Ruined by Design

The world is working exactly as designed, and that’s precisely the problem. The combustion engine that’s destroying the planet’s atmosphere is working exactly as designed. Guns, which lead to so much death, are working exactly as designed. Facebook’s harmful privacy settings, which have outed gay teens to their conservative parents, are working exactly as designed. So, too, is Twitter’s toxicity and lack of civil discourse—they work exactly as designed. And this isn’t a coincidence. The lack of civil discourse online can largely be attributed to the products being created by technologists who haven’t even considered what impact their designs will have.