Peace Games
The World Game was an idea proposed by Buckminster Fuller. The idea was to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone."
When Buckminster Fuller introduced the "World Game" in the 70's, it was looked at as Utopian, naive, and a bit far fetched. For example, one of the things that Bucky felt was needed to really implement the World Game at a effective level was everyone having access to 'interactive television sets' that could relay information around the world. Of course now, we just call that the Internet and most of us can't live without it.
As we leap into these times of extreme uncertainty, it's good to point out a few optimistic yet realistic ideas that we can use to navigate through the building chaos. Although we have never faced an worldwide economic crisis like this before, we also have never had the Internet before and the ability to collective problem solve and network.
Many of the world's leaders are now meeting to work together to solve this crisis. Link. Now, I know, many of us are skeptical about such meetings, however, I think this potentially could be a ray of hope.
Consider; Bucky's World Game was based entirely on 'synergy'. We can understand 'synergy' as 'all sides contribute, all sides receiving the collective output of all contributing', or even more simpler as win - win foreign policy. Bucky felt that if world leaders could play a game where the goal was to help solve each other's problems, that such a strategy could out compete 'War Games' for effectiveness.
So imagine if France had to worry about resolving the financial problems of the UK, and the UK had to worry about the financial problems of Russia, ad infinitum. What would such a strategy accomplish? Well, for one thing it would create an objective outside observer and problem solver for a countries' problems where solutions are often hampered down by internal politics. Now all of these leaders are meeting somewhere and trying to work together to solve the problem, which is a good start.
Naturally, however, we can do better. So why are we waiting for the global leaders to do this, and why are they doing this offline? Why not open the entire world wide economic problem up online so the collective contributions of intelligent and aware global citizens can participate in solving, and resolving, each other's problems?
Think about it, how archaic is the current approach considering our new digital millennium? Why would the G7 or G20 leaders need to travel to Switzerland to resolve the crisis over a series of formal dinners and speeches? Why not just have an online discussion forum and everyone can stay put, save time, and increase problem solving effectiveness? Why not open up each and every idea presented to solve the crisis to a collective that can deconstruct each idea, research and game it's effectiveness for rationality?
So, here is a ray of hope. This may be the first global crisis that could really get countries working together and exploring new options for problem solving. In the desperate attempt to find reasonable solutions that must produce win win economic outcomes, at some point someone will consider the option of allowing social networking collective intelligence into the equation, and booyah - we could potentially resolve these problems in a very short amount of time.
Although I gloss over quickly such solutions and problems in this essay, I don't think that such a scenario is too far fetched or outlandish to suggest. And this idea, like all ideas, can spread and take root in our Internet society, planting the seeds online that will eventually reach the appropriate leaders who would consider such options.
As dire as it may sound, the very ray of hope is that for the first time, the entire world is in an mutually undeniable crisis together, and the solutions lay inside the problem. Personally, I think this may be be best opportunity we have ever had to suggest and implement Bucky's World Game. And we can all immediately begin playing the World Game by talking about the World Game online in our blogs, emails, social networks, and discussion forums and insist we all begin to use it. Immediately. As in now and why the hell not?
This post comes from Rome's O.S.012 blog.
Image: "Biosphere - HDR" by Rene Ehrhardt on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.
Tweet- 10-22-08
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Comments
Bucky Balls!
haha!
yes, the dymaxion hierarchy is everywhere the center with the circumference nowhere to be found. EVERY POINT IS EQUALLY DOMINANT.
To me the geodesic dome is more powerful of a symbol than as a house. ALL points contribute strength, ALL points recieve the collective strength of ALL in return.
It IS far fetched
Not to hamper on your optimism, as I think we should all be looking at this crisis as an opportunity to change for the better, but...
(1) The World Game sounds like it would just be, in practice, global politics, and would quickly negate the value of the "outsider" looking in on other people's problems.
(2) I don't think there's any substantial evidence to suggest that an "outsider" can necessarily solve problems for the "insider" any better than the "insider" can. On the contrary, the "insider" typically possesses a much more comprehensive knowledge of the problem and is therefore more aware of the various conditions which may or may not be manipulated to solve it.
(3) Where is the incentive and choice? What are the rewards for successfully helping to solve the problem, and will we have choices about which solutions to implement? Where is the competition for these services?
(4) Ultimately it sounds like central planning. I hope I don't need to explain why central planning doesn't work.
I commend your efforts to find solutions, but I do not think that this is a proper method to pursue.
it is NOT far fetched
I think your point of view is pretty powerful in this thread, so if you don't mind, I am going to take it very seriously and consider and critique it.
I mean, if this is feasable and doable, your idea (which is actually shared and believed as true by the extremely large majority) is actually one of the barriers that must be destroyed should such a reality come into existence.
So, let's have a go...
You said:
Not to hamper on your optimism, as I think we should all be looking at this crisis as an opportunity to change for the better, but...
(1) The World Game sounds like it would just be, in practice, global politics, and would quickly negate the value of the "outsider" looking in on other people's problems.
Well, that's not the World Game I am describing. I think you are simply modeling current events and current international strategies amongst nations for reference.
The World Game I am describing is the transcendance of politics. It's 'rules' are nothing more than the natural and rational progression of win win policy. Human behavior is motivated by urges to 'win' - so clearly this is doable. The framework is non zero sum, meaning that resources, when properly managed, are replenishing and not limited. We can only do this when we have a non zero sum game to play.
The World Game you are describing is 'stuck' in win lose political stalemates and strategies
(2) I don't think there's any substantial evidence to suggest that an "outsider" can necessarily solve problems for the "insider" any better than the "insider" can.
Sure there is, all over the place and all the time, it's called an 'objective observer'. And you don't choose one over the other, you choose both the OBJECTIVE outsider and the subjective INSIDER and engage them into the win win framework.
On the contrary, the "insider" typically possesses a much more comprehensive knowledge of the problem and is therefore more aware of the various conditions which may or may not be manipulated to solve it.
sure, sometimes, but also the insider is prone to the delusion that is quite often occuring inside of the political struggles for power. Consider the invasion to Iraq; were not France and Germany easily seeing that the issue of WMD was not as certain as our political institutions were claiming? We (meaning the US GOV) were unable to properly see through our own bullshit. France and Germany at the time were actually helping us.
(3) Where is the incentive and choice?
Ahh, great question. And we agree, there MUST be incentive and choice to have a properly functioning game.
Consider; opening up global problem solving to a organizing entreprenurial system that gets 'tax' dollars for every problem solved through the game and we resolve this issue.
Think GOOGLE!
What are the rewards for successfully helping to solve the problem, and will we have choices about which solutions to implement?
Personal satisfaction, MONEY and ACCESS to RESOURCE
Where is the competition for these services?
Online, by the millions, in every country
(4) Ultimately it sounds like central planning. I hope I don't need to explain why central planning doesn't work.
it is the anti-thesis of central planning, it is P2P planning. ALL points contribute, ALL points recieve the collective output of all contributing.
I commend your efforts to find solutions, but I do not think that this is a proper method to pursue.
Sorry to disappoint you then. Not only am I pursuing it, but I have been working on it for almost 6 years. And the idea is spreading and taking hold.
Look, when I say this is a rational option, I know what I mean when I say 'RATIONAL'.
The only thing standing in the way of this occurring are resignation and irrationality. That's what is alreayd operating the world.
This win win syngestic world is operated online by logic, rational thinking, wealth and inspiration.
Medard Gabel
One of Fuller's associates, Medard Gabel, has continued work on the World Game and configured it to something beyond just an analog project called Earth Game 1.0 Here is a link where you can learn a little bit more about this:
http://www.earth-intelligence.net/extra/page/?action=page_show&id=143&mo...
The guy who runs that website is the head of the Earth Intelligence Network, Robert David Steele, and is a former CIA spy and intelligence officer who is working towards the kinds of notions that Fuller and many others are dealing with, which is a new system for the world that de-centralizes the power structures.
Steele also gave a talk at last year's Last Hope hacker's conference that outlines many amazing ideas that seem very revolutionary in a lot of ways, not to mention intelligent and practical!
http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/64kbps/Earth_Intelligence_Network...
Black Light in the Attic Podcast w/Serpicody & Sancho
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com
THANK YOU FOR THIS UPDATE
This is a great idea
not central planning
"Peace" Games
I don't agree with Buckminster Fuller's contention that nation states are "blood clots" in the bloodstream of Spaceship Earth.
Everything being global with no borders can be a problem. This is the case with disease. Epidemics are regional in structure. Pandemics are worldwide. Sometimes you need to isolate yourself and if everything is globalized with no safe havens we could be destroying ourselves.
RE: PEACE GAMES
thank you for considering the idea. I am going to really deconstruct your answer a bit here because I think there are many misconceptions about this idea that stand in the way. I dont think any of these misconceptions are very rationally considered.
You said:
I don't agree with Buckminster Fuller's contention that nation states are "blood clots" in the bloodstream of Spaceship Earth.
Of course they are, but it's not the cultural nation or identity that is, but the political forces competing for attention and power in them that are. Consider: War Games. Nations spend billions and billions of dollars and resource planning on various ways of obliterating each other under various scenarios and strategies. Consider then Bucky's analogy; Spaceship Earth as a 'Ocean or navval vessel'. What happens if there is a mutiny on board? who runs the ship? how do resources get allocated?
Do you not see and accept how creating a finite supply gaurantees that there will be wars? and not just physical wars either, but economic as well.
Now, let's look again at the analogy of a blood clot. Does a blood clot not interupt a natural flow? Consider that natural flow to be our economics.
you said:
Everything being global with no borders can be a problem.
How could you possibly know this? there is no historical example of a borderless global society,other than perhaps the internet, and we can agree on how well that is going, right?
you said:
This is the case with disease. Epidemics are regional in structure. Pandemics are worldwide. Sometimes you need to isolate yourself and if everything is globalized with no safe havens we could be
So you wish to organize society like a vast hospital as a way to stablize disease? I don t think you are fully considering these ideas past perhaps your own fearful worldview.
Peace Games
One global civilization would be like agricultural monoculture or row-crop agriculture where we only grow one crop. When the Irish had one strain of potato and it failed, it led to the Irish Famine. The Dust Bowl of 1930-1940 in America was the result of farmers using one type of agriculture, row upon row of one crop.
The model I would propose would be forest gardening, which is how some botanists think the Amazon rainforest was created. In forest gardening, trees are planted to be a barrier against soil erosion and small gardens of beneficial plants are planted together so that hundreds of species grow on 1/2 to 1 acre of land -- kind of like nation-states.