Remember the time when every company had a number to call, and a live
person on the other side of the line? A person who would simply answer your
call and deal with whatever issue you had, or connect you to the person who
could help you best? Remember how later the system was improved and you had to
listen and wade through touch-phone options to connect you to a live person?
Remember how that person would then seamlessly morph into a talking algorithm,
taking you through well-ordered steps of instructions the first time you called
or the fifteenth time you called, just so that you could finally talk to the
person off a scripted dialog? Remember how then the live-yet-automated human
being was seamlessly replaced by a machine, one listening to what you repeated
after it and answering with pre-recorded messages? And remember how that machine
also disappeared, replaced with email and chat, with no number to call at all?
And then email and chat also disappeared, and with it any remote interaction
with something resembling a human being – the problems you experienced were to
be dealt with by thick manuals and automated online or software troubleshooters.
But what happens if the machine fails, and the algorithm takes you around the
block in circles? Infinite loop with no way out, doom and damnation of an
impersonal cyberspace.
It is DIY taken to the extreme: We, the company, are not responsible
for any issues you may be experiencing. We just aren’t. You cannot contact us
to complain either. Maybe you can find some good-hearted human beings who went
through the same predicament, figured their way out, and are now willing to
share that knowledge. Spend a few days – weeks – months – in cyberspace, maybe
you will find them. Let the search for the Golden Fleece begin.
And then a miracle happens – when you are lost enough, and desperate
enough, and wailing long enough, a human being sent by the machine-god suddenly
appears, like a specter out of cyberspace. He kindly takes you by hand, and
leads you out of darkness. Glorious humanity!
And now, after a long hiatus, we are back to our regular broadcast.
Welcome back.
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