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FROM MY CORNER: Bucky’s Words

Howell Hurst Education

Buckminster Fuller, the renowned 20th Century design scientist, often said that humanity’s chief problem was ignorance. He maintained that too many people simply had never stored away enough verifiable facts to make reasonable decisions.

With the president of the planet’s most powerful country a demonstrated enemy of factual scientific and historical information, it is clear why a rational national plan to stem the Corona Virus does not exist.

Mr. Trump’s supporters have denied this. They say they just draw their conclusions upon alternative facts different from everyone else. Their argument is frequently disproved by serious investigative journalism.

One of their alleged alternative facts is that the majority of all publications are fake. Colleagues of mine who admire and support Trump refuse to read such publications as The Atlantic, one of the longest published investigative journalism magazines in America.

It has been documenting American politics and history for about 167 years. Its writers are often liberal. However, it reports frequently the views of conservatives. But the main thing it does is report based on verifiable facts.

Sometimes it speculates on possible future events or happenings. It does so in the current issue, where a legal scholar with experience in large-scale financial matters predicts a seriously possible new meltdown similar to the one that occurred in 2008.

However, this meltdown – if it happens – will not be about sub prime mortgages. No, it will be about subprime loans made since 2008 to major American corporations, all of whom have had and still have financial problems. And whose problems in the pandemic are worsening.

The point I wish to make is not to support the lawyer’s argument that this meltdown of many American corporations is a potential reality. My point is that my conservative colleagues, and some 30 million Trump supporters, will never even read the writer’s article.

My conservative colleagues have criticized me for reporting that a large portion of Trump’s supporters are documented as having relatively limited educations. My defense is that I am only reporting what has factually been demographically documented.

No one says Trump followers are not smart. The assertion is, rather, that they are not commonly broadly well educated. They are “conservative” in that they have not spent the hundreds and often thousands of hours of people with broader educations.

I’m not talking about Intellectuals. I am not an Intellectual. For the most part I am what is called by the dictionary, an “Auto Didact.” An “AD” is someone who has self educated himself, largely by voluminous reading of many points of view, from far Left to far Right.

That’s me all right. I’ve read many books all my life. Once, years ago, when I launched and ran for several years a national industrial waste recycling exchange, I was fortunate enough to take a course created by Buckminster Fuller that he called The World Game.

I actually got to meet him at the week-long program. When I did, hoping to gain his support in my endeavor (I was feeling a bit uncertain and insecure), he stopped me after I’d spoken a few sentences.

He told me point blank to my face: “Recycling wasted materials makes sense. You know what you’re doing. So, you don’t need me to help you. Get on with it. Do it.” Then he walked away. A year later, 25 other waste exchanges launched by other people emulating my idea, had opened in America, and another 25 in Western Europe.

Therefore, my advice to all who sit on the fence regarding the infamous Donald Trump, is to count the number of books you’ve read in your life, both Left and Right, and – if they don’t add up to a few hundred – get on with your reading,

You’re still alive and factual knowledge still exists. But you must search wide and far to get enough to help you attain more valid, solid, usable cognitive skills. And if you don’t know what cognitive skills are, may I suggest you buy a big dictionary and look up cognitive?

If you question whether Buckminster Fuller was anybody whose thoughts you should consider, I propose you note that he’s the fellow who designed the concept of modern navies and created the design of the Geodesic Dome. Plus many more concepts used today.

Where to start your own Auto Didact course? I’ve suggested before that you get subscriptions at least to The Atlantic and The New York Review of Books, and read what they write. There’s also the Center for Investigative Journalism; Google it.

If you happen to be fervently right wing, also get a subscription to the conservative Washington Examiner. Read all of these magazines cover to cover for 365 days, and see what cognitive conclusions you draw after your one-year’s course.

I don’t know how you started in life, My Dad was a stone mason and my first job was water boy on his construction gang. Reading books helped me get a little bit of a leg up from there. A little bit at least.

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