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China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#131

Post by fermienrico »

niccccccccc wrote: post #127
dqpb wrote: post #6

I understand the inclination to do this - I think it's natural to want to live in a meritocracy. But I just can't image this not backfiring. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> paved with good intentions. lol you're giving xi jingping the dictator too much credit. it's a means to monitor and silence his critics, and to prevent protests/uprisings. this is just cultural revolution 2.0. from hitler 2.0.

I agree, I think people are delusional.

Let’s watch the uninamous vote to indefinitely extend his term - Xi asks “Is anyone against me?”

Scroll down to watch the video in the article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43188739

This reminds of Christopher Hitchen’s account of Saddam Hussein. Terrifying.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#132

Post by ibeckermayer »

rohit2412 wrote: post #41
niccccccccc wrote: post #21

There's alot of international people posting on hacker news, and alot of them have anti-US bias. They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. for those people I have a comment You like posting political views on the internet right? Imagine China is the sole superpower of the world that defeated the democracies of the world. You would be ranked, censored, monitored, caught, jaile…

Don't have anything against USA, but a world with a single superpower is prone to bullying and abuse by the said superpower. Many of us just want a peaceful world, and if that needs to be multipolar, so be it

Your analysis entirely leaves out the most important factor which is: who are the “poles”?

China is an authoritarian, control-freak one-party-superstate that jails and kills political opposition. Will the world be more “peaceful” if there’s a multipolar collection of those?

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#133

Post by fermienrico »

chrischen wrote: post #77
niccccccccc wrote: post #37

> The West has social credit scoring: money ??? as opposed to China which has no money?? China's credit system is paired with dictatorship, censorship, disappearance, and killing. Nowhere near the similarities with West Young Chinese activist missing after sharing plan to wear ‘Xitler’ t-shirt in public https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/11/03/young-chinese-activist...

China is not a dictatorship. It is a single party representative government system that does not directly elect as many officials as the US does. However even in the US most officials are not directly elected (including the president) and people are still limited to two parties. Consider the last US election, Donald Trump lost the popular direct election, but was still elected by president by the Electoral college (a…

Read and watch the video in this article please:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43188739

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#134

Post by niccccccccc »

everdev wrote: post #111
dqpb wrote: post #6

I understand the inclination to do this - I think it's natural to want to live in a meritocracy. But I just can't image this not backfiring. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

To me, this high level news and the political system in China is terrifying because of the implications that they limit freedom. However, I rarely great about civil unrest in China. Is that because it's hard to get independent journalists to go there? Or, is the economic boom the greater good to most Chinese? Or something else?

> economic boom the greater good > rarely civil unrest

Are you not on the internet? China is suffering from high debt load, declining exports, dictatorship, censorship, crashed stock market, capital control, housing inflation, capital outflow, protests in hong kong/tibet/northeast/xinjiang, etc.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#135

Post by Anon1096 »

chrischen wrote: post #77
niccccccccc wrote: post #37

> The West has social credit scoring: money ??? as opposed to China which has no money?? China's credit system is paired with dictatorship, censorship, disappearance, and killing. Nowhere near the similarities with West Young Chinese activist missing after sharing plan to wear ‘Xitler’ t-shirt in public https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/11/03/young-chinese-activist...

China is not a dictatorship. It is a single party representative government system that does not directly elect as many officials as the US does. However even in the US most officials are not directly elected (including the president) and people are still limited to two parties. Consider the last US election, Donald Trump lost the popular direct election, but was still elected by president by the Electoral college (a…

There are many strong criticisms of the electoral college. It being "a separate body chosen by the 2 dominant political parties for electing the president" is not one of them, because everyone chosen by the parties is almost guaranteed to vote as they are supposed to. The outcome is known and isn't pulled out of thin air, and has a direct relation to how people voted.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#136

Post by westiseast »

everdev wrote: post #111
dqpb wrote: post #6

I understand the inclination to do this - I think it's natural to want to live in a meritocracy. But I just can't image this not backfiring. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

To me, this high level news and the political system in China is terrifying because of the implications that they limit freedom. However, I rarely great about civil unrest in China. Is that because it's hard to get independent journalists to go there? Or, is the economic boom the greater good to most Chinese? Or something else?

It’s a mix of factors.

There are protests and issues bubbling up all the time - hundreds or thousands of actions in any given year. It’s a big country with a lot of issues, so that’s not unexpected.

But the one thing the CCP is undoubtably world class at is ensuring protests or issues don’t ever gather momentum and start spreading.

So, a lot of the police apparatus, media and online censorship is geared up to this end.

Potential instigators of unrest (lawyers, independent/foreign journalists, activists) are routinely harassed and locked up, or put under immense pressure.

TV and traditional media outlets are tightly controlled and will receive directives about what they can and can’t report on. They self-censor and will not promote news or issues that are outright critical of the government. Often negative news is shown, but it is massaged and spun to show the CCP proactively dealing with a problem, rather than causing a problem or being incompetent.

Burgeoning online trending topics are regularly blanket censored if they are critical of the government and gaining traction fast.

Also, remember that these things are bad, but daily life in China is still daily life. Most people will never really experience massive injustice or rights abuses, just as most Americans will not be shot in a school shooting. It doesn’t mean the injustices aren’t happening and/or bad.

And finally, yes. The last 30 years of economic prosperity mean that most people are pretty happy with their life in China, or at the very least they just want to focus on making money, getting rich, and avoiding problems.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#138

Post by niccccccccc »

mistermann wrote: post #124
anontoday0406 wrote: post #119

I'm not sure if irony is the correct word here, but I do find it funny how the "unpopular" comments in this thread have been faded to gray.

I was just thinking about the increasingly heavy self-censorship we live under in the West after reading all of these fear mongering comments. Irony is very appropriate.

Both of you (thank GOD you both are minorities) seem to like dictators and censorship. Please move to Russia or China or North Korea.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#139

Post by pluto9 »

meri_dian wrote: post #65
whatshisface wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bad, but you have bad and worse. For example in the US the TSA does things the police (and nobody, really,) should never be able to, and they do it without warrants: but that alone does not mean that the US is an authoritarian police state (even though it is more of one than it could be). Likewise, there's a difference between corporate influence in government and outright, socially accepted direct bribery. Th…

Having to be scanned to get on a plane seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do. I fly often and I'm glad the TSA exists and does what it does. I don't feel like my liberty is being taken away in the slightest.

> Having to be scanned to get on a plane seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do.

Even if that scan does little or nothing to actually improve your safety [1]? If I'm going to have my privacy taken away, I want something better in return for it than security theater and wasted taxes.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-o...

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#140

Post by Asdfbla »

ibeckermayer wrote: post #132
rohit2412 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have anything against USA, but a world with a single superpower is prone to bullying and abuse by the said superpower. Many of us just want a peaceful world, and if that needs to be multipolar, so be it

Your analysis entirely leaves out the most important factor which is: who are the “poles”? China is an authoritarian, control-freak one-party-superstate that jails and kills political opposition. Will the world be more “peaceful” if there’s a multipolar collection of those?

I suspect some people are guessing that a multipolar world will be less interventionist (since the great powers might block each other from interfering too much) and therefore adventures like the Iraq war are less likely to happen again. This might arguably make the world more peaceful, though it might allow civil wars to continue for longer.

No idea if it's true or will work out that way, but it's one hypothesis I think is out there.

Sure, the downside of China's rise is that authoritarian states have more legitimacy, but it's not like the western powers did much about those states back when they were the hegemons, so I'm not sure if the argument carries much weight either.

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