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