For people who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the black mirror episode "Nosedive" for an exploration of what this could do to a society even in the absence of government control.
Haven't seen "Nosedive" yet but just saw White Christmas. While we don't have the wetware enhancements for that yet, it did give a chilling look at how society would react if you had an AR overlay that somehow classified people as "undesirable." This was really highlighted at the end when he walks into the busy market and shows up as red to people.
While I have reservations about governments using a system like this as it is...you get into some fascinating and terrifying scenarios when you enable public access to this sort of thing. Imagine being added to some list because of an error, and then having the entire public viewing you and just assuming you are a bad person because you are on that list without giving you the chance to do anything about it or perhaps even know they are aware of that.
As a more tangible example, imagine if something like the infamous Lulu app (that lets women rate and apply tags to men they've dated and only lets other women see the ratings...kind of like an exclusive Yelp for men) was combined with ubiquitous AR. Now imagine you had a falling out with an ex and you're trying to start dating again. You now have to deal with all of the (potentially quite false) assumptions someone you might be interested in is making about you based on how your ex rated you in addition to whatever other assumptions they would normally make without it.
And odds are you'd never even know they made their decision before you even saw them because they previously scanned the room with a rating filter like Amazon and only care about people above their threshold. We worry now about the impact of filter bubbles with things like Facebook. Now think about having them applied to people you interact with in your day-to-day.
The obvious answer is to upgrade to Yelp Premium so that you can choose which reviews appear first on your store page, and so you can respond to reviews. :-3
This already exists. My parents own a bar and were pitched a technology that would instantly screen problem patrons from a cloud-based data store. Further it can "remember" problem patrons if you flag them on your internal cameras and then use that to prevent them from entering in the future. It currently has many customers in the US.
Whats this called? Are there any checks and balances against it? Like, would someone ever know they were in this system or have recourse to see their data and challenge it?
I could totally picture insurance companies being all over something like this, and it is really scary to think about the lack of transparency and how you'll never know if you are in one of those databases.
> The age of the patron is displayed for every scan, and the ID scanner operator can be alerted if the patron exceeds the minimum or maximum age set by management.
The maximum age.
> If patrons break the rules, then ban them from every venue using PatronScan in North America.
> The Banned Patrons List is shared with every other venue using PatronScan
> PatronScan ID scanners give you live stats about […], the gender distribution, and the average age [of patrons].
There is a difference between security cameras and surveillance cameras. Surveillance cams are broadcasted somewhere else (maybe even over internet) and stored and reviewed. Security cameras - are for security incidents and shouldn't be broadcasted or footage stored longer than necessary (matter of hours or days depending on location).
Too bad often times these state owned security cameras are actually surveillance cams disguised as innocuous things which they aren't. There is this Will Smith movie "Enemy of the State", it's fiction but our dystopic society is becoming ever more scary.
I'm not sure what the bouncers are doing is right, either, though for some reason I'm more comfortable with it. (Which I find to be a really bad answer, frankly: is this just pushing my "comfort" of what I'm willing to put up with too far?)
That link would possibly make a worthy HN submission. I'd upvote it. I perused a bit for a reference to facial-recognition but found nothing. It would integrate frightfully well. I often irritate clerks when attempting to purchase alcohol, I refuse to allow them to scan my driver-license. One such row at a 711 lead me to contact corporate HQ, where they assured me their policy was on my side and that per request, the clerk was obligated to do the math and apply a visual analysis of the ID. This is something I do on principle and in consideration of possible data abuse - not to be a prick. But most clerks become quite indignant, even when I try to politely explain that until I read a company policy expressly stating that my data isn't logged or used for any other purposes beyond validating my age, I prefer to not take the risk. "Get out!" she said to me, and some other things too.
I guarantee you they are selling the data to private investigators to track down targets. Happens with mall security too. The NSA doesn't need to track everyone. They just need access to the private detabases.
In France, the law "Informatique et Liberte" from the 6th of January 1978 allows anyone to access datas stored about them and have them corrected or removed from any database.
Every western European country has one of those nowadays. Though I never heard about anyone trying to exercise that kind of right, and I wonder if there is any way to verify that your data has actually been removed, or just a NO_SEND_MAIL flag has been set.
The wsj article mentions that citizens can check their scores with a visit to a government office - obviously that isn't too convenient. I wonder if the impact on your behavior would be stronger if you don't know your score (and/or it's comparatively difficult to find out, as it is now) or if you had a realtime counter on your phone...
Yes, there are potential negatives if it is abused. Like with literally anything ever created. You have to weigh that against the much larger number of encounters with actual bad people that can be safely avoided. In fact, if that didn't happen, people wouldn't use the app in the first place.
Now that is scary. Because here's the thing. Just because two people have a potentially volatile relationship, that doesn't become an assumption that either parties are now no longer good to mix with anyone else. They could end up meeting their soul mate next, but bc of an app, and an angry ex who said somethings probably best left unsaid outside their now defunct relationship... now you don't get a chance with the soul mate? That just isn't right. My ex husband was a very very poor match for me. However his new wife and he were made for each other. You see?
I don't personally consider this a spoiler but others might so consider yourself informed.
Nosedive is about a future where your social media rating affects your real life. As an example you might not be able to enter a popular restaurant if your social media score is too low because it makes the store look bad to have low score customers. Discounts and other perks are offered to people with high scores.
Say something some disagrees with and get downvoted which since your score affects your life you don't dare say something that might upset someone else.
It's a very scary episode in that is certainly seems like one possible future. We already have some small part of that future today with downvoted on places like HN and Reddit that while meant to promote civility have the unintended consequence discouraging decent. It's easy to imagine social media scores affecting more real world things.
When Extra Credits "Propaganda Games" video came out about a year ago[1], I was relived when I read that "Sesame Credit" was a complete fabrication, and even questioned EC for posting such a video without source checking.
Apparently is wasn't completely fabricated after all.
I several times heard accusations of it being fake, but never once saw any credible source, proving it's fake. So I still don't know where these accusation came from.
Your logic is backwards. Neither Extra Credit or you cited any credible sources to prove the terrible outcomes of such system claimed in that YouTube video is accurate or true.
Note that I don't totally disagree with Extra Credit in that such credit rating system may potentially be abused by government. However, from this Chinese version of wikipedia page of Sesame Credit[1], it specifically read as those credit rating agencies are independent 3rd party entities. Also in the use cases, it mentions online shopping transactions and dating site records, car rentals but nowhere does it mention social networking sites activities(I mean people don't talk about radical political views in their dating site profiles, do they?) like what Extra Credit claim Sesame Credits will source data from.
It is not fabricated, it just wasn't accurately reported.
Every article I read described it as a government system already implemented and measuring every aspect of your life, when it was actually a scheme created by a private company within their ecosystem and most people used it for showing off.
The government proposed system is still in pilot stage.
Yeah, your answer should be pinned at the top. Most discussions going on here are without a real understanding of what's actually happening.
I have a Sesame credit score. It's pretty low. The whole system seems incredibly creepy though, even without the misreported government political intrusion aspects. I basically have to let a private company know all the details of my education, work and personal life (plus they have my entire purchasing history on Taobao, which covers most aspects of my life), and then they'll give me a score. I totally understand the need for a credit score in the context of giving loans, but the threat is always that this score then gets applied to other arenas as a generalized trustworthiness rating.
FICO is by private companies to measure your financial discipline if you want to borrow from them. You can continue to exist without opting in into FICO.
China's score is by government and it determines your mere existence. May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something. Also it is not about finances but about your opinions.
Of course given the way China works miffing the government actually means an existential threat. Unlike American who take for granted things like trial by jury, protection from cruel punishment, unauthorized searches etc. Chinese people dont have any such rights. By default they live because the government lets them.
We would never know he full extent of such score keeping.
> You can continue to exist without opting in into FICO.
Only in theory.
For one thing, you don't opt into FICO - the company I transact with chooses to share my information with FICO, without giving me any choice on the matter.
The only way you can opt out of FICO is if you never use the financial system, not have a job, or a place to live. Unless you're an animal, or an undiscovered cave hermit, good luck.
> May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something.
Not really. For example you can create a startup that might help banks find dependable borrowers more effectively than FICO and you can totally decimate FICO.
When I arrived in this country and wanted to borrow to buy a car I did not have a FICO score but I had a very good job. I borrowed outside the conventional banking system with a little higher APR.
FICO is like cellphones or email that has won and become common because it is the best alternative than everything else. One can certainly refuse to use cellphones but then that life would be highly inconvenient indicating how much value cellphones have brought to our life. FICO similarly has brought a lot of value to our lives so much that living without it is highly inconvenient.
BTW living without FICO is simpler and pretty much common thing in USA. How do you think illegal immigrants, students, H4 dependents etc. do financial transactions ?
Except that the person will have to sign a reason why he/she does not have a SSN and agree to provide it with N days. After that the FICO can track you.
No, but it's more tied-in than you might think: supposedly (haven't personally verified but) it's used for employment and car insurance decisions because it correlates so well with bad/reckless behavior.
(IIRC in CA it's illegal to use for car insurance rating, but I'm guessing that in practice that just means they use something else known to have a good correlation with it.)
I'm in Atlanta. They use credit checks for certain types of employment here. I've also heard that it's used for insurance rates, and obviously, interest rates.
The intersection of having a bank account, a job, utilities, car insurance, and a roof over your head is close enough to be 'every little thing we do in life.'
And how about comparing it to DARPA's Total Information Awareness! Which was renamed and is still thriving, although admittedly it's supposedly only for terrorism. And mission creep never happens....[1]
I'm not sure about this. It's going to be so disastrous, reminiscent of Cultural Revolution in some spiritual form, to try to force human nature into quantifiable scoring system that relies on subjective truth that is determined by a central government.
Then again this is China, people have no way of speaking out against their government without risking their lives, and the government has no obligation other than maintaining their power over the population.
I almost feel as if Xi is losing his grip on the population by introducing drastic internal policies like this that only names goals that appear to benefit the greater good but almost certainly driving his own agenda, even if it earns the ire of his surrounding peers.
A foreign policy analysis of Xi's external facing policies are almost certainly always to further his internal grip which explains the bizarre & seemingly counter-productive positions he took against North Korea and South China Sea, that further drove neighbouring countries to America's arms....but with strange turn of events it seems that they will be undone from Trump's camp, much to the delight of Putin & Xi.
Time will tell, but it's doubtful we will have anything but a government mouthpiece statician announcing the success of such policies.
It's tough to know the real truth in societies where it is actively suppressed and manipulated by a single central entity. It's also difficult to say how long such systems will last without continuously taking on more risky and expensive internal policies that lags behind changing technology that disseminates information.
but what's that saying? The person wielding the biggest stick in the room is the source of truth implying force is always the lowest common denominator in human societies. Afterall, America wouldn't be where it is today without its 14 nuclear powered floating airports with the most advanced weapon technologies that casts a shadow on any port it chooses to refuel in.
Credit scores have existed long time in the West. This just extends the idea. I live in country where positive credit scores are not allowed and I think US type credit score is creepy, but people used to it seem not to care.
My fear is that it works all too well, especially in Chinese society.
Not to mention it's mostly been recently that people/companies have started using Credit Scores outside the context of applying for a loan.
And IMO they should stop using it outside that context. People shouldn't have to worry about whether they can find a job or apartment based on having poor credit. Turns it into a game that everyone is forced to play instead of a simple metric that financial institutions can use to determine your credit-worthiness.
I've never had bad credit, but when I started working office jobs I actually went out and got a credit card I didn't need just so I could use it a few times and pay it off in full at the end of each month. Completely worthless process that I had to involve myself in simply to build my credit up. What a joke.
Credit score for an apartment seems reasonable, though - you're paying a non-trivial amount of money per month, and apartments want to minimize evictions - they just want to know if you can pay. I've been in a situation where my credit score was bad, but I provided an offer letter for my new job (which indicated that my future situation won't be like my past) and it was fine.
Where I can see it failing is for people who live "outside" the system - I have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins - he can't find an above-the-board place to live because of his lack of credit score. But with that said, he does have a high risk of not being able to make rent on time, so its difficult to say what the policy should be.
As for finding a job, I don't know of any instance where a poor credit score would prevent you from getting a job, other than getting a security clearance, but that also seems reasonable since the government wants to know if you have any blackmail-able "money troubles" that an enemy actor can take advantage of.
Yea, no one takes it too seriously for employment (which makes me wonder why they even do it most the time). I doubt I would have lost out on any jobs if I had bad credit, it probably wasn't really necessary for me to build up my credit (other than being good for getting car/home loans now).
But your second point is largely what I was getting at. People who don't want that to be a part of their life are starting to run into barriers to leading a normal life. At this point credit scores are used rather casually and don't have that high of consequences. But the trend is in the wrong direction, and I'm firmly against it continuing in the same way as the Chinese are bringing it.
The problem I've had is that there is effectively no difference between bad credit and no credit. It is entirely possible to be a financially responsible person (who exists in the "system" with a bank account) and still be denied housing. This forces people to get credit cards.
> I have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins
I don't need a credit score to tell me I probably don't want this person as a tenant. They're a huge eviction risk (no system = no fallback for short-term cashflow issues), not to mention that I don't want to be dealing with hundreds of dollars in cash rent.
I think hiring someone and leasing an apartment to someone are two different things; leasing an apartment to someone is taking on a financial risk in that you have to judge whether they can pay you or not on a monthly basis, not too different from a loan.
People with bad credit scores tend to be irresponsible in general, have unstable personal lives and are generally less reliable. They might not be someone you want as an employee especially if the position requires any significant training.
As an employer I would view it as a red flag, not disqualifiying but it would take some other evidence and good references to offset it.
An apartment lease is functionally the same thing as a loan: you need to pay $x every month. The landlord has a legitimate interest in how likely you are to do so.
I 100% agree. I'm sorry, but my credit worthiness has nothing to do with my ability to perform a job, or how well I can drive my car. Auto insurance also uses credit. Again I sat, Irrelevant uses...
Well, correct my if I'm wrong, but in some states the US you can also get a criminal record from public intoxication or urination and in the later case be required to register as a sex offender?
The US does have a track record of being blase about its officers of the peace killing people in the streets, for example. The US has fantastic freedom of speech and expression, but it also sends SWAT teams into peoples' houses and cheers the purchase of tanks for its police departments. Similarly, police can legally just take your money if they feel like it.
Yes, the US is not as bad as China as a place to live (look at the migration flow between them for simple proof), but it's worth noting that the same way people explain away the US's flaws can be done in other countries as well.
I believe you're unfairly characterizing the US being "blase about its officers of the peace killing people in the streets" there were approximately 990 people killed by police in 2015 and 2016. In a country of 325M with the focus on highly dense urban areas. In a particular segment that constitutes less than a quarter of those deaths there has been heavy rioting and police officers hunted and murdered as a result.
And you say riots and police being hunted? There is violent unrest in China, too. In both the US and China, the middle-class and the folks in power just hand-wave away the concerns of the victimised demographics, finding excuses for the state's poor treatment of them.
As many people are mocking and blocking #blacklivesmatter as are supporting it. What are those in power actually doing in response to the upset demographics in the US? Hot air. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Nothing with any real bite. Hence, blase.
Yes, that was essentially my point. If something goes on your record you will presumably have a harder time getting jobs or renting rooms, especially if your already have low status. Presumably the reason to make these punishments "more harsh" than the damage of the crime is to enforce social behavior. In some way that seem more harsh then the Chinese version. Even if China is worse in most ways, it's sometimes more relaxed than the US when it comes to personal freedoms.
You can, but I think that the proper punishment for such actions would be 'a mark' on your legal identification listing you as unfit for 'recreational chemicals'. You'd be on probation for N number of years, and if you were otherwise a good citizen you'd have that 'fall off' your record. Actively violating that during the probation period would mark you as an offender (dangerous to society); though 'incidental' violation (E.G. ordering a food item that happens to have some residual) wouldn't.
The 'third strike' should, irrespective, mark you as a dangerous member of society, though depending on circumstances some stronger treatment might result in a different outcome.
Pissing in public puts you on probation for years, and doing so three times in total (or once more in your years of probation) = dangerous member of society?
I'm scared to think of what your utopia looks like.
You don't get bad credit for jaywalking or whatever is suggested. It's a tool to measure your ability to repay debt. I think it's already abused, but it's nothing liek what is talked about in the article.
Playing devil's advocate here: you get bad credit for perfectly legal behavior that companies just happen to dislike, whereas stuff like jaywalking is at least an actual crime.
I'm sure there are all kinds of legitimate reasons you can get bad credit, before we even get into all of the mistakes that could be made.
One of my credit cards gives me monthly updates on my credit score. It always lists 3 positive and 3 negative factors impacting my score, no matter how good the score.
Currently one of the 3 negatives is "highest credit card limit too low". Not debt:available. Just straight up "too low a credit limit on your highest-limit card". And yet, I could buy an entry level luxury car on several of my credit cards.
I'm not implying that a silly ding on my credit like that is as 'serious' as delinquent payments, but... well, the truth is, I have no idea. And isn't that the point?
This is not accurate. My credit score is quite low for a person with zero debt and great financial standing, because I don't have a credit card. I am being punished for not buying a product that I have no need for.
Simply having a credit card doesn't cost anything. You're choosing to live your life in a way that is contrary to what our society has determined is a positive financial profile. If you're trying to make some kind of point, or protest something, fine -- but then don't complain about being "punished."
When was the vote / referendum on this where "society" made this determination?
At most, a few credit ratings company made this decision and "society" tolerates it for convenience. An equally workable system would be to to default to a high score and deduct points for bad behavior, but this would be bad for business as it wouldn't force people to get credit they don't need.
Better than having demonstrated bad credit. Not as good as having demonstrated good credit. Of course, in most situations actually being able to pay cash negates any of it.
It's funny you mention that, because it seems that everytime China passes a new draconian law these days, it says "we're just updating our laws to be in line with US anti-terror/public safety/etc laws" or something along those lines.
>us type credit score is creepy
Lol... I guess it is. It makes sense, to most of us on the why's, if not the how's of the credit score applications. Not all who use it agree with it. There's no choice in the matter. Unfortunately, credit scores are used for things irrelevant to debt paying history as well. So... hmm. I think I share your fear. And raise ya, in that perhaps the US could also abuse such a system after seeing how China applies it, and it's effects.
> I'm not sure about this. It's going to be so disastrous, reminiscent of Cultural Revolution in some spiritual form, to try to force human nature into quantifiable scoring system that relies on subjective truth that is determined by a central government.
I mean, is it so different from a privately-issued credit score? Transunion isn't a government agency but your credit score can keep you from certain jobs and apartments in addition to loans.
Israel already does that for sure. The USA already has the right to reuse entry to non citizens for any reason, or no reason at all, just like every other country. Nothing has changed recently as far as I can tell.
It happens. When you are owing debts and do not pay, the system will ban you from high cost living, such as 4,5 star hotels, flights, high-speed trains.
Yes, it's extremely different. Comparing credit scores to China's political score is so nonsensical it's almost a joke.
They are both scores which are used for a variety of purposes. That's as far as the similarity goes.
The credit bureaus have a tiny slice of information. In reality, they know almost nothing about you besides your debts. They certainly don't know your politics.
Is Xi's behavior any different than the nationalist, populist, authoritarian trends elsewhere, just applied to a different context?
Based on what I've read, the South China Sea policies make sense from a certain point of view, that China is the dominant power in the region who can dictate to others without negotiation, and eventually their neighbors must accept that. (That was China's position until the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century demonstrated that China lacked the military power to dictate to or even resist Western nations.) If that is China's long-term plan, then it's the right approach to dictate the status of the South China Sea and view resistance as short-term and ultimately futile. Negotiating would undermine China's standing.
It's a backward point of view: The world and China do much better when we manage conflict via democratic institutions based on rights than by might-makes-right. Who longs for the days of great power wars?
IMO it's not Xi that's similar to the current nationalism trend, his China IS the reason it exists. China today is the shining example of how economically successful a country can get by just focusing on the cold hard numbers - no refugees, no human rights, no foreign aid, etc.
For years their argument against the West was about why we spend so much time and resources trying to push our ideals to others, when we could take a practical path and be more successful economically
> why we spend so much time and resources trying to push our ideals to others.
Because that creates political friction, leading to conflict, leading to profitable arms sales. So much of the US's cavalier foreign policy is geared toward propping up the MIC between the periodic big wars it takes on for itself. Eisenhower's warning came true and nobody is doing anything about it.
This is a common argument used by those who want to oppress others; here's the flaw in it:
I agree! It is none of my business and that's the whole point of liberty: Individuals should have self-determination; that is, freedom. Their choices and interests are none of my business, and they are none of their oppressors' business either.
If they don't have the self-determination to control their own lives and express their own interests, then often there isn't much they can do to get it; their oppressors hold the power. That's when other people have a responsibility not to close their eyes to oppression but to do something about it. The goal is not to tell the oppressed what to do, but to give them the freedom to decide and act for themselves.
I know I have my self-determination and freedom because of the efforts and sacrifices generations of others have made for me; millions have paid with their lives and their fortunes; more gave up careers, went to jail, suffered ostracism, torture and worse; generations made it their jobs to make laws, creating institutions and more to ensure I have my freedom today. Is my response that it is none of their business? Or do I have a share of the work to do?
> people care as long as they are not losing anything
That's certainly true of some people, but note all the people throughout history (e.g., in my prior comment) who have made great sacrifices for it. If nobody was willing to sacrifice, there would be no freedom or democracy today.
Thank you. To be clear, it's not out of kindness; it's a responsibility and a necessity. It's even basic evolutionary psychology: I want my genes to survive, and they are much more likely to survive in a world of human rights than the pre-modern one of nationalism and might-makes-right.
Society is judged by how they treat the lowest ranking members and issues. There's a stark difference between West & East here.
It's simply a matter of affordability, the West can afford to care about human rights, refugees, giving foreign aid because it can and it believes that it's not a question of politics but an evolution of thinking that emerged as a result of 200+ years of world wide colonialism.
It's interesting to see that the East has been unable to take the same route but it's slowly changing in developed democracies like Japan and South Korea.
However, like the other comment suggested, nuclear carriers rarely travel alone without the protection of large naval assets deployed around it.
If only AI was running all of the naval air assets on a carrier, no food, self sustaining & maintaining.
I'd imagine an increase of frequency in US naval carrier groups patrolling oceans closer as a result of the cost savings of reducing manned staff with AI and robots but that's another topic.
China is leading the way in the use of snooping + big data for social control. The problem is that the rest of the world is steadily catching up. Once upon a time the great firewall of China looked very outlandish, however with the snooping laws in the UK i wonder if that will be the next step: of course we do need a national firewall to protect us from cyber terrorism/state sponsored attacks, any objections? Now lets imagine another real estate crash - of course we will need an aggregated credit rating after that.
Not to mention that China has a real problem with bad credit, the technocratic solution is to look at snooping & big data as the fix: a very modern approach.
Also i don't think that the technocrats who are ruling China have much in common with the cultural revolution: for example Deng Xiaoping was purged twice during the cultural revolution (i wonder how he survived the first purge).
The Chinese leaders love talking about "harmony" as a social goal. In that spirit, these could be called "Harmony Points", or simply HP.
You gained 17 HP yesterday. You've just leveled up! Report to your neighborhood party representative for your complimentary face massage kit. [Share on Weibo] [Share on WeChat]
China has had similar systems for decades. The dang’an record books on employee behavior were kept by big state employers. But that system didn't hold up well as more private employers appeared. Now it's being brought up to date.
The US has something like this for travel, where the lowest tier is being on the "do not fly" list, and having a Global Entry card, which requires "extreme vetting", moves you to a higher tier where you can bypass some security lines.
Global Entry doesn't entitle you to 'skipping' any security lines. It accelerates the customs process, but one still ends up handing one's documents over to customs officers for a (usually) quick review, just as everyone else does.
The biggest perk for Global Entry (besides getting a known traveler number for Pre-Check eligibility) is that the process of filling out the customs paperwork is faster and more automated, and that the ratio of travelers : customs officers is lower.
Getting to use a line with a lower ratio of travelers to customs officers is exactly what someone means when they talk about skipping a line. If they meant skipping the customs checks they probably would have said checks rather than line.
I think what people have to watch closely is the collation of these different lists. The American do-not-fly list already is full of mistakes[0][1][2] and institutionalized prejudice[3][4], and so if that score affected more it would damage even more.
The fact that the no-fly list can be manipulated without visibility is exactly why it's so useful to authoritarian regimes like China's communist party and the US security-state.
> China has had similar systems for decades. The dang’an record books on employee behavior ...
Under the Communists China also has had (and maybe still does?) city block-level surveillance by neighbors of residential behavior.
> The US has something like this ...
The false equivalency comes up too much. I wrote some code in a couple hours the other day that is "something like" the Linux kernel, in that they are both code, both read from the network and output to the monitor, and both have bugs which will never be fixed. But if I want to communicate to others an accurate comparison of the two code bases, mentioning those similarities is misleading.
Communist China still has residential officers, but only in older complexes (I don't think we had one in my newish complex, but I definitely heard about them in more traditional Beijing apartment complexes).
What in the world does filing bankruptcy have to do with flying on an airplane?
I thought being on 'do not fly' lists came about because of one doing something that could be construed as anti-security, er...like terroristic in nature. I'm so confused with how some people commenting in these threads come up with off the wall, random and unrelated associations lol. It's exasperating to say the least.
"do not fly" list is not the same as keeping a social credit score. You don't get on the do not flying list if you speak against the US president's policies. That's the difference between democracy and the other thing (not really sure what category China falls these days)
Its a bit like the American credit system in that it can kick people in the balls...except its more arbitrary, outside of the persons control and very vulnerable to abuse.
Aldus Huxley portrayed something that scares me to death of actually happening... yet every day I see us coming closer and closer to its fruition. Strong teller...or fortune teller? Lol that is the question.
This could show or open up some possible alternatives to the current monetary system. You have to see money as providing the same function today in our society. Not your credit score and whatnot. Those are derived from it.
Money is what forces humans today into a quantifiable scoring system. On one side is doom but it is worth thinking about that the other side could provide. "Today you have been credited 400 points for helping 100 elderly over the street, driving 50 disabled people to the doctor and returning 20 lbs of unused food". Then you don't have a monetary system pricing your actions, but you have central control over what gets priced in what way. Sounds familiar, I know. But just because none of us can imagine anything but money to fulfill this allocation function, does not mean that other thinkers are hard at work. Surely this is far away from western individualism, but not every country has bought into that. China is surely investigating it's options long term to opt out of various constraints imposed upon by global power systems, one of which is the global banking and monetary system.
How would your example differ from a government simply putting a price on various tasks (helping elderly, etc) and paying with regular money?
I'm not saying it's a bad idea (I actually like it!), but conceptually it seems no different to the current monetary system, just with governments taking a more inventive approach to paying for public services.
"In that sense, perhaps the most shocking element of the story is not the Chinese government’s agenda, but how similar it is to the path technology is taking elsewhere."
In the United States, further, social media post and social relationship information is used across America to calculate real time police "threat scores", predictive crime measurements that are applied to prioritize law enforcement and surveillance efforts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-new-w...
China unfortunately is not unique in this landscape of social gamification - the kind espoused by the Bush and Obama Administrations - perhaps most perfectly represented by the legal justifications and arguments by Washington insiders in the intellectual orbit of Cass Sunstein.
That article seems to strongly imply that social media is a factor in your credit score but never actually proves it. After meandering on a story about targeted marketing via social media we get back to a history of credit scores yet no connection is ever made.
At best its thesis seems to be "these things are similar!" yet the headline and the intro is very misleading. Guilt by association is not a fair argument.
FICO using social media as a factor in its score would be extremely interesting were it true.
Don't we already have this? A prospective employer can look up everything about you, and form a composite score on their own if they want to. China is late to the game.
Doesn't sound bad, but when one of the factors used to calculate your credit rating is your degree political alignment, it is bad.
That combined with mass surveillance, censorship, and the fact that the People's Liberation Army serves the communist party and not the Chinese people gives them total control over the population.
Now that Facebook is coming to China, maybe they will integrate it in their chinese version. Then other countries soon also could be granted to receive such a feature.
This is very dangerous. Things like this make me glad that I live in a democracy, although people in power can some times get away by doing stuff, they ultimately have to agree to the popular demands (this is also why certain dictators are overthrown by popular demand by a very big uprising, but it then disrupts the working of the country for a long time, works quicker in democracies since leaders have to listen to get elected next time)
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadWhile I have reservations about governments using a system like this as it is...you get into some fascinating and terrifying scenarios when you enable public access to this sort of thing. Imagine being added to some list because of an error, and then having the entire public viewing you and just assuming you are a bad person because you are on that list without giving you the chance to do anything about it or perhaps even know they are aware of that.
As a more tangible example, imagine if something like the infamous Lulu app (that lets women rate and apply tags to men they've dated and only lets other women see the ratings...kind of like an exclusive Yelp for men) was combined with ubiquitous AR. Now imagine you had a falling out with an ex and you're trying to start dating again. You now have to deal with all of the (potentially quite false) assumptions someone you might be interested in is making about you based on how your ex rated you in addition to whatever other assumptions they would normally make without it.
And odds are you'd never even know they made their decision before you even saw them because they previously scanned the room with a rating filter like Amazon and only care about people above their threshold. We worry now about the impact of filter bubbles with things like Facebook. Now think about having them applied to people you interact with in your day-to-day.
I could totally picture insurance companies being all over something like this, and it is really scary to think about the lack of transparency and how you'll never know if you are in one of those databases.
From a technology perspective, there might be some clever stuff there, but probably not.
It's just a sign of things to come I think.
The maximum age.
> If patrons break the rules, then ban them from every venue using PatronScan in North America.
> The Banned Patrons List is shared with every other venue using PatronScan
> PatronScan ID scanners give you live stats about […], the gender distribution, and the average age [of patrons].
Wow. Just … wow.
This is like asking, what's wrong with state owned security cameras on the streets? It's digitizing what bystanders have been doing for centuries.
There is a difference between security cameras and surveillance cameras. Surveillance cams are broadcasted somewhere else (maybe even over internet) and stored and reviewed. Security cameras - are for security incidents and shouldn't be broadcasted or footage stored longer than necessary (matter of hours or days depending on location).
Too bad often times these state owned security cameras are actually surveillance cams disguised as innocuous things which they aren't. There is this Will Smith movie "Enemy of the State", it's fiction but our dystopic society is becoming ever more scary.
Also, it seems https://www.servallbiometrics.com/ is the parent of PatronScan.
https://www.cnil.fr/en/rights-and-obligations
Nosedive is about a future where your social media rating affects your real life. As an example you might not be able to enter a popular restaurant if your social media score is too low because it makes the store look bad to have low score customers. Discounts and other perks are offered to people with high scores.
Say something some disagrees with and get downvoted which since your score affects your life you don't dare say something that might upset someone else.
It's a very scary episode in that is certainly seems like one possible future. We already have some small part of that future today with downvoted on places like HN and Reddit that while meant to promote civility have the unintended consequence discouraging decent. It's easy to imagine social media scores affecting more real world things.
Apparently is wasn't completely fabricated after all.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI
Note that I don't totally disagree with Extra Credit in that such credit rating system may potentially be abused by government. However, from this Chinese version of wikipedia page of Sesame Credit[1], it specifically read as those credit rating agencies are independent 3rd party entities. Also in the use cases, it mentions online shopping transactions and dating site records, car rentals but nowhere does it mention social networking sites activities(I mean people don't talk about radical political views in their dating site profiles, do they?) like what Extra Credit claim Sesame Credits will source data from.
[1]: http://baike.baidu.com/view/12108011.htm
Every article I read described it as a government system already implemented and measuring every aspect of your life, when it was actually a scheme created by a private company within their ecosystem and most people used it for showing off.
The government proposed system is still in pilot stage.
https://www.techinasia.com/china-citizen-scores-credit-syste...
I have a Sesame credit score. It's pretty low. The whole system seems incredibly creepy though, even without the misreported government political intrusion aspects. I basically have to let a private company know all the details of my education, work and personal life (plus they have my entire purchasing history on Taobao, which covers most aspects of my life), and then they'll give me a score. I totally understand the need for a credit score in the context of giving loans, but the threat is always that this score then gets applied to other arenas as a generalized trustworthiness rating.
China's score is by government and it determines your mere existence. May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something. Also it is not about finances but about your opinions.
Is this just speculation? Maybe you end up in jail?
Of course given the way China works miffing the government actually means an existential threat. Unlike American who take for granted things like trial by jury, protection from cruel punishment, unauthorized searches etc. Chinese people dont have any such rights. By default they live because the government lets them.
We would never know he full extent of such score keeping.
Only in theory.
For one thing, you don't opt into FICO - the company I transact with chooses to share my information with FICO, without giving me any choice on the matter.
The only way you can opt out of FICO is if you never use the financial system, not have a job, or a place to live. Unless you're an animal, or an undiscovered cave hermit, good luck.
> May be you end up in jail if the score goes below something.
Citation needed.
Not really. For example you can create a startup that might help banks find dependable borrowers more effectively than FICO and you can totally decimate FICO.
When I arrived in this country and wanted to borrow to buy a car I did not have a FICO score but I had a very good job. I borrowed outside the conventional banking system with a little higher APR.
FICO is like cellphones or email that has won and become common because it is the best alternative than everything else. One can certainly refuse to use cellphones but then that life would be highly inconvenient indicating how much value cellphones have brought to our life. FICO similarly has brought a lot of value to our lives so much that living without it is highly inconvenient.
BTW living without FICO is simpler and pretty much common thing in USA. How do you think illegal immigrants, students, H4 dependents etc. do financial transactions ?
I don't know about illegal immigrants, but anyone in the US on a valid visa can walk into a bank, show a teller their passport, and open an account.
Also, most of us aren't so blessed as to have a landlord (Dorm housing) that will forego a credit background check.
(IIRC in CA it's illegal to use for car insurance rating, but I'm guessing that in practice that just means they use something else known to have a good correlation with it.)
However, it doesn't seem that more data is going into the FICO score. Such as, personal, non-finance related data.
https://epic.org/events/tia_briefing/tia_categories.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
Then again this is China, people have no way of speaking out against their government without risking their lives, and the government has no obligation other than maintaining their power over the population.
I almost feel as if Xi is losing his grip on the population by introducing drastic internal policies like this that only names goals that appear to benefit the greater good but almost certainly driving his own agenda, even if it earns the ire of his surrounding peers.
A foreign policy analysis of Xi's external facing policies are almost certainly always to further his internal grip which explains the bizarre & seemingly counter-productive positions he took against North Korea and South China Sea, that further drove neighbouring countries to America's arms....but with strange turn of events it seems that they will be undone from Trump's camp, much to the delight of Putin & Xi.
Time will tell, but it's doubtful we will have anything but a government mouthpiece statician announcing the success of such policies.
It's tough to know the real truth in societies where it is actively suppressed and manipulated by a single central entity. It's also difficult to say how long such systems will last without continuously taking on more risky and expensive internal policies that lags behind changing technology that disseminates information.
but what's that saying? The person wielding the biggest stick in the room is the source of truth implying force is always the lowest common denominator in human societies. Afterall, America wouldn't be where it is today without its 14 nuclear powered floating airports with the most advanced weapon technologies that casts a shadow on any port it chooses to refuel in.
My fear is that it works all too well, especially in Chinese society.
Giving people brownie points for "being nice" or "not shitting in the streets" seems like a different ball game.
And IMO they should stop using it outside that context. People shouldn't have to worry about whether they can find a job or apartment based on having poor credit. Turns it into a game that everyone is forced to play instead of a simple metric that financial institutions can use to determine your credit-worthiness.
I've never had bad credit, but when I started working office jobs I actually went out and got a credit card I didn't need just so I could use it a few times and pay it off in full at the end of each month. Completely worthless process that I had to involve myself in simply to build my credit up. What a joke.
Where I can see it failing is for people who live "outside" the system - I have a friend who refuses to uses banks and deals only in cash and ancient coins - he can't find an above-the-board place to live because of his lack of credit score. But with that said, he does have a high risk of not being able to make rent on time, so its difficult to say what the policy should be.
As for finding a job, I don't know of any instance where a poor credit score would prevent you from getting a job, other than getting a security clearance, but that also seems reasonable since the government wants to know if you have any blackmail-able "money troubles" that an enemy actor can take advantage of.
But your second point is largely what I was getting at. People who don't want that to be a part of their life are starting to run into barriers to leading a normal life. At this point credit scores are used rather casually and don't have that high of consequences. But the trend is in the wrong direction, and I'm firmly against it continuing in the same way as the Chinese are bringing it.
That's the point. They designed the system of incentives and constraints to make you their customer.
I don't need a credit score to tell me I probably don't want this person as a tenant. They're a huge eviction risk (no system = no fallback for short-term cashflow issues), not to mention that I don't want to be dealing with hundreds of dollars in cash rent.
As an employer I would view it as a red flag, not disqualifiying but it would take some other evidence and good references to offset it.
I'm gonna be that guy: [citation needed]
Seems to come up a lot when reminders of China being ruled by a totalitarian regime come along
Yes, the US is not as bad as China as a place to live (look at the migration flow between them for simple proof), but it's worth noting that the same way people explain away the US's flaws can be done in other countries as well.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/07/08/us-police-shoo...
And you say riots and police being hunted? There is violent unrest in China, too. In both the US and China, the middle-class and the folks in power just hand-wave away the concerns of the victimised demographics, finding excuses for the state's poor treatment of them.
As many people are mocking and blocking #blacklivesmatter as are supporting it. What are those in power actually doing in response to the upset demographics in the US? Hot air. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Nothing with any real bite. Hence, blase.
The 'third strike' should, irrespective, mark you as a dangerous member of society, though depending on circumstances some stronger treatment might result in a different outcome.
I'm scared to think of what your utopia looks like.
One of my credit cards gives me monthly updates on my credit score. It always lists 3 positive and 3 negative factors impacting my score, no matter how good the score.
Currently one of the 3 negatives is "highest credit card limit too low". Not debt:available. Just straight up "too low a credit limit on your highest-limit card". And yet, I could buy an entry level luxury car on several of my credit cards.
I'm not implying that a silly ding on my credit like that is as 'serious' as delinquent payments, but... well, the truth is, I have no idea. And isn't that the point?
At most, a few credit ratings company made this decision and "society" tolerates it for convenience. An equally workable system would be to to default to a high score and deduct points for bad behavior, but this would be bad for business as it wouldn't force people to get credit they don't need.
I mean, is it so different from a privately-issued credit score? Transunion isn't a government agency but your credit score can keep you from certain jobs and apartments in addition to loans.
Jay walking or speaking out against the government online will probably not affect my credit score.
They are both scores which are used for a variety of purposes. That's as far as the similarity goes.
The credit bureaus have a tiny slice of information. In reality, they know almost nothing about you besides your debts. They certainly don't know your politics.
Based on what I've read, the South China Sea policies make sense from a certain point of view, that China is the dominant power in the region who can dictate to others without negotiation, and eventually their neighbors must accept that. (That was China's position until the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century demonstrated that China lacked the military power to dictate to or even resist Western nations.) If that is China's long-term plan, then it's the right approach to dictate the status of the South China Sea and view resistance as short-term and ultimately futile. Negotiating would undermine China's standing.
It's a backward point of view: The world and China do much better when we manage conflict via democratic institutions based on rights than by might-makes-right. Who longs for the days of great power wars?
For years their argument against the West was about why we spend so much time and resources trying to push our ideals to others, when we could take a practical path and be more successful economically
Because that creates political friction, leading to conflict, leading to profitable arms sales. So much of the US's cavalier foreign policy is geared toward propping up the MIC between the periodic big wars it takes on for itself. Eisenhower's warning came true and nobody is doing anything about it.
This is a common argument used by those who want to oppress others; here's the flaw in it:
I agree! It is none of my business and that's the whole point of liberty: Individuals should have self-determination; that is, freedom. Their choices and interests are none of my business, and they are none of their oppressors' business either.
If they don't have the self-determination to control their own lives and express their own interests, then often there isn't much they can do to get it; their oppressors hold the power. That's when other people have a responsibility not to close their eyes to oppression but to do something about it. The goal is not to tell the oppressed what to do, but to give them the freedom to decide and act for themselves.
I know I have my self-determination and freedom because of the efforts and sacrifices generations of others have made for me; millions have paid with their lives and their fortunes; more gave up careers, went to jail, suffered ostracism, torture and worse; generations made it their jobs to make laws, creating institutions and more to ensure I have my freedom today. Is my response that it is none of their business? Or do I have a share of the work to do?
That's certainly true of some people, but note all the people throughout history (e.g., in my prior comment) who have made great sacrifices for it. If nobody was willing to sacrifice, there would be no freedom or democracy today.
It's simply a matter of affordability, the West can afford to care about human rights, refugees, giving foreign aid because it can and it believes that it's not a question of politics but an evolution of thinking that emerged as a result of 200+ years of world wide colonialism.
It's interesting to see that the East has been unable to take the same route but it's slowly changing in developed democracies like Japan and South Korea.
> any port it chooses to refuel in
Do we have a lot of ports to refuel nuclear powered aircraft carriers?
However, like the other comment suggested, nuclear carriers rarely travel alone without the protection of large naval assets deployed around it.
If only AI was running all of the naval air assets on a carrier, no food, self sustaining & maintaining.
I'd imagine an increase of frequency in US naval carrier groups patrolling oceans closer as a result of the cost savings of reducing manned staff with AI and robots but that's another topic.
Not to mention that China has a real problem with bad credit, the technocratic solution is to look at snooping & big data as the fix: a very modern approach.
Also i don't think that the technocrats who are ruling China have much in common with the cultural revolution: for example Deng Xiaoping was purged twice during the cultural revolution (i wonder how he survived the first purge).
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The US has something like this for travel, where the lowest tier is being on the "do not fly" list, and having a Global Entry card, which requires "extreme vetting", moves you to a higher tier where you can bypass some security lines.
The biggest perk for Global Entry (besides getting a known traveler number for Pre-Check eligibility) is that the process of filling out the customs paperwork is faster and more automated, and that the ratio of travelers : customs officers is lower.
[0] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/no-fly-mistakes-cat-s...
[1] http://theresurgent.com/these-people-mistakenly-ending-up-on...
[2] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/06/class-action-suit-target...
[3] https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fac...
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/22/us-stops-bri...
Under the Communists China also has had (and maybe still does?) city block-level surveillance by neighbors of residential behavior.
> The US has something like this ...
The false equivalency comes up too much. I wrote some code in a couple hours the other day that is "something like" the Linux kernel, in that they are both code, both read from the network and output to the monitor, and both have bugs which will never be fixed. But if I want to communicate to others an accurate comparison of the two code bases, mentioning those similarities is misleading.
Well then, I guess it is all the same.
I thought being on 'do not fly' lists came about because of one doing something that could be construed as anti-security, er...like terroristic in nature. I'm so confused with how some people commenting in these threads come up with off the wall, random and unrelated associations lol. It's exasperating to say the least.
Its a bit like the American credit system in that it can kick people in the balls...except its more arbitrary, outside of the persons control and very vulnerable to abuse.
China has had similar systems for decades .... The US has something like this for travel
and
How different is this from our current credit system through FICO scores?
Sorry, that technique doesn't work. Come up with something new.
Money is what forces humans today into a quantifiable scoring system. On one side is doom but it is worth thinking about that the other side could provide. "Today you have been credited 400 points for helping 100 elderly over the street, driving 50 disabled people to the doctor and returning 20 lbs of unused food". Then you don't have a monetary system pricing your actions, but you have central control over what gets priced in what way. Sounds familiar, I know. But just because none of us can imagine anything but money to fulfill this allocation function, does not mean that other thinkers are hard at work. Surely this is far away from western individualism, but not every country has bought into that. China is surely investigating it's options long term to opt out of various constraints imposed upon by global power systems, one of which is the global banking and monetary system.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea (I actually like it!), but conceptually it seems no different to the current monetary system, just with governments taking a more inventive approach to paying for public services.
"In that sense, perhaps the most shocking element of the story is not the Chinese government’s agenda, but how similar it is to the path technology is taking elsewhere."
This is because, for example, surveillance of social media posts have been an input to credit scores in countries like the United States for some time. (https://www.thenation.com/article/how-companies-turn-your-fa...)
In the United States, further, social media post and social relationship information is used across America to calculate real time police "threat scores", predictive crime measurements that are applied to prioritize law enforcement and surveillance efforts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-new-w...
China unfortunately is not unique in this landscape of social gamification - the kind espoused by the Bush and Obama Administrations - perhaps most perfectly represented by the legal justifications and arguments by Washington insiders in the intellectual orbit of Cass Sunstein.
At best its thesis seems to be "these things are similar!" yet the headline and the intro is very misleading. Guilt by association is not a fair argument.
FICO using social media as a factor in its score would be extremely interesting were it true.
That combined with mass surveillance, censorship, and the fact that the People's Liberation Army serves the communist party and not the Chinese people gives them total control over the population.