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

thenexus.media

271–280 of 727 posts

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

#271

I moved from Canada to California for a new job with a mid six figure salary. I had a very difficult time finding a place to rent as I had no credit score. Only places that were available without credit score was a room to share. That was not an option with a cat, wife and kids. Finally, I found a place that was willing to accept the entire year's rent up front. Moving such a large amount of money from Canada to US h…

Your credit score IS maintained by companies! Their whole business is maintaining American credit scores. I really have no idea what their business model is.

I'm sure that running credit checks costs money somehow. Accurate credit information facilitates profitable loans.

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the US is no longer a liberal democracy?

Was US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today, with people getting arrested for their political views instead of just deported. not to mention segregation and such. They even put lawyers defending these politicians in prison for defending them... The constitution doesn't seem to matter since the government apparently don't have to care about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

> Was US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today,

Your question deserves an answer.

The US was a liberal (post-Enlightenment) democracy.

Senator McCarthy was eventually kicked out of Congress for his witch hunt.

President Nixon was confronted by Republican members of Congress, and he resigned after this meeting rather than face impeachment.

So when I was a kid, lawmakers largely upheld the norms, the rule of law. Many of those same lawmakers might have today been considered racist or misogynist or might have failed some other standard of 21st century society.

As a liberal democracy, the United States has never been perfect, but it's always been worth improving.

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

#273

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?

Crime stats, especially for violent crime, are relevant to us, not them. Their wealth, status, and/or insurance policies generally require security details and precautions that insulate most “public” activity from random acts of violent crime. However, the former UHC CEO’s death is an example of the sort of singular, and targeted, crime that does strike fear. However, the comment you’re replying to is alluding to the historical collapses of societies (a.k.a a complex system) where economic inequity exceeds a tipping point leads to system collapse (“heads roll”). “Clamping down on peasants”—social credit, pervasive surveillance, collating movements/associations, uh, Palantir—enables evasion of the tipping point and adds resilience to the system.

Tl;dr: violent crime doesn’t mean anything when you have billions, but instability in the system does. Surveillance state tropes exist for a reason, and that’s b/c they add resiliency to a system that would otherwise collapse.

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

#274
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm against extrajudicial deportations to El Salvador, but those people are not being deported for their political opinions. As for trans/LGBTQ+ genocide, it does not exist in the West.

Repeatedly denying GAC or banning PrEP as Republicans try to do every few months does indeed lead to death, yes.

Granted we're not under Reagan, but Republicans are practically praying for another AIDS crisis and doing everything in their power to make it happen.

Straight people largely don't know this because, well, it's not their problem.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today, with people getting arrested for their political views instead of just deported. not to mention segregation and such. They even put lawyers defending these politicians in prison for defending them... The constitution doesn't seem to matter since the government apparently don't have to care about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

> Was US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today, Your question deserves an answer. The US was a liberal (post-Enlightenment) democracy. Senator McCarthy was eventually kicked out of Congress for his witch hunt. President Nixon was confronted by Republican members of Congress, and he resigned after this meeting rather than face impeachment. So when I was a kid, lawmakers large…

> So when I was a kid, lawmakers largely upheld the norms, the rule of law

Only when McCarthy and those policies got unpopular, they let him do it as long as he was popular. So we will likely see the same with Trump, as long as he doesn't make as grave overreaches as they did back then likely nobody will do anything to him.

That isn't rule of law, that is rule of personality.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Unless all these companies are sharing trustworthiness data I can make a new account and start fresh. The centralization of "worthiness" is what concerns me.

If you are doing any sort of financial transactions you will likely need a new debit/credit card.

And hopefully you've not done anything that is "problematic" there, or ChexSystems will be along to make sure your new bank might want to know not to do business with you, like they did to me, after KeyBank tried to hit me with $405 in overdraft fees in a single day for a series of transactions that, if played chronologically, would never had had me with a balance below $0 at any point, due to "transaction reordering". Chex refused to remove the derogatory note, even after there was a lawsuit and legislation, until I kept escalating with them.

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

#278
post #206
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So over 20,000,000 people.

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

#279

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…

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

#280
"The only difference between your phone and China's social credit system is that China tells you what they're doing. We pretend our algorithmic reputation scores are just “user experience features.” At least Beijing admits they're gamifying human behavior."

I've said this before in many ways to other Americans and they just join the very vocal "china bad, usa good, you're weird for liking china" while then wondering why they don't understand their own credit score, etc.

Imagine having a less than 600 credit score and buying a car, buying a house, renting an apartment, opening a bank account, even getting insurance lol you are auto denied.

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