Critical Path

Fuller argues that world change depends on understanding the sequence of enabling steps: the critical path. He uses Apollo, supply chains, and energy accounting to show that humanity already has the means to make the world work for everyone.

Main claims

• Good/bad are not fundamental categories; complementarity is.
• Humanity's problem is not scarcity but ignorance of its actual energy income and technical capability.
• The Apollo Program is the model for large-scale, coordinated accomplishment.
• World power structures control supply lines, finance, and "lines of vital supply."
• Design science can redirect civilization from "killingry" to "livingry."

Why it matters

• The book names the planning logic behind large technical successes.
• It ties twentieth-century politics, economics, and energy systems to a world-design agenda.
• It is one of Fuller's clearest accounts of why the planet can support all humanity.

See Also

• Grunch of Giants — late polemic restating the same economic thesis
• Cosmography — late synthesis of Fuller's worldview
• And It Came To Pass — Not To Stay — companion late Fuller volume
• Earth, Inc — earlier world-accounting argument
• Education Automation — the education side of the same design-science program
• The 1972 Playboy Interview — conversational restatement; source of the Self-Disciplines reproduced there
• Cosmic Fishing (Cosmic Fishing) — related work
• Guinea Pig B (Guinea Pig B) — related work
• Utopia or Oblivion (Utopia or Oblivion) — related work
• Kiyoshi Kuromiya (Kiyoshi Kuromiya) — related figure
• Ephemeralization (Ephemeralization) — related concept
• Livingry — the killingry-to-livingry argument developed at length here
• Wealth (Fuller's Definition) — world energy accounting and cosmic costing
• Great Pirates — the historical power-holders whose system Critical Path traces

Sources

• critical_path/critical_path.md — full book text (repo-local source tree)
• index.md — project index