For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems • Hacker News Board

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#61

Post by neuronic » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

ajdlinux wrote: post #32

onion2k wrote: post #7

As the article itself points out, the Chinese media is full of stories about Chinese people being targets of scams by food producers, eCommerce companies selling fakes, and scams by one another (dating scams and so on). These social-credit surveillance programs have been marketed to the people they're aimed at as a benefit that protects them from potential crime. It's the same everywhere - here in the UK we have the…

> People respond well to things that make them feel safer, regardless of whether they're actually safer So as privacy advocates, what do we say if we see a highly intrusive surveillance system that does make people actually safer? It's entirely possible that a highly intrusive surveillance system could well be extremely effective in combatting crime - and I mean the "universally-agreed" crimes, not political crimes -…

This is a difficult question because it boils down to whether we generally prefer safety over freedom.

Privacy is just one pillar of freedom, albeit a load-bearing one. Freedom will crumble if we strike down this pillar and as a society - or even as Western hemisphere - we have to evaluate if safety from (state-defined) crime ends up being worth near-zero privacy.

If I were to judge by some interviews I recently saw on "extra3", a comedic German television format [1], I increasingly fear that democracy, freedom and liberalism are doomed. Context: People at a meat convention (yes...) were asked about their opinions on climate change and animal farming.

Boomer-aged visitors and young visitors alike not only showed complete lack of understanding of ANY issue associated with large-scale animal husbandry. But they turned questions on their head and answered in a sort of stupid and ignorant way I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. One example: "What do you think about animal suffering in mass animal husbandry?"

Answer, paraphrased, completely serious in tone: "Nothing, the humans here at this convention are also visiting in masses and obviously nobody suffers. They are all enjoying themselves, look around."

A question about CO2-impact of animal farming brought another response forward, that had me baffled: "There is no problem here, we have been eating meat for thousands of years and now suddenly it's supposed to be wrong. The climate didn't change over the millennia either!"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_3

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#62

Post by threatofrain » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #61

ajdlinux wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People respond well to things that make them feel safer, regardless of whether they're actually safer So as privacy advocates, what do we say if we see a highly intrusive surveillance system that does make people actually safer? It's entirely possible that a highly intrusive surveillance system could well be extremely effective in combatting crime - and I mean the "universally-agreed" crimes, not political crimes -…

This is a difficult question because it boils down to whether we generally prefer safety over freedom. Privacy is just one pillar of freedom, albeit a load-bearing one. Freedom will crumble if we strike down this pillar and as a society - or even as Western hemisphere - we have to evaluate if safety from (state-defined) crime ends up being worth near-zero privacy. If I were to judge by some interviews I recently saw…

People are looking for the right language to do what they want with dignity, but the specifics of the language and its content aren't of interest.

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#63

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #53

netsharc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't agree with the "normal countries", but I wonder at what point does a society become uncivil? Obviously in a tribal village in the past you know who lived in the hut next door and it was like a big family who trusted each other (food was shared, mothers would take care of each others' kids). Maybe it's related to the Dunbar number?

From an outside perspective, Japan still seems extremely civil despite being very densely populated. I have never felt safer anywhere else as a visitor. I suspect a near-ubiquitous level of high homogeneous culture is a big factor.

[deleted]

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#64

Post by teekert » Sat, Jan 26, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #16

teekert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? Imho it's like a society where everything is GPL-ed, is it really so wrong? Sure social credit etc are horrible imo but I fail to see that the copying of smart ideas without punishment is inherently wrong. It's non-capitalistic, but inherentl…

This soft bigotry against Chinese culture is really tiring already. Chinese culture and people are all over the world: America, southeast Asia, singapore, and so many other places... To think that cheating and IP theft and scams is somehow part of Chinese culture or that these are virtues unqiue to these exotic orientals and we should drop our Western preconceptions is so unbelievably condescending... And how offensi…

A Thai person once told me they were raising a generation of copiers, when 1 person would start a karaoke bar, the street would be filled with them soon. I also heard stories of Chinese copying entire machines for manufacturers in the west and expecting support on them. I don't understand your reply I'm saying western culture may have strange standards, Or, different at least.

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#65

Post by lozenge » Sun, Jan 27, 2019, 10:22 AM UTC

RandomTisk wrote: post #8

teekert wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? Imho it's like a society where everything is GPL-ed, is it really so wrong? Sure social credit etc are horrible imo but I fail to see that the copying of smart ideas without punishment is inherently wrong. It's non-capitalistic, but inherentl…

Maybe I'm reading "cheating" too literally but I can't imagine any scenario where I would want someone's expertise who copied other's work instead of creating the work themselves. At best I temporarily have a small lead, at worst I'll get sued or kill someone through hiring incompetence.

Cheating is ingrained into the culture. Two examples: if you visit an ancient building, it will have been rebuilt identically 7-8 times on the same spot (but still be considered the same building). When you were an apprentice craftsman in China, your goal was to make work indistinguishable from the master, at which point you would graduate and start making your own furniture/whatever it was.

Re: For now at least, China's citizens are embracing social-credit systems

#66

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #35

ekianjo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not a Western country so the concept of individual liberties and having the individual as the most important unit in society, as a concept, is pretty much foreign (literally!) to them. You will find very similar trends across Asia. Japan is an interesting case where the current constitution was written by Americans after WWII superimposed on a culture that's quite different in the first place. This is for si…

What’s interesting is that Taiwan derives some of its routes from the same Chinese culture, yet independently came up with support for human rights and democracy. So did South Korea.

Taiwan had a strong incentive to differentiate culturally to justify that they should be an independent country.

Take Singapore which is mostly Chinese and the authoritarian model applies like in China (of course in different degrees but direction wise they are more authoritarian than most western countries).