Still taken from 6-hour series, "China: A Century of Revolution: Part One 1911-1949" (1989, Ambrica Productions). A must see, amazing historical footage...wow.
]]>The Supreme Court Votes Against Innovation
Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on January 22
The 5 to 4 vote by the Supreme Court to allow corporations and unions to use their general funds to directly support political candidates is really a vote against innovation and economic growth. It is a vote for Old Technology Against New Technology, the Big against the Small, the Established against the Entrepreneurial, the Well-Connected against the Insurgent. Big corporations,in particular, will now have the means to game the legislative as well as regulatory systems in their favor. They will be able to focus the flows of tax-payer money to their industries and have the government subsidize their companies.
The US government has already become a pay-to-play pit of corruption. The only difference between what happens in Washington and every state capital and what happens in Asia or the Middle East is that America has legalized corruption in the form of lobbying while other countries have not. The Supreme Court decision will only make this corruption worse.
If you’re sitting in Silicon Valley thinking of new businesses that will challenge the status quo, this Supreme Court vote is a vote against you.
My response:
well, it depends on whether or not you think corporations being allowed to air political ads without restriction is bad. which is what the ruling is about. (not about unrestricted campaign contributions). the SCOTUS ruling is really just about messaging (and timing thereof). this is only a problem if you think americans actually listen to political ads. (that may or may not have been a rhetorical statement). :)
i do, however, think this has profound implications for those in the creative fields who get hired to develop these messages. once upon a time design and innovation was safe in its little apolitical bubble. propaganda for consumption and profit's sake.
not any more. pop!
bruce, i do think this will have an affect on the architecture of the political process, and not for the better. if you disliked attack ads, then we're in for a new era of influence peddling dynamics, but this time the dollars are spent on not only politicians but on the electorate itself.
however, i really am earnestly trying to buy your argument that this is bad for "innovation" per se. i don't see it. this ruling allows anyone, traditional or insurgent, to attempt to influence the open electorate's vote, SCOTUS pulled any gates there might have existed, forever down.
again, the thing you might want to think about further, since you traffic in the design and innovation worlds, is how corporate political messaging....will get innovated. and it will. my nightmare is that the creative professions are going to bite on this like any lucrative client engagement (ie, like flies on shit, especially with the recession) without batting an eyelash at the political, ergo societal, ramifications of their "creatively innovative" work.
kinda like giving a gun to a baby, if you ask me.
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Still taken from 6-hour series, "China: A Century of Revolution: Part One 1911-1949" (1989, Ambrica Productions). A must see, amazing historical footage...wow.
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I had the privilege of being interviewed by Ryan McGovern on his live Mashable chat show DesignChat. In this hour-long installment, we covered various rangy topics including my zigzaggy design background, recent experience working for a trading firm and hedge fund, what I'm up to now designing online platforms that attempt to make American democracy more robust, why I like the intersection of design and politics, the problems of rational ignorance in the American electorate, using MRI brain scans to to understand the way people process political information, the profound role of Twitter in my life, what design at mid-career means to me, why open government data is a mixed blessing and how data visualization is only one part of the solution, what unemployed designers ought to be thinking about and doing and why, and whether or not I plan on getting one of the new mythical Apple iTablets....among other things.
Aside from seriously flubbing a few audience questions (sorry, @kaleemux) and not-so-trivially mixing up "Billions" and "Trillions" (eg, real economy GDP vs metaeconomy aggregate value; I had a little brain short circuit bouncing from video window to chat window, ack), it was great fun to be a part of this meandering conversation. Props to Ryan for really trying to make this live video chat work as a legitimate interactive interview format - it really does have its obvious power and benefits. Thanks to the twenty or so folks who tuned in, and definitely follow @DesignChat on Twitter for future show updates.
Thanks for the generous invitation, Ryan. Click here for the 70 minute streaming segment on Mevio.
]]>Cusp Conference 2009 - Is Democracy a Design Problem? from Gong Szeto on Vimeo.
]]>For most of this year, I have been pretty occupied in trying to understand our political world, the relationship between the public and private realms, why things are the way they are, and why we, as a society, seem to be endlessly debating who is in charge of what.
I believe fundamentally we are still smack in the middle of a very human debate that goes back for centuries, seeing the worst upheavals around these issues in the forms of two world wars in the beginning and middle of the twentieth century. The philosophical tug-of-war that defines our political existence globally is really more or less about the role of government in our lives: government as active in our lives vs government as passive in our lives. It's all very philosophical, about the primacy of the state vs the primacy of the individual. What complicates matters is that no one seems to be able to agree on where the line is drawn, and at the end of the day, all political struggle is about where this line is.
A few months ago, my family and I visited Houston (where I grew up) to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. My brother Nam's family and mine went to visit the Houston Children's Museum one afternoon, and I was delighted to discover their new Kidtropolis exhibit, which is an incredibly elaborate and detailed microcosm that brilliantly expresses the interplay between public and private, between democracy and capitalism in the United States. From their literature:
It's a City for Kids, Run by Kids!
Kidtropolis, USA marks a brand new spot on the map as a real-life kid metropolis complete with a skyline, city government, occupations and the systems that make a city work. It's where kids choose to be whatever they want to be!
Kids will keep the city running by taking on the roles of:
- city leaders
- voters
- workers
- shoppers
- business owners
They'll participate in a sophisticated, simulated economy where they can spend money on items and experiences throughout the city. But, like in real life, they will have to get jobs to earn money, and that's where the KidCard comes in handy!
The Kid Card is an ATM card which has a stipend of 40 Kidtropolis dollars on it. With it, kids can go on a shopping spree of tantalizing food items, special art workshops and other cool stuff. They can deposit their paychecks into a kids savings or checking account or hit the town for a day out!
Kidtropolis mirrors a real city, complete with its own city hall, municipal building, mercantile center, bank, news center, market, diner, art school, and even a vet clinic. Children can even elect a mayor, run for office, and decide what ordinances to pass!
I have included a slideshow of my visit, as well some diagrams below which show how Kidtropolis is such a great way to see a very distilled version of our complex society, specifically where the "line" between public and private undergirds any and all political discourse in this country and abroad. Some quick observations as you flip through the slideshow:
Here are all the things that were represented at Kidtropolis: Municipal Building, City Hall, Bank, Stock Exchange, Veterinarian's clinic, Grocery Store, Art School, New Station, Diner. Aside from that there was a seamless economy based on Kid Cash: in order to have money, kids had to earn it working, and they could spend it shopping or eating. They made deposits at the bank with the smart Kid Cards, and withdrew liberally at the Kid ATM.
This is the line that we know best, a hard delineation between City Hall/Municipal Building...and everything else.
If you think about it, however, there are many things that straddle this line between public and private, schools and healthcare being two such examples. And you wonder why the current healthcare reform debates are so heated. It's all about crossing that line.
In the wake of the financial crisis, we saw the government spend billions (if not trillions) of taxpayer dollars bailing out financial institutions, thereby increasing government ownership of these institutions. The conservative right is up in arms about this because what you are seeing is what a socialist model actually looks like.
Taken to an extreme, if all of the grey institutions belong in the public sector, then what you have is China, an autocratic yet capitalist (based on their recent market reforms) regime. I think this is what the right fears most. Oh no! American Communism!
The other extreme looks like this. Small to no government at all. This is the Libertarian fantasy. So, where do you think the line should be drawn, and why?
]]>– Jared Diamond in “Will Big Business Save the Earth?”
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I'll be speaking at the TEDxTamaya on November 22. Topic will most likely be on how confused we are as a democratic and capitalist society and things we might do to sort it all out. Thanks to Alisa Gilbert for the invitation. Looking forward to meeting the many esteemed speakers, especially the hyper-prolific Adarsh Pallian.
From November 11-14, I will also be attending the AIGA/Winterhouse Aspen Design Summit, a "select group of 60 designers, change leaders, NGOs, foundations and experts coming together to engage actively in opportunities to demonstrate design thinking in crafting solutions for large social problems, as well as to use existing networks and programs to accelerate change." Thanks to Bill Drenttel for the invitation and I'm very much looking forward to working with these outstanding summit participants.
(And somebody tell Marc Alt that it's way too cold to ride a motorcycle in Aspen in November. We'll go snowmobiling instead, dude!)
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Just returned from a great Cusp Conference '09. My talk "Is Democracy a Design Problem?" is on Slideshare. Thanks to SamataMason for putting on a terrific and thought-provoking 2 days. I will blog a bit more on this topic soon, as I need to catch up on some sleep. Meanwhile, for those who asked that I post my slides online, here you go. Thanks for all the conversations about this very challenging topic. If Cusp posts a video of my talk in the near future, I'll post it here as well. Nice shoutout from @VisualizeChange. :)
]]>“It seemed that very few American businesses actually did anything any more. Many companies were calling me to help them communicate their brand values more “transparently” to consumers — but transparency would mean opening the companies to observation and participation. This is plainly impossible for companies that don’t actually do anything.”
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