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…
You can also bring up japan as a counter-example. It's even safer and cleaner & it's still a democracy!
China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
471–480 of 602 posts
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea that episode the "credit" was objective based on random people's opinions. According to the article, they claim that you have to not pay fines, or smoke on a train to ruin your social credit.
Or piss off some random party official, or have non-mainstream political opinions, etc... Once a system like this is in place it will be abused. It's practically designed to be abused. Where is the accountability?
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will be interesting to see what the US resembles when its numbers exceed 1 billion people. China in many ways is simply setting the precedent now, how the US follows remains to be seen.
US exceeding a billion people? All countries except some in Africa are on a population decline long term. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/2c9342e9aa17d2237eade9... https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-... https://vimeo.com/79878808
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#Populatio...
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does the United States actually practice slavery in the prison system in any fashion? Yes, and it is precisely the reason the US is one of the few eligible countries not to have ratified the main current treaty against slavery, the ILO Forced Labor Convention. > My understanding is that work is optional Prison labor is generally mandatory for able-bodied prisoners in the federal system, and this is true in some sta…
Note: this topic is a horrible derail from the OP. >> Does the United States actually practice slavery in the prison system in any fashion? >Yes, and it is precisely the reason the US is one of the few eligible countries not to have ratified the main current treaty against slavery, the ILO Forced Labor Convention. That's false. Involuntary servitude is not slavery. Here's the definition of slave: > a person who is th…
Able bodied inmates have no choice whether or not to work when ordered to. Companies routinely rent prison labor to avoid having to pay employee wages for work. Private prisons routinely sell non-able bodied inmates to state run prisons. An inmate can neither purchase their freedom nor purchase out of servitude.
That there is a time limit on inmate ownership does not mean there is no ownership.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
US exceeding a billion people? All countries except some in Africa are on a population decline long term. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/2c9342e9aa17d2237eade9... https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-... https://vimeo.com/79878808
Though note that it really is long-term.. it takes a couple generations for the population to stop increasing after birth rates drop, since the previous generation still contained more children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#Populatio...
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-16/decline-i...
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#476I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel docu…
> I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. It's terrible, it's even happening directly in the replies do you. This whole post has been almost totally derailed by whataboutism, and a lot of it is literally textbook : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practic…
The idea that the Russians invented rejecting someone's argument on the grounds that the person making the argument is a hypocrite strikes me as rather unlikely. I also see problems with the idea that we can simply dismiss complaints about racism as textbook Russian propaganda.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#477I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel docu…
That is indeed true. But then, cultures of China and the West are very different. Judging either by the standards of the other is bound to be contentious.
Also, there's arguably some observer bias in the West's pride. Changes in the US after 9/11 were dramatic! What if radical Islamic fundamentalists had done a better job? More waves of attacks, soon after the first?
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#478I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel docu…
> Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. That is indeed true. But then, cultures of China and the West are very different. Judging either by the standards of the other is bound to be contentious. Also, there's arguably some observer bias in the West's pride. Changes in the US after 9/11 were dramatic ! What if radical Islamic fundamentalists had done a better job? More waves of attacks, soon…
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#479I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel docu…
> I am a Chinese expat, and thanks to this policy, I cannot fly in China because I don't have a National ID. A Chinese passport won't do. This is patently not true. There are plenty of Chinese in the previous generation that gave up their hukou/ID card as required when they gained permanent residency in another country, and use their passport internally (when returning to work in China) like us foreigners must (it se…
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. It's terrible, it's even happening directly in the replies do you. This whole post has been almost totally derailed by whataboutism, and a lot of it is literally textbook : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practic…
Perhaps double-replying is bad form but this is still bothering me. Soviets may have deployed the issue cynically, but black people really were being lynched, it really did compromise America's moral leadership on human rights, and embarrassment over the issue was a significant part of what spurred the federal government to begin to intervene. To the extent that you, as I do, view the creation of a relatively plurali…
That is definitely exactly what happened. We would say something about them invading Afghanistan or forcibly making satellite states in the Warsaw pact, and they would instantly come back with "Well, we're not the ones lynching black people." It's remarkably persuasive if you don't think it through.