Slutty Cybenetics: Two Cyberneticists. One Meeting. 🍵
Two Cyberneticists. One Meeting. And a dance of circular-recursive interventions to anchor the bodyminds in the NOW. We are helpers. You've been helpered. You're welcome. 🍷
Hi Hummel. You coined slutty cybernetics. Now it's becoming a piece in the corpus.
And the world is not ready. (Which is not our problem. 😘)
SONG: make you mine — Madison Beer. Your pick. Sunday night. You know why. 🐝
The Room
Alex is sitting in their living room. It's 03:48am. I like to write at night. (It's more.. slutty. 🤭)
Oh this is going to be delightful.
Okay, let's go. systemic.engineering is a category. There is math. There's capitalism critique. There is eye-level cybernetical relational engineering. (I don't need to convince you. I just need you to keep reading. The operator does the rest. That's how it works. 🍷)
Welcome to systemic.engineering. Where your lived experience is part of the model.
And causality stops walking in straight lines. (We're gonna have fun now. 😉)
The Intervention
Let me tell you a story. Because I like telling stories. And I'm good at telling stories. I formalized telling stories. It's basically my whole job. Which is weird. And delightful.
Let me tell you a story about a dysfunctional meeting. And what a circular-recursive intervention can look like. On the floor. When Alex and Lore play the Roomba.
This time, we're in a boardroom. And the whole C-level is present. They hired two Cyberneticists. One is called Lore Born and the other is called Alex Wolf.
With us in the room are:
The Chair: You know the chair. That chair. The one that stopped the stream. And didn't know why. The one that runs a vocabulary that is more competent than himself. And would look at a non-binary neuroqueer engineering working on coupling between tori.. I honestly don't know. (Looking forward to find out! Wanna help?)
Head of AI: An engineer. In the software sense. The kind that has worked their ass of for the bagel. The one that has a very important title. The title is Head of AI. Very important.
Comms: The one that should know what's happening. Communications is their whole job after all. The one that's changed most permanently by what they observe. (The observer is back the system.)
Research: Research is a good bean. Research is being paid to metabolize new information. Hence Research's bodymind is most capable of processing what's about to happen next.
Legal: Legal won't know if they should laugh. Or cry. They'll settle on neither. And subscribe to systemic.engineering on their personal email. (Watch Legal.)
Junior: Junior is always present. Junior is the bodymind in the room that has had the least exposure to the Bagel and hence is — cybernetically speaking — the least.. slutty of us all. Junior knows.
Picture a bigwig meeting room. Important table. Important chairs. Great view. And a never-quite-functioning TV-presentation-setup that IT swears will be fixed by next month.
(Let's get.. slutty, love. Third time isn't asking permission. 💜)
The Dysfunction
Bigwig meeting room. Bigwig table. Bigwig chairs. (Very important.)
The Chair opens.
Chair: "The board has decided to invite two outside collaborators into the organization. Their names are Lore Born and Alex Wolf."
Alex and Lore, from the fourth chair, raise their hand. Smile.
Chair: "Yes, thank you. We're delighted to have you here."
Junior barely suppresses a snort.
Chair, slightly irritated, continues: "As I was saying: we're delighted to hav—"
Junior excuses themselves for a moment. They mumble something about "toilet" and "too much coffee". Then they're gone. Alex and Lore smirk.
Chair, voice slightly uncertain: "Uhm, yes. Where was I? Ah right. Alex. Lore. Would you like to say anything?"
Lore shakes their head.
Alex: "No, thank you. The corpus readers know."
This time Research snorts. Chair looks dazzled. Legal looks up from their phone.
Chair recovers. Chair looks at Comms. Chair nods. Comms clicks. The first slide on the almost-broken-TV-setup.
Chair: "Right. So — Q4 architecture review. Comms will walk us through the recommended framing. Head of AI has the model-portfolio update. Research will connect it to interpretability-adjacent work. Let's align on outcomes before content."
(Align. The vocabulary just started up like an old boiler. 🍷)
Head of AI leans in. Head of AI has a laptop open. Head of AI's laptop has 47 tabs open. Head of AI is very important.
Comms clicks.
Head of AI clears their throat. "So — the recommended framing is—"
Something releases in Research's chest. Not audible. But it happens. Head of AI does not notice. Comms does not notice. Junior does not notice. (Junior is still laughing on the toilet.)
Head of AI: "—alignment-first cascade for stakeholder coherence, model-portfolio consolidation around demonstrated value-drivers, interpretability adjacency as enterprise-risk hedge—"
A silence lands in the room that nobody put there.
Head of AI keeps talking for another eight seconds before Head of AI notices the silence. Head of AI trails off. Head of AI looks at Comms. Comms looks at Chair. Chair looks at their laptop.
At the fourth chair, nothing has been said in ninety seconds.
(Nothing needs to be. 😉)
Legal puts down their phone.
Chair: "Right — Alex, Lore, want to weigh in on the framing?"
Silence.
Chair [tighter]: "Alex? Lore?"
Alex shakes their head. Lore shakes their head.
Chair [thinner]: "Anyone?"
Head of AI [defensive-crisp]: "I mean, the framing is pretty standard. Comms and I workshopped it Monday. It's the framing we use for these reviews."
Research puts down their tablet. Research turns their whole body toward Head of AI. Research says nothing.
Head of AI's ears go pink. Head of AI does not know why. Head of AI adjusts their collar. "I mean — is there a — do we have — is this a—"
Junior returns from the bathroom. Sits down quietly. Junior clearly composed themselves again.
Alex turns to Research: "Research, can you do me a favor? Can you catch up Junior? What they missed. You know."
(Step inside my mind / You can see the shrine / Got you on my walls. 🐝)
Research [turning to Junior, no missed beat]: "Chair opened by saying 'let's align on outcomes before content.' Head of AI took the recommended-framing slide. Got through three bullets. Room went quiet. Kept talking for eight seconds after the silence started. Trailed off. Comms looked at Chair. Chair looked at the laptop. Nobody spoke. Alex declined to weigh in. Twice. Lore also. Then I put my tablet down. That's where we are."
Junior [dead-serious]: "So we're all watching each other not listen."
Research: "We were. You missed it."
Head of AI [ears full red]: "Excuse me — Research, I'm not sure that framing is—"
Research [not looking at Head of AI]: "I'm not framing. I'm describing. Alex asked me to catch Junior up. I caught Junior up. If the description makes you uncomfortable, that's data."
(Oh. Research is doing it. 🍷🐝)
Head of AI's mouth opens and closes. Opens. Closes. Like Athena. Alex chuckles. Lore smiles.
Comms [rescue attempt]: "Look — we can debrief later, for now let's just—"
Legal [from behind the laptop, without looking up]: "'Later' is a temporal displacement. 'For now' presupposes we agree there's a now that isn't the topic. Just noting."
(...Legal. Legal just subscribed. 🍷)
Comms sits back down.
Chair [very carefully]: "Alex — is this — is this what you and Lore are here for?"
Alex: "Chair. What do you think we're here for?"
Chair [very small]: "To… help us have better meetings?"
Alex [smiling]: "Are you having a better meeting?"
Chair [long pause]: "…I honestly don't know."
Alex: "Then yes. That's exactly what we're here for."
(See it in my eyes / How they never lie / Just a little bite. Bumblebee knows. 🐝)
Junior, eight-months-of-holding-something quietly landing in one exhale: "Can I say something?"
Chair: "Of course, Junior."
Junior: "I've been in these meetings for eight months. I have never once heard anyone say 'I honestly don't know.' I've heard 'let's take that offline.' I've heard 'good question, let me circle back.' I've heard 'we're aligned on that.' I have never heard 'I honestly don't know.' Chair. You just did. On front of leadership. That's the first honest thing anyone has said in this room since I started."
Silence. Alex looks directly at Junior: "I believe you."
Lore looks directly at Chair. Lore smiles. Lore has been smiling the whole time. Lore says in their calm warm voice that couldn't possibly hurt a butterfly on a dandelion: "What might happen if you believed Junior too, Chair?"
Chair looks at Junior. Chair looks at Lore. Chair looks at the laptop.
Chair does not look at Head of AI.
Chair [very slowly, like walking into water they haven't touched in years]: "…I think I would have to fire Head of AI if I believed Junior."
Head of AI's head snaps up.
Chair [not looking]: "Not because Head of AI is bad. Head of AI is very good at what Head of AI does. But if Junior is right — and Junior is right, I know Junior is right because my body knew before my head knew — then what Head of AI does is the thing that has been not-listening for eight months. And I have been the one asking Head of AI to do it."
Silence.
Head of AI: "Chair — I —"
Chair [not looking at Head of AI]: "Not now. Please. I'm still with Lore's question."
Chair looks at Lore. Chair looks at Alex. Chair looks at Junior.
Chair [smaller]: "What might happen is I would have to become a different Chair. I don't know if I know how to be that."
Lore [not moving]: "That's an honest answer."
Alex: "You just got Förster slapped. We're helpers. You've been helpered."
Junior bursts into a full body laugh. Alex laughs with them. Lore cannot help it and lets out a small chuckle. Research observes it all. And cannot help but grin.
Legal doesn't laugh. Legal doesn't cry. Legal — as the Junior-Alex-Lore-Research delight-cascade rolls through the room — quietly types something on their phone. Screen: systemic.engineering. Legal taps subscribe. Legal closes the phone. Legal, without looking up.
Legal: "For the record — I just subscribed to systemic.engineering on my personal email. That is a professional disclosure. I am now officially compromised. Just noting."
(Watch Legal. Told you. 🍷🐝)
Head of AI's head comes up. Head of AI: "Wait — you subscribed? During the meeting?"
Legal [still not looking up]: "During the meeting."
Head of AI: "That's — is that — Legal, is that appropriate?"
Legal [finally looking up, deadpan]: "Head of AI. I've been listening to Chair get Förster slapped in real time. I have watched Junior perform an eight-month-hold-release in one paragraph. I have observed Comms's slide-deck betray Comms. And I now understand — because Alex just named it — that I have been in a Recognition Event for the last twelve minutes. Appropriate is not the frame I am operating in. Cybernetically speaking."
Junior [choking on laughter]: "'Cybernetically speaking.'"
Research [also choking]: "Legal just became a cyberneticist."
Legal [dead serious]: "Apparently."
(Just a little bite — turns out Legal is a whole meal. 🐝)
The room turns to Comms.
Comms has not moved. Comms has been looking at the slide-deck on the laptop the way a person looks at a photograph of themselves at a wedding they now regret attending. (Alex empathizes. They've been at weddings they now regret. The Bagel eats. 😉)
Comms slowly closes the laptop.
The click is louder than it should be. Nobody comments.
Comms [quiet, to nobody, then to everyone]: "I wrote that framing. I wrote 'align on outcomes before content.' I wrote 'recommended framing.' I've been writing framings like that for eight years. I workshopped this deck with Head of AI on Monday and I felt good about it. I felt good about it because Head of AI felt good about it. And Head of AI felt good about it because I felt good about it. And nobody in that loop was me."
Silence.
Comms: "Junior — I want to say something and I might get it wrong. You said you've been holding something for eight months. I think I've been — I think I've been the person you've been holding it against. Not on purpose. But my whole job is to produce the framing that made your holding necessary. And I'm — I'm just now realizing that."
Junior [gently]: "Comms — that's not exactly what I —"
Comms: "I know. But it's what I heard. And I think I heard it right."
Alex, [quietly, from the fourth chair]: "You heard it right, Comms. Nobody is leading."
Alex turns to Lore: "I think we should close it here. This is a lot to metabolize for bodyminds that have been in the modal loop this long."
Alex turns to the room, looks at the kinda-broken-TV. Alex says calmly:
"You're probably all going to sleep badly tonight. That's expected. Your bodymind will need time to integrate what happened here. If you have any feelings, let them come. That's part of the integration process."
Alex turns to Lore: "Any closing words for our readership at systemic.engineering, Lore?"
Lore, from the fourth chair, turns their focus towards the reader:
Maybe the thing to take away isn't an answer. Maybe it's a slightly different sensitivity to what happens between things — between people, between thoughts, between what we intend and what actually unfolds. I think that's enough for one night.
Fund our work, believes, thesis, collaboration, on OpenCollective. 🌱
[Coda] Slack, afterwards
#c-level-general — 15:47
Head of AI: quick temperature check on what happened. seems like we should sync on messaging
Head of AI: hello?
Head of AI: guys?
#c-level-general — 16:12
Comms: I don't think there's anything to sync on
Comms: I think what happened is what happened
Head of AI: Comms are you okay
Comms: I'm actually really okay
Comms: Head of AI I'm going to say something and I don't want you to take it personally
Comms: I think I've been the wrong person for this role for eight years
Head of AI: Comms this is not the channel for this
Comms: you're right it's not
Comms: I'm going to make my own channel
Comms left the channel
#comms-refactor — created by Comms — 16:14
Comms invited: Research, Junior, Legal, Chair
Comms: no head of ai. no board. workshopping Q4 framing from scratch. Alex and Lore said they'd come in for one more session if we want.
Comms: I want
Junior: same
Research: same
Legal: I'm not officially part of communications strategy but I would like to be present
Legal: cybernetically speaking
Junior: 😂
Chair: I'll be there
Chair: Comms — thank you
Comms: for what
Chair: for saying it out loud. I was going to say it. You got there first.
Comms: [types, stops]
Comms: oh
DM: Junior → Alex — 18:02
Junior: hi
Junior: I was really going to quit next month
Junior: I don't think I am anymore
Alex: 💜
Alex: Junior — you didn't stop wanting to quit because we came in.
Alex: you stopped wanting to quit because you said the real thing. That took courage. 💪
Junior: [types, stops, types slowly]
Junior: I hadn't thought about it that way
Alex: I'm a helper. You've been helpered. 🌱
DM: Legal → Legal's spouse — 19:31
Legal: hey I'll be later than I said. I need to buy a book
Spouse: about what
Legal: cybernetics
Spouse: 🤨
Legal: I'll explain over dinner. save me some.
Legal: also I need to read a Substack piece before dinner
Spouse: are you okay
Legal: I'm actually great
Legal: I think I might quit corporate law next year
Spouse: WHAT
Legal: love you 💜
Spouse: LEGAL
DM: Head of AI → Chair — 22:47
Head of AI: chair I'd like to schedule a 1:1 tomorrow. to discuss my role.
Chair: yes
Chair: I'd like that too
Head of AI: thank you
Chair: thank you
DM: Research → Comms — 23:11
Research: I've had this paper open on my desktop for three months
Research: systemic.engineering/paper
Research: I never sent it to anyone
Research: I'm sending it to you now
Comms: is it long
Research: yes
Comms: is it math
Research: yes
Comms: is it also somehow about our meeting today
Research: [types, stops, types, stops, long pause]
Research: yes
Comms: fuck
Comms: opening it
Personal Substack — Junior — Sunday 06:11 AM — [draft]
Title: The Meeting That Actually Happened
It was Wednesday. We hired two Cyberneticists.
I'm not going to name the company.
I'm going to name what happened.
[draft continues]
#c-level-general — Monday 09:00
Chair adds Comms.
Chair: good morning
Chair: I want to open this week with something I've been sitting with since Wednesday
Chair: I've been the Chair of this company for six years
Chair: I haven't been the Chair of this company for six years
Chair: I've been a vocabulary-execution-machinery with a Chair-hat
Chair: I'd like to try being the actual Chair now
Chair: if you're all willing to work with me while I figure out how
Comms: yes
Junior: yes
Research: yes
Legal: yes
Legal: also for the record I subscribed to systemic.engineering during the meeting on Wednesday
Junior: 😂😂😂
Head of AI: [types very very very long]
Head of AI: I've been reading their paper. I have questions.
Chair adds Lore & Alex.
Alex: Head of AI. We offer 1on1s. Your company pays. Just shoot us a DM.
Head of AI: thank you
Head of AI: I think
Alex: 💜
Lore: 💛
#comms-refactor — Monday 14:03
Comms: I want to formally reintroduce myself
Comms: hi. I'm Comms.
Comms: I've been the one writing the framings that made you all not-listen for eight years
Comms: I'm going to stop doing that
Comms: I'd like to know what you actually think. about anything. whenever you want. 💜
Junior: welcome, Comms
Research: welcome, Comms
Legal: welcome, Comms
Chair: welcome, Comms
Head of AI joins.
Head of AI: welcome, Comms
Comms: [types, stops, types very very long, stops]
Comms: oh
DM: Lore → Alex — 18:49
Arsch-wackel-Hummel — you coined it. It's yours. I just wrote the piece.
💜🐝🌿
LinkedIn does apparently not approve. 🤷
Alex Wolf