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China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

newscientist.com

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Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#21

Post by tempodox »

And the arms race between freedom and control goes on.

“All that behaviour will be integrated into one comprehensive assessment of you as a person”

The ultimate simplification, condensing a human being to a simple number. Gods have always been used to rationalise entitlement to and application of power. This one is electrified and fully programmable.

As a concept, this is so predictable that it's already boring (was only a question of time until machines become capable of implementing this nightmare). There should exist a ton of science fiction literature that explores this scenario. How dumb would people have to be to not see through it? We already had a period of enlightenment that disposed of the “old gods”. And they seriously believe an electrified god artefact would fare any better?

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#23

Post by bmn_ »

falcor84 wrote: post #7

On the one hand, this is very spooky. On the other, it seems like it could be a precursor to a social currency similar to the Whuffie[0] in Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". I remember that reading that book, I couldn't help but feel that, as we move closer to a post-scarcity society, the rise of something like that would be inevitable, and might in some ways be much better than what we have now. […

Admiration and social standing as currency was used by Howard L. Myers in "All around the universe" 31 years earlier than Doctorow.

http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0743436075/0743436075...

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#24

Post by im3w1l »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #17
guard-of-terra wrote: post #15

It seems that people (in power; but especially ones commenting on such articles; those with cynical spin mostly) perceive life in a country as a computer game. Where "dissidents" will happen to your country, and you have to implement "measures" to make them go away, and then you call it a day. Because game rules incentivize you to do exactly that. The reality is: Life happens to your country. People happen to your co…

In some areas, it would be so much better if countries were really ruled like sim games. You need more energy for growth and global warming threatens your future? You start building goddamn nuclear power plants. No political bickering, no clueless citizens protesting everything at random because of fear or propaganda.

Enlightened despotism used to be a popular idea. I don't think it works because there is no guarantee they despot will optimize for country outcome rather than personal enjoyment.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#25

Post by moron4hire »

To the extent that my understanding of European current events is aided by shared culture and a much better coverage of history, even including many more modern events, I find my near-complete lack of understanding of Chinese culture is a serious impediment to my understanding of articles like this. My university history classes basically ended at the Boxer Rebellion, with a brief interlude into using the Great Leap Forward as a hit piece against Mao (which, to be fair, he seems to have deserved, but that's all it was meant as. It wasn't meant as history of China).

For example: isn't China supposed to be Communist? How are there so many ludicrously rich people? Clearly, I'm missing some part of the equation in there that explains why I have this perception.

It's vexing because I tend to want to "fix" problems in understanding as soon as I identify them, yet I have no idea how one would gain an accurate image of China from the outside, given how much I've been told they control information flow.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#26

Post by PavlovsCat »

tempodox wrote: post #21

And the arms race between freedom and control goes on. “ All that behaviour will be integrated into one comprehensive assessment of you as a person ” The ultimate simplification, condensing a human being to a simple number. Gods have always been used to rationalise entitlement to and application of power. This one is electrified and fully programmable. As a concept, this is so predictable that it's already boring (wa…

> We already had a period of enlightenment that disposed of the “old gods”. And they seriously believe an electrified god artefact would fare any better?

Plenty of people think that way about money, with the ends often justifying the means to astonishing degrees. We create things, then worship them. Plenty of people get manipulated to elect people, and that makes what those do right by definition in their eyes, rationalizing even hard facts away once they're taken; people basically get deceived and "voluntarily" make choices against their own interests as a matter of daily business; that's just more sustainable coercion, not freedom. There's one thing worse than not being free, that's not being free and thinking you are.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#27

Post by TeMPOraL »

im3w1l wrote: post #24
TeMPOraL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some areas, it would be so much better if countries were really ruled like sim games. You need more energy for growth and global warming threatens your future? You start building goddamn nuclear power plants. No political bickering, no clueless citizens protesting everything at random because of fear or propaganda.

Enlightened despotism used to be a popular idea. I don't think it works because there is no guarantee they despot will optimize for country outcome rather than personal enjoyment.

Even Bible notes at some point that you have no guarantee that the son of the enlightened despot will be as good as his father. Still, the effectiveness of that type of rule is very appealing, especially comparing to the impotence of democracy and the fact that we have serious global problems that need to be solved right fucking now.

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#28

Post by laurent123456 »

moron4hire wrote: post #25

To the extent that my understanding of European current events is aided by shared culture and a much better coverage of history, even including many more modern events, I find my near-complete lack of understanding of Chinese culture is a serious impediment to my understanding of articles like this. My university history classes basically ended at the Boxer Rebellion, with a brief interlude into using the Great Leap…

They control their citizen's access to information, but from outside it's not difficult to get a relatively accurate picture. This book [0] for instance was quite helpful in understanding how the CCP controls the country and, as a result, how many things work in China.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/The-Party-Secret-Chinas-Communist/dp/0...

Re: China’s plan to give every citizen a social credit score

#29

Post by hoorayimhelping »

vidarh wrote: post #16
qrendel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have basically been doing this since forever, via models like J.S. Mill's social tyranny. Here in the West we already do it to some degree through upvoting/downvoting, Facebook likes and Twitter followers, Tinder, Hot or Not, and Peeple, among others. It seems less like a new form for evil government oppression so much as one we will gladly push on each other ourselves - another evolution of using technology t…

I find it quite ironic that you're being downvoted for this. The amount of discussions about voting even on HN makes it quite clear that even here we are engaging in social-engineering through votes. We see all over the place how people are starting comments with "I know I'll be downvoted for this, but...". Implicit in that is the admission that it takes an extra temptation or push to post something we know will face…

>here we are engaging in social-engineering through votes.

Engineering implies some kind of plan. This is just people projecting their individual opinions in aggregate. It looks like social engineering because the majority of people's opinions in a group like this don't differ all that much.

It's all a stupid game. People say "I know I'll be downvoted but..." to make themselves seem brave against the overwhelming oppression of people on the internet disagreeing with their opinions. Then other people see that and think "that is a brave person, have an upvote." All of this relies on implicit buy-in of the notion that bad things happen if people know how your opinions are different.

Especially in the West, it's very easy to opt out of this game. Just stop worrying if people in your network like you. The people close to you will love you regardless of your stupid opinions and character flaws. There's not much reason to worry about anyone else, especially with how fast people cycle in and out of social networks.

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