I’m surprised that Farrell didn’t mention that the words cybernetics and government come from the same Greek root word: kubernesis. Meaning the pilot of a ship.
Practically speaking, the helmsman of a ship does not steer by dead-reckoning, but by many minute adjustments in response to the wind, the waves, the currents, and how the ship’s structure, sails, and crew respond to those external influences, all while steering towards the goal, and usually with the intent for commerce.
Hence, modern governing organizations could then be compared to an armada of ships each with their own Individual, independent pilot responding to the actions, directions, and movement of the other ships in the armada as well. And they do this as well, without communicating directly with all the other pilots, but by watching all the minute data continuously.
And the more a pilot sails, the more experience she has to draw on for the future trips, completing the feedback loop.
As a bear of little brain, I worry about the boring implementation details. I was with you right up to the phrase "agile software development," triggered PTSD. Agile is a brilliant, simple concept hampered by the boring implementation details that the requirements of its implementation are anathema to a hierarchical system, and requiring end-user guinea pigs to simulate real-world users, introducing their own biases. In other words, it's a lot harder than it looks on paper.
This reminds me of what has long bothered me about cybernetics.
Cybernetics seems so horribly general as to be useless. I remember reading some Norbert Weiner in the 1960s and feeling that there had to be more, a lot more. I remember working with Gordon Pask and one of his disciples in the 1970s, and once again, cybernetics was all generalities adorned with mathematics. As soon as you wanted to actually do something or understand how something worked, you wound up having to deal with systems theory and computation and their fellow travelers and their discontents.
You might imagine that cybernetics could illuminate modern biology with all its "omics", but the biologists are stuck having to generalize from the details and, if they ever wish to generalize, to gloss over exceptions and contradictions apparent and otherwise. You can describe what the biologists are learning from a cybernetics point of view, but that doesn't help one do or understand biology.
When dealing with cybernetics fans and acolytes, I often got the impression that they liked the field because of its lack of detail. It could be applied to almost anything. It let one make grandiose statements. Maybe I am too much of a doer or maker, but I got the sense that a big appeal of the field was that it let one gloss over all the sordid detail and leave it to lesser beings.
I am 11% of the way through the book and can attest to Henry’s praise. It is really high signal book. I am highlighting at least 1 passage every 5 paragraphs.
All this reminds me of computational theories of physics, such as Wolfram’s theory he’s been going on about recently. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-physics-project-a-one-year-update/. The key idea being “computational irreducibility”. Read that blog post for a more thorough understanding but it’s related to cybernetics by how it assumes that most things are unknowable and that there’s some boundary conditions preventing us from getting the nice simple answers we always fail to find in complex systems.
I’m enjoying reading the book and learning about cybernetics. But I am preparing myself to not find any solutions in it. It’s better at identifying the things to avoid rather than the correct steps to take.
Very striking that you bring up Jen Pahlka, as she's been raving about The Unaccountability Machine recently. Now with your combined recommendations, resistance is futile -- I plan to read it soon.
This discussion of the polycrisis reminded me of the Tinbergen rule (you need as many instruments as targets) and then of being taught control theory 50 years ago (about the time of Eno's visit). One of the things I was told was that control theory was just a more staid name for cybernetics, which was associated with Norbert Wiener (Beer was not mentioned).
I’m very intrigued by whatever this Rubik’s cube metaphor turns out to be. Will be looking for it when I finally get my book copy. But did you have any ideas of your own for a better one?
The application of Auftragstaktik to software engineering, or to bureaucracy, can be thought of as both attenuation and as amplification. On one hand, it reduces the amount of information that must flow up the line of control; on the other, it expands the capacity to control by enlisting those down the line as co-conspirators in the managerial process. The objection, I think, comes down to the question of the degree to which goals are in fact shared. The flaw in the objection is that when the control problem is complex, you can't solve conflicts of interest by centralizing control.
(1) Tim Ottinger's quote "Sometimes, people try to make perfect machines with human cogs", but that is mostly because I find myself very suspicious of a cybernetic 'silver bullet' and 'system thinking' in general as it is in my estimate mostly accompanied by risky simplifications;
(2) When going the (agile) 'autonomy, not top down' route, you run into all kinds of ethics conundrums. Some of these we do accept, like one judge in one court judging quite differently from another judge in another court, for the same issue. This is unfair, but we accept it most of the time. In fact, it may be seen as a form of the 'rough ground' that society needs to function at all (on perfect ice floor, nobody goes anywhere — with apologies to Uncle Ludwig). And real autonomy often conflicts with norms and values we tend to find important too.
(3) The IT-Revolution is impacting all of this, because it makes mass-certainties possible. But then, at the same time, all this large scale productivity gain always comes with a agility loss (from software up to the organisations and societies today), and this drives a constant 'fragmentation/encapsulation' (the 'agile' approach with autonomy as the answer).
(4) Neo-liberalism was so influential, because it provided a simple, seductive, answer to a complex problem. It was a 'silver bullet' that would slay all the problems (werewolves) of societal complexity.
I do not have the answer, but I do wonder if we're not simply running into an IT-assisted 'complexity crunch'. And I doubt that more system thinking is going to provide a solution. It may provide insight, though.
I’m surprised that Farrell didn’t mention that the words cybernetics and government come from the same Greek root word: kubernesis. Meaning the pilot of a ship.
Practically speaking, the helmsman of a ship does not steer by dead-reckoning, but by many minute adjustments in response to the wind, the waves, the currents, and how the ship’s structure, sails, and crew respond to those external influences, all while steering towards the goal, and usually with the intent for commerce.
Hence, modern governing organizations could then be compared to an armada of ships each with their own Individual, independent pilot responding to the actions, directions, and movement of the other ships in the armada as well. And they do this as well, without communicating directly with all the other pilots, but by watching all the minute data continuously.
And the more a pilot sails, the more experience she has to draw on for the future trips, completing the feedback loop.
As a bear of little brain, I worry about the boring implementation details. I was with you right up to the phrase "agile software development," triggered PTSD. Agile is a brilliant, simple concept hampered by the boring implementation details that the requirements of its implementation are anathema to a hierarchical system, and requiring end-user guinea pigs to simulate real-world users, introducing their own biases. In other words, it's a lot harder than it looks on paper.
This reminds me of what has long bothered me about cybernetics.
Cybernetics seems so horribly general as to be useless. I remember reading some Norbert Weiner in the 1960s and feeling that there had to be more, a lot more. I remember working with Gordon Pask and one of his disciples in the 1970s, and once again, cybernetics was all generalities adorned with mathematics. As soon as you wanted to actually do something or understand how something worked, you wound up having to deal with systems theory and computation and their fellow travelers and their discontents.
You might imagine that cybernetics could illuminate modern biology with all its "omics", but the biologists are stuck having to generalize from the details and, if they ever wish to generalize, to gloss over exceptions and contradictions apparent and otherwise. You can describe what the biologists are learning from a cybernetics point of view, but that doesn't help one do or understand biology.
When dealing with cybernetics fans and acolytes, I often got the impression that they liked the field because of its lack of detail. It could be applied to almost anything. It let one make grandiose statements. Maybe I am too much of a doer or maker, but I got the sense that a big appeal of the field was that it let one gloss over all the sordid detail and leave it to lesser beings.
I am 11% of the way through the book and can attest to Henry’s praise. It is really high signal book. I am highlighting at least 1 passage every 5 paragraphs.
All this reminds me of computational theories of physics, such as Wolfram’s theory he’s been going on about recently. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-physics-project-a-one-year-update/. The key idea being “computational irreducibility”. Read that blog post for a more thorough understanding but it’s related to cybernetics by how it assumes that most things are unknowable and that there’s some boundary conditions preventing us from getting the nice simple answers we always fail to find in complex systems.
I’m enjoying reading the book and learning about cybernetics. But I am preparing myself to not find any solutions in it. It’s better at identifying the things to avoid rather than the correct steps to take.
See also Evgeny Morozov's Santiago Boys podcast/documentary on Beer's work in Chile during the early 70's. https://the-santiago-boys.com/
Very striking that you bring up Jen Pahlka, as she's been raving about The Unaccountability Machine recently. Now with your combined recommendations, resistance is futile -- I plan to read it soon.
This discussion of the polycrisis reminded me of the Tinbergen rule (you need as many instruments as targets) and then of being taught control theory 50 years ago (about the time of Eno's visit). One of the things I was told was that control theory was just a more staid name for cybernetics, which was associated with Norbert Wiener (Beer was not mentioned).
I’m very intrigued by whatever this Rubik’s cube metaphor turns out to be. Will be looking for it when I finally get my book copy. But did you have any ideas of your own for a better one?
The application of Auftragstaktik to software engineering, or to bureaucracy, can be thought of as both attenuation and as amplification. On one hand, it reduces the amount of information that must flow up the line of control; on the other, it expands the capacity to control by enlisting those down the line as co-conspirators in the managerial process. The objection, I think, comes down to the question of the degree to which goals are in fact shared. The flaw in the objection is that when the control problem is complex, you can't solve conflicts of interest by centralizing control.
This is very helpful, and has a number of ideas that I will need to mull over. Thank you.
Do you think that Dan’s book would be a suitable entry point into the subject?
I am reminded of the following:
(1) Tim Ottinger's quote "Sometimes, people try to make perfect machines with human cogs", but that is mostly because I find myself very suspicious of a cybernetic 'silver bullet' and 'system thinking' in general as it is in my estimate mostly accompanied by risky simplifications;
(2) When going the (agile) 'autonomy, not top down' route, you run into all kinds of ethics conundrums. Some of these we do accept, like one judge in one court judging quite differently from another judge in another court, for the same issue. This is unfair, but we accept it most of the time. In fact, it may be seen as a form of the 'rough ground' that society needs to function at all (on perfect ice floor, nobody goes anywhere — with apologies to Uncle Ludwig). And real autonomy often conflicts with norms and values we tend to find important too.
(3) The IT-Revolution is impacting all of this, because it makes mass-certainties possible. But then, at the same time, all this large scale productivity gain always comes with a agility loss (from software up to the organisations and societies today), and this drives a constant 'fragmentation/encapsulation' (the 'agile' approach with autonomy as the answer).
(4) Neo-liberalism was so influential, because it provided a simple, seductive, answer to a complex problem. It was a 'silver bullet' that would slay all the problems (werewolves) of societal complexity.
I do not have the answer, but I do wonder if we're not simply running into an IT-assisted 'complexity crunch'. And I doubt that more system thinking is going to provide a solution. It may provide insight, though.