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China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

volkskrant.nl

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Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#141

Post by squeaky-clean »

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.

One difference to me is that a private entity is (hopefully) restricted to only capturing data through their own channels. i.e. Google can track everything I search, all of my emails within gmail, etc. But they cannot track a hotmail account, they can't read my text messages, etc. If I'm not OK with the tracking, I have other alternatives, or can choose not to use any of them. But there's nothing stopping the government from intercepting anything I do.

Of course in reality right now, every single channel I go through is a Google channel. I'm writing this comment within Google Chrome, while an Android phone sits arms length from me. Heck, I even route all my non-gmail accounts into gmail. So while it feels different, I guess it really isn't.

And this might show my American perspective, but I trust Google with my data more than the US government (not saying I trust Google, just that I trust the government less). Google is an organization founded on technology, and have shown that they care about pushing forward in innovation in digital security. The US Gov didn't originate because of the internet and haven't really demonstrated a mastery of it.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#142

Post by fineman »

anon4 wrote: post #110
guard-of-terra wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamma is not "the middle class", it's "blue collar". You don't really need deltas and epsilons in the long run. Unless they are very cheap to have, robots are going to replace them.

In the really long run, why would you need anything other than Alphas?

Because it's the hierarchy that defines you. An Alpha, alone, is indistinguishable from an Epsilon. See Veblen Good; if nobody looks at your rolex it's just a heavy timex.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#143

Post by shit_parade2 »

xnull6guest wrote: post #125
shit_parade2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Our public servants are not good or evil. They are merely people responding to the incentives that they are faced with. This means that they are incentivised to behave by fear of losing their jobs, by financial contributions and kickbacks, by legacy, by moral sentiment, by haste and convenience, by duty. There are very few to no public servants who feel that what they are doing is wrong - and you might agree with som…

To be clear you, not me nor the parent, but you introduced good and evil into the conversation. We were discussing fine, as in decent or humane.

But if the words good and evil are to mean anything then the torture and murder of innocents must qualify as evil. Spare me your grad school real-politics analysis, none of which justifies torture because it categorically cannot be justified.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#144

Post by shit_parade2 »

HSO wrote: post #39
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…

> 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 highlight, the notes I keep... I bet my libertarian books would make my score very low in future China. This is why I keep "pirating" and hoarding books. I know it's bad for the common good and bad for the authors but I feel paranoid about corporations and national security…

Seems like checksums could solve the issue of minor textual edits of classic texts. Sites like project Gutenberg could even keysign texts if we thought this a major concern.

I wouldn't mind an apt-get 1984.txt

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#145

Post by jacquesm »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #141
ginko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One difference to me is that a private entity is (hopefully) restricted to only capturing data through their own channels. i.e. Google can track everything I search, all of my emails within gmail, etc. But they cannot track a hotmail account, they can't read my text messages, etc. If I'm not OK with the tracking, I have other alternatives, or can choose not to use any of them. But there's nothing stopping the governm…

> The US Gov didn't originate because of the internet and haven't really demonstrated a mastery of it.

I think they've shown plenty of mastery of it.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#146

Post by xnull6guest »

shit_parade2 wrote: post #143
xnull6guest wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our public servants are not good or evil. They are merely people responding to the incentives that they are faced with. This means that they are incentivised to behave by fear of losing their jobs, by financial contributions and kickbacks, by legacy, by moral sentiment, by haste and convenience, by duty. There are very few to no public servants who feel that what they are doing is wrong - and you might agree with som…

To be clear you, not me nor the parent, but you introduced good and evil into the conversation. We were discussing fine, as in decent or humane. But if the words good and evil are to mean anything then the torture and murder of innocents must qualify as evil. Spare me your grad school real-politics analysis, none of which justifies torture because it categorically cannot be justified.

Thank you. Yes I introduced it as terminology because I felt it was present in content without the terminology before I spoke my piece.

You misunderstand me. I am neither justifying nor trying to justify torture. I am trying to show why nations convince themselves that torture is justifiable. The calculus of nations - their realpolitik - exists in a world where an analysis of torture makes it seem sensible (entirely tangential to its being reprehensible).

To add more here: what I'm saying is that if every modern nation actively participates in these behaviors we must go beyond good and evil to understand the behavior - there only appears to be relative good rather than an exaggerated excluded middle. A realist, realpolitik analysis affords us a way of understanding the points of contention and the contradictions that incentivize those nations and their representatives to participate in reprehensible activity.

Wherein comes 'constructive realism': if it is incentives and power conflict that incentivize reprehensible acts then we can fix the acts not by voting for new representatives but by changing the conditions that lead to contentions. The realpolitik analysis is not a cynical analysis or one that is doomed to justify behavior: it is instead one that places the responsibility on conditions and context as much as specific actors.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#147

Post by deniszgonjanin »

mike_hearn wrote: post #126
rapind wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it wrong that the first thought in my mind is how to influence their ratings at scale? "Diaper stuffing" while humourus is probably not far off the initial reputation optimization schemes that have probably already commenced. I'd say there's a good chance you'll be able to buy your way to a top score while the poor become the geocities of citizens.

* I'd say there's a good chance you'll be able to buy your way to a top score* This is a country that imposes the death penalty for corruption. Social hacking isn't something that is going to happen there.

In a system where social ranking determines opportunity, employment, and all other aspects of life - you better believe social hacking is going to happen.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#148

Post by joe_the_user »

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.

I would assume the ranking system will work such that having a high rank isn't that valuable but having a low rank is very bad and looking like you're trying to hack the system doubling bad. Thus I'd assume hacking would be a high-risk, low-reward activity.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#149

Post by joe_the_user »

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.

* But before judging China, people need to ask themselves if the hold their own government to the same standard of criticism.*

Not really. We should judge China immediately as bad and then go on to look at our own states (which aren't terribly good). The "let's get perspective on this repression" argument is always a sham, whether it is made by China, by the US or whoever. We need to look at all governments but never to say "the badness here makes this other action OK".

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#150

Post by katbyte »

toothbrush wrote: post #40
captainmuon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, a mixture of that, and a few others: - Criminal records / record of conduct - Tracking by various advertising companies, market research, etc. - Whatever records NSA, FBI etc. keep on you. This doesn't even have to be a file-per-person, but they have your metadata, and if you stick out, you might come under closer scrutinty. The difference is that these sources are not pulled together. Also as a sibling post n…

> That's why you can have big posters in China saying things like "Friends! Be virtuous and vigilant!" I'm not sure what you want to imply, but i just got back from London where each and every public transport facility (bus, tube, train) kept repeating over the PA that "any suspicious people or parcels" should be reported to a member of staff. Or something like that. We're not really that different -- i would be surp…

here (Vancouver Canada) we have similar security ads all over out transit system

https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#0 https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#1

We also have ones promoting considerate social behavior:

http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#0 http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#1

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