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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

#301

Post by yladiz »

Aunche wrote: post #279
jakeogh wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not paying fines" is about as open and fluid as it gets.

How is that open and fluid? Did you verify it by reading the law or did you just assume Big Scary China will do bad things? Lots of states in the US will suspend your driver's license for failing to pay non-traffic-related fines.

It's not inconceivable for China to make all people part of a particular province required to pay a fee/fine for something arbitrary and take away their privileges to travel if they don't. They already don't even need that much to take away passports of Uyghur people in the northwest of China.

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

#302

Post by wetback »

rrggrr wrote: post #149
dev_throw wrote: post #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 s…

Next steps: 1. Extend social credit to non-Chinese living in China. 2. Expand to companies and individuals doing business with or visiting in China. 3. Export the program to finance dependent nations outside China. 4. Require companies depending on Chinese income to enforce the regulations in a 'know your customer'-esque format. There will be less resistance to this than one might think.

And just like that, Compliance becomes a virtue.

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

#303

Post by yladiz »

Aunche wrote: post #243

This article is typical western fear-mongering. China can already arbitrarily detain political dissidents if they want to. This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws.

> This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws.

I don't agree. It's more about making people compliant with what the government wants in society, and making those who don't follow the "social" rules in the country subject to various restrictions, essentially limiting their freedom if they don't do what the government wants. In essence they're attempting to legitimize their arbitrary policies by making it about something vaguely enforceable.

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

#304

Post by Slansitartop »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #292
adventured wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does whataboutism about bad US policy improve the nature or standing of China's bad policy?

I merely bring it up because it's something we can improve in the U.S. It does not excuse China, which seems to go two steps further down a bad road.

> I merely bring it up because it's something we can improve in the U.S. It does not excuse China, which seems to go two steps further down a bad road.

However, the actual effect of bring that up is to:

1) Blunt criticism of this newly implemented Chinese policy.

2) Distract everyone from it with a debate about US policy.

No one's talking about improving the US OR China here. Because of the whataboutism, we're derailing on if the two are morally comparable or not, which suits the Chinese authoritarians just fine.

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

#305

Post by 908087 »

CCP is truly the Facebook of governments. No wonder Zuckerberg was trying to get the Chinese president to name his kid.

Hopefully I'm wrong on this, but I expect a similar program to end up in the US within the next 5-10 years. At first, US citizens/media/government officials will collectively point and say "look over there, China is doing bad things". Next, companies like Facebook/Google/Palantir will start (officially) working with the US government to implement something nearly identical, but slightly less bad in some relatively meaningless way, here (or, in other words, bring whatever they've already been working on behind the scenes up to the surface), and the party line will change to "b-b-but China did it first!" / "at least we aren't as bad as China" / "something something what about the children / the terrorists / [bogeyman of the week]".

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

#306

Post by crankylinuxuser »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #297
jMyles wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bunch of bigoted hogwash. How many times must the particulars of the system be documented and disseminated before these arguments go away completely? If you are white and wealthy, then drug possession is against the law only in vague terms on paper. It is not your practical reality. That's how the drug war has been made into the new jim crow. It's astonishingly simple, and very real. > If you wish to stay out…

> If you are white and wealthy, then drug possession is against the law only in vague terms on paper. Not to discount your other points, but this is exactly how the Chinese system will work as well. (and already does in other respects from what I have heard and read) > What a bunch of bigoted hogwash. What did he say that was bigoted? (I am serious, by the actual definition [0], not the pejorative commonly thrown aro…

"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”"

--Lee Atwater

Just because you don't directly say "nigger", doesn't mean the policies aren't directed towards african americans.

And we also know for a fact that cannabis was made illegal because "it would make blacks want white women". And, it was also easier to criminalize the peaceful actions of citizens they see as "undesirable" and then throw them in prison for a long time.

So yeah, bigoted.

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

#307

Post by elgenie »

dev_throw wrote: post #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 s…

> Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar.

Strict laws with little enforcement also means that the enforcement can be restricted squarely towards marginalized people and discretion used to avoid enforcement against anyone else.

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

#308

Post by stuffedBelly »

I am Chinese and I can see how this can be exploited by both vigilente groups and the government to target individuals using the "spreading false information" clause alone. There are so many ways to trick people into spreading false information. More importantly, people are not the one to decide what is considered "false", the government is.

It might be ok to make people with bad credit harder to purchase non life-essential stuff such as cars (you heard it, cars are not essentials in many countries), but they shouldn't be treated as criminals.

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

#309

Post by triangleman »

adventured wrote: post #232
meatbundragon wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First sentence of the Stadium article: > A court in China has sentenced 10 people to death, mostly for drug-related crimes, in front of thousands of onlookers before taking them away for execution. Did you mean sentencing in instead of executing? Based on the article you linked, the executions seem to have occurred elsewhere.

I didn't mean to imply they were shot in the stadium. That's my mistake if it was taken that way.

Yes, it was clearly implied. There are indeed countries, like Saudi Arabia, where this sort of thing happens.

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

#310

Post by davrosthedalek »

mikeash wrote: post #289
davrosthedalek wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My English might fail me here, but if you think about a 20 year sentence and find it not adequate to the crime, wouldn't you have "considered" it? I can understand why the question is asked though. The jury is there to find facts, i.e. define what has happened. The judge will then find the "correct" sentence if found guilty. The jury should not be swayed to a not guilty finding if they believe a guilty would be corre…

Virginia is unique here. Juries perform sentencing, not just finding of guilt. That’s why they asked the question.

Interesting. It certainly brings the risk of vengeful sentencing. But that brings me back to my original question: Would they have lied if they would have said "I would consider 20 years", already having made up their mind about it?
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