Re:The cybernetics scare and the origins of the Internet (2009)
by photochemsyn on Monday September 27, 2021 @10:36AM
(#28671140)
Some interesting excerpts:
". . . In their view, machines, organisms, and human society were all seen as self-organizing control systems, which, operating in a certain environment, pursued their goals (hitting a target, increasing order, achieving better organization, or reaching the state of equilibrium) by communicating with this environment, that is, sending signals and receiving information about the results of their actions through feedback loops."
That's probably an overly simplistic view of biology and ecosystems.
". . . Wiener was deeply critical of capitalist America. He did not believe in the ability of the “invisible hand” of free market to establish an economic and social equilibrium, or homeostasis in cybernetic terms. His social outlook was overtly pessimistic: “There is no homeostasis whatever. We are involved in the business cycles of boom and failure, in the successions of dictatorship and revolution, in the wars which everyone loses.”
Not much has changed eh?
". . .He believed that describing society in cybernetic terms as a self-regulating device would make it clear that controlling the means of communication was “the most effective and most important” anti-homeostatic factor, which could drive society out of equilibrium.16 Wiener noted that on both sides of the Atlantic “political leaders may attempt to control their populations” by manipulating information flows, and argued that “it is no accident that Russia has had its Berias and that we have our McCarthys”.17 His views of capitalism and communism were best summarized by his colleague and friend Dirk Struik: “plague on both your houses”."
Now about mass consolidation of corporate media and social media platforms, with fairly arbitrary censorship and an obsession with 'control of the message' in government-corporate circles, ahem. Antitrust for media sounds like a very good idea.
". . . In their view, machines, organisms, and human society were all seen as self-organizing control systems, which, operating in a certain environment, pursued their goals (hitting a target, increasing order, achieving better organization, or reaching the state of equilibrium) by communicating with this environment, that is, sending signals and receiving information about the results of their actions through feedback loops."
That's probably an overly simplistic view of biology and ecosystems.
". . . Wiener was deeply critical of capitalist America. He did not believe in the ability of the “invisible hand” of free market to establish an economic and social equilibrium, or homeostasis in cybernetic terms. His social outlook was overtly pessimistic: “There is no homeostasis whatever. We are involved in the business cycles of boom and failure, in the successions of dictatorship and revolution, in the wars which everyone loses.”
Not much has changed eh?
". . .He believed that describing society in cybernetic terms as a self-regulating device would make it clear that controlling the means of communication was “the most effective and most important” anti-homeostatic factor, which could drive society out of equilibrium.16 Wiener noted that on both sides of the Atlantic “political leaders may attempt to control their populations” by manipulating information flows, and argued that “it is no accident that Russia has had its Berias and that we have our McCarthys”.17 His views of capitalism and communism were best summarized by his colleague and friend Dirk Struik: “plague on both your houses”."
Now about mass consolidation of corporate media and social media platforms, with fairly arbitrary censorship and an obsession with 'control of the message' in government-corporate circles, ahem. Antitrust for media sounds like a very good idea.