this project intrigues me because we’re able to see the brainstorm doc that he believes is shareworthy, combined with a reasonably slick website and a careers page.

There is no open position for a “product designer” or any kind of role that would be interested in concretely working on addressing the clear problem statement in the brainstorm doc. I have to assume there isn’t anyone in the group doing that already because they would not let a brainstorm doc be published like that, as if it has any value.

This is what bothers me so much about iterative design culture and the “doing something is better than nothing” mantra. It makes out that identifying the problem/purpose is the assignment, and undermines the REAL design work of coming up with a good response to that purpose.

If this project gets off the ground, they’ll start building and they’ll hire UX designers and they’ll just make something that resembles an online school and focus on making sure it has blockchains and nfts and all that shit, and the whole concept of “design” will be relegated to user acceptance and finding frictions to remove.

At no point will anyone sit down and say “how can we effectively address illiteracy in developing countries” and find out why, what, how, and all the barriers, all the realities, the complexities, the options for means to achieve certain things, all the DESIGN.

Its no different for everything else in tech, they all start from this point where nothing was initially designed beyond throwing together an idea and iterating it into a behemoth that needs an army of staff to groom its hair and clip its toenails. The people given design titles (ux designers, product designers) are not answering to an overarching design or any principled basis for design.

it should also be said that the giggle academy is probably a publicity thing for CZ’s character