Thufie BLM @thufie@pixie.town

An excerpt from the book by Thomas Swann. #anarchism #cybernetics

Note that the use of the word "democracy" here is in line with the revolutionary anarchist interpretation in places like the EZLN and Rojava, and not in the state authority of majoritarian institutions like representative and "direct democracy".

to paraphrase Stafford Beer:

To attempt to implement a hierarchical feedback system to handle a disturbance isn't really adapting the system to the environment, but aggressively shaping the environment to conform to what the system can handle.

...or as he puts it: "shooting the cat"
#cybernetics

Modern anarchists already use borrowed cybernetic terminology.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cybernetics%2c+anarchism+and+self-organisation.-a0342773663

#anarchism #cybernetics

When people tell you Cybernetics is a "theory of everything" then stay away from them they are usually wacky new-age zeitgeist people who don't know what they are talking about. The ontology of Cybernetics assumes that every element in a system at a certain point is a "black box" whose behaviors are known but internals are irrelevant. So what they are claiming is "there is a way of understanding how everything behaves" not "there is a way of understanding how everything works" and in this way cybernetics is not comparable to normal science.

#cybernetics

I do have a critique of corporations as machines or AIs, but neither machines nor technology are inherently bad things (kaczynski). The corporate machine is bad because it's primary operating mechanisms rely on hierarchies and the goal being optimized for is profit.

Organizations and social structures can be optimized for good goals using appropriate and decentralized operating mechanisms. This is why I take interest in #cybernetics. It isn't just critique, it is constructive.