“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, year 1995

  • unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    The article you shared appears to be only an excerpt of the one I found here, and I don’t really find this to be dick behavior at all in the context of the first paragraph.

    I have been approached many times over the past two decades by individuals and corporations seeking to use my name and/or likeness for commercial purposes. I have always declined, no matter how lucrative the offer or how important the corporation. My endorsement is not for sale.

    For this reason, I was profoundly distressed to see your lead front-page story “Trio of Power PC Macs spring toward March release date” proclaiming Apple’s announcement of a new Mac bearing my name. That this was done without my authorization or knowledge is especially disturbing. Through my attorneys, I have repeatedly requested Apple to make a public clarification that I knew nothing of its intention to capitalize on my reputation in introducing this product, that I derived no benefit, financial or otherwise, from its doing so. Apple has refused. I would appreciate it if you so apprise your readership.

    Carl Sagan

    Seems to me like Apple could just have published a short statement saying that it was a internal codename only, used without Sagan’s knowledge or permission, and that they would change it to something unrelated.

    Instead they apparently decided to be little pissbabies about it and rename it to something obviously meant to be insulting to Sagan.

    He definitely took it further than I personally think would have been prudent, but in terms of who I think had the moral high ground? Not Apple.