POPULARITY
Camila and Ana explore Project Cybersyn – an early 70s socialist cybernetics project connecting factories in Allende's Chile. This is the first episode of our first season which will be focusing on pre-internet networks!We're on Instagram!And Twitter!Main research for the episode was done by Camila. Ana with the audio editing.Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages)Camila's project 'REDES: bread and justice, peaches and bananas' can be found at https://externalpages.org/#camila-galaz References:- Beckett, Andy. 'Santiago Dreaming'. The Guardian 8 September 2003- Eaton, George. 'Project Cybersyn: the afterlife of Chile's socialist internet'. New Statesman August 2018- Evgeny, Morozov. 'The Planning Machine'. The New Yorker Vol. 90, Iss. 31 (October 2014)- Fablab Santiago ed. ‘The Counterculture Room'. Pavilion of Chile at the London Design Biennale 2016- Loeber, Katherina. 'Big Data, Algorithmic Regulation, and the History of the Cybersyn Project in Chile, 1971-1973'. Social Sciences 7, no.4:65 (April 2018)- Medina, Eden. 'Computer Memory, Collective Memory: Recovering History through Chilean Computing'. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing October-December 2005- Medina, Eden. 'Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile'. MIT Press, 2011- Medina, Eden. 'Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile '. Journal of Latin American Studies Vol. 38 Iss. 3 (August 2006)
Paris Marx is joined by Eden Medina to discuss Project Cybersyn, a technological system created by Chile’s socialist government in the 1970s to manage production, and what it can teach us about political technology and innovation outside the Global North.Eden Medina is the author of “Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile.” She’s also an associate professor at MIT and the Rita Howser Fellow at the Radcliffe Institite for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Follow Eden on Twitter as @edenmedina.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:In 2020, Marian Schlotterbeck spoke to Jacobin about the fifty year anniversary of Salvador Allende’s election.Independent and left-wing delegates won major victories in the election for Chile’s constitutional assembly, making it hard for right-wing delegates to stall the process.In October 2020, Chileans voted overwhelmingly to draft a new constitution, following protests that began in 2019.Dictator Augusto Pinochet oversaw a brutal regime from 1973 to 1990, and the crimes of that period are still being prosecuted.Support the show (https://patreon.com/techwontsaveus)
Description: Bill and Rachel discuss the book “Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile” by Eden Medina (MIT Press, 2011) on the unfinished democratic socialist computer system “Project Cybersyn.” Links and notes for Ep. 362 (PDF): http://arsenalfordemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AFD-Ep-362-Project-Cybersyn-in-Allendes-Chile.pdf Theme music by Stunt Bird. The post Apr 4, 2021 – Project Cybersyn in Allende’s Chile – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 362 appeared first on Arsenal For Democracy.
The boys make a return to Allende’s Chile this week with the conclusion of their sketch of its all too brief flirtation with cybernetic planning. Jack and Dan look at what exactly it was that cybernetician Stafford Beer proposed as a model for real-time decentralised economic management in Chile. They explore the highs, the lows, and some lessons that can be drawn from Project Cybersyn. Reading, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Alliende’s Chile (2014), by Eden Medina.
This week Jack and Dan try to get to grips with the hip new theory on the block: Cybernetics! Our story starts in 1970s Chile. The boys learn all about how an eccentric British cybernetician named Stafford Beer came to be in the employ of the Socialist administration of president Salvador Allende. What does this management consultant have to teach a bunch of democratic socialists and how might business management theory come to inform our glorious communist future? Reading, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (2014), By Eden Medina.
cold open: Interview with Eden Medina on Project Cybersyn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSmQCvfT4pU We dig into one of the most interesting and exciting experiments in socialist innovation ever attempted: Project Cybersyn in 1970s Chile. There’s much to be learned from the history of how a ragtag group of revolutionaries sought to create a cybernetic system to organize and manage a democratic socialist economy. As well as from its ultimate demise at the hands of a CIA-backed military coup. While this prototype of cybernetic democratic socialism was smothered in its cradle by authoritarian neoliberalism, the lessons gleaned from this real utopian endeavor must live on today. Cybersyn is dead, long live Cybersyn! Some stuff we reference: • Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile by Eden Medina https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cybernetic-revolutionaries • The Anti-Socialist Origins of Big Data by Greg Gandin: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/anti-socialist-origins-big-data/ • Chomsky interviewed by Denis Staunton: https://chomsky.info/2009____/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl).
Das Buch über das wir sprechen: Cybernetic Revolutionaries - Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile von Eden Medina.
Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (Print Version) (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262525968/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0262525968&linkId=e09a1ed21dc65f0235d273fa6e30db5b) 01:57 – Eden’s Superpower: Being a Patient Learner 06:51 – Determining Your Ability/Eligibility to Speak as an Expert 08:55 – Electrical Engineering => Law => PhD Work 12:47 – The History of Cybernetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics) 15:51 – American vs British Cybernetics The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future by Andrew Pickering (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226667901/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226667901&linkId=442c315bcdda3e32db2428df1dfab243) Grey Walter’s Tortoises (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLULRlmXkKo) 17:37 – The Many Definitions of Cybernetics The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age (New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History) by Ronald R. Kline (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/142142424X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=142142424X&linkId=446c68cf5c6674b14e216d1099f09f05) 25:03 – Project Cybersyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn) 45:56 – Sociotechnical Engineering 53:24 – Creating Ethically Sound Tools Reflections: Astrid: The power dynamics that are already baked into our tools and the history of computing is global. Jessica: Looking into second-order cybernetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics). Rein: The importance of learning about history, culture, and how people work as being necessary for a technical career. Eden: Making connections throughout the show. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Eden Medina.
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70’s, at the invitation of leftist president, Salvador Allende, the “father of management cybernetics” (as Norbert Wiener christened Beer) attempted nothing less than the development and implementation of a cybernetic governance system for Chile’s nationalized economy. For decades, we have relied solely on the writings of Beer and his associates for accounts of this amazing techno-political adventure but, thanks to Eden Medina’s Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, from the MIT press (originally published in 2011 and out in softcover in 2014), we now have a deeply researched scholarly investigation of this extraordinary historical moment in which Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model was positioned as a tool to enable radical socialist transformation while remaining within Chile’s constitutional democratic framework. Medina deftly guides us through this astonishing odyssey as the utopian visionary Beer and his brilliant and inspired team of local collaborators, facing an invisible US led economic and technological blockade, craft a real-time communications network stretching the entire length of Chile out of two mainframe computers and a warehouse full of unused telex machines and which proves its mettle in response to a wildly disruptive US funded national truck drivers strike. Along the way, we meet a colorful cast of characters including doctor turned Marxist lightning rod, Salvador Allende, wily young political operator and future Silicon valley innovator, Fernando Flores, and of course, the wildly charismatic business guru turned leftist, new age quasi-mystic, Stafford Beer; all wrestling with the struggle to keep their emancipatory egalitarian project of distributed decision making and control from tipping over into centralized technocracy as the entire Chilean socialist project teeters towards its brutal and tragic ending. Seamlessly blending compelling storytelling and astute technological, political, and cultural analysis, Medina’s book stands as a penetrating look at an under-theorized political experiment and a detailed summary of its still hotly debated legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70’s, at the invitation of leftist president, Salvador Allende, the “father of management cybernetics” (as Norbert Wiener christened Beer) attempted nothing less than the development and implementation of a cybernetic governance system for Chile’s nationalized economy. For decades, we have relied solely on the writings of Beer and his associates for accounts of this amazing techno-political adventure but, thanks to Eden Medina’s Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, from the MIT press (originally published in 2011 and out in softcover in 2014), we now have a deeply researched scholarly investigation of this extraordinary historical moment in which Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model was positioned as a tool to enable radical socialist transformation while remaining within Chile’s constitutional democratic framework. Medina deftly guides us through this astonishing odyssey as the utopian visionary Beer and his brilliant and inspired team of local collaborators, facing an invisible US led economic and technological blockade, craft a real-time communications network stretching the entire length of Chile out of two mainframe computers and a warehouse full of unused telex machines and which proves its mettle in response to a wildly disruptive US funded national truck drivers strike. Along the way, we meet a colorful cast of characters including doctor turned Marxist lightning rod, Salvador Allende, wily young political operator and future Silicon valley innovator, Fernando Flores, and of course, the wildly charismatic business guru turned leftist, new age quasi-mystic, Stafford Beer; all wrestling with the struggle to keep their emancipatory egalitarian project of distributed decision making and control from tipping over into centralized technocracy as the entire Chilean socialist project teeters towards its brutal and tragic ending. Seamlessly blending compelling storytelling and astute technological, political, and cultural analysis, Medina’s book stands as a penetrating look at an under-theorized political experiment and a detailed summary of its still hotly debated legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70’s, at the invitation of leftist president, Salvador Allende, the “father of management cybernetics” (as Norbert Wiener christened Beer) attempted nothing less than the development and implementation of a cybernetic governance system for Chile’s nationalized economy. For decades, we have relied solely on the writings of Beer and his associates for accounts of this amazing techno-political adventure but, thanks to Eden Medina’s Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, from the MIT press (originally published in 2011 and out in softcover in 2014), we now have a deeply researched scholarly investigation of this extraordinary historical moment in which Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model was positioned as a tool to enable radical socialist transformation while remaining within Chile’s constitutional democratic framework. Medina deftly guides us through this astonishing odyssey as the utopian visionary Beer and his brilliant and inspired team of local collaborators, facing an invisible US led economic and technological blockade, craft a real-time communications network stretching the entire length of Chile out of two mainframe computers and a warehouse full of unused telex machines and which proves its mettle in response to a wildly disruptive US funded national truck drivers strike. Along the way, we meet a colorful cast of characters including doctor turned Marxist lightning rod, Salvador Allende, wily young political operator and future Silicon valley innovator, Fernando Flores, and of course, the wildly charismatic business guru turned leftist, new age quasi-mystic, Stafford Beer; all wrestling with the struggle to keep their emancipatory egalitarian project of distributed decision making and control from tipping over into centralized technocracy as the entire Chilean socialist project teeters towards its brutal and tragic ending. Seamlessly blending compelling storytelling and astute technological, political, and cultural analysis, Medina’s book stands as a penetrating look at an under-theorized political experiment and a detailed summary of its still hotly debated legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70’s, at the invitation of leftist president, Salvador Allende, the “father of management cybernetics” (as Norbert Wiener christened Beer) attempted nothing less than the development and implementation of a cybernetic governance system for Chile’s nationalized economy. For decades, we have relied solely on the writings of Beer and his associates for accounts of this amazing techno-political adventure but, thanks to Eden Medina’s Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, from the MIT press (originally published in 2011 and out in softcover in 2014), we now have a deeply researched scholarly investigation of this extraordinary historical moment in which Beer’s cybernetic Viable System Model was positioned as a tool to enable radical socialist transformation while remaining within Chile’s constitutional democratic framework. Medina deftly guides us through this astonishing odyssey as the utopian visionary Beer and his brilliant and inspired team of local collaborators, facing an invisible US led economic and technological blockade, craft a real-time communications network stretching the entire length of Chile out of two mainframe computers and a warehouse full of unused telex machines and which proves its mettle in response to a wildly disruptive US funded national truck drivers strike. Along the way, we meet a colorful cast of characters including doctor turned Marxist lightning rod, Salvador Allende, wily young political operator and future Silicon valley innovator, Fernando Flores, and of course, the wildly charismatic business guru turned leftist, new age quasi-mystic, Stafford Beer; all wrestling with the struggle to keep their emancipatory egalitarian project of distributed decision making and control from tipping over into centralized technocracy as the entire Chilean socialist project teeters towards its brutal and tragic ending. Seamlessly blending compelling storytelling and astute technological, political, and cultural analysis, Medina’s book stands as a penetrating look at an under-theorized political experiment and a detailed summary of its still hotly debated legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer's Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In the early 70's, at the invitation of leftist president, Salvador Allende, the “father of management cybernetics” (as Norbert Wiener christened Beer) attempted nothing less than the... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/systems-and-cybernetics