LA-SP

By Giles Slade
 * //Made to break: Technology and obsolescence in America//**

__What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?__


 * "Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence....We make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will make those products old fashioned, out of date, obsolete. We do that for the soundest reason: to make money." -Brooks Stevens (153)
 * "The product with the longest life period is not automatically the most economical. Value is a product of time and utility....Is a product that has served a short, useful life at a satisfactory cost necessarily wasteful?....There is not a product on the market today that could not be improved by using...more expensive materials. Every design is a compromise..." -Ernest Cunningham, 1959 (168)
 * Most engineers in the nineteenth century designed and built their products to last. (31)
 * "...the increasingly rapid evolution of technology has effectively rendered everything 'disposable.'" (265)
 * Planned obsolescence....psychological obsolescence...grew out of "the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than necessary." -Brooks Stevens (153)

__What is the main argument of the text?__

This book gives a detailed and disturbing picture of how, by choosing to support ever-shorter product lives, we may be shortening the future of our current way of life as well. If you've replaced a computer lately-or a cell phone, a camera, a television-chances are, the old one still worked. And chances are even greater that the latest model won't last as long as the one it replaced. Planned Obsolescence was become a part of who we are. This work draws out a history of twentieth-century technology as seen through the prism of obsolescence. Giles Slade explains how disposability was in fact a necessary condition for America's rejection of tradition and our acceptance of change and impermanence. This work portrays the development of electronic technologies and with it the avalanche of electronic consumer waste that overwhelms landfills around the world. “History reserves a privileged place for those societies that built things to last--forever, if possible. What place will it hold for a society addicted to consumption--a whole culture made to break?”

__Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.__


 * Moore's Law states that every year, smaller and smaller electronic devices became available for less and less cost, and these devices became at least twice as capacious and twice as fast as their immediate predecessor, effectively quadrupling the value of each generation of chip.
 * Electronic components have extremely short lives. [Cell phones and TVs] are creating unmanageable mounds of electronic waste each time they are thrown away. All of the discarded components in this growing mountain of e-waste contain high levels of permanent biological toxins
 * "Americans are poorly equipped to recognize, let alone ponder or address, the challenges technology poses....Although our use of technology is increasing...there is no sign of an improvement in our ability." -Committee on Technological Literacy's 2002 report (280)

__Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.__


 * Pellow, David Naguib. //Resisting global toxics: Transnational movements for environmental justice//. mit Press, 2007.
 * Botsman, Rachel, and Roo Rogers. //What's mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live//. London: Collins, 2011.
 * Guiltinan, Joseph. "Creative destruction and destructive creations: environmental ethics and planned obsolescence." //Journal of Business Ethics//89.1 (2009): 19-28.

__Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.__

Planned obsolescence is one of the primary foci of my research because it is one of the main driving forces behind the sustainability of consumer products and their design. It is impossible to definitively define what I mean by sustainable but it is a combination of being able to be continued and environmentally friendly. In this work, the author describes the circumstances through which the practice of planned obsolescence came into widespread acceptance and adoption in our inevitable consumerist culture. Although at times, it seems his tangents were off-topic and irrelevant to the main point of the chapters, the examples described in a chronological order which explore the background of how the practice of design for obsolescence came into the mainstream are adequately supported and very useful for a general understanding of the practices emergence.

__List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.__


 * One example which stood out was Ford Motor Company and the story of how automotive competitors, unable to match the functional reliability and performance of Ford’s model T, resorted to appealing to consumer’s aesthetic desires by offering cars in different colors and adding stylistic streamline shapes to cars that served no practical function other than appearance. This trend in the automotive industry drove aesthetic trends in the sphere of consumer products and the inevitable rise of industrial design after the industrial revolution was well underway.
 * The intentional sabotage of pipelines designed for the Soviet Union by the United States during the cold war introduced the practice of intentional precisely planned design for failure into the engineering profession. The ethical dilemmas behind planned and perceived obsolescence are discussed at great depths in this work. Many of the author’s views and examples serve in support of the perception that planned obsolescence in its current form, pursued for the sake of profit and repeat purchasing, is an unethical practice and should be terminated. In the latter chapters of this book, the author does attempt to propose possible alternatives to doing things and supports the idea that there are cost-effective methods that are far more sustainable including modularization and anything but cradle-to-grave design.
 * The author’s chapter on consumer electronics and cell phones specifically is particularly interesting to my area of study. Cell phones and other similar products have the highest rate of production and market prevalence yet the shortest product lifecycles of any consumer-products. It is also interesting to note the accuracy of many of the predictions of this book and placing cellphones at the forefront of the technological revolution and generational divide. Because the toxins contained in most electronics are indestructible, the EU has banned their use by manufacturers and consumers. This ban is proving to be an effective encouragement to the development of alternative, non-toxic materials for electronic manufacture...Although some legislation now exists at the state level; there is no uniformity, no consistency, and no funding for electronic waste disposal programs throughout the United States. The increasingly short life span of high-volume electronic goods, along with miniaturization, is what causes the e-waste problem. This lack of durability, in turn, grows from a unique combination of psychological and technological obsolescence. Very soon, the sheer volume of e-waste will compel America to adopt design strategies that include not just planned obsolescence but planned disassembly and reuse as part of the product life cycle. This is the industrial challenge of the new century.

By Steven Kotler and Peter H. Diamandis
 * //Abundance: The Future is better than you think//**

__What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?__


 * “Abundance is not about providing everyone on this planet with a life of luxury—rather it’s about providing all with a life of possibility.”
 * “Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant.”
 * “Right now, and for the first time ever, a passionate and committed individual has access to the technology, minds, and capital required to take on any challenge.”
 * “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself,”

__What is the main argument of the text?__

This book argues that we will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet and achieve abundance through technology. Nanotechnology has the potential to enhance human performance, to bring sustainable development for materials, water, energy, and food, to protect against unknown bacteria and viruses, and even to diminish the reasons for breaking the peace by creating universal abundance. Exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion are conspiring to solve our biggest problems.

__Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.__


 * In 1950 the global world product was roughly four trillion dollars and in 2008, fifty-eight years later, it was sixty-one trillion dollars. This fifteenfold increase came from increased productivity in our factories equipped with automation.
 * If everyone on Earth wants to live like a North American, then we’re going to need five planets’ worth of resources to do
 * “When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible.” “Today Americans living below the poverty line are not just light-years ahead of most Africans; they’re light-years ahead of the wealthiest Americans from just a century ago. Today 99 percent of Americans living below the poverty line have electricity, water, flushing toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television; 88 percent have a telephone; 71 percent have a car; and 70 percent even have air-conditioning. This may not seem like much, but one hundred years ago men like Henry Ford and Cornelius Vanderbilt were among the richest on the planet, but they enjoyed few of these luxuries.”

__Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.__


 * Diamandis, Peter H., and Steven Kotler. //Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World//. Simon and Schuster, 2015.
 * Senge, Peter M., et al. The necessary revolution: //How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world.// Crown Business, 2008.
 * Hall, Jeremy K., Gregory A. Daneke, and Michael J. Lenox. "Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions."//Journal of Business Venturing// 25.5 (2010): 439-448.

__Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.__

I have looked at the sustainable product development problem through an optimistic lens and it is necessary to see and analyze the state of society in relation to technological growth from the same positive perspective. This work serves as the backbone of this side of the story, in contrast to works like //The Story of Stuff// and //Cradle to Cradle// which focus on how bad the current system and structures of society are for meeting the needs of humanity and the planet.

__List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.__


 * “Henry Ford agreed: “None of our men are ‘experts.’ We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job … Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible.” This quote is essential to my discussion on collaboration in design and the barriers to creativity in teams.
 * It is all about access to and distribution and management of resources. “Ecosystem services are things like crop pollination, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, water purification, air purification, nutrient dispersal, nutrient recycling, waste processing, flood control, pest control, disease control, and so forth, that the environment provides for us free of charge.”
 * Most of today’s educational systems are built upon the same learning hierarchy: math and science at the top, humanities in the middle, art on the bottom. The reason for this is because these systems were developed in the nineteenth century, in the midst of the industrial revolution, when this hierarchy provided the best foundation for success. This is no longer the case. In a rapidly changing technological culture and an ever-growing information-based economy, creative ideas are the ultimate resource. Yet our current educational system does little to nourish this resource. “Teaching kids how to nourish their creativity and curiosity, while still providing a sound foundation in critical thinking, literacy and math, is the best way to prepare them for a future of increasingly rapid technological change.”
 * “Currently a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation. As a result, half of the world’s hospitalizations are due to people drinking water contaminated with infectious agents, toxic chemicals and radiological hazards. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), just one of those infectious agents—the bacteria that cause diarrhea—accounts for 4.1 percent of the global disease burden, killing 1.8 million children a year. Right now more folks have access to a cell phone than a toilet. In fact, the ancient Romans had better water quality than half the people alive today. So what happens if we solve this one problem? According to calculations done by Peter Gleick at the Pacific Institute, an estimated 135 million people will die before 2020 because they lack safe drinking water and proper sanitation. First and foremost, access to clean water means saving these lives. But it also means sub-Saharan Africa no longer loses the 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) that’s currently wasted on the health spending, productivity losses and labor diversions all associated with dirty water. Furthermore, because dehydration also lowers one’s ability to absorb nutrients, providing clean water helps those suffering from hunger and malnutrition. As a bonus, an entire litany of diseases and disease vectors gets wiped off the planet, as do a number of environmental concerns (fewer trees will be chopped down to boil water; fewer fossil fuels will be burned to purify water).”

By Amina Horozić
 * //Breaking In://** **//Over 100 Product Designers Reveal How to Build a Portfolio That Will Get You Hired//**

__Three quotes:__

“Design should be taught right along the level of reading, writing, and arithmetic because we are all consumers and critical thinking about the material and experiential world would make us into better consumers.” – Robert Arko

“The most powerful organization is the one that focuses on helping the person next to you discover their dream.” – Alfonso Albaisa

“Design is really about passion. It’s not about just having a job to earn money. It should be something you live, breathe, and something you enjoy. If everything else in life were free, you’d do it anyway… The most important thing that I look for in a portfolio is the student’s ability to communicate with impact. For example, when you start looking through a project and you get to the end of it, you want to know what it was all about, visually, without having to read too much. It’s a lot about visual communication skills. It’s about them showing their range, because a designer has to be an artist first, and then a problem solver. He needs to be able to take something from the beginning to an end, from ideation to a finished digital or physical model. A lot of students these days tend to rely too much on the digital tools without the proper foundation. Even if someone’s not the best artist, they can sometimes start to substitute skill with a glossy finish. I started in the age where everything was still manual. I can always tell when someone’s good at visual tools but not as strong as an artist. Although you can fool many people with it, if you look closely, you can see the difference between someone who just used the tool and someone who’s really an artist.” – Christopher Benjamin

__Main argument:__

This book argues that a particular set of skills and background education and training is the only way to become a valuable entry-level designer. The work that industrial designers do is often underappreciated and this book is meant to explain just what sacrifices are expected and where the trends within product design are headed. It is a collection of interviews from professionals that outlines what design firms are looking for in the portfolios of young talent. Industry leaders argue that designers need to stand out by pushing the limits of creative and novel ideas while displaying effortless skill that hints at the countless hours of hard work put into the development of the craft.

__Three supporting examples:__


 * Blasé Bertrand and IDEO look for designers that do things differently. “On top of these skills, I see another important dimension, which is the “magic” factor. This is the unique, unexpected quality that we can’t see anywhere else. It could be just a way of thinking, a way of expressing an idea, or even a new domain. When we are looking for designers, we are looking for people who not only know how to answer particular design challenges in the best possible ways, but who also bring individual points of view that will help our clients move forward on their innovation journey. More and more, our clients are asking for IDEO’s perspective. Even though we formulate it during the course of a project, we also need to have people who bring a critical and personal perspective. Furthermore, when looking at a portfolio, I seek the “freshness factor.” As you probably know, the field of design is growing rapidly with amazing talents. The ones we’re looking for are the designers who are willing to break new frontiers, push the boundaries of the expected, and take risks to invent new paradigms.
 * “Beyond creativity and capacity of shaping concepts, ideas, projects, and scenarios, the main qualities of a designer are curiosity, capacity to listen to people, to understand them, to observe them” - Anne Marie Boutin
 * “...you should also incorporate your sense of social responsibility in every project you do—it’s not an added value, it’s a fundamental value.” - Dr. Mark Breitenberg
 * “Everything needs to be beautiful, useful, affordable and needs to perform, but that alone is not good enough. We need to produce a more sensitive product...how can we help this consuming world be a little bit more sensible?” - Eric Chan

__Main literatures the text draws on:__


 * H-Point: The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging – February 1, 2009 by Stuart Macey


 * Material Innovation: Product Design – June 17, 2014 by Andrew H. Dent and Leslie Sherr


 * The Industrial Design Reference & Specification Book: Everything Industrial Designers Need to Know Every Day – September 15, 2013 by Dan Cuffaro and Isaac Zaksenberg

__How the argument relates to my argument:__

A part of my argument relates to the need for changes in design education must and a balance of skills with sound theory and real-world experience. This involves a shift away from solely aesthetics to all around designers. A merging of the engineer and the designer is needed and creativity must be preserved. High design culture is stressed as essential in this work but I may critique the lack of attention to sustainability. Mentorship provided at a design school is critical.

__Examples to support my narrative:__


 * “I think professional experience is very different than academic experience. If you can get that while you’re still in school then it’s valuable. If you can’t, try to get some before you commit to a more permanent job.” - Paul Bradley
 * “While I appreciate people thinking far out, like the super forward-looking kinds of concepts, I also want to see the balance of that with reality. I want to see that the portfolio is also carrying examples of real products that have been designed, that are executable today.” - Neil Brooker This relates to the need for engineering practicality in design education.
 * “I think we are probably experiencing a golden age of design because in the last few years design has become a lot more influential than it has ever been. That influence goes beyond restrictions that have been imposed on us by marketing and other people. We’re at a stage where we’re truly doing product making. I think if you look at the great design periods of the last century, the modernist in the ‘50s and the mid-century guys, that was when designers had a very deep and profound effect on the core parts of the business. I think the same thing is happening today. It’s not hard to see comparisons to this in the way Apple works, or other companies—designers are at the center of their entire operations.” – Yves Béhar

By Douglas Rushkoff
 * //Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now//**

__What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?__


 * “If the end of the twentieth century can be characterized by futurism, the twenty-first can be defined by presentism.”
 * “Our society has reoriented itself to the present moment. Everything is live, real time, and always-on. It’s not a mere speeding up, however much our lifestyles and technologies have accelerated the rate at which we attempt to do things. It’s more of a diminishment of anything that isn’t happening right now—and the onslaught of everything that supposedly is.”
 * “Digiphrenia”—the way our media and technologies encourage us to be in more than one place at the same time.”
 * “Our current economic crises stem, at least in part, from our inability to recognize the storage bias of the money we use. Since it is the only kind of money we know of, we use it for everything.”
 * “Once a line could truly be drawn in something other than sand, the notion of history as a progression became possible.

__What is the main argument of the text?__

We have conflated the two kinds of time. This work debates our struggle for attention, living in the now and what it now means to be human in real time. Data by its very nature exists in the past. As companies, we have to stop listening in in hopes that we might get a glimpse of what customers want next, ignoring past data in the right context, and pushing forward with innovation agendas and what is actually right for both the company and the consumers based not on the present but the future direction of technology itself. Consumers will then adapt. We must let data only inform where to go and not dictate where to go. The possibilities of a company are limited and innovation becomes impossible if data is what drives that which circumscribes a company’s actions. This is self-victimization due to a reputation as a reactive company vs. an innovative one.

__Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.__

__Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.__
 * One example is that of our being on able to adapt to the pace of advancing technology and being overwhelmed in a case of digifrania where all our notifications keep us multitasking but we are never focused on one thing for more than a moment. We have expanded our markets to human time. We are all competing for attention with our social media profiles and status updates.
 * We live in a continuous now en­abled by Twitter, email, and a so-called real-time technologi­cal shift. Yet this "now" is an elusive goal that we can never quite reach. And the dissonance between our digital selves and our analog bodies has thrown us into a new state of anxiety: present shock.
 * “[After the concept of credit became accepted]Money circulated faster and spread wider through its communities of use than at any other time in economic history.8 Workers labored fewer days and at higher wages than before or since; people ate four meals a day; women were taller in Europe than at any time until the 1970s; and the highest percentage on record of business profits went to preventative maintenance on equipment. It was a period of tremendous growth and wealth. Meanwhile, with no way of storing or growing value with this form of money over the long term, people made massive investments in architecture, particularly cathedrals, which they knew would attract pilgrims and tourists for years to come. This was their way of investing in the future, and the pre-Renaissance era of affluence became known as the Age of Cathedrals. The beauty of a flow-based economy is that it favors those who actively create value. The problem is that it disfavors those who are used to reaping passive rewards. Aristocratic landowning families had stayed rich for centuries simply by being rich in the first place. Peasants all worked the land in return for enough of their own harvest on which to subsist. Feudal lords did not participate in the peer-to-peer economy facilitated by local currencies, and by 1100 or so, most or the aristocracy’s wealth and power was receding. They were threatened by the rise of the merchant middle class and the growing bourgeois population, and had little way of participating in all the sideways trade. The wealthy needed a way to make money simply by having money. So, one by one, each of the early monarchies of Europe outlawed the kingdom’s local currencies and replaced them with a single central currency. Instead of growing their money in the fields, people would have to borrow money from the king’s treasury—at interest. If they wanted a medium through which to transact at the local marketplace, it meant becoming indebted to the aristocracy.”


 * Skrbina, David. //The Metaphysics of Technology//. Routledge, 2014.
 * Qiu, Lin, et al. "You are what you tweet: Personality expression and perception on Twitter." //Journal of Research in Personality// 46.6 (2012): 710-718.
 * Sharma, Rekha. "Community clip show: Examining the recursive collaboration between producers and viewers of a postmodern sitcom." //The Journal of Fandom Studies// 1.2 (2013): 183-199.

__Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.__

As consumers, we base our own future actions on what we expect from companies. From the perspective of companies, they are on incentivized to do things that consumers won’t want and they determine what consumers want based on past data. And so we are stuck in an endless temporal loop of unchanging market demand and supply. The real challenge, novelty, and relevance to my argument comes in the transition or leap of a company to develop products that consumers don’t know they want or could never even imagine. This was Steve Jobs talent. Technology has the capability to bring about incredible novelty and new advancements and innovations, and yet this digital technology which could have given us a completely new relationship to time has not met up to all that we have hoped for.

__List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.__


 * The Internet gives us the time to review our responses before posting to the world, thereby making us appear smarter than we are. At the same time, we don’t have more time because we are constantly distracting ourselves with notifications of insignificant things and other people’s lives that before we would remain in the dark to get be perfectly content not knowing of.
 * “That’s what is meant by the tragedy of the commons. A bunch of individuals, acting independently and out of self-interest, may deplete a shared resource even though it hurts everyone in the long run. It applies to corporations that externalize costs such as pollution, but it’s what happens when net users illegally download music and movies, expecting others to pick up the tab. It is in each person’s short-term self-interest to steal the music. Only the sucker pays. But when everyone thinks that way, there’s no one left to pay for the musician, and the music stops altogether. The individualistic act of stealing the music or depleting the resource is a form of compression, robbing from the future to enjoy something in the present at no cost. As long as we live as individuals, the distant future doesn’t really matter so much. The philosophy of the long now would suggest that the only way to see past this immediate, consumer-era self-satisfaction is to look further in the future. Have kids. Once we see that our long-term self-interest is no longer served, we may all, individually, change our behaviors. Even if we are thinking selfishly, prioritizing “me in the long run” isn’t quite so bad as “me right now.”
 * “If you go back and look at the historical record, it turns out that a lot of important ideas have very long incubation periods. I call this the ‘slow hunch.’ We’ve heard a lot recently about hunch and instinct and blink-like sudden moments of clarity, but in fact, a lot of great ideas linger on, sometimes for decades, in the back of people’s minds. They have a feeling that there’s an interesting problem, but they don’t quite have the tools yet to discover them.” Solving the problem means being in the right place at the right time—available to the propitious moment, the kairos. Perhaps counterintuitively, protecting what is left of this flow from the pressing obligation of new choices gives us a leg up on innovation.”
 * “We tend to see math and science as a steady state of facts rather than as the accumulated knowledge of linear traditions. As Korzybski put it, we see further because we “stand on the shoulders”5 of the previous generation. The danger of such a position is that we can forget to put our own feet on the ground.”

By Ian Hodder
 * //Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things//**

__What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?__


 * “…our dependence on things does itself depend - not just on the things themselves, but also on the ways in which we want to interact with them.”


 * “Much theory in archaeology and the social sciences argues that we need things. And we do. But we also need to be separate from things. At the most general of levels, we have a need to identify with and simultaneously be distinct from things.”


 * “…the possibility of experience is the possibility of objects of experience -because to have experiences means that our consciousness creates objects from sense impressions. In the same way, the possibility of desire is the possibility of objects of desire.”


 * “There is a magical enchanting process in the technical production of an object and it is this that draws us to the object, even while the object resists our understanding. Works of art evoke complex internationalities to which we are drawn and even entrapped”


 * “A theory of consumption focuses upon recovering objects from the alienated process of production, consumption is thus a strategy of self-creation in the face of alienation”


 * “So the agency and flows of things depend both on the thing itself and what we know, how we perceive and imagine the thing. There is much recent work that explores how materials are construed in different social settings”

__What is the main argument of the text?__

In this work, Hodder presents a theory of the connections between humans and things. How do identification and ownership come about, and what is the special nature of ownership and property? Humans Depend on Things. All this work on material culture and materiality is of utmost importance in demonstrating the thorough extent to which person and society are dependent on things. Materials and things are seen as always relational, contextually embedded within specific networks and social contexts. Materials and things are seen as actively engaged in the social process, and as going through social biographies. After all such work it can no longer be argued that self and society can be separated from things, studied independently of materials and the object world.

__Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.__


 * The object pebble has been made a thing, it has been connected to humans by the process of gazing, noticing, recognizing, comparing. It has been brought close to humans. It is the human that has been added to the pebble in order to create a form of ownership. We might then pick up the pebble and touch it, hold it, feel it. It has now moved to a yet closer personal relationship- a holding. So now there is association, contiguity The holding already creates a sense of a special relationship, a 'mine'. More senses are involved than just the gaze. We have become more connected to the thing through the reinforcement across different senses. The sensory relationships with the pebble are situated within a broader set of experiences on the beach - perhaps a beautiful sunset. So the pebble becomes a thing associated with a wider set of events that may be meaningful for us. Immediately this association between the pebble and our experiences on the beach allow the pebble to be used in memory construction. And the pebble can be named as 'the pebble I picked up on that walk along the beach when I saw that great sunset'
 * Things become possessed by us, but we also have become possessed by them, by their colour, beauty, memories, associations, etc. The processes involve paying attention to, becoming associated with, becoming linked in terms of history and memory; finding, keeping, using over time, applying force and the law to control access to things.
 * Marx describes the processes whereby the object/product becomes distant from, moves away from the maker. In fact, in Marx and in later Marxist writing, three processes of distancing between humans and things can be distinguished; these are three negative construals of objectification. 1. Alienation- this is the process of estrangement discussed above. It has come to mean 'a sense of loss of authentic or proper identity' (Miller 1987: 44) in the capitalist process. 2. Fetishism- the worker gets separated from products and confronts them in another sphere - as commodities, which are not seen as the products of the worker's labor, but as objects to be consumed - so objects become 'false' representation. l 32 Humans Depend on Things 3. Reification this is where objects created by humans become so separate that they are perceived as having an external reality and an origin separate from themselves
 * “Technologies and media have constituted part of human cognitive architecture since the Upper Palaeolithic. Changes in external symbol systems have altered the capacity for human memory It can further be argued that much cognitive action depends on external stimuli. 'We may often solve problems by "piggy-backing" on reliable environmental properties. This exploitation of external structure is what I mean by the term scaffolding”

__Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.__


 * Tweed, Chris. "Socio-technical issues in dwelling retrofit." //Building Research & Information// 41.5 (2013): 551-562.
 * Olsen, Bjørnar. //In defense of things: archaeology and the ontology of objects//. Rowman Altamira, 2010.
 * Hodder, Ian. "Human‐ thing entanglement: towards an integrated archaeological perspective." //Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute// 17.1 (2011): 154-177.
 * Pétursdóttir, Þóra. "Small things forgotten now included, or what else do things deserve?." //International Journal of Historical Archaeology// 16.3 (2012): 577-603.

__Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.__

We are all connected to the things in our lives and the interconnectedness or entanglement goes deeper than one might think. The human hand has evolved with tools over time. Our interaction with physical things defines and shapes us. Chapter two of this book is particularly interesting to me because it details the idea of ownership and how we identify with objects. This is important to my research because it is this idea of ownership that can both harm and save an economy and the environment. With the digital age, there is a growing shift to service based products and we are seeing this more and more with consumer products where the function a product provides is available on demand. In order for this to work, we must give up the idea of ownership.

__List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.__


 * Ownership can come about through inheritance, laboring over something and craftsmanship, the feeling that whatever I make, I own. An exclusive relation or socially recognized control.
 * A property right, on the other hand, is 'a particular type of association between a person and a "thing". The type of association is one which involves a measure of socially recognized control over the "thing" and which necessitates some restrictions on other people's control of the same "thing'"
 * Certainly it seems that humans add something to things- this added something seems to be association, recognition, common history, investment of care and labor. In all these ways material entities become things in which humans have an interest, which they then wish to protect. At the basis of property is our dependence on things such that they play a role in our lives. So we can also say that things add something to humans. The magic that transforms a material entity into a thing owned is a dual process of adding humans and things to each other. Why is this discussion of property important? Partly because it describes the ways in which identification with things leads to the structuring and ordering of societies and of individuals in those societies. In different ways and to different degrees all societies are based on ownership of things. Dominance, power and social difference all depend on things and access to things (food, land, ritual spaces, ancestors, money). All societies involve conflictual relations of inequality that are built on things. It is in the involvement of people in production, consumption, distribution and disposal of things that society is created and sustained. If it was not for things there would be no society, It is in our joint production, ownership, exchange, transfer, keeping, disposal of things that we enter into society, It is on our obligations and duties towards each other with respect to things that societies are stretched and strained. The forms of society are intimately related to the ways in which we handle objects and transform them into something meaningful and necessary for ourselves.
 * Our bodily movements and the tools are all working together to achieve a practical project there is a unified untheorized whole in the practices of using equipment. Who I am as a person is dependent on the equipmental contexts in which I dwell. When things break down, however, we look at them and their functional relationships more consciously and more theoretically. We turn to the thing that does not work and investigate it and we become aware of all the functions that the thing allows us to perform. How can I knock a nail in without a hammer? Heidegger called this type of conscious, reflective relationship with things 'present-at-hand'.


 * “Thus in handling a thing, moving it around, feeling it, looking at it, we come to understand how our body works, how the different parts interrelate, how we can be coordinated. There is thus a two-way dependence of human bodies and things. Material Culture and Materiality In material culture and materiality studies there is less focus on human being, and more on how things come to have person-like qualities, how they act, have agency, personalities, spirits, powers. The emphasis remains on the constitution of self and identity, but the focus shifts to how things act in the world.”


 * “The process of objectification involves the following stages. At first the subject is hard to describe because it is unconscious and undifferentiated .The subject struggles towards an awareness that it actually is- by becoming aware that there is something it is not. Awareness of the self is achieved by creating Humans Depend on Things something which is 'other' or 'object' -this allows the self to define itself and become self-aware. So subject is defined in relation to object- something that stands against. Consciousness of the external becomes dissatisfied and attempts are made to reincorporate the other into the subject, reaching a communion with self.”

By Gary Klein
 * //Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights//**

__What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?__

“In many cases, the problem isn’t about having or noticing insights; it is about acting on them. The organization lacks the willpower to make changes.”

“I still observe executives exhibiting the same lack of courage or knowledge that undercut previous waves of innovation. They declare that they want more innovation but then ask, ‘Who else is doing it?’ They claim to seek new ideas but shoot down every one brought to them.”

“The greatest obstacle to knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” - Daniel Boorstin

“Decision researchers were trying to reduce errors, which is important, but we also needed to help people gain expertise and make insightful decisions

__What is the main argument of the text?__

This book argues the tradeoffs between error and insights. The more accurate you strive to be, the less creative you will be. Error and mistakes lead to discoveries. Errors are represented by a down arrow and insights represented by an up arrow because we want to decrease one and increase the other. Most works have focused on decreasing the down arrow but this book is a detailed study of how to increase the up arrow. These arrows need to be balanced. It attempts to answer the question of where insights actually come from with real life examples, and beyond laboratory tests.

__Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.__


 * The accidental discovery of the less experienced professional. Experts tend to explain away errors because they think they know and understand what should be, but these errors may often lead to true insights if looked upon with an uncertain questioning eye. Routine and cognitive rigidity kills the change of insight. We must be able to escape from flawed assumptions
 * The example of the cop that knew the car was stolen because the driver dropped the asses in the car
 * The forest fire fighter who started a fire to save his life form a larger fire

__Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.__


 * Van Swol, Lyn M. "Questioning the assumptions of deception research."//Journal of Language and Social Psychology// 33.4 (2014): 411-416.
 * Wentzel, Arnold. "The cross of invention: a tool for finding zones of creative potential." //Available at SSRN 2518490// (2014).
 * Grossberg, Kenneth Alan. "Marketing Champions: Exemplars of Product Innovation as Key to Marketing Strategy." (2014).
 * Dreyfus, Hubert L. "What computers can't do." (1972).

__Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.__

Product design is linked to innovation and innovation is, as this book details. As complexity increases and change accelerates in our modern era, it is of critical importance that we as designers and business leaders be able to come to valuable insights that propel us forward. People are prone to thinking they know more than they do or that their hunches are more valid than they really are; this often causes them to question less than they should. Insights are disruptive by nature and work in contrast to minimal error work environments. One must give way to the other and companies are often scared to take this risk. Organizational pressures work against promoting insights because making more errors is very noticeable but missing insights most often goes unnoticed.

__List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.__


 * Six Sigma got in the way of innovation. Too much energy was spent cutting defects to 3.4 per million, and not enough energy was expended developing new product ideas. Most of the companies that followed this standard for error elimination fail to come to new insights and do worse in the long term. Reducing error doesn’t give you anything more and you are just playing not to lose instead of pushing for insights and playing to win.