buying any of his products.
[redacted] concluded the interview by stating that even though he does not consider Mr. Jobs to be a friend, he (Mr. Jobs) possesses the qualities to assume a high level political position. It was [redacted]'s opinion that honest and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position. [redacted] recommended him for a position of trust and confidence with the government.
That quote alone is awesome on so many levels I can't even begin to describe the joy and mirth I experienced while reading it.
Communist China is communist like Roman Meal bread is from Rome.
my co-worker is now saying I'm gonna pop.
Basically everyone spent that decade high on everything imaginable.
Steve Jobs is LSD!
That statement makes more sense than I'm comfortable admitting.
I think sometimes people are just too paranoid. Being too paranoid is just counter productive in my honest opinion. I mean, investigating Jobs' life, where did it get them anyways?
So they like to point out all of our faults, as if the FBI is the most honest organization on the planet, Yea Right!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I think the worst thing about this is that the public in general will see his drug use as being worse than his dishonesty/reality warping. I'm by no means excusing it, but I'd rather have a user than a liar any day.
(It's funny that I went to actually RTFA and it was barely longer than the /. summary with no additional information.)
Is it me, or is it the more we learn about the inner workings of our government via WikiLeaks, social media, and other channels that it becomes clear the last thing on earth any reasonably intelligent person should ever do is give their trust or dollars to the government or big corporations?
As a young man I had an impression of at least certain departments of the government as being competent, such as the FBI, CIA, and State Department. The first of those to fall was the CIA, with whom I had personal contact in the late 90's; calling them room temperature IQ's would be an effusive compliment. Then the FBI botched investigation after investigation throughout their lab screw-ups. And their modus operandus seemed to increasingly be to frame their suspects and violate the basic constitutional rights of innocent Americans. The State Department's sign-off on yellow-cake uranium was the first big blow to my confidence in that bunch; the next big strike against them was breezing through their application process only to wonder why it was no people of color made it; and the nail in the coffin was Cablegate.
Now, maybe DARPA has mettle left. The SEALs seem to prove themselves again and again. Apple and Google appear to be effective. But why do we cede so much to all the rest, given how shot through with corruption, collusion, and incompetence they are, and at such horrific cost?
We are, many of us, so much brighter and better and deserving of more to have our collective potential so utterly frustrated by such dross. It's not an information problem so much anymore. We have any one of dozens of channels to chose from to communicate. Is it a question of will or organization? As refugees from the system of ritual abuse constituted by the status quo, are we constitutionally unable to work with others cohesively or deeply afraid of bullies who will walk up and punch us?
I struggle with this because I see the deep intelligence of so many of my colleagues and of the general community on /., and I wonder what challenges we could not surmount if we could break free of our learned social inhibitions. We have all grown up in a world ruled by salesmen, thugs, and psychopaths, but that's not the world I'd like to leave to my kids. I'd like them to live in a world led by artists, engineers, scientists, and humanitarians.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
He said "Oh, Wow!" not "Oh, NO!"
May we all be so fortunate...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The Crazy People Living in his mind just ascended and left his body behind....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Oh my god he used cannabis _AND_ cannabis -.-
C'mon, anyone who didn't use recreational drugs from 1970 -- 1974 is lying or hadn't been born yet.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I'm baffled by America's continuing war on stamping out communists.
Sure, this is a democracy, we want to stay a democracy. We had enemies who were communists; however, the witch hunt against communism, which is still going on to a lesser degree is baffling.
When I applied for my green card, and later my citizenship (as recent as 2 years ago)- I had to fill in a form saying I hadn't overthrown any governments, wasn't a communist, etc, etc, etc. ... and no, I'm not a communist- although I joined a joke "communist party" in university that parodied the Republican and democrat clubs (I'm actually very centrist)- surprise they didn't find that and block my citizenship... :)
To me it seems to be "undemocratic" to try and stamp out an individual party or belief like that. Sure- if they try to over-throw the country- or do terrorist acts- or represent a foreign nation- but to try to keep people out because of their belief. Obviously the made a point- even as late as the 80's to make sure Jobs wasn't a commie... this was after the worst of the cold war- and after McCarthyism was en vogue.
Even MLK was demonized by the FBI- they spread false rumours about him trying to discredit him because he had communist friends and they FBI was worried he too might be a communist trying to spread communism.
I dunno- but even as someone who is opposed to communism - I find the attack on communism by the government to be kinda creepy- it feels as if some rights are being violated somehow. If I did want to be a commie- should I not be allowed to? Should I not be allowed to have a political opinion that is not main stream? What if a Republican government later decides to attack and out law the green party, or the democrats?
Am I the only one who finds this wrong? I know we're supposed to hate the commies- but we're also supposed to let people believe whatever they want and only arrest them if the commit a crime or conspire to do so.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Fanboy alert, I did read the Issacson book.
It had an interesting bit about the RDF and Jobs' reasoning behind it. The basic gist of it is that while a young guy he went to India and found himself a guru while immersing himself in "Eastern religion". Apparently during this time he learn the power of intuition and that at times it can triumph over the facts or what reason would tell you. It seems that this became a core belief of his and would color his views of what is and isn't possible.
So basically in rejecting western thought processes and harsh rationality he believed he could bend reality to his will. This later comes up when he is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and tries to cure himself with odd diets and fasting.
True at times he would use it as a marketing trick to assert things that he didn't want the public to know about, such as denying that certain products were in development. At other times when using the RDF he indeed did believe such things and often succeeded in accomplishing what others would view as impossible. Such as negotiating record company contracts, getting Gorilla glass for the iPhones in time and forcing product thinness on his engineers.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
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....as though that was a surprise.
Every politician relies on "reality distortion" and our government wouldn't be able to exist without "reality distortion" this single trait starts at the top government officials and goes all the way down to obese women that wear Lycra shorts.
In addition, Jobs was so successful after taking drugs (though not necessarily because of them) I think it's safe to say that at least some of the "War Against Drugs" (WAD) propaganda is complete and utter baloney, in fact I think about how ridiculous the WAD is every time I buy a bottle of vodka at the corner grocery.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
In other words Steve was perfect for the job.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
This is "news" in the same way that saying Mr. Jobs was a carbon based life form would been news.
To be fair, that revelation would have surprised a lot of the Apple Faithful.
Surely even the Apple Faithful must know that human beings living in silicon valley aren't actually *made* of silicon.
It's probably not that useful now, but there's some interesting personal information in the linked FBI file, the one that caught my eye was his SSN.
He effected a bored affect.
is it contagious because it seems all APPLE product owners are delusional and will twist reality to get what they want, it even works on themselves, it's the only explanation that fits compulsive buyers for owning every version of an Apple product
Senator's who have TS clearance do go through a background check. The House Armed Services Committee & Intelligence committee's require background checks on member's. The difference is that the Senate can decide to appoint someone to a committee regardless of the results as its up to the political process. That being said, I would be highly surprised if they did.
Cabinet Secretaries also go through background checks (usually) as part of their confirmation process. Although in theory the Senate could confirm w/o one, they do require them before hearings even take place.
The president / vice-president are the only ones who truly go through no official background check. However, the publicity and media surrounding a campaign almost guarantee's that everything will come up. If the people decide (regardless) that they don't have a problem, then its not the FBI's (or anyone else's) place to tell them no.
You may think about SJ what you want, but if you look at his presentations and speeches one thing that is much more interesting than his RDF is the pieces this RDF is made up from: He is extremely clear, logically convincing, he speaks freely without a script and everything appears to be very well thought through. You don't need to accept what he did and what he thought, but there's still much to learn from him, if you like him or not.
For any political, public or indeed business work these are abilities that are extremely important and at the same time rare. I can fully understand that there were people wanting him badly in a political rule. And I'm actually happy that he was obviously single-minded enough to not fall for that. He never cared for anything but computers, applied technology and business. Even if you don't like the company, the software and the business he built, the way he managed to do that certainly is something to learn from.
Only idiots refuse to learn from people they don't like. The opposite from something that is totally wrong is invariably also totally wrong.
Still completely relevant to this day. And this episode is indeed appropriate for this situation, which concerned the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of England and how Sir Humphrey utilises basic back stabbing techniques (ie first get behind them) to ensure that "Mr Clean" doesn't get appointed.
And while we're throwing quotes:
Dorothy Wainwright: [Referring to Desmond Glazebrook] He never has an opinion on anything; he always agrees with whomever he's speaking, so naturally, people think he's sound.
Plan My Week for iPhone
Because you have the freedom to vote provided it's for the Democrats or the Republicans, not any "fringe" parties.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Well there is some precedent.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
...bad for your liver.
Steve Jobs was a man of vision. The FBI has myopia. Was the FBI writer promoted, or did he get the boot he so richly deserved? The sad fact is that the FBI misses more than it gets, being ill led. When an FBI agent does stumble upon, say the guys who murdered JFK, MLK, RFK, George Wallace, Vince Foster, the same guys who shot the Pope, Gabby Giffords, and Ronald Reagan, they get mind wiped. Obviously it's the Plumbers. The Plumbers have had a CIA-developed mind-wipe drug since the early sixties. It's mostly a clear, alcohol-like general anesthetic. A whiff or two will give amnesia while weakening the willpower to "OK, sure." The young teens of Dallas and Houston, raped by George W. Bush, his dad, and the Plumbers would tell you all about it, if they could just remember. There were so many unaccounted-for hickeys that dermatologists thought it was a new disease. W. told Skull & Bones all about it. Many republicans "enjoyed" W.'s stable of fillies (Condolezza Rice among them), none turned him in for rape, especially John Tower.
So where are the arrests of George H.W. Bush, umbrella man in the JFK assassination? The FBI would cast aspersions on Steve Jobs, when Mr. Jobs is no longer around to defend his name and his honor.
'Several individuals questioned Mr. Bush's honesty stating that Mr. Bush will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,'
Heh...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The Yanks are so lame in their security assessments: did drugs 30 years ago; not a communist; has human failings. None of these matter, being communist would actually make him more useful to a strong central government in some roles.
How about: totally committed to Apple; completely inappropriate for the job; polarizing figure; much more useful as an entrepreneur; will make the best damn product in the world and alienate 75% of the people doing so.
(scratches head)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What? You thought they'd send those savings on to you, their customer?!?!?!
Don't be so naive!
You would not like to be involved at any level of government. You are not like those people who fight hard to be there. To us, society and state (and all forms of governing it) are things to endure, and avoid. Do whatever you can for your children, then for yourself, and for your loved ones. If possible, harm nobody. Be happy when you can, as often you can. Be a stoic: "sustine et abstine".
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
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