Each year, the Buckminster Fuller Institute awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve one of humanity’s most pressing problems. This prize program is a call to the world's artists, scientists, designers, architects, engineers, students, and entrepreneurs committed to playing a transformative role in addressing the biggest issues we face today, attracting an international, interdisciplinary pool of participants tackling a vast array of pressing problems in hundreds of countries around the world.
The Gifting Earth is a 2013 Entrant in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge.
Buckminster Fuller Challenge Application Questions
The following are my answers as submitted on April 12, 2013. The answers were strictly limited in length (from 50 words to 350 words). My answers for most of the questions were near the word limit.
Summarize your proposal:
The Gifting Earth is a free world-wide community website that enables its users to easily help others and to be easily helped by others through the gifting and sharing of: Goods, Services, Knowledge, and Compassion.
Describe the critical need your solution seeks to address and its impact on both the local and global system:
Why The Gifting Earth?
We humans are really one people. We share one earth—breathe one air—drink one water.
The impact of our human oneness means that we are an interdependent species—we are at our best when we work together and trust each other.
Sometimes I will need your help, and sometimes you will need mine.
How does it work?
The Gifting Earth is based on one rule: Be Love.
If you choose to Be Love then you can only Do Good, and if you only Do Good, you will discover that your community so values you that it will insure that you Have Everything you need and want.
What is it?
Imagine a world where Co-Operation has displaced Market — a world where GIFTors and GIFTees have displaced sellers and buyers.
In your role as a GIFTor, you will help others within the community. In your role as a GIFTee, you will be helped by other members within the community.
So Be Love, Do Good, and Have Everything.
The Gifting Earth is online now. You can join today.
The design and organization of The Gifting Earth is based on synergic science. The word synergy derives from two Greek roots: erg meaning “to work,” and syn meaning “together;” hence, the term synergy simply means "working together."
Synergic science is the study of working together. It reveals a relatively simple solution to our present human difficulties. That solution requires that we work together and act responsibly.
The best organizations – the most efficient, the most productive and those wherein the members are the most happy – are those organizations where the participants have win-win relationships with each other.
In synergic science, a tensegrity is the pattern that results when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other. The pull is continuous and the push is discontinuous. The continuous pull is balanced by the discontinuous push producing an integrity of tension and compression. This creates a powerful self-stabilizing system.
We humans have needs that are continuously pulling on us to be met. To meet these needs, we or an other working on our behalf, must provide discontinuous actions in response to those needs.
While our needs continuously pull on us, actions are the discontinuous pushes to meet those needs. Humans can use this self-stabilizing system to have positive relationships with each other. We can form gifting tensegrities, where we are continuously being helped, and where we are discontinuously helping others.
A "gifting tensegrity" or GIFTegrity is the engine that powers The Gifting Earth.
We humans are an interdependent species. That means we need each other.
There have been three initiatives used by we humans during our history to obtain the help that we need — Conflict, Market, and Co-Operation.
CONFLICT –def–> The struggle to avoid loss – the struggle to avoid being hurt. We can force others help us – adversary help.
MARKET –def–> The bartering to insure that the exchange is fair – to insure that the price is not too high or too low – to insure that neither party loses. We can pay others to help us – neutral help.
Co-OPERATION –def–> Operating together to insure that both parties win, and that neither party loses. The negotiation to insure that both parties are helped, and that neither party is hurt. We can help others freely and unconditionally and trust that when we need help, others will help us – synergic help.
The Gifting Earth is an initiative to institutionalize human co-Operation, it is designed to allow only win-win synergic relationships.
The Gifting Earth is a demonstration project. It is to show our brothers and sisters the power and benefits of Co-Operation — of working together — of synergic interdependence.
Abraham, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus understood the underlying connectedness of all humanity. Their admonitions to us contain high awareness of our synergic interdependence. This is why they taught us not to kill, not to steal, not to molest, not to fraud, not to coerce.
They understood that the Conflict of adversity was not for humankind. They understood that the neutrality of Market was not for humankind. They taught us to be our brother's keeper — to love one another — to embrace Co-Operation.
Adversary interdependence means that sometimes I force others to help me, and sometimes others force me to help them. Slavery, indentured service, tenant farming, and child labor are examples of adversary help.
Neutral interdependence means that we are both buyers and sellers of help – Sometimes I pay others to help me and sometimes I am paid to help others. Stores, markets, shops, and restaurants – are all examples of neutral help. The yellow pages in the telephone book are lists of places where you can purchase help. This is our present world of Market where help is sold as products and services. The bottom line in Market is not really to help anyone, it is simply to make a profit.
Synergic interdependence means that sometimes I help others and sometimes others help me. Examples of synergic help in today's world are less common. We find them in many families. Also less frequently in small organizations. But most of the developed world is locked into Market.
The mission of The Gifting Earth is to make adversary and neutral interdependence obsolete. It is to open the flood gates to synergic interdependence.
We can ALL win!
In addition to a significant group of volunteers who have helped with testing and feedback. We enjoy the support of several professionals.
Dan Shafer was the original webmaster at Salon.com, the first commercial magazine web site. He then spent four years leading the Web Building Division at CNET.com. His approach to communication and promotion reflects the combination of common sense, developed from those many years of making clients happy, and an insatiable curiosity and desire to “keep it fresh” by closely watching the horizon of new technologies and discoveries.
Jacob Miller is an extraordinary programmer. He is the owner of Classic Ridge Designs a full-service web design and development firm based in Aptos, CA. He has built many sites using Drupal, including custom theming, design and module development.
Erin Clerico of Bakersfield, CA has been involved in creating and supporting blogging software for many years. He is also an expert in Drupal, and has managed the infrastructure for the SynEarth Network since 1999.
We are now currently operational. Because we are all about working together, every new member of The Gifting Earth becomes a member of our team.
The start up and continuing expenses for the The Gifting Earth (TGE) were paid for with cash gifts from the founding members of the TGE.
In the future, TGE will begin admitting organizational members. Some of these organizational members may gift those services that are now paid for by the cash gifts of our founding members.
We may also seek support from Crowd Funding.
BFC: To support your application, you may supply 4 Reference Sources, 6 Images, and 1 two-minute Video: