A Possible Future for

Sustainable Living

What could a world look like in which we have capitalized upon the powerful relationship between people, objects, and artifacts to drive the growth of our society and the evolution of our species?

After exploring the types and breadth of the information contained in objects, I began to wonder about humans’ place in Nature. I find that human behavior surrounding growth and development through object creation, though innate, has been inherently against Nature and the circle of life for some time; more particularly since the beginning of the industrial revolution. As a result, our generation is dealing with its share of problems; crises of Nature, animal and man. In many ways it feels like if we do nothing, we will be looking at our demise as a species. Or are we?

What if it is our job as part of Nature to challenge the limits of possibility by anticipating problems and designing solutions for them to root us firmly into existence and ensure the survival of our species? If so, then:

a. Any problem identified has the potential to destroy humanity, if we do not solve it
b. Our near-obsessive need to solve any and all problems that
surface is, in fact, us constantly preventing the extinction of our species, of maintaining a balance with Nature within our existence
c. The solutions require us to move towards the next level of cognitive development in order to continue to exist

I conceptualize the human problem / solution cycle to look a little bit like this image. Ultimately, what I wanted was to understand how, when, and why we departed from the cycle described below. My hypothesis is that we departed the cycle in the space between the Technological Development stage and the Interpersonal Connection stage; instead of Connection, we got Interpersonal DISconnection. I believe this derailment occurs largely because most humans are not privy to the creation process of these solutions (i.e. objects) and the information about humans stored inside them (i.e. technical artifacts); the information is gatekept, often hidden behind “proprietary” legal walls.

It’s important to also keep in mind that evolutionary processes work very slowly. Which is to say, things get chaotic for a while before we disappear, and in that time we can either do nothing and be killed by the consequences of that unsolved problem, or we can develop our cognitive skills to find the solution and save our species; the aggressiveness and extremity of the solution will have to be directly proportional to the magnitude of chaos in our world. Our world then reorganizes itself once we solve the problem.

Which brings us back to the present. It is up to us to help identify the problems our society is facing, and find the correct solutions; solutions that lengthen the period of balance, peace, and prosperity.

Where do we even begin?

A Possible Future for Sustainable Living is my first attempt at
this effort. As a designer, I want to play a role in visualizing a few of the most distant or fantastical futures (still supported by science) that could result, a process known as disruptive design and innovation. I use forecasting and backcasting to visualize one such possible future; a world that values technical artifacts and prioritizes the intentional imbuement of the information into their creation as a vehicle to establish long-term care for the whole planet as a fundamental law of its nature.

My hope is that the ability to visualize such a world, one that prioritizes the wellbeing of all, will help bring us back to the Natural cycle of human problem solving.

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