8 Nov 2009
why Maker ethics might save us all
Creativity and Curiosity often go hand in hand, and both are discouraged in our society. Sure, we may talk big about them, but take a moment to think about the last time you came up with a truly outrageous idea, how the people around you reacted. What about the last time you went on a learning binge? Did the people around you look at you oddly? If not, count yourself lucky.
Come on a bit of a jump here with me - I think this has to do with how litigious our culture is. We generally look outside ourselves for blame when things go wrong. I’m not going to get into why we do this displacement of blame - others will be far better at discussing that than myself. What I can talk about is what that tendency does to us, and how we might remedy those mindsets.
An example, of sorts:
A producer has cater to the lowest common denominator when designing and marketing their product, both to reach the largest possible audience, but also to protect themselves. A producer has two general directions to go with their product in relation to their clientele, regardless of what the product is: open it up, or close it off. Opening it requires some level of disclosure about how the product works, encourages learning about the product, feedback about how to make it better, etc. This is expensive, assumes the user will take some personal responsibility interacting with the open product causes its breakage or their injury. The general mindset is that the risks of injury or intellectual property aren’t worth taking. So the other route is followed: closing the product off. The producer takes full responsibility for a product not working, but also protects themselves from intellectual property theft (thereby protecting their asset), has full control over the safety of the product, etc. They are much safer. The populace at large is, after all, stupid and litigious.
That’s where my issue comes in. The population at large is *not* stupid and litigious by nature, but because they are expected to be, and are treated as such. You can blame it on the Halo Effect (link), or one bad apple, or whatever you want to. Our court system is even based on precedence. If people before you thought that the action you’re parsing was a bad one, you’re supposed to also think it’s a bad one. But that also means that you can change that simply by making it clear how you’re dealing with a situation. We can change expectations, both in the legal and in the meatspace worlds. Most juries do find silly suits as just that - silly. We just hear about the epic and huge ones (lady that spilled coffee on her lap and won a bunch of money? Yeah, actually read the case sometime. I totally agree with the decision) because that’s what our media goes for. We need to focus on the ones where the juries or judges tell the plaintiff to suck it up, to quit being stupid, etc.
In short… hack it. Take it apart. Show them the new way.
