[amiga386]

If I write to the Mafia asking to confirm they won't burn my store to the ground, they won't write back saying "no".

They're not obligated to respond, and they enjoy the fear, uncertainty and doubt their non-response creates.

[iambateman]

If I ask my city if they will enforce their explicitly written zoning policy against renting a single room to a tenant, they won’t write back. But they also have no intention of enforcing that policy.

It doesn’t make them evil…just bureaucratic.

[sbarre]

Your city doesn't exist primarily to extract profits though, does it?

[lmm]

If the city bureaucracy doesn't exist primarily to provide continued employment to people of a certain class who can't or won't do something more productive, it's doing a pretty good impression of it. The purpose of a system is what it does and all that.