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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."
At last! A /. article on my pet subject!
The system contains strict limits on what information is passed upwards - this is how it was able to function on 1970s computer hardware over 1970s WANs. The absence of totalitarian control is a crucial design factor. There just isn't the bandwidth, nor would you want it.
Beer is the most freedom-loving person you could hope to imagine. He designed Cybersyn to enhance freedom, not to crush it. He sadly died last year.
For a full account of this system, read Beer's book "Brain of the Firm".
I hear he has to consult his lawyers these days before he travels.
Wouldn't want to be tried before the International Criminal Court now, would he?
Its not just the whole winning the war thing that prevents him from being prosecuted. The International Criminal Court (ICC) which was setup to try war crimes was opposed vehemently by the United States and it got to the point that the US refused to take part in any peace-keeping forces globally unless the US was exempt from the actions of the ICC. Just the other day in fact they blocked the adoption of a UN resolution to boost protection for aid-workers in conflict zones because the bill proposed that killing an aid worker would be considered a war crime in accordance with the Rome Statute of the ICC. They basically refuse to have any US military or political leader, past or present, held accountable for any of their actions in the global sphere. It must be a weight of your mind though, when considering whether to invade a country completely unprovoked...
I wont post links. Google for '"War crimes" USA ICC' and you'll find more than enough reputable links to support everything I've said.
It's fascinating to look at these early efforts at controlled economies and think how much better the US economy could be with a bit of technological innovation. And by innovation I don't mean another few decades of intense patent litigation.
The lack of a national electronic currency is a glaring absence. You can hardly expect e-retailing to compete with cash when e-currency consists of credit cards issued by usurous, predatory corporate behemouths. But a conservative government has no reason to disturb the status quo of all things. A national e-currency would disrupt the existing financial industry to no end and that potential negative is much more important to a conservative government than the possible positive of helping the economy as a whole. Why trade what works for some today for what might work for many tomorrow.
So, I understand that it's a political impossibility today, but when the government finally does awake to its responsibility to create a usable currency as it is laid out in the Consitituion, the possibilities are great. It could make a viable welfare state a reality.
The currency could be manipulated in ways previously unheard of. People could be paid simply to live their lives and still there would be no need for inflation. Businessnes could prosper at the same time. It wouldn't have to be anti-business at all. America could never thrive without business, but it wouldn't have to. A planned economy and a thriving business world could easily exist side by side.
I realize these ideas are still quite blasphemous, but should we reach a point of crisis trodding the well worn path, it's nice to know that there are alternatives that could be introduced before things got too bad.
This was modded "INSIGHTFUL"? Too bad there's not a "+1 POLEMIC" rating.
First paragraph - pretty much spot-on.
Second para, 1st sentence - still ok, but drifting into empty spitefulness
2nd P, 2nd s: hard veer into nonsense.
"I doubt anyone much in America sees the oxymoron of this" - Based on what, your own HUMUNGOUS generalizations? Your fervently-held political beliefs?
I think you were right at the beginning. *MOST* of America really doesn't have anything to do with the world, and doesn't want to. Why? Because they don't have to. Provincialism all over the world is being invaded by American products, advertising, and culture (such as it is). SELF-EVIDENTLY, Americans (with no cultural heritage to speak of) don't really mind this.
Thus the furious protests against "globalization" - yes, American culture is shallow and self-serving, but at least it's more benign (as was the British Empire before it) than pretty much any conceivable global alternative, as well as a LARGE number of "local" dogmas, no matter where you are from.
"And the people cling to the national myth out of their personal fears, and in part because the people against the national mythos are for sociological reasons often even more dysfunctional than those for it."
I do confess this is a great statement.
-Styopa