China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains • Hacker News Board

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#71

Post by matte_black » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #33

matte_black wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, if I was banned from buying anything on Amazon or its subsidiaries I’d be incredibly fucked . I never thought of this before, it left me with a thousand yard stare.

How did you manage before Amazon was a thing?

It was hell. To buy one item I would have to go to a physical store and search through a bunch of crappy options with little to no information about which was better. It could easily take an hour if I didn’t rush or traffic sucked.

Now, I could just wake up in the morning and get the same thing done in 5 minutes AND select a product I feel confident about based on reviews. Instead of wasting an hour of my life I could actually go live my life.

As a result, pretty much everything I buy comes through Amazon. Only things I don’t buy there are things that simply aren’t on Amazon, and getting those things is usually a pain in the ass because I have to search other websites or possibly an open store that may stock that item.

Using Amazon has made me time-rich. If I somehow couldn’t use it, I’d become something of a pauper: Unable to buy good items accurately, and spending a lot of time to find and purchase them. I do not want to return to those days.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#72

Post by derefr » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #22

jsonne wrote: post #11

China is doing this explicitly, but the West has been doing this implicitly for a while. Doxxing people with the "wrong" opinion and emailing their employers, friends, etc. I pretty regularly see if on Facebook where someone says something and their post or a screenshot of their post is shared hundreds of thousands of times with test that says "make this person famous". To be clear people should be called out for big…

There is a massive divide between private citizens harassing and bulling one another and governments wielding a monopoly on force outlawing and punishing dessent against the ruling class. You can sue someone for attacking you online if they cause provable financial or social distress. Go try suing the CCP in China for not providing freedom of speech and see how that unexplained disappearance treats you.

Yes, but in this case we’re talking about the government punishing the same practices that the polity will harass and bully a person over, rather than just practices that are against the state’s own interests, in addition to the state suppressing things it actually derives benefit to itself by suppressing.

Or, to put that another way: if there’s a lynch-mob after you, does it matter how many of its members are in uniform?

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#73

Post by thisisit » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

wufufufu wrote: post #6

Soon... "Amazon to ban people with too many returns from groceries"

That does happen but not from buying groceries, yet.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#74

Post by wehadfun » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

RubenSandwich wrote: post #4

If anyone wants to see some of the negative effects of a persistent 'social score' that affects real life I recommend this Black Mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive .

Yea that episode the "credit" was objective based on random people's opinions. According to the article, they claim that you have to not pay fines, or smoke on a train to ruin your social credit.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#75

Post by olfactory » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

This sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version. When a "real name" service becomes a financial services company, we have a merging of social metadata and a conventional credit score.

It does not start out as a dystopian vision. Why should Facebook charge advertisers money to show ads to people with a 400 credit score? The yield of many ads is improved when you have hard demographic and behavioral data as an additional filter.

What's the difference between an Uber Pool rider getting a ride with other similarly-rated riders? Why should I with a near 5 star rating have to risk sitting in a pool with someone who has a 3.2 star rating? I certainly don't want to.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#76

Post by jsonne » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #56

jsonne wrote: post #11

China is doing this explicitly, but the West has been doing this implicitly for a while. Doxxing people with the "wrong" opinion and emailing their employers, friends, etc. I pretty regularly see if on Facebook where someone says something and their post or a screenshot of their post is shared hundreds of thousands of times with test that says "make this person famous". To be clear people should be called out for big…

While what you say is certainly true in specific cases (ie. the Facebook mob example), there is nothing in the West at an institutional level that compares to the ambitions of the Chinese Social Credit system. Also, how come every time an article is posted about something Orwellian the PRC is doing, the comments are packed with whataboutism fallacies? "Yea, but look at what's happening here in the West!" It happens s…

I didn't say whatabout the west despite your accusation that I did. I said it seems like they are part of an overarching trend I've noticed which is a puritanical and unforgiving approach to policing behavior in modern society. That is all.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#77

Post by WillPostForFood » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #33

matte_black wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, if I was banned from buying anything on Amazon or its subsidiaries I’d be incredibly fucked . I never thought of this before, it left me with a thousand yard stare.

How did you manage before Amazon was a thing?

Bought books at Borders, toys at Toys R Us, electronics at Circuit City, sporting goods at Sports Authority.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #67

awakeasleep wrote: post #7

To me the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted” sounds like the beginning of a new caste system. Everyone's children are going to make mistakes. The wealthy are going to be able to cover up their children's mistakes, the poor are going to be put on 'the list' and become 'restricted.' The restrictions will grow, and eventually you'll have a new group of 'untouchables'

It isn't the beginning of a new caste system. It is more like a modern iteration of very old Confucian ideals. (Not that I agree with Confucian philosophy) Confucian philosophy had influenced Chinese culture for several millennial, and the oral tradition was that Confucius (Kong Tzu) himself distilled what went into the Analects from much older rites and cultures. The basic idea here is that humans don't start out as…

> It is more like a modern iteration of very old Confucian ideals

Confucious also said "those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.”

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#79

Post by khafra » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #33

matte_black wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, if I was banned from buying anything on Amazon or its subsidiaries I’d be incredibly fucked . I never thought of this before, it left me with a thousand yard stare.

How did you manage before Amazon was a thing?

Life can be a Red Queen Race, where each innovation keeps you barely above the rising water. Just because people survived* before [X] doesn't mean they can survive after having [X] withdrawn.

*For certain values of "survived;" e.g. if someone had a bad accident in an isolated area before cellphones, they usually died.

Re: China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

#80

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

KerrickStaley wrote: post #58

zanny wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CCP is not interested in progress, its interested in maintaining permanent, absolute power at any cost.

That's not really true. Progress and upward economic development increase the faith of the public and the Communist Party rank-and-file in the Communist Party leadership. The Communist Party leadership has a strong incentive to promote growth.

> the Communist Party leadership has a strong incentive to promote growth

But Xi Jinping does not.