Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth—1&2: The Great Pirates

The Great Pirates Discover New Worlds & Comprehensivism.
Section 1: Comprehensive Propensities & Section 2: Origins of Specialization (pages 1 to 9)

Join us in reading & discussing Bucky’s masterpiece!

If you are familiar with Bucky’s thought you are cordially invited to be a panelist for these sessions—please message Shrikant.

“The small isolated groups of humanity were utterly unaware of one another’s existence. They were everywhere ignorant of the vast variety of very different environments and resource patterns occurring other than where they dwelt...

But there were a few human beings who gradually, through the process of invention and experiment, built and operated [progressively more capable] ships. This led them inevitably into world-around, swift, fortune-producing enterprise. As they went on their sea ventures they gradually found that the waters interconnected all the world’s people and lands. Thus they became the first world men...

The Great Pirates had to have great anticipatory vision, great ship designing capability, and original scientific conceptioning, mathematical skill in navigation and exploration techniques for coping in fog, night, and storm with the invisible hazards of rocks, shoals, and currents. The great sea venturers had to be able to command all the people in their dry land realm in order to commandeer the adequate metalworking, woodworking, weaving, and other skills necessary to produce their large, complex ships. They had to establish and maintain their authority in order that they themselves and the craftsmen preoccupied in producing the ship be adequately fed by the food-producing hunters and farmers of their realm. Here we see the specialization being greatly amplified under the supreme authority of the comprehensively visionary and brilliantly co-ordinated top swordsman, sea venturer.

Enormous wealth was generated by what the sea venturers could do in the way of integrating resources and distributing the products to the, everywhere around the world, amazed and eager customers.

To understand the development of intellectual specialization, which is our first objective, we must study further the comprehensive intellectual capabilities of the sea leaders in contradistinction to the myriad of physical, muscle, and craft-skill specializations which their intellect and their skillful swordplay commanded [in the isolated groups of humanity]. The great sea venturers thought always in terms of the world, because the world’s waters are continuous and cover three-quarters of the Earth planet. This meant that before the invention and use of cables and wireless 99.9 per cent of humanity thought only in the terms of their own local terrain.”

— Buckminster Fuller

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Read and discuss Buckminster Fuller’s 44 page masterpiece “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” with us. Each week we will cover two sections of the book—just around 10 pages.

To read the book on-line here are two options:

A 44 page PDF is at http://designsciencelab.com/resources/OperatingManual_BF.pdf

A web-based copy is at https://web.archive.org/web/20041028062223/http://www.futurehi.net/docs/OperatingManual.html

Reading is strongly recommended to get the fullest value from the Meetups, but not required.

Schedule:
Oct 17: Sections 1 & 2
Oct 24: Sections 3 & 4
Oct 31: Sections 5 & 6
Nov 7: Sections 7 & 8

Format:

1. Presentation by Shrikant
2. Panel discussion with folks familiar with Bucky’s thought
3. General Q&A
4. Breakout rooms with 2 questions
5. Takeaways

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