Project Cybersyn (2022)(bactra.org)
25 pointsby cassepipe2 hours ago4 comments
  • dipanshuhappy18 minutes ago
    If anyone wants to dive into Cybernetic metaphysics. Checkout Nick Land earlier work during his Cybernetics club days. Mark Fisher was also part of it
    • TimorousBestie7 minutes ago
      Yeah, I don’t think Land is a great recommendation.

      The CCRU produced a lot of talented philosopher/writer/artists but Land definitely went a bit far out there and never came back.

      The connection between what the CCRU did and Wiener-style cybernetics is also a little strained. I don’t think a layperson would be all that interested in the former if they were looking for more of the latter.

  • chermi32 minutes ago
    I will always upvote shalizi.

    obligatory https://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

  • kingraoul13 minutes ago
    I think commentators here are missing what is really exciting about this. Back in the 70s it was impossible to calculate all the labour inputs to product, so socialist economies had to refer to capitalist economy pricing. This doomed Cybersyn and any other attempt to use the LTV to work backwards.

    That problem is now solved.

    • chermi2 minutes ago
      Are you claiming the pricing problem is solved? That you can set prices without the information gained from market?
  • Bratmonan hour ago
    This project is funny because the outcome was so inevitable:

    1. Every large corporation in the world has tried a similar "Let's get a bunch of statisticians to quantify our business and we'll manage the company by looking at the graphs" experiment at least once, and it always explodes in a combination of manipulated metrics and Goodharts's Law

    2. Every centrally-planned economy in the world that makes plans based on data from individual factories has been massively impacted by a combination of falsified metrics and Goodharts's Law

    But because it was destroyed in a CIA-backed revolution, we don't actually know how it would have turned out, so modern Communists can convince themselves that it would have ushered in Utopia!

    • tech_kenan hour ago
      Back when I read "Cybernetic Revolutionaries" I followed it up with "People's Republic of Walmart" and came away with a bit of a different conclusion to your point 1. IMO lots of US-based hyperscalars are managing what are effectively command economies, and it's allowed them to ex. scale their infrastructure so aggressively these last ~2 years.
      • p_l43 minutes ago
        FMCGs work very much like command economies, including specialized tooling to shift production between customers when orders fall through.

        Unlike USSR they simply do it on shorter timescales, too, and with better customer feedback. Something Cybersyn actually targeted, as it's closer to Toyota Production System (as much done at lowest level in small decision loops) than centrally managed GOSPLAN or large american FMCG giants

      • redhed32 minutes ago
        Yeah, the economy is basically a bunch of oligarchical/dictatorial command economies, or what we like to call companies. It's funny, a lot of leftist people use them as examples of how a larger command economy could work (usually the reaction a lot of leftists I know had to People's Republic of Walmart), whereas it makes me wonder what more democratic, free market companies would be like.
        • tech_ken19 minutes ago
          > it makes me wonder what more democratic, free market companies would be like.

          I was wondering the same after PRW lol. Recently I had the chance to ask a friend of mine who worked in Google Infra (years ago) if they had ever tried to 'liberalize' their infrastructure planning; something like having internal business units bid on space, power, and compute instead of distributing it top-down. He said that yes, this was actually something like their original operating model, and the outcome was that YouTube basically bought up every piece of hardware in the company and then leased them out to other verticals at a profit.

      • lobf43 minutes ago
        Please elaborate.
    • altruios41 minutes ago
      > But because it was destroyed in a CIA-backed revolution

      How many times has that actually happened in real life (opens history book) (oh-no.gif)...

    • stephen_caglean hour ago
      So, seems like the logical way to run a business would be to create a bunch of internal metrics but never let any of your reportees know what they are.

      Or even better, "leak" that there might be metrics (that are in reality false), and then see who allocates resources towards maximizing them. Favor allocating resources to those who hit your internal metrics, favor de-allocating resources towards those that hit your "honeypot" metrics.

      This all kind of depends on having direct reportees who have a great degree of latitude in how they spend their resources I suppose.