YogthosPeople love to talk about what the intentions are. However, when a system constantly produces a different outcome than the one it is "intended" for then it's perfectly reasonable to assume the actual intention is the outcome it continues to produce.
Aaron Pettman@yogthos moreover, it will be considered "conspiracy theory" to question the intented vs actual outcomes
malkavon (he/him)@yogthos at some point, Hanlon's Razor becomes overloaded and we must contend with the fact that bad actors will invariably rely on obfuscation, confusion, and the misplaced benefit of the doubt for as long as they can.
AN/CRM-114
joriki@flyingsaceur @malkavon @yogthos
as I've said many times...
incompetence and stupidity are the plausible denial of malice and complicity
IPmonger@yogthos an important rule of systems analysis: discussion of assumed intention of a system (by creators, maintainers and/or operators) is unhelpful and prevents objective discussion necessary for successfully modifying the system to produce different outcomes
Eric LawtonIt's equally reasonable to assume that there are conflicting interests, each with their own intentions and with different amounts of power to influence the system.
@EricLawton sure, but the system creates a framework that produces the selection pressures for individual behavior. People end up acting in ways that make sense within the framework of social rules.
pgcd@yogthos but Viagra is a blOoD pResSUre mEdiCAtiOn!
_noelamac_@yogthos thank you for sharing this concept.
This applies PERFECTLY to the COP process, which „should“ address climate change but has failed again and again to do so over 30 years.
#COP #COP28 #cop29 #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #climateemergency
Simon Zerafa
Maxi 12x 💉
Jorkin MahJongus@yogthos "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" ~The Onion
kechpaja@yogthos Someday I'm going to have to write something about how terrifying the POSIWID principle is. People are already bad enough at distinguishing between intent and effect (in both directions!) — explicitly legitimizing this idea will be disasterous if it catches on more broadly. But I'm not nearly at a point where I can fully put my thoughts into words.
@yogthos (Though to be fair, a large part of my objection is a direct result of a lifetime of not being neurotypical, and thus having my intent frequently and inconsistently misread because I don't respond to situations in the way neurotypicals do.)
TBMcQueen@tbmcqueen @kechpaja yup, that is what I was trying to convey there
Tom Magnanimous@kechpaja @yogthos it needs to be emphasized that this is about systems, not individuals. People are going to have unintended consequences to their actions, but the whole point of an institution is to reproduce a consistent outcome, so if the outcome is dissonant with the professed purpose then either it will be changed or the institution is lying in its statement of purpose
Escarpment@kechpaja @yogthos I think this principle needs a good deal of scrutiny. As with most principles, the null hypothesis for this has to be that it is plainly false. I would recommend making the case to yourself that this principle is false. Only then, when you have exhausted all the reasons it's false, can you start building a case for why it might be true, by eliminating or accounting for all the reasons it's false.
Urzl@escarpment @kechpaja @yogthos Doing a thing once as an experiment that turns out badly can be good intentions gone awry.
Repeatedly doing a thing that turns out badly is a clear indication that the real intention is to turn out badly, regardless of whatever stated reasoning was supplied.
@yogthos I characterize this idea as false. It stretches the basic meanings of words. Simply producing one example of a system whose purpose is not what it does disproves this statement. Take a car that drove for 100,000 miles then crashed into a ditch. The purpose of the car was to transport passengers and cargo, and it did so effectively for 100,000 miles. Now it sits in a ditch. Sitting in a ditch is not its intended purpose.
@escarpment that example is just sophistry
@yogthos This "principle" is just sophistry. Someone stated it confidently enough that people take it as true and interesting.
@yogthos "Purpose" is a word that means people's intentions. This "principle" amounts to "people's intentions are not people's intentions". Or "people's intentions are something other than their intentions." Or "people have secret intentions."
@escarpment people act according to systemic pressures they're exposed to
@yogthos This principle denies the possibility of things not going according to plan.
I'm working on a web game. My purpose of the game is to let players move around. I accidentally flip a != with an == and oopsie no players can move. Is the purpose of the game to be a game where no one can move?
@yogthos I'm glad you brought up the word sophistry. That is exactly what this principle is. You give a principle an acronym, a seemingly reputable coiner, and a Wikipedia page and people will write blog posts about it and share it online, even if the principle is an oxymoron/equivocation/conceptual confusion.
@escarpment the only sophistry here are your examples I'm afraid
@yogthos I have provided multiple examples that clearly illustrate why this principle is bunk. You have doubled down in your defense of it, while providing no supporting examples for it, except vague allusions to "people responding to systemic pressures." I hope I have at least put the idea in your head that this principle needs scrutiny. We should aim to debunk first, and accept whatever survives all our debunking efforts.
That Wikipedia page lacks a "criticisms" or "controversy" section.
@escarpment you've provided straw man arguments, and I've literally explained in detail why your latest example doesn't make sense.
@escarpment you're conflating goals with the implementation here. A proper analogy would be to have a game mechanics where players can't move and excuse this by saying that your intent was for players to be able to move instead of addressing the problem
@yogthos In that analogy, you are simply accusing the creator of the game with having intended to have the game fail and then making an excuse for why it failed. This is like the conspiracy theory of all conspiracy theories, that every mistake is actually intentional. Version 3.1 of my chess engine comes out and actually no moves are possible. And you accuse me of *intentionally* making it that way and just making excuses.
@escarpment again, this is not what the principle states. What it says is that if your goal is to have the player move, and the current mechanics don't allow the player to move then you need to change the mechanics.
@yogthos The principle is not "if a system is broken, fix it." That doesn't get a Wikipedia page and an acronym. It's "the purpose of a system is what it does."
@yogthos that's a principle I can get behind and I'm sure no one disputes. If a system defies its intended purpose, fix it.
@yogthos If that was the principle in question, why didn't you just say that? "If a system is broken, you need to change it."
@escarpment because the point there is that it's necessary to recognize what the system actually does and separate that from whatever intent is being espoused.
Acknowledging that the system is broken instead of talking about the intent of the system is the whole point of the principle. That's the prerequisite to making change.
@yogthos But if you have no idea what the intent is, how do you fix it? Presumably you fix it to align *more* with its purpose, further indicating that intent and what-it-does are different entities and the purpose of a system is *not* what it does.
@yogthos If purpose is X, what it does is Y, and X==Y, why change the system at all? It is meeting its intended purpose 100%.
@escarpment this has literally nothing to do with the principle being stated, I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble understanding it to be honest because it's not very complicated
RDThe Escarpment system is not about understanding.
@RD4Anarchy @yogthos "Apples are oranges. Now that I have your attention with a patently false statement that seems profound, let me clarify that by apples I meant whales and by oranges I meant mammals. What don't you understand?"
HeavenlyPossum@yogthos @RD4Anarchy @[email protected]
Escarpment, if I recall correctly, once said that if faced with starvation they’d murder a child and force-feed the corpse to their own child, to keep their own child alive.
Corvid Crone@HeavenlyPossum @yogthos @RD4Anarchy yep. According to my notes, also an Israeli government apologist.
This is the game theory one as well, right?
Oh yeah, yikes!
@escarpment the premise of the principle, once again, is that you DO know what the intent is and that the system is not serving that intent, but you're EXCUSING that by stating the intent.
@yogthos Why does the principle need so much help to make any sense? A principle such as "if a system has one intent and you know it, but it's not serving that intent, and you make an excuse for it by claiming another intent" is not very interesting or controversial. The principle explicitly states in English: "the purpose of a system is what it does." Those are the only words in the principle. I dispute those words and claim they form a false statement.
@escarpment I don't know why it's so hard for you personally to understand this principle, it made perfect sense to me the first time I read it 🤷♂️
@yogthos That's your first clue that it's an empty statement- "makes perfect sense the first time you read it", without any scrutiny or examination of counter arguments.
There is a persistent problem of what I would call pseudo-philosophy. "Property is theft." "We all die alone." And this principle. They resonate with people because they seem satisfyingly profound, when they are really just linguistic perplexities that confuse and bewilder rather than clarifying or informing.
@yogthos If "it makes perfect sense" despite that meaning being in gross defiance of the generally agreed upon meanings of the words that constitute the principle, it's not a principle but a Rorschach test where you can impose whatever meaning you like.
Sure, the words themselves "the purpose of the system is what it does" are false, because we all agree that purpose and actual implementation are separate ideas. So here's what it *actually* means (insert your favored "interpretation").
@escarpment the words "the purpose of the system is what it does" are not false, you just intentionally choose to interpret them in a nonsensical way, which is why what you're doing here amounts to sophistry.
Human language is fundamentally subject to personal interpretation. That's just how language works.
@escarpment you're extrapolating a lot based on your personal difficulty or understanding a particular concept here
@escarpment the point there is that you have to acknowledge the way the system is ACTUALLY functioning and the outcomes it's producing, and to separate that from whatever intent there was.
Only then can you begin to change the system in a positive way. I don't know how much more clearly I can spell this out for you.
@yogthos So the point is to acknowledge how a system is functioning and how it varies from its intent. That too is an uncontroversial principle.
"One ought to monitor and evaluate a system against its intended purposes to determine how well it is functioning to meet those purposes."
That too is different than "the purpose of a system is what it does", which is false.
Word of Mouth @yogthos @escarpment Sorry to butt in on this awesome dialogue, but I'm just interested.
This seems crucial to me:
"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."
This suggests the use of POSIWID as, essentially, a debugging methodology, to fix the system so that it does serve it's intended purpose, rather than it's currently implemented purpose. We take the perspective, "What would I say the purpose of this system is, if I didn't already know the intended purpose?"
This seems to me a misuse of "purpose" to say it is what it does, so I have to agree with your interlocutor, there. "Function" might be a better word.
But then, this isn't some sort of philosophical principle, either. It's a cybernetics concept, so it may or may not be generalized to all complex systems. That's debatable.
This seems crucial to me:
"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."
This suggests the use of POSIWID as, essentially, a debugging methodology, to fix the system so that it does serve it's intended purpose, rather than it's currently implemented purpose. We take the perspective, "What would I say the purpose of this system is, if I didn't already know the intended purpose?"
This seems to me a misuse of "purpose" to say it is what it does, so I have to agree with your interlocutor, there. "Function" might be a better word.
But then, this isn't some sort of philosophical principle, either. It's a cybernetics concept, so it may or may not be generalized to all complex systems. That's debatable.
@notroot @yogthos Thanks for the input. I guess to give the most favorable interpretation, upon rereading the Wikipedia article, the statement "there is no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do" is a valid frustration. I see this pattern a lot though- in frustration, people *exaggerate*. They go from "this system is so bad that it's almost *as if* it were designed to be bad!" And that morphs into "it *must have been* designed to be bad!"