DOCSLIB.ORG

Here Lies Project Cybersyn: Salvador Allende and Stafford Beer’S Cybernetic System of Coordination for Chile’S Economy (1971-1973)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Here Lies Project Cybersyn: Salvador Allende and Stafford Beer’S Cybernetic System of Coordination for Chile’S Economy (1971-1973) Strata Rose Clancey HERE LIES PROJECT CYBERSYN: SALVADOR ALLENDE AND STAFFORD BEER’S CYBERNETIC SYSTEM OF COORDINATION FOR CHILE’S ECONOMY (1971-1973) ROSE CLANCEY MA Student, University of Ottawa Abstract This paper follows the attempt by Salvador Allende’s short-lived government to create a computerized, cybernetic system of control for Chile’s economy: Project Cybersyn. Led by Stafford Beer, British founder of management cybernetics Cybersyn was a project that sought to accomplish feats the superpowers thought impossible with a third-world budget. Cut short by the military coup that ended both Allende’s government and his life, it is unclear what Cybersyn would have eventually amounted to. This paper argues that there are interesting conclusions to be drawn from the life of Cybersyn, despite its untimely death. Cybersyn is a window into how differing liberal and socialist visions of modernity played out in Latin America. Perhaps most importantly, Cybersyn offers us a vision of a computer network distinct from today’s Internet, shaped by a society that embraced cybernetic socialism. Résumé Cet article retrace la tentative du gouvernement chilien de Salvador Allende d’implanter le Project Cybersyn, un système informatisé et cybernétique pour contrôler l’économie chilienne. Dirigé par Stafford Beer, le fondateur britannique de la gestion cybernétique, Cybersyn était un projet visant à accomplir les exploits économiques des superpuissances ce qui était considéré impossible avec le budget d’un pays du tiers-monde. Interrompu par le coup d’État qui mit fin au gouvernement d’Allende, il est peu certain que le Project Cybersyn aurait finalement abouti. Cet article argumente qu’il y a des conclusions intéressantes à tirer de la courte existence du Cybersyn Project au Chili. Ce projet est une fenêtre sur les distinctions dans les visions libérales et socialistes de la modernité dans le contexte de l’Amérique latine. Probablement encore plus significatif, Cybersyn Project offre une vision différente d’un réseau informatique distinct d’Internet, produit d’une vision socialiste de la cybernétique. ________________________________ On December 30, 1972, the socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende visited the futuristic “operations room” that was the nerve centre of Project 103 Strata Rose Clancey Cybersyn, an initiative that sought to use modern communications technology to coordinate the Chilean economy.1 Just under nine months later, on September 11, 1973, Allende gave his final address to the Chilean people and then died, likely committing suicide in Chile’s besieged presidential palace, as the military seized control of his country.2 His death ushered in nearly two decades of junta rule in Chile, a period marked by the disappearance and torture of opponents to the regime and heavy economic austerity under the instruction of the “Chicago Boys,” American economists trained by Milton Friedman.3 While the putschists occupied radio stations and overcame the government’s last loyal defenders, they also destroyed Project Cybersyn’s Ops Room, with one soldier reportedly taking a knife and stabbing each of the methodically designed slides that had been prepared for the room.4 While the merits and failures of Allende’s government have been debated back and forth by historians and commentators on the right and left for decades now, Project Cybersyn remains a relatively unexamined aspect of the tragic saga of Allende’s government, remarkable because of Cybersyn’s conceptual similarity to the modern day Internet, an invention of incredible significance. Project Cybersyn was an attempt by the Chilean government to utilize the principles of cybernetics, defined variously by influential cyberneticists as “the science of control and communication in the animal and machine” (Norbert Weiner), “the art of steermanship” (Ross Ashby), and “the science of effective organization” (Stafford Beer)5, to create a system of centralized socialist economic planning. Project Cybersyn aimed to diverge from the oppressive and alienating Soviet model of central planning by seeking to maximize the influence of front-line workers on economic planning, rather than maximizing the power of state technocrats to impose their will on said workers. The idea behind Project Cybersyn was to put production centres around Chile in real- time communication with a central control room, where technicians would input the data they received from industry into a computer mainframe. That mainframe system would compile and process the data, outputting possible problems which would be sent back to factory managers and workers to be 1 Eden Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 1-2. 2 Victor Figueroa Clark, Salvador Allende: Revolutionary Democrat (London: Pluto Press), 122-132. 3 Bob Hughes, The Bleeding Edge: Why technology turns toxic in an unequal world (Oxford: New Internationalist Press, 2016), 281-283. 4 Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries, 211. 5 Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics (London: William Clowes and Sons Ltd, 1970); Stafford Beer, The 1973 CBC Massey Lectures, “Designing Freedom,” CBC-FM, 1973. 104 Strata Rose Clancey addressed by those on the front lines of production. The information would also be compiled into economic reports that would be displayed for government officials in a sort of economic war room where officials could make decisions informed by a real-time economic snapshot of the nation, avoiding the time lag that cyberneticists like Beer argued were perpetually distorting the decisions made by corporations and governments around the world.6 Cybersyn has received little attention from historians for a variety of reasons, including its transnational nature, the remoteness of Chile, its violent and premature death, and its failure to fit well into the Cold War narrative of the struggle between capitalism and communism. What notice early computer networking projects like Cybersyn have received is usually framed as a teleological discussion of precursors to today’s Internet. As such, these projects have not been sufficiently investigated in their own right. Project Cybersyn differed in its design, purpose, and ethos from capitalist America’s ARPANET, the US Cold War project that was the direct predecessor to the Internet, and so it is hardly valid to assume that Project Cybersyn, Urucib (Uruguay’s equivalent),7 or the Soviet “Unified Information Net”8 would have developed into the same type of information network that the Internet has become. Indeed, the example of China’s censored version of the Internet gives a concrete example of the Internet developing differently in a country that is not governed by the ideology of liberal democracy. Allende’s Chile conceived of Project Cybersyn as fitting into their larger project of constitutional revolution, with Cybersyn acting as a high-modernist means of putting the economy in the service of the people. The liberal/capitalist US first pursued computer networking as a means to national security and later as a way for institutions to share computer resources and achieve cost savings, and the authoritarian/communist USSR dreamed of making computer networking a tool of domination over the economy for use by government technocrats; Chile’s vision of their computer network was distinct from those of either of the manichean Cold War superpowers. Allende’s unique political ideology of constitutional, modernizing, Marxist 6 Stafford Beer, Cybernetic Praxis in Government (United Kingdom: Manchester Business School, 1973). 7 Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries, 225-226. 8 Slava Gerovitch, “InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network,” History and Technology 24, no. 4 (2008): 336. 105 Strata Rose Clancey revolution caused his government to pursue the dream of a rationalized, worker-led, high-tech economy, connected by modern communications technology.9 The ideology driving Allende’s Chile was viewed in a hostile manner by both the US and the USSR. While the US saw Allende’s flagrant Marxism and ambitious programme of economic nationalization as a threat to their hegemony over the Western hemisphere, the USSR’s Marxist-Leninist ideology prescribed that revolutions required a vanguard party to seize control of the state and displace the entrenched power of the bourgeoisie; the Soviets thought it futile to seek the overthrow of capitalism through peaceful means and had little time for Allende’s “socialism of red wine and meat pies.”10 In this way, Allende’s government did not fit within either the American or the Soviet ideological worldviews, and both deemed it conceptually self- destructive. Political Background to Project Cybersyn President Salvador Allende sought to bring great change to Chile, and Project Cybersyn was a part of his program for a modern, independent, socialist Chile. The historic election victory of Allende’s Popular Unity coalition government in 1970 was influenced and driven by decades of struggle against American imperialism, as the US sought to integrate Chile into its anti- Communist coalition. American influence over Chile shaped a society dominated by the problems of massive inequality as land ownership was concentrated under rich, conservative owners, and foreign firms came to control much of the nation’s industrial assets.11 While this inequality created a strong desire for change among the Chilean electorate, the US poured millions of dollars into supporting Allende’s political opponents, which meant it took Allende a very long
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation
    The Mind as a Predictive Modelling Engine: Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation Daniel George Williams Trinity Hall College University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 The Mind as a Predictive Modelling Engine: Generative Models, Structural Similarity, and Mental Representation Daniel Williams Abstract I outline and defend a theory of mental representation based on three ideas that I extract from the work of the mid-twentieth century philosopher, psychologist, and cybernetician Kenneth Craik: first, an account of mental representation in terms of idealised models that capitalize on structural similarity to their targets; second, an appreciation of prediction as the core function of such models; and third, a regulatory understanding of brain function. I clarify and elaborate on each of these ideas, relate them to contemporary advances in neuroscience and machine learning, and favourably contrast a predictive model-based theory of mental representation with other prominent accounts of the nature, importance, and functions of mental representations in cognitive science and philosophy. For Marcella Montagnese Preface Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text.
    [Show full text]
  • Britain in the 2020S
    REPORT FUTURE PROOF BRITAIN IN THE 2020S Mathew Lawrence December 2016 © IPPR 2016 Institute for Public Policy Research INTRODUCTION Brexit is the firing gun on a decade of disruption. As the UK negotiates its new place in the world, an accelerating wave of economic, social and technological change will reshape the country, in often quite radical ways. In this report, we set out five powerful trends that will drive change in the 2020s. 1. A demographic tipping point: As the population grows, the UK is set to age sharply and become increasingly diverse. Globally, the long expansion of the working-age CONTENTS population is set to slow sharply. 2. An economic world transformed: The economic world order will become more Introduction ............................................................................................................ 3 fragile as globalisation evolves, trade patterns shift, and economic power gravitates toward Asia. At the same time, developed economies are likely to struggle to escape Executive summary: The UK in 2030 ..................................................................... 4 conditions of secular stagnation. The institutions governing the global economy are A world transformed: Five major disruptive forces reshaping Britain .................. 6 likely to come under intense pressure as the American hegemony that underpinned the postwar international order fades and the Global South rises in economic and Britain at the periphery? ..................................................................................8
    [Show full text]
  • The Artist's Emergent Journey the Metaphysics of Henri Bergson, and Also Those by Eric Voegelin Against Gnosticism2
    Vol 1 No 2 (Autumn 2020) Online: jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/nexj Visit our WebBlog: newexplorations.net The Artist’s Emergent Journey Clinton Ignatov—The McLuhan Institute—[email protected] To examine computers as a medium in the style of Marshall McLuhan, we must understand the origins of his own perceptions on the nature of media and his deep-seated religious impetus for their development. First we will uncover McLuhan’s reasoning in his description of the artist and the occult origins of his categories of hot and cool media. This will prepare us to recognize these categories when they are reformulated by cyberneticist Norbert Wiener and ethnographer Sherry Turkle. Then, as we consider the roles “black boxes” play in contemporary art and theory, many ways of bringing McLuhan’s insights on space perception and the role of the artist up to date for the work of defining and explaining cyberspace will be demonstrated. Through this work the paradoxical morality of McLuhan’s decision to not make moral value judgments will have been made clear. Introduction In order to bring Marshall McLuhan into the 21st century it is insufficient to retrieve his public persona. This particular character, performed in the ‘60s and ‘70s on the global theater’s world stage, was tailored to the audiences of its time. For our purposes today, we’ve no option but an audacious attempt to retrieve, as best we can, the whole man. To these ends, while examining the media of our time, we will strive to delicately reconstruct the human-scale McLuhan from what has been left in both his public and private written corpus.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded” to a Computer Than to Answer Questions About Emotions, Which Will Organize Their World
    Between an Animal and a Machine MODERNITY IN QUESTION STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF IDEAS Edited by Małgorzata Kowalska VOLUME 10 Paweł Majewski Between an Animal and a Machine Stanisław Lem’s Technological Utopia Translation from Polish by Olga Kaczmarek Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. The Publication is founded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. ISSN 2193-3421 E-ISBN 978-3-653-06830-6 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71024-1 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71025-8 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06830-6 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Paweł Majewski, 2018 . Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................ 9 Lemology Pure and Applied ............................................................................. 9 Part One Dialogues – Cybernetics as an Anthropology ........................................
    [Show full text]
  • Cg 2014 Alexander D. Morgan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    c 2014 Alexander D. Morgan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ON THE MATTER OF MEMORY: NEURAL COMPUTATION AND THE MECHANISMS OF INTENTIONAL AGENCY by ALEXANDER D. MORGAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy written under the direction of Frances Egan and Robert Matthews and approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION On the Matter of Memory: Neural Computation and the Mechanisms of Intentional Agency by ALEXANDER D. MORGAN Dissertation Directors: Frances Egan & Robert Matthews Humans and other animals are intentional agents; they are capable of acting in ways that are caused and explained by their reasons. Reasons are widely held to be medi- ated by mental representations, but it is notoriously difficult to understand how the intentional content of mental representations could causally explain action. Thus there is a puzzle about how to `naturalize' intentional agency. The present work is motivated by the conviction that this puzzle will be solved by elucidating the neural mechanisms that mediate the cognitive capacities that are distinctive of intentional agency. Two main obstacles stand in the way of developing such a project, which are both manifestations of a widespread sentiment that, as Jerry Fodor once put it, \notions like computational state and representation aren't accessible in the language of neu- roscience". First, C. Randy Gallistel has argued extensively that the mechanisms posited by neuroscientists cannot function as representations in an engineering sense, since they allegedly cannot be manipulated by the computational operations required to generate structurally complex representations.
    [Show full text]
  • Simple Rules for a Complex World with Artificial Intelligence
    Simple Rules for a Complex World with Artificial Intelligence Jes´usFern´andez-Villaverde1 April 28, 2020 1University of Pennsylvania A complex world with AI and ML • It is hard to open the internet or browse a bookstore without finding an article or a book discussing artificial intelligence (AI) and, in particular, machine learning (ML). • I will define some of these concepts more carefully later on. • Many concerns: effects of AI and ML on jobs, wealth and income inequality, ... • Some observers even claim that gone is the era of large armies and powerful navies. The nations with the best algorithms, as the Roman said in the Aeneid, \will rule mankind, and make the world obey." 1 2 AI, ML, and public policy, I • One thread that increasingly appears in these works, and which is bound to become a prominent concern, is how AI can address policy questions. • Some proposals are mild. • For example, thanks to ML: 1. We might be able to detect early strains in the financial markets and allow regulatory agencies to respond before damage occurs. 2. We might be able to fight electronic fraud and money laundering. 3. We might be able to improve public health. • I do not have any problem with these applications. Natural extension of models used in econometrics for decades. 3 AI, ML, and public policy, II • Some proposals are radical: \digital socialism" (Saros, 2014, Phillips and Rozworski, 2019, and Morozov, 2019). • The defenders of this view argue that some form of AI or ML can finally achieve the promise of central planning: we will feed a computer (or a system of computers) all the relevant information and, thanks to ML (the details are often fuzzy), we will get an optimal allocation of goods and income.
    [Show full text]
  • Error Correction. Chilean Cybernetics and Chicago's Economists
    [2] Error Correction: Chilean Cybernetics and Chicago’s Economists Adrian Lahoud Cybernetics is a specific way of conceiving the relation between information and government: It represented a way of bringing the epistemological and the onto- logical together in real time. The essay explores a par- adigmatic case study in the evolution of this history: the audacious experiment in cybernetic management known as Project Cybersyn that was developed follow- ing Salvador Allende’s ascension to power in Chile in 1970. In ideological terms, Allende’s socialism and the violent doctrine of the Chicago School could not be more opposed. In another sense, however, Chilean cybernetics would serve as the prototype for a new form of governance that would finally award to the theories of the Chicago School a hegemonic control over global society. In Alleys of Your Mind: Augmented Intellligence and Its Traumas, edited by Matteo Pasquinelli, 37–51. Lüneburg: meson press, 2015. DOI: 10.14619/014 38 Alleys of Your Mind Zero Latency A­great­deal­of­time­has­been­spent­investigating,­documenting­and­disputing­ an­eleven­year­period­in­Chile­from­1970–1981,­encompassing­the­presidency­ of­Salvador­Allende­and­the­dictatorship­of­Augusto­Pinochet.­Between­the­ rise of the Unidad Popular and­its­overthrow­by­the­military­junta,­brutal­and­ notorious events took hold of Chile.1 Though many of these events have remained­ambiguous,­obscured­by­trauma­or­lost­in­official­dissimulation,­over­ time­the­contours­of­history­have­become­less­confused.­Beyond­the­coup,­the­ involvement of the United States or even the subsequent transformation of the economy, a more comprehensive story of radical experimentation on the Chilean­social­body­has­emerged.­At­stake­in­the­years­of­Allende’s­ascension­ to power and those that followed was nothing less than a Latin social labora- tory.­This­laboratory­was­at­once­optimistic,­sincere,­naïve,­and­finally­brutal.­ Few­experiments­were­as­audacious­or­prophetic­as­Allende’s­cybernetic­ program Cybersyn.
    [Show full text]
  • The Socialist Calculation Debate and New Socialist Models in Light of a Contextual Historical Materialist Interpretation
    THE SOCIALIST CALCULATION DEBATE AND NEW SOCIALIST MODELS IN LIGHT OF A CONTEXTUAL HISTORICAL MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION by Adam Balsam BSc [email protected] Supervised by Justin Podur BSc MScF PhD A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 11, 2020 Table of Contents The Statement of Requirements for the Major Paper ................................................................................. iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ iv Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................... vi Section I: Introduction, Context, Framework and Methodology .................................................................. 1 Preamble ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Context of this Investigation ................................................................................................................. 5 The Possibilities of Socialist Models ..................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Interview: Watching the Spiderweb
    Watching the spiderweb: Enrique Rivera. V!RUS HOW TO QUOTE THIS DOCUMENT: V!RUS Watching the spiderweb: Enrique Rivera. Interview. In V!RUS. N. 3. Sao Carlos: Nomads.usp, 2010. Available at: http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus03/interview/layout.php?item=1&lang=en. The Chilean Enrique Rivera (Santiago, 1977) works on the convergence between art and digital media, from a social and political perspective since the beginning of his career. Researcher in art and cultural manager, Rivera refers the conception of his work on principles of second-order cybernetics, which includes the observer in the observed system and accepts that, from external stimuli to the system, new, non- planned interactions work to expand and enable it to overcome the limits of art. His work Cybersyn, 2006, was exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Germany, at the Cultural Center of La Moneda Palace, Chile, and at the SantralIstanbul, Turkey. It retrieves the Cybersyn Project, 1971, commissioned by the government of Salvador Allende to interconnect Chilean public industries by a telex network controlled by a central computer so as to expedite the resolution of common problems. Cybersyn or Synco was a foreshadowing of what would be the Internet two decades later, created with the English cyberneticist Stafford Beer, who was invited by Allende to design and implement the network in the country. The high degree of the project's involvement with public interests and its democratic character of establishing direct links between the various nodes of the network - from bottom to top - explain Rivera's interest in looking for reconstruct its records and submit it to the world as a locus where the being and the becoming collide and recombine, to be continually revisited.
    [Show full text]
  • COUPLING COMPLEXITY Ecological Cybernetics As a Resource for Auq33 Nonrepresentational Moves to Action
    14 COUPLING COMPLEXITY Ecological Cybernetics as a Resource for AuQ33 Nonrepresentational Moves to Action Erica Robles-Anderson and Max Liboiron We live in an era of ecological crisis. Climate change, plastic pollution, radiation drift—our most pressing environmental concerns are on a planetary scale. They are experienced everywhere and yet they are difficult, if not impossible, to see. An extraordinary amount of resources devoted to addressing ecological crises are spent simply trying to depict these crises and trying to teach people how to properly interpret the representations. The hope is that if only the general public and policy makers could see what is happening, they would better understand, and this understanding would lead to action. Scientists, activists, and policy mak- ers advocate for higher resolution climate models and more complete descriptions of the locations and effects of ocean plastics, or radiation drift from Fukushima, or extreme weather. Bigger, better, clearer pictures are the key to informed action. They account for more variables, simulate more mechanisms, and inform the construction of better models that reflect our total understanding. This pursuit of representational fidelity aligns with the long-standing technoc- ractic legacy of what historian Paul Edwards calls “the closed world,” or “global surveillance and control through high-technology military power.”1 With the detonation of atomic bombs at the end of World War II and subsequent threats of planetary nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, it became increasingly pos- sible to imagine that humans could act at planetary scale. Such action required global infrastructures like computing networks for gathering information about everywhere.
    [Show full text]
  • Cyborgs and Space L1.2
    Cyborgs and Space L1.2 Altering man's bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space ... Artifact-organism systems which would extend man's unconscious, self-regulatory controls are one possibility By Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline This article is based on a paper presented under the title of "Drugs, Space and Cybernetics "at the Psych ophysiologica I Aspects of Space Flight Symposium sponsored by the AF School of Aviation Medicine in San Antonio, Tex., in May. The complete paper appeared in the Symposium proceedings, published by Columbia Univ. Press. Manfred E. CIynes has since 1956 been chief research SPACE travel challenges mankind not only technologically but also scientist at Rockland State, in spiritually, in that it invites man to take an active part in his own biological charge of the Dynamic evolution. Scientific advances of the future may thus be utilized to permit Simulation Lab. A graduate of man's existence in environments which differ radically from those the Un iv. of Melbourne, provided by nature as we know it. Australia, and bolder of an M.S. from Juilliard School, he has for The task of adapting man's body to any environment he may the past 10 years been engaged choose will be made easier by increased knowledge of homeostatic in the design and development functioning, the cybernetic aspects of which are just beginning to be of physiological instrumentation understood and investigated. In the past evolution brought about the and apparatus, ultrasonic altering of bodily functions to suit different environments.
    [Show full text]
  • University of California Santa Cruz from Mass Culture To
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ FROM MASS CULTURE TO PERSONALIZATION A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS by Lindsay A. Weinberg June 2018 The Dissertation of Lindsay A. Weinberg is approved: ___________________________________ Professor Robert Meister, co-chair ___________________________________ Professor Carla Freccero, co-chair ___________________________________ Professor Warren Sack ___________________________________ Professor Mark Andrejevic _____________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction, p. 1 Chapter One, p. 36 Rethinking the Frankfurt School Chapter Two, p. 118 On the Question of Labor Chapter Three, p. 180 Attention and Design Chapter Four, p. 231 Surveillance and Privacy Conclusion, p. 274 References, p. 283 ! iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Kelvinator “Automatic Cook” advertisement................................................195 2. Hotpoint All-Electric Kitchen advertisement…............................................196 3. Original advertisement for the Honeywell Kitchen Computer......................199 4. Apple’s “1984” advertisement………………………………………….......202 ! iv Abstract From Mass Culture to Personalization Lindsay Weinberg This dissertation argues that personalization—the web of technologies and cultural practices that generate information about consumers to market goods and services to target audiences—is part of a larger cultural and economic
    [Show full text]