Icsid World Design Congress 2009

I've just came back from Icsid World Design Congress 2009. It is the first of 3 days of this congress and i must say there are some pretty good discussions going about among the studio leaders. Bruce Nussbaum of businessweek and Singapore Minister of Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam got the day started with some really good discussions. Both of them obviously really know their stuffs. I've always appreciated people who speaks because he does have a point rather than someone who does that for a statement or just to grab some attention. Unfortunately congress like this often is a magnet for attention seekers as well, as the day went on, you start getting people who will grab any chance to stand up, have the cameras on him and ask the most out of point questions ever. Somehow it's always that few people asking the same few questions.

Most of the speakers are really people with substance, however I find the rest to be too idealistic in their views. They seem to be like they have just rejoined civilization after a really long period out. I'm very sure anyone who reads the newspaper and watches TV (someone who's not out of touch with society) will be able to say, "Yeah i think we should cut down on our spending and move away from this consumption driven society." The question is then how do u propose that happening? Yes rat is a stable in some developing society, but that's because those rats are feeding on natural grains and etc. I don't think rats in cities are safe for consumption really. Even the pigeons in Singapore are known to spread disease with their droppings. Even if we get pass that fact, i do not see the human race moving pass this habit of consumption easily. The consequences are unimaginable.

To be really frank, design and the green movements are really so huge because they push sales. People spend money thus the economy thrive. If people stop consuming, companies will basically go bust, workers lose their jobs and the economy go bust. I think the key is to educate the world to cut down on unnecessary spendings. Products to reduce unnecessary parts and styling, with gimmicks totally taken out. I think we already are moving towards that, although most of the time still really superficially.

Another observation I've made on the first day, is that most designers are really pessimists. Maybe they are just jumping on the bandwagon, but most of their visions of the future are really really dark. I really hope they are bad prophets. Anyway visions of the future have always been more about the present than anything else so that really shows the confidence those designers have of today's world. Bruce Nussbaum made a comment which i totally agree as he said (after a long contemplation) that he had gone through a lot of really dark period, and it always turn out fine. Personally i think what he really wanted to say is that he do not think the earth is as bad as what the media has made of it, but obviously that's not really politically correct thus he decided to rephrase his reply. Anyway to be really frank, i'm wondering, other than the forest fires and pollutions that we're so responsible for, can anyone be sure the change in climate is really our fault? If the scientists have been right to say that the earth has gone through the ice age to the present date, hasn't the earth been constantly heating up then? Maybe the dinosaurs have been producing too much carbon dioxide then. Many scientists also agree that the earth plates have been shifting since its existence. They hypothesize that all the land are joint and the shifting of the crust resulted in our landscape today. If the land area remained about the same, while area covered by the ocean increased dramatically, isn't it to say the earth actually expanded? That alone will result in major errors to our calculations, the poles melting may simply because it is shifting or even earth trajectory have shifted. Anyway we now know that the space is actually expanding, and that by itself also results in shifting of path of the earth...

What i am trying to get across is that with so many other possibilities that we can't prove, why we are so dead on on that possibility that we are the cause? However, on the other hand, i do believe that there's no harm on cutting down on mindless expenditures.