This is such a good post. It’s hard not to just copy and paste the whole thing (though I do get really close).

…when observing the outcomes of a particular system or institution, it’s very useful to start from the assumption that the outputs or impacts of that system are precisely what it was designed to do — whether we find those results to be good, bad or mixed.

The most effective and broadly-understand articulation of this idea is the phrase, “the purpose of a system is what it does” often abbreviated as POSIWID…

… A potential negative aspect of understanding that the purpose of a system is what it does, is that we are then burdened with the horrible but hopefully galvanizing knowledge of this reality.

For example, when our carceral system causes innocent people to be held in torturous or even deadly conditions because they could not afford bail, we must understand that this is the system working correctly. It is doing the thing it is designed to do.

When we shout about the effect that this system is having, we are not filing a bug report, we are giving a systems update…

… Sit with it for a minute. If this makes you angry or uncomfortable, or repulses you, then you are understanding the concept correctly.

… If the purpose of a system is what it does, and we don’t like what it does, then we have to change the system.

And we change the system by making everyone involved, especially those in authority, feel urgency about changing the real-world impacts that a system has…

… Part of the reason I’m insistent about the POSIWID idea is because it’s a prerequisite for optimism that actually has impact. Mindless optimism says, “this system is supposed to have a good output, therefore if we support it hard enough, it’ll do the right thing.”

But this results in people doubling down on investing in broken institutions, and organizations selecting leaders who become defensive and reactive to any challenge to the institution.

These are systems organized around perpetuating themselves, rather than around any identifiable principle or goal….

… The next step, then, is to reflect on the systems around us now that we are cursed with the horrible truth that all of them are working correctly.

Ask yourself, how do you get the power to change the system so that it wants something else, so that it can only inevitably do the right thing?

Is there a reasonable path to that power? Or does that system need to be dismantled, so that it can be replaced by a system whose purpose is to do the right thing?

I’ve sat with this for more than a minute, as Anil suggests in the text.

Not necessarily because the reality of POSIWID is new to me, but because I’ve never seen it put so undeniably and inescapably well. Hence nearly quoting the whole thing.

I’m going to keep sitting with it then.

Particularly those last three paragraphs, which are a spookily accurate definition of my current headspace.

I’m also adding ‘Mindless Optimism’ to my collection.