An ethics of mutual care Foregrounding maintenance and repair as an aspect of technological work invites not only new functional but also moral relations to the world of technology. It references what is in fact a very old but routinely forgotten relationship of humans to things in the world: namely, an ethics of mutual care and responsibility. Steven J. Jackson, Rethinking Repair ethicshumanitymoralitytechnology
I choose a world with pyramids Which would you choose: a world with pyramids? Or without? Humanity has always dreamt of flight, but the dream is cursed. My aircraft are destined to become tools for slaughter and destruction. But still, I choose a world with pyramids in it. Which world will you choose? Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises Beauty in flight flighthumanityinnovationmorality
The quality of the day It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Henry David Thoreau, Walden Suburban Nation uxartmoralitybeauty
Nature undisturbed My chief aim is simply to describe and explain the technological fabric of society, not to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And yet I would not argue that technology is neutral or value-free. Quite the contrary: I suggest that the signs of human presence are the only elements of the landscape that have and moral or aesthetic significance at all. In nature undisturbed, a desert is not better or worse than a forest or a swamp; there is simply no scale on which to rank such things unless it is a human scale of utility or beauty. Only when people intervene in nature is there any question of right or wrong, better or worse. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape naturemoralityaestheticshumanity
We infantilize ourselves Here in the US, we expect government and law to be our conscience. Our superego, you could say. It has something to do with liberal individualism, and something to do with capitalism, but I don't understand much of the theoretical aspect—what I see is what I live in. Americans are in a way crazy. We infantilize ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights and privileges, but not our responsibilities. We abdicate our civic responsibilities to the government and expect the government, in effect, to legislate morality. David Foster Wallace, The Pale King societygovernmentpoliticsmoralitycivics
List of games that Buddha would not play A List en.wikipedia.org … Guessing at letters traced with the finger in the air or on a friend's back. (letters in the Brahmi script) Guessing a friend's thoughts. … gameszenmorality
The amorality of Web 2.0 An Essay by Nicholas Carr www.roughtype.com The Internet is changing the economics of creative work – or, to put it more broadly, the economics of culture – and it’s doing it in a way that may well restrict rather than expand our choices. Wikipedia might be a pale shadow of the Britannica, but because it’s created by amateurs rather than professionals, it’s free. And free trumps quality all the time. wwwmoralityeconomicsgoodness
A Mindful Mobile OS An Article by Clo S. thistooshallgrow.com I read and loved Potential's "iOS 15, Humane" proposition. Published earlier in June by co-founders Welf and Oliver, it tackles how iOS could help us better protect our attention. As a designer who cares about and writes about digital wellness, I'm profoundly aligned with their suggestions. Persuasive design Disclosure requirement From infinite feeds to pages Was this time well spent? Regret tax Conditions of use moralityethicsuxsoftwaredesign
On online collaboration and our obligations as makers of software An Essay by Baldur Bjarnason www.baldurbjarnason.com Is it the notetaking system that’s helping you think more clearly? Or is it the act of writing that forces you to clarify your thoughts? Is it the complex interlinked web of notes that helps you get new ideas? Or is it all the reading you’re doing to fill that notetaking app bucket? Is all of this notetaking work making you smarter? Or is it just indirectly forcing you into deliberate, goalless practice? Towards a crap decisionSo much knowledge not being applied notetakingbloggingsoftwarethinkingcommonplace
Towards a crap decision You have a thing. You would like to improve said thing. So, you ask a bunch of people what they think, giving more weight to those with relevant expertise. It’s a time-tested strategy. The pitfall here is that if the participants are aware of each other’s contributions, they will almost always automatically switch to consensus-building instead of providing their honest feedback. Worst case scenario: the bandwagon effect gathers steam and drives you toward a crap decision. collaborationdecisions
So much knowledge not being applied Most organisations have a lot of documents and data floating around that hardly ever gets revisited or used. They all have research, reading, and relevant information collecting dust. Stuff that should be informing the decisions and strategies of the company. Some of it sits unread in a knowledge base or a wiki. Some of it lies in the drives of individual employees who don’t have a way to share it productively. So much knowledge not being applied! Except that’s not how we work as human beings. If you haven’t read it, experienced it, and contextualised it, then it isn’t knowledge to you. Knowledge is a quality that people possess, not documents, and the only way to transfer it from one place to another is for people at both ends to apply themselves and make it their own. knowledgedocumentationwork