The Critical Engineering Manifesto

[freebeard]

Yeah, but freebeard, though flying cars are cool, maybe, there is no analysis of power in the project and no repositioning of the reader to analyze the world we must drive through tomorrow and the day after. And while Fuller surely felt confident that his age knee the laws governing the universe well known, I am not sure physicists of our age would say the same, now that they have experimentally demonstrated "spooky action at a distance."

'Flying car' was misdirected, he called it an 'omni-directional transport'. Amphibian would have come before flying. And of course flying cars are a Bad Idea.

Rather than theories of political power, Fuller was concerned with the power of the sovereign individual.

"Call me Trim Tab" — Buckminster Fuller ... - Sloww
https://www.sloww.co/trim-tab-buckminster-fuller/
Why did Buckminster Fuller say, "Call me Trim Tab"? Apparently it originated in a 1972 interview where Bucky Fuller says the following (emphasis added in bold): Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Elizabeth again: The whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder.

Buckminster Fuller's Common Sense Philosophy of Life ...
https://hackernoon.com/buckminster-f...e-8825310732e2
Buckminster Fuller's work was diverse and prolific, but there was an approach and a set of principles as the common thread. His work as an inventor, theorist, designer, and philosopher was all predicated on the value of viewing things in their appropriate context, which was usually a much larger context like the planet, our species, and the universe.

The only contemporary that he wasn't dismissive of was Albert Einstein. Synergetics falsifies Euclid [FFS].

[aerohead]

I believe that this is where this thread is headed if we were to fully explore it.
The adult conversation necessary to cover and accurately characterize the spectrum of players involved would place it far outside of bounds of comfort for many participants. Civility would be a near-impossibility.
I'm leaving now. Best to all.

[freebeard]

EcoModder not ready for flying cars?

OP could petition the authorities to move it to The Lounge.

[freebeard]

Not closed yet?

Originally Posted by Grant-53

I look at this manifesto as having language and assumptions with a particular humanist flavor... Technology as material objects have no sense of morality. Economic and social goals that employ technology have moral implications.

I'd pointed to humanism at Permalink #17:

Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements which have identified with it.[1] Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. It views humans as solely responsible for the promotion and development of individuals and emphasizes a concern for man in relation to the world.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

I think the tension between individually and collectively is at play here. Critical Theory works for the collective, Synergetics for the individual.

The closest analog I see to Fuller's philosophy at the moment is Eric Weinstein's Unitary Geometry. But I don't see what, if any, common ground may exist between the two. Here's Eric Weinstein giving it his best shot with Joe Rogan: Eric Weinstein’s Controversial New Approach to Theoretical Physics

He resorts to sports analogies. 'The stands and the pitch' is parsable but doesn't convey the difference between 4 and 14 dimensions. Fuller would point out that it takes 6 (or 12) restraints to immobilize something in 'four dimensions'. I'd love top see a rap battle between the two of them. Best comment:

Fabian Duran 2 months ago
This is the layman’s explanation

Most physicists working on unification are trying to create a quantum version of general relativity, informed by the list of particles in the standard model of physics. Weinstein believes we should instead start with the basic geometric tools of general relativity and work at extending the equations in mathematically natural ways, without worrying whether they fit with the observable universe. Once you have such equations in hand, you can try to match them up with reality. At the heart of Weinstein’s theory is the “observerse”, a 14-dimensional space that contains our familiar four-dimensional world (three dimensions of space plus one of time). The extra dimensions arise naturally by extending the mathematics of the original four, which appear in general relativity as the diagonal entries in a four-by-four matrix, he says...

More to the point of the social implications of advanced technologies:

"The street finds its own uses for things."

William Gibson — Burning Chrome

[California98Civic]

Again, I just don't want to have a conversation politics, which is where "political power" and "sovereign individual" and "collectivity" takes us. I respect your interest in that stuff, freebeard, but I don't want to touch hot buttons like that. This is a general efficiency discussion focused on self-consciously critical thinking about technology and our relationships with it. Fuller is a pretty good example, I am learning.

Buckminster Fuller seems to me to have keyed his work to much more than just individuals. His vision of future technologies was a vision of a different future for all. That is a technological vision that is also a social vision. The Dymaxion was also a high fuel economy car, and it was not conceived as a production prototype. It was an idea promoting concept car and a deconstruction/reconstruction of the concept of a car. Hardly a practical or safe road car, the thing is almost better understood as the marriage of art and technology. That is not entirely different from this Critical Engineering gig, which emphasizes hacking ideas and objects of technological dependence for demonstrations that make people think differently and more conscientiously about their lived experience with technology.

I think a lot of our EM hacking for fuel efficiency is like that, too. Or almost like that. My own car is part art and part technological (not especially good as either, I know).

Here is another great YouTube channel. Here is a dude breaking down and reusing Tesla's "power wall" branding, using the detritus of disposable electronics, making highly functional stuff. His EV VWs are cool, too, speaking of "general efficiency discussion"! In this video he does some cool teaching. He is a hacker, and a great one. It is not Fuller and it is probably not critical engineering, but it is close to the latter in some ways, I think.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIYPr4eKFFQ

[freebeard]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcM...uSa49DJFYltOTw

Fuller is a pretty good example, I am learning.

An hero to us all*.

That is not entirely different from this Critical Engineering gig, which emphasizes hacking ideas and objects of technological dependence for demonstrations that make people think differently and more conscientiously about their lived experience with technology.

Car Hacker's handbook.



I watched the first few seconds of JehuGarcia. I've been following him since he stitched together that Frankenstein 23-window and drove it to Buses by the Bay. A very inspirational person.

* You don't want to plunge into Critical Path or Synergetics I&II cold. He wrote a children's book [Tetrascroll: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, A Cosmic Fairy Tale (1975)]. The book that open the World's eye was [Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1968) ISBN 0-8093-2461-X]

Else you can TL;DR and go to [Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity (1992) coauthor Kiyoshi Kuromiya, ISBN 0-02-541850-5]

[California98Civic]

The Car Hacker's Handbook was interesting enough to distract me from the research & writing I get paid to do.

In their introduction they offer up their own "manifesto" (though they don't call it that). Here are the six points in what they call the reasons "Why Car Hacking Is Good for All of Us." Some of it is quite like the C.E. Manifesto in spirit, though its not the same, for sure.

1) Understanding How Your Vehicle Works
"You’ll be better able to diagnose and troubleshoot problems."

2) Working on Your Vehicle’s Electrical Systems
"Automotive electronics systems are typically closed off to all but the dealership mechanics... Learning how your vehicle’s electronics work can help you bypass this barrier."

3) Modifying Your Vehicle
"Understanding how vehicles communicate can lead to better modifications, like improved fuel consumption and use of third-party replacement parts."

4) Discovering Undocumented Features
"Discovering undocumented or disabled features and utilizing them lets you use your vehicle to its fullest potential." This will piss off the automakers because it is implicitly an assault on their profits. Those switch-on electronic features are probably often upgrades they want you to pay extra for. Must be wickedly profitable.

5) Validating the Security of Your Vehicle
They write in part that "if you learn how to hack your car, you’ll know where your vehicle is vulnerable so that you can take precautions and be a better advocate for higher safety standards."

6) Helping the Auto Industry
This one seems to have been written for the lawyers and the PR people of the world. Somebody tell Pollyanna to ring the dinner bell.

So much of the spirit of this list is in my mind similar to what one sees in the C.E. Manifesto and in some of what I am reading about Buckminster Fuller. They all place an emphasis on individual and common good (more like Fuller but also like the CE statement) and there is a transgressive attitude (more like the C.E. statement but Fuller also had transgressive tendencies). All three are not all that interested in profits.

I think they're all very much like the ethos here on EcoModder, where in pursuit of fuel economy, fun, and ecological benefits, we hack mechanically, aerodynamically, and electronically.

A quote from Fuller by a writer of a recent book about him:
"To make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone."
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/buckmi...ilicon-valley/

[freebeard]

That quote is Bucky in a nutshell.

I'm glad you see the connection between the three.

Car Hacker's Handbook is in the spirit of the free and open source software movement. The big proponents there are Richard Stallman and Eric S. Raymond. What do you think about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VHf5vpBy8

Eben Moglen has quite a play list.

The world we live in today was created when Tim Berners-Lee set aside endless riches and put the intellectual property of HyperTextMarkupLanguage in the public domain.

[California98Civic]

"The Turtle" is a collaborative prototype truck that certainly has aspects of engineering for the common good. These workers in Kumasi, Ghana define an efficient car is one that does not break often, is simply engineered for ease of repair, and can carry heavy loads across rough roads all day. But maybe the truck does pretty good on fuel, too. It is quite small and slow.

A master craftman on the site with whom the film makers spoke:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oRmdpGPdwCo

Here is one of the car builders talking about test driving the car:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4t660pz5Evs

The project started about 2013 when two Dutch film makers went to Ghana to follow automotive waste exports from the EU. They end up in one of Ghana's grassroots industrial districts. There they meet workers and collaborate on a vehicle that the local workers view as relevant and maximally useful.

Reports in 2013 were that the there were Dutch institutions interested in the project and an industrial training program. But it does not look like the project went any further than prototype.

I have been to a couple smaller such industrial sites in Ghana. They are amazing.

[freebeard]

Reminds me of Gordon Murray's OX.

The OX - Gordon Murray Design
https://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/e...evious/ox.html
The result of the collaboration between the Global Vehicle Trust and Gordon Murray Design is the OX - an all-terrain lightweight truck designed to tackle the transport crisis in the developing world. Its revolutionary flat-pack design makes delivery fast, efficient and inexpensive. The OX can carry a payload of nearly two tonnes, seat up to ...

How about: https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts. We’re developing open source industrial machines that can be made at a fraction of commercial costs, and sharing our designs online for free.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiHouse

WikiHouse enables users to download Creative Commons-licensed building plans from its online library, customize them using SketchUp, and then use them to create jigsaw puzzle-like pieces out of plywood with a CNC router.[1][7] Construction of WikiHouse structures requires no special parts because the cut pieces of wood snap together with wedge and peg connections inspired by classical Korean architecture.[11][12] The frame of a WikiHouse can be assembled in less than a day by people with no formal training in construction.[11] The frame must then be finished with cladding, insulation, wiring, and plumbing before it can be inhabited.[2][12] The WikiHouse project is maintained by Open Systems Lab.[13]