Why Designers should urgently listen to Anthropologists | Michael Leube | TEDxKuchl

[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you for inviting me to this event and thank you co her for being my teacher the things that I will tell you in the next 18 minutes I've learned here and it was a very steep learning curve so please bear with me this is gonna be quite a quite a ride I think let's let's see what happens unfortunately I have to go a little bit dark on you first I watch a lot of science fiction movies it's something that I enjoy doing it's a genre that I enjoy very much and I don't know about you but I have not seen a single science fiction movie not one in my life where the scenario is a positive one yet at the same time all of us can't wait to get into the future all of you know what the weather is like tomorrow that's a strange state of being now let's go a little bit further I believe having a dystopic not utopian negative view of the future means that you live in an unsustainable way the only way you can be pessimistic about the future is if you're living unsustainably my name is Michael lui bei I'm an anthropologist by training cultural and biological anthropologist more than anything else I'm an evolutionist in 2013 my life changed radically when I was invited to become a full teacher of anthropology in the social sciences here in Coker and I'm forever grateful for that there were some things when I first came here that made me scratch my head there are some things I couldn't understand I was aware of the dire situation when I was aware that you can't have infinite economic growth on a finite planet I was aware of that but unfortunately I lost my I idealism and became more of a realist because I started to see some of the tricks that are used for that situation my students were working on some on some projects and one of them is not this exact one but one project that I would like to sort of talk about for a second is a smart drinking bottle now this is a device a three-dimensional drinking bottle and it has an integrated application and app and it has a sort of a form of artificial intelligence I guess it tells you when you should drink how much you should drink when you last drank something and how much you should drink more if I'm if I'm drinking from a water bottle I put in the freaking water so if little theory in the bottle little genie in the bottle tells me congratulations you've just had to 100 milligrams of what no kidding Sherlock Holmes are you kidding me I have an app I have an app it's called thirst it is a fantastic app it went through about 5 million no seven million years of rapid prototyping because nature is the mother of prototyping it went through rigorous UX user experience and usability research it was a matter of life and death because my ancestors the ones that had downloaded this before birth for free open-source they had children do I need to say anything else so no no no no I know exactly when I'm thirsty so what happened to me in the beginning was I was kind of lost out I wasn't sure where my anthropology fits in so I went - classic anthropology I talked about evolutionary theory a lot I was teaching and lecturing a lot cultural anthropology biological anthropology and perhaps the most important thing that I was able to tell to convey to my students was this little formula 99% of our genetic makeup are the same as a chimpanzee one get to love your inner ape don't-don't-don't laughs here it's a very spiritual and beautiful thing to accept you as an animal the other 1% is our saucy ability we've reached the highest level of corporation on this planet along with a few other social insects a few mammals but not really very many we are the descendants of winning groups not winning individuals individuals don't have babies okay so we are the result everyone in here should be grateful for a second we are the descendants of winning groups that have left in the last wave of mass emigration Africa about 40 to 45 thousand years ago in an act of incredible cooperation so as I was going deeper and deeper into into my anthropological theory students would say that's nice it's interesting they would enjoy it me talking about this stuff but then they would lower their heads they would get kind of depressing they would say but we can't change humans really I can you say that again we can change humans really quickly we can change humans in 10 years when Steve Jobs unleash the epidemic of the 21st century on to us humanity can we change humans are you really student are you really accusing me of genetic determinism we can't change humans you want to see how we can change humans we can change design is the most powerful apparatus next to next to nature to change humans and you're dropping your head just this little piece of felt here it's changing my behavior like crazy you take this away and I turn into Mick Jagger this is cramping my style right here this this thing is behaviour change I mean of course you can change human behavior that's the feature of design and so I say I will have to be careful not to get cynical right I mean my wife told me this morning I swear to god she said you some positive examples and I said I will when I was very low I know it sounds kind of pathetic but kind of lost up here in in in court I mean I loved working here don't please don't misunderstand me but but I was confused and I literally thank you mister Banksy mr. anonymous Banksy gave me so much my Elizabeth fixer um I literally ordered this picture in an eBay and hung it up in the stairwell this picture explains absolutely everything on the right side you have humans that have not developed very much at all in in the last 40,000 years since the Paleolithic our phenotype our body has not changed much and this includes the way we look the way we dress the way we speak the way we behave that hasn't changed very much what change is extremely fast is on the other side and that is called cultural evolution it goes extremely fast every couple of weeks and new cell phone drops on us right so so that's called cultural evolution and it's due to design design is prometheus design is the culture maker and this was the most beautiful thing to happen to me all of a sudden instead of just classifying and talking about humans from the outside all of a sudden I was in the kitchen of culture I was in the workshop quite literally of culture and some of it is fantastic some of it is not so great everything around us without an exception was made by the makers of the past designers architects engineers of the past this is a beautiful example of what can happen everything in the future the future is literally made by designers so if students think I'm trying to make them persuade them to change major they're so wrong we need designers more than ever there are some things that I need to talk to you about designers and sorry about human beings so some stuff about designers but some things about the human being we're novelty seekers this is one of these anthropological constants we are novelty seekers we love variety we like new things we have a bad case of neo philia this is why we overeat in a poof a situation and this is why this army of marketeers and advertisers can sell us just about anything the other thing that's very important out of many constants but one thing that is very important is that we're very aware and concerned about our hierarchy in a group we need to know which group we fit into how long we can stay in that group and what hierarchy what level of the group do we find ourselves in because guess what our answers there's the ones that were kicked out of a group ostracized their genetic information is not with us so put those two things together and we have what is called mass or runaway consumerism and this situation that we're in right now called runaway consumerism it's based on a kind of a myth a kind of a delusion I'll go that far that I can sum up for you in three points right now this delusion of runaway consumerism is based on one lasting happiness that consumption of stuff gives you happiness if that was true if it was really lasting you wouldn't purchase the next thing check the second delusion that we run into is that lower than average personality traits as feeling inadequate can be compensated by above-average products gadgets phones clothing it's called coolness factor and the third is that it's more efficient way to use it's a more efficient way to use gadgets products and applications to show our personality traits then simply talking to people shaking their hands looking in their eyes and hugging them it's a huge delusion that we are living in what we're really living in is what is called the less a fair this is a French word for let it go let it flow let it be and this picture here would be the metaphor of Adam Smith's invisible hand now even though it seems unregulated even though it seems like there's a free market system around us I want you to think about that hard right now is it really that free or is noble behavior as in sustainable ethical behavior is that not evolutionarily speaking a fragile vulnerable trait is it not actually default right now to live unethical unsustainable do you not have to go out of the way to be sustainable citizen so in evolutionary theory this is a fragile strategy that needs to be protected how is the opposite protected how is overconsumption protected raked won we pay very little taxes for consumption value-added tax and we pay a whole bunch of taxes for what we put into the system income encouraging us to slack off too we have no idea where externalities are we have no idea and we don't want to know because we want to sleep at night what went into this gadget what kind of working conditions went into this gadget into making this gadget and how much co2 was burned in the production in the use and in the disposal of that no it's just hidden from us and then there's a gigantic army once again of marketeers and advertising agencies that get the highest degree known to human society PhDs in putting carrots in front of us to constantly consume more constantly making us feel that's my carrot constantly and making making us feel like we're inadequate and you're telling me it's a free market system um the accumulation of all of everything that I've said so far is called garbage we are the only species on this planet without an exception that has invented designed this concept of taking resources out of the ground molding them into shapes and forms and giving them functions that are not reverse-engineer able I recyclable that's called garbage only species on this planet now that's the good news because it's culture it's not in our genes it's culture and that can be changed my personal belief is that the only viable system the only thing that works for this species homo sapiens sapiens is the circle economy so just like on this beautiful fall day this is where it gets a little bit silly there's a tree I'm a tree now there's a tree and it shakes all of its leaves away because it's older than the 19 and it waits for the new collection to drop in six months can I get myself some new Leafs in 2020 every single year total waste it's not a problem because obviously it stays in a flow of resources now obviously to me quite obviously not easily but obviously we need to do something similar is it taunting know every single species on this planet except us does it know this is a statistical significance so yes yes yes I am talking about regulation and now before you get weird on me before we go into this old left and right discussion which you're not gonna change your evolutionarily selected to be left or right and every time you're having a discussion you just want to be the loudest you're not gonna change so please think of this of regulation think of it in terms of biological regulation there's no system on this planet that doesn't have regulation okay self-interested unregulated sells you know what that's called cancer it's not funny self regulated individuals on the next level out because I'm a group of enough of microorganisms and organs lead to environmental catastrophe yes that's similar to cancer so obviously we need some regulation I've got a freaking thermal regulator in here so I don't heat up in this stressful situation so my idea is very easy we do something like in the pharma industry does all along and that is to check the stuff that hits the market very thoroughly and we implement the circular economy bylaw that is the rubber stamp that you get and obviously the designer will implement those rules before they start development think back of that first picture that I had I had this spaceship annihilate worth and that's what if we pump into our brains every day think for a second that a spaceship comes down and sees the human race lands down and says I'm gonna give these people some advice because they need it and if you put it into one sentence I think that piece of advice as they spray-paint the alien guy spray-paints over this Banksy graffiti I think it would be give them confidence don't keep giving them candy thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 13,151

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Design, Anthropology, Behavior, Big problems, Evolution, Product design, Sustainability

Id: k8QrsMa170k

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020