John's private podcast feed ~ betaworks events & things I'm listening to.. enjoy đź‘‚ Designing Freedom #3: Stafford Beer, 1973 Massey Lectures
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Dec 22, 2025 
Stafford Beer, a pioneering professor of cybernetics and author, discusses the revolutionary idea of redesigning government as a machine for promoting individual liberty. He critiques how current systems reduce variety and emphasizes the dangers of information delay in governance. Beer advocates for dynamic, recursive models that respond to real-time challenges, highlighting his experience building a prototype system in Chile. His reflections on the tragic loss of freedom following the 1973 coup provide a poignant conclusion to his thought-provoking insights.
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Reframe Government As A Liberty Machine
- Government is a machine whose output should be individual liberty rather than mere constraint.
- Designing it as a dynamic, viable system changes governance from static control to freedom-focused regulation.
Four Ways Government Kills Necessary Variety
- Government attenuates societal variety through four failing methods: departmental models, frozen component models, aggregation, and delay.
- These methods strip necessary detail and time-sensitivity, undermining requisite variety and stability.
Model Flows Continuously And Involve Workers
- Build dynamic models of economic components that show continuous flows, rates, and time lags.
- Involve frontline workers in model creation so the models reflect real operational flows and boost genuine participation.
