Do you want a dystopia? Because this is how you get a dystopia.
China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
121–130 of 602 posts
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like every other country, they want a healthy economy, which requires innovation. China's proposed social credit system would be counterproductive to innovation, i.e. the cost may be too high.
People have been hoping for this link between freedom and economic development for years about China. It turns out that it's just wishful thinking. China is much richer and no more free than it was decades ago.
The eras of growth have been the most free in the history of China. People allowed to own land, allowed employment of their choice, allowed to move, and allowed to start private enterprises. There is a one-to-one correlation between how much people are allowed to do and ... what they do.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#123To be fair we ban people with felony convictions from huge swathes of jobs, formally or informally, even if the crime happened decades ago. Also, good luck finding a place to live legally if you've been convicted of a sex crime.
We ban them after due process procedures are complete - which often involves knowing your accused crime and accuser, lengthy evidence gathering, and impartial trials.
As I understand the Chinese social capital system, there is no due process, you may not even know if you've been cited for anything until the punishment comes, and violations are identified without appeal.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CCP is not interested in progress, its interested in maintaining permanent, absolute power at any cost.
That's not really true. Progress and upward economic development increase the faith of the public and the Communist Party rank-and-file in the Communist Party leadership. The Communist Party leadership has a strong incentive to promote growth.
I don't understand why you're referring to the Chinese Communist Party as a single entity. There's multiple groups within it vying for power, each with their own agendas and visions for China's future.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you manage before Amazon was a thing?
It was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked. Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I coul…
To each their own, but I think the whole "schlepping to the store and sifting through products and maybe you overpay or get something you don't like" is a valuable part of the human experience.
That's not to say every trip is enjoyable, but I wonder what people might be missing by forgoing those trips (and automating everything they can, in general). You miss the trip there, and everything you might experience along the way, and the people at the store, and a poster for a cool concert that you might have gone to see, etc.
To me, that's not wasted time, that is living life.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like every other country, they want a healthy economy, which requires innovation. China's proposed social credit system would be counterproductive to innovation, i.e. the cost may be too high.
There's an easy solution to this: create a two-tier society in which the wealthy, highly educated, and highly productive / inventive are permitted to exist under relative freedom in "economic development zones" or similar while the rest of the population is kept under totalitarian rule. In other words create comparatively free theme parks for the professional class.
Not too far off from the rural/urban divide in America. New York City is a great place for a person with an upper middle class backgrobud to become a millionaire. Yet in the Southern Tier of upstate NY you have people who have lived for decades without electricity at home. There is straight-up Hunger Games poverty up here and it’s rarely reported on by the big newspapers downstate that would rather talk about tech and Trump.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#127To be fair we ban people with felony convictions from huge swathes of jobs, formally or informally, even if the crime happened decades ago. Also, good luck finding a place to live legally if you've been convicted of a sex crime.
From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/business/economy/labor-ma... "A rapidly tightening labor market is forcing companies across the country to consider workers they once would have turned away. That is providing opportunities to people who have long faced barriers to employment, such as criminal records, disabilities or prolonged bouts of joblessness."
"the free market solves all problems"
It's funny that this is happening with minimal legislative action (not that I'm okay with that)
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#128This sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version. When a "real name" service becomes a financial services company, we have a merging of social metadata and a conventional credit score. It does not start out as a dystopian vision. Why should Facebook charge advertisers money to show ads to people with a 400 credit score? The yield of man…
That last line was almost a direct quote from the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive".
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked. Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I coul…
How much crap do you actually buy per day that buying stuff needs time management? I mean, don't people normally just buy what they need once a month or so? And, do you actually need a review for basic groceries that you buy once a week? Also actual high-end products, like fashion, aren't available on Amazon anyways, while the real cheap stuff you'd get from Ali Express. I will never understand Amazon. I use it maybe…
Wheel bearing grease, a Ninja food chopper, EZ jar opener, a vacuum, steel baoding balls, books, steamer rack, Bandai Tamashi Nations Darth Vader, air purifier, desoldering iron... these are just a few of my recent purchases this month.
Doesn’t even include movie and show rentals.
Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains
#130The good news about this social credit system is that China's self driving cars will be able to make more optimal decisions about who lives and dies when a crash is inevitable. Isn't innovation wonderful!?