This isn’t a simple sentiment. I’ll explain with a simple fact: nearly every person I’ve ever worked with for money has made a request of me that was illegal and/or unethical.
There are several reasons for this, and I like to start with:
- No one knows anything, including this fact.
- Most folks know ever less about
magical artifacts technology.
- We have practically no regulation for technology companies, and most if not all of the largely profitable ones are doing illegal and/or unethical practices
- Ugh, word of mouth. ((You know how many times I’ve had to explain basic ethics because someone heard at a conference about this site where you can buy “data”…))
Keeping in mind no one knows anything, let’s extend it to design. Most people are not designers. They can do design. Anyone who says, “oh, I can’t do design, I’m more into some non-design-y thing, which obviously speaks to a certain type of brain-thinking-paradigm…” to you I simple say shut up be quiet for a moment. You’re wrong. You don’t understand design yet, and there are a bunch of marketing fuckers out there whose job is to sell you on the lie you are bad at stuff, and therefore should pay someone else to do it.
Which is not prudent. You should pay people to do things that you don’t want to do, because you understand it enough to manage the process.
On the flipside, there are those that say to themselves, “oh, I have a great sense of design, and despite lacking the communications skills and knowledge required to work professionally as a designer, I’ll share my opinions without consideration for how important they actually are, because my ego, and will dismiss out of hand actually important things that matter to everyone including my precious ego, like “security” or “privacy” or “accessibility” or “makes sense” because I know this great font and once at my old work I was in charge of choosing featured images!”
Okay, maybe they don’t say all of that.
While I’ve got you on my lawn, let me share another hard learned lesson before you get off my lawn: non-profit funding is the fucking worst.
Keep in mind, everything I just said, and realize humans are deciding how to fund projects used by other humans…
I thought working for the public good with orgs I supported on principal would be great. Better than that: honest. But grants and other types of funding come with it’s own culture and operating principles, all of which are driven by the same fucked up rules that ruin the rest of society.
Basically, non-profit funding is upheld by robber barons with so much money they get bored and play this new game where they win naming rights.
The real heartbreak, of course, are those folks that have principles and care about association and therefore suffer and barely scrap by, and do not have the resources to sustain themselves, and personally sacrifice their bodies and minds to the service of others. And I can’t help them, because I’m doing the same…
Independence for me is a living wage in the ethical service of others.
Okay, get off my lawn, I’ve got to think.