News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation (2014). Parent comment

Re:Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation (... by sudosysgen on Friday January 14, 2022 @10:38AM (#29935753)
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.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation (... by bencollier49 on Friday January 14, 2022 @11:45AM (#29936797)
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

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation (... by sudosysgen on Friday January 14, 2022 @02:23PM (#29939070)
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?

[ Parent | on HN ]