Tuesday 27 October 2009

It's all lies!

How many lies do you believe are true?

Got a question for you - how did Apple start?
Steve & Woz in their garage, building their first computer together is what most of you will say... LIES!

Both of them worked at HP and Atari. Both of them were involved in the formative years of those companies - Woz tried to sell his idea to HP and they didn't go for it, so Steve and Woz went out on their own. Sure, they had a garage, they also had formal training and careers in the industry long before breaking out on their own.

How about Youtube?
Two dudes who wanted to share their videos with one another in a discussion after a dinner party... LIES!

Steve Chen and Chad Hurley both cut their teeth at PayPal. In fact, Hurley was one of PayPal's first employees and helped designed its logo. He is also the son-in-law of James Clark, who founded Netscape and Silicon Graphics. A long way from college kids who did it "for kicks".

How many other stories are like this - creation myths, expounded and exaggerated and falsified to sell a story rather than to tell the truth?

I'd argue all of them.

Chris Columbus' is a long cry from looking for India from the West in order to prove the world wasn't flat amongst a mutinous crew. In actuality, he went off looking for gold to get rich so he could get favour of the Queen, and sailors of his day knew the world was round from sailing around the ocean and navigating by the stars and an astrolabe for centuries.

Of course, the greatest creation myth of all is the one found in the Bible, but that's probably unfairly called out because it was the first reproduced in book form and accessible to the 'common man', the first to be set to a specific formula and stay that way, rather than alter and change like so many spoken myths before it.

But for centuries, people have been faking this myth, making it believable by things like the Shroud of Turin or Solomon's Pomegranate.

This is why the only truth is in archeology, the only science to believe is history.

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