R. Buckminster Fuller's World Game and
ModelEarth.
(The bellow text
is to be understood as a draft; not firm enough in any conclusions,
but good enough, perhaps, to initiate a discussion?)
R. Buckminster Fuller's World Game is offering a vision of a
world based mostly on BRF's ideas of what this world should look
like, whereas ModelEarth is offering a way of reconciling virtually
of all any such ideas, by any and all, of what the
ideal world should look like, based on creating desired results as
outlined in Robert Fritz's Path of Least Resistance
(Fritz 1984), applied to creating of a collectively held
vision of an ideal world.
In R. Buckminster Fuller's World Game the vision of a better world
is based on solutions suggested by individuals and teams that
concentrate on solving the world's problems and the vision thus
shaped is based, mostly, on BRF's ideas and inventions; however R.
Buckminster Fullers vision of a sustainable future is not
shared by all who share the Earth.
Model Earth proposes to reconcile the differences that there are
among all and any such ideas in models (or by using any other
expedient means) in order to prevent all the waste (material, life)
that happens normally when these differences reconcile in real
life, causing real damage.
I find it hard to find any records of instances of World Game
played where it would be clear to see what criteria were used to
decide which entries would be more successful than others.
But from what I could see from the material that I found on the
Internet, it would seem that in World Game the actions meant to
improve this world are motivated and driven by the unsatisfactory
state of the world, and not by a commonly held vision that would be
optimally acceptably by all who share the Earth.
The above is based on what I could find about "World Game" in R.
Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path (St. Martin Press, New
York, N.Y. 10010, 1981, ISBN 0-312-17488-8), Thomas T.K. Zung's
Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millennium (St.
Martin Press, New York, N.Y. 10010, 2001, ISBN 0-312-26639-1), in
R. Buckminster Fuller's Utopia or Oblivion: the prospects for
humanity, Chp. 6.: The World Game--How to Make the World Work
(p157) (The Overlook Press, R. F. D. 301, Woodstock, N. Y. 12498,
1969, SBN 0-87951-X), my correspondence with the Buckminster Fuller
Institute, and my correspondence with Medard Gabel of
"BigPictureSmallWorld" - http://www.bigpicturesmallworld.com.
ModelEarth objective is to first collectively design (in a model)
the ideal state of affairs of any social entity regardless of its
size (from the very minimally sized community to the whole global
community) before starting devising ways of achieving that ideal
state. This approach follows the idea that it is easier to achieve
something that we know what it is, rather than trying to make
things ideal, without first knowing what the "ideal" actually
should be.
In ModelEarth the actions are motivated and driven by the desire to
get as close as possible to the ideal presented in the model.
In ModelEarth it is ideas inputted by anyone that compete for the
ideal design, not individuals.
Modeling could be employed in designing an ideal state of being for
any social entity of any size--from a group of humans (conflict
resolution) to the whole global society.
In order to achieve an ecologically and socially sustainable future
we, collectively, have to first decide what a "sustainable" future
should be. Then, after we know what a sustainable future agreeable
to all should be, we can decide the steps how to achieve this
ideal.
If we don't agree on what our collective "sustainable" future
should be, reconciling differences in real life would be very
costly (in terms of over-using resources, even in terms of loss of
life)--this could even prevent us from achieving sustainability
ever.
The concept of designing the future co-operatively is based on what
I understand to be Mahayana (please see modelearth.org/mahaecosoc.html ) and The
Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. (Salem, MA, DMA,
Inc., 1984, ISBN: 0-930641-00-0).
It could, perhaps, be argued that by using RBF's approach one would
eventually arrive at the same results as by using the approach of
ModelEarth concept. The main difference would be that in World
Game, despite continuous solving of problems by "playing", the
differences among the Earth inhabitants would continue resolving in
real life with costly results creating an endless stream of
problems needing to be addressed and "played" in World Game
continuously, whereas most such problems would be resolved "in
modelo" by the ModelEarth approach without any real life
consequences.
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