BOT TENDER WANTED ( No One From Boston Need Apply.)

—A PUBLIC NOTICE FROM THE GIST AND TANGENT PUB.

(Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Facilities Department)

—Position is now Filled!

Due to the growing number of suspiciously enthusiastic automated followers lingering around the premises, the Council has created a new position:

BOT TENDER

Mr. Ray Pierre-DeWitt, Chaos Coordinator, has agreed to take on this duty.

In the absence of an open bar, the Bot Tender’s responsibilities will include:

• monitoring the swarm of identical admirers hovering near Council communications

• ensuring they do not crowd the campfire circle

• and, when necessary, serving as Bot Bouncer

Ray has already developed a reliable rule of thumb.

Accounts arriving with standardized algorithmic plumage—

most notably exaggerated glamour poses, prominent cleavage, inflated lips, and other suspiciously identical signals of artificial allure—will be quietly escorted out of the establishment.

No arguments. No last call. Just a polite indication of the door.

Ray’s authority in these matters is calm, quiet, and final. After all, every bar eventually needs someone who can tell the difference between a patron . . .

. . . and a mannequin.

Ray was later asked whether the Council was discouraged by the fact that many of its online followers appear to be mechanical.

He shrugged in the manner of a man who has already seen stranger things in the back room of a bar.

“Maybe so,” he said. “But you can’t run a civilization on perfect information.”

Ray explained that what keeps most human enterprises going is something he calls naïve optimism.

Not the loud kind—the quiet assumption that someone out there might actually be listening.

“Every campfire ever lit was lit that way,” he said. “A handful of people talking into the dark, assuming somebody might wander over.”

He acknowledged that naïve optimism can be dangerous. People build foolish things with it. They start doomed expeditions, invest in terrible ideas, and occasionally invent social media.

“But without it,” Ray added, “nothing starts at all.”

He then returned to his duties behind the bar.

Outside, the internet continued to hum with identical admirers and suspiciously enthusiastic automated smiles.

Inside the Gist and Tangent Pub, the Council kept the fire going anyway.

Because naïve optimism—however risky—turns out to be one of the basic requirements for the continuation of everything.

Including life.