Nokia New Phone Concept & dyeing one’s whiskers green

A daily digest I received from a design mailgroup highly praised a new phone concept that's recently been developed by the mobile giant Nokia. The introductory post went into further detail to prove how breakthrough the concept was: "works with solar energy, calculates the hazardous substances on the apple you're going to eat, never gets dirty and cleans the dirt around it, the Nokia of the future..."

"Calculates the hazardous substances on the apple you're going to eat"? With all due respect to the hard work being put into nanotechnology and similar scientific developments, I find it impossible not to stand aghast at the way they're being used by the industry. It reveals a good deal about the pathetic situation our civilization— and, in particular, the design profession — is in.

I'm sure that at some point any designer has been told they're problem solvers. How about a different perception of this notion? In the light of this Nokia example, it's time to face the fact that what we do is to create solutions to create further problems. Rachel Carson's inspirational text Silent Spring tells us about Lewis Carroll's metaphor for such an attitude:

This system, however—deliberately poisoning our food, then policing the result—is too reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s White Knight who thought of ‘a plan to dye one’s whiskers green, and always use so large a fan that they could not be seen’. The ultimate answer is to use less toxic chemicals so that the public hazard from their misuse is greatly reduced.

It's already time we start taking a holistic approach to the problems our civilization has caused. Wouldn't it be a more "breakthrough concept" if, for example, Nokia started a fund to prevent pollution or use of chemicals in agriculture, etc.

Click here to watch the introductory video for Morph—Nokia's New Phone Concept.