Holoscope for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge

When he foresaw the end of scarcity, Buckminster Fuller had in mind not only the elimination of poverty, but also of scarcity-based competition, which continues to mark the political and social climate we live in.

In March 1969 Fuller spoke to the US Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations about his “World Game” proposal, which he described as “an organization of computer capability to deal prognostically with the world problems.” If we can see clearly the long-term consequences of our actions, claimed Bucky, we will be able to turn the conventional competitive political game into a one “in which, as with mountain climbing, the objective would be to find all the moves by which a whole field of climbers would win as each helped the other so that everybody reached successfully the mountain top and all returned safely to the base.” Naive? Utopian? Necessary, claimed Bucky: “We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.” Bucky claimed that we have reached the level of technical capability where with a different approach, which he called “comprehensive anticipatory design science,” we can make the world work for 100% of humanity.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge invites, supports and coordinates projects that aim to further Bucky’s work and vision. We are participating in this year’s Buckminster Fuller Challenge with a project called ‘Holoscope.’