think different
we can’t get there from here with the same modus operandi of thinking that got us here
The video linked below is NOT a problem statement, it is an assessment. It is not a determined statement of what to do. This just shows what has been done. It is a snapshot of reality.
What ought to be done now? What do we desire to do? First, we can listen to Einstein about ‘problems’:
Not just ‘problems’ but desirable states-of-affairs. We cannot realize desirable futures without changing how we think about what is desirable and how to bring desired outcomes into reality. We need to think—and act— differently. But that is hard and takes courage.
Too many people are and have been rewarded for thinking the way they have in this age of enlightened inquiry to find the courage or incentive to think differently. Careers, prestige, influence, and wealth are embedded in the age of objective determinism. A new age holds uncertainty, and certitude dominates the beliefs and behaviors in today’s world.
Universities are designed around analysis and reductive inquiry. Businesses function around departments of specialization. Governments are reductive in both stance and approach. These dominant strategies have all worked well for large numbers of people, but there is a growing unease about the dominant strategy. It won’t get abandoned, but there should be systemic alternatives. Those who have not benefited from the existing state of affairs, or who are suspicious of the benefits to different people, or who want to see a better world emerge for future generations, ask how the world can change its habits of thought to set more desirable courses of action towards more desirable futures.
The first step is wanting to get started. We should get started (https://www.haroldgnelson.com/masterclasses).
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Getting started means two things in the context of design, I think. Those "starters" are the initial conditions and inquiry. What and where are we? How and why did we come to be here? And what are the systems we are now embedded in? Who are we, and who aren't we? These are not things we will agree on in specifics, but in broad terms, we can take on the quest to weave our existence into a garment we can all wear. Can we agree that we are human beings who share our lives with a planet that, fortunately for us, enabled us to thrive? But each of us, individually, lives a life that is unique. Each of us has a differing engagement with others and our world. And we are embedded in a system of existence that is constantly changing. Thus, each of us must try to engage within that given system as best we can in order to survive. That is the whole system where we are all embedded. What for each of us should that system be like?