Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing," that is, an accelerating increase in the efficiency of achieving the same or more output (products, services, information, etc) while requiring less input (effort, time, resources, etc). Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result in ever-increasing standards of living for an ever-growing population despite finite resources.
So, what can we learn from Bucky?
Interesting article via WIRED:
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/buckminster-fuller-brilliant-crank-lot-teach-silicon-valley/
Reference:
https://bfi.org/
#scitech #BuckyFuller
A modern take on ephemeralization is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy
ReplyDeleteIf we get there it'll be great, but there's a very rocky road from here to there.
R. Buckminster Fuller was brilliant! He designed a mile-high skyscraper that would've been possible to build using 1930s/1940s engineering and technology.
ReplyDeleteThank you again, Corina! You are wonderful! 😘👍
Thought provoking
ReplyDeleteExcellent post
ReplyDeleteInteresting approach John Bump
ReplyDeleteDanny Quizon merci for the extra info :)
ReplyDeleteA lot of optimistic science fiction (like Star Trek or Asimov's Robot series) posits ephemeralization/post-scarcity and how that would change society. I found the Neal Stephenson book "Diamond Age" interesting because it posits physical, but not energy, ephemeralization, in a future that still totally sucks. I suspect that's more realistic.
ReplyDelete"Diamond Age"...just my nanoaffair with a book ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's possible that technology can make life better for all or most people, however it is not always distributed in such a way to do so, without government intervention. If you take into account the Western developed world, standards are higher, but I am not so sure with places like rural Africa
ReplyDeleteGovernment intervention in the form of war and other forms of "industry" aimed explicitly or otherwise at the destruction of "excess production" aka killingry (to use Bucky's terminology) is one of the primary roadblocks to human realization that if we apply ourselves to the alternative industry (livingry, in Bucky's terminology) we could all live exhorbitantly without loss of generality.
ReplyDelete"The end game in politics is always to pull out a gun." - R. Buckminster Fuller
ReplyDeleteWasn't this really about chasing entropy?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
More like surfing the entropy gradient.
ReplyDeleteUntil one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
ReplyDeleteConcerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kill countless ideas and splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself
the Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now! - Goethe
I named my fish (African Cichlid) Bucky after Buckminster Fuller. Many people called him Bucky.
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