Buckminster Fuller’s Hall of Mirrors

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/buckminster-fuller-alec-nevela-lee-biography/

by Hooke • 3 years ago

40 21 3 years ago

Lets quit talking about this bunkum artist who's only talent was self-promotion. Folks eulogizing him often mention this, and never explain why they go on to repeat his hoaxes and bragging.

Let him go. He did nothing of note.

causi• 3 years ago

Careful there. Buckminster Fuller is on the list of "people HN readers irrationally worship, any criticism of whom will make your comment hit -4 in about ten minutes." Fuller had a lot of brilliant ideas but like any human he also had some idiotic ones, but around here people will bend over backwards and tie his words into knots trying to justify all of his opinions.

mdp20213• 3 years ago

criticism

Though in this case no criticism seems detectable. I would not confuse that with sentencing.

xylophile• 3 years ago

Even the brightest minds are not immune to the human tendency to force everything through a black/white filter. Buckminster, like Elon, and like many other people/topics, must be either a demon or a saint. Tribalism ensues.

zokier2• 3 years ago

Some choice quotes from the article:

This gave him a reputation early on for being a jack of all trades but master of none. The notable exception, perhaps, was his knack for self-promotion
Fuller claimed it was the first streamlined automobile in history, which the author points out is simply not true
Hubris is a constant theme in Nevala-Lee’s portrait of Fuller
Nonetheless, Inventor of the Future is a welcome reassessment of Fuller’s contributions to design, science, and mathematics

mdp20213• 3 years ago

Clifford A. Pickover, for example, seems to be of a different opinion, as he includes Buckminster Fuller's tensegrity systems in the milestones of Physics.

Edit: I will make the comment clearer:

these should not be polls. It is bewildering that one can think of just sharing "I have a bad opinion of Tamerlan". Then you find somebody who declared having a good opinion of Tamerlan. And no progress is made. It does not matter that for the specific point Clifford Pickover was ill informed - that is not the point. There is no sense in making this a "Ok, all those who have a good idea of Tamerlan raise your hand... Ok, now all of those who have a _bad opinion_, of Tamerlan... Good. Back to business now. We meet tomorrow for Gengis Khan".

zokier2• 3 years ago

Regarding tensegrity:

He shamelessly stole ideas from talented students too: Fuller claimed for decades that he invented the principles of “tensegrity,” which was another specialized term he coined to describe structural systems of isolated components under compression held within a matrix of continuous tension. In reality, he observed and copied this idea from the work of then-student Kenneth Snelson, who went on to have a successful career in his own right as a sculptor. Yet Snelson never fully forgave his mentor for claiming authorship of his discovery

yborg• 3 years ago

FTA: "He shamelessly stole ideas from talented students too: Fuller claimed for decades that he invented the principles of “tensegrity,” which was another specialized term he coined to describe structural systems of isolated components under compression held within a matrix of continuous tension. In reality, he observed and copied this idea from the work of then-student Kenneth Snelson, who went on to have a successful career in his own right as a sculptor."

njharman• 3 years ago

Other relentless self-promoters, Edison, Jobs, Musk. If you don't have the talent to get many people to listen to you, then you can't change the world (Or, at least have no control over how you change the world which is kind of worse).

mdp20213• 3 years ago

Worrisome example: you mentioned there a guy who died around the same day of Dennis Ritchie. Changed the world. Measured self-promoter.

TeMPOraL• 3 years ago

If you don't have the talent to get many people to listen to you, then you can't change the world (Or, at least have no control over how you change the world which is kind of worse).

And/or the change you caused will be attributed to whoever can get people to listen.

eutropia• 3 years ago

Fiction is often more inspiring than reality. There are many ideas he swept into his personal reputation that inspired me when I was younger, and Fuller operating as a locus lead me from one popular idea (the architectural geodesic dome) to others, including things like sustainable architecture, the optimistic marriage of industrial efficiency with social good, the so-called "dymaxion projection" in cartography and on. I might not have been exposed to those ideas at that time - perhaps I still could have found those ideas if Fuller was generous with credit, and that would have been the more virtuous thing, but here I am nonetheless.

So as an adult I can sit here and stoically accept that cynicism has (rightly) claimed another public figure, but simpler stories worked well when I was younger. Fuller's reputation inspired me to be multifaceted/multidisciplinary and creative within the realms of STEM, and made it seem possible in our ever more complicated era.

jcrawfordor• 3 years ago

Buckminster Fuller has always reminded me a great deal of Ted Nelson. His "Dymaxion Chronofile" even invites the comparison to Xanadu. Both had some interesting ideas, but both were far better at talking about them than implementing them... and seem like they kept secrets principally to avoid having to clearly articulate their plans.

jollyllama• 3 years ago

Heads up: there's not an actual hall of mirrors in this article.

blitzar• 3 years ago

I was wondering if this was the hall of mirrors from John Wick 2 ... there was no hall of mirrors.

leashless• 3 years ago

A friend of mine figured out a much better way of building medium-sized domes (28' across) using whole and half sheets of standard 4x8 building materials.

https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecological_Building/Hex...

Fuller is an inspiration, not a terminus. We can build on and improve his work.

mcdonje• 3 years ago

Fuller is an inspiration, not a terminus. We can build on and improve his work.

He would agree. "Call me Trim Tab" - Fuller

_aleph2c_• 3 years ago

I was surprised by how the author called out Fuller's race at the end of the article as if that had to do with anything. The article read well up to that point, I was being convinced of his thesis. But after seeing his race comment tagged on at the end, I have to discount Martinez's whole presentation; there is a high probability it's just another woke hit-piece. I wish he would have put the racial stuff at the beginning of his writing so I could have ignored him sooner.

pinewurst• 3 years ago

It sadly attaches wokeness to a very complete, well-written biography that carries none of that political/religious baggage. Though seeing that it was in The Nation should alert one to an agenda.

UniverseHacker• 3 years ago

We've been consistently getting a lot of 'cancel Fuller' posts on here, which have wrong details and ad-hominem attacks. This article even stoops as low as using a race based ad-hominem.

For the last few of these on here, I wrote a detailed response pointing out the misinformation. I am just going to link some of those here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083498

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32513327

cxr• 3 years ago

If you have something specific that the author has gotten wrong, perhaps you should state what it is.

You write:

Yet another article about Fuller that categorically dismisses his ideas and historical importance based on a few shallow misunderstandings that likely came from reading other shallow summaries rather than actually reading his work.

It's hardly shallow. Nevala-Lee's book is well-sourced, and the author worked closely with the BFI. The error seems to have been that past writers' MO was to uncritically take Fuller's claims (even the mutually contradictory ones—of which the book documents many) at face value.

The best evidence of shallow reading and speculative guesswork connected to this article, ironically, is the one I quoted above...

Buckminster Fuller’s Hall of Mirrors

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