The humane use of human beings?

The closing of loops exerts magical effects. This powerful act sculpts both the structural form and the functional expression of the systems which accrue from this ultimate connection. Systems and societies are each erected upon, and composed of, such intricate webs of self-correcting and self-shaping influences. However, without appropriate feedback regulation, these loops can become, in a utilitarian sense, dysfunctional. This is as true for social architectures as it is for any intentionally designed technological system. Here, a sequence of examples are used to expose an evident divergence between what is espoused for our social systems and what is actually enacted therein. Failure of regulation and associated diminution or even disconnection of such regulatory loops leads to an evident and growing dissonance between aspiration and reality. The first two of these examples used here are rather facile and even trivial while the third example is much more serious. All examples provide insight concerning, and expose the ways in which, a fuller understanding of cybernetic principles may rectify such discordant circumstances, at least in principle if not in practice.

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