Is cybernetics a woo woo thing? Or is it real science? I'm having trouble telling...
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how would you compare cybernetics to like, gst, control theory, ops research, cogsci, compsci etc
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gst was basically just premature speculation… bettanfly etc.
The rest are ordinary normie fields
cybernetics, system dynamics etc… shaky forks of control theory
wiener tried to build a cult off early technical contributions
forrester was fragile overextension
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This is… not good. At one point in grad school I made a map like this going back to James Watts governor
This chart emphasizes LinkedIn value over significance
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i will defer to you cause i have not done the reading besides a little wiener here and a little simon and meadows there, and well, you did your phd on it lol
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This stuff has a lot of solid historical scholarship where the story is reasonably well told, but periodically enjoys a pop revival based primarily on the more visibly sexy bits
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The computer science branch of the story is reasonably accurately known in public/pop versions, but the controls branch is basically not known at all
Stuart Bennett’s 2 volume history of controls upto 1960 and David Mindell’s books for the “cybernetics” circus are solid coverage
i…apparently have this bookmarked as of october 2010; probably you
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