R. Buckminster Fuller author, scientist, artist, inventor, architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, metaphysician, cartographer, visionary, social historian, creator of dymaxion engineering, geodesics, synergy, synergetics, World Game & world resources inventory, arguably the first modern futurist. www.bfi.org

Richard Buckminster Fuller, born 12 July 1895
in Milton, Massachusetts, United States.

Life Work
  "Over the course of... his lifetime, R.Buckminster Fuller became perhaps the best known American thinker of the twentieth century. Sometimes called 'the planet's friendly genius', Bucky gained renown as an inventor and designer (of the Dymaxion House, the Dymaxion car, the Dymaxion map), the creator of the Geodesic Dome, the man who coined the term 'Spaceship Earth' and organized the World Game, the mathematician who discovered Synergetics, and as a dogged individualist whose genius has been felt throughout the world for over half a century

"Buckminster Fuller has been consultant to governmental and private agencies, and advisor to a wide range of intellectual and political leaders. The connection of high and low tech can, in part, be traced to the influence of Buckminster Fuller, an architect-cum-inventor-cum-engineer who preached a gospel of technological humanism that resonated with a generation more familiar with the technological oppression of war.

Fuller claimed that there were quite sufficient resources to serve all humanity, the only problem lay in their deployment. As a response to this he developed the concept of Dymaxion, a contraction of the words 'dynamic', 'maximum' and 'ion' that to him summarized the need to develop resource-efficient, self-sustaining technologies. He developed the Dymaxion ideal by inventing a host of devices, from lightweight homes through streamlined cars to the geodesic dome that, thanks to Disney's EPCOT theme park, has since become a symbol of futurism.

"He also produced what he called the World Game. Based on his Dymaxion Air-Ocean World Map, which was the size of a basketball court, it entailed trying to distribute world resources in a way that ensured that everyone would 'win'.
This very whole earth entertainment drew the attention of a number [of] Californian programmers and philosophers, who managed to implement a version of it using a computer [see World Game Institute --ed.], perhaps in the process creating the world's first world simulator and setting a precedent that was to make the idea of virtual worlds more accessible -- at least, to California's free-thinking programmers".
--Benjamin Woolley
(in Virtual Worlds , 1992).


from Massive Change Interviews / Stewart Brand

Massive change: What was Bucky Fuller's reaction to your button campaign that asked, "Why haven't we seen an image of the whole earth yet?"

Stewart Brand: It was all because of LSD, see. I took some lysergic acid diethylamide on an otherwise boring afternoon and came to the notion that seeing an image of the Earth from space would change a lot of things. So, on next to no budget, I printed up buttons and posters and sold them on street corners at the University of California, Berkeley. I went to Stanford and back east to Columbia, Harvard, and MIT. I also mailed the materials to various people: Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, senators, members of the U.S. and Soviet space programs.

Out of everyone, I only heard back from Bucky Fuller, who wrote, "Dear boy, it's a charming notion but you must realize you can never see more than half the earth from any particular point in space." I was amused, and then met him a few months later at a seminar at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. I sat across from his lunch table and pushed the button over to him, asking him what he thought about it. He said, "Oh yes, I wrote to that guy." I said, "I'm the guy. So what do you think? What kind of difference do you think it will make when we actually get photographs of the earth from space?"

There was this slow, lovely silence. Then he said, "Dear boy, how can I help you?"

The Buckminster Fuller Institute, Ideas, History, and Contributions of R.B.F	Living Machines: Living Water Filtration
New Book: Buckminster Fuller's Universe, his life and work	Real Goods: Sustainable Technologies and Home Equipment
The World Game: Planetary Management Simulation	Pacific Domes - Geodesic Shelters For Freedom Worldwide!
Rocky Mountain Institute: Non-Profit Education & Information Resource	World-Watch Environmental Research and Global Information
Entire Text of Synergetics Online: Explorations in the Geometry of Thought	Natural Habitat Domes - Residential, Commercial, Churches
The POD: Icosa Village Temp Structures	Albata Geodesics - Dome Homes, including Stressed Skin

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