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We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

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Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#161

Post by eastbound »

mlinhares wrote: post #118
card_zero wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, automation and information sharing prevents people slipping through the cracks, and that also prevents leniency, diversity, and reason. I was musing over something, though. We have creeping Orwellian things like face recognition and the policing of chat histories. But some of this is private, as in, not done by the state. Even when done by the state, it isn't in most places to prop up the regime and prevent dis…

Nah, there's no increase in disorder, crime in most developed countries is trending down, but we do have a bunch of people that have collected unimaginable wealth and are definitely afraid something will happen to them like the last couple times this has happened. They definitely don't want to repeat history and will use the coercion tools they have to clamp down on the peasants.

> there is no increase in disorder

The mobile phone created an occupation for people who would otherwise be on the street committing crime. It paced people, even common kids, adults, we commit much, much less crime than the previous generation, and even less in unreported crime (bar fights, revenge against a neighbor, etc.). The boomers used their hands!

But the problem is: If you follow the average strength and fight training of citizen from 1970 to today, violence should have been practically zero. It is much higher because some subsets have abnormally high rates.

You claim the average is going down. OP claims it’s going up. Both are right. Violence wins.

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#162

Post by poszlem »

gruez wrote: post #29

There was a comment that appeared for a few minutes before getting deleted, that vaguely lined up with what I wanted to say. It didn't reappear, so I'll just repost it: >real life also has social credit. were you an asshole to the bartender last week? that goes to your reputation at that bar. did you volunteer with a local non-profit? that goes to your reputation with that organization. even without an algorithm, peo…

True, reputation has always existed. But after a certain scale, quantity becomes a quality of its own. There’s a big difference between word-of-mouth at a single bar and a centralized, algorithmic reputation score that can follow you across dozens of services. If one bartender thinks you’re rude, you can go to another bar. If one nonprofit doesn’t like you, you can still volunteer elsewhere. But when a social media company or platform blacklists you, it can ripple through your professional, social, and even financial life, because their influence extends far beyond one community. That’s the leap from local memory to systemic gatekeeping.

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#163

Post by pixxel »

bigcat12345678 wrote: post #121
wvenable wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always move to new town and start again. The problem with all these social credit systems is that they're designed to follow you wherever you go forever. There is also zero recourse if a mistake was made; at least you can try and smooth things over with a bartender.

> at least you can try and smooth things over with a bartender. Hahah... You never offended a bartender for sure.

[dead]

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#164

Post by wvenable »

charcircuit wrote: post #160
wvenable wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, you are exactly the same person you were in your 20s and didn't improve one bit. Did you make mistakes? Too bad. That's you forever. Learning from mistakes is impossible.

Like credit scores events can be made to decay overtime.

What I've seen with these large services like Google is that once they deem you undesirable (either on purpose or by accident) then they're just done with you forever. They have so many customers and so many bad actors that it's just not worth it to give anyone a second chance. It's pretty horrible for people caught in that situation.

We would need some kind of legislation around this. No company is looking to decay scores over time unless there is some profit motive to be exploited (like there is with credit scores).

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#165

Post by torben-friis »

gruez wrote: post #29

There was a comment that appeared for a few minutes before getting deleted, that vaguely lined up with what I wanted to say. It didn't reappear, so I'll just repost it: >real life also has social credit. were you an asshole to the bartender last week? that goes to your reputation at that bar. did you volunteer with a local non-profit? that goes to your reputation with that organization. even without an algorithm, peo…

That heavily depends on where you live.

In large, dense cities you’re pretty much anonymous; I could dance naked in a main street today and (provided no one’s recording) carry on with my life with zero repercussions.

Some people make a living out of that fact. Tourist traps do not exactly engage recurring customers, every purchase is a customer’s first.

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#166

Post by Lammy »

While I broadly agree with the article's point, this part stood out to me as the author not really knowing that much about Utah:

> the image [of overt social-credit tech in public] is so powerful that Utah's House passed a law banning social credit systems, despite none existing in America.

More like the LDS Church banned social credit systems that would compete with theirs lol

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#167

Post by wtbdbrrr »

gruez wrote: post #29

There was a comment that appeared for a few minutes before getting deleted, that vaguely lined up with what I wanted to say. It didn't reappear, so I'll just repost it: >real life also has social credit. were you an asshole to the bartender last week? that goes to your reputation at that bar. did you volunteer with a local non-profit? that goes to your reputation with that organization. even without an algorithm, peo…

yep.

and people don't just remember. sometimes they set you up to test you and or to give you a chance.

some other times they set someone else up to test you and or to give you a chance.

and sometimes people poison others to increase their and or your social credit.

as Austin Powers (or was it Ali G?) said quite eloquently: "behave".

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#168

Post by scarmig »

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #135
darthoctopus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps read the actual first paragraph of the article? the whole point of it is that, whether we call it that or not, our privately run reputation scores (including but not limited to credit scores) functionally are social credit scores --- except we've been boiled frogs, and should take some time for self-reflection before engaging in knee-jerk reactions to China's other failings (which I'm not denying btw) wheneve…

Your credit score in America will never be used to deny your freedom of movement within America or go against you or any of your family members when applying for higher education. It is a fundamentally flawed comparison.

It will, however, be used to determine whether you can rent or buy a home or increasingly even get a job. Freedom: same outcomes, but modulated through the market!

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#169

Post by alexpotato »

rendaw wrote: post #124
wvenable wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always move to new town and start again. The problem with all these social credit systems is that they're designed to follow you wherever you go forever. There is also zero recourse if a mistake was made; at least you can try and smooth things over with a bartender.

Isn't being able to move to a new town and start again also a kind of new thing though too? Cars, moving companies, open borders, globalism, English as a standard language, no serfdom, etc. I mean, I think you could pick up and move but it was much harder, and how far you could reasonably move when you did move was limited pre-modern era. If you can't move that far, the likelihood of someone knowing you or word sprea…

In the book Fingerprints[0], they mention how, prior to fingerprints, much easier it was to just move to another town/county/state and just start over or even pretend to be somebody else. This was because there was no way to establish your identity with near 100% certainty.

This had pros and cons depending on who you were. For example, thieves loved it as you could drop you criminal record simply by moving somewhere that no one recognized you. On the other hand, there were documented cases of mistaken identity and people being prosecuted just because they looked like someone else. Then there is the case of William West which is better understood by looking at the pictures of two men names William West [1]

Contrast that to today where it doesn't matter which town in the US you live in, there is always a credit record that is tied to you.

0 - https://amzn.to/47XN9Id

1 - https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/will-william-west-case-fing...

Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

#170

Post by drozycki »

odo1242 wrote: post #86
inetknght wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any business vaguely money related knows exactly who you are because of KYC requirements. They also will happily give your money to any thief pretending to be you, and then blame you for their mistake.

The bank would be responsible for getting the user their money back under US law, actually - even if it was the user’s fault due to bad security

Victims can spend hundreds of hours over the course of years navigating corporate and legal bureaucracies before their account balances and credit scores are restored. The system absolutely makes a bank error the victim’s problem to solve. Guilty until proven innocent.
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