Earlier quoted context omitted.
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This seems identical to saying that convincing someone with anorexia that they aren't overweight is "social death", and "social death" is (somehow) genocide. I.e. it's nonsense.
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We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
291–300 of 727 posts
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 com…
If your borrow money and give it to someone else and that someone else loses it how is it the borrower's fault or even problem?
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#293The 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…
> 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.
At a very superficial level, sure -- people get up, go to work, go out to eat, go to the movies, fall in love, get married, pay their bills, get sick, die, etc. -- like humans in the West. But this is all within the bounds of what the government decided you should adhere to. If you step outside of those bounds the consequences can be severe and without any legal recourse.
Because authoritarian regimes are a law to themselves, rather than applying the law, they're highly susceptible to corruption. Whether you get in trouble or not depends on who you know (in China it's called guanxi). I lived in China for 6 years, ran a business there; I can tell you the system runs on guanxi.
Access to information is highly restricted. All public media and social networks are censored and/or self-censored. There is no freedom of expression on anything that is "sensitive". This is _not_ limited to "minorities, politically active or those in legal trouble". Yes, people have learned to walk the line carefully.
It is more relaxed than the Mao days or the USSR (I lived there too) where you literally had someone on every floor of a building whose job was to report on what everyone else was doing. But it _looks_ more relaxed than it is. If you've visited China, or even stayed there a few months, or studied there for a year as an exchange student, you won't notice it. But believe me it's there. The educated class know it but they've either a) accepted it ("mei banfa"), or b) have emigrated or have made contingency plans for their kids, or c) are carefully subversive.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#294I agree with the article's assessment that the US also has a social credit scores, but:
- it's not at all the same as an aggregated government-assigned score (though we may be on the road to that)
- the take of "things are so bad in China and basically the same here" are very naive; live in China for 5+ years and I guarantee you'll have a different view
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#295Earlier 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…
> It's big brother mechanisms without a Big Brother. Big Brother does exist: it's money. If there were some single named entity, people would rebel against it, so it's diluted and realized through financialization of one's interactions with other humans. Big Brother is invisible to individuals because it's us , and no individual thinks “I'm Big Brother” when it's their point of view looking out. It's an illusion that…
>Big Brother does exist: it's money.
Then in most places it's increasingly scarce in presence and continue to exercise influence on a very tiny part of the population.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#296Earlier 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.
> 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…
Rise in reported sexual violence is usually caused by easier, safer, more welcoming reporting, not by actual rise in the base rate.
> When I was young I didn't hear about being stabbed to death so that their Rolex could be stolen.
Exactly, you didn't hear about it, such violence was quite common in some places, but there was no 24/7 online reporting backed by immediate social media outrage. Things are much much more hysterical now.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#297The 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…
This is quite an ignorant take with rose-tinted glasses towards autocratic statism.
The truth of the matter that you neglect is that in many countries the minorities, allowed political activity, and many other aspects change without proper notice or disclosure following a strategy that originated from Mao China where the government keeps people guessing. Namely, the Anaconda in the Chandelier paradigm.
This is done not only because of issues within government, but also for the benefit of the ruling class to repress the general population using techniques based in torture to promote automaton-like behaviors from induced stress.
The brainwashed masses will always deny reality in such an environment.
When you have subversive elements that have broken the guard rails and caustically destroyed resilient systems making them brittle; bringing things to crisis and then attempting to silently seize power, and they fail to actually do it, you get the natural rise of authoritarianism. This is what happened with Hitler, and in many respects it was the Communists of the time, as well as the post-WW1 reparations, and economics that paved the way for what came after.
Its insidious yes, because people don't recognize or realize the reason the dominoes fall, and the consequences are just a cascading series of generally but not specifically predictable events in history. It certainly also makes matters worse when you have runaway money-printing to further cause issue.
If the cycle was to be stopped before the consequences, it should have been stopped by the cohorts that gradually and subversively put it into action in the first place, but they wanted to seize power instead, have their cake and eat it too. The people of such a group epitomize many of the deadly sins, and they have willfully blinded themselves to it.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#298The 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.
Well, if you're in this category in the US (equivalent is being on some kind of arbitrary list that you're not allowed to see and have no way to appeal) your life will also be horrible.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy moly the US is kafkaesque. Gee. Duly noted. I might be in your position one day in the far future. Will prep for it. Thanks :)
> Holy moly the US is kafkaesque. Not really. Try to rent an apartment in Germany (any EU country really). Canada / USA is a breeze in comparison.
What? They don't check your credit score where I live (west-eu). They check your pay slip to see how much you make monthly and if it your rent is less than half your paycheck they can decide to let you rent. After that is a two or three month downpayment that is locked in a seperate bank account specifically for this use and is released at the end of the lease. If there is no damage to the rental unit you get back your full amount, depending on what damage is found, the downpayment is used to fix that.
Re: We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 com…
If your borrow money and give it to someone else and that someone else loses it how is it the borrower's fault or even problem?
It's not the borrowers fault, and in case of banks, it's not even their problem thanks to credit score and extensive guarantees built into the system.
However when I'm paying for some work to be done in the future, I'm essentially lending the contractor money predicate on the work being done by a certain deadline, quality or even at all.
So I'm the lender until the job is done, and if the borrower defaults on this it's not my fault, but certainly my problem.