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

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

#641

Post by aurareturn »

Rover222 wrote: post #492
the_af wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the common US view of life in North Korea and China is probably about 90% distorted, more propaganda than reality. I'm not vouching for any country, I'm just saying the public perception in the US is completely distorted. I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese had a slightly more realistic view of the US.

That's a reasonable take. I feel like China has such extreme ends of the spectrum, from the most modern cities to the most distant rural regions. It's hard to think of China in any sort of unified, whole way.

   from the most modern cities to the most distant rural regions
Because 30 years ago, the vast majority lived in villages and barely had running water/electricity. Today, these villages are mostly empty. People who live there are older people who do not want to live in cities or can't afford to. But even in villages today, they have electric cars, solar panels, ride hailing, and plenty of conveniences.

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

#642

Post by don_esteban »

egman_ekki wrote: post #592
don_esteban wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, what country are you from? What time period are you talking about? Is it your lived experience or the second-hand memory? I lived in Bulgaria & Czechoslovakia in 70's and 80's, and my memories are quite different than yours. You can buy fresh vegetables and fruits (in-season, local, not shipped from Peru) & dairy products & bread & eggs as much as you can afford (and the prices were affordable, stable for a doze…

I think your view is a tad optimistic. Many people had difficult lives just because they didn’t want to be members of the party. Thier kids didn’t get to good schools, or got to the one 30 minutes by train, they lost jobs and were forced to dry laundry with engineering degrees. There was even a joke about this: ⸻ In Poland, during the times of hard socialism, a math associate professor calculated that a shipyard work…

1) maybe it was different in 50's, 60's, when I was around, plenty of profs at the university were non-communists in 1989. The communists as a percentage of working population was always low (2) jokes are jokes, exxagerating a kernel of truth to the point of absurdity is what makes the joke. The truth is, the salary of prof was never anything special, but was marginally better than the salary of average worker. There were some highly (i.e. 2x, maybe even 3x?, salary scales overall were really flat) paid worker occupations, miners were one of them (maybe due to work hazard). The way to get the luxuries was not through money, but through connections (yes, mostly communistic ones).

3) shit happens (the accompanying text talks about a fire in the main/only paper-mill making toilet paper in Czechoslovakia), there were queues when the rumor spread 'there will be bananas in the local fruit&vegetables shop'. There were people panic buying toilet paper at the start of COVID also, maybe its a local specialty :-)

One anecdote I remember from my youth was people routinely taking their windshield wipers off when parking somewhere out (those were notoriously in short supply and easy to steal). So yes, there were supply problems, no rose glasses, but nothing extreme.

As with everything, there is too much polarization: some people remember only the bad stuff and it was a hell on earth for them, others remember only the good stuff and emphasize that. As always, the truth is in between.

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

#643

Post by coldtea »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #371
coldtea wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In certain things it can be better. Singapore might be a state run authoritatively with the same party in power for 60 years, but you're free to walk around at any time without fear of any crime happening to you. Or public projects that "just work" where in the "western liberal" case their deteriorate or are tied up in bureucracy. And life if "you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble" is…

Prevalence of masked gangs (ostensibly a Gestapo, but without uniform or id) kidnapping people in government buildings without police intervening appears (as an outside observer) to be ~100% higher than under recent USA administrations. Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

>Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

Are you saying that only this particular type of government abuse matters, so if prior governments didn't do this particular thing, then they're A-OK no matter whatever else they did?

As for your strawman:

--

According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data from fiscal years 2009 to 2016, more than 3 million individuals were formally removed from the country during the Obama administration. Annually, between 58% and 84% of these removals were so-called "summary removals" carried out through legal procedures such as "expedited removal" and "reinstatement of removal," which do not involve a hearing before an immigration judge. On average, about 74% of removals during this period fell into these categories. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deportations-court/

--

No police intervened for those 3 million people either (except to deport them summarily).

But the guys that took them didn't wear masks (maybe), so that's ok.

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

#644

Post by [deleted] »

idiomat9000 wrote: post #388
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prevalence of masked gangs (ostensibly a Gestapo, but without uniform or id) kidnapping people in government buildings without police intervening appears (as an outside observer) to be ~100% higher than under recent USA administrations. Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#645

Post by coldtea »

idiomat9000 wrote: post #388
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prevalence of masked gangs (ostensibly a Gestapo, but without uniform or id) kidnapping people in government buildings without police intervening appears (as an outside observer) to be ~100% higher than under recent USA administrations. Are you saying this was already happening, just as much, under Obama, say?

[flagged]

>In china, there is a murder wagon with a crematory. Nobody ever finds you..

In China there are portable vans to serve as execution places for executions that are ordered by court - in lieu of having special buildings. No crematory and no 'nobody finds you' nonsense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van

Still bad, but same for the "land of the free" that still has and carries the death penalty (for comparison, no EU or European country has it).

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

#646

Post by watersb »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #344
coldtea wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Senator McCarthy was eventually kicked out of Congress for his witch hunt "Eventually discarded when no longer useful" would be a more accurate phrasing. The witch hunts continued under other schemes and for other targets. > As a liberal democracy, the United States has never been perfect, but it's always been worth improving. Well, isn't that the case with every government?

it was a good witch hunt. we very much almost lost the Cold War to the soviets. the US public and government officials had no idea how bad it was in the USSR. The majority of intellectuals glazed the Soviet Union. We witch hunted. We also got lapped by the FSB most years. What saved us was our economic engine.

> The US public and government officials had no idea how bad it was in the USSR.

My wife's grandparents had a subscription to "Soviet Life" magazine, beautiful postcard photos and articles about the glowing future of mankind, collective posts capitalist society...

From the 1950s. We've got stacks of them. Wild.

So, yes: many intellectuals in the United States had an "I want to believe" attitude.

> It was a good witch hunt.

There's no such thing as a good witch hunt.

When you are targeting innocent people, destroying lives in the name of freedom, there can be no liberty.

Inciting mob justice is playing with fire. It's a form of insanity. Our judicial system was designed to find fact and render judgment as far from that madness as possible. It's imperfect but can be made to work.

> We very much almost lost the Cold War to the Soviets.

Anyone who spent a weekend in a nuclear bomb shelter in the summer of 1983 knows there was no winning in that Cold War. Everyone was losing.

> What saved us was our economic engine.

The short answer is yes, I agree.

There's a much longer answer. I toured a tiny bit of Estonia and Russia in the summer of 1990. I wish I could tell you in just a few words how I saw a thousand acts of bravery, many acts of brutality, and more than anything a million hungry people who wanted better for their children.

What saved us was our economic engine, our mutual commitment to the welfare and defense of our NATO allies, our intelligence service and our diplomatic corps. Career professionals and rational leadership.

Not witch hunts.

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

#647

Post by coldtea »

refurb wrote: post #619
coldtea wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In certain things it can be better. Singapore might be a state run authoritatively with the same party in power for 60 years, but you're free to walk around at any time without fear of any crime happening to you. Or public projects that "just work" where in the "western liberal" case their deteriorate or are tied up in bureucracy. And life if "you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble" is…

This is the same argument from Mussolini's facists - "at least the trains run on time". I'm unmoved by the argument. If the choice comes down between "the trains run on time" and "I can arbitrarily imprisons for my speech", I'd happily live with trains that don't run on time.

>This is the same argument from Mussolini's facists - "at least the trains run on time"

No, it's an added argument that "and everyday life is the same, if not improved".

Many people would prefer living in an orderly state like Singapore, than in a place they fear for their safety, public order is deteriorating, their cities are dying, public works are crap, politics are a circus, and so on, even if they don't get to vote one of two parties that do mostly the same things in favor of billionaires while their life worsens.

That's no 1920s fascist Italy. Nor is China for that matter.

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

#648

Post by skeezyboy »

winrid wrote: post #630
skeezyboy wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

give me a country in the first world that doesnt have credit checks

France

interesting. you dont get a credit rating but you have an effective credit check. nobody is giving money out to strangers hoping itll get paid back, theyre all checking your credit history - a mortgage is credit, mortgage defaults still count against your borrowing ability. Its a credit check in all but name

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

#649

Post by OfficeChad »

don_esteban wrote: post #584
jajko wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not saying everywhere is identical, there's a spectrum Why such drama with many words, when all can be summed up with that. Yet somehow, people consider life much better on one side of the spectrum, while other side is considered utter shit. So much that many people are risking their lives, and some are dying just to 'move across spectrum'. It may be a hard concept to grok for typical western kids who often str…

Heh, what country are you from? What time period are you talking about? Is it your lived experience or the second-hand memory? I lived in Bulgaria & Czechoslovakia in 70's and 80's, and my memories are quite different than yours. You can buy fresh vegetables and fruits (in-season, local, not shipped from Peru) & dairy products & bread & eggs as much as you can afford (and the prices were affordable, stable for a doze…

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

#650

Post by OfficeChad »

I-M-S wrote: post #507
eth0up wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pretend democracy" I rarely offer an opinion here, expecting in advance it will gray into oblivion, however politely or sincerely it's presented. I see it happen to others often enough to remember. In most cases I see the word democracy used, I have the exact thought, "pretend democracy". I don't deliberately try to be a morose cynic. I've just become incapable of thinking the very word without the subjunction "pret…

Democracy is the opium for the masses.

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