the core insight is that social facts need to be recorded to persist. unlike mental states or oral agreements that can fade or be forgotten, documents create a kind of objective anchor for social reality. your marriage exists because there's a certificate, money works because of records and inscriptions, laws matter because they're written down. it's part of a broader philosophical conversation about how human social world gets constructed, but ferraris takes a more materialist approach than philosophers who focus mainly on collective intentions or shared meanings.
governments will start using AI to analyze patterns across all your digital documents - social media posts, purchase histories, location data, communication records - to make determinations about citizenship benefits, legal standing, or even residency rights. your "documented self" will become more legally significant than traditional identity documents.