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sockpuppet2  11d ago (astralcodexten.com)   2560 thread views

Scott: Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does

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This made me reflect that I hadn't actually thought critically about the phrase (at least, commensurate to how often it's used). For fun, if you think the purpose of a system is what it does, write what you think that means, before reading Scott's critique, then write if you've updated your opinion. For example: I think it's a useful way of re-framing obviously dysfunctional systems, so as to analyze their dysfunction, but Scott is persuasive that it's not a good means of understanding systems, in general, so people should be more cautious about adopting this framing and using the phrase, rhetorically.

(Spoilers go between two sets of "||")

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I've always hated this aphorism and I was glad to see Scott arguing against it. By definition, the purpose of a system is what it was intended to do, not what it does. Trying to redefine "purpose" to be about outcomes instead of intent is a silly linguistic game that I have no patience for. And, as Scott points out, it leads to "purposes" that are obviously incorrect.

Trying to redefine "purpose" to be about outcomes instead of intent is a silly linguistic game that I have no patience for.

It's meaningful with the implication that you're saying this to hold those within those systems to account.

When those in charge of systems are hostile, or the system is set up to allow value drift (let's take BLM as a system- the official statement was black lives matter, where what it actually did was burn loot murder), those who created the system rightfully should be held to account for either allowing the goals of the system to be hijacked [mistake theory] or was intended that way from the start and the declared intentions were lies [conflict theory].

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