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Apple Honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With Homepage Tribute

I like the quote, and that they remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but I share others' reaction that it feels a little hypocritical when Apple are (almost certainly legally in intent, but also arguably very unethically) avoiding paying their fair share of taxation, which can have a real impact upon the lives of ordinary people.
 
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macguy360 said:
Bill Gates is considered to be the second highest contributor to philanthropy historically. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, he has personally given $28 billion dollars to the foundation. The foundation uses money to help people in third world countries with food, vaccines, and other needs. Yet Microsoft isn't touting philanthropy on their main page of their website.... Bill gives quietly.

Apple on the other hand refuses to acknowledge how much they donate and the media notes that Apple has given $40 million here or $50 million there, hardly comparable to the Bill Gates foundation despite Apple being a larger company than Microsoft has ever been.

It's one thing to put up an ad on the front page with MLK honoring him. It is another thing entirely to use a quote challenging people to do good for others. Because when you put up a challenge, you should be the one leading the way. Not pointing fingers while sitting back.
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Bill Gates is spreading GMO poison throughout the third world and owns 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock.
If there is one person who shouldn't be distributing billions of dollars it's that POS
 
Porco said:
I like the quote, and that they remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but I share others' reaction that it feels a little hypocritical when Apple are (almost certainly legally in intent, but also arguably very unethically) avoiding paying their fair share of taxation, which can have a real impact upon the lives of ordinary people.
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Quite.

By drawing attention to the speck of an issue, Cook is trying to draw attention away from the plank in Apple's eye: their immoral behaviour with regards to paying tax.
 
VulchR said:
This idea is (1) invented, (2) historically recent (ca. 1960's/1970's) and (3) nonsensical. It supposes that a shareholder, who might own stock for a few milliseconds during a period of speculation (=gambling), should take priority over customers and employees (on whose work the entire enterprise of the company rests and who may have worked for the company their entire working life or indeed the company's entire existence).
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Your post was an odd mix of sense and nonsense. The above is nonsensical.

Without shareholders providing working capital, there would be no company. They risked money with the understanding that there would be profit in doing so. Very often they lose that investment; very rarely they score a big profit. A company that doesn't do its best to keep shareholders happy (or one that appears to be wasting shareholder's money) won't be in business long.

I do not bash Apple indiscriminately, but in this case, I think their tax avoidance is sleazy. In the long wrong Apple's brand might very well be at stake if they get a reputation for ruthlessly exploiting tax loopholes and tax havens. That won't benefit anybody.
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This part made sense from the standpoint of my wanting to own products from an Apple that is not evil.

Regardless, they're not breaking laws, so if you want them to make moves that appear to be foolish by paying taxes they don't have to (remember: evading taxes is illegal; avoiding taxes is legal), there must be a provable and fairly short-term profit in the offing that will keep shareholders happy.
 
Honestly, I wish Apple would stick to selling consumer products.

I do not need to see MLK on their homepage.

It strikes me as pretentious and out of place.
 
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bpeeps said:
I'd like to see the dictionary you're using. Sounds like a good time.
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How does the dictionary you're using define "diversity"? Because the one I'm looking at says:

the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization
​
That agrees with nt5672's definition except for the "different cultures" part, wouldn't you say?

Choosing people because of their skin color or where they originated from instead of their competence is racism.
 
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Benjamin Frost said:
Well said, Sir.

Frankly, I'd like nothing better than for every single employee of Apple to be a white, God-fearing Christian man, with a wife at home looking after the children, if it means Apple giving us the best possible products.

Diversity is nothing less than a sop to the devil. If Tim Cook wished to be truly colour-blind, he would hire on talent alone.

The truth is that Steve Jobs cared so much about what Apple made that he only hired A players; Tim Cook lacks such devotion to excellence, and thus has decided to focus on diversity. It is also a sign that the iPhone has run its course for the foreseeable future. There is nothing much to be gained, so there is no need for the crême de la crême, at least in the eyes of Cook. Unfortunately, it means that we true Apple lovers have had to endure years of mediocrity from the once-great Apple.

Apple used to have a purity of purpose embedded in their culture. Cook's abandonment of this principle and embrace of repulsive celebrity trash is diametrically opposed to that philosophy and marks the most visible representation of where Apple has gone wrong. Only if Apple remember their simple creed will they rise again: focus on the product.
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Just come out of the closet, you will relax and drop the holier than thou sack cloth.
 
Thunderhawks said:
Please add all the other companies which do the same, so it's a little bit more fair.
I'll give you Pfizer to start. AND, while we are at it, please post the laws Apple is breaking by doing what they do. Then add the politicians and countries who pass the tax codes, labor laws etc. and we have a start.
Please educate yourself instead of spewing non facts. They are being investigated. That's all for now.
Of course only AFTER many many years of doing the same as other companies.
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The company I work for seems to have done this but won't admit it.
 
citizenzen said:
Honestly, I wish Apple would stick to selling consumer products.

I do not need to see MLK on their homepage.

It strikes me as pretentious and out of place.
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I kinda agree, except that the "Think Different" campaign set the precedent of associating great thinkers with Apple. (Einstein?! Maybe Newton...but...Einstein?!!)
 
macguy360 said:
Good question Apple. Here I'll answer for you.

Running tax avoidance havens out of Ireland while hiring the cheapest labor I can source from China while selling products at the highest possible point in the U.S. Oh wait, you meant to ask what we're doing for other people that aren't shareholders?
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They would be less successful if most of us wouldn't buy ... We do ...

Still good move from Apple; the only thing: for personalities like in this case I wish they would also share it on their international web sites (nothing in Japan or Germany)
 
DUCKofD3ATH said:
Most people discussing diversity mean when an effort is made to select people from many backgrounds and/or races to fill positions for which there are more people competing than there are slots available.

If the ability to do what the position requires is made secondary to the need for diversity, that is racism. Competition should depend on competence and nothing else.
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Most people do NOT think that diversity is and effort to select people from different backgrounds regardless of competence.

Only a pool of qualified candidates are will be considered and if race is taken out of the equation you will end up with a diverse work environment.

'If the ability to do what the position requires is made secondary to the need for diversity, that is racism. Competition should depend on competence and nothing else..
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This is correct and exactly what has not been happening historically is all types of fields.

Diversity will be a natural consequence of a level playing field.
 
ActionableMango said:
Of course you'll leave it at that. Because the surveillance was politically motivated.

Besides, everyone today is under surveillance.
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You prove that taken out of context we can skew anything the way we want to.

I'll leave it at that, was including Womanizer and plagiarizing a big part of his doctoral papers.

Just to be clear I have nothing against MLK, quite the opposite and wish people could just
relax and see Apple's website change as no more than a gesture for a man who deserves to be honored .

BTW: Just checked: we are at 163 replies as I write this, so in a country of over 300 million people, plus whoever is commenting from outside of the US apr. 50 people care about what Apple did one way or another.
 
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nt5672 said:
Diversity is and if itself just pure racism. I know that is not politically correct, but the fact is, diversity is used to select people based on race. And that is racism whether you want to admit it or not.
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No, it's not. We're a diverse population. It makes sense to have a diverse workforce. You don't have to set hiring quotas in order to strive for diversity in a corporation, for instance. You do have to offer the jobs to applicants who may have diverse attributes other than just their education and experience, etc.

Nobody made Citigroup offer to hire a woman for a foreign credit analyst position back in 1965 but the then new laws required Citigroup (well, its precursor) to place ads for "help wanted" instead of "help wanted, male" and "help wanted, female" when it came to most office-type jobs. Once the firm interviewed some female applicants and male applicants applying for the same job, they could make an offer that suited their needs and they had complied with the EEO laws of that time.

Maybe now it would raise eyebrows that the bank back then required more of the female than of the male applicants. She had to be able to type 80wpm and do her own reports; he would receive half the time of a clerk-typist to produce his reports. And it was not illegal for the firm to offer her $75 a week for more work with more qualifications, but to offer him $100 a week for less work and fewer qualifications.

Of course we have still not totally achieved uniform pay scales for equal work in this country, and those job offers were certainly not perfectly equal. But it was a vastly improved experience for women to have the up-front filter of a gender barrier removed from job hunting in most corporate job settings. Before that, the foreign credit analyst job was only offered to males. So if you were a woman, you could be qualified, but you could not even get past the receptionist making appointments for "help wanted, male."

To me the diversity-related laws of today are still about removing barriers, not about installing preferences. I have lived through seeing the difference it makes. I did not take every job that was offered to me (not least because a fair number of them did have vastly unfair differences in how they structured requirements and benefits for the same job when offering it to males and to females), and I did not receive an offer for every job I applied for. That's life. But it's also life in the USA today to understand that the law requires consideration of diverse applicants for jobs and places in school and so forth. It's not racist. It's the opposite of racist. It's saying your race is not a barrier to this application.
 
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KdParker said:
Most people do NOT think that diversity is and effort to select people from different backgrounds regardless of competence.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. Most people think diversity is just affirmative action wrapped with doublespeak.

Only a pool of qualified candidates are will be considered and if race is taken out of the equation you will end up with a diverse work environment.
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If that were true, asians wouldn't be suing universities because they were refused entrance in spite of having higher scores than the more "diverse" students who were admitted.

If competence is the primary requirement (and legally and morally, that's what should be the main consideration), there shouldn't be a need for Offices of Diversity and Multiculturalism. And yet we have them.
 
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LizKat said:
No, it's not. We're a diverse population. It makes sense to have a diverse workforce. You don't have to set hiring quotas in order to strive for diversity in a corporation, for instance. You do have to offer the jobs to applicants who may have diverse attributes other than just their education and experience, etc.

Nobody made Citigroup offer to hire a woman for a foreign credit analyst position back in 1965 but the then new laws required Citigroup (well, its precursor) to place ads for "help wanted" instead of "help wanted, male" and "help wanted, female" when it came to most office-type jobs. Once the firm interviewed some female applicants and male applicants applying for the same job, they could make an offer that suited their needs and they had complied with the EEO laws of that time.

Maybe now it would raise eyebrows that the bank back then required more of the female than of the male applicants. She had to be able to type 80wpm and do her own reports; he would receive half the time of a clerk-typist to produce his reports. And it was not illegal for the firm to offer her $75 a week for more work with more qualifications, but to offer him $100 a week for less work and fewer qualifications.

Of course we have still not totally achieved uniform pay scales for equal work in this country, and those job offers were certainly not perfectly equal. But it was a vastly improved experience for women to have the up-front filter of a gender barrier removed from job hunting in most corporate job settings. Before that, the foreign credit analyst job was only offered to males. So if you were a woman, you could be qualified, but you could not even get past the receptionist making appointments for "help wanted, male."

To me the diversity-related laws of today are still about removing barriers, not about installing preferences. I have lived through seeing the difference it makes. I did not take every job that was offered to me (not least because a fair number of them did have vastly unfair differences in how they structured requirements and benefits for the same job when offering it to males and to females), and I did not receive an offer for every job I applied for. That's life. But it's also life in the USA today to understand that the law requires consideration of diverse applicants for jobs and places in school and so forth. It's not racist. It's the opposite of racist. It's saying your race is not a barrier to this application.
Click to expand...

Your post is based on the mistaken view that discriminating on the basis of anything but competence is legal. It is not.

The following are the types of discrimination that are prohibited by law in the US and are enforced by the EEOC:
  • Age
  • Disability
  • Equal Pay/Compensation
  • Genetic Information
  • Harassment
  • National Origin
  • Pregnancy
  • Race/Color
  • Religion
  • Retaliation
  • Sex
  • Sexual Harassment
So if you've been discriminated against, you don't need an Office of Diversity to make it right, you just need a good lawyer.
 
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Benjamin Frost said:
Well said, Sir.

Frankly, I'd like nothing better than for every single employee of Apple to be a white, God-fearing Christian man, with a wife at home looking after the children, if it means Apple giving us the best possible products.

Diversity is nothing less than a sop to the devil. If Tim Cook wished to be truly colour-blind, he would hire on talent alone.

The truth is that Steve Jobs cared so much about what Apple made that he only hired A players; Tim Cook lacks such devotion to excellence, and thus has decided to focus on diversity. It is also a sign that the iPhone has run its course for the foreseeable future. There is nothing much to be gained, so there is no need for the crême de la crême, at least in the eyes of Cook. Unfortunately, it means that we true Apple lovers have had to endure years of mediocrity from the once-great Apple.

Apple used to have a purity of purpose embedded in their culture. Cook's abandonment of this principle and embrace of repulsive celebrity trash is diametrically opposed to that philosophy and marks the most visible representation of where Apple has gone wrong. Only if Apple remember their simple creed will they rise again: focus on the product.
Click to expand...
Diversity improves your cultural understanding which in today's global marketplace is a massive commercial advantage.
 
Thunderhawks said:
You prove that taken out of context we can skew anything the way we want to.

I'll leave it at that, was including Womanizer and plagiarizing a big part of his doctoral papers.
Click to expand...

I left out those parts that I have no dispute with in order to be concise. The first two points are valid criticisms that I agree with. The last point "being under surveillance" I don't consider to be a valid criticism, and thus my response was wholly about that.

"Taking out of content in an attempt to skew" is an incorrect assumption on your part about my intentions.

EDIT: Never mind, I see what you are saying about my response now, I agree with you, and I apologize.

Nevertheless, being under surveillance is not a valid criticism of someone, especially in the civil rights era.
 
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Martin ... thank you for showing the world there is more to us Blacks than physical strength perceived hatred for different skin color and that we're too human beings not animals and such other derogatory comments and thoughts of the past.

I would even go as far to say that your deam was heaven sent signed sealed for you to deliver.

VulchR said:
I don't see how this would be controversial - good for Apple.
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the controversy of this day of observance is the few times it was not passed to be a bill, beyond citing costs just other garbage (various provided in history before 1986 being signed by Reagan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._Day
 
Eraserhead said:
Diversity improves your cultural understanding which in today's global marketplace is a massive commercial advantage.
Click to expand...

So Apple should have several Chinese executives in the boardroom?

Your argument sounds nice, but from a practical standpoint, you hire people locally to address local cultural needs. What matters most is competence. If the best person for the job also happens to be from a different culture, that's a bonus.
 
DUCKofD3ATH said:
Your post is based on the mistaken view that discriminating on the basis of anything but competence is legal. It is not.

The following are the types of discrimination that are prohibited by law in the US and are enforced by the EEOC:
  • Age
  • Disability
  • Equal Pay/Compensation
  • Genetic Information
  • Harassment
  • National Origin
  • Pregnancy
  • Race/Color
  • Religion
  • Retaliation
  • Sex
  • Sexual Harassment
So if you've been discriminated against, you don't need an Office of Diversity to make it right, you just need a good lawyer.
Click to expand...

I don't quite get your point as a response to my post. My post was in reply to the post I quoted, which was citing "diversity" as being "used to select people based on race. And that is racism whether you want to admit it or not."

I did not accept that as a premise and my point was that diversity in the workplace is about "removing barriers, not about installing preferences." So.... ?? :)
 
Mtmspa said:
Nice tribute. Now back to working debugging your crapware.
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For a company that turns out crapware they are pretty successful. Didn't you get that for FREE?
Did you also get several updates, showing that Apple is working on correcting what doesn't work perfectly?

Your expectations/demand for immediately perfect software are totally unrealistic.

Would you even be able to list the "crappy" part of OSX and put a percentage with it?

How much work sand how much doesn't?

No gratitude, no manners, no respect for others hard work. You must be from the entitlement generation.

If you do not want to use or like OS X, may I suggest you give the PC world a try with Windows 10 or whatever you consider bug free?

Sooooo many unanswered questions!
 
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