5 ms·

I've watched the first episode and had some existential questions pop up while on a walk today. Isn't that end-all rating system, like you mention, the final fo

I've watched the first episode and had some existential questions pop up while on a walk today. Isn't that end-all rating system, like you mention, the final form of many companies like Facebook or Instagram? When the value generated on the platform grows beyond its platform to other important parts of society. I think this is only just starting to happen, like Air BnB's usage of Facebook profiles as host validation, or a social media marketer using the size of their instagram following etc. on a job application.

justinpombrio 10y ago
Apparently China plans to role out that kind of rating system by 2020, dubbed a "social credit score": http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186
- m_mueller 10y ago
  It's scary how relevant some of Black Mirror's themes actually are. This one in particular is so close, I wonder whether the show's creators used it as a template. Edit: Apparently not, as this information is only publicly available since this September. Zeitgeist at work?
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    I've known about sesame since last year at least - it's getting more attention now but it was definitely public knowledge when this series would have been at the writing stage. It's an idea from sci-fi - I can't remember who wrote what, but there was a society where citizens got more or fewer votes depending on their behaviour (edit: Alastair Reynolds? Banks? Feels like it was one of them.), and knew each other's scores, and Tom Disch's 334 is explicitly about scoring people, and one segment is dedicated to "Baz" desperately trying to get his score up by producing a piece of state-loving prose, before narrowly failing and being consigned to life as a faceless "g[ue|o]rilla" soldier - although in that the state scored you, not other people.
    - srum 10y ago
      Don't forget Community! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/
      - croon 10y ago
        and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765158/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765158/
    - mountaineer22 10y ago
      Was the currency called whoopy? [update] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie I was thinking later, Cory Doctorow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_King...
      - RangerScience 10y ago
        "Down and out.." or, "Why is sucks to be an asshole in a reputation-based economy". +1 upvote, would cautionary tale again. PS - If you haven't read Rapture of the Nerds, check it out. It's a Doctorow character (downer of a dude) in a Stross world (craaazy tech).
    - Paul_S 10y ago
      Funny coincidence, I'm reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds right now (literally). It has exactly what you say. People whose votes are vindicated get their votes weighted accordingly. They end up lobbied to but can't outright still their votes or their weights would go down.
      - madaxe_again 10y ago
        Yup, that's what I was thinking of!
    - oever 10y ago
      Daemon by Daniel Suarez contains the idea that people have reputation. Everyone can rate everyone and know everyone's reputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)
  - CPAhem 10y ago
    Charlie Brooker, the author of Black Mirror has had quite a few prescient moments: A previous series had the UK Prime Minister having sex with a pig, a year later it turned out that David Cameron had done something obscene to a pig as part of a college initiation ceremony. Brooker claimed he was spooked by this coincidence.
    - midhir 10y ago
      And, wonderfully, hashtags from Black Mirror actually started to trend on Twitter as the news broke.
- sli 10y ago
  Unless it's changed significantly recently, this "credit score" is only being used by Alibaba, and is more akin to a regular old karma system like that used on HN or reddit.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - vidarh 10y ago
    The article claims that Alibaba's solution is one of 8 private pilot schemes, and claims there are government planning documents for a much more comprehensive system.
- danidiaz 10y ago
  There's also North Korea's "Songbun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun although it seems more coarse-grained than a numeric score.
rorykoehler 10y ago
I have zero faith in rating systems. Absolutely useless 98% of the time. The only time they work is if there are thousands upon thousands of negative reviews with hardly any positives.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  Money is absolutely useless by itself. It's our collective agreement that it has value that gives it value.
  - nhaehnle 10y ago
    That's not quite true. Money has value because a lot of the demand for it is enforced by law (taxes and repayment of debts). Those act as a real anchor for its value beyond collective agreement.
    - Natanael_L 10y ago
      ... Because it is on average more convenient to follow the law than break it.
    - saint_fiasco 10y ago
      Laws and debts are collective agreements too.
- qq66 10y ago
  I have not had a single bad experience with buying from eBay sellers with >99.8% feedback, but multiple bad experiences buying unusual items from <99% sellers that I couldn't find with better sellers. It's worked well for me.
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    Generally on ebay I assume you are buying a mass produced product. If you receive it in time and it's not broken then you're happy? How about more subjective things like Yelp reviews? Edit: I don't buy on ebay however rating brigading has made reviews/ratings on amazon practically useless for products I've never used before.
bambax 10y ago
Uber is exactly like that... or HN, where "positivity" is effectively enforced and swearing triggers immediate action from the comments police https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708612
- bambax 10y ago
  The parent comment apparently started a nosedive...
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    sigh, do I really have to deal with the presence of such lowly rated comments? Can't we get an autoblock feature running here?
wozniacki 10y ago
Some of the aspects portrayed in the episode "Nosedive" seem pretty far-fetched and probably are just that, at least for the duration. But other aspects tangential to the rating system portrayed in the episode are already very much of interest to technology companies as potential future undertakings, with far-reaching consequences. Whether such undertakings have actually been green-lighted as live projects with lots of momentum, is unknown to the public at this time. On December 29, 2015, Facebook has acquired a patent [1] "that would allow creditors to assess your creditworthiness based on the credit ratings of the people in your social network." Facebook applied for the patent in 2012 as part of a bundle of patents it purchased from now-defunct social networking site Friendster. The patent was first noticed by SmartUpLegal. This is how the patent describes the invention: When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected. [1] Unites States Patent No. 9,224,213 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9,224,213.PN.&OS=PN/9,224,213&RS=PN/9,224,213 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H... [2] Facebook’s new patent lets lenders reject a loan based on your friends’ credit scores—but don’t freak out http://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reject-a-loan-based-on-your-friends-credit-scores-but-dont-freak-out/ http://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-rejec...
- mountaineer22 10y ago
  Yes, Friendster was actually quite "forward-thinking", and I would argue, if had they not liquidated their IP to Facebook, and had been able to hang in there, their IP could probably crush any modern social media concern in operation today (i.e. made a killing in license fees).
slouch 10y ago
Is Klout still a thing?

justinpombrio 10y ago

Apparently China plans to role out that kind of rating system by 2020, dubbed a "social credit score": http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

m_mueller 10y ago
It's scary how relevant some of Black Mirror's themes actually are. This one in particular is so close, I wonder whether the show's creators used it as a template. Edit: Apparently not, as this information is only publicly available since this September. Zeitgeist at work?
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  I've known about sesame since last year at least - it's getting more attention now but it was definitely public knowledge when this series would have been at the writing stage. It's an idea from sci-fi - I can't remember who wrote what, but there was a society where citizens got more or fewer votes depending on their behaviour (edit: Alastair Reynolds? Banks? Feels like it was one of them.), and knew each other's scores, and Tom Disch's 334 is explicitly about scoring people, and one segment is dedicated to "Baz" desperately trying to get his score up by producing a piece of state-loving prose, before narrowly failing and being consigned to life as a faceless "g[ue|o]rilla" soldier - although in that the state scored you, not other people.
  - srum 10y ago
    Don't forget Community! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278596/
    - croon 10y ago
      and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765158/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3765158/
  - mountaineer22 10y ago
    Was the currency called whoopy? [update] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie I was thinking later, Cory Doctorow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_King...
    - RangerScience 10y ago
      "Down and out.." or, "Why is sucks to be an asshole in a reputation-based economy". +1 upvote, would cautionary tale again. PS - If you haven't read Rapture of the Nerds, check it out. It's a Doctorow character (downer of a dude) in a Stross world (craaazy tech).
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    Funny coincidence, I'm reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds right now (literally). It has exactly what you say. People whose votes are vindicated get their votes weighted accordingly. They end up lobbied to but can't outright still their votes or their weights would go down.
    - madaxe_again 10y ago
      Yup, that's what I was thinking of!
  - oever 10y ago
    Daemon by Daniel Suarez contains the idea that people have reputation. Everyone can rate everyone and know everyone's reputation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)
- CPAhem 10y ago
  Charlie Brooker, the author of Black Mirror has had quite a few prescient moments: A previous series had the UK Prime Minister having sex with a pig, a year later it turned out that David Cameron had done something obscene to a pig as part of a college initiation ceremony. Brooker claimed he was spooked by this coincidence.
  - midhir 10y ago
    And, wonderfully, hashtags from Black Mirror actually started to trend on Twitter as the news broke.
sli 10y ago
Unless it's changed significantly recently, this "credit score" is only being used by Alibaba, and is more akin to a regular old karma system like that used on HN or reddit.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vidarh 10y ago
  The article claims that Alibaba's solution is one of 8 private pilot schemes, and claims there are government planning documents for a much more comprehensive system.
danidiaz 10y ago
There's also North Korea's "Songbun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun although it seems more coarse-grained than a numeric score.

rorykoehler 10y ago

I have zero faith in rating systems. Absolutely useless 98% of the time. The only time they work is if there are thousands upon thousands of negative reviews with hardly any positives.

rbanffy 10y ago
Money is absolutely useless by itself. It's our collective agreement that it has value that gives it value.
- nhaehnle 10y ago
  That's not quite true. Money has value because a lot of the demand for it is enforced by law (taxes and repayment of debts). Those act as a real anchor for its value beyond collective agreement.
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    ... Because it is on average more convenient to follow the law than break it.
  - saint_fiasco 10y ago
    Laws and debts are collective agreements too.
qq66 10y ago
I have not had a single bad experience with buying from eBay sellers with >99.8% feedback, but multiple bad experiences buying unusual items from <99% sellers that I couldn't find with better sellers. It's worked well for me.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  Generally on ebay I assume you are buying a mass produced product. If you receive it in time and it's not broken then you're happy? How about more subjective things like Yelp reviews? Edit: I don't buy on ebay however rating brigading has made reviews/ratings on amazon practically useless for products I've never used before.

bambax 10y ago

Uber is exactly like that... or HN, where "positivity" is effectively enforced and swearing triggers immediate action from the comments police https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12708612

bambax 10y ago
The parent comment apparently started a nosedive...
- m_mueller 10y ago
  sigh, do I really have to deal with the presence of such lowly rated comments? Can't we get an autoblock feature running here?

wozniacki 10y ago

Some of the aspects portrayed in the episode "Nosedive" seem pretty far-fetched and probably are just that, at least for the duration. But other aspects tangential to the rating system portrayed in the episode are already very much of interest to technology companies as potential future undertakings, with far-reaching consequences. Whether such undertakings have actually been green-lighted as live projects with lots of momentum, is unknown to the public at this time. On December 29, 2015, Facebook has acquired a patent [1] "that would allow creditors to assess your creditworthiness based on the credit ratings of the people in your social network." Facebook applied for the patent in 2012 as part of a bundle of patents it purchased from now-defunct social networking site Friendster. The patent was first noticed by SmartUpLegal. This is how the patent describes the invention: When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected. [1] Unites States Patent No. 9,224,213 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9,224,213.PN.&OS=PN/9,224,213&RS=PN/9,224,213 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H... [2] Facebook’s new patent lets lenders reject a loan based on your friends’ credit scores—but don’t freak out http://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reject-a-loan-based-on-your-friends-credit-scores-but-dont-freak-out/ http://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-rejec...

mountaineer22 10y ago
Yes, Friendster was actually quite "forward-thinking", and I would argue, if had they not liquidated their IP to Facebook, and had been able to hang in there, their IP could probably crush any modern social media concern in operation today (i.e. made a killing in license fees).

slouch 10y ago

Is Klout still a thing?