3 ms·

This exists in China right now. You need a phone to show you've not been in close contact with covid cases. Many places only accept WeChat/Alipay for payment. A

This exists in China right now. You need a phone to show you've not been in close contact with covid cases. Many places only accept WeChat/Alipay for payment. A phone is a necessity.

userbinator 4y ago
China, the ultimate authoritarian dystopia --- definitely something we should be taking lessons from, i.e. in order to not go in that direction.
physicles 4y ago
Yeah. Partial list of things you currently cannot do in China without a phone (at least, where I live): - Go to the supermarket (you can ask a friend with a phone to help you order online) - Take a taxi (usually, depends on the driver) - Eat at a restaurant - (Basically, enter any place of business) - Go to the hospital - Travel to another province - Visit any scenic area or large public park - Get a Covid test - Visit your friend’s apartment (usually) What if your battery dies? Super-reliance on cell phones means this is a solved this problem: it’s trivial to rent a charger anywhere there’s a convenience store. To be clear, I also see this as an anti-pattern. The presence or absence of an expensive connected device should not restrict what a person can do in meat space. A person not carrying a mobile phone is still a person. But I don’t see how you actually do contact tracing at scale without this. In the beginning of the pandemic, entering a supermarket meant writing your contact info (including ID number!) on a paper ledger at the entrance. Fuck that.
- tsol 4y ago
  So if you, say, grab someone's phone and smash it they're totally screwed? They can't buy food, can't get a taxi, can't do most things. Interesting
  - physicles 4y ago
    Not really, they're just inconvenienced for part of a day. As long as your phone number is linked to your national ID, it's easy to get another SIM card, and you can just ask a friend for help buying another phone. The person who smashes their phone, on the other hand, would be totally screwed. Ubiquitous surveillance means that cell phone theft is basically not a thing anymore because the thief is pretty much always caught.

This exists in China right now. You need a phone to show you've not been in close contact with covid cases. Many places only accept WeChat/Alipay for payment. A phone is a necessity.

userbinator 4y ago

China, the ultimate authoritarian dystopia --- definitely something we should be taking lessons from, i.e. in order to not go in that direction.

physicles 4y ago

Yeah. Partial list of things you currently cannot do in China without a phone (at least, where I live): - Go to the supermarket (you can ask a friend with a phone to help you order online) - Take a taxi (usually, depends on the driver) - Eat at a restaurant - (Basically, enter any place of business) - Go to the hospital - Travel to another province - Visit any scenic area or large public park - Get a Covid test - Visit your friend’s apartment (usually) What if your battery dies? Super-reliance on cell phones means this is a solved this problem: it’s trivial to rent a charger anywhere there’s a convenience store. To be clear, I also see this as an anti-pattern. The presence or absence of an expensive connected device should not restrict what a person can do in meat space. A person not carrying a mobile phone is still a person. But I don’t see how you actually do contact tracing at scale without this. In the beginning of the pandemic, entering a supermarket meant writing your contact info (including ID number!) on a paper ledger at the entrance. Fuck that.

tsol 4y ago
So if you, say, grab someone's phone and smash it they're totally screwed? They can't buy food, can't get a taxi, can't do most things. Interesting
- physicles 4y ago
  Not really, they're just inconvenienced for part of a day. As long as your phone number is linked to your national ID, it's easy to get another SIM card, and you can just ask a friend for help buying another phone. The person who smashes their phone, on the other hand, would be totally screwed. Ubiquitous surveillance means that cell phone theft is basically not a thing anymore because the thief is pretty much always caught.