
Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller - oblib
http://www.openculture.com/2012/08/ieverything_i_knowi_42_hours_of_visionary_buckminster_fuller_lectures_1975.html
======
carapace
Bucky Fuller. The only person in history to have a _form of carbon_ named
after him†.

He calculated (he was an engineer) that, if we applied our tech and resources
efficiently, we could provide for everyone "without disadvantaging anyone."

> Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to
> our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody,
> clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what
> we could never have known before - that we now have the option for all
> humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it
> is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to
> the final moment.

†
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene)

~~~
VvR-Ox
Yes very nice theories he came up with and very sad to live in a world that's
like the dirty, bloody, stained picture of this utopia.

We endure the current situation because of the greed and narcissism of a few
who don't want to share. I suppose it was their parents and kindergartners who
did a really lousy job showing them how to share and collaborate with others.

Why should they care if people have to starve when they could have a new
yacht, beach house or another 50 motorbikes in their garage?

R.I.P. Fuller - you did a great service to all of us who dream of a better
future.

~~~
nabla9
> We endure the current situation because of the greed and narcissism of a few
> who don't want to share. I suppose it was their parents and kindergartners
> who did a really lousy job showing them how to share and collaborate with
> others.

Buckminster Fuller was known as a systems philosopher. He would think that
your diagnosis is utterly misguided.

Our society is not worse than it could be because there are bad people in the
world. They will always exist. If few bad apples destroys the happiness in the
society it's arranged in a wrong way. We have lots of incentives, policies,
ideologies and systems where completely normal people are behaving in a way
that produces harm to others. People with less empathy get rewarded when you
create systems where they thrive.

People should learn systems thinking.

~~~
carapace
Er...

"Grunch\\* of Giants" by R. Buckminster Fuller (\\*GRoss UNiverse Cash Heist)

> Here Buckminster Fuller takes on the gigantic corporate megaliths that exert
> increasing control over every aspect of daily life. In the form of a modern
> allegory, he traces the evolution of these multinational giants from the
> post-World War II military-industrial complex to the current army of
> abstract legal entities known as the corporate world.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285349.Grunch_of_Giants](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285349.Grunch_of_Giants)

PDF available from here:

[https://fullerfuturefest.com/humanitys-critical-path-from-
we...](https://fullerfuturefest.com/humanitys-critical-path-from-weaponry-to-
livingry-by-buckminster-fuller/grunch-of-giants/)

~~~
nabla9
That's exactly what I mean.

The "Er.. " makes it sound like you think it's a counterpoint.

~~~
carapace
Well, when you say,

> Buckminster Fuller ... would think that your diagnosis is utterly misguided.

I think Bucky _did_ identify greed as a major part of the problem, eh?

Although he says,

> Each of the giants of today's great Grunch is a quadrillionfold more
> formidable than was Goliath. Each is entirely invisible, abstract, and
> completely ruthless—not because those who run the show are malevolent but
> because the giant is a non-human corporation, a many-centuries old, royal-
> legal-advisor-invented institution.

Which kind of sounds like what you're saying, no?

BTW, I agree with you that,

> We have lots of incentives, policies, ideologies and systems where
> completely normal people are behaving in a way that produces harm to others.

However, I used to believe that we could solve all our problems by setting up
the "right" system (I read "Walden II" at an impressionable age.) But now I
think that (as I said in this thread elsewhere) all our problems are now at
root psychological or spiritual. Our systems (I believe) would rapidly become
sane if we ourselves were to become sane. I don't think it's possible to
"impose" sanity, as it were, from the system "down" to the individuals.

I do believe in Bucky's vision:

> What I hoped I had made clear in Critical Path is that the inherently half-
> century-long design science-revolution phase of attainment of universal
> economic success has been successfully completed and now needs only the
> bloodless socioeconomic reorientation instead of the political revolution to
> exercise humanity's option to "make it" for all.

And his conclusion:

> ...the individual discovery of God by a vast majority of human
> individuals—not the discovery of religions, but the discovery that each and
> every individual has an always-instantly-open, no-intermediary-switchboard-
> authority-to-contend-with, no-interference-of-any-kind, direct "hot-line to
> God": i.e., the weightless, nonphysical communication occurring
> teleologically between the differentially limited, weightless, nonphysical,
> temporal, special-case mind of the individual human and the comprehensively
> integrated, macro-micro unlimited, weightless, eternal, generalized mind of
> God.

Cheers! :-)

------
taxicabjesus
I have a ~77 year old friend who was recently telling me about going to
Buckminster Fuller's lectures at his engineering university, circa 1968. He
quoted Mr. Fuller as saying something like, "entropy takes things apart, life
puts them back together."

The quote he referenced was probably something like this one:

 _“The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more
disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling
energy. Life is antientropic. It is spontaneously inquisitive. It sorts out
and endeavors to understand”_ \-
[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1222650-the-physical-is-
inh...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1222650-the-physical-is-inherently-
entropic-giving-off-energy-in-ever)

Many people are so sure of their belief in entropy (aka "thermodynamics"). I
like the idea that there's anti-entropy too.

~~~
Arbalest
Life reverses entropy only locally, it still needs to "spend" entropy to do
so. In this way, life is an efficient entropy accelerating machine, and we're
the pinnacle.

~~~
amelius
Could you use this principle to detect any kind of life?

~~~
Arbalest
That's actually a really good question. It does make me question the
hypothesis, which is essentially, is the entropy any different to a lifeless
planet just re-radiating solar energy. The answer is probably, not in the long
term. You may be able to use the principle to determine what stage intelligent
life is in though? If we were talking plants only, the re-emitted radiation
would be expected to be reduced, as it is bound up in the growth. But our
species is now expending that, so at this moment, solar re-radiation we would
expect to be above lifeless levels.

------
ProCicero
I used his ventilated prose method to parse out and simplify complex statutes.
One example was the definition of a slot machine, which consisted of two
paragraphs with two sentences each, that took up an entire page of text. It
had some deeply nested clauses and an ungodly amount of commas and semi
colons. I started with one sentence per line, then broke to one clause per
line. From there, I used indentation to sort out exactly which clauses were
dependent on what. It made explaining the law to others a lot easier.

~~~
johnnylambada
Interesting. Can you point to an example?

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h2odragon
Videos, but they link to the transcripts too: [https://www.bfi.org/about-
fuller/resources/everything-i-know](https://www.bfi.org/about-
fuller/resources/everything-i-know)

------
fouc
Buckminster Fuller had some lesser known discoveries that never got
capitalized. The cooling dome or reverse chimney effect for example.

[http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/chilling-domes-
physics/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/chilling-domes-physics/)

~~~
snthd
[http://www.buckminster.info/Ideas/10-EndEnergyCoolingFree.ht...](http://www.buckminster.info/Ideas/10-EndEnergyCoolingFree.htm)

------
rv-de
I'd like to put one of his books on my reading list. Given his voluminousness
- any suggestions?

~~~
EFFALO
I’d start with “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.” He has a really
interesting, albeit super rambling type of prose that is an acquired taste (I
personally love it). This particular book is a great introduction to his
worldview without being too exhausting. Check it out!

------
EricE
Very nice. I'm going to enjoy going through these - thanks!

