Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thenexus.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 727 posts

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

#171

Post by TacticalCoder »

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.

> Nah, there's no increase in disorder, crime in most developed countries is trending down,

I don't know in which world you're living so here are officials, likely downplayed, numbers for the EU, from an official EU website to get you back to earth:

"In 2023, sexual violence offences, including rape, continued to rise in the EU."

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Rape numbers are through the roof in France (nearly 40 000 a year now): they went x6 in 20 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072770/number-of-rapes-...

"The number of violent crimes in Germany increased in 2024 with a sharp increase in rapes and sexual assaults.":

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-sees-rise-in-sexual-violence-a...

Thefts and violent thefts are on the rise all across the EU. When I was young I didn't hear about being stabbed to death so that their Rolex could be stolen.

In the city were I grew up in now people firing full-auto AK-47 is a weekly occurrence.

Someone who walks into a major EU city and tells me its safer than it was 20 years is very blind.

Meanwhile the risk of my daughter getting raped is very real. And the fault is as much on the rapists as on the ones who try to refute irrefutable numbers.

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

#172

Post by fmnxl »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #119
propagandist wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to think awfully highly of your ability to reason about the world, but I find your claim to be fairly lacking. This all reads like the ramblings of a 19 year old who just discovered Chomsky. Address the argument rather than engaging in ad hominem.

Show me the Americans stuck in a black hole where nobody processes their payment, banks won't handle their money, they can't vote, they can't travel, etc. because of their deviations? There are total nutjobs of all walks that are living just fine. There are actual Nazis and commies living just fine. It's a big country. If our whole society already has dystopian social credit it should be easy to find examples.

> Show me the Americans stuck in a black hole

Stop right there, then you'll see them :) Millions of them

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

#173

Post by pimlottc »

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…

Real world social credit is soft and squishy and local and fades or changes over time.

Digital social credit is (potentially) an automatically calculated number with strict and unyielding consequences that follows you around for your entire life.

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

#174

Post by randycupertino »

chuckadams wrote: post #71
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.

The bartender also doesn't sell your behavioral profile to every other bar in town. I mean, unless you're a total asshole and it's a small town, but then they tend to volunteer it.

SF bartenders united to try and ban this serial check-skipper: https://www.tiktok.com/@ktvu2/video/7459844103635733803

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

#176

Post by coro_1 »

wvenable wrote: post #33
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…

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.

> You can always move to new town and start again.

This is accurate. And taken for granted in the US.

Someone once remarked to me: "I think it's cool you can just pick up and go anywhere (on a huge scale)" - They were from the Netherlands.

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

#177

Post by randycupertino »

gruez wrote: post #110
al_borland wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what karma scores on site like this or Reddit try to replicate.

Not really, because such sites really only use upvotes/downvotes as a ranking mechanism. There's theoretically a lifetime upvote/downvote counter (ie. your karma), but other than a number that shows up on your profile, it doesn't have any real impact. You don't really develop a "reputation", for instance your comments get more or less visibility based on your previous commenting history.

> other than a number that shows up on your profile, it doesn't have any real impact.

Certain subreddits you can't comment on until you have a minimum # of karma, some other subs auto-ban you if you contribute or subscribe to other subs.

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

#178

Post by mattnewton »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #92

The issue is that American media/discourse paints a very distorted view of what life under authoritarian rule is like. The truth is in many countries, unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west. But people don’t want to hear that, because we want to feel better than them. Like we wouldn’t tolerate that kind of life. Of course the…

> unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west

Okay but that is exactly why I would prefer a western liberal government. It is better and that is ideal is worth criticizing authoritarians for, and fighting to keep in the west.

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

#179

Post by ozim »

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…

I think that comment overestimated how much people really remember.

That bartender most likely has 3 to 5 worse assholes every shift and dozen usual assholes . He is not going to remember he doesn’t care.

Local non profit after 2 years most likely won’t have the same people and top guys won’t remember all one off volunteers.

Believing any of it having more significance would be attributed to “spotlight effect” in my opinion.

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

#180

Post by asgraham »

card_zero wrote: post #148
mlinhares wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows, you'll have to go to their leaked private chats to see the madness they're conjuring there.

OK, a second theory: the situation is messy and complex. Society tolerates the use of physical force less, and has higher standards of health and safety, and more suing and seeking compensation. The police and security then favor electronic methods over potentially injuring themselves or anybody else. Then there's more potential to be bad in small ways because nobody's going to grab you by the collar. Meanwhile, ther…

It’s partially that for sure, but I think it’s also a kind of “common sense” feeling of the public that if people use technology to commit a crime, there must therefore be a record of that crime and therefore the police should be able to use that record to easily stop technology-crime. See: every police show ever.

That was never possible before. Historically, conversations didn’t leave records, and when they did, they were trivially burned. There was no sense that the police should have access to the records because there were no records.

The technical and ethical problems of this “common sense” are far from obvious to most whose primary exposure to and mode of thinking about policing and technology is what we see on TV.

Post reply on HN