Cybersyn And Early Uniminds

An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian Website is running a story on Cybersyn. An experimental computer network based on cybernetic principles that was used by Chile's revolutionary government between 1971 and 1973 to provide a real-time, decentralized form of economic analysis in the nationalized sector of the Chilean economy. The network has been described as Chile's Internet. There is a photo of the control room which looks something like the deck of the Starship Enterprise. The whole thing was the brainchild of Stafford Beer, a sort of British Buckminster Fuller. All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973."

Comments

American logic

[pubjames]

How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?

You just don't get it do you? American logic works like this:

Americans = good, intelligent people blessed by God.
Foreigners = generally bad, often evil, always ignorant, incompetent, infidels, weasels, jealous of Americans.

So using American logic we can see that:

Cybersyn was foreign and therefore evil and Orwellian.

The CIA sponsored coup was American, and therefore good. Of course the ends justify the means sometimes.

You are criticising Americans therefore I assume that you are an ignorant, evil and probably jealous.

Re:Not Orwellian at all

[leandrod]

> The absence of totalitarian control is a crucial design factor.

In theory yes, but what if Allende had succeeded in turning Chile in a southern Cuba? I bet KGB or whatever would want a try at finding its way around the initial design constraints...

> Beer is the most freedom-loving person you could hope to imagine.

So were most of the leftists I've know. There is even a name for them: useful innocents.

Re:CIA sponsored coup d'etat

[KDan]

It skews the mind into thinking that Americans are superior and that foreigners are inferior, no matter what the ears hear and the eyes see.

Anyone who's ever tried to convince an american that their country is in the process of being fucked without ceremony by its "elected" leaders will have to agree with that.

It's a shame to see what was and could still be a great country going to bits because so many of its citizens are either stupid, full of blind patriotism, or both.

Daniel

Re:Venezuela anyone?

[HBI]

1. Prove Allende was overthrown by the CIA, please.
2. Prove the US Government had any control over the Venezuelan coup, please.
3. Prove the Pakistani government supports Al Qaeda, please.
4. Show me the reference where the United States government said Iraq would be a cakewalk. Please.
5. Show me proof that the international press is any more accurate than the NYT, please.
6. Please prove all your allegations against Bush, particularly regarding the election, please.
7. Prove the CIA is full of criminals, please.

My point is basically that your post above is flamebait and has about zero fact in it. Insightful my ass. It's the wet dream of some leftist sociopath. Back down to mother Earth, please.