Everyone Deserves Great Design • Hacker News Board

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#21

Post by Pacabel » Sun, May 18, 2014, 11:57 AM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

The horrible design of the page itself made it damn near impossible for me to follow the message they were trying to express.

Its design is really all over the place. There's no consistency when it comes to the font sizes, capitalization, text colors, and paragraph width. The images and text are mixed in a disruptive manner. Some of the images are pointless and irrelevant, yet still take up a large chunk of the visible portion of the page.

After reading a chunk of text, it'd take far too much effort and time to search around to figure out where they were continuing. That proves to be very distracting.

I eventually gave up rather quickly. They should just offer their message as a plain article, without such a frenzied design taking away from whatever it is they're trying to say.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#22

Post by sammermpc » Sun, May 18, 2014, 12:27 PM UTC

This is a primer in a kind of design language mumbo-mumbo. It's not clear what the conclusions even are, beyond a few pithy throw-away phrases...mysterious.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#23

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, May 18, 2014, 12:33 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #20

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true many social workers tend that way. We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly, and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate resources…

Most people are, however, moderates, not extremists. For some reason, the Internet mostly acts to amplify extremism, and we get this you are either left or right mentality (us politics has also been polarized as of late).

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#24

Post by filmgirlcw » Sun, May 18, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

Pacabel wrote: post #21

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

The horrible design of the page itself made it damn near impossible for me to follow the message they were trying to express. Its design is really all over the place. There's no consistency when it comes to the font sizes, capitalization, text colors, and paragraph width. The images and text are mixed in a disruptive manner. Some of the images are pointless and irrelevant, yet still take up a large chunk of the visib…

This. The white type over the various busy backgrounds was so undressable, I couldn't take any of the other rumination a seriously.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#25

Post by muuh-gnu » Sun, May 18, 2014, 1:31 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #20

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true many social workers tend that way. We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly, and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate resources…

> One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly

It is actually capitalism that thinks that it is vital to allocate resources fairly. Communists, on the other hand, think that resources should be allocated _equally_ with no regard to fairness. "To each according to his need."

> this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough.

And until people get good enough, which in reality will never happen, communists think that the use of force to take from those who have and give to those who dont is perfectly justifiable.

> The other side thinks that market forces are the only way

Nope. The other side thinks that central planing and big goverment are a source of abuse of power. A free market isnt a perfect solution, but it is the lesser of two evils. If nobody has massive power, nobody can abuse power massively. There inevitably will be some abuse in a free market, but not in the orders of magnitude of, say, North Korea, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and other central planning epic fails.

> deviating too far from this in the name of fairness

It is not done in the name of fairness, but in the name of equality. If fiarness was the goal, communism would be the side trying to not interfere and to leave everybody alone. But it is not. Communism is the side advocating maximum interventionism, of requiring (and enforcing) sacrifices for a centrally planed "greater good" etc.

> Extremists on both sides make it hard to have a sensible conversation.

In my view, the only way to solve it would be to create communist and capitalist zones, and make it legally impossible to change that economic basis of a zone. The "conversation" would then amount to fans of capitalism and communism moving to their preferred zone. Neither side would be trying to forcibly make the other side live under their economic religion.

The problem is that the left doesnt actually want to draw that border between takers and makers, because they _are_ takers trying to get total control of the makers in order to exploit their productivity.

As long as communists are able to get control of a whole state and then forcibly redistribute _other_ people's wealth, there will be a state of perpetual low-intensity warfare between the left and the right. Knowing that once you give communists a single finger, they will feel entitled to the whole hand and try to forcibly amputate it, is not in any way extremism, but knowlege of history paired with a sense of self-preservation.

What point does it make to have a conversation with people who are basically trying to legally mug you?

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#26

Post by jp555 » Sun, May 18, 2014, 1:40 PM UTC

3stripe wrote: post #6

forrecovery123 wrote: post #2

Great share, thank you! “By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty and di…

This is why I no longer follow 'the news'

Do you find it jarring when you do see "the news" now that you're desensitized to it?

I find it weird that the do-anything-to-get-attention bias of "the news" so much more obvious now for me that it all seems like satire.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#27

Post by rm445 » Sun, May 18, 2014, 2:09 PM UTC

muuh-gnu wrote: post #25

rm445 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true many social workers tend that way. We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly, and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate resources…

> One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly It is actually capitalism that thinks that it is vital to allocate resources fairly. Communists, on the other hand, think that resources should be allocated _equally_ with no regard to fairness. "To each according to his need." > this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. And until people get good enough, which in reality will never…

Meaning no slight to your character in general, in this conversation you are one of the extremists.

There are plenty of countries (large parts of Western Europe post-WWII) which have had predominantly left-leaning governments for 60+ years and not devolved into centrally-planned communist states. There's a genuine debate to be had about the role of governments, markets, taxation and distribution, but trying to frame it as the world threatened by the sword of communism hanging over all our heads just stakes out your position way out on one side and signals a refusal to enter any kind of debate.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#28

Post by jacquesm » Sun, May 18, 2014, 2:32 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #18

jzwinck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Coca-Cola (the drink, not necessarily the company) is a scourge and always has been. Giving access to Coke to everyone is the last thing we should want, but it is happening. The One World Futbol the article seems to think is good costs $40 for two, and is supposed to serve the poor? How does that make sense? The truly poor make footballs (soccer balls) from garbage ; will a $20 ball do anything really pos…

The football clearly hasn't been fully commercialised. A durable foam moulded ball is one of those ideas that's super-obvious but requires just the right material to actually be fun to kick. Surely once the right polymer and foam density have been found it can be churned out for pennies.

Except that it does not bounce the way a normal air filled ball does.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#29

Post by eropple » Sun, May 18, 2014, 3:02 PM UTC

muuh-gnu wrote: post #25

rm445 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true many social workers tend that way. We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly, and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate resources…

> One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly It is actually capitalism that thinks that it is vital to allocate resources fairly. Communists, on the other hand, think that resources should be allocated _equally_ with no regard to fairness. "To each according to his need." > this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. And until people get good enough, which in reality will never…

> What point does it make to have a conversation with people who are basically trying to legally mug you?

What point does it make to have a conversation with people running the machine that systematically impoverishes billions, to enable the lives of a thin crust of tens of millions?

(Not that I'm juvenile enough to believe such an extreme position in either direction--and yours relies on the sort of maker-taker dichotomy that I think I grew out of when I was seventeen and the bloom was off the libertarian rose--but you see how useful this sort of froth is, yeah? Then why do you do it?)

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#30

Post by muuh-gnu » Sun, May 18, 2014, 3:11 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #27

muuh-gnu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly It is actually capitalism that thinks that it is vital to allocate resources fairly. Communists, on the other hand, think that resources should be allocated _equally_ with no regard to fairness. "To each according to his need." > this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. And until people get good enough, which in reality will never…

Meaning no slight to your character in general, in this conversation you are one of the extremists. There are plenty of countries (large parts of Western Europe post-WWII) which have had predominantly left-leaning governments for 60+ years and not devolved into centrally-planned communist states. There's a genuine debate to be had about the role of governments, markets, taxation and distribution, but trying to frame…

> in this conversation you are one of the extremists.

It is extremism if and only if refusing to negotiate with muggers also is extremism.

> trying to frame it as the world threatened by the sword of communism

Whether the world at whole is threatened or not I dont know (people seem to survive in North Korea), but leftists like you certainly threaten my income and my freedom. If you scheme to force me to give a part of the products of my labor to you, it is the same thing as forcing me to work a part of my workday for you. In my eyes, wanting to force people to work for you against their will makes _you_ an extremist.

> signals a refusal to enter any kind of debate.

If you carefully observe, we're already debating right now. But you seem to be more preoccupied with labeling your opponents as extremist, refusing to debate, etc, than with debating itself. Refusing to play the "let's meet at the middle ground" game doesnt imply refusing to debate at all. It just means your argument (communism is good, so gimme your stuff) is too nonsensical to make me accept even parts of it as reasonable.