that war was not
* methodologically distinguishable from economics. The process whereby
you
* analyzed, managed, and controlled an economy was not essentially
different
* from the way you managed a war, except that one was an economy of
produc-
* tion and the other was an economy of force. The principal underlying
both
* was the doctrine of efficiency: maximizing the benefits received from
the
* efforts and expenditures---a cost benefit analysis.
Cyberneticians hope to use their capabilities for the
betterment of the human race, of which they are a part.
They are not naive when it comes to the government and politics, either.
* "The Rise of the Computer State", David Burnham, 1984
*
* Norbert Wiener, the MIT professor who is generally credited with being
* one of the principal minds behind the development of the computer,
* refused to take research money from the Pentagon because he was
* convinced it would corrupt his research and undermine his
independence.
When Stafford Beer monitored factories and banks to give the government
the necessary tools to govern the economy effectively, he chose to
monitor national infrastructure of the industrial variety.
However, even he knows what can happen
with cybernetic control in t
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