R. Buckminster Fuller: Where Will the World Be in 2025

You ask: “Where will the world be in 2025?” Sometimes people use the word world and mean the entire universe - as in the phrase “the most beautiful girl in the world”, sometimes in a much narrower sense, for example when they say “in the world of sports”, but I will assume that you mean the planet Earth along with all the people who are bound to it by gravity on its 510 million square kilometers of surface. If that aligns with your definition of the world, then my answer is: “The world will still revolve around the Sun, and the Sun and its planets will rotate together with the galactic system.” Whether the unique chemical components of human beings will still be organized in an anthropomorphic way and will still serve healthily the immaterial, wonderful phenomenon of life aboard the spaceship Earth is an unpredictable matter, either yes or no. Whether humans will still be alive on our planet will, however, be answered by cosmic evolution as early as 1985. We don’t need to wait for an answer until 2025. Human beings, unlike all other phenomena, have been endowed with a mind, with which they can discover the abstract, immaterial principles that operate in the universe. They can utilize these principles to understand and thoughtfully handle information of exclusively mathematical character concerning the chemistry and physics of the cosmos, as manifested in stars billions of light-years away from planet Earth. In contrast to the unique ability of the human mind to discover general and only mathematically communicable relationships between the complexly interchanging geometric, chemical, and physical properties of any individual part of a complex system, and not within these parts themselves, human brains operate much like the brains of other creatures but with differences, with unique colors, sounds, dimensions, touches, feelings, and smells of individual perceptions. The mind, however, deals with eternal supra-sensory graspable, covariant, interlinked principles. This ability has been granted to us humans so that we may function as local problem solvers of cosmic issues.
We are here to solve the evolutionarily occurring, unprecedented, metaphysical and physical problems. And this is possible due to our unique approach to the inventory of eternal principles discovered so far.
The universe is eternally regenerating; it is constantly transforming in accordance with abstract, immaterial principles, of which (as far as we know) only the human mind is aware.
Now, at the end of 1974, muscles and power completely dominate world affairs. The world pays two boxers three million dollars to pummel each other for a few dozen minutes in front of television cameras. The winner is then praised by the US Congress. He’s a good man, and so far, so good. However, no television celebrates the much more grand metaphysical battle of all the heroes quietly devoted to truth and love, who sacrifice themselves for others every day. For the last twenty years, the world powers have spent 200 billion annually on armament and only negligible amounts on alleviating poverty. The best-armed control the world's wealth. Power and muscles are clearly still in the saddle.
Whether human beings will still be on our planet depends on whether the mind will turn this state of affairs around and successfully gain complete control over muscles and physical force in general. Then the world will finally be governed by people and for people.
People will live aboard our planet Earth in the twenty-first century only if the struggle for survival is completely overcome by ensuring enough life support and shelter for all individuals.
Only under these conditions can people function as competent problem solvers of the universe. That is why they were created. Only if Abraham Lincoln’s “right” takes the place of “power” will humanity survive aboard our planet in the twenty-first century. And if so, it will remain here for countless other millennia. Humanity is undergoing its final test of whether it can qualify for its cosmic function, and thus for staying aboard our planet.
We do not need to point only to the year 2025, which is half a century ahead of us, as that leaves much room for speculation and predictions, which are appealing for journalists to write about. The question is whether humanity will even enter the twenty-first century. If it does, the acceleration of unprecedented, entirely unforeseen, and incredibly large technological, economic, and social changes will be almost (but not necessarily) destructive. People are not on the surface of our miniature planet merely to experience pleasure or disappointment. Technology developed by the human mind has now captured photographs of a billion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars surrounding a miniature planet within an observable range of 11 billion light-years. 99.9 percent of these stars are invisible to the human eye. Before the end of the twentieth century, humans may travel from their base, the spaceship Earth, to various local problem centers in the universe and broadcast from there via radio. Broadcasting via radio means traveling at a speed of 1.08 billion kilometers per hour and thus fulfilling the role of a local cosmic problem solver.
If people pass their cosmic test as local problem solvers of the universe and endure on the planet into the 21st century, there will no longer be problems with earning a living. Thoughts will not revolve around corporate competition, money, lies, or just around such words. These phenomena will be historically surpassed. Words like politics, war, weapons, or debt will hold only historical significance.
Electronic means will at that time be highly developed to smoothly map the thoughts of all humanity, its will, and inclinations concerning current issues. Humanity will always know what the unique will of the majority is for each currently named and considered issue.
There will exist a single world administrative organization functioning similarly to city management in present-day United States but significantly enhanced. This unified management will receive instructions directly from computer readings of the will of the majority. When the majority discovers that a given decision leads humanity into problems, the general understanding of the situation will immediately be apparent in the computer, and world management will adjust its direction accordingly. This feedback servomechanism is the same as that used in the automatic control of airplanes and ships. The prevailing view will be immediately accommodated by the management as soon as a faulty decision is revealed, without the need to designate a scapegoat.
People who are employed in the production of common wealth or in research and development will do their work willingly, as it will align with their wishes. They will qualify for membership in any production team just as athletes qualify today to participate in the Olympics. What is in surplus will be generally shareable. What is scarce will be permitted to use only for the benefit of all and for research tools and processing machines that produce sufficient end products for humanity.
Humanity will enjoy not only the Earth but also a great deal of the surrounding universe. “Where do you live?” “On the Moon” or “On the spaceship Earth” will be common answers.
A significant number of human beings will engage in archaeological research, as humanity will need to know much more about the historical settlement of our Earth by humans. Important original buildings of ancient history will be rebuilt or restored, just as Babylon is being restored today, and artifacts from surrounding museums will be returned to their original places, functioning as they did in ancient times. Research teams can then experientially live in various periods of historical dominance to help clarify some of the wisdom accumulated in previous times.
Even though people will largely know what others think, individuality will not cease to exist; rather, it will be strengthened. What people spontaneously think as a result of the interaction of unique, genetically conditioned patterns with their own experiences will only add to the interest of individual personalities. Intuition will be encouraged. Communication will likely happen through thought itself, ergo faster and more realistically than through sound and words.
Versatile considerate, complex integrity will become the aesthetic criterion, and human designs created with its aid will be capable of achieving much with minimal resources. They will reach a fragile beauty that until then could only be seen in nature and its construction of flowers, crystals, stars, and in the pure love of a child.
Whether humanity passes the tests for such a future depends on me and you, and not on someone we elect or who elects themselves to represent us. We will have to make every decision, big and small, based on thorough self-reflection, which will indicate whether it is something truly important for many people or just for one person. If the latter prevails, the "curtain" will soon fall for everyone.
We are approaching the most fundamental revolution in history. If you bring those above down and it becomes bloody, we all lose. If it is a revolution of design that elevates those below along with everyone else to unprecedented heights, then everyone will live to see a moment when they dare to spontaneously speak, live, and love the truth, however unlikely that may often seem.