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China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

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Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#81

Post by TaylorAlexander »

Oracle maintains a database of personal information for billions of people.

The US corporate surveillance web is rich in complexity.

Before we judge China, lets make sure we know what we're comparing them to.

I highly encourage anyone interested in the subject to watch this talk from last month's Chaos Computer Club Congress.

"Corporate surveillance, digital tracking, big data & privacy: How thousands of companies are profiling, categorizing, rating and affecting the lives of billions"

https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8414-corporate_surveillance_digi...

https://youtu.be/kd6NKvwQVbM

You say the Chinese system is sinister because they force you to use ID cards. In the US corporate surveillance system, they can track you without ID cards.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#82

Post by agentcoops »

mistermann wrote: post #75
dcposch wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im comparing China to other countries that were similarly poor in 1980-- much of the world, including the second biggest country, India. China did much better than them. I don't think any other society in history has lifted as many people out of poverty in as short a time.

Did American corporations not gift China with a massive amount of free, working out of the box technology to get them going?

"History is like a grandmother; it loves the younger grand-children. To the latecomers it gives not the bones but the marrow, while Western Europe has hurt her fingers badly in her attempts to break the bones."

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#83

Post by logicchains »

dcposch wrote: post #58
loeber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction This is only true if you're applying a ludicrous double standard. China has done better than most other countries at this because China was extremely poor just a few decades back. Nowadays, much of China is still very poor. Of course it's much easier for China to slash its poverty rates than for an already-developed nation. The real thing to…

Im comparing China to other countries that were similarly poor in 1980-- much of the world, including the second biggest country, India. China did much better than them. I don't think any other society in history has lifted as many people out of poverty in as short a time.

Why not compare China to countries that were similarly poor in the 1950s? China, Korea, Taiwan were comparable then, but Korea and Taiwan have leaped ahead now due to saner government. If anything how poor China is in PPP GDP per capita terms vs Taiwan/Korea should be taken as an indictment of how terrible the government's been.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#84

Post by kobeya »

ommunist wrote: post #59
pdog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can opt out of all data sharing for your accounts in the United States. It's a hassle, but at least you can do it.

How can you check that you have been opted out and government really has no access to your private data? Think of government data stored permanently. Wnen you are opted out it is you who is opted out from access to your data, not the government. If you do not have effective means of control, your privacy most prodably will be abused without you knowing. There was quite a thread here last year about software engineer…

You can't opt out of government tracking. The GP was talking about commercial tracking.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#85

Post by scythe »

dcposch wrote: post #58
loeber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction This is only true if you're applying a ludicrous double standard. China has done better than most other countries at this because China was extremely poor just a few decades back. Nowadays, much of China is still very poor. Of course it's much easier for China to slash its poverty rates than for an already-developed nation. The real thing to…

Im comparing China to other countries that were similarly poor in 1980-- much of the world, including the second biggest country, India. China did much better than them. I don't think any other society in history has lifted as many people out of poverty in as short a time.

If you look only at raw numbers, there are literally two candidates. But if you look at proportions, there's a different story to be told. Chile 1973-2000 comes to mind, or some colonial governments, which, like China, achieved success by replicating strategies already known to work. In fact one of the best examples pf this is Stalin's Russia, and an analysis of this general pattern is given by Paul Krugman in this 1994 article:

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/mh5/class/econ102/readings/myt...

Japan 1960-1985 is another good example.

With regard to the authoritarian structure of China, one disease that persistently affects these systems is adverse selection based on cultural evolution, i.e. the populace "learns" to get around the system and it works as long as the system is sufficiently oppressive that most people sympathize with the rule-breakers, see also the War on Drugs and de facto legalization of marijuana in some small towns. The thing about corruption in bureaucratic heir-choosing (Caesarian?) systems is that once corruption gets in there's almost no way to get it out whereas a democracy can rebel

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#86

Post by battlebot »

dcposch wrote: post #35

China is fascinating. On one hand... - China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction. Chinese policy since Deng Xiaoping lifted hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence poverty. Free markets were a big part of this, but so were Special Economic Zones starting with Shenzhen, a culture of sharing IP, massive govt investments in infrastructure, research and education. - China are al…

I wish at the very least that our tech companies would stop abetting these crimes against humanity. We should be trying to liberate these people, not use tech to forever enslave them. It's sick.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#87

Post by pcr0 »

schuke wrote: post #16
yueq wrote: post #11

Many people might not know, in US, credit card transactions/payments are on sale by various sources. There's a very active market for this and some fintech startups are solely based on this kind of data. Since most of our financial life is based on credit card, we are under surveillance at a micro level in a similar situation. The issue is we not only use 'services', we handle data to the service providers. Data unde…

The thing in China is that so many trivial daily activities require government-issued ID. Buying a coach/train ticket. Buying a SIM card. Every website/mobile app registration require a mobile phone number, which means any account is easily traceable to your government-issued ID, too. Hell, even visiting your friend in a hotel requires recording your ID before hotel staff will let you go upstairs (strictly enforced i…

Yeah, as a tourist I was surprised that all hotels ranging from 5 star to small local inns were insistent on having everybody's passport when checking in.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#88

Post by battlebot »

loeber wrote: post #56
dcposch wrote: post #35

China is fascinating. On one hand... - China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction. Chinese policy since Deng Xiaoping lifted hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence poverty. Free markets were a big part of this, but so were Special Economic Zones starting with Shenzhen, a culture of sharing IP, massive govt investments in infrastructure, research and education. - China are al…

> China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction This is only true if you're applying a ludicrous double standard. China has done better than most other countries at this because China was extremely poor just a few decades back. Nowadays, much of China is still very poor. Of course it's much easier for China to slash its poverty rates than for an already-developed nation. The real thing to…

They can never achieve that without political reform that removes collectivism and replaces it with individualism and I'm not even sure that is possible with 1.5 Billion people or whatever they are up to now.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#89

Post by battlebot »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #50
dcposch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incredibly depressing. Good chance you're right, but that doesnt mean we should give up. Politics is critical, and as technologists we can't just opt out and hope things will work out. We have to win these fights.

As technologists, we're often the ones implementing and designing the systems, infrastructure and algorithms that make such a thing not only possible, but likely :(

I have witnessed that very thing more times than I like to admit. I fail to understand what, other than sheer greed, motivates tech people to help build these police states. It's going to come back at us in terrible ways. Technology doesn't care whether it kills us all, it is completely value neutral. Only we can make the right choices.

I once worked at a place that was bidding on surveillance tech for some public transit systems in Australia and the cavalier attitude that management had about privacy was sad, to say the least. They just didn't think it was their job at all to decide what is right or make any ethical judgements whatsoever. To them, mass surveillance was merely a way to make a lot of money and that's all. They didn't care who got hurt when that tech eventually makes it to less democratic nations to be used to suppress and destroy the human spirit.

Well, that company went under, but others succeeded.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#90

Post by battlebot »

patmcguire wrote: post #36
dcposch wrote: post #35

China is fascinating. On one hand... - China has done better than any other country on Earth at poverty reduction. Chinese policy since Deng Xiaoping lifted hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence poverty. Free markets were a big part of this, but so were Special Economic Zones starting with Shenzhen, a culture of sharing IP, massive govt investments in infrastructure, research and education. - China are al…

I like the phrase "grim meathook future"

It has a cyberpunk ring to it.
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