Buckminster Fuller’s greatest invention was his own image

Do you know if there is an ebook of this anywhere?

It’s out of print and used books from people I don’t know gross me out. It’s weird I know. Like a phobia almost.

Back when all the youfs were swallowing neodymium bearing balls for lulz, I ended up going down the "bucky balls" and related rabbit hole on wikipedia. The article on Buckminster Fuller just screams PR astroturf - having read several times in sequence, I still had no idea who tf he was or what is he notable for.

New age techno woowoo with tessellated spheres is my lasting impression.

I think people are still willing to believe anything. Migrant caravans, vaccines causing 5G microchips, you name it, someone believes it.

Modern versions of this type of person exist, they're just pessimistic. The latest rising star in this category I've encountered is Peter Zeihan, a man who writes extensively about geopolitics and forecasts a great deal of doom and gloom (though America will be fine, he says, which helps his sales I'm sure). IIRC his latest book was one of the best-selling non-fiction books this year.

He's funny, explains complex topics in a way that's understandable to lay people, and gives the impression of knowing his business quite well.

In reality, the vast majority of his predictions over the past two decades have not come true e.g. saying China, Russia, and Canada would all break up by 2020. He is also wrong about specific technical claims e.g. how efficient certain renewable technologies can be in different locales (I have enough of a background to check some of these figures by hand).

It may be easier to verify claims, but I think the last several years have established that’s only true if you both really want to know the truth and place faith in the right sources.

What a wild experience!

Any part of the speech you recall?

You said what I was trying to say in my comment but way better. ;-)

I was actually thinking of him just the other day when I realized that over the last decade or two that I've started to think of my philosophy as "Shithouse Earth" from when Jim Morrison said he was just looking to get his kicks in before the whole shithouse went up in flames. I've noticed that that seems to be how we all operate now, though not many will admit it; perhaps not even to themselves.

Quite a long way we've come from Fuller's Spaceship Earth ideas indeed.

> Einstein's fame was hugely out of proportion with his actual contributions

Hugely?. I'd accept there was some variance (as you'd expect) but hugely made me stop and consider what you mean here.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of his concept (which he called ephemeralization), e.g. "to do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing." He was critical of the lack of effectiveness of politics, arguing that energy put into it is unlikely to result in any real change. He showed that one could promote a radical new technological idea, and be seen as a non-threatening 'out of touch nerd' to all sides of a contentious political issue like climate change. This allows you to build cultural momentum and funding towards a solution and avoid the polarizing gridlock of politics.

He absolutely intended to radically change behavior, by replacing our current way of doing things with a very different better way, that uses less resources. Not just the same thing somehow miraculously not problematic.

Summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeralization

This is a different idea than blind technological optimism, although they seem similar on the surface.

Seems like a reasonable argument.

Technology is doing vastly more for climate change than behavior.

It's an extremely reasonable POV considering that he doesn't exclude human behavior as a variable. Unfortunately, most CC extremists do this to such a degree that their arguments are laughable/psychologically concerning.

People aren't going to (and frankly, shouldn't have to if there's an option/solution) dial back their lifestyle unless they're forced at the barrel of a gun or it happens by circumstance. That it's even possible to rely on technology as a solution is a good thing and makes sense.

Why make life miserable if you don't have to? And to be clear: we absolutely don't. Any miserable outcome is redirecting technology away from a solution (e.g., safe, abundant nuclear energy) towards technocratic authoritariaism (digital IDs, CBDCs, etc) and other psychopathic control systems that rely on extreme subjugation of human beings.

> I had a lot more respect for Fuller before I learned about his "don't try to change behavior, technology will fix the problem" approach

Perhaps that view is correct, it is just that most of the people who subscribe to this philosophy are trying to solve different problems (e.g. to accrue wealth and power) while most of the people who abhor that attitude have effectively abdicated control over some of the most powerful tools to instigate change.

The reality is that you cannot change the behaviour of other people. All that you can do is add stimuli to encourage positive behaviours and remove stimuli that encourages negative behaviours. Technology is simply one of the tools in the toolbox.

limitless possibilities?

These articles aren't "cancelling" Fuller, they're just dispelling some of his mythology. Indeed, there may be a modern trend towards disillusionment with self-proclaimed visionaries, but that's not necessarily any worse (or better) than what came before. We can evaluate Fuller's legacy with clear eyes and manage to conclude that, while his energy and enthusiasm was laudable, that idealism alone will not save the world.

(And I say this as someone whose favorite map projection is, by far, the Dymaxion map.)

Can we appreciate someone’s contributions without idolizing them?

I would agree, yes, he had some objectively interesting ideas and proposals.

The idolizing masses surrounding him makes it impossible to critique things like his Synergetics textbook, which was … not good to be generous.

The thing that this article mentioned and that your comment doesn't pick up on is that there is a new biography out on Fuller. This article is a quasi review, and the contents of the new book doesn't consist solely of uncritical praise. It's a proper biography and contains details that weren't widely discussed before. Unsurprising: not everything about a person's life will be good.

Opining about why people are talking about the less rosy aspects of Fuller's life right now is like if you transported yourself back to the release of Isaacson's biography on Jobs and concerned yourself with why people were discussing the negative details regarding the incidents that Isaacson wrote about.

The author worked with bfi.org to write the book. Calling this "hating on Fuller without understanding his work or ideas" or an attempt to cancel him is silly. (Not least of all because, you know, he's dead.)

I will remember the Dymaxion car. A cross between "the Homer" and an Airstream.