[merridew22]

I would highly recommend reading Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer.

It’s the most fantastic layman’s introduction to cybernetics, written from the perspective of the economist behind the “Cyber” in the Chilean CyberSyn project (1970-3).

I discovered him reading People’s Republic of Walmart, another fantastic book about how effective socialist strategies for centralized government are applied in piecemeal to the largest corporations on the globe.

Highly, highly recommended—-and yes, I believe it’s valuable to learn about cybernetics. It teaches us that we don’t need more computers, or faster computers—-we need to use computers in different ways. Basically, we’ve already got the solutions to our problems, but we don’t implement them because we’re trapped by classic civilizational barriers (it’s hard to change people’s minds in the face of a culture that doesn’t want their minds to change).

[carschno]

For a more recent study about the Chilean approach, I can recommend "Cybernetic Revolutionaries" by Eden Medina (2011, MIT Press, [link](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cybernetic-revolutionaries)).

[nanna]

+1 This is the standard work on Chile's Cybersyn. All articles and chapters on it found elsewhere are basically rewritings of this book.

[merridew22]

Thank you for this!

[082349872349872]

Coincidentally, the market price of copper crashed in 1970 and stayed low until 1973, when it spiked. Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24260354 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23908438 . Now I'm curious: does anyone have an example of a reform/revolution lucky enough to be selling exports into a rising market?

(Mid-1980s conservative economic reform in the US might be an example, although in that case I suspect the Plaza Accord had more to do with it than pure market forces: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219277 )

[merridew22]

From what I understand, the economic revolution / experiment in Chile was abruptly ended due to political forces, not market forces.

Basically, any socialist (sympathizing) government during the under a US magnifying glass. Oil money went into funding far-right fascist / military groups, which eventually caused turmoil in a variety of industries, including a steel worker’s strike.

The entire CyberSyn operation was conducted on a series of glorified typerwriters—-at the time, they were the only computers that the Chilean government could purchase, due to sanctions.

If the US had stopped strangling the nascent Chilean economy, then it would have been better positioned to handle social turmoil and competing political interests.

Instead, on September 11th, 1973, far right militias backed by US money raided Allende’s central command—-he ended up committing suicide rather than ending up a political prisoner.

(Sorry if this was a bit unrelated to the initial reply—it just bugs me how removed from actual market forces these economies are operating in. I feel like it doesn’t matter what you are exporting—-if the US wanted it post-WW2, they came in and took it).

[52-6F-62]

I haven’t read any of the books mentioned, but as a software worker I’m sure many of us have seen problems which would be solvable, even very simply, if the other parameters (often people) were more readily changeable.

I’ve done some reading on cybernetics but I’ll have to look up Beer.