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sockpuppet2  4d ago (astralcodexten.com)   2282 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 think it’s useful as a heuristic. It the system in question is always getting a supposedly wrong result, it’s perfectly reasonable to say “that wrong result is the point.” If you have a system that is supposed to produce widgets, but instead the people who run it produce nothing but paperwork on the impacts the widgets will have, then the point is tge paperwork and not the widget. The point of most iPad games is not to be fun, the point is to show ads and frustrate the player into spending money.

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