The Sociological and Ideological Assumptions Underlying Cybernation.

Cybernation is defined as the combination of the computer and the automated self-regulating machine. Enthusiasm for cybernation is likewise giving rise to myths, which may harden unless they are given critical attention. The new myths are somewhat reinforced by technocratic thinking which is often ill informed along economic and sociological lines. As myths, some of the newer convictions, which are developing, are also an outcropping of what has come to be called the Triple Revolution. In evaluating the assumptions of cybernation here the author is not declaring either that they are in error or that they are beyond the bounds of possibility. What the author wishes to maintain in this paper is that if these assumptions remain untempered by institutional realities and by some new and necessary conceptual considerations of an economic nature, they will not prove very serviceable for the task of managed social change. Furthermore, if these assumptions remain unguided by an appropriate social philosophy, a cybercultural credo will remain at best programmatic. Unless detailed blueprints for various forms of needed devotees of cybernation can work out social change, the cybercultural revolution will never enter the realm of Realpolitik. The excuse for this paper, then, will be the effort to examine critically the excesses of enthusiasm, which characterize those who are now marching under the banner of cybernation, and to suggest some critical remedies, which are in order.