Transmission #19: Design Education, Sustainability Investing, Molten Salt and Status-as-a-Service.
Design, ideas and other flotsam
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This is Transmissions by me, Martin Brown. Father. Husband. Design Lead at Craig Walker and lecturer at RMIT. Marty to most.
This is an ongoing fortnightly newsletter that collates some of the more interesting stories, links, quotes and other curios that float my way.
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Design
Inside Don Norman’s Herculean quest to fix design education
Elissaveta M. Brandon, Fast Company
Overview of Don Norman and IBM’s Future of Design Education program, made more interesting because of the critiques of it on social media. Namely that it a) doesn’t go far enough, or b) it only articulates where design education has been moving for the last decade regardless.
Where all parties agree, however, seems to be that there is a dire need to reform design education, and to balance design craft with a broader appreciation for the context in which design operates, its historical baggage, and its future consequences. Clearly this is not just a challenge for undergrads, and not just for designers, either.
Ideas
The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’
Tariq Fancy, Medium
A deeply sobering look at so-called ‘Sustainable Investing’ from the former Chief Investing Officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, the the world’s largest asset management firm. The washup: despite the best intentions in the world, the positive benefits of sustainable investing look dubious. They provide a good story, and feel like they are creating new incentives and changing behaviours, but running counter to the cold logic of the market requires much more than that.
Having once drank the Kool-Aid myself, I understand exactly why it’s an alluring idea and cast no aspersions on those who work in the industry or believe many of its claims. But as a trained investor who tried to drive what the Guardian newspaper recently called “arguably the biggest, most ambitious, effort ever to turn Wall Street green,” it’s an idea that I can confidently say is now more a marketing narrative than any reflection of reality.
And this:
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us one key lesson, it’s that we must listen to the scientific experts and address a systemic crisis with systemic solutions. Reacting instead with denial, loose half-measures, or overly rosy forecasts lulls us into a false sense of security, eventually prolonging and worsening the crisis. And yet Wall Street is doing just that to us today with the far more dangerous threat posed by climate change, craftily greenwashing the economic system and delaying overdue systemic solutions, including those intended to combat rising inequality and the insidious political risks it creates.
Tariq’s essay is very long, but well worth the time. If you’d like a summary, this is a good one from the FT.
Status Monkeys
Packy McCormick, Not Boring
NFTs. If you’re looking for a primer in what they are, it’s probably about time to get up to speed. If you’re still scratching your head as to why they are commanding feverish interest and astronomical prices, then this article does a great job of unpacking their value as digital signifiers of status. (The article heavily references this essay from Eugene Wei in 2019.)
I’m really excited about what NFTs might unlock. Not because of Cryptopunks or Bored Apes – they’re clearly just opportunistic pioneers in the space of what’s possible. I’m excited because we really have no idea of where this is all headed. What’s clear is that there’s a powerful cocktail of new technologies, financial incentives and generational change that’s opening up huge new vistas for innovation.
As Rex Woodbury noted:
Meebits may be a fad, but NFTs are not. Bored Apes might be Beanie Babies, but NFTs are not. Projects will come and go—prices will soar and plummet—but the enabling technology (which is groundbreaking) will continue to power new projects that emerge in their place.
Quotes
He had the kind of good time it is perhaps only possible to have when you have just made an unbelievably expensive mistake born of a desire to invent an entirely new way of living and involving the purchase of a huge floating vessel.
– The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship, Sophie Elmhirst, The Guardian
Chart of the Week pt 1
(ht @PsychoSchmitt, source)
Chart of the Week pt 2
The above chart did the rounds a few weeks ago, to the loud groans of intergenerational contempt from millenials and Xers alike. Obviously, the boomers have had an easy ride in life. Turns out, there’s a different way to look at the data: there’s just a lot of boomers. If you look at wealth per capita, it’s a very different story. Source
Other
🧂 China is trialling a molten-salt nuclear reactor. More evidence that while the world talks about future technology, China is busy getting it done. Link
🚢 Strange happenings in the world of supply chains. Things aren’t moving around the world with the ease they once did. COVID is part of the reason, but it’s more complicated than that. Link
💬 Epic, epic unpacking of the complete mess that is Google’s messaging strategy. Includes some great screeenshots of 2000s Google UI. Link
Till next time!