When I saw the video, Paul Joseph Watson: “China’s TERRIFYING Social Credit System”, on Bottomless Coffee, I wondered how much truth there was in it. Seems basically true.
What are we talking about? Well, here is the view from a somewhat more skeptical source.
China’s sweeping, data-driven “social credit” initiative is sounding alarms. In a speech on Oct. 4, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence described it as “an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life.” But there’s a small problem. The system doesn’t actually exist—at least as it’s generally portrayed.
It’s not surprising that myths about the system are spreading, given the shrinking space in China for civil society, rights lawyering, speech, investigative journalism, and religious belief; its increasingly ubiquitous, invasive surveillance capability; and the Chinese Communist Party’s push to apply big data and artificial intelligence in governance. China’s party-state is collecting a vast amount of information on its citizens, and its social credit system and other developments internally and overseas raise many serious concerns. But contrary to the mainstream media narrative on this, Chinese authorities are not assigning a single score that will determine every aspect of every citizen’s life—at least not yet. (from here (foreignpolicy.com))
China’s social credit system is suppose to be implemented in 2020. Will it be? Who knows? But aspects of it are already going into place.
China’s social credit system, whether fully implemented or not, obviously has potential for abuse, and the tyrannical regime in China will abuse it. Unfortunately, there is probably little we can do to stop that from happening. In fact, the best thing we can do is figure out how to keep such a thing from happening here.
So what do I suggest? Instead of writing a windy article on the subject, I decided to list some of the articles already out there. Why? I am not in China. So what do I know about what is going on there? Not much. Here? I know a bit more, but I don’t know how to prevent people from being foolish. I have enough problems with “me”. As the man said: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
- China’s social credit system ‘could interfere in other nations’ sovereignty (theguardian.com): This article focuses on the fact that China will pressure foreign companies to help them make their surveillance system work, that is, gather data and enforce their rules.
- China has a ‘chilling’ system to control everyone (foxnews.com): Here is a simple, brief description of the problem.
- Pushing The Ethical Boundaries Of Big Data: A Look At China’s Social Credit Scoring System (forbes.com): Here is a brief look at some of the ethical issues.
- America Isn’t Far Off From China’s ‘Social Credit Score’ (observer.com): Our government and various corporations are gathering heaps of data about each of us. Is that a good thing? Now? What about ten years from now? To what extent do and will certain companies monopolize the Internet and various products and services? When do they cross the line between serving us and manipulating us?
- As China expands digital surveillance, Facebook and Google risk legitimizing regime (cjr.org): China presents a huge market to American companies. Will they resist the temptation?
- China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you (businessinsider.com): This article focuses on the system of punishments and rewards.
- Blacklists and redlists: How China’s Social Credit System actually works (technode.com): This gets is into the history of the system and meditates on why some people might find the system attractive. Keep in mind that when we do evil we often use the ends to justify the means.
- The odd reality of life under China’s all-seeing credit score system (wired.co.uk): Surveys some of the weirder aspects of the system.
The Bible predicted this sort of thing.
Revelation 13:16-18 New King James Version (NKJV)
16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has [a]the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.
And no, I have no idea which man has the number of the Beast. I just know that accepting that mark is a very bad idea (see Revelation 14:9-11).
Tom.
There are numerous reasons why pregnant Chinees women are paying big money to agents to arrange for transportation to the USA so their baby can be born in the USA to become a citizen and hopefully petition for their parents to enter the USA.
Regards and good will blogging.
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Kinda reminds me of the movie Demolition Man with Stallone and Snipes and Bullock. Stallone is a 20th century cop frozen cryogenically for screwing up doing his cop duties.. then thawed out in the future to go after criminal Snipes. The future world has a demerit system when you use curse words… tape dispenser on the walls eject a ticket for your violation when the words are uttered.
Not sold the China concept it will work in the long run.
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@Doug
Not sure what you mean by work.
What the government wants to do is control the people, to automate what the government is already doing so that the central government can implement its controls in greater detail with greater force. It does not have to work perfectly; it “works” if it makes people more fearful.
Fearful people, however, are not productive. They fear to do anything. In that respect the system could pose a problem for the regime. That is why the USSR failed. No useful work was getting done.
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@Citizen Tom,
Solid post. I don’t know how true or false any of this is since it is shrouded in mystery, but my cynical side tells me to not trust any government.
A few of my issues with this, with what we may or may not know the far:
1. How much are we still indebted to the Chinese?
2. What, especially electronics are not made in China?
3. Since we are “global” now, how will this effect us and our trade in the future? (like you stated, “The next 10 years).
4. How far are we, as individuals willing to go to separate ourselves from China?
We must work towards self sufficiency as individuals and as families. I don’t think this will ever be possible, since the majority of Americans are in incredibly high debt, so they will continue to purchase Chinese good in mass.
In order to be self sufficient we must first think small and live small if we ever expect to beat back our own government. At the same time, the amount of U.S. owned corporations that produce in China is incredibly staggeringly high.
Your post was soooooooo, much better than mine. Hats off to you good sir.
Even though we are not certain of the accuracy of the reporting on this yet, how much are we willing to wager to either watch it play out before we are entangled into it ourselves?
If I had my druthers, I would run for the hills. But, unfortuantley I cannot make rash decisions off of shaky reporting.
In any regard, now is the time to buy firearms, before the 2020 election that will surely be a total mess, based on what took place these last midterms. Get what you can while you can.
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