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Comment by prolikewhoa | Hacker News Reader

Looks to be legitimate.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-credit/china-to-bar...

Unreal. How long until this takes root in the west?

What happens to people who don't use social media, don't necessarily like being social, and just want to sit at home and play video games or reball some BGP's? Does this mean they're a bad person?

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Instead of asking if it will ever take root here, maybe it's time to start talking about how to make sure it never does.

Too late. This is just an expansion of the concept of credit scores which people already find offensive. I agree with you though.

For example, in some states, you can be denied a job based on your credit score.

https://www.selflender.com/blog/can-an-employer-not-hire-me-...

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/pf/employer-credit-checks/in...

Fraud is bad when individuals and corporations do it, but when your government begins to commit fraud it's a lot worse. It's bad when individuals suppress ideas, but when the government starts censoring things that the powerful few find uncomfortable it's a lot worse.

So, with social scores: when corporations organize to share information against people it's bad, but when the government formalizes, legalizes and makes mandatory the entire system it's a whole lot worse.

I'm inclined to agree with you but consider this alternative point of view. The credit system in the country is essentially mandatory and fraud isn't necessary for it to hurt ordinary people. If someone (a poor person!) is denied a job (with which they hoped to remedy their poverty!) based on the ordinary operation of the credit system with correct information in it irrelevant to the position, that's a travesty.

Power and who has it can be more subtle than guns. However, I agree that the guns add quite a kick. One step deeper though one might interrogate the extent to which government power is used to support corporations. People get shot and go to jail over such things.

The government has a little more than the guns (in the form of the police, the jails), it also has the ability to force resolutions to prisoner's dilemmas and tragedies of the commons that are currently working in our favor. If corporations ever cut out a group of people that should actually be served (for example, denying loans to capable individuals on grounds that have nothing to do with their financial stability), then there is a Schindler's list motivation for corporations to "defect" and include the group. Then, the market dynamics make everyone else a lot worse off unless they also defect.

America already has one experience with a mechanism that can coordinate non-equilibrium behaviors among companies that would individually benefit from defecting: racism. Government fiat is another such mechanism, and as far as the similarities go, it could produce something of the same results. (Groups cut out of society with nowhere to turn.)

Using a lot of bandwidth? That's a mark against your social credit score.

You don't have a Facebook account? That's minus some points too.

Cable companies can already track what and how much you watch. If you use Steam for video games, they can track what you play and for how long. Soon your xBox or Playstation won't work without an internet connection.

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