This faux-profound cliche contributes absolutely no real insight to any discussion.

On the contrary, it short-circuits the usual knee-jerk apologetic responses that seek to defend a system's bad effects with (unrealized) good intentions. Killing thought-terminating cliches early allows for a deeper discussion.

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senderista 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

But the usage of "purpose" here simply doesn't make sense on any plausible interpretation I can find. Scott Alexander tried as well and failed:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...

More discussion:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comment...

Here is a counterpoint:

https://rivalvoices.substack.com/p/the-purpose-of-posiwid-is...

	▲	cwmoore 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		He makes the point that it may not always be applicable, eg. the purpose of internal combustion is not to ruin the air. Pretty obtuse on law enforcement, who don’t honestly do much regarding crime that doesn’t incarcerate people, and does not close the circuit on his similes, but entrenches behind the strawman projection “the system must have been designed by evil people who were deliberately trying to hurt you, and so you should become really paranoid and hate everyone involved.” I usually like that author’s train of thought but this is insufficient reasoning.

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senderista 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is important to challenge claims to legitimacy based purely on good intentions regardless of outcomes. But surely we can do this without pulling the dishonest rhetorical trick of asserting that all bad outcomes are intentional (which is what "purpose" implies)? Something like "judge a system by its outcome, not its intent"?

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Lammy 4 days ago | parent [-]

You are conflating intention on the part of individuals with the societal system which creates conditions in which those individuals perceive themselves as doing good despite the fact that they are serving the needs of the system. Recommended reading: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-sy...

	▲	cwmoore 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		(nsfw)