China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by behindmyscreen » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #90

awakeasleep wrote: post #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'

This isn't a permanent thing, it's 'up to one year'. Not much different than what we have in Ohio...any drug charge and your driver's license is suspended for a minimum of 6 months. It's ridiculous, yes, but it's hardly the level of totalitarianism you're describing.

The guiding principle however appears to be "Once untrustworthy, always forbidden". That is an issue.

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

#102

Post by phil248 » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

"China said it will begin applying its so-called social credit ... and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year."

Here in the US, you can get banned from air travel permanently, and you don't even need to do anything wrong!

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

#103

Post by mozumder » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

matte_black wrote: post #71

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you manage before Amazon was a thing?

It was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked. Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I coul…

How much crap do you actually buy per day that buying stuff needs time management?

I mean, don't people normally just buy what they need once a month or so?

And, do you actually need a review for basic groceries that you buy once a week?

Also actual high-end products, like fashion, aren't available on Amazon anyways, while the real cheap stuff you'd get from Ali Express.

I will never understand Amazon. I use it maybe a couple times a year.. don't understand what people that buy hundreds of items a year are going through..

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

#104

Post by wfo » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #11

China is doing this explicitly, but the West has been doing this implicitly for a while. Doxxing people with the "wrong" opinion and emailing their employers, friends, etc. I pretty regularly see if on Facebook where someone says something and their post or a screenshot of their post is shared hundreds of thousands of times with test that says "make this person famous". To be clear people should be called out for big…

The problem in both cases is a capricious and whimsical ultrapowerful organization with the ability to destroy a person's life for any reason with no repercussions. In China, it's the state, in the US it's in the private sector, in the form of your employer.

On the one hand, I would certainly like to know, for example, if the person I trust to teach my children in a public school is explicitly posting on the Internet about how she uses her position to indoctrinate children into extremist white nationalist ideology, Nazism and hate groups, and the "Internet lynch mob" did a great service by exposing this woman [1] -- there is no universe in which she should be allowed to be a teacher.

On the other hand, I think such firings should always be "for cause" with some kind of due process. We need to take away the ultimate power employers have to fire their employees, and make them go through some negotiation, process, discussion before they do so -- like through a union, who is obligated to stand up for wronged employees for example. If someone is failing to perform, provide evidence. If someone's publicly stated values are incompatible with the values of the business, prove it and let them respond. Either that, or we need a strong enough social safety net so that employment is optional for all people.

[1] https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/03/05/flor...

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

#105

Post by jrs95 » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #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…

It's a much bigger risk that the developing world will look to the Chinese model as an inspiration IMO

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

#106

Post by cinquemb » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

The systems/databases that will process/store the relevant social credit information will be prime targets for exploitation as this becomes more intertwined with practical daily life and automated systems.

Imagine being able to shut out a billion people variably by tampering with such and affecting the economy to a great degree.

And people complain about the evolving landscape of DDOS attacks now…

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

#107

Post by mFixman » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

jrs95 wrote: post #90

awakeasleep wrote: post #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'

This isn't a permanent thing, it's 'up to one year'. Not much different than what we have in Ohio...any drug charge and your driver's license is suspended for a minimum of 6 months. It's ridiculous, yes, but it's hardly the level of totalitarianism you're describing.

There's a gigantic difference between losing your driver's license and not being allowed to take any kind of long-distance transportation.

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

#108

Post by zxcvbn4038 » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

drefanzor wrote: post #27

tome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, there's a difference between an "internet lynch mob" doing it and the state doing it!

The state does do it. It's called a criminal record which is strikingly easy to obtain in the U.S. which has a law for everything imaginable. If you've ever had any kind of criminal activity, ever, even from something dumb in your youth, the United States has a log of it, which employers use to discriminate against that person. Forever. It doesn't go away. The "miscreant" is then forced either into a life of crime, w…

That is absolutely true - even if you are lucky enough to have a charge removed from your criminal record, everything on your arrest record will outlive you. Thats a problem since today every little thing gets you arrested - your average school yard brawl will get kids arrested for assault. However, on the bright side so many people have been arrested or jailed in this country that employers have had to start taking people with minor offenses just because there are so few people who make it to adulthood without at least one encounter with the law.

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

#109

Post by api » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #36

zanny wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CCP is not interested in progress, its interested in maintaining permanent, absolute power at any cost.

Like every other country, they want a healthy economy, which requires innovation. China's proposed social credit system would be counterproductive to innovation, i.e. the cost may be too high.

There's an easy solution to this: create a two-tier society in which the wealthy, highly educated, and highly productive / inventive are permitted to exist under relative freedom in "economic development zones" or similar while the rest of the population is kept under totalitarian rule.

In other words create comparatively free theme parks for the professional class.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #95

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Communist Party leadership has a strong incentive to promote growth But Xi Jinping does not.

How so? Isn’t unprecedented growth and prosperity the bedrock which supports the Communist Party? Wouldn’t continued growth then be an affirmation of Xi’s policies? What’s in it for him if the economy stagnates or recesses?

[deleted]