design philosophies

an introduction to prevailing and emergent design philosophies

core reading: Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design - the consilience project

see also: diome.xyz's note on more-than-human-centered-design and why putting users first isn't the answer to everything.

a few other approaches that have influenced me most:

circular design
humane design
values-and-meaning based design
regenerative design
agent-centric design / holonic / biomimetic design
ontological design
metadesign

i see all of these approaches as valid, important and powerful, and a combination of them as necessary for different contexts - which i like to represent using the three horizons framework.

in the short-term (h1), we need a lot more circular, regenerative, humane and values-and-meaning based design. as we move towards h2, i believe agent-centric design will grow even more important, as a way to protect and support communities for navigating the great simplification. and well into h2-h3, a resurgence of cybernetics, new forms of questioning, relating and designing technologies with an account for externalities, planetary boundaries and the role of technology will become even more important, reconsidering the depth and vast space of technological possibilities from ontological, biomimetic and metadesign methodologies.

when we're talking about software architecture, i often align with the local-first, privacy-preserving, credible exit, modularity, interoperability ideals/standards in the FOSS community, but with a strong consideration of risks and externalities, especially from bioweapons, AI, nanotech, etc... which is a challenging balance that can hopefully be addressed by a deep restructuration of our economic system and emergent approaches in governance/epistemic systems such as the ones suggested by the consilience project and projects such as ezkl, common sensemakers, open civics and the society library.

what constitutes a design philosophy?

in the book, first principles and first values - forty-two propositions on cosmoerotic humanism, the meta-crisis and the world to come, the authors propose that any complete (whole) philosophy presents a cosmology, an epistemology, an ontology and an axiology.

all of these elements of a culture or worldview are embedded into any artifact it produces. therefore, any design philosophy, if not clearly stating their stance, are inheriting such presuppositions from the overarching culture they're embedded in.

my take on it

(coming soon)