Contributors:
Rick Bell - Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York
Melissa Cullens - Founder & CEO at Charette
Paolo Marques - Principal at GH+A Design
Julia Monk FAIA FIIDA - Hospitality Thought Leader, Architect, Interior Designer
Ronnie Peters - Founder and CEO at 360 Design, Creative Director at Hyperloop Transportation Technologies
Harry West - Professor of Practice at Columbia University and Principal at Invisible Design
Jon Winebrenner - Creative Director at Sonn Technology Ltd.
Quotes:
Harry West
I don't think that we are able to make any serious change unless we step up and face the economics... it is money that drives change
we need to set up the environment, the context, so somebody can make a buck driving down our carbon consumption
we as a society have to face up to the fact that we are the problem
we need to ask our government to step up to its responsibility and tax the things that are killing us
if we tax carbon we'll use less carbon, it is that straightforward
design has a very strong role to play, because we're good at helping cultural changes happen
we need a superior being, an AI that values our future selves as much as our current selves, and to help us make better decisions on behalf of ourselves
ultimately we created the problem, we're the ones consuming, we're the ones putting the carbon out there, all of us, and so it's up to us to change our behaviour.
Julie Monk
it is about having the patience to get to that common ground, from which you can then build back up to solving some of these bigger issues
we have to build a consensus on what the ideal is and to do that we need to talk... we need to do research, before we start defining where we're going
we need to get all the stakeholders together and get all of their opinions, then understand by consensus where we need to go
We don't stress enough the small things that everybody could be doing to help us get to our goal of 2050 and then beyond
we put these lofty issues out there, they're so big that no one, even if they have their hearts in the right place and they can put their pocketbook in the right place, can solve any of them by themselves
Mark Bergin
our collective future actually predicts what our individual futures will be
Paola Marques
There has been huge investments of retail in the past and there is not that appetite going forward
Ronnie Peters
it starts with ME, it starts right here, and it starts with my actions and the things that I can do
having regulation and regulatory endorsement is absolutely key
Rick Bell
the patterns of social behavior are going to change, we'll see that in our public spaces or public buildings, all aspects of social life, it'll change the patterns of housing, how we work, patterns of mobility
in terms of environmental impact, I think people are realising that everything is interconnected
what are the laws that impede people doing what they aspire to do? You know, what are the regulations that are getting in the way? And how can they be changed?
talking to the prior point about polarisation, the difficulty in making laws that talk to the BeyondZero aspect of going further than what might otherwise be possible, is stymied by this incredibly equal diversity of opinion
I don't think we're doing anything that is significant enough to truly stop the catastrophe [of the climate crisis]
Melissa Cullens
designers are not patient people, we don't like to wait for the change to happen, but it does take time and it does take repetition
we, as design leaders have a real responsibility for pushing back pretty hard when profit gets in the way
there's a lot of room for us to change the mental model and the frameworks that we use to cut to the chase and find language that feels open for more people to participate.
they're able to see the value in what you're putting forward, and willing to take the risk to go beyond the regulation or to break the regulation to be the first mover to get out there
Jon Winebrenner
we're into this elevated state of human nature right now
Transcript:
Mark Bergin 00:01
Hello, I'm Mark Bergin, the founder of DRIVENxDESIGN and the Design Exec Club. This is Episode 35, of the Design Exec Club Town Halls. I've got a bunch of some of the smartest people I know. And we're going to be talking about, how do we actually consider a world which is Beyond Zero carbon emissions? And then how do we get to that future faster? I'm sure it's not going to be a smooth journey. And I'm sure those big ideals, like what a lot of future casting things are, that they're very hard to get to. But hopefully, in discussions with our panelists today that we're going to be able to understand what some of those next steps are. If you go think it's 30 years, 60 years, depending whether you're looking at the target for the Chinese or for the other G20 countries. In that period, there's a lot of changes that can happen - there's different governments, there's different economic cycles or different pandemics. But let's see what the panelists can go help us with as far as how to get to the future faster. Rick Bell I want to throw across to you. In the roles that you've had over the last 20 plus years, in one of our previous calls, you said that you were in some ways that you'd seen us go back to the normal situation after Superstorm Sandy after 911 after you know, a range of issues? Can we actually progress out of where we are so that we can go to the, you know, a big vision? Or is it that we have to take small incremental steps? What's your learnings?
Rick Bell 01:31
I think the pandemic is a game changer. A lot of the other events that had been catastrophic in New York and other places around the world have been very finite in terms of their impact. Admittedly for those impacted, they were absolutely significant in game changing. But the pandemic has influenced everybody, whether they realize it or not. It influences all sorts of aspects of social life. I think what we're looking at in terms of the environment, are changes in behavior that aren't going to go back. People have talked about the new normal, there's no normal patterns of social behavior. In the past, in New York, there were many people walking around the streets a decade ago, five years ago, three years ago who wore masks. They tended to be from far away from New York, not from New York. I think in New York now, if you look around walking in the streets, people are wearing masks as if it was essential to guarantee social interaction. Interaction between people is not going to go away, the patterns of social behavior are going to change, we'll see that in our public spaces or public buildings, all aspects of social life. It'll change the patterns of housing, how we work, change patterns of mobility, and transit, all sorts of things one could talk about. But in terms of environmental impact, I think people are realizing that everything is interconnected. And while the pandemic is not caused by carbon emissions, I think we'll see a lot of soul searching and introspection about the things that are important, that remain personal interactions, and the things that will drop away different types of communications, less international travel for conferences, more, here we are, you know, virtual communications,
Mark Bergin 03:25
Melissa, I'm going to throw across to you. You've got two things that fascinate me about this idea of working out what the future looks like. You've got a two year old, so therefore, you're very much invested into what will the future look like? That's your next 20 plus years. But you also worked at Ellevest, where there was a project of try to take, say, financial equality between men and women, which was on a horizon of 170 something years, and then try to get it so it was actually achievable in people's lifetime. So you've been involved in this world of how do you accelerate something which is progressing but not progressing fast enough. Can we do these things or are they so insidiously complex, that their ideals but not achievable?
Melissa Cullens 04:15
Oh well, I don't know. Designers are not patient people. We don't like to wait for the change to happen. But it does take time and it does take repetition and one of the things that I think might be really applicable from that time was shifting perspectives. So when I started out at Ellevest it was pre Trump election, preemie to the mindset around what women needed was very different than it is now. It's kind of almost hard to even remember. We heard a lot from people that they didn't think they needed their own investment platform. And we've heard a lot from women that they felt like everything was fine, and then kind of the election happened and folks kind of felt like, oh, gosh, maybe we aren't as forward as we as we thought we were. And, you know, you think, they think better start looking out for themselves. But one of the things that we did as a part of the kind of like, to attempt to move people from one mode of thinking to another was just consistent information. And I think, you know, I'm from the south, I'm from Marietta, Georgia, and my parents are conservative Southern people. And so I have the wonderful experience of in family moments getting to have awkward conversations about what's happening in the world, and what is real, and what is not real. And that's probably the biggest thing in between us in real change. And I think there's an element of that that's technological, about how information is being disseminated and how we have access to it. And as designers, there is a job for every single person, no matter how many years of experience you have in standing up for what's ethical, with what you're designing, and what you're putting forward. And I think that we, as design leaders have a real responsibility for pushing back pretty hard when profit gets in the way of that. And then I think there's, you know, beyond just the dissemination of the information, there's the way the story that we're telling, you know. Again, from the south, my family were farmers. They come from a world where they love and appreciate the natural environment. That the natural environment is important. But they're so caught up in the identity politics around not feeling like they belong with the climate movement, that they can't participate as allies. And I kind of hate using that word, because even that word is a bit polarized, but they just don't feel like they belong. They don't feel like they're included. And so I think that when we think about how do we talk about, how do we communicate the impact and the opportunity, I think there's a lot of room for us to change the mental model and the frameworks that we use to cut to the chase and find language that feels open for more people to participate.
Mark Bergin 07:34
And I think one of the things that I'm going to focus on there is, you know, many of us will have seen Hillbilly Elegy or read the book, which tells a really interesting story about people who are trying to go stick with values, but those values are actually holding them back. And then some of the clan want to go and actually break free from that. And we've got the same issue in Australia, when it comes to people who are in rural or regional communities, and they're on the land that they seem to align more to, I can't be involved with the environment because the environment was initially it was yelled at them that they were doing something wrong. And they were told that they didn't love the environment. So there's the, you know, you're not a good person that came into it. And then in the previous Town Hall that we did, Julie, you brought up some some of the challenges that we've got around the media and also around partisanship that's there. And I think what I've noticed is that with farmers in Australia, they seem to fit into three groups - there's corporate farmers, there's very progressive, independent farmers, and then there's non progressive farmers. And what's interesting, if you go look from an economic impact, that the people who are making the difference in the farming community are in the top two groups. The non progressives fit into the media and pain porn, that they turn around, and they're the ones that the media go and say, This is a struggling farmer, and absolutely, they are struggling the farmer. But if you had a struggling business, and you behave like these farmers did, which was that you didn't want to progress, everyone else would say, I don't care, your business is gone. And so you've got something between the voting rights of people in rural communities wanting to hold on to yesterday. If somebody is running a bodega, and they don't want to actually progressed, they go out of business. You know, it's not like they have the right to stay in business because they run a bodega, because there's lots of beggars everywhere, but there's ones which are progressive, and there's ones that aren't. So I think we've got this pain porn, which is a bit of a failure in the media cycle, because they know that if they put pain on TV in an interview that they are going to get people's attention, which means they get advertising dollars, which means it's broken. We've lost some of that social licence that's there and I think that to me, is a really interesting problem, because that's television broadcast media who are trying to hold on to audiences that have been taken away. Sorry?
Melissa Cullens 10:09
That's capitalism.
Mark Bergin 10:11
Well actually, so there's ..... I want to go into that, because this is meant to be a controversial discussion. You know we've got a big ideal, and if you've got a be ideal, and you're going to work out how to achieve that, you're going to have some controversial points. So the issue with capitalism is, there is good capitalism, there is toxic capitalism. There's .... as there are good egos, and there are toxic egos - they're still egos. But normally, when we talk about ego, we talk about toxic ego, we don't talk about the erstwhile ego. Good capitalism actually gives an extraction for the investors and productivity in the community without damaging other members of the community. When you start to do damage to other people, we need to call it out. It's bad capitalism. It's toxic capitalism. And I wonder if that's actually something that comes in. Julie, you've got your hand up there, you have been very polite, but you need to come off mute for me.
Julie Monk 11:12
Capitalism is capitalism. Leadership is leadership. Leadership can be good and bad. Capitalism, I don't think we can say is good or bad. It's how you use the capitalism that makes it you know, this or that. And I think it gets back to integrity, ethics, people dealing from science, people dealing from truth, rather than people dealing from fantasy or made up truth, that's going to make capitalism good or bad. It's how you use it. Like the farmers in the United States, there's a lot of really tough stories, there are tough stories that could be reported by the news. Why are there tough stories in the United States? Well, perhaps it's because the government took away their primary client who they were exporting to. And now they're making up for that with all of these huge billion dollars of bailouts that are going in. That's the government leadership, taking capitalism and turning it into something that's, I think, not good. I don't think it's healthy for people not to farm their farms and sell their products, and feel good about what they're doing on a day to day basis.
Mark Bergin 12:20
And I have to agree with you, you know, the term toxic capitalism or good capitalism, it's clumsy. But because we know that capitalism actually has no morality. It's actually it's a mechanism. It's not a moral machine. Is leadership enough there? Because if we go look at it, I'm trying to work out, except for New Zealand, is there a leader of a country that you'd actually think I want to live in that country at the moment, you know. Our Prime Minister in Australia, it's like, oh, it's Mr. Do nothing you know. He'll do a media release, and then the problems disappear There's no policy behind it. Your in change in the US where you've said the previous leader that you didn't want to have for another period? Well, he doesn't understand that. But then you're saying, well, we want a difference that's there. Canada, I think you're, because we've got two Canadians on the call. Is your Prime Minister somebody that you'll actually say, Yeah, you're a great leader, or is it like, yeah, maybe Jon you'd like to discuss? I don't think any of us and even if you go to New Zealand, and New Zealand is going Oh, look, she's good for international PR, but is she really good in the country? In Australia, we thought Barack Obama was fantastic, because he gave great media releases but was he great for the country in what he implemented? And that's about how do you bring along the people who aren't partisan, as much as how do you bring along the people who are partisan with you. And that's a separation of politics.
Jon Winebrenner 13:52
Everything is so polarized now, like there is no grey anymore. It's in any discussion you have, it's black or white. And just the exclamation point on the end of that is the gap, the financial gap that's happening. The middle class is just vaporizing. And children, kids, young, the youth under 30, like they can't buy homes. I would argue that most of them are seriously questioning or looking at capitalism in a way that with a jaundiced eye. And the the whole Make America Great Again, was about going back to the 50s when there wasn't middle class and all of that, but look where that whole ideal has gotten us. I don't know. Yeah. So you mentioned Canada. Trudeau, he's very polarizing. You have people that love him and you have people that hate him. So unless we start figuring out how to get to understanding grey again I get pretty skeptical.
Mark Bergin 14:55
Yeah. And it seems the only understanding of grey was some book that was about BDSM. And that was short lived as well, you know, and was nominated how many shades. But you know, that I think is designed as is we need to understand the condition, we need to understand the ideal. And then we need to work out how do you go from the current condition to the ideal state that you're trying to get to? So, you know, we could spend most of this call just trying to work out what are the conditional dilemmas we've got? But have we served anything unless we say, Well, how do you turn that into action? Julie I can see that you're eager.
Julie Monk 15:34
I'm sorry. But I think first of all, we have to build a consensus on what that ideal is. To do that we need to talk. So we need to do research, before we start defining where we're going, I think we need to understand better where we are. And that's why it took such a big contrast to your idea of capitalism isn't good or bad. We need to identify the sources of all of these issues, and then address those and not say, you know, capitalism is bad. So let's blame capitalism. That's not a person. That's not a, it's a thing. So that's easy to do. Once we start talking about where the roots of where that toxicity is coming from, and address those, I think, then we can start to find the solution. But I think we need to get all the stakeholders together and get all of their opinions, then understand that by consensus where we need to go.
Paola Marques 16:21
I would agree with that. Because I think, you know, I think, Melissa, you mentioned earlier that designers are very impatient. And we have staff on board. And I know that, you know, we talked about getting someone under 30 on this call. So I'm dealing with staff who were, you know, close to my age, late 40s, early 50s, mid 50s, even. And then staff who are under 30, who have different views on what success means to them. And, by the way, I'm sort of obviously, you know, I'm the newcomer on this site. This is not a topic that I have much experience on, but I was just so curious to be on the call and hear about this, because I'm trying to set in place in the next 10 years, before I go off and settle off somewhere in the sun, you know, What legacy am I leaving with the office and these group of, you know, highly energized mid 30 year olds? And what do they understand about sense of sustainability? So I would agree with you, Julie? Like, what is success? We're at least, are we all on the same level playing field? And incrementally how do we get there? And maybe by the sheer nature of the type of work that we do in our office, it's a shame to say, but I'll acknowledge it - It's been a hard conversation with some of our clients to even talk about, for instance, new retail concepts. So, you know, what do the retailers think after a concept that, you know, maybe is irrelevant after five years? And I agree, there is no new normal, but what will retail look like? And I know that the whole prospect of new concepts that have to be turned over in three to five years, there isn't much of an appetite for that. There's been huge investments of retail in the past and there is not that appetite going forward. There are very few form between Apple stores that will be built from ground up. So I do agree with you, I think it has to be incrementally, and there has to be an understanding of what will success mean. And to try to navigate all that, I have to say I get a little overwhelmed. But I do see this kind of energy in the younger group in our office, but not knowing what's the path. How do I get there? So I'm very curious to hear what everyone's going say. So ...
Mark Bergin 18:47
Yeah, so Paola, we came in contact through the London Design Awards, with a project that you went and did in Carnaby Street for a brand that has a very large tongue and a set of lips in it. I don't know how much you could talk about the project. Can you?
Paola Marques 19:02
Yeah, I can. Now we can. We couldn't for quite a while. So that's why this. I was very curious to see what the conversation was going to be about tonight. But yes, so Universal Music Group came to us, and asked if we were interested in working on a flagship store for the Rolling Stones. Right in the middle of the pandemic, we were awarded the project. Right off the bat, we put a pitch in just before Christmas, and were awarded the end of February. I had visited London and we were starting the whole process. And when lockdown hit mid March, everything came to a halt. But the project continued. And so we produced the entire project, long distance. Had some great people in London, with great expertise and a huge desire for the project to happen. So we stayed on. But that was our introduction to DRIVENxDESIGN.
Mark Bergin 19:54
Okay, so what interests me here is the Rolling Stones are traditionally known as a fast moving consumer good retailer aren't they? So this was, oh hang on maybe this was the first store that they've done, is it?
Paola Marques 20:06
First store.
Mark Bergin 20:06
Okay, so the future retail might be actually nothing to do with the past, it may actually be a new proposition that we haven't yet seen, which is what this story is. And I think if I go look at the people who are talking about the future of retail they're often working out how do they go take a legacy retail experience and upgrade it to being contemporary. And we know that's very difficult, because there's all sorts of transformational issues that are there. We've seen with airlines that the newcomer airlines were able to go do online check-in very quickly. The older airlines had all of these policies, procedures, and staff and customer expectations that made that difficult. So the idea of a transformation rather than a new proposition is a very different thing. I think when we go look at the idea of getting to carbon neutral or getting beyond carbon neutral beyond the zero, it's actually a transformative process. It's not necessarily just a new proposition, which goes to what you were talking about Melissa. It's a challenger that's in there. Rick, you've seen a lot of ideals that have come through and say big statements that have happened in New York over your duration with the City of New York and the Institute of Architects. Do these things, are they better media releases than they are actuations? Or do people actually work out how to carry them through?
Rick Bell 21:28
That's a really good question. You know, the implementation is stymied, if we go back to the prior discussion, by the economic system. I'd like to talk about the future, you know, and maybe, quote, one sentence if I might from this book, you know. New York is flooded in 2140. People are living with environmental catastrophe in the snow. And Kim Stanley Robinson writes very close to the beginning. Quote, “So look, the problem is capitalism. We’ve got good tech, we’ve got a nice planet, we’re fucking it up by way of stupid laws. That’s what capitalism is, a set of stupid laws.” You know, I think some other writer, better known said, you know, first thing we got to do is get rid of lawyers. What are the laws that impede people doing what they aspire to do? You know, what are the regulations that are getting in the way? And how can they be changed? And, you know, talking to the prior point about polarization, the difficulty in making laws that talk to the BeyondZero aspect of going further than what might otherwise be possible, is stymied by this incredibly equal diversity of opinion. You know, in New York, it's hard to imagine how people could agree with climate deniers. Melissa, you deal with that at Thanksgiving? Yeah, I don't even think of that Christmas or holidays. But it's not just the south, you know, you have people on Staten Island who don't believe COVID is real, you know. So how do you assume a certain reality, act on that reality, knowing that people are in disbelief about the importance of the values that you hold dear, which include doing something that is necessary to do before it's too late? And it may well be too late, you know, if you want a contrarian point of view. I worked in city government for many years, and we talked a good game, you know. Not to criticize my former or current colleagues, but actually doing something takes a level of political commitment that is absent in many many places. You know, tell me the exception.
Mark Bergin 23:57
So what I want to do there is because you've hit on a very interesting point there about the laws and structures permissions that are there. Jon you've recently finished a project, which is a portable hand wash station that can go into schools. You've gone to the schools in your district, and you've said, look, we've got this prototype, early stage manufacture. Can we put it in the school so the kids can wash their hands when after they come in from playing? Fantastic. You had 100% rejection because it was a new idea, and it didn't fit into the current rules and regulations.
Jon Winebrenner 24:35
You know I can't say exactly what the reasoning was. But I can only speculate right now. It was a combination of just flat out rejection, No, we can't use that right now click, to being told that they're just not allowed to put handwash stations into portables. And at least here in Vancouver, they have basically portable RV type buildings that are out in the school yards to accommodate more students. And they don't have bathrooms or sinks or anything like that in them. And that's kind of what I was targeting. And there's a school nearby me that had a COVID outbreak, an elementary school that were in the paper. And in interviews, they were saying that it was due to lack of handwashing. So I called them and said, I would actually give it to them, like not sell it and let them use my prototype. And they flat out said no. So if we're talking about regulations and laws, like, there's just a lot of things right now that are just so driven by fear, fear of making mistakes, fear of you know, fear of the unknown? I wish I had answers to this stuff. I'm kind of just working through this myself right now. But it's now time for me to pivot to somewhere else, because the school systems are just saying, nope, not interested.
Mark Bergin 26:03
Okay, so what we've got there is, there's a proposition which can solve in this circumstance, a hand wash station. That makes sense. But there's some roadblocks that are there. So it's actually it's not a design challenge at the moment for the object, it's actually a system challenge of redesigning the system to allow that opportunity to come around Ronnie Peters I want to throw across to you because if you go think of the idea of bringing in a new transportation system, such as Hyperloop, and then turning around and saying what we want people to feel safe with is. The first place you've got to start is, you know, internationally recognized standard approval systems like TÜV in Germany, which is, you'll see, those little labels on many electrical products saying that it's their safety standards. Hyperloop has been able to get that make of endorsement. Does that then immediately open up or does it just reduce the number of barriers to getting your systems in place, and the inertia challenges of trying to get something new into the market?
Ronnie Peters 27:09
There are multiple different levels that we need to deal with. So having regulation and regulatory endorsement was absolutely key. And one of the big steps towards this, having people now having ridden in Hyperloop is the next level of just people starting to feel comfortable and realizing that this is safe and something that people can do. And then there are all the engineering challenges that go along with that. It is the most safe, controlled environment you could imagine. It's far safer than a train where there are crossings where accidents can happen. It's far safer than flying, way safer than driving, cycling, anything else because we've just created this absolute structure that's all automated. And we're looking at the communications also being automated within that. So all of the different capsules within the system are actually communicating with each other. So if one slows down, all the others slow down with it, and you don't have any human intervention there with that, that's just happening as part of the system and can be overridden. And there is communications back to humans. But we're looking at how we can like bring that kind of level of automation that is there in trains and you're seeing it in other systems, but not as much as we're going to have with Hyperloop.
Mark Bergin 28:36
Julie I can see that you're eager.
Julie Monk 28:40
No, I'm just listening avidly.
Mark Bergin 28:45
It's interesting, just looking at everybody and work out how do you moderate this. I actually did an in real life event last week, and I was fascinated with the difference in fidelity of seeing people's feet twitching or their hands twitching. Because I realized, you know, when you can't see people's hands you don't know what's going on. Okay, so that was a false call then. So Ronnie you've got this interesting thing that you worked out how to accelerate some of the permission that's in there, and it's a very safe thing. But if I go back to Jon's scenario, Jon's actually got the antidote for the problem that the schools have got, but the person that he's asked, can't actually see past there was probably building code that said, because they're portables, and we can't go deal with the sullage water or the wastewater. Therefore, you can't have water in there. But every kid's got a drink bottle with them. There's probably a gel base sanitizing station in there. This is that thing where you need to go and work out how to break the code, isn't it? You've got to work out how do you make a proposition that gives relief from a building code or somebody understands this isn't plumbed in hand washing, this is portable hand washing. And that, to me is interesting. You've got to work out how to hack around the the regulations there because regulations and legislation take forever to change. Melissa, when you were doing the Ellevest work, did you get hit by many financial regulations that ware stopping you from coming up with innovative products? Did you have to walk an obstacle course or was there a straight path for you to do that?
Melissa Cullens 30:26
Thank goodness they regulate the financial industry. They need to regulate it more. Yeah, you know, the SEC is watching - you cannot advertise returns, you cannot talk about your product success rate, you cannot tell people that it is better best or use any kind of superlative language, when it comes to talking about investments. And that can make it really hard for a retail consumer to make decisions about, you know, what's best for their money. It is a different conversation entirely about, you know, how we're all in a position to as Americans ensure that when we're not able to work anymore, that we've accumulated enough wealth that we don't die alone in a box. So you know, but we're not given any support around, being able to kind of make those choices and pick. So instead of having a pension, you have a 401K. And there's a long history of like, why that happened, and all those things. But we were talking about, that might be a little more interesting, is talking about, with the washing stations, moving people as a part of the design process. And the the process of kind of negotiating and putting someone in a position to feel like a hero or creating language or creating, you know, an interaction or relationship with that person that makes them feel like, you know, they're able to see the value in what you're putting forward and willing to take the risk to go beyond the regulation or to break the regulation to be the first mover to kind of get out there. And, you know, we're all gifted in persuasion on some level, all of us have had to do it, we've had to pitch. So I'm curious if we can use some of those capacities to help things along?
Mark Bergin 30:35
Yeah, and I suppose I used to talk about innovation in companies, which was any company that wouldn't allow the staff to move the photocopier paper, or the laser printer paper closer to the laser printer, was never going to have a chance to do innovation. You know if the staff didn't have that level of local empowerment to say I want to make this change because it just makes sense, there's no point walking to the other side of the room, put it right next to the machine. If you don't have that micro level of empowerment, then you're stuck. And I think in Jon's case, it sounds like the teachers don't have the empowerment to say, let's go and actually put something in the classroom, which actually creates this micro moment of sanitization for the kids, which means that my classroom is safe. And that's an example of where there's some control, which is stopping them from necessarily having agency and activation.
Jon Winebrenner 33:28
Yeah, I hesitate getting into like a teacher versus Principal or any kind of thing like that. I see this boils down to more human nature of, you know, it's something new to them, at least this product was. There are systems in place that a school Board has to purchase things through. And just beyond that, everybody that I've talked to are just whether they'll admit it overtly or not, they're afraid of making a mistake, they're afraid of bringing something into the school that could go wrong and spread more or whatever, because people are touching it. You can think of 1000 different things that would set people off and we're into this elevated state of human nature right now where everybody's just white knuckling everything. So, it's a difficult thing to break into.
Mark Bergin 34:34
I want to go back to the broken former state, because by understanding this mechanic, we kind of get somewhere. Because you're right on the money Jon, it's about people don't want to do something which they either haven't got the time to go through and decide it or they haven't got the authorization and you wind it up with a boss worker challenge there. So you turn around and you said Well, I'm not going to ring up the school, what I am going to do is I'm gonna ring up the local TV station, I'm going to put it on the morning show that says this is what one schools doing or a ballet school where you've got some connections, and it shows how there's local sanitizing going on. And it's a portable solution and it's really great. So you spend $20,000, on a PR company that's going to help you to package up that message, it gets a three minute spot on the TV. Now it's on broadcast media the teachers in the school now say we should be doing that. And we've then closed the loop there, because we've used that public information system. It doesn't mean the system is any more safe, it just means they didn't initiate it, they saw it on TV, they saw other people doing it. And there's a theory which comes from a guy named Joe De Stefano, who is an old Creative Director I worked with, but most people are as smart as the last person they spoke to. And if the television is telling you something, it's like they're speaking to you. So therefore, you can pass it along and say, I heard that this ballet school is doing this. Why aren't we doing that? And, and so we know there are those mechanics.
Ronnie Peters 36:03
So what I find fascinating about and maybe I'm missing your point, but what I find fascinating about what you're saying there is it brings us full circle back around to our original conversation of capitalism. It takes money to make money. So you burped out the number $20,000 for a PR thing. If you don't have the $20,000 to do the PR thing, how are you going to get this in front of people? So it's a vicious circle, that when you have a polarization between the haves and have nots, or however you want to describe it, how do you get something launched? You know, we have things like Kickstarter, or there's things that give you the illusion of having bootstraps to pull up on, but it still comes down to you need money to make money. And unless you can, hustle. Yeah, I mean, I've been looking at Kate Raworth and Donate Economics. And her whole theory, if you guys are familiar, that she talks about humanity's 21st century challenge is to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet. In other words, to ensure that no one falls short on life's essentials from food and housing, health care, and a political voice, while ensuring that collectively, we do not overshoot our pressure on the planet's life supporting system on which the fundamentally depend, such as a stable climate, fertile soil, a protective ozone layer, etc, etc. And she goes into this whole thing about the circular economy. And you know, Jon to your point, later on discussing the idea that you never actually own a washing machine, you never have to go and buy the washing machine, the washing machine is owned by the manufacturer. They have to worry about where they're going to source the materials from, and they have to worry about what's going to happen to that washing machine when it's useful life has gone because it burned out right, or whatever is actually happened to it. And you as the "consumer" are just the user of that. And it's no longer your responsibility to worry about what happens to the machinery or the piece of equipment. That needs to now go back into a circle. And the manufacturer can look at how they can take parts from that and reuse them and what they're going to do with all of those materials. And it changes our relationship with objects and with buying and with ownership. And I think we have to fundamentally just think very differently about that. And we were talking about before, about people can't afford to buy a house. Well, do we need to buy a house? Should anybody be buying houses and owning houses, you know, owning cars, right?
Mark Bergin 38:51
So Ronnie, I'm going to pick that up in a moment. I will welcome Harry West to the call here. Looks like you're in a Renaissance painting with the clouds around there. Can you just put your hand up like that for me so that we can get the whole Renaissance? No I'm meaning the touching the hand of God. There go. All right there it is, fantastic. So we'll come back to you in a moment, Harry. But, Rick, oh no you're on mute, so we've got no idea. We can't hear the voice of God there. So we'll come back to Rick. The hand washing station we've spent some time looking at that, and I suppose we want to go wash our hands of this sort of in a moment. Sorry, I had to do that. But you've seen these public programs come into place. You've seen how change has happened and hasn't happened? Is this just the normal situation? Or is there some accelerated path to go through this?
Rick Bell 39:48
Um, you know, it's easy to refer to other people who have written more eloquently about hand washing. One of them was in the UK in a long time ago. The quote is, "It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour." it was someone describing Lady Macbeth who then said, "Out, damned spot! out, I say! One: two: why, Then, 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my Lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?" So I think hand washing is important. But wearing masks is more important. Because hand washing is intimate, you know, it's about your approximates. The mask is about people you might meet and run into on the street. I don't know if you can hear me through this mask? We can all wear masks! I don't know, if the contagen can spread over Zoom? But the point is simply the types of interventions an individual can make that have a societal impact are very simple. And you know, we've been hearing about them from the CDC, and from many others, the World Health Organization around the world. What does that mean, in terms of Environmental Action, not just the pandemic, you know, we could look at one, we could look at the other, we can look at the interconnection. But what do people do to change the environment that happens on a scale where individuals or small groups can make a difference? And you know, the fundamental question is, Is it too late? You know, if you want a contrarian point of view, you could say, well, it's way too late, we could have been doing this, you know, in the 60s. We could have been doing it 20 years ago. We could have been doing it five years ago, and we're not. So wearing a mask is a kind of a symptom of how people respect others. You know, what are we doing environmentally to say that BeyondZero is not just lip service? You know, that we actually do respect, the ability to pass on, you know, whether it's to a two year old, I have grandchildren over that age, or the generations that follow. And I don't think we're doing enough, you know, I don't think we're doing anything that is significant enough to truly stop the catastrophe. And, Julie, I don't know if you agree, I can see your hand is up.
Julie Monk 42:30
I absolutely agree. And I think the thing is just like the simplicity of that mask, and what that statement that is and what good that does, for all the people that surround us. We don't stress enough the small things that everybody could be doing to help help us get to our goal of 2050 and then beyond. Quite simply, if you are taking a walk in the woods, and you choose to pick up five pieces of litter that you find along the way, and everybody who walked those woods picked up five pieces of litter along their way, every day, every walk, there would be no litter on the walk anymore after a very short period of time. And in that one simple act, everyone has contributed to our 2050 goal in a way that's very simple and very easy for them to do. I think we put these lofty issues out there, they're so big no one, even if they have their hearts in the right place, and they can put their pocketbook in the right place can solve any of these big issues by themselves. But individually, we all have the opportunity to put that mask on or to pick up that piece of trash, and really impact what's happening in this world in a very small way. And a lot of small things do end up enabling a lot of big things, ultimately.
Mark Bergin 43:39
And I mentioned a live events last week, and I was asked to go along as a futurist, which I hate. I hate the idea of the future. Because the future is just so far away. What I did was I said, well, I'm going to come and talk to you about the future. But I'm not going to talk about the future. I'm going to talk about Next. And the future idea is something like BeyondZero, that the next moment is where we turn around and we say, what are all the steps that we need to get there. And we've been able to have a look at some of these challenging steps here. What I want to do is I want to bring Harry West into the call. And I think the easiest way to do that is to see if we can go give him a quick summary. I'm going to start off, help me out panelists if I've missed anything here. But Harry, we started off with this lofty idea that we've got by 2050 / 2060, the G20 nations are saying that we're going to get to zero carbon emissions. And I said, Well, why should we just stumble across the finish line? Shouldn't we actually have momentum and go BeyondZero? What would that look like? What does that mean? And then as we were looking at those Next's we found out there's issues to do with the environment, there's issues to do with the economy, there's issues to do with social inclusion, there's issues to do with poverty, there's issues to do with the media being broken. There's polarization that's in the marketplace. The obstacles that are ahead of us are just a nightmare. And then we're saying, well, maybe we can't just make some assumptions. Julie dropped in where she was saying, well, maybe we need to do some research to work out what those next goals and lay points are that we need to get there. We spent a bit of time actually looking at a project that Jon's been involved in, which is a wash station, which was meant to solve something now. And the fact that it basically got rejected because people weren't, didn't know about this opportunity, hadn't heard about it on the media, so they weren't confident that they had permission to do the change. We then spoke about things like for Hyperloop Transportation Technologies that they've got endorsement from TÜV in Germany so that they then can say, we've got something which makes sense. We also looked at in the financial services sector, companies like Ellevest, how they have a very regulated environment, but maybe not regulated enough, but at least they knew what the rules and the obstacles were that they were trying to go deal with. And we spent a bit of time looking at a store for a well known retailer called The Rolling Stones in Carnaby Street in London that Paola was commissioned to go roll out and talking about the future of retail may actually be new new-tail, not actually old-tail, it's turning out and working out how to become new. Have I missed anything anybody? No! Okay. So Harry, you're up to speed as much as we are, just you didn't have to go through as we stumbled through this, you got the condensed version. So I want to ask you, because you've had this long career, and the most interesting part of your career was when you were at MIT, and you were actually involved with the ethics of artificial intelligence and machine systems, which was a few weeks ago, I believe. And so now we're just getting into the idea that AI is bad. You've had this insight for a long time. Could we predict where we've got to with some bad AI at the moment? Or was it that the economics of trying to arrest the bad was, it didn't make sense, nobody wanted to hear about that?
Harry West 47:01
Oh, I let me apologize for being late, I was finishing my class at Columbia and students want to talk. And since they're paying me, I stay to listen. That's my job. And they're such smart students, so it's a delightful conversation. But I'm very happy to be joining this conversation now. Thank you for inviting me. So Mark, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the economics of this. And, frankly, I don't think that we are able to make any serious change, unless we step up and face the economics. So we can think about this in a couple of ways. But basically, it is money that drives change. And we've all seen this in our lives, right? Unless somebody can make a buck doing it, it doesn't happen. So we need to set up the environment, the context, so somebody can make a buck driving down our carbon consumption. And right now we have the opposite situation. The only way you can make money basically, is by effectively driving up other people's carbon consumption. It's very difficult to make money by selling less, we haven't figured out how to do that. There are a few exceptions, like there are some utilities, where actually they make more money by selling less electricity. Because the way they're regulated by selling less, it means they don't have to take on the capital cost of another power station. But these are the exceptions. And so ultimately, I think that we as a society have to face up to the fact that we are the problem, and that we're going to continue to behave badly and to continue to consume too much and fly too much and do all the things that we know are bad until we pay our government to put it's 'big boy pants on' and change the rules, change the fundamental economic rules, which are all artificial anyway. Right? There's no reason why we tax this and don't tax that, it's all artificial. We need to ask our government to step up to its responsibility and tax the things that are killing us. They taxed cigarettes, we started smoking less. If we tax carbon we'll use less carbon, it is that straightforward until they tax it. We are going to continue to use more and more carbon, as we have done every year for the last four decades, unless there's a calamity like COVID when for a moment, we stopped flying. But we're just saving up a penny so we get back on the plane again as soon as we get vaccinated. We need to change the economic rules. And then we can drive a cultural change that is going to make it embarrassing for us to be seen to be consuming too much. And that I think is where design has a very strong role to play, because we're good at helping cultural changes happen. But without the economic support of a carbon tax or the equivalent, I think we're doomed.
Mark Bergin 50:18
I think, you know, there's a really nice focus there. Because if you can't actually get people to focus on it with their self interest, then altruism doesn't drive economies, self interest drives economies. And you know, I think back to the period in 1996, when I was in the government, we were looking at some of the challenges that the internet was going to bring around, I watched the social dilemma. And when I watched the social dilemma, I said, Yes, we knew about that one, we knew about that one, we knew about that one. None of the things that they spoke about, what we didn't know was how it was going to manifest. But we knew the nature of the error that was likely to take place from behavior. Because it was all understood, we didn't understand how fast it would accelerate. So I think there, you know, the economics of the .com boom, and the leverage was given license to grow as much as you can, extract as much as you can out of the opportunity, and we'll go fix it up later. The same thing happened in the petrochemicals industry, the same things happening in the fossil fuel industries. And do we get to a point where we bring in a carbon tax? It was done in Australia for when the Copenhagen conference was on. Australia then went into over a decade of basically a carbon war, which was our politics was about whether a carbon tax was actually bad for the economy or good. But what we knew was, it was going to be good for the economy, because it was going to actually be an investment in the future. It was bad for somebody at this instantaneous moment. And we've got to have the courage to say, Sorry, this time, you don't win on that point. But that's where lobbyists come in. And that's probably the other point that we've got to go consider is, the lobbying part is actually one of those things that we need to go deal with. But then if we go think, to what we were talking about, with the wash station with Jon, lobbying is exactly what the wash station needs so it gets implemented. So you've got a tool, which is a bit of lobbying into the state school system would then mean that it's adopted everywhere - happy days for the people with the wash station. The bad thing is that lobbying can also be used as a negative device for things which aren't in the best interest of the community. So it's really hard when you have these devices that are able to be used for powers of good or powers of evil. Maybe we need a superman to come and help us because he knows what to do there.
Harry West 52:45
Right? Maybe that is an AI. Maybe we have to say, Hey, we're just human. We can't manage this. We need a superior being, an AI that values our future selves as much as our current selves, and to help us make better decisions on behalf of ourselves.
Mark Bergin 53:03
I can't believe ......
Harry West 53:06
These are desperate times.
Mark Bergin 53:08
But you've put your AI chin out there, so I have to now go knock it. Okay, so the punch I want to lay about the AI is that we know that if there are expert systems that are based on previous knowledge, that they do things like, women don't get hired because in all of history women haven't been hired. So then the smart system says, You don't hire women because history hasn't hired women, therefore the future won't hire women. So then we've got that ethics and values problem that's in the AI. How do we put that in and how do we make sure that the say 'bad actor' AI values aren't in there and 'good actor' AI values are in there? You opened up Harry, you need to answer it.
Harry West 53:52
You know, it's a difficult problem that people are wrestling with, because what deep learning does is it, I don't say it understands, but it discerns how the decisions that we're making, as individuals. And if if there's bias and prejudice in our population, then deep learning will surface that bias in whatever algorithm it emulates. And so, it's really reflecting us, and it's it's a challenge for us right now is to figure out how to. And when a human being makes a mistake, we go oh, you know, we're human, we make mistakes. But when an AI makes a mistake, then we tend to hold it to a slightly different level of accountability. And really all that the AI's have done is just confirmed the biases we have in our society.
Mark Bergin 54:45
So I remember hearing because there's a concept around AI which is blackbox decision making. And blackbox decision making is that all the inputs go in, the algorithm decides something and then it spits it out and nobody really knows the mechanics of how that works. Actually, even the people who put it together sometimes don't understand what happens there. And so then we're saying Well, everything else in society, we need to understand the way that it works so that we can make a judgement on it. AI actually has no capacity to have adjudication or judgment placed on it. And there's a move to say, well, maybe there needs to be some decision waypoints or gates, where we understand what the decisions are so that we can then work out whether we're happy with them or not. Harry, is that something which is 'pie the sky'? Or have we actually started to progress on how you create stage gates in blackbox decision making? Or is it still lost?
Harry West 55:47
It's an area of very active research right now. But the trouble with deep learning is it doesn't reveal its logic. It just makes a correlation.
Mark Bergin 55:59
And we know that whether it's an air crash, or something like that, that we go through with forensic understanding of, It was the thread on the bolt that needed to be changed so the plane never crashes again. We don't have that capacity with the decisions that are being made about AI, which could be dramatically detrimental to people that are going on there. So we've got this issue where we've got some ways that we can make some decisions, which are non human flawed decisions. But we've also got no transparency either. We've got regulations which are holding us back. We've got legislation that's holding us back. We've got some devices that we can use to bias the future. How do we actually make sure that we've got some good governance there? I think Julie, you might have actually hit on that as far as the idea of having consensus and having collaboration in politics rather than having the polarization that currently exists.
Julie Monk 56:55
Yeah, I think it's important to start the conversations at the most simple level, about the most simple things and find a way to build consensus. There was a an activity done once, I forget it was in I don't know in Korea or Taiwan or someplace, and people tried to build consensus and they started with some really big topics that were quite diverse. And they kept rephrasing the question and rephrasing the question and rephrasing the question until they came up with a question that everyone said yes to. And it took many, many rounds to get there. But ultimately, you can build a consensus, even if it means that the points that you are going for become extremely diluted. You can always find common ground. So it's having the patience to get to that common ground, from which you can then build back up to solving some of these bigger issues.
Rick Bell 57:43
That is so wonderfully optimistic Julie. I commend you for that. Let me take the pessimistic point of view, and say that there is a right opinion and a wrong opinion on a lot of issues. And the lowest common denominator is and, you know, the compromise isn't always the best solution. An architect once said, get the job, get the job, get the job. You know, I think it's incumbent on our generation or older (Biden's even older) to take leadership, and to make decisions that don't involve compromise, that look to a base that's progressive and forward looking that, say, if you have the entitlement, do it, and there's no time to waste. You know, if we take half measures we'll be half mucked up. And nothing more than that.
Julie Monk 58:48
We can't take half measures, but we need to start the dialogue someplace. And I think both can happen simultaneously. That doesn't preclude making those tough decisions and making, you know, just going for it. To do it at the absolute exclusion of others, is exactly what where we've ended up now. And I think that's the point, that we've had all these Executive Orders in the United States that haven't actually been policy changes. Obama was my favorite president so I'm happy to admit that. And I think a lot of the things that he did with Executive Orders were absolutely fantastic. But the fact he didn't get enough compromised, and he didn't get those put into policies, made it very easy for our current President to come in and just negate all the good work that I thought Obama had done. And that was very dis-heartening. So without a little bit of pushing the administration or the leadership from both sides, we may not have a permanent change. And this whiplash is something that I don't think the United States is good at. But I think it's something that we've been known for historically. I used to worry about the people in Russia, you know the people that grew up from throughout a generation, an entire generation may have woken up one day and they were socialists, woken up the next day and they were completely different government. It was like having an earthquake constantly going on underneath them - what's real, what's not real? What kind of world in my living? And what kind of world am I not living in? And I don't think that's what the basis of my United States is all about. So I'd like to see some of these things become policy changes, instead of Executive Orders so that there's some permanency and reliability that we can all believe in going forward.
Rick Bell 1:00:19
Okay, I admire optimism.
Mark Bergin 1:00:22
And so I think what I look at there is that the last three decades of ME culture, that we outsource the idea of the collective future because we were interested in our individual future. And what we need to do is actually get back to saying, Well, our collective future actually predicts what our individual futures will be, because maybe we've extracted all of the individual take that we can have, without putting something back into the collective.
Melissa Cullens 1:00:52
I think there might also be something to be said for the fact that as a nation, we have some reckoning to do with the violence of our history. We aren't the the country that our narrative tells us that we are for the large majority of citizens who live here. And I think that cognitive dissonance of that experience, for many of us who grew up in privileged environments is quite challenging to digest and accept. And a lot of the pushback is really about that. It's about that questioning, deep questioning of identity, and, frankly, kind of having to take ownership for the fact that we maybe aren't as magnificent, as we've been telling ourselves that we are.
Mark Bergin 1:01:38
Yeah. So I'm gonna go and do a bit of a wrap around here to wrap up things. Paola, I want to dig in with you. You joined this and you said, Well, part of it what was what you're interested in was what the path for your legacy over the next 10 to 20 years might be? Have we stimulated a few things that have expanded your understanding there?
Paola Marques 1:01:58
Yeah, you certainly have lots. I'm just taking it all in. I'm certainly going to be thinking about it afterwards. So absolutely. Very refreshing conversation than what I've been having the last year, that's for sure, and even beyond. All the group of people that you've given me access to that I, frankly, with a lot of the conferences that I'm focused on in attending, I'll say this self critical sense quite superficial, I have to say. So I find this very refreshing. It's made me think a little bit more and maybe think about how to approach future conversations, not only with my partnership, but also on back thinking about my 20 and 30 year olds, who are just dying to find more meaning. And, you know, it's difficult to find meaning in our process, I have to say, because our process really at the bottom line is capitalism. That's what it is. Though in the last year I've had some interesting conversations with some retailers who, yes, that's their bottom line, but they're approaching things differently. So I've had conversations about the kindness economy, and generosity. And just jumped off a podcast just before I joined the call today with someone who I hope to be working with, so it was interesting to hear them talk about generosity in their approach. So I was really just listening. I just found it very refreshing. And I'm thankful to have just listened in. So I didn't feel quite prepared, but I just find it very refreshing. So I appreciate it.
Mark Bergin 1:03:31
I think the last decade of you being a professional in the design industry is all the preparation that you can have, so glad to hear. Jon, in previous Town Halls you'd reflected on where everybody's positivity and, say view of how the path was almost a golden path. Hopefully today that we've stumbled across a few more of the speed humps and roadblocks on that golden path, because that concerned me when you brought that up before it concern me that Yeah, maybe we're making it sound too simple to get to the Better Future. And have we been able go tackle a few things that have helped you work out how we might go move forward?
Jon Winebrenner 1:04:10
Um, that's a great question, because our conversations have definitely challenged me to reconsider my terminal pessimism when it comes to human nature. And I do continue to run into some roadblocks. I've had a few wins over the last little while that helps me digest the optimism that's coursing through this conversation today. Joking aside, like I do believe that we've got a lot to look forward to. You know, I've said many times in many different conversations, things like technology got us into this mess, it can get us out. We do have a lot of problems that we have to solve. How to how do we finance these things? How do we get, you know, how do we close these gaps on the financial side of things. It's easy to focus on things like money when money is just so high in mind for somebody like myself every day. So I'd like to believe that that's kind of where things are going to be going in the next little while. We're gonna get through this pandemic. There's going to be a lot of people that are going to be forced to have to do things that we wouldn't have done before to get back to where we were or ahead again. So I think there's going to be a lot of innovation, a lot of work put towards how do we move forward? And I don't think we will ever forget about the source of this conversation of the Zero. If we can get to that Zero and keep pushing this forward, I think the pandemic kind of came along at a very good time to help remind us that those are some of the things we need to focus on.
Mark Bergin 1:06:10
Yeah, and there's an interesting thing there about the ME and WE part that's happened with a pandemic. We've had some reflection there. Melissa, do you think that we're looking after the future for your two year old that we're likely to accelerate so that we're actually staying ahead? Jon was really right, technology's helped get us into some of these dilemmas, do you think we can accelerate the hidden technology to go actually make a better future for them?
Melissa Cullens 1:06:36
Well, I think that I get really inspired seeing folks in their late teens and early 20s talk about the future that they want to live in. And there is just so much more. Coming back to the the fundamental changes that Ronnie was talking about with how we define value. They're really are just thinking about what matters in a very different way, in a much less transactional way. And I think that sort of framework and pattern has a real opportunity to push us all to think about what matters, what's enough. How we evaluate success, what we celebrate. And maybe that's something that we can think about as leaders is, how are we promoting those values inside of our organizations? How are we promoting those values inside of our industry and celebrating the folks who don't go after the money but go after the worthy work? And so I do think there's hope. I can hear a Baby shark is playing down the hallway, it's bath time.
Mark Bergin 1:07:48
And I understand that there, we all have that. So Ronnie, how about for you? You know, the world that you're involved in is often at the next implementations that people are trying to go do? Have we helped you identify some roadblocks, or have we actually just made your world a little bit more complicated? What's going on?
Ronnie Peters 1:08:08
Now, I'm really encouraged. And I like all of this discussion, the naysayers and the positive aspects of this as well. I also saw this discussion of Top Down, that somehow we can look up and say government's in control or in charge or to blame for everything. But then the opposite end that actually it starts with ME, it starts right here. And it starts with my actions and the things that I can do. And then in very small ways, I'm responsible for my circle and what's like around me, and I think that to me has been really interesting in this discussion. What does it mean to be rich? What is a rich life rather than a wealthy life? Right? And can we lead a rich life and a very satisfying life without building wealth? Right? You know, that's sort of been, I've seen that as a current here in this discussion, which I think is fast.
Mark Bergin 1:09:07
Look, you've got a thread there that we're going to continue on. And many of you will know that I was trying to go hold a Better Future Expedition in Iceland this year, and we had to cancel it because of the pandemic. So we're going to actually do one in Australia next year in Hobart. If they let people into the country, fantastic you're all invited, if they don't, we'll work out how to beam it to you. But the theme behind it is about the consequences of the individual. And it's the consequences of the individual if they come up with a big idea and how that actually turns around and becomes something amazing but also the consequences the individual regarding the idea of the individual getting involved in government, getting involved in the future that they want to go see. So we'll let you know more about that. Julie, you're always interested in what the future is going to be and the consequences ofyour own actions, how has today gone for you?
Julie Monk 1:10:05
Oh, I loved the discussion because it makes me think about things in a new way. And that's very important.
Mark Bergin 1:10:11
Awesome, and Rick?
Julie Monk 1:10:12
I don't want to get stuck in my own my own beliefs.
Rick Bell 1:10:18
Hearing everybody else, especially Julie, gives me optimism that the future isn't as dismal as it seems at this present moment. And we have a new order coming in January in the US and politics is important, and polarization can be overcome.
Mark Bergin 1:10:38
All right. So Harry, you joined us in say the back trimester of this. Where did we get to? Do you think that we actually just impressed ourselves? Or do you think we gave some reference points that may be useful for you and for others?
Harry West 1:11:00
I think I want to pick up on Ronnie's point about the Top Down and Bottom Up approach that we need to take to this problem. Because yes, ultimately we created the problem, we're the ones consuming, we're the ones putting the carbon out there, all of us. And so it's up to us to change our behavior. But at the same time, I think we can all recognize that we cannot change our behavior. Because within our system, we have to live, we have to earn a living, we have to take care of our families. And right now, the way that system is constructed means that we have to burn carbon to do it. And so we need to connect the top down and the bottom up. Yeah. And that's ultimately a political action. And the good news, I think, coming out of our experience with COVID has been that we have seen what happens when we don't believe in the science, when we ignore the science. And governments, have seen what happens when it ignores the science. And even though they might be able to claim a higher standard of living in the short run as a result, ultimately, the voters will punish a government that ignores the science. And if that message is heard, and if a message is retained, then I think there's hope for the future.
Mark Bergin 1:12:38
Yeah. Julie, quick word from you, and then we do need to wrap as we're up to over 70 minutes. I'm really aware of everybody's got their time here. You put your hand up. You've obviously or where you just being eager again.
Julie Monk 1:12:53
Oh, I'm trying to keep my hands to myself.
Mark Bergin 1:12:58
Look, that's fine there. So I'm like an auctioneer. Is there any last words here? If not, I'm going to wrap up this Town Hall. It's been fantastic.
Julie Monk 1:13:07
Pick up five pieces of trash. Help clean up the environment.
Mark Bergin 1:13:10
Love it. Now, Melissa, you're going to take us home here because you've got a story about Native Americans. Help me out with Native Americans and wealth.
Melissa Cullens 1:13:16
Oh, okay. Well, so I read this on Instagram, so take it for what it's worth. And also Native American culture is a nation of many peoples, so I don't know which people this is associated with. But I heard an anecdote that Native American culture evaluated wealth according to how much you could give away, not how much you could amass. And I think that's a wonderful anecdote, and I'll do my due diligence and figure out which nation it comes from.
Mark Bergin 1:13:49
I think actually, generosity is one of the key things there. That's probably a little bit like Einstein and the apple dropping and gravity. No, sorry, it was the apple dropping ....
Rick Bell 1:13:59
it was Newton.
Mark Bergin 1:13:59
And so it was Newton, thank you very much. I knew I had the wrong scientists there, but thank you for that. Everybody, I'm always humbled to borrow your minds for the hour that we go do this and collectively learn and share. For our viewers here, our next one of these Town Halls we're going to be doing is our last for the year, which is in the Asian market. And then we're back in the new year. I'm actually going up to Brisbane, and we're recording a program there, which is talking about thriving economies. And what we've spoken about today is going to be a lot of the foundation about that. For everybody have a happy, festive season. For those people on the call here who are mad sailors, don't forget the 17th of December, the America's Cup challenges begin in New Zealand. If you want to see design, engineering and just tenacity put to the test, that's where it's going to be. Thank you everybody. I'm always humbled. Thanks for your time.
Harry West 1:14:02
Thanks, Mark.
Julie Monk 1:14:54
Thanks.
Ronnie Peters 1:15:00
Thanks, great seeing everyone
Hosted by: Mark Bergin
Podcast Production: Pat Daly
Transcript: Otter AI and Victoria Robinson
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