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Comment by kingleopold | Hacker News Reader

"The purpose of a system is what it does"

it's designed that way.

Robert Maxwell, Ghislane Maxwell's father, was a big player in turning the industry towards profit seeking (though I agree with the sibling comment that it's capitalism's fault ultimately).

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...

Downvoting this comment doesn’t make it less true.

Most everyone and everything has been captured by the ultimate cynicism of Capitalism: if I don’t do it someone else will, so might as well put the money in my pocket right??

I agree with @kingleopod — this system is designed to do what it is doing: keep knowledge private and keep profits high. Full stop.

Again, the system is working as intended. Capitalism is a wonderful hack on so many levels.

Yes, making life all about money and everything else is meaningless? What a hack!

What a joy to live in such a world!

For those that need it: */S*

It is a web of self reinforcing feedback structures that even if you know how they operate, it requires too much coordination to control. It is a sticky web, the more you move, the more it binds.

I think the downvotes come from the comment not really saying much.

If my use of Tor makes me look suspicious in the eyes of the police is that the purpose of Tor?

And I think it comes from bots who attempt to police allowed thoughts on HN. To each their own, I suppose

Is reading the astralcodexten post among your allowed thoughts? I don't downvote comments, but I think POSIWID is total bollocks. It may mean "some systems are somewhat corrupted by malign influences", in which case phrasing that as POSIWID is an outrageous exaggeration, or it may mean "there are no purposes", which is just untrue, or "your hoped-for purpose is naive", which is made less clear by phrasing it as POSIWID.

You can ask dang specifically or another moderator to prove if you are being trafficked down to irrelevancy by bots. I'm very certain you're wrong either way.

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