Bucky's World Game

<<April 30, 2000>>

Dr. Mark A. Siegmund <siegmund@thegrid.net>

David Crookall <crookall@unice.fr>

Mr. Medard Gabel <cdp!worldgame@labrea.stanford.edu>

Prof. Dr. Roberto Andrea Mueller <rmueller@mail.ufv.br>

Dr. Parker Rossman <grossman@mail.coin.missouri.edu>

Dear Mark:
==========

(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I) in response to my previous
distribution of "Class on Peace Gaming at Univ. of Hawaii - April 10,
2000" which can be found at <http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/global-univ-2000.html>.

Other related distributions are;

(a) "Scenario USED for peace gaming at 1986 GLH - April 14, 2000,"

(b) "Global Peace Gaming / Past and future possibilities - April 17, 2000,"

all of which can be found at the same web site as above.

(2) I visited your very interesting web sites. You are truly a superb
follower of Bucky!! My sincere congratulations to your extraordinary accomplishments!!

          The world renowned late Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller was once a
          Genius in Residence of the University City Science Center (UCSC)
          in Philadelphia in 1960s who created geo-dome, global electric
          network grid, world map, etc. He was the futurist in architect and city/community planning.

               The UCSC was once the home base of our GLOSAS/USA. It was
               the oldest and largest organization specialized in the
               technology transfer as having established Technology
               Promotion Center (TPC) in several countries, e.g., Japan,
               Brazil, Ukraine, France, etc., -- until Louis Padulo retired
               its presidency to become the Vice Chairman of our GLOSAS/USA.

(3) I was very happy when I learned that the World Game Institute recently
started using Internet and web for their World Game with Bucky's
Dymaxion Air-Ocean World Map -- see ATTACHMENT II.

          This is because I visited Medard Gable, executive director of the
          institute, in the mid-1970s and proposed him the use of computer
          simulation and e-mail approach, as later did to him by a couple of
          other electronic colleagues. However, I suppose that it is not
          yet with distributed computer simulation mode as proposed for our
          Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming -- see Chapter 5
          of my book draft at <http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Bookwriting/Contents_of_Book.html>.

(4) When I attended the 22nd International Conference of the International
     Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) at Ritsumeikan University in
     Kyoto, Japan in July 1991, they demonstrated a normative gaming
     simulation which was similar to Bucky's World Game. A world map of
     football field size was spread in a gymnasium. Students assigned to
     each country were standing on the country and exchanged their diplomatic
     messages verbally. A professor of the university later said that, even if
     its initial conditions were the same, the results of gaming on Iraq and Iran
     border incident at different times were often completely opposite. I
     then mentioned to him my conversation with Bob Noel and our global
     gaming with the use of ARPANET and GEISCO (See ATTACHMENT III) (*).
     They later established a global affairs study center at the university
     and introduced the use of e-mail -- almost 20 years later than our global gaming (**).

          (*) After our successful conduct of the world gaming, I tried to
          solicit the participation of Japanese government officers for our
          second round. I visited an officer at the Japanese Economic
          Planning Agency who was sent from the Japanese Ministry of Finance
          (MOF), the most powerful ministry, and who was a graduate from
          Political Science Department of the University of Tokyo. I
          explained to him that the gaming players would act as if echelons of
          governments according to scenarios for the policy analysis,
          training on negotiation techniques, etc. He then replied to me
          saying "Are you suggesting to us, Japanese government officers, to
          act as KABUKI Players?" I learned how difficult it is to make mind-change."

          (**) This world gaming was conducted with graduate students and a
          professor of the Political Science Department of the University of
          Tokyo. The professor at Ritsumeikan University was also at the
          department of the same university at that time. The latter might
          have never heard of our world gaming with the use of ARPANET,
          since the both professors were rivals of each other. I learned
          another kind of barrier for the propagation of new technology.

               Incidentally, when I had a teaching job offer from the
               University of Tokyo, I declined it by the kind suggestion of
               Late Dr. Shigeru Nambara, our family friend, former dean of
               the Political Science Department and later Rector of the
               university, and a good friend of Late President James Conant
               of Harvard University -- both of them introduced American
               educational system to Japan right after the World War II.
               Dr. Nambara told me "Don't come here. It's so stifling that
               nothing would be interesting!!" This might have been the
               reason of such a ridiculous rivalry of the two professors
               mentioned above.

Dear Roberto:
=============

(5) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT IV).

Dear Parker:
============

(6) Pls reply to Roberto's inquiries directly -- his inquiries are about the
     phrases appearing in your writing in ATTACHMENT III of my previous
     distribution of "Class on Peace Gaming at Univ. of Hawaii - April 10,
     2000" which can be found at <http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/global-univ-2000.html>.

Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 08:37:39 -0400
From: Mark Siegmund <siegmund@thegrid.net>
To: utsumi@friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: Class on Peace Gaming at Univ. of Hawaii

Dear John Southworth,

I read with great interest the information about peace gaming and would like
to know much more.

We are also doing peace "gaming" at the Tetworld Center for Peace and Global
Gaming--modeled after Buckminster Fuller's concept for a world game.

Tetworld is a computer and internet based project, modeled after Buckminster
Fuller's concept for a world game--"To Make the World Work for Everyone".

You are cordially invited to visit and review the Tetworld Peace Through
Development Project, and the new Tetworld GlobalGame Complex...
--
Thanks, and,
Regards,
Mark Siegmund
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II

Excerpt from
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/100397netgame.html>

The New York Times, October 3, 1997

World Game Achieves Inventor's Vision of Global Play

By DAVID J. WALLACE

PHILADELPHIA -- More than 30 years ago, the philosopher and physicist
Buckminster Fuller envisioned a "World Game" played simultaneously around the
globe, using computers to help solve problems of population explosion, hunger,
disease and allocation of natural resources.

The only thing missing was a way to link all the computers. When Fuller
debuted World Game at the Montreal Expo in 1967, he assumed that it would
involve a handful of terminals around the world, hard-wired to each other in a
dedicated network.

For the past 25 years, the Philadelphia-based World Game Institute has
published research materials and held workshops that share Fuller's view of
the world and his Dymaxion map, on which the continental landmasses are all
portrayed in accurate scale.

Today, the Internet offers a global network linking many millions of
computers, so Fuller's vision has finally been realized in a way even he could
not have foreseen. In late August, the beta version of NetWorldGame was
unwrapped on the World Wide Web.

World Game Workshop players assume roles as citizens of various nations and
take on responsibilities for solving regional or local concerns through trade,
negotiation or political discussion. The workshop takes place on a giant
Dymaxion map, like one shown at the World Game Institute homepage.

Players talk with each other and exchange symbols, such as candles that
represent energy resources, to reflect their actions, said Medard Gabel,
executive director of the World Game Institute.

On the Web, players use links to actual embassies, political dissident
organizations, interest groups and research sources for help in researching
real-life issues. Perhaps a medical secretary can help reduce hunger armed
with data from UNICEF. Or a wannabe ambassador will advise an environmental
group on protecting endangered species using a report from the World Bank.
Other links take players to search engines, global newspapers and additional resources.

"There's a richer data stream and a chance to play for more than a few hours,"
Gabel said, of the NetWorldGame compared to the workshop.

"But the downside is that you lose the social interaction. Some of the
solutions may be very good, they may be implementable in the real world. And
they may come from a high school student, a corporate lawyer or an expert," he
said. "Besides reaching the current world leaders, we'd like to reach the
future leaders."

NetWorldGame players choose which of 10 regions they want to represent. Or,
they may be a multinational corporate executive or a "judge" who coordinates
the game and monitors the action. Early beta games attracted players from
Israel and Australia just through word of mouth, said World Game project
director Stephen Pyne. Each round, or turn, represents a year in the region
and the results are tallied after a specified number of rounds. Players
themselves select the winners, usually those who make the greatest progress
toward solving their region's concerns.

Implementing the online game took nine months longer than expected because
some features differed significantly from the live, in-person workshop. The
number of concurrent games will increase as the server capacity and data sets
are updated. Early games were limited to a few dozen participants and the site
tells visitors whether games are full or if players can still join.

"It's real tricky. I didn't want to be overwhelmed," Pyne said, adding that
capacity will be added as popularity dictates. But the game is already taking
on a new personality than what was originally envisioned by either
Fuller or by the game's programmers.

"Real-time chat can't work because people are in all different time zones," he
said. "So it functions more like a bulletin board, with people taking turns,"
he said. "We're going to be changing things, adding new material and expanding
from 10 regions to 100 countries."

The game was tested last year in several high schools, and by Congress and the
United Nations, Gabel said. Instead of just an educational exercise, Gabel
said, the NetWorldGame is intended to spur real change in the status quo. He
has been pursuing corporate sponsors to underwrite cash prizes or air travel
to assist players to implement ideas on subjects from reducing pollution in
China to eliminating the threat of land mines.

Another development that may be added is a password-protect element, that
would allow individual classes, corporations or groups to limit a game to
their own members.

As the online world has expanded, so has the audience for networked or Web-based
games, said Steven Jacobs, assistant professor of multimedia development
at Rochester Institute of Technology. Most games are distributed on CD-ROM
because of access speed and reliability concerns on the Internet, but
interactive Web-based "software toys" are growing more popular and commercial.
He mentioned Dogz where people "adopt" virtual puppies and kittens and watch
them grow over time via their PC.

"The standard audience for online games," Jacobs said, "is the standard
audience for computer games in general: young, white males with lots of
testosterone who like to shoot things." But he said that SimCity, an urban
planning game, had demonstrated "a great interest in other things" as well.

"I think there are a lot of people who have an interest in politics or the
environment who aren't normally computer people," Jacobs said.

As an example, he pointed to the SimHealth exercise created by the game
developer Maxis. In 1994, amid the national debate over healthcare reform in
the United States, SimHealth provided a means for players to operate their own
healthcare company and to access various databases to learn about regulations,
costs and other details.

Other games and contests are proving popular on the Web. You Don't Know Jack,
an online trivia game, gets 150,000 players a month, according to Business
Week.

The NetWorld Game initiative was partly financed by a $90,000 grant from the
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, said Mark Walters, who oversees the
foundation's public issues grants. Because of the World Game Institute's use
of technology, the leap to the Internet is a logical next step, he said. World
Game was ahead of its time and had to wait for the vehicle that would best
serve its global view with a real-time, worldwide reach.

"It's as if evolution created a new animal that's different in its structure,"
Jacobs said. "The Internet offers a structure of organization we've never seen
before. The only thing that would let them achieve this is Internet. Faxes
won't do it. Phones won't do it," he said.

Related Sites
Following are links to the external Web sitesmentioned in this article. These
sites are not part of The NewYork Times on the Web, and The Times has no
control over theircontent or availability. When you have finished visiting any
ofthese sites, you will be able to return to this page by clicking onyour Web
browser's "Back" button or icon until this pagereappears.

World Game Institute
<http://www.worldgame.org/>

Dymaxion Air-Ocean World Map from WNET
<http://www.thirteen.org/archive/bucky/dymap.html>

NetWorld Game
<http://www.worldgame.org/networldgame/>

You Don't Know Jack
<http://www.won.net/channels/bezerk/>

UNICEF
<http://www.unicef.org>

World Bank
<http://www.worldbank.org/>

Dogz
<http://www.dogz.com/>

Maxis
<http://www.simcity.com/home.shtml>

           Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
            ****************************************
                         ATTACHMENT III

Excerpt from Section 2.2 Inception of global peace gaming in my book draft Chapter I at
<http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Bookwriting/PART_I/Chapter_I/Total/Chapter_1_total_txt.html#Inception of global peace gaming>.

2.2 Inception of global peace gaming

After attending the 1972 SCSC in San Diego, California, I visited Bob Noel of
the Political Science Department of the University of California at Santa
Barbara. A conference room had a wall-size world map with an American flag
standing by. It was as if a situation room of a governmental agency. The
adjacent room was a control room with a short-wave radio which could receive
world news instantaneously. The room's wall adjacent to the conference room
had a glass window from which they could video tape the activities of the
conference. Dr. Noel was conducting a political gaming simulation on
international affairs using ARPANET [32], by assigning several different
schools to act as the governments of the United States, Soviet Union, Japan,
China, etc. Students had to study about the assigned countries before the
start of the game.

I asked him who was acting for Japan. He said the University of Southern
California. So I said to him, "However hard Americans may study about Japan,
they cannot think as Japanese, since they eat steak with a knife and fork
while Japanese eat noodles with chopsticks." So I proposed that he invite the
University of Tokyo to play the role of the Japanese government. During my
conversation with Bob Noel I also proposed him that all participating game
players should have their systems dynamics type computer simulation model test
and predict their proposed policies so that they could make quantitative
discussions basing on reliable facts and figures [33].

Jay Forrester of M.I.T. once said that the primary purpose of systems dynamics
simulation is NOT for its prediction/forecasting, but for the clearer
understanding of such interdependent relationship of social factors. I thought
that this, with scientific and rational analysis and critical thinking, ought
to be the basic principle of global education for peace (Millennium Institute) [34].

This was when the original idea of Globally Collaborative Peace Gaming was
born -- more later -- (Nikkei Shimbun, November 4, 1973), -- and my inquiries
to Bob Noel were based on the words John McLeod once mentioned that the first
step of simulation was to make simulation exercise as close to the simuland
(i.e., the target to simulate) as possible [35], since simulation projects
often consume huge resources.

In the spring of 1973, I conducted the world-first global "Peace Gaming" with
Bob Noel with the use of e-mail over computer networks. I invited the
University of Tokyo and he invited the University of Brussels and the
University of London in addition to several universities in the U.S. It was a
"normative" gaming as exchanging diplomatic e-mail messages without the use of
quantitative computer simulation models. American universities sent their
messages through ARPANET and overseas universities through GEISCO. Students
acted as if the heads of states and cabinet members of assigned countries. All
messages were accumulated and re-distributed by a node at the University of
California in Santa Barbara. The scenario designed by Bob Noel assumed an
international crisis with a border incident between Iran and Iraq -- which
actually happened about 10 years later <Utsumi, T. and A. Garzon, 1991 >.
Japan team sent their messages to the United Nations team asking to make the
Straights of Maracca an international zone to secure oil flow from the Middle
East to Japan, asked the U.S. and Soviet Union teams to withdraw their navy
fleets from the Pacific and Indian Oceans respectively [36] [36a].

2.3 E-mail as message exchange via computer

A few weeks later, a salesman of GEISCO came to my office and asked to
terminate this exciting global gaming upon instruction of KDD. Another few
weeks later, however, the same salesman of GEISCO handed me an e-mail message
from a Norwegian in Oslo (who was one of the team members of the "Limit to
Growth" project at M.I.T.). The e-mail asked me the name and address of the
person who installed DYNAMO simulation language in the GEISCO time-sharing
service mainframe computer in Cleveland, Ohio [37]. Upon my insistence, the
salesman explained that our gaming simulation had to be stopped due to the
Japanese telecommunications regulations, which strictly prohibited the message
exchange through a computer without changing its contents -- more later, --
though such message exchange was performed by the node at Bob Noel's office in
Santa Barbara, California, which was clearly outside of the Japanese judicial
domain [38]. On the other hand, his e-mail from Norway was permissible because
it was transmitted by a salesman of GEISCO in Oslo to him in Tokyo -- both
were in the same organization. I thought that this was patently unfair, and
this triggered my deregulation efforts on the use of e-mail [39] -- more later.
****************************************
ATTACHMENT IV

Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 11:58:13 -0300
From: Roberto Andrea Mueller <rmueller@mail.ufv.br>
Subject: Re: Global Peace Gaming/Past and future possiblities
Cc: utsumi@columbia.edu

Dear respected Friends

Your work for peace is according to my little thoughts and as far as I
understand very important and attractive.

In a previous e-mail you wrote:

"...so far, the most advanced technologies have mostly been used
politically to empower military defense and not for ideas and
methods for succesfully winning peace..."

and also:

"... model historic decisions and actions such as those that have
led to war and tragedy..."

With your probable permission, let me suggest a full hand of questions
on the above subject:

What is more attractive: to find a method to stop any war or to
find a method to have peace?

What brings happiness: to win a war or to understand problems and
communicate to find solutions?

Are solutionless problens depending on ignorance/wisdom?
Is there any bunker to hide and protect from the war consequences?
Elimination of bodies brings to solutions or transfers the problem(s) to
a different dimension?

Thank you for your attention.

Best Regards.
Roberto
****************************************
List of Distribution

Dr. Mark A. Siegmund
Tetworld Center for Peace and Global Gaming
University of The Air
Sylmar, CA 91392
ICQ # 22569841
siegmund@thegrid.net
Tetworld@tripod.net
http://members.tripod.com/~Tetworld/+index.html
Visit the Main Introductory Page, at:
http://Tetworld.tripod.com
Visit the Tetworld Gaming Complex at:
http://members.tripod.com/~Tetworld/center.html
Tetworld Systems and Gaming page at:
http://members.tripod.com/~Tetworld/+index.html
Tetworld Center Global Advisory Committee, at:
http://members.tripod.com/~Tetworld/advisory.html
Award winning ezine"21st" (Tetrahedron and the Game article)
http://www.vxm.com/link.siegmund.html

David Crookall
Maison des Langues
UNSA (Univ de Nice-Sophia Antipolis)
98 bd E Herriot
BP 209, 06204 Nice Cedex 3
France.
Telephone: +33 (0)4.93.37.55.83; Fax: ....55.36
crookall@unice.fr
crookall@rocketmail.com
Home:
9 rue du Var
06510 Carros
France
"Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory,
     Practice, and Research" (Sage) :
Edition & manuscrits / Editorial matters :
     Contacter / Contact = David Crookall (Editor/Redacteur)
     a/at UNSA (voir ci-dessus / see above).
Guide for Authors = www.utc.fr/tsh/sg/revue/section.html
     (adresse temporaire / temporary address)
Autres (abonnements, etc.) / Other (subscription, etc.) :
     Contacter / Contact = Sage Publications:
     Telephone USA +1 805-499-0721 Fax: ...-0871
     Telephone UK +44 (0)171 374 0645 Fax: ... 8741
     www.sagepub.com/   &   www.sagepub.co.uk/
     http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/usdetails/j0158.html

Mr. Medard Gabel
Director
The World Game Institute
Philadelphia, PA 19104
cdp!worldgame@labrea.stanford.edu

Prof. Dr. Roberto Andrea Mueller
Full time Chemistry Professor
University Counsellor
Departamento de Quimica
Universidade Federal de Vicosa
CEP 36571-000 - Vicosa
Minas Gerais - Brasil
Tel: (031)899-3057
FAX: (031)899-3065
rmueller@mail.ufv.br

Dr. Parker Rossman
3 Lemmon Drive
Columbia MO 65201-5413
573-443-3256
FAX: 314-876-5812 (emergency)
grossman@mail.coin.missouri.edu
jrossman@mail.coin.missouri.edu
grossman@bigcat.missouri.edu
http://www.trib.net/~prossman
http://trib.net/~prossman/

**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA                  *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE                                                   *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education)      *
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of     *
*   Global University System (GUS)                                   *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A.               *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676             *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/                            *
**********************************************************************
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