Everything I Know, Section 3

gist

Technology, Fuller says, is Universe's techniques, which mind discovers above brain and is meant to use. War leftover copper and generators produced energy slaves that do more with less, even while economies waste most of the energy they consume. The spoken word is the first industrial tool because it compounds experience across people. Pattern integrity travels independently of the medium that reports it. Specialization is a power-structure strategy of divide and conquer, not a child's natural interest in the whole.

ideas

• Mind discovers Universe's techniques. Technology is not a mischievous human invention; it is knowledge of how Universe already structures, associates, and transforms energy.
• More-with-less arrived as leftover work. After World War I, copper and falling water kept doing work; energy slaves multiplied while overall efficiency stayed near five percent.
• Speech is the first industrial tool. A tool no one person can produce, the spoken word compounds experience and begins industrialization.
• Pattern integrity is independent of its medium. A knot or wave travels through changing rope or water; the pattern, not the local stuff, is the phenomenon.
• Specialization keeps power divided. Children are born comprehensivists; divide-and-conquer power structures train the bright into isolated specialties.

quotes