12 ms·

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 ;

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 8y ago
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.
- adrianN 8y ago
  I'm sure you could also argue that it's easy to have a good score in China's system. Just be a good citizen.
- sailfast 8y ago
  We have killed our own citizens. If they are abroad they have been hit without due process in drone strikes. (See Awlaki et al) No love lost for the man, but labeling something OK because someone is said to be a “terrorist” (when that label has been applied without due process) is the equivalent of avoiding due process which must be afforded to all citizens. When excepted under narrow circumstances for convenience, you are paving the way to generally ignoring due process.
- sjg007 8y ago
  The US does kill its citizens. There's a few terrorists who were US citizens when they were killed by drone strikes. https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-killed-us-drone-strike https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-kil...
  - skrebbel 8y ago
    Uh, and the death penalty.
    - Just_Smith 8y ago
      I'm not an advocate of the death penalty, but there's quite of bit of due process between an American citizen and the death penalty. Killing in the absence of due process, as with drone strikes on rogue US citizens, is significantly worse and is extremely problematic for the long-term.
    - bitexploder 8y ago
      That is a good point. I was thinking from a national security context. I know we have done it a few times, but I would like to believe those examples are isolated and extreme. Death penalty is another thing. It has so many problems with it and is a stain on our society in my opinion.
- xtian 8y ago
  > 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. The parts of this that are comprehensible are either baseless or ill-informed assertions.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    Argh, yeah. Phone typing. Try: In a post Enlightenment society, with everyone having certain unalienable rights, they deserve due process, but....
- robin_reala 8y ago
  I believe the US still has capital punishment, which absolutely is killing your own citizens.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    Not secret. And a stain on our society in my opinion.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Secret kill lists are for terrorits Or so they say. In any case, it's a single country deciding, and that any some ad hoc committee, without a public due process, and targeting people residing on sovereign states. And of course often killing 10-20 nearby people as well, up to 130 for a strike on a wedding: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/death-toll-from-air-strike-on-yemen-wedding-party-rises-above-130-medics-idUSKCN0RT0XT20150929?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/death-toll...
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    Yes, there are examples like this. Collateral damage will happen in war. It is tragic and always will be, and I say that with all sincerity. National security has always been thus and always will be so until there is no such thing as a nation.
    - kazagistar 8y ago
      There is collateral damage in china's war against its terrorists, and I'm sure they justify it the same. It's bullshit, when you are making up a foreverwar.
      - bitexploder 8y ago
        Terrorism kind of is a foreverwar. Restraint can be exercised. I am not afraid of terrorism and I won’t give up freedom to fight it, but, I am an outlier among liberals in how I view the application of violence. Let’s just say I disagree with Chomsky and pacifism. Until there is evidence we live in a better world than the one we have now. It’s also important to not lose sight of the scale of the violence in the world. The worst day in the battle of the Somme was 10 times bloodier than the entire Iraq war. We have the luxury of carefully scrutinizing much of what goes on in the world but news does not convey the decreasing scale of violence in our armed conflicts. They will slowly wind down. I won’t disagree at least some of what we are taking about are 1984esque war is peace propaganda, but there are also genuine bad actors in the world and they are only emboldened by a lack of action. I have a lot of concerns about violence in the world, and the US role in it, but I am not so cynical to reduce the war on terror to “bullshit”. Expansion of executive power under Bush is and was troubling. I have to believe that guys like Obama genuinely acted with high moral character and only made the choices they made because it was the obvious moral choice for our national interests. Maybe not, I admit you could be right and it could all be bullshit.
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  > The credit system is a pain, but it is also very simple to have good credit. If you’re rich.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    But if you're not rich, "You're just Lazy". Because everyone who isn't a millionaire, is just an embarrassed pre-millionaire.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    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.
  - refurb 8y ago
    I know plenty of poor people with good credit scores. So you’re statement isn’t true at all.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    It's easy to have bad credit while being rich, and good credit while being poor. The question is how much reasonable debt do you take on and service according to the contract? And that has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are.
- will_brown 8y ago
  >Secret kill lists are for terrorits. We don’t kill our own citizens. What we do know is the Us has made multiple drone strikes targeting a US citizen and ultimately killed a US citizen. Two you can’t know how many other citizens are on the kill list, that is the nature of secret kills lists. Three we don’t even know the standard the government uses to label someone a terrorist (us citizen or not) for purposes of the kill list, because the US Supreme Court said we aren’t entitled to know. And as to the credit...as I said the majority have good credit and love to think they earned that credit and like the permenant underclass of people who have bad credit can’t get jobs, housing, etc... Trust me the majority of people in China will have good social credit and say the same things as you...it’s easy to have good social credit, it’s not dystopian it’s helpful. History suggests people have a great love for societal hierarchies.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    Except credit rating isn’t about hierarchy. It is two things (1) pay bills on time — service debt reliably (2) negotiate with creditors when you can’t. People get bad credit because they acquire debt and then fail to service it and think ignoring creditors is the way to go. You can still smoke cigarettes and buy all the video games you want. Just pay your bills.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      >People get bad credit because they acquire debt and then fail to service it and think ignoring creditors is the way to go. Or they are born poor and don’t have access to credit. Thus have limited access to jobs and housing. That continues to prevent them from establishing credit and keeps poor people poor. Also there are plenty of studies showing credit scores in fact are inheriently biased against minorities. “Just Pay Your Bill”. Exactly as I said the majority loves it, and the majority in China will love it to and say “Just be a good citizen”. Edit: I realized I’m talking about the dystopia of using credit to limit ones ability to get a job and housing, and you’re talking about ability to buy cigarettes and video games.
- lightedman 8y ago
  "We don’t kill our own citizens." Never heard of the MOVE Row House bombing where Philadelphia police literally helicopter-bombed the place and killed 5 children? Waco Massacre where the FBI killed over 20 children? Where have you been living? Under a rock?
- gumby 8y ago
  > Secret no fly lists: impact a very small slice of the population. ... Secret kill lists are for terrorists How can you know if they are secret? And it’s pretty cavalier to say “impact a small slice” — it’s a bit deal if you’re part of that small slice, fair or not.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    They have published the size of the list periodically as well as the budget to maintain it. There are something like 40-60k names in it and only about 1000 “US persons”.
- xenomachina 8y ago
  > The credit system is a pain, but it is also very simple to have good credit. When I first moved to the US it was not possible for me to have any (US) credit. I had good credit in Canada, but that was mostly by accident (I had a credit card that I rarely used -- I didn't really need one in university) and it turns out that Canadian credit doesn't translate into US credit.
sailfast 8y ago
Credit ratings in the United States are not controlled by the government, and you have recourse if your rating is hit for no reason. Comparing the two systems together makes some sense as there are material impacts in both cases, but to say credit ratings are even close to this is to miss a pretty critical distinction. As for no-fly: agreed that is a stain on our democracy.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Credit ratings in the United States are not controlled by the government So there's also no democratic control on them?
  - sailfast 8y ago
    There is always the ability to control private enterprise when enough of a consensus is established. In this case, credit reporting is regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act which provides a number of guidelines as well as a dispute process, access to your report for free, etc. I would argue that is democratic control to an extent that the people’s representatives have chosen to regulate the industry to that extent, yes.
  - dd36 8y ago
    Fair Credit Reporting Act.
- lentil_soup 8y ago
  Since they're not controlled by the government then they are controlled by the market, as in, private companies. Not sure that's better, you could argue with a government controlled one you still have "some" rights and due process, with a private one there's not much you can do if they decide to give you a bad rating. I rather have none, to be honest.
  - sailfast 8y ago
    First, you do have rights under existing regulation and in a court of law. Second, I’m really not sure what the lending landscape looks like if you don’t have these ratings. (Not saying better or worse, just not sure) I guess if you want to go tell every lender your life story and get your own individual interest rate and negotiate it all yourself then feel free? Numbers tend to free up liquidity because it creates a relatively well understood framework that banks can hedge and lend on. This enables speed as well as more lending. I’m not a huge fan of the consolidation of ratings agencies but I do like the speed and available credit these scores enable.
rubyfan 8y ago
The scale, scope and logical extent of these systems are not even comparable.
- izacus 8y ago
  No, the American system reaches and hurts more people, including Europeans and other Asians.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago
  Yes, for one, one exists for decades, the other is just on paper atm...
lifeformed 8y ago
I can't believe people keep equating these two systems. While there are similarities, one is a financial rating and the other is a social rating. The credit system has a lot of issues but it just does what it says on the tin, measuring the same credit card metrics, and had been around for a while without much change. The social rating system seeps into every aspect of a person's life and had no limits for expansion. It's a tool ripe for abuse and political control. Think of all the gamification bullshit we've dealt with, and realize that it's now going to be deployed on a massive scale to shape the behaviors, incentives, and punishments of the whole populace, wielded by a government known to persecute subsets of it. And I'm sure it's going to be used for some good. There will be a lot of good results that's come of it, and that will be its selling point. But it undoubtedly will also be used to suppress specific ideas and people. It will be a massively effective too for that. Think of the coded racism used in the Southern Strategy in US politics as explained by Lee Atwater. By abstracting away everything and converting it to whatever statistics you want, you have total plausible deniability over any targeted oppression you want.
- will_brown 8y ago
  >I can't believe people keep equating these two systems. You want to work here? We are going to have to check your credit! Which system is it? You’re born poor and apply for your first job, a nice government job with nice government benefits, but can’t get it because you don’t have any credit established. Hell youre poor, forget credit you can’t even open a bank account, go apply for a minimum wage job, then head to the check cashing/cash advance store. Look at social mobility in this country, pretty sure it’s the lowest of all first world economies, it’s pretty dystopian.
  - Just_Smith 8y ago
    I'm a bit surprised that people in this thread don't seem to understand the parallels between social and economic status. It's not some grand revelation either - it's pretty much common knowledge. There's obviously a distinct difference between these two systems, but to say "China's social credit system has nothing in common with America's financial credit system" is pretty ignorant to how important having good credit is to being successful in America.
simonh 8y ago
The moment I saw the headline I just knew there’d be a “it’s just as bad over here” post in the thread somewhere. Thanks for not disappointing me. There are different ways to approach this though. There’s “what China is doing is no big deal, we do it all as well so why are we hypocritically making a fuss?”. Then there’s “this is appalling and should be condemned absolutely, but let’s be careful here because we’re already exposed to some problems like this ourselves”.
- will_brown 8y ago
  Well in general yes, these types of articles will have comments for, against and comparative in nature. Not to burst your bubble, but I don’t think my comment is saying it’s just as bad here, only encouragement to do a comparative analysis of the two systems. Maybe one is worse/better in terms of scale but dystopian systems are dystopian systems notwithstanding the scale. Anyway you are obviously entitled to your opinion about my comment, but help me understand how you came to the conclusion my comment is “it’s worse here?”
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    I read your comment the same way: lazy whataboutism to handwave human rights abuses because “we’re just as bad”. You literally said “it’s just another way to skin the cat”, and implied that we should figure our stuff out before criticism of China here. Fortunately, people with influence don’t share your view, or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Gassing millions of people? Eh, we killed some people in targeted drone strikes, who are we to judge? Ridiculous.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      >... or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Sounds like the same lazy whataboutism...ignoring our own human rights abuses to highlight others? Seems like calling a comparative analysis a lazy whataboutism, while using a whataboutism arguement is intellectually dishonest. But I think your point about gassing people is helpful here, because you are refernicing genocide. Wouldn’t you agree whether Sudan or the Holocaust, both are examples of genocide? That we don’t ignore Sudan simply because the scale isn’t the same, and it’s not whataboutism to discuss both in the context of genocide? I think the same applies to dystopian systems, you either are or aren’t, and scale is a different discussion or arguing better/worse is pretty silly at that point. Bringing one up in the context of the other isn’t whataboutism or handwaiving forgiveness, now if I brought up our system to forgive China’s system, then I think that is fairly called a whataboutism argument. But I think it’s clear I’m calling them both dystopian systems, and didn’t even touch on one being better/worse than the other.
dwild 8y ago
The credit system is there to show you can pay your debt. That's important to show that you can pay back a debt, or else why would anyone would let you have debt to them. You don't need social credit system to prove that you can take a plane. We all can takes a plane, there's no special social skills to takes a plane. This is literally punitive. Inherently Life already have some kind of social credit system that act like our credit system. That's called reputation, or having contacts, or in slang, street's cred. I can't make a call right now to many celebrities, yet someone with enough reputation, wouldn't have trouble getting in contact with some. In a more realistic context, someone that want to become lawyer NEEDS contacts to make it, that's just the way it is, theses contacts are way, like in our credit system, to prove that you know what you are doing and can do more. Works does the same with experience.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
People with bad credit can still get jobs and rent apartments. I rent to tenants with bad credit all the time. It’s just one factor. And I’m guessing that people who are otherwise qualified getting turned down for employment due to bad or no credit is a very rare thing. Regardless, there’s a world of difference in me considering a rental application with bad credit and the government forbidding me to rent to someone, not because of their prior ability to handle credit responsibly, but because they didn’t follow the political wishes of the government in power. I seriously can’t understand how anyone can compare them with a straight face. The credit system (and a lot of other things) in the US is a mess, I agree. Howecer, this rampant whataboutism that’s reflexively thrown out when discussing truly horrific human rights abuses against millions or even hundreds of millions is intellectually bankrupt. It makes me worry that too many of us no longer value our freedoms enough to protect them like we should.
tekknik 8y ago
how does your worthiness to repay a loan equate to a social eating system? your statements seem to say that those with a history of an inability to pay loans back should continue to get loans and screw the originator? also which jobs can you not get because of bad credit? i’ve personally never seen or heard of one

bitexploder 8y ago

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.

adrianN 8y ago
I'm sure you could also argue that it's easy to have a good score in China's system. Just be a good citizen.
sailfast 8y ago
We have killed our own citizens. If they are abroad they have been hit without due process in drone strikes. (See Awlaki et al) No love lost for the man, but labeling something OK because someone is said to be a “terrorist” (when that label has been applied without due process) is the equivalent of avoiding due process which must be afforded to all citizens. When excepted under narrow circumstances for convenience, you are paving the way to generally ignoring due process.
sjg007 8y ago
The US does kill its citizens. There's a few terrorists who were US citizens when they were killed by drone strikes. https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-killed-us-drone-strike https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-kil...
- skrebbel 8y ago
  Uh, and the death penalty.
  - Just_Smith 8y ago
    I'm not an advocate of the death penalty, but there's quite of bit of due process between an American citizen and the death penalty. Killing in the absence of due process, as with drone strikes on rogue US citizens, is significantly worse and is extremely problematic for the long-term.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    That is a good point. I was thinking from a national security context. I know we have done it a few times, but I would like to believe those examples are isolated and extreme. Death penalty is another thing. It has so many problems with it and is a stain on our society in my opinion.
xtian 8y ago
> 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. The parts of this that are comprehensible are either baseless or ill-informed assertions.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  Argh, yeah. Phone typing. Try: In a post Enlightenment society, with everyone having certain unalienable rights, they deserve due process, but....
robin_reala 8y ago
I believe the US still has capital punishment, which absolutely is killing your own citizens.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  Not secret. And a stain on our society in my opinion.
coldtea 8y ago
>Secret kill lists are for terrorits Or so they say. In any case, it's a single country deciding, and that any some ad hoc committee, without a public due process, and targeting people residing on sovereign states. And of course often killing 10-20 nearby people as well, up to 130 for a strike on a wedding: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/death-toll-from-air-strike-on-yemen-wedding-party-rises-above-130-medics-idUSKCN0RT0XT20150929?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/death-toll...
- bitexploder 8y ago
  Yes, there are examples like this. Collateral damage will happen in war. It is tragic and always will be, and I say that with all sincerity. National security has always been thus and always will be so until there is no such thing as a nation.
  - kazagistar 8y ago
    There is collateral damage in china's war against its terrorists, and I'm sure they justify it the same. It's bullshit, when you are making up a foreverwar.
    - bitexploder 8y ago
      Terrorism kind of is a foreverwar. Restraint can be exercised. I am not afraid of terrorism and I won’t give up freedom to fight it, but, I am an outlier among liberals in how I view the application of violence. Let’s just say I disagree with Chomsky and pacifism. Until there is evidence we live in a better world than the one we have now. It’s also important to not lose sight of the scale of the violence in the world. The worst day in the battle of the Somme was 10 times bloodier than the entire Iraq war. We have the luxury of carefully scrutinizing much of what goes on in the world but news does not convey the decreasing scale of violence in our armed conflicts. They will slowly wind down. I won’t disagree at least some of what we are taking about are 1984esque war is peace propaganda, but there are also genuine bad actors in the world and they are only emboldened by a lack of action. I have a lot of concerns about violence in the world, and the US role in it, but I am not so cynical to reduce the war on terror to “bullshit”. Expansion of executive power under Bush is and was troubling. I have to believe that guys like Obama genuinely acted with high moral character and only made the choices they made because it was the obvious moral choice for our national interests. Maybe not, I admit you could be right and it could all be bullshit.
thatfrenchguy 8y ago
> The credit system is a pain, but it is also very simple to have good credit. If you’re rich.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  But if you're not rich, "You're just Lazy". Because everyone who isn't a millionaire, is just an embarrassed pre-millionaire.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  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.
- refurb 8y ago
  I know plenty of poor people with good credit scores. So you’re statement isn’t true at all.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  It's easy to have bad credit while being rich, and good credit while being poor. The question is how much reasonable debt do you take on and service according to the contract? And that has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are.
will_brown 8y ago
>Secret kill lists are for terrorits. We don’t kill our own citizens. What we do know is the Us has made multiple drone strikes targeting a US citizen and ultimately killed a US citizen. Two you can’t know how many other citizens are on the kill list, that is the nature of secret kills lists. Three we don’t even know the standard the government uses to label someone a terrorist (us citizen or not) for purposes of the kill list, because the US Supreme Court said we aren’t entitled to know. And as to the credit...as I said the majority have good credit and love to think they earned that credit and like the permenant underclass of people who have bad credit can’t get jobs, housing, etc... Trust me the majority of people in China will have good social credit and say the same things as you...it’s easy to have good social credit, it’s not dystopian it’s helpful. History suggests people have a great love for societal hierarchies.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  Except credit rating isn’t about hierarchy. It is two things (1) pay bills on time — service debt reliably (2) negotiate with creditors when you can’t. People get bad credit because they acquire debt and then fail to service it and think ignoring creditors is the way to go. You can still smoke cigarettes and buy all the video games you want. Just pay your bills.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    >People get bad credit because they acquire debt and then fail to service it and think ignoring creditors is the way to go. Or they are born poor and don’t have access to credit. Thus have limited access to jobs and housing. That continues to prevent them from establishing credit and keeps poor people poor. Also there are plenty of studies showing credit scores in fact are inheriently biased against minorities. “Just Pay Your Bill”. Exactly as I said the majority loves it, and the majority in China will love it to and say “Just be a good citizen”. Edit: I realized I’m talking about the dystopia of using credit to limit ones ability to get a job and housing, and you’re talking about ability to buy cigarettes and video games.
lightedman 8y ago
"We don’t kill our own citizens." Never heard of the MOVE Row House bombing where Philadelphia police literally helicopter-bombed the place and killed 5 children? Waco Massacre where the FBI killed over 20 children? Where have you been living? Under a rock?
gumby 8y ago
> Secret no fly lists: impact a very small slice of the population. ... Secret kill lists are for terrorists How can you know if they are secret? And it’s pretty cavalier to say “impact a small slice” — it’s a bit deal if you’re part of that small slice, fair or not.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  They have published the size of the list periodically as well as the budget to maintain it. There are something like 40-60k names in it and only about 1000 “US persons”.
xenomachina 8y ago
> The credit system is a pain, but it is also very simple to have good credit. When I first moved to the US it was not possible for me to have any (US) credit. I had good credit in Canada, but that was mostly by accident (I had a credit card that I rarely used -- I didn't really need one in university) and it turns out that Canadian credit doesn't translate into US credit.

sailfast 8y ago

Credit ratings in the United States are not controlled by the government, and you have recourse if your rating is hit for no reason. Comparing the two systems together makes some sense as there are material impacts in both cases, but to say credit ratings are even close to this is to miss a pretty critical distinction. As for no-fly: agreed that is a stain on our democracy.

coldtea 8y ago
>Credit ratings in the United States are not controlled by the government So there's also no democratic control on them?
- sailfast 8y ago
  There is always the ability to control private enterprise when enough of a consensus is established. In this case, credit reporting is regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act which provides a number of guidelines as well as a dispute process, access to your report for free, etc. I would argue that is democratic control to an extent that the people’s representatives have chosen to regulate the industry to that extent, yes.
- dd36 8y ago
  Fair Credit Reporting Act.
lentil_soup 8y ago
Since they're not controlled by the government then they are controlled by the market, as in, private companies. Not sure that's better, you could argue with a government controlled one you still have "some" rights and due process, with a private one there's not much you can do if they decide to give you a bad rating. I rather have none, to be honest.
- sailfast 8y ago
  First, you do have rights under existing regulation and in a court of law. Second, I’m really not sure what the lending landscape looks like if you don’t have these ratings. (Not saying better or worse, just not sure) I guess if you want to go tell every lender your life story and get your own individual interest rate and negotiate it all yourself then feel free? Numbers tend to free up liquidity because it creates a relatively well understood framework that banks can hedge and lend on. This enables speed as well as more lending. I’m not a huge fan of the consolidation of ratings agencies but I do like the speed and available credit these scores enable.

rubyfan 8y ago

The scale, scope and logical extent of these systems are not even comparable.

izacus 8y ago
No, the American system reaches and hurts more people, including Europeans and other Asians.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 8y ago
Yes, for one, one exists for decades, the other is just on paper atm...

lifeformed 8y ago

I can't believe people keep equating these two systems. While there are similarities, one is a financial rating and the other is a social rating. The credit system has a lot of issues but it just does what it says on the tin, measuring the same credit card metrics, and had been around for a while without much change. The social rating system seeps into every aspect of a person's life and had no limits for expansion. It's a tool ripe for abuse and political control. Think of all the gamification bullshit we've dealt with, and realize that it's now going to be deployed on a massive scale to shape the behaviors, incentives, and punishments of the whole populace, wielded by a government known to persecute subsets of it. And I'm sure it's going to be used for some good. There will be a lot of good results that's come of it, and that will be its selling point. But it undoubtedly will also be used to suppress specific ideas and people. It will be a massively effective too for that. Think of the coded racism used in the Southern Strategy in US politics as explained by Lee Atwater. By abstracting away everything and converting it to whatever statistics you want, you have total plausible deniability over any targeted oppression you want.

will_brown 8y ago
>I can't believe people keep equating these two systems. You want to work here? We are going to have to check your credit! Which system is it? You’re born poor and apply for your first job, a nice government job with nice government benefits, but can’t get it because you don’t have any credit established. Hell youre poor, forget credit you can’t even open a bank account, go apply for a minimum wage job, then head to the check cashing/cash advance store. Look at social mobility in this country, pretty sure it’s the lowest of all first world economies, it’s pretty dystopian.
- Just_Smith 8y ago
  I'm a bit surprised that people in this thread don't seem to understand the parallels between social and economic status. It's not some grand revelation either - it's pretty much common knowledge. There's obviously a distinct difference between these two systems, but to say "China's social credit system has nothing in common with America's financial credit system" is pretty ignorant to how important having good credit is to being successful in America.

simonh 8y ago

The moment I saw the headline I just knew there’d be a “it’s just as bad over here” post in the thread somewhere. Thanks for not disappointing me. There are different ways to approach this though. There’s “what China is doing is no big deal, we do it all as well so why are we hypocritically making a fuss?”. Then there’s “this is appalling and should be condemned absolutely, but let’s be careful here because we’re already exposed to some problems like this ourselves”.

will_brown 8y ago
Well in general yes, these types of articles will have comments for, against and comparative in nature. Not to burst your bubble, but I don’t think my comment is saying it’s just as bad here, only encouragement to do a comparative analysis of the two systems. Maybe one is worse/better in terms of scale but dystopian systems are dystopian systems notwithstanding the scale. Anyway you are obviously entitled to your opinion about my comment, but help me understand how you came to the conclusion my comment is “it’s worse here?”
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  I read your comment the same way: lazy whataboutism to handwave human rights abuses because “we’re just as bad”. You literally said “it’s just another way to skin the cat”, and implied that we should figure our stuff out before criticism of China here. Fortunately, people with influence don’t share your view, or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Gassing millions of people? Eh, we killed some people in targeted drone strikes, who are we to judge? Ridiculous.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    >... or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Sounds like the same lazy whataboutism...ignoring our own human rights abuses to highlight others? Seems like calling a comparative analysis a lazy whataboutism, while using a whataboutism arguement is intellectually dishonest. But I think your point about gassing people is helpful here, because you are refernicing genocide. Wouldn’t you agree whether Sudan or the Holocaust, both are examples of genocide? That we don’t ignore Sudan simply because the scale isn’t the same, and it’s not whataboutism to discuss both in the context of genocide? I think the same applies to dystopian systems, you either are or aren’t, and scale is a different discussion or arguing better/worse is pretty silly at that point. Bringing one up in the context of the other isn’t whataboutism or handwaiving forgiveness, now if I brought up our system to forgive China’s system, then I think that is fairly called a whataboutism argument. But I think it’s clear I’m calling them both dystopian systems, and didn’t even touch on one being better/worse than the other.

dwild 8y ago

The credit system is there to show you can pay your debt. That's important to show that you can pay back a debt, or else why would anyone would let you have debt to them. You don't need social credit system to prove that you can take a plane. We all can takes a plane, there's no special social skills to takes a plane. This is literally punitive. Inherently Life already have some kind of social credit system that act like our credit system. That's called reputation, or having contacts, or in slang, street's cred. I can't make a call right now to many celebrities, yet someone with enough reputation, wouldn't have trouble getting in contact with some. In a more realistic context, someone that want to become lawyer NEEDS contacts to make it, that's just the way it is, theses contacts are way, like in our credit system, to prove that you know what you are doing and can do more. Works does the same with experience.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

People with bad credit can still get jobs and rent apartments. I rent to tenants with bad credit all the time. It’s just one factor. And I’m guessing that people who are otherwise qualified getting turned down for employment due to bad or no credit is a very rare thing. Regardless, there’s a world of difference in me considering a rental application with bad credit and the government forbidding me to rent to someone, not because of their prior ability to handle credit responsibly, but because they didn’t follow the political wishes of the government in power. I seriously can’t understand how anyone can compare them with a straight face. The credit system (and a lot of other things) in the US is a mess, I agree. Howecer, this rampant whataboutism that’s reflexively thrown out when discussing truly horrific human rights abuses against millions or even hundreds of millions is intellectually bankrupt. It makes me worry that too many of us no longer value our freedoms enough to protect them like we should.

tekknik 8y ago

how does your worthiness to repay a loan equate to a social eating system? your statements seem to say that those with a history of an inability to pay loans back should continue to get loans and screw the originator? also which jobs can you not get because of bad credit? i’ve personally never seen or heard of one