Jay Bladwin, Buckminster Fuller, and I

Resident Expert: Jay Baldwin
In residence: November 2005 to the end of March 2006

Ask the Expert !

Section: Design Revolution Today

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Biography

Jay Baldwin ("JB") occasionally worked under, for, and with Buckminster Fuller for 33 years. Since 1958, he has practiced and taught ecological design at Farallons Institute, Rocky Mountain Institute, Integrated Living Systems Lab, New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod (where his lightweight, solar-heated Pillowdome prototype raised bananas in February, 100 percent solar) and ten U.S. colleges and universities. One of his students, Charles Hall, invented the waterbed.

He's been Technology, Nomadics and Tools editor (and occasionally the editor) of Whole Earth Review (formerly CoEvolution Quarterly) and Whole Earth Catalogs since 1968, and authored BuckyWorks -- Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today.



BuckyWorks -- Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today

For ten years, he was a Land Steward for the five-square-mile Pepperwood preserve owned by the California Academy of Sciences. JB also co-founded what became California's largest whitewater river guide service.

In 1992, JB directed the dismantling of Bucky Fuller's Wichita Dymaxion House for the Henry Ford/Greenfield Village museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where it is currently on display.

Presently, JB is teaching industrial design at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, perfecting his radical patented Quick-up camper (an agile, stable RV that gets double the gas mileage of conventional designs) and writing a book on managing the darker side of technology.



My Question for Jay...

from Altruistic Ventures on March 2nd, 2006
Question: Remembering Bucky's Spirit to achieve prismatic thinking patterns

Hi Jay, ready for some random synergy? I have a small but fun request. You knew Bucky for 33 years, can you please answer this question not only from you and your experience, but also access your memories of Bucky. What would he have said? I've often had dreams of having conversations with Buckminster Fuller. I guess this is not the norm of requests, but it is a sincere one. A little odd, but it might be fun for you to remember Bucky deeply again, feel his energy, feel his wisdom in you and in your everyday life to answer a question based in randomness. Anyway, my question relates to an idea that I've had for years that is strangely similar to how Bucky interpreted what he saw and described as Spaceship Earth. We are all one mind on this little rock we call Earth.

Jay, you are an inventor. You thought up and created the Quickup Camper so you will understand this question. It deals with invention of synaptic patterns and causing innovation in the human brain. When Buckminster Fuller conceived the geodesic dome, he dreamed that it would house humanity. Domes are frameworks of self-bracing triangles, and the geodesic dome is the strongest and most economical structure ever designed. No other form of enclosure covers so much area without internal supports. The larger it is, the stronger it becomes. Is this also true about our mentality. Once cooperative and inventive synergy develops in the brain and connects to other self-bracing human beings, the stronger our brain gets. Individually and collectively. It is a physical muscle, after all.

Bucky challenges the brain. "To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." He states that "The human brain apprehends and stores each sense reported bit of information regarding each special case experience. Only special case experiences are recallable from the memory bank."

"Each age is characterized by its own astronomical myriads of new, special-case experiences and problems to be stored in freshly born optimum capacity human brains-which storages in turn may disclose to human minds the presence of heretofore undiscovered, unsuspectedly existent eternal generalized principles."

- from Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, 1975

He is talking about growing the brain and where in the brain the new information is stored. Now my question is this: Utilizing the philosophy of Spaceship Earth and Synergetics, I would like to build a formula to help the human brain realize some of these larger concepts that is so imperative to know in our time. I would like to help the human mind realize that we are all one. Jay, it's like I have this unquenchable humanistic obligation to help the human brain wake up. I have raw passion and I'm the most determined person you'll likely meet. I would like to incorporate the wisdom of many people including Bucky and you into starting a global conversation (because speaking creates reality) about what growing our brain might look like. What would spontaneous cooperation look like in the world of invention? Are open sourcing principals, Synergetics, and the Degrees of Separation applicable here? If we are to take the lead where Bucky left off, we get to adapt our mind to the reality of multidimensional relationships between all the pieces of the problem.

"It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate. You can deceive others, you can deceive your brain-self, but you can't deceive your mind-self for mind deals only in the discovery of truth and the interrelationship of all truths. The cosmic laws with which mind deals are noncorruptible. Cosmic evolution is omniscient God comprehensively articulate."

- from Critical Path, 1981

Certain people have received grants from BFI to study and question how Bucky relates to nanotechnology, biotechnology and computer information systems. I would like to talk to you about inspiring a grant to question into the world how Bucky's ideas relates to a mind shift in a currently flawed system that invents our world. I want to inspire paradigm shift in invention. Letting people know that Prismatic Thought is not only possible... it is probable. Can you please advise?

Martin McCrea
Altruistic Ventures

Answer from Jay Baldwin:

Woo, Martin, you're a hungry soul, aintcha. I have long thought that humans have always had the pretty much the same basic problems that need solving today. Essentially, almost all of the problems center around making all humans a success on Earth. Of course, it would be nice if everyone able get together and went to work on the important stuff, but this has proven very hard to accomplish. I decided to deal with what I found on my plate: improving the efficiency of energy-using hardware and working on becoming an attractor for knowledge. I put a lot of time into editing that collected know-how in a way that encouraged and revealed synergy. That is pretty much what we were trying to do with the several Whole Earth Catalogs and their siblings starting in 1968. We made what amounted to a paper Google. Though the current Google know-how collection is not very well focused (focus is what editors do for a living), it certainly could be. The way Google presents information needs work, too; popularity rather than truth determines order and attention. Unlike Whole Earth, no effort is made to ensure veracity, or which is the best of the breed. Whole Earth offerings were carefully chosen by skilled people who understood the subjects. Our choices and opinions were verified by reader feedback. We also did not present negative opinion, politics and snarky stuff. Founder, Stewart Brand wrote our motto, "All we owe our readers is good infomation." We especially did not deal in beliefs. Sespite flaws, Google offers the framwork, and the software, and it is getting more flexible and easier to work with. If Google or something like it can hold off the censors, it has the potential of becoming just what you call for.

I have seen claims that it takes about 2 million people all wanting the same thing to make something important happen. It has to do with the "degrees of separation" effect and the means of communication that are available to everyone. Also, I think that, though Bucky said "you can make money or you can make sense," people need money to live decently, and any Big Changes sought will have to be profitable or, right or wrong, people will not go for it. Since a lot of what should be done to make humans a success on Earth has to do with efficienct use of materials and energy, it should be possible to make some money while we are at it. This leads me to the growing interest in re-forming corporations. They have the finances, organization and know-how to make the needed changes. Amory Lovins has been hammering on this theme for many years, despite sneers from purists that he is a sell-out. (The same sneerers also sneered at Bucky). I don't see any hope that politics will work, because politics is essentially non-comprehensive, putting party needs ahead of the needs of the people. I don't see a good answer coming from religion; nearly all assume that this world (including us) is flawed beyond help, and that things will be better in the afterlife. But, Heaven, Nirvana, or whatever—none of the predictions of an afterlife are provable.

I agree with Bucky that, except for a few subversive seniors, it is the young people that must make the big changes happen. They need proof that their hard work will pay off. They need demonstrations of successful moves. That's what I and many others have been working at for 50 years or so. I don't know much about the geometry of thinking, but I do know how much can be done by a bunch of dedicated people who want to move forward. My models and inspiration include Bucky, Lockheed's "Skunk Works" (a red-tape-eliminating scheme), the late New Alchemy Institute, and the 66,000 person team that put a man on the moon.

That last example was made possible by a large segment of the public excited by the challenge and their fear of Russian technology. Think what could have been accomplished if that team had been made up of both US and Russian engineers! Think of what could have been accomplished if the 66,000 person team had been assigned a new global task rather than being dissolved.

Bucky was trying to form a team (essential if you are going to be comprehensive). He was a team of one, seeking to add members by capturing the imagination of students of all ages. That's us and our students. Evolution makes many starts. Not all make it, but the successful tries are what will determine the future. Bucky said that we could make it as a species, but as he got older, he grew less hopeful that we would. Bucky offered no formula for success, but he insisted there was one critical ingredient: "In the end, only integrity is going to count." That's up to us. JB