Reading messy documents just became cheap, so seeing no longer requires flattening
Hook
A city knows everything and can see nothing. The contract, the payment and the minutes sit in three systems, and a computer can now join them in seconds.
Claim
Governments flattened reality into categories because a clerk could read one form and an analyst a few hundred numbers. That cost has collapsed. A city can now keep every minute, contract and payment as written, link them, and answer plain questions with the source next to the answer. Legibility used to need simplification; now it need not. The same view can be open to the citizens it describes, so the loop runs both ways.
Story
In Petar’s essay a citizen asks how much the city spent on the kindergarten and who decided. The answer takes three weeks because the contract, the payment and the minutes live in separate systems. “The city knows everything and can see nothing.”
Sources
- Petar’s own essay
- C6: idea only, numbers date from July
Check before posting
- The Pula figures in the essay (469,383 payments, 80 sessions, 61 sources, the kindergarten at 7.9 million euro, a terrace rule amended 18 times) are Civium product numbers. Recheck before use and never post as a “we shipped” line.
- Pula is a Civium customer: disclose.
- If everything becomes readable, so do people. See the prompts note for where the line is.
Counterargument
If everything becomes readable, so do people.
Post angles
Facebook (Croatian)
- Građanin pita koliko je grad potrošio na vrtić i tko je o tome odlučio. Odgovor traje tri tjedna jer su ugovor, plaćanje i zapisnik u tri različita sustava. Danas računalo to može spojiti za nekoliko sekundi.
- Nekad se stvarnost morala pojednostaviti da bi je netko mogao pročitati. Danas više ne mora.
LinkedIn (English)
- A resident asks how much the city spent on the kindergarten and who decided. The answer takes three weeks because the contract, the payment and the minutes live in three systems. A computer can now join them in seconds.
- Reality used to be simplified so someone could read it. It no longer has to be.