12 Degrees of Freedom


       "Call me Trimtab"

             Bucky

Trimtab Principle
"Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing on the edge of the rudder called a trim-tab.  It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving that little trim-tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim-tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether … the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, “ Call me Trimtab.”  R. Buckminster Fuller.
So if you understand whole systems and know where to place the trimtab, you can change the course of large systems with minimal effort and energy. You don't really need that long a lever; just a properly designed and positioned trimtab.
"When I thought about steering the course of the 'Spaceship Earth' and all of humanity, I saw most people trying to turn the boat by pushing the bow around."

"I saw that by being all the way at the tail of the ship, by just kicking my foot to one side or the other, I could create the 'low pressure' which would turn the whole ship. If ever someone wanted to write my epitaph, I would want it to say 'Call me Trimtab'. R. Buckminster Fuller
Solving the critical problems facing humanity that seem to increase in number and complexity at a frightening rate will call upon our understanding of whole systems, wealth of experience and powers of intuition to discover and apply appropriate physical and metaphysical trimtabs to re-form and transform dysfunctional systems. That is how we - working in some cases as individuals and other times as grass roots groups, communities, etc. can bring about systemic change without the need of guns, manipulative and/or corrupt political power or billions of dollars.
An intense focus resulting from a community-wide shared vision can open eyes to options they didn't realize existed.  Natural catastrophes can trigger such a shared vision So can war. Why not a positive vision of a world that works for everyone while enhancing the overall ecological integrity of Spaceship Earth?