Ontological Design

The urgency of learning to design technology ontologically cannot be overstated in our current moment. Building on Willis's foundational insight that design is ontological—that we design our tools and they in turn design us—we face a critical juncture where this reciprocal relationship has intensified exponentially. As Fraga argues, the degree and depth of technological influence on human being today is unprecedented, fundamentally reconstituting not just how we live but what we are. Flores's work on language and human understanding further illuminates how our technological systems reshape the very possibilities of human existence. The techno-feudalist trend emerging globally—where platform monopolies, algorithmic governance, and data extraction increasingly determine the conditions of possibility for human life—represents not merely economic exploitation but ontological colonization. We are being designed by systems optimized for capital accumulation rather than human flourishing.
The feedback loop Willis and Fraga describe has accelerated beyond recognition: AI systems, social media platforms, and digital infrastructures now shape consciousness, attention, relationships, and selfhood with unprecedented speed and scale. Flores's emphasis on the constitutive role of technological practices in human understanding reveals that these are not neutral tools we simply use, but world-disclosing systems that fundamentally alter what it means to be human. When algorithms curate our information environments, when platforms mediate our social bonds, when AI systems make decisions about our lives, we are not simply being served by technology—we are being constituted by it. The techno-feudal lords of Silicon Valley and their governmental partners understand ontological design perfectly; they simply deploy it for their own purposes.
Fraga's rallying cry—"design or be designed"—is thus not hyperbole but a survival imperative. If we do not consciously engage in designing ourselves and our technological worlds, we surrender our ontological autonomy to those who will design us according to their interests. This is not a call to reject technology but to reclaim it as a practice of freedom and self-determination. Following Flores, we must learn to design systems that open rather than foreclose human possibilities, that enhance rather than diminish our capacity for meaningful action. The stakes could not be higher: our very being as humans capable of self-authorship hangs in the balance.

https://open.substack.com/pub/ogrose/p/call-of-design