China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score • Hacker News Board

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#11

Post by spacecowboy_lon » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 8:54 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #9

guard-of-terra wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One little thought: By including political loyalty in credit scores, you basically outline your political pain points. Which are usually hidden - in closed societies by censorship and pressure, in pluralistic societies by social conventions. When you go from "pain points are not known" (to a layperson) to "pain points are known but avoided", it's a step back. Yes, vocal minority now faces some pressure, instead silen…

Imagine if someone were able to fund a service to provide financial benefits based on inverting the scoring.... More realistically: It provides a (though presumably risky) means of identifying who the Chinese government is concerned about, which would potentially be of interest to dissidents as well... (risky because I presume they'll be keeping a close eye on accesses to this system, and because it of course would b…

could be a way for loan shark sand payday lone companies to work out who to target - a government provided sucker list if you like.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#12

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 8:57 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #9

guard-of-terra wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One little thought: By including political loyalty in credit scores, you basically outline your political pain points. Which are usually hidden - in closed societies by censorship and pressure, in pluralistic societies by social conventions. When you go from "pain points are not known" (to a layperson) to "pain points are known but avoided", it's a step back. Yes, vocal minority now faces some pressure, instead silen…

Imagine if someone were able to fund a service to provide financial benefits based on inverting the scoring.... More realistically: It provides a (though presumably risky) means of identifying who the Chinese government is concerned about, which would potentially be of interest to dissidents as well... (risky because I presume they'll be keeping a close eye on accesses to this system, and because it of course would b…

Every bank teller is accessing this system. At the moment when they face the person whose score they see. An ideal moment for conversion if you ask me.

Having said that, dissidents usually don't have problems with finding their ilk, neither they're looking to assemble a rank-and-file army.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#13

Post by Frqy3 » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 9:01 AM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #7

On the one hand, this is very spooky. On the other, it seems like it could be a precursor to a social currency similar to the Whuffie[0] in Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". I remember that reading that book, I couldn't help but feel that, as we move closer to a post-scarcity society, the rise of something like that would be inevitable, and might in some ways be much better than what we have now. […

I had a similar thought, though my original exposure to the concept was in Jack Vance's "To Live Forever".

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#14

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 9:01 AM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #11

vidarh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if someone were able to fund a service to provide financial benefits based on inverting the scoring.... More realistically: It provides a (though presumably risky) means of identifying who the Chinese government is concerned about, which would potentially be of interest to dissidents as well... (risky because I presume they'll be keeping a close eye on accesses to this system, and because it of course would b…

could be a way for loan shark sand payday lone companies to work out who to target - a government provided sucker list if you like.

People who need payday loans rarely dissent, they're too busy for that.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#15

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 9:36 AM UTC

It seems that people (in power; but especially ones commenting on such articles; those with cynical spin mostly) perceive life in a country as a computer game.

Where "dissidents" will happen to your country, and you have to implement "measures" to make them go away, and then you call it a day. Because game rules incentivize you to do exactly that.

The reality is: Life happens to your country. People happen to your country. Things happen to your country that are outside of your control. DDR's Stasi had kilogramms of dossiers on every its citizen, and it got scrapped in a few days with as little as a handshake.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#16

Post by vidarh » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 10:00 AM UTC

qrendel wrote: post #5

hugh4 wrote: post #2

Old-school dictatorships were so brash and clumsy the way they punished dissent with firing squads and trips to the gulag. It's just as effective to punish dissent by slowly but surely ruining the life of those who express dissenting opinions. That way, instead of making dissenters into martyrs, you just make them look like losers. Very clever, China.

Humans have basically been doing this since forever, via models like J.S. Mill's social tyranny. Here in the West we already do it to some degree through upvoting/downvoting, Facebook likes and Twitter followers, Tinder, Hot or Not, and Peeple, among others. It seems less like a new form for evil government oppression so much as one we will gladly push on each other ourselves - another evolution of using technology t…

I find it quite ironic that you're being downvoted for this.

The amount of discussions about voting even on HN makes it quite clear that even here we are engaging in social-engineering through votes. We see all over the place how people are starting comments with "I know I'll be downvoted for this, but...". Implicit in that is the admission that it takes an extra temptation or push to post something we know will face social sanctions.

Of course this scoring mechanism is worse than getting downvoted on HN or Reddit, but that does not make the comparison irrelevant.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#17

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 11:18 AM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #15

It seems that people (in power; but especially ones commenting on such articles; those with cynical spin mostly) perceive life in a country as a computer game. Where "dissidents" will happen to your country, and you have to implement "measures" to make them go away, and then you call it a day. Because game rules incentivize you to do exactly that. The reality is: Life happens to your country. People happen to your co…

In some areas, it would be so much better if countries were really ruled like sim games. You need more energy for growth and global warming threatens your future? You start building goddamn nuclear power plants. No political bickering, no clueless citizens protesting everything at random because of fear or propaganda.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#18

Post by Shivetya » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 11:19 AM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #3

Charles Stross commented on these reports, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/10/it-could... "The gamification of social conformity, overseen by an authoritarian government and mediated by nudge theory, is a thing of beauty and horror; who needs cops with nightsticks to beat up dissidents when their friends and family will give them a tongue-lashing on behalf of the government for the price of a discoun…

and here in the US its done through proxies who sue to get access to donation lists, list of those who supported petitions, access to previously courted locked documents, and such, in order to shut down speech or actions they don't like. sometimes even government agencies get involved with political activist abusing their position.

so while China might codify affecting people's credit scores and "social" score make no assumption that similar hasn't always been in Western countries, we just like to paint others as bogeymen to avoid looking at our own flaws

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#19

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 11:25 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #17

guard-of-terra wrote: post #15

It seems that people (in power; but especially ones commenting on such articles; those with cynical spin mostly) perceive life in a country as a computer game. Where "dissidents" will happen to your country, and you have to implement "measures" to make them go away, and then you call it a day. Because game rules incentivize you to do exactly that. The reality is: Life happens to your country. People happen to your co…

In some areas, it would be so much better if countries were really ruled like sim games. You need more energy for growth and global warming threatens your future? You start building goddamn nuclear power plants. No political bickering, no clueless citizens protesting everything at random because of fear or propaganda.

In some other areas, it would be a disaster. I have a habit of ditching game parties where I don't like the outcome. Do we want people to take risk and then just drop it and leave when it doesn't work? Because we've been there with top management compensation.

Most players are lousy at games they play, because they make movies they enjoy instead of movies that are proven best.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#20

Post by arethuza » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 11:48 AM UTC

hugh4 wrote: post #2

Old-school dictatorships were so brash and clumsy the way they punished dissent with firing squads and trips to the gulag. It's just as effective to punish dissent by slowly but surely ruining the life of those who express dissenting opinions. That way, instead of making dissenters into martyrs, you just make them look like losers. Very clever, China.

Actually, the Soviet Gulag was mostly about slave labour - they arrested people to make them slaves because they thought this would be efficient - which it wasn't.

If they thought you really were a threat you were executed rather than being sent to a camp.

I can recommend Anne Applebaum's book:

http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag-a-history/