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Because in really many chinese people cheat. And cheaters are so rampant that people would rather ask Big Brother to step up. China started this national wide

by est 8y ago

Because in really many chinese people cheat. And cheaters are so rampant that people would rather ask Big Brother to step up. China started this national wide 诚信 campaign in 2001, during which time the Chinese society is utter chaos and China promptly joined the WTO. China entered its economic boom, but the ultimate outcome is the social credit system. Highly recommended CCC talk here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18773303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18773303 P.S. I think since western kept bitching about the IP theft problem so much, companies should use the social credit system as a targeted weapon to punish cheaters. It works.

teekert 8y ago
I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? Imho it's like a society where everything is GPL-ed, is it really so wrong? Sure social credit etc are horrible imo but I fail to see that the copying of smart ideas without punishment is inherently wrong. It's non-capitalistic, but inherently wrong? I dont agree with that. Sure, one (sentient individual) should never be forced to share ideas (or anything for that matter, unless one chooses to deny others that right), but to battle that with government granted monopolies... hmm, idk... I feel like we should be a bit more open-minded.
- RandomTisk 8y ago
  Maybe I'm reading "cheating" too literally but I can't imagine any scenario where I would want someone's expertise who copied other's work instead of creating the work themselves. At best I temporarily have a small lead, at worst I'll get sued or kill someone through hiring incompetence.
  - lozenge 8y ago
    Cheating is ingrained into the culture. Two examples: if you visit an ancient building, it will have been rebuilt identically 7-8 times on the same spot (but still be considered the same building). When you were an apprentice craftsman in China, your goal was to make work indistinguishable from the master, at which point you would graduate and start making your own furniture/whatever it was.
- seniorivn 8y ago
  IP theft is not just copying the idea, its stealing of non public documents/prototypes that helps you implement the same product without as much research.
- vbtemp 8y ago
  This soft bigotry against Chinese culture is really tiring already. Chinese culture and people are all over the world: America, southeast Asia, singapore, and so many other places... To think that cheating and IP theft and scams is somehow part of Chinese culture or that these are virtues unqiue to these exotic orientals and we should drop our Western preconceptions is so unbelievably condescending... And how offensive to Chinese people, both in China and overseas, who earn their achievements though their honest and diligent labor, the kind of work we value here too.
  - lnsru 8y ago
    I would say, IP theft and cheating is a communist thing. I was born in Soviet Union. Since the ruling class were the simple workers and not engineers there is no motivation for these to do world class things. The don’t get fame, credits and wealth. So the government must get all advanced technology by stealing. I case of Eastern Germany everything was copied from the West: stolen,reverse engineered and released as domestic product couple years later. Whole industry was 1-2 generations behind free world.
    - vbtemp 8y ago
      Exactly, that's why Chinese culture in places like US, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan,HK, etc etc is generally associated with upper middle class professionalism and honorable success. It was decades communism and the associated violence and very intentional destruction of interpersonal trust that breeds a lot of what we see in mainland China today.
    - mrslave 8y ago
      The out-of-print book East Minus West Equals Zero makes a case for exactly this.
  - teekert 8y ago
    A Thai person once told me they were raising a generation of copiers, when 1 person would start a karaoke bar, the street would be filled with them soon. I also heard stories of Chinese copying entire machines for manufacturers in the west and expecting support on them. I don't understand your reply I'm saying western culture may have strange standards, Or, different at least.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? That is a question most don't ask. They assume the laws they have and the way they go about such laws are what fits every culture -- and every people at every circumstances. And they don't just believe that those laws would be good for those people: they also believe that they can readily and without problems adopt them too, as if it's just a matter of will. Truth is, those laws are not some universal constants, but a result of both inheriting the Greco-Roman culture and Roman legal conceptions, and 2 millennia of iterating on them (and of course Europe itself was divided into islands of elites and peasant chaos up to the times of Hugo and Dickens, and the US of course had the "wild west" frontiers where the rule of law wasn't exactly what is today).
thrwy_01 8y ago
We hear a lot about Chinese cheating, from sat scores to ip theft. I've long wondered - why is cheating endemic in China whereas you don't hear the same complaints about people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; places with large ethnic Chinese populations which should be very similar culturally to mainland China. It seems implausible that the value systems in these places would have so widely diverged in a relatively short amount of time. Or perhaps it is the legal and regulatory environment (or lack thereof) that brings out the worst in people when they know they can get away with it?
- 2stop 8y ago
  > It seems implausible that the value systems in these places would have so widely diverged in a relatively short amount of time. I think you need to read up on modern Chinese history. PRC became communist, then had the cultural revolution... Both of these things had severe consequences on the value systems. And could almost explain 100% of the cultural differences between mainland Chinese and other Chinese ethnic groups.
- threeseed 8y ago
  > which should be very similar culturally to mainland China Why though ? Apart from looking similar they are quite different culturally from mainland China. A lot of which stems from the fact that they were former British colonies and have always taken inspiration from the West.
- hyperion2010 8y ago
  Overly simplistic, but the cultural revolution destroyed an entire set of social norms and many of the people in power in various regions were adolescents who were at the height of their rejection of such norms due to normal human development. Unfortunately that rejection of society that seems so crucial as a teen doesn't actually play out very well in the long run.
- est 8y ago
  > why is cheating endemic in China whereas you don't hear the same complaints about people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; Because cheating is a cultural rather than ethnical thing. There are ethnical Chinese people in those regions you listed, but sure mainland China sailed a totally different cultural course over the last 70 years. In mainland china, cheating mostly happen because of over competition. If you don't cheat, others will and will crush you in business or academic competition. Cheaters go home for chicken dinner while non-cheaters goes to jail.

by est 8y ago

teekert 8y ago

I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? Imho it's like a society where everything is GPL-ed, is it really so wrong? Sure social credit etc are horrible imo but I fail to see that the copying of smart ideas without punishment is inherently wrong. It's non-capitalistic, but inherently wrong? I dont agree with that. Sure, one (sentient individual) should never be forced to share ideas (or anything for that matter, unless one chooses to deny others that right), but to battle that with government granted monopolies... hmm, idk... I feel like we should be a bit more open-minded.

RandomTisk 8y ago
Maybe I'm reading "cheating" too literally but I can't imagine any scenario where I would want someone's expertise who copied other's work instead of creating the work themselves. At best I temporarily have a small lead, at worst I'll get sued or kill someone through hiring incompetence.
- lozenge 8y ago
  Cheating is ingrained into the culture. Two examples: if you visit an ancient building, it will have been rebuilt identically 7-8 times on the same spot (but still be considered the same building). When you were an apprentice craftsman in China, your goal was to make work indistinguishable from the master, at which point you would graduate and start making your own furniture/whatever it was.
seniorivn 8y ago
IP theft is not just copying the idea, its stealing of non public documents/prototypes that helps you implement the same product without as much research.
vbtemp 8y ago
This soft bigotry against Chinese culture is really tiring already. Chinese culture and people are all over the world: America, southeast Asia, singapore, and so many other places... To think that cheating and IP theft and scams is somehow part of Chinese culture or that these are virtues unqiue to these exotic orientals and we should drop our Western preconceptions is so unbelievably condescending... And how offensive to Chinese people, both in China and overseas, who earn their achievements though their honest and diligent labor, the kind of work we value here too.
- lnsru 8y ago
  I would say, IP theft and cheating is a communist thing. I was born in Soviet Union. Since the ruling class were the simple workers and not engineers there is no motivation for these to do world class things. The don’t get fame, credits and wealth. So the government must get all advanced technology by stealing. I case of Eastern Germany everything was copied from the West: stolen,reverse engineered and released as domestic product couple years later. Whole industry was 1-2 generations behind free world.
  - vbtemp 8y ago
    Exactly, that's why Chinese culture in places like US, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan,HK, etc etc is generally associated with upper middle class professionalism and honorable success. It was decades communism and the associated violence and very intentional destruction of interpersonal trust that breeds a lot of what we see in mainland China today.
  - mrslave 8y ago
    The out-of-print book East Minus West Equals Zero makes a case for exactly this.
- teekert 8y ago
  A Thai person once told me they were raising a generation of copiers, when 1 person would start a karaoke bar, the street would be filled with them soon. I also heard stories of Chinese copying entire machines for manufacturers in the west and expecting support on them. I don't understand your reply I'm saying western culture may have strange standards, Or, different at least.
coldtea 8y ago
>I'm certainly no expert but isn't it only cheating by western standards? Wouldn't it be interesting to have a culture that doesn't conform to that standard and see how it fares? That is a question most don't ask. They assume the laws they have and the way they go about such laws are what fits every culture -- and every people at every circumstances. And they don't just believe that those laws would be good for those people: they also believe that they can readily and without problems adopt them too, as if it's just a matter of will. Truth is, those laws are not some universal constants, but a result of both inheriting the Greco-Roman culture and Roman legal conceptions, and 2 millennia of iterating on them (and of course Europe itself was divided into islands of elites and peasant chaos up to the times of Hugo and Dickens, and the US of course had the "wild west" frontiers where the rule of law wasn't exactly what is today).

thrwy_01 8y ago

We hear a lot about Chinese cheating, from sat scores to ip theft. I've long wondered - why is cheating endemic in China whereas you don't hear the same complaints about people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; places with large ethnic Chinese populations which should be very similar culturally to mainland China. It seems implausible that the value systems in these places would have so widely diverged in a relatively short amount of time. Or perhaps it is the legal and regulatory environment (or lack thereof) that brings out the worst in people when they know they can get away with it?

2stop 8y ago
> It seems implausible that the value systems in these places would have so widely diverged in a relatively short amount of time. I think you need to read up on modern Chinese history. PRC became communist, then had the cultural revolution... Both of these things had severe consequences on the value systems. And could almost explain 100% of the cultural differences between mainland Chinese and other Chinese ethnic groups.
threeseed 8y ago
> which should be very similar culturally to mainland China Why though ? Apart from looking similar they are quite different culturally from mainland China. A lot of which stems from the fact that they were former British colonies and have always taken inspiration from the West.
hyperion2010 8y ago
Overly simplistic, but the cultural revolution destroyed an entire set of social norms and many of the people in power in various regions were adolescents who were at the height of their rejection of such norms due to normal human development. Unfortunately that rejection of society that seems so crucial as a teen doesn't actually play out very well in the long run.
est 8y ago
> why is cheating endemic in China whereas you don't hear the same complaints about people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; Because cheating is a cultural rather than ethnical thing. There are ethnical Chinese people in those regions you listed, but sure mainland China sailed a totally different cultural course over the last 70 years. In mainland china, cheating mostly happen because of over competition. If you don't cheat, others will and will crush you in business or academic competition. Cheaters go home for chicken dinner while non-cheaters goes to jail.