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China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#61

Post by viraptor »

cdmckay wrote: post #3

So basically they want to take the private credit system and make it public and accountable. What’s wrong with this, exactly?

The private system, even as bad as it is now, has to reasonably correlate with credit risk to some degree, otherwise companies wouldn't use it (or would use the competitor). A single, gov-enforced system has no limits like that. If they want to give you fewer points because you're not aligned enough with the party line, you get fewer points, and you're more marginalised now. There are no big customers to say "don't want to use this, it doesn't provide me any benefits", because those companies want to be able to continue operating. (Before anyone mentions it: Yes, I know that at the moment only well defined and documented cases are counted. It's not like China would change the rules to, for example, lower the score for liking Falun Gong or other ideas, right?...)

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#62

Post by rdlecler1 »

kome wrote: post #18
dqpb wrote: post #6

I understand the inclination to do this - I think it's natural to want to live in a meritocracy. But I just can't image this not backfiring. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Funny trivia: the word "meritocracy" is the invention of a British sociologist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Young,_Baron_Young_of_... In his book "The Rise of the Meritocracy" (1958) he describes a dystopia where everything in a society is decided by using "merit" (intelligence + effort). For all of those whom use "meritocracy" with a positive connotation, it should be a compulsory read. It's also short and…

You’re putting up a straw man. I could write a dystopian book about any ideology. A good meritocracy would deal with these issues because a dystopian meritocracy would likely hamper innovation and the emergence of new standards and areas of merit.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#63

Post by faitswulff »

throwafk81 wrote: post #53
jchw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty weak comparison to China's totalitarian system of censorship and monitoring.

The Police of London actively scan and monitor social networks looking for “hate speech” so they can pursue legal action. What’s the difference between that and what China does?

Shouldn't hate speech should be punished?

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#64

Post by tankenmate »

madengr wrote: post #45
jimmytidey wrote: post #29

Commentary on China's social credit system so often fails to note the many parallels in western societies. * The West has social credit scoring: money. A key principle of market economies is that accruing money is the just reward for contributing to society. Your bank account is your social credit score - yet we all know that many people get rich without rendering a useful service to society. * Intelligence agencies…

Western intelligence agencies don’t keep risk scores on everyone. Take off the tin foil hat.

The do now, via full take intelligence efforts. Whatever system they use to analyse and/or filter full take is in effect a ranking system. It is not linear but it is ordered, and sometimes not even individually ordered, and quite often probabilistic and somewhat stochastic, but ordered nonetheless.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#65

Post by meri_dian »

whatshisface wrote: post #58
throwafk81 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m European. I can be fined and/or incarcerated if what I say on the internet is arbitrarily deemed as “hate speech”. You don’t need to live in China to be censored.

That's bad, but you have bad and worse. For example in the US the TSA does things the police (and nobody, really,) should never be able to, and they do it without warrants: but that alone does not mean that the US is an authoritarian police state (even though it is more of one than it could be). Likewise, there's a difference between corporate influence in government and outright, socially accepted direct bribery. Th…

Having to be scanned to get on a plane seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do. I fly often and I'm glad the TSA exists and does what it does. I don't feel like my liberty is being taken away in the slightest.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#66

Post by i_am_nomad »

faitswulff wrote: post #63
throwafk81 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Police of London actively scan and monitor social networks looking for “hate speech” so they can pursue legal action. What’s the difference between that and what China does?

Shouldn't hate speech should be punished?

The problem with that is, who defines what “hate” is?

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#67

Post by wu-ikkyu »

meri_dian wrote: post #65
whatshisface wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bad, but you have bad and worse. For example in the US the TSA does things the police (and nobody, really,) should never be able to, and they do it without warrants: but that alone does not mean that the US is an authoritarian police state (even though it is more of one than it could be). Likewise, there's a difference between corporate influence in government and outright, socially accepted direct bribery. Th…

Having to be scanned to get on a plane seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do. I fly often and I'm glad the TSA exists and does what it does. I don't feel like my liberty is being taken away in the slightest.

>I'm glad the TSA exists and does what it does. I don't feel like my liberty is being taken away in the slightest.

If you truly believe that, would you be opposed to TSA style x-ray machines, genital pat downs, and strip searches any time you were to go to school, work, get on a bus, etc?

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#68

Post by meri_dian »

throwafk81 wrote: post #44
niccccccccc wrote: post #21

There's alot of international people posting on hacker news, and alot of them have anti-US bias. They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. for those people I have a comment You like posting political views on the internet right? Imagine China is the sole superpower of the world that defeated the democracies of the world. You would be ranked, censored, monitored, caught, jaile…

I’m European. I can be fined and/or incarcerated if what I say on the internet is arbitrarily deemed as “hate speech”. You don’t need to live in China to be censored.

It's funny, hate speech laws are unconstitutional and could not be passed in the US but such laws are commonplace in Europe. Yet people like to mock the US for saying it's the land of the free.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#70

Post by Karunamon »

faitswulff wrote: post #63
throwafk81 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Police of London actively scan and monitor social networks looking for “hate speech” so they can pursue legal action. What’s the difference between that and what China does?

Shouldn't hate speech should be punished?

No. Not because of the usual slippery slope reasons, but because denying someone their freedom for mere words is abhorrent.
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