From MAILER-DAEMON@netaxs.com Tue Oct 24 21:33:46 1995 Received: from UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu [128.205.2.1]) by access.netaxs.com (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id VAA19990 for ; Tue, 24 Oct 1995 21:33:46 -0400 Message-Id: <199510250133.VAA19990@access.netaxs.com> Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 5617; Tue, 24 Oct 95 21:31:51 EDT Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UBVM) by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 0540; Tue, 24 Oct 1995 16:34:19 -0400 Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 16:33:30 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at UBVM (1.8b)" Subject: File: "GEODESIC LOG9501" To: "Christopher J. Fearnley" Status: RO ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 11:09:12 -0800 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Kirby Urner Subject: Re: Global energy grid > >When we're speaking about culture, we're speaking, in general about Law. >Fuller never addressed the issue of Law, what Law is and what stands >it. > What about "Legally Piggily" in Critical Path, LAWCAP, FINCAP etc? Not sure I understand "never addressed". The whole business of private property law and landlordism is discussed in Grunch of Giants. >In this day Law itself is generally regarded as the supreme >power in society and its political institutions. That is, to >say, even political leaders are subjects to the Law, e.g. >U.S. v. Nixon. But politicians legislate and have a way of writing in lots of exemptions and loopholes for the privileged. The Law is not handed down on Mt. Sinai by God, but is written by humans for other humans -- their can be a tyranny of laws as well as of lawyers. >The whole point of this is that there are subtleties to >Fuller's thinking which have political ramifications. Agreed. > Obviously we are going to have to engage Law at some point > to, say, impliment the Energy Grid, to clean up the water, to allow > the free flow of information. At some point we're say you can do >this and not this and we're backing it with the power to take life. Some codes don't have the death penalty. >Is this ethical? Is it ethical to say that we are not >politically inclined when the Energy Grid Proposal contains >elements of Socialism--i.e., presumably all this stuff is >going to be controlled by the state. (if not the state then >who? It going to take an institution to run it). Certainly Fuller's vision was not of a state-controlled global grid, since his states have largely become sponsored entities with very little real power (see G of G). >There is also an element of State health care and State sponsored art, >e.g., the National Endowment for the Arts, underlaying much of Fuller's >arguments. This would all known as Facism if it were known by another name. No, Facisim is not the same thing as state sponsored health or art programs. Sweden is not a Facist state. >How do we plan to IMPOSE our beliefs on others? Who is "we"? Fuller's general contention was that artifacts, e.g. the Sony Walkman, are less ideological than ideologies or political agendas. Chinese, USAers, Swedes, all adopt Walkmans because their useful. Same goes for energy grids, global or not. Fuller focused on artifacts, supposing their introduction would make waves in political domains, but that the design science focus on design over ideology would supposedly neutralize or make irrelevant much of that Socialism versus Capitalism junk. Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: Not sure I understand "never addressed". The whole business of > private property law and landlordism is discussed in Grunch of Giants. > Buckminster Fuller virtually addressed law (small l) the way he virtually (in essense, but not in fact) addressed many things. He never addressed Law (capital L) in anyway that would be recognizable as Law. When I use the word law I mean law as statutory law & common law (as generalizations) as well as law in terms of its particulars, e.g., Article I U.> Constitution, etc. The difference is one of usage. When I use Law, I mean Law as a principle and what it stands for in itself. Law exists in perpetuity (at least potenially). I'm attempting to make this analogy: Law comes from Religion as the word of God (past) is to Law comes from Politics as the word of _____ (present) Law = God > >In this day Law itself is generally regarded as the supreme > >power in society and its political institutions. That is, to > >say, even political leaders are subjects to the Law, e.g. > >U.S. v. Nixon. > > But politicians legislate and have a way of writing in lots > of exemptions and loopholes for the privileged. The Law > is not handed down on Mt. Sinai by God, but is written > by humans for other humans -- their can be a tyranny of laws > as well as of lawyers. The fact that some people escape the law has no bering on whether or not they are subject to Law. Some people commit crimes and never get caught, but the provision for punishment under law exists. Loopholes are places that the law (statute) does not cover, ergo the activity is permitted in terms of Law. But the 10 Commandments are statutory (law) The idea that something exists (in the case of Moses), i.e., God, that has the right and the power to govern human behavior does exist. Its created by ideology. And it is always and ultimately backed by the power to take human life through the institutions that created it. For example, A man is stopped by the police for jay-walking. The policeman decides to write the man a citation. The man refuses to be cited by the law (Part IV Sec. blah blah blah) and walks away. The policeman, governed by other laws, must arrest the suspect. The man resists arrest. The policeman gets physical, the suspect gets physical. The policeman shoots the suspect killing him. This has nothing to do with whether or not the death penalty is the statutory punishment for the crime, it has to do with the absolute authority of Law (again, capital L). The integrity of Law is preserved (backed) by the principle to create and to destroy. > > >The whole point of this is that there are subtleties to > >Fuller's thinking which have political ramifications. > > Agreed. > > > Obviously we are going to have to engage Law at some point > > to, say, impliment the Energy Grid, to clean up the water, to allow > > the free flow of information. At some point we're say you can do > >this and not this and we're backing it with the power to take life. > > Some codes don't have the death penalty. > > >Is this ethical? Is it ethical to say that we are not > >politically inclined when the Energy Grid Proposal contains > >elements of Socialism--i.e., presumably all this stuff is > >going to be controlled by the state. (if not the state then > >who? It going to take an institution to run it). > > Certainly Fuller's vision was not of a state-controlled global > grid, since his states have largely become sponsored entities > with very little real power (see G of G). Somebody is going to have to build and maintain the Grid, that's going to require an institution of somesort. When the institution comes into being, you're going to engage Law. Sorry, I don't have a Fuller library anymore, I sold it off with the number of moves I've made over the years. I can only quote from what in my notes, which is mainly Synergetics. > > >There is also an element of State health care and State sponsored art, > >e.g., the National Endowment for the Arts, underlaying much of Fuller's > >arguments. This would all known as Facism if it were known by another name. > > No, Facisim is not the same thing as state sponsored health or art programs. > Sweden is not a Facist state. Facism is National Socialism. In any despotic country that you visit you will see that the government controls all the major industry. E.g., the telephone company, the power company, the hospitals, the schools and universities, and many others. I might beg to differ on whether or not Sweden as -well-as other socialist nations are facist. Facism contains the whole notion of"cradle to the grave" and strict curbs on free enterprise (usury?) with extremely high taxes and exorbitant import duties. The ideology behind Facism is essentially that the person exists for the sake of the state, and not for himself. (Ask not what your country can do for you......) Its completely destructive to the individual. Much of Fuller's philosophy contains the idea of self-sacrifice (Christianity) and duty to the state, he said "to Humanity." State sponsored art is almost always used for propaganda. Howdo we plan to IMPOSE our beliefs on others? > > Who is "we"? Fuller's general contention was that artifacts, e.g. the Sony > Walkman, are less ideological than ideologies or political agendas. > Chinese, USAers, Swedes, all adopt Walkmans because their useful. > Same goes for energy grids, global or not. Fuller focused on artifacts, > supposing their introduction would make waves in political domains, > but that the design science focus on design over ideology would supposedly > neutralize or make irrelevant much of that Socialism versus Capitalism > junk. When I say we I mean you and I and all of the other people who are engaged in Fuller's work. Ideology is not mere junk. Many people are moved to kill each other over the questions that I'm asking. Some of the things I've said could get me killed if I were in the wrong place. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 15:38:35 -0700 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Edward H Campbell Subject: Campbell/Grid Position/Summary X-To: geodesic%ubvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu The reason that I oppose the Global Energy Grid and other Global projects is this: 1) An institution is going to be created to manage it. The most likely thing is that a new United Nations entity will be created (UNCHR, UNHABITAT, UNESCO, World Bank, etc.) The United Nations has: 1) its own army 2) its own banks 3) its own currency 4) its own university Why should it have it's own Global Power Company? 2) Since the creation of the entity to run the Global Energy Grid is permitted by Law, its creation is going to be opposed, at least eventually, by large groups of heavily armed individuals 1) Dev Sol 2) PKK 3) Hizballah 4) Hamas Just to name a few. Other opposition groups will be created (illegally under our concept of Law, but not under theirs) as the need arises, even here in America--there are already a few, the Aryan Nations and the Millitia of Montana for instance. 3) The energy grid will become a political target, used to play out ideological battles. 4) Our (UN, American, you and I) concept of Law will have to be preserved, precipitating the taking of human life. 5) The Global Energy grid strengthens an institution which might not be in everyones best interest. 6) The Grid can be interrupted or shut off. Ted ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 18:14:33 -0800 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Kirby Urner Subject: Re: Global energy grid/Urner >When I use the word law I mean law as statutory law & common law (as >generalizations) as well as law in terms of its particulars, e.g., Article I >U. Constitution, etc. The difference is one of usage. > >When I use Law, I mean Law as a principle and what it stands for in >itself. Law exists in perpetuity (at least potenially). I'm attempting >to make this analogy: >Law comes from Religion as the word of God (past) >is to >Law comes from Politics as the word of _____ (present) >Law = God I don't understand the analogy. If you mean Law as a generalized principle as Fuller spoke of "generalize principle", you mean something closer to "natural law" (as in physics) or "exceptionless rule" -- but that doesn't seem to be the distinction you're making. >Loopholes are places that the law (statute) does not cover, ergo the activity >is permitted in terms of Law. What's legal is legal, I agree. My point was that legislation can be highly skewed towards the interests of a particular group. I take it you agree with this. I don't see where Fuller skirted the issue, but that seems to be addressed in your law vs Law distinction, which I'm not understanding. >Somebody is going to have to build and maintain the Grid, that's going to >require an institution of somesort. When the institution comes into >being, you're going to engage Law. I don't see any one "somebody" running the grid. No one entity governs all the communications systems which are already global. We have lots of power grids already and the grid Fuller is talking about involves bridging existing grids, not building a new grid from scratch. Here in Oregon, the Bonneville Power Administration, set up as part of the Federal gov't ages ago, generates power for the grid and sells it to other administrations in California etc. Presumably, if we had a global grid, Bonneville could sell power to places further away, as well as purchase. Lots of separate authorities can and do administer grids today, even though they're interconnected. Sometimes people talk of privatizing BPA, making it no longer a Federal entity. But it already behaves very much like a private entity -- no one in Washington DC has much to say about what BPA can and cannot do. >Facism is National Socialism. In any despotic country that you visit you >will see that the government controls all the major industry. E.g., the >telephone company, the power company, the hospitals, the schools and >universities, and many others. Hospitals and schools are not often examples of "major industry" -- usually underfunded, often staffed and run by religious orders, not the government per se. Where the government is in charge, it often has very little money to spare, since schools and hospitals are for common folk. Actually, many countries are oligarchic. Rich families with lots of land place their members in key government positions -- nepotism abounds. A small elite basically runs the country in ways that favor their private business interests -- often the big money enterprises are not government owned per se, just protected by "friends in high places." Then large supranationals form another clique of asset-controlling entities, often with some inter-mix of local elites and corporate personnel. Who knows whom is critical. Bribes and pay-offs determine who gets the contracts and privileges. In many of these countries, government is nothing like a totalitarian controller of key industries, but a chaotic, under-funded mess riddled with corruption and puppeted by private families and foreign business interests. >State sponsored art is almost always used for propaganda. Advertising is propaganda by another name. Most of the "art" you and I are exposed to on a daily basis is commericially sponsored. Our consumerist ideology is extremely sophisticated, media-wise, and is good at keeping people in line (in debt and on the job). >Ideology is not mere junk. Many people are moved to kill each other over >the questions that I'm asking. Some of the things I've said could get me >killed if I were in the wrong place. > People die for and get killed for worthless, junky ideologies all the time, the way it looks for me. This is tragic, but proves all the more that ideology is often junk, like drugs are junk, like ideologies can be more damaging than drugs (like you say, language affects physiology in deep and severe ways). Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: 2) Since the creation of the entity to run the Global Energy Grid is >permitted by Law, its creation is going to be opposed, at least >eventually, by large groups of heavily armed individuals > > 1) Dev Sol > 2) PKK > 3) Hizballah > 4) Hamas As I mentioned, no totalitarian monolith is required to grip the globe because of this grid idea. Internet is quasi-global and no sinister UN agency runs the internet. Satellite communications, microwave companies, telecommunications companies, all bring dial tone to homes and businesses around the world, and some players in that industry are much bigger than others, but no giant Phone Agency runs the world's telecommuncations, which are already global. Why does this power grid have to be so different? A hodgepodge of quasi-local entities can handle their pieces of the grid and sell power to one another -- this is already the way it is right now. We have a network of roads, interstates in the US, but continuous with road systems in Canada, Mexico, Central America etc. What giant Agency controls the western hemisphere's Road System? I just don't think your paranoia about connecting hitherto unconnected grids is well-founded. Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Edward H Campbell Subject: Re: Global energy grid/Urner X-To: geodesic%ubvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu On Sun, 1 Jan 1995, Kirby Urner wrote: > >When I use the word law I mean law as statutory law & common law (as > >generalizations) as well as law in terms of its particulars, e.g., Article I > >U. Constitution, etc. The difference is one of usage. > > > >When I use Law, I mean Law as a principle and what it stands for in > >itself. Law exists in perpetuity (at least potenially). I'm attempting > >to make this analogy: > >Law comes from Religion as the word of God (past) > >is to > >Law comes from Politics as the word of _____ (present) > >Law = God > > I don't understand the analogy. If you mean Law as a generalized > principle as Fuller spoke of "generalize principle", you mean something > closer to "natural law" (as in physics) or "exceptionless rule" -- but that > doesn't seem to be the distinction you're making. No. This is precisely what I mean when I said that Fuller never addressed the Law as anything recognizable as Law. Natural Law is a doctrine of that exists in opposition to something called Positive Law. Benjamin Cardozo is an example of a naturalist lawyer, Oliver Wendell Holmes was a positivist. We see here that the concept of God is split in two. We have the God that governs nature (Cardozo has nothing to do with this), the design scientist God--so to speak--and we have the God that governs society. You didn't address my thought problem policeman v. suspect. You grapple with Fuller's ideas fine, I can't see how you have trouble seeing the difference between law as statute (special-case) and Law governance (generalization). Let me add a little more to the analogy. The God that governs society=Law=politics=the State=Global Decision Making Body (possibly UNGDMB in the very near future). > > >Loopholes are places that the law (statute) does not cover, ergo the activity > >is permitted in terms of Law. > > What's legal is legal, I agree. My point was that legislation can be > highly skewed towards the interests of a particular group. I take it you > agree with this. I don't see where Fuller skirted the issue, but that > seems to be addressed in your law vs Law distinction, which I'm not > understanding. > Well, I'm not say what is legal is legal, that's a positivists' view point. In terms of Law I would say I'm a naturalist--which says that laws that are not moral are not really laws, though I have a great deal of trouble proving that laws which are amoral are illegal. Basically because proving what is moral without refering to the Tanakh is very difficult. Which is part of my argument against Fuller's world view. Fuller can't prove what is moral any better than I can. The problem here is that people who want to see the world work for everyone, including myself, are making a fundamental misassumption, that everyone's going to cooperate in this process, as well as assuming that we don't have to address the fundamental problems of Society and human governance that have haunted Humanity throught the ages > >Somebody is going to have to build and maintain the Grid, that's going to > >require an institution of somesort. When the institution comes into > >being, you're going to engage Law. > > I don't see any one "somebody" running the grid. No one entity > governs all the communications systems which are already global. > We have lots of power grids already and the grid Fuller is talking > about involves bridging existing grids, not building a new grid from > scratch. Here in Oregon, the Bonneville Power Administration, set up > as part of the Federal gov't ages ago, generates power for the grid and > sells it to other administrations in California etc. Presumably, if we > had a global grid, Bonneville could sell power to places further away, > as well as purchase. Lots of separate authorities can and do administer > grids today, even though they're interconnected. Sometimes people > talk of privatizing BPA, making it no longer a Federal entity. But it > already behaves very much like a private entity -- no one in Washington > DC has much to say about what BPA can and cannot do. Your point about the Internet is well taken. What we are doing right now is participating in our own governance and that is what makes us human, for a human who does not participate in his or her own governance is a slave. Nonetheless, access to this can be restricted as i'm sure it is in places like Turkey. You haven't seen a Lybian gopher server have you? Nor Iran nor Iraq. It might be worth it to check this out, but I would suspect that those countries are prohibited on this system. I forgot to add in my criticism that people can be forced to pay for this service, but it would be much easier to cause people to pay for their energy from the GEG, since we're already paying for the local Grid. You don't think that paying for it could resrict access, say in Ethiopia? > > >Facism is National Socialism. In any despotic country that you visit you > >will see that the government controls all the major industry. E.g., the > >telephone company, the power company, the hospitals, the schools and > >universities, and many others. > > Hospitals and schools are not often examples of "major industry" -- usually > underfunded, often staffed and run by religious orders, not the government > per se. Where the government is in charge, it often has very little money > to spare, since schools and hospitals are for common folk. No kidding! They are major industries they're also regarded as necessities, that's why the government goes for them first, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you." > > Actually, many countries are oligarchic. Rich families with lots of land > place their members in key government positions -- nepotism abounds. > A small elite basically runs the country in ways that favor their private > business interests -- often the big money enterprises are not government > owned per se, just protected by "friends in high places." Then large > supranationals form another clique of asset-controlling entities, often > with some inter-mix of local elites and corporate personnel. Who knows > whom is critical. Bribes and pay-offs determine who gets the contracts > and privileges. In many of these countries, government is nothing like > a totalitarian controller of key industries, but a chaotic, under-funded > mess riddled with corruption and puppeted by private families > and foreign business interests. > That would be a plutocracy. You don't see that as Facistic? And since socialist countries are "chaotic, under-funded messes riddled with corruption and puppeted by private families and foreign business interest" you would like to try that on a global scale, which, incidentally, is Communism. > >State sponsored art is almost always used for propaganda. > > Advertising is propaganda by another name. Most of the "art" you > and I are exposed to on a daily basis is commericially sponsored. > Our consumerist ideology is extremely sophisticated, media-wise, > and is good at keeping people in line (in debt and on the job). Another good point. But take a look at how Hitler used the arts. When the government controls art, the art says what the government wants. I'm creating art here and I'm saying this the government doesn't like. > > >Ideology is not mere junk. Many people are moved to kill each other over > >the questions that I'm asking. Some of the things I've said could get me > >killed if I were in the wrong place. > > > > People die for and get killed for worthless, junky ideologies all the time, > the way it looks for me. This is tragic, but proves all the more that > ideology is often junk, like drugs are junk, like ideologies can be more > damaging than drugs (like you say, language affects physiology in deep > and severe ways). > > Kirby Some people might get killed for their beliefs. If their beliefs are junk then its because you don't believe as they do. You have an ideology--that the world should work for everyone, you don't regard that as junk. I believe that I can go to a despotic country and write what I think. That could get me killed in Turkey. Is my ideology junk? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 23:09:53 -0700 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Edward H Campbell Subject: Re: Campbell/Grid Position/Summary X-To: geodesic%ubvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu On Sun, 1 Jan 1995, Kirby Urner wrote: > At 03:38 PM 1/1/95 -0700, Edward H Campbell wrote: > >The reason that I oppose the Global Energy Grid and other Global projects > >is this: > > > >1) An institution is going to be created to manage it. The most likely > >thing is that a new United Nations entity will be created (UNCHR, > >UNHABITAT, UNESCO, World Bank, etc.) > > The World Bank is not a United Nations entity, nor is the International > Monetary Fund. > > > > >The United Nations has: > > 1) its own army > > 2) its own banks > > 3) its own currency > > 4) its own university > > > >Why should it have it's own Global Power Company? > > Fuller in Grunch of Giants did not see global convergence heading > up in the United Nations. Your vision of the grid may disturb you, > but it is not the same vision Fuller had, nor the one his "followers" > are presumably working towards. I got the feeling that Fuller thought the United Nations was the "cat's Pajamas." After all he proposed a giant geoscope be erected in Queens, across the East River in NYC, so that the big wigs in the UN Plaza could gaze at their oyster. If you haven't noticed the United Nations has become a target for terrorism. Those American groups that I mentioned have already avowed violent opposition to the United Nations. I know that neither you nor I intend for global government to be harmful. I don't even know that it would be, but still the opposition to it is there. Global is definitely where government is headed. > > >2) Since the creation of the entity to run the Global Energy Grid is > >permitted by Law, its creation is going to be opposed, at least > >eventually, by large groups of heavily armed individuals > > > > 1) Dev Sol > > 2) PKK > > 3) Hizballah > > 4) Hamas > > As I mentioned, no totalitarian monolith is required to grip the globe > because of this grid idea. Internet is quasi-global and no sinister UN > agency runs the internet. Satellite communications, microwave > companies, telecommunications companies, all bring dial tone to > homes and businesses around the world, and some players in that > industry are much bigger than others, but no giant Phone Agency > runs the world's telecommuncations, which are already global. > Why does this power grid have to be so different? A hodgepodge > of quasi-local entities can handle their pieces of the grid and sell > power to one another -- this is already the way it is right now. We > have a network of roads, interstates in the US, but continuous with > road systems in Canada, Mexico, Central America etc. What giant > Agency controls the western hemisphere's Road System? I just don't > think your paranoia about connecting hitherto unconnected grids > is well-founded. > O.k. Well a hodgepodge of local entities is what we have now and you see how well that feeds everyone. Interstates are controlled access highways, maybe you've seen one cordonded off before. You might also want to note that these conversations can be monitored, not by just the FBI, or the FCC but by those groups that I mentioned. You and I could make a name for ourselves here that could have dire ramifications. If I ended up in O.J. Simpson's position these postings would be used as evidence that I had a complete disrespect for authority. I don't see that as paranoid at all, but as something that happens time and time again. You probably remember the charts that were made by the Republican Party showing the mess of bureaucracy that would have been created by President Clinton's Health Care Plan, Try to imagine what could happen in the UN expaned much further. Since, as I said, the UN is a target for terrorism, this "global property" that we're creating is going to need to be protected, which means the UN is going to need an army to watch out for those dams so that the Earth First people don't blow them up. And the reservoirs for water could be poisioned with chemical or biological weapons, so they must be guarded. This is all standard stuff that every municipality in America has to deal with on a daily basis. Have you every seen the security systems in NYC? And after all of this is done the UN is going to need an intelligence service to keep track of activities that threaten its authority. Now who's going to pay for all of this? Its certainly going to take alot of tax money to pay for all those $10,000 hammers! :-) I think Bucky's Black Box idea is much better. It gives the individual some power. And when that happens these political structures will come unhinged. The political structures themselves are the ones that are paranoid, just look at what they do to protect themselves--they take human life. Ted ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 12:32:27 +0100 Reply-To: gerald@tacit.xs4all.nl Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Gerald de Jong Organization: Tacit Software Subject: Re: Angle is Everything In <199501010015.QAA07872@desiree.teleport.com> pdx4d@teleport.com (Kirby Urner) writes: >Symbolic manipulation is not the same as computation (I knew it was >semantics). Of course you can use Greek letters and little symbols to >represent irrationals and manipulate them forever to make nice tidy little >equations that fill math and physics books. That's all well and good >(I have such a symbolic manipulator program myself and get lots of >value out of it). But when you finally decide to get some readings, >to deal with natural measures and quantities, you'll have to plug in >digits, or analog voltages, and what you get out will have a finite number >of significant digits. This is not because nature is using irrationals >but we just can't be that precise, but because nature is not using irrationals >-- the concept has no meaning at the phenomenological level. it all comes down to levels of resolution or universes of discourse, i believe. we may be inclined to see the bicycle wheel as a polygonal set of event foci travelling in formation due to their critical proximity and self-reinforcing interaction, but Bicycle Repair Man should see the wheel as circular. quantum mechanics is a brilliant and detailed theory of the behavior of subatomic particles, but getting the shuttle into orbit involves experts of many different fields, all dealing mainly (not entirely) in their own area of expertise and paying attention to a particular level of detail or resolution. there were no quantum mechanics involved. whether nature does or does not use irrationals (or any numbers for that matter) is probably unimportant. using numbers is a way of describing a physical situation, and nature just *is*, it doesn't have to describe anything. it's only we big-headed apes that feel compelled to fit nature into our formal constructions, and expect her to restrict herself to rational numbers or to ideal irrationals. we're just spectators, trying to develop a language with which to discuss what we see. assuming our model of physics is right (it's JUST a model) to say that energy is quantized, then we're still left with the level of resolution with which we choose to view any given situation. purely nonrelatvistic, non-quantum-mechanical thinking was necessary to put the shuttle in orbit. pure classical physics, newtonian physics! such problems cannot be sensibly worked out on the basis of quantum mechanical models, so we choose to ignore the graniness of the picture and assume that the colors are smooth - and suddenly we're able to develop the necessary mathematical tools to get the job done. there is nobody on the planet with absolutely certain knowledge that energy is quantized, and that nothing is continuous. our observations, via our instruments and experiments, seem to point in that direction at this stage in history, so we've built a pretty effective model of reality based on that assumption. the problem with Bucky is that he went a little off the deep end in his own concept of himself, and presumed that his vision was somehow *the* complete vision of reality and not just a model. he even had the books printed with biblical-style paragraph numbering. the only problem here is that it's a bit sensationalist (a tad Dymaxion?) to build such pseudo-religious hoopla around one's ideas, and the end result is reluctance among educated folks and cultism among the others. he created a fascinating work (i remain fascinated!) but he also created a minefield. >>eye on the errors. the alternative is to calculate with rationals >>that have an unlimited number of digits - which is slow, and you don't >>win in the end anyway because you have to round off for a sensible answer. >And what would be the point? Nature does not offer quantities to us that >would require unlimited numbers of digits, even in principle. the point is this: if you're raw materials are a bunch of numbers to, say, 12 digits accuracy (outrageous, but anyway) and you do some serious calculations with them, it is sensible to do the calculations using sixty-some digits (or whatever) and be completely aware of the introduction of any errors *and* of the number of digits accuracy of your results. if you do the same calculations based on rational 12-digit numbers, you can easily end up with a 4259-digit denominator after a while - which you have to round off in the end anyway. in a practical situation, it means nothing to restrict yourself to rational numbers, because the numbers are fuzzy anyway. in a theoretical description, however, it may be interesting. but still, unless *everything* (including movement, for example) is proven to be discontinuous - nowhere is there "flow"! - you're shooting yourself in the foot to stick to a level of resolution involving whole numbers. with those tools you can only stare in starry-eyed wonder at the behavior of a flywheel, because with your rational accounting you can't figure out the first thing! somebody who's put on his smoky glasses and sees the situation in terms of smooth circles and infinitessimal tangents can "calculate rings around you", because he's chosen an appropriate level of resolution. >precise. Because of the uncertainty principle etc., nature has an upper >limit to the precision of her quantities. Our use of unlimited digits is >at best propagating irrelevant information. as long as we bobbit the digits of the end result appropriate to the digits of the raw materials of the calculation, we're safe. > Pi, in its rigorous mathematical >sense, has no physical correlate. i can't help it: neither does 2, since every object in nature is unique. it's only by limiting our conceptual level of resolution (abstracting out of nature) that we can count 2 sheep. >We may have other semantic difficulties here: rational does not mean >whole number in any way. i know what rationals are. fractions or terminating decimals - which are identical concepts. they involve whole numbers. >You do need to deal with lots of numbers after the >decimal point to be a design scientist -- but with the philosophical >caveat that nature is not trying to approach some unlimited digits ideal. i'd venture as far as to say that nature is also not trying to approach our static rational number system, or even whole numbers. it's presumptious to limit her to that! all in nature is unique (at least we can't prove two things to be identical), and dynamic. she don't dig numbers at all! >Bucky was an advocate of starting from experience. If you haven't >experienced a point of no dimensions (e.g. the chalk bit has dimension), >then maybe you don't need a mathematics that defines points as >dimensionless. Lets just go with the easier proposition: points may >be small and pointy, but they don't have to be dimensionless to be useful. >And planes don't have to be "infinitely thin" -- really really thin is plenty >good enough. And so on... okay. let's see some useful calculations that make use of tetrahedral sizeless points or tet-of-negligible-height planes. thinking of them that way is perhaps only a distraction. -- gerald de jong, rotterdam. "reality is a special case" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 12:38:18 +0100 Reply-To: gerald@tacit.xs4all.nl Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Gerald de Jong Organization: Tacit Software Subject: Re: IVM spheres radius X from O In <199412312349.AA25907@xs1.xs4all.nl> Kirby Urner writes: >Kevin: >>Not sure what is so difficult about this. Each of the layers are just >>VE's, right? So isn't the problem just to determine how many points of >>intersection a VE has with a sphere centered at the same point? >It's more interesting I think. The IVM spheres at radius X form a >common center are in several VE shells. We will have one VE with >12 corners on the sphere, but other, larger VE's will also have points >in common with our large sphere. The idea is to illuminate all >the golf balls in a closest packing that are distance X from an origin, >regardless of what VE shell they're in. You won't always get the same >pattern illuminated, depending on the radius. are we talking about distance X exactly or between X and X+dX? there's a big difference! i'd love to read about the results of this investigation. -- gerald de jong, rotterdam. "reality is a special case" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 12:48:29 +0100 Reply-To: gerald@tacit.xs4all.nl Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Gerald de Jong Organization: Tacit Software Subject: Re: In <199412310514.AA24024@xs1.xs4all.nl> Edward H Campbell writes: > a) An isotropic vector matrix can be made with tetrahelixes as >the trajectories and icosahedrons as the crossings--traffic patterns. how can that work? the symmetries of icosahedra don't jive with those of the IVM or VE. -- gerald de jong, rotterdam. "reality is a special case" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 13:08:43 +0100 Reply-To: gerald@tacit.xs4all.nl Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Gerald de Jong Organization: Tacit Software Subject: Re: Re Earth's space is curved/Coordinate System In <199412281812.AA27974@xs1.xs4all.nl> Russell Chu writes: >By 4 interpenetrating IVM matrices I mean the original nucleated VE plus the >Pos Tet entered matrix, the Neg Tet centered matrix and the Octa centered >matrix. i'm afraid i can't understand this description. is there another way to describe it so that i might be able to get it through my thick head. >There is still a lot of work and a lot of thinking to be done on the >coordinate system. I am very interested in working with others to develop >this system so that it would be usable to everyone. We could start by >putting the matrix on screen so that it becomes visible to people. i'm working on another coordinate system - trying to define a space that can be filled entirely with tetrahedra. suppose you take a VE and bend its space so that the outer layer can triangulate (become an icosa) while the nucleus remains. it would appear, from an inner point of view, like looking at a matrix with a funny lens (or one of those rear-view mirrors that says "objects appear closer than they really are"). this is not a great distortion of "flat" space. suppose that the four vectors from the center of a tet to its vertexes *are* the four dimensions of spacetime, and that an event in the future is represented by a tet, while past events are inside-out tets. the "warping" of space that would be required to make it fillable with only tetrahedra would represent the reality that distant events must be seen as past events - relativity. things appear later than they are depending on how distant they are from the observer. i've got to put pen to paper and figure out an appropriate mapping. any ideas? -- gerald de jong, rotterdam. "reality is a special case" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 01:19:54 -0700 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Edward H Campbell Subject: Campbell v. Urner: An Exchange X-To: geodesic%ubvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu A number of my questions have not been answered in this exchange,I just want to write this to make sure that the thread hasn't been lost. As I see it a number of items need to be addressed: 1) Did Buckminster Fuller advocate some form of a Global Decision Making Body? I believe that he did. He made some statements about this in his theories of Global Democracy. He had some theory that peoples reaction to major news events could be radar imaged to show whether or not people approved of... the Government. He also had some theory about creating a wrist watch style voting machine. Now if this is true then somebody is definitely going to be monitoring these electronic transactions. Presumably a government. And his theory seems to say that this is going to be a global activity, which imputes Global Government. This is going to give rise to all of the problems that I have presented. We're going to have to deal with: 1) a power structure that is shaped like a pyramid. lots of people on the bottom (so lets assume that they all have shelter, food, edu, etc.), but they are still on the bottom, and relatively few at the top. The top of the pyramid is the Global Gov. (United Nations Global Decision Making Body, if you will). Above the pyramid is going to be some form of supreme power, Law--which is backed by the power to take human life. In all of this it is the ultimate power of Law which must be preserved at all costs, so that it can continue in perpetuity--all of the people in the pyramid, even to the top, are ultimately expendable--they will infact die of natural causes long before the the entity that stands above the pyramid will pass from the Earth. 2) Second problem: since this electronic democracy is contingent on the free flow of information we're going to have to deal with the manipulation of thought by means of words--i.e., propaganda--linguistic power structures. 3) Third problem: we're going to have to deal with the problem of enslavement to capital. Fuller believed that currency was going to become energy credits. There still is the problem of access which can be denied. 4) There is the problem of ideology which says that there is great opposition to Fuller's proposals in which case the GG will need to employ the above three steps in order to preserve itself. Question: To what extent do we ascribe to the solution presented in #4 Ted ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 01:39:19 -0700 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Edward H Campbell Subject: Re: Campbell v. Urner: An Exchange/Appendum X-To: geodesic%ubvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu "To speak of (x) is to impute the existence of (x)." --Parmenedies ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 05:39:21 -0500 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Kiyoshi Kuromiya Subject: Re: Stewart Brand's Criticism X-cc: rich@cpp.pha.pa.us In-Reply-To: from "Kirby Urner" at Dec 31, 94 03:23:12 pm Kirby Urner writes: > ... Domes have been used to cover oil tanks etc., > and are no-doubt rain proof. It's when you start cutting pieces of plywood > and try to build a traditional house with a dome shape that you get into > trouble. But this was never Fuller's vision. As a general proposition, I'd > say, if wood is the primary construction material, it isn't a Fuller dome, > regardless of whether it's geodesic.... > > To your specific question: have the dome kit companies worked out some of > the bugs Brand talks about?, I don't have a specific answer. Fuller said the 1945 Dymaxion Deployment Unit required the development of metallic alloys of sufficient strength/weight to make the design deployable as an air-deliverable dwelling unit, which did not occur until 1945.. Similarly, we need a mass production housing industry, using the machine tolerances of the auto industry in order to make geodesic buildings feasible. I agree with you that shingled, plywood structures are not appropriate for such structures (plywood sheets overlapping have the single advantage of being easily manufactured and widely available). If automobiles were made by hand or were made of wood or constructed from kits, not only would the automobiles fall apart and be non-functional, but they would leak every time it rained. I agree with you. No matter how much Stewart Brand would like geodesics to be a crafts movement or a cottage industry (pardon the pun), Fuller's intention was two-fold: 1) To model his mathematics and show practical applications of the economies of nature and design science, 2) To show how our full technological capabilities are NOT being applied to housing design, despite the existence of tens of thousands of so-called architects practicing their trade. Neither the space shuttle nor a Boeing 747 leak when it rains ... obviously because they use appropriate materials and an appropriate level of manufacturing tolerances (100,000th of an inch). Brand is doing the equivalent of criticizing the strength of geodesic structures on the basis of a model made of pipe cleaners. --Kiyoshi Kuromiya ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 09:55:22 -0800 Reply-To: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works From: Kirby Urner Subject: Re: IVM spheres radius X from O X-To: gerald@tacit.xs4all.nl At 12:38 PM 1/1/95 +0100, Gerald de Jong wrote: >In <199412312349.AA25907@xs1.xs4all.nl> Kirby Urner writes: >>The idea is to illuminate all >>the golf balls in a closest packing that are distance X from an origin, >>regardless of what VE shell they're in. You won't always get the same >>pattern illuminated, depending on the radius. > >are we talking about distance X exactly or between X and X+dX? there's >a big difference! > >i'd love to read about the results of this investigation. > We're talking about distance X exactly, from IVM sphere origin to some central sphere origin. Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: the point is this: if you're raw materials are a bunch of numbers >to, say, 12 digits accuracy (outrageous, but anyway) and you do some >serious calculations with them, it is sensible to do the calculations >using sixty-some digits (or whatever) and be completely aware of the >introduction of any errors *and* of the number of digits accuracy of >your results. if you do the same calculations based on rational 12-digit >numbers, you can easily end up with a 4259-digit denominator after a >while - which you have to round off in the end anyway. If you only have 6 digits of significance to begin with, then you need to round off at about 6 digits as you go, not fool yourself into thinking that after multiplying two numbers with 6 significant figures you suddenly have more significance, that you have the option of rounding to 10 digits later, thereby gaining 10 digits of accuracy. Science has developed scientific notation partly to separate the number of significant digits from the placement of the decimal points. We say 1.2343 x 10^-5, showing we have 4 significant places after the decimal. > but still, unless *everything* (including movement, for example) is proven >to be discontinuous - nowhere is there "flow"! - you're shooting yourself in >the foot to stick to>a level of resolution involving whole numbers. No one is suggesting using only whole numbers. You seem to go back and forth between "rational" and "whole", even while you say you know the difference (and I'm sure you do). >only stare in starry-eyed wonder at the behavior of a flywheel, because >with your rational accounting you can't figure out the first thing! >somebody who's put on his smoky glasses and sees the situation in terms >of smooth circles and infinitessimal tangents can "calculate rings >around you", because he's chosen an appropriate level of resolution. His appropriate level of resolutions is *still* using rational numbers. >> Pi, in its rigorous mathematical >>sense, has no physical correlate. > >i can't help it: neither does 2, since every object in nature is unique. >it's only by limiting our conceptual level of resolution (abstracting >out of nature) that we can count 2 sheep. Again, I don't see what uniqueness has to do with anything. You can have two things that are different and still count them as two. >>We may have other semantic difficulties here: rational does not mean >>whole number in any way. >i'd venture as far as to say that nature is also not trying to approach >our static rational number system, or even whole numbers. it's presumptious >to limit her to that! all in nature is unique (at least we can't prove >two things to be identical), and dynamic. she don't dig numbers at all! Uniqueness again. Why? >>Bucky was an advocate of starting from experience. If you haven't >>experienced a point of no dimensions (e.g. the chalk bit has dimension), >>then maybe you don't need a mathematics that defines points as >>dimensionless. Lets just go with the easier proposition: points may >>be small and pointy, but they don't have to be dimensionless to be useful. >>And planes don't have to be "infinitely thin" -- really really thin is plenty >>good enough. And so on... > >okay. let's see some useful calculations that make use of tetrahedral >sizeless points or tet-of-negligible-height planes. thinking of them >that way is perhaps only a distraction. I think it's a distraction to think of points as "dimensionless" and planes as "infinitely thin." I mentally relax when I don't have to posit entities I've never experienced. I used to teach high school and elementary school mathematics. I'd show this geometry film that would show a dot and say "this is a representation of a point." Then the narrator would go on to say "no one has ever seen a real point, and no one ever will." What garbage! Who needs it? I say all the useful calculations we already have regarding points and planes (calculations putting shuttles in orbit, domes over stadiums, skyscrapers along the sky line) do not require "non-dimensional points" and "inifinitely thin planes" --- those are philosophical underpinnings we can just as well do without, and still keep all the calculations. Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: >Now if this is true then somebody is definitely going to be monitoring >these electronic transactions. Presumably a government. And his theory >seems to say that this is going to be a global activity, which imputes >Global Government. > >This is going to give rise to all of the problems that I have presented. >We're going to have to deal with: > > 1) a power structure that is shaped like a pyramid. lots of >people on the bottom (so lets assume that they all have shelter, food, >edu, etc.), but they are still on the bottom, and relatively few at the >top. This is how it is now, without any formally declared "global government." Certainly it wouldn't take an implementation of Fuller's hopes to create this situation. > 2) Second problem: since this electronic democracy is contingent >on the free flow of information we're going to have to deal with the >manipulation of thought by means of words--i.e., propaganda--linguistic >power structures. Already a problem, which we're dealing with now. > 3) Third problem: we're going to have to deal with the problem of >enslavement to capital. Fuller believed that currency was going to >become energy credits. There still is the problem of access which can be >denied. We're looking for solutions. The problem you mention is a problem we face today, not something down the road. > 4) There is the problem of ideology which says that there is >great opposition to Fuller's proposals in which case the GG will need to >employ the above three steps in order to preserve itself. > I think the burden is on you to prove that a global government is necessary to accomplish what Fuller wanted to have happen for humanity. I don't believe Fuller envisioned the global government you do, and I find I can imagine many credible scenarios wherein much of what Fuller hoped would come to pass does, without any global government rearing its ugly head. Hey, I'm on your side: I don't want any global government or mega-UN either. But the global energy grid might be helpful: I'm more concerned about the inefficiency of long transmission lines -- they still leak a lot of energy away as heat and so long as that is the case, a global grid may not make any economic sense. Kirby ------------------------------------------------ Kirby Urner & Dawn Wicca "All realities are virtual" -- KU Portland (PDX), Oregon pdx4d@teleport.com Web: