[p2p-research] Project Cybersyn

Tue Dec 8 08:58:44 CET 2009

Don't you think Kevin, that our present stigmergic capabilities, based on
ultra low transaction and communication costs, may revive such
possibilities, and replace the dream of centralized planning, by horizontal
coordination, as in fact already occurs in the large peer production
efforts?

What is the stigmergic streams of immaterial cooperation is augmented and
complemented by the resource-based material flows?

Michel

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Sent to you by Kevin Carson via Google Reader:
>
>
> Project Cybersyn<http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12/project-cybersyn.html>
> via Marginal Revolution<http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/>by Alex Tabarrok on 12/7/09
>
> Cybersyn was a project of the socialist government of Salvador Allende
> (1970-1973) and British cybernetic visionary Stafford Beer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer>;
> its goal was to control the Chilean economy in real-time using computers and
> "cybernetic principles."  The military regime that overthrew Allende dropped
> the project and probably for this reason when the project is periodically
> rediscovered it is often written about in a romantic tone as a revolutionary
> "socialist internet,<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2003/sep/08/sciencenews.chile>"
> decades ahead of its time that was "destroyed" by the military because it
> was "too egalitarian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2003/sep/08/sciencenews.chile>"
> or because they didn't understand it<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/world/americas/28cybersyn.html?scp=1&sq=cybersyn&st=cse>
> .
>
> Although some sources at the time said the Chilean economy was "run by
> computer<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/world/americas/28cybersyn.html?scp=1&sq=cybersyn&st=cse>,"
> the project was in reality a bit of a joke, albeit a rather expensive one,
> and about the only thing about it that worked were the ordinary Western
> Union telex machines spread around the country. The[image: IBM 360]<http://www.marginalrevolution.com/.a/6a00d8341c66b253ef012876219a5c970c-pi>two computers supposedly used to run the Chilean economy were IBM 360s (or
> machines on that order).  These machines were no doubt very impressive to
> politicians and visionaries eager to use their technological might to
> control an economy (see picture at right.)  Today, our perspective will
> perhaps be somewhat different when we realize that these behemoths were far
> less powerful than an iPhone.  Run an economy with an iPhone?  Sorry, there
> is no app for that.
>
> Indeed, you don't have to read far between the lines of Andy "socialist
> internet" Beckett's account to get a flavor of what was really going on:
>
> Beer's original band of disciples had been diluted by other, less
> idealistic scientists. There was constant friction between the two groups.
> Meanwhile, Beer himself started to focus on other schemes: using painters
> and folk singers to publicise the principles of high-tech socialism; testing
> his son's electrical public-opinion meters, which never actually saw
> service; and even organising anchovy-fishing expeditions to earn the
> government some desperately needed foreign currency.
>
> (Note the classic, *'the visionary* *failed because others lacked
> idealism' *story*.  *Meanwhile the visionary is off on an anchovy-fishing
> expedition.*)**
> *
>
> Recently, Jeremiah Axelrod and Greg Borenstein have put together an
> excellent video essay <http://vimeo.com/8000921> (fyi, 25 minutes) which
> gets to the heart (perhaps head would be a better word) of Cybersyn by
> focusing on the legendary "control room," which they delightfully call the
> "inverted panopticon."
>
> [image: Cybersyn_control_room]<http://www.marginalrevolution.com/.a/6a00d8341c66b253ef0128762183c0970c-pi>
>
> It is no accident, say Axelrod and Borenstein, that the control room looks
> like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise because the whole purpose of the
> room was to exude a science-fiction fantasy of omniscience and omnipotence.
> The fantasy naturally appealed to Allende who had the control room moved to
> the presidential palace just days before the coup.
>
> The control room is like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise in another
> respect--both are stage sets.  Nothing about the room is real, even the
> computer displays on the wall are simply hand drawn slides projected from
> the other side with Kodak carousels.
>
> Ironically, when rumors of the project began to circulate, the illusion of
> omniscience and omnipotence that Beer had created, the same illusion that so
> appealed to Allende and that had funded Beer's visions and experiments, this
> illusion caused fear that an all-knowing big brother was on the way--and
> such fear may even have encouraged the coup.
>
> After the coup, rather than destroying the project because of its
> "egalitarian" nature, the military regime was more likely to have been
> disillusioned and disappointed to discover project Cybersyn's impotence.
>
> Hat tip to Boing Boing <http://boingboing.net/>.
>
>
>
>
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