Buckminster Fuller used this phrase to describe what he was doing, the role he was playing in our World.
As far as he could discern during his lifetime, no one else was doing what he was doing. No one else had decided to take the same path and pursue the same goals that he had.
As far as I know, Fuller remains the only one.
In a statement he wrote, published in the Saturday Review in March of 1968, he described what he was trying to do: “…I seek through comprehensive anticipatory design science… to reform the environment…” in such a way that “…will both permit and induce all humanity to realize full lasting economic and physical success plus enjoyment of all the Earth without one individual interfering with or being advantaged at the expense of another.”
The role he describes is more than that of a politician, or a scientist, an inventor, or a designer. He’s describing a different way to approach the large and complex problems we face as a species.
Our World is a complex system of complex systems. No one person is going to be able to fix it alone. But it may be that if enough people take on the role that Buckminster Fuller did and work toward success for all humanity, that kind of future could emerge from the chaos.
