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.