Humanity's Critical Path: From Weaponry to Livingry

R. Buckminster Fuller

War is obsolete. It is imperative that we getthe word to all humanity - "RUSH" - beforesomeone ignorantly pushes the button thattriggers the pushing of all the buttons.

What makes so difficult the taskofinforminghumanity of its newborn option to realize suc­cess for all is the fact that all major religions andpolitics thrive only on the for-all-ages-held,ignorantly adopted premise of the existence ofan eternal inadequacy oflife support inherent inthe design of our planet Earth.

All books on economics have only one basictenet - the fundamental scarcity of life support.The supreme political and economic powers asyet assume that it has to be either you or me.Not enough for both. That is why (1) those infinancial advantage fortify themselves evenfurther, reasoning that unselfishness is suicidal.That is why (2) the arinual military expen­ditures by the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., rep­resenting the two camps of socialism andprivate enterprise, have averaged over $200billion a year for the hist thirty years, doubling itlast year to $400 billion. Over $6 trillion havebeen spent thus far by the two major powers indeveloping the ability to kill ever-more people,at ever-greater distance, in ever-shorter time.

It is time to realize a new initiative. One thathas been available for a little more than adecade. It is an unprecedented option I haveseen coming and have been initiating thegroundwork for for over fifty years.

In 1927 I was convinced that humanity'smost fundamental survival problems couldnever be solved by politics. That was the yeartransatlantic phone service began. That year ahuman first flew alone across an ocean in oneday. It was obviously the beginning ofthe swiftintegration of all humanity.

Humanity in all its millions ofyears had exis­ted .remotely deployed as relatively isolatedseparate nations. The inbreeding of local sur­vival advantaged types over hundreds of genera­tions gradually evolved "nations" with inhab­itants who looked physically different fromthose of other "nations" and whose ways oflifewere approximately unknown to one another.

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It was obvious that the integration of thesevarious "nations" would require enormousamounts of energy. It was also obvious that thefossil fuels were exhaustible. Itwas obvious thata min<:>rity of selfish humans would organizethemselves to exploit the many transitionaldilemmas. I was convinced that within the twen­tieth century all of humanity on our planet·would enter a period of unprecedented crisis. Icould see that there was an alternative topolitics and its ever more wasteful warring, andinherently vain attempts to solve one-sidedly all-humanity's basic economic and social prob­lems.

That realizable alternative was throughinvention, development, and reduction to physi­cal practice of working, mass production pro­totypes of human-circumstance-advantagingtechnology. This complete family of intercom­plementary artifacts I determined must bedesigned - structurally, mechanically, chemi­cally, metallurgically, electromagnetically, andcybernetically - to provide so much perfor­mance per each erg of energy, pound ofmaterial, and second oftime invested as to makeit eminently feasible and practicable to providea sustainable high standard of living for allhumanity. It must be a standard of living farmore advanced, pleasing, and increasingly pro­ductive than any ever experienced or dreamedof by anyone in all history.

It was clear to me that this advanced levelcould be entirely sustained by our daily incomeof Sun energy. In 1983 the total energy beingconsumed daily by all humanity amounts to lessthan 1/500,000ths of 1 percent of our planet'sdaily Sun energy income.

It was also clear that the advanced standardof living I foresaw could be attained and main­tained by artifacts that would necessarily eman­cipate humans from piped, wired, and meteredexploitation of the metabolic, life sustainingprocesses of the many by the few.

This family of artifacts leading to such com­prehensive human success I identify as livingryin constradistinction to the weaponry of thehuman political power structure. What I fore-

saw was technologically reforming the environ­ment instead of trying politically to reformthe people.

My livingry production initiative, for com­plete realization, requires the veering of bigbusiness from its wel:lponry fixation to a human­circumstance-advantaging technology at theaero-space level of know-how. I fully describethe vastly larger, far more enduringly profitablefor all, entirely new, world livingry productionand service industry in my recent books,CRITICAL PATH (St. Martin's Press, 1981)and GRUNCH OF GIANTS (St. Martin'sPress, 1983).'

Most importantly I set about 55 years ago, atage 32, to undertake an experiment in individualinitiative. I undertook to see what a penniless,unknown human individual, with a dependentwife and newborn child might be able to doeffectively on behalfofall humanity in initiatingand realistically developing such a technologi­cal program.

This design science revolution would use thehighest aeronautical and engineering facilitiesofthe world and redirect them from weaponry tolivingry production; all humanity would therebyhave the option of becoming enduringlysuccessful.

All previous revolutions have been political­in them the have-not majority has attemptedrevengefully to pull down the economicallyadvantaged minority. If realized, this his­torically gr.eatest design revolution will felici­tously elevate all humanity to unprecedentedheights.

Such a design initiative would be impossibleof accomplishment by great nations, greatreligions or private enterprise no matter howrich or pc ~rfully armed. With the averagesovereign ttion occupying less than one­twelfth of one percent of the planet Earth's sur­face, the sovereign prerogatives of anyonenation have been, and as yet are, meager. Greatprivate enterprises are capital gambles whose"ships must come in" within a reasonably shorttime or their backers will go bankrupt. Enter­prise, with its stockholders and money managers,is too narrowly focused and shortsighted - toonarrowly focused on moneymaking to be con­cerned with its side effects and too shortsightedto address those biggest, most important, andlong range tasks that are vital to sustaining·humans on board our planet.

Being human, I made all the mistakes therewere to be made but I learned to learn by realis­tic recognition of the constitutent facts of themistake-making and attempted to understand

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what the uncovered truths were trying toteach me.

As a regular U.S. Navy officer in World WarI, I saw that there was nothing to stop me fromthinking comprehensively about our total planetEarth, its total physical resources and mostadvanced total know-how. Nor was there any­thing to stop me from thinking realisticallyabout how to operate this magnificant Space­ship Earth on a sustained basis for all thepassengers on board.

I discovered that it is now technically feas­ible with presently proven technology, to ade­quately service all humanity solely by the vastoverabundance of our cosmic energy income ­from the Sun, vegetation-produced alcohols,and Sun-derived windpower and wavepower.Through foresight and design, it is possible tophase out all further use and abuse of nature'scosmic energy savings account: our fossil fuelsand atomic energy;

Having committed ourselves to solvinghumanity's problems with artifacts, it becamenecessary to sort out which came first of thevarious artifacts. I came to consider anddevelop a "critical path" (a first-things-firstprogram) of necessary artifacts, all of whichwere requisite to getting Spaceship Earthoperating omnicooperatively on behalf of aU.

In my Philadelphia archives there are ap­proximately 40,000 original articles publishedand often reprinted in newspapers or magazinesduring the last sixty years which successivelydocument my critical path schedule of artifactsinvented and prototyped. It is this family ofartifacts I have developed for later adoption bya World Livingry Service Industry. Theselivingry items include the following:

The Dymaxion House: The autonomous,mass-producible, air-deliverable dwellingmachine weighing only 3 tons which wasonly 3 percent of its conventional, single­family dwelling counterpart. First de­signed, 1927; modeled, 1928; full-scaleprototyped in 1945 at Beech Aircraft;helicopter delivered, 1954.

Tensegrity: The continuous-tension/discon­tinuous-compression structuring principleofUniverse (i.e. stars not touching planets,electrons not touching their atomic nuclei)introduced to planet Earth to replace thecontinuously compressioned, secondarilytensioned structuring in present world­around engineering theory. Designed,1929; prototyped, 1929.

The Dymaxion bathroom: A one-piece, 250­pound bathroom. Designed, 1928; proto-

typed, 1936; mass-produced in polyesterfiberglass in West Germany, 1970.

Synergetics: Exploration and publishing ofthe four-dimensional geometrical coor­dinate system employed by nature. (SeeSYNERGETICS and SYNERGETICS2, Macmillan, New York, 1975, 1979.)Discovered, 1927; published, 1944.

Dymaxion World Map: Discovery and de­velopment of a new cartographic projec­tion system by which humanity can viewthe map of the whole surface of the Earthas one-world island in one-world ocean,without any visible distortion in the rela­tive size and shape of any of the landmasses and without any breaks in the con­tinental contours. This is the undistortedmap for studying world problems and dis­playing resources and other data in theirtrue proportion and exact location. Dis­covered, 1933; published, 1943.

World Game: A grand strategy programdeveloping the design science of. solvingall problems with artifacts, invented byself or others, which take advantage of allscientific and technological developmentthrough studies of their effects on the totalworld's social and economic affairs asascertainable from the Dymaxion WorldMap. A means of assessing the feasibilityof realizing various initiatives in solvingworld problems. Invented, 1927; ap­plied, '1928.

Trends and Tral}-shrmation Charts: Thesedepict the total history of all the metal­lurgical, chemical, electromagnetic, struc­tural, and mechanical trendings to greaterperformance per given amounts of givenmaterials, time, and energy. A compen­dium of all the scenarios of science andtechnology's evoluting advances. ChronO-:logical chart of total history of scientificdiscoveries, and technical inventions.Chronological chart of the mining of allmetals and recirculation of the scrap ofthose metals. Chronological charts of allmajor industries' performances assessedin terms of per capita human use. Thesecharts, begin in 1928; first published,1937, at Bureau of Standards, Washing­ton, D.C.; published in NINE CHAINSTO THE MOON, 1938; published inFORTUNE magazine's tenth anniver­sary issue, 1940. This issue of FOR­TUNE went into three printings and tookFORTUNE from red-to-black-ink status.It changed U.S.A. and world economic

health assessment from a tonnage criteriato one based on energy consumption.

The Dymaxion Omnitransport (for land, air,, water surface and submarine travel): The

first full-scale working prototype stage ofwhich was the Dymaxion Car, produced,to test the crosswind ground taxiingbehaviors of an omnistreamlined, ulti­mately to be twin-orientable-jet-stilts­flown, wingless, flying device, whichwould take off and land like an eagle orduck, without any prepared landing fields(similar in principle to the forty-years­later descent and take-off, multi-jet sys­tem of the Apollo Moon Landing Craft).Designed, 1927; prototyped, 1933.

Geodesic Dome: The unlimited clear-span,omni-triangulated, tensegrity structures toaccommodate both humanity's converg­ing and deploying activities. Invented,1938; prototyped, 1947. Since then, over300,000 have been produced and installedaround the world from northernmostGreenland to the exact South Pole; over100,000 installed in children's play­grounds.

Octet truss: The flooring or roofing structurefor unlimited spanning. Designed, 1933;prototyped, 1949. Specified by NASA forU.S. space-"platform" construction.

The. Fog Gun: The pneumatic means ofcleaning human body, dishes, clothing,etc. without plumbing's piped-in watersupply.

Compact, odorless toilet equipment: Foranaerobic conversion of human wastesand garbage into methane gas and fer­tilizer. Designed, 1928; long proven inIndia and China; now being refmed formass-production use as dry-packaging- .fed system.

Carbon blocks-inserted, copper disc-brakes:Invented and successfully demonstratedat Phelps-Dodge, 1937.

Oxy-acetylene flame-melted, water-cooledcentrifuge: For processing low-grade tinore. Invented and successfully demon­strated at Phelps-Dodge, 1937.

Hanging book shelves, and other furniture:Invented, 1928; prototyped, 1930.

Modeling of all geometric· developments ofenergetic-synergetic geometry: Includingtensegrity models of all geometrical struc­tures and the hierarchy ofprimitive struc­tural systems. The minimum, all-space­filling module. The foldable, seven uniquegreat circle models. The tetrahelixes. Dis-

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covered, 1927; demonstrated, 1936.Twin-hull rowing and sailing devices: In­

vented, 1938; prototyped, 1954.Triangular geodesic framing of ocean sail­

ing hulls: Invented, 1948; successfullydemonstrated, LO.R. racing sloop "Imp,"1979.

Floating breakwater: For use where stone­building from bottom is too expensive.Desirable for harborless islands and openshoreline mooring protection. Invented,1960, first invention proved effective butswiftly overstressed materials employed;principles employed proved valid; inven­tion number two avoids earlier invention'sbreakdown. of materials.

Water wavepower machine: Developed inconnection with floating breakwater num­ber two, in which each wave-lifting ele­vates and entraps a large bulk of water,whereafter gravity precessionally impelswater through a turbine. Invented, 1970.

Hydraulic and pneumatic structures:Whereas pneumatics are compressable,they prove highly successful in fIllingshaped fabric containers where shockloadings are to be absorbed by the pneu­matic compressability in circular forms asin automobile tires. Pneumatics will notprevent buckling in a hollow tube column- but hydraulics will do so due to hyd­raulics non-compressability. Throughout55 years since first employing them, Ihave made many successful uses of bothpneumatic ·.and hydraulic structures. In­vented, 1927.

Interior and exterior aerodynamics ofstruc­tures: Throughout 55 years since incep­tion, I have made many successful appli­cations of aerodynamics in streamliningmy omni-medium transport or in reducingwind-drag on buildings and preventingdrag-exhaustion of controlled environ­ment heat conservation, to using winddrag of buildings to operate exhaust-airturbines accommodating hurricane-speedwinds. Developed from 1927 on.

Integrated world-around ultra-high-voltageelectrical energy conducting grid: Gridclosed via Bering Straits between U.S.A.Alaska grid and U.S.S.R. Kamchatkagrid. Conceived, 1950.

Windmill systems: First designed into Dy­maxion ten-deck tower building usingFletner vertical blade systems; built intoand field-proven in Beech Aircraft FullerHouse as a dome-drag turbine. Developed

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also as propeller bladed system in 1960which operation evolved into Windworksof Mukwanago, Wisconsin, which firstdeveloped electronic conversion of directinto alternating current and arranged feed­into electric utility power lines wheneverwind blows. Conceived, 1927; adopted byWisconsin Power & Light, 1982.

Chronofile: The chronological record of allmy to-and-from correspondence of 87years. Now, in 1982, contains over 800volumes (filed in 8W' x 11" x3" con­tainers), documenting my livingry artifactdevelopment program.

Publications: Twenty-four books, authoredand published; circa. 200 magazine andnewspaper articles; circa. 1,000 taperecorded lectures; circa. 2,000 unrecor­ded, invitational lectures elucidatingartifact/ideas at circa. 500 universitiesand colleges visited on my 49 trips aroundthe world since 1958.

Often my artifacts are adjudged by critics tqbe failures because I did not get them into mass­production and "make money with them." Suchcritics who see making money as the criteria ofsuccess do not realize moneymaking was nevermy goal. Nor was getting into the business ofmass production. I learned very early and pain­fully that you have to decide at the outsetwhether you are trying to make money or tomake sense - they are mutually exclusive.

I saw that nature has various categories ofunique gestation rates - lags between concep­tion of something and its birth. In humans, con­ception to birth is nine months. In electronics, itis two years between inventive conception andindustrial production. In aeronautics, it is fiveyears between invention and operating use. Inautomobiles, it is ten years between conceptionand mass production. In railroading, the gesta­tion period is fifteen years. In big city sky­scraper construction, the gestational lag istwenty-five years. Depending on size and situa­tion, the period of gestation in the single familyresidence varies between fifty and seventy-fiveyears. There seems to be a correlation betweenthe gestation rates and the speed at which thedevelopment operates - for example, the elec­tromagnetic waves move at 186,000 miles persecond, transport airplanes at 500 miles perhour, the automobile at 80 miles per hour, andthe skyscraper only a fraction of an inch perminute during a mild breeze. Humans can't seethe hour or minute hands of a clock move. Theycan see only the seconds hand move. Whenhumans don't see something move, they don't

get out of the way.Because of these lags, the earlier I could

introduce the conception model, the earlier itsbirth could take place. I assumed that the birthinto everyday life of the livingry artifacts whoseworking"conceptual prototypes" I was produc­ing would be governed by those respective­category gestation lags. I also assumed mylivingry inventions' progressive adoptions bysociety would occur only in emergencies. Icalled this operative principle "emergencethrough emergency." I observed that only inemergencies when solutions" at any cost" wereneeded, were the necessary funds made avail­able for research and development (usually inthe area of weaponry). No scientists have everbeen employed by the housing "industry" toresearch and develop plumbing. For all ofhumanity to begin to break away from its con­ditioned reflexes regarding living facilities(home customs and styles), allowing them to beadvantaged by my livingry artifacts, would takea minimum of half a century to get underway.Since this was clearly a half to three-quarters o~

a century undertaking, I saw in 1927 at outsetthat I best not attempt it if I was not content togo along with nature's lag laws.

Evolution's inauguration of the WorldLivingry Service Industry had to wait untilcapitalism had graduated from its for-centuries­held assumption that physical land propertyconstituted capitalism itself. Now capitalismhas come to the startling realization that thestrictly metaphysical, technological "know­how" is the most profitable property and the keyto exploitation'. of the invisible industries ofchemistry and biochemistry, metallurgy, elec­tromagnetics, and atomics."

Reorganizing all its strategies, capitalism hasnow unloaded its real estate property onto thepeople by refusing to rent and forcing people tobuy their condominium or co-op homes. Evolu­tion had to wait upon the government-guaranteed,forty-year mortgage-fmancing of housing's coststo exceed human fmancial capability to acquire.Evolution had to wait until the United States'mass-production of automobiles exclusively asmoneymaking business had been made obsoleteby the technological felicity of manufacturingby other countries' producers. U.S. produc­tivity is free possibly to reorient itself to thenecessity of rehousing all humanity in mass­produced, aerospace-Ievel-of-technology livingry,as the housing emergency looms on thehorizon.

My "Fly's Eye" domes were designed in1977 as components ofa "livingry" production

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and service. The basic hardware compon"entswill produce a beautiful, fully equipped, air­deliverable house thatweighs and costs about asmuch as a good automobile. Not only will it behighly efficient in its use ofenergy and materials,it also will be capable of harvesting incomingSun and wind energies. The software part of theproduct will include a service industry to air- orhighway-transport, install, lease, maintain,remove, and relocate the domes or their separatehardware components. They will be semi­autonomous - Le., have no sewer, water-pipe,or electric-power connections. Like telephonesand rental automobiles, they will not be sold.

Having undertaken the solution by artifactsof the world's great housing crisis, I came also

.to regard the history of cities. Cities developedentirely before the thought of electricity orautomobiles or before any of the millions of "inventions registered in the United StatesPatent Office. For eminently mobile man, citieshave become obsolete in terms of yesterday'sfunctions - warehousing bot,h new and formerlymanufactured goods and housing immigrantfactory workers. Rebuilding them to accom­modate the new needs of world man requiresdemolition of the old buildings and theirreplacement of the now obsolete real estate,streets, water and sewer lines, and yesterday'sno longer logical overall planning geometries. Isought to take on this challenge and developedplans for an entirely feasible and practical newway for humans to live together" economically.My floating cities plan for Tokyo Harbor andmy Old Man River's City project are twosuch designs.

Evolution was clearly intent on postponinginception ofthe World Livingry Service Indus­try until humanity had graduated from its pre­twentieth century condition as a planet ofremote nations to an integrated global societyall ofwhich waited upon completion of a world­around network of highways, airlines, andtelephones, and the automobiles and jumbojet airliners.

The same humans will converge for enter­tainment, idea-exchanging, education, and willdiverge and individually deploy for athleticssuch as skiing, sailing, surfing, and other healthand research developments. When they con­verge it will be under great domes. Every timewe double a dome's diameter we halve theamount of surface through which an interiormolecule of atmosphere can lose or gain heat.

As a scientist I am greatly interested in allthat goes on in the political-economic scene andin the impact of one unforeseen technological

evolutionary event after another upon thatscene. I see development ofone minuscule com­puter chip completely altering the whole worldpatterning. As the half century of utterlyunpredicted technological discoveries haveoccurred, accompanied by an ever greaterfamiliarity with all the world by humanity, Ihave becom~ increasingly confident that my 55­year-ago judgments and predictions weresound.

All the evolutionary events requisite to theLivingry Industry have not taken place or areabout to take place in the very near future. Ifthepolitical systems do not eliminate humanitywith their weapons, the half-century-gestating,World-around Livingry Service Industry will beborn.

Fifty-five years ago when I set out as anindividual to ask some very large questionsabout why humans were included in Universe, Idetermined that humanity is an experimentalinitiative of Universe.

The experiment is to discover whether thecomplex of cosmic laws can maintain theintegrity of eternal regeneration while allowingthe mind ofthe species homo sapiens on the lit­tle planet Earth to discover and use some ofthemathematical laws governing the design ofUniverse, whereby those humans can by trialand error develop subjectively from initialignorance into satisfactorily informed, succe.ss­ful local-Universe monitors of all physicallyand metaphysically critical information, andthereby serve objectively as satisfactory local­Universe problem-solvers in sustaining theintegrity of eternally regenerative.Universe.

Trial-and-error-evolved steering wisdom doesnot accrue to shifting the rudder angle violentlyleftward from an equally violent rightward­course-steering error. Evolutionary advance intrial-and-error steering systems is accom­plished by successively more delicate leftward­rightward correcting of swing-over error. Thisprogressive reduction of mechanical momen­tum must however be preceded by forthrightacknowledgement of the error and thereby ofthe truth often hidden by erroneous assumptionsof yesterday's rationalizing and false self­pride.

The function of local-in-Universe, criticalinformation-gathering and local-in-Universeproblem-solving is manifest in the forwardcockpit of all great airplanes. When the door tothe pilots' and engineers' compartment is leftopen, you may see a myriad of instrumentscovering all the walls and ceilings of thecockpit.

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The dials of the cockpit instruments reportoptically and accurately all the stress, strain,heat, pressure, velocity, ratios, and othersignificant conditions of all critical parts of theairplane's air-frame, fuselage, wings, rudders,landing-gear, power-plant, baggage compart­ment and passenger space, as well as ofthe inte­rior and exterior temperatures, atmosphericpressure, etc., as well as all the instrumentallyreported information regarding altitude and theever-changing geography ofclouds, wind forcesand directions, as well as all the elec­tromagnetically received, computer displayedinformation regarding directions of all sur­rounding airports and the flight path beambearings, etc.

Through comprehensively synchronized,computerized control of this instrument-reportedinformation the captain may put the ship on "allautomatic" flight as his assistant pilot andengineer watch those dials and intervene onlywhen the computer information signals the pilotthat it registers emergency parameters.

It is by virtue of this information that thepilots and engineers are able to serve as local

. problem-solvers in support of the integrity oftheir passengers' and their own regenerative liv­ing integrity.

This same critical information-gathering andlocal problem-solving in sustainment of theintegrity of regenerative systems is also per­formed by the electromagnetic instrumentedairport tower controllers who deal with a myriadof variables of wind and speed directions, andaircraft holding, approaching, landing, takingoff, holding ready to take off, on field runways ­taxiing planes, each plane worth millions ofdollars, each packed full of beyond priceabilityhuman cargoes.

All these high velocity, vast risk, complexpattern controls of pilots, controllers, andengineers are special-case patterns of thegeneralized local information-gathering andlocal problem-solving in support of the integrityof eternal regeneration.

All of ecology on planet Earth, all thebiosphere ofplanet Earth as well as the radiatedentropy and the gravitationally coordinated­and-coherred syntropy of the solar system, theMilky Way galaxy, and the two billion otherknown galaxies are all special-case manifests ofthe local-in-Universe information-gatheringand problem-solving in support of the syn­ergetic integrity ofoverlappingly episoded, eter­nal scenario Universe.

We recognize the following:1. This information-gathering and problem-

solving function of humans on little, localplanet Earth is a cosmically generalizedfunction.

2. Our experiencing of the coordinateintegrity of nature's pattern, of initiating thegrowth of myriads of ecologically intercom­plementary biological species is scien­tifically sorted out.

3. Nature's method of trial-and-errorevolvement of the successive biologicaltypes prospering most successfully undereach unique evolutionarily progressive en­vironmental change demonstrates that pre­ferred environment technology eliminatessurvival only of the fittest.With those recognitions, we come to the full

realization that the failure of humans on planetEarth to fulfIll satisfactorily and faithfully theirgeneralized information-gathering and localproblem-solving in support of eternal regenera­tion ofUniverse simply means death ofthis par­ticular planetary insta).lation of mind-endowedindividuals. ,

The failure of humans means the functionmust be performed in local-Universe by otherphenomena capable of embracing and reliablyserving the information agglomerating andproblem-solving function. The eternal Universe'show must go on.

When individuals shunt the comprehensivecosmic regeneration into exclusive advantagingof only their own survival and enjoyment andsucceed in prolonged local short-circuiting ofcosmic regenerativity, they disqualify the in­vention human', as a reliable function of re­generative Universe. They arejust as irresponsiblein the cosmic system as the company employeeswho pocket the cash register contents for theirown account. This is cosmically true of a child­less multimillionaire maneuvering himself intoa position to make a big profit involving "hard­headed," absolutely selfish decisions that willknowingly and legally deprive many others ofsurvival necessities - "to hell with the' nextgeneration" - which deal will win him theapplause of other powerfully rich individualsbecause it makes them feel more comfoqableabout their own selfishness.

If you ignorantlybelieve there's not enoughlife support available on planet Earth for allhumanity, then survival only ofthe fittest seemsself-flatteringly to warrant great selfishness.However, it was due only to humans' born stateof ignorance and the 99.00 percent invisibilityof technological capabilities that they did notrecognize the vast potential abundance ofresources available to support all humanity at

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an omni-high standard of living.I know that technologically humanity now

has the opportunity, for the first time in all his­tory, to operate our planet in such a manner asto support and accommodate all humanity at asubstantially more advanced standard of livingthan any humans have ever experienced, andthrough a World Livingry Service Industry sus­tain that standard through all the forward daysof history.

This is possible not because we have foundmore physical resources. We have always hadenough necessary resources. What has hap­pened that now makes the difference is that wehave vastly increased our know-how of special­ized innovatio,ns, all of which invisible realiza­tion integrates to make possible success forall.

Even as we have now scientifically andincontrovertibly found that there is, ample tosupport all humanity, the majority of humanityand its leaders have not yet come to that realiza­tion in sufficiently convincing degree to reorientworld affairs in such a manner as to realize thatsustainable high standard of living for all.

There are three powerful obstacles, tohumanity's realization of its omni-physicalsuccess:

1. The technical means of its accomplish­ment exist' altogether iri the invisible realmsof technology.

2. The experts are all too narrowlyspecialized in developing the invisible ad­vance to envision the synergetic significanceofintegrating their own field's advances withother fields' invisible advance.

3. The utterly different, successful ways ofmetabolic accounting, dwelling, self­employing, cooperating, and enjoying life areunfamiliar and non-obvious.Because of ancient arms-accomplished

seizure ofland by the most physically powerfuland the subsequent arms-induced blessing ofthe ,seizures by power-ordained "ministers ofGod," royal deeds to land were written asassumedly God-approved and -guaranteedcovenants.

Landlordism, first woven into the fabric ofeveryday life' by royal fiat and thousands ofyears oflegal process precedent, has become anaccepted cosmic phenomenon as seeminglyinevitable as the weather. Humans have learnedto play many of its games.

Land "ownership" and its omnidependentcomprehensive thing-ownership involvementsand their legal-documents-perpetuations con­stitute the largest socioeconomic custom error

presently being maintained by a large worldaffairs-affecting segment of humanity.

Nothing new about all that. But what is newis that humanity has gone as far as it can go withthis significant error and is in fmal examinationas to whether it can free itself from its miscon­ditioned reflex straightjacket in time to pull outof its greatest in all history, error-occasioned·tailspinning into eternity.

We do have both the Iaiowledge and thetechnical means to do so if we do it quicklyenough.

I also know that this cali. be realized only by atechnological revolution involving total Space­ship Earth using all the resources and know­how as an integrated regenerative system as inthe design of any successful sea-going or space­penetrating ship, a great world-around serviceindustry (even the greatest potential industry ofall history), or of any biological organism.

Spaceship Earth now has 160 admirals. Thefive admirals in the staterooms immediatelyabove the ship's fuel tanks claim that they ownthe oil. The admirals with staterooms surround­ing the ship's kitchen, dining rooms, and foodrefrigerators claim they own all the food. Thosewith stateroom next to a lifeboat claim that theyown the lifeboat and so forth. They then have anon-board game called balance of trade. Veryshortly the majority of admirals have a deficitbalance. All the while the starboard-sideadmirals are secretly planning to list the ship toport so far as to drown the port-side admirals,and vice versa: Nobody is paying any attentionto operating the ship or steering it to some safeport. They run out of food and fuel. They dis­cover that they can no longer reach a port ofsupply. Or their dangerous-waste-disposal

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problems threaten to scuttle the ship or poisonthe passengers. Finis.

Humanity is now experiencing history'smost difficult evolutionary transformation. Weare moving away from a rooted life style with a

.95 percent rate of illiteracy. Weare almostunconsciously drifting away from self-identitywith our ages-long, physically-islanded-from­one-another existence as 160 separate, sovereignnations. Now, the uprooted humans of allnations are spontaneously deploying into theirphysically integratedhighways and airways andsatellite-relayed telephone speakways, into abig-city way-stationed, world-around livingsystem.

We may soon be atom bombed into extinc­tion by the pre-emptive folly and greed of themoneymaking, supranational corporations'weaponry industry and the political puppetadministrators of the now hopelessly bankruptbut still second-greatest weapons-manufacturingnation.

If not bomb-terminated· we are on our everswifter way to do what could never be donebefore. Our more-with-Iess technology can nowenable us to become an omni-integrated,majorly literate, unified SpaceshIp Earth soci­ety. It is a matter ofconverting the high technol­ogy from weaponry to livingry. The essence oflivingry is human-life advantaging and environ­ment controlling. With the highest aeronauticaland engineering facilities of the world redirec­ted from weaponry to livingry production, allhumanity has the option of becoming endur­ingly successful.

Copyright R. Buckminster Fuller, 1983