[walruskkkch]

You just KNOW that this is giving them ideas.

In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”

For the Chinese Communist Party, social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party. Samantha Hoffman, a consultant with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London who is researching social credit, says that the government wants to preempt instability that might threaten the Party. “That’s why social credit ideally requires both coercive aspects and nicer aspects, like providing social services and solving real problems. It’s all under the same Orwellian umbrella.”

Link

[moomin]

It's called a credit history.

[walruskkkch]

It will be more than that. Contribute to the wrong candidate? Ooh, that's going to hurt your credit score. Bought that gas guzzler car? Oooh, that's going to hurt your credit score. The potential for control here is a lot more than knowing if you are a good credit risk.

[moomin]

Yeah, I know. It's bascially credit history + social media sociograms. But the only thing different is that the Chicoms are honest about it.

[walruskkkch]

That's why they are Communists and not Democrats.

[moomin]

I am positively certain that there is a dossier with similar stats and facts for every American in NSA:s keeping, with aggregated IRS records, credit card purchase records, facebook/google/apple usage stats, credit and bank histories, court records, employment records, medical records and so on and so forth.

The difference is that the Chinese export their DB rating through a public interface to encourage conformity, while the Deep State simply uses the data for extortion. The only reason the EU does not have something like this is that synchronizing 20+ different systems to this extent is a major PITA.

[walruskkkch]

The key difference is still that whoever controls the government in the USA is not currently using that info to publicly make people change their behavior and beliefs to better coincide with the beliefs and behavior their betters want them to exhibit.

[moomin]

No, the Deep State is more sophisticated. Who cares how the ghetto niggers act up so long as the right people can be... convinced... to toe the line.

[walruskkkch]

But the goal is to make the average Joe and Jill to make their everyday choices along the lines of what the party wants them to believe and act. I need to up my social credit score, I'll buy those carbon offsets from Gore Co. Inc.

[moomin]

The goal in China is to encourage hypocrisy and public conformity. The goals in the west is to make sure that the people who percolate up through the electoral processes know which side their bread is buttered.