Thoughts on product design.

Product design is righteous if it seeks to improve our living condition. It walks a delicate line between improving our lives by solving problems, and harming our lives by forcing consumerist paradigms upon us. I love design, am fascinated by the prospect of making the world a better place, and know how tragically easily humans turn to consumerism to solve problems it never can. I need to know that product design can make the world better and not just persuade us to squander our money on misleadingly advertised trinkets that eventually leave us with nothing more than empty lives and wallets.