Ted Talk

1. William McDonough states: “The fundamental issue is that, for me, design is the first signal of human intentions.”  

Do you share McDonough’s viewpoint? Explain and use an example of a design that supports your position.

I agree with William’s viewpoint on design and his example that he uses of the rubber duck. It is so true that we are designing things that are known to cause cancer in the state of california yet we sell and distribute it with the intentions for it to be used by young children. That is a very interesting cultural design, and one that is certainly not proper.  

2) McDonough states: what we realize today is that modern culture appears to have adopted a strategy of tragedy. If we come here and say, "Well, I didn't intend to cause global warming on the way here," and we say, "That's not part of my plan," then we realize it's part of our de facto plan. Because it's the thing that's happening because we have no other plan.

Do you agree with McDonough that we have a “strategy of tragedy” that is shaping the human condition? Why or Why not?

I totally agree with his statement here, I feel as if our goal as a society is we intend to do good in this world and don’t want to hurt our children and our earth but what it all comes down to is money. Money is the driving force behind our world and the ones who aren’t influenced by money, like the doctor McDonough explained gave eyesight back to 2 million people for free, those are the people who are making a positive difference in our world. But the majority of the world is to focused on money and simply says “we didn’t have the intention on causing…..so and so problem”. Money has to be taken out of the equation, we need to see that there is more important things than money and for those who are just scraping by but causing massive amounts of toxic chemicals like those in the Guatemala landfill, those people would stop what they are doing if we provide them with the basic neccesities like food and water to help them survive.

3) McDonough believes that design determines our interactions with nature and how we value it. Is there evidence to support that view? Or does McDonough have it backwards, that nature actually shapes the way we design?
I think its both ways because we can create synthetic things that are also found in nature We design things to work with nature but at the same time with modernization and the intelligence of humans, we have been able to design these chemicals that hurt and damage our Earth. We design things to imporve the overall life and productivity of our race at the sacrifice of our Earth. The best place to be is to find a sweet spot between keeping our earth healthy and our species thriving and evolving.

4) Explain what cradle to cradle design is. Describe and use an example (provide a web link please) of what the two metabolisms are and what they do. Illustrations are welcome here - make the readers lose their mind.
Cradle to cradle design is essentially desiging something that after it has beeen used and ready to be disposed of, it can properly decompose and not cause an influeand large amount of waste, specifically toxic waste, down the road