
China blacklists millions from booking flights as 'social credit' introduced - apatters
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-social-credit-system-flight-booking-blacklisted-beijing-points-a8646316.html
======
kylnew
> People are awarded credit points for activities such as undertaking
> volunteer work and giving blood donations while those who violate traffic
> laws and charge “under-the-table” fees are punished.

> Other infractions reportedly include smoking in non-smoking zones, buying
> too many video games and posting fake news online.

This reminds me a lot of that Black Mirror episode where everyone upvotes and
downvotes each other in contribution to a social credit system that prevents a
girl from traveling and being treated kindly by anyone

~~~
johnchristopher
That black mirror system is p2p when China's system is centralized. I believe
the black mirror system is worse.

~~~
Just_Smith
Just curious - why do you think a centralized system would be superior to a
decentralized system? That would allow the norm to be dictated by the central
authority, and not through public consensus.

~~~
johnchristopher
Sorry, there is a misunderstanding. It's the other way around. I believe the
black mirror system is more efficient to establish social control and is more
perverse because everyone is policing it, watching you and reporting you. It's
the real nature of big brother (what I remember from the book): everyone is
big brother in the end and there's no escape.

Our life would be worse in a black mirror system than in a Chinese system.

Both systems are fucked up though.

~~~
tekknik
are you sure about that? with hive mind mentality both are essentially a
single entity working against you.

~~~
johnchristopher
One of the option is self-regulated, the other is not. That last one conjures
up a single entity you can identify yourself against. You can antagonize it,
fight it. The first one doesn't give you that anchor.

------
will_brown
Well here in the US we have an actual credit system in place. And since basic
necessities are often dependent on credit rating (employment; housing purchaes
; rentals; vehicle financing/lease) it’s pretty dystopian. Not to mention for
nearly 20 years now we have had secret no fly lists (no due process to get on
or off) and even secret kill lists (no due process), I think it’s just another
way to skin the cat, and maybe we should look at our-dystopian-selves in light
of outrage at our foreign friends.

Edit: I think here just as there the majority will have “good credit” and
actually like having an nearly permenant underclass...so just as here, I don’t
think there will be much incentive to change there either.

~~~
bitexploder
I don’t think there is much equivalency here. The credit system is a pain, but
it is also very simple to have good credit. Anyone, even someone with little
money can have good credit. Even if you have medical debt you can maintain
your credit rating. People may not know how to do it, but it isn’t too hard.
The privacy aspects of it suck, but it just isn’t that dystopian and it’s
usage is relatively narrow in society.

Secret no fly lists: impact a very small slice of the population. Try to find
more than a few instances of legitimate travelers being blocked, which is
something you can do with freedom of speech and freedom of press. I think less
than 2000 are us citizens. The program in China is going to disenfranchise
entire slices of their population and further limit their social mobility.

Secret kill lists are for terrorits. We don’t kill our own citizens. I’m an
Enlightenment since everyone deserves due process, but in a defending our
national interests sense, that can never be the case and never has been.

Our systems aren’t perfect, but every first world nation has some system to
track your financial behavior and it impacts you negatively if you don’t make
your payments. I just don’t see any strong relationship to the oppression in
China and what happens in the US. Our systems aren’t perfect and your
criticism has merit, but not as a comparison to China on this topic.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
> The credit system is a pain, but it is also very simple to have good credit.

If you’re rich.

~~~
bitexploder
Credit rating has nothing to do with how much money you have. I helped my
sister who makes minimum wage move 100k medical debt off her credit record,
establish a secured credit card, and taught her how to pay bills on time and
negotiate with debt owners and creditors so she never gets any debt reported
to credit agencies. All with her own very limited money. She moved her score
from 400s to 700s over about 3 years. All credit rating shows is (1) you don’t
take out more than you can afford and (2) you are willing to service the debts
you have to the limits you can afford. Even with 700-800 credit if you don’t
have much earning power you won’t get a big loan, but you will get good rates
on what you can afford.

------
garyclarke27
Horrific predicted tech enabled dystopia now in China. Where next? what if
airlines taxis and hotels shared ratings, would the west be so different? I
hate Uber Airbnb pestering me for a rating every trip and the fact that I am
rated as well. I don’t know or care what my rating is, but my wife does, she
was upset recently by an Airbnb landlord in Belgrade, she gave us a bad rating
because we had not deep cleaned the place?? The apartment was awful and we had
to leave at 5.OO am and the lift didn’t work, last thing on my mind was
hovering, no hotel would expect such, but maybe in the future only perfect
behaviour will allow one to travel.

~~~
baybal2
Well, nonpersonhood is nothing new to China. _Tenth of millions_ of people in
China can't even get an ID because they don't have birth certificates, and
without that you can't legally have a bank account, have a phone number,
receive education, receive medical care, travel, own property, have family or
even immigrate away from China.

And the West has nevertheless kept quiet for long 28 years.

~~~
coldtea
You make it sound like something Chinese government purposefully did, when in
fact, those people were simply never registered by their parents -- to avoid
the fee for having a child above quota.

> _The group was never officially registered on the country’s household
> registration record system, known as hukou, which is closely linked to a
> person’s legal identity. That means they didn’t officially exist—until
> recently. On Friday (March 24), China’s Ministry of Public Security, the
> government department in charge of hukou registrations, announced that they
> had helped register the 14 million._

[https://qz.com/941240/china-keeps-finding-millions-of-
people...](https://qz.com/941240/china-keeps-finding-millions-of-people-who-
never-officially-existed/)

~~~
baybal2
That's not the case, aside from that, having ones papers taken was and is an
almost mundane punishment used againts very ordinary people. There are way,
way more such non-enpersonned people than just second children, children of
single women, or children from marriages of other "non-persons."

It is just this time, with the social credit, the state has finally got balls
to go after high class bourgeois from megacities, and lower end elites.

------
gexla
Wow, the top thing on my mind this morning was that the CIA was able to listen
in on a phone call from the Saudi head of state.

Now this.

I have already been thinking about the possible necessity of a decentralized
personas. If an employer wants to see my office persona, then I don't want
those people to see my gaming persona. No reason to connect these things to a
central identity.

Decentralized personas are natural in the entertainment world where you take
on different characters. Authors might publish under a different name. Now
even a Twitter bot with a crap AI can be a popular persona.

As negative as a turn of events as this is, it could be a positive in odd sort
of way in which we might view hackers blowing open vulnerabilities. This
software, like any can spread like FB - crawling across the globe and no extra
cost to the goons running it. I wonder what my score in China might be even
though I don't live there. Maybe next, Valenzuela. Now is the time to
construct a defense - if even possible.

~~~
jld89
Valenzuela? Really?

~~~
gexla
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/chinese-tech-giant-
zt...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/chinese-tech-giant-zte-helps-
venezuela-develop-fatherland-card/10503736)

~~~
ByThyGrace
I think GP was dumbfounded by the mis-spelling of Venezuela than actually
asking for more information.

------
miohtama
While China has a bad record in human rights, I suggest to apply a lot of
source criticism what comes to "social credit system." Especially here in
Hacker News comments where discussion is generally more intelligent.

Here is more in-depth and fact based article about the topic:

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-
social...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-
credit-score-isnt-real/amp/?__twitter_impression=true)

~~~
Kaveren
> "and the admitted student who was erroneously denied his place at a
> university due to his father’s failure to pay back a bank loan."

It seems like you can strike "erroneously" from that sentence, since the
source it cites doesn't imply it was a mistake at all.

Collective punishment is worth criticizing.

As per usual, when implementing some Orwellian scheme, there will be a crowd
that states there's nothing to worry about, and that people are over-reacting,
and that it's really not so bad after all.

I wonder what the social credit score of Chinese dissidents will look like.

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-
affects-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-affects-
childs-university-enrolment-2018-7)

------
tivert
They've already had parts of this in place for awhile. My aunt-in-law's friend
has had difficulty traveling in China because she's _mistakenly_ listed in the
system as being some kind of Falun Gong leader through some kind of clerical
error. She found out when she was on a bus going on vacation, and they pulled
her off the bus once they scanned her national ID.

She has no appeal and no way to correct the mistake. None of the police or
officials she's talked to have done anything. She's just stuck with it.

------
cm2187
The way I understand this social credit system, it is trying to emulate at a
scale of a one billion population the social control you had in a small XVIII
century village. Basically what forces you to behave is not so much the law
than the fear of contempt from your peers, which could impact every aspect of
your life.

And I can't help thinking that while it may be efficient at forcing people to
not behave like a jerk, it will also have the same effect than for a XVIII
century village: a high degree of conformism, that supresses any evolution or
innovation. It may be the desired effect by the current rulers, preventing any
political challenge. But I think it will also lead to an inexorable decline of
the Chinese society.

~~~
bicubic
>forcing people to not behave like a jerk

It doesn't force people to not behave like a jerk, it could just as easily
lead to a nation of jerks. It forces people to strictly act within a tiny zone
at the center of the Overton window[0]. At scale, it means that natural
ideological progress will significantly slow down.

Any ideas or actions outside the norm will be culled. It's a move to
homogenise the masses and allow the party to more easily set the general
direction of 'desired' behaviours. This is pretty clearly the goal first and
foremost. Stopping people from being jerks is just the marketing label.

The set of measures used to determine social credit will change over the next
two decades and will become an ever tighter definition of what the party wants
its citizens to be. The current criteria are just the entrée that was
determined to be palatable to the masses.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

------
fsloth
As a non-chinese 'westerner', to my understanding the important background to
this culturally is that Chinese culture has been traditionally much more
legalistic than western culture
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_\(Chinese_philosophy\)).

It has lots of nuances but the most important difference, if compared to
western view of the justice system and the rights of state, is that the most
important thing in a legalistic system is to punish those that break the law,
and other considerations like individuals right to a fair proceeding and so
on, are secondary.

I think this social credit system is the perfect manifestation of the
legalistic frame of mind. The system is built so that those that step out of
the line are punished.

Western humanistic philosophy is quite new when compared to how chinese state
has been ruled for millenias. I'm not saying this to make any value
propositions into one direction or the other - just that there is quite a lot
of cultural background here that Europeans and anglosaxons might not be aware
of.

~~~
skrebbel
I think this is a valid observation, and I hadn't made the link yet. Legalism
has been used since the very first Chinese emperors to keep the population in
check. It's a tool of oppression and arguably no place has a richer history of
tools of oppression than China.

Xi must be thinking "hey, it worked for millennia, why stop now?"

------
creep
This is obviously going to be an unpopular sentiment, but I am somewhat
excited to observe the results, and I'm glad this is happening during my time
on Earth.

Yes, it is a horrible thought, but in many ways inevitable: if the tech
exists, it will be used for both good and evil. Better that other societies
can see the outcome sooner rather than later.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> We will arrive at a moment of sufficent self-alienation where we can
> contemplate our own destruction [as a species] as in a static spectacle.

\-- Walter Benjamin

So we're repeating the Nazis now, gladly, because that's easier than learning
from those who made all that effort, saw and went through so much atrocities
and suffering, to to learn from that, and to relay that to us, to impress the
importance of it on us? I'm _so_ not onboard with that.

> We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would
> require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the
> still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very
> well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in
> the sense as we know it.

\-- Hannah Arendt

You (like many) are kinda saying yes, it's unpopular and horrible, but "it
would happen anyway". Notice how this is exactly the logic of totalitarianism,
an abdication of personal responsibility. Saying "I won't fight it because it
will happen anyway" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> [The method of infallible prediction] is foolproof only after the movements
> have seized power. Then all debate about the truth or falsity of a
> totalitarian dictator’s prediction is as weird as arguing with a potential
> murderer about whether his future victim is dead or alive – since by killing
> the person in question the murderer can promptly provide proof of the
> correctness of his statement. The only valid argument under such conditions
> is promptly to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Before mass
> leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is
> marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact
> depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion
> that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as
> the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words,
> the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian
> propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only
> in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler
> possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies.

\-- Hannah Arendt, both quotes from "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

And by the time you find out there's nothing to be glad about because it's
just a spiral of control and fear and anti-intellectualism, with abusers and
sadists having free pick of the litter, that won't matter anymore. There will
be no allies to defeat the Nazis from the outside this time. There might be no
"after".

As for societies seeing "outcomes", as you observe "results" (these are people
we're talking about here), keep in mind how much of what the Nazis did _didn
't_ go to plan. The death camps were supposed to be completely removed from
the face of the Earth, just like many villages they razed. If Hitler hadn't
started a war, or had limited it, the world _still_ wouldn't know. It's not
like we know everything that's going on in China, by a long, long shot. Just
like we don't know about the Abu Ghraibs about which we never heard, and so
on.

To play with fire to learn about fire, let's leave that in the early 20th
century, I beg of you. We have books and other documentation.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Oh, so just downvoting, just censoring, just like killing people, is the
"argument". Every click without a word proves my point without diminishing a
word I said. Giving totalitarianism an inch, rationalizing obedience to it for
just one minute, has these results. Quod erat demonstrandum.

~~~
oarsinsync
I upvoted your original post as I think it's well written and adds value to
the discussion. I downvoted your response to yourself because it adds nothing
of value.

Same can be said for this post, I suppose, depending on perspective _shrug_

------
Kaveren
China is approaching a nightmarish dystopian society, if it hasn't reached
that already.

I'm glad I live in a country where I can spend however much money I feel like
on video games without being targeted by an oppressive government.

You just have to love a country where you can be murdered by the government
for selling marijuana, yet if you abstain from alcohol for religious reasons
you are an enemy of the state and must be turned into authorities.

Authoritarianism of all forms must be opposed worldwide. Who is to say the
West won't be subjugated to such systems a couple decades from now, if we
don't stand up for freedoms with vigor?

~~~
iliketosleep
I'm afraid that by the time people wake up to this, it will already be too
late. Authoritarianism backed by high tech is a permanent nightmare come true.
I hope I'm wrong, but it seems unstoppable - not enough people seem to really
care. It's a weakness of human psychology, we are too caught up in the short-
term, but in this case the long-term consequences will be terminal.

------
mattdanger
For those interested in getting a high level of how China's Social Credit
System works, NPR's Planet Money did a good show on the topic last month.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/09/655921710/chin...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/09/655921710/chinas-
social-credit-system)

------
Wilson14
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------
wozmirek
While I'm terrified by the system, I do remember watching a BBC (I think?)
report on this. There was a young Chinese woman there, who felt safer.

This made me think - what would women - and women, not the young men (me being
one) choose when given a choice of the social credit system or being able to
walk around the city safe(r)?

Quite general question, yet I do believe they would choose the latter; and I
wouldn't blame them.

~~~
paganel
"Feeling safer" has almost nothing to do with the Government watching you and
it's almost entirely caused by the local social norms. Case in point and to
partly answer your question: I have a woman colleague who has recently moved
to London from Bucharest. She told me that while living in Bucharest she had
no issue at all going back home alone at 2 or 3 in the morning, while in
London she avoids going out all by herself after 8 PM, because she does not
feel safe.

Doesn't matter that London is one of the most camera-surveilled cities in the
"Western" world while Bucharest has almost no cameras, all it matters is that
there are more people in London ready to physically and verbally harass a
person walking on the street all by her/himself compared to a city like
Bucharest. I have no idea on how one would change those social norms, I'm just
saying that adding cameras hasn't solved the issue and will probably not solve
it.

~~~
wozmirek
Oh, I agree with you m8. I'm terrified with the surveillance stuff. I'd
exchange then my "safe(r)" with "more sense of "safety"" (double quote
deliberate).

Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest? Just wondering if it's
the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin while she feels safer in
Krakow.

~~~
paganel
> Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest?

Yeap, she has lived her entire life until this summer in Bucharest (she's
approaching 30 now), and she hasn't grow up and live in the "posh" parts of
town, so to speak.

> Just wondering if it's the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin
> while she feels safer in Krakow.

It's funny because said colleague (and friend) has moved out to London for a
Polish guy, I guess that's where the better-paid jobs are.

~~~
wozmirek
I'd chalk it up to the stress of moving. I used to live in US and then moved
to Germany. It's normal.

------
gpvos
One of the problems is that this is yet another system that can be corrupted.
The rich will be able to buy themselves a high social credit rating, while the
poor suffer.

~~~
Jyaif
And how is this different from any society?

~~~
gpvos
Not very, admittedly. But this system is a huge step in the wrong direction.

------
mk1111
You guys just don’t know CCP. All they want is to controll everyone, eliminate
dissenters and make everyone scared. It has nothing to do with social credit.
—— from a chinese citizen

------
codedokode
They say that the system helps to punish for violating traffic laws or evading
taxes. But why police and courts cannot deal with this? Maybe because the real
purpose is something else?

Also, in some countries there are similar systems, where your rights might be
restricted without court's judgement or right for appeal. For example, in
Russia, if you are suspected to be an extremist, you won't be able to withdraw
money from your bank account. In other countries there are no-fly lists or
potential terrorists lists which restrict people's rights without being able
to defend themselves.

------
noarchy
Is the 50 cent party working overtime in these threads?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

------
methodover
This may sound like a stupid question, but did the Chinese people vote for
this? Was there a democratic process?

~~~
tivert
> This may sound like a stupid question, but did the Chinese people vote for
> this? Was there a democratic process?

Of course not.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-
lea...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-leadership-
takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html)

------
virmundi
Think about how great this will be in the US. Finally, we can tag people who
think incorrectly. They can be given low scores. All those people in fly
overstates can just remain there. Hopefully the thought of a 72 hour car ride
to a civilized city will give them pause when promoting fake news like
Bernie's plan for universal healthcare is bad. It will be a wonderful day for
the country when we can correct their wrong-thoughts.

------
TangoTrotFox
It's interesting that this seems so futuristic and dystopic yet in reading
about the specifics it seems oddly reminiscent to social systems many
centuries past. In particular it seems to effect similar results to what exile
would have had at one time. But exile lost any meaning as the world become
more globalized and connected -- where you physically are no longer really
means anything. This system would enable the consequences of exile, but with
national effect.

In a world with a perfectly impartial and objective government, I don't think
this is a bad idea at all. The reason it's bad is because governments are made
up of people, and people are corrupt. While it may initially be genuinely
motivated by helping to improve society, over time it will devolve into a tool
for special (and government) interests to incentivize actions that are to
their benefit, and punish those against it -- regardless of the objective
societal impact of those actions.

~~~
walterbell
_> similar results to what exile would have had at one time_

Can people on the list leave the country?

~~~
gnode
Yes; China no longer has exit visas. You just might not be able to take the
most comfortable form of transport.

The travel ban only seems to apply to domestic flights as far as I can tell.

------
Confiks
A lot of people in here reference Black Mirror, but it also made me think of
ST:VOYs Critical Care [1] (which has plot holes you can just as well drive
through).

[1] [http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_Care_(episode)](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_Care_\(episode\))

------
mnw21cam
It could be argued that the primary purpose of a government is to make things
better for people (with deliberately broad/vague words used there). I'm not
sure how this qualifies. There's certainly a lot of negative language in that
article, and negative language has a habit of not making things better for
people.

~~~
tonysdg
> It could be argued that the primary purpose of a government is to make
> things better for people

As I understand it, this notion only really came into vogue during the
European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. For much of human
history, government served as a way for monarchs, emperors, and the ruling
elite to maintain -- and expand -- their hold on power, regardless of what was
best for the governed. Indeed, we still see remnants of this in pretty much
every government on the planet -- some just are less subtle than others.
Arguably, we've spent the last 3 centuries trying to subvert this process and
bend it toward, as you put it, making things "better" for all.

------
ultim8k
Why do people still live there (apart from those who cannot move)?

~~~
706f6f70
Because not all societies enshrine individual freedom as their primary value.
China has historically valued orderliness, collective well-being, and personal
sacrifice. This sucks from a Western perspective, but it also means that a
great many of the problems the West faces will never manifest in China.

There are very few absolute wrongs in the world and it's not clear that this
would be one of them.

~~~
skrebbel
> orderliness, collective well-being, and personal sacrifice

I don't know, most Chinese people I've met are at least as selfish as the
average Westerner, often more (and let's not even begin about the
stereotypical "I don't care about anything" 60 year old Chinese tourist). I'm
no expert, but while surely many Chinese rulers have emphasized these values,
I'm not convinced that the population ever cared much about them.

They're a splendid list of values to drum up, though, if you're the one whose
boot indefinitely stamps on your subordinates' collective faces.

~~~
baobrain
I'm not sure how bringing up personal experiences and racial stereotypes
contributes to any conversation, especially when it is about the entire
population of China (1.4 billion), its culture, and its history.

I highly recommend reading about the mandate of heaven[0]. While not
particularly relevant anymore, it is important context to the cultural
attitudes of your average Chinese citizen.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven)

------
jmartrican
I think the biggest problem with this is that citizens that want to speak out
about the government will now be more easily blackballed. So now the
government can more easily repress a revolution. I suspect this means that the
Communist Party of China will most likely remain in power for a lot longer
than their natural shelf-life. When this party makes mistakes and
misjudgments, what would happen now? The people will not be able to over-throw
or speak out. The people will just have to eat the costs and hope the party
does not screw up too much. Basically, the Communist Party has removed one of
its last checks to power, internal revolt.

~~~
monochromatic
Surely this is the main goal of such a system.

------
pelagic_sky
Last time I had read about this topic the focus was mostly on people who had
defaulted on loans. One of the punishments was to have their face/name posted
on a billboard publicly shaming them. I wonder if people still didn't pay back
the loans, but did public service, if that would improve their score?

------
ziont
Neo-confucianism is now digitized.

------
rick22
Its sad technology is being used for evil. What are the suggestions to a
programmer who fears his native country might adopt such systems. Are there
any open source projects focused on combating such systems ?

------
b1r6
Isn't this bad from an economic perspective? I thought the gov't wanted to
encourage spending and increase the velocity of their money. This directly
hinders that.

~~~
farazzz
Indirectly it could increase spending as they are preventing people from
leaving and spending their money overseas

~~~
NedIsakoff
It will be used to promote good spending: money spend on Chinese goods and
services. De-promote bad spending: foreign goods.

------
kaonashi
I think I’d rather live under something like this than the opaque, private
fico system.

------
pgt
What can I do as an engineer to alleviate this problem?

------
ladw
In this system, is it possible to have a negative balance?

~~~
jobigoud
I don't know the answer but if there is a floor at 0, that would mean at this
point you have nothing to loose, so that could backfire. But you probably get
incarcerated before you reach some threshold level.

~~~
blbviviv
HN has fault habdlers in place for accounts with karma going too far below
zero. It was a hellban at -13 for my old account. I did keep writing for weeks
before I noticed, the exercise of which was still rewarding in a way, and I
still receive few answers now. Sometimes I suspect mods to the visibillity. I
reinterpretted rangeban to mean banned beyond a certain range (as opposed to
how it is commonly used: the ban of a whole range of possible identities).

------
ancorevard
Just imagine if the National Socialist party in Germany would have had this in
the 1930-40s. They could have been even more “efficient” in taking out the
various groups of people they found to be of “low social value”.

For everyone but those who believe in powerful centralized governments this is
a nightmare scenario.

------
skrebbel
I'm disgusted by the comments in this thread that go "culture!", "tradition!",
"philosophy!" to explain why this really isn't _that_ much of a problem.

So because Chinese rulers have oppressed and mistreated their people for so
long that their methods have become ingrained in the national psyche, it's
somehow more OK?

George Orwell predicted that "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a
boot stamping on a human face - forever". He thought he was making a dystopian
prediction, a warning of sorts, but he could've just as easily called it a
history lesson about China.

Sure, many other places, most places in fact, have horrible histories, with
evil rulers vastly outnumbering the even _somewhat_ good ones, but China is
unique in that it's been all about oppressing and abusing the population as
heavily as possible, _without pause_ , ever since the first emperors gave the
country its foreign name.

A non-stop tradition of oppression doesn't somehow make new oppression less
bad.

NOTE: Nothing against the Chinese culture or people. I'm extremely fond of
lots of Chinese things, not in the least Chinese humor for which I have a
particularly soft spot. I love working with Chinese people, I love meeting
Chinese people. It makes me sad that such a wonderful place and a wonderful
culture can _also_ have such a horrible tradition of oppression.

~~~
dnomad
> China is unique in that it's been all about oppressing and abusing the
> population as heavily as possible, without pause, ever since the first
> emperors gave the country its foreign name.

This is such complete nonsense. I think it's hilarious how totally and
completely misguided about China that Westerners, and Americans in particular,
actually are. It boggles the belief just how much complete nonsense is spouted
here on reddit and in the Western press. This is the very essence of people
being disconnected from reality and constructing a new reality in accordance
with their ideology.

Reality check: go to China and actually talk to the Chinese themselves.
Radical idea! Social credit is extremely popular in China [1]. The social
credit system is also not new. Anybody who understands how Chinese society has
always worked would understand that this is the application of new technology
to ideas that are nearly three thousand years old.

Anyways resume your ideological freak-out.

[1] [https://www.merics.org/en/blog/chinas-social-credit-
systems-...](https://www.merics.org/en/blog/chinas-social-credit-systems-are-
highly-popular-now)

~~~
Kaveren
> "Citizens with access to benefits respond more favorably"

Of course they do. These sorts of systems always offer a sizable portion of
the population benefits, that's how they gain popular support. This doesn't
mean that they aren't terrible ideas.

You have to consider how a government affects the people who disapprove of the
government, who are not part of a majority, who are not conformists.

Many people don't think this is worth doing. But the sentiment that only the
conformist majority matters has led to unspeakable atrocities throughout
history, and continues to even in the present day across the world.

~~~
fspeech
Your criticism is very valid. But saying only the majority benefits is very
different from claiming that the purpose is to oppress everyone, isn't it?
That is what the gp was angered by and responding to.

------
ElBarto
Beyond the obvious issues and extreme aims stated in the article, such a
system is also a new, interesting take on the problem of 'crime and
punishment' that might be food for thought.

------
SubiculumCode
US and China are not equivalent

------
kbad1000
Isn't it more like criminals or serious offenders can't fly? Will you allow a
person who can possibly hijack the plane?

~~~
Majestic121
No, not necessarily.

As pointed out in another comment : "Other infractions reportedly include
smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake
news online."

~~~
shaobo
The devil is always in the detail.

The "buying too many video games" line came from the gamification aspect of a
social network owned by a private enterprise and has nothing to do with the
government scheme. And even they have backpedaled from that claim:

"Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She
says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to
measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.”
Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share
data with the government without users’ consent, she says."

from [https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-
soci...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-
credit-laboratory/)

And the "posting fake news online" line actually refers to "spreading false
information about terrorism" which quite a bit more serious.

~~~
shaobo
I'd love to know why people downvoted me with no explanation.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I can't speak for other people, and I didn't downvote you. But it sounds
deliberately dishonest to pretend this is anti-terrorism when it's based on
trivial misdemeanors like smoking.

Once you've established that you're not pursuing the truth your words are only
poison/noise that harms the group of us who are trying very hard to figure out
what is true.

------
lumber-pail
Think of the upside if your status followed you everywhere you went, and
instead of relying on human decency you could expect treatment in proportion
to your behavior.

Something like this will inevitably arrive in the West due to human desire for
status. Not much different from a thousand little decisions you make every day
getting dressed and walking down the street that show the world who you are
and what your values are. Now conveniently bundled and accessible to all.

Our grandchildren will wonder how we did business online without it.

------
arvinsim
Interesting that there seems many posts that shows China in an unfavorable
light lately....

In any case, this is one of the things that you thought you only see in
fiction. It's chilling to realize that it's real.

