WEBVTT

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We are today talking
about moral persuasion:

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What is moral and immoral
in trying to change people's behaviors

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by using technology and using design?

NOTE Paragraph

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And I don't know what you expect,

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but when I was thinking about that issue,

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I early on realized what I'm not able
to give you are answers.

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I'm not able to tell you
what is moral or immoral,

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because we're living
in a pluralist society.

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My values can be radically
different from your values,

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which means that what I consider
moral or immoral based on that

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might not necessarily be
what you consider moral or immoral.

NOTE Paragraph

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But I also realized
there is one thing that I could give you,

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and that is what this guy
behind me gave the world --

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Socrates.

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It is questions.

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What I can do and what
I would like to do with you

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is give you, like that initial question,

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a set of questions
to figure out for yourselves,

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layer by layer, like peeling an onion,

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getting at the core of what you believe
is moral or immoral persuasion.

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And I'd like to do that
with a couple of examples of technologies

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where people have used game elements
to get people to do things.

NOTE Paragraph

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So it's at first a very simple,
very obvious question

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I would like to give you:

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What are your intentions
if you are designing something?

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And obviously, intentions
are not the only thing,

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so here is another example
for one of these applications.

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There are a couple of these kinds
of Eco dashboards right now --

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dashboards built into cars --

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which try to motivate you
to drive more fuel-efficiently.

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This here is Nissan's MyLeaf,

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where your driving behavior
is compared with the driving behavior

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of other people,

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so you can compete for who drives a route
the most fuel-efficiently.

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And these things are
very effective, it turns out --

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so effective that they motivate people
to engage in unsafe driving behaviors,

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like not stopping at a red light,

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because that way you have
to stop and restart the engine,

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and that would use quite
some fuel, wouldn't it?

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So despite this being
a very well-intended application,

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obviously there was a side effect of that.

NOTE Paragraph

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Here's another example
for one of these side effects.

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Commendable: a site that allows parents
to give their kids little badges

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for doing the things
that parents want their kids to do,

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like tying their shoes.

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And at first that sounds very nice,

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very benign, well-intended.

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But it turns out, if you look into
research on people's mindset,

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caring about outcomes,

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caring about public recognition,

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caring about these kinds
of public tokens of recognition

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is not necessarily very helpful

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for your long-term
psychological well-being.

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It's better if you care
about learning something.

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It's better when you care about yourself

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than how you appear
in front of other people.

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So that kind of motivational tool
that is used actually, in and of itself,

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has a long-term side effect,

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in that every time we use a technology

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that uses something
like public recognition or status,

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we're actually positively endorsing this

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as a good and normal thing
to care about --

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that way, possibly having
a detrimental effect

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on the long-term psychological
well-being of ourselves as a culture.

NOTE Paragraph

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So that's a second, very obvious question:

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What are the effects
of what you're doing --

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the effects you're having
with the device, like less fuel,

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as well as the effects
of the actual tools you're using

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to get people to do things --

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public recognition?

NOTE Paragraph

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Now is that all -- intention, effect?

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Well, there are some technologies
which obviously combine both.

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Both good long-term and short-term effects

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and a positive intention
like Fred Stutzman's "Freedom,"

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where the whole point
of that application is --

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well, we're usually so bombarded
with constant requests by other people,

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with this device,

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you can shut off the Internet
connectivity of your PC of choice

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for a pre-set amount of time,

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to actually get some work done.

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And I think most of us will agree
that's something well-intended,

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and also has good consequences.

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In the words of Michel Foucault,

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it is a "technology of the self."

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It is a technology
that empowers the individual

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to determine its own life course,

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to shape itself.

NOTE Paragraph

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But the problem is,
as Foucault points out,

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that every technology of the self

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has a technology of domination
as its flip side.

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As you see in today's modern
liberal democracies,

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the society, the state,
not only allows us to determine our self,

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to shape our self,

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it also demands it of us.

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It demands that we optimize ourselves,

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that we control ourselves,

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that we self-manage continuously,

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because that's the only way
in which such a liberal society works.

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These technologies want us
to stay in the game

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that society has devised for us.

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They want us to fit in even better.

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They want us to optimize
ourselves to fit in.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, I don't say that
is necessarily a bad thing;

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I just think that this example
points us to a general realization,

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and that is: no matter what technology
or design you look at,

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even something we consider
as well-intended

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and as good in its effects
as Stutzman's Freedom,

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comes with certain values embedded in it.

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And we can question these values.

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We can question: Is it a good thing

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that all of us continuously
self-optimize ourselves

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to fit better into that society?

NOTE Paragraph

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Or to give you another example:

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What about a piece
of persuasive technology

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that convinces Muslim women
to wear their headscarves?

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Is that a good or a bad technology

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in its intentions or in its effects?

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Well, that basically depends on
the kind of values you bring to bear

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to make these kinds of judgments.

NOTE Paragraph

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So that's a third question:

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What values do you use to judge?

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And speaking of values:

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I've noticed that in the discussion
about moral persuasion online

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and when I'm talking with people,

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more often than not,
there is a weird bias.

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And that bias is that we're asking:

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Is this or that "still" ethical?

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Is it "still" permissible?

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We're asking things like:

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Is this Oxfam donation form,

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where the regular monthly
donation is the preset default,

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and people, maybe without intending it,

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are encouraged or nudged
into giving a regular donation

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instead of a one-time donation,

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is that "still' permissible?

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Is it "still" ethical?

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We're fishing at the low end.

NOTE Paragraph

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But in fact, that question,
"Is it 'still' ethical?"

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is just one way of looking at ethics.

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Because if you look at the beginning
of ethics in Western culture,

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you see a very different idea
of what ethics also could be.

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For Aristotle, ethics
was not about the question,

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"Is that still good, or is it bad?"

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Ethics was about the question
of how to live life well.

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And he put that in the word "arête,"

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which we, from [Ancient Greek],
translate as "virtue."

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But really, it means "excellence."

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It means living up to your own
full potential as a human being.

NOTE Paragraph

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And that is an idea that, I think,

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Paul Richard Buchanan
put nicely in a recent essay,

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where he said,
"Products are vivid arguments

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about how we should live our lives."

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Our designs are not ethical or unethical

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in that they're using ethical
or unethical means of persuading us.

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They have a moral component

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just in the kind of vision
and the aspiration of the good life

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that they present to us.

NOTE Paragraph

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And if you look into the designed
environment around us

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with that kind of lens,

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asking, "What is the vision
of the good life

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that our products, our design,
present to us?",

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then you often get the shivers,

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because of how little
we expect of each other,

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of how little we actually
seem to expect of our life,

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and what the good life looks like.

NOTE Paragraph

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So that's a fourth question
I'd like to leave you with:

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What vision of the good life
do your designs convey?

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And speaking of design,

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you'll notice that I already
broadened the discussion,

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because it's not just persuasive
technology that we're talking about here,

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it's any piece of design
that we put out here in the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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I don't know whether you know

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the great communication researcher
Paul Watzlawick who, back in the '60s,

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made the argument
that we cannot not communicate.

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Even if we choose to be silent,
we chose to be silent,

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and we're communicating something
by choosing to be silent.

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And in the same way
that we cannot not communicate,

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we cannot not persuade:

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whatever we do or refrain from doing,

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whatever we put out there
as a piece of design, into the world,

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has a persuasive component.

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It tries to affect people.

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It puts a certain vision of the good life
out there in front of us,

NOTE Paragraph

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which is what Peter-Paul Verbeek,

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the Dutch philosopher of technology, says.

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No matter whether we as designers
intend it or not,

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we materialize morality.

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We make certain things
harder and easier to do.

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We organize the existence of people.

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We put a certain vision

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of what good or bad or normal or usual is

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in front of people,

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by everything we put
out there in the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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Even something as innocuous
as a set of school chairs

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is a persuasive technology,

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because it presents and materializes
a certain vision of the good life --

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a good life in which teaching
and learning and listening

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is about one person teaching,
the others listening;

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in which it is about
learning-is-done-while-sitting;

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in which you learn for yourself;

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in which you're not supposed
to change these rules,

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because the chairs
are fixed to the ground.

NOTE Paragraph

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And even something as innocuous
as a single-design chair,

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like this one by Arne Jacobsen,

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is a persuasive technology,

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because, again, it communicates
an idea of the good life:

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a good life -- a life that you,
as a designer, consent to by saying,

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"In a good life, goods are produced
as sustainably or unsustainably

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as this chair.

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Workers are treated as well or as badly

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as the workers were treated
that built that chair."

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The good life is a life
where design is important

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because somebody obviously took
the time and spent the money

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for that kind of well-designed chair;

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where tradition is important,

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because this is a traditional classic
and someone cared about this;

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and where there is something
as conspicuous consumption,

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where it is OK and normal to spend
a humongous amount of money

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on such a chair,

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to signal to other people
what your social status is.

NOTE Paragraph

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So these are the kinds of layers,
the kinds of questions

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I wanted to lead you through today;

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the question of: What are the intentions
that you bring to bear

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when you're designing something?

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What are the effects, intended
and unintended, that you're having?

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What are the values
you're using to judge those?

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What are the virtues, the aspirations

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that you're actually expressing in that?

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And how does that apply,

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not just to persuasive technology,

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but to everything you design?

NOTE Paragraph

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Do we stop there?

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I don't think so.

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I think that all of these things
are eventually informed

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by the core of all of this,

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and this is nothing but life itself.

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Why, when the question
of what the good life is

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informs everything that we design,

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should we stop at design
and not ask ourselves:

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How does it apply to our own life?

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"Why should the lamp
or the house be an art object,

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but not our life?"

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as Michel Foucault puts it.

NOTE Paragraph

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Just to give you a practical
example of Buster Benson.

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This is Buster setting up
a pull-up machine

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at the office of his new
start-up, Habit Labs,

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where they're trying to build
other applications like "Health Month"

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for people.

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And why is he building a thing like this?

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Well, here is the set of axioms

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that Habit Labs, Buster's start-up,
put up for themselves

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on how they wanted to work
together as a team

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when they're building
these applications --

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a set of moral principles
they set themselves

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for working together --

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one of them being,

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"We take care of our own health
and manage our own burnout."

NOTE Paragraph

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Because ultimately,
how can you ask yourselves

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and how can you find an answer
on what vision of the good life

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you want to convey and create
with your designs

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without asking the question:

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What vision of the good life
do you yourself want to live?

NOTE Paragraph

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And with that,

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I thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)