More specificity would help. Cops, cop culture, incompetent and purposely harmful training, and the appalling nature of our criminal "justice" system is what ruins lives. Some other parts of government might be just as bad, but in other ways for other reasons.
It's extremely rare for any part of government to have that as an intended purpose.
But it's extremely common, unfortunately, for people involved to be willing to accept that as a side effect in pursuing whatever their goals are - whether that's gaining funding for their police department, or raising political donations from the owners of a private prison, or keeping poor people away from their beautiful upper middle class neighbourhood, or environment-ruining chemical company, or... whatever.
It does make sense, because if you were developing a bad or evil system then you would obviously want to obfuscate that as much as possible. The first thing you'd do, clearly, is proclaim that the purpose of the system is something good.
This is a common fallacy or I guess maybe shoddy reasoning I see often. Because someone or something either does not announce their intentions or says their intentions are good, then the thing they are using must also be good. Or, we must assume it is good until they announce they're going to use it for not-good purposes.
Like with Flock. There's a lot of people who think the simple defense that Flock thinks it is used to fight crime means it's good. Or DOGE. The simple defense that the people behind DOGE say it's to prevent fraud means it's good.
But what people say and what actually happens are two different things, and the what actually happens part is 1000x more important. Anyone can say anything, and obviously bad actors will lie. That's just a given. So you can't use the stated purpose of something as a defense for that something. You just can't, it makes no sense.
I never said the stated purpose is a defense. The purpose is the purpose not the outcome. Just because you can’t know the true intent of every actor involved does not mean you’re justified in assuming the purpose is what it does. That is lazy broken epistemology.
I agree what a system does is what is important, so why dilute that fact with assumptions of intent and glib moralizing thought terminating cliches?
Will say every benefactor of people not thinking that way. The rest of us, on the other hand, look at the objective results and realize if you want them to change, you have to change the system.
Well duh. “A system will do what it does” is true, but that should not be conflated with its intent or purpose or design which require understanding of human intent. And humans produce unintended results all the time.
A systems purpose depends on its creator. Creators regularly fail to produce intended results. It’s absurd to say an unintended result is the intended result
How long is it ok to produce “unintended” results without changing anything, before you can say that’s now an expected part of the system? Because i think that’s the issue. It’s not that the US has a goal to criminalize poverty - the constitution doesn’t say anything about that - but since it’s been that way for so long it seems the system is unwilling to do what needs to be done to prevent that. It’s part of the expected behavior of the system.
Intent - what someone wanted or expected the system to do.
Purpose - what the system does in practice. The reason, or primary function for it.
Some classic examples -- post it notes were intended as a aerospace adhesive, but found their purpose as low tack papers.
If you want a classic systems example, standardized testing is a good example of difference between purpose and intent. It was intended to be a mechanism for measuring schools and ensuring every kid got an equal education. But now its purpose could be described as the metric schools game. It narrows curricula, encourages teaching to the test. Those outcomes are not the original intent. Or even desirable.
So I wasn't being flippant (maybe a little flippant) when I was saying intent and purpose are different.
Other classic examples -- the US senate, social media algorithms, animal bounties (paying people per head bounties on killed rats, frogs, or snakes results in people breeding those animals), war on drugs, zoning laws, etc.
It's very closely related to the idea that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
But one last question to help me understand your position then I’ll leave you alone.
Why do people post this saying as if it has import? What point are they trying to make?
IME I have only ever heard this phrase used as a reaction against single failures as a way of maligning the operators of a system without any associated analysis or consideration of how the system actually works. Do you disagree this is the rhetorical purpose?
This quote says to me that we need to think about outcomes early AND late in the life of designing and operating a system. We have unintended consequences, and when we elect to not (or ineffectually) address the side effects of a system, we are making a choice to adopt the purpose of that system.
It's a way of reminding us that the behavior we ignore is the behavior we accept. That outcomes matter more than intent.
Personally, I think people are too permissive towards mistakes in large systems, categorizing them as "a few bad apples" or "an occasional error". Yes, i deploy this quote when single failings happen, but I also deploy it in broad critique of structural failings. It also prompts thoughts about why -- systems are built on top of systems, on top of systems.
As an example, our Justice system has both specific incidents (e.g. George Floyd) and structural failings (racial bias, high incarceration rates). Those are both cases where I would use this quote. It might seem that a single incident is wrong to deploy this quote, but the George Floyd incident doesn't happen in isolation. We need to look at the whole system. How are police trained? How are Americans trained to interact with police? How does the Justice system interact with minority and poor communities? How do we address mental health in this country? All of those questions are complex and nuanced, and are themselves contributors to the purpose of the police.
So, for me, it's not meant to be quippy or punchy or malignant. It's meant to highlight failures aren't isolated incidents, they are part of a system that is failing to prevent this outcome. Probably for complex reasons, but we as a society are choosing not to address those complex reasons.
See, this is the funny thing; I agree with everything you said, except that this phrase helps in those ways.
In other words, IME, the purpose of the system of the phrase “the purpose of the system” is to cause thought terminating moral superiority, even if _you intend_ for the phrase to highlight complexity and unintended consequences. ;)
Anyways, thanks for the full explanations of your position.
Organizations such as OSF/OSI (Open Society Foundations, not Open Software Foundation) have successfully placed their preferred candidates in positions of power in many major US jurisdictions. If you research, you'll see many cases of OSF DAs prosecuting or not prosecuting based on their political ideology. Many prosecutions are politically motivated, but now we have foundations funding activist candidates who are all pushing the same agenda. The result is diminished trust in government, which the activists will exploit to eventually make things even worse, because "capitalism is not working."
You make it sound like they are doing corruption. I.e. don’t prosecute your friends, do prosecute your enemies. But this is more like using the power at your jurisdiction level to oppose unjust laws.
I.e. where i live the city council long ago directed police to stop arresting people for marijuana possession - on the grounds that this is an unjust law and criminalizing it is tying up resources and doing more harm than good, and because the majority of the city’s population supports legalization. City gov doesn’t have the power to change those laws, but they can fix it locally by directing enforcement away from them. A decade later, it was legalized - imo proving that it was the right decision.
This did not “diminish trust” in the gov. In fact, laws that the majority disagree with but stay on the books do far far more damage to the credibility of gov, in my opinion
If you want to effect change, then change the laws through the approved processes. Do not install a DA that ignores the laws. Doing so WILL diminish trust in government.
Actually, DA discretion is a normal part of the functioning of government. There are a thousand laws on the books that get ignored every day [1]. And every election, candidates run on platforms promising to “crack down” on this or that crime (read: selectively increase enforcement).
Gov enforcing laws that the majority of people do not want is a subversion of democracy that alienates people from the idea that gov can be responsive instead of oppressive. I don’t trust a gov that claims to represent the will of the people, but charges people for crimes most don’t see as criminal.
So maybe you trust a gov less when you see laws you want enforced being set aside, but you’re in the minority here. How do i know? Because these DAs are getting elected (not installed) to do this.
Prosecutorial discretion is a normal part of a DA's job. If extenuating circumstances exist, a DA can charge a lessor crime. If exculpatory or insufficient evidence exists, a DA can decline to bring charges.
These circumstances are altogether different from a DA making blanket declarations that they will not bring charges for certain crimes. The latter indicates a dereliction of duty. They're not doing their job.
Elections are a dirty business. The candidates who spend the most money are often the winner.
Nefarious foundations donating large sums of money with the intent to install DAs who will subvert justice could be seen as a threat (and a conspiracy) to the US justice system and prosecuted as a crime.
Nicholson entered the mantrap and the double doors closed behind him. He emptied his pockets and disrobed before donning the clean suit that had been provided to him by the orderlies. The camera watching him appeared satisfied that he was properly prepared and, more to the point, that the vendor was properly protected. The doors to the inner chamber opened and he proceeded into the hallway. He passed several doors until he reached the one that was labeled with the name of the vendor. He pressed the button on the doorframe. A satisfying tactile click, a spinning light illuminating around the button, a click, and then the door opened soundlessly. A single desk with a small chair and a computer terminal awaited him. He sat down and the screen turned on automatically. Finally, he was able to set about classifying his expenses from a recent trip to Tokyo. It was inconvenient, but a small price to pay to ensure that the vendor’s unique interfaces, their intellectual property, couldn’t be copied by the replication machines. Their eyes and their ears were everywhere in the outside world. Simply by seeing your software, these machines could copy its essence. The risks of operating software in the wild required that proprietary software be protected. Hidden away from eavesdroppers. Such was the world in 2037.
Look on the bright side, you've lived to see 2026 where these four things have collapsed into each other. Like a rainbow refracted into pure white light.
Everything you are describing sounds like the phenomenon of government in the United States. If we replace a human powered bureaucracy with a technofeudalist dystopia it will feel the same, only faster.
We are upgrading the gears that turn the grist mill. Stupid, incoherent, faster.
This sounds in line with big law and big finance. Those are exactly the type of people who have flooded into tech over the last decade. It shouldn’t be surprising that compensation structures mirror those industries.
After decades in industry it becomes obvious some people really generate 5x+ of a new hire. Not sure why they shouldn't be able to capture that wealth when the market bears it. I don't make nearly 500k but I'm happy for most anyone that does.
As someone who isn't in law, medicine, or finance but must from time to time pay for legal services, medical care, and financial advice, I'm not happy there are lawyers, finance people, and doctors who make $500k. I'm doubly not happy when I have to compete with those people for housing and other goods and services.
Of course, even 10x is possible. We all wish that was always the case.
I had this hilarious though I feel I should write down here but doubt it at the same time. ..
The best way to have a wage gap is lack of access to education or even books. Second would be to have access but not make an effort.
It makes me wonder is there is data on physical punishment. people say it is a terrible thing but I would love to put them in some loud factory conveyor belt job for a decade or so with just a few more bills than salary. To call me a sadist is to agree :p
Is it not more about specialization and deep domain experience than raw output?
If I just need raw output, the army of juniors is a viable solution. You might even find it’s preferable if you have many separate functions or projects or think you may flex down/up the labor expense later on.
With similar work that should be expected. It would be the same with cabinet making as well. But in cabinet making, they’d hire 5 juniors if it was less than a single experienced person. The experienced guy has a job because sometimes a project requires complex and fast solutions, even if pace is reduced by the complexity.
I’ve always thought night jobs should have limitations on how long an individual can consecutively work an overnight shift to limit the toll it takes on mental and physical health.
> Lack of sunlight during the day is worse than [..]
to
> Lack of sunlight during the day has a larger effect on your bio rhythms then [..]
but that effect isn't per-se bad
it's bad if you life is out of sync with your bio rhythms to a point where it can have sever effects on you mental and physical health
also additionally the way various factors can affect (mainly but not exclusively) shift our bio rhythms there is also the fact that people have various "dispositions" (not the right scientific term), dispositions which also change with age and which seem to have naturally evolved to improve the survival chances of human by making sure that in a pack of human (\j) there is always someone "fit" to spot danger/react fast/etc.
the reason I'm pointing that "dispositions" out is because they can have a major affect on how likely (and more important how much) the bio rhythms of a person and their life with night shifts are out of sync
as far as someone like me who doesn't know much about sleep science can tall the most harmful think is the switch between night and day shift making your bio rhythms fall completely out of sink (leading to fun thinks like potentially constantly increasing exhaustion every day) and/or the bio rhythms not adapting to night shifts
worse as far as I can tell from personal experience there can be a big mismatch between what your bio rhythms are and what your "habits of sleep/work" are, especially if other factors like huge external stress come into play :\
Anyway examples of people living healthy lives with unusual bio rhythms (longer, shorter, shifted) are quite many.
My dad preferred to work the night shift because it was less stressful at his workplace. He tried day shift a couple of times, but always ended up going back to nights by choice. For that reason, I have trouble agreeing with your suggestion, but I understand that you mean well.
Places that limit overnight shifts tend to have variable shifts - folks will work all three shifts, have one night a week, and so on. This definitely takes a toll on mental and physical health - just in a different way. At least with regular overnight shifts, you can get into some sort of rhythm with regular sleep and eating times.
The other solutions mean things like paying folks more so they can work fewer days (make a full time salary in 3-4 days a week), but few places are going to do that and taxpayers are going to foot some of that bill - some pretty vital places have staff at night. 911 operators, police and fire services, snow plowing, nursing homes and hospitals tend to need around the clock staffing.
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