I'd like to put one of his books on my reading list. Given his voluminousness - any suggestions?
Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#12I 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…
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.
Could you use this principle to detect any kind of life?
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Could you use this principle to detect any kind of life?
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.
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#14I'd like to put one of his books on my reading list. Given his voluminousness - any suggestions?
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!
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#15Bucky 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 e…
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 t…
> 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.
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#16I 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.
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
> 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 i…
Great comment! If you have any recommended resources and the time to share please do. Thank you.
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 i…
Great comment! If you have any recommended resources and the time to share please do. Thank you.
These approaches fall under positive political theories with name social choice theory, public choice theory etc. The idea is to apply the formal tools of economics, statistics, game theory, etc. to analyze politics.
The old classics:
- The Theory of Political Coalitions (1962) by William H. Riker
- Social Choice and Individual Values (1952) by Kenneth Arrow.
- The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962) by Buchanan and Tullock
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#19I 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…
Interesting. Can you point to an example?
Re: Everything I Know – 1975 Lectures by Buckminster Fuller
#20Buckminster 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/