Too Damn Close

Summary

Wiener examines scientific responsibility, changing weapons capability, and the way authority can suppress warnings.

Implications for practice

Ask whether people able to detect a danger can get those with power to act on it.

Key distinctions

• A historical argument, with historical estimates

Historical development

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Ideas it depends on

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Further developments

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Connections to practice

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Common confusions

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Further checks

• Extend the evidence pass beyond the cited passages.

Recorded connections

Check the wording, direction, scope, sources, and status of a connection before relying on it.

• Too Damn Close is listed in Popular treatments by Wiener — Wiener

  Status: candidate · Relation: listed in bibliography

  Bibliographic selection only. No influence, endorsement, or full-text coverage is implied.

  Locator: Popular treatments by Wiener; ‘Too Damn Close,’ Atlantic Monthly, July 1950.

  • Wiener’s selected readings on cybernetics, 1951, 1952, 1956 (bibliographic or source boundary checked)

• Too Damn Close credits Norbert Wiener

  Status: candidate · Relation: authored by

  Bibliographic attribution as listed; a credit is not an influence claim.

  Locator: ‘Too Damn Close,’ Atlantic Monthly, July 1950.

  • Wiener’s selected readings on cybernetics, 1951, 1952, 1956 (bibliographic or source boundary checked)

Sources and passage locators

• Wiener’s selected readings on cybernetics, 1951, 1952, 1956 (bibliographic or source boundary checked)
• Too Damn Close (passage checked)

Cite this entry

Taylor, B. P. (2026). Too Damn Close. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/publication_early_wiener_close/

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