C’est moi:

In a previous life - before retirement (BR), I was an electronics technologist - a two year diploma course (BCIT) with emphasis on control systems from the field of cybernetics. The root of which is “κυβερνητική [kybernētikḗ], meaning ‘governance’ …, related to governor, pilot, or [steersman] of a ship”. But from which followed some 30 years before the mast designing, building, and repairing a range of electronic products for use in various automotive, forestry, industrial and marine applications. My claim to fame and fortune, such as they are.

But now - after retirement (AR), I’m more able to indulge a broader range of interests and to delve deeper into others that the press of day-to-day work tended to preclude. Not to mention - given Francis Bacon’s, “I hold every man to be a debtor to his profession” - making some efforts to discharge that particular debt. The title of this Substack comes from a book by one of the main progenitors of that field of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, which motivated my choice of career. But the book also provides something in the way of some over-arching principles that find many echoes and applications in a diverse field, from genetics to society itself. As Eleanor Roosevelt once put it relative to the latter:

“...our children must learn...to face full responsibility for their actions, to make their own choices and cope with the results...the whole democratic system...depends upon it. For our system is founded on self-government, which is untenable if the individuals who make up the system are unable to govern themselves.”

All of which will hopefully shed some welcome light on a number of seriously problematic and quite fractious social issues. Many of which - transgenderism in particular - seem to be largely the result of various “cognitive distortions” and quite contradictory and inconsistent definitions:

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Be part of a community of people who share your interests. As I’ve indicated here and elsewhere, the initial focus is going to be on the transgender clusterfuck - which seems largely due to various misperceptions which lead to a general lack of consensus on which progress - both scientific and social - ultimately depends. Why I think there’s some urgent necessity - tempus fugit - to get at the roots of various social dilemmas and the related bones of contention. As Margaret Mead once put it:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

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