#projectcybersyn — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #projectcybersyn, aggregated by home.social.
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In 1971, Chile ran a live experiment in cybernetic governance at national scale. It was called Project Cybersyn. Factory managers sent daily production data over a telex network to a central IBM mainframe. Statistical software filtered for exceptions — only anomalies surfaced, only what lower levels couldn't handle. Humans sat in a circular room with fiberglass chairs and wall-mounted displays and made decisions. The system was not designed to give orders. It was designed to hold complexity without collapsing under it.
In 1973, a CIA-backed military coup ended it. The Operations Room was destroyed. Salvador Allende, the 29th President of Chile, died inside — the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and later Chilean courts, ruled it as suicide, though the circumstances were disputed for decades. Stafford Beer — the British operations researcher who built it — went back to the UK, gave his possessions away, and moved to a cottage in Wales without electricity. He spent years in voluntary poverty. The experience marked him permanently.
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"Secret" preview. Goes public Sunday. 😉🍷
https://systemic.engineering/p/59e8d2a3-4935-454d-b49f-c71b9eb67404/#Cybernetics #ProjectCybersyn #AI #DartmouthConference #Chile #ComputerScience #History #SystemicEngineering
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"There are now competing visions of what exactly cybernetic software is supposed to do. Stafford Beer thinks it's a tool for the people. Others on the team take a more limited view. Seeing it as nothing but an experimental tool for managing the economy. And a prototype really. And a technocratic one at that."
#EvgenyMorozov, 2023
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-santiago-boys/ep-6-the-geopolitics-of-S84KqFR_X6E/
#podcasts #ChoraMedia #TheSantiagoBoys #StaffordBeer #Chile #ProjectCybersyn
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Hey @mike_hales, I didn't know you interviewed Stafford Beer during Project Cybersyn!
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-santiago-boys/ep-5-the-super-technocrat-of-P-pdmZza2UN/
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"Column: What a utopian experiment in government by computer can teach us about building a humane future"
by Brian Merchant
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The iconic ops room of #ProjectCybersyn has been reconstructed for the exhibition »Cómo diseñar una revolución: La vía chilena al diseño« (How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Way to Design) which just opened at the Centro Cultural La Moneda - a cultural center just next to the building, where Salvador Allende died 50 years ago today:
https://www.cclm.cl/exposicion/como-disenar-una-revolucion/Some impressions from the opening:
https://www.archdaily.cl/cl/1006570/como-disenar-una-revolucion-la-via-chilena-al-diseno-se-inaugura-en-el-cclm-con-la-reconstruccion-del-proyecto-cybersynMore background (Spanish): https://fadeu.uc.cl/noticias/7347-con-la-curadoria-de-academicos-uc-inauguran-como-disenar-una-revolucion-la-via-chilena-al-diseno
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Enjoyed this video on #ProjectCybersyn and #cybersocialism in early 1970s Chile and the imperialist forces that killed democracy there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0
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There is also a well-produced German podcast in two parts by Jakob Schmidt and Jannis Funk:
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Monday is the 50th anniversary of the coup d'état against Allende's democratically-elected government of Chile and with it the end to #ProjectCybersyn: an experimental computer network for the distributed management of the economy. Here are several well produced podcasts capturing the hopes and dreams about technology during this unique time:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/ #99percentinvisible
https://techwontsave.us/episode/61_project_cybersyn_shows_all_tech_is_political_w_eden_medina with @edenmedina
https://the-santiago-boys.com by Evgeny Morozov