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

201–210 of 727 posts

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

#201

Post by watwut »

finalarbiter wrote: post #184
card_zero wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> afraid something will happen to them Because of what, the decrease in crime?

Massive wealth aside, I would argue that any decrease in crime is nullified in recent years by the increase in sensationalization of specific crimes. That is, reading "crime rates in drop to historic lows in 2025" does not have as much emotional weight as seeing a social media video of a violent crime happening near one's home, even if the statistic is true. Consider how many children were terrified to swim in the oc…

Imo, what is actually happening is fear of crime far away - like rural people being almost terrified of cities and entirely on board with sending army there.

People are not afraid of sensational crime next door. They want crime to be happening where political opponents live, so that they can feel good about punishing them.

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

#204

Post by corimaith »

platevoltage wrote: post #151
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be used to deny your kid a college loan, though - which might work out the same as denying them higher education.

It absolutely works the same way. There are would be doctors everywhere who never got the chance because of their parent's mistakes, or misfortunes, because we've made higher education a privilege in the country.

At this point of extrapolating from second-order/third-order effects, what dosen't count as "social credit" to you? It seems that if society dosen't give everything you want, that's seen as coercion.

The actual distinction here is between positive/negative rights. In OP's case, it's if even if you do have the money to do X thing, you are artifically not allowed to do so. That's a violation of negative rights.

In your case, you're positing that if you couldn't afford it anyways, it's "social credit" if private lenders don't give you help because you have a history of not paying loans back. That's an appeal to positive rights, that people have a active obligation to you, and it's not even from the government but from private lenders. That's a far more contentious assumption that ironically isn't held by the Chinese or the CCP or most of the world for that matter outside of a spoilt corner of the West. And it's a critique that dosen't even land in reality when the Fed does provide easy student loans at a far greater scale than the Chinese Government. A policy that has worked out swimmingly well!

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

#205

Post by ch4s3 »

propagandist wrote: post #90
ch4s3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But whatever people like me say, it will be too hard for most of you to accept the reality. 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.

> 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.

It really isn't an argument.

You have tons of meaningful economic choices everywhere in American life. You can bank with any bank and look for competing offers for credit to do useful things. For example you can buy a home and shop for a better interest rate by taking an offer for a loan from one lender to another and 9 times out of 10 you'll come away with a better offer. But you can easily not take on a loan and choose to preference flexibility and therefore rent. This housing choice involves a myriad of sub choices about lifestyle, commuting preferences, school adjacency, and other elements you may want to balance. Because US state are often quite different in character and economic and social opportunity you have a ton of dimension along which you can exercise choice.

Someone posting here likely has access to remote work and can meaningfully choose to live in a quite mountain town in West Virginia with satellite internet where you never see more than a few people every week, or you could live in a mid sized city like I do and get involved in neighborhood organizations. Similarly you could move to NYC and live in a small apartment an spend all of your time going out to bars and restaurants. These are SUPER meaningful choices on an individual level.

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

#206

Post by ch4s3 »

esseph wrote: post #182
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Go into a busy gas station in the US. Ask "Hey, is anybody here a felon?" (Doesn't matter if customer or if they're working there)

Only about 6% of Americans have felony records as of 2023.

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

#207

Post by torginus »

darthoctopus wrote: post #46
seydor wrote: post #23

No there is a major difference when social credit is centralized to a single authority , and people cannot use the law to protect from that authority. otherwise, people have always judged each other with any way they could

Did you even read the article? Here is the situation in China: > Here's what's actually happening. As of 2024, there's still no nationwide social credit score in China. Most private scoring systems have been shut down, and local government pilots have largely ended. It’s mainly a fragmented collection of regulatory compliance tools, mostly focused on financial behavior and business oversight. While well over 33 milli…

I've always told people that social credit as used by China was unsed to track dishonest businesses who scammed people and/or other businesses by breaking agreements and not delivering as promised.

The fact there's a credit system that protects banks from the people makes it painfully obvious who is in charge of Western society - consider this:

You take out a loan to contract the company to build you a house. The company defaults and disappears overnight. The bank is protected automatically but it's up to you have to run after your money yourself.

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

#208

Post by KerrAvon »

eastbound wrote: post #161
mlinhares wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 figh…

This is total, unadulterated nonsense. Violent crime is down since 1970. There's no "who is to know" on this one. Look it up!

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

#209

Post by trenchpilgrim »

syndeo wrote: post #195
graemep wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My beliefs would have me ostracized from communities and fired from my job. but not landed you in prison or disappeared, I take it?

True, but at least in prison you're (usually) fed… which may NOT be the case if you're fired from your job, put on a list, and blocked from the industry.

> True, but at least in prison you're (usually) fed…

Not adequately or safely.

https://impactjustice.org/new-report-provides-first-ever-nat...

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

#210

Post by KerrAvon »

card_zero wrote: post #123
mlinhares wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> afraid something will happen to them Because of what, the decrease in crime?

It's not logical; this is why "deranged" has become a necessary prefix to "billionaire" in most cases.
Post reply on HN