
Beijing to Judge Every Resident Based on Behavior by End of 2020 - pdog
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-21/beijing-to-judge-every-resident-based-on-behavior-by-end-of-2020
======
fredley
Another day, another _Black Mirror_ episode becomes eerily closer to our
present reality.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_\(Black_Mirror\))

~~~
quietbritishjim
Did you mean to look to another episode? That one is about being judged by
other individuals, resulting in low (or high) ratings due to petty superficial
interactions. The article is about being judged by the government, leading to
low ratings based on political dissent (or for fare-dodgers, if you believe
that).

~~~
dsamarin
I thought of the same episode. Either way it seems very dystopian no matter
who is providing the ratings to influence citizen's prospects.

------
zachguo
Kinda over-interpreted, it's essentially a state-run TransUnion credit score
plus background check. It's primarily targeting at people who borrow a lot
money then escape to other cities or abroad to avoid paying the debt. The
political suppression part that media is obsessed with is still largely
determined by the existing legal system which considers certain anti-CCP
behaviors as crime.

~~~
jhanschoo
There are important differences between this and a TransUnion credit score.

* The government may not discriminate based on a person's TransUnion score, except for limited circumstances where it is directly relevant.

* The government may not discriminate businesses based on whether they serve people with poor TransUnion scores.

Until the Western media is sufficiently assured that this cannot happen, they
are (IMO quite rightly) suspicious about the potential of abuse of the
infrastructure built to support this by the state. Unfortunately, the exact
reasoning why tends to be forgotten, and the suspicion comes across as vague
fear, uncertainty, doubt.

------
ryanwaggoner
_This_ is the actual privacy concern that I worry about. It's not some company
using machine learning on my emails to show me ads, or tracking my face when I
enter their stores so they can mail me better coupons, or figuring out that I
use my voice assistant in the afternoons to get wine delivered.

I can opt out of those. Not always easy, or convenient, or comfortable, but
I'm unaware of hardly any commercial relationships that I'm forced to engage
in. Most of the complaints I see about corporations taking over our lives are
either people complaining about a government-granted monopoly (Comcast) or
complaining because they want the benefits of that relationship without any
cost (Google).

For me, it's the government and the people who love it for "all the good it
can do in the world" deciding that a great use for all those police and
military and taxes and guns and bureaucracy is to dig as far into my life as
they possibly can (which is a long, long way) to ensure that I'm doing the
"right" things, and to make my life a living nightmare if I disagree.

Because then what do I do? Flee the country? What if that government decides
"nah, we don't want people to leave"?

Things like this and cops shooting unarmed people and the military droning
middle eastern countries and private prisons and civil forfeiture is why I
lean libertarian. Yes, I know that's a dirty word. My social capital score
just dropped a bit!

~~~
nickthemagicman
I'm worried libertarians are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

A democratic government is great, but just like corporations, it needs to be
held accountable.

That's why I donate to the ACLU. It helps keep government accountable for
their abuses of power.

Also, paying for news sources keeps journalists shining a light on corruption.

Also education. An educated populace is a populace that's hard to control.

These are some of the things authoritarian governments (that you're afraid
of),go after first as they try to seize power.

Pol pot did it, Stalin did it, North Korea does it.

These are also unironically some of the things that
conservatives/liberatarians seem to dislike.

~~~
malandrew
I used to donate to the ACLU, but once it started actively throwing due
process rights under the bus in the service of highly left-leaning
fundamentalism I stopped donating.

------
zygotic12
I'm in a quandary. Is it better to have the government judging or businesses?
Fuckbook, Goggle and Microslurp collect more data about you and in ways that
any bureaucracy could not emulate.... Does it matter who watches us? Do we
want someone watching?

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fatjokes
I mean, how else are you going to get people to stop spitting and cutting in
lines en masse.

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wolfpwner
Welcome to the future

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jellicle
Cool, hopefully they can get some tips from the US, which has been doing this
for a long time via credit agencies and secret FBI, Homeland Security, and NSA
databases.

> unable to move even a single step

Hey, it's a no-fly list.

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-
pe...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-tsa-
airport-security-muslim-profiling-0816-20180815-story.html)

Let's consult Wikipedia:

> The No Fly List is different from the Terrorist Watch List, a much longer
> list of people said to be suspected of some involvement with terrorism. As
> of June 2016, the Terrorist Watch List is estimated to contain over
> 2,484,442 records, consisting of 1,877,133 individual identities.

That doesn't sound good.

> Otherwise, the software would calculate a "risk score" and then print a code
> on the boarding pass indicating the appropriate "screening level"

Well, at least when the US calculates "risk scores" for its citizens based on
secret information and then denies them travel based on that, it's guaranteed
to be good and noble, unlike when those darn Commies do it.

~~~
dsamarin
I can't tell where you draw the line. Would you share your alternative to
credit scoring information for private money lenders? And government watch
lists?

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sys_64738
Western money and technology enables the Communists to suppress the population
of China. Until the Communists are overthrown then the Chinese people will
always be prisoners.

~~~
doanguyen
Seems Western people always apply their principles to Asia, HN is not an
exception.

~~~
d0100
Pretty hard to come up with your own principles when you're either dying of
hunger or by tanks...

Gross generalization, but the point still stands.

~~~
doanguyen
Sound familiar, was this the story that happened in Vietnam, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Syria?

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rusher81572
Alex Jones/Infowars has been warning about this for a long time.

[https://www.infowars.com/infowars-was-right-facebook-
using-c...](https://www.infowars.com/infowars-was-right-facebook-using-chicom-
social-score-for-users/)

[https://www.infowars.com/journalist-unpersoned-by-chicom-
soc...](https://www.infowars.com/journalist-unpersoned-by-chicom-social-score-
no-travel-no-property/)

[https://www.infowars.com/democrat-2020-candidate-wants-
govt-...](https://www.infowars.com/democrat-2020-candidate-wants-govt-
sponsored-social-credit-system-comparable-to-chinas/)

