Tetworld Links
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Buckminster Fuller, 'Grandfather of the Future'
. Below, in Buckminster Fuller's
own words published in 1969, is the rationale, conceptual design and mission
of the Tetworld Center for Global Strategic Gaming:
"To start with, here
is an educational bombshell: Take from all of today's industrial nations
all their industrial machinery and all their energy-distributing networks,
and leave them all their ideologies, all their political leaders, and all
their political organizations and I can tell you that within six months
two billion people will die of starvation, having gone through great pain
and deprivation along the way.
"However, if we leave the
industrial machinery and their energy-distribution networks and leave them
also all the people who have routine jobs operating the industrial machinery
and distributing its products, and we take away all the industrial countries
all their ideologies and all the politicians and political machine workers,
people would keep right on eating. Possibly getting on a little better
than before.
"The fact is that now -- for
the first time in the history of man, for the last ten years, all the political
theories and all the concepts of political functions-in any other than
secondary roles as housekeeping organizations-are completely obsolete.
All of them were developed on the you-or-me basis. This whole realization
that mankind can and may be comprehensively successful is startling.
"In pursuance of this theme...we
are going to undertake...a very extraordinary computerized program to be
know as 'How to Make the World Work'...We are going to introduce the many
variables known to be operative in economics. We will store all the basic
data in the machine's memory bank; where and how much of each class of
the physical resources; where are the people, what are the trendings-all
kinds of trendings of world man?
"Next we are going to set
up a computer feeding game, called "How Do We Make the World Work'...We
will bring people from all over the world to play it. If a team resorts
to political pressures to accelerate their advantages and is not able to
wait for the going gestation rates to validate their theory they are apt
to be in trouble. When you get into politics you are very liable to get
into war. War is the ultimate tool of politics. If war develops the side
inducing it loses the game.
"Essence of the world's working
will be to make every man able to become a world citizen and able to enjoy
the whole earth, going wherever he wants at any time, able to take care
of all the needs of all his forward days without any interference with
any other man and never at the cost of another man's equal freedom
and advantage. I think the communication problem--of 'How to Make the World
Work'--will become extremely popular the world around.
"...'The game' will be hooked
up with the now swiftly increasing major universities information network.
This network's information bank will soon be augmented by the world-around-satellite-scanned
live inventorying of vital data. Spy satellites are now inadvertently telephotoing
the where-abouts and number of beef cattle around the surface of the earth.
The exact condition of all the world's crops is now simultaneously and
totally scanned and inventoried. The interrelationship of the comprehensively
scanned weather and the growing food supply of the entire earth are becoming
manifest.
"In playing 'the game' the
computer will remember all the plays made by previous players and will
be able to remind each successive player of the ill fate of any poor move
he might contemplate making. But the ever-changing inventory might make
possible today that which would not work yesterday. Therefore, the successful
stratagems of the live game will vary from day to day. The game will not
become stereotyped.
"If a player resorts to political
means for the realization of his strategy, he may be forced ultimately
to use the war-wagering equipment with which all national political systems
maintain their sovereign power. If a player fires a gun--that is, if he
resorts to warfare, large or small--he loses and must fall out of the game.
"The general-systems-theory
controls of the game will be predicated upon employing within a closed system
the world's continually updated total resource information in closely specified
network complexes designed to facilitate attainment, at the earliest possible
date, by every human being of complete enjoyment of the total planet earth,
through the individual's optional traveling, tarrying, or dwelling here
and there. This world-around freedom of living, work, study, and enjoyment
must be accomplished without any individual being physically or economically
advantaged at the cost of another.
"Whenever player or team first
attains total success for humanity wins the first round of the gaming.
There are alternative ways of attaining success. The one who attains it
in the shortest time wins the second round. Those who better the record
at a later date win rounds 3, 4, and so on.
"All the foregoing objectives
must be accomplished not only for those who now live but for all coming
generations of humanity. How to make humanity a continuing success at the
earliest possible moment will be the objective. The game will also be dynamic.
The players will be forced to improve the program--failure to improve also
results in retrogression of conditions. Conditions cannot be pegged to
accomplishment. They must also grow either worse or better. This puts time
at a premium in playing the game.
"Major individuals and teams
will be asked to play the game. The game cannot help but become major world
news...the game will be visibly developed and may be live-televised the
world over by a multi-Telstar relay system.
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