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China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

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Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#111

Post by anon4 »

31reasons wrote: post #81
Red_Tarsius wrote: post #22

This is madness. I thought I was reading a fake article. > the system is 'very ambitious in both depth and scope, including scrutinizing individual behavior and what books people read. It's Amazon's consumer tracking with an Orwellian political twist.' What a coincidence. Recently I had to decide whether to buy books on politics for kindle. I didn't like the fact that it tracks everything I buy, what sentences I high…

>>It's funny to imagine social hackers buying tons of diapers to get on top of the rankings. In that case government might release guidelines by which buying diapers without its need become criminal offense.

Oh but then you'll donate the diapers. And since your score will be determined by what others think of you, pretty soon there will form feedback rings pushing their scores higher and higher.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#112

Post by shit_parade2 »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #86
adventured wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know a single person that doesn't have a very low, highly critical opinion of the US Government already. That includes essentially universal skepticism of Congress. So yes, I think Americans criticize their government almost as a professional sport. Non-stop 24/7, everywhere. Even for things the government isn't responsible for. I'd argue the only thing Americans are guilty of is too much complaining and crit…

Now you know (of) a single person. Our public servants are largely fine people. We get stuff that's weird because of people being dancing monkeys for campaign finance. This is actually, in my opinion, overt, specific and designed entertainment product. It's very rarely an attachment to principle or thought out - one reason Reagan did so well is that he pretty much believed a lot of what he said ( not all - you have t…

Our public servants are not fine people. They kill unarmed civilians in their custody, they kill Americans without cause nor due process, they torture innocents, admit they torture innocents, and then do nothing. Our public officials state on record that financial institutions are too big to jail then proceed to use the law to terrify and ruin the lives of those who dare defy their agenda.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#113

Post by olefoo »

My gut reaction ( being an anglo, American, redneck, privileged, don't tread on me kind of person ) is that this is horrible.

But thinking deeper on it I wonder if this is what Chinese Democracy looks like. The goal being maximal harmony, rather than maximal personal freedom. The method being a constant polling of all participants by all participants rather than occasional polling of those who can be bothered to vote.

It looks alien to us because it is alien to us.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#114

Post by smtddr »

rmxt wrote: post #93
rhino369 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why people are not interested in the alleged US government over reaches is because we still fundamentally trust our government to do the right thing. Americans just don't give a shit if the government has access to your data, because so far it doesn't use it. This is why the John Oliver segment a few weeks back showed that when people thought their sexts were actually able to be viewed, they were outraged.…

Please speak for yourself, instead of relying on what "we" or "the people" want for apparent authority. Sexts are actually able to be viewed, and have been in the past: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-nsa-abuses-are-self-repo... You are right that people generally do take offense only when presented with gross and abject violations of their privacy, but to say that people shouldn't care about what the government…

No, OP is right. It's a collective "we". http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014

Most people trust USgov; apparently just last year we were only 2 points behind Japan. My impression of Japan is that most people there are very trusting of their society/rules/system/etc, so for USA to be just 2 points behind Japan is a significant(and disappointing) bit of info.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#115

Post by balabaster »

osazuwa wrote: post #57

This is bad. But before judging China, people need to ask themselves if the hold their own government to the same standard of criticism. As an American, I feel if the US government had similar plans and someone had leaked them on Wikileaks, there would be more conversation about the leaker's girlfriend than outrage about the plans themselves.

Or if the leaker was a traitor or a patriot before issuing ad hominem attacks against him in order to bolster popular opinion when he or she is whisked away to Gitmo in the name of "national security."

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#116

Post by 1971genocide »

adventured wrote: post #61
wsxcde wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To offer a cynical perspective from a formerly colonized country, it seems to me that what made Australia, the UK, the US, Canada etc. successful is blatant disregard for human rights and equality when they were going through the same phase that China is going through now. To take the US as an example, the Europeans just came to North America, pretty much killed or made life miserable for the native americans, stole…

When it comes to the environment, you're accusing based on things that were not well understood in 1870-1910 when the US went through its industrial revolution. The health effect correlation with specific chemicals was extremely poorly understood when the US went through its industrial revolution. The progress of chemical and biological sciences were still in the first inning. The understanding of how certain chemica…

Not really. Have you heard of lead paint and gasoline ? The Ancient Greeks knew lead was poisonous - didn't stop american companies from using it since it improved profit.

Source : Cosmos by NDTyson

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#117

Post by yc1010 »

adventured wrote: post #60
osazuwa wrote: post #57

This is bad. But before judging China, people need to ask themselves if the hold their own government to the same standard of criticism. As an American, I feel if the US government had similar plans and someone had leaked them on Wikileaks, there would be more conversation about the leaker's girlfriend than outrage about the plans themselves.

I don't know a single person that doesn't have a very low, highly critical opinion of the US Government already. That includes essentially universal skepticism of Congress. So yes, I think Americans criticize their government almost as a professional sport. Non-stop 24/7, everywhere. Even for things the government isn't responsible for. I'd argue the only thing Americans are guilty of is too much complaining and crit…

Ah "change"... yes...

http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

"Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process."

I am surprised the page is still up!

disclaimer: I am not American but like a lot of Americans I know I am disappointed with Obama too, mind you the politicians here in Ireland are also lying and power-grabbing scumbags :(

like the saying goes “democ­racy is the worst form of gov­ern­ment, except for all the oth­ers”

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#118

Post by adventured »

CodeCube wrote: post #100
adventured wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know a single person that doesn't have a very low, highly critical opinion of the US Government already. That includes essentially universal skepticism of Congress. So yes, I think Americans criticize their government almost as a professional sport. Non-stop 24/7, everywhere. Even for things the government isn't responsible for. I'd argue the only thing Americans are guilty of is too much complaining and crit…

You must not know a lot of people ;) That was a mostly joking jab ... but seriously, have you looked at a demographics map of the US? In between just about every blue city/urban center, there are broad swaths of rural red. Many of these folks are of the opinion that what the government does is right, and we shouldn't question cause they know best. Which is ironic given their love of "small government" ... but when th…

In my 34 years I've never met someone that had an overwhelmingly positive view of the US Government. Not a single person. The only thing I've seen is very selective, mostly partisan focused cheering, on the rare occasions when a party does something its partisans like. The next minute they're back to griping about government, for one reason or another.

Tune into the news, and you're all but guaranteed to see non-stop anger, criticism, and rejection of government actions, policies, and politicians in general from the population of the US. That is true whether you're talking about Jon Stewart spending half his show mocking the government for something, or the right wing at Fox News.

Every poll that gets done comes back with Congress having epic low ratings. That has been the case for a long time.

This goes back before the time of Mark Twain mocking the US Government, it was a very popular sport even then. For 200 years, there has been a consistent bashing of Congress and its actions in the press and popular culture.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#119

Post by rmxt »

smtddr wrote: post #114
rmxt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please speak for yourself, instead of relying on what "we" or "the people" want for apparent authority. Sexts are actually able to be viewed, and have been in the past: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-nsa-abuses-are-self-repo... You are right that people generally do take offense only when presented with gross and abject violations of their privacy, but to say that people shouldn't care about what the government…

No, OP is right. It's a collective "we". http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014 Most people trust USgov; apparently just last year we were only 2 points behind Japan. My impression of Japan is that most people there are very trusting of their society/rules/system/etc, so for USA to be just 2 points behind Japan is a significant (and disappointing) bit of info.

I take no issue with making it a sourced statement of fact, e.g., "75% of Americans approve of the X, Y, Z programs in a 2014 Gallup poll." But to vaguely reference the current state of public opinion and use that as a basis for a normative statement that approves of the government's actions is frustrating. It dodges a discussion of the merits of the programs in favor of a "the public approves it, and no harm is being done, so no one should take issue" sort of stance.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#120

Post by kristofferR »

ginko wrote: post #90
bdamm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, private companies in the United States already do this. The question is what will the data be used for?

This might show my European perspective, but I'd rather have my government collect such data than some unaccountable private entity. Even better if no one does it of course.

What makes you think the government would be accountable?
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