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China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

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Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#101

Post by mistermann »

barnesto wrote: post #73
mistermann wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the expense seems to be... There does indeed seem to be signs of oppression of ethnic minorities in China, but to me this is a relatively unrelated anomaly on a statistical basis compared to the general question of where do the fruits of labour in China go: to those doing the work, or to the ruling class. Most of what I have observed suggests that there is a "rising tide lifts all boats" phenomenon underway, al…

"As for the Uighur & Tibetan situation, this is starting to look like it's going to be just one of those very unfortunate facts of life... Ethnic cleansing with helping of re-education camps and forced labor are just "unfortunate facts of life." Just give them 20-100 years and nobody will remember anyway... Well, that's certainly a take on how things are going there. Rising tides can't life boats filled with dead and…

> Well, that's certainly a take on how things are going there.

It is indeed, I imagine you have your own. My prediction will be correct, or it will be incorrect. As much as people enjoy posting heartfelt support on the internet, I don't see much happening beyond that. Who is going to come to their aid? The US Government? Bill Gates? You?

As for the rest of my prediction: "...but my intuition is that once the distinctness of these cultures is sufficiently eliminated (wild guess: 20-100 years), the difference of treatment will be relatively minimal, provided standard of living continues to rise across the board."

If this comes to pass, they'll be better off than the First Nations people of Canada, who found out today that the Government of Canada once again has found it "necessary" to delay their plans to provide safe drinking water to the communities we forced them into decades ago:

https://news.knowledia.com/CA/en/articles/covid-19-may-delay...

> Rising tides can't life boats filled with dead and forgotten people, but sure, citizens who follow the strict and draconian credit system are stacking bank, amirite?

That seems to be a portion of actual reality, yes. Simultaneously, millions of people are also rising out of poverty at an unprecedented rate, including I would think the ethnic minorities who will gradually have their uniqueness eliminated over time. Whether this is a net benefit to them over time is a matter of opinion, but ultimately unknowable.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#102

Post by TurkishPoptart »

disown wrote: post #37
rfwhyte wrote: post #29

The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. They're testing it out and optimizing it on their own populace, but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the w…

[flagged]

It's not "propaganda" that countries in former Yugoslavia, East Europe, and sub-saharan Africa are interested in the same surveillance systems.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/beijings-big-brother-te...

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#103

Post by [deleted] »

HashingtheCode wrote: post #2

Nice summary on their website about the privacy restrictions and surveillance of the population due to their dystopian Social Credit System. If people aren't that familiar with SCS, this should bring them up to speed. I understand that this SCS is not yet fully active and in varying parts being tested throughout the country, but, at some point it will be ready and go live nationally. What's really worrying is that th…

[deleted]

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#104

Post by abc-xyz »

nine_zeros wrote: post #88

A government system is only good as the governance. In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? On the other hand, in a democracy that accepts and markets social score is pretty bad as well. This black mirror episode captures the social score society really well https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ One might say, oh this is just sc…

> In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af?

You make it sound like their current leader, who’s no better than Hitler, isn’t corrupt and incompetent af. His incompetence just caused a pandemic that has killed millions of people.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#105

Post by wombatmobile »

tehwebguy wrote: post #90

We have the exact same thing here, we just call the points “dollars”

If by "here" you mean the USA, consider this observation written by Neil Postman in 1985:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists, who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”

-- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#106

Post by mcguire »

"The idea behind this is understandable: As social networks decline and anonymity in cities rises, the social pressure to behave in an acceptable way declines as well. China now replaces this social pressure with the Social Credit System so that people even when living anonymously in any city behave in an acceptable way."

Holy sh*t. That's some straight up Orwellian thought, there.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#107

Post by mcguire »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #16
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #10

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can…

At least on paper it's optimized for all good things. From the article above: Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards Positive factors, on the other hand, include: donating blood, donating to ch…

"Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards"

Some of these things are not like the others.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#108

Post by Udik »

hker wrote: post #94
nendroid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government isn't targeting people by race. It's targeting people by culture and behavior. You either conform to the affluent chinese westernized lifestyle or they will force you Assimilate. Very similar to what happened to much of the Americas. Race is just a correlation, the causative factor is the culture associated with the race as practitioners of falun gong (who include the Han people) are also targeted. In…

> The government isn't targeting people by race. It's targeting people by culture and behavior. Are you saying that the Chinese government force abortion by culture and behavior [1], not by race? [1]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v7g8m8/forced-abortions-a...

Until a few years ago the Uighurs were exempt- as minority- from the one-child policy applied to the rest of China. Would you say they were being racist against the Han then?

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#109

Post by mcguire »

lowdose wrote: post #27
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #10

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can…

Maybe this system is able to make sociopaths more accountable for the suffering they cause. We have no data on people with this spectrum of mental illness because they do not report themselves. Estimations on the number of sociopaths in the wild are anywhere between 1% to 5 % of the population. If this social credit score is able to limit the damage these people can cause during their lifetime I would say the experim…

How much collateral damage from the system itself are you willing to accept?

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#110

Post by avaldeso »

abc-xyz wrote: post #104
nine_zeros wrote: post #88

A government system is only good as the governance. In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? On the other hand, in a democracy that accepts and markets social score is pretty bad as well. This black mirror episode captures the social score society really well https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/ One might say, oh this is just sc…

> In China's case, it is only as good as the CCP dictator. What if the next leader of CCP is corrupt or even worse, incompetent af? You make it sound like their current leader, who’s no better than Hitler, isn’t corrupt and incompetent af. His incompetence just caused a pandemic that has killed millions of people.

Covid 19 death toll as September 28 is 1 million [1]. Not millions. Please, don't spread misinformation.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

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