i got a scary letter from, of all states, the State of Florida recently, threatening me with a thousands of dollars penalty. to address it, i was gonna have to send documents back and forth to my elderly parents and get an affadivit signed. (it had to do with retitling a car.) 1/

i phoned, accurately and truthfully explained the situation. initially, the person on the other end of the line said i should get the affidavit done, and i agreed we would, but when she realized it would be burdensome and saw that my story checked out, she just ended the case. 2/

the faceless bureaucracy, it turns out, is made of human beings who have some latitude to exercise discretion. there is danger in that — they could be biased! corrupt! 3/

but often, usually, they exercise judgment as best they can. as citizens, we have people we can appeal to, who can understand our situation. i wonder how that will work with the AI bots. 4/

tell me, when all the megacorps switched from human customer service to automated phone trees, was that more or less "bureaucracy" in the pejorative sense? 5/

because from my perspective, firing the humans makes the world more kafkaesque, not less. /fin