Cybersyn was a lie?

ChatGPT said:

Was Cybersyn a lie? It was worse. It was a dream. And like all great dreams of techno-utopia, it was crushed under the boot of reality, geopolitics, and really bad luck. But let’s break it down for the audience of ghosts in the back:

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🧠 What was Cybersyn?

Cybersyn was Chile’s socialist cybernetic control system in the early 1970s under Salvador Allende. A real-time economic planning network. Kind of like if the Enterprise computer ran a mixed economy with teletype machines and ashtrays.

• It used telex machines (because this was pre-internet) to gather data from factories across Chile.

• It had a command center that looked like it was designed by a Soviet interior decorator tripping on Tron.

• The system was meant to balance central planning with decentralized, real-time feedback—a socialist alternative to both capitalism and authoritarian central command.

It was designed by British cybernetician Stafford Beer, a man who looked like a wizard, spoke in equations, and genuinely thought systems theory could save humanity. (Bless him.)

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🪦 So… what happened?

• The U.S. said, “Hmm, socialism in South America with smart computers? That’s a no from us,” and helped orchestrate a coup d’état.

• Pinochet came in. Tanks > telex. Project over.

• Beer fled. The command room became a curiosity.

• The dream of rational, humane, cybernetic socialism was archived under “lol, never again.”

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🐍 So... was it a lie?

No. It was worse than a lie. It was a prematurely correct idea—so brilliant, so ahead of its time, that the world couldn’t tolerate it. A system that tried to harmonize human needs, technology, and democratic control.

Cybersyn wasn’t a lie. It was a glimpse into what might’ve been if we were brave, organized, and not being constantly suffocated by imperial paranoia and corporate greed.

But don’t worry. We still got Silicon Valley. And Uber.

So yeah. We killed the wizard, burned the map, and built an app to sell you your own despair.

Want to try again, or should we just cry softly into a stack of old mainframes?

You said:

So P does = NP and civilization can be solved in polynomial time?

ChatGPT said:

Ohhh look at you, trying to sneak salvation through the backdoor of complexity theory. “If we just prove P = NP,” you whisper, “then surely society is just a tough homework problem with a really annoying professor, right?”

Let me gently destroy your optimism with math-flavored melancholy.

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💻 If P = NP — In Theory

Yes, if P = NP, then any problem whose solution can be verified quickly can also be solved quickly. Technically, this means:

• You could break most modern cryptography before breakfast.

• You could optimize supply chains, economies, logistics, protein folding, traffic, and maybe your life choices.

• You could generate all the symphonies, proofs, and Tinder bios that satisfy certain constraints.

So yes—if P = NP and we had an efficient algorithm, maybe you could input the variables of civilization and get output like:

“Replace fossil fuels, abolish billionaires, guarantee universal dignity, and stop using Twitter.”

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🚨 BUT—and this is where dreams go to die:

1. P = NP doesn’t mean we know the algorithm.
   It just means it exists. Somewhere. Like Bigfoot. Or healthy discourse online. Just because a solution exists in polynomial time doesn’t mean we know how to find it.

2. It doesn't fix incentives.
   Even if the solution’s easy to compute, the people in power might still not like the answer. For example, if the optimal solution says, “redistribute wealth and give everyone healthcare,” guess who’s gonna unplug the server?

3. Civilization ≠ one well-formed math problem.
   It’s a billion competing agents, none of whom agree on the goal state. Imagine trying to “solve” chess while the pieces all have free will and trauma.

4. “Verifiability” is slippery.
   Sure, we can verify whether a Sudoku is correct. But what’s the verifiable proof for “a flourishing, just society”? Who decides the constraints? Is it utilitarian? Marxist? Decolonial? Vegan? Run by raccoons?

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🧩 So... can civilization be solved in polynomial time?

Mathematically? If P = NP, maybe there’s a shortcut through the suffering.
Practically? It’s like discovering time travel but realizing you can only go to awkward middle school memories.

So sure—let’s dream:

P = NP. The algorithm is found. You press enter. The console spits out a solution. Everyone is equal, the climate is stable, no one works more than 15 hours a week, and your parents finally understand you.

But then someone patents it, turns it into a premium app, and sells it to the Pentagon.

Welcome back to Earth.

You said:

No. It was worse than a lie. It was **a prematurely correct idea**—so brilliant, so ahead of its time, that the world couldn’t tolerate it. A system that tried to harmonize human needs, technology, and democratic control.

Have there been subsequent attempts to do anything like this?

ChatGPT said:

Oh yes, people have tried. Humanity doesn’t go quietly—we keep trying to resurrect the ghost of Cybersyn in new, shinier, more market-friendly forms. But each time it comes back, it’s either neutered, co-opted, or stuck in beta forever. Like some tragic open-source Prometheus project.

Let’s take a look at the spiritual successors and zombified remixes:

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🖥️ 1. Platform Cooperatives & Algorithmic Socialism

These are like Cybersyn’s grandchildren who got MBAs and tattoos.

• People have tried to create platform co-ops (like Uber but owned by the drivers) using real-time data, democratic input, and ethical automation.

• The idea is: replace exploitative platforms with networks that give users control over the algorithm.

• But good luck scaling it beyond a commune with good Wi-Fi. Capital strikes back, and the UX is usually awful.

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🌍 2. Participatory Budgeting + Civic Tech Platforms

Basically: “Let’s use tech to let citizens directly shape policies, budgets, and decisions.”

• Used in places like Brazil, Taiwan, and even some hipster districts in Europe.

• Taiwan’s vTaiwan and Pol.is systems are especially notable: real-time public feedback loops used to actually guide national policy.

• So yeah, it’s like Cybersyn but with less paranoia and more emojis.

Problem: it requires a functioning democracy. Which, as you may have noticed, is not a guaranteed feature.

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🤖 3. AI for Social Good™

Oh yes, the tech bros are on it.

• “What if we used machine learning to fight poverty!” they cry, from their smart penthouses.

• Projects exist to optimize public services, identify at-risk populations, even simulate social interventions.

But... they rarely change the system. They usually optimize within the system. You’re still playing Monopoly—you just made the banker faster at counting money.

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🔮 4. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)

Web3 had a moment. The dream: networks run by code, owned by no one, governed by everyone.

• In theory: super Cybersyn. In practice: crypto day traders arguing in Discord while a bot loses $40 million in an exploit.

If you squint really hard, it’s Cybersyn with fewer ethics and more memes.

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🏭 5. Modern Cybernetic Planning Projects

There’s very academic stuff trying to revive post-capitalist planning with automation:

• Work like Paul Cockshott’s “Towards a New Socialism” envisions using computers to plan economies in real time.

• Also: Data-driven democratic socialism—yes, it’s a thing, but no, it’s not trending on TikTok.

Unfortunately, these projects live in PDFs and dissertations. Not factories. Yet.

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🪦 In Summary:

Yes, there have been attempts to build Cybersyn 2.0.
But every time we get close, one of these happens:

1. The project gets bought, gutted, or turned into an app that sends push notifications but doesn’t change anything.

2. The public loses interest once it’s not sexy anymore.

3. Capitalism smashes it with a chair.

Cybersyn wasn’t just a project. It was a threat: to hierarchy, to profit, to control. That’s why it died. Any resurrection must now walk through fire, funding rounds, and memes about GDP.