Buckminster Fuller: His Life and Some of His Ideas
Buckminster Fuller was a polymath of his day, a true Renaissance Man of the 20th Century. However, for most of his life it didn’t seem to be destined as such.
He was born unique: he was short-sighted. From this restraint point of view on life, he was forced to perceive the world differently. To compensate he became inventive. To help himself navigate on lakes during his summers in Maine, he developed an oar replicating the movement of jelly fish. He was a smart kid, enough to be admitted at Harvard.
The studious lifestyle didn’t suit him. He was kicked out of school. Requiring to face the real world, he tried his hand at a few gigs which inevitably failed. One day, a promising opportunity with a relative came, yet within a few years, this too would end in shambles. He hit an all time low. Nearly on the verge of committing suicide, he had a sudden realization: his failures weren’t failures but lessons and his inability to fit in was his gift. He knew that his literal innate difference was to be a blessing that he had to rely on, and from this commitment he set about becoming the polymath he was destined to be. He would go on to create inventions that would garner worldly success and even beyond his material creations, he would generate ideas of nearly equal value.
Critical Path: Some of His Ideas with Our Hindsight
In this book Critical Path, written in the 1980’s, it is fascinating to see some of his ideas within a historical perspective with issues still relevant today yet with a naivete with respects to technology. He stresses the importance that we must change or else humanity will cease to exist. His concerns relate to sustainability or rather, the inefficient use of energy. Buckminster points out that most of our uses of energy are inefficient — the car is only 15% efficient in its use — and points that a global efficiency could be achieved if the energy grids from the world are to be connected — apparently, he had found a solution to this end.
Buckminster Fuller praises technology a little naively. Buckminster states that we had achieved such remarkable efficiencies with technology to use energy without losses due to advances in metallurgy, chemistry and electronics that there is no scarcity to fear. Economic and political systems are thus built on illegitimate concerns of scarcity. These still ring true today. He is partially right on this front. Norman Borlaug showed us that food supplies running out causing famines would remain in history books with his Green Revolution — only famines were man made and mother nature tamed. Fresh water can be created with desalination plants. Malthusian dooms day predictions of population implosions ceased concerns. Well, not quite. We are realising that technology Buckminster praised at the core does require the extraction of Earth finite biosphere. We can prolong complete exploitation but by definition, exponential consumption of the finite must end (example, semiconductors created our modern world’s efficient computer but its components need to be mined). His thoughts on scarcity are to not be dismissed as much of our economy creates fabricated scarcity.
He had a high praise for computers that today seems optimistic. He claimed computers would divert our need for “weaponry to livingry” and would prevent the deployment of the atomic bomb. By now it is known that technology can serve to create greater weapons because we this is what we do with it. Remember: technology is never deterministic. Although Buckminster Fuller was hopeful computers could solve our problems as we could input our answers of any nature and retrieve our answers, we know this today to be somewhat true and also limited. Machine learning can in a sense answer some of our questions that Buckminster Fuller seeks to answer on a deep philosophical level are far from attainable. It may seem he had AGI in mind which will require some considerable time before it actualizes — or if it ever does happen. The jury is still out on his prediction.
Regardless of his thoughts of the day were, Buckminster Fuller does exemplify a path we should all emulate, that of the curious mind and altruistic concerns.
