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About this quote

What does it mean?
Fuller describes humanity's future as a critical race between a utopian outcome and total destruction. He frames the current era as a final test of whether we deserve to continue existing.
In plain terms
Humanity is currently in a final test between creating a perfect world or facing extinction.
What can you take from it?
Treat current challenges as a critical test of human survival potential.

Where it applies

  • policy decision making
  • crisis management
  • future forecasting

Putting it to work

  • Prioritizing long-term survival
  • evaluating current risks
  • working toward positive outcomes

Questions to consider

  • What qualifies a civilization to continue?
  • How do we pass this final exam?

Another view

The framing of a final exam implies a binary outcome that may ignore gradual or mixed futures.

More from Buckminster Fuller

  1. I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual . . . the individual's integrity of speaking and…

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  2. The nearest each of us can come to God is by loving the truth.

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  3. All of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so p…

    Permalink to quote #61

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