In her interventions, Leyla Acaroglu overflows with common sense and a positive attitude that contrasts with the harshness of the diagnosis she makes regarding the impact of man on nature: "I am obsessed with design, because most of the surrounding world is built". From the moment we are born, practically everything there is an artifact, created to satisfy minimal needs and, at the same time, propose patterns of behavior that are adopted in a not always conscious way. "Design is the silent screenwriter that most socially influences the world, it conditions every second of our lives", she explained. It conditions us physically and cognitively, usually inadvertently. Hence the importance of paying attention to the real possibilities of improvement offered by the conscious and respectful creation of products, the design of experiences that provoke "intrinsic changes" in human systems.
Man's wonderful capacity, consisting of creating order from chaos, has not always meant progress, in a sustainable sense. There are reasonable indications – warns Leyla Acaroglu – that point to a regression, a return to chaos. For against the most optimistic prognoses – typical, for example, of the Enlightenment – human beings are not fundamentally rational, and are carried away by habits. Inducing, through certain objects, better habits, can be key to sustainability. "We believe we have autonomous control" but – she explains, humorously elaborating on a paradox with not always positive consequences – "humans are predictably irrational". The truth is that biochemistry, neurotransmitters greatly condition our behaviors. A fact that should not be overlooked to determine what product and what type of consumption are suitable in the specific context in which each individual finds themselves. Leyla Acaroglu reminds us, in this sense, that there is no "ideal norm", and what is sustainable in one context may not be in another, just as there are no "good or bad materials", but rather it depends on their application.
In a phenomenal speech, titled This is Water, the late writer David Foster Wallace emphasized a certain default configuration, "default settings" (default settings) that underpin our subjective worldview. The "cognitive biases" (cognitive biases) –in the words of Leyla Acaroglu– that prevent us from truly noticing what is essential: the privilege of life on the planet. With multiple examples, and a contagious dose of positive attitude –which avoids defeatism or mere blame, both sterile– Acaroglu invites us to face the challenge of sustainability, perhaps the most pressing in the current 21st century. A challenge to be undertaken through efficient and respectful production, carried out through the design of products that take into account the true needs of human beings. "Sophisticated solutions" –she explains– that minimize expenditure to enable what Aristotle, a philosopher especially attentive to the particularity of vital circumstances, already defined in his reflections on ethics as eudaimonia, or "good life".