China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-credit/china-to-bar-people-with-bad-social-credit-from-planes-trains-idUSKCN1GS10S

by samaysharma • 8 years ago

827 520 8 years ago

reuters.com

iooi2• 8 years ago

So if we assume they're getting their ideas from Black Mirror, how much longer until they start using humans for energy? [1]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/

NedIsakoff• 8 years ago

Its a comic book..

rsynnott2• 8 years ago

The Chinese social credit system has been around in some form for longer than Black Mirror. Black Mirror got the idea from THEM.

iooi2• 8 years ago

Source?

trhway2• 8 years ago

i think this episode and Matrix got it wrong wrt. what humans would be used for. It isn't energy production. Given that humans have largest brain with largest brain/body ratio and with good energy efficiency the opening scene from Matrix looks to me like racks of GPUs running distributed computation/simulation.

In the spirit of this episode and the totalitarian nature of China today and the whole world tomorrow, i think it will be an every [regular] citizen duty to "plug in" for set amount of hours to run your fair share of social computing "dapps" and to sync-up/check the thoughts/emotions as well.

The open office enforced hive-style collaboration/teamwork and always-on IM with implicit contract of immediately dropping everything and lending your brain is a very-very early preview of that future.

krapp• 8 years ago

Given that humans have largest brain with largest brain/body ratio and with good energy efficiency the opening scene from Matrix looks to me like racks of GPUs running distributed computation/simulation.

That was what the Matrix was originally supposed to be - the humans were wired into a neural network to bootstrap the AIs, but executives were afraid moviegoers wouldn't be smart enough to understand that, so they forced the change to "batteries."

lainga2• 8 years ago

Humans-as-CPUs was the original plot of the Matrix IIRC, as pitched by the Wachowskis. The studio thought audiences would have a hard time understanding this, so they became D-cell batteries in the film instead.

Ahh, jinx!

fenwick67• 8 years ago

Yeah humans are not very efficient at power conversion and I hate seeing this trope.

When The Matrix was first conceived, the machines used humans for some computing, but that was dumbed down a bit in the final product.

EDIT: ugh, double jinx

jandrese5• 8 years ago

I don't think they were using the bikes in that episode to power some great civilization or something, just to reduce costs and more importantly to keep everyone busy.

It wasn't clear what happened in the background, but it seemed like humanity was in a prison and to keep incidents down they made them do hard labor and provided endless mindless entertainment. Probably supposed to be an allegory for 9-5 jobs. The ending suggests that the rest of the planet is alive at least. Maybe humanity was put in prison for wrecking the biosphere and they're giving the planet time to recover?

seibelj• 8 years ago

Truly a dystopia. I hope someday citizens rebel against this nightmare

ghostcluster• 8 years ago

They are

The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8700 “mass group incidents” in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005.[2] In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and Chinese sociology professor Sun Liping estimated 180,000 incidents in 2010.[3][4] Mass incidents are defined broadly as "planned or impromptu gathering that forms because of internal contradictions", and can include public speeches or demonstrations, physical clashes, public airings of grievances, and other group behaviors that are seen as disrupting social stability.[5]

However

Despite the increase in protests, some scholars have argued that they may not pose an existential threat to Communist Party rule because they lack “connective tissue;” the preponderance of protests in China are aimed at local-level officials, and only a select few dissident movements seek systemic change.

Who knows how it will play out in the long run, especially with the looming demographic problems of their aging population.

RubenSandwich• 8 years ago

If anyone wants to see some of the negative effects of a persistent 'social score' that affects real life I recommend this Black Mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive.

azakai• 8 years ago

The Electric Dreams episode "Safe and Sound" also explores these issues, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6980876/

miketery• 8 years ago

I was thinking you were going to link to "Kill all Others"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6912900/?ref_=ttep_ep7

thriftwy2• 8 years ago

I like how in Nosedive, nobody is ever having fun.

I mean, guests at the party (spoiler) should be amused at the ghost of the maid and the scandal, filming it and all - especially young guys. It should go completely viral. Instead they stand frowning as if they're 70 - to avoid hurting their score.

Under social credit society, everybody will be forced to act like they're at the end of their life path.

ajmurmann2• 8 years ago

The interesting thing and probably the point of the episode is that that's already what's happening in social media right now if you want to keep your followers.

wehadfun• 8 years ago

Yea that episode the "credit" was objective based on random people's opinions. According to the article, they claim that you have to not pay fines, or smoke on a train to ruin your social credit.

ajmurmann2• 8 years ago

Or "spread falsehoods about terrorism". You are totally right about the episode though.

jandrese5• 8 years ago

Or piss off some random party official, or have non-mainstream political opinions, etc...

Once a system like this is in place it will be abused. It's practically designed to be abused. Where is the accountability?

jandrese5• 8 years ago

This is the first thing I thought of as well.

Once thing I kind of liked about that episode is that it was backwards from a normal Black Mirror episode. Normally they try to make the technology look fun and useful at first before they do the flip and make it horrible and dehumanizing. This episode started out like the end of a normal episode and ended with the main character doing a white girl rap battle with some random dude.

crispyporkbites• 8 years ago

What’s a white girl rap battle? I don’t remember anything like that

javajosh• 8 years ago

Or, a more light-hearted take, a few years before Nosedive: http://community-sitcom.wikia.com/wiki/MeowMeowBeenz

pensiveforns3• 8 years ago

Isn't that episode the opposite of this? In that episode, it was other people giving you a score, e.g. democracy.

In this case, it's the government giving you a score.

awakeasleep• 8 years ago

To me the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted” sounds like the beginning of a new caste system.

Everyone's children are going to make mistakes. The wealthy are going to be able to cover up their children's mistakes, the poor are going to be put on 'the list' and become 'restricted.'

The restrictions will grow, and eventually you'll have a new group of 'untouchables'

pishpash5• 8 years ago

The world goes around in circles. Some always want to be on top of others, enslaving them until they get overthrown.

Itaxpica• 8 years ago

This is the case in North Korea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun), and it's terrifying to see it spread to other, less-totalitarian states

posterboy3• 8 years ago

The caste system to me means to put people in the position of a caste on purpose. Just like the younger brothers in feudal europe were second class ... so a prince might just kill his older brother. Or literally enslaving countries wholesale as untouchables (the name being an improvement over beatables, I guess). I have a hunch that caste is cognate with castrate, but it's inexplicably "uncertain" as many such terrible topics are, and indeed it's more nuanced: e.g. castrum is linked in the wiki (think casa). It makes sense via separate<enclosure<cover<layer ... it's much more complicated then that though :/

ithkuil• 8 years ago

It comes from "chaste" (Latin castus) through an intermediate form meaning pure/non-mixed

hosh3• 8 years ago

It isn't the beginning of a new caste system.

It is more like a modern iteration of very old Confucian ideals. (Not that I agree with Confucian philosophy)

Confucian philosophy had influenced Chinese culture for several millennial, and the oral tradition was that Confucius (Kong Tzu) himself distilled what went into the Analects from much older rites and cultures.

The basic idea here is that humans don't start out as humans, and require socialization to uplift them and refine their spirit to that of "human". To accomplish this as a society, there is an emphasis on education and behavioral control.

This has permeated many levels of the Chinese culture. What is novel here is the use of Big Data and AI to enforce these.

Confucious's philosophy and its descendent philosophies, though pervasive, are not the only streams that have influenced Chinese culture. If you are looking for echoes of classical liberalism, you'd find it more at home with the Lao-tzu, and the ethos of "let's improve our society with technology" would find an echo with Mo-tzu.

Everyone's children are going to make mistakes. The wealthy are going to be able to cover up their children's mistakes, the poor are going to be put on 'the list' and become 'restricted.'

This already happens before Big Data, both in China and in Taiwan. It happened with other cultures that were influenced by ancient Chinese Confucian thought -- Korea and Japan.

JumpCrisscross3• 8 years ago

It is more like a modern iteration of very old Confucian ideals

Confucious also said "those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.”

pishpash5• 8 years ago

Having your nosy neighborly aunties edumacating you is one thing. Having some bureaucrat or AI far away instilling virtues with no reciprocal responsibilities is something only a pompous madman can dream of, and not Confucian at all.

trendia• 8 years ago

This is analogous to saying:

"Jesus teaches us to be moral, so the inquisition is just letting the government teach us to be more moral."

ulzeraj• 8 years ago

In other words, fascism, that is, the belief that a society needs very strict moral guides and leadership to thrive.

nabla9• 8 years ago

I think this relates more to Chinese Legalism than Confucian ideals.

This social credit is just what the "men of methods" would prescribe replace aristocracy with a bureaucracy. You get automatic four year ban for certain services if social credit drops below certain level.

stale2002• 8 years ago

A caste system dressed up in pretty philosophies is still a caste system.

If this is a modern iteration of confucianism, then confucianism is equivalent to a caste system.

jrs957• 8 years ago

This isn't a permanent thing, it's 'up to one year'. Not much different than what we have in Ohio...any drug charge and your driver's license is suspended for a minimum of 6 months. It's ridiculous, yes, but it's hardly the level of totalitarianism you're describing.

ams61103• 8 years ago

Yeah but losing your driver's license for a DUI or drug charge is a specific defined consequence for a specific behavior. It's not something that happens because you have crossed a line on some nebulous "social credit" scale.

behindmyscreen3• 8 years ago

The guiding principle however appears to be "Once untrustworthy, always forbidden". That is an issue.

mFixman• 8 years ago

There's a gigantic difference between losing your driver's license and not being allowed to take any kind of long-distance transportation.

bhouston• 8 years ago

Is this a Black Mirror episode?

reaperducer• 8 years ago

It's the "Majority Rule" episode of The Orville:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orville#Episodes

bogomipz• 8 years ago

Yes, the episode is called "Nosedive."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/2017/12/15/black-mirro...

behindmyscreen3• 8 years ago

Right. To me, the idea is bad in general, however, if they are going to be doing it, at least be fair and allow for someone to rebuild their social credit just like financial credit.

makmanalp• 8 years ago

If you think the financial credit system in the US is working smoothly, you might be mistaken! Post-FACTA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_and_Accurate_Credit_Trans...) it's a lot better, but just ask the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau how much ...

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-overs...

fspeech3• 8 years ago

Here are the original NDRC documents being reported here:

http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html for air travel

http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879654.html for train travel

and Chinese news summary: http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201803/16/t20180316_28505546...

Use Google translate to check if this is being misreported.

In China you are "bad credit" if you refuse to pay despite a court order. In the US you could be jailed for contempt of court.

thathappened2• 8 years ago

So this is really just like communal imprisonment vs jail in other societies

echevil4• 8 years ago

Isn't the American credit score more like “once untrustworthy, always restricted”? Most the restrictions announced by China are removed automatically in just one year.

xeromal• 8 years ago

Every bad mark expires after 7 years generally.

Many times, you can contact the company who you owe and set up a plan where they'll remove the bad mark if you pay the debt in full.

mastax• 8 years ago

The time limit for negative information is 7 years.

DamnYuppie4• 8 years ago

No it isn't. While it can inconvenience you for a few years you can get it back up by simply paying your bills on time and paying down debts.

Now that being the case I still don't like credit scores. You can work years, have lots of savings, pay all your bills on time, pay off cars and mortgages and have a rocking credit score. The if one medical vendor sends your $90 bill to the wrong address, you never see it, then they send you to collections you will watch your score crater. This is sadly what happened to me, it is rage inducing!

jdietrich2• 8 years ago

Consider the restrictions that US law places on convicted felons. Millions of Americans have been stripped of constitutional rights, often for infractions as minor as stealing a coat or possessing half an ounce of marijuana. Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted" is a practical reality in the US.

DamnYuppie4• 8 years ago

Stealing a coat or possessing 1/2 and ounce of marijuana are generally not felonies. Stealing would be larceny and there are cost thresholds associated with that.

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

desireco42• 8 years ago

I was about to say the same, they are copying US because US did some great work in suppressing dissent.

ams61103• 8 years ago

Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing.

This is the marketplace at work. It's not a government-imposed ban on access to public services.

throwawayjava4• 8 years ago

(edit: oy, this is a controversial comment? karma score is swinging wildly. I don't mean to suggest that China's social credit system is a good idea or that it has an equivalent in the USA. It's just worth pointing out that China's own characterization of the system is pretty similar to how things work in the US...)

From the article:

People who would be put on the restricted lists included those found to have committed acts like spreading false information about terrorism and causing trouble on flights, as well as those who used expired tickets or smoked on trains, according to two statements issued on the National Development and Reform Commission’s website on Friday.

The US may ban you from flying if you are politically controversial [1]+, get kicked off a flight [2, edit: 4], or sneak onto planes without a ticket [3].

Likewise, people who trespass on public transit are often barred from its use. And of course people who break traffic laws are (eventually) kicked off the roads.

I won't comment on whether the Chinese government's characterization of its laws is accurate or not (I don't speak any relevant language and don't know much about the culture, so all I have to go off of is western media). But at least according to the Chinese government, these rules are mostly in-line with how things often work in the US.

[1] https://theintercept.com/document/2014/07/23/march-2013-watc... (edit: changed from http://mentalfloss.com/article/68073/8-ways-you-can-end-no-f...)

[2] https://thepointsguy.com/2017/07/getting-banned-from-an-airl...

[3] e.g., http://wqad.com/2018/02/21/illinois-stowaway-woman-pleads-no...

[4] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39919229/ns/travel-news/t/can-bad-...

+ The "predictive assessments" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/10/us-no-fly-li...) used for putting people on the no-fly list are not very transparent and, IMO, reminiscent of a social credit system. It's extremely hard to imagine such a system that doesn't harshly penalize certain constitutionally protected speech (e.g., about Islam and US foreign policy in the ME).

adventured6• 8 years ago

The country you're countering about, China, executes people in stadiums before cheering crowds instead of going the felony route when it comes to drug policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/thousands-chin...

Meanwhile, back in the US, we've actually begun to recognize our mistake as a culture. Thus eight states have legalized marijuana, and another dozen will go that way soon. Decriminalization of drug offenses is a common point of discussion in every state. Nearly every state that puts pot legalization on the ballot sees it go through. We've begun recognizing the mistake of how we fail to treat addicts.

Over a decade ago the US recognized the huge mistake of mass incarceration, as such the US prison population has peaked and has begun to decline, with both sides of the political aisle now openly discussing how to correct that broken system.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/grover-norquist/republicans-a...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/12/prison...

http://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/354288-we-must-p...

And there's China, going the other direction full speed.

_bxg1• 8 years ago

Not to imply that the American system is good, but at least here the things that can get you into that status are discrete, well-defined actions. With the "social credit system" things are much more fluid and subjective, so there's going to be a much greater culture of fear surrounding it. Granted, we have the same problems with our own credit system, but at least ours only applies to and is affected by finances. There's a boundary to keep both the fear and the effects from leaking into all corners of life.

Slansitartop5• 8 years ago

Consider the restrictions that US law places on convicted felons. Millions of Americans have been stripped of constitutional rights, often for infractions as minor as stealing a coat or possessing half an ounce of marijuana. Felons often face considerable difficulties in finding employment and housing. "Once untrustworthy, always restricted" is a practical reality in the US.

I understand the US isn't perfect, but I feel the real effects of comments such as yours do as much to excuse China's brand new system as they do to bring light to flaws in the US's system.

I think it must be emphasized that "once untrustworthy, always restricted" is a new policy in China that's being implemented, while in the US it is a historical principle that's coming under increased skepticism and criticism.

wil421• 8 years ago

That is a terrible comparison. Social credit is more like a credit report or score than something criminal.

make3• 8 years ago

both suck and both should change, and China is worse, is the conclusion here, I think you'll agree

somecontext2• 8 years ago

have been stripped of constitutional rights, often for infractions as minor as stealing a coat

For some context in case anyone was curious, please see the page numbered 116 (but 118 of 240 of the PDF) from this report from the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/111213a-lwop-complete-repo...

kiteracer• 8 years ago

You can extend this metaphor to employment and job performance as well, as explored by Marshall Brain in his short story "Manna" [0]:

You can imagine what would happen. Manna fires you because you don't show up for work a couple times. Now you try to go get a job somewhere else. No other Manna system is going to hire you. There had always been an implicit threat in the American economy -- "if you do not have a job, you cannot make any money and you will therefore become homeless." Manna simply took that threat and turned the screws. If you did not do what Manna told you to, it would fire you. Then you would not be able to get a job anywhere else.

As we get better at collecting and analyzing data on employees (a hot topic whenever tech interviews are discussed on HN), we should remember to exercise a certain amount of "social forgiveness."

[0] http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

harlanji• 8 years ago

My life history shows this isn’t hypothetical. Rising star from midwest now on a life raft in SF, rent 6+ wk overdue, most accounts closed, no cash and bank account frozen/thawed if I can get funds, and most everyone’s abandoned me. Can’t even afford a bus ride/parking meter to get to a meetup/friends’ game demo.

Simple conversation with old friends from home show I am a good guy but it’s invisible. Instead we see InstantCheckMate telling the world I was arrested for something. They don’t talk about the nuance of the situation, people only see the Red Bang (!) and stop. Add to that two frivolous firings possibly derived from that image, followed by some shit rung jobs I quit because they were the only ones who’d hire me and hold my lack of options over my head.

Now working like a mad man to do something somebody will pay me for. I like to say it always works out in the end. The good part about being choked nearly to death is I fear nothing anymore, including the latter. So this body is a vessel to show the dangers of this type of system via Internet Archive. Block chain terrifies me in this regard.

I now feel why people run around in fear like I used to. I go to the beach every day and the universe seems to bring me exactly what I need. I feel better than ever.

CompelTechnic• 8 years ago

Thanks for that link. Manna was an amazing read.

Pete_D• 8 years ago

I'm unsure Manna is the best anti-social-credit parable, given that one of the prerequisites for being a member of its utopia is having the government AIs surveil you 24/7 through a brainstem implant. (http://marshallbrain.com/manna7.htm, search for "They watch everything?")

rz2k• 8 years ago

Such a legal environment existed in the US between the Civil War and WWII.[1]

On March 30, 1908, Green Cottenham was arrested by the sheriff of Shelby County, Alabama, and charged with "vagrancy." Cottenham had committed no true crime. Vagrancy, the offense of a person not being able to prove at a given moment that he or she is employed [...] capriciously enforced by local sheriffs and constables [...] and, most tellingly in a time of massive unemployment among all southern men, was reserved almost exclusively for black men. Cottenham's offense was blackness.
After three days behind bars, twenty-two-year-old Cottenham was found guilty in a swift appearance before the county judge and immediately sentenced to a thirty-day term of hard labor. Unable to pay the array of fees assessed on every prisoner—fees to the sheriff, the deputy, the court clerk, the witnesses—Cottenham's sentence was extended to nearly a year of hard labor.

The description goes on to describe how his hard labor was sold to US Steel, and he was sent down into a mine. There he was subject to whipping for not delivering a required 8 tons of coal per day, and threatened with torture for disobedience. More than a thousand other black men were subjected to the same slavery at "Slope 12", 45 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

[1] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=890511...

aero142• 8 years ago

These problems also exist with debt and I think similar solutions are also possible. Muslim law banned interest. Jewish custom create Jubilee where debt was forgiven every seven years. America has a fairly forgiving bankruptcy system. I think the world of personal data scores is coming whether we like it or not, the only question is how is society going to codify it into law. Privacy laws may also apply to this where you are only allowed to keep these kinds of records for a few years and then they have to be expunged. At the government level, maybe your childhood mistakes phase out over time by law.

fareesh• 8 years ago

I think we are assuming that once you have a low score it becomes impossible to raise the score back to an acceptable level. Caste does not work like that. If you are born into the wrong caste you can't be promoted to a higher one.

echevil4• 8 years ago

The original announcement all included ways that these restrictions are lifted. Most of them are automatically lifted in 180 days or 1 year.

bduerst• 8 years ago

Already happened with Wells Fargo, who fired and blacklisted employees that refused to create extra (illegal) accounts for their customers. Those employees couldn't get a job in finance again.

Slansitartop5• 8 years ago

Already happened with Wells Fargo, who fired and blacklisted employees that refused to create extra (illegal) accounts for their customers. Those employees couldn't get a job in finance again.

It's worth noting that Wells Fargo ironically did that by abusing a fraud reporting system:

The blacklist is called "U5," and it's maintained by the finance institutions as a way of alerting each other to fraudsters who are fired for breaking finance rules. The list was designed to protect banks from fraud, but it has no defenses against fraudulent banks.

https://boingboing.net/2016/10/31/wells-fargo-blackballed-em...

wdr1• 8 years ago

The first sentence in the article states the restrictions are "for up to a year".

Where does your "always restricted" come from? Not to be rude, but did you read the article or just the headline?

daodedickinson2• 8 years ago

Resisting the Chinese Communist Party is not a mistake IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSION ON THE PLANET TODAY. Even the pope has given up his right to name bishops to the CCP. The pope is no longer Catholic and has become Communist just a few decades after JP2 gave us such hope. Now communist propaganda has Americans disarming themselves and praising the CCP as the best government in the world. Humanity is doomed and when AI takes over there will be nothing left of humanity worth saving.

Aunche6• 8 years ago

Does anyone have have the actual context of where “once untrustworthy, always restricted” is applied? It sounds like the author cherry picked the most provocative quote out of context and applied the most nefarious translation, especially since the punishments seem to be temporary according to the article.

throwwit• 8 years ago

Caste systems will never go away until the asymmetric advantage they endow to a majority is honestly weighed against the hidden costs of society manifesting self-fulfilling prophecies in the minority. Which way should the slippery slope slide? Should an individual’s means to succeed be the rule or an exception. That’s freedom, thats’s bravery in my eyes.

nothis2• 8 years ago

Interesting way to look at how inequality grows and IMO totally logical. It's scary as fuck, especially since China is on the verge of becoming very powerful on an international level.

krylon• 8 years ago

Thank God that doesn't sound the like the US at all.

dredmorbius• 8 years ago

Quite.

Beware creating a cohort with nothing left to lose.

https://suntzusaid.com/book/8/2

ccajas• 8 years ago

I would like to see if there exist any societal examples of self-regulation in social status, beyond rehabilitation and re-education centers.

A healthy human body releases sweat as one form of regulating body temperature. If it fails to do this, you can reason that the person is unhealthy or has an illness. A cause of a systemic failure. If such feedback loops exist in a society that cause the worst in reputation to fall in even deeper, then there is also a systemic failure here. It promotes the idea that anything broken should just be discarded rather than fixed. It is a very passive way to run a society.

dev_throw• 8 years ago

This illustrates the difference between having laws and enforcing them. Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar. With technology, it becomes trivial to implement enforcement for even draconic laws at a scale previously unfathomable. Also, they seem to be rolling it out slowly. It reminds of the metaphorical boiling frog syndome[1], where the frog realizes what predicament it is in, but too late.

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

rrggrr• 8 years ago

Next steps:

1. Extend social credit to non-Chinese living in China. 2. Expand to companies and individuals doing business with or visiting in China. 3. Export the program to finance dependent nations outside China. 4. Require companies depending on Chinese income to enforce the regulations in a 'know your customer'-esque format.

There will be less resistance to this than one might think.

wetback• 8 years ago

And just like that, Compliance becomes a virtue.

SubiculumCode3• 8 years ago

Having too many laws that are only selectively enforced nearly equals the absence of the rule of law, and invariably hurts those that are poor or otherwise not afluent more than others.

elgenie• 8 years ago

Some countries have strict laws, but little enforcement, so marginalized people can break these laws as long as they fly under the radar.

Strict laws with little enforcement also means that the enforcement can be restricted squarely towards marginalized people and discretion used to avoid enforcement against anyone else.

pm902• 8 years ago

The thing that worries me most about the autocracy in China is that all of these Orwellian measures would actually work and then would be pointed out as an example to abandon our civil liberties in favor of a system that may be big brotherly but at least "your kids will always be safe, never be close to any bad person" (By We I'm referring to Democracies).

It may also be a uniquely Chinese thing too though. China has had very powerful Central States for an extremely long time (not just the CPC but all the emperors and what have you). Perhaps that's just the "Chinese Way": absolutist State which largely works for most of the people?

seanmcdirmid7• 8 years ago

China doesn’t have a very powerful central state, local governments have lots of power and often act out of sight from Beijing. This actually leads to more abuses of the system, however.

MrLeap2• 8 years ago

More decentralization leads to more abuses, yes -- but they tend to be of lower magnitude per event. Positions of power tend to attract abusers. Human nature seems to favor consolidation of hierarchies. China is just on a different part of the power cycle than the US.

We're at the egalitarian everyone-is-the-same period of the cycle, and people abuse this state of affairs via a variety of ways.

China is at the we-must-stymie-abusers stage, and abusers use that to abuse and stymie innocent people.

Notice how both systems fail to stop abuse, they just move the dial between magnitude and frequency? What allows abuse is bad actors cloaking their activities behind the information asynchrony of a system. Transparency and holding leadership to account seems to be the best way to slow down the corruption of any system.

That's why it should be easier for Americans indict police officers, and harder for a Chinese PM term limits. Those aren't the only issues in either country, but they should be pretty obviously problems to most people.

It's interesting how every wedge issue seems to follow the same pattern. Take a binary choice that society should probably make -- and draw your trench diagonally from top left to bottom right so that both sides make both decisions just in different magnitudes. Leaves people angry, ideologically confused and nothing is ever resolved.

lainga2• 8 years ago

I'd say it's more an extreme reading into the Confucian ideals of social harmony and fraternity: the State (or Emperor) is the head of the country, and its families, as a father is the head of his own family. Although I may be finding too many parallels with prewar Japan.

woolvalley3• 8 years ago

You can also bring up japan as a counter-example. It's even safer and cleaner & it's still a democracy!

moufestaphio• 8 years ago

Japan has a pretty long history of autocratic rulership..

And has only really had once party in power throughout the history of its democracy (like 3 years or so without): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japa...

Not sure its the best counter example

mrhappyunhappy3• 8 years ago

It's why I live here.

jrs957• 8 years ago

It's a much bigger risk that the developing world will look to the Chinese model as an inspiration IMO

pishpash5• 8 years ago

A way of life worthy of living is not afraid of an alternative's existence.

hosh3• 8 years ago

Political systems were deeply integrated with philosophical and religious streams, all braided together for at least several thousand years.

As I mentioned elsewhere, this system is not new or novel in concept. Confucian ideals see people as animals on their way to being human. The cultivation of the "superior person" requires education and much socialization. This isn't what people in America should be concerned about.

China was at several point, a dominant power. I think a lot of people forget this. It was in the middle of the Ming dynasty, for various reasons, started turning inwards -- making major extensions of the Great Wall, recalling expedition fleets ... much like America is doing today.

The West may remember China as a third-world country or a target too weak to resist colonization, but the Chinese remember when various regions such as modern-day Vietnam, Okinawa and Korea were vassal states (have you ever seen any Korean historical drama? So much resentment related to that). Chinese as a whole don't feel themselves to be culturally inferior, yet the Western views of China seem to subconsciously think of the Chinese culture that way.

This blind spot seems to miss something that China is doing right now: the Chinese are making a bid to be the next superpower, either as America's peer, or supplanting America in that role. This includes things anywhere from adding Chinese-flavored events to the Olympics; Extending funds and industrialization to Africa; building a rail net that not only ties China internally together, but also extend reach and influence across the Asian and European continents; heavy investment into technologies such as AI, quantum tunneling, in-house chip designs, life sciences, much through luring back Western-educated people with advanced degrees whose student visas have expired; developing military capabilities -- traditional force multipliers such as refurbishing an old Soviet-era aircraft carrier to increasing asymmetric capabilities such as developing drone carriers (the Chinese produced a Sun-Tzu, after all); attempts to break American influence on oil by creating a new reserve currency for trading crude. Much of this is being funded by the money being spent by American consumers. (And the Chinese had already learned the lesson of becoming insular).

The Chinese don't come across as complacent, though I often get that sense of complacency from the Western perspective.

It is this culture that is making a bid as a superpower to influence the rest of the world into doing things the "Chinese Way".

pm902• 8 years ago

The Chinese don't come across as complacent, though I often get that sense of complacency from the Western perspective.

No they aren't, by any means. The autocracy seems to be a serious problem, but just the rate of growth and the clear determination and dedication to progress is breathtaking.

There is also something refreshing about a culture that isn't mired in stupid questions about abortion, contraception, vaccination and climate change. i.e. a culture that actually believes in the scientific method (or at least appears to be from its actions). I don't know if this is a consequence of state censorship or what though.

zxcb1• 8 years ago

Also, consider the possibility that the underlying trade off is between societal coordination and efficiency vs liberties and wellbeing. Adding to “safe” also economic incentives to erode democracy with its less efficient liberties. In a similar way, corporations are more efficient than governments.

posterboy3• 8 years ago

yet I recently read that corruption is rampant in some parts of the huge country. It's hardly centralized nor evenly distributed.

jsonne3• 8 years ago

China is doing this explicitly, but the West has been doing this implicitly for a while. Doxxing people with the "wrong" opinion and emailing their employers, friends, etc. I pretty regularly see if on Facebook where someone says something and their post or a screenshot of their post is shared hundreds of thousands of times with test that says "make this person famous". To be clear people should be called out for bigoted speech. An internet lynch mob though solves nothing and just creates a forever alienated group of people outside of society with little to no stake in the future. We all, as in humanity, could use understanding the nuance of stopping bad behavior while also forgiving people for their pasts. I don't have all the answers, but I guess I wrote this as it's just a generally worrying trend I see with the internet overall.

tome• 8 years ago

Woah, there's a difference between an "internet lynch mob" doing it and the state doing it!

jsonne3• 8 years ago

Agreed. I was bringing up that in my mind they both fall under the same overarching trend I've been seeing in the west for a while.

zaroth• 8 years ago

Yeah, the USA would never have anything like an extrajudicial no-fly list for people the government doesn’t like...

drefanzor• 8 years ago

The state does do it. It's called a criminal record which is strikingly easy to obtain in the U.S. which has a law for everything imaginable. If you've ever had any kind of criminal activity, ever, even from something dumb in your youth, the United States has a log of it, which employers use to discriminate against that person. Forever. It doesn't go away. The "miscreant" is then forced either into a life of crime, which puts them into prison or worse.

enriquto• 8 years ago

If random idiots can internet lynch mob you, so does the state. And so will the state, if the need arises.

nopriorarrests• 8 years ago

there is a difference, but it's not black and white.

sure, state is much more powerful. however, state plays by the rules, and if the rules (aka laws) are changed, state will leave you alone. And laws could be changed.

good luck trying to stop the mob, though.

zanny2• 8 years ago

There is a massive divide between private citizens harassing and bulling one another and governments wielding a monopoly on force outlawing and punishing dessent against the ruling class.

You can sue someone for attacking you online if they cause provable financial or social distress. Go try suing the CCP in China for not providing freedom of speech and see how that unexplained disappearance treats you.

barce• 8 years ago

Nobody who is doxxed has a travel ban.

derefr• 8 years ago

Yes, but in this case we’re talking about the government punishing the same practices that the polity will harass and bully a person over, rather than just practices that are against the state’s own interests, in addition to the state suppressing things it actually derives benefit to itself by suppressing.

Or, to put that another way: if there’s a lynch-mob after you, does it matter how many of its members are in uniform?

abnry• 8 years ago

You raise a great point. I would add, however, that doing this explicitly and systematically is much worse. In the US we are far from systematically banning people from riding the subway if they don't share the correct political views. There are definitely worrying trends but we still have enough of the idea of not discriminating in our country.

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

people should be called out

Anyone can be doxxed in the way you describe--harassed, slandered--for any reason, and a lot of people have been for terrible reasons. This thing has nothing to do with justice against idiots or hateful people. There are already courts, professional organizations, etc for that. It's nothing more than a disgusting, immature, backwards trend that has become an opportunity for hateful people themselves.

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

The people downvoting might want to look into incidents such as Gamergate to see what I mean

legulere• 8 years ago

It’s not just on the internet by random people, the state and the media are involved too. Once you did a mistake and it will never be forgotten.

thisisit• 8 years ago

Sorry to sound condescending but your post is one of things people dislike about the internet too - what about-ism. This is just sweeping everything under the rug by using the logic - "this is bad but what about x?" It seems as if every issue in the world needs to be discussed and solved at once or not at all.

So, can we please stop equating doxxing with a government effort and trying to pass it of as being nearly the same or part of an arc because it is not.

pembrook• 8 years ago

While what you say is certainly true in specific cases (ie. the Facebook mob example), there is nothing in the West at an institutional level that compares to the ambitions of the Chinese Social Credit system.

Also, how come every time an article is posted about something Orwellian the PRC is doing, the comments are packed with whataboutism fallacies? "Yea, but look at what's happening here in the West!" It happens so frequently and consistently that it must be a quirk of the HN audience...or something more suspiciously intentional.

jsonne3• 8 years ago

I didn't say whatabout the west despite your accusation that I did. I said it seems like they are part of an overarching trend I've noticed which is a puritanical and unforgiving approach to policing behavior in modern society. That is all.

dsfyu404ed• 8 years ago

or something more suspiciously intentional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

wfo• 8 years ago

The problem in both cases is a capricious and whimsical ultrapowerful organization with the ability to destroy a person's life for any reason with no repercussions. In China, it's the state, in the US it's in the private sector, in the form of your employer.

On the one hand, I would certainly like to know, for example, if the person I trust to teach my children in a public school is explicitly posting on the Internet about how she uses her position to indoctrinate children into extremist white nationalist ideology, Nazism and hate groups, and the "Internet lynch mob" did a great service by exposing this woman [1] -- there is no universe in which she should be allowed to be a teacher.

On the other hand, I think such firings should always be "for cause" with some kind of due process. We need to take away the ultimate power employers have to fire their employees, and make them go through some negotiation, process, discussion before they do so -- like through a union, who is obligated to stand up for wronged employees for example. If someone is failing to perform, provide evidence. If someone's publicly stated values are incompatible with the values of the business, prove it and let them respond. Either that, or we need a strong enough social safety net so that employment is optional for all people.

[1] https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/03/05/flor...

willart4food• 8 years ago

Black Mirror?

mLuby• 8 years ago

Yeah, season 3 episode 1 "nosedive"—worth the watch (on Netflix). You don't need to see any other black mirror episodes to get it. (Don't watch S1E1 1!)

daveFNbuck2• 8 years ago

(Don't watch S1E1 1!)

People always say that but it's one of the most compelling episodes.

walterbell5• 8 years ago

From http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/10/26/black-mirror-...

"You won’t be eligible for … positions in public office … social security and welfare … senior level positions in the food and drug sector … sleep in a bed in overnight trains … higher-starred hotels and restaurants … Your children … won’t be allowed to attend more expensive private schools …

We have made extreme advancements in health care because people found flaws in previous practices and had faith that they could improve them. This can be applied to quite literally every single industry, which is why these ranking systems could negatively affect growth, innovation, and our entire economic system as a whole.

If we can no longer challenge our current state of being and question our surroundings, then how can we continue to advance as a collective? As a collective, many of our strengths lie in our differences. A diverse society includes people with all different strengths and brackets of knowledge, but if we’re all racing to get a better ranking, then we could lose a lot of those differences in trying to become “people pleasers” and adhering to social norms."

zanny2• 8 years ago

The CCP is not interested in progress, its interested in maintaining permanent, absolute power at any cost.

walterbell5• 8 years ago

Like every other country, they want a healthy economy, which requires innovation.

China's proposed social credit system would be counterproductive to innovation, i.e. the cost may be too high.

KerrickStaley• 8 years ago

That's not really true. Progress and upward economic development increase the faith of the public and the Communist Party rank-and-file in the Communist Party leadership. The Communist Party leadership has a strong incentive to promote growth.

rcao• 8 years ago

Actually for CCP, a major source of legitimacy comes from making economical progress all the time.

meganibla3• 8 years ago

CPC. Not interested in progress? Hahaha. Ok. Keep living under that rock. Compared to other nations Chinese are much more interested in progress. And hence it developed in the last seven decades. And I think you should consider that every state is interested in maintaining power. That is the nature of state.

sytelus• 8 years ago

...committed acts like spreading false information about terrorism and causing trouble on flights, as well as those who used expired tickets or smoked on trains.

The move is in line with President’s Xi Jinping’s plan to construct a social credit system based on the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted”.

6.15 million Chinese citizens had been banned from taking flights for social misdeeds.

zzzeek• 8 years ago

clicked on the comments for the link here just to see all the "it's essentially the same thing here in the US!" posts and I was not disappointed. (or I was, depending on how you look at it)

hexane3603• 8 years ago

So why are the analogies others have made not valid? (although I haven't found anyone saying it's "essentially the same thing")

Chaebixi11• 8 years ago

It's pure whataboutism that only serves to totally distract attention away from this newly-designed Chinese policy.

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

Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world.
The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practically a national ideology". Journalist Julia Ioffe wrote that "Anyone who has ever studied the Soviet Union" was aware of the technique, citing the Soviet rejoinder to criticism, And you are lynching Negroes, as a "classic" example of the tactic.

johan_larson3• 8 years ago

To be fair we ban people with felony convictions from huge swathes of jobs, formally or informally, even if the crime happened decades ago. Also, good luck finding a place to live legally if you've been convicted of a sex crime.

walterbell5• 8 years ago

From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/business/economy/labor-ma...

"A rapidly tightening labor market is forcing companies across the country to consider workers they once would have turned away. That is providing opportunities to people who have long faced barriers to employment, such as criminal records, disabilities or prolonged bouts of joblessness."

murph-almighty• 8 years ago

"the free market solves all problems"

It's funny that this is happening with minimal legislative action (not that I'm okay with that)

bkohlmann2• 8 years ago

We ban them after due process procedures are complete - which often involves knowing your accused crime and accuser, lengthy evidence gathering, and impartial trials.

As I understand the Chinese social capital system, there is no due process, you may not even know if you've been cited for anything until the punishment comes, and violations are identified without appeal.

namelost• 8 years ago

What use is due process if everybody is guilty of some crime? Have you ever changed a URL parameter against a ToS? Felony computer hacking!

johan_larson3• 8 years ago

More than 90% of criminal convictions are the result of pleas, not trials. Few people can come up with the sort of money needed to mount a serious defense to a criminal charge. And in some cases the state can take your money up front, so you definitely don't have the resources to mount a defense.

tokai• 8 years ago

we ban people

We are not all Americans. Most of the Free World does not see the USA as a lodestar in how to treat criminals.

getsugablitz2• 8 years ago

I really don't think the original commenter was implying that everyone was an American or that the American system was the proper way to do things, especially based on his/her other posts. I see this kind of comment all the time, and it doesn't appear to be constructive but antagonistic.

fouric• 8 years ago

This is very, very bad.

Now, what can we do about it? What should we do about it?

lolc• 8 years ago

So what's the current exchange rate between social credit and Yen?

avcdsuia• 8 years ago

Shenzhen gov are using facial recognition to detect pedestrians running through the red light[0]. Their even release high quality pictures without mosaic in the first version, just a few days ago.

[0]https://www.stc.gov.cn/facei/

simsla• 8 years ago

These are censored (mozaic), as far as I can see.

I think the social credit thing sounds horrible, but I don't think there's anything wrong with automatic detection of traffic violations. Traffic codes are here to help people stay safe, they shouldn't be conditional on people seeing a cop.

contingencies• 8 years ago

The address is 新洲莲花路口东侧 (the east side of the intersection between Xinzhou Lu and Lianhua Lu). I sort of want to go down there and see if I can't photobomb a jaywalking picture :) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lian+Hua+Lu,+FuTian+CBD,+F...

Note that the facial ID obviously doesn't work very well as they are only posting the affirmative matches. Every intersection in China has far more than two jaywalkers per day.

olfactory3• 8 years ago

This sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version. When a "real name" service becomes a financial services company, we have a merging of social metadata and a conventional credit score.

It does not start out as a dystopian vision. Why should Facebook charge advertisers money to show ads to people with a 400 credit score? The yield of many ads is improved when you have hard demographic and behavioral data as an additional filter.

What's the difference between an Uber Pool rider getting a ride with other similarly-rated riders? Why should I with a near 5 star rating have to risk sitting in a pool with someone who has a 3.2 star rating? I certainly don't want to.

jandrese5• 8 years ago

That last line was almost a direct quote from the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive".

olfactory3• 8 years ago

While that (excellent) episode is perhaps a bit hyperbolic, why would a business not want to use any segmentation techniques at its disposal. Marketers call this attracting "qualified" customers, and it's why fine dining restaurants do not also offer fast food burgers via an attached drive-through, and why a five star hotel does not convert unbooked rooms into hostels.

Mediterraneo10• 8 years ago

This sounds horrible, but the "Real Name" movement for online services (such as Facebook) is an equally insidious American version.

Add to that Facebook’s blocking you from access to your account unless you upload a photo that clearly shows your whole face, which has been reported in recent months. Real name + financial services + facial recognition + is even worse.

smsm422• 8 years ago

I don't have my face on my FB profile, and nobody blocked me.

phil248• 8 years ago

"China said it will begin applying its so-called social credit ... and stop people who have committed misdeeds from taking such transport for up to a year."

Here in the US, you can get banned from air travel permanently, and you don't even need to do anything wrong!

cinquemb• 8 years ago

The systems/databases that will process/store the relevant social credit information will be prime targets for exploitation as this becomes more intertwined with practical daily life and automated systems.

Imagine being able to shut out a billion people variably by tampering with such and affecting the economy to a great degree.

And people complain about the evolving landscape of DDOS attacks now…

otherview• 8 years ago

This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI) came out almost 3 years ago..

openasocket2• 8 years ago

I was about to discuss the same thing! I haven't been able to find other documentation about it, whether it was actually implemented, or if it applies to this kind of restrictions. But that has really stood out in my mind as one of the most outrageously dystopian concepts

abvdasker• 8 years ago

Do you want a dystopia? Because this is how you get a dystopia.

jrs957• 8 years ago

The good news about this social credit system is that China's self driving cars will be able to make more optimal decisions about who lives and dies when a crash is inevitable. Isn't innovation wonderful!?

polskibus• 8 years ago

The big question is :

Is anyone going to sanction countries who bar people like that? Shouldn't it be human right to be viewed outside any calculated measure?

glegouard• 8 years ago

It is sad to see that humans need such a system to respect rules and others. There is also the danger that the rules to respect change over time...

kaybe• 8 years ago

No, we don't need it.

The rules most of us disrespect are routinely are not useful in the specific cases (eg I'm not going to wait at a red light in the middle of the night as a pedestrian, only as a driver). Almost all people are actually nice to each other, at least where I have been.

newnewpdro3• 8 years ago

Get ready for more China stabbing sprees [1] as the consequences of this become increasingly felt by their society. This strikes me as an obviously bad idea, but perhaps there are no good solutions with a population of that size.

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

eddieplan92• 8 years ago

Please do not try to rationalize a completely bullshit way of governing by citing there is no better way. It's an insult to the people victimized by this. I am a Chinese expat, and their stupid policy now says I cannot fly in China because I only have a passport and not a National ID.

juanmirocks• 8 years ago

Black Mirror Nosedive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive) social-status-like castes, only than in a real bluntly open dictatorship. Bad times.

echevil4• 8 years ago

If the author of this article has read the original announcement from either Chinese government or various sources from China, they'll know the so called "people with bad social credit" that'll get these restrictions is defined very clearly, and yet it mentioned only a tiny bit of it in very misleading way. Many of the actions described in the definition would put you in jail in US. Whether they're intentionally misleading people is anybody's guess.

There are many paragraphs clarifying the definition either here: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html

Or here: http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/201803/16/t20180316_28505546...

There is also clearly defined way to lift the restrictions as defined in the NDRC announcement. Most of the restrictions are removed automatically in one year. Certainly not "once untrustworthy, always restricted"

junnan• 8 years ago

Finally an original source. I was wondering what the original text of "once untrustworthy, always restricted" would be. I think a more accurate translation should be "untrustworthy here, restricted everywhere".

JudasGoat• 8 years ago

I started working in electronics in the late 1970's and as a "drug criminal" at the time, it became obvious to me that I was working on building my own handcuffs. I guess I really lacked vision because I didn't see this coming.

smsm422• 8 years ago

Is it already being used to suppress criticism of the government and CPC, or is it planned for next month?

Dove• 8 years ago

China has been working on this for a while, and barring people from transportation is not the scary bit. That's last-century scary. No, it's the emergence of a new sort of ideological warfare making use of the recent knowledge developed in gaming industry that is the scary bit. This is a new kind of threat, something we as humans haven't learned how to deal with.

Here's some analysis from a game designer from 2015: https://youtu.be/lHcTKWiZ8sI

AboutTheWhisles2• 8 years ago

Are we sure this is dystopian enough? I love the idea of taking someone who might be marginalized and marginalizing them even further, but how can we make sure it is passed down through the generations to their family?

openasocket2• 8 years ago

I remember reading about a proposal for China's social credit system, that it bases your score on the score of your friends (defined based on social media contacts, who you text, email, etc.). To discourage you from becoming friends with or remaining friends with someone who has done something wrong in the eyes of the Party. I have no idea if that was actually implemented, or if it's the same social credit system used here, but that's pretty damn dystopian.

Chaebixi11• 8 years ago

They have some corporation-run social credit pilot projects that apparently look at purchases and social media activity. No doubt the government-run program will get that data as well.

drumttocs8• 8 years ago

I already saw this episode on Black Mirror [0]. Is this a rerun?

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/

daodedickinson2• 8 years ago

No different from how Twitter, Facebook, and Google operate. People outside of the party are systematically humiliated and ground to dust.

Aunche6• 8 years ago

This article is typical western fear-mongering. China can already arbitrarily detain political dissidents if they want to. This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws.

yladiz2• 8 years ago

This "social credit score" is nothing more than an elaborate system to enforce misdemeanor laws.

I don't agree. It's more about making people compliant with what the government wants in society, and making those who don't follow the "social" rules in the country subject to various restrictions, essentially limiting their freedom if they don't do what the government wants. In essence they're attempting to legitimize their arbitrary policies by making it about something vaguely enforceable.

Aunche6• 8 years ago

That's what the western media spins it as, but is there any evidence of that? The examples listed in the article are misdemeanor laws.

Bizarro2• 8 years ago

And again and again, we have the usual suspects doing the usual things in every single one of these type of stories - every single one. I guess dang and others are ok with it.

syntaxing• 8 years ago

Not really about the article, but the amount of Whataboutism has been growing uncomfortably stronger in the comments on Hacker News.

Actions of others is not enough to justify one's self (good or bad). All these comments using Chinese/USA or Western/Eastern as their main point of argument is superfluous.

jakeogh3• 8 years ago

Now pair that with "basic income". Same thing will happen anywhere that awful idea is put in place. Got a ticket? No worries; we already deducted it;)

Public transit and free money are just two of many ways to increase the people's dependence on the state. Next up is the "opportunity" of pre-programmed cars.

red_admiral• 8 years ago

Restrictions on flying for people who 'cause trouble on flights' sounds like something I could support. Especially trouble of the drunken kind.

MechEStudent• 8 years ago

They are already applying this to foreigners when selecting possible people to track, monitor, or engage.

johnny99• 8 years ago

Wow--a crude implementation of Whuffie.

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

eddieplan92• 8 years ago

I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential. They can not only cut your off completely from planes and trains, but also your electricity, driver license, internet, telephone, banks, ability to get any travel document, ability to stay at any hotel, etc. Let that sink for a bit, before you claim that Google or even NSA can do something similar.

I am a Chinese expat, but I don't have a National ID. I have a Chinese passport, but I cannot even buy train tickets online (yet i can ride the train) with it and I cannot open a bank account in my own country. Things will get worse with 'social credit' as another barrier because I won't have a credit history with them.

[edit] removed claim that Chinese expat won't be able to fly in China without National ID because some say the viral news is a rumor. Honestly i cannot tell any more.

stuffedBelly2• 8 years ago

I get your sentiment, but being an expat does not automatically put you on the ban list unless you committed crime or previously had beef with the Chinese government.

crankylinuxuser• 8 years ago

13th Amendment:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

----------------

Slavery is ALLOWED if guilty of a crime. So go on ahead and keep espousing "rah rah USA". We're still in a slave country.

mieseratte• 8 years ago

Does the United States actually practice slavery in the prison system in any fashion? My understanding is that work is optional, comes with a very small amount of compensation as incentive, but is otherwise non-compulsory.

Is any US State or Federal prison running cotton plantations in Georgia with forced, uncompensated labor?

mjevans• 8 years ago

If someone is found guilty and is given "community service" of a given specification as their retribution to society, is that not technically slavery (involuntary servitude)?

Dan_Nguyen• 8 years ago

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. eddieplan9 didn't claim that the US is a flawless, perfect nation. They're saying that despite the issues with the US (and I do agree that there are a lot), drawing conclusions between the US and China is a false equivalency and that things in China re: social freedom is much worse than here. Pointing out flaws with the US doesn't take away from his point.

austinshea• 8 years ago

This isn't addressing what was said.

You posted this in response to someone else's comment, and made clear that you are trying to argue with something else.

You were arguing with "rah rah USA," and that just ain't what was said.

Come on, brother, let's grow up for the sake of us all.

seanmcdirmid7• 8 years ago

I am a Chinese expat, and thanks to this policy, I cannot fly in China because I don't have a National ID. A Chinese passport won't do.

This is patently not true. There are plenty of Chinese in the previous generation that gave up their hukou/ID card as required when they gained permanent residency in another country, and use their passport internally (when returning to work in China) like us foreigners must (it seems like these days it isn't necessary to turn in your hukou, but it was in the 90s). A previous colleague at MSRA was in this boat. It was troublesome for sure, but he could fly (even a Chinese can fly internally with a passport, as my wife did when we went from BJ to GZ), open bank accounts (like foreigners can), and so on. The only thing I know he had trouble with was permission to visit Taiwan, they couldn't handle a Chinese citizen without hukou, but that was it.

I'm as critical of the Chinese government as anyone, but bad information really doesn't help.

Chaebixi11• 8 years ago

This is patently not true. There are plenty of Chinese in the previous generation that gave up their hukou/ID card as required when they gained permanent residency in another country

Do you have a cite for this? I know you lose PRC citizenship when gaining another citizenship (and thus a foreign passport), but I was not under the impression that was true for "permanent residents" of other countries. You can be an Chinese expat while still being a Chinese citizen.

Also, Chinese National IDs cannot be renewed overseas, while passports can. I think the law was pretty explicit that Chinese citizens can't fly under their passport (though they can jump through hoops to get a temporary national ID to fly). I know people who were in a bit of a pickle when this law came into effect because they were overseas when their National ID expired. It's certainly another hassle and bother for expats.

whatyoucantsay2• 8 years ago

Have your extensive comments about the CCP on HN caused you any hassles?

The fact that comments cannot be deleted is increasingly unethical as ML makes privacy easier and easier to pierce. People who made rational decisions about the risks of sharing various opinions on a small site in 2010 are now locked into the consequences a decade later when both technology and political landscapes have changed.

It would be truly surprising if HN history doesn't eventually play a key role in someone being imprisoned or executed due to having expressed views that a country, religion or other organization finds objectionable.

jjcc2• 8 years ago

Totally agree with you on this point. Most westerners don't have knowledge about Chinese "hukou" system and easily mislead by false information.

incompatible• 8 years ago

I'd have thought the Chinese passport and National ID would be linked into a single system: given a passport they could find the corresponding National ID (or lack or) or vice versa. Then why would they care whether you use one or the other in any particular situation?

sneak• 8 years ago

If the US Treasury lists you on the OFAC SDN list, it becomes illegal for most of the vendors of those services to do business with you.

meri_dian• 8 years ago

It's fashionable among certain segments of the population to bash America whenever they can. It's almost pathological. Any time something negative is mentioned about something happening outside the US, there is an inevitable deluge of "well yeah but really bad stuff happens in America too!" comments.

I feel that most people doing this subconsciously feel like they're acting as a counterweight to the ultra patriotism of other segments of the population, but in acting as such a counterweight they appear as absurd as their ideological opponents.

Both sides annoy me for the same reason: they are blind to reality.

glenstein7• 8 years ago

To your point, this exact thing happened in the last major thread on China, where commenters were defending the Tiananmen Square massacre:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15993956

_emacsomancer_3• 8 years ago

Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this.

But I worry the West will be watching this closely to see how they might implement something similar.

hannasanarion• 8 years ago

How could they? Americans are too paranoid to allow an ID card, much less a centrally tracked loyalty-points number to use at party-owned shopping, transit, utility, housing....

Chaebixi11• 8 years ago

I am deeply disgusted by false equivalency used in many posts this thread. Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this.

It's terrible, it's even happening directly in the replies do you. This whole post has been almost totally derailed by whataboutism, and a lot of it is literally textbook:

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

The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practically a national ideology". Journalist Julia Ioffe wrote that "Anyone who has ever studied the Soviet Union" was aware of the technique, citing the Soviet rejoinder to criticism, ["]And you are lynching Negroes,["] as a "classic" example of the tactic. Writing for Bloomberg News, Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition", while The New Yorker described the technique as "a strategy of false moral equivalences". Jill Dougherty called whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic", and compared it to the pot calling the kettle black.

sosilkj• 8 years ago

False equivalency is a tool that's deployed often on HN these days to steer (or derail) threads. I assume it's due in part to PR/propaganda teams working to manage/manipulate sentiment.

Muromec• 8 years ago

whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic"

It's not a tactic, it's rooted in traditional Russian law and stems from belief that you can't judge others while breaking exact same principle, or generally being immoral yourself. So pointing out that other party is lynching negroes is legit defense from some accusations from that party.

emodendroket17• 8 years ago

Can someone explain to me why it seems like in the past month or so everybody and their mother has re-discovered "whataboutism" and insists on explaining the concept to me?

emodendroket17• 8 years ago

Perhaps double-replying is bad form but this is still bothering me. Soviets may have deployed the issue cynically, but black people really were being lynched, it really did compromise America's moral leadership on human rights, and embarrassment over the issue was a significant part of what spurred the federal government to begin to intervene. To the extent that you, as I do, view the creation of a relatively pluralistic and multicultural society as one of America's crowning achievements, perhaps we owe the Soviet "what-aboutists" a debt of gratitude.

The idea that the Russians invented rejecting someone's argument on the grounds that the person making the argument is a hypocrite strikes me as rather unlikely. I also see problems with the idea that we can simply dismiss complaints about racism as textbook Russian propaganda.

eanzenberg• 8 years ago

It's been fashionable for a while to bash the top dog. No, the US isn't perfect, but how can you equate it to the shit china does day in and out.

newnewpdro3• 8 years ago

It will be interesting to see what the US resembles when its numbers exceed 1 billion people. China in many ways is simply setting the precedent now, how the US follows remains to be seen.

s2g• 8 years ago

It's become fashionable to ignore China's misdeeds because of the money and hype.

refurb2• 8 years ago

Welcome to HN where hyperbole is the order of the day.

avs733• 8 years ago

One could argue that this is hyperbole.

CitizenKane• 8 years ago

For what it's worth I doubt many of those commented have ever lived (or even visited) China. It's easy to create a false equivalency when you have no real experience of the situation.

This is a different situation, and it's sadly Orwellian.

refurb2• 8 years ago

I think this is an important point.

I had a coworker who grew up in Romania under Ceausescu and the stories he told! He talked about neighbors just disappearing one day and someone new living in the home. People didn't bat an eye since if you started asking questions, you might be next.

He mentioned how there was an election for president and it was a write in ballot. Someone wrote "Mickey Mouse". Despite voting in a booth in private, they figured out who he was and he had to report for "reeducation" every weekend. This involved sitting in the police station watching propaganda all day Saturday and Sunday.

I don't think people in the West can even fathom what it's like to live under an authoritarian system like that.

stcredzero4• 8 years ago

Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this. The Chinese government owns and runs more than 50% of the economy and 100% of the industries they deem essential.

Thank goodness. However, what you're pointing out is that the difference is not because the principles are different. The difference is primarily that in the west, the people who would do this, don't yet have 100% coverage over society.

Sangermaine2• 8 years ago

However, what you're pointing out is that the difference is not because the principles are different.

Yes, they are. The reason "the people who would do this don't yet have 100% coverage over society" is precisely because, at least for now, principles in the West find this sort of authoritarianism repugnant. This is exactly the kind of false equivalency the parent is talking about.

bamboozled• 8 years ago

Not an excuse at all.

I believe the negative sentiment towards the NSA, Facebook, Amazon and Google have to do with the fact that activities like collecting and storing sensitive information on individuals brings Western society one step closer to the situation in China. The capability now exists and a historic record about an individuals behaviour can be summoned easily.

What scares me is the idea of laws you're breaking which don't even exist yet, scary stuff.

IIAOPSW• 8 years ago

You're right I hold the US government to a higher standard.

When I or many others say "China's doing this but look what the NSA is doing", I am not trying to be a CPC apologist by pointing at the NSA. I am being pro civil liberties by using the CPC as an example of what happens when you don't hold your government to account.

America gets to enjoy its relatively high degree of civil liberties precisely because its population is so often critical of and suspicious of its government. Even when the criticism is laughable in comparison to other countries.

jryle70• 8 years ago

I have no problems with criticizing US government agencies for shady or illegal things they did, but there are plenty of posts about those topics already. Doing so in a Chinese related thread comes across as whataboutism, especially because whatever good intention you may have, it is indistinguishable from those that attempt to direct the discussion away from China's issues.

emodendroket17• 8 years ago

Yes, but my concern, personally, is that we're just getting a sneak-preview of a system that will eventually end up implemented here. We don't have a social credit system, but we do have a do-not-fly list and, if you get put on it, you don't have any way of finding out why. Your "regular" credit score can shut you out of not just loans but jobs, apartments, and other basic services. How much of a leap is it, really?

mirimir7• 8 years ago

Whatever you think the West is doing is not even close to this.

That is indeed true. But then, cultures of China and the West are very different. Judging either by the standards of the other is bound to be contentious.

Also, there's arguably some observer bias in the West's pride. Changes in the US after 9/11 were dramatic! What if radical Islamic fundamentalists had done a better job? More waves of attacks, soon after the first?

woolvalley3• 8 years ago

This person is a chinese expat, with a chinese passport. I think he knows the difference. And you only have to look to the rest of asia to see in this case, it's not a difference of 'culture'.

dheera• 8 years ago

but I cannot even buy train tickets online (yet i can ride the train) with it and I cannot open a bank account in my own country

Side point but generally speaking you don't need a national ID to open a bank account or buy train tickets online. Banks do require a +86 mobile number, which you can get with your passport alone. You can then use your +86 mobile number, passport, and hotel address to open a bank account. You can then add your bank account to WeChat and buy train tickets there. You will have to line up to pick up your electronically-purchased tickets as paper tickets, using your confirmation code on WeChat and your passport, which is a huge inconvenience compared to those swiping their national IDs to get into the trains (they built the entire train system basically only for locals), but there are separate lines for ticket pickup that move quickly, so it's not as annoying as getting in line to buy tickets and the finding out that seats are sold out. At least your WeChat purchase guarantees you your journey and seat.

You can also use Alipay instead of WeChat if you prefer.

That said I'm not sure if there are additional restrictions on Chinese passports, but a non-Chinese passport can use the above procedure.

Of course it's a massive pain in the ass because of all the stupid SMS confirmations and things involved in the process. Easily the worst UI/UX I've seen of a ticketing system. The trains themselves are fantastic though.

Also, yes, everything is tracked to your passport number, so even if you have no national ID you do still become part of the same "credit" system.

seanmcdirmid7• 8 years ago

Until your passport number changes on renewal. My bank and job freaked out when I renewed my passport, and it became common for them to ask for my old passport also when needing to do anything official.

williw• 8 years ago

You can indeed open a bank account in China with Chinese passport or even with a foreign passport. There are lots of limitations without the National ID, but do not spread false information if you are not well informed.

cnprthrowaway2• 8 years ago

I've browsed this site for years now, and I do see this pattern in many posts that critique China.

A large number of replies turn the conversation towards how the West is equally bad or worse. Another set of replies talks about how China may inevitably come out ahead.

You can check yourself by Googling 10 HN threads that critique China, versus say, Japan or Poland.

Is China running some indirect social public relations in the style of Russian Facebook ads for Trump? Or is it simply China hawks / nationalists or other casual supporters? My personal conclusion is that there's a decent chance it's a bit of both. And the likelihood of the first may be concerning.

But seriously, check out the pattern and come to your own conclusion.

P.S. If it matters, I'm ethnically Chinese as well, and think well of the Chinese people in general.

foodislove3• 8 years ago

The fact that you think you need to create a throwaway account speaks to how much the climate has changed for us. There is a real fear considering how totalitarian and intrusive the government has become, that they will target anyone who disagrees even on a benign forum like this.

I'm sure one of the many pro-china robots will cite something liek "THE NSA IS JUST AS BAD" but the reality is China is 1000000 times worse.

Just mention how Taiwan is in reality an independent country and they go full retard.

noarchy• 8 years ago

Is China running some indirect social public relations in the style of Russian Facebook ads for Trump?

One possible answer to your question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

StreamBright• 8 years ago

Could you share the source for these claims?

I could not find anything that backs what you are saying.

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-Chinese-economy...

schuke• 8 years ago

You forgot to mention they can use facial recognition to ID and publicize pedestrians who don't wait for green light.

The sheer amount of resource and power they can wield against an individual citizen is unparalleled in the entire human history. The only thing stopping them from utilizing it is only its own bureaucratic inefficiency.

tomrod• 8 years ago

Fair: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-05/24/content_294696...

It looks like their is a lot of miscommunication on the issue.

Having seen authoritarian regimes behave on a smaller scale, I would not be terribly surprised if the miscommunication was intentional to see how the desired (very negative) policy was received, before backing down with a retraction to something less onerous.

superflb3• 8 years ago

I have a Chinese passport, but I cannot even buy train tickets online

you can. Just select passport and fill the passport number. I did it multiple times.

jonathanyc4• 8 years ago

Once again, I’m disappointed in how quickly the comments on these articles about China doing horrible things devolves into defense of America. It’s sort of like a reverse whataboutism.

Ideally learning about what bad things other countries are doing would allow us to look at what similar things we do in our own country and then work to improve things. Instead the opposite seems to happen, and we actually draw a line under our current policies while saying “well, at least here...”.

Other people doing horrible things is not justification for us to do less horrible things. Conversely, because we do bad things doesn’t mean we can’t criticize the bad things others do. On the other hand, we are in a much better position to change things in our own country than in foreign countries.

I’ll end my commment by repeating that what China is doing here seems like a step in the wrong direction, and is not something we should be defending.

ygaf4• 8 years ago

This is hilarious. When whataboutism is convenient to the self-righteous, what then exists is "reverse whataboutism".

ygaf4• 8 years ago

I'm not banned? I had the thought that jonathanyc was an actual HN admin.

Either way, having thought I was walking into a ban, I'm shaping up and won't simply contribute negativity. (I still believe HN threads aren't supposed to derail in topic, unless an actual admin conveys otherwise)

stuffedBelly2• 8 years ago

I am Chinese and I can see how this can be exploited by both vigilente groups and the government to target individuals using the "spreading false information" clause alone. There are so many ways to trick people into spreading false information. More importantly, people are not the one to decide what is considered "false", the government is.

It might be ok to make people with bad credit harder to purchase non life-essential stuff such as cars (you heard it, cars are not essentials in many countries), but they shouldn't be treated as criminals.

nitwit005• 8 years ago

Yep, will almost certainly result in extortion. Take over someone's Weibo account, threaten to destroy their social score, demand payment. Or just the usual identity theft to get fines mailed to another address so they go unpaid.

pishpash5• 8 years ago

1. Yes, Chinese society values different things from Western societies on average, but there is a wide range of values in each society and a great deal of overlap with universal expectations, so don't brush it aside as a difference in culture or political desires.

2. This is going way beyond tradition or culture. Nobody enjoys this.

3. It is being pushed through for the very simple fact that it can be pushed through. Take note: politics is groups of people trying to gain advantage over others and an equilibrium requires a vigorous defense of the smallest things that are yours; without pushback you lose what's yours; nobody will grant to you, only take away.

4. Norms and ideals matter. This is being set as the norm in China, whereas other examples in Western countries are at least considered transgressions against the norm. The delineations are in different places and the outcomes will absolutely not be the same even if they look superficially similar.

rglover• 8 years ago

What a terrifying time to be alive.

mavdi• 8 years ago

We'll end up doing exactly the same here in the West. Just after much drama and a few terror attacks. I admire the Chinese for their efficiency.

pasbesoin• 8 years ago

Remember, with the Great Firewall: "China is the prototype." (My words, back when.)

They started off purchasing and as an initial market as well as testing ground for Western technology and Western technology companies.

Now, China has gained the technology and sophistication to roll their own.

But that doesn't mean they won't market it, both commercially and to aid their allies in creating and maintaining similar forms of governance and stability (at the tip of an connection, if not a gun).

So, they may be building this domestically, from the ground up. Nonetheless, the expression remains and remains apt, and concerning: "China is the prototype."

Many people around the world, in government and in private business, continue to express enormous interest in this type of monitoring and control.

In the U.K., of all places, that "bastion of democracy", leadership is openly advocating for the ability to monitor and censure all connections.

They are going to control with whom you communicate and associate, by way of real world penalties and controls.

In the U.S., what greater limit on "freedom to associate" than taking away one's ability to travel?

"It can't, won't happen here."

Ahuh. Just like outsourcing was going to elevate our employment prospects and wages. "We'll be the managers."

How did that work out?

Automation is going to get a lot more done with less hands. How do you think they are going to decide who benefits?

jancsika• 8 years ago

If someone were given dark money and tasked with destabilizing the Chinese govt, I can easily seem them doing the following:

* taking half the funds and putting it into think tanks that write pro social credit pieces with an earnest focus on making it more accurate and efficient from a technical standpoint (plus perhaps lobbying for its implementation in the West, for street cred)

* taking the other half and putting it towards anti-govt movements within China, using the info gleaned from the think tanks to provide counter-surveillance techniques

The counter-surveillance techniques will cause the govt to invest in more surveillance tech and clamp down tighter on the population. That enforcement will further fuel the anti-govt groups to become more radicalized.

Of course, I'm just armchair quarterbacking this based on vaguely remembering the news around the buildup and aftermath of the Iraq war. I'm sure the Chinese government has thought through these problems more deeply than I have.

edit: grammar

Taniwha• 8 years ago

The main difference between this and the US is that in the US the no-fly list is secret

wemdyjreichert• 8 years ago

China is terrible. Their government is evil. If you're there, get out. If not, stay out. 'Nuff said.

yakcyll• 8 years ago

I get that it's super anecdotal to mention this, but this idea sounds a lot like the worst oppressive, sadness-inducing systems I read about in school books, the purpose of which was literally to save people from thinking stuff like this up again.

hatsunearu• 8 years ago

Truly horrifying. China isn't afraid to use technology and psychology to oppress its inhabitants in the maximum possible extent...

This is what North Korea would look like if they had money.

fspeech3• 8 years ago

Here are the original documents in Chinese:

http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879653.html

http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201803/t20180316_879654.html

The documents do not make "bad social credit" (whatever that means) a punishable cause. There is one clause relating to spread of false information but it specifically says "false terrorism information related to civil aviation safety".

There are two classes of offenders. Air travel and luxury/sleeper/high speed G-train travels are banned; regular trains are not.

The first class of offences pertain to directly violating transport regulations, like refusing to quit smoking on an airplane, forcing one's way onto the runway, or refusing to pay for a ticket even after getting caught riding the train without one.

The second class is credit related and has six categories. The first four categories are mostly targeted at resourceful people who have misdeeds but somehow are not criminally punished. One thing that conceivable casts a wider net is for those that refuse to pay social security insurance premiums or obtain social security payments through false documents. The fifth category is about people refusing to follow court orders. The sixth category about "others" that could be added is more elastic but it did say that changes need to be published by editing the document.

Google Translate of the six categories:

1. The party who has the ability to perform but refuses to perform major tax violations;

2. In the field of fiscal fund management and use, there is a person responsible for serious dishonest behaviors such as fraud, false reports, fraud, fraudulent taking, interception, misappropriation, arrears of international financial organizations and foreign governments’ due debts;

3. Those who have serious acts of dishonesty in the following areas in the field of social insurance: employers fail to participate in social insurance in accordance with relevant regulations and refuse rectification; employers have not faithfully applied for social insurance payment bases and have refused to make corrections; Those who have insurance premiums but have the capacity to pay but refuse to pay; conceal, transfer, embezzle, misappropriate social insurance funds or operate in violation of the regulations; fraudulently forge social insurance benefits through fraudulent or forgery proofs or other means; and social insurance service agencies violate the service agreement Or related regulations; refuses to assist the social insurance administrative department in the investigation and verification of accidents and problems;

4. Securities and futures are illegally punished with fines and no overdue payment; overdue entities of the listed company fail to perform their public commitments within the prescribed time limit;

5. The people's courts have taken measures to restrict consumption in accordance with relevant regulations, or have included the list of those who have been breached trustees according to law;

(6) Other Restricted Persons Recognized by the Relevant Departments Responsible persons who commit serious acts of dishonesty in a civil aircraft shall be clearly identified by modifying the document.

joejerryronnie2• 8 years ago

At what point does the ruling party in China finally overstep its bounds and incite a full-fledged violent revolution?

jxramos• 8 years ago

So if one's social credit score goes too low would they allow you emigrate to another country?

chrischen• 8 years ago

So they habe a nationalized yelp for people. If you’ve lived in China you’ll kmow there’s a big problem with corruption at higher levels and simply bad interpersonal behavior at lower levels (things like discourteousness and cutting in line).

Whether you agree or disagree with the implementation, some sorry of wuantified karma system is probably ne essary to keep people in line.

This is no different from privatized US credit system or a social shaming system (Chinese wouldn’t respond to shaming), except that this is implemented in a very Chinese way of being nationalized instead of privatized.

Gatsky• 8 years ago

I hope our era will be remembered for something other than the abject failure of liberal democracy. The US and Europe are struggling/sabotaging themselves, while Russia and China just consolidate their power. Africa keeps burning. India will take the Sino-Russian path no doubt.

castle-bravo• 8 years ago

Unfortunately our (speaking as a Canadian) system doesn't seem to be truly liberal or democratic. Every five years or so, we elect a parliamentary elite selected for us by the Toronto business community. The the parliament does its best to distract the public from the true policy objectives of the government (i.e. growing the fortunes of their moneyed masters by all means necessary). this system only barely meets the loosest definition of democracy and is closer in spirit to a republic or an oligarchy. It seems that whatever liberal tendencies our government has is a holdover from last century and losing ground to American-style neoliberalism.

What worries me is not that this system might fail, but that it be replaced by a state-of-the art dictatorship that treats the population as slaves.

kwhitefoot• 8 years ago

“once untrustworthy, always restricted”

That's even worse than California's three strikes laws.

meganibla3• 8 years ago

Finally, The whuffie utopia has arrived.

To everyone scared: go on, keep being misinformed about everything China does. It’s a common but useless consolation trap to fall into.

Until you actually can see them clearly how can you start learning from their successes?

meganibla3• 8 years ago

Isn’t this actually a great idea?

If you don’t like it stop doing bad things and getting bad credit. If you behave you’ll have more privileges and be permitted to interact with others in more ways. It’s the basic social contract but implemented more efficiently. I can only imagine scofflaws is complaining.

If you complain it’s open to abuse well every human system not run by an uncrackable artificial intelligence is open to abuse. Don’t unfairly fear a Chinese system over a Western system when how do you know how clear your ideas are?

If you live under this system and really cannot stand or tolerate then just move to another country and cry out that you’re a fake victim and you can seek asylum from some generous Western nation wanting to pretend it’s morally supremacist.

Pmop• 8 years ago

Bear in mind that discussions about Chinese matters may be rigged by the 50 cent army. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

nmstoker• 8 years ago

Putting aside the specifics of the system in China, the underlying issues are a problem all countries need to explore. On many near capacity public systems it only takes a few bad actors to completely foul things up for entire sections, eg delaying a subway line. Traditional social pressure seems not to work anymore, for instance with this case on a train in the UK: https://youtu.be/2mpKu_x2s3w In that case the train was delayed until eventually the guard said they had to allow the smoker to stay on the train or it would affect the line! Part of their argument was there were no signs saying you couldn't smoke on the train (smoking is illegal inside in any public spaces!)

charlysl• 8 years ago

And it's not only that they can do this at all as if this wan't already bad enough; on top of that neither the media, nor anyone else for that matter, can discuss/critizice this in public other than to admire it.

Harmony.

tyrex2017• 8 years ago

better title would be: china expands list of people prohibited to use public transport

right now it is clickbait

jm__87• 8 years ago

This comment section.. wow.

l3i2• 8 years ago

http://www.asiaone.com/china/woman-china-delays-high-speed-t...

If you read this article, you will at least understand the reason why they introduce such law.

With 1.6 billion people, it's common to see chaos when a single person doesn't follow the rules, that woman in the news is a typical example. She didn't get any punishment from the railway company, nor the police can do anything about her behaviour, simply because there is no such law exists. In the end, she got suspended from her job as a primary teacher!

bawana• 8 years ago

This is WONDERFUL! no really. The first step to a world without money . Imagine a powerful govt AI keeping track of your karma and then determining what you can access, get or use. There won't be any shortcuts or cheats. People with a lot of money will be on the same level as people without. The currency of success will be the help we give to each other. The only way this can work is of course a powerfully networked AI that is transparent. So if somebody seems to be at the top of the heap, everybody else can audit his/her behavior data to see how he/she got there. If this system is not transparent, then it is just another tool for the powerful to exploit the weak.

superflb3• 8 years ago

This is not news. Some people refuse to pay their debts, but have money to take flights or high-speed trains. They should be banned.

burntrelish1273• 8 years ago

I guess blogs to game / improve social credit are inevitable, but I probably won't be able to read them natively.

China to bar people with bad 'social credit' from planes, trains

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