---a cost benefit analysis.


Cyberneticians hope to use their capabilities for the
betterment of the human race, of which they are a part.

They are not naive when it comes to the government and politics, either.

* "The Rise of the Computer State", David Burnham, 1984
*
* Norbert Wiener, the MIT professor who is generally credited with being
* one of the principal minds behind the development of the computer,
* refused to take research money from the Pentagon because he was
* convinced it would corrupt his research and undermine his independence.

When Stafford Beer monitored factories and banks to give the government
the necessary tools to govern the economy effectively, he chose to
monitor national infrastructure of the industrial variety.

However, even he knows what can happen
with cybernetic control in the wrong hands:

* "Brain of the Firm", Stafford Beer, 1986, ISBN 0 471 27687 1
*
* If Project Cybersyn were altered, and the tools used are not the
* tools we made, they could become instruments of oppress