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

thenexus.media

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

#461

Post by hiatus »

KolibriFly wrote: post #405
bluedevilzn wrote: post #226

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…

On paper, credit scores are supposed to measure financial reliability, but in practice they’re more like an arbitrary gatekeeping mechanism

Are credit scores transnational?

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

#462

Post by JTbane »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #92

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…

In China, if you say anything bad about the CCP they will strap you to a chair in a struggle session and force you to admit you were wrong. That alone is terrifying.

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

#463

Post by markus_zhang »

I think there is no doubt that we are dropping lower and lower into a dystopian world and most of us are actually fine with it, because it doesn’t come upon us suddenly but evolves along the decades.

Gotta get my FU money as quickly as possible and go live in the woods.

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

#464

Post by markus_zhang »

boxed wrote: post #424
M95D wrote: post #421

It's actually worse than in China in other ways too: - China: no records about a person is a good thing - Elsewhere: no records is a very bad thing - China: records can be corrected and eliminated - Elsewhere: records are permanent

- China: records are centralized - Elsewhere: records are fragmented Although Meta is trying to "fix" that last part of course.

TBF it took China decades to centralize the data. Back in the 2010s you can technically marry two persons in different provinces because the system was fragmented along the provinces. I think they finally solved the problem 10 years ago.

China is actually far more fragmented than some people thought. The central government isn’t that all powerful. I mean even today, let alone 20 years ago. It is actually the big businesses like Ali/Tencent that are centralizing the data they collected — exactly like what US corporations are doing.

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

#465

Post by lurk2 »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #447
lurk2 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They’re right about 1 and 3, but not 2. Life has gotten much better in a good chunk of the world, that the opportunity loss for not moving to US is getting smaller. You can easily see it by immigration application numbers by country.

> You can easily see it by immigration application numbers by country.

Where are you getting this information? Visa issuance more than doubled between 2020 and 2024.

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...

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

#466

Post by SkyBelow »

gruez wrote: post #29

There was a comment that appeared for a few minutes before getting deleted, that vaguely lined up with what I wanted to say. It didn't reappear, so I'll just repost it: >real life also has social credit. were you an asshole to the bartender last week? that goes to your reputation at that bar. did you volunteer with a local non-profit? that goes to your reputation with that organization. even without an algorithm, peo…

Such as system does exist, but it is filled with issues. Halo effect and other biases impact memories, in ways that we would not tolerate being made explicit. We are more forgiving of some people than others, we tolerate some forms of stress as a possible excuse (not a complete removal, but to allow for much quicker redemption) than other forms of stress. Rules are selectively applied, and this all gets fed into confirmation biases where we overlook the bad done by people labeled as good and the good done by people labeled as bad (often with the labels themselves being unjustified in their application).

The larger the social network grows, the worse this system performs. Stereotypes develop because we don't have capacity to judge each individual, confirmation biases reinforce stereotypes until individuals cease to exist, as the stereotype prevents them from becoming close enough to ever overcome it.

So while this system has always existed (well at least as long as recorded history), it continuously worsens and is increasingly at odds with a globalized world.

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

#467

Post by card_zero »

treyd wrote: post #244
card_zero wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because of the increase in wealth inequality and increase in peoples' desperation.

On the topic of social credit, I wonder if credit inequality bothers you more. Markets chase after desirable customers who are economically active. The super-rich with yachts aren't affecting me, because they're away being fleeced in Monte Carlo and not competing with me for the basic peasant stuff that I want. But the desirable customers/tenants/employees, who might have debts, and less money than me, but have great prospects and a drive to keeping moving up and circulating cash, and who tick boxes as reliable and enhance the general tone of the business or area and help promote it - those are monsters.

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

#468

Post by chasd00 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #374
mattnewton wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because we’re sliding into authoritarianism and we need to criticize and correct course

Sliding in? Your head of state declared themselves to be a dictator, declared the end of the rule of law, and ignores the constitution. They openly take bribes without consequences. They, or their handlers, unilaterally decide on the application of justice and the progress of investigations. They unilaterally control international relations (eg tariffs) without oversight. They put armed military on the streets. They…

if mid-term elections and the next presidential election are cancelled then i'll call it authoritarian. Until then you're just trolling.

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

#469

Post by FirmwareBurner »

jlokier wrote: post #365
mr_toad wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK they’ll do background checks, and check your salary. They’d ask for six months rent in advance if it wasn’t illegal. And even though it is illegal.

In my experience, in the UK, the rental agency required 12 months rent in advance (plus another 2 months rent as deposit) when I was self-employed. They would have accepted monthly rent if I had 5x the annual rent in cash savings, but I didn't. And then every year after that they required another 12 months rent up front, when it came to the annual tenancy renewal. Track record of paying the rent wasn't good enough to…

That's crazy

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

#470

Post by chasd00 »

Jensson wrote: post #276
watersb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Only when McCarthy and those policies got unpopular, they let him do it as long as he was popular.

isn't this democracy at work? will of the people and all that?

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