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China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

reuters.com

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Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#7
To me the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted” sounds like the beginning of a new caste system.

Everyone's children are going to make mistakes. The wealthy are going to be able to cover up their children's mistakes, the poor are going to be put on 'the list' and become 'restricted.'

The restrictions will grow, and eventually you'll have a new group of 'untouchables'

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#8
This illustrates the difference between having laws and enforcing them. Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar. With technology, it becomes trivial to implement enforcement for even draconic laws at a scale previously unfathomable. Also, they seem to be rolling it out slowly. It reminds of the metaphorical boiling frog syndome[1], where the frog realizes what predicament it is in, but too late.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#9
The thing that worries me most about the autocracy in China is that all of these Orwellian measures would actually work and then would be pointed out as an example to abandon our civil liberties in favor of a system that may be big brotherly but at least "your kids will always be safe, never be close to any bad person" (By We I'm referring to Democracies).

It may also be a uniquely Chinese thing too though. China has had very powerful Central States for an extremely long time (not just the CPC but all the emperors and what have you). Perhaps that's just the "Chinese Way": absolutist State which largely works for most of the people?

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