The Wolf of Wall Street

The battle between Ethics and Money was brought to my attention after watching this film. I am unsure if you have been to see this film yet (I would recommend you do as it is excellent), so here is a brief introduction to the film: This is Martin Scorsese film and is based on true events surround a Wall Street stock broker, Jordan Belfort. The film explores his years running his hugely financially successful Stock Brokers where he was making for himself around $50million a year. Thats alot! Unfortunatly for Jordan, money was the controlling factor and nobody cared about ethics. You are making so much money why does anything else matter ae? That was the thinking at the time.

Why am I talking about a stock broker when I am meant to be exploring designers. Well, Jordan created his buisness from scratch. He had to design that business, so in that sense, I suppose he is a designer. His buisness model was designed by him and if it was not for those pesky ethics sneaking it, that model would have remained a succesful piece of design maybe. However, my main reason for focussing on this man is that he had another product that he created which was and is even more powerful that his business model. That is his Straight Line Persuasion method. At the time when the film is based he was using this product himself but barely knew it existed. I took until his professional and social demise brought him down for him to understand what he had.

We do not need to go into the product in detail but basically he has manifested into a package methods on which to sell anything to someone in a succesful and consistent manner. Now already, you can see issues with this product. The word persuassion rings alarm bells surronding the ethcically use of this proven product.
Using this method can bring immense benefits to any person or business, but when ethics are pushed out by the desire for dosh this product can become dangerous. Jordan Belfort discovered this for himself and is still feeling the effects of that mistake. He even discusses this issue himself. There are many clips on youtube but here is an example: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSU1GUD-NF4

He claims that his new product which teaches this method helps to prevent the lack of concideration for ethics. However, I wonder, if he used it effectively and ignored ethics, why can't anbody else. I could go onling right now, purchase his product for $1997 (which is astronomically expensive btw) learn it then start using it without consulting my ethical conscience. What stops me doing that other than me.

I think, whoever you are, when designing something you do not only have to evaluate your actions and your product for ethical soundness, you have to consider how your product can be used once in the hands of the public. For example, the Kalashnikov gun. That was designed by a man wanting to help his country but he got so engrossed in that ideal he forgot to consider its after effects. He then spent the rest of his life feeling a part of every time one of his guns were used to kill another person. So when designing we have to be aware all the time of ethics otherwise we will end up like Joran belfort or Mikhail Kalashnikov, rich maybe butcalone in jail, regretting our actions and hurting over the pain we have caused others.