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The U.S. is presently grappling with its own democracy-related issues, rise in authoritarianism, and declining quality of life, as well as a lot of “de globaliz

The U.S. is presently grappling with its own democracy-related issues, rise in authoritarianism, and declining quality of life, as well as a lot of “de globalization” problems originating in its poor attempts at playing hardball with China and other powers (Russia) that it just doesn't like. In my opinion, the most grim and dystopian elements of China’s system (Social Credit, censorship, mass surveillance, extreme bureaucracy) are either already present in the U.S., but with a decentralized/capitalist bent rather than a centralized/communist one.

chiefalchemist 3y ago
Agreed. The 1984 reference was more about how the truths of both countries and the relationship between them reeks of newspeak (i.e., propaganda). It all feels so staged so contrived.
culi 3y ago
> In my opinion, the most grim and dystopian elements of China’s system (Social Credit, censorship, mass surveillance, extreme bureaucracy) are either already present in the U.S., but with a decentralized/capitalist bent rather than a centralized/communist one A lot of these are over-hyped by Western media. For example's China's "social credit" system seems even more basic/low-tech than America's "credit score" and has less of an impact on people's lives than the American Credit Score. It's actually almost only used for business executives, judges, and other people in power rather than ordinary citizens.[0-3] Similarly, "mass surveillance" has actually been going the other direction in many areas. Back in 2021 the Supreme People's Court basically made facial recognition illegal in public and nationally they're moving to even restrict business uses of it. Which puts them pretty far ahead of where the US is on the issue currently.[4-5] [0] https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-credit-focuses-on-legal-violations/ https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-c... [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpe3z/china-social-credit-meme https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpe3z/china-social-credit-m... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-system-authoritarian/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-sys... [3] https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-untangling-myth-reality https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-unt... [4] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-08-15/china-supreme-peoples-court-issues-judicial-interpretation-against-misuse-of-facial-recognition-technology/ https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-08-15/chi... [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/china-releases-plans-to-restrict-facial-recognition-technology.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/china-releases-plans-to-rest...
Frost1x 3y ago
As a country, we (the US) keep pointing at other political systems and governmental systems as examples of terrible practices while those with power in our country seem to be seeking the exact same sort of outcomes, doing everything they can within our system to move further in that direction, and largely succeeding. We really need to look in the mirror, functional outcomes not just philosophical ideas of freedom and rights (how much freedom and what rights you actually have and can use), and fix it. Instead we just want to continue on with business as usual, point fingers and say at least were not that bad, and try our best to become or allow ourselves to become that bad. IMHO we average folks in the US are losing this battle more rapidly and the underlying cause seems to be wealth disparity, the unequal levels of power wealth buys in this country safely within all our philosophical constructs, and the nature of those with the advantage to want to exploit the advantage further and further to get more power, compromise more freedoms, gain more control, etc. It's like we're running a Democracy hypervisor and installing an Authoritarian OS within it and all our accounts are user accounts inside the Authoritarian OS. Sure, Democracy underlies it all... but when's the last time you poked around the hypervisor and cared? It's transparent and largely becoming inaccessible to you for all your real world applications.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Agreed. The 1984 reference was more about how the truths of both countries and the relationship between them reeks of newspeak (i.e., propaganda). It all feels so staged so contrived.

culi 3y ago

> In my opinion, the most grim and dystopian elements of China’s system (Social Credit, censorship, mass surveillance, extreme bureaucracy) are either already present in the U.S., but with a decentralized/capitalist bent rather than a centralized/communist one A lot of these are over-hyped by Western media. For example's China's "social credit" system seems even more basic/low-tech than America's "credit score" and has less of an impact on people's lives than the American Credit Score. It's actually almost only used for business executives, judges, and other people in power rather than ordinary citizens.[0-3] Similarly, "mass surveillance" has actually been going the other direction in many areas. Back in 2021 the Supreme People's Court basically made facial recognition illegal in public and nationally they're moving to even restrict business uses of it. Which puts them pretty far ahead of where the US is on the issue currently.[4-5] [0] https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-credit-focuses-on-legal-violations/ https://jamestown.org/program/far-from-a-panopticon-social-c... [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpe3z/china-social-credit-meme https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpe3z/china-social-credit-m... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-system-authoritarian/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-sys... [3] https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-untangling-myth-reality https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-unt... [4] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-08-15/china-supreme-peoples-court-issues-judicial-interpretation-against-misuse-of-facial-recognition-technology/ https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-08-15/chi... [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/china-releases-plans-to-restrict-facial-recognition-technology.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/08/china-releases-plans-to-rest...

Frost1x 3y ago

As a country, we (the US) keep pointing at other political systems and governmental systems as examples of terrible practices while those with power in our country seem to be seeking the exact same sort of outcomes, doing everything they can within our system to move further in that direction, and largely succeeding. We really need to look in the mirror, functional outcomes not just philosophical ideas of freedom and rights (how much freedom and what rights you actually have and can use), and fix it. Instead we just want to continue on with business as usual, point fingers and say at least were not that bad, and try our best to become or allow ourselves to become that bad. IMHO we average folks in the US are losing this battle more rapidly and the underlying cause seems to be wealth disparity, the unequal levels of power wealth buys in this country safely within all our philosophical constructs, and the nature of those with the advantage to want to exploit the advantage further and further to get more power, compromise more freedoms, gain more control, etc. It's like we're running a Democracy hypervisor and installing an Authoritarian OS within it and all our accounts are user accounts inside the Authoritarian OS. Sure, Democracy underlies it all... but when's the last time you poked around the hypervisor and cared? It's transparent and largely becoming inaccessible to you for all your real world applications.