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sockpuppet2  18d ago (astralcodexten.com)   2674 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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The Purpose of a System is What It Does inasmuch as it is controlled by competent actors and serves their intent. I'll get to this in my example later.

The problem with TPOASIWID is that the WID part isn't typically uncontested, and where people think it is uncontestable we're typically lacking in nuance. You start with taking the most uncharitable view of something or someone you don't like, then smugly pronounce that TPOASIWID. You have to do the work to prove that is what the system does, before you can determine that is the purpose of the system.

So for example, the purpose of the Dallas Cowboys in this millenium is to field a premium-mediocre NFL team that never makes it anywhere in the playoffs, while making money selling merch. You can tell because they never get anywhere in the playoffs and TPOASIWID!

That's just a boo light, a funny applause line on an Eagles fan forum.

On the flip side, one can justify the statement.

The purpose of the Dallas Cowboys, despite the regular pronouncements from the Jones family that they are ALL IN this year, is to field a great regular season team year in and year out, and winning a Super Bowl is secondary or tertiary to that. You can tell, because they consistently try to abide by the salary cap year to year, rather than accept dead money in future years the way teams like the Eagles have to maximize their effective cap during the current seasons and improve their chances of winning during a specific window, because they don't want to maximize the amount of money they can spend this year, they want to save money and make sure they never have a down year in the future when they have to eat the dead cap. You can tell, because they don't typically trade away draft picks for useful players, like the Rams did, because they don't really want to win a super bowl, like the Rams did, they want to maintain competitiveness such that they can win more games than they lose and fleece their fanbase. You can tell because, instead of extending players early to lock in lower rates the way the Eagles or Chiefs have, the Cowboys wait until the last possible second and pay extra. This reduces the odds of a big miss, which might put them into a losing season or two, but it slowly saps their resources to keep them from getting over the top, but that doesn't matter because their purpose is to win regular season games. TPOASIWID, the Cowboys exist to sell the idea of a good football team, not to win championships.

TPOASIWID went from the insightful the first few times I read it, to unbearably smug and annoying, within a very short period of time. It's used to shut down a conversation, without justifying why that is, in fact, what the system does.

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