RE: cybernetics and the Internet, Was: <nettime> NNA...

[Ronda Hauben <ronda@umcc.ais.org>]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, werboon wrote:

> we fear the -isms they may produce. This is life in open social order, in
> cybernetic ecumenical society.

I agree that there is a legacy to the development of the Internet in
the cybernetic developments like the Macy Foundation conferences,
but the Macy discussions weren't military or a mathematical philosophy.

Margaret Mead was part of the Macy group. She was an anthropologist,
not a military mathematician.

I wondered if you have read any of the Macy meeting books?

Also, Licklider was only at one of the Macy meetings. He was a scientist
studying the brain and the perception of sound.

To reduce the cybernetic community in the 1940s and 1950s to some
military plot for the purpose of control is not an accurate depiction
of the material I have read.

Where does your analysis of this come from?  Thanks. Ronda



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