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Okay, I think we have space to engage but first let's disengage on one thing - 'want.' I showed you quotes from Chinese citizens who want their own rating syste

Okay, I think we have space to engage but first let's disengage on one thing - 'want.' I showed you quotes from Chinese citizens who want their own rating system, if we're talking about the morality of what's proposed in this article then 'want' has nothing to do with it. Certain individuals in the US want this, certain individuals in China want Social Credit, yet you see one as a human rights abuse and one as not so 'want' or 'desire' for such a system is not going to be a determining factor in which is good and which is bad. Consider a freelance camera man, or freelance carpenter. At the JohnDoeCameraMan.com webpage, he has: + customer testimonials + customer references + endorsements + portfolio of previous work from past customers (film credits, film stills, etc) Exactly! Because you're not going to use the freelance carpenter that doesn't have at least a few of those things right? In fact, basically (or completely) no one will. So the freelance carpenter is compelled by the market to offer at least a few of those things on his website. I wouldn't call that voluntary because his livelihood depends on having a few testimonials or endorsements. To him it's exactly the same whether individuals in the market refuse to buy his service because he has no testimonials or whether the government tells him he can't sell his service because he has no testimonials. Both situations are equally voluntary (which is to say not at all.) Now if you had a much more objective measure out there, a lifetime score where you can never hide any blemish, which is systematic across time you'd be much more likely to use that right? After all testimonials, good experiences, bad experiences, it's all in there. The basic problem here is that the market is going to prefer a lifetime unscrubbable rating history. It's straight up more information. So carpenters and camera men will be coerced into this system - the same one that you believe violates human rights. >I'm not convinced that an optional portable rating system creates a defacto forced system. None of the previous social signals of past work history has created a defacto forced itemization of customer references & testimonials. Yes, you don't have to itemize it any specific way, but you still have to have them and that's the point. >Who is "we"? Are you speaking for the freelancers who _want_ their portable ratings? Do you think the Chinese should stand against Social Credit? What about the ones who want it? >Do you believe a carpenter should delete "customer testimonials and references" from his website because if he leaves it there, it makes it unfair for the other carpenters who don't have customer testimonials? No because testimonials aren't held across all time, in the current system I can start over. My problem with both rating systems is twofold. (1) the idea that it erases a right to be forgotten and (2) that people will be coerced into the system.

jasode 9y ago
> Certain individuals in the US want this, [...], yet you see one as a human rights abuse Because the "want" is coupled with the involuntary conscription of those who don't want it. That's not just an academic difference. That some in China "want" it is almost irrelevant since China's government is implementing it anyway. >you're not going to use the freelance carpenter that doesn't have at least a few of those things right? In fact, basically (or completely) no one will. But like I tried to emphasize earlier, this does _not_ actually happen in reality. People still get hired all the time _without_ those customer histories. It truly is optional. >livelihood depends on having a few testimonials or endorsements. [...] , but you still have to have them and that's the point. And my point is that you do not have to have them. Otherwise, you'd have an infinite regress contradiction of nobody being hired because every carpenter at some point had zero customer history of testimonials. Carpenters eventually grow old and die which would leave us with new carpenters with no customer history. Nobody hires them, and therefore, nothing gets built. Obviously, if that apocalypse hasn't happened, it means real customers do in fact constantly hire carpenters without any testimonials. (Heck, most carpenters probably don't even have websites.) In other words, the subset of carpenters that went the extra mile to place testimonials on their webpage did not drive other carpenters out of work. Likewise, people might hypothesize that influential contractor websites like AngiesList would make contractors _not_ on that platform unable to get jobs. But their prediction would be wrong because that didn't happen. Lots of contractors ignore that platform even though AngiesList has had 22 years of existence and market penetration. Same optionality will happen with freelancer ratings. The China system frightens me. The freelancer ratings do not. If anything, the more likely scenario is that the decentralized freelancer ratings will be ignored because too many bad actors will figure out how to create fake ratings from fake customers. Having a decentralized rating might be even be a negative signal: Customers would think that "only the scammers" would bother to prominently display their decentralized freelancer rating. This is similar to BBB Better Business Bureau "A" rating prominently displayed by many dubious and unethical companies. The BBB "seal of approval" becomes a joke. The China social credit scoring is harder to ignore because it's centrally controlled and administered and everybody is involuntarily included instead of a voluntary subset like gig contractors. This makes a profound difference. >No because testimonials aren't held across all time, Does that mean you would be against contractors placing positive customer testimonials into an immutable blockchain? >My problem with both rating systems is twofold. (1) the idea that it erases a right to be forgotten I don't know all the details but presumably, the decentralized ratings would be an opt-in system. If a contractor wants to be "forgotten", just ignore it and don't create a profile on it. Same as if he ignores other decentralized systems such as Diaspora. >and (2) that people will be coerced into the system. I see no evidence that this will happen for contractors. History has shown that some contractors do "extra credit" to make them stand above the crowd and yet the majority of their peers will still not be (socially) pressured to emulate them. I also see no evidence that buyers of freelance work (such as homeowners en masse) converge to an ultimatum of only hiring contractors that emulate the contractors that advertise their customer histories.

jasode 9y ago

> Certain individuals in the US want this, [...], yet you see one as a human rights abuse Because the "want" is coupled with the involuntary conscription of those who don't want it. That's not just an academic difference. That some in China "want" it is almost irrelevant since China's government is implementing it anyway. >you're not going to use the freelance carpenter that doesn't have at least a few of those things right? In fact, basically (or completely) no one will. But like I tried to emphasize earlier, this does _not_ actually happen in reality. People still get hired all the time _without_ those customer histories. It truly is optional. >livelihood depends on having a few testimonials or endorsements. [...] , but you still have to have them and that's the point. And my point is that you do not have to have them. Otherwise, you'd have an infinite regress contradiction of nobody being hired because every carpenter at some point had zero customer history of testimonials. Carpenters eventually grow old and die which would leave us with new carpenters with no customer history. Nobody hires them, and therefore, nothing gets built. Obviously, if that apocalypse hasn't happened, it means real customers do in fact constantly hire carpenters without any testimonials. (Heck, most carpenters probably don't even have websites.) In other words, the subset of carpenters that went the extra mile to place testimonials on their webpage did not drive other carpenters out of work. Likewise, people might hypothesize that influential contractor websites like AngiesList would make contractors _not_ on that platform unable to get jobs. But their prediction would be wrong because that didn't happen. Lots of contractors ignore that platform even though AngiesList has had 22 years of existence and market penetration. Same optionality will happen with freelancer ratings. The China system frightens me. The freelancer ratings do not. If anything, the more likely scenario is that the decentralized freelancer ratings will be ignored because too many bad actors will figure out how to create fake ratings from fake customers. Having a decentralized rating might be even be a negative signal: Customers would think that "only the scammers" would bother to prominently display their decentralized freelancer rating. This is similar to BBB Better Business Bureau "A" rating prominently displayed by many dubious and unethical companies. The BBB "seal of approval" becomes a joke. The China social credit scoring is harder to ignore because it's centrally controlled and administered and everybody is involuntarily included instead of a voluntary subset like gig contractors. This makes a profound difference. >No because testimonials aren't held across all time, Does that mean you would be against contractors placing positive customer testimonials into an immutable blockchain? >My problem with both rating systems is twofold. (1) the idea that it erases a right to be forgotten I don't know all the details but presumably, the decentralized ratings would be an opt-in system. If a contractor wants to be "forgotten", just ignore it and don't create a profile on it. Same as if he ignores other decentralized systems such as Diaspora. >and (2) that people will be coerced into the system. I see no evidence that this will happen for contractors. History has shown that some contractors do "extra credit" to make them stand above the crowd and yet the majority of their peers will still not be (socially) pressured to emulate them. I also see no evidence that buyers of freelance work (such as homeowners en masse) converge to an ultimatum of only hiring contractors that emulate the contractors that advertise their customer histories.