4 ms·

Wait, isn't a credit rating already a measure of (financial) trustworthiness? What kind of parameters can the government record which would actually make a cre

by ldp01 9y ago

Wait, isn't a credit rating already a measure of (financial) trustworthiness? What kind of parameters can the government record which would actually make a credit rating more reliable?

lispm 9y ago
They factor in whether you are a rule obeying good citizem. The result is also not only used to put you at financial disadvantage, they use it everywhere there is a queue to put those good citizens into the front of the queue.
- e4r5t6 9y ago
  Is Liu Xiaobo regarded as rule obeying good citizen?
  - MagnumOpus 9y ago
    Obviously not, not harmonious enough. But social rating is not for actual opposition activists who will be jailed/tortured/disappeared even without it - it is for the tens of millions of common citizens who might sympathise with them and for whom a credit rating penalty might make them think twice about expressing their support or sympathy or outrage about the injustice.
Inconel 9y ago
I'm fairly certain I read that this system will also allow citizens to assign trustworthiness scores to friends and acquaintances.
- provost 9y ago
  > Credit scoring companies in the US and China are already experimenting with data from social media profiles. Counting how many times someone says “wasted” in their Facebook status can help to predict whether they will repay their debts on time, according to a trial by US credit analyst FICO. Source: https://www.ft.com/content/e8ccd7b8-6459-11e6-a08a-c7ac04ef00aa https://www.ft.com/content/e8ccd7b8-6459-11e6-a08a-c7ac04ef0... [FT might be paywalled, but I was able to reach it via Google for free]
  - Inconel 9y ago
    That's pretty unsettling. I wonder if I'm going to find myself in a similar situation regarding social networking as I found myself in regarding credit cards a number of years ago. For the longest time I didn't have any credit cards since the idea of debt really scared me but I realized I was only hurting myself by not building a credit history. I signed up for a number of cards over the years and put small recurring charges on them that I always pay off in full. Similarly, I don't really participate in much social media, HN is the exception, and I have no FB account, but I wonder if at some point my lack of public facing social media will negatively impact other areas of my life like borrowing, employment, or housing. Maybe someone enterprising can start a service that automatically posts a bunch of innocuous stuff to a FB profile so I don't have to bother wasting my time with it.
    - che_shirecat 9y ago
      The sort of profiling the parent comment was talking about doesn't work the other way around - it'd be idiotic to punish someone's credit score for not having a social media account or having it set to private/friends-only/un-crawlable. The lack of a social media account might even be a signal of better creditworthiness
    - ethbro 9y ago
      I see bots being extraordinarily effective against this type of automated scoring as the sophistication of the scoring bot seems like it will always lag potential creator bots. Given that scoring bots in mass use will necessarily decrease the dimensionality of the data into fewer, more tractable features, and thus creating bots need only to target the dimensionality-reduction step, rather than reproduce "human behavior." Which seems rather simple given the variance in natural language and normal human social interaction.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  Bentham would have never imagined his Panopticon [1] would be implemented in this manner, across the entire society, in digital form. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Conformity. Those who have the right harmonious thinking are more likely to be successful and less likely to be sent to jail for political crimes. The government thinks they control the rules of the entire game. Also, if you have a bad credit score, you won't be able to buy train or plane tickets in china. It just isn't about your ability to get a loan.
- arethuza 9y ago
  I've seen the "Social Credit System" discussed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System Video describing a similar system (linked to from the wiki page): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI Possibly one of the scariest concepts I've seen in a while.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  move to digital currency and they; or any other government for that matter; prevent you directly from providing or consuming goods and services. So combine both elements, a government controlled "score" plus digital currency and they will control the game. Then it comes down to, can barter even exist.
ThomPete 9y ago
Credit rating are ironically based on taking up debt to show that you can deal with debt. There are other ways to think about credit worthiness. As an example your checking and savings account can be used to show how you actually do each month, you can look at social connections to see who my friends are and if you have something like Google Wallet or Square Cash or Venmo you can also look at how good people are at paying each other back. So plenty of things to look at that aren't being recorded right now.
zhte415 9y ago
Credit ratings are given by credit ratings agencies. Currently, credit ratings agencies give ratings to organisations based on the fees of those same organisations asking them to rate them. This creates a conflict of interest. A large conflict of interest. Like most FinTech, and change is more a question of law and regulation than it is technology 'disrupting' an opportunity. In finance, laws or regulations change and Fintech tends to be the fastest to react. It is regulators who drive where Fintech goes (not in all cases, but in I'd argue most), however.
candiodari 9y ago
It's not about making credit rating more reliable, rather the opposite. It's about sabotaging the people they want sabotaged. Wrong ethnic group perhaps, or wrote a dissenting article ? No more loans or even anything but cash for you !

by ldp01 9y ago

Wait, isn't a credit rating already a measure of (financial) trustworthiness? What kind of parameters can the government record which would actually make a credit rating more reliable?

lispm 9y ago

They factor in whether you are a rule obeying good citizem. The result is also not only used to put you at financial disadvantage, they use it everywhere there is a queue to put those good citizens into the front of the queue.

e4r5t6 9y ago
Is Liu Xiaobo regarded as rule obeying good citizen?
- MagnumOpus 9y ago
  Obviously not, not harmonious enough. But social rating is not for actual opposition activists who will be jailed/tortured/disappeared even without it - it is for the tens of millions of common citizens who might sympathise with them and for whom a credit rating penalty might make them think twice about expressing their support or sympathy or outrage about the injustice.

Inconel 9y ago

I'm fairly certain I read that this system will also allow citizens to assign trustworthiness scores to friends and acquaintances.

provost 9y ago
> Credit scoring companies in the US and China are already experimenting with data from social media profiles. Counting how many times someone says “wasted” in their Facebook status can help to predict whether they will repay their debts on time, according to a trial by US credit analyst FICO. Source: https://www.ft.com/content/e8ccd7b8-6459-11e6-a08a-c7ac04ef00aa https://www.ft.com/content/e8ccd7b8-6459-11e6-a08a-c7ac04ef0... [FT might be paywalled, but I was able to reach it via Google for free]
- Inconel 9y ago
  That's pretty unsettling. I wonder if I'm going to find myself in a similar situation regarding social networking as I found myself in regarding credit cards a number of years ago. For the longest time I didn't have any credit cards since the idea of debt really scared me but I realized I was only hurting myself by not building a credit history. I signed up for a number of cards over the years and put small recurring charges on them that I always pay off in full. Similarly, I don't really participate in much social media, HN is the exception, and I have no FB account, but I wonder if at some point my lack of public facing social media will negatively impact other areas of my life like borrowing, employment, or housing. Maybe someone enterprising can start a service that automatically posts a bunch of innocuous stuff to a FB profile so I don't have to bother wasting my time with it.
  - che_shirecat 9y ago
    The sort of profiling the parent comment was talking about doesn't work the other way around - it'd be idiotic to punish someone's credit score for not having a social media account or having it set to private/friends-only/un-crawlable. The lack of a social media account might even be a signal of better creditworthiness
  - ethbro 9y ago
    I see bots being extraordinarily effective against this type of automated scoring as the sophistication of the scoring bot seems like it will always lag potential creator bots. Given that scoring bots in mass use will necessarily decrease the dimensionality of the data into fewer, more tractable features, and thus creating bots need only to target the dimensionality-reduction step, rather than reproduce "human behavior." Which seems rather simple given the variance in natural language and normal human social interaction.
yourapostasy 9y ago
Bentham would have never imagined his Panopticon [1] would be implemented in this manner, across the entire society, in digital form. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Conformity. Those who have the right harmonious thinking are more likely to be successful and less likely to be sent to jail for political crimes. The government thinks they control the rules of the entire game. Also, if you have a bad credit score, you won't be able to buy train or plane tickets in china. It just isn't about your ability to get a loan.

arethuza 9y ago
I've seen the "Social Credit System" discussed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System Video describing a similar system (linked to from the wiki page): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI Possibly one of the scariest concepts I've seen in a while.
Shivetya 9y ago
move to digital currency and they; or any other government for that matter; prevent you directly from providing or consuming goods and services. So combine both elements, a government controlled "score" plus digital currency and they will control the game. Then it comes down to, can barter even exist.

ThomPete 9y ago

Credit rating are ironically based on taking up debt to show that you can deal with debt. There are other ways to think about credit worthiness. As an example your checking and savings account can be used to show how you actually do each month, you can look at social connections to see who my friends are and if you have something like Google Wallet or Square Cash or Venmo you can also look at how good people are at paying each other back. So plenty of things to look at that aren't being recorded right now.

zhte415 9y ago

Credit ratings are given by credit ratings agencies. Currently, credit ratings agencies give ratings to organisations based on the fees of those same organisations asking them to rate them. This creates a conflict of interest. A large conflict of interest. Like most FinTech, and change is more a question of law and regulation than it is technology 'disrupting' an opportunity. In finance, laws or regulations change and Fintech tends to be the fastest to react. It is regulators who drive where Fintech goes (not in all cases, but in I'd argue most), however.

candiodari 9y ago

It's not about making credit rating more reliable, rather the opposite. It's about sabotaging the people they want sabotaged. Wrong ethnic group perhaps, or wrote a dissenting article ? No more loans or even anything but cash for you !