Eden Medina

Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile

This article presents a history of ‘Project Cybersyn’, an early computer network developed in Chile during the socialist presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) to regulate the growing social property area and manage the transition of Chiles economy from capitalism to socialism. Under the guidance of British cybernetician Stafford Beer, often lauded as the ‘father of management cybernetics’, an interdisciplinary Chilean team designed cybernetic models of factories within the nationalised sector and created a network for the rapid transmission of economic data between the government and the factory floor. The article describes the construction of this unorthodox system, examines how its structure reflected the socialist ideology of the Allende government, and documents the contributions of this technology to the Allende administration.

Rethinking algorithmic regulation

Purpose – The history of cybernetics holds important lessons for how we approach present-day problems in such areas as algorithmic regulation and big data. The purpose of this paper is to position Project Cybersyn as a historical form of algorithmic regulation and use this historical case study as a thought experiment for thinking about ways to improve discussions of algorithmic regulation and big data today. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws from the author’s extensive research on Cybersyn’s history to build an argument for how cybernetic history can enrich current discussions on algorithmic regulation and the use of big data for governance. Findings – The paper identifies five lessons from the Cybersyn history that point to current data challenges and suggests a way forward. These lessons are: first, the state matters; second, older technologies have value; third, privacy protection prevents abuse and preserves human freedom; fourth, algorithmic transparency is important; and finally, thinki...

Big Blue in the Bottomless Pit: The Early Years of IBM Chile

In examining the history of IBM in Chile, this article asks how IBM came to dominate Chiles computer market and, to address this question, emphasizes the importance of studying both IBM corporate strategy and Chilean national history. The article also examines how IBM reproduced its corporate culture in Latin America and used it to accommodate the regions political and economic changes.

Computer Memory, Collective Memory: Recovering History through Chilean Computing

This essay argues that computer histories contribute to collective memory and are especially important in nations where knowledge of the past has been erased or suppressed. Computer histories also can enrich national understandings of the past and contribute to ongoing debates over history and its relation to the present.

Infrastructural Drift in Seismic Cities: Chile, Pacific Rim, 27 February, 2010

Retrospective narrations by maritime authorities trace decision-making in the compressed timeframe between earthquake and tsunami, when geological events literally rupture the skein of communication devices and flows that animate social life and disaster relief. Bringing together ethnography and the social study of science and technology, this article illuminates uncertainties inhabiting military protocol in a crisscrossed public-private infrastructural universe. Focusing in the crucial pre-dawn hours when rogue tsunami waves push against the limits of scientific knowledge, we extend social analysis into the rift between the technologically-desired and the forgotten in order to open up an undiscussed realm of the techno-political. We use the Chilean case to develop the concept of infrastructural drift, which we define as the behaviors, consciousness and unforeseen effects that accompany a systemic but unsystematic shift in technological habits.

Beyond the ballot box: computer science education and social responsibility

On 2 November 2004, millions of Americans went to the polls and cast their vote for the person they felt would best determine the future of America. Young people constituted a crucial part of the deciding vote and many organizations from MTV to the presidential campaigns made considerable efforts to increase the political awareness and involvement of this demographic category, typically characterized as the 18--24 year-old voter. This attentiveness to youth participation in national politics, albeit commendable, should not begin and end on Election Day. All citizens have a responsibility to remain informed of government actions and to express their approval or disapproval though public elections, communication with their elected representatives, or participation in any number of public forums or community organizations. However, readers of this magazine have a particualr responsibility as educators of the future generation of computer and technologically literate citizens.