Conference on World Affairs

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CONFERENCE ON WORLD AFFAIRS RECORDINGS: Select Decade >	1950s \| 1960s \| 1970s \| 1980s \| 1990s

1980s - PAGE 2

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April 6, 1982
Plenary Session
THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Speaker: Richard Farson, Carl N. Hodges, Robert L. Schwartz
Plenary abstract information to come....

April 4, 1983
Plenary Session: THE CRISIS IN WORLD AFFAIRS
Speaker: R. Buckminster Fuller
Description:
Fuller presents the hypothesis that humanity has something that no other creature has: mind. This allows us to discover relationships between ideas rather than having to depend on those ideas by themselves. Because of this, we must be here for some reason: to be problem-solvers for the universe. This has been Fuller's drive for the past several decades.
Fuller believes that humanity is in a time of extraordinary crisis. He provides a brief history illustrating the links between power and shipping, from ancient times through Magellan to the founding of the East India Company. He then describes the links from this to Malthus and Darwin, then to Karl Marx, and the roots of the two great theories of capitalism and socialism that now have the capacity to destroy all life on this planet within minutes.
Next Fuller describes the variety of forces that affect our lives, most of which we are completely unable to sense directly. From there, Fuller lists the development of materials that humanity has invented to deal with those forces and put them to use for us. He continues by describing the differences between tension and compression. Fuller brings out his tensegrity sphere to illustrate these differences, and spends some time describing how the tensegrity sphere works, and how it relates to his geodesic dome designs.
Fuller then relates that in 1970, he realized that the Earth has enough resources to provide an excellent standard of living for all human beings, what that means for politics, wars, etc., and the great challenge of trying to communicate this to everyone.
Next, Fuller points out a wide range of logical fallacies that are made by the general public, with a bit of nerdy humor thrown in as well as a detailed exploration of geometry.
He then makes some lengthy remarks relating to humanity's place in the universe, given recent advances in standards of living as well as the development of technologies capable of destroying all life on Earth.

Keywords:
humanity, shipping, socialism, capitalism, tension, compression, materials, tensegrity, geodesic, resources, geometry, triangle, icosahedron, weapons, war, armaments, corporations, countries, oil, petroleum, energy, computers, Stalin, Ford, Russia, USSR, USA, disarmament, nuclear, atomic, bomb

Technical Details:
@00:00:00 Moderator Arnold Weber begins speaking
@00:00:50 Weber begins introducing Fuller
@00:05:02 Fuller begins speaking
@01:00:00-01:00:15 change of tapes (brief silence)
@01:38:31 end of speech @01:39:57 end of tape

April 5, 1983
Series XXVIII: Developing Countires
CHANGING DEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS
Speaker: Dinesh Bahl, Toby Eady, Julie Hawkins Fisher, L. Douglas Heck
Plenary abstract information to come....

April 5, 1983
Plenary Session: DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY
Speaker: Michael Straight
Description:
Michael Straight speaks about the ideology of communism from the standpoints of history, politics and personal experience. He talks about the birth and death of a faith and its stubborn refusal to die as a result of fear of alienation and isolation. He speaks to the difference between ideology and faith and the literary works that describe this era in history, i.e. the death of a butterfly.

Keywords:
communism, socialism, Stalinism, collective good, internationalism, faith, ideology, psychological need, dialectical materialism, class conflict, private property, political theory, Soviet, nationalism
Technical Details:

@00:00 Silence (system not recording)
@00:34 Unknown woman leading a meditative exercise
@02.54 Kaye Howe introduce3 Michael Straight
@05:54 Michael Straight talks
@57:46 Straight ends
@58:55 tape ends

April 6, 1983
Series XVI: Places
INDIA: UNDER THE SAINTHOOD - A CLOSER LOOK AT MAHATMA GHANDI
Speaker: Edward I. Brodkin
Discussants: Shepard Brooks, Ernestine Heck
Plenary abstract information to come.....

April 7, 1983
Plenary Session
ORGANIZED CRIME
Speaker: Peter A. Lupsha, Sam J. Papich
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 9, 1983
Plenary Session
THE FAILURE OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Speaker: Eugene J. Carroll
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 9, 1984
Series V: Environment
GROWING YOUR OWN DESERT
Speakers: Molly Ivins, Andrew Neil, Howard Nemerov, Janet Roach
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 9, 1984
Series XVIII:
WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?
Speakers: Margot Adler, Richard Farson, Annette Goodheart, Beulah F. Rohrlich
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 11, 1984
Plenary Session
REFLECTIONS ON ONE'S FIRST COMPUTER
Speaker: Malcom Bradbury, Richard Farson, John Gliedman, Stuart Schoffman
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 13, 1984
SERIES XXXI: Laughter and Death
JOKES AND THE COSMIC BANANA PEEL
Speaker: Margo Adler, Roger Ebert, Glll Elliot, Arnette Goodheart, Molly Ivans, Bernard Rands
Plenary abstract information to come..

April 13, 1984
Plenary Session
NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST: POSSIBLE? IMPOSSIBLE? PROBABLE?
Speakers: Samuel T. Cohen, Richard Rhodes
Plenary abstract information to come...

April 8, 1985
Plenary Session
THE CASE FOR PRESIDENT REAGAN'S STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE
Speaker: James A. Abrahamson
Plenary abstract information to come...

1980s - PAGE 2

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