Mismatched Socks

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
R. Buckminster Fuller

We’re in for a ride.

Buckminster Fuller’s perspective on the history of human civilization, and where we can go from here, grabs you by the hair and hurls you into orbit; only then can you catch a glimpse of what he means when he talks about our Spaceship Earth.

Great Pirates were the forefathers of civilization: the early adventurers, explorers, capitalists, entrepreneurs and innovators. They built boats, traveled around the world, and discovered the connections between distant lands, peoples, resources, and later, disciplines of thought. They generalized their thinking, advancing their abstract and comprehensive understandings; and they forced (“encouraged”) others to specialize, so as to become more lethal weapons for the Great Pirate’s wielding. These Great Pirates assembled teams, voyaged on missions, conducted trade, and occasionally established proxy leaders of vulnerable regions all across the globe (his hypothesis on England is pretty entertaining for parties).

And then the end of WWI marked the end of the Great Pirates’ rule. The Second Industrial Revolution brought about a new age of science and technology, and the Great Pirates could no longer manage their specialists. As Bucky puts it, the Great Pirates became specialists themselves, specialists at making money, and ultimately doomed themselves.

With the advent of the computer, and especially the Internet, humanity has all it needs to consolidate its resources and optimize the planet to provide for every individual’s needs and creative desires. Nations are from the age of Great Pirates; computers herald the rise of scientists and engineers as our next leaders, leaders of a united planet.

We are a crew aboard a spacecraft hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour. Once we quit fighting each other, things can really start to happen.

sinidentidades:

Native American and Xican@ students protest the 500th anniversary of Columbus landing in the Americas.

October 1992

(via randomactsofchaos)

nigelsview:

Nobody can say it better than jack white

So doing business the wrong way is art…

I am so goddamn excited. About everything. Dr. Manhattan status, past present and future, art and business and the synthesis of the two, TIME AND SPACE

Anyways, nonsense aside, Jack White is a god amongst men, and a genius of art and business. Pay attention and learn.

edderd:

Bill Watterson is a genius.

Calvin and Hobbes is my religious text.

(via deepfriedskittles)

thereisnogod:

Surviving the World is an incredible site.

(via no--choice)

…mostly agree…

(via randomactsofchaos)

“No church property anywhere … should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.”