Cybernetics is the rather young and interdisciplinary science of communication and control theory. It is concerned especially with the comparative study of so-called automatic control systems, such as the human nervous system and brain, or electro-mechanical communication systems such as television and computers. The interfaces between these kinds of natural and artificial control systems increasingly have been of interest to cyberneticists (like the late scientists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead) on organizational, technical and social levels.
The late media guru Marshall McLuhan put it this way: “We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
More and more, certain technological developments have resulted in cybernetic tools that very seriously begin to shape human thought and society, sometimes -- at least initially -- in ways we don't even notice. Another pertinent McLuhanism: “We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t the fish.” Television is an often-cited example of this kind of fifth-columnist influence on perception and function.
As in the real world, dystopian fiction is full of machines, robots, and artificial intelligences developed to better humankind in some way but which also introduce hugely negative consequences. For many of us, those cautionary tales resonant, because we have direct experience with such cost/benefit outcomes.
Guns, computers, and automobiles can be described as cybernetic devices, interfacing with the human mind indirectly or now, sometimes in the case of computers, directly. Let's consider two of those examples here.
Guns are very much like automobiles. Very useful in certain ways, potentially very dangerous in almost every way. That is to say, aside from performing their designed function, they serve as levers that casually but dramatically shift the nature of social discourse and organization. That's precisely because they are cybernetic in nature — tools that amplify human power and alter the perceptions of observers, not just users. If you will, they in a sense turn ordinary humans into superhumans.
While cars, guns, and other cybernetic devices (eyeglasses were among the earliest to be developed) are not innately evil, their broad introduction into society significantly alters the psyche of social interaction, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. And, as I said earlier, that happens in ways not always obvious in the short run.
One shared consequence of guns and automobiles is that society increasingly experiences power-tripping behaviors among both individuals and institutions. This is partly because of a kind of feedback loop. Like taking an addictive drug, the thrill of employing amplified power tends to encourage further such use.
For example, getting behind two tons of metal on the highway amplifies one's ability to travel great distances with ease (while of course producing hidden costs, like pollution) but it is also a potentially huge power trip, unconsciously and otherwise.
Not everyone can control their instincts to mess with others whom they encounter while behind the wheel. Driving a car empowers them, in ways impossible just a century or two ago. It also empowers select schemers (see for example the history of writer-activist Jane Jacobs and her years-long battle with urban planner Robert Moses, whose career spanned the rise of soul-less “neighborhoods” alongside divide-and-conquer freeway barriers in New York City).
A bullet's mass is often measured in grams, but the force and power of modern projectile weapons are socially disproportionate, turning disaffected persons and milquetoasts alike into casual bullies or even at times into marauding mass murderers. The gun or car key was right there in the person's hands, just when they felt a need to express their frustrations in a powerfully physical way.
Increasing availability of and regard for high-powered weapons turns small conflicts into seemingly endless regional or international wars. It levels the playing field. “Lone wolf” gunmen or small bands of guerrillas can hold off entire battalions, at least long enough to do serious harm to social discourse, personal security, and communities at large.
Social networks and the Internet in its entirety are also highly cybernetic in nature. They, too, hold out the promise of more efficiency in communication and wider exchange of information and illumination, but the sheer power and scope of modern computer technology also undermines preexisting social norms and devalues more accurate information in favor of uncertain alternatives.
Professionally juried sites or databases are sometimes less valued by many than a 140-character "tweet" from a mentally disturbed politician. From vast oceans of uncertainty emerge certitudes as people try to make sense of it all and gravitate to agreeable theories or solutions.
Thus, disinformation — long used by advertisers, lobbyists and spies — is a now a cybernetic power tool. See the 2016 Russian hacking of the U.S. election, for example.
The power to project one's incomplete or ill-formed thoughts (as I to some extent am doing here!) is not only irresistible to many individuals, it also supplants many tried and true forms of social interaction with their well-developed sets of rules, deliberate processes, and norms. Debating an issue is made harder when some of the participants, even just a small minority, carry megaphone real and metaphorical. These are cybernetic amplifiers of “free” speech in general and disinformation in particular.
The thing is, guns and cars and similar cybernetic devices that amplify physical power are among our biggest conundrums. You don't have to be a back-to-nature, smash-the-machines radical to see that without careful attention to their uses and long-term social impacts, devices such as these can radically transform human civilization, not always in good ways.
The Great Iroquois Nation accounted for this and more in its laws pertaining to "Seventh Generation" impacts. As Wikipedia describes, Iroquois law basically said the community must think seven generations ahead (roughly 140 years into the future; compare to a 140-character one-off on Twitter) and decide whether the decisions that tribal elders make today would benefit their children seven generations hence. Of this rule Wikipedia writes:
"It is frequently associated with the modern, popular concept of environmental stewardship or 'sustainability' but it is much broader in context." The Iroquois put it this way: "In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."
In short, the evolution of society (and not just technology) requires careful planning. You shouldn't begin doing whatever you like just because you can. And yet, our culture and politics are now of the bent that careful, even scientific, consideration of broad future impacts for any present decision is irrelevant, that short-term thinking is best, that nuance, caution, and thinking outside the box of one's own prejudices and interests are what's dangerous. That what you don't know or see can't hurt you.
Remember what happened to the Luddites, a fate replicated over much of the past century here in the United States. It wasn't about smashing the machines, it was about the use of amplified power to quell concerns about how that power would be used. Wikipedia, again:
The Luddites were a group of English textile workers and weavers in the 19th century who destroyed weaving machinery as a form of protest. The group was protesting the use of machinery in a "fraudulent and deceitful manner" to get around standard labour practices. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste as machines would replace their role in the industry.
It is a misconception that the Luddites protested against the machinery itself in an attempt to halt progress of technology. Over time, however, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.
The Luddite movement began in Nottingham and culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with military force.
The textile machines taking work from humans were protected by other machines, namely, human-interfaced weapons that displaced rational negotiation and thoughtfulness with raw power. It also happened in the mills of America nearly a century later. And it will continue happening until happiness no longer is regarded as a warm gun.