Well, if we stop "giving a stuff" about science, then we will be totally
screwed.
Cheers.
Fil
On 18 March 2011 11:10, cameron tonkinwise <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I take Clive's point to be somewhat accessed by asking:
>
> - When does a designer stop believing (with their currently
> much-celebrated empathetic optimism [Tim Brown et al[)
> that there is a somewhere a super-inventive design solution?
> When does the designer say 'no' to a design challenge?
> Is proposing the 'no build option' still design? Saying 'no' is
> something different from saying 'I can't (just now).'
> Presumably saying 'no' to a design challenge shouldn't
> just be a moment of private edification (in Rorty's sense),
> but should itself be a (design?) project - to undertake to
> convince others to not take up this challenge. Is this
> politics still design (it is definitely not engineering?).
>
> As Hans Jonas argues in relation to technological ethics,
> it is a matter of actively resisting the core drive of techno-
> science: because we can, we ought. It is the point that
> Ulrich Beck put at the heart of his work on Risk Society:
> what if we decide that we how we'd like to live is with no
> level risk in relation to nuclear energy (or genetic engineer-
> ing, etc), no matter how small? What does it mean for society
> to say - we choose to no longer be convinced by your (techno-
> rational) calculations of risk?
>
> The Republicans get it. Is this not what the Upton-Inhofe
> legislation to halt the capacity of the US EPA to regulate
> greenhouse gas emissions also does? Isn't it also saying,
> we actually don't give a stuff about science (or comprehensive
> economics); we choose to live with polluting cheap energy
> (aka Freedom)? At least designers can continue to make more
> sexy gear.
>
> Cameron
>
>
>
>
>
> > One issues here is political. Should private companies be allowed to run
> > such plants—when as we’ve seen spectacularly this year with the BP
> > case—the companies instinct is both to cut costs to the bone and to
> > abandon as rapidly as possible the site of its disasters? The point here
> > is that such questions today demand to be brought into the total “design”
> > process. Yet part of what we are talking about here is that while we are
> > certainly talking in some ways here about “design” (this word referring
> > to a configurational choice amongst alternatives) “design” is itself a
> > completely inadequate term (with all the wrong associations) for the
> > kind of process which needs to be undertaken. So we come back again to
> > the question: what does it mean to “design” such plants? And what does
> > the answer to that question tell us about the responsibilities and work
> > of “design” as a whole?
> >
> > Clive
> >
> >
> > Clive Dilnot
> > Professor of Design Studies
> > School of Art Design History and Theory
> > Parsons School of Design,
> > New School University.
> > Room #731
> > 2 E 16th St
> > New York NY 10011
> > e [log in to unmask]
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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