Cybernetics keeps going

My name is Ed van der Winden. And I am addicted to cybernetics. For over three years now. Everything I do, at work as well as in my daily life, is colored and determined by everything I have learned in recent years. I even wrote a book about it: "Why do things never happen by themselves? And why that's the wrong question."

And what is that, cybernetics? And why do I find it so fascinating? An easy, unsophisticated, but clear answer is that cybernetics describes how the world works. It's the truth. (Didn't I say it was a simplistic answer?)

With cybernetic glasses, I notice different things than before, I ask different questions and wonder about other things. And for some problems I sometimes even see solutions that seem to be invisible to almost everyone.

This is the first episode of a blog in which I regularly want to share my fascination and wonder with you. As long as my willpower does not fail me, I will post an episode every week. There is no shortage of material, because there is something that strikes me every week when I look at De Wereld Draait Door, for example. For example, yesterday it was about the upcoming municipal elections. At least that was the idea. But there was no conversation about politics. A conversation about politicians followed. And later that evening at Pauw, the subject was elaborated even more questionably in a list of funny political slogans. Amusing, though. But I cannot escape the impression that each of the guests at the table could have told us many interesting things. Is this really what we want?

As a cyberneticist, I look much more at dynamic than static aspects of things. I watch how the world turns, how the world works, not how the world is and how it stands still. Seen in this way, the content of talk programs is not only (and perhaps not at all) determined by people. It is more about ratings. It is about the need of well-known Dutch people to profile themselves in a certain way. But perhaps the most important thing is that we get used to a little more every day, rely on, and even insist on simple and simple "information".

This is not a subject for which cybernetics has a ready-made answer. But it does show that other questions can be asked. And that in any case there are other outcomes possible than that one status quo that happened to become reality over time.

The world goes on. But that can be done in many ways.