today's news item[1] about the .io top-level domain prompted several conversations with our friends, and in one of those, we used the phrase "the cybernetic bias" for the first time, to elaborate on stuff in our dark cyberneticism piece. we'd like to explain what we mean by it.
we want to emphasize that we genuinely think the cybernetic world view has many things to recommend it, and in fact we talk about it in large part because of the good stuff. just... we can't enjoy those things without also addressing its harms.
the framework of cyberneticism is not our invention; people have forgotten the name but it has many adherents today. many, many practitioners. we're just seeking to dust off that old terminology and relate it to what we see around us.
when we think about a topic, useful ways to talk about it don't pop into our head full-formed; they emerge in bits and pieces, often over many months of conversations with friends. often, like with this "cybernetic bias" snippet, the idea coalesces in our head slowly enough that we don't identify it as a specific thing that deserves a name until we try to explain it to someone.
anyway: the cybernetic bias is the tendency to decide that distinctions are unimportant because they feel arbitrary or unrelated to things that you care about
for example, if you are tempted to say that the .ca TLD and the .tickets TLD are two instances of the same thing and should be treated the same in all respects, by anyone...
that's the cybernetic bias
sometimes, disbelieving in a hostile power structure is an effective way to make it go away!
sometimes it is NOT
all we're saying is, if you're a tech person, we encourage trying to be aware of this bias in yourself, and making a conscious decision about when it's useful vs. when it's leading you astray
[1] https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain