????舉個最明顯的反例——史蒂夫?喬布斯，我們這個時代最受尊崇的技術偶像，以及他創造的偉大公司蘋果（Apple）。顯然，喬布斯才華橫溢，專注投入——但他的控制欲也同樣出名。喬布斯把他的A型人格發揚到了極致，他曾在公共場合開除員工，甚至滿嘴臟話長篇大論地咒罵供應商，因而被一些人稱作“大混蛋”。

????他的精神依舊存在于他創立的這家公司中（盡管少了些咒罵）。蘋果打造了封閉的計算機生態體系，使它能夠控制從硬件到軟件在內的所有用戶體驗——包括禁止那些達不到標準、抑或只是設計形象不合適的iOS應用在其App商店上架。

????但這不僅是能否給iPhone下載色情應用的問題。我們不知道蘋果操作系統的代碼里有什么，因為除了蘋果，沒人可以查看它——除了蘋果，也沒人可以修復它。這一點不僅導致了安全漏洞（在當今的操作系統中，漏洞幾乎是不可避免的），有時候還會延誤修復時間。盡管存在這些問題，許多用戶依然信任蘋果，某種程度上也是因為史蒂夫?喬布斯多年來塑造的穩定形象。

????如此看來，蘋果和比特幣是截然相反的兩種形象——我們對比特幣的創始人幾乎一無所知，卻對比特幣如數家珍；我們對蘋果的創始人了如指掌，卻對蘋果的代碼卻知之甚少。

????盡管人們大都來自完全不同的群體，卻因為不同的、甚至相反的理由，對這兩種體系都給予了信任。一些人僅僅是想要好用的技術，因此愿意聽命于負責的人和公司，就算他們不讓我們查看他們葫蘆里到底賣的什么藥。另一些人想要親自看清一切——或者說，就算是外行，他們也希望得知可能有公正無私的第三方在監管著這些事情。

????比特幣社區就《新聞周刊》確認多利安?S?中本的身份一事做出了回應。他們并未表示出興趣或興奮之情，而是把批評的矛頭指向了古德曼，要求公眾尊重中本的匿名權。這些在比特幣開發領域表現活躍的人們并沒有浪費時間去尋找他們自己的史蒂夫?喬布斯，甚至也沒有去支持那些喬布斯級別的人物。

????寧愿在沒有領袖甚至象征領袖的帶領下進行運作的情況，令人回想起已經降溫的“占領華爾街”（Occupy Wall Street）運動。“占領”運動的無政府主義理念與驅使許多早期比特幣工作者的反政府、反銀行的自由主義大同小異。兩者都體現了社會中對任何形式的權威日益增強的反抗——不得不說，這種沖動也體現在氣候變化否定論和國內外恐怖主義中。另一方面，喬布斯-蘋果模式類似于獨裁主義的中央集權。而自由主義和獨裁主義的沖動只要走了極端，都具有很大的破壞力。

????在這個技術與公眾生活越來越息息相關的世界，編碼和硬件不僅僅是政治活動的模擬。我們的界面和設備很大程度上決定了我們與世界交流的形式。尋找中本聰，以及這一風波引發的文化沖突，讓我們有機會得以思考：我們需要怎樣的領袖來設計我們的生活，以及，我們是否真的需要這樣的領袖。（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????

????Take the most obvious contrast -- Steve Jobs, the most revered tech icon of our era, and Apple (AAPL), the massive company he created. Jobs was obviously supremely gifted and dedicated -- but also well-known as controlling. Jobs pushed his Type A personality to the boundary and was considered a "huge jerk" by some, firing employees in public and tearing into suppliers with expletive-laden tirades.

????His ethos lives on in the company he founded (though with less swearing). Apple has created a closed computing ecosystem, allowing it to control user experience from hardware to software -- including denying App store access to iOS programs that don't meet its standards, or just don't project the right image.

????But this is about more than whether you can get a sexting app for your iPhone. We don't know what is in the code of Apple's operating systems, because no one but Apple can check it -- and no one but Apple can fix it. This has led not just to security failures, which in today's computing systems are nearly inevitable, but to sometimes long delays in fixing those problems. Despite all this, many users continue to trust Apple, in part because of the image of a steady hand projected for many years by Steve Jobs.

????In this way, Apple and Bitcoin are mirror images of each other -- we know almost nothing about Bitcoin's founder, but everything about its substance. We know a lot about Apple's founder, but very little about its code.

????People, for the most part quite distinct groups of people, place their trust in both institutions, for different, even opposite reasons. Some of us simply want technology that works, and we're willing to defer to the people and organizations in charge, even if they don't let us check under the hood. Others want to be able to see things for themselves -- or, even if they're not technically skilled, just like knowing that some disinterested third party could be keeping an eye on things.

????The bitcoin community has responded to Newsweek's identifying Dorian S. Nakamoto not with fascination or excitement, but with criticism directed at Goodman, and demands that the public respect Nakamoto's anonymity. The people actively developing Bitcoin aren't spending their time searching for their version of Steve Jobs, or even supporting those who are.

????This preference for operating without leaders or even figureheads is reminiscent of nothing so much as the faded Occupy Wall Street protests. Occupy's anarchist ideology is kissing-cousins with the anti-government, anti-bank libertarianism that drove many early bitcoiners. Both are manifestations of growing societal resistance to authority of any kind -- an impulse that also, it must be said, manifests in climate change denialism and foreign and domestic terrorism. On the other hand, the Jobs-Apple model analogizes with authoritarian statism. At extremes, both libertarian and authoritarian impulses are destructive.

????In a world where technology defines greater and greater swathes of public life, code and hardware are more than an analog for politics. Our interfaces and devices define a large portion of our interactions with the world. The search for Satoshi Nakamoto, and the clash of cultures it is triggering, gives us an opportunity to think about the kind of leaders we want to design our lives -- and whether we need them at all.