We already live in social credit, we just don't call it that

This exact same story pretty much happened to me when I moved to Canada about 15 years ago. I wasn't able to get a credit card for years, and couldn't rent an apartment without a guarantor, despite the fact that I was full-time employed in the tech industry, had zero debt, plenty of savings etc.

What I took from the experience (especially after going through various iterations of it in several other countries) is that most communities are biased against migrants/newcomers. Egalitarianism would be nice, but in practice nepotism and chauvinism are encoded in policy.

> We already live in social credit but I fear the ones maintained by companies might be better for the consumer.

Seems to me to be dependent on how the incentives line up.

A credit bureau WANTS you to part with any money you might have for a car. So it works out when they control the issuance of your loan.

But would you want the NRA to control the social credit system regulating a firearm purchase?

Holy moly the US is kafkaesque. Gee.

Duly noted. I might be in your position one day in the far future. Will prep for it.

Thanks :)

> unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west

Okay but that is exactly why I would prefer a western liberal government. It is better and that is ideal is worth criticizing authoritarians for, and fighting to keep in the west.

Not entirely true. People living authoritarian worry about what they say, they self-censor out of fear, they defer to those in power (even at a local level), they accept a hierarchy of power rather than rights.

I do not entirely disagree without, but lack of freedom does intrude into day to day life to some extent.

Yes. I've been to China, daily life for regular people is mostly fine (bad work-life balance notwithstanding, as in other Asian countries). Nothing like the old stories from Russia (written by Russians, mind you) or even the relative material comfort but heavy-handed state control like in the GDR.

Daily life can also be fine in fascism if you don't belong to any "unpopular" groups and don't care about any. Until the customary war starts, that is...

This is kind of a pointless statement when you make it that broadly. Are you talking about life in North Korea or in China?

And do you think American media really distorts the "other" side more than Chinese or Russian media distorts what life in the west is like?

This is a naive view. Life under the Soviet Union was horrible. Talk to nearly everyone who lived in fear that their neighbors would rat on them.

That affects everyone.

I think this is a big reason why Americans (and other "Westerners") tend to say "Look at them, they're Communist!!!", instead of "Look at them, They're Authoritarian!!!".

If you call it what it actually is, too many Americans might actually connect the dots.

Well, day to day life is similar until it isn't, then you realize you have no options. Your life is nothing more than bubbles in the pond.

You can always move to new town and start again. The problem with all these social credit systems is that they're designed to follow you wherever you go forever. There is also zero recourse if a mistake was made; at least you can try and smooth things over with a bartender.

Real world social credit is soft and squishy and local and fades or changes over time.

Digital social credit is (potentially) an automatically calculated number with strict and unyielding consequences that follows you around for your entire life.

The difference is the relationship between the bartender, the non-profit or the barista all revolve around physical locations where cash transactions or real work occur. There's actual direct value to be measured in the interaction.

Further my interactions with the bartender aren't likely to be measured or even known about by the non-profit and vice versa. To the extent my "credit" is a factor it doesn't travel with me from location to location.

I think that comment overestimated how much people really remember.

That bartender most likely has 3 to 5 worse assholes every shift and dozen usual assholes . He is not going to remember he doesn’t care.

Local non profit after 2 years most likely won’t have the same people and top guys won’t remember all one off volunteers.

Believing any of it having more significance would be attributed to “spotlight effect” in my opinion.

That heavily depends on where you live.

In large, dense cities you’re pretty much anonymous; I could dance naked in a main street today and (provided no one’s recording) carry on with my life with zero repercussions.

Some people make a living out of that fact. Tourist traps do not exactly engage recurring customers, every purchase is a customer’s first.

Sure, but without a credit score, the only way people can be prejudiced against you is through your appearance or through gossip. A credit score carries with it a weight that approximates official statements - news coverage, legal judgements - that others are much less likely to take with a grain of salt, as they would a casual hearsay accusation.

True, reputation has always existed. But after a certain scale, quantity becomes a quality of its own. There’s a big difference between word-of-mouth at a single bar and a centralized, algorithmic reputation score that can follow you across dozens of services. If one bartender thinks you’re rude, you can go to another bar. If one nonprofit doesn’t like you, you can still volunteer elsewhere. But when a social media company or platform blacklists you, it can ripple through your professional, social, and even financial life, because their influence extends far beyond one community. That’s the leap from local memory to systemic gatekeeping.

That’s a subjective mess. How do you objectively weight the value of those experiences? It also won’t stop gossip, PR, and propaganda. Just look at the state of Rotten Tomatoes. Now imagine Fandango buying your social credit website and making Harvey Weinstein a 10/10 good person.

Did you even read the article? Here is the situation in China:

> Here's what's actually happening. As of 2024, there's still no nationwide social credit score in China. Most private scoring systems have been shut down, and local government pilots have largely ended. It’s mainly a fragmented collection of regulatory compliance tools, mostly focused on financial behavior and business oversight. While well over 33 million businesses have been scored under corporate social credit systems, individual scoring remains limited to small pilot cities like Rongcheng. Even there, scoring systems have had "very limited impact" since they've never been elevated to provincial or national levels.

Compare that to the situation with, say, credit scores in the US --- wholly run by an oligopoly of three private companies, but fully ingrained into how personal finances work here. At least a publicly run credit score would be held accountable, however indirectly, to voters and the law; and its safety might be treated as a matter of national security, rather than having Equifax and Experian leaking data like clockwork.

Of course individual people judge each other.

In this case a corporation is judging me and then offering those judgments as a service.

Quite a difference.

Exactly. Amazon might approve my returns (or not cancel my account) because I buy more than someone else, but they don't share my purchase/return ratio with any third parties.

Exactly. Unless all these companies are sharing trustworthiness data I can make a new account and start fresh. The centralization of "worthiness" is what concerns me.

You didn’t read the article. There is no single authority social credit system in China.

Those "single authorities" you fear already exist in western countries, the mega-corporations that monopolise entire markets.

The western system creates an illusion of choice, which those in power have found ways to manipulate. It has become merely a convenient tool for them to exploit the rest of the population, while the "free market" and "democracy" keep them oblivious to it.

But whatever people like me say, it will be too hard for most of you to accept the reality.

I am not Chinese, my wife is though.

I think, at least from my interpretation of it from being in China and having Chinese family, that something like underage drinking is seen more as a family issue, than a legal issue. What stops the 16 year old from drinking? The fact that their friends / family will see them being drunk, and think less of the person and their family. A 16 year old being drunk in public is family issue. Sure, the cops will intervene at some point, but China has very little drunken / raucous public behavior than the west does.

Any business vaguely money related knows exactly who you are because of KYC requirements. They don't need to ask for you phone number when they already have your full name, address, birthday, and SSN.

Try convincing your customers to all get a YubiKey... it's not fun. The majority of internet users are able to read an SMS on their phone and copy a code, however.

Passkeys are pretty new - most the major platforms didn't gain support until 2023.

SMS 2FA is good enough for most people most of the time. It's very bad at preventing high-skill targeted attacks against individuals, but it's perfectly good at preventing mass brute-force attacks.

It's popular because it solves the problem (not ALL problems, but the one they're trying to solve) and it's easy and low-barrier to implement and use.

SMS 2FA stops enough would-be criminals and checks the compliance box. They don't lose enough money to sophisticated thefts to do something better.

> individuals (businesses or people)

I think here is the difference between your and authors optics. You count businesses (does this include large corporations/organizations?) as individuals.

How do you mean?