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

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#161

Post by mc32 » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #70

mc32 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to reduce people to statistics, all you need is ideology and believe in a better future brought to you through ideology. Ideology is the real bastard.

> Ideology is the real bastard. Careful there. Liberalism, for example, is an ideology. And as far as the meaning of that word can be formalized, pragmatism fits too.

Yes and with pragmatism you get Realpolitik, which may be a decent position to maximize some goals but can have nasty results as well if you're not careful. I dont think its possible to get away from this problem, all we can do is be aware of it as a problem and avoid the pitfalls.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#162

Post by tedks » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 3:27 AM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #17

tedks wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviet Union was run by increasingly aging and increasingly paranoid revolutionaries (literally, people who had fought a coup) who were generally unconcerned with science. The PRC is run by technocrats educated in the West. It's very nice to think that it's impossible to "create a new citizen," but the West has been doing that pretty effectively over the last few decades. I don't doubt the Chinese will be success…

"who were generally unconcerned with science" That one is far from truth. Soviet society was hugely concerned with science. They didn't lack in science in their ways; it just turned out that scientifically-sound methods often conflict with social reality and what people like. For example: while it is sound to build your cities as arrays of concrete blocks with wide roads served by public transportations, living in su…

What do you mean by "sound"? Obviously it can't mean "effective" because as you point out these plans weren't the case.

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#163

Post by sideshowb » Wed, Apr 29, 2015, 10:16 AM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #10

sideshowb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume Aoyagi meant a system like this but for monitoring, not shaping behaviour.

What's the point of monitoring things you won't be able to affect? Some agencies would love to spend the money on it tho, if allocated.

US security forces can affect things for the average person, just not the same things that China can. Not credit scores at the moment (well not legally on a mass scale), but they can for example put you on a no fly list; or if you're a non US citizen and they didn't like your "facebook" score, in this hypothetical system - they could deny you entry to the US.

So yeah this is more than just monitoring, I just called it that to distinguish it from the large scale behaviour shaping China seems to be toying with. Even having such a system in place, however, makes people behave differently: google "panopticon".

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#164

Post by sqeaky » Thu, Apr 30, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #76

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…

This comment is horrible and wrong. Thanks Obama!

:( It saddens me that such an obvious joke gets downvoted. It would be nice if people could reply when they downvote. Was the joke not received as such, what is not funny or does the community hate jokes?

Re: China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour

#165

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, May 04, 2015, 5:36 AM UTC

tedks wrote: post #162

guard-of-terra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who were generally unconcerned with science" That one is far from truth. Soviet society was hugely concerned with science. They didn't lack in science in their ways; it just turned out that scientifically-sound methods often conflict with social reality and what people like. For example: while it is sound to build your cities as arrays of concrete blocks with wide roads served by public transportations, living in su…

What do you mean by "sound"? Obviously it can't mean "effective" because as you point out these plans weren't the case.

I mean that as far as science is concerned (disregarding humanitarian sciences because they were viewed not scientific enough) this sounds like a good, efficient plan and downside takes some time to notice when you have already invested much.