Design
Design a better world rather than trying to change people’s minds or behaviors.
as a World Creators, you’re main tool for creating non-random change is through the intentional transformation of the world around you. That process is called design.
Change for change’s sake is not how humans move forward; that, with the subsequent selection, is evolution’s process. If we randomly make changes without a strong sense of what we’re doing, we will likely make things worse.
“The word design is used in contradistinction to random happenstance. Design is intellectually deliberate. Design means that all the components are interconsiderately arranged…” — Buckminster Fuller, Introduction to Hugh Kenner’s Geodesic Math and How to Use It (cited in Synergetics Dictionary, v. 1, p. 470)
Design is the main mechanism for creating change. It’s how we decide to transform a system.
Design and invention are not the same thing. Sometimes you have to create things that have never been created before (invent) but much of the time, design is about applying existing technologies in the right way. Finding novel and effective ways to combine new and existing technologies is innovation.
Design is primarily about relationship. Take as an example the design of a backyard deck. All the considerations about how big it should be, where the stairs, seating or rails should be placed are about relationship: relationship with other elements of the deck, the windows and doors of the house, and so on. At a structural level, the relationships and interactions of all the bolts, posts, joists, decking, and even the house they’re attached to, work together to create a stable deck. And at a molecular level, the steel the bolts are made from is given its strength through the crystalline relationship of the various metal atoms in the steel alloy.
In the above example, the design is not the actual deck. The design is conceptual. It’s information arranged in preferred patterns by intelligence. In a fundamental way, it’s what determines the arrangement and interaction of matter and energy, and as such, it controls or harnesses energy and matter toward a purpose.
A design does not need to be completely finished (as a set of blueprints for a deck, for example) to be useful. Something that concrete may only be useful in a narrow set of circumstances. A more flexible design that can be modified to accomodate local conditions can take the form of a [[ Pattern Language ]].
Design can also strive to use less matter and less energy in the artifacts it creates, doing more with less. This fundamental process is the way we’re moving toward Abundance. Through design, we can progressively replace matter and energy with information (design). We’ve seen that literally come true in the many physical objects that have become digitized: CDs to MP3 files, DVDs to streaming video, Rolodexes to your phone contacts, and the list goes on. But it also is true when a car engine is redesigned to use less fuel, or a teleconference is used in place of travel and a face-to-face meeting.
Therefore:
Use the process of design to intentionally evolve systems in preferred ways: toward a more elegantly ordered complexity and a greater livingness. Strive to progressively do more with less across all world systems.
There are many ideas around how to design effectively: start by choosing a problem you want to solve, then create your Preferred State