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sockpuppet2  6d ago (astralcodexten.com)   2409 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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Scott Alexander has transitioned from someone with deep insight into a guy who makes obnoxious, Facebook-tier takes that are meant to be nodded to and not thought about. Obviously people care far more about what systems do than what they were created for! Only a pendant (maybe with extremely nerdy glasses) would nasally insist 'it was made with the best of intentions! that should matter!'

Which I would reply: get back to laying the bricks for the HSR to Bakersfield-Tartarus, dude.

what they were created for! Only a pendant (maybe with extremely nerdy glasses) would nasally insist 'it was made with the best of intentions! that should matter!'

Ahem, did you actually mean to say pedant?

Now where did I put my glasses?

Doesn't everyone around here have commemorative Scott Alexander effigy necklaces that spout catchphrases at pseudorandom intervals?

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