Cybernetics
<p>Cybernetics began with Plato. Seeley recognized that it was the key to expanding the British Empire on a global scale. In the 1940s, Norbert Wiener and others established it as a formal field of study. According to Wiener it is the "science of communication and control".</p>
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<p>Scientific Outlook (1931) by Bertrand Russell, page 158:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Scientific technique has been applied by human beings to satisfy a number of diverse desires. At first it was applied mainly to the production of clothing and to the transport of goods and human beings. With the telegraph it aquired important functionsin the rapid transmission of messages, making possible the modern newspaper and the centralization of government.</p>