If the current world situation has you “hunkering in your bunker,” you are not alone. These are strange times. Where are answers to really hard questions to be found?
I believe this post is the most crucial I have yet written. Condensing the most important principles given us by one of the truly great thinkers of the world, Buckminster Fuller, I offer a bright beacon of light – – if we take them to heart.
1. MALTHUS WAS WRONG. There IS enough to go around. TO EXPLAIN: Thomas Malthus was a British census taker who in 1798 proclaimed that there was no way the growing population was going to have enough to eat. (Thus: dog eat dog, I’ll get mine before you get it. War, greed, fear.) The result was two world wars, followed by others too shameful to talk about. So why was Malthus wrong? He was wrong because he misunderstood wealth.
2.TRUE WEALTH is KNOW-HOW. It combines the physical with the metaphysical (thought). Thus people now have living standards higher than the kings of yesteryear. Wealth is not, contrary to much popular opinion, about gold or “tonnage.” It is about invention, design, innovation and discovery.
3. DOING MORE AND MORE WITH LESS AND LESS – Using things made possible by our understanding and use of principles like leverage, magnetics, mass attraction, and optics, we are optimizing life for all. For example, the 150,000-ton copper communication cable that used to make possible trans-Atlantic communications has been replaced by “the cloud.” There are thousands of examples of this phenomenon which Fuller called “ephemeralization.”
4. POLITICIANS & BUREAUCRACIES – We must shift from prime dependence on politics to utilizing design science to solve our problems. He said that politicians are obsolete as fundamental problem solvers.
5. REVOLUTION – We must shift from use of violence, force and warfare to the kind of revolution that is tolerable to all men, all societies, all political systems: revolution by design and invention.
6. “SPACESHIP EARTH” – We’re all in this together. Destruction of any kind means destroying the chances of success for all of us.
7. HAVE-NOT-NESS — is caused by society’s failure to design and invent the right things to overcome lack.
8. INVESTING IN “LIVINGDRY” NOT “WEAPONDRY” — Either war is obsolete or man is; it’s as plain as that.
9. EDUCATION – Fuller stated that we are rapidly de-genius-ing every person who passively submits to traditional education. He called for a total design revolution (which is what Hamilton Learning Foundation is working to bring about).
10. INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE & INTEGRITY– This is, according to Fuller, “the most important thing in the world.” In other words, don’t sit around blaming the government and saying “this is wrong, that is bad, THEY should do something about it.” – –Each of us should do something in accordance with our talents. Just begin. And: TELL THE TRUTH, TELL THE TRUTH, TELL THE TRUTH.