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Beijing To Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020 (bloomberg.com)

China's plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident. From a report: The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government's website this week. Those with better so-called social credit will get "green channel" benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult. The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be "unable to move even a single step," according to the government's plan. Xinhua reported on the proposal Tuesday, while the report posted on the municipal government's website is dated July 18.

156 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    BM did an episode on this.

    Sounds like a great fucking system.

    Remind me why we're doing business with these people again?

    1. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by Kaenneth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Only difference is in the US private companies keep scores on you instead of the government.

    2. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Remind me why we're doing business with these people again?

      Are you joking? We do business in places where they abduct American residents, torture them, chop them up into pieces and dissolve them in acid.

      Because there's money to be made.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Only difference is in the US private companies keep scores on you instead of the government.

      Well, the other difference is that the only credit score they track is about, well, credit -- your ability to borrow money and otherwise incur future debts. And it's not some judgment on your overall fitness for society, it's just a judgment on how likely you are to pay what you owe.

      This "other difference" is enormous. So big that they aren't remotely the same things at all.

      The closest thing the US has to this social credit score is a criminal record. If you are convicted of a crime, especially a felony, then the government keeps track of that, and it will affect your ability to get a job, own a job, vote (in most states), etc. And if your crime was sexual in nature, it will affect where you're allowed to live and work as well. What makes this particularly nasty is that prosecutors are really good at extracting confessions and pleas of guilt even from innocent people.

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    4. Re: Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Kashoggi wasn't US citizen. He was a Saudi citizen, which is why he was at the Saudi consulate in the first place, to conduct business as a Saudi citizen. As far as I know, although he worked for the Washington Post, he was not as US resident, he was residing in Turkey, although he may have a US work visa allowing him to travel to the US as he needed since his employer was an American entity.

      Our protections overseas don't necessarily extend to non-citizens.

    5. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      Yeah well, it's not like the voters are objecting much

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    6. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't worry, you will soon have this system too. Cars have mandatory GPS, so they will first start at car insurance based on your GPS recorded driving habits. Then they will combine it with traffic control to see if you are speeding/driving on red. Then it will naturally evolve to everyone having the chip (which has been discussed lately a lot) and that will evolve into everyone being tracked throughout the city instead of just your work or your home. And so on and so on.

      And you will be rated based on all of those things and your social media use etc.

      I wish i was kidding, but i'm not.

    7. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by jools33 · · Score: 1

      Well singles day in China had about 3 to 4 times the estimated sales that Black Friday / Cyber Monday had last year, and that trend looks set to continue this year. Being able to sell competitively to the largest market in the world may in fact be a good thing for the US economy.

    8. Re: Black Mirror - Nosedive by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      No, he was residing in the US and planning to move to Turkey because his fiance liked it there. That's why the crown prince arranged his murder through their US Consulate; that's who he was making the arrangements through.

    9. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's not really true unfortunately.

      Cambridge Analytica was a relatively small databroker which focussed on deriving psychological profiles from your data through 'inference'. Larger databrokers have 8000 scores for sale. All of them feed your mundane data (social media scraped, smart home data, etc) to algorithms that then compare your data to that of other people they know more about, and if your data exhibits similar traits they will infer that you also fit in certain categories.

      This talk explains things:

      Social Cooling - big data's unintended side effect

      But I also recommend checking out the work of:

      - "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy o Neill (book)

      - "Black Box Society" by Frank Pasquale (book)

      For me it's the Social Cooling I worry about. When people feel watched and judged "at scale", then large scale chilling effects might occur. This is China's goal. But in the west we should want to avoid these effects, as they hinder our ability to sustain a vibrant democracy. See:
      Social Cooling website

    10. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      The closest thing the US has to this social credit score is a criminal record.

      It goes way beyond that, the US government can simply get what it wants because it is already in bed with big business. Business is already screening you out of many things behind "employment screening services". Many of these companies also have other names you wouldn't recognize, if you don't think you're already being watched all the time by companies who's sole purpose is to profit and minimize risk, I got a bridge I want to sell ya.

      http://www.es2.com/

      Check out "instant checkmate", to lookup info on people, be surprised and alarmed.

      https://www.instantcheckmate.c...

    11. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by Kiuas · · Score: 2

      Don't worry, you will soon have this system too.

      I mean, thing with all large western states is, we don't really now if these kind of systems exist or not. Social media and credit information and so on is all out there, and there be large agencies with significant technical capabilities that we know are capable of tracking mobile phones' location and bank transfers etc. They operate gigantic data centers and apparently (if the Snowden leaks are to be believed) intercept data from ISPs and so on. Hell, Google and other companies already track device locations pretty much all the time for commercial purposes, so copying that data to some server somewhere in case of 'terrorists' is not that far out of the question.

      I'm not saying it's happening 'cause again, there's no way to prove this. I'm just saying if some letter combination agency would be doing this, is there any way we'd really be able to know? The official line is that they're only collecting 'metadata' in bulk, but whatever 'metadata' in fact consists of is another matter entirely.

      This is not to say that such tracking is identical to the system in China, because it's not used for loan applications and flight ticket purchases and so on like in China. Just pointing out that the collaboration between tech giants and governmental agencies in the West as well is likely more tight than most people assume.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    12. Re: Black Mirror - Nosedive by jrbrtsn · · Score: 1

      "couldn't care less ..."
      THANK YOU for saying what you mean to say, and not the opposite!

    13. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by jbmartin6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are right that it is no where near the scale of what China is implementing, but credit scores get used for a good number of non-credit decisions such as getting a job.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    14. Re: Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No borders, no wall, no USA at all! Orange man bad.

    15. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by swillden · · Score: 1

      own a job

      Er, I meant "own a gun". That's a funny typo.

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    16. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by sremick · · Score: 2

      Well, the other difference is that the only credit score they track is about, well, credit -- your ability to borrow money and otherwise incur future debts. And it's not some judgment on your overall fitness for society, it's just a judgment on how likely you are to pay what you owe.

      Except that that's increasingly not true. We're now seeing one's credit score being used as criteria for determining what auto insurance rate you get, your ability to get housing, and (ironically) as part of the application review process when you try to get a job.

      The negative feedback loop that that last one causes is particularly bad.

    17. Re: Black Mirror - Nosedive by Anubis350 · · Score: 2

      Clearly you know wrong. He was a legal permanent resident, and in the middle of the citizenship process, his kids *are* US citizens, and he worked for a US newspaper.

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    18. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      Only difference is in the US private companies keep scores on you instead of the government.

      The issue, though, is that data collected by private companies does not stay securely in the company's databases.

      Instead, private firms sell and share it to all and sundry (which is, after all the reason why they collected it). The government still gets all the data, while being able to deny they're collecting it themselves. At least in China you know who's the big bad; in America, the responsibility is so diluted there is no way to find somebody to blame.

      Also, various companies' databases provide hackers and other malefactors with rich seams of information to dig into (ironically, Chinese are probably safer this way than Americans, since I'd imagine the Chinese government databases are better protected, and the penalties for hacking them are much more serious).

    19. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      How would you know? We have two parties, the shitty party that says it's shitty, and the other shitty party that claims not to be shitty. The first is arguably the super shitty party right now, but it'll go back to a normal level of shittiness soon enough.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    20. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Heh, you answered your own question. Sorry, the 'lesser shitty' game is too old hat... It's what brought us to this...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    21. Re:Black Mirror - Nosedive by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Feel free to stop using oil.

      The president keeps saying we're oil independent. Are you saying he's full of shit?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. The Book of Lord Shang by astrofurter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "A state where uniformity of purpose has been established for one year, will be strong for ten years; where uniformity of purpose has been established for ten years, it will be strong for a hundred years, where uniformity of purpose has been established for a hundred years, it will be strong for a thousand years; and a state which has been strong for a thousand years will attain supremacy."

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

    1. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by Shazatoga · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Great and all until a black swan arrives and invalidates the current structure. Democracies (inc. Republics), for all their flaws, can face a black swan or two as they are designed to handle change. They aren't perfect (Rome's refusal to embrace change and to enfranchise the Italians led to the populist dictatorship of the Caesars), but tend to be more anti-fragile than the alternatives.

    2. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by LaughingRadish · · Score: 5, Informative

      A Roman poet wrote "a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan". At the time, black swans were thought to not exist. In the 1500s, the phrase "black swan" was a common expression that something was impossible. Then in 1697, Dutch explorers saw black swans in Western Australia. The phrase then morphed into an expression that a perceived impossibility might later be disproven.

      See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    3. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by meerling · · Score: 1

      It will fail because of corruption.
      They already have more than enough corruption to taint it now, this will only compound it.
      Then there are the errors that will always creep in.
      It's a guaranteed self destructing system, the only question being how long can they keep it looking like it's working correctly, or at least good enough.

    4. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That must have been the guy who wrote the speeches for Hitler.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      He never heard of the Roman Empire it seems

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    6. Re: The Book of Lord Shang by astrofurter · · Score: 1

      Probably not, since Shang died in 338 BC, 400 years before the Empire.

    7. Re: The Book of Lord Shang by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      haha yes you are correct

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    8. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Democracies (inc. Republics)

      Pet peeve: Can we stop using Sid Meier's Civilization as a bible on types opf government?

      Examples of Democracies: Britain, USA
      Examples of countries that are not Democracies: China, Saudi Arabia
      Examples of Republics: China, USA
      Examples of Monarchies: Britain, Saudi Arabia

      A Republic is merely a country with a non-hereditary head of state. Democracy, using the most widely accepted definition (yes, I know some dickhead is going to respond here with an "AcKsHuReLy DeMoCrAcY iS wHuR eVaRyWoN vOtEs oN eVaRyFiNg" comment) is a measure of how answerable a government is to the governed, usually implemented using an elected legislature and a - written or otherwise - constitutional requirement the government obey the same laws everyone else does (though the dickhead is kinda right that cities have in the past (when cities had a significant amount of autonomy) gone for the everyone-votes-on-everything thing, which is impractical the more people are involved so we don't do it.)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    9. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by Shazatoga · · Score: 2

      A Republic is a government based on the model of the post-Monarchy pre-Imperial Roman government. The Romans called this government res publica (thing of the public). Nations like the US and France that call themselves Republics are based off the Roman system. The US system is almost a 1:1 copy, proconsul = president (but only one), senate = senate, house = plebeian council, augers = Supreme Court, field of Mars = electoral college, etc (the written Constitution and balancing of powers are the significant changes). There are dictatorships that call themselves Republics because it sounds good (PRC, DPR North Korea, former USSR), but they don't at all follow the basic Roman system and are not Republics.

    10. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by DethLok · · Score: 1

      Yep, I usually see 6 adults and 4 cygnets as I stroll to/from the car going through Hyde Park (Perth, WA).

      Black Swans are on my state flag.

      What's unusual about them?

    11. Re:The Book of Lord Shang by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      So you are agreeing with squiggleslash: the US is both a democracy and a republic.

  3. Re:just add Transgender bathrooms and free abortio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Dude, why go there? I happen to be trans and liberal and I'm horrified by this. This something right out of 1984 and it has nothing to do with "liberals". I'm quite sure I enjoy my freedoms and privacy as much as you do. I have no idea what you have against trans people but that doesn't mean we don't want the same things in life. The last place I would ever want to live is in a totalitarian state.

  4. Should work flawlessly by Shazatoga · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Good thing bureaucrats are incorruptible and would never abuse the system for a bribe or petty revenge. /s This will be one of the greatest hacking targets in the world. Not to mention that putting the wellbeing of 1.4 billion people into a database means that even a small error in an edge case in the code can screw millions of people.

    1. Re:Should work flawlessly by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly why failure in inevitable but for those in power, the delusion of control is insatiably desirable. The system will be gamed and hacked and of course abused, if you do not run a real/fake profile a social look good construct, you would be very foolish but even then, corruption will make that meaningless, just swap out profile details. The easiest bit of corruption one, edit and your crap profile becomes someone else's and theirs becomes yours, that is simply inevitable.

      From an external view point, that system is stupendously tempting to hack, target individuals to create distrust, wipe out high performers to weaken socio-economic outcomes, promote the corrupt, you can abuse that kind of system to create real socio-political chaos, make the bad look good and the good look bad.

      Trying to secure it will be a nightmare and they wont really care for the majority, only a tiny 'UNLISTED' minority will be protected, for the rest meh and that meh, will result in a lot of hacking into the system. The more data it carries the more hackable it will become. Rather than cause real harm, the system will end up collapsing, it it the inherent nature of what they are trying to do that will cause the collapse.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Should work flawlessly by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      In this time and age? All that's required is that someone feels you're a $conspiracy_theory_bad_group_member for him to make it his mission to fuck up your life.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Should work flawlessly by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      More about political identity politics and you being judged as not thinking right, well the design, which is in and of itself pretty disturbingly sick. Corruption will turn it into something much worse and that does not even touch purposeful espionage hacking, do real damage to the entire society by fucking around with history, ratings, where you have been, who you have seen, I mean espionage hacking would be inevitable because of the impact it would have, you can really fuck with the entire society with very judicial and well targeted attacks and you basically have the entirety of approved Chinese social media, every system, every server, every user, to target, hack and selectively manipulate the entire system to cause mass social chaos.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  5. What else? by no-body · · Score: 1

    Soon one will have to wear a cap with electrodes and a receiver backpack transmitting the signals to the cap so all will be controllable. Anyone seen not wearing this equipment will be shot.

    Must be very fearful and control character people thinking out this BS and not taking into account what the rebels will heck out to circumvent everything.....

    1. Re:What else? by gtall · · Score: 1

      Or more sinisterly, everyone has an implant with a nerve agent. Wrong thought? Someone is the Communist Party pushes the button and you are no more. However, they'll be nice about it and be sure to push the button while the incorrectly thinking human is near a crematorium...saves on gas.

  6. Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Creating an entire subset of your society that is so locked out of daily life that they can't even function is a very, very quick way to incite organized resistance - not just out of ideological opposition, but from pure survival necessity. Blacklisted people will band together with blacklisted people to set up a parallel society so they can simply function day to day. Food? Housing? Transportation? You can't freeze out even 5% of the population from that and keep it contained.

    If they were just making life difficult, that would be one thing, but it sounds like the Chicoms have gone so overboard that they won't be able to even eat or sleep under a roof. Watch it blow up.

    1. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      America does that with felony convictions in the United States, and no one cares because convicted felons "did something bad"...well, people who get blacklisted in China will be considered to have done something bad by Chinese standards. Nothing will happen except create a nice pool of easily exploitable people.

    2. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, illegal immigrants could always just, you know, not come here...The Chinese in China don't have a choice.

    3. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by ArylAkamov · · Score: 2

      Or they could just leave, since they're here illegally and are not wanted (by people on the right, anyway).

    4. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And then what? Perish in the war on drugs started and escalated at your behest?

    5. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And see what it has done for the US. In some towns there are areas where even the police doesn't dare to go anymore, this is the very definition of a parallel society with its own rules, its own policies and its own social system.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      They aren't freezing people out of food, housing, transportation but instead "luxury items" like airplane travel, high speed rail tickets, rent in premium neighborhoods, etc.

      They haven't said there is no plan for these people. I'm predicting axlotl tanks.

    7. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      No, we don't have towns where the police don't dare to go. We have towns where the police don't care to go.

    8. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Creating an entire subset of your society that is so locked out of daily life that they can't even function is a very, very quick way to incite organized resistance...

      Yeah, it's like someone said, "Let's see how long it takes to create a hidden underclass of those who've failed out or dropped out of the system".

      First thought I had when reading this story.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    9. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by gtall · · Score: 1

      Now they are only planning the freeze them out of luxury item. Bureaucratic creep knows no bounds, and the Chinese Communist Party doesn't either.

    10. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Which prompts the next question: if you have a bad social credit score how easy is it to repair it?

      Is it like social media where you can buy likes to boost your score?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're kidding, right? Right-leaning farmers, restaurateurs, constructionn/real estate developers LOVE having illegal immigrants here, since they provide the cheap labor those industries need. They just want to make sure those immigrants STAY illegal, since with a path to citizenship, their easily exploitable labor pool collapses.
      Using them as a convenient scapegoat to drum up votes from the politically illiterate and bigoted working class is just a fortuitous side effect.
      The Republican leadership has never had ANY intention of building a wall or engaging in mass deportation. The shows made of child separation, etc. are merely intended to on the one hand fool bigoted proles into thinking something to be done and on the other to terrify undocumented migrants out of using social services while here and speaking up for better treatment.

    12. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by dschiptsov · · Score: 1

      Indeed. By creating an underclass they will inevitably ignine a class struggle. Communists should know this very well. The problem is - no one analyzes anything or even thinks about the consequences of the decrees of politburo. They have no choice.

    13. Re:Beijing is creating its own biggest headache by drsquare · · Score: 1

      From the article: "The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be "unable to move even a single step,"

  7. Re:just add Transgender bathrooms and free abortio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What's the big deal? Just think of it like China is adopting a big Code Of Conduct, and people who don't behave accordingly will be blacklisted, but instead of just from open source software development, from life! Isn't that your tranny SJW end game? China just wants everyone to be polite and never say mean things and live harmoniously and respectfully. If a CoC is good for Linux, and Rust, and Ruby, and whatever else, why not just have whole country live under a wonderful CoC?

  8. A nightmare for freedom, but no benefits? by piojo · · Score: 2

    Obviously this is like a dystopian dream and will stifle the feeling of freedom. But we should keep in mind Beijing (and China in general) has some a lot of the sort of petty problems which more rarely happen in the west: Rampant littering. People encourage their children to urinate in the street. Scammers take advantage of tourists, brazenly acting in public places in broad daylight. Taxi drivers lie about the fare, or refuse to use the meter so they can set whatever rate they choose, depending on the passenger's skin color and accent. People get to the front of a queue not by waiting, but by walking to the front of the queue.

    The questions that come to mind are whether it will work, whether this is temporary (until the above cultural problems are solved), and whether it's worth the loss in feeling of freedom.

    --
    A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
    1. Re:A nightmare for freedom, but no benefits? by currently_awake · · Score: 3, Informative

      No government in history has willingly given up power.

    2. Re: A nightmare for freedom, but no benefits? by ljw1004 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Counterexample: every country that joined the EU gave up the supremacy of its own high court, have up the ability to determine numerous regulations, indeed have up the final say on its national budget as we see with Italy today.

    3. Re:A nightmare for freedom, but no benefits? by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Except for all the times they have.

  9. The nightmare may also happen in the West by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What happens in China is definitely a nightmare, but before we laugh at those stupid Chinese we ought to take stock of what is happening right here in the West.

    We are being monitored too. 24/7.

    What we do online.

    Who our friends are/were.

    Where we go shopping.

    What kinds of item we usually buy.

    The types of association / club we have membership in.

    Whom we met last Wednesday.

    Which TV / online streaming programs we consume.

    And so on. And so forth.

    Who is to say what's happening in China won't happen here?

    1. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by Shazatoga · · Score: 1

      Of course I am being tracked. I buy from Amazon, I use a smartphone, and I pay for things with a debit card. But in the US we have two advantages:
      1) I can choose to use cash, not own a phone, and buy things off-line. Inconvenient, but livable.
      2) Of the ten trillion systems tracking me, none of them are well programed, they are mostly full of garbage information, and they are all incompatible with one another.

    2. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Amazon and Google can't send you to the gulag.

    3. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by caviare · · Score: 1

      Yes, but you don't. And neither do I and neither do millions upon millions of others. Which makes your argument theoretical and of limited relevance.

    4. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because they're developing AI with the government for benign reasons...

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    5. Re: The nightmare may also happen in the West by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The systems are likewise full of holes, so you never know where your data might end up.

    6. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Not many can change their face for CCTV when they want to move from city to city.
      Cash needs "work". China can stop the ability to get work.
      Without cash "livable" in any city becomes difficult everyday.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:The nightmare may also happen in the West by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Of course not. That costs money.

      They sell that data to the ones that send you to the gulag. Who are, funny enough, funded by you. For both things, buying your data AND sending you to the gulag.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  10. We had all that in the west by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Know how we solved it? Mostly cops giving out tickets. The scammers got arrested. Same results, maybe better, and no massive and terrifying misuse of government power.

    China's problem is they treat their working class like crap. This is the kind of crap you have to resort to when you need to keep people from Unionizing.

    --
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    1. Re:We had all that in the west by piojo · · Score: 1

      Know how we solved it? Mostly cops giving out tickets... no massive and terrifying misuse of government power.

      Ha, good one. You know what problem China doesn't have? A police force that scares the crap out of regular people. Most police don't even carry guns! Obviously a big part of that is that the Chinese aren't as violent as the Americans, by and large. But Chinese police mediate in a way that's almost unheard of for American cops. Conflicts are often solved without court cases.

      It's a bit of a paradox. China is certainly a police state. But the police are less likely to ruin your day than American police. Plus, tickets are a system that hurts the poor more than the rich, just as jail time hurts the rich more than the poor (in terms of loss). I'm not at all sure the strong arm is the best way for China to solve its cultural problems. (For criminal activity with human victims, I do think the police should be more aggressive, but that's not the majority of their problems.)

      --
      A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
    2. Re:We had all that in the west by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      Now when you say "We solved it," are you talking about some country in Europe? Finland or Iceland or somewhere?

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    3. Re:We had all that in the west by Cederic · · Score: 1

      The Jehovah's Witeesses seem pretty harmless to me. To the Chinese authorities too, as they're allowed to try and recruit new followers in China.

      Maybe Falun Gong are being horribly misrepresented?

  11. We're revoking their most favorite nation status by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    any day now. Yep. Any day now. Right after we stop selling bombs to the Saudis...

    In other news, I can buy a 50" TV for $200 bucks this Black Friday. And the new iPhone is _sweet_.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  12. Re:Totalitarianism In a Nutshell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Same shit happened under McCarthy, which is ironic given your words. Could happen again in the US in a few years, only it would be an App that measured your Patriotism. It's not a left/right thing, it's a totalitarian thing.

  13. Re:just add Transgender bathrooms and free abortio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Suppose the Chinese system only penalizes people who don't treat people with dignity? That's the great part about fighting nazis, like fighting child molesters, anything is justified! "but they're nazis!" is the new "think of the children!" You think you're fighting totalitarianism while enabling it at the same time.

  14. already happens by phantomfive · · Score: 2

    The Chinese government already has this information. The difference now is the information is more open, more publicly available, it's actually a good thing.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:already happens by gtall · · Score: 1

      All the better to make people aware of what kind of behavior can get their government's bloomers in a twist. Open doesn't mean better here, you have to learn how to think like a Communist Party Apparachik. Now go back and finish your Kool-Aid, it is good for you and contains the seeds of superior man.

  15. Psychopaths rise to the top. by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    I can see this backfiring somehow...

    --
    [($)]
  16. Re:Leaders around the world are salivating by Shazatoga · · Score: 1

    It will fail, possibly taking their whole country with it if they integrate it heavily. Assuming their over leveraged economy doesn't take out the place first thanks to one belt, one road, one noose.

  17. DIctators will dictate. Motives matter by shanen · · Score: 1

    I actually think the underlying idea is good, but the motivation is all wrong here. The underlying idea is basically like a credit report on an individual or the investment-grade ratings issued by such companies as Moody's. I think the main problem is not with the ratings, but with the secrecy. In particular the public parts of the information should be available to the public without paying for the harvesting and various attempts to lock it down under copyright and other schemes.

    Let me bring it home to Slashdot. I would like to know what sort of person you [piojo in this case] are so I can decide how much attention to pay to your comment. You might feel likewise before considering my reply. I actually think the generalized solution approach would be something I describe as MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) that would let me get a quick view of what sort of person you are, either from a default viewpoint or adjusted for my own priorities and concerns. (For example, the default might rate politeness relatively heavily, while I'm kind of thick-skinned as long as there's an interesting idea there.) Can you imagine fixing karma so it actually means something?

    Unfortunately I think the objective of the dictators of China is just to create an easy way to keep track of troublemakers. It's actually quite like the Libertarians who wrote the book called Nudge , who want to play games to manipulate people with as little effort as possible. Or maybe I should appeal to Sun Tzu? Just read another book based on his classic.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  18. Give me your tired by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 2

    Give me your tired
    Your poor
    Your huddled masses
    With a good social credit score

    --
    Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    1. Re:Give me your tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Burma Shave

  19. Behaviour? by aglider · · Score: 1

    So they won't be judged based upon their thinking or clothing or reading?

    That's good, isn't it?

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  20. Why do you think that is a problem - for China? by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Blacklisted people will band together with blacklisted people to set up a parallel society

    Yep! And then they will either be sent to re-education camps, or "disappeared".

    China in fact would find it very HANDY for such people to band together, it would save them a lot of time.

    If you want a 100% effective Panopticon, I can think of no better state on Earth that can make that happen by sweeping the undesirables under the rug.

    So what everyone has to decide in the end is, do they want a model like that or a model like America? I'm not really sure there are any other workable models left.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Why do you think that is a problem - for China? by houghi · · Score: 1

      Wait, could you explain the difference between the two systems again?

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    2. Re:Why do you think that is a problem - for China? by dryeo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      America, with its no-fly list, its sex offender list where taking a pee or a selfie can fuck your life, your criminal thing where being arrested and released is enough to fuck you, your employment laws that allow you to be fired for posting the wrong thing somewhere? The right to own a gun with how many exceptions?
      Not to mention the political system that gives a choice of Coke or Pepsi and everyone is judged by their political affiliation.
      As someone posted up the page, great rights written into your Constitution, shitty in practice.
      For someone like you, with a good social credit standing, your country seems great, wait till you get wrongly arrested, especially if you can't afford a lawyer.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  21. What a bunch of motherfucking assholes! by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Guess they don't care that fucking bullshit like this will drive some people to suicide, they've got over a billion people so I guess they don't give a shit if they lose a few hundred million of them when they lose their minds from stress and anxiety and commit suicide in any way they can manage, because who the fuck would want to live like that?

    Yet another prime example of why, if there are indeed advanced, starfaring alien civilizations out there, that they don't bother talking to us or even letting on they exist: the fact that the government of a country that has about 18% of the total population of humans treats them like this is flat-out disgraceful and disgusting.

    1. Re:What a bunch of motherfucking assholes! by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      How Communism works is well understood.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:What a bunch of motherfucking assholes! by gtall · · Score: 1

      Just read how many Mao sacrificed in his famines and other pogroms. The Chinese Communist Party was born on their people's corpses, and they are proud of it.

    3. Re:What a bunch of motherfucking assholes! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which—even if true—has nothing to do with the topic at hand, since China isn't really a Communist country in any way other than in the name of the ruling party.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    4. Re:What a bunch of motherfucking assholes! by houghi · · Score: 1

      Just a pity no governemend ever really tried it.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  22. Welcome to the club by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    We have a FICO score, they have a Make-Commies-Happy score.

  23. idiotic assessment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People invest in protecting what's important to them; that's why banks invest in vaults and rich people have guards for their families and properties.

    The USA has a huge military budget because:
    [1] it values its freedom and independence
    [2] it values its allies and trade routes
    [3] it costs the USA a lot more to get any measure of military might since it does not have a conscripted military and its materiel is not made by government suppliers.

    The USA has not, historically, HAD a "health service" because we traditionally left health to the people themselves, the private sectore, and communities and states (The US Constitution says nothing about healthcare, and it explicitly says that anything it does not assign to the federal government belongs to the people and to the states).

    A little knowledge is dangerous --- and by your posting I judge you "mostly harmless"

    1. Re:idiotic assessment by guruevi · · Score: 2

      Medical treatment was important 230 years ago too, they had doctors and hospitals and knew the benefits of them. They also had machine guns and chemical weapons. They also had police brutality, illegal immigration, racial issues, illegal drugs, independent militia, mass media, fake news...

      Yet none of it was important enough for them to grant control for any of it over to the federal government.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    2. Re: idiotic assessment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wait machine guns? WWI wasn't 230 years ago, guy.

      Do you even realize how drastically human history was altered by machine guns? There were no such weapons in the Revolutionary war.

    3. Re:idiotic assessment by iwbcman · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Man oh man, The BS is strong with this one:

      The USA has a huge military budget because:
      [1] it values its freedom and independence
      [2] it values its allies and trade routes
      [3] it costs the USA a lot more to get any measure of military might since it does not have a conscripted military and its materiel is not made by government suppliers.

      The USA has a huge military budget because:

      [1] it has whipped it's population, and that of a significant portion of the worlds population, into a frenzy of fear and paranoia, by maintaining a permanent war status since the end of WWII. Whether hot or cold, the USA has waged war against non-enemies, aggressively supporting brutal dictatorships around, killing millions in defence of "freedom and democracy" around the world. The USA as "protector" of the "free world" has been holding the human species hostage to the possibility of imminent extinction via nuclear weapons for nearly 70 years now. This in the name of valuing its freedom and independence.

      [2]it has decided that the best social control mechanism for social pacification is to provide the lowest possible cost for goods and promoted consumerism as ersatz status symbols for a largely disenfranchised permanent underclass. In order to secure such cheap access to goods, the USA must dominate all world trade and be able to dictate prices for resources, resource extraction, production and distribution. This in the name of valuing its allies and trade routes.

      [3] it spends a lot less money for the size of our military than any other country would for a similarly sized and scaled military because 18 year-old's with no prospects always form a cheap labor pool( "sold" as in soldier, comes from Roman Latin, daily wage-worker), particularly if one can convince them that they are serving their country men in the name of noble goals and values like "freedom and democracy". And because military production in the USA has always been "dual-purpose", a civilian feel-good, while producing weapons of mass destruction.

      The USA has co-opted a tremendously large section of it's so-called private market for dual-purpose: production of disposable goods, while supplying the worlds largest military with an endless production line of "goods", of which no good can ever come. Most major manufacturing firms in the USA would not be economically viable if it were not for this arrangement. Boeing could never make it solely producing commercial air-liners, the market for such is not large enough, but if the Pentagon needs x number of fighter jets, missiles and rockets every year, which must be constantly restocked, due to usage in wars or due to degradation from not ever being used, they can show a profit for their civilian production lines. The same is, and has always been, true for GM, Ford, GE, etc.

      The USA has not, historically, HAD a "health service" because we traditionally left health to the people themselves, the private sectore, and communities and states (The US Constitution says nothing about healthcare, and it explicitly says that anything it does not assign to the federal government belongs to the people and to the states).

      The USA has not, historically, HAD a health service, because immiseration is a constitutive part of maintaining an exploitable permanent underclass. During the first 250 years of American history, surplus value, ie. profit, was made primarily by either a) stealing the indigenous peoples lands or b) exploiting "free labor", ie. slavery. Following the civil war profit has largely been made by exploiting those born into inter-generational poverty, both here and around the world. The majority of Europeans who immigrated to the USA during the first 150 years of colonization were debt-prisoners, ie. the then european permanent underclass. The USA has proudly cultivated cultural identities for the permanent underclass, going back almost 350 years, nowadays we call them "redne

    4. Re: idiotic assessment by iwbcman · · Score: 1

      Says some ignorant european

      Lol, Sorry Mr. Cowherd, American born and bred

    5. Re:idiotic assessment by couchslug · · Score: 1

      " it costs the USA a lot more to get any measure of military might since it does not have a conscripted military"

      Your military ignorance is showing. Modern war doesn't need a rotating pool of short timer cannon fodder. Modern war needs highly experienced fighters and technicians, MANY technicians. The last time the US tried conscription it was far worse than a failure, it was severely counterproductive. The All Volunteer Force (one of Donald Rumsfeld's notable accomplishments, not that anyone remembers his first time in office) was key in transitioning from the demoralized Hollow Force era to the skilled, experienced volunteers who fought Desert Storm and subsequent conflicts. It takes longer than a mere two or four year enlistment to make a skilled (for example) aircraft maintainer. Prime time in service for the people who get shit done is second or third enlistment. Junior and mid-grade NCOs are the backbone of the military.

      Col. Heinl (RIP) was a highly respected Marine historian. This is what conscription got the US: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~...

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  24. Re:This will end well by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Anyone who gathers together to protest will be arrested in real time.
    People near any illegal gathering will be watched.
    Any news published about such events will be removed. The publisher will face travel bans and work bans.
    Like the West having social media shadow banning content and accounts.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  25. Re:The ultimate form of control... by shaksys · · Score: 1

    High quality Chinese people who are willing to adopt a freedom first capitalist mindset are welcome in america.

  26. Re: The ultimate form of control... by UpnAtom · · Score: 1

    Yeah because âoegoing privateâ for treatment isn't a thing...

    And guess what. Even our private treatment is much cheaper than yours.

    You literally have the worst health system in the world.

  27. The difference by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Yes it's true in the west we are also closely monitored.

    However, there is a difference:

    * In China you are monitored to make sure you fit within the system the government thinks is desirable.

    * In the U.S. you are monitored but deviation from the system is simply recorded to be used against you if you get too out of line, or to sell things to you.

    In actual terms you have much more freedom to be yourself in the U.S., it just means enduring more ads.

    In both cases truly radical elements will have a harder and harder time existing and persisting.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:The difference by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Are you completely sure they still have less ads?

  28. Re:this is what the left wants by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The US freedom of speech, freedom after speech, to peaceably assemble and the right to petition is looking great.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  29. So, given what most people believe by jd · · Score: 1

    Reality will simply conform to expectation. I'd have thought all systems would converge on that.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  30. Re: The ultimate form of control... by jd · · Score: 1

    https://www.theguardian.com/so...

    You're in good company, or bad company. That national health services aren't government run, just government financed, is probably beyond you.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  31. Google works for Chinese government by drnb · · Score: 2

    Only difference is in the US private companies keep scores on you instead of the government.

    Well in China it is US companies, ex Google, helping to keep track of people on behalf of the Chinese government. Its only the US government that Google/Amazon/etc employees refuse to work for.

    1. Re:Google works for Chinese government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In China, it's also Alibaba doing the tracking. As best I can tell, they have much tighter "relationship" with the Chinese government than Google does.

    2. Re:Google works for Chinese government by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Same as in pre WWII Germany, where Ford sold trucks and IBM Holerite machines.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Google works for Chinese government by MrKaos · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Same as in pre WWII Germany, where Ford sold trucks and IBM Holerite machines.

      (IIRC) U.S companies sued the US government for bombing German factories they invested in.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    4. Re:Google works for Chinese government by drnb · · Score: 1

      In China, it's also Alibaba doing the tracking. As best I can tell, they have much tighter "relationship" with the Chinese government than Google does.

      The Chinese government is one of Alibaba's owners. At various Chinese companies the communist party works with the corporate boards and senior management to make sure companies are in sync with government policies and long term goals. And then there is a certain amount of patriotism and trust in the government by many Chinese people.

      In contrast, Google employees assist the Chinese government for money.

    5. Re:Google works for Chinese government by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      USA = Nazi! Amirite?

      Other than the whole, USA provokes the Nazis into declaring war and then leads an invasion that crushes them. Other than that the AmeriKKKans were totally pro-Nazi! Wait, what?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:Google works for Chinese government by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      USA = Nazi! Amirite?

      You've come to an interesting conclusion based on open U.S history. The U.S was infiltrated by former Nazi party members who were given lead roles in US government positions as a result of Operation Paperclip.

      I'm impressed that you've educated yourself enough to know this.

      Other than the whole, USA provokes the Nazis into declaring war and then leads an invasion that crushes them.

      So what you're saying is by waiting until the last 5 minutes of WWII the US realized they could negotiate a good deal on former British Empire military bases around the world in the guise of Lend Lease and nurture surviving Nazis into designing a space program and implementing a "Patriot Act" in the U.S so that it would destroy itself from within.

      You're right, I never looked at it that way before.

      Other than that the AmeriKKKans were totally pro-Nazi! Wait, what?

      I admire your patriotism. You'd never allow ignorance to manipulate your government to where it is today, I've got no doubt your tireless letter writing campaigns to defend free speech and democracy are effective. My country right or wrong even if the orders are given by Nazi's because you're not like those gutless fucks who are to much of a pussy defend their democracy with a letter. You'll get in there and put the jackboot on any neck you're told to because you're a good citizen, you'd do it even if you weren't told to. Iamrite!

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    7. Re:Google works for Chinese government by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      It is a witless exaggeration to say that USA is Nazi. BUT when you're as far left as you are, everyone to the right of Mao Zedong looks like a Nazi to you. Have you considered another country? One with a more accommodating left-wing government that implements the policies you favor? Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela are all good choices. Let us know how it works out. Bon voyage!

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    8. Re:Google works for Chinese government by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      USA = Nazi! Amirite?

      It is a witless exaggeration to say that USA is Nazi.

      Sure is! I was trying to figure out why you made it.

      BUT when you're as far left as you are, everyone to the right of Mao Zedong looks like a Nazi to you.

      You appear really angry, I think you are having an emotional episode. Try to calm down. I know you've been deceived, so I don't blame you for that but one day you might be able to see through the whole Left vs Right paradigm. Or continue to be a useful idiot - I don't care which.

      Have you considered another country? One with a more accommodating left-wing government that implements the policies you favor?

      Right now my lobbying is to protect US citizens from 4th amendment rights violations, I bet that affects you, so I prefer to direct my efforts to where I will have the most impact. What specific way have you attempted to participate in democracy lately? Bought a bumper sticker?

      Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela are all good choices. Let us know how it works out. Bon voyage!

      Well at least they have free health care, maybe I'll drop by and get my feelings checked, for free.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    9. Re:Google works for Chinese government by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Protect US citizens? But you hate US citizens. I don't get it. Borders are a false construct, you're a citizen of the world. Why would you help the world's worst oppressors?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:Google works for Chinese government by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Protect US citizens?

      Yes. Do you value your fourth amendment rights?

      But you hate US citizens. I don't get it. Borders are a false construct, you're a citizen of the world.

      You're projecting your own attitudes and opinions. They're your feelings, not mine.

      Why would you help the world's worst oppressors?

      That's your characterization.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    11. Re:Google works for Chinese government by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      The Constitution? You mean that racist document written by slave owning whites? Blacks had no voice in writing it. It's invalid. You're aware a tell for white supremacist views is constant quoting of this outdated document? I'd be careful what you write online lest it be connected to your real name and your employers HR find out your vile views.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    12. Re:Google works for Chinese government by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      The Constitution? You mean that racist document written by slave owning whites? Blacks had no voice in writing it. It's invalid. You're aware a tell for white supremacist views is constant quoting of this outdated document? I'd be careful what you write online lest it be connected to your real name and your employers HR find out your vile views.

      Thanks very much for the information.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  32. Re:just add Transgender bathrooms and free abortio by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    And you're certainly able to explain what this has jack all to do with a surveillance system that even Orwell couldn't make up?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  33. Re:this is what the left wants by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    And they don't matter.

    You have the freedom of speech. This is correct. But nobody is required to listen. You have the right to assemble peacefully, this is correct. But mostly because those in power noticed that it doesn't matter. You can petition what you want. Please leave your petition in the waste basket provided, we'll ignore it later.

    Anything else you wanted to do or say?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  34. What does this remind me of.... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Right! That has been the staple of commie countries for pretty much the past century (read: as long as commie countries existed). Let's praise the good worker and badmouth the bad kulak and the atrocious bourgeois. Let's have worker of the week/month awards with extra rations and preferred allocation of rare goods and luxury items like cars.

    Why didn't it work, again?

    Riiight, because nobody gave a fuck since those in power who were part of the supply chain could always simply take what they wanted even if they were the biggest assholes and you could get faster ahead by kissing the right butt instead of working your own off.

    In other words, the system works in theory. But you shouldn't let it get into contact with human beings and their character.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  35. Scary as f*ck, is it not? by Qbertino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We all know that Orwell would say "OK, I give up. I was totally wrong, this is way more sophisticated a totalitarian system than I could dream up." We all happly carry our dobbleplusgood portable televisor around with us. Add a super-controlling engieered gouvernment to that, and you're way past 1984. Big time.

    Maybe next time around I'll really ditch my regular smartphone for something else. I've allready considered stocking up on older Blackberrys. They're pretty cheap now.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  36. Re:this is what the left wants by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    If nobody wants to listen, how can you be sure you were saying something?

  37. Re:this is what the left wants by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Because it could be measured.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  38. No fly lists by aberglas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Has similarity. A serious penalty, ex judicial, no right of appeal.

    Only in the USA. No other democracy. It is very strange that the USA has the best constitution concerning rights and the worst record of actually providing them.

    That said, it is still nothing like what China is proposing. And has already imposed on the Uyghurs. China is becoming very grim. Nobody there will dare to criticize the government on anything.

    If Emperor Xi goes bad, he cannot be stopped domestically. And he can drag the whole world down with him.

    1. Re:No fly lists by judoguy · · Score: 1

      It is very strange that the USA has the best constitution concerning rights and the worst record of actually providing them.

      Really? The worst? In the world?

      What are you smoking?

      --
      Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
  39. Mandatory GPS by aberglas · · Score: 4, Informative

    They do not need mandatory GPS in cars. They already have number plate readers everywhere. Plus they can track your phone.

  40. Re:Totalitarianism In a Nutshell by aberglas · · Score: 1

    MaCarthy was an amateur. And he did not have the technology.

  41. Re:this is what the left wants by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1
    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  42. Re: The ultimate form of control... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    I had to spend the night in emergency in Guangzhou after suffering heatstroke. Clean, modern facility, up-date equipment, well-trained staff, doctors who'd studied at Johns Hopkins and Karolinska. Four hundred dollars (¥1600). That's about twice what I'd pay here in Sweden, but it's only about 1/100 of what it'd cost me in the US.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  43. Re: The ultimate form of control... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    s/1\/100/1\/10/

    Sorry about that.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  44. They are doing it wrong by Gabest · · Score: 2

    You just have to report on your neighbors, and they report about you. Crowd-sourcing worked very well under the soviet communism.

  45. i wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    how many points it will take before you get shot.

    er.... erased.

  46. A plan for mental illness by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This system will be heaven for people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder because they will be able to extend their abuse onto anybody they meet in a meaningful way. They will be able to charm and connive all of the social goodwill they need while causing serious damage to the people they abuse.

    Social media is the vehicle for personality disorders to spread.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  47. Re:just add Transgender bathrooms and free abortio by Kiuas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the big deal? Just think of it like China is adopting a big Code Of Conduct, and people who don't behave accordingly will be blacklisted, but instead of just from open source software development, from life!. Isn't that your tranny SJW end game?

    Dude literally stated that he's opposed to all of this as a liberal and you went and argued the exact opposite point because apparently either you cannot read or just enjoy building massive strawmen. How 'fun'. I can do this too, watch me:

    "What's the big deal, China's just making sure no-one can openly criticize the Dear Leader or his party, and those who dissent too hard or belong to the wrong religion/ethnicity/political movement will be taken to 're-education camps' where if need be they can be killed and their organs harvested if some Good Loyal Citizens(tm) are in need of them, isn't that your ultra-conservative Trumpian end-game; to have the government be able to operate with impunity, above the rule of law and get rid of the pesky media that Trump calls 'the enemy'?"

    See how easy this is? Now Is this productive for the discussion at large in any way? Nope. It's just 'ooh I'm so right they're so wrong aah' -partisan ego jerk off for cunts like you. Grow the fuck up man.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  48. How to destabilize China... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hack the thing. The hack could come from a government, or a private organization like WikiLeaks with an interest in causing chaos. Don't destroy it, just start slightly altering people's credit.

    Just start lowering the credit of people with military training and access to guns a fractional amount. Veterans, police, military, etc. Make them slightly more angry and frustrated. Then start fractionally increasing the credit of people with borderline anti-government views. Create an angry underclass with military training and access to weapons while helping some of the people who will radicalize them do their thing.

    1. Re:How to destabilize China... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Wikileaks? Why would a hostile Russian controlled intelligence agency be interested in helping America achieve its goals? Please think before you post.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    2. Re:How to destabilize China... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      The Russians have no love for China. Ideally, the US and EU would play one against one another, hopefully to the point of both regimes collapsing.

    3. Re:How to destabilize China... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Wikileaks is a hostile Russian controlled intelligence agency. This is fact. The American intelligence community told us so. Remember how they rigged the election in favor of Trump by revealing the truth about the Democrats?

      Why would China and Russia be enemies? They are all foes of the military industrial complex. Same as Occupy Wall Street. Whose side are you on, anyway? The bankers? Since when are the far left on the side of the bankers against the working class? WTF

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:How to destabilize China... by hackingbear · · Score: 1

      OK, sounds like a good plan. Now, a government, or a private organization like WikiLeaks can also hack into the American credit score system, the No Fly List system, and the criminal records to achieve the same effect on the US. Maybe the Chinese government will do that first; after all, our cyber security and military industry complex keep telling us that China keeps hacking the US, right?

  49. You can thank Antifa and anti-free speech idiots.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... when this arrives in the USA. (It's already like China in the U.K. and many other European countries. We don't have free speech, and most of us work with idiots who are totally against free speech -otherwise known as Leftwingers, who are too stupid to debate their own position, and know they're wrong, but would rather get you sacked from your job, or even put in prison, for merely saying things they don't like.)
    China is just the final stage of the denial of free speech.

    "The denial of free speech is the first act of tyranny."

  50. What could possibly go wrong? by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be "unable to move even a single step,"

    So basically they will create a group of people who have nothing left to lose. Well done. That's going to work out great.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by hackingbear · · Score: 1

      There was a previous list in China for those born violating the one-child policy and who couldn't pay the fine. They were not given residency status (Hu Kou) and IDs, making their life very hard, even though technically the local governments should not deny those things, but there is no other way to get them pay the fines, since most of them are poor rural people. Eventually, there are so many of them accumulated in the list -- tens of millions; so at the end the central government (last year?) ordered the local governments giving those people the residency status and ID without condition. So this can happen to this credit score system if too many people end up there -- after all no government can deal with tens of millions of troubles at the same time.

      This social credit system, though, work more like the American credit score system than the criminal record list -- your bad record would be removed after certain period of times.

  51. Do no evil! by Evtim · · Score: 1

    1984 is an instruction manual....for CCP and Google.

    See how our "progressive" overlords go high, arsholes first.

    It's absolutely hilarious how all those progressive silicon types benefit from worker's exploitation and openly support totalitarian regimes.

    Disgusting!

  52. We just don't add the word "social" yet. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    The Chinese are behind the curve. In the USA, we've had this rolled out for years.

    https://www.moneycrashers.com/...

    TL:DR
    Loans are tough (or impossible) to get
    If you get a loan, your rates are higher.
    Can't rent an apartment (As a landlord, *I* check credit ratings)
    Can't get some jobs (My employer checked my credit rating)
    Can't get security clearance
    You may not be able to get a cell phone contract
    Higher insurance premiums

    Trying to avoid the credit system is tough too. Try renting a car or buying an airline ticket without a credit card.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  53. Actually they're solving the problem by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    of how to create an underclass in a country that is increasingly homogeneous.

    See, in order for a ruling class to keep a working class in line they need to divide the working class. In America we do this along racial lines (Black/White/Latino). India uses a caste system. Japan got creative and declared some professions "unclean" and forced families into them, then kept lists of those families.

    The goal here is to get you "kicking down". e.g. to direct your rage at the poor lot in life you got at a group below you, until you get to a small enough and low group that they're easily controlled. Like I said above, the pattern repeats again and again.

    There's two problems with this in 2018.

    1. Education. Well educated people don't see the point of hating on someone without reason; and China's been doing a massive education push.

    2. Interbreeding. Folks don't enforce apartheid like they used to. So there's a gradual intermixing until the groups aren't distinct enough anymore. Japan made this work with their caste system, but that needed Buddhism to work, and even then education eventually broke it down. China's facing the same problem.

    Giving everyone a "score" is a prefect way to create a new caste system and once again get everyone "kicking down".

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Actually they're solving the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In America we do this along racial lines (Black/White/Latino)

      Nah. America doesn't divide itself by racial lines. That's way too simple.

      America uses a much more advanced form of division: by identity, as in identity politics. The advantage of using identities is that you can change which identities to focus on, thus changing the axis of division, adapting to the situation/narrative.

      Today you say it's a racial divide, but tomorrow you can change your tune and say it's between men and women, the day after that it could be between elite rich people vs everyone else, so even a rich black feminist could end up becoming the enemy, while that white grandpa Bernie is hailed as a champion of the poor (even though he can afford a 600k summer home while many cannot even afford a first home... this is more evidence the divides in America are made on the fly as needed)

      And with the divides being fluid and dynamic, they can work around education and interbreeding. In fact, education has been used as a division. On one side we have the educated folks hating those darn anti-science religious nutjobs, and on the other side you've got the poorly educated hating those smug elitists who think they're all that just because they got a little more schoolin' in their ivory towers.

      Other countries like China can't adopt this system, as they lack the cultural and racial diversity that America has, which means less identities to divide the people by. Turns out when politicians say "diversity is our strength", that includes giving the rulers more power to manipulate and divide people and make them easier to control.

  54. They don't understand by Sqreater · · Score: 1

    They seem to have no understanding that they are going to create a large and ever-growing underclass of "untouchables," who are disconnected and and resentful of the government and the system and everyone else in society. But then, we are talking about afraid and paranoid communism. What else would anyone expect?

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
  55. Identity politics are a response by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    to weakening racism. The "Southern Strategy" is pretty well documented and it works, but it's not working with the young'uns as much. It's possible that workers might get past it.

    The ruling class always hedges their bets. Have a look at this youtube channel. One of the complaints from him you'll keep seeing is how the "Alt-Right" has basically turned into a 24/7 anti-SJW network while turning away from the more generalized skepticism that drew a lot of folks into it.

    The Clinton Democrats (I refuse to call them "The Left", they're not, they're right wing on economics, which is always what matters) use identity politics to distract from economic problems they can't address because their wealthy donors won't let them. The actual Right (organized under the banner of the GOP) are all about identity politics, mostly around the identity of being a White Male. Again, both groups are doing the same thing: divide and conquer.

    The actual American Left, e.g. the "Berniecrats" are the only group trying to get away from identity politics and back to substantive policy. Pay attention to how they vote and what they say and this becomes clear. You will hear them talk about "diversity" but not for it's own sake; but rather for the practical consideration of preventing marginalized groups from being oppressed. Again, they're about policy, not wishy washy social mumble jumble Woo. For example, they support LGBTQ rights not because they want you to gay marry a turtle, but because they want LGBTQ folks to be able to participate equally in society.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  56. Re:/. should judge behavior to stop BULLYING... ap by Humbubba · · Score: 2
    If you have to shitpost, please be more amusing. For example:

    For a while there, I thought China had figured out how to apply the Nash Equilibrium to society via big data and the cognitive neuroscience of behavior.

    Then I thought, it's China, dude. What's really going on is probably more of a game of "Fuck You, Buddy", where somebody's got to win, and if it isn't you, it might be me.

    Oh, wait... that's us.

    Never mind.

  57. Re:Totalitarianism In a Nutshell by ArylAkamov · · Score: 2

    Everyone is quick to talk shit about McCarthy, but nobody seems to remember that he ended up being right about communist infiltration in our government, particularly in the state department.

  58. China's Downfall via Unintended Comsequences by DatbeDank · · Score: 1

    This system will be China's undoing. The Chicoms will use this system for all sorts of ends.

    Follow the money: if the Chinese elites were confident in the long term viability of China and these experiments why are they sending their hard earned cash abroad - much to the chagrin of the Chicom government?

    Between the tariffs, these social engineering experiments, and the Chicoms constant pushing on the Taiwan issue, I expect a major event to occur in the next 2-3 years that will throw their 5, 10,15 year plans out the window.

    Expect a war to follow, Xi will lose the mandate of heaven.

  59. The moral equivalence of stupid by Texmaize · · Score: 1

    Part of what is wrong in the world today, is people like the OP, who apply logic so badly, they equate rape and murder with the equivalent of saying "our leader is bad."

    --
    "Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
  60. The lowdown by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

    Some of the commenters here actually get it, but those raised (indoctrinated) by the Bipolar TV/entertainment narratives won't be able to functionally comprehend the seriousness of China's uber-Orwellian Social Credit System!

    Their Confucian Institutes --- their massive human rights abuses in the PRC, itself --- their OBOR strategy, that canal being built through Nicaragua, etc., etc., etc.!!!!

    Recommended Reading:
    China RX by Rosemary Gibson
    Crack99 by David Locke Hall
    People's Republic of the Disappeared by Michael Caster

  61. Very Dangerous by Straight+Arrow · · Score: 1

    Seems like a good idea on the surface, until you realize that this is designed to become an entrenched system that will enable those in power to easily and immediately shut down a persons entire life just by changing their status to 'DISHONORABLE". Toe the line, do as we say, or receive a dishonorable status that, as they even brag, "will prevent you from taking even a single step". Why can't they do it the good old fashioned American way, with sex scandals and accusations of racism?