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> Songbun is a three-tier class system divided into 51 categories that was created by the Kim regime to isolate and control perceived internal political threats

> Songbun is a three-tier class system divided into 51 categories that was created by the Kim regime to isolate and control perceived internal political threats. It is very difficult to move up even from one category to the next-higher category, but it is very easy to move downward. Even an elite person living in Pyongyang can commit an infraction and be exiled to the country with a much lower songbun. Every person above the age of 17 in North Korea has a file maintained by the government that contains the individual’s songbun. Sad: This type of social credit score system seems pervasive and will no doubt be here soon. Doubly sad: many of the FAANGers here on HN will bring it about.

Mizza 4y ago
Songbun is actually a good word we can use for it as it creeps into western society.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Songbun sounds delicious, I wanna eat one
  - wrp 4y ago
    I believe the pronunciation sounds more like sung-poon.
    - speed_spread 4y ago
      Oh, that's different, but I still wanna eat some.
    - lifthrasiir 4y ago
      Yes, its Hangul rendition is 성분 and it originally (and, in South Korea, only) meant ingredients in materials, typically chemical.
      - inversalAutoDoc 4y ago
        In other words, a literalization of human resources?
  - photochemsyn 4y ago
    Unfortunately, each songbun contains a parasitic cyberworm that latches onto your intestine walls and monitors your drug and alcohol intake to ensure you're not ingesting anything illicit (or too much booze).
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      It sounds like an SCP I read
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>Doubly sad: many of the FAANGers here on HN will bring it about. If that's how things go hopefully they can implement it fast enough that they will be around to live through it all crashing down. It would be unjust if uninvolved future generations wound up paying for their ancestors' sins.
- k0k0r0 4y ago
  Do you feel similar about the climate catastrophe?
imwillofficial 4y ago
It’s already here, we just have better names like FICO, and Terrorist Watch Lists. If you don’t think the government doesn’t have a file on you, you haven’t been paying attention.
- outworlder 4y ago
  FICO gets pulled into these discussions all the time, and yet it makes no sense. That only impact what rates your lenders will use(or if they will lend you money at all). That's no different from using your driving history and demographic data to set insurance rates. It's maintained by private companies. You can still use cash if you want. No fly lists are an ok example. Still, they are not tied to how much brown nosing you do towards the people in charge.
  - gav 4y ago
    FICO impacts a lot more than just how much borrowing money cost including insurance rates (except for CA, HI, MA) and a lot of rentals (both to deny, increase costs, and having to pay for your credit report to be run).
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    That's not true. FICO rates affect where you're allowed to live, what kind of modes of transportation you're allowed to have (many insurers take it into account to decide whether or not to provide coverage), even some health procedures (many dental practices now check credit score), etc...
    - mch82 4y ago
      Can you recommend a reference for this? Was trying to explain why credit is important to someone who doesn’t want a credit card.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        https://borrowell.com/blog/what-credit-score-do-you-need-to-rent-an-apartment https://borrowell.com/blog/what-credit-score-do-you-need-to-... https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/credit-based-insurance-scores https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/credit-based-insurance-... https://www.vincentjnardone.com/healthcare-blog/2015/02/necessary-pull-patients-credit-reports/ https://www.vincentjnardone.com/healthcare-blog/2015/02/nece...
mgraczyk 4y ago
> Even if a couple in the camp is allowed to marry and has children, the children will live their entire lives in the gulag unless they escape. Not sure what your professional experience or knowledge of politics or technology is, but as a person working at a FAANG company living in the US, I would bet any amount of money that nothing like this will ever come out of any FAANG company in the next 30 years.
- kadoban 4y ago
  It really depends on the government(s) in which the FAANGs exist. They're not quite powerful enough to escape governments. If the USA goes all the way towards fascism, the FAANGs will go along for the ride and implement all sorts of terrible things.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    Sure I believe that, but I think because of the way these companies operate internally and because of the extraordinary amount of transparency and voice given to employees employees (particularly at Google and Facebook where I have worked), these companies would be amongst the most difficult for a hypothetical fascist US gov to use for nefarious purposes. I've worked at 3 other large US tech companies (Qualcomm, Intel, APC) besides these, and they are radically more ethically malleable and able to conceal bad things from their employees.
    - kadoban 4y ago
      All of them have done and are doing ethically questionable things already, and they really haven't had much trouble keeping people working there. Google and Facebook would be the first two I'd expect to go along with whatever awfulness, if they're not driving it themselves.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - PradeetPatel 4y ago
13of40 4y ago
I would sooner put it down to the 500 no-name data collection companies that come up when you look at a website's GDPR/cookie disclosures. The ones with ever-so-subtle descriptions like "Matches online activity with offline accounts."
emptyparadise 4y ago
We'll invent evil cyberpunk tech to serve more relevant ads then governments will use it to create the panopticon.
eru 4y ago
> Sad: This type of social credit score system seems pervasive and will no doubt be here soon. Where is here? If you mean somewhere in the western world: are you willing to bet on it?
whodidntante 4y ago
FAANGers will not bring this about,they will simply better enable society to get to where it is going. With the much needed reorganization of our society based on our ancestry (who our parents are, where they came from, what they did) and who we choose to be (the genders and politics we identify with), we can better apply the ancestry/gender/political matrix to decide what goods/books/movies/blogs get produced, who produces them, who gets to run companies, who gets to be president or on the supreme court, what gets taught in schools, how money is distributed, who gets what type of health care, who gets to live where, etc. Technology will be used to help us get to this better and more equitable future more quickly, more efficiently, and most importantly, will make sure economic and political equity is transparently tracked and apportioned appropriately based on each individuals relative needs. I really do not think that the FAANGers here will create this future, they will simply provide the tools for what is currently happening.

Mizza 4y ago

Songbun is actually a good word we can use for it as it creeps into western society.

imwillofficial 4y ago
Songbun sounds delicious, I wanna eat one
- wrp 4y ago
  I believe the pronunciation sounds more like sung-poon.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    Oh, that's different, but I still wanna eat some.
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    Yes, its Hangul rendition is 성분 and it originally (and, in South Korea, only) meant ingredients in materials, typically chemical.
    - inversalAutoDoc 4y ago
      In other words, a literalization of human resources?
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Unfortunately, each songbun contains a parasitic cyberworm that latches onto your intestine walls and monitors your drug and alcohol intake to ensure you're not ingesting anything illicit (or too much booze).
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    It sounds like an SCP I read

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

>Doubly sad: many of the FAANGers here on HN will bring it about. If that's how things go hopefully they can implement it fast enough that they will be around to live through it all crashing down. It would be unjust if uninvolved future generations wound up paying for their ancestors' sins.

k0k0r0 4y ago
Do you feel similar about the climate catastrophe?

imwillofficial 4y ago

It’s already here, we just have better names like FICO, and Terrorist Watch Lists. If you don’t think the government doesn’t have a file on you, you haven’t been paying attention.

outworlder 4y ago
FICO gets pulled into these discussions all the time, and yet it makes no sense. That only impact what rates your lenders will use(or if they will lend you money at all). That's no different from using your driving history and demographic data to set insurance rates. It's maintained by private companies. You can still use cash if you want. No fly lists are an ok example. Still, they are not tied to how much brown nosing you do towards the people in charge.
- gav 4y ago
  FICO impacts a lot more than just how much borrowing money cost including insurance rates (except for CA, HI, MA) and a lot of rentals (both to deny, increase costs, and having to pay for your credit report to be run).
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  That's not true. FICO rates affect where you're allowed to live, what kind of modes of transportation you're allowed to have (many insurers take it into account to decide whether or not to provide coverage), even some health procedures (many dental practices now check credit score), etc...
  - mch82 4y ago
    Can you recommend a reference for this? Was trying to explain why credit is important to someone who doesn’t want a credit card.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      https://borrowell.com/blog/what-credit-score-do-you-need-to-rent-an-apartment https://borrowell.com/blog/what-credit-score-do-you-need-to-... https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/credit-based-insurance-scores https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/credit-based-insurance-... https://www.vincentjnardone.com/healthcare-blog/2015/02/necessary-pull-patients-credit-reports/ https://www.vincentjnardone.com/healthcare-blog/2015/02/nece...

mgraczyk 4y ago

> Even if a couple in the camp is allowed to marry and has children, the children will live their entire lives in the gulag unless they escape. Not sure what your professional experience or knowledge of politics or technology is, but as a person working at a FAANG company living in the US, I would bet any amount of money that nothing like this will ever come out of any FAANG company in the next 30 years.

kadoban 4y ago
It really depends on the government(s) in which the FAANGs exist. They're not quite powerful enough to escape governments. If the USA goes all the way towards fascism, the FAANGs will go along for the ride and implement all sorts of terrible things.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  Sure I believe that, but I think because of the way these companies operate internally and because of the extraordinary amount of transparency and voice given to employees employees (particularly at Google and Facebook where I have worked), these companies would be amongst the most difficult for a hypothetical fascist US gov to use for nefarious purposes. I've worked at 3 other large US tech companies (Qualcomm, Intel, APC) besides these, and they are radically more ethically malleable and able to conceal bad things from their employees.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    All of them have done and are doing ethically questionable things already, and they really haven't had much trouble keeping people working there. Google and Facebook would be the first two I'd expect to go along with whatever awfulness, if they're not driving it themselves.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - PradeetPatel 4y ago

13of40 4y ago

I would sooner put it down to the 500 no-name data collection companies that come up when you look at a website's GDPR/cookie disclosures. The ones with ever-so-subtle descriptions like "Matches online activity with offline accounts."

emptyparadise 4y ago

We'll invent evil cyberpunk tech to serve more relevant ads then governments will use it to create the panopticon.

eru 4y ago

> Sad: This type of social credit score system seems pervasive and will no doubt be here soon. Where is here? If you mean somewhere in the western world: are you willing to bet on it?

whodidntante 4y ago

FAANGers will not bring this about,they will simply better enable society to get to where it is going. With the much needed reorganization of our society based on our ancestry (who our parents are, where they came from, what they did) and who we choose to be (the genders and politics we identify with), we can better apply the ancestry/gender/political matrix to decide what goods/books/movies/blogs get produced, who produces them, who gets to run companies, who gets to be president or on the supreme court, what gets taught in schools, how money is distributed, who gets what type of health care, who gets to live where, etc. Technology will be used to help us get to this better and more equitable future more quickly, more efficiently, and most importantly, will make sure economic and political equity is transparently tracked and apportioned appropriately based on each individuals relative needs. I really do not think that the FAANGers here will create this future, they will simply provide the tools for what is currently happening.