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China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

tutanota.com

21–30 of 195 posts

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#21

Like the article mentions, private sector credit systems have the same or similar result in dictating outcomes, but as long as its not from the state, nobody in the west will care about it. Which is very weird because it is exactly how people end up living in worse neighborhoods even if they have enough money to pay rent elsewhere, leading to worse and worse outcomes and no way to change that. A state sanctioned one…

A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences: - a person has access to their file - there are ways to correct mistakes on file, should any be found - scoring algorithm is more or less known

> A standard US credit score system may seem to be similar, but there are some important differences:

Also:

- it's limited in scope to financial accounts.

The end goal of the Chinese system appears to be to rate you on nearly every aspect of your life, which is quite different.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>private sector credit systems have the same or similar result in dictating outcomes I don't know how anyone can say this with a straight face. In the west you can be bankrupt and still buy a first class airline ticket or go to a concert or do damn near anything else so long as you aren't using credit to do it.

you meet many bankrupt people on luxury cruises and first class airline tickets? What's astonishing to me is how we in the West have created this metaphysical alternative reality where poor people are taught to think they have the chance to live in mansions or fly on luxury airlines, if it weren't for the fact that they're poor, of course. In contrast to the cruel Chinese, we also have majestic legal equality, where…

Oooh because of recent news, I have to take this bait!

> you meet many bankrupt people on luxury cruises and first class airline tickets?

Donald J. Trump

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#23

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can…

> what would such a system be optimized for?

Power and control of the population at large. The SCS willbe the largest spy network and intelligence gathering system outside of the NSA.

Through its massive data collection ability, the CCP will be able to spy on dissidents, minority groups such as the Uighur, protestors of the party regime, political opponents, and any other undesirables the party so chooses.

Anyone can be a target and will be punished by disobeying the party rules both financially (directly through the score) and also physically with imprisonment.

What is the Social Credit Score at its most basic level? Control. It is a computer generated prison built to keep people under control in order to change a once free human being into a slave.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>private sector credit systems have the same or similar result in dictating outcomes I don't know how anyone can say this with a straight face. In the west you can be bankrupt and still buy a first class airline ticket or go to a concert or do damn near anything else so long as you aren't using credit to do it.

you meet many bankrupt people on luxury cruises and first class airline tickets? What's astonishing to me is how we in the West have created this metaphysical alternative reality where poor people are taught to think they have the chance to live in mansions or fly on luxury airlines, if it weren't for the fact that they're poor, of course. In contrast to the cruel Chinese, we also have majestic legal equality, where…

Bankrupt people? No. People who have declared bankruptcy multiple times? Absolutely.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#25

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can…

At least on paper it's optimized for all good things. From the article above: Negative factors: dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, violating traffic rules, making reservations at restaurants and not showing up, failing to correctly sort your waste, fraudulently using other people's public transportation ID cards Positive factors, on the other hand, include: donating blood, donating to ch…

> At least on paper it's optimized for all good things....

Tell that to Liu Hu.

Liu Hu is a journalist in China, writing about censorship and government corruption. Because of his work, Liu has been arrested and fined — and blacklisted. Liu found he was named on a List of Dishonest Persons Subject to Enforcement by the Supreme People's Court as "not qualified" to buy a plane ticket, and banned from travelling some train lines, buying property, or taking out a loan.

"There was no file, no police warrant, no official advance notification. They just cut me off from the things I was once entitled to," he told The Globe and Mail. "What's really scary is there's nothing you can do about it. You can report to no one. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere."

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#27

Ultimately, what would such a system be optimized for? The goals will be modulated by the persons or groups in power. From what I've seen, the powerful in China seek a stable, well behaved, productive workforce such that the profit from their labor can accrue to the benefit of the ruling class. A data collection system as pervasive as the social credit system that feeds into a self-optimizing control center that can…

Maybe this system is able to make sociopaths more accountable for the suffering they cause.

We have no data on people with this spectrum of mental illness because they do not report themselves. Estimations on the number of sociopaths in the wild are anywhere between 1% to 5 % of the population.

If this social credit score is able to limit the damage these people can cause during their lifetime I would say the experiment is successful.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#29
The truly terrifying thing to me about the Chinese social credit system is that the CCP is actively trying to package and sell it to other autocratic states. They're testing it out and optimizing it on their own populace, but the eventual endgame is to sell it to a bunch of Asian, African, and Eastern European dictators and build themselves a nearly omnipotent back door to coerce and control the lives of people the world over.

Re: China's social credit system is both unique and part of a global trend

#30
The chinese system should be renamed to 'Social Control System' because that's what it does. It's intention is to control the masses.

The problem with governments is size and reach. Governments attempt and do usually keep growing. The government ends up with laws like: https://library.municode.com/ar/little_rock/codes/code_of_or...

Why does a government care if you honk a horn near a sandwich shop after 9pm? How many places also make adultery illegal? How about ever decreasing speed limits? https://www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/107383/coronavirus-ci...

Government wants to grow, but how many of these laws are really enforced? However, if you had a social control system. It might be much more possible.

That's the problem with robot cops. Which are coming eventually. The size of the police force will increase and the government will start to be able to enforce these laws. There will be a robot outside of every sandwich shop and you will be punished for honking your horn.

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