The operations room of “Project Cybersyn” (short for “cybernetics synergy”) was created by Chile’s president Salvador Allende in the early 1970s as a place from which the country’s newly nationalised and socialised economy could be directed. To build it, Allende had hired Stafford Beer, a British consultant, who requisitioned a mainframe computer and connected it to telex machines in factories. Industrial managers would input data which would then be centrally analysed; instructions for any necessary changes would be sent back.