[HaZeust]

Kind of reminds me of the quote from the Steve Jobs movie:

"The most efficient animal on the planet is a condor. The most inefficient animals on the planet are humans. But a human with a bicycle becomes the most efficient animal. And the right computer -- a friendly, easy computer that isn’t an eyesore but rather sits on your desk with the beauty of a tensor lamp -- the right computer will be a bicycle for the mind. A beautiful object -- perfect geometry, perfect finish, something you want to look at and have in your home. Flawless. And then a personal computer becomes an interpersonal computer. And what if instead of it being in the right hands, it was in everyone’s hands?"

[ketzo]

I’ve never seen the full quote, and I really love that last sentence.

Reminds me of Ratatouille: “Anyone can cook.”

We make software so that someone else can do something new with it that we ourselves never imagined.

So important to remember that someone could be… anyone!

[HaZeust]

Yup! Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist CAN come from anywhere

[jstanley]

We were promised bicycles for the mind, but what we got was public transport for the mind.

[azinman2]

Well what we really ended up with is TV.

[HaZeust]

“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television.” - Andy Warhol

Life is a quote or song cue.

[LoganDark]

This sounds a bit like they're suffering from derealization, honestly.

[Grimblewald]

In many cases id say the grindwheel of the mind. Inefficient and has the sole purpose of inflicting suffering. Perhaps not by 'design' but certainly through effect.

[sabhiram]

Muni style. People crapping all over it from time to time.

[lamp_book]

We had locomotives before bicycles, too. I think the industry can still get there.

[bostik]

In true South Park style.

Mr Garrison would be proud.

[throwaway14356]

the internet use to be a series of tubes, now it is a series of buckets.

[rpozarickij]

I haven't see the movie (only a few clips), but I enjoyed hearing this analogy from Steve Jobs himself in many of his interviews [0].

Just checked the part [1] of the movie where Michael Fassbender talks about the bicycle of the mind. He is a very good actor but it's hard to match the energy and the electric focus of Steve Jobs.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8

[1] https://youtu.be/BZYZlzIMVw8?si=u8X_mc4BX62ypRZw&t=98

[hbn]

The YouTube video for Vulfpeck's track, Barbara, is interspersed with the interview where he said that quote -- as well as the first take of it where he stumbled through it and then asked to restart from the beginning to reword it better!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npqD602G90o

[karolist]

Internet tells me that human is not the most inefficient, but pretty much down on the list. Sorry to be that guy, but to me a joke or quote needs to be true to impact :(

https://ghijklmno.net/a-bicycle-for-the-mind/

[cm11]

Funny, another commenter posted both videos, Steve Jobs saying it and Steve Jobs the film. Steve Jobs says what you say. Hollywood says it the other way. I suppose it also wouldn't be surprising if Jobs rehearsed this Hollywood-style for his interview.

[cjohnson318]

Dude really hit it out of the park with the "bicycle for the mind".

[kilna]

This "bicycle for the mind" guy died way sooner because of woo-woo bullshit magical thinking. He was an overprivileged marketer who had a better than average sense of what people would like, combined a shameless capacity to crib others' notes. Like most venerated billionaires, his main genius was his capacity to exploit.

[endofreach]

While i do not share the opinion that jobs was such a genius at all, reducing him to be just a marketer seems very narrow-minded.

Sometimes it's about bundling potential rather than exploitation. I have read many stories of the people who worked for jobs, not many of the "first ones" seem to tell stories of being exploited. But many seem to be proud of how much work they put into their work guided by a guy who seems to be there mostly for saying yey or ney. Which seems to be crucial.

Think about all the dysfunctional organizations you have seen or worked with. In my experience, most of them were lacking clarity, responsibility, personal investment & decisions.

The potential to end all wars, end hunger, free societies etc is there. I mean just on HN, the potential to transform the world by tomorrow is there. There is enough people with good will, enough people in key positions, enough people who are the best in their field, enough people who love to hack away as a side project, enough people who enjoy debating etc... here on HN.

All that is missing is the right approach to get a few of these people together with the right goal and by tomorrow we could take out / stop a lot of evil. This person must be able to "market", to bundle potential. But this person must also be able to identify potential & make hard decisions & do the things others would call "insensitive". Otherwise the people would quickly lose interest or be lost in chaos.

Focusing potential seems to be the most crucial part. Having a lot of potential but high entropy seems to be irrelevant in most cases.

Anyway, had to type it out because i just realized that partially i am doing the same mistake with my startup. Too stuck fiddling on the tech while knowing that i should be focusing on bundling potential. Currently i am just contributing to a entropic potential, which serves no one. Bundling it might serve the right people, at the right time with the right people.

Which infects my mind with the question i have been struggling with: is there any way someone like jobs could have been more than just a marketer in your eyes?

I do feel like i am looking down upon people like jobs who seem to be happy with just talking and never trying to really do the things themselves. On the other hand having this opinion of potential entropy... what do you think?

Edit: just wanted to add the after thought that people most likely call these people geniuses, whose way of achieving results they can't quite comprehend. And usually for people too attached from the problematic domain, the same geniuses could appear like idiots or sharlatans.

[globalnode]

Focusing potential as you eloquently put it is an entirely different skill to coding or engineering. I've been around people that do it and its like magic. Sharing a vision, presenting it in a way that sounds meaningful, and getting the 'buy-in' of others is all about managing others' expectations and trust. You really have to deliver and not just promise.

[jackbravo]

very nice comment! Both put in perspective the importance of Steve Jobs, while not aggrandizing him too much and instead shifting the focus to what we could do instead. Bookmarked!