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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

#651

Post by mbs159 »

eadmund wrote: post #328

> The only difference between your phone and China's social credit system is that China tells you what they're doing. And that I have a choice of phones, or even no phone at all, and none of my phone options is legally permitted to execute me. Further down, the article argues that switching costs between private companies are ‘enormous.’ I don’t know if they are that large, but however painful it is to switch from Ap…

> is legally permitted to execute me.

Luckily not a single US citizen was ever executed by the US government

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

#652

Post by Levitz »

cyanydeez wrote: post #613
Levitz wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money? More money than Hollywood? California? Both of which lean left pretty hard? It's not 1980 anymore. "Vastly less power", pray tell, would you rather piss on a Christian cross and post it on social media or a LGBT flag? What do you think would have worse consequences? Can you even imagine a prevalence of corporations showing to align themselves with the Christian right for a month every year? The "Christian righ…

People who are afraid of the "left authoritarians" seem to think that you can just sum up human history and cherry pick some great "left-branded" authoritarian and equate that to todays. You're arguing that the people kidnapping people without due process and zero consequences, masked police, are equal to some arbitrary "leftist" in some time that's not relevant to todays political climate. It truly is bizarre how me…

Sorry but I can't take this seriously. I've given more than enough contemporary examples, if you want to dismiss the whole of it and pretend nothing makes sense, that's a choice and I can't help you.

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

#653

Post by graemep »

yachad wrote: post #547
Rover222 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very different than worrying about going to jail for life or getting disappeared.

So what? Lose your job, lose your housing. Prison is at least 3 hots and a cot.

> Prison is at least 3 hots and a cot.

Decent prison conditions tend to overlap with countries with decent human rights.

IN authoritarian countries you might very well be starved or tortured in prison.

You might also just disappear and your body may or may not be found in an identifiable state.

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

#654

Post by arcane23 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #159
arcane23 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making my point though. You'd have a problem if you'd have to fake your religion or your sexual orientation so you get served, but it's fine if we do it with how "likable" we are.

How am I making your point?

That most people cannot even understand where the problem is.

Downvotes make my point as well. I do not want to say the right thing so people aren't offended so I am granted access (or updoots). I'd rather deal with robots for this reason. Spending my money somewhere should be enough to serve me, like me or not. I think it's crazy that I even have to explain it...

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

#655

Post by mbs159 »

graemep wrote: post #189
VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the free and morally righteous West and I self censor all the time. Every single day. My beliefs would have me ostracized from communities and fired from my job.

> My beliefs would have me ostracized from communities and fired from my job. but not landed you in prison or disappeared, I take it?

A lot of US citizens have been imprisoned for their political ideas, though [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_prisoners_in_the_Uni...

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

#656

Post by markus_zhang »

M95D wrote: post #640
markus_zhang wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 busi…

But I remember some story about Ali CEO dissappeared for a while... So, not exactly like US corporations.

Ah yes, for good or bad.

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

#657

Post by throwaway2037 »

specproc wrote: post #335
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…

Yeah, this is it. I've lived under governments of a variety of different stripes in some very different parts of the world, I've lived in war zones. Day to day life has been more or less the same across all of them. You go shopping, go to work, see friends, have a few beers or maybe a smoke, eat out, go to weddings, birthdays and funerals, play sports. People run businesses, post memes. The way non-OECD, "non-democra…

    > We have the same problems: gilded elites, crushing poverty, persecuted minorities, illusory participation in governance, terrifying police, rampant corruption.
Who is "we" here? United States? If not, would Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Norway, (South) Korea, Japan, and Taiwan agree with that sentence? I doubt it. They are all doing very well -- highly functional (democratic) government and very high human development. (To be clear, there are lots of developing countries not yet a part of OECD who are also doing pretty well in those categories.)

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

#658

Post by cogman10 »

rafaelmn wrote: post #634
cogman10 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the OP's point was that if you are in the ingroup, you can expect life to be pretty much equivalent to what you'd experience in the US. It's only if you are in the outgroup (like being gay) that you start to see state violence. This is pretty true of most authoritarian regimes. State violence isn't publicly broadcast or when it is it's usually framed as "fighting crime". To Godwin this, life for a non-jewis…

But the distinction is that in-group requires blind obedience in authoritarian countries. Half this forum is calling their political leaders idiots and will work (vote) against them, they are still in group. This is not a small distinction. Also the path upwards in society changes a lot.

Only the most extreme authoritarians will attempt to silence all dissonance. Most will have a controlled opposition as the illusion of choice and a release valve for anger.

Russia, for example, runs elections and up until recently allowed the opposing party on the ballot. Same with Belarus. China and Iran also have elections, but the candidates are vetted through the state party. I know now Americans from each of these countries (except Iran). One who still votes in the Belarus elections even though they know it won't change anything.

NK is about the only modern regime I know where all opposition is punished. And even then, there's been reports of a loosening of enforcement.

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

#659

Post by throwaway2037 »

corimaith wrote: post #577
margalabargala wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people are emigrating from China to Singapore, which is not particularly less authoritarian.

Singapore is much less authoritarian than China. The PAP plays dirty in a legal way, but they very much obey rule of law as opposed to explicit Rule By Law in the CCP. They also don't effectively declare themselves God as the ultimate authority and moral arbiters of the nation. Like, having mandatory bomb checks in your metro systems is already on the excessive and comical side of authoritarianism here. Most countrie…

    > Singapore is much less authoritarian than China. The PAP plays dirty in a legal way
I think the easiest way to explain the Singaporean democracy to someone from a North American/European mindset: In Singapore, the opposition in parliament is freely elected, but the ruling party is virtually guaranteed to be PAP ("People's Action Party"... I just love how that rolls off the tongue, and the logo has 1970s Batman vibes).

    > having mandatory bomb checks in your metro systems is already on the excessive and comical side of authoritarianism here
Are you speaking about mainland China here? I have experienced it many times in different cities. I wonder if the Chinese Dark Web has memes about the people that they employ. I have hardly seen lower motivation people at their jobs. They move like zombies and are hardly reactive even when you bag causes a "beep" from one of their machines. Do Chinese people think this actually helps? Do they feel safer? I would love to know.

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

#660

Post by DoctorOW »

NautilusWave wrote: post #269
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…

Your credit score IS maintained by companies! Their whole business is maintaining American credit scores. I really have no idea what their business model is.

Yes, the only role of the government was to issue an SSN which has been explicitly said shouldn't be used in such a manner[1].

It is a real pet peeve of mine that people take such hard stands on issues like this when it's so easy to check what's actually happening first. This thread isn't the most egregious example, but it is an example of someone just imagining a system with a big flaw and then suggesting a solution to the problem they made up.

[1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/social-security-n...

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