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Comment by wolframhempel | Hacker News Reader

I agree with that - but in many cases, I think I'd at least define "works" as "is a benefit towards the set aim, rather than a detriment". Although in many cases, it'd be fairer to define it as "is a net benefit towards the set aim when taking all costs and externalities into account".

In this way, I would argue e.g. that

- the war on drugs is a detriment, having significantly increased the price and thus the profitability of drugs and fostered a cartel ecosystem that is now a large percentage of the economy (and often the government) of many countries.

- the war on terror or the prison system might be a net benefit towards the aim of reducing terror or crime respectively, but is a net detriment when taking its costs (monetary, social, freedom etc.) into account.

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Aren't those examples pretty well understood to have true motivations that differ from their "marketed" motivations? Those detriments are actually part of the hidden set goal that led to those programs existing in the first place.

* The war on drugs was motivated by racism and marketed on morality and harm.

* The war on terror was motivated by power & military-industrial-profits and marketed on fear.

* The prison system was motivated by punishment & revenge and marketed on lower crime.

It's the social equivalent of WONTFIX: Working as intended

Crowstrike.....

But anyway, there's a famous phrase: "The goal of a system is what it does"

Once you have more than 1 person, any idea that involves "goal", "aim", or a related concept is meaningless. Those things simply do not exist.

That's simply not true, goal of most businesses is to make money. You can clearly deduce this goal much more the bigger the company gets. What you say only makes sense if you are confusing the stated publicly goal, the appearance that company maintains and its true goal which is pursued by the executives (the capital).

How many people in a company have the one goal "make money for the company"? How many have that goal at all?

Companies don't have a goal. They are just a bunch of people.

Yes but the overarching structure they participate in is designed to pursue the goal of making money. If not every single person has the same idea then we cant deduce anything from the group as a whole? When you look at the heap of sand you also start saying things like this is not a heap of sand its just a bunch of sand grains?

Do you attribute intent to the sand? Where are you going with that metaphor?

My point is that there is no clear line between a heap of sand and a bunch of sand grains. But at some point the grains become a heap of sand regardless of this. Its easier for us to think about this multitude as a singular object. In the same way a collection of people as a whole can have goals, we can speculatively discern that even though a company has hundreds of people, all with their own goals and ideas. We can discern the general structure of all of them as a singular unit because it might be a useful insight. If a company as a whole given a decision always goes for the decision which will bring the most capital then we can say that the true goal of this company is to pursue money even though all the people might not be aware of this its still a useful and valid idea that is capable of predicting reality and so on.

If the goal of a system is what it does, then every system's loss function is defined to be the behavior of the system. So every system is optimal.

The conclusion that every system is optimal should give you pause that maybe that phrase isn't as clever as it sounds.

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