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[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Bucky aka Richard Buckminster Fuller | Peak Communication
http://peakcommunication.hk/archives/132

Bucky aka Richard Buckminster Fuller<http://peakcommunication.hk/archives/132>

**

*by Christian Masset*

*Richard Buckminster Fuller* was one of the most creative, prescient and
humanistic character of the twentieth century. Born American, he is known
as an educator, inventor, mathematician, philosopher, poet and prophet,
devoted to solving the problems facing the planet. He is also famous for
his conviction that life can be prosperous, providing decent food, housing,
and education, in a sound environment, to absolutely every single human
being on earth.

Passing away in 1983 at the age of 88, one of his last interviews of
November 1982, (see the link below), contains all the essential principles
that inspired Buckminster’s entire life, expressed with his hallmark
certainty.

*In this blog*, we are going to highlight the striking points of this
interview, put them in parallel with today’s world, 28 years later, and
come up with a conclusion, left out for your comments.

Applying the sum of all known technologies and knowledge at the scale of
the whole planet, is essentially the path Buckminster Fuller recommends for
attaining global prosperity. This path however, contains several
conditions: 1) immediately ending all wars and budgets for armaments 2)
abandoning politics entirely 3) adopting all the means of modern technology
for self education 4) be wary of powerful organized religions. In one word
abandoning the age-old strategy of divide and conquer still favored by too
many nations to this day.

As money rules the world, he, at the time of this interview in 1982,
predicted the world financial system would inevitably come to an impasse he
termed “an accounting crash”. Meanwhile the exponential use of electronics
and the rapid development of computing capabilities would lead ordinary
individuals to be increasingly surrounded by a virtual universe surpassing
the natural reaches of the senses. In the realm of cybernetics, he says man
has nothing to fear from computers, since we, as metaphysical entities, are
solely capable of a privileged link with what Buckminster calls “the great
design of the universe”.



*People work to make a living*, this is what has been “drilled into them”,
forgetting that if they first did what they had to do in answering useful
human needs, money would necessarily come to them, as it did for him. The
traditional educational system, unable to reform itself adequately should
be completely discarded, and it should be left to individuals the task of
primarily learning by themselves through videos and computers, occasionally
learning what they need by human interactions. Is there enough on the
planet to feed and accommodate the whole population ? Buckminster
invariably replies : yes ! present problems stem from the gross
inefficiency of resources allocation. Will man inhabit space ? this is
precisely what we have been doing all along on “Spaceship Earth”, an
expression favored by Buckminster in one of his book : *Operating Manual
for Spaceship Earth.*



*From where we stand in 2011,* Buckminster’s foresight is remarkable for
anticipating what was awaiting us, nearly 30 years later, in terms of pace
of transformations and coming challenges. These, mostly caused by society
divisions and the incapacity to adapt the entire social organization to the
astounding developments of technologies. Instead, we have done the
opposite: technologies have been adopted in a selective manner to serve the
old paradigms of society, as we have failed to invent radically new ones.
This perfect example of cognitive dissonance explains why for instance the
freedom to publish on the internet comes together with the control of it,
why knowledge on new energy sources is controlled by the owners of oil
wells, why many scientists refute as “unorthodox science”, scientific
experiments describing a more than visible link between mind and matter,
and the list can go on.



*It is tempting to argue* that a selective adaptation of technologies to
society is necessary to preserve some form of stability, in the
justification that society as a whole cannot “digest” so many changes, in
such brief period. Which begs the question of who would benefit from the
preservation of the status quo: society itself, ordinary individuals, or
corporations ? Looking at today’s societies, it isn’t hard to see that
societal dysfunctions and popular resentment do not originate from
technologies. These sources are deeper, not about the adoption of
technologies, but rather about the rapport to money, the unequal access to
certain resources, and the trampling on human dignity. In fact, innovations
are always embraced by the segments of society that can afford access to
them. More glaringly obvious during these turbulent times, the
responsibility for hardship as never before, is placed on the growing power
of global corporations that control essential markets, sometimes
governments, and shun multiple sources of competition that can dent their
profits. Whoever said : ” competition is a sin ! ” aptly summarized the
whole issue.



*In his tireless* working life dedicated to bringing solutions to human
needs, Richard Buckminster Fuller leaves behind a long list of inventions:
among them, the geodesic dome, having found that some geometric structures
of any scale have intrinsic properties of mechanical resistance at a low
cost; the Dymaxion car that parks and swirls like no automobile on the
market today; individual housing structures that are inexpensive,
ecological, durable, and pleasant to live in; as well as models of durable
community habitat that can be built and fitted in hours.

To conclude, let’s find some relief in reminding ourselves that societies
built along radically new lines as proposed by Bucky, would share
prosperity with everyone, remain peaceful, and produce millions of
millionaires.

On the Buckminster Fuller Institute :  http://www.bfi.org/

Interview of November 1982 :
http://www.communitelligence.com/clps/clitem.cfm?AdsID=172<http://www.communitelligence.com/clps/clitem.cfm?AdsID=172%20%20%20>