To those who set foot in Turkey in the early 70s operation room While running the national telecommunications company in central Chile’s capital, Santiago, one of the first ideas that came to mind was to call Spock or Captain James T. Kirk. If there is an office that resembles the emblematic ship Enterprise in the Star Trek series, it was the office of the revolutionary administration of the days of Salvador Allende.

Fiberglass swivel chairs, orange cushions, futuristic designed screens. Seventies pop aesthetics in its purest form. An office without a desk or paper where they want to secure the future, and that’s exactly why – he explains New Yorker-, “similar” to the future.

It was not for less.

The site of that prototype room in the Chilean capital was the heart of Project Cybersyn, the Allende administration’s most ambitious attempt to implement a communications system that can connect government, companies, and voters – the word is taken from “cybernetic synergy.” . A national, interactive network that facilitates the planning and control of the economy.

seed “socialist internet” It was erected shortly after the US Department of Defense did the same with ARPANET, which is considered the source of the current Internet today.

The company was revolutionary and even led by Stafford Beer, one of the greatest cybernetics theorists of the 20th century; But it broke with the 1973 coup.

An “electronic nervous system”

Against 1971After the optimism that followed Allende’s democratic rise cooled, his government found itself faced with the delicate task of organizing newly nationalized state initiatives and activities. The challenge was to add some logic to this chaotic and often inefficient collection of factories and mines. Moreover, to do so is to evade the centralized Soviet model.

The million dollar question was: how?

Among the technocrats to take up the task was a 28-year-old engineer. Fernando Flores, the man Allende trusted. In the 1960s, Flores absorbed Stafford Lee’s revolutionary ideas on cyber management and thought that Chile might be an ideal region to put some of them into practice. Beer’s luxurious lifestyle and particularly busy schedule in the UK indicated that the British intellectual probably did not want to embark on a socialist adventure in Chile; however, Flores and his team decided to try their luck.

They wrote a letter inviting him to the Andean land and crossed their fingers.

It worked. Of course. Instead of sending one of his collaborators, Beer packed his things, packed his bags, and headed to Chile instead. Guardian– a payment of $500 a day, slightly less than her regular bill, but she made up for it by demanding a decent amount of chocolate, wine, and cigars. Ingenious stuff, you know.

Over the next two years, Beer and his collaborators would shape Project Cybersyn, an attempt to provide Chile with a true “electronic nervous system.” The idea was to create an ambitious communication model that could cover the whole country and speed up shipping. economic data, a network that will allow watch resourcesneeds and outcomes.

Operations Room in Chile from the Stafford Beer Archive, a photograph of Project Cybersyn, 1971-3 #International Archives #ExploreArchives pic.twitter.com/vfJxx1S6s5

— LJMU SCA (@LJMU_SCA) 25 November 2018

However, for such a challenge, its supporters had more professions than real tools.

The technology was archaic and the team even applied 500 telex machines it was bought by the previous government in their time and dust accumulated in a warehouse. Devices were deployed and connected to two control rooms in Santiago; here a team of technicians was responsible for compiling and analyzing statistics. Prototype OR—correct New Yorker– It was that weird Interprise imitation in the heart of Santiago de Chile.

As part of the process, one hundred companies were linked and their managers developed the Chilean Economic Simulator (CHECO) and the statistical software Cybestryde prototype. They used the Burroughs 3500 computer to perform their work.

“It was great machine for what was fashionable at the time […]. In Tim Harford’s book, there were central units the size of a washing machine, and eight disks arrayed in a few megabytes in total; to adapt.

The aim was not to spy on the population, but to have more weight in the management of the places where he worked. However, the level of participation was not always as expected.

This does not mean that Cybersyn has won a small, big victory. In October 1972, when a CIA-backed attack tried to tie the nation’s economy to a tightrope, Beer’s system helped coordinate the government’s response and be out of stock. Thanks to the Telex network, the flow of requests and complaints between businesses and the state has also been facilitated.

This ambitious seed of the socialist internet could not go any further. As the project progressed, it began to run into problems and the political winds were not in its favour.

On September 11, just one day after workers took measures to install a modern Cybersyn control room filled with panels and screens in La Moneda, the coup d’etat that would result in Allende’s death was declared. of the Pinochet dictatorship. When military rebels faced this display of modernity that didn’t quite fit the 70s, they decided to tear it apart. Beer had to follow him from England.

remains one today most impressive episodes Technological history of the 20th century.

Pictures | Wikimedia