Post AwWeDtDKwHXMzQ5lUe by Jonio2345f@sfba.social
(DIR) More posts by Jonio2345f@sfba.social
(DIR) Post #AwW9Zc4UG6etc8pb6G by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-07-26T07:02:33Z
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"The purpose of a system is what it does."#StaffordBeer, 1926-2002We live in an economic system that routinely gives more resources to people who make weapons than to doctors and nurses. What does that tell you about the purpose of that system?#SystemsThinking #DeathDrive
(DIR) Post #AwWF07NIzl8o055iRU by Armadillosoft@mastodon.social
2025-07-26T08:01:29Z
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@strypey #POSIWID
(DIR) Post #AwWFtQBqk4QgHX6U9Q by nihongomaamaa@mastodon.ie
2025-07-26T08:13:13Z
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@strypey Hmm... maybe it concentrates power?
(DIR) Post #AwWeDtDKwHXMzQ5lUe by Jonio2345f@sfba.social
2025-07-26T12:45:56Z
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(DIR) Post #AwWl6Wn2c1op5vEGxs by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-07-26T14:03:06Z
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@nihongomaamaa > maybe it concentrates powerIt does that too, but to what end? What do the people in whose hands it concentrates that power have in common with weapons manufacturers, but not with healers? Causing death, and more of it.
(DIR) Post #AwWmNdeoQuhZGo6Sci by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-07-26T14:17:24Z
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@PaulaToThePeople > whether the purpose of the system is to increase the wealth and power of the morbidly rich, or to exploit everybody else and destroy the environmentFalse dichotomy, it clearly does both ; )> CapitalismIsADeathCultNailed it.
(DIR) Post #Ax6uh0Ng9rsIZZD8CG by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-13T00:40:05Z
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@EricLawton Are you arguing with me or with Stafford Beer?
(DIR) Post #Ax7u4DaPK0NHOOd4rI by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-13T12:07:47Z
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@EricLawton> Systems don't have purposes for themselvesRight.> different people's purposes can and do conflictIt's precisely conflicting purposes that create systems. Without them you'd just have machines, not systems.> A purpose is "the *reason* for which ... something exists"Yes, and as Beer says, you can check the reason a system exists by seeing what it *does*. Since it's created by the conflicts of purpose, the intentions of people enmeshed in a system are mostly irrelevant.
(DIR) Post #Ax8ucvUwl70waRaLL6 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-13T23:48:51Z
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@EricLawton > I am saying that purpose is a relation between systems and the parties with an interest or stake in the systemThe whole point of a cybernetics analysis is that these are not separate.> I'm not sure anybody thinks that the *purpose* is to change the climateIf that was all it does, how would it make sense to claim it has any other purpose, based on the stories people within it tell ourselves? Of course, what the fossil fuel system *is*, includes all the outputs you list.
(DIR) Post #Ax97wSZxHw405iZYcy by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-14T02:18:02Z
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(1/?)@EricLawton > it is helpful to understand the motivation of the interested parties if we wish to make changesYou're still mistaking systems for machines. Machines are built, based on a design that attempts to fulfill somebody's purposes.Systems are not built, nor designed, they are emergent phenomena. The intentions of the people and institutions embedded within them are part of the system, not separate from it. Unlike a machine, the results of changing a system are hard to predict.
(DIR) Post #Ax98EvZWER3NDwAsPg by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-14T02:21:23Z
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(2/2)Thus Beer's insight. If you take the axioms like "information wants to be free", or "networks interpret censorship as damage and route around it" as literally as you're taking Beer's, then you're not going to get much value from them.Because none of them are meant to be taken so literally. All 3 point to ways of "dancing with systems", to quote Donella Meadows;https://donellameadows.org/dancing-with-systems/
(DIR) Post #Ax98m2FIRJjZTjVDQ8 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-14T02:27:23Z
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(3/3)Another way to word "the purpose of a system is what it does" is to say that systems don't have purposes, at least not in the way machines do.But why do we ask about the purpose of a machine? As part of a quest to understand why it does what it does. What Beer is saying is that the concept of things having purposes don't apply to systems, so you can only do the reverse; use what it does to understand why it continues to exist, instead of changing into a system that does something else.
(DIR) Post #AxBfcY7SlTyuEyqJUG by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-08-15T07:44:51Z
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@EricLawton > Social systems are also built, by people with intentions. The fact that the systems, if sufficiently complex, probably don't work as intended doesn't change thatIf you insist on using the word "system" in a different way than it's used in cybernetics and systems theory, then you will necessarily be confused by anything people say about systems when they're using the word in that context, as Beer was. Not much I or anyone can do about that. Thanks for the discussion.