Two major historical tendencies, on a convergent path for years, are now reaching a historic crossing point. The established culture of modernity has been following a long path of decline, and the rising culture of transmodernity has been inexorably climbing to eclipse it.

The moment of crossover is like a mirror-fold in time, when the ascending upsides and descending downsides meet, converging in a fleeting moment of equal power, which pushes open the door of possibility to its widest extent.

This is a zone of maximum reflexivity, when the feedback of beliefs and intentions into the real situation is more powerful than ever before. This is the real meaning of 2012: it is an amplifier of possibility.

Things could go either way. Now is when our mere attitudes about the future can make a decisive difference. Here is a tipping point in time where we can choose to jump from the down escalator of history onto the up one.

This juncture calls for a pervasive attitude of constructive optimism. It is too late to debate the relative merits of optimistic versus pessimistic views of the future. Now the main risk is getting caught in the downdraft of pessimism, for here is an opening of maximum creativity. The ideas we debate now will crystallize into the template of the era to come – the transmodern civilization being born.

We are about to experience a long moment when events, after rushing at us faster than ever before, suddenly hang suspended in an interval of absolute possibility. During this moment our creativity will be total and our willingness to envision the world to come will be paramount. We must all be ready together to invent the world we want. Then time can restart, for our vision to become real in the years that follow.

The existential challenge as we approach this moment is to let go of all sense of dependence on old ways of doing things. Instead to trust the power of collaborative creativity to find new ways of organising the world that accords with a new prospect of humans as enlightened beings.

We need to frame an economics that has at its core an enlightened view of humans as altruistic and generous. We need to sweep away the old economics founded on a Hobbesian view of mankind as selfish and greedy egotists, which can only give rise to a society that is also selfish, greedy and egotistical.

We need a reformed technology. Our existing technology inhabits the living sphere on this planet, yet it is a regime of mechanical insensitivity. It has lifted our conditions of life, but now it must be lifted up itself before it brings destruction to the realm of life.

We need a shift in our story of the world. We have been living in an industrial culture that explained itself through centre-out mass media. We need to foster a new story about living in an eco-spiritual culture of everywhere-to-everywhere communications fomented by the internet.

Heed the most profound slogan of the Occupy movement – “Occupy Yourself.” It is an invitation to join in spirit the tranformative creative debates of the Occupy movement, embattled in real space but ascendant in virtual social space.

Release your grip on the old ways, or be dragged down as they slip below the surface of history. Reach for the rising newness that delivers on a promise to lift us above the horizon of time.

These are catalytic times. Times when even a powerless fruit seller in Tunisia is able to trigger a wave of geopolitical change. This new year of 2012 is wide open to the future and able to amplify the constructive impulse of every individual. Understand this power as positive creation, rather than fearing its downside image of riotous consumerism.

Be constructive, be optimistic: think upside!

The idea that the existing financial system is doomed seemed to be present from the onset of the global financial crisis four years ago, but it was crowded out by more urgent calls to prevent immediate collapse and restore normal functioning. If we are in fact living through the terminal crisis of the world as we know it, and if we all knew this all along, what’s remarkable is how long it’s taking.

It’s as if we are all in a car hurtling into an unavoidable accident and time has slowed down, so that the whole agonizing process is stretched out in our awareness. So far we’ve been fiddling with various switches on the dashboard, deep in denial about the inevitable fate we are skidding towards. Perhaps this is just as well: I once saw denial in a list of the three most effective responses to being told you have cancer. But what if we look up to take in the view ahead?

Maybe this is the stage we have now reached. What do you do as a society if you’ve spent decades building a global economy with a digital-powered financial system running at warp speed, and suddenly you realize that some really basic things need fixing or the whole thing’s going to be toast?

One problem is the lack of precedent. In the case of a car crash we have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen, because we’ve seen so many before. But what exactly happens when a global financial system fails, and what can be done about it?

Some people are starting to think that the real root of the problem is the system of money and banking itself. In October 2010, Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, suggested in a speech that the remedies for the current malaise included not just breaking up banks, but actually “eliminating fractional reserve banking.” Interest-bearing fiat money lent out on a fractional reserve basis by banks served us well during the 200 years or so of rapid growth to the present global economy. But this may not be the best enabling platform for the coming era of sustainable development-focused economics.

Perhaps some combination of non-fiat money and the power of the Internet can provide solutions fast enough to save us. There are already plenty of examples springing up spontaneously. Zopa.com offers peer-to-peer lending. The green utility Ecotricity is disintermediating banks by raising money directly from its customers. Bitcoin lets you mint your own Internet money. And in Japan, social problems are addressed by creating social money known as “Caring Relationship Tickets.”

So let’s hold onto our seats as the whole field of money fragments and diversifies away from fiat currencies, and hope that this will yank the steering wheel over hard enough to stop the entire global economy nose-diving off a cliff.

A central misconception is the belief that the “hard” sciences are predictive, while the “soft” sciences are not. Joseph Stiglitz was quoted on this point: “If science is defined by its ability to forecast the future, the failure of much of the economics profession to see the crisis coming should be a cause of great concern.” But a hard science such as physics can predict the future only in a very narrow sense. Given certain types of tightly constrained experimental set-up, it can predict specific types of phenomena. But when things get very small, as in quantum physics, even these tightly constrained predictions become probabilistic rather than precise. And when things are very complex, as in complex adaptive systems, fundamental uncertainties enter the picture that make it mathematically impossible to make reliable predictions. Given that the messy realm of human affairs is a complex and therefore uncertain system, the message physics holds for economics is that prediction will not be possible.

So if mainstream economics, rather than suffering from “physics envy,” paid a little more attention to physics itself, it might conclude that the quest for predictive power was a basic error. However, this does not mean that economic thought is not useful. After all, Keynes argued forcefully for the acceptance of fundamental uncertainty about the future, after his experiences running a proto-hedge fund. Nevertheless he forged useful economic theories, not despite unpredictability but because of acknowledging it. This goes some way to explaining his increasing popularity since the economic crisis.

The article compares the predictive ability of physics and economics with a simple example: “buildings constructed according to the laws of physics seem to stand, whereas policies and trading systems constructed according to the ‘laws’ of economics have a nasty habit of collapsing.” But buildings constructed this way only stand under a relatively narrow set of conditions – assumptions about the future – as earthquakes and hurricanes demonstrate. Physics cannot predict that a particular building will stand for a particular length of time. So while economics will never achieve the kind of absolute predictive power that even physics does not have, it might, with a little more humility, achieve policy prescriptions less prone to failure. But to do this, it would have to accept, as Keynes did, that it was working with the grain of unpredictability in the world, not against it.

True to form, while insisting he is an unwavering environmentalist, he is now provocatively arguing that nuclear power, transgenic organisms and cities are all desirable for genuinely pragmatic environmentalists. He prefaced his talk by saying that his book was largely journalistic, and that its conclusions were almost incidental—the stories were the main thing. Readers should feel free to draw different conclusions.

Well, it will be interesting to see how right he is over the years ahead. Listening to him, I almost agreed, but not quite. My hunch is that while biotechnology is certainly not going away, there are still major hurdles to overcome and in retrospect today’s transgenic efforts will look like crude early-stage technology. On nuclear, I agree we are facing an energy crunch with no clear solution, and the future of energy may well be something nuclear-ish, if your definition is elastic enough, but it will probably not be mainly nuclear reactors as we know them today. As for cities, they are certainly filling up fast and he may be right that we are all better off in them, but only if their prodigious footprint can be significantly diminished.

Much of his argument hinges on a pretty dismal view that the planet is going to hell in a huge anthropogenic handbasket and, although I agree up to a point, I am uneasy about some of his specific assumptions on this front. So maybe we should not allow fear to push us too quickly towards all his chosen solutions – I suspect the behaviours and technologies that ultimately succeed on the upside are likely to take a little while longer to emerge and be much more obviously acceptable than their distant forebears that he promotes today.

‘While I appreciate the energy Buckminster Fuller gave to design, the one thing he is not responsible for is the invention of the geodesic dome, though he did perfect it, popularise it, patent it, and invent the name!

The honour of being the first to design a geodesic structure goes to Dr. Walter Bauersfeld chief designer at the Carl Zeiss Optical Works in Jena in 1922 at the time called ‘The Wonder of Jena’ I enclose a copy of its photograph. This structure formed the shell of the Zeiss Planetarium. 25 more were built including one in Chicago in 1930, this became the shell of the first US planetarium, the Alder Planetarium.

Indeed Carl Zeiss and Dyckerhoff & Widmann the firm who build the dome received the US Edward Longstreth Medal in 1938 for the dome construction. All patents and recordings were lost in WW2 when both the Russian and US armies occupied Jena in 1945. Dr. Bauersfeld was among a group of fortunate people brought to West Germany by US troops. Though it is said the the Zeiss company did not patent it as it had a policy that basic findings should be made available to the whole scientific world.’

Ron attached a photograph of the Zeiss dome (below), and it is immediately clear that this is indeed a geodesic dome, with the same great circle geometry as Bucky’s domes – the same alternating pattern of pentagons and hexagons that can be seen in a football. I was aware in general terms that Zeiss had done ’something similar’ but I did not realize until I saw this photograph that it was actually identical. Strictly speaking, Bucky should not have been able to patent the dome at all as it was in the public domain, but these are obviously the spoils of war and ignorance.

So where does that leave our appreciation of Bucky? I tend to agree with Ron, who closed by saying that while this in no way detracts from the greatness of Buckminster Fuller, credit should indeed be given where it is due.

]]> http://www.hardintibbs.com/index.php/2010/05/buckminster-fuller-and-a-slight-case-of-the-not-really-invented-here-syndrome/feed/ http://www.hardintibbs.com/index.php/2010/04/fallout-from-icelandic-disaster-destroys-world-economy/ http://www.hardintibbs.com/index.php/2010/04/fallout-from-icelandic-disaster-destroys-world-economy/#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 11:43:17 +0000 Hardin http://www.hardintibbs.com/?p=1039

That hypothetical headline, which almost seemed possible in 2008, could yet lie in the future for reasons that have nothing to do with the financial crisis. An erupting volcano in Iceland has caused the total closure of UK airspace for three days so far, along with other European countries, which is apparently unprecedented since World War II. Here in London today the skies are blissfully clear - both of aircraft, clouds and any visible sign of volcanic dust. But things were dramatically worse in 1783, when an Icelandic volcanic eruption blanketed Europe in a ‘dry fog’ for months.

In 1783 the Laki volcano erupted ten times between June 8th and the end of October, and the prevailing weather conditions swept an ash cloud across the whole of Europe, reaching as far as Moscow and Baghdad. After a stifling summer in Europe, the dust had altered weather patterns enough to cause temperatures to plunge that winter and the following year, resulting in famines as far away as Egypt and Japan, where the cold destroyed the rice harvest and a million people died. In America, Charleston harbour froze over and ice floes were carried down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico.

If these conditions were repeated again now, it is not an exaggeration to say that the present world economy would be destroyed. The million or two passengers delayed in the last three days are a pinprick compared to the events of 1783. This is a case where nature has already written a far more dramatic scenario than even the most daring scenario-writer would think plausible. To read more of the gruesome details and imagine the impact in today’s world, see this article published by the Economist in 2007.

It is interesting to trace the connection between Toyota’s recent troubles and faulty strategic self-perception. As a Prius owner myself, I had already discovered the slight electronic glitches on ice and over potholes, but they seemed relatively insignificant and I had shrugged them off (although admittedly my car is the earlier version).

A bigger part of the problem in my estimation is that Toyota does not know what to do after ultimate success. Having become the world’s biggest carmaker in 2008, by October 2009 president Akio Toyoda said in a speech that the company was one step away from ‘capitulation to irrelevance or death.’ He was quoting the final stage of Jim Collins’ five step framework in How the Mighty Fall.

If your overriding goal is to be number one, you are in danger of losing your way if you succeed. Like NASA after landing a man on the moon, you will have no idea what to do for an encore. Toyota would have been better off heeding one of Jim Collins’ earlier books, in which he suggested that a company’s goal should be a combination of star and mountain. The star is the enduring purpose that provides lasting direction, while the mountain is a challenge to be achieved.

Toyota seems to have taken the mountain for a star, and having reached the summit did not know what to do next. From there it was a short step to strategic suicide. Toyoda’s speech was not so much a signal that something really bad had happened, to quote a recent column in the FT, but was itself a spell-like invocation of doom.

Looking into the future often seems like watching a shifting reflection in a distorting mirror. In the last year, we have moved from the prospect of worsening global financial meltdown to a recovery that is presenting at least the appearance of normality.

Under the surface things are not so reassuring. It feels uncomfortably as if this part of the world has shot itself resoundingly in both feet, and its power is ebbing away. This applies to both the US and the UK, but the UK in particular seems to have nowhere to go in conventional economic terms. For the moment it is living on borrowed time, waiting for the full consequences to play out.

Nevertheless, as one thing ends another inevitably begins. Focusing on the aspect in decline can make it seem like the end of the world. Turning to the aspects of newness and promise reveals a new world in the making, one utterly unlike the world of the last hundred years. As the adage has it, things are getting worse and worse and better and better at the same time.

Conventionally, commentary such as this tracks the gyrations of business as usual, but what to do when the party is over and a hangover is imminent? The coming decade will not be a time to hold on to old ways of thinking and acting. This is a time to be tracing the outlines of the new – and I hope this blog can make a contribution. There is enormous promise hidden in the confusion of what humanity has achieved so far, and I am convinced a way of living is in prospect that can resolve the confusion and deliver on the promise. My personal New Year/New Decade resolution is to help in piecing together a new and optimistic vision for what is possible.

As we enter this new decade, we are at a tipping point between civilizations, a prospect that is both exhilarating and terrifying. Let us hold fast to optimism and see this as a time of birth and celebration. Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

Earlier this week there were two signals that the oil price is threatening to return to dangerous levels as economic growth begins to pick up. On Monday, the FT reported that forward oil prices are now $20 higher than two years ago, even though spot prices are much lower. And on Tuesday, the Guardian reported allegations by a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency in Paris that the agency has been underplaying the rate of oilfield decline, while overplaying the chance of finding new oil – suggesting that the peaking of global oil production is much closer than they previously maintained.

This news is exactly what would be expected if the world actually is entering the zone of the global oil production peak.

Nevertheless, even if we knew the supply situation accurately, the peak itself could not be predicted at a fixed moment in the future. Depending on whether economic growth is higher or lower, the peak is effectively smeared out over a longer period of time or concentrated closer. Peak oil and oil-intensive economic growth are locked in a see-saw relationship.

This means the approaching peak may well trigger a dynamic process that can already be seen underlying the events of 2007–2008. The sequence would go like this. The onset of the peak initially constrains economic growth by shocking the system into recession through oil price rises. For a while, recession makes the oil problem recede as prices fall.

Then, when the world economy begins to pick up, growing consumption runs head-on into limited oil availability again, pushing prices back up and stalling the recovery. Repeated episodes of this stop-start pattern would force the economy lower each time, following the downslope of global oil production. That is, if the economy is not derailed entirely by the second or third jolt.

If the world economy and energy consumption contract in this way, so will carbon dioxide emissions, to the point where there will not be enough carbon going into the atmosphere to achieve anywhere close to business-as-usual carbon dioxide emission projections.

This would not make current efforts to achieve a low-carbon economy redundant. Ultimately, the savings involved may have their real payoff in helping the world adapt to a progressive decline in oil production. So in this scenario, low carbon technologies and practices still promise to be a source of lasting economic security, even if for different reasons than we currently suppose.