The World Game

 

Geodesic Dome

A long time ago I read a book by an architect, Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome, a round structure made of polyhedrons that is surprisingly sturdy and can be made of light weight materials. Fuller was widely recognized for his innovations in architecture, but also for his social philosophy. He promoted the idea that science should be used to solve social problems. Among his supporters was Albert Einstein. In his book, Nine Chains to the Moon, the book I read, he observed that there was enough food, housing, and health care to support the world’s population, if we could just solve the problems of distribution, and political inequity. 

Since Nine Chains to the Moon was written in 1963, advances in science have improved standards of living, productivity, health care, and knowledge, but only for the fortunate. Tons of good food are thrown away or destroyed every year. There is plenty of empty space in buildings which could be used to house all the homeless. Medical science has developed understanding of most diseases, and cures or preventions for most. New technology has developed ways of producing nutritious food without slaughtering animals. The productivity of individual workers has increased by mechanization, and now by AI and robotics, so that all the necessities of life can be produced by only a small fraction of employable citizens. Ironically, this is considered a problem because it could cause underemployment. 

So what’s wrong with that? If each of us has to spend less time working, we could devote more time with our family and friends, and more time solving the problems of humanity, like worldwide inequity of resources, hunger, war, and climate change. 

How would we make a living? Why is it so important to earn a living? Wealth causes problems instead of solving them. People rob, cheat, amass fortunes to have more power and wealth than their neighbors. Fuller invented a game called the World Game in which players used their knowledge and creativity to solve the world’s problems. What if wealth, power, prejudice, inequality of rights, and privileges were identified as problems, and the resources of science and knowledge were applied to enable people to share and to help those in need? What if we all played Fuller’s game? 

You might say, “This is nonsense. You’re dreaming of a eutopia that can never exist.” But I could reply that ‘no one is trying.’ In spite of advances in science and technology, hardly anyone is trying to solve the world’s greatest problems. 

Solutions have been proposed and even put into place. In many countries support for the poor, the disabled, the elderly is provided by the state. In Finland, education is considered a right. In our last presidential election, one of the candidates proposed giving a monthly stipend to every citizen. My favorite country is Bhutan, where prosperity is measured by happiness. In the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, 14% of the population is “food insecure” – that’s what starvation is called nowadays, and we have the poorest health of any developed nation. 

As Buckminster Fuller observed over 60 years ago, we have the resources, even more now than then, to solve the world’s problems.

I propose that we identify as problems actions, customs, and systems that create inequity, suffering and death, and that we work to create solutions that make life better for everyone, not just the privileged few, both now and for future generations.

 

Life Is Precious - 2

 

Life Is Precious

A few days ago the Houthis shot a missile into Israel. Twelve were injured but no one was killed. It was the main news for that day. The next day the Israelis dropped bombs on Palestinians in Gaza, killing 40, and it was just a minor news item. The most recent Israeli – Arab war, mainly between Israel and Gaza, is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. The death toll in Gaza has risen to over 50,000 in the seven months since the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Over 30% of the Palestinian deaths have been children, compared to 1200 Israelis, 3% of which were children. The deaths on the Israeli side all occurred on October 7^th, the day of the terrorist attack, so the killing of Palestinians has been basically out of revenge. As it has been proven many times, the killing of Palestinians doesn’t reduce the risk of terrorism, it just inspires more. Now many of the deaths are occurring from starvation or lack of medical care as the bombing continues. What the war amounts to is genocide. Israel’s excuse is that the Gaza terrorist group, Hamas, still holds 100 or so Israeli hostages. 

The other night, as I was watching the “Boob tube,” I heard something literally made my jaw drop. A man was being interviewed about his new book – I forget the name – about the Gaza massacre. “They’re not like us” was one of the first things out of his mouth. Then he went on to claim that life means nothing to the Palestinians. I suppose he would include all the Moslems, Afghans, Iranians, Houthis. He went on about how the “Arabs” glorify death, considering it an honor to die for their cause. This is supposed to be an excuse for the genocide. 

General Westmoreland used almost the same words to describe the Vietnamese back in 1965, when he said, “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient…life is not important.” This was his excuse for the strategy of “attrition,” the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the destruction of rice fields to choke off the Vietnamese’ food supply. 

This same attitude, that the lives of an oppressed, disadvantaged people are worth less than ours,  or the Israelis, or whomever the oppressor happens to be, is a common excuse. It’s what the American settlers said about the Indians, what the Southern slave owners said about the African Americans under their control. It’s the excuse we gave for using the Chinese as virtual slave labor in the 1860’s, for persecuting the Irish in the 1850’s, and the Italians during the early 1900’s. It’s the same excuse the Dutch South Africans used to justify their apartheid system of subjugation of black South Africans. 

Are we really so different from the Palestinians? Don’t we glorify death when someone risks or gives their life for our country? We erect monuments and sing songs to commemorate them. We thank them for their service. This patriotic fervor isn’t so strong now because we haven’t really had an existential crisis in this country since World War II, and hardly anyone alive today remembers what that was like. But if we were attacked like the Ukrainians were three years ago, I think many of us would willing to risk our lives to defend our freedom and our way of life. It's human nature. Isn’t that what the Palestinians are doing? 

You would think that the Israelis would be more sympathetic. No ethnic group has been more oppressed throughout the ages than the Jews, but I suppose they are subject to the same psychology as other ethnic groups.

So the Jews oppress the Palestinians using the excuse that they are better than them, and life means nothing to them anyway. And the Palestinians respond with violence and terrorism. You could replace these groups with almost any others, at one time or another in history.  

So other cultures, other ethnic groups are like us, and we are like them. One side may be more educated, or technologically advanced, or more powerful economically or militarily, but we’re all equal. We all deserve freedom and opportunity. Life is precious. When a life is lost, no matter what the situation, it’s a tragedy. Their family and friends lose their love and support. Their potential for ideas, their leadership, their talents, their energy are lost.

The first criterion for governmental, and personal decisions should be does this save lives? Does it make life better for everyone involved? No matter how many books are written about why one group doesn’t value life, or why another group is culturally or genetically inferior. The answer is simple. All life is precious, and all people deserve respect. 

In recent times it seems that there are no world leaders, or even the majority of individuals, who understand this simple fact, or that’s what I was thinking when I started to write this post almost a month ago. Then Pope Francis died. Suddenly it occurred to me that the Pope is the one world leader who consistently, invariably considers the welfare and lives of the poor, the downtrodden, the disadvantaged, above all else. Jesus got it right 2000 years ago. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” His followers have gone astray many times over the years, but his teachings still survive. 

Of course there are others who advocate for equality, and charity for the poor and oppressed. There’s the Dalai Lama, and from what I understand, many Moslems, but I know of no other with the stature and respect as the Pope. So I’m rooting for Leo XIV. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.