[bencollier49]

I've come to the conclusion that people only still talk about Project Cybersyn today because it was visually arresting. There's no clear lineage to modern data systems, but it's cool in certain circles for various reasons including the funky 1970s data seats.

[sudosysgen]

I don't think I agree. The idea to have a networked control system with both direct ways to measure the behaviour of the real system as well as a model was quite novel to Cybersyn.

Directly as a result of it and the work Stafford Beer did on it, we got the whole field of system dynamics.

Also, Cybersyn was a pioneer in the idea of complex control systems with multiple humans in the loop.

[bencollier49]

The Wikipedia article on System Dynamics says it arose in the 1950s as a result of the work of Jay Forrester. It doesn't mention Stafford Beer. Should it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics

[sudosysgen]

It probably should - both Stafford Beer and Jay Forrester came up with very similar solutions to the same problems, but AFAIK Beer applied them in a dynamic way earlier. If you want to be absolutely pedantic however, technically systems dynamics typically refers to Jay Forrester's lineage.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, operational research applied to organizations?