The premise of "the purpose of a system is what it does" is that if it did something the people in control of the system didn't want then they would change it, from which the implication is that they like what it does and want it to keep doing that, i.e. that's the system's purpose.

There are real instances of that happening, e.g. the purpose of zoning rules is to constrain the housing supply. It isn't an unintended consequence, there are people in actual reality who lobby for things like density restrictions under disingenuous pretenses because "we want to charge higher rents to tenants" or "we want housing prices to go up forever even if it means young people get priced out of home ownership" are not sympathetic motives.

The problem is naturally that the quip is false whenever the reason the system fails is incompetence, lack of resources/information, etc. rather than ulterior motives. Which is also why it's a meme, because it's essentially the inverse of Hanlon's razor and therefore becomes the thing people reach for when they want to insinuate malice rather than stupidity.

The problem with both is, of course, that it isn't always malice but it also isn't never malice.

The example from the thread is basically perfect, because bureaucracy is both at the same time. Some of the rules were put there by honest people with honest goals, but not all of them. Meanwhile this (see "General Interference with Organizations and Production"):

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184

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Come on, obviously context matters and reducing apples and oranges to the same thing with such generalization is nonsense

Grammatically correct but so are many Superman comics and I have yet to see a real Superman; educated language use is not evidence the writer made a meaningful point

The behavior of many a ghoul in Washington should make it clear a lot of the bureaucratic fuckery is just to insulate certain people from accountability

And we can neatly set aside that in healthcare it's different and much (if not all) is important safety protocol

The guy is just huffing copium because he missed the point, it seems. It seems his process is to pick a system, pick one thing it does, observe that doesn't seem to be the main purpose and then declare the principle dead.

Let's focus on one of the examples he gives:

> [POSIWID implies that] The purpose of the New York bus system is to emit four billion pounds of carbon dioxide [and this is obviously absurd]

But that's not what the bus system does, is it? That's only one thing it does and it's the least purposeful thing it does, as if you chose that one on purpose.

I'd sooner think the purpose of the NYC bus system is to move money from government coffers to oil barons, or to placate left-wing protestors, or to satisfy a sustainability checklist item, or to increase the employment rate in NYC than to think the CO2 is the point.