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A comment on Project Cybersyn and the origins of the Big Data nation.

Re:Project Cybersyn and the origins of the Big Data nation by bcoates on Monday October 06, 2014 @05:13PM (#8418341)
If this interests you, you might like the book "Red Plenty".

It alternates between novel and essay about Khrushchev-era USSR, when people on both sides of the curtain thought there was a pretty good chance that the Soviets would succeed, if not as a Socialist Utopia at least in economically overtaking the west in output and quality of life.

Also, this excellent essay about the computational aspects of Gosplan, the USSR's mostly human-powered predecessor to Cybersyn: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimiza... (which is where I learned about Red Plenty)

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Re:Project Cybersyn and the origins of the Big Data nation by brendano on Monday October 06, 2014 @05:54PM (#8418541)
Also, see Cosma Shalizi's excellent review of "Red Plenty", which includes a mini-introduction on the application of linear programming to economic policymaking.

http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimiza...

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