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China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#91

Post by jknoepfler »

jimmytidey wrote: post #29

Commentary on China's social credit system so often fails to note the many parallels in western societies. * The West has social credit scoring: money. A key principle of market economies is that accruing money is the just reward for contributing to society. Your bank account is your social credit score - yet we all know that many people get rich without rendering a useful service to society. * Intelligence agencies…

Each of these bullet points is either false or meaningless, which is frustrating because I sort of want to agree with your main point, but I just can't when it's phrased like this.

China obviously utilizes currency and a (very) limited free market. There has never been an alignment between wealth and social value, nor should there be. Yes, wealth creates inequality in the United States (in particular) and other more free-market oriented countries. Some of those countries (particularly Scandinavian ones) have taken great pains to see that actual suffering due to wealth inequality is minimized. The United States is culturally behind in this regard, but equating wealth with an explicit citizenship score is absurd.

Intelligence agencies do not keep security risk scores for every citizen (what country are you talking about, anyway?). I would wager at 10:1 odds that I don't have a profile at the FBI, CIA, or NSA in the United States (to be concrete). Even if they did (they don't) there are no legal uses of such a score, and any attempt to institutionalize something like that would have people rioting in the streets (literally). If I wanted to discover whether or not I had a "score" I would file a FOIA claim for each of those institutions.

Credit ratings are heavily regulated in the United States. Not as well as they could be, but see the Fair Credit Reporting Act from 1970 for a start. Credit reporting agencies are required to be transparent about the sources of their decisions, and hopefully we'll continue to make the system more predictable and humane. The uses of credit ratings are generally limited to situations where having a history of default is important information to a lender or renter. The colleges you applied to didn't, and won't, use your credit score.

Please try to communicate using specifics.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#92

Post by crusso »

dalbasal wrote: post #89

We in "the west" or whatnot need to watch out for the corporate equivalents of this, including credit scores, particularly coming from the financial sectors. There's just a lot of opportunities these days, with all the data floating around and our increasing ability to calculate probabilities of arbitrary things about people from large enough datasets. One side of this is disadvantage. Credit scores are an attempt to…

Is it dehumanizing when I decline a ride with an Uber driver that has 3 stars?

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#93

Post by SolaceQuantum »

throwafk81 wrote: post #53
jchw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty weak comparison to China's totalitarian system of censorship and monitoring.

The Police of London actively scan and monitor social networks looking for “hate speech” so they can pursue legal action. What’s the difference between that and what China does?

The difference is that you can criticize the government and not be thrown in jail. You have a lot more autonomy in your opinions on how you are governed. You can have his conversation at all!

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#94

Post by natch »

They can apply this same system to outsiders too as long as they can buy or gather the data.

They could then use this inside of countries other than China, where they own increasing numbers of business interests including employers.

So this will start affecting behaviors even of non-Chinese people as people anticipate their behavior getting put into the system at some date in the future. Even if the system isn’t in place here yet.

It’s like a preview version of the immortal dictator Elon Musk talks about in the new “Do You Trust This Computer” movie.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#95

Post by whatshisface »

meri_dian wrote: post #79
jackvalentine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. I have literally never seen this.

I see China envy online a lot, especially given our recent political disfunction as people look at the superficial stability of China and want that for their own societies.

China is emphatically not stable. The PRC was started in 1949. The US civil war ended in 1865. Revolution is a living memory for some in China and that does a great deal to help the population think that suppression at all costs is reasonable. While the US was having its civil war, China was suffering through the tail end of [1]. Historically (in the modern era), China may best be seen as a very violent place.

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

(Edit: I didn't notice the word superficial at first, it may have been inserted later as a correction.)

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#96

Post by natch »

jackvalentine wrote: post #26
niccccccccc wrote: post #21

There's alot of international people posting on hacker news, and alot of them have anti-US bias. They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. for those people I have a comment You like posting political views on the internet right? Imagine China is the sole superpower of the world that defeated the democracies of the world. You would be ranked, censored, monitored, caught, jaile…

> They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. I have literally never seen this.

You should travel to China and see it for yourself. Americans are so incredibly naive. I’m not saying you’re American but you definitely should get out more.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#97

Post by [deleted] »

throwafk81 wrote: post #44
niccccccccc wrote: post #21

There's alot of international people posting on hacker news, and alot of them have anti-US bias. They wish China would be the one that takes over US as the superpower of the world. for those people I have a comment You like posting political views on the internet right? Imagine China is the sole superpower of the world that defeated the democracies of the world. You would be ranked, censored, monitored, caught, jaile…

I’m European. I can be fined and/or incarcerated if what I say on the internet is arbitrarily deemed as “hate speech”. You don’t need to live in China to be censored.

[deleted]

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#98

Post by gkya »

meri_dian wrote: post #85
rohit2412 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have anything against USA, but a world with a single superpower is prone to bullying and abuse by the said superpower. Many of us just want a peaceful world, and if that needs to be multipolar, so be it

The amount of "bullying and abuse" by the US is grossly overstated. I think many people, especially in large and proud nations, don't like the idea of being a second class power to the United States. That's certainly what motivates Putin and Xi Jinping. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best, of course. I welcome competition. Unfortunately though this frustration with not being the lone superpower drives p…

It's a fallacy to think of global affairs as a competition for some funny vague rank or doing good or bad, and of figures that represent power as tragedies characters that aim certain things and act in accordance with their stereotypes. It's a game of economics. Rest is rhetoric.

Re: China’s experiment in ranking and monitoring citizens has started

#100

Post by viraptor »

meri_dian wrote: post #85
rohit2412 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have anything against USA, but a world with a single superpower is prone to bullying and abuse by the said superpower. Many of us just want a peaceful world, and if that needs to be multipolar, so be it

The amount of "bullying and abuse" by the US is grossly overstated. I think many people, especially in large and proud nations, don't like the idea of being a second class power to the United States. That's certainly what motivates Putin and Xi Jinping. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best, of course. I welcome competition. Unfortunately though this frustration with not being the lone superpower drives p…

I'm not sure why:

> tremendous amount of good the US has done

Has any effect on:

> The amount of "bullying and abuse" by the US is grossly overstated.

If I cure a 1000 people and kill 1, in still an evil killer. It's not like some kind of game system where karma is a single number. You can help some people and be abusive to others, and those will never balance out unless there's a strict cause-effect relation between them.

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