In systems theory, there is a maxim that goes by the acronym of POSIWID.  It stands for “The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does.”  Over the last couple of years, I’ve found this method of analysis to be very useful.  It completely discounts any hand-waving and pontificating about whatever it is that people tend to say their motivations or purpose for doing something are, and simply relies upon the actual results.

I find that this method is great for cutting through political speeches.  Which US President, would you say, was the most xenophobic of them all?  Well, to answer the question, you simply go look up which one deported the most illegal immigrants.  You don’t comb through their campaign platforms, you don’t look at their speeches to the people, or to other governments.  You don’t look at what treaties were put forth or even signed, for we know that treaties are simply words or paper, much like the US Constitution is simply words on paper, unless it is actually enforced through real actions.  Would it surprise you to read that Barack Obama was the US President responsible for the deportation of more illegal immigrants than any other US President in history?  That is the power of the POSIWID analysis.  He has talked a lot about amnesty, but when the wheels hit the road, that’s not what he actually did.

POSIWID can be used very broadly.  What is the purpose of the US public school system?  Well, what are the results?  Are people who come out of the US public school system capable of reading critically?  Can they write with proper punctuation?  Can they read cursive?  Do they understand how compound interest works, or personal finance?  Can they even do the research required to answer these questions from their favorite search engine of choice?

What is the purpose of Facebook then?  Here, we come to understand that POSIWID has a multifaceted personality.  It isn’t just one purpose, because there is not just one result.  There are many results.  Facebook can connect people, yes, but it does other things as well.  It is a time compression algorithm.  It is a job search engine.  It is a recipe database.  It is a photo sharing engine.  It is a deep state data mining source.  It is a snitch that reports organized resistance activities.  It is a mood altering application, tending to increase depression because your friends went on vacation and you didn’t.  Facebook’s algorithms lead to echo chamber effects.  It also reduces the concentrated focus time of heavy users.

POSIWID doesn’t quite work in reverse.  You can’t discover why something happens the way it does, simply from the correlation of a thing.  Which religion’s adherents live the longest?  Oh, that’s an easy one to search, and somebody did their graduate thesis on it.  The answer is, the Jews have the longest life expectancy.  Okay, now you know that 70 years ago, the answer was not the same.  You could surmise all sorts of things about why that may be the case.  Maybe it is their diet.  Maybe it is the fact that they wash their hands multiple times a day and don’t touch the opposite sex outside of family, thus cutting down on the transmission of the flu and pneumonia in old age.  Maybe it is that they are a smaller group than other larger religions and genetically insular.  Or is it?  After all, the Gypsys, travelers, and tinkers are roughly the same, in terms of genetic and ritual cleansing insularity, yet they have a life expectancy 10 years less than the average population instead of 10 years more like the Jews.  Then you can think about wealth and education factors, and fall down the rabbit hole of why.

Correlation does not equal causation.  Maybe, we don’t need to know why.  Maybe, to make good enough decisions, we don’t need to be inundated with a lot of different theories, which change decade upon decade with more experience.  We just need to look at the actual reality in front of us, before looking for stuff that confirms our theories.  POSIWID can cut through a whole bunch of theories which don’t hold up over time.  For fun, you can apply POSIWID to vaccines.  Do they actually work?  Well, there are a couple million less people dying from the measles every year, because we have the measles vaccine.  That doesn’t mean that all vaccines work.  That doesn’t mean that all statins decrease the death rate of people who take them.  Ignoring the theories, and just looking at the death rate data is a good place to start looking at whether a particular pharmaceutical works or not.  Unfortunately, it isn’t enough.  If people who get flu shots have a lower car crash death rate in the following summer, you still have to run a reasonableness test.  Do you really think flu shots magically keep people from dying in car crashes?  Or maybe . . . there is an access to medical care issue that underlies both.

POSIWID is a great starting point though, especially when you’ve got way too much wild speculation about a topic.  What does the law enforcement system in the United States do?  It consistently arrests, locks up, and denies parole to racial minorities more than racial majorities.  It consistently protects the property of the rich from theft by the poor.  What do home owners’ associations do?  What does the local water board do?  What do the gangs do?  What does the local church actually do?  While POSIWID has its problems, it is a worthwhile way of looking at the world.