This week, people viewed the dark side of digital age on the multi-part episodes of Mashable’s ‘Kernel Panic’ on Youtube. It enables the exploration of a fascinatingly advanced computer “internet” network developed in Salvador Allende’s Chile in the 1970s.
The network was called ‘Project Cybersyn’ and was the focus of Allende’s effort to strategically modernise and develop the economy of Chile. This stood parallel to what would become the internet, the network in the United States. This was at the juncture when President Nixon was attempting to demean the economy of Chile. As a result, trying to overthrow Latin America’s first democratically elected Marxist leader, Allende.
Project Cybersyn was the brainchild of advanced British theorist, Stafford Beer. It was worked by a group of young, revolutionary programmers and was a remarkable success. It made use of a bit more than old telephone wires and pre-war machinery, which were dismantled.
Source: Toolshero
This Chilean programme successfully built a time data stream equipment. This was very much like the newsfeed of today’s social media. It functioned in looking and monitoring the industries of the economy from a retro-futuristic control room in the capital.
The programmers adequately utilised the control room by monitoring the country’s industry for two consecutive years. They used Cybersyn to fight through battle strikes against the military junta. They finally attempted a coup in the September of 1973.
This occurred when their leader, Allende was overthrown by a military junta. This was led by the infamous Augusto Pinochet. With the death of Allende, the dream of a reformed Chile died as well. The probability of a new ‘internet’ and an advanced automated system of information transfer shattered as well.
Source: Liverpool John Moores University library
Mashable posted a series of episodes on ‘kernel panic’ highlighting the happenings of this dark point in the digital age. It contains three parts and summarises how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) destroyed what was about to become the second internet.
The first ones to report on this topic, spoke to Fernando Flores who had served as Salvador Allende’s finance minister. He had spent three years in prison under the rule of Pinochet. Along with him, the operation director of Project Cybersyn, Raul Espejo and Stafford Beer’s family.
A structured report was presented along with the videos for greater detail. This was done to highlight every aspect of the events that took place, leading to the destruction of the dream project, ‘Cybersyn’.
Check out their first video on ‘Kernel Panic’:
