R. Buckminster Fuller: Designer of the Geodesic Dome and the World Game

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R. Buckminster Fuller has been called the genius of the Twentieth Century and the Leonardo Da Vinci of our time. Chiefly famous for his geodesic dome (the most economical way of enclosing space and a viable solution to the long sought low-cost, self-built housing), Fuller has also scored other outstanding successes as a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, designer, architect, cartographer and creator of such principles as synergetics, tensegrity and ephemeralization.

"Bucky"—as he's fondly known by all his friends—believes in "doing more with less" and that man can solve all the physical problems of his existence—can, in fact, live in a worldof maximum abundance—through the proper utilization of information and energy. This is the philosophy on which he has based his now famous World Game .

Fuller recently conducted several seminars at the New York Studio School in New York City's Greenwich Village. Allan Richards was there with questions about World Game, how it originated and where it may lead.

PLOWBOY: How vital a force do you think the World Game will be on our society? Would you discuss some of its developments, its progress and tell me how optimistic you are about it? Do you think it is the solution to a Utopia-or-Oblivion eventuality?

FULLER: In the first place, World Game is a strategy of the individual and how he can gain adequate information about what he is experiencing in life. We happen to be on board this little, tiny particular planet and it is very important for man to know what's going on. Even at the present time, in his present life, an individual sees—on the average—only one-millionth of the entire surface of the earth. So it is not surprising that through the knowledge of his being on this planet 5 1/2 million years, that up to now man is still thinking that the world is flat, and he still uses the words "up and down". It is perfectly clear that he is oriented that way, and that the world is a sandwich between Heaven and Hell, and goes to infinity. In this thinking, there is then an infinite room to pollute and there are infinite resources to refill the resources we've used up. That's the way he's been looking at it.

Being born helpless with all this equipment, but being ignorant and not knowing the significance of all these things he's dealing with, has been man's plight. He sees the stars and says they are beautiful and mysterious, but he doesn't have the proper orientation about what it all is. The World Game is a way in which the individual begins to inventory what the known experiences of all individuals have been—learning what has been recorded in any way and what has been communicated—and then sees what we have learned about the total thing. Well then, the question is how do you arrange this information so that you can see and feel it?

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