7 ms·

Does anyone have visit China and presence the social system in first person? I've heard that some people like it (Chinese co-workers), as they feel everyone ac

by lelima 7y ago

Does anyone have visit China and presence the social system in first person? I've heard that some people like it (Chinese co-workers), as they feel everyone acting better, but they don't live in China at the moment.

Gys 7y ago
I guess they do not realise what is coming? > '...one of the ways that people can improve their own social credit score is to report on the supposed misdeeds of others.'
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  Now, that's Orwellian. As described in the book. It's not the cameras, the government agents in the shadows or the spying technology... It's the end result of everyone spying on each other that made the world of 1984 so inescapable to Winston.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    From what I remember of 1984 I don't think everyone was spied on all the time - it was mainly the Outer Party members (~13% of the population) who were scrutinized so closely as they were the source of potential threats to the Inner Party. Most of the characters in the book, apart from O'Brien, were Outer Party members.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      The proles were relatively free to do whatever but they were too poor to do much of anything which is why they were left free. That said, the real life 1984 that we see slowly emerging in a piecemeal manner worldwide (faster in some places than in others) seems to mostly effect the lower and middle classes.
  - chupasaurus 7y ago
    Well, everyone would have a telescreen in their pocket. China has a big surveillance playground in Xinjiang region (paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355 https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi...), including random microphone recordings.
  - cyphar 7y ago
    I would argue the key aspect of something being Orwellian is the redefinition of language such that arguments against the government's position cannot be made anymore. The idea of people being spied on by their neighbours in 1984 comes from real-world examples that Orwell was drawing on at the time (the Hitler Youth and the purges under Stalin). While it is very dystopian, I would classify it as being extreme totalitarianism and not Orwellian. Almost all recent totalitarian regimes I can think of had people informing on their neighbours.
    - johnchristopher 7y ago
      You are absolutely right. I can't edit to correct myself. The redefinition of language is more `Orwellian` than the all-spying. My point is that the spying in 1984 is most of the time seen as being done by Big Brother and its agents against the people but it was quite clear to me when reading it that it was more about everyone keeping an eye on everyone to report to BB, people were doing the watching and there was no escape (I seem to remember there's a line about how they don't know if the camera work but that doesn't matter because you can't prove it and people could be spied on by anyone anyway). Maybe it's time I pick it up again.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      I would say that having people feel that it is acceptable to inform on their neighbors is a key element of a proper totalitarian society. This is why I routinely go off on people when they suggest calling the cops (or some other external authority) over petty differences. I don't want to see that kind of behavior left unchallenged let alone normalized.
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    You don't have to go to a book of fiction to get an example. Some Chinese are still old enough to remember the Cultural revolution. During this time people were interrogated for days by their peers in so called 'struggle meetings' in an attempt to change their supposed incorrect behaviour. Reporting someone as a bourgeois person could cause them to disappear.
    - ImaCake 7y ago
      The soviet satellite republics strike me as another real world 1984 dystopia. You can watch whole movies about the terrifyingly real East German Stasi.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        In the novel itself, Ingsoc is said to be similar to the CPSU. Orwell was drawing direct inspiration from the USSR under Stalin, as well as from other real world events.
      - sgift 7y ago
        The Securitate (The secret service of Romania) would be another equally terrifying example.
- sgift 7y ago
  People are easily manipulated. You only need the right incentives and tricks. As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this. Reminder: Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this. Everyone is the hero of their own story.
- shaobo 7y ago
  Does NY Post have a source/reference for this?
clouddrover 7y ago
How does it affect their social credit score if they don't like it?
- lelima 7y ago
  They opinion don't affect the credit score, they currently live abroad. How can we evaluate the system? number of people likes / dislikes? National level of happiness?
rqs 7y ago
How long your since co-workers been out of China? I'm in China right now but I don't think that system has changed people's behavior that much. Plus, I think it's stupid to put a score on everybody's head ("Oh, you're below 10, we can't be friend" stupid). Based on my observation, people acting better usually because now they can and willing to, rather than been forced to. In our city for example, we used to have many jaywalkers. But that number dropped since the administration constructed better pedestrian crossings (underground tunnels, foot bridge etc). People still jaywalking when those infrastructure is unavailable.
brighttank 7y ago
I've been living in Beijing for over ten years. So far I haven't heard anyone complain about it. I know it's hard for Westerners to understand but most middle class Chinese are likely to see it as a good thing. The whole time I've been here I've read a constant stream of stories about fake food, fake medicine, fake milk-powder (which killed many babies), fake products, all types of fraud, etc. Add that to the general anti-social behaviors (such as spitting in the street) and you can see why many people recognize the need to "improve peoples' behavior" as Orwellian as that might sound to Western ears. Middle-class urban Chinese also distinguish themselves from rural Chinese which they see as kind-of backwards. That's why there's little appetite for democracy ... nobody thinks those people should be voting.
yorwba 7y ago
Which specific system were your coworkers talking about? One of those run by private financial companies like Alipay or WeChat pay? One of the small-scale experiments run by various municipalities? The country-wide blacklist of people who did not comply with a court order to pay their debts? Something else? "The" social credit system looks very different from the monolithic apparatus of totalitarian control that people imagine it to be, so many different views can be simultaneously true.

by lelima 7y ago

Gys 7y ago

I guess they do not realise what is coming? > '...one of the ways that people can improve their own social credit score is to report on the supposed misdeeds of others.'

johnchristopher 7y ago
Now, that's Orwellian. As described in the book. It's not the cameras, the government agents in the shadows or the spying technology... It's the end result of everyone spying on each other that made the world of 1984 so inescapable to Winston.
- arethuza 7y ago
  From what I remember of 1984 I don't think everyone was spied on all the time - it was mainly the Outer Party members (~13% of the population) who were scrutinized so closely as they were the source of potential threats to the Inner Party. Most of the characters in the book, apart from O'Brien, were Outer Party members.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    The proles were relatively free to do whatever but they were too poor to do much of anything which is why they were left free. That said, the real life 1984 that we see slowly emerging in a piecemeal manner worldwide (faster in some places than in others) seems to mostly effect the lower and middle classes.
- chupasaurus 7y ago
  Well, everyone would have a telescreen in their pocket. China has a big surveillance playground in Xinjiang region (paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355 https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi...), including random microphone recordings.
- cyphar 7y ago
  I would argue the key aspect of something being Orwellian is the redefinition of language such that arguments against the government's position cannot be made anymore. The idea of people being spied on by their neighbours in 1984 comes from real-world examples that Orwell was drawing on at the time (the Hitler Youth and the purges under Stalin). While it is very dystopian, I would classify it as being extreme totalitarianism and not Orwellian. Almost all recent totalitarian regimes I can think of had people informing on their neighbours.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    You are absolutely right. I can't edit to correct myself. The redefinition of language is more `Orwellian` than the all-spying. My point is that the spying in 1984 is most of the time seen as being done by Big Brother and its agents against the people but it was quite clear to me when reading it that it was more about everyone keeping an eye on everyone to report to BB, people were doing the watching and there was no escape (I seem to remember there's a line about how they don't know if the camera work but that doesn't matter because you can't prove it and people could be spied on by anyone anyway). Maybe it's time I pick it up again.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    I would say that having people feel that it is acceptable to inform on their neighbors is a key element of a proper totalitarian society. This is why I routinely go off on people when they suggest calling the cops (or some other external authority) over petty differences. I don't want to see that kind of behavior left unchallenged let alone normalized.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  You don't have to go to a book of fiction to get an example. Some Chinese are still old enough to remember the Cultural revolution. During this time people were interrogated for days by their peers in so called 'struggle meetings' in an attempt to change their supposed incorrect behaviour. Reporting someone as a bourgeois person could cause them to disappear.
  - ImaCake 7y ago
    The soviet satellite republics strike me as another real world 1984 dystopia. You can watch whole movies about the terrifyingly real East German Stasi.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      In the novel itself, Ingsoc is said to be similar to the CPSU. Orwell was drawing direct inspiration from the USSR under Stalin, as well as from other real world events.
    - sgift 7y ago
      The Securitate (The secret service of Romania) would be another equally terrifying example.
sgift 7y ago
People are easily manipulated. You only need the right incentives and tricks. As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this. Reminder: Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >As long as they are convinced or can be convinced that only bad people will be prosecuted (they are good people after all, right?) many people will welcome this. Everyone is the hero of their own story.
shaobo 7y ago
Does NY Post have a source/reference for this?

clouddrover 7y ago

How does it affect their social credit score if they don't like it?

lelima 7y ago
They opinion don't affect the credit score, they currently live abroad. How can we evaluate the system? number of people likes / dislikes? National level of happiness?

rqs 7y ago

How long your since co-workers been out of China? I'm in China right now but I don't think that system has changed people's behavior that much. Plus, I think it's stupid to put a score on everybody's head ("Oh, you're below 10, we can't be friend" stupid). Based on my observation, people acting better usually because now they can and willing to, rather than been forced to. In our city for example, we used to have many jaywalkers. But that number dropped since the administration constructed better pedestrian crossings (underground tunnels, foot bridge etc). People still jaywalking when those infrastructure is unavailable.

brighttank 7y ago

I've been living in Beijing for over ten years. So far I haven't heard anyone complain about it. I know it's hard for Westerners to understand but most middle class Chinese are likely to see it as a good thing. The whole time I've been here I've read a constant stream of stories about fake food, fake medicine, fake milk-powder (which killed many babies), fake products, all types of fraud, etc. Add that to the general anti-social behaviors (such as spitting in the street) and you can see why many people recognize the need to "improve peoples' behavior" as Orwellian as that might sound to Western ears. Middle-class urban Chinese also distinguish themselves from rural Chinese which they see as kind-of backwards. That's why there's little appetite for democracy ... nobody thinks those people should be voting.

yorwba 7y ago

Which specific system were your coworkers talking about? One of those run by private financial companies like Alipay or WeChat pay? One of the small-scale experiments run by various municipalities? The country-wide blacklist of people who did not comply with a court order to pay their debts? Something else? "The" social credit system looks very different from the monolithic apparatus of totalitarian control that people imagine it to be, so many different views can be simultaneously true.