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Chinese Journalist Banned From Flying, Buying Property Due To 'Social Credit Score' (cbslocal.com)
schwit1 shares a report from CBS Local: China is rolling out a high-tech plan to give all of its 1.4 billion citizens a personal score, based on how they behave. But there are consequences if a score gets too low, and for some that's cause for concern. When Liu Hu recently tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on the list of untrustworthy people. Liu is a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," he said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time." And the list is now getting longer as every Chinese citizen is being assigned a social credit score -- a fluctuating rating based on a range of behaviors. It's believed that community service and buying Chinese-made products can raise your score. Fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it.
Wow, who knew!
..and thought 'That's a good idea!'.... Scary..
The Big Brother is raising his younger siblings right. Apologize or go to bed without dinner. What a great prospect for the future. It always starts with 'bad' people and before you know it you are labeled a terrorist for expressing your opinion.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Note that there are ways to earn money that don't involve "follow the law, work hard"...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We have "demerit" points on our drivers license here in Ontario. As long as the system is transparent (you broke this law, -25 points, you paid your tax on time, +2 points, etc.) then it's not so bad. Post the account history publicly for each person. However, if the algorithm is a secret, that's a really big problem. You know all the Supreme Leader's buddies are going to have padded scores, right...
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Look at some of the current people in our government.
The problem with your idea is that those are the people who would decide what your "social score" is. Do you really think that the people who covered up Teddy Kennedy leaving a woman to die would have counted any of his anti-social behavior against him? Or that the people who are angry about Donald Trump's alleged sexual harassment but were OK with Bill Clinton's alleged rapes would have evenly applied "social scores"?
Basically, the concept only works if you have honest, trustworthy people to implement it, but if you have such people in positions of power, you don't need it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That is also something The Orville explored in the "Majority Rule" episode.
Whatever abuse can happen, WILL HAPPEN. If you give power to the state then it's guaranteed someone will come and use it in the worst ways imaginable.
Socialist dream (tm).
Considering this and things like it have been talked about way before that show was made it's less the Chinese looking at a fictional dystopia for ideas to implement and more just the writers of a fictional dystopia hearing about Chinese plans and adding it to their fictional dystopia.
It's a horrifying idea none the less and only made even more horrifying by now having been implemented in the worst way possible in real life. Then again considering all the outrageous ways China has tried to control it's population over the decades in an effort to stop them from realizing the absurdity of their one party system this is probably business as usual from their perspective. If you can get thrown into some local Stasi equivalent's jail with nothing resembling a trial and coerced into confessing to all kinds of crazy things just for running a bookstore that sells books critical of the ruling party and system this may not even register for a lot people.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Don't tell anyone what rises or lowers your score and you're one step closer to a religion.
But seriously, that would actually increase the effectiveness of something like this. Nobody is better at coming up with things to do and not to do than the people themselves, they'll regulate their lives in ways you wouldn't even think possible just to suck up to big daddy.
Could anyone stop the planet, I want to get off.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of SJWs suddenly cried out in agreement and were suddenly scheming.
The thing about planning any far reaching system is that you need to consider what the damage that can be done if people with less-than-noble intentions take control of the system and use it to further their own goals. It's not just the danger conservatives imposing their ideas on how you're supposed to live your life and think taking over the system, there's also their opposite numbers on the extreme who are particularly keen on trying to prevent people from having opinions that differ from their orthodoxy. If implemented as something run by the government this system is particularly vulnerable to politicians coming in and changing what's rewarded and what's punished to fit their goals.
If I had to come up with a name for this, it would be the "Monkey with a machine gun"-principle as I think that explains the idea itself pretty well.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
On a smaller scale, imagine the uproar if slashdot visitors were scored based on their comments, and even had their opinions hidden by default if the ruling party didn't like what was said!
Even if Ted diddo that, he simply wasn't emotionally equiped to deal with the problem and has to be forgiven. After all, he is a Kennedy and they are all high IQ geniuses. The people that did the cover-up are the guilty one by hiding the truth from us.
See how easy it is to shift your social score to someone else?
The other smart Kennedy fly a plane into the ground.
The Orville: Majority Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
The problem is in the definition of "misbehave". Because even the examples you give send shivers up my spine. And we didn't even touch the usual "praise dear leader and love The Party" bits that will almost certainly make it into the fold.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's how I envisaged this passage would work:
And he [the "Beast"] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:16-17 King James Version)
You acts (symbolized by right hand) or thinking (symbolized by forehead) not conforming to society's norms (actually, what society is told the norms are - symbolized by the mark of the beast)? Then you will be censured by restricting your economic activities, even the unrelated ones.
Nice alpha testing there to smooth out the bugs before the international roll-out...
Then there's those Southern Baptists still waiting for the bar code and/or implanted microchip. (Which admittedly will make the administration of such a system even easier.)
(Posting AC because of unpopular view - not following the /. groupthink. Hmmm the irony.)
If by throwaway you mean 100% ontopic and relevant and historical then it's because that is how we predict the future, by past experience! Of course not all of us, some of us are more pie in the sky type of ppl. Do you know the definition of insanity ?
Yes we get it. Democrats bad, Republicans doubleplusgood.
This unthink certainly helped your social credit score comrade!
It is not a social credit score. Social implies that it is somehow derived from how other people perceive you, where each person can have a greatly different view of you. It also implies that everyone is free to use, or not use, these scores as they see fit.
Neither is the case, there is nothing social about it. It is a mandatory government conformance and compliance score. It is an instrument of oppression.
If any western government tried something like this, every single citizen and their dog would know about it. I've asked some locals in China about it, none of them had a clue about what I was talking about.
He knows if you've been naughty or nice. Maybe Xi is really Santa in disguise.
I could see a social credit score system easily coming to the United States because the big data miners like Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. would drool at the opportunity like that for a new source of revenue. I'll bet even the credit bureaus are watching the experiment in China unfold and are plotting how they could implement a similar system here in the United States.
My politically charged comments were to show that Trump's political opponents had just as well-known, and possibly more serious, cheating and crimes.
Unfortunately, the right-wing's failure to recognize Trump's own serious crimes and malfeasances is evident, as well as how the Clinton's accusers were guilty of many crimes, including Gingrich, Hyde, Hastert, Livingston and more. That, and how despite decades of trying, the right-wing still relies on specious claims like passing around the so-called "Death List" and completely misrepresenting situations like abortion or immigration.
Not to mention, more recently, characters like Moore himself. And dozens of others. But what do we hear?
Well, despite their claims otherwise, it seems that conservatives love to judge and condemn others who disagree with them, while being indifferent, apologetic, and even supportive of their own members behavior. Yet oddly, they ascribe all the follies of this kind of judgment to their nemesis, the dreaded liberals and progressives themselves.
So whatever criticisms they say that might have some truthful character is undercut by the multitude of lies, hyperbole and hypocrisy that is coming from their own quarters.
Perhaps if you were being truly bipartisan in your comments, and made more of an effort to emphasize the impropriety to be found on both sides, you might yourself accomplish some degree of effectiveness to your attempts.
Now me, I could point out some of the follies that Clinton made, such as going along with the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, but then, that would require the GOP to admit the Bush Presidency was the one responsible for it. But they can't do that, they can't even admit they were the ones who started keeping prisoners at Guantanamo or that they even opposed Obama's efforts to bring them to trial.
One book I know of was written in 1948.
And another one 6000 years ago where an all seeing being would punish you if you did something naughty. That was also the first reference to "Get of my lawn'"
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Let's all thank China for introducing this dystopian idea to the world, thus teaching everyone how dystopic this idea is.
If Apple had come up with this idea, we'd be fucked.
The thing about planning any far reaching system is that you need to consider what the damage that can be done if people with less-than-noble intentions take control of the system and use it to further their own goals
That's the beauty of the Chinese system, Xi is already emperor for life. So that little problem was already sorted out first :)
Devil's advocate here: Shouldn't the West adopt this method?
No.
This can penalize unpopular behaviors as well
Thank you for highlight one reason why.
giving ardent 2A supporters the choice between having military weapons or being able to interact and have full access to society's benefits will definitely be useful
Only for people that don't believe in democracy.
They can either give up membership, or be part of society; not both.
If thoughtcrime becomes illegal you're the first cunt against the wall.
Everyone has a level playing field.
Oh sweet sweet summer child.
Overall, this might be viewed as a tool of a repressive government
..because it is.
realistically, this is a way to keep order
So is the gulag system. I don't support that either.
and is the best thing modern technology has for doing so
I reject your 'order' and will happily do so with extreme violence. Fuck you and your authoritarianism.
This is a way of ending a persons life, and providing a politically legitimized means of doing it.
I don't think people understand just how nefarious this is. This can and will be used to control entire societies, in ways that past dictatorships could only dream of.
You can design this system to silence ALL political dissent, in a very subtle and undetectable way - the same way homelessness is legitimized and acceptable politically, in western society - and the way the system works, will encourage the support of everyone in society (lest they literally be scored into oblivion as well, for not cooperating or being enthusiastic enough...).
It makes 1984 look like an Athenian democracy, in comparison. It's one of the most ugly and dangerously totalitarian things I've seen in my lifetime.
Yeah, those assholes for making shit up and ruining people's lives.
Hmm, that reminds me. I wonder what deplorable is being kicked off Twitter or Facebook today. Probably yet another racist sexist xenophobe misogynist transphobic fascist nazi who absolutely deserved it by expressing a harmful or divisive opinion that disagreed with our political stance. It's amazing how many of these dumbasses don't realize that Free speech has its consequences.