UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ World Game: An MS Thesis on engineering Buckminster Fuller’s unfinished computer game A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of: MASTER OF SCIENCE in COMPUTATIONAL MEDIA by Josh Pang ॥ यशवी ॥ December 2017 The Thesis of Josh Pang is approved by: _____________________________________ Professor Michael Mateas, Chair _____________________________________ Professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin _____________________________________ Professor Warren Sack _____________________________________ Jaime Snyder ________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Contents List of Figures iv Abstract v 1 World Game 1 1.1 History 3 1.2 What are the salient features? 8 1.2.0 Objective: Make the World Work 8 1.2.1 Database: Inventory of World Resources 10 ​ ​ 1.2.2 Map: Fuller Projection & Geoscope 13 ​ ​ 1.2.3 Simulation 17 ​ 1.2.4 World Game “game” 19 ​ ​ 1.3 World Game Hypothesis 22 2 Technical Analysis 31 2.1 Database Technology 33 ​ ​ 2.2 Map Technology 37 ​ ​ 2.3 Simulation Technology 39 ​ ​ 2.4 Game Technology 48 ​ ​ 3 Realization Discussion 65 3.1 Critical Path Exploration 65 3.2 Global Problem-solving Tool 77 3.3 Critical Moment 85 3.4 Concluding Remarks 94 Appendix I 97 Appendix II 98 Appendix III 128 Bibliography 176 iii List of Figures Figure 1: Fuller Projection Map 13 Figure 2: Geoscope Prototype 15 Figure 3: Geoscope at U.N. Artist Rendering 16 Figure 4: Completeness Theory 22 Figure 5: “One World Town” 38 Figure 6: Realization Complexity 72 Figure 7: World Game Depiction 1 98 Figure 8: World Game Depiction 2 98 iv Abstract World Game: An MS Thesis on engineering Buckminster Fuller’s unfinished computer game by Josh Pang My thesis explores the idea that Buckminster Fuller’s World Game is really a formal calculus capable of representing world-scale sustainability problem-solving according to the fundamental principles of a (blockchain) database + (Fuller ​ ​ projection) map + (machine learning) simulation in the form of a game. These ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ computational media comprise an operational formalism which embraces all effective procedures for world-scale problem-solving. If this hypothesis is true, then that would mean World Game’s comprehensive use of the aforementioned fundamental principles are necessary for a sustainable Earth-scale civilization. Furthermore, the protocol for solution formation in the form of World Game “game” is sufficient for solving the problem of “making the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone” — the objective of World Game. If this hypothesis of sufficiency is true, that means World Game’s principles are in effect synonymous with the process of making the world work. In plain English, a problem-solving engine like World Game is necessary for the survival of humanity, period. v 1 World Game Imagine it is the year 1967. World War II is behind us. The summer of love is in our hands. The Apollo Moon Landing is within arm’s reach. The University of California has a new campus at Santa Cruz, and Alan Chadwick has just started a teaching garden there. Mainframe computers have been around long enough for scientists to begin thinking about their full significance — as we see with the budding space program. The 1967 World’s Fair will be held in Montreal, Canada. Now imagine being focused on the survival of our species, and more than that, the perfected success of life on Earth. What can we do with these fresh and new computing devices? Can we do something different? Something meaningful? Now you’ve got it — we will use these mainframe computers to calculate resource logistics planning such that every single atom is accounted for and allocated in the best of ways. Ah, this is a really good idea, we’re going to want to do something about this. Frankly, I’m excited. Imagine a giant computerized world map that has a visualizer on a jumbotron display screen. Image teams of people seated around this big map. Imagine the players had access to all historical data about the world's resources, trends, and needs. 1 Imagine you could, with a couple of keystrokes, know where all the people are — not only today — for all of history. Imagine you could actually see first hand the number of trees in the world, where they were, and go back and forth in time seamlessly. A slow motion movie unfolding over time. Imagine that we could have all data relative to all of the resources for life on Earth. Okay, welcome back. That was no ordinary daydream. This actually did happen. R. Buckminster Fuller (“Fuller”) was selected to be the architect of the U.S. Expo at the 1967 World’s Fair1 . Fifty-million people visited the pavillion Fuller designed2 . What most people don’t know, is that Buckminster Fuller, along with the design of the dome, also proposed to the United States Information Agency an exhibit for the U.S. pavilion which was not pursued. He designed the Montreal Biosphère, as it is now called, a geodesic dome, to house something he called “World Game” concerning the use of computers to streamline the huge gigantic system of the world: the design of the total human environment as an integrated system. The U.S. built the dome for Expo ‘67, but World Game was rejected. Even today, it seems no one is thinking about doing this, despite the obvious gravity. Today, the technical stuff is 1 “The main purpose of his visit was to make an appearance at the Architectural League of New York, where a model of his United States pavilion at Montreal’s Expo 67 was on display.” Jacobs, David. “An Expo Named Buckminster Fuller.” New York Times (p. 33). April 23, 1967. ​ ​ 2 Burnett, Richard. “MONTRÉAL CELEBRATES THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF EXPO 67.” Tourisme Montréal. 2017. https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/50th-anniversary-expo-67 ​ 2 challenging yet possible. In 1967, the technical stuff was challenging and nearly impossible. Instead, the US Pavilion at the World’s Fair housed Americana objects from Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, and other icons. My thesis is, fifty years later, World Game’s time has come. Today, in 2017, how do we come to grips with efficiency? How do we design the effectiveness and success of the total world package? 1.1 History Alan Turing deserves greater fame than he is accredited3 . His contributions to computer science are engraved in the part he played toward the end of World War II (WWII), popularized by the Hollywood Film The Imitation Game. Turing’s work in ​ ​ WWII is a remarkable historical fact, and is one of many accomplishments worthy of more recognition as historically important. If Einstein is the father of modern physics, Turing is the father of modern computation. Einstein’s special and general relativity changed the way we think about the nature of the universe, and he won the highest prize in physics, the Nobel Prize, for his work on the photoelectric effect4 . Turing’s Turing machine and Turing test changed the way we think about the nature of what a 3 Paraphrasing Steven Skiena, ‘accreditation of fame is subject to our collective sharing of memes: meme strength.’ Therefore, a read of Andrew Hodges book might be a persuasive artifact for increased fame for A. M. Turing. Skiena, Steven and Charles Ward. Who’s Bigger?: Where Historical Figures ​ Really Rank. Cambridge University Press. 2013. Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The ​ ​ Book That Inspired the Film “The Imitation Game”. Princeton University Press. 2014. ​ 4 For more information, see the official word: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/ 3 computer can do, and the highest prize in computer science is named after him. To top it all off, Einstein went to Roosevelt about the power of the atomic bomb, and Turing went to Churchill about the power of the bombe machine, a decryption computer. Turing’s whole life work, including his, what I will call, martyrdom at at the hands of the British government, make Alan Turing worthy of more fame in terms of memetic strength. In relation to World Game, Turing’s historical legacy encompases 1936 with his invention of the Turing machine5 , and 1941 in his co-designing the computer which decrypted the German Enigma code6 . The Turing machine validated a logical architecture which set the stage for our hypothesis that World Game is necessary and sufficient for all global problems. Believe it or not, “computing machines” refers to a device which can do the work of human computers: these were people who were simply crunching numbers to support the work of engineers: see the Hollywood Film Hidden Figures. Turing’s pivotal role in WWII ​ ​ marks the first precedent of computing machines used on the world stage to an indisputably effective degree. Here we see necessity as the mother of invention, and computers as the counter emergency. The use of computation to arbitrate the highest stakes on Earth will only continue from 1941, to now, and into the foreseeable future. 5 Here is Dr. Turing’s original. For reference, the Entscheidungsproblem [German for ‘Halting ​ ​ problem’] was a mathematical call to action by David Hilbert in 1928. Turing, Alan. “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem”. Proceedings of the London Mathematical ​ ​ Society. Ser. 2, Vol. 42, 1937. http://www.turingarchive.org/browse.php/b/12 ​ Petzold, Arnold. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing’s Historic Paper on ​ Computability and the Turing Machine. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008. ​ 6 Computer History Museum. Mountain View, California. “The first Bombe is completed.” Timeline of Computer History.