The Purpose Isn’t What It Does
“The purpose of a system is what it does.” Such a neat little turn of phrase; it makes you sound wise and cynical and like a person who sees through things. But it’s mostly wrong and almost always counterproductive.
A bit of background; the phrase (and let’s just say “POSIWID”) was coined in 1979 by a British management consultant. It’s thrown around heavily; a search on my Mastodon server turns up plenty of examples. Most of which, instructively, are lightweight arm-waving. Try it on yours.
Rhetoric · It means “the art of persuasion” and more specifically, the category of language used in an effort to convince, to make a point, to help another human understand your point of view. POSIWID, if it’s to have any currency at all, should be useful as a rhetorical tool.
Which matters. Because we are currently embedded in a torment nexus around values and humanism and antifascism and tolerance and late-stage capitalism and AI and AI and AI and AI. We need good rhetorical tools. And we need to be clear about what the purposes of systems are.
My claim is that POSIWID doesn’t help us understand the why and who of the malignant forces we’ve found ourselves horrified by and, I hope, are fighting back against. In other words, it’s rhetorically lousy. Let’s work by example:
The purpose IS · The purpose of GenAI IS to increase the wealth of a tiny handful of already-wealthy people.
The purpose of Grok/X IS to promote Musk-flavored fascism.
The purpose of the Fediverse IS to serve as a conversational platform that can’t be bought or shut down.
The purpose of a handgun IS to kill humans.
The purpose ISN’T · The purpose of the Internet ISN’T to serve revenge porn.
The purpose of a hammer ISN’T to enable domestic violence.
The purpose of the automobile ISN’T to accelerate the climate catastrophe.
The purpose of GenAI ISN’T to usher in a newer better world.
Late capitalism again · If we believe that money talks, we need an add-on. Because almost anything with a lot of human and/or financial investment also has the purpose of enriching someone. For example: The purpose of a handgun IS to enrich its manufacturer. So in discussions of purpose, let’s not leave that out.
Also, note that unlike many of the other things in the lists above, the purpose of the Fediverse ISN’T to make money for anyone. It’s fairly unique in that respect.
And, as the handgun example illustrates, it’s usually “purposes” not “purpose”, plural not singular. Another reason why chanting “#POSIWID” is generally misguided.
Anyhow… · When we engage in struggle for or (more often, these days) against something, we need to understand its purposes. And a vacuous mantra like POSIWID doesn’t help.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Gavin B. (Sep 25 2026, at 00:44)
TS Eliot & Purpose
And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.
- an extract from Little Gidding, The Four Quartets.
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From: Dominic Brown (Sep 25 2026, at 03:38)
Agreed! At best, one might say that the purpose of a *long-established, well-understood* system is what it does. Newly created systems often have unintended consequences and blowback that their creators regret—something the cynics chanting #POSIWID also like to point out, not noticing the contradiction.
But even an established system has second- and third-order effects far beyond its main outcomes—are all those to be considered purposes of the system? What about contradictory effects? The automobile both enhanced individual mobility, and greatly restricted individual mobility. Affluent adult drivers did well; children, low-income people, and everyone else who used to get what they needed within their own neighborhoods, and now live miles and miles away from everything after car-dependent urbanism destroyed small-scale everything, got screwed. Did those responsible for that system of transport ‘intend’ both of these contradictory effects? Maybe, but I doubt it.
To my mind, POSIWID is a thought-terminating cliché, a way of dismissing complexity and uncertainty in favour of cheap conspiracy theorizing. Indubitably many systems nominally intended to achieve A are actually operated to achieve B, for sleazy, venal, or corrupt reasons. Just as often, and perhaps far more often, systems produce B instead of A because people are ignorant, incompetent, shallow, hasty, or simple-minded, and fail to consider all the consequences of their decisions.
Fixing that requires a mixture of policy, training, information gathering, and consultation—all of which is daunting to the sort of person who uses #POSIWID to Blame Bad People for everything. Righteous indignation is addictive; cynical posing is easy; actually getting good results in a complex, uncertain world is terribly hard.
/rant
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From: Dave Pawson (Sep 26 2026, at 00:46)
"The purpose of GenAI IS to increase the wealth of a tiny handful of already-wealthy people. ¶" I disagree. 'The intent of shareholders' perhaps. Purpose seems wrong as used.
AI was a bright idea among researches that was quickly snatched up by bigtech. What was the 'purpose' then? I could attach 'intention' but not purpose.
Isn't our language lovely (and mischevious)
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From: PeterL (Sep 26 2026, at 09:27)
One other purpose of an organization: to keep the people/person at the top in power, even if it means damaging the organization. For more details, see "The Dictator's Handbook" by Bueno de Mesquita.
(I would subtitle it: "Game Theory for Dictators, Prime Ministers, and CEOs")
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From: Jordan Kay (Sep 27 2026, at 11:33)
> The purpose of GenAI IS to increase the wealth of a tiny handful of already-wealthy people.
I don’t think this is true.
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