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>The report said authorities collected more than 14m data points of “untrustworthy conduct” last year, including scams, unpaid loans, false advertising and occu

by dTal 8y ago

>The report said authorities collected more than 14m data points of “untrustworthy conduct” last year, including scams, unpaid loans, false advertising and occupying reserved seats on a train. That all sounded reasonable until the last one. Textbook "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking". https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJa...

PakG1 8y ago
To be fair, getting punished to be unable to take trains for misbehaving on trains. If the seats are packed in a car and some douche is sitting in your seat and won't get up, and you're stuck standing for a few hours, I think you'd want some justice. That being said, a fine is probably a punishment that would make much more sense. More revenue for the government too.
- devoply 8y ago
  Yes a no-fly list that you can't do anything about is fascist and totalitarian. We in the free countries, ah never mind.
  - jimmy1 8y ago
    Ah, but we can do something about it. We have something in America called "due process" so gather enough people around and force the FBI to fix their woefully inadequate form. The ACLU is doing just that in the mean time. "But why was it instituted in the first place?" Good question. People do things they aren't suppose to do in the first place all the time! But we can do something about it.
  - dTal 8y ago
    You're right, the no-fly list is extra-judicial and a violation of civil liberties, unconstitutional even. But let's not engage in a false equivalence here - the no-fly list has maybe 100,000 people on it[1], of which supposedly fewer than 1000 are American citizens, added over the course of nearly two decades. The Chinese list has 23 million of their own citizens, added over the course of a single year. [1] recent sources are hard to find, and the list apparently grows rather fast - I'm going off https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/fbi-no-fly-list-revealed-81k-names-fewer-1k-us/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/fbi-no-fly-...
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      Even one person on the list that hasn't been found guilty of a crime is too many.
    - martin_a 8y ago
      > has maybe 100,000 people on it, of which supposedly fewer than 1000 are American citizens Your mindset is part of the problem. It's not about "them" or "us", about "American" or "Chinese", it's about the list itself and using systems like that. China just seems to be more ruthless about using things like this, but in the end, there are enough more or less totalitarian systems which would love to have lists and procedures like this.
      - arcturus17 8y ago
        The poster you’re replying to is saying that the no-fly list is bad, but that there are degrees of bad - the scales he exposes speak for themselves. It’s almost like you didn’t answer to their point at all.
        majewsky 8y ago
        Grandparent's argument is that scales are irrelevant when talking about human rights. Similar positions have in the past been held e.g. by the German supreme court: In a landmark ruling, it barred authorities from shooting down planes with terrorists. The department of defense argued that shooting down a plane that is headed e.g. towards a stadium would save many more people compared to the number of civilians killed. The court dismissed that opinion, arguging that killing civilians is just something you ought not do. I think it's the same here: When you deny even just one person a fair trail, you're setting a dangerous precedent that can and will be expanded upon.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Fighting whataboutism with whataboutism, interesting approach.
  - simonh 8y ago
    We have to look at the system as a whole. US No Fly lists have been repeatedly challenged successfully in court, so at least people have a remedy. This is 23 million people who have no legal recourse.
    - devoply 8y ago
      Being challenged in court which literally costs thousands of dollars, takes a significant amount of time and only in a small number of cases effects a single individual, is not a real remedy.
      - simonh 8y ago
        The criteria and methodologies used have been litigated and also been changed due to political pressure, public pressure and in response to criticisms from within government such as the Government Accountability Office. The Chinese system has already applied draconian restrictions to about 2% of the Chinese population. The no fly lists affect roughly four ten thousandths of a percent of the US citizenry. These are not equivalent.
- dTal 8y ago
  When this has happened to me, I've never had anyone outright refuse to move. I have also found myself accidentally in other people's reserved seats, and have moved when politely asked. I imagine that in the event of a refusal to move, you'd take it to the conductor, who I assume has the power to fine, forcibly move, or eject people (backed by the power of the police). You certainly wouldn't suck it up and stand for hours. Just seems like something a civil society can deal with quite easily without resorting to black marks on people's "permanent record" (which in this case seems to be functioning as a kind of parallel judicial system).
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    > Just seems like something a civil society can deal with quite easily without resorting to black marks on people's "permanent record" (which in this case seems to be functioning as a kind of parallel judicial system). Exactly. I never had issues that could not have been easily resolved. Most people where I live is very careful about not being a douche, despite not having to fear that the Government will punish them.
    - echaozh 8y ago
      First, refusing to leave the reserved seat has happened, and more than once in China. Secondly, the punishment is not by the government, but by the train company. When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry. So it's not a conspiracy of the government to "tame" the people. Perhaps you can say the people were "silly" to summon such rules unto themselves. Just like how the American people voted Trump onto the throne.
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        > First, refusing to leave the reserved seat has happened, and more than once in China I am not saying it did not happen in China. I was talking about my country. I cannot remember anyone not giving me my reserved seat, nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening here to anyone, where "here" is not China. This is my experience, and I believe we are sharing experiences. > Secondly, the punishment is not by the government, but by the train company. Train companies are owned by the state, but private businesses also have to have a CCP committee and respond to the instructions of the party, so either directly or indirectly, yes, it is coming from the Government, the government that developed the Social Credit System. > When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry. Are you talking about Chinese people? Because this certainly does not hold true for the people in my country. Even if it does, it is not indicative of anything. People say all sorts of crap over the Internet that they do not mean, do not do or say in real life. Take a look at the comment section of videos where someone is handling an animal improperly due to sheer ignorance. Most of the commentators will say they want to kill that person in the video and so on and so on. Anyway, the point is that my country has very different values or culture. China goes so much further with the human search engine, where they will post images of people publicly and people will go out of their way to identify them, hunt them down, etc. It is not about public shaming anymore like it is the case here. https://youtu.be/hWwehE88XjI https://youtu.be/hWwehE88XjI
- SimpleMinds 8y ago
  I kind of agree with a harsh, strict punishment for the "crime" like this in country where train travel is abundant and often very crowded. There are many people who would be willing to pay the fine on top of the price of the standing ticket (the sitting ones are sometimes very very, very hard to get), while not being able to use trains again would definitely stop people from having an attitude of "I have money and you cannot do anything to me"
  - levosmetalo 8y ago
    In Germany this is solved in a different way. Many punishment don't have a fixed price, but use Tagessatz as a base which is an equivalent of the daily income for the person. In the end, everyone is hurt the same, regardless of the income. There was a famous case few years ago that one famous football player paid half a million euro fee for driving without a license. I guess introducing similar system would be more fair than going to this drastic measure like not allowing to ride a train forever and ever more.
    - SimpleMinds 8y ago
      I agree but for that to work you would have to first ensure that everyone is reporting their income accurately. I believe that right now there is still a lot of grey zone and until that phase is sorted, the Tagessatz wouldn't work. That's why the temporary solution of banning people makes sense to me.
      - Faark 8y ago
        Isn't a mayor part of not reporting income to make sure officials don't take a closer look into your case? Having a judge see you don't have income while living a lavish live is probably the last they want...
  - maxhedrome 8y ago
    Found the Chinese government poster.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  > To be fair, getting punished to be unable to take trains for misbehaving on trains. If the seats are packed in a car and some douche is sitting in your seat and won't get up, and you're stuck standing for a few hours, I think you'd want some justice. Yes, but it would be up to him for that to decide (to have that person punished), not someone else on his behalf. Which I believe is very important.
- NicoJuicy 8y ago
  In Belgium, People who can't sit may go sit in first class. ( Train)
- entity345 8y ago
  They don't necessarily ban you from trains outright but ban you from the comfortable trains (the article mentions high-speed trains). A lot of these punishments seem targeted at the middle class and business people by forcing them to go down a peg or two if they don't abide by the rules. It's making them lose face, which is something very important in China.
  - echaozh 8y ago
    Not high-speed trains, more like first class seats in the trains. Most of the people in the list refused to pay back debts, even though they got enough assets. If the people are actually too poor to pay, they should not be able to afford the first class seats anyway. That's the logic behind the rules.
duxup 8y ago
It is probabbly a populist kinda appeal. "Those freeloaders don't know how to behave and they ruin it for the rest of us so I'm going to make them pay!"
EastToWest 8y ago
There were one or two high profile cases in which the occupiers refused to give way and their behaviour flaunted the rules badly. The conductor or police didn't take action. I'm not sure if they didn't have the power or simply didn't want to use force. Videos were posted online and became viral. Anyway, this is the background information for the last one. IIRC the travel ban doesn't last forever. It expires after some time or after you have taken remedy. But I haven't checked.
shaobo 8y ago
The last one almost certainly refers to "forcibly occupying reserved seats" instead of doing it accidentally. For example, this incident, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/share_p.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/...
- leereeves 8y ago
  Perhaps, but according to CBS, jaywalking is itself on the list of offenses. As is "buying too many video games". https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-keeps-a-critical-eye-on-everyday-behavior-even-jaywalking-2018-04-24/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-kee...
  - shaobo 8y ago
    Like most articles on social credit, it is mistaking a bunch of separate things as a single unified system. from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-credit-laboratory/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci... "The public blacklist has been incorporated by another incarnation of the social credit system — Zhima Credit, a service of the mobile payment provider Alipay. China has a huge mobile payment market, with transactions totaling $5.5 trillion in 2016, compared with $112 billion in the United States. Alipay, owned by Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay dominate the still-growing Chinese market. Zhima Credit is an optional service embedded in Alipay that calculates users’ personal credit based on data such as spending history, friends on Alipay’s social network, and other types of consumer behavior. Zhima Credit’s technology director controversially told the Chinese magazine Caixin in 2015 that buying diapers, for example, would be considered “responsible” behavior, while playing video games for hours could be counted against you. Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."
- dTal 8y ago
  That's a strange incident... the man had a reserved seat. He appears to have been so drunk he couldn't move. Why did the woman not just sit in his seat? Was it the principle? The vitriol of the Weibo comments, if they are genuine, suggest that some very important social contract was broken. But it just doesn't seem like a very big deal to me, especially since it appears that there were guards available to move him and they (sensibly in my view) chose not to.
sametmax 8y ago
"More minor violations include using expired tickets, smoking on a train or not walking a dog on a leash." Now imagine the power of cops in such a state. They can destroy your life with little effort, espacially since restrictions of your life will probably snowball into more offences. E.G: how do you pay your taxe if you can't move to get a job ? I don't doubt corruption is part of the program, but nobody is going to take down a cop at the risk of having 10 of his friends following every one of your step for the next month.
- changchuming 8y ago
  Police in China are way too soft so this is not necessarily a bad thing. They get bullied by civilians all the time.
singlow 8y ago
What about people with flabby hands and irritating laughs?
deogeo 8y ago
Is restricting a persons ability to travel due to their inability to pay back a loan really reasonable? Isn't it one short step removed from debtor's prison? That's before we get into the whole lack of due process..
- dwild 8y ago
  > Is restricting a persons ability to travel due to their inability to pay back a loan really reasonable? Yeah it's weird because I think the one about reserved seat is more reasonable than the others ones. It's bad, but at least it's related to your capacity to take the train. Just like it's reasonable for someone with unpaid loan to be unable to takes more loans. It's when you bring unrelated things than it become punishment instead.
jjcc 8y ago
just give you some context: All bullet trains sell some tickets without seats. The price is the same as normal seat ticket but only for busy time like holiday season. Most time trains are not fully loaded so usually there are no dispute for seat being occupied. There were a couple of incidents video uploaded on to Chinese social media that some bullet train travellers sat on the seat belong to others who purchased seat tickets. In both cases the owners of the seats asked the train attendants to arbitrate.However train attendants are all females with no law enforcement authority. Both bullies (one male, the other female in separate incidents) finally ended up with no consequences at the time. The videos got viral and caused public outrage. Under the pressure, the train company announced the the punishment of half year ban . That means within 6 months these 2 people have to travel with bus services like greyhound, or maybe with unpopular normal green trains like those in US and Canada. (I don't believe US and Canada have bullet trains) I'm sure there are many such incidents happened in busy time but those 2 were captured by smart phone then uploaded to social media. Then the identities of bullies were discovered by those who recognized them and spread to public along with all other information which cause much more trouble than half year ban of bullet train. Where were the policemen? Bullet train don't have police. Victims have to wait to next station if they really want police involved. Nobody bother to waste time for those small civil dispute. Only thing they want to do is put the video on internet. That's why there's a ban on not following the rule that yield the seats belonging to others

by dTal 8y ago

PakG1 8y ago

To be fair, getting punished to be unable to take trains for misbehaving on trains. If the seats are packed in a car and some douche is sitting in your seat and won't get up, and you're stuck standing for a few hours, I think you'd want some justice. That being said, a fine is probably a punishment that would make much more sense. More revenue for the government too.

devoply 8y ago
Yes a no-fly list that you can't do anything about is fascist and totalitarian. We in the free countries, ah never mind.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  Ah, but we can do something about it. We have something in America called "due process" so gather enough people around and force the FBI to fix their woefully inadequate form. The ACLU is doing just that in the mean time. "But why was it instituted in the first place?" Good question. People do things they aren't suppose to do in the first place all the time! But we can do something about it.
- dTal 8y ago
  You're right, the no-fly list is extra-judicial and a violation of civil liberties, unconstitutional even. But let's not engage in a false equivalence here - the no-fly list has maybe 100,000 people on it[1], of which supposedly fewer than 1000 are American citizens, added over the course of nearly two decades. The Chinese list has 23 million of their own citizens, added over the course of a single year. [1] recent sources are hard to find, and the list apparently grows rather fast - I'm going off https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/fbi-no-fly-list-revealed-81k-names-fewer-1k-us/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/fbi-no-fly-...
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    Even one person on the list that hasn't been found guilty of a crime is too many.
  - martin_a 8y ago
    > has maybe 100,000 people on it, of which supposedly fewer than 1000 are American citizens Your mindset is part of the problem. It's not about "them" or "us", about "American" or "Chinese", it's about the list itself and using systems like that. China just seems to be more ruthless about using things like this, but in the end, there are enough more or less totalitarian systems which would love to have lists and procedures like this.
    - arcturus17 8y ago
      The poster you’re replying to is saying that the no-fly list is bad, but that there are degrees of bad - the scales he exposes speak for themselves. It’s almost like you didn’t answer to their point at all.
      - majewsky 8y ago
        Grandparent's argument is that scales are irrelevant when talking about human rights. Similar positions have in the past been held e.g. by the German supreme court: In a landmark ruling, it barred authorities from shooting down planes with terrorists. The department of defense argued that shooting down a plane that is headed e.g. towards a stadium would save many more people compared to the number of civilians killed. The court dismissed that opinion, arguging that killing civilians is just something you ought not do. I think it's the same here: When you deny even just one person a fair trail, you're setting a dangerous precedent that can and will be expanded upon.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Fighting whataboutism with whataboutism, interesting approach.
- simonh 8y ago
  We have to look at the system as a whole. US No Fly lists have been repeatedly challenged successfully in court, so at least people have a remedy. This is 23 million people who have no legal recourse.
  - devoply 8y ago
    Being challenged in court which literally costs thousands of dollars, takes a significant amount of time and only in a small number of cases effects a single individual, is not a real remedy.
    - simonh 8y ago
      The criteria and methodologies used have been litigated and also been changed due to political pressure, public pressure and in response to criticisms from within government such as the Government Accountability Office. The Chinese system has already applied draconian restrictions to about 2% of the Chinese population. The no fly lists affect roughly four ten thousandths of a percent of the US citizenry. These are not equivalent.
dTal 8y ago
When this has happened to me, I've never had anyone outright refuse to move. I have also found myself accidentally in other people's reserved seats, and have moved when politely asked. I imagine that in the event of a refusal to move, you'd take it to the conductor, who I assume has the power to fine, forcibly move, or eject people (backed by the power of the police). You certainly wouldn't suck it up and stand for hours. Just seems like something a civil society can deal with quite easily without resorting to black marks on people's "permanent record" (which in this case seems to be functioning as a kind of parallel judicial system).
- johnisgood 8y ago
  > Just seems like something a civil society can deal with quite easily without resorting to black marks on people's "permanent record" (which in this case seems to be functioning as a kind of parallel judicial system). Exactly. I never had issues that could not have been easily resolved. Most people where I live is very careful about not being a douche, despite not having to fear that the Government will punish them.
  - echaozh 8y ago
    First, refusing to leave the reserved seat has happened, and more than once in China. Secondly, the punishment is not by the government, but by the train company. When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry. So it's not a conspiracy of the government to "tame" the people. Perhaps you can say the people were "silly" to summon such rules unto themselves. Just like how the American people voted Trump onto the throne.
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      > First, refusing to leave the reserved seat has happened, and more than once in China I am not saying it did not happen in China. I was talking about my country. I cannot remember anyone not giving me my reserved seat, nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening here to anyone, where "here" is not China. This is my experience, and I believe we are sharing experiences. > Secondly, the punishment is not by the government, but by the train company. Train companies are owned by the state, but private businesses also have to have a CCP committee and respond to the instructions of the party, so either directly or indirectly, yes, it is coming from the Government, the government that developed the Social Credit System. > When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry. Are you talking about Chinese people? Because this certainly does not hold true for the people in my country. Even if it does, it is not indicative of anything. People say all sorts of crap over the Internet that they do not mean, do not do or say in real life. Take a look at the comment section of videos where someone is handling an animal improperly due to sheer ignorance. Most of the commentators will say they want to kill that person in the video and so on and so on. Anyway, the point is that my country has very different values or culture. China goes so much further with the human search engine, where they will post images of people publicly and people will go out of their way to identify them, hunt them down, etc. It is not about public shaming anymore like it is the case here. https://youtu.be/hWwehE88XjI https://youtu.be/hWwehE88XjI
SimpleMinds 8y ago
I kind of agree with a harsh, strict punishment for the "crime" like this in country where train travel is abundant and often very crowded. There are many people who would be willing to pay the fine on top of the price of the standing ticket (the sitting ones are sometimes very very, very hard to get), while not being able to use trains again would definitely stop people from having an attitude of "I have money and you cannot do anything to me"
- levosmetalo 8y ago
  In Germany this is solved in a different way. Many punishment don't have a fixed price, but use Tagessatz as a base which is an equivalent of the daily income for the person. In the end, everyone is hurt the same, regardless of the income. There was a famous case few years ago that one famous football player paid half a million euro fee for driving without a license. I guess introducing similar system would be more fair than going to this drastic measure like not allowing to ride a train forever and ever more.
  - SimpleMinds 8y ago
    I agree but for that to work you would have to first ensure that everyone is reporting their income accurately. I believe that right now there is still a lot of grey zone and until that phase is sorted, the Tagessatz wouldn't work. That's why the temporary solution of banning people makes sense to me.
    - Faark 8y ago
      Isn't a mayor part of not reporting income to make sure officials don't take a closer look into your case? Having a judge see you don't have income while living a lavish live is probably the last they want...
- maxhedrome 8y ago
  Found the Chinese government poster.
johnisgood 8y ago
> To be fair, getting punished to be unable to take trains for misbehaving on trains. If the seats are packed in a car and some douche is sitting in your seat and won't get up, and you're stuck standing for a few hours, I think you'd want some justice. Yes, but it would be up to him for that to decide (to have that person punished), not someone else on his behalf. Which I believe is very important.
NicoJuicy 8y ago
In Belgium, People who can't sit may go sit in first class. ( Train)
entity345 8y ago
They don't necessarily ban you from trains outright but ban you from the comfortable trains (the article mentions high-speed trains). A lot of these punishments seem targeted at the middle class and business people by forcing them to go down a peg or two if they don't abide by the rules. It's making them lose face, which is something very important in China.
- echaozh 8y ago
  Not high-speed trains, more like first class seats in the trains. Most of the people in the list refused to pay back debts, even though they got enough assets. If the people are actually too poor to pay, they should not be able to afford the first class seats anyway. That's the logic behind the rules.

duxup 8y ago

It is probabbly a populist kinda appeal. "Those freeloaders don't know how to behave and they ruin it for the rest of us so I'm going to make them pay!"

EastToWest 8y ago

There were one or two high profile cases in which the occupiers refused to give way and their behaviour flaunted the rules badly. The conductor or police didn't take action. I'm not sure if they didn't have the power or simply didn't want to use force. Videos were posted online and became viral. Anyway, this is the background information for the last one. IIRC the travel ban doesn't last forever. It expires after some time or after you have taken remedy. But I haven't checked.

shaobo 8y ago

The last one almost certainly refers to "forcibly occupying reserved seats" instead of doing it accidentally. For example, this incident, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/share_p.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/...

leereeves 8y ago
Perhaps, but according to CBS, jaywalking is itself on the list of offenses. As is "buying too many video games". https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-keeps-a-critical-eye-on-everyday-behavior-even-jaywalking-2018-04-24/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-kee...
- shaobo 8y ago
  Like most articles on social credit, it is mistaking a bunch of separate things as a single unified system. from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-credit-laboratory/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci... "The public blacklist has been incorporated by another incarnation of the social credit system — Zhima Credit, a service of the mobile payment provider Alipay. China has a huge mobile payment market, with transactions totaling $5.5 trillion in 2016, compared with $112 billion in the United States. Alipay, owned by Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay dominate the still-growing Chinese market. Zhima Credit is an optional service embedded in Alipay that calculates users’ personal credit based on data such as spending history, friends on Alipay’s social network, and other types of consumer behavior. Zhima Credit’s technology director controversially told the Chinese magazine Caixin in 2015 that buying diapers, for example, would be considered “responsible” behavior, while playing video games for hours could be counted against you. Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."
dTal 8y ago
That's a strange incident... the man had a reserved seat. He appears to have been so drunk he couldn't move. Why did the woman not just sit in his seat? Was it the principle? The vitriol of the Weibo comments, if they are genuine, suggest that some very important social contract was broken. But it just doesn't seem like a very big deal to me, especially since it appears that there were guards available to move him and they (sensibly in my view) chose not to.

sametmax 8y ago

"More minor violations include using expired tickets, smoking on a train or not walking a dog on a leash." Now imagine the power of cops in such a state. They can destroy your life with little effort, espacially since restrictions of your life will probably snowball into more offences. E.G: how do you pay your taxe if you can't move to get a job ? I don't doubt corruption is part of the program, but nobody is going to take down a cop at the risk of having 10 of his friends following every one of your step for the next month.

changchuming 8y ago
Police in China are way too soft so this is not necessarily a bad thing. They get bullied by civilians all the time.

singlow 8y ago

What about people with flabby hands and irritating laughs?

deogeo 8y ago

Is restricting a persons ability to travel due to their inability to pay back a loan really reasonable? Isn't it one short step removed from debtor's prison? That's before we get into the whole lack of due process..

dwild 8y ago
> Is restricting a persons ability to travel due to their inability to pay back a loan really reasonable? Yeah it's weird because I think the one about reserved seat is more reasonable than the others ones. It's bad, but at least it's related to your capacity to take the train. Just like it's reasonable for someone with unpaid loan to be unable to takes more loans. It's when you bring unrelated things than it become punishment instead.

jjcc 8y ago

just give you some context: All bullet trains sell some tickets without seats. The price is the same as normal seat ticket but only for busy time like holiday season. Most time trains are not fully loaded so usually there are no dispute for seat being occupied. There were a couple of incidents video uploaded on to Chinese social media that some bullet train travellers sat on the seat belong to others who purchased seat tickets. In both cases the owners of the seats asked the train attendants to arbitrate.However train attendants are all females with no law enforcement authority. Both bullies (one male, the other female in separate incidents) finally ended up with no consequences at the time. The videos got viral and caused public outrage. Under the pressure, the train company announced the the punishment of half year ban . That means within 6 months these 2 people have to travel with bus services like greyhound, or maybe with unpopular normal green trains like those in US and Canada. (I don't believe US and Canada have bullet trains) I'm sure there are many such incidents happened in busy time but those 2 were captured by smart phone then uploaded to social media. Then the identities of bullies were discovered by those who recognized them and spread to public along with all other information which cause much more trouble than half year ban of bullet train. Where were the policemen? Bullet train don't have police. Victims have to wait to next station if they really want police involved. Nobody bother to waste time for those small civil dispute. Only thing they want to do is put the video on internet. That's why there's a ban on not following the rule that yield the seats belonging to others