R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Critical Path. St. Martin's Press, 1981.
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
The Barbary Pirates had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. American politicians were divided on whether to pay the ransom and an annual tribute or send a military force to try and extract the prisoners and bombard and “punish” the Barbary States for their piracy. While the Americans were debating the problem, Eaton thought that there was contempt for the weakness of America in much of North Africa and the Middle East, and the weakness caused more pirates to join and try and go after American vessels.
Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as "Spaceship Earth", "Dymaxion" (e.g., Dymaxion house, Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map), "ephemeralization", "synergetics", and "tensegrity".
