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China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

washingtonpost.com

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Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#121

Post by blazespin »

truffelion wrote: post #74

I feel like a crazy person every time I try to point out that North America is already there. We've just done it in a less reductionist manner, in which multiple scores are used for different purposes, because you can discriminate better with better targeted data. The IRS rates you on likelihood of fraud, border patrol rates you on your likelihood of breaking residency law, the FBI rates everyone's chances of being a…

yeah, the one that worries me most is the FBI one because it probably keys off keywords we use on twitter. What a way to chill free speech. As bad as anything that China might do

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#122

Post by iagooar »

totalZero wrote: post #81
truffelion wrote: post #74

I feel like a crazy person every time I try to point out that North America is already there. We've just done it in a less reductionist manner, in which multiple scores are used for different purposes, because you can discriminate better with better targeted data. The IRS rates you on likelihood of fraud, border patrol rates you on your likelihood of breaking residency law, the FBI rates everyone's chances of being a…

Oh, come on. We have our problems as a society but this is a little much. I have two specific objections. * The financial crisis was partially a result of mortgages being given to people whose financial data would have suggested that they had no business borrowing so much money. In that case, the opposite of your point is true. This shows that attention to data is beneficial to a mortgage system because it helps avoi…

* My friends don't rate my worth, because I don't have friends.

Sorry to hear that.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#123

Post by zby »

truffelion wrote: post #74

I feel like a crazy person every time I try to point out that North America is already there. We've just done it in a less reductionist manner, in which multiple scores are used for different purposes, because you can discriminate better with better targeted data. The IRS rates you on likelihood of fraud, border patrol rates you on your likelihood of breaking residency law, the FBI rates everyone's chances of being a…

I think the difference is in the secrecy. In the US, at least in principle, the system is not secret - in China secrecy is the rule - the party is not supposed to be judged from outside.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#125

Post by enraged_camel »

zby wrote: post #123
truffelion wrote: post #74

I feel like a crazy person every time I try to point out that North America is already there. We've just done it in a less reductionist manner, in which multiple scores are used for different purposes, because you can discriminate better with better targeted data. The IRS rates you on likelihood of fraud, border patrol rates you on your likelihood of breaking residency law, the FBI rates everyone's chances of being a…

I think the difference is in the secrecy. In the US, at least in principle, the system is not secret - in China secrecy is the rule - the party is not supposed to be judged from outside.

What? No. The vast majority of the stuff the OP listed is secret. You don't know - and have no way of finding out - the various ratings the IRS, the insurance companies, border patrol, the FBI, etc. use to rate you. In fact the only rating you can easily access is your credit rating.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#126

Post by enraged_camel »

sgt101 wrote: post #116
michaelmrose wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't given loans because they were incapable of figuring out they were bad loans due to insufficient data they were given bad loans because there was money to be made by giving out bad loans and bundling into mortgage backed securities. They deliberately crashed our economy as part of an effort to inflate their bonuses because they just don't give a fuck about you. me, or America.

You are approximately right, but I don't think that they deliberately crashed the economy. I think that they were hoping for something to turn up and had good reason to think it would - after all, long term capital finance got bailed out, why not mortgage backed securities? The lesson is that the risks of finance need to be sufficiently crystalised that behaviour is moderated, the problem is that economic growth has…

>>You are approximately right, but I don't think that they deliberately crashed the economy.

Deliberately, no. But they knew it was unsustainable. Many industry insiders, as well as outside observers, likened the system to a house of cards. And when you play with a house of cards, you know damn well that it will come crashing down sooner or later.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#127

Post by xvilka »

sametmax wrote: post #112
joe_the_user wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, The US may have many real privacy violations but you have at least an ostensible right to privacy. That authority figures don't have to pretend fair even if they aren't actually fair is worth something. That surveillance isn't official is worth something. Sure, solid guarantees to privacy would be better but one really shouldn't claim unofficial surveillance is the same as official surveillance since the move…

This is very naive. If working in many countries and for many entities all over the world though me anything, it's that: - people are tracked by everyone. Companies. State agencies. Other people. - the database contains much more data than you think it does. And there are more data base than you think, also most of them are not connected to each others. But people in charge are. - the data can be exploited in much mo…

Good point. I believe also this will become a new 'standard' in most countries across the globe in this century. And this order is inevitable - the only hope that the humanity will move on, after living a few generations under this order. The consequences are too invisible for people masses that it's impossible to resist it now.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#128

Post by dealiaro »

This is kind of interesting, in a "history of communism" type of way.

There’s been a sense that communism as a goal in China has been in zombie mode for a while with the system continuing temporarily until an economic crisis or somesuch brings it to an end.

This reminds me of the various “rationalisation” initiatives undertaken by state communism(s) in their early days which formed such a big part of what we think of as communism. These were (attempts at) nitty-gritty policies aimed at achieving the goals of big talking communist slogans and utopianism.

It seems revivalist.

In some ways, this ideas kind of makes “sense’. Digitisation, social media and other features of modern societies lend better (at least in theory, while wearing our 99 year old state-communism hats) to this sort of societal engineering than their 20th century equivalents.

Re: China’s plan to organize its society relies on ‘big data’ to rate everyone

#130

Post by makomk »

cpeterso wrote: post #67

This reminds me of the "Whuffie" social currency from Cory Doctorow's science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom . A person's current Whuffie is instantly viewable to anyone, as everybody has a brain implant giving them an interface with the Net. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie

Which, incidentally, Cory Doctorow considers to be a fundamentally terrible idea: http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2016/03/cory-doctorow-w...
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