08. biology zero

planetary wellbeing scientific divulgation

rather than propose a more appealing way for everybody to acquire some relevant and peer reviewed knowledge generated by the scientific community regarding the planetary crisis we as a species are living and fueling, the proposal is a content filter.

the same way platforms like instagram, facebook, tiktok, among others filter content by different criteria such as trend, popularity, and (i'm guessing) higher level of idiocy, to showcase with higher intensity to their addicted users, a case could be made that the same techniques could be enforced into this companies in a way that actually helps spread intelligence rather than stupidity.

it's allowed to dream right? right.

this is the filter project:

if one is motivated enough to search for relevant information that has its foundations on facts and science, one can actually find a starting point in these mass engaging platforms.

the problem is that, even if one curates the content that one consumes in their platform of choice, these algorithms are trained to contaminate one's content intake with stupidity on many levels.

this is true to a person who actually tries to avoid this contaminating content. the reality though, is that most of us, dont. we actively consume viral content so the actual facts and relevant information get hidden behind highly entertaining idiots making money by spreading idiocy. And we end up using these platforms exactly for that purpose. because we are tired of reality and just want to zone out for a few minutes (or hours (who cares?)) in some low rationality demanding content.

so…

what if we could enforce a content filter that doesn't hide the idiocy, but gives it its right space in our feed page based on the relevance that this content represents in contrast to our critical environmental situation?

this relevance would be determined by percentage of fact accuracy and content relation to planetary wellbeing.

this percentage would be visually represented in the platform's interface in the form of actual size that it takes in the page as follows:



let's imagine this is the current relation of trending irrelevant content and planetary wellbeing related content represented in a gradient going from red being the most nocive and viral concepts and green being science based posts.


the suggested filters functionality would act as a chart visualization that allows the user to navigate effortlessly through relevant content when activated giving the right amount of space to contamination.


since this is a not so appealing visualization of posts to be suggested, the platform would be forced to filter content in a way that would fill empty spaces. so maybe one day all our social media content would be displayed as follows



sort of a parental control for adults since we need to be treated as children apparently

since i believe it's not a matter of just saying “you're a designer, take this piece of intelligent information and make it pretty so that everybody gets it” because i know there's serious work being done in that field by whole departments of professionals within established corporations with adequate tools to do so, i am gonna reference an example of a particular foundation that does exactly that and happens to have some presence in these kind of platforms and has relevance to designers.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

A quick dive into their platform can be a starting point for any designer, architect, creator in general or entrepreneur.





and most importantly, they have a presence on social media