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DanArmak comments on Avoid inflationary use of terms - Less Wrong
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Cybernetics is one of my favorite words (and fields of study) but it got so destroyed by misuse that even cyberneticists don't use it anymore and we have to use obnoxiously long winded phrases such as "the study of dynamic control systems which utilize feedback."
My mother was taught something about cybernetics in highschool (USSR 1960s). For the past fifteen years, she has remained completely mystified by the "cybernetics" and other "cyber-something" stories in TV news.
I'm kind-of mystified as well but I think it happened something like this:
cybernetic theory -> the concept of feedback controlled prosthetics -> the concept of cyborgs and cyberpunk -> the media's misuse of the word in sensationalist 1990s reporting on anything electronic
It was so overused in the 90s that there was a backlash and everyone stopped using it, so I'm hoping it can return to it's original meaning now that biocybernetics (aka feedback control in systems biology) is suddenly becoming a fruitful field of study.
I wouldn't hold out hope. I have many friends in the Israeli software and network security business - penetration testing, secure development courses, that kind of thing - and just in the last year they've started talking about how the word "cyber" is becoming acknowledged among enterprise CxOs and govt. people as something that needs to be invested in. I trust these sources of mine - they're good at marketing and customer relations. And the Israeli market is very firmly connected to the bigger US and European markets. So no, "cybersecurity" is not about to die, I'm afraid.