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China’s new ‘social credit system’

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Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#71

Post by adinobro »

village-idiot wrote: post #61
TeMPOraL wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the US-style credit score, right? Because I can't imagine a country that has banks giving out loans without at least credit worthiness analyses that are essentially credit scores, but lazily computed. And lazily-computed credit score is still credit score. E.g. in Poland, we don't have "credit score", except that the bank will happily calculate it for itself whenever you ask for a loan, which means we have t…

The historical norm for credit has always been offering up possessions as collateral. You don’t need a complicated credit scoring system, or reliable enforcement mechanisms for debt & fraud, you just sell off the collateral if the customer doesn’t pay the loan. This is exactly the function that pawn shops provide in the West, although their usage has dropped significantly since the introduction of consumer credit.

What is happening in China is that most things are pre-paid or have very low hard credit limits.

You often have to pay six months of rent in advance to rent. I know lots of people that have been cut off electricity or phone service but you can get it reconnected in hours or less if you pay the bill.

The one nice thing is that there are NO late fees, reconnection fees, overage fees, etc. You just don't get service.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#72

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53
wincy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you really upset the ruling elite, like Julian Assange, in which case the west will make your life a living hell.

Assange published, with zero redaction, military assets. The journalists who wrote about it and activists who protested surrounding it were not jailed. They didn’t have their credit scores dinged. They were allowed to go about their peaceful dissent. Cleaner example would have been Snowden, who peacefully dissented and responsibly disclosed his leaks. But even then, the comparison would be wrong. Snowden is a single…

> Assange published, with zero redaction, military assets.

Which is illegal how exactly?

> The journalists who wrote about it and activists who protested surrounding it were not jailed.

So, the journalist Julian Assange was not jailed then?

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#73

Post by mbesto »

rayiner wrote: post #31

The implementation is somewhat disconcerting, but I’m not sure the underlying policy isn’t a good idea. Culture matters. When I go to Tokyo and see people walking a couple of blocks to cross the street (there isn’t necessarily a cross walk on every block), or carrying their litter with them, versus what I see in say New York, I’m astounded. Similarly for the fact that nobody has ever asked me for a bribe in the US, v…

> These virtuous behaviors are a better way to live and make life better for everyone.

Sure, until something abuses the power to control those behaviors.

> I should note that Western countries had their own large-scale nearly universal social indoctrination and social credit systems—organized religion.

And religion in the West is slowly dying by the right and will of the people. What happens when people want their social credit system to die? They won't have a choice in that matter.

This debate reeks similarly to the one about the use of electronic ballot systems, which are not better than paper ballots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

The greatest lie were being told is that technology is democratizing our lives. It does until it reaches network effects, which it then hits an inflection point and gives power to very few.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#74

Post by StavrosK »

village-idiot wrote: post #57
raxxorrax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a very clean city and we don't need social credit systems to handle litter. The jump so many people take to encourage strong enforcement for bagatelles is astonishing. Greece also has a lot of bribes but if you would know anything about the culture, you probably wouldn't conclude that you have to liberate the country. Well, I at least hope so... You can use the stick of course, but loosing that, all benefit…

The Greeks are a fascinating case of the utter break down of social trust. Greeks no longer trust each other, and the level of corruption and tax evasion is mind boggling. I think it’s a false equivalence to compare the belief that a country needs something fixed and saying that it needs to be “liberated” with the force of arms.

> Greeks no longer trust each other

Citation super needed here. Nobody trusts the state because it's corrupt, but that hasn't changed in centuries. The main problem Greece has is that everyone puts their own interests above the common good, from littering and double-parking to appropriating state funds.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#75

Post by beardedwizard »

aardshark wrote: post #48
rayiner wrote: post #31

The implementation is somewhat disconcerting, but I’m not sure the underlying policy isn’t a good idea. Culture matters. When I go to Tokyo and see people walking a couple of blocks to cross the street (there isn’t necessarily a cross walk on every block), or carrying their litter with them, versus what I see in say New York, I’m astounded. Similarly for the fact that nobody has ever asked me for a bribe in the US, v…

Why on earth would you walk a couple of blocks to cross the street? Why on earth would you commend this behaviour? I appreciate that my judgement of this behaviour depends on the street, but from my experience of Tokyo, the streets are not particularly wide, or busy.

Because that is where the crosswalk is.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#76

Post by [deleted] »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #67
wyattpeak wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a human right, outside of culture? Unless you're religious, what could it possibly be? There are rights we consider so important that they all but transcend culture, but that "all but" is critical. It's only a matter of consensus, not celestial fiat.

Pretty much every culture has some notion of a right to due process, personal freedom and personal property. The people of rural Afghanistan may draw the lines in different places than we do but these rights in some capacity are fundamental to all human civilizations.

[deleted]

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#77

Post by sonnyblarney »

rayiner wrote: post #31

The implementation is somewhat disconcerting, but I’m not sure the underlying policy isn’t a good idea. Culture matters. When I go to Tokyo and see people walking a couple of blocks to cross the street (there isn’t necessarily a cross walk on every block), or carrying their litter with them, versus what I see in say New York, I’m astounded. Similarly for the fact that nobody has ever asked me for a bribe in the US, v…

It's a sickening idea, moreover, I think you're gravely mistaken if you think this is more about 'keeping litter off the streets behaviour', than total, arbitrary control of the citizenry, mostly for political purposes.

This is the authoritarians dream: 360, total control of people's lives, right out of a dystopian novel.

Second 'organized religion' is a world wide phenom, and is only one of many means by which people are socialized.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#78

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Millennium wrote: post #69

In a society that does not put enough pressure on people to grow up and function, it is tempting to look at this as a possible solution. Coupling it to government power, though, is an outright horror. Any social credit system needs to be run independently, by society, not by the state (not least because of people's unfortunate tendency to remember that there is a difference).

>In a society that does not put enough pressure on people to grow up and function, it is tempting to look at this as a possible solution

Which is exactly why these kinds of developments should be worrying to the west. We're becoming less and less capable of having discussions and drawing hard lines when it comes to maturity and personal responsibility.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#79

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sgift wrote: post #34
Gys wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they do not realise what is coming? > '...one of the ways that people can improve their own social credit score is to report on the supposed misdeeds of others.'

People are easily manipulated. You only need the right incentives and tricks. As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this. Reminder: Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?

>As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this.

Everyone is the hero of their own story.

Re: China’s new ‘social credit system’

#80

Post by dsfyu404ed »

arethuza wrote: post #11
johnchristopher wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, that's Orwellian. As described in the book. It's not the cameras, the government agents in the shadows or the spying technology... It's the end result of everyone spying on each other that made the world of 1984 so inescapable to Winston.

From what I remember of 1984 I don't think everyone was spied on all the time - it was mainly the Outer Party members (~13% of the population) who were scrutinized so closely as they were the source of potential threats to the Inner Party. Most of the characters in the book, apart from O'Brien, were Outer Party members.

The proles were relatively free to do whatever but they were too poor to do much of anything which is why they were left free.

That said, the real life 1984 that we see slowly emerging in a piecemeal manner worldwide (faster in some places than in others) seems to mostly effect the lower and middle classes.

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