Designing a New Social Contract
Summary
Designers, advocates, and social sector leaders are working inside a social contract they didn't design, and one that is rapidly being rewritten by a well-organized, authoritarian right. ""Designing a New Social Contract"" argues that if we don't become intentional authors of a different future, we will be governed by someone else's blueprint for generations. Drawing on co-leading Greater Good Studio for 15 years, this talk surfaces how race and class quietly structure our current contract, how efforts by the authors of Project 2025 are codifying a new one, and why most people don't realize they've already been assigned a role in this system at birth. Rather than centering policy experts or design heroes, the talk presents aging and long-term care as a gateway issue and the hardest design constraint that, when solved, reverse-engineers the supports needed at every earlier stage of life.
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