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Comment by Aeglaecia | Hacker News Reader

oh how i wish more people would avoid becoming lost in the details and see this system for what it very simply is

Time for my favorite intersection of critical theory[1] and systems theory: "The purpose of a system is what it does[0]"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

[1] Ok, I admit, nobody but me has actually made the intersection between the two yet.

This was too deep for me. Pretend we have a system that works differently than intended. I could say it does not meet its purpose. This quote means something else. Am I wrong?

You say, “The system does not meet its purpose.” They respond, “The purpose of the system is what it does.”

In other words, there’s no point in arguing about the purpose. If you want the system to do something else, you have to change the system.

Ignore what anyone says the intent or purpose is/was. Is anyone motivated to change the system?

For a more traditional phrasing: "actions speak louder than words."

It's "revealed preference". The people at the controls don't want to change the dysfunctional system because it serves them personally.

Don’t think of it as a tautology, think of it as a heuristic

Let me give it a try. Is the purpose of USAID to promote the liberal world view and fund its political allies? From what we’ve learned, that’s what the system does.

Consider vaccines, crops, and disaster recovery and their Soviet alternatives, Comecon and GKES. I feel both sides saw an advantage in offering that through a bureaucracy rather than transactionally. The development shortfalls didn’t go away with the Soviet collapse, so whether that’s liberal I don’t know. But any such bureaucracy threatens uncovering the endemic corruption among transactional operators.

I see your point about it being a way to disperse carrots for political leverage. But it also looks a a lot like a Cold War version of teaching Afghans about the American constitution.

But the projects that are being funded today don’t resemble the ones in the 60s-80s. And thats not to suggest it previously was unbiased and now is politicized, but the parties and their values have changed. So that old bureaucratic organization has a new mission

Giving out crops promoted the idea that market capitalism brought prosperity. That isn’t enough for liberalism which has moved up Maslows hierarchy to meaning and purpose. Physical aid is merely a means for bringing the true goods - social justice, equity, inclusion, education, etc.

That’s a good point and I don’t know how “The purpose of a system is what it does“ reacts to change in a system.

Or what to call the side-effects of a system going away.

One of the statistics I read was that the average American judges foreign aid at 31% of the Federal budget instead of the true 1%. In one way, that’s remarkable efficiency: 31x perception. In another way, it gives bad actors in the government an advantage: by cutting a measly 1%, you can rely on uninformed Americans to give you credit for 31x cuts.

Out of curiosity, have you checked out these other works?

Design for Prevention (2010) ISBN 978-0-937063-05-7

Friends in High Places (1990) ISBN 937063-06-1

Have Fun at Work (1988) ISBN 0-937063-05-3

The New Plague (1986) ISBN 0-937063-03-7

POSIWID is mentioned in the first three works; engineer William L. Livingston authored the latter three.

If you think money is the motivation you just don’t understand politics. Money is a means, and the weakest form of power.

it’s both. money buys government which then makes you richer.

Kompromat buys it for free.

Why not just call it blackmail? Is there any evidence that Putin has more influence over our government than, say, Bibi does? That seems extremely difficult to believe. This feels a lot like centrist qanon.

If you immediately discount the facts that Musk has been parroting Russian war propaganda on X and Trump immediately folded to Putin over Ukraine, I don’t know what to tell you.

Can you answer my questions? You're being evasive.

Ukraine would have been rejected slightly more politely by Harris. You're elevating a rhetorical difference to obscure that AIPAC primarying two democrats over their stance on israel gave republicans the house.

It sure would be nice to not have just a rhetorical difference over our most shame-ridden ally. But yea, Putin is dog walking trump into checks notes pushing for cutting military and nuclear stockpiles. Disgusting.

I hate Trump, but it's this conspiratorial crap about Putin while refusing to acknowledge AIPAC that makes me know moderates/centrists/maddow-watchers will always cave to ignorance and fear.

You’re calling reality a conspiracy theory while pushing whataboutist ideas about Jewish lobbying organisations as if they were the only one to influence American politics.

Straight from the russofascist playbook.

The singular Israeli lobbying organization of AIPAC, not a vague and unnamed set of Jewish lobbying organizations. Israel does not represent Judaism; it represents itself. I don't appreciate the disingenuous and ham-handed attempt to paint this as antisemitism. Ironically I see this paranoid and incredulous "russian agent" talk as precisely the behavior you're describing (albeit just a shallow conspiracy theory, not antisemitism). Both Putin and Bibi will be more than willing to take advantage of dysfunction in addressing the other to fuel their narratives about american domestic instability and hypocrisy.

You can trivially look up donations. It's difficult to link to just AIPAC so I'll just put this here: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/09/aipac-republican-do...

Mind you, this is still a stronger case for another state blatantly interfering in our elections than the what $36 million to the NRA and a small buy of facebook ads (~$100k, which is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to domestic interests). And this alleged "kompromat" (good grief, read better propaganda)

Created: 23 days ago.

so? poster is correct.

What would $100 billion more do for them?

line goes up?

seems to be some sort of pathology

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