…was Steve Jobs.
The part of the piece that most struck me was this:
A 2006 Wired article on Jobs, “Great Wealth Does Not Make a Great Man,” reported that even though his wealth was estimated at $3.3 billion, Jobs’s name did not appear on Giving USA’s list of gifts of $5 million or more for the previous four years, nor on another that list showing gifts of $1 million or more. (The article acknowledged that he could have been giving anonymously.)
The article took a cheap shot: “Jobs can’t even get behind causes that would seem to carry deep personal meaning…he is a cancer survivor. But unlike [Lance] Armstrong, Jobs has so far done little publicly to raise money or awareness for the disease.” It went on, “…he’s nothing more than a greedy capitalist who’s amassed an obscene fortune. It’s shameful…[Bill] Gates is much more deserving of Jobs’ rock star exaltation. In the same way, I admire Bono over Mick Jagger, and John Lennon over Elvis, because they spoke up about things bigger than their own celebrity.” Yes, but in part their own celebrity was connected to the things they spoke up about.
Emphasis mine.
Really? Is there an adult on the planet, or at least in this country, who is unaware of cancer? Really? Does their awareness really need to be raised? Will the elevation of their “awareness” somehow magically result in less cancer?
This kind of “journalism” isn’t just stupid, it is insipid.
“Raising awareness” is a sign of overly low expectations. And it solves the wrong problem. The problem with cancer is that it kills people, not that we’re insufficiently aware of it. What “raising awareness” solves is the problem of funding the non-profit that is doing the raising. In my view, that makes it pretty close to a scam.
It solves another problem Karl; it offers absolution to the awareness raiser. Bono (rhymes with Oh-no) flies around the world on chartered jets to convince world leaders to forgive developing countries’ debts.
Priceless.
I think “raising awareness of cancer” refers to a variety of useful kinds of information that people would benefit from receiving. Here are some examples:
1) raising awareness of early symptoms, in order to speed diagnosis. For example, Randy Pausch (the “last lecture” guy) pointed out that he became aware of his pancreatic cancer because his poo started floating in the toilet. I know, I know, Bob-1 is talking about poo. While pancreatic cancer is a pretty dire situation, an early diagnosis can be helpful in some cases (as Steve Jobs’ last years show). There are a variety of seemingly innocuous symptoms, like floating poo, which should tell people “go see a doctor” but they aren’t aware of what those symptoms are. A more classic example: should you see a doctor if a mole gets larger, darker, and/or raised? You surely know the answer, Rand, but plenty of people are not aware.
2) Raising awareness of carcinogens, in order to avoid them. To stick with the melanoma example for a moment longer, tanning booths have been linked to cancer, and many young women aren’t aware of this.
3) Raising awareness of anti-carcinogens, in order to seek them out. Eat your vegetables, get your bowel probed after 50 (man, would I like to skip that!), etc.
4) Raising awareness of risk factors. If a parent died of colon cancer, maybe you need to get checked earlier than 50, etc. Probably you know this, but many people don’t.
“Raising awareness”, in many cases, is a euphemism for “Educating the dumb”, or to put it in nicer terms, “educating the young and the poorly informed”.
So what your saying is ‘awareness’ is the other half of idiocracy which keeps idiots alive to breed. Good to know.
Think of them as lovable idiots.
Not so lovable when they cause the downfall of civilization. We only have a democracy if we can keep it.
IOW, doing what the HHS fails to do with its paltry $9E11 annual budget.
“Raising awareness”, in many cases, is a euphemism for “Educating the dumb”, or to put it in nicer terms, “educating the young and the poorly informed”.
Which needs to be accomplished by private philanthropy, of course, because public schools are too busy imparting self-esteem and eradicating heteronormativism to actually educate people, right?
One thing the Harvard Business Review piece didn’t mention is Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage, which when applied to individual humans means that we are all best off doing what we as individuals do best, and not doing other things less efficiently. For example, when Jimmy Carter or Newt Gingrich spends a couple of days doing carpentry for Habitat for Humanity, they’re being stupid — everyone would be much better off if Jimmah or Newt gave a couple of one-hour speeches at $50,000 a pop and donated that money to pay for lots of skilled carpenters to build lots of houses for Habitat.
What Steve Jobs did best was running Apple and making sure that the company put out great products and continued to make a profit.
I think that’s a fine argument, except for the part about”heteronormawhateverism”(*). I’m just saying that “raising awareness” actually can save lives, even if the phrase is rather vague and certainly not Simberg-proof.
(*) Heterosexuality eradicated? Ha ha ha! Ask any public high school teacher about homecoming dance.
Bob, based on what you wrote, you’re not clear on what “heteronormatism” means.
I doubt that anyone really knows what “heteronormatism” means. It’s the sort of word mocked in the Sokal paper – made-up words of random Latin and Greek roots melded with affixes, the longer the better, to awe rather than communicate.
Alas, not so … or at least not so for the word I wrote: heteronormativism — a word much beloved in Womyn’s Studies departments across the nation.
… and mocked here.
Bob, based on what you wrote, you’re not clear on what “heteronormatism” means.
Based on his reply, I don’t thnk he’s clear on what “sarcasm” means, either. I wasn’t agreeing with him about the supposed “need” for private philanthropy to teach short, basic concepts that could and should be learned in public schools.
“. I wasn’t agreeing with him about the supposed “need” for private philanthropy to teach short, basic concepts that could and should be learned in public schools.”
You’re right! I missed your sarcasm. Here’s why:
You want to teach about the symptoms of pancreatic cancer in public schools?
I’m not going to completely dismiss this idea out of hand, but it seems to me that teaching kids about the symptoms of diseases that the children won’t be at risk for until much later in their lives is not time well spent. Children aren’t likely to remember, for one thing, and medical treatment options may change significantly by the time they are the right to age to be vigilant regarding cancer.
We can even hope that kids in school now won’t be faced with cancers now typical in aging adults.
This reminds me of my favorite punchline from questionablecontent.net. A young lesbian walks up to a famous romance novelist and says, “I love your books, but I object to your continuation of the heteronormative paradigm. Why aren’t any of your protagonists gay?”
“That’s a great idea!” he cries.
“You’re going to make your next heroine a lesbian?” she asks excitedly.
“No, I’m going to rename my villain Dr. Heteronormative!”
The article acknowledged that he could have been giving anonymously.
I think that’s really key. It’s not enough to give to charity. You have to do it publicly. You have to set the right example. AND, “we” need to see if what you choose to support meets our approval. If it doesn’t, you’d have been better off buying another yacht.
I am not sure running a company means you are a philanthropist, no matter how successful the company is.
I’m just saying that “raising awareness” actually can save lives
Bob, considering the demographics, how many lives are being saved by NFL players-officials-broadcasters-ballboys wearing pink on Sundays?
If Steve Jobs had decided to sponsor a prostate cancer awareness campaign with the WNBA by having them wear something symbolic during their games, do you think someone would have pointed out to him ahead of time that it might end up being more trouble than it was worth?
One thing that has always annoyed me is the moral dictate (by the unsuccessful) that the successful “give back to the community.” The only justification for such a demand would be if everyone in “the community” who bought something from the successful person believed he was being ovetcharged at the time of purchase, but was forced to buy anyway. Short of that, the demand is an immoral renegotiation of the terms of sale after the fact.
Bob, considering the demographics, how many lives are being saved by NFL players-officials-broadcasters-ballboys wearing pink on Sundays?
I think you missed the point. I’m not a football fanatic, but if NFL is like other events I’m familiar with, the reason those players wear pink is to encourage the spectators to wear pink. Which means they have to go out and buy the products (which the breast cancer foundation gets a cut of).
If Steve Jobs had decided to sponsor a prostate cancer awareness campaign with the WNBA by having them wear something symbolic during their games, do you think someone would have pointed out to him ahead of time that it might end up being more trouble than it was worth?
Actually, he did do something similar, with the Red iPods for AIDS research.
As I recall, that was done in cooperation with Mr. Bono, who the author praises so highly. Fact checking is, of course, no longer a part of journalism.
Personally I can do without the celebrity’s telling me what inane thing they think this week. Most definitely the ones that do so with a health dose of righteous indignation. Most of them just end up showing you how borderline retarded they are And what a life spent pursuing an “acting” career will do to your brain.
I am not sure running a company means you are a philanthropist, no matter how successful the company is.
Imagine if Bill Gates, instead of starting a foundation that saved 100 million from disease at great personal cost, instead poured the money into a for-profit that raised the same 100 million people out of poverty to the point where they could provide the nutrition and medicine themselves, without infusions of personal cash from Mr. Gates. Clearly the latter would be a better outcome, but journalists without irony would call him a greedy capitalist for profiting off of poor people.
Great producers are by default great philantropists, because even the greediest wealth creator very rarely collects more than a small fraction of the wealth he creates.
Certainly people who create jobs are doing something good but that really isn’t what philanthropy is though.
The method ipods and ipads are produced in China should put any talk of philanthropy to rest. Good business decision, sure, philanthropy, no.
Bill Gates could invest $100m but it would be unlikely to put 100m people to work or pull them out of poverty. You would have to look at the most indirect of indirect effects to get to those numbers but if you do that you might as well do the same for his current efforts.
But the “Raising awareness” campaigns don’t focus on the symptoms.
70,000+ football fans a couple weeks back at the Seattle stadium were subjected to:
1) Pink programs – not one insert or page explaining or informing about -anything- other than how to contribute money.
2) Pink ushers.
3) Pink booted and bootied cheerleaders.
4) Pink shoes and towels for the players.
5) 6 separate announcements – of how to contribute. Or of self-congratulations for said information.
6) A halftime show involving 4 high school cheerleading squads – all pink.
7) The finale of the halftime show is the emblematic pink ribbon.
8) Free exit gifts: Pink ribbon pins.
The predominantly male crowd’s general crass response is “Yeah, I’ll inspect as many as get presented to me.” And “So, why don’t the cheerleaders visit the crowds for a free inspection”.
We’ve got it already. Everyone with an IQ above e and less than a three-hour commute to civilization knows already. Even the more detailed information (Lumps bad!) has wide dissemination at this point.
To quote an movie: “Even the cows can program a VCR by now,”.
Or of self-congratulations for said information
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Tell him what he’s won Bob!
The best I can come up with is:
1) Woman are self-conscious about their breasts.
2) They need men to encourage them to get examined.
And that is so twisted and messed up I got a headache writing it down.
No, it’s just a general-purpose image campaign. Breast cancer has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Mr. Wright: One notable difference between AIDS and virtually any type of cancer is that AIDS is almost completely avoidable.
If you don’t inject illegal drugs (or if you do, don’t share needles), don’t indulge in anal s3x and are not promiscuous, your risk of contracting AIDS is vanishingly small. The only remaining risk factors are involuntary swopping of bodily fluids (dealing with a bleeding AIDS sufferer while you have broken skin yourself for example) or being given contaminated blood after trauma or during surgery. IIRC, the latter was what saw the great Asimov off.
All of the above applies, to a great extent, to hepatitis C. (IIRC).
Whereas, for example, the lung cancer risk of someone who does not indulge in any risk behaviours is very far indeed from zero. There is another point here; I have yet to see, and don’t expect ever to see, anyone wearing a blue ribbon for a prostate cancer charity. The incidences of breast cancer and prostate cancer are about the same, survival rates for early detection are about the same – and research money for prostate cancer is about a fifth of that for breast cancer. Hmmm…
Ironically, some AIDS activists appear to want us to forget how preventable HIV infection is.
Well that’s simple. Breasts we like, nuts we tolerate 🙂 Hey, I see ya lookin’
People are more willing to donate for a disease associated with young women than a disease associated with old men — and that surprises you? I don’t think you’ve thought that through very much.
Also, men get breast cancer, too. If you’re unaware of that, then maybe there should be some “awareness raising” at halftime.
“Also, men get breast cancer, too. If you’re unaware of that, then maybe there should be some “awareness raising” at halftime.”
That’s entirely the point:
There is no awareness raising at halftime.
No less-well-known facts are presented, no succinct plan of action is uttered.
Other than: Give money now. And “Look at us, we raised XXX,XXX!”
And “Associated with -young- women?” Didn’t we already hear last year that the death panels had ruled that yearly mamograms for forty-year olds was “wildly premature” and not something we can expect to be covered under “insurance”?