Computers Don't Argue (1965)
atariarchives.org
atariarchives.org
I share the following story which is a typical occurrence in China, it's all folklore and unsourced, but certainly true and similar stories have happened for at least a hundred times:
One person went to the local government to correct the errors in family records in the government database for his mother. Then, the official asked, how do you prove that your mom is your mom? It turns out, in order to make a change, it's required to obtain a proof, and he is asked to obtain it from the police department. He went to the police for a proof, nevertheless, the officials here were only allowed to create a proof based on the information from the government database, and this was the very database that needs to be corrected, and he was suggested to go to the local government to correct this record. This process took years without progress, until he...
1. Use personal connections in his network to find a relative/colleague, who knew one official that workes inside the government, and passes his message and persuade that person to handle it, using the relative/colleague's personal relationship, or by sending gift or bribe, it's how the majority of issues were handled.
2. Reporte this incident to the upper bureaucrat. The upper bureaucrat would usually send orders down to the lower bureaucrat and ask them to handle this case. However, whether the order is executed or not would be a matter of the local bureaucrats. Refusing to handle it while attempting to stop you from doing it again is common (don't solve the problem, just solves the people who have problems).
3. Tell the story to the media, later, a journalist wrote a "How to Prove My Mom is my Mom" story and became national hit, and upper bureaucrat intervened and solved the problem. But hundred thousands of citizens have the same issue and nobody cared.
Bureaucrats don't argue. Bureaucrats with computers never argue. Same for private businesses, a common problem is, if the machine works, everything is perfect; if the machine doesn't work, no human is helpful.
I think the story makes this point, effectively, when it gets to the court system and everyone goes on vacation at exactly the wrong moment. You could make the case this is a story about Fate in the Greek sense, with the computer merely being Fate's instrument and everyone being helpless in the face of one man's fated demise.
> These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man—of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best, neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody. Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest.
-- Hannah Arendt, "On Violence" (1970)