Federalist No. 8

Federalist No. 8 Instrumentalizing legal tokens sounds complicated, but the idea is simple. People have two concerns about bureaucracy: applying for certificates and completing procedures. But they are sufficiently intertwined that they can be lumped together under the concept of a token. The main problem with interacting with bureaucracy is that it's slow. But why? The standard response from defenders of the status quo is that it's more reliable. The standard response from those who have sped up its technical aspects is that the old information processing architecture is inefficient. A token is a new concept in the legal context. It encompasses the concepts of an application, a lawsuit, a complaint, a claim, and an appeal. The question is how the token will be processed. First, the system creates a token upon application with minimal proof. In some cases, a simple application is enough to initiate investigative actions; in others, a document or other evidence is required. The token is processed, as far as possible, independently of its creator. This means that the bureaucracy may require a person to appear for questioning or provide more documents. Or ask whether the case should be considered further if the lower court denied the request. But the system can't require lugging documents from agency to agency. If the application has been filed and is adequate according to any legal concepts in force in the state, then its subsequent routing between agencies is the responsibility of the bureaucracy, not of individuals. Closing a token is very difficult. You can't say, "Our agency doesn't handle this." You can say, "Without legal support, your token isn't significant enough for the state to process it." But if the person has hired a lawyer, the token is returned to the system. A token can be permanently closed in three cases: approval, consolidation with others in a larger case, or denial. Overall, this sounds strange and cumbersome, doesn't it? This legal concept is based on the idea that no issue is unimportant. If a consumer complains about the quality of a product, it could be a minor issue, a flaw in modern technology that is better than nothing. Or it could be a gigantic architectural problem for the organization they're complaining about, even if it's just a single complaint. Holding congressional hearings every time we hear a million user complaints about dark patterns in IT services, only to ban them piecemeal, is absurd. Ideally, the bureaucracy could academically develop even a single complaint about a single dark pattern into a fully-fledged concept and ban the entire set of patterns in a single act. Now, what's the instrumentality of tokens? The bureaucracy's job is to ensure the rights of subjects are respected and the laws of the state are enforced. That is, if a subject's rights are violated and they haven't reported it, it's a huge problem for society. Latent crime, especially when it comes to the violation of personal (non-property) rights, can cause enormous hidden damage to the entire fabric of society. But there's also the issue of various systems and commercial organizations within the state operating to the detriment of society, failing to comply with laws or their obligations. This can also lead to enormous costs for the system as a whole. That is, the system's job isn't just to process tokens and close complaints. But also to create derivatives based on them that will lead to institutional reforms in the future. The last issue is speed. At a fundamental level, it is solved by improving token routing. It should be like a game of hot potato. There is a technical time it takes a specialist to complete a procedure. That is, a doctor can describe an X-ray in an hour, but not a month. Most procedures are also technically fast, while the incredibly long bureaucratic processing times are due to poor organization. If technical organization is improved, even cases where a full procedure would take days would be processed within days, not months, years, or decades. Specific forms of such optimization need to be considered separately. Did I mention complex, controversial cases that require public debate? No. Not at all. I'm only talking about procedures that already exist, don't generate significant controversy, and are simply carried out slowly. It also requires a tremendous amount of mental energy to knock on closed doors where they say "no" without explanation. Addendum: Token Forwarding A system where it's nearly impossible to reject a token creates an analytical problem I didn't specifically mention. The executive bureaucracy, of course, doesn't have its own analytics for complex issues. A method that bureaucrats would consider a cheat code is forwarding tokens to third parties. Namely, universities, lawyers, political organizations, and even concerned citizens. The caveat is that a token processed but not sealed by the bureaucracy will have very "tasty" metadata. That is, it's not a random phrase or an online comment, but a request that has generated information, some of which can easily be shared with third parties for analytical work. These tokens could be good fuel for a multitude of projects: research, new market players. Unresolved flaws are ready-made fuel, if you think about it. But in the case of redirected tokens, it's not raw, but rather like oil separated into fractions for different purposes: kerosene, gasoline, fuel oil.