Bibliograph

Rise of the machines, a cybernetic history, Thomas Rid

Type

Label

Rise of the machines, a cybernetic history, Thomas Rid

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-385) and index

Illustrations

illustrationsplates

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Rise of the machines

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

921868924

Responsibility statement

Thomas Rid

Sub title

a cybernetic history

Summary

"Springing from the febrile mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. This vision would radically transform the postwar world, ushering in sweeping cultural change. From the Cold War's monumental SAGE bomber defense system to enhanced humans, Wiener's scheme turned computers from machines of assured destruction into engines of brilliant utopias. Cybernetics triggered blissful cults, the Whole Earth Catalog, and feminist manifestos, just as it fueled martial gizmos and the air force's foray into virtual space. As Rid shows, Cybernetics proved a powerful tool for two competing factions-- those who sought to make a better world and those who sought to control the one at hand. In the Bay Area, techno-libertarians embraced networked machines as the portal to a new electronic frontier: a peaceful, open space of freedom. In Washington, DC, cyberspace provided the perfect theater for dominance and war. Meanwhile the future arrived secretly in 1996, with Moonlight Maze, dawn of a new age of digital state-on-state espionage. That "first cyberwar"... went on for years-- and indeed has never stopped. In our long-promised cybernetic future, the line between utopia and dystopia continues to be disturbingly thin."--Jacket flap

Table Of Contents

Control and communication at war -- Cybernetics -- Automation -- Organisms -- Culture -- Space -- Anarchy -- War -- Fall of the machines

Classification