A FB article written by my friend Jackson Yeow which I thought was worthwhile sharing with my friends.
The GRUNCH of Giants,
by R Buckminster Fuller.
Written in 1981, against the backdrop of the cold war between USA and the USSR, whence the latter attained an alarming multi-to-one ratio in their traditional air, army and navy forces against their counterpart, and where the former was busy researching and mass producing atomic warheads to deter their "enemies" and establish their weaponry superiority, and with the USSR also chasing behind with not only an equally earth-shattering number of atomic warheads but also precise geodetic data of each critical US target, this 64 paged book, 3 hour read, written by Buckminster Fuller brings the world a whole new perspective that for the first time in human history we have the technological knowhow to drastically improve each single human's standard of living to a never before imagined comfort level, all supported by the abundance of Mother Earth's resources. That is, if we do not commit race suicide by "pressing the button" first.
75,000 people, or one stadium-full of people – that was the amount of casualties directly impacted by the first atomic bomb ever unleashed onto humanity, in Japan. The mere thought of that is extremely cruel and excruciatingly painful and saddening. Yet, more than 75,000 people starve to death on Earth EACH DAY despite an abundance of food and food wastage. Such is the ridiculous irony of some of humanity, to be so egoic as to push forward with ever more nuclear warheads by "robbing" its citizens of their past, current and future taxes and livingry benefits and pumping that same amount into weaponry. All that was achieved was to accumulate ever more power at an ever increasing rate to end all of humanity in one hour.
Bucky proclaimed repeatedly that if humanity did not commit race suicide by "pressing the button" first, that this second humanity-threatening issue of starvation is easily solvable, except there are giants blocking the path of an one-race human evolution. The GRUNCH of Giants, or GRoss UNiverse Cash Heist by Giants, literally refers to the unnamed, unseen, unbeknownst and nonhumane cross-countries corporations which have over the centuries perfected their capitalism knowhow to usurp more and more power for their own interests and robbing its citizens in broad daylight.
Dr Buckminster Fuller goes on to condense 30,000 years of human history into a couple of chapters including explaining amongst many things why humanity came to accept a home as "property", land as "real estate" in the sense of "real" as in "royalty", how the East India company came to formation, how the current banking system started way back in the days, how humans from Southeast Asia arrived by rafts on the western shores of current day North America and South America via the seemingly out-of-mind Polynesia-Japan Current-North America route, how the Morgan corporation stood to profit from World War I and eventually grew to become one of the Giants GRUNCH-ing its own citizens through a cleverly design scheme now known as inflation, which really means deflation of the dollar's buying power.
My biggest takeaway is the excerpt of Henry Ford Senior, the founder of the Ford company, where Bucky claims the great man had an inspiring proposition to "make sense" in his original mission to empower farmers to transport their goods in a faster manner, and fought hard to buy back the company's shares at great economic costs from its financial backers who were pushing Ford to "make profits". Whereas the founder ensured every economic success and profits went directly into upgrading with better equipment and manufacturing ever higher quality vehicles at more affordable prices, his successor-son and grandson completely lost sight of his original mission and sought after "making more profits" in the company's later years. "Making sense" and "making profits", Bucky wrote, was mutually exclusive. I contemplated on that for a long while, and thought about how businesses can strike a balance between the two mutually exclusive ends. Bucky reminded that the Giants are much like the later-years Ford – all for "making profits", whereas he also specifically shared his opinion that Japanese companies have stayed true to their roots of adding value to humanity, seemingly "making sense" while "making some profits", I am heartened to know I am guided along Bucky's path.
This book is full of critical historical insights and is an inspiration for humanity to think and act from a larger perspective and from a higher point. Be forewarned – Once you start reading, you may find it hard to stop for our dear Bucky has written in an absolutely engaging time-leaping manner where each sentence is turbo-charged and heavily weighted – your brains might be bonged out of its current vibrations. It certainly inspired me to read his other books, Critical Path and Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.
with love,
Jackson Yeow
P.S. i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did, enjoy your weekend! :) <3 _/|\_
