China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour • Hacker News Board

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#151

Post by superuser2 » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:00 PM UTC

xnull6guest wrote: post #104

vorg wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries such as the US and Australia already implement much of what the article describes: credit rating, criminal record, financial assets, standarized test scores, educational and employment records, residential history, searchable online presence, with the greatest weighting given to financial assets of course because how much money someone has trumps all. The main differences with the announced Chinese plan are…

The social criteria is questionable. If the Federal Government cares, do you not think they can dredge your social media interactions? Do you not think that they do this for presidential candidates and those applying for top brass positions? Do you think they don't have numerical indicators to prioritize and sort the hundreds of millions of profiles they have on American citizens? They very near most certainly do.

Where do you imagine that this system is applied? What China is working on is more akin to credit ratings in that it is openly part of decision making processes for non-shadowy actors. The NSA might have such a system internally but there's not evidence to suggest it would affect your life in any way (if you are a US citizen inside the US).

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#152

Post by xnull6guest » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:10 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #149

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…

I want to go further with this idea. What we need to do is understand why both nations are doing this. What reasons do they have? Why does it seem like a good idea? Are they the same reasons? Are they somehow fundamental? How much choice is there in how these behaviors are implemented? Are there alternatives with other tradeoffs that appeal to the underlying reasons and if so why was this solution chosen?

Sometimes this leads us, especially if we feel the urge to repeat standard bylines, to conclude that "The People's Party are just evil, and that's why they do it." But if the reason for doing it were merely evilness, then we might also conclude the US does it for evilness - something that isn't as much of a goto by-line.

I don't really fully understand why all major governments surveil, censor, propagandize and profile their (and other) citizens - but comparing history with 21st century challenges give us pretty good hints. First, it seems fairly natural for countries to exercise some forms of control of their populations, both to provide a common security and stability (something citizens for the most part benefit from) and to preserve its own institutions (something every government is compelled by).

Specifically in the 21st century it is common practice to utilize international propaganda to disrupt and destabilize opponent populations, foment revolutions by exporting dissent, and to misinform foreign citizens during diplomacy and geostrategy efforts. Indeed, both democracies and countries that mimic the machinations of democracies, need to gain of appear to gain public support for initiatives based on complicated, centralized or even secret initiatives do actually benefit countries as a whole. In many ways autocratic institutions need to control their people less than semi-democratic institutions since ultimately some king or body of diplomats make decisions without the input of citizens.

Digressing further it is doing this sort of analysis that can show why a state engages with the practices that it does. If there is a large desire to reform practices it is these end reasons that must be challenged if the behavior is to alter.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#153

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:14 PM UTC

xnull6guest wrote: post #152

joe_the_user wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* 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…

I want to go further with this idea. What we need to do is understand why both nations are doing this. What reasons do they have? Why does it seem like a good idea? Are they the same reasons? Are they somehow fundamental? How much choice is there in how these behaviors are implemented? Are there alternatives with other tradeoffs that appeal to the underlying reasons and if so why was this solution chosen? Sometimes t…

> Specifically in the 21st century it is common practice to utilize international propaganda to disrupt and destabilize opponent populations, foment revolutions by exporting dissent, and to misinform foreign citizens during diplomacy and geostrategy efforts.

This was all common in the 20th Century, particularly the latter half, as well.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#154

Post by xnull6guest » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:19 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #151

xnull6guest wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social criteria is questionable. If the Federal Government cares, do you not think they can dredge your social media interactions? Do you not think that they do this for presidential candidates and those applying for top brass positions? Do you think they don't have numerical indicators to prioritize and sort the hundreds of millions of profiles they have on American citizens? They very near most certainly do.

Where do you imagine that this system is applied? What China is working on is more akin to credit ratings in that it is openly part of decision making processes for non-shadowy actors. The NSA might have such a system internally but there's not evidence to suggest it would affect your life in any way (if you are a US citizen inside the US).

Definitely the flags and scoring systems the US has in place are not part of a public conversation in the United States, are not used by US employers (for example) during job applications, etc. I agree that this makes the system very different in kind despite similarities in form.

I imagine that the US currently uses this to prioritize domestic investigations for the FBI and law enforcement.

I imagine that the US currently uses this during the process of vetting membership to the intelligence community, other sensitive positions, political leadership (I forget which NSA whistleblower mentioned the targeted surveillance of then president-prospect Obama), and for security clearances.

I imagine that the US currently uses this to find and disrupt politically minded groups and to deal with narrative challenges inside the United States.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#155

Post by xnull6guest » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:24 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #153

xnull6guest wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to go further with this idea. What we need to do is understand why both nations are doing this. What reasons do they have? Why does it seem like a good idea? Are they the same reasons? Are they somehow fundamental? How much choice is there in how these behaviors are implemented? Are there alternatives with other tradeoffs that appeal to the underlying reasons and if so why was this solution chosen? Sometimes t…

> Specifically in the 21st century it is common practice to utilize international propaganda to disrupt and destabilize opponent populations, foment revolutions by exporting dissent, and to misinform foreign citizens during diplomacy and geostrategy efforts. This was all common in the 20th Century, particularly the latter half, as well.

Yes. With a matured and global internet anonymous bloggers, leakers, sources to journalists, news agencies, targetted ads, twitter campaigns, social media experiences and search rankings are fabricated and altered to assist in these ends. The social analysis used by corporations to get branding and commercials to 'go viral' are used by governments to target individuals that disseminate social influence to wider audiences. The techniques and capabilities have grown over time and the access and affordability means more of it is done by more actors.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#156

Post by ArkyBeagle » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:06 AM UTC

shit_parade2 wrote: post #112

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So there are bad people who are public officials, and there are people who are in over their head.

The vast majority are dedicated professionals.

"Too big to jail" happened because we tried to use mortgages for this bizarre social welfare hack. A conservative economist and writer - Charles Calomiris, with his coauthor S. Haber - picks this apart pretty well.

Emphasis we, though.

The few cases where I can think of "using the law to terrify and ruin..." are pretty complicated and there's plenty of "WTF?" to go 'round.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#157

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:15 AM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #156

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.

So there are bad people who are public officials, and there are people who are in over their head. The vast majority are dedicated professionals. "Too big to jail" happened because we tried to use mortgages for this bizarre social welfare hack. A conservative economist and writer - Charles Calomiris, with his coauthor S. Haber - picks this apart pretty well. Emphasis we , though. The few cases where I can think of "u…

> "Too big to jail" happened because we tried to use mortgages for

No, it didn't.

Too big to jail happened because money drives political influence, and the people responsible for the collapse of Wall Street have the latter because of the former.

If you mean the collapse itself happened for that reason, that's not true either. To the extent the "social welfare hack" thing is true, it was being done for decades before the bubble even started building. The frauds that lead into the buble and collapse didn't happen because of that, they happened because of the regulatory structures put into place designed to prevent exactly that kind of thing after the Great Depression were removed; at the time that occurred, critics warned that doing that would lead to exactly the kind of shenanigans that, in fact, occurred.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#158

Post by olefoo » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 2:42 AM UTC

UweSchmidt wrote: post #124

olefoo wrote: post #113

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 you because you haven't come to terms with the fundamental shift in technology (all the data that is created, collected and analyzed) and politics in western society (using said data in the name of security). The current trend is to gather all data and to use it in any way possible, regardless if you're in China or if you have a Confederate flag on your truck.

Just an FYI a confederate flag is as offensive to most thinking Americans as a Swastika flag would be to most thinking Germans. For various reasons we don't currently ban their display. But it is and should be a quick route to political irrelevance to claim it as your own.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#159

Post by allan_s » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 3:18 AM UTC

does somebody has a link to some Chinese press news about that ?

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#160

Post by ArkyBeagle » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 3:42 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #157

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are bad people who are public officials, and there are people who are in over their head. The vast majority are dedicated professionals. "Too big to jail" happened because we tried to use mortgages for this bizarre social welfare hack. A conservative economist and writer - Charles Calomiris, with his coauthor S. Haber - picks this apart pretty well. Emphasis we , though. The few cases where I can think of "u…

> "Too big to jail" happened because we tried to use mortgages for No, it didn't. Too big to jail happened because money drives political influence, and the people responsible for the collapse of Wall Street have the latter because of the former. If you mean the collapse itself happened for that reason, that's not true either. To the extent the "social welfare hack" thing is true, it was being done for decades before…

The decades of bubble building is exactly the root cause.

The regulatory framework - I presume you mean Glass-Steagall - has never been shown to have been capable of preventing this sort of thing. Even people who advocate for it - mainly Paul Vocker - admit this. Keeping investment and deposit banking separate had nought to do with it. There might have been other "firewalls" but I've yet to see a proprosal that has been identified as sufficient to prevent this sort of thing.

Fraud was fraud; whether policy to push lousy mortgages came from Fannie/Freddie/Congress or not isn't all that controversial to me - I am sure it is true because of the evidence. But it is controversial to some.

The ideas behind the mortgage buildup were just that - ideas - that were accepted by a broad spectrum of people.

And neither you nor anyone else can show that money driving political influence has one thing to do with it. It was the style of the times. There was a cycle of deregulation beginning with Jimmy Carter.

Might be that Dick Armey was bought and paid for, but I am pretty sure he would have advocated for deregulation regardless out of ideology anyway.

The only idea I am aware of that may have made a difference is that Brooksley Born wanted CDOs/CDSs on exchanges, and we simply don't know what would have happened. It is bad that she was shouted down, but that has more to do with certain foibles in how things like the regulation that is there works, and with how the Fed interacts with those.

She was, in effect, a heretic, a Jeremiah who was not listened to. And it's a black mark on us. But we don't know.

Greenspan's mea culpa covers it - he did not know that banks really weren't doing the proper risk analysis.

But we just do these things. We have bubbles. There will be more before it's over. "Nation of Deadbeats" is quite the book.