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> I was just repeating something I heard from someone else. I thought it was true. That family has a lot of debts. Advanced nations have systematized, normaliz

> I was just repeating something I heard from someone else. I thought it was true. That family has a lot of debts. Advanced nations have systematized, normalized and sanitized these ancient behaviors to the extent we don't even realize we're doing the same thing on an industrial scale. How is gossiping about a neighbor's debt morally different than a credit reporting agency? How is a mining company giving a bag of cash to a provincial governor morally different from campaign contributions from lobbyists?

wutbrodo 8y ago
> How is gossiping about a neighbor's debt morally different than a credit reporting agency? The problem with this example of gossip (and most gossip, IMO) isn't spreading information about creditworthiness. It's that gossip is unreliable, subject to inaccuracy, has a transmission medium that isn't content-neutral (ie lurid things get spread more often and content gets exaggerated), has no real recourse for the subjects of inaccuracies, doesn't have codified limits on content, etc etc etc. It's a very flawed method of information transmission, even when the transmission of that information is broadly good for society. I think the credit reporting system as it stands is a huge mess, but there's value in knowing a potential debtor's creditworthiness, and more importantly, the reporting system substantially mitigates most of the issues described above by operationalizing the process. A random person can't easily "start a rumor" about someone's credit history, you can view your report and dispute it, the agencies don't randomly add to the size of your reported debt because it makes a better story, they don't randomly report on things outside of their narrow purview, etc. > How is a mining company giving a bag of cash to a provincial governor morally different from campaign contributions from lobbyists? No real disagreement here...
- swiley 8y ago
  > A random person can't easily "start a rumor" about someone's credit history I would totally disagree here, a random person can start a rummer about a random person's credit history. People who have come in contact with each other can start rumors about each other's credit history. There's no authentication. I would argue it's really no different, it's just bigger and most of us just live with it.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    I don't understand what you mean. I'm contrasting the credit reporting system with gossip, and saying that one of the differences is that anyone can gossip while only relatively tightly-controlled entities with avenues for recourse can affect your credit score.
    - swiley 8y ago
      Right, I fully understood what you where saying. > only relatively tightly-controlled entities As in anyone who can copy a number down? Furthermore the actual credit agencies aren't really well controlled, they're just the big version of that one (or few) person (people) who knows all the gossip. > avenues for recourse can affect your credit score. I haven't heard of these and seriously doubt their effectiveness.
yeahitslikethat 8y ago
Credit can be verified and challenged and corrected. Gossip cannot.
- syrrim 8y ago
  There was a recent post here regarding someone who was recorded as dead by the credit agencies after the death of their father. In that case it couldn't be corrected in any meaningful sense. Gossip can be corrected, in a meaningful sense, by contacting choice people, and informing them of the correct information. Even if they don't propagate the correction, they themselves will be aware of it and act according to it. This opposed to unthinking credit agencies, liable to unlearn the correction as soon as another credit agencies re-reports the death. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19656322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19656322
- swiley 8y ago
  That doesn't match what people who have had to deal with credit reporting agencies have told me.

wutbrodo 8y ago

> How is gossiping about a neighbor's debt morally different than a credit reporting agency? The problem with this example of gossip (and most gossip, IMO) isn't spreading information about creditworthiness. It's that gossip is unreliable, subject to inaccuracy, has a transmission medium that isn't content-neutral (ie lurid things get spread more often and content gets exaggerated), has no real recourse for the subjects of inaccuracies, doesn't have codified limits on content, etc etc etc. It's a very flawed method of information transmission, even when the transmission of that information is broadly good for society. I think the credit reporting system as it stands is a huge mess, but there's value in knowing a potential debtor's creditworthiness, and more importantly, the reporting system substantially mitigates most of the issues described above by operationalizing the process. A random person can't easily "start a rumor" about someone's credit history, you can view your report and dispute it, the agencies don't randomly add to the size of your reported debt because it makes a better story, they don't randomly report on things outside of their narrow purview, etc. > How is a mining company giving a bag of cash to a provincial governor morally different from campaign contributions from lobbyists? No real disagreement here...

swiley 8y ago
> A random person can't easily "start a rumor" about someone's credit history I would totally disagree here, a random person can start a rummer about a random person's credit history. People who have come in contact with each other can start rumors about each other's credit history. There's no authentication. I would argue it's really no different, it's just bigger and most of us just live with it.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  I don't understand what you mean. I'm contrasting the credit reporting system with gossip, and saying that one of the differences is that anyone can gossip while only relatively tightly-controlled entities with avenues for recourse can affect your credit score.
  - swiley 8y ago
    Right, I fully understood what you where saying. > only relatively tightly-controlled entities As in anyone who can copy a number down? Furthermore the actual credit agencies aren't really well controlled, they're just the big version of that one (or few) person (people) who knows all the gossip. > avenues for recourse can affect your credit score. I haven't heard of these and seriously doubt their effectiveness.

yeahitslikethat 8y ago

Credit can be verified and challenged and corrected. Gossip cannot.

syrrim 8y ago
There was a recent post here regarding someone who was recorded as dead by the credit agencies after the death of their father. In that case it couldn't be corrected in any meaningful sense. Gossip can be corrected, in a meaningful sense, by contacting choice people, and informing them of the correct information. Even if they don't propagate the correction, they themselves will be aware of it and act according to it. This opposed to unthinking credit agencies, liable to unlearn the correction as soon as another credit agencies re-reports the death. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19656322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19656322
swiley 8y ago
That doesn't match what people who have had to deal with credit reporting agencies have told me.