The Cybernetic Mode of Control, or on the Annihilation of the Subject of Knowledge
13 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2019
Date Written: June 2, 2013
Abstract
The current paper is an investigation into cybernetics as providing an original and unique logic which enables the maximization of control on a planetary level as it joins with global capitalism. Arguing that contrary to the usual conception, techno-science does not provide the chief model and instrument of control but rather it is cybernetics, with its feedback mechanisms that for the first time posits control systems devoid of human knowledge and judgment, that provides a new organon for the most efficient and thus the most inhuman control networks. Drawing on different sources, including early modern philosophy, Heidegger, Tarde, as well as Epicurus and atomist philosophy and also technical studies in cybernetics and complex systems, the current text seeks to expose the origins and unique structure of this set of logics and techniques which started much earlier than the 1940s but came onto its own with the inventions of Norbert Wiener.
Keywords: Cybernetics, Capitalism, Network Ontology, Accident, Cyber-Capitalism, Philosophy of Technology
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