PROJECT CYBERSYN

Project Cybersyn

In the early 1970s, a British theorist, Stafford Beer (1926-2002) joined with Salvador Allende (1908-1973), who was the Chilean resident from 1970 to 1973, and they together created Project Cybersyn.

The goal of Cybersyn was to achieve management that was sophisticated, decentralised, and that was part of a socialist economy. To achieve this, Beer proposed a system where as much information as possible was collected from as many sources as possible, analyse them at the time, and make decisions based on current circumstances, instead of long-term plans.

The Operations Room (Ops Room)

The Operations Room was designed to create an equal and fair working environment where people from all backgrounds and career areas would come and give data needed in order for the government to make decisions. Chairs had controls and there was no table, meaning that no notes could be taken in or written down during meetings, which may have caused there to be a structure of power, based on the amount of paperwork one party may have been holding.

Something created as part of Project Cybersyn was Project Cyberfolk, which tracked the real-time happiness of the Chilean population which were in response to the ops room decisions. To show the results of Cyberfolk, a screen in the ops room displayed the future state of the Chilean economy under many different conditions, and changed based on what decisions were made and when.


The end of Project Cybersyn came when Salvador Allende ended his own life in 1973, three years after his election. His last words to his people were: "Long live Chile, long live the people, long live the workers."

Sources:

99% Invisible
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/
[Accessed 19 Oct 2016]

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
[Accessed 19 Oct 2016]