Is it possible that we misunderstand political control after all these years? Existential citizenship as necessary for meaningful political engagement bit.ly/2uEa9I8
Conversation
In a past life I was a control theory researcher. Applied to politics it is largely seductive nonsense that explains very little. Look up spectacularly underwhelming history of system dynamics (Jay Forrester, Limits to Growth stuff). Wiener’s Cybernetics led to more woo than wow.
2
1
I thought you'd mentioned previous work in control theory, so I was curious re: your take. I can see how fine specification of control in complex systems would be problematic, if not impossible, but if there is actual control, it must be this way, no?
2
(i.e., if the proper components, functions, and relationships can be identified, isn't that sufficient? Otherwise, if control cannot even be specified at a general conceptual level, then what grounds are there to assert its presence at all?)
1
You may be confusing the descriptive modeling and synthesis sides of control. There’s always feedback loops in any natural system. Trivially and tautologically everything is a control system. You may or may not be able to acquire control authority that’s all.
Thanks for at least taking a look. Control theory still seems a reasonable way to try and ascertain control, even if just at the conceptual level, instead of just assuming it. Fine specification might be asking too much, but modeling possible control relationships seems valid.
1
Read Dictator’s Handbook. That’s close to the simplest possibly control theoretic model of politics. Could actually be coded up as a simulation.
1
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look. (Also, my intuition is that most identifiable control relations will likely be trivial and tautological, as you say. That control is not specifiable in the most signficant situations, even conceptually, seems an interesting point.)
1
Show replies

