Bucky Fuller for Dummies

Bucky Fuller for Dummies


I admire Bucky Fuller very much. I believe that his ideas, if implemented could change our world in wonderful ways. Unfortunately, his writings and lectures are difficult to understand for most people, myself included. He was an engineer, scientist, inventor and humanitarian. At the age of 32 he decided to dedicate his life to helping all of humanity. He basically did so by trying to understand the big principles of the universe. Some of his theories and ideas are pretty hard to understand. I am currently trying to make sense of many of them myself. I think it will take me awhile. That being said, I believe that many of his concepts are quite simple and can be grasped by most grade school children. Here they are:

THERE IS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND: This basically means that with the technological know how we have today we can feed, educate and house every individual on the planet. One of the biggest problems on our planet is that the governments of the world believe that there are not enough resources to go around. This is the real reason you see so many wars continuing to take place on our planet. Underlying most conflicts is the basic goal of resource theft. The powerful justify the slaughter of innocents by telling themselves “It’s us or them”. They believe that there are no other options and it must be this way.

This idea was started by the economist Thomas Malthus. He was the first man who had access to the crucial data of the planet Earth. He worked for the British Monarchy and the East India company. He analyzed this data and came to the conclusion that there were not enough resources on the planet to support the growth in population. From that point on, the dominant philosophy became since there isn’t enough we must use force to make sure there is enough for us. With today’s technology this is no longer true. If we work together as a planet, we could maximize efficiencies and life could be better for all. This leads us to another big idea Fuller had.

DO MORE WITH LESS: Fuller discovered that one of the biggest secrets of the world today was that the technology available to build different machines especially planes and ships was far in advance of the technology we use in our daily lives. He also noticed that the performance we get from using different metals combined into new ones could increase performance and durability to incredible levels. Malthus’ idea is now obsolete. These technologies are always used at first by the Military Industry(see the documentary”Why We Fight”) and then sometimes filters into the normal day to day lives of common folk. While civilians are being killed in quicker, more efficient and less personal means, the same civilians are not seeing any benefit to their lives from these technologies. This is due to the fact that the brightest scientific minds are usually scooped up by the war profiteers early in their careers. I believe that these scientists are not bad people who want their mind power to be harnessed for evil. I think they are just normal people trying to feed their kids and pay the mortgage. Unfortunately, they do not see they overall devastation that the improper use of their knowledge brings. If the scientific know how was applied towards life improvement instead of destruction our world would be transformed. The reason the incredibly intelligent scientists cannot see the big picture brings us to Fullers next big idea.

OVERSPECIALIZATION LEADS TO EXTINCTION: Basically in the past there were the Great Pirates of the world. These guys knew a little about everything. They could do some math, read and could speak many languages. They were comprehensive thinkers. They could see the big picture. They could analyze many types of data and make a decision based on this info. This gave them the power to control nations and peoples. They wanted to keep this power. So what they did was choose a local strongman on the land to administer the local resources. This guy was called the king or had another fancy sounding title. The great pirate said to the king” Ok if you spot any bright young people you should give them a job in the kingdom, but it should be a job focused in one specific area. If they are completely focused on one area they cannot understand the whole and they cannot challenge my power. This was the beginning of specialization. It in many ways it has been incredibly successful and has lead to many modern conveniences we enjoy today. That being said, It also leads to the impossibility of understanding how the world as a whole works. If I am a lawyer who has stuffed my nose into law books for 10 years, how can I understand the science of natural processes. If I am a businessman concerned only with profit, how can I understand the whole. The answer is they can’t. Right now the decisions controlling the world are made by these guys. Normal people are in the same boat. Most of us have been trained to do one specific job. This career we are in is all we know. We are all working for our own little goals and have no concept of the greater good that may be possible through greater understanding. By overspecializing we make adaptation very difficult. Unfortunately, If the environment changes rapidly only those who can adapt survive.

SYNERGY: His next idea that must be mentioned is synergy. Synergy is basically how different variables in a system interact with each other. The overall behavior of a system can not be predicted by the behavior of it parts. Our overspecialization has made us oblivious to systematic trends and behaviors. We only see our little piece of the life pie and ignore the rest. We don’t work together for greater goals. This is basically inefficient. If the people of the world cooperated we could all live better lives. The world system does not yet exist. It could make things much better. I am not talking NWO conspiracy type world government. I don’t think a world government administered by the current power elite would benefit the common man at all. They are the ones that have set up the current systems that are wrecking the planet. I do think that cooperation of all peoples for the benefit of all peoples would be a much better prospect than fighting over the worlds resources. Maybe a world partnership where everyone is an equal partner would be better.

That’s all for now..Peace