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I was explaining what it's like to live in China to someone and it's like explaining a dystopian cyberpunk novel, but with a level of surrealism and just plain

I was explaining what it's like to live in China to someone and it's like explaining a dystopian cyberpunk novel, but with a level of surrealism and just plain absurdity. A Gibson novel filtered through some Philip K. Dick. You have a gigantic surveillance state with unprecedented reach and control...banning people from referencing a cartoon bear. You have a society with an extremely sophisticated cashless economy——beggars will take WeChat Pay——yet no clean water and horrible pollution.

polskibus 7y ago
Maybe it's because in reality cashless is easy compared to clean water and no pollution for masses?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Cashless is also not desired by Americans, many of whom like cash. Stores are fine with taking it (no transaction fees after all), there are zero privacy concerns, and counterfeiting is not really a problem.
  - baby 7y ago
    Never understood that. Living in the UK for example you never have to cary bills. Light wallet, so much more practical, I hate places that only accept cash.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      What if every store accepted both cash and cards?
      - baby 7y ago
        I'd be fine with this as long as you don't have to pay a fee if you're not paying cash (which is often a thing for small shops). Unfortunately this is not the world we're living in :) it's often both cash and cards OR just cash. Berlin is a really good example of that, you always need cash on you which tricks the many tourists who come from countries were cash is not really a thing anymore.
        whatshisface 7y ago
        The credit card companies make the merchant pay a fee for using credit cards - so it's not the shop's fault. That's another reason why cash is alive in America.
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        The bigger reason is to avoid taxes. If it’s paid with card, taxes have to be paid, and with cash, the merchant can make an extra 30%+ by not declaring it.
  - rahimnathwani 7y ago
    Cash doesn't have direct transaction costs, but: - it needs to be manually reconciled at the start/end of each shift - staff can steal it - robbers can steal it - it takes time to count out change (and to ensure you have enough small bills and coins) - it takes time to deposit it at the bank - it costs money to deposit it at the bank (even if Walmart is ok accepting cash for an iPad, I'm guessing Apple requires Walmart to pay by bank transfer) I'm not sure about the US situation but, the last time I checked, UK banks charged 0.3%-0.5% for accepting a cash deposit from a business customer.
    - codedokode 7y ago
      Yes, cash can be stolen, but cards are much more dangerous to your privacy: bank knows where you go and what you buy, it can sell this information to anyone (of course, with hashing your phone number with military-grade algorithm to protect your personal data), shops know who you are and can exchange information about your purchases along with model of your face taken by the camera at the register, MAC address of your phone's WiFi module and car plate number (of course hashed with military-grade algorithm to protect your privacy). Also, in some countries it is very easy to lock person's bank account even without a trial, for example if person is suspected in financing terrorist or extremist organisation. Also new cards have RFID chip in it and it can be used for example to get information about people going through the doors.
      - gdy 7y ago
        'Some countries' meaning Russia
  - freewilly1040 7y ago
    Square recently released an infographic that supports this: https://squareup.com/us/en/making-change https://squareup.com/us/en/making-change (I work for square but wasn’t involved with this project)
- kerng 7y ago
  Cashless means lack of tracking. Naturally, a surveillance state wants a non-cash society.
pishpash 7y ago
I can also explain America like an absurd dystopia: druggies shooting up on the street while highly compensated techies scoot around their shit, windows getting broken on cars every week while plastic straws are banned. It's called the complexities of the world.
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  That sounds like San Francisco. I don't recognize Boston in that.
  - tuxxy 7y ago
    It's hilarious to me how many people from San Francisco think America revolves around their overpriced 47 square mile peninsula.
    - aasasd 7y ago
      Just recently I noticed that non-Californians on HN now know what it feels like to read English-language internets while not being from the US.
neuralzen 7y ago
I met a guy who said he lived in Shenzhen a while, and said that J-walking would get you an automatic deduction from your wechat pay account, assuming you were in front of a camera.
- sho 7y ago
  Let me turn that around for you. Would you like it if people who turned or changed lanes without indicating were reliably and automatically fined? Because I sure would. The law is the law. If it's a good law, then its efficient, universal, automatic enforcement should be a good thing. If not - then it's the law that needs to be changed. You're complaining about the enforcement - but what you actually don't like is the law itself. Hell, maybe efficient and automatic enforcement will force us to confront bad laws, rather than relying on discretion at the enforcement stage to water them down tolerably. Better they not be on the books at all.
  - baby 7y ago
    I'd like it if cars would take less space, and would give the right of way to pedestrians jay walking anywhere. Fuck cars.
  - lame88 7y ago
    No I would not like that automatic fine. In theory okay, but in reality it's foolish to separate enforcement from what is being enforced. Moxie explained this well. In short, good luck changing that law. https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/
    - rahimnathwani 7y ago
      There is a position between yours and sho's. Sure, if every federal crime were enforced through automatic fines, this could be a mess due to the complexity of the law. But what's your objection to a fine for changing lanes without indicating?
      - 7y ago
sho 7y ago
Oh come on. Pollution is highly localised. Yeah, there's a few bad cities but it's a big place and 99% of it is fine. And no clean water, really? That will be news to the billion plus inhabitants who haven't realised they're dead yet from lack of clean water, sixth sense style. Nit picking aside - that surveillance state is maybe 5 years ahead of the west. I'm continually amazed that western governments have allowed strongly encrypted private communications to become a thing, even an expectation - this is totally unprecedented and a radical upset to the balance of power between the state and its citizens. I expect it's only a matter of time before strong end to end encryption is totally banned in the west, too.
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  How many native Chinese do you know who drink tap water? Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water. As for pollution, only 84 out of 338 cities reached the national standard for air quality [1]. That's not exactly "a few bad cities". The government has been working on improving it, but they still have a long way to go. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_polluti...
  - sho 7y ago
    > Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water 100% of them drink boiled tap water. But isn't this proving my point? Not like it's poisoned with heavy metals? As for pollution, of course they have a long way to go, but the dystopian picture you paint is hardly fair. It's not perfect but you make it sound like Blade Runner 2049. It's not. I live in Bangkok right now and it is WAY worse than Shenzhen or Shanghai. But I never hear Thailand invoked in one of these "pollution hell" threads. Look, what you said isn't technically incorrect but your level of hyperbole irked me. I always come across as defending China or something in these threads but I'm not really, I just want it to be fact based. China is not THAT bad. Yes, I know a lot of Chinese people, and they express no pressing desire to leave. It is very far from the worst place on earth to live.
    - 7y ago

polskibus 7y ago

Maybe it's because in reality cashless is easy compared to clean water and no pollution for masses?

whatshisface 7y ago
Cashless is also not desired by Americans, many of whom like cash. Stores are fine with taking it (no transaction fees after all), there are zero privacy concerns, and counterfeiting is not really a problem.
- baby 7y ago
  Never understood that. Living in the UK for example you never have to cary bills. Light wallet, so much more practical, I hate places that only accept cash.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    What if every store accepted both cash and cards?
    - baby 7y ago
      I'd be fine with this as long as you don't have to pay a fee if you're not paying cash (which is often a thing for small shops). Unfortunately this is not the world we're living in :) it's often both cash and cards OR just cash. Berlin is a really good example of that, you always need cash on you which tricks the many tourists who come from countries were cash is not really a thing anymore.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        The credit card companies make the merchant pay a fee for using credit cards - so it's not the shop's fault. That's another reason why cash is alive in America.
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        The bigger reason is to avoid taxes. If it’s paid with card, taxes have to be paid, and with cash, the merchant can make an extra 30%+ by not declaring it.
- rahimnathwani 7y ago
  Cash doesn't have direct transaction costs, but: - it needs to be manually reconciled at the start/end of each shift - staff can steal it - robbers can steal it - it takes time to count out change (and to ensure you have enough small bills and coins) - it takes time to deposit it at the bank - it costs money to deposit it at the bank (even if Walmart is ok accepting cash for an iPad, I'm guessing Apple requires Walmart to pay by bank transfer) I'm not sure about the US situation but, the last time I checked, UK banks charged 0.3%-0.5% for accepting a cash deposit from a business customer.
  - codedokode 7y ago
    Yes, cash can be stolen, but cards are much more dangerous to your privacy: bank knows where you go and what you buy, it can sell this information to anyone (of course, with hashing your phone number with military-grade algorithm to protect your personal data), shops know who you are and can exchange information about your purchases along with model of your face taken by the camera at the register, MAC address of your phone's WiFi module and car plate number (of course hashed with military-grade algorithm to protect your privacy). Also, in some countries it is very easy to lock person's bank account even without a trial, for example if person is suspected in financing terrorist or extremist organisation. Also new cards have RFID chip in it and it can be used for example to get information about people going through the doors.
    - gdy 7y ago
      'Some countries' meaning Russia
- freewilly1040 7y ago
  Square recently released an infographic that supports this: https://squareup.com/us/en/making-change https://squareup.com/us/en/making-change (I work for square but wasn’t involved with this project)
kerng 7y ago
Cashless means lack of tracking. Naturally, a surveillance state wants a non-cash society.

pishpash 7y ago

I can also explain America like an absurd dystopia: druggies shooting up on the street while highly compensated techies scoot around their shit, windows getting broken on cars every week while plastic straws are banned. It's called the complexities of the world.

AlexCoventry 7y ago
That sounds like San Francisco. I don't recognize Boston in that.
- tuxxy 7y ago
  It's hilarious to me how many people from San Francisco think America revolves around their overpriced 47 square mile peninsula.
  - aasasd 7y ago
    Just recently I noticed that non-Californians on HN now know what it feels like to read English-language internets while not being from the US.

neuralzen 7y ago

I met a guy who said he lived in Shenzhen a while, and said that J-walking would get you an automatic deduction from your wechat pay account, assuming you were in front of a camera.

sho 7y ago
Let me turn that around for you. Would you like it if people who turned or changed lanes without indicating were reliably and automatically fined? Because I sure would. The law is the law. If it's a good law, then its efficient, universal, automatic enforcement should be a good thing. If not - then it's the law that needs to be changed. You're complaining about the enforcement - but what you actually don't like is the law itself. Hell, maybe efficient and automatic enforcement will force us to confront bad laws, rather than relying on discretion at the enforcement stage to water them down tolerably. Better they not be on the books at all.
- baby 7y ago
  I'd like it if cars would take less space, and would give the right of way to pedestrians jay walking anywhere. Fuck cars.
- lame88 7y ago
  No I would not like that automatic fine. In theory okay, but in reality it's foolish to separate enforcement from what is being enforced. Moxie explained this well. In short, good luck changing that law. https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/
  - rahimnathwani 7y ago
    There is a position between yours and sho's. Sure, if every federal crime were enforced through automatic fines, this could be a mess due to the complexity of the law. But what's your objection to a fine for changing lanes without indicating?
    - 7y ago

sho 7y ago

Oh come on. Pollution is highly localised. Yeah, there's a few bad cities but it's a big place and 99% of it is fine. And no clean water, really? That will be news to the billion plus inhabitants who haven't realised they're dead yet from lack of clean water, sixth sense style. Nit picking aside - that surveillance state is maybe 5 years ahead of the west. I'm continually amazed that western governments have allowed strongly encrypted private communications to become a thing, even an expectation - this is totally unprecedented and a radical upset to the balance of power between the state and its citizens. I expect it's only a matter of time before strong end to end encryption is totally banned in the west, too.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago
How many native Chinese do you know who drink tap water? Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water. As for pollution, only 84 out of 338 cities reached the national standard for air quality [1]. That's not exactly "a few bad cities". The government has been working on improving it, but they still have a long way to go. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_polluti...
- sho 7y ago
  > Almost all I know either drink bottled water or only hot, boiled tap water 100% of them drink boiled tap water. But isn't this proving my point? Not like it's poisoned with heavy metals? As for pollution, of course they have a long way to go, but the dystopian picture you paint is hardly fair. It's not perfect but you make it sound like Blade Runner 2049. It's not. I live in Bangkok right now and it is WAY worse than Shenzhen or Shanghai. But I never hear Thailand invoked in one of these "pollution hell" threads. Look, what you said isn't technically incorrect but your level of hyperbole irked me. I always come across as defending China or something in these threads but I'm not really, I just want it to be fact based. China is not THAT bad. Yes, I know a lot of Chinese people, and they express no pressing desire to leave. It is very far from the worst place on earth to live.
  - 7y ago