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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

#261

Post by dragonwriter »

Reedx wrote: post #245
dragonwriter wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which would make sense, no? They're playing the odds. It's exceedingly rare for any upper-middle class woman to commit a crime. Our “knowledge” of who commitd crimes is distorted by societal biases that influence the ascription of blame; there is no set of crime statistics that is immune from that. So, when you justify those biases on the bases of the understanding that they distort, you make a circular argument, w…

Women commit very few crimes compared to men. That's not bias, it's a fact. I wasn't talking about how it should be used in court (it shouldn't).

> Women commit very few crimes compared to men. That's not bias, it's a fact.

All methods of assessing who commits crime are subject to societal biases (and largely the same set of biases, so you can't negate them by combining multiple sources). There's no unbiased oracle to consult for true criminal guilt.

And that is even leaving aside that many crimes are defined in ways that, while they are “objective” in the sense that term is used in legal jargon, actual guilt or innocence is itself fundamentally not an objective fact.

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

#262

Post by jakeogh »

Now pair that with "basic income". Same thing will happen anywhere that awful idea is put in place. Got a ticket? No worries; we already deducted it;)

Public transit and free money are just two of many ways to increase the people's dependence on the state. Next up is the "opportunity" of pre-programmed cars.

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

#264

Post by davrosthedalek »

throwawayjava wrote: post #225
sgift wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US will ban you from flying if you are politically controversial [1] The provided source doesn't support this claim. The only part which could even remotely be constructed as support for this claim would be 3 and the anecdata there include "He suspects" and "He thinks" - on the other, that you can end on such a list without knowing the reason (and often without recourse afair) is a real problem, but that's not…

So I suppose it's possible that a professor with controversial opinions ended up on a no-fly list for some reason completely unrelated to his politics. Occam's razor, though... There are other abuses that we have concrete evidence of. E.g., refusing the cooperate with the FBI. ( https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/laws... ). Hell, up until 2005, the TSA used CREDIT SCORES as a component in decidin…

Yes, Occam's razor. Professors tend to hold controversial opinions. Random people will end up on the no-fly list. Sooner or later, that random person will be a professor with controversial opinions.

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

#265

Post by eddieplan9 »

newnewpdro wrote: post #154

Get ready for more China stabbing sprees [1] as the consequences of this become increasingly felt by their society. This strikes me as an obviously bad idea, but perhaps there are no good solutions with a population of that size. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenpeng_Village_Primary_Schoo...

Please do not try to rationalize a completely bullshit way of governing by citing there is no better way. It's an insult to the people victimized by this. I am a Chinese expat, and their stupid policy now says I cannot fly in China because I only have a passport and not a National ID.

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

#267

Post by Aunche »

_bxg1 wrote: post #223
jdietrich wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the restrictions that US law places on convicted felons. Millions of Americans have been stripped of constitutional rights, often for infractions as minor as stealing a coat or possessing half an ounce of marijuana. Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted" is a practical reality in the US.

Not to imply that the American system is good, but at least here the things that can get you into that status are discrete, well-defined actions. With the "social credit system" things are much more fluid and subjective, so there's going to be a much greater culture of fear surrounding it. Granted, we have the same problems with our own credit system, but at least ours only applies to and is affected by finances. The…

> at least here the things that can get you into that status are discrete, well-defined actions.

According to the article, the actions described seem like discrete and well-defined like giving false information about terrorism, and not paying fines.

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

#268

Post by nothis »

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'

Interesting way to look at how inequality grows and IMO totally logical. It's scary as fuck, especially since China is on the verge of becoming very powerful on an international level.

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

#269

Post by patmorgan23 »

vanadium wrote: post #250
mikeash wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Virginia, felony larceny starts at $200, easily within coat range. I once had jury duty and was faced with the prospect of sentencing the defendant to up to 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving stolen goods valued at least $200. I got rejected from the jury, probably because I said I couldn’t possibly consider 20 years in prison for that.

Jury nullification is still definitely a thing. The trick is actually getting on the jury.

Yep the fastest way to get the kick off a jury is to mention your support for jury nullification. Sometime it's the judge that will dismissed you insted if one of the lawyers.

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

#270

Post by TallGuyShort »

ams6110 wrote: post #161
jdietrich wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the restrictions that US law places on convicted felons. Millions of Americans have been stripped of constitutional rights, often for infractions as minor as stealing a coat or possessing half an ounce of marijuana. Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted" is a practical reality in the US.

> Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing. This is the marketplace at work. It's not a government-imposed ban on access to public services.

It's certainly government-enabled as others have said. We have this principle of "innocent-until-proven-guilty" (although certainly in the media and in some more practical aspects of our judicial system that seems to get forgotten), but I think we need to consider more this idea of how someone gets innocent again. Do all felonies justify having someone labelled as a felon for life, knowing that it hinders their ability to productively participate in society again? Absolutely not. Especially if we really believe our "correctional" facilities correct people instead of just inflicting suffering, we ought to be trying harder to let go of people's pasts once it's behind him. Would I hire a white-collar criminal to handle sensitive business records? Probably not. But would I hire a guy who beat up an attacker and took it too far to fix my car? No reason no to. Yet we don't have enough nuance in our system to handle stuff like that, and no reason for businesses to do anything but discriminate indiscriminately. If one doesn't hire felons, one doesn't hire felons. And unless you can get things expunged, you're kinda screwed with a sort of life sentence.
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