Topic: Black Mirror and the "Chinese new social credit system" (Read 419 times)

The most depressive and at the same time fascinating TV show for today. All Chinese should immediately see it and reconsider their decision.

But seriously, the TV show often takes rather good (or, at least, interesting) ideas and describes the worst possible course of events. We just have to learn from these things and realize them in a better way.

I have a regular visitor at the farm, he's a politician and was the original owner of my land. He told me about this social credit system and asked about my opinion. I just shrugged my shoulders and told him to let other country do what they want to their citizen. But he told me that they might be implementing it in the near future. Some members from the lower congress have been talking about it and they think that it might be a good solution to rate or even trace each citizen's behavior.

I told him that it's a good idea if the government want to sort out its people, seeing which citizen is good and who is bad. I have no problem about it. I basically count myself a good, law-abiding citizen of my country. Then he laughed and told me that the system won't be seeing me as a good citizen if it will ever be implemented.

I registered my land as a farm and we have a regional law here that exempts agricultural lands from tax. The problem is, I'm not generating an income with my land. I just use it for farm related experiments. Experiments that I never shared to anyone until now. There were two people who wants to buy the data, but I turned them down. This can be the reason why the social credit system will find me as a bad citizen.

The politician also told me to look around outside my area, and I just realized that most of the farmers around me were once law breakers(I admit that I find them intimidating sometimes). They were given a chance by him when the society doesn't want to give them a source of income anymore. There were only few politicians who do this. If ever an ex-convict decided to change for the better, the social credit system will be hard for them.

My shopping habits; My government won't be able to trace it, because I'm not a credit card user. But he told me that they can. People are looking into blockchain technology as a medium of exchange, but my government might be adapting the technology of m-pesa. This could be a problem for me, the experimental data that I've been hiding until now might be at risk. I can share it to all of my fellow farmers for free, but I'm afraid that it might go to the wrong hands(capital gains problem).

Lastly; the rate that I can get from the community. I'm not socially inclined person and they can rate me whatever they want, good or bad. I will just f*cking accept it.

Just my opinion about the social credit system in China;
- According to this source, a person must reach a certain score in order for him/her to get a loan. I wonder if I can ever survive with the system if I'm their citizen.

- I'm not sure if this is can lead to a better community. According to the source above, they have to gamify the system. But it's clearly just a capital gain, IMO.

- Their society is f*cked up, IMO. According to Darwin's theory, natural selection is the key mechanism of evolution. The natural selection is set-up to a whole new level, and I wonder if they will evolve for the better, only time can tell.

- If this kind of system will be implemented in my country, it was like bringing back the "excommunication" system implemented by catholic priests during the colonial period.

- Remove the monetary system and the social credit system will be much better for tracing bad citizens.

Isn't this red column already in use in USA and UK at least? Credit scores, how you get loan etc are affected by almost everything you've done before, in financial sense. This Chinese system of course goes step further. On the other hand, keeping official listing about persons previous academic dishonest publications would have some positive effects.

It's a very disturbing episode. actually complete series is very disturbing. unfortunately, we already have this kind of attitude in our society, where people doing unnecessary things only to fit in.

Note: This comment is not one of them

I've seen the episode and honestly it disturbs me to learn that the Chinese government is in favour of such social obligation, it may well end up like in the movie. I hate the idea completely.

Yep... actually, I just found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAIKh7AnTIk&t=113s

In it, Chinese people are actually being asked about their thoughts on the new social credit system and the replies are... well, I'm just speechless, this is better for you to see it with your own eyes.

Ok, I am going to say something that may not buy me any "social credit" here in the thread he he. The social credit system already exists in every country. e.g.

- If you work for a company, you are pushed or encouraged to act in a certain way and that will influence severely your chances of promotion.

- If you are at school, you are much more likely to get good grades and more free time if you play by the rules.

- If you are a child you have a punish/reward system in almost every household to force the "right" behaviour.

- If you want to access a good University, they will consider volunteering and social participation as a big plus.

And there are many more examples, even in most western countries your chances of getting a job are severely undermined if you have criminal records.

However, as with most things related to regulations, the devil in the details. In this case the issue is what will be considered as "positive" and being China... I don´t think any of us is going to be surprised when the list becomes available.

And surely, as NadiaHel said this is the column that is the key of the whole thing



Which in essence requires the state to be able to monitor everything that all the citizens do in order to "properly score" the individuals.

Nice!! Thanks for sharing, but if you pay attention to the third column,


How do you interpret this? Meaning: this is a subjective information and a really sensible one, for it is evaluating some people due to their attitude on the internet. But, what happens if, for instance, another person uses my computer or cell phone? How many new and imaginative ways of scamming will appear?
Every single point is disturbing:
- "Interactions with other internet users": What kind of interactions? Really?
- "Reliability of information posted of reposted": Based on what? On the mainstream speech, maybe?
- "Shopping habits": !!! WTF.

Obviously, the pic you shared is just an interpretation by the Wall Street Journal, as said on the bottom, so, as far as we know, there is no reliable information for the moment.
Now, I was searching also for the topic because I really found it both concerning and interesting. One of the most concerning parts is how it is going to be implemented. Whereas the population is going to be informed or not, the fact of being punctuated could affect the brains of the people, as in a sort of a weird perpetual-gaming activity.

Anyway, thanks for the info, of course. I guess this is a typical case of "waiting and see" what is going to happen.
I found this interesting article, https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymurrell/2018/07/31/pushing-the-ethical-boundaries-of-big-data-a-look-at-chinas-social-credit-scoring-system/#19006acb25e5, in which they explain how it could shape the society into something new... just in case you are interested!  

Actually upon further reading the citizens cannot score each other, is just the government which score the citizen and perhaps some company. It kind of make sense because  China not having democracy they cannot risk of having people giving some bad score to members of the party and at the same time they want to keep their people in check. It's really fucked up.

On the wiki there are quite detailed information about it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

This image explain quite well how it works:

I don't see anything spectacular about the so called social credit system. It's a waste of time and resources.

Yep, one thing is to have some kind of control over the people offering services, and another one, and a really different one, is about to have some kind of control over the people's personal lives.
To be punctuated about every single tiny social-act looks like something pretty dangerous, and, despite some thoughts here, it hasn't happened yet. One thing is to be punctuated in here, for instance, due to the quality of your post, or your integration  into the forum (or whatever), and another is to receive some positive or negative point because of the face you show to the people in the morning -I guess I probably would have a really bad punctuation in that situation  .

Whatever, sometimes it scares me the shape the society is taking...

 

You already do.

No one is truly "off the grid" these days sadly. If they want to find you, they will.

This is a very interesting and prophetic episode
Uber and Airbnb already use this  system, rating people who use and offer the services.

As rider clients rate you. And as client, riders rate you.
This idea is amazing, because bad clients and riders are excluded from the system.

The problem is that it works well in small scale , such as an Uber or Airbnb service. Using this in everything in your life is crazy, like the episode.

I've gone offgrid to avoid this stuff, I kept having problems with the bars when I was on the grid.

resistresistresist

I will never participate in such a system, no matter the consequences. 

After watching the episode I down voted the idea.  I guess China up voted the idea.

I don't know if you ever have seen the TV show called Black Mirror. If not, please, stop everything you are doing and go directly to Netflix or another platform you like to expend some quality time seeing this both dystopic and prophetic show.

Well, If I remember correctly, it was in the first chapter from the third season when they described on the TV show a social system based on points. In that chapter, a desperate girl was trying to go to a wedding because her "rating" was good enough to be "accepted" on a determinate status of her society. The status is managed towards how do you behave, so the people can "vote for you" (ops, really similar to our very "liking" actual nightmare). The girl tries hard to be highly ranked in order to be able to participate in some social events, as well as having a good job and so.

Ok. This is happening. In China, actually. The Chinese government is about to implement a system called "Social Credit system", designed to be fully operating in the next 2020. As in the Black Mirror chapter, the design is focused on creating a system based on behaviour: the best you behave, the best options do you have in life. As a dystopic nightmare, the Chinese people are going to be their own "social police", by voting their fellow citizens and ranking up or down depending on their own criteria.
You can read more about that in here: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4

So, what do you people think about that?
Are the Black Mirror nightmare ideas becoming truth? Or, on the contrary, being an inspiration instead of a warning?