Let's learn and talk about "Project Cybersyn"

Begun under Salvador Allende's leadership of Chile in the early 1970s, "Project Cybersyn" was an ambitious attempt to implement computer- and telecommunications-aided economic planning. Like other attempts at socialist economic planning, Project Cybersyn aimed to allocate resources in a coordinated way to meet society's needs, rather than relying on markets where private capitalist firms compete to maximize their own profits. Unlike the Soviet Union's earlier attempts at economic planning, though, it would incorporate real-time, computerized communication between production facilities and planners in a decentralized, participatory way. Perhaps most importantly of all, it had that badass central control room that looked like Star Trek.

In light of today's technological and economic circumstances, perhaps it's worth taking a look back at Project Cybersyn. It also might a good starting point for us to explore the basic goals, challenges, and criticisms of planned economies, and so a stepping stone for us to talk about some other modern-day proposed alternatives to capitalism in meetups to come.

So, let's read about Project Cybersyn, and then see where the discussion takes us!

You might start off by reading some short articles like those linked below. If you have time to read about 10 pages, after you RSVP I'll privately share a relevant chapter from "The People's Republic of Walmart" by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski (2019).

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SHORT ARTICLES:
"Santiago Dreaming" (2003 article from The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/sep/08/sciencenews.chile
"Project Cybersyn: the afterlife of Chile's socialist internet" (2018 article from New Statesman)
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2018/08/project-cybersyn-afterlife-chile-s-socialist-internet

OR, IF YOU PREFER, A PODCAST:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/