"The purpose of a cancer hospital is to cure as many patients as possible" seems also like an extreme? They are businesses, after all, and there will be cases that would be unreasonable to pursue?

Yes! That one, thanks.

I'm sure POSIWID gets used as a reductive way to avoid thinking through things, but his examples seem just as devoid of thought. His 67% cancer center could probably cure more cancers if society invested more in cancer treatments and research, or if doctors persisted in continuing treatment instead of palliative care more often. Russia could nuke Kiev, or Ukraine's Western allies could send their own troops to push Russia back. The New York bus system could convert to all electric vehicles but that would cost a lot and have its own environmental considerations.

In the current conversation, the policy could have been based on research about where and how cartels were doing their laundering, and designed in a way that minimized the impact on non-cartel immigrant communities.

In all of those cases, the system is the result of choices that lead to the current outcomes, and I think that's the part that's worth thinking about.

Damn, what a waste of words. Does nothing but give brain dead examples while ignoring that the phrase is critical of systemic societal issues.

Law and order is the stated intention. The cops not solving crimes for the poor and them beating the poor is the system's purpose.

Instead of noticing that violence isn't applied equally, or that unequal resources are spent enforcing justice for the rich versus the poor, he compares it to carbon emissions from busses. Wow, how insightful.

This is my first exposure to this saying. I immediately thought of Jim Crow laws and thought it a useful way to look at systems. What is a better term for these wolf in sheep's clothing systems? I think the framing of achieved results being the purpose of the system is missing "something." The goals being different than stated feels paramount, and those goals succeeding is the system doing what it was designed to do with a wink

I would love to better understand your thinking behind this statement, if you care to elucidate.

How about this:

"Our great leaders are playing 4d civilization in multiple dimensions beyond 4. Most of what they do is carefully planned and executed but there are many unknowns and there are also "unknown unknowns". There are players not sitting at the table who are pulling levers elsewhere. There are unknown players. Most moves' results are beyond our comprehension due to purely complexity and the "fog of war", not necessarily b/c of any (of many different) superficially clever 'supreme master plans'."