Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by spacecity1971 2069 days ago
The chairs make perfect sense in the context they were used, and this was all built on a shoestring budget by hand. The bare bones Cybersyn was actually used during the trucking strike in Chile, and Beers theories worked perfectly. The whole thing is worth digging further into to fully comprehend the design decisions that were made.
1 comments
scottlocklin 2069 days ago
The "bare bones Cybersyn" was a call center. Beers ideas are hogwash. I actually read the man's books; they're the sheerest gorp.

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/cybersyn-and-a...

link
merridew22 2069 days ago
Huh. I’ve read Brain of the Firm, and Heart of the Enterprise, as well as Weiner’s Introduction to Cybernetics, and I found that the material is challenging but rewarding, not “sheer gorp.” Contrary to the summary that this blog offers, cybernetics is defined pretty thoroughly as the study of viable systems; i.e. anything that continues to maintain itself. This “cybernetic” field is named so because of the Greek word for “governance.”
link
scottlocklin 2069 days ago
I wrote the summary after reading the books.

Cybernetics ... well, let's just say it was the "AI" of its time, which eventually evolved into something useful (I guess Germans call operations research this name). Beer had nothing to do with Weiner; he was a hanger on and a professional wanker. Reading Beer in current year would be like reading Eliezer Yudkowsky or Bostrum and hoping to learn something about deep learning.

Mind you I found Beer an extremely likeable mountebank. Compared to current year "AI" numskulls, 9/10 for personality alone.

link
hoistbypetard 2068 days ago
Nice write-up. Thanks for posting it.

You captured my angle perfectly with your first sentence. I really wonder whether those who tried planned economies would've done better at it if they'd had better tools. I don't want to see an experiment in that vein anywhere I live, but I do wonder.

If you still remember it well enough to do so, it'd be interesting to see more detail about how Beer's work is horse shit. Mostly because I like the rest of your take on cybersyn and you might save me reading the horse shit for myself if you post it.

link