Operating manual for Spaceship Earth
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Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth ( ISBN 0-525-47433-1 ) is a short book by R. Buckminster Fuller, first published in 1963. It is now out of print, although partial/complete copies of the text may be found on the internet.
The book relates Earth to a spaceship flying through space. The spaceship has a finite amount of resources and cannot be resupplied.
Contents |
[edit] Chapter Synopsis
[edit] Comprehensive propensities
Describes how people perceive his prognostications, and the conclusion that fairly reasonable forecasts can be made of approx 25 years.
The idea that specialization is society's vehicle, but perhaps unnatural.
The concept of the Great Pirate also emerges as the first peoples to undertake sea vessels and first sea traders.
[edit] Origins of specialization
The Great Pirate concept is explained in depth, and the source of their power is that they are masters of information in a time where people are focused locally.
Power struggles for waterways ensue, requiring people like Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo to design better defenses for the Great Pirates.
As engineers become involved with Great Pirates many new concepts appear, but the main one was of the Navy. As the size of the people in the Great Pirates' employment grow, training becomes a necessity, and the beginnings of schools and colleges ensue.
[edit] Comprehensively commanded automation
World War I emerges as the struggle between the 'out-pirates' (electronic and chemical warfare) and the 'in-pirates' (electromagnetics). This change from the visible to the invisible forced the Great Pirates to rely on experts, which causes the end of the Great Pirates (who previously had been the only ones that were truly multi-disciplined)
The public is unaware that Great Pirates have been ruling the earth, and the role falls back to kings and politicians though the frameworks of trade, rating and accounting remain.
[edit] Spaceship earth
This chapter sets up the idea that the earth is a spaceship, with the sun as our energy supplier.
The idea of the earth is as a mechanical vehicle that requires maintenance, and that if you do not keep it in good order it will cease to function.
[edit] General systems theory
[edit] Synergy
Where the whole of a system is greater than the sum of its parts.
