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Cybersyn And Early Uniminds

Posted by Hemos on from the i-can-see-your-house-from-up-here dept.

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."

31 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. As opposed to "nutritional principles"? by rot26 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I bet "Cybernetic Principles" sounded really groovy in 1971, although I'm curious how you can build a computer network, or a computer-anything for that matter, without them.

    --



    To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
    1. Re:As opposed to "nutritional principles"? by AJWM · · Score: 4, Informative

      Cybernetics is the application of control processes from biological systems to artificial systems.

      You're thinking of bionics. (Although the definition you give isn't exact for that, either). Cybernetics is the study of control and communication in both living and non-living systems.

      Here are the dictionary links:
      bionics
      cybernetics

      (Triva note: the term "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, "bionics" was coined by Dr. Jack Steele -- my father-in-law)

      --
      -- Alastair
    2. Re:As opposed to "nutritional principles"? by TomV · · Score: 3, Informative

      I bet "Cybernetic Principles" sounded really groovy in 1971

      True. But when Staff wrote 'Cybernetics and Management" in 1959, the idea that you could apply Wiener's 1948 observational theories to real enterprises, let alone an entire national economy, has got to have been one of the all-time crazy ideas. Like Team Syntegrity (part of the Viable Systems Model, kicking off from the idea that every imaginable system can in some sense be modelled as an icosahedron), based on Buckminster Fuller's idea that 'all systems are polyhedra' - nuts perhaps, but terribly terribly useful and possibly *the* most complete model of 'organisations' (whatever they are, read the book!) ever constructed.

      Here's a lecture(pdf) Staff gave in 1973 looking back at his work in Chile. And nearly two decades later, here's 'world in torment' which gives both a lovely flavour of what Staff was all about and a frightening summary of where the world may be going.

      NOTHING has ever hit me with the same combination of 'wow' and 'my brain is burning' than Staff's Viable Systems Model seminars, sorry, Syntegrations. But like the man used to say, 'you need big words for big ideas. And you should find it hard to understand.' And you just knew you were being inspired by one of *the* great minds.

  2. Cybersin ? by makapuf · · Score: 3, Funny

    First thought it was about pr0n or Kazaa (or using blink tags), but no.

  3. Not quite the internet by Brento · · Score: 5, Funny

    Voters, workplaces and the government were to be linked together by a new, interactive national communications network, which would transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time.

    Uhhh, no, that's nothing like the Internet, actually. The Internet links men with chicks, to transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - the guys shell out money and get pr0n. Nothing socialist about it, and certainly nothing to do with voters.

    --
    What's your damage, Heather?
  4. hey now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    That doesn't look like the deck of the Enterprise. Just seven captain's chairs, and nothing else. And that would suck. One Captain Kirk, given Shatner's overacting, annoying enough. Seven of them would just plain suck.

  5. CIA sponsored coup d'etat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    34

    1. Re:CIA sponsored coup d'etat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For a couple of reasons.
      Firstly, the USA is an extremely large country, and only has one neighbour of any relative population size. This helps make the USA far more of a self-contained world than just about any other country out there. It also means that ~97% of television content is locally produced, furthering this.

      America is extremely nationalistic and has a national myth of grandious pridefulness 2nd to very few. Most Americans don't want to tolerate anything that gets in the way of that nationalism. 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.

      So if the USA is taking out governments in places like Venuzvela, Chile, Greece, Zaire etc, it is because they're 'enemies of freedom', while supporting evil regimes like the government of Turkey for 'the greater good'. I doubt anyone much in America sees the oxymoron of this.

      It was much the same with the British Empire. It stood for 'freedom' and 'christian charity' and so on. In reality, the people in power were just cold greedy sociopaths. Same with America. 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.

    2. Re:CIA sponsored coup d'etat by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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
  6. Chilean Enterprise by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    "Computadora, te, gris del earl, caliente." :)

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  7. Not Orwellian at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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".

    1. Re:Not Orwellian at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I shall go on.

      Cybersyn is the implementation of Stafford Beer's "Viable System Model" which is modelled on the working of the human nervous system.

      Totalitarianism would be like if the brain demanded to know every detail of what the hand was doing.

      The body doesn't work this way - hand control (for instance) is decentralized, with part being controlled by local "muscle memory", part being controlled where the nerves meet the spinal cord, and part being controlled at different levels of the brain. In order to prevent information overload the information passing upward is filtered at every stage to remove redundancy and irrelevancy.

      In Cybersyn, the workings of actual factories was monitored by a couple of IBM/370s (if memory serves) but only statistically, to throw up warning events if the stats went out of whack. These warning events would be passed up to the "industry level", where they would mostly be absorbed since the industry may be operating within tolerances even if the individual factory isnt. Only if the industry had problems would signals be passed to the "master control room".

      A highly moving aspect of the whole tale is that the "master control room" is a logical neccessity, but when Beer pointed it out on a system diagram to Allende, his immediate assumption was that the box represented THE PEOPLE.

      Actually the Cybersyn implementation couldn't be as decentralized as Beer wanted, because Chile could only afford two computers which, by their nature, had to be centralized processing units. In today's world things would be a lot different, and no doubt Beer would advocate open source as the one way to enforce that the government couldn't be collecting information it shouldn't.

    2. Re:Not Orwellian at all by StaffordBeerIsMyHero · · Score: 5, Informative

      I shall go on. Cybersyn is the implementation of Stafford Beer's "Viable System Model" which is modelled on the working of the human nervous system. Totalitarianism would be like if the brain demanded to know every detail of what the hand was doing. The body doesn't work this way - hand control (for instance) is decentralized, with part being controlled by local "muscle memory", part being controlled where the nerves meet the spinal cord, and part being controlled at different levels of the brain. In order to prevent information overload the information passing upward is filtered at every stage to remove redundancy and irrelevancy. In Cybersyn, the workings of actual factories was monitored by a couple of IBM/370s (if memory serves) but only statistically, to throw up warning events if the stats went out of whack. These warning events would be passed up to the "industry level", where they would mostly be absorbed since the industry may be operating within tolerances even if the individual factory isnt. Only if the industry had problems would signals be passed to the "master control room". A highly moving aspect of the whole tale is that the "master control room" is a logical neccessity, but when Beer pointed it out on a system diagram to Allende, his immediate assumption was that the box represented THE PEOPLE. Actually the Cybersyn implementation couldn't be as decentralized as Beer wanted, because Chile could only afford two computers which, by their nature, had to be centralized processing units. In today's world things would be a lot different, and no doubt Beer would advocate open source as the one way to enforce that the government couldn't be collecting information it shouldn't. (Repeated because this topic finally made me get an account)

    3. Re:Not Orwellian at all by tessaiga · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Ah, this must be where the phrase "free as in Beer" I keep seeing on Slashdot comes from.

      --
      The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away ...
  8. It's a Conspiracy - I tell you. by Crypto+Gnome · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just for a grin, I searched google.

    Looking there, you can find beer.

    Looking there, you can find Stafford
    eg It's in the UK The United Kingdom is well known for its relationship to beer.

    Oddly enough, searching for both Stafford and beer returns no links about the proliferation of fermented ales in a certain part of the United Kingdom.

    --
    Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
  9. Re:Kissinger by Epeeist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  10. Re:Kissinger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  11. Who said we took it lightly? by MyNameIsFred · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.

  12. Re:Sept 11 reference? by 10Ghz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why shouldn't it be mentioned? Or are you saying that if someone mentions that "Yes, US has overthrown democratically-elected leaders and put brutal dictators in their place", it just shows that those people are "anti-american"? I mean, they are merely stating a fact? Do we have to glorify USA all the time, and if we fail to do so, we are "anti-american"?

    I for one find the whole deal in Chile a perfect example of american hypocrisy. Democratically elected leaders are OK only as long as they agree with USA. If they don't, they are bad and must be got rid of. That puts the whole "US's crusade against tyranny and dictators" in to a whole new perspective wouldn't you say?

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  13. Ministry of love... by Noryungi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmph. At the risk of sounding like a leftie:

    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.

    Why is this "Orwellian and Big Brother[ish]"? You seem to forget that the "CIA sponsored coup" was actually a pretty bloody affair itself... More than 3000 people "disappeared" (tortured and fed to the fishes), some because they were just suspected of left-of-center sypathies.

    But don't take my word for it, read the following:
    Amnesty International 1, Amnesty International 2, Amnesty International 3, Human Rights Watch, and even this week's Economist, etc... I could go on, but you get my drift.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    1. Re:Ministry of love... by hummassa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      With the difference that Allende wanted a richer, democratic Cuba, and Pinochet is a father-of-the-people tradition-country-family do-what-I-say-or-else-i'll-throw-you-from-a-plane- above-the-Andes bloody murderer. Leandro, go talk to some chilean people. Every chilean person I met (righties, no less, I'm not talking lefties like if there was any alive today) feared Pinochet as much as the devil. They didn't like the lines to get toilet paper, too, but they wouldn't choose our friend el generalissimoAugusto.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  14. Re:Didn't work by StaffordBeerIsMyHero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What they got was a real-time view of a country falling under CIA coup. Quite a different thing, and says nothing about the functionality of the system (which was fine).

  15. If this is Orwellian by panurge · · Score: 3, Insightful
    (An epithet meaning "Old-Etonian with assumed name, badly behaved Englishman with chip on shoulder dying of tuberculosis in post-war Britain, but I'll assume the usual ludicrous use of the word to mean "totalitarian") then what does that make MRPII and ERP systems? Are you suggesting, since the control available to managements nowadays is so much greater than this little low-bandwidth system, that big business is ultra-left wing and ultra-totalitarian?

    No, I don't think so either. Most sane people would think that giving a business the information it needs to stay in business is a good thing. And if you actually RTFA, you will see it describes how the system was able to keep the Chilean economy functioning during a national strike. It made the economy more resilient. Isn't that what software is supposed to do?

    I feel a major rant coming on, but it's off-topic.

    --
    Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
  16. The US will eventually have a planned economy. by ahfoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  17. Captain! by cybermace5 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Sir! Employment dip approaching 132 mark 7!"

    "On...screen! What...could it...Sensors?"

    "Sir, it appears to be a second-class hiring anomaly. They are pointing fingers, I suggest evasive action. Our treasury is not capable of withstanding a direct attack."

    "Understood. It appears that...we can...not win this...one. Change our course to...braised shrimp and roast duck. Maximum warp!"

    --
    ...
  18. a chilean perpective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you want to know about the chilean guy who was behind this, and what he is up to now, check this article.
    For those of you already complaining about how a bloody coup thwarted this clearly great idea, please read that article. It is very politically biased, but it shows how this guys ideas have evolved over time, and I would dare to say he wouldn't think of building such a clearly useless system now.

    A system like that cannot take individual human actions into account, it cannot deal with subjective market decisions, it cannot handle human relations. A professor at Universidad de Chile (the one the submitter mentions) told us about this system years ago, and how it seemed to be such a great idea for managing coal production (for example)... until it had to deal with a coal miners strike...

    If you want to know why such a centralized system will never be useful check econlib, you might learn a thing ot two.

    By the way, I'm chilean.

  19. Re:USA overthrowing governments by 10Ghz · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Personally, I've nothing against the idea of pre-emptive self defense...


    OK. Could the rest of the world then invade USA? I mean, USA seems to be the biggest threat to world peace these days, invading other sovereign countries at whim. I mean, there's nothing wrong with pre-emptive self-defence, right?
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  20. Venezuela anyone? by zenyu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.

    There were hearings, the Republican administration withheld information from the Congress that showed how personally involved Nixon was in the murders. The sickness of the CIA was obvious enough that it was still put on a leash, but it continued to exist. Fast forward to today...

    Condaliza welcomes the CIA's new dictators in Venezuela hours after the coup. Democratically elected leader was lucky enough to be forewarned due to one Constitution loving patriot in the US government who leaked the sad plot days earlier. The military regiment he left in the basement of the presidential palace arrests the Venezuelan 'leaders' of the coup. Bush team lucky enough that some New Yorkers are killed, providing enough confusion that a majority of American's still don't realize the other oil rich country we decided to implement regime change in was Al Qaeda biggest enemy. America supports the dictator of Pakistan, Al Qaeda's biggest friend, rinse, repeat.

    It is such a strange thing that as citizens we overwhelmingly want democracy to spread but so many of us vote for a neo-con puppet, the same people who write about establishing a Pax Americana and consolitating power with pretty lies. Anyone remember "Iraq will be a cakewalk", want to compare today's, "We knew Iraq would not be easy"...

    Things are not helped by crappy papers like the NYT, whose international pages seem to be about as accurate as the "Voice of America" propaganda machine. Remember the protest in Venezuela? They showed a picture and story about the anti-government protest, but said nothing of the pro-democracy rally that had many many times the number of participants. Enough to remind me of the hundreds of thousands of protestors in New York last March which were not mentioned on the nightly news in New York, but a pro-Iraq rally consisting of 20 people the next week got a 3 minute segment. But I have to assume even those who vote for the likes of the current administration do read an international paper on the internet once in a while, and so have noticed what crap we are fed by our papers and TV news outlets.

    While the Bush's may have stolen the last election, I'm more ashamed that it was so easy for him to actually win support of 48% of eligible voters who showed up at the polls, than less than half a million Democrats his brother illegaly removed from the rolls and a few hundred voting machines he rigged to swallow bad ballots in black districts and to spit out for revote in conservative white districts.

    Until the CIA is dissolved and amnesty is given to lesser functionaries to provide evidence against the worst criminals in the agency, I won't believe we've taken Chile to heart. If the government needs better data on what's happening in the world let them subsidise the news media to cover foreign news properly.

  21. Re:Another Connection in your Observations. by vidarh · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Expansion, yes. But consider the average British person during the empire's height - were they likely to be aware of the viewpoints of other subjects of the empire outside Britain, or those officially sanctioned by the British elite, and by extension the British media of the day?

    That is the point. The US is very much in a position today were only a relatively small minority of US citizens are exposed to any degree to foreign opinions of them except as digested by US media, whereas in most smaller nations that is much less likely to happen.

    Poverty can do it - you'll likely find many third world nations where the majority of citizens are largely unaware of the politics of the rest of the world, but then most of these countries have little impact on the world.

    Apart from the US, there are perhaps a handful of countries where the general populace are so isolated from foreign culture and viewpoints and that have anywhere near the influence on the world. Russia doesn't really apply - while powerful, it is also politically and culturally extremely influenced by a lot of surrounding countries and the West. China, possibly, given that the majority of the populace is relatively isolated from surrounding countries or any influence from the west. India certainly not - it's a melting pot of a wide variety of political and cultural influences, drawing both on the West and influence from a variety of it's neighbours.

    I'm not sure how much I agree with the idea of US isolationism, but it's an intriguing idea, and superficially it would seem to explain a lot of why US opinion generally seem so completely unfazed and unaware of what happens internationally

  22. Have you actually ever talked to anyone in Chile? by TheNarrator · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I have been to Chile many times. I've talked to people who live there. The 1970s coup was very necessary. The whole country was an economic disaster and there were massive food shortages and the country was quickly being taken over by the radical left supporters of Allende and their Cuban backers. Businesses were being nationalized and the chilean supreme court had ruled that the Allende government was violating the constitution in trying to impose communism, though they were ignored.


    Over 15 years, 3000 people were killed, but this was remarkably humane compared to the communist revolutions at the time. Around the same time in Cambodia, 3,000,000 people (That's 1000 times more people) were executed by a fanatical communist regieme. In the aftermath of Vietnam there were 10s of thousands killed in political executions.


    Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power. Up to that point it was assumed that the world would soon be 100% communist because slowly but surely every country was turning communist and no country had ever gone back.


    Today in Chile many people marvel at the non-Chilean's media's obsession with the Allende Coup. Today Chile has the best economy in Latin America, and the least corrupt, most well run government in the region that actually does a great job at promoting things like public health.

    I was there during the 2000 election between Lagos and Lavin and if you read the Chilean or Argentinan press you saw story after story about Lagos and Lavin's varying postitions on the economy, education, etc. If you read the international press the whole thing was Pinochet vs Allende , Pinochet vs Allende. It's as if you were reading about the 2000 U.S election in some newspaper and they were framing the whole thing as an election where the primary issue was the Vietnam War.

  23. Re:Have you actually ever talked to anyone in Chil by vidarh · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The 1970s coup was very necessary.

    If so, then why didn't the opposition arrange demonstrations, arrange strikes without massive CIA intervention and actually manage to keep the strikes going, and demand changes?

    Fact is, Allende was democratically elected, and the opposition, even with CIA help, didn't manage to raise enough support in the population to get anywhere near overthrowing his government before they decided to start murdering innocent people.

    If Allende was so bad for Chile, why couldn't the CIA stay out of it and let Chileans decide for themselves and throw him out of power?

    And why did they support a fascist dictator if the goal was to "save" the Chilean people from suffering?

    You try to justify it by pointing to Khmer Rouge, but "forget" that Khmer Rouge and Allende had wildly differing political platforms. You also conveniently "forget" that the "communist" Khmer Rouge was finally stopped not by the US, or any of it's cronies, but by "communist" Vietnam.

    Allendes regime was different from either in that it didn't murder the opposition or anyone that ever looked like they might consider possibly opposing them, and was democratically elected. If you want to equate Allende and Pol Pot, I would submit that Mother Theresa was really Stalin in drag, and claim that it is just as plausible.

    Try telling the hundreds of thousands of people that had close friends or relatives killed because of Pinochet that the coup was "necessary", and that you think the CIA and a small group of military officers, none elected officials, had a right to take that decision on behalf of the Chilean people.

    If you truly believe that, then would you also support the removal of the US government if some small group, say Al Quaeda, decides that they think it is necessary to do so on behalf of the American people?

    If not, then who do you think have the right to decide that it is "right" to overthrow a foreign democratically elected government?