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The podcast 99% Invisible released an episode last month covering this shift in recycling, and what might have pushed China's change in policy.

https://99percentinvisible.org...

As a matter of fact, they were always for pedestrians. Carriages were welcome to push through the throng, but the idea of roads being the domain of wheeled vehicles only is very new.

Try https://99percentinvisible.org... for an approachable dive into why this is the case.

99% Invisible covered it last December as one of its mini stories. About 15 minutes long, and worth a listen. It's a very well edited podcast.

Will it though? This is a fundamentally difficult problem. The cultural meaning of signage and symbolism changes. It may in fact be impossible to put up radiation warning signs retain their meaning for 10,000 years, much less physically last that long. A couple decades ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant formed a panel of a bunch of thinkers (Carl Sagan was invited, but could not attend due to a conflict) and asked them to invent radiation warning signage that would last for an arbitrary length of time: 10,000 years.

They were, at best, only partially successful, and the problem of the cultural meaning of symbols changing was never fully addressed.

I hear you like links. So we link to an article that links to articles. I take a different approach. Let's save a level of linking and get you directly to the information sources with videos and everything: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-... http://99percentinvisible.org/...

Generally speaking, automation makes us stupid. Oh, sure, it helps free us from drudgery, and won't get bored like up, but presents new failure modes that aren't always obvious during the design and testing phase.

Over the summer, 99% Invisible and NPR's Planet Money put out several podcasts ([1], [2], [3]) on the automation paradox, and the Google car is front and center. So is Air France Flight 447, which shows what happens when automation fails and humans can't properly respond.

Generally speaking, automation makes us stupid. Oh, sure, it helps free us from drudgery, and won't get bored like up, but presents new failure modes that aren't always obvious during the design and testing phase.

Over the summer, 99% Invisible and NPR's Planet Money put out several podcasts ([1], [2], [3]) on the automation paradox, and the Google car is front and center. So is Air France Flight 447, which shows what happens when automation fails and humans can't properly respond.

Generally speaking, automation makes us stupid. Oh, sure, it helps free us from drudgery, and won't get bored like up, but presents new failure modes that aren't always obvious during the design and testing phase.

Over the summer, 99% Invisible and NPR's Planet Money put out several podcasts ([1], [2], [3]) on the automation paradox, and the Google car is front and center. So is Air France Flight 447, which shows what happens when automation fails and humans can't properly respond.

I heard a podcast episode on 99% Invisible that talked about "Moonlight Towers." Giant arc lamps setup in cities to chase away the dark. It had an advertising slant too - people could come out at night and do stuff. Buy stuff. Kind of like Daylight Savings is thought to extend the shopping day because there is more light out.

There is also a semi-related run in with crime (serial killer) that may or may not have pressed the need to erect these lights.

Give it a listen http://99percentinvisible.org/...

I agree. Acoustic aesthetics are important and worthwhile of engineering attention.

Quiet (or as quiet as possible) is one aesthetic that may be desirable. For other people (or perhaps cars), a good rumble (as long as it not excessively load and obnoxious) is equally a desirable aesthetic. It's not so different, as you note, than choice of paint job.

For a company to put attention into this aspect of the user experience is a positive thing.

There was just a podcast on this very topic, namely the lack of attention that many companies put into the aural experience of their products and how very important that experience is to consumers. http://99percentinvisible.org/...

Here is an excerpt:

'Car companies also consider sound in the design of their product. A Ford Mustang, for instance, will intentionally not sound the same as a Ford Taurus, even if their engines are similar.

In 2008, Ford decided to put out a remake of a Mustang that appeared in the 1968 film, Bullitt. The car sounded like this: [video].

Ford wanted to make the 2008 Bullitt sound akin to the 1968 Bullitt. They were trying, essentially, to make a new car sound old.

This proved especially challenging, because cars made in 1968 were built completely differently; the 1968 Bullitt had a carburetor, for instance, and the new model had a fuel injection system. Plus, the Mustang in the movie was enhanced with sounds recorded from a race car—and it’s actually illegal in most places to drive around in a car as loud as the car from the movie would be if it were real.

With all those factors in mind, Ford identified the key characteristics of the Mustang sounds in the movie. They then figured out how to reverse-engineer those notes as best as they could by tweaking the shapes of the tubes in the car’s exhaust system.

Brands that don’t pay attention to sound may get punished by consumers.'

because some designers decided blue is the new green - the future is blue [99percentinvisible.org] so let's make our product futuristic. Bah. Very overused.

This is just plot to increase sales of electrical tape!

because some designers decided blue is the new green - the future is blue so let's make our product futuristic. Bah. Very overused.

Do you mean the Neff bubble houses? He developed a technique called airforming in which a big air bladder was inflated then sprayed with gunite. After the gunite set up the bladder was deflated and pulled out to be used again.

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bubble-houses/

It's only evolution if there's a reasonably clear link between your genetic makeup and your ability/probability to reproduce.

Two errors here. First, you mean fitness, not evolution. Second, only the charismatic megafauna of our genetic endowment has a "reasonably clear" one paragraph synopsis. Try to figure out whether a small affinity change of some obscure serotonin receptor involved in bone growth regulation is deleterious or not. I dare you.

The rest of your post seems to be spinning around the observation that the genetic fitness function is shaped by cultural memes, which are themselves co-evolving. It's almost as if natural selection has no master plan.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you have a cluster of ten genes where having eight of the A alleles makes you a genius, nine make you more than a little batshit, and the full set of ten make you A Scanner Darkly on a bad trip. On the other side, having five or fewer amounts to destination short bus. Clearly the A alleles of these genes code for smartness, and we all want that.

But then, if two eights pair up and start a family, you end up with The Royal Tenenbaums.

What happens within the population to the proportion of A alleles of this gene cluster? For the vast majority of people, an extra dose of the A allele would boost their intellectual powers and presumably their reproductive fitness. There would broadly be an increase. But then you lose enough to Van Gogh attrition that it cancels out the bulk upward drift.

Likely outcome: a barber pole that spins, but goes nowhere. Yet everyone presumes there's some direction clearly labeled as "up" within the genetic pell mell.

I listened to a podcast recently where a professor said that his students are routinely shocked to discover that simple voting systems contain cycling majorities.

If Condorcet's paradox disorients, what's really going on in evolution is Kowloon Walled City (which had a population density of 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometer before it was torn down, roughly what you'd get if everyone in Texas moved to Manhattan, as they framed it at 99% Invisible).

We really ought to step back most of the time and view evolution as a kind of ideal gas law, as something best understood at the sweep of statistical mechanics. Yes, every atom is doing something explicable if you prefer to drill down. So was every inhabitant of Kowloon Walled City, more or less.

From Vulcanite Dentures

Most of the world forgot about Samuel Chalfant, but the late 19th century dental profession learned from their bitter experience in what they considered the Vulcanite rubber patent reign of terror. They collectively positioned themselves so they could no longer be milked by any profiteering patent holders.

I greatly enjoy 99% Invisible. Some people might have heard about through their recent (and highly successful) Kickstarter campaign. Worth checking out.

Another approach is to form a certification society. I know a person who was involved in the politics to set this up:

Get certified by the Editors' Association of Canada!

Next you have to convince business that anyone lacking your shiny credential is a contagious scab. Internally, you need to wield the threat against your membership to revoke certification if anyone appears to be setting too low a price on their labours.

There also tends to be a lot of pressure for members to confirm prior judgments and not embarrass each other.

I know of cases where Professional Agrologists (P.Ag.) are involved in the decision process of whether to take land out of a land reserve. One can imagine the moral hazard here. The politician hires his friend, the friend (P.Ag.) writes a favourable view, opponents object, a "neutral" agrologist is summoned whose heart is in the right place, but one who nevertheless won't remain a P.Ag. for long unless wording any difference with the politician's friend (P.Ag.) very carefully.

Gatekeeper organizations tend to acquire an ugly face as a corrupt private-sector nanny state. They might also be good for your profession, but it's no free lunch.

This is a long, but compelling read (for the most part).

Lance Armstrong Case: Dr. Michael Ashenden on EPO

And their response is still a guiding light to me. They said, "If you can come back to us with a test that captures everyone so that we can all stop, you can expect us to support it. But if you come back with a test that only captures a quarter of the people, and those quarter are punished but then they're replaced by another quarter and the problem keeps going, don't expect us to support it.

This is the problem with unions, professional associations, and certifications. There are always more people out there who aspire to take on power within these organizations with the purpose to abuse it. It might only be 25% of the people involved in responsible positions, but it changes the dynamics for everyone involved. And you can't simply bust them out, because they breed like flies.