4 ms·

The purpose of a system is what it does.

by NelsonMinar 2y ago

scarab92 2y ago
Seems reductive.
- tremon 2y ago
  But in the absence of credible information to the contrary, it's not wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does?useskin=timeless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... when a system's side effects or unintended consequences reveal that its behavior is poorly understood, then the POSIWID perspective can balance political understandings of system behavior with a more straightforwardly descriptive view
  - scarab92 2y ago
    > it's not wrong. It's an elegant idea in it's simplicity, but there's zero reason to think this heuristic is more valid than any other, and in my personal experience this line of thinking is usually wrong.
    - beepbooptheory 2y ago
      What kinds of experiences have shown this heuristic to be not so useful to you?
      - finnthehuman 2y ago
        People often can't see past their own hostility when figuring out what a system 'does'. And now they have have a clever sounding way to pretend that they're describing a system with detached reason, not just describing their attitude towards the system. It's like a art review where a writer - completely unaware of what they're doing - talks only about the work, but says nothing about the work and opens a window into their soul. A lot of people don't even recognize when it happens in that context. It's even easier for a speaker to deceive a listener (and themselves) in the context of speaking on systems. Systems thinking is hard and almost everyone is terrible at it.
        beepbooptheory 2y ago
        Your metaphor is not clear to me, but you seem to be asserting more of an empirical problem with people, not saying anything about the heuristic itself. It does not speak to how we know a system does what it does, or that we can even know I guess, so even if you have some kind of point here I don't see how it applies in this case. "If we know what a system does, we know that it is its purpose": is that ok?
  - pindab0ter 2y ago
    Is the useSkin parameter something you manually added? I am not logged in and when I navigate to another page the parameter (and with it the skin preference) disappears.
    - tremon 2y ago
      Oh sorry, yes I have a browser extension that always adds that parameter to any wikipedia page. I usually strip it when posting a link, but I forgot (and since it's a long link, it doesn't display in its entirety so I didn't catch it).
      - matthberg 2y ago
        I just discovered that feature due to your mistake, so thank you! For similarly newly enlightened people it's a feature of MediaWiki (which Wikipedia runs on) and there are five (plus two) themes selectable with ?useskin= values: - timeless (as seen above): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=timeless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=timeles... - monobook (default 2004-2009): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=monoboo... - vector (default 2010-2021): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector - vector-2022 (desktop default 2022-): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector-2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector-... - minerva (mobile default): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=minerva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=minerva - modern (delightedly dated, deprecated): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=modern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=modern - cologneblue (also ancient and anti-favored): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=cologneblue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=cologne...
        pindab0ter 2y ago
        You can also choose a preferred skin when you log in and go to Preferences → Appearance.
      - 2y ago
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > But in the absence of credible information to the contrary, it's not wrong. In the sense it is intended, it is entirely correct. It is not a claim about what the intent of the people involved in the system is, it is a recognition that (1) intent doesn't really aggregate, and, more importantly, even if it did (2) intent that consistently fails, because of the nature of the system, to materialize into function doesn't matter.
- api 2y ago
  It's a good "razor" to strip away rationalizations and sophistry used to defend perverse or failed systems and ideas. E.g. the "purpose" of fascism is nihilistic violence and the "purpose" of communism is rule by a bureaucratic elite that is somehow more equal than everyone else. All the sophistry is bullshit.
  - scarecrowbob 2y ago
    I dunno, you start doing that to capitalism people get big mad fast. The "purpose" of capitalism is to "destroy the ecology of earth by being good at organizing stuff into metastasizing accumulation strategies"? People don't like that at all, because it's simply pretentious to reduce any system to however you choose to smugly describe "what it does".
- Seattle3503 2y ago
  It's a thought terminating cliche. Systems thinking is much more nuanced and productive IMO. Drift Into Failure by Sidney Dekker is a good introduction.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > It's a thought terminating cliche. It's the opposite; it's a heuristic for directing thought down useful pathways and escaping a rabbit hole of speculation on matters which makes no material difference, and which largely (for the kinds of systems it concerns) also involve pointless metaphysical wankery on the order of debating how many angels can dance on the head of the pin, because the kinds of systems it concerns (which are almost all real systems that matter) aren't guided by unitary intent, and pretty much any intent you want to appply probably can be found in some subset (and, conversely, also opposed by some subset) of the contributors to the system. A more precise statement might be "'Purpose' is not a meaningful attribute of complex systems," but POSIWID works.
oever 2y ago
"The purpose of a system is what it does." This is only true for systems that works perfectly. If the implementation if flawed, the system can do something different from its purpose. Claiming "The purpose of a system is what it does." is like claiming that software bugs do not exist.
- Timon3 2y ago
  I disagree, because it's the opposite: the purpose of a system only aligns with what we want the purpose to be if the system works perfectly. Whatever we consider the purpose to be doesn't matter for the effect the system has on the world, because if we choose to keep the system alive as-is, it will keep doing the thing that we apparently don't want it to be doing. It's the same for a program - if you choose not to fix a bug, that bug is part of the functionality. It doesn't really matter to the user whether it's supposed to work differently, unless you actually fix the bug. I do agree with you in cases where the system is being continually refined, but I don't think the quote talks about changing systems, only about constant ones.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  "The purpose of a system is what it does" is a shorthand statement that comes out of the study of complex, human-involved, systems that lack unitary design, often having many actors having a hand in creating over time, and mostly is a statement about the lack of analytical utility of any other concept of the purpose of a system, and it is about analyzing the operation of those systems over a window of time. A longer phrase from the person who coined it on the same topic and explaining it is, “There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” > Claiming "The purpose of a system is what it does." is like claiming that software bugs do not exist. It's more like claiming that there is no meaningful difference to any outside observer between a bug that is not eradicated over an extended time window and an intentional feature.
jrs235 2y ago
After a review, the program works as coded.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

scarab92 2y ago

Seems reductive.

tremon 2y ago
But in the absence of credible information to the contrary, it's not wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does?useskin=timeless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... when a system's side effects or unintended consequences reveal that its behavior is poorly understood, then the POSIWID perspective can balance political understandings of system behavior with a more straightforwardly descriptive view
- scarab92 2y ago
  > it's not wrong. It's an elegant idea in it's simplicity, but there's zero reason to think this heuristic is more valid than any other, and in my personal experience this line of thinking is usually wrong.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    What kinds of experiences have shown this heuristic to be not so useful to you?
    - finnthehuman 2y ago
      People often can't see past their own hostility when figuring out what a system 'does'. And now they have have a clever sounding way to pretend that they're describing a system with detached reason, not just describing their attitude towards the system. It's like a art review where a writer - completely unaware of what they're doing - talks only about the work, but says nothing about the work and opens a window into their soul. A lot of people don't even recognize when it happens in that context. It's even easier for a speaker to deceive a listener (and themselves) in the context of speaking on systems. Systems thinking is hard and almost everyone is terrible at it.
      - beepbooptheory 2y ago
        Your metaphor is not clear to me, but you seem to be asserting more of an empirical problem with people, not saying anything about the heuristic itself. It does not speak to how we know a system does what it does, or that we can even know I guess, so even if you have some kind of point here I don't see how it applies in this case. "If we know what a system does, we know that it is its purpose": is that ok?
- pindab0ter 2y ago
  Is the useSkin parameter something you manually added? I am not logged in and when I navigate to another page the parameter (and with it the skin preference) disappears.
  - tremon 2y ago
    Oh sorry, yes I have a browser extension that always adds that parameter to any wikipedia page. I usually strip it when posting a link, but I forgot (and since it's a long link, it doesn't display in its entirety so I didn't catch it).
    - matthberg 2y ago
      I just discovered that feature due to your mistake, so thank you! For similarly newly enlightened people it's a feature of MediaWiki (which Wikipedia runs on) and there are five (plus two) themes selectable with ?useskin= values: - timeless (as seen above): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=timeless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=timeles... - monobook (default 2004-2009): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=monoboo... - vector (default 2010-2021): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector - vector-2022 (desktop default 2022-): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector-2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=vector-... - minerva (mobile default): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=minerva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=minerva - modern (delightedly dated, deprecated): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=modern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=modern - cologneblue (also ancient and anti-favored): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=cologneblue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Skin?useskin=cologne...
      - pindab0ter 2y ago
        You can also choose a preferred skin when you log in and go to Preferences → Appearance.
    - 2y ago
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > But in the absence of credible information to the contrary, it's not wrong. In the sense it is intended, it is entirely correct. It is not a claim about what the intent of the people involved in the system is, it is a recognition that (1) intent doesn't really aggregate, and, more importantly, even if it did (2) intent that consistently fails, because of the nature of the system, to materialize into function doesn't matter.
api 2y ago
It's a good "razor" to strip away rationalizations and sophistry used to defend perverse or failed systems and ideas. E.g. the "purpose" of fascism is nihilistic violence and the "purpose" of communism is rule by a bureaucratic elite that is somehow more equal than everyone else. All the sophistry is bullshit.
- scarecrowbob 2y ago
  I dunno, you start doing that to capitalism people get big mad fast. The "purpose" of capitalism is to "destroy the ecology of earth by being good at organizing stuff into metastasizing accumulation strategies"? People don't like that at all, because it's simply pretentious to reduce any system to however you choose to smugly describe "what it does".
Seattle3503 2y ago
It's a thought terminating cliche. Systems thinking is much more nuanced and productive IMO. Drift Into Failure by Sidney Dekker is a good introduction.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > It's a thought terminating cliche. It's the opposite; it's a heuristic for directing thought down useful pathways and escaping a rabbit hole of speculation on matters which makes no material difference, and which largely (for the kinds of systems it concerns) also involve pointless metaphysical wankery on the order of debating how many angels can dance on the head of the pin, because the kinds of systems it concerns (which are almost all real systems that matter) aren't guided by unitary intent, and pretty much any intent you want to appply probably can be found in some subset (and, conversely, also opposed by some subset) of the contributors to the system. A more precise statement might be "'Purpose' is not a meaningful attribute of complex systems," but POSIWID works.

oever 2y ago

"The purpose of a system is what it does." This is only true for systems that works perfectly. If the implementation if flawed, the system can do something different from its purpose. Claiming "The purpose of a system is what it does." is like claiming that software bugs do not exist.

Timon3 2y ago
I disagree, because it's the opposite: the purpose of a system only aligns with what we want the purpose to be if the system works perfectly. Whatever we consider the purpose to be doesn't matter for the effect the system has on the world, because if we choose to keep the system alive as-is, it will keep doing the thing that we apparently don't want it to be doing. It's the same for a program - if you choose not to fix a bug, that bug is part of the functionality. It doesn't really matter to the user whether it's supposed to work differently, unless you actually fix the bug. I do agree with you in cases where the system is being continually refined, but I don't think the quote talks about changing systems, only about constant ones.
dragonwriter 2y ago
"The purpose of a system is what it does" is a shorthand statement that comes out of the study of complex, human-involved, systems that lack unitary design, often having many actors having a hand in creating over time, and mostly is a statement about the lack of analytical utility of any other concept of the purpose of a system, and it is about analyzing the operation of those systems over a window of time. A longer phrase from the person who coined it on the same topic and explaining it is, “There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” > Claiming "The purpose of a system is what it does." is like claiming that software bugs do not exist. It's more like claiming that there is no meaningful difference to any outside observer between a bug that is not eradicated over an extended time window and an intentional feature.

jrs235 2y ago

After a review, the program works as coded.