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Hebei, a Northern Chinese Province, Unveils an App That Triggers a Notification When You're Near Someone in Debt (standard.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the extreme-measures dept.

China is gearing up to launch a social credit system in 2020, giving all citizens an identity number that will be linked to a permanent record. Like a financial score, everything from paying back loans to behaviour on public transport will be included. One aspect of this social credit system is a new app in the northern province of Hebei. From a report: According to the state-run newspaper China Daily, the Hebei-based app will alert people if there are in 500 metres of someone in debt. It's like being on Oxford Street and being able to work out everyone around you who was in debt. According to the financial charity, the Money Charity, the average UK household debt (including mortgages) was $76,000, in June last year. That's a lot of notifications.

13 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Notification tone... by deathcloset · · Score: 5, Funny

    "You are within zero meters of someone in debt..."
    Notification tone...
    "You are within zero meters of someone in debt..."
    Notification tone...
    "You are within zero meters of someone in debt..."
    [Throws phone off bridge]
    Fading notification tone...
    "You are within thirty meters of someone in..."

    1. Re:Notification tone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think what the summary misses - is that this is referring to social credit debt, not just any debt in general. This whole discussion is off the rails.

  2. Social experiments by sinij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Communist Party of China is not afraid of massive scale social experiments of this kind. However, consequences of this are unpredictable. The CCP expects orderly society that could be easily subdued on individual level. This is one possible outcome (i.e. 1984). However, it is one of many possible situations. Humans are not designed to conform 100% of the time, and even Pope at some point watched porn.

    I am hoping China taking a leap forward so the rest of us could watch from distance. However, last time they tried Social Engineering on a massive scale (i.e. Great Leap Forward) it didn't end well.

    Something tells me the way society operates is hard-coded to a large degree, and trying to patch any of it drastically has a great chance to cause kernel panic.

    1. Re:Social experiments by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd argue that China collapsing into civil war might be a good ending for the rest of the world...

    2. Re:Social experiments by Immerman · · Score: 3, Informative

      In fairness, whenever the Middle East starts getting their shit together, Western powers overthrow their democratically elected governments and install puppet dictators in their place. Ditto when the puppets stop doing what they're told. Can't have a government that answers to the populace and their own interests interfering with the cheap flow of that sweet, sweet crude.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    3. Re:Social experiments by dryeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unluckily, starting with the whiskey rebellion, having a well armed population doesn't seemed to have helped. Even the one success I can think of in Athens Georgia, they actually broke into the government armory rather then use their own guns.
      Has there ever been a success story of the people overthrowing a repressive government? The American Revolution was (colonial) government vs (overseas) government and still needed help from one of the major powers of the day.
      It has also failed in one other way, mainly removing the need for a standing army, which at the time was considered a major enabler of tyranny.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    4. Re:Social experiments by lgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      China is not a modern military with killer robots.

      And lets not forget that the US revolution started with weapons far below the standard for the military at the time. However, before the shooting started, people had been quietly "stealing" (always an inside job) rifles and artillery from armories. Heck, the war started when the British tried to confiscate guns - not hunting rifles, but actual artillery. The only cannon they found were the ones too big to move with small teams of horses.

      The arms you currently have in hand are a small factor compared to people willing to fight, and veteran leadership who knows how. US nationalists made British armories their first targets, and a lot of troops were armed with then-modern military weapons that way.

      Most revolutions start with military units themselves opposing the government, but armed civilians hitting military bases before they quite know that a war has begun is the other way it plays out.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  3. What a great idea by whitroth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, any thieves can and will use it to find people who *aren't* in debt, and mug or burgle them, since they'll have more money.

    1. Re:What a great idea by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Debt and net worth are very different. 7 years ago I had no debt. Today I have several hundred thousand dollars in debt because I bought a house with a mortgage. But my net worth has increased because my home value has appreciated (by more than the amount of my mortgage) since I bought it.

      If properly managed, debt isn't a bad thing, and can in fact be good. It allows you to buy things sooner than you would be able to otherwise. In my case if I had waited to save up enough to buy my house for cash, during the time I waited its price would've increased by more than the amount of debt I took on buying it immediately with a mortgage. So I actually saved money by going into debt. I only retain the debt because shedding it wold require me to liquidate the house, leaving me with no place to live, forcing me to buy a new house at today's prices and interest rates, which would actually be more expensive than keeping my current house.

      In fact, the way credit ratings work, I would say the people with more debt are more likely to have more money. Banks won't lend to people with poor financial management skills and thus poor credit. So those people who tend to live paycheck-to-paycheck with little cash on hand end up having less debt. OTOH if someone has $10 million in debt, then his house is probably chock full of expensive items worth burgling. On the flip side, he is more likely to have security cameras and can hire a good lawyer to prosecute you if you're caught. So maybe the small fish with little debt are indeed better targets for a thief.

  4. Re:1984? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My friend, if furries have a direct and measurable impact on your life, that's far more on you than them.

  5. This is part of a larger game by Headw1nd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    China has seemingly made a policy of enforcing social shaming and isolation by using surveillance to make the effects transmissible by proximity, i.e. you go to a place undesirables live or hang out, or talk to or even sell things to undesirables, you become an undesirable yourself. Some reports suggest that this policy has been used to great effect in Xinjiang, leading to a situation where the population is so afraid of being blacklisted they will shun anyone they even think might be out of the government's favor. I suspect there is a similar aim with this, and that its true purpose is not to you know you are around debtors, but to remind you that the government knows you are around debtors. Hang out with them too much and your own credit may start to go down.

  6. Re: neat by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The rich are more than happy to take VC money. Debt. They're more than happy to buy commercial real estate on credit and declare bankruptcy if it doesn't work out. Debt. Fear and stigma about debt are very much middle-class, petty bourgois feelings.

  7. Re: neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is debt necessarily shameful? Sometimes, it's better to risk the banksters' money than your own.

    That indicates impatience, and a willingness to take what you have not yet earned.

    Open heart surgery put me $160k in debt, and it was not impatience so much as urgency to remain living.
    But you are damn right I was willing to take what I had not yet earned. I would still have taken it even if I knew for certain there was no possible way I ever would have earned it. No question about it.

    As well as indicates a certain lack of ingenuity because why didn't you find actions directly solve your problem instead of resorting the last ditch efforts like economics.

    Because lacking $160,000 in my pocket, all other options would have resulted in my death.
    Not being dead was the very problem I was wanting to avoid.

    Generally taken as an indicator that a person is not wise enough to self sacrifice.

    So my wisdom is now in question because I didn't self sacrifice my very life?

    And not practical enough 2 find alternative Solutions to their problem.

    So let's hear those alternatives solutions, I'm all ears.

    In our culture debt symbolizes all that, accurate or no, that is the impression people are getting.

    Perhaps some people, but all of the people in my life and most important to me all of the people that mean something to me do not seem to hold me to the impression you seem to have already made of me.

    Not only was that entire debt paid in full in just a short couple years (a number of years ago now), but I am also alive, still working and contributing to society, and perhaps maybe even enriching other peoples lives by being a positive force in them.