But perhaps 5% of designers and engineers have a different view — they sense that users have interests or aims which go beyond their immediate goals or apparent preferences. Thus a product which helps with goals, or which satisfies preferences, could nonetheless be a waste of a user’s time. And a user could — despite responding to many emails and seeing many photos — eventually regret using such a product, because the product derailed a deeper concern the user has.
What is even more important to a person than their current goals or preferences? The process of refining, discovering, and clarifying those goals and preferences.
“Nothing is Forbidden, but Some Things are Good” So morality may be a mirage, but it’s a useful mirage that helps us find life-giving meaning in what would otherwise be a desert of pure perception. I found de to be a helpful bridge towards holonic integration, but you might prefer Sharia law, act utilitarianism, or any number of moral or ethical ideas. Whatever your choice, in this way morality serves as an oasis that will sustain you on your journey to find meaning, especially when all meaning seems lost to the harsh winds of an uncaring world.
The best example I know that gives insights into the functioning of a complex system is with the following situation. It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority.