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I love Stafford Beer's "The purpose of a system is what it does" here. It separates fact from intention when reasoning about systems. The engineers that Kumail catches offguard are (in my opinion) confused because the issues he raises are so far from their intentions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

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I really like this. Mirrors Wittgenstein's "the meaning of a word is its use" maxim (see, e.g. http://www.maciejratajski.com/work/the-meaning-of-a-word-is-...) in philosophy of language.

I love wittgenstein and agree with your gist.

Being trite - Wittgenstein also said 'The world is all that is the case' ... a precept that a mission to mars for example certainly flexes, of course as soon as it came to pass, the meaning of 'the world' would reconfigure itself.

To the point though ... another maxim that I often find myself employing is: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

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