If this blog is about things that have got better, or will get better, or at least have the opportunity to get better, or whatever else I end up choosing in that vein, perhaps I should scope it out by discussing things that I think might be - or clearly are - “broken”.

There is little quite so disheartening as witnessing something so obviously broken. But “broken” can be so very subjective (one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, for example).

I plan to write about things that are broken, how from another angle they might be perfectly OK, and alternatives that might replace them. Not in a nihilistic “man, everything is so depressing” way, but in an upbeat - but pragmatically realistic - way.

I’m talking about things we designed badly. Things we know we can do better as a species. Things for which there are better blueprints available if only we could conceive of them.

I don’t mean lemon juicers, book covers and sofas shaped like lips here. I’m talking about everything mankind has so far created as tools for one purpose or another: politics, journalism, economics, buildings, wars, culture, etiquette, text books, social conventions, countries, literature, language, rockets, education, technology and relationships. And everything else, including lemon juicers, book covers and sofas shaped like lips.

The name of this blog is composed of two parts, one greek, one latin. Icono- (an image), -plex (to cut up, divide, warp, distort). In other words, I’m interested in taking the images we have absorbed about what we accept as normal, and cutting them up and distorting them. I want to see where it takes me.

However, I don’t merely wish to bemoan all that is wrong with the World. I am not a cynic, or a skeptic - I am in fact quite an upbeat chap when I want to be. So, I want to be optimistic and hopeful. I want to do the opposite of what so many blogs don’t: focus on the ability for us to do amazing things.