Automobiles is automobiles were releasing new models in the 1950s that basically had different sheet metal on the exterior. The exterior had changed all that much. Volkswagen in the 1950s as an Advertising Campaign which shows sequentially the release models of volkswagen 1955 and 56 are all identical. Come see our new model which looks exactly like the old model. What is the implicit message . You know as the consumer that you are being sold a bill of goods by just having some of that sheet metal or tailfins were more work on the automobile. Certainly by the counterculture and then when we get to the 1970s the challenge to the american lifestyle, the challenge of middleclass lifestyle, new car suburban homes etc. That puts a lot of questioning by the American Public on consumer culture in general as to what we are getting from this. Are we happy . Are we more content . Duke ellington famously said it dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing. This is my argument and i want to give dave his due as well. My argument is thats a very powerful perversity and that terminology that is an unplanned for response. Who knew that people would be so interested in a twinkie that they would demand its production production . Given its relatively easy manufacture and distribution its an easy kind of product to reproduce from another manufacturer. The contrary question and the notion that there is more going on here or less going on here in terms of Consumer Agency and more in terms of being manipulated by puppet masters you to see this notion of ability by manufacturers and producers to target their products and a particular way. There are multiple perspectives on which to view Consumer Society and consumer culture and those perspectives change given who you are looking at. If you are looking at it from the perspective of the producers of that to the question of advertising. If you are looking at what advertising think you are going to get search answers but if you are looking at what consumers are expecting of the things that they consume your going to get different answers. What you see traditionally what you see in the last 15 to 20 years with Electronic Media is that its much easier for consumers. These terms are ubiquitous and mean Different Things for different clients but the fan culture is becoming stronger and stronger because its much easier to slice those demographics down so you are just looking at american idol, 18 to 24yearolds as opposed to downton abby, pbs subscribers. So that specificity is a historical process. That is where i would come back and say you see historically this ambiguity in the marketplace become much more pronounced the closer we get. Would the smartview right . No not exceptionally. I compare and contrast him to the absolutely wonderful smart guy of course bill gates. Bill gates had more of what you would call conventional mental processing power. I marvel and watch bill gates take large amounts of information sometimes two screens on his desk and screen desk and screens that had four windows on them and he can process information and absolutely brilliant. Steve was not brilliant in that way. He didnt have that analytical processing power. What he had was an intuitive genius. He could just have a feel for things. I feel for what people would like, i feel for beauty, a feel for what would work and so to me that is what i meant by genius. Albert einstein was not the best physicist in europe in 1905. In fact he was a third class of patent examiner in the Swiss Patent Office because he couldnt even get his ph. D. He couldnt get a job at the university so you wouldnt say oh he is by conventional standards you know the greatest physicist mind of 1905. But he was the greatest genius. He was able to make imaginative intuitive leaps. I would never put steve in the same quantum orbit is Albert Einstein but there was a similarity which is that the genius of steve jobs came from making intuitive leaps imaginatively, questioning perceiving wisdom. That is what ben franklin did. That is what steve jobs and that is what Albert Einstein did. Question things the perceived wisdom of newton riding that time marches along second by second irrespective of how we observe it and this patent clerk Albert Einstein says how would we test that . How would we take two clocks and synchronize them so we can test them . Like way for steve jobs people didnt know we needed 1000 songs in her pocket. You and i had walkman and mp3 players. They were a big part of our lives but steve was able to have a feel for beauty and a feel for Customer Experience that to me made him the greatest intuitive genius of the digital age. That is what i meant by that sentence. Michael shermer is the founding publisher of skeptic magazine and is columnist for Scientific American that he discusses how science has impose away weeping about human rights democracy freedom education and prosperity. This program is next on booktv