praestigiare
Joined 10 years ago
Joined 10 years ago
The people who create a system have some intent for it. The system may or may not effectively achieve that intent, may or may not outlive the initial conditions that surrounded its creation, and may or may not have side effects.
Purpose is something humans assign. It is sometimes linked to intent. A carpenter's hammer is intended to drive and pull nails, and that is often also its purpose. The purpose of the hammer I keep in my basement is breaking open walnuts.
The phrase is stating that the purpose we should assign to systems when judging them is their outcome, and not the intent behind them.
* Note here that most common things you need under the menu are not the same as the most commonly used commands. New tab and new window are surely the most commonly used commands, but those you would almost never go to the menu for.
Recommendations, regulations, and responses to the pandemic as it happened are factual in the sense that they happened, but are not "facts" in the same way. It is not a fact that standing in a restaurant without a mask was terrorism and sitting was fine. Instead, given the information available at the time, and the practical requirement to have your mask off to eat, this policy was chosen for a time as a risk mitigation balanced with practical requirements. The appropriateness of this policy is a matter of opinion.
In addition to that, I am not sure if you have ever worked with an independent fact checker, but they very much do make an effort to point out misleading, cherry-picked, and out of context information.
However, if the expected 5 year mortality for the cancer was 50%, and with this treatment 2/3 died, then the rule would apply. A choice to continue using that treatment could be criticized as equivalent to a choice to kill 1/6 more patients. Because despite the intention, the known outcome was more patients dying.