Very interesting points. In the social sciences, biologism was generally discredited for a long time. But the idea of machination, of technocratic governance, stays strong, as was the enthusiasm for central planning, inspired by the war economies (or if one believes Lenin by the German Post Office). From Kahn's 1927 Der Mensch als Industriepalast leads a path to humanity as a machine to be optimised, planned and governed. Management literature from the 1970s saw great prospects in computer-assisted resource planning, so I guess the ones who seriously tried it were Operations Research, not Cybernetics. In essence, mostly solving planning with multi-linear algebra optimisation and serving mere financial objectives. With the AI/ML technological flexibilities now, we found an easier way down the same rabbit hole, with more dirty data sets and less clarity about underlying models. Blackbox AI optimisation is in production in many fields, for instance, for fleet optimisation. Recently, the theory of Jean Baudrillard, formerly confusing, started to make great sense to me. The practical effect of Wiener on social theory revolves around the ecological movement, showcasing the ecosystem dependencies. It is hard to imagine the 1972 Club of Rome report without cybernetics.
Can a cybernetic society still leave room for irreducibly human qualities like ambiguity, conscience, dissent, and interior life? Otherwise, once governance runs through signals, scores, and feedback loops, we risk treating people less like citizens and more like nodes in a control system.
That’s Exactly the point I am leading to. The question of Agency. Humans have agency, machines don’t. A free society allows or permits or enables that agency, but there are still cybernetic principles regarding how all those free agents interact.
Your conclusion - "a true cybernetics of society is yet to be developed" - may point to something beyond cybernetics altogether. Karl Deutsch himself described three models of thinking: mechanical, organic, cybernetic. Each assumed a steersman. What if the fourth model isn't a better cybernetics of society, but a model where coordination happens through the exchange of knowledge itself - without a steersman? Not control through feedback, but value through communication that produces understanding neither participant had before.
When “coordination happens through the exchange of knowledge itself” that sounds to me exactly like a human-centered cybernetics in politics, and in markets, Hayek’s conception of the price system as a communication medium that reflects aggregate valuations of individuals. A lot of people are still stuck on the idea that “cybernetics” means the control of machines, that is exactly what I am trying to move beyond.
Very interesting points. In the social sciences, biologism was generally discredited for a long time. But the idea of machination, of technocratic governance, stays strong, as was the enthusiasm for central planning, inspired by the war economies (or if one believes Lenin by the German Post Office). From Kahn's 1927 Der Mensch als Industriepalast leads a path to humanity as a machine to be optimised, planned and governed. Management literature from the 1970s saw great prospects in computer-assisted resource planning, so I guess the ones who seriously tried it were Operations Research, not Cybernetics. In essence, mostly solving planning with multi-linear algebra optimisation and serving mere financial objectives. With the AI/ML technological flexibilities now, we found an easier way down the same rabbit hole, with more dirty data sets and less clarity about underlying models. Blackbox AI optimisation is in production in many fields, for instance, for fleet optimisation. Recently, the theory of Jean Baudrillard, formerly confusing, started to make great sense to me. The practical effect of Wiener on social theory revolves around the ecological movement, showcasing the ecosystem dependencies. It is hard to imagine the 1972 Club of Rome report without cybernetics.
Can a cybernetic society still leave room for irreducibly human qualities like ambiguity, conscience, dissent, and interior life? Otherwise, once governance runs through signals, scores, and feedback loops, we risk treating people less like citizens and more like nodes in a control system.
That’s Exactly the point I am leading to. The question of Agency. Humans have agency, machines don’t. A free society allows or permits or enables that agency, but there are still cybernetic principles regarding how all those free agents interact.
Your conclusion - "a true cybernetics of society is yet to be developed" - may point to something beyond cybernetics altogether. Karl Deutsch himself described three models of thinking: mechanical, organic, cybernetic. Each assumed a steersman. What if the fourth model isn't a better cybernetics of society, but a model where coordination happens through the exchange of knowledge itself - without a steersman? Not control through feedback, but value through communication that produces understanding neither participant had before.
When “coordination happens through the exchange of knowledge itself” that sounds to me exactly like a human-centered cybernetics in politics, and in markets, Hayek’s conception of the price system as a communication medium that reflects aggregate valuations of individuals. A lot of people are still stuck on the idea that “cybernetics” means the control of machines, that is exactly what I am trying to move beyond.
Only possible via pervasive & ubiquitous networks … but access then becomes control too.