On Revolution

I'm in the middle of writing a zine (or maybe book) on revolutionary theory. But things are moving fast, and I want to get some core ideas out into the world. So listen up real quick, because what I'm going to say could help you win a revolution. First, we're going to establish some terminology. The theory I'm working on is rooted in cybernetics. Cybernetics is the study of the control in systems. Systems are just groups of things that interact with each other. Basically everything we know about is some type of system. The solar system is a system of planets, a star, and a bunch of ice balls and space rocks that all interact gravitationally. A wave is a system of water particles interacting with each other, the air above, and possibly some surface below. A person riding a bicycle is a system of a bicycle and a rider, each of which is itself a system of gears and chains or muscle, bones, and neurons. Only the last system has what we might call “control” in that it regulates itself (the…