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If I were the CIA and interested in hastening the collapse of Chilean socialism, I would do everything I could to encourage them to use 1960s technology to comp

If I were the CIA and interested in hastening the collapse of Chilean socialism, I would do everything I could to encourage them to use 1960s technology to compute the national PPF and allocate resources accordingly. Heck, I'd open a tab for them at IBM and invite them to order whatever they needed, free of charge. Then I'd sit back and watch the mayhem.

mc32 6y ago
Also, errors would accumulate and accelerate all bad decisions.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
monocasa 6y ago
1960s technology did a great job managing the complete Apollo supply chain, which was about the same order of scale as the Chilean economy of the time.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  I seriously doubt it. The population of Chile in 1969 was about 10 million. Let's say that, at its peak, there were one million people working on the Apollo program - which I think is a vast overestimate, but still. Even if all of those people were working full-time on Apollo, their labor and material inputs to the program were only a fraction of their total economic lives - they still had to make decisions about housing, food, clothing, transportation, etc. that had nothing to do with putting men on the moon. And that is to say nothing of the fact that a space program is very, very different than a national economy.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    The system wasn't tracking each person's individual purchases either. It was working on the order of "we expect this kind of demand, let's make sure that raw materials and intermediate are being allocated to the right factories at the supply chain level". And it's not like the entire population of Chile was employed, and it's not like that 1 million in the Apollo program accounts for spouses and children. They're for sure on the same order.
    - haram_masala 6y ago
      Respectfully, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. The "we expect this kind of demand" is an breathtaking amount of hand-waving; that's where most of the complexity lies. If it were that easy to make those kind of forecasts - and make them with mission-critical perfection, since millions of lives are at stake - fintech would be trivial and boring. I assure you, it is not. Chile was never going to orchestrate its entire economy with punch cards and 300 baud phone couplers.
      - monocasa 6y ago
        > Respectfully, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. Right back at you. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better than the alternative, which was 1960s Chilean forecasters working in their firms individually with next to no data.
- memexy 6y ago
  This is a great point. Cybernetic methodologies are consistently applied in most successful endeavors but for some reason people get tripped up by the ideological barriers. YCombinator itself is an error correcting cybernetic loop.

mc32 6y ago

Also, errors would accumulate and accelerate all bad decisions.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

monocasa 6y ago

1960s technology did a great job managing the complete Apollo supply chain, which was about the same order of scale as the Chilean economy of the time.

haram_masala 6y ago
I seriously doubt it. The population of Chile in 1969 was about 10 million. Let's say that, at its peak, there were one million people working on the Apollo program - which I think is a vast overestimate, but still. Even if all of those people were working full-time on Apollo, their labor and material inputs to the program were only a fraction of their total economic lives - they still had to make decisions about housing, food, clothing, transportation, etc. that had nothing to do with putting men on the moon. And that is to say nothing of the fact that a space program is very, very different than a national economy.
- monocasa 6y ago
  The system wasn't tracking each person's individual purchases either. It was working on the order of "we expect this kind of demand, let's make sure that raw materials and intermediate are being allocated to the right factories at the supply chain level". And it's not like the entire population of Chile was employed, and it's not like that 1 million in the Apollo program accounts for spouses and children. They're for sure on the same order.
  - haram_masala 6y ago
    Respectfully, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. The "we expect this kind of demand" is an breathtaking amount of hand-waving; that's where most of the complexity lies. If it were that easy to make those kind of forecasts - and make them with mission-critical perfection, since millions of lives are at stake - fintech would be trivial and boring. I assure you, it is not. Chile was never going to orchestrate its entire economy with punch cards and 300 baud phone couplers.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      > Respectfully, I think you have no idea what you're talking about. Right back at you. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better than the alternative, which was 1960s Chilean forecasters working in their firms individually with next to no data.
memexy 6y ago
This is a great point. Cybernetic methodologies are consistently applied in most successful endeavors but for some reason people get tripped up by the ideological barriers. YCombinator itself is an error correcting cybernetic loop.