Background: I’m Chinese by origin but grew up in the west. He’s English. He’s kind of a but in a lefty way and has been with me to China multiple times, we’ve been together for years. He has had misconceptions before but is always learning. He does go on Reddit still, mostly to talk about land value tax which is his big political obsession right now.
Anyway last night we were at dinner and talking about an idea for a project that’s like quora but with only expert/academic researchers as responders. Part of it would need a reputation rating for the researchers. We were then talking about the use cases/audience for the project and I said “this might be better suited to Asia” (because of how highly education is valued and the pressure on kids to study/achieve grades). And he immediately responded “because they’re used to social credit scores?” Like. Without missing a beat. Maybe I’m overthinking it but it really pissed me off that his first association when I mentioned Asia was… this.
We talked about it and he explained that the concept was already in his mind when he was thinking about the reputation system so it wasn’t just a reaction to Asia specifically. But he insisted that he knew social credit scores were a real thing. I think he did listen when I said these types of jokes were what made Reddit such a hostile environment to be in, though.
I’m not sure what I’m asking but I just wanted to get it off my chest. Does anyone maybe have resources on internet Sinophobia / explanation of where the social credit stuff came from I can share with him?
Thanks crew. Sorry that was so long x
one of my very good friends made a ‘social credit score’ comment the other night off-hand (they were referring to a relative of theirs who apparently lives in China and ‘has’ one - but it sounded like bs to me lol) but I knew the argument wasn’t worth pursuing so instead of I just went “huh?” & kept asking him to elaborate until he realized he was just spouting some insane propagandized State Department BS straight from either his’ relative’s dumbass mouth and/or from some bs alternative source. Works every time and he actually felt dumb about it afterwards.
Literally:
“yeah my cousin lives in Beijing and actually has a social credit score…”
huh??
“you know - the social credit score thing that China has?”
huh?? like the credit score we have for renting/purchasing property and loans?
“no no - its different than that, its a lot more fucked up you’ve surely heard of this you fucking communist”
huh? how?
“basically its how China prevents people from doing…”
huh?? that doesn’t sound real to me lol - how has it affected your American cousin who is living in Beijing with a Chinese wife??
“he has a social credit score now”
so like an American credit score??
“NO NO NO HERE HOLD ON LET ME GOOGLE IT FOR YOU”
^ imagine this for like an hour and a half and you’ll have my experience in NYC a few days ago.
This is a good idea. He said to me “I don’t know what Redditors think it is, and I’m sure it’s massively overblown, but I know that what I’m talking about exists in some way”. So he probably has just vaguely heard something or read something a while ago and didn’t apply much thought.
Oh crap this is like some kind of Socratic Method isn’t it. I need to try this, though sometimes I think folks can enjoy the whiff of their own farts too much and become emboldened.
Did you find it worked especially well with certain people or certain personalities?
my personal experience with that method is that it works for a huge swath of people, but you gotta have nearly saintlike patience
though sometimes I think folks can enjoy the whiff of their own farts too much and become emboldened.
Did you find it worked especially well with certain people or certain personalities?
They absolutely can - so if it is someone who literally doesn’t think about what they’re saying at ALL, then in my experience the method only really is useful if you want to entertain yourself with a few hours of insane conversation. However, if the person is going to consider what’s coming out of their mouth even a little bit then usually it can work. I wouldn’t recommend it for a like your local sidewalk preacher because they’re probably too entrenched, but that dipshit cousin/coworker you barely know and talk to once a year? It’ll probably work on them.
Like Thordros said - it works best with things like racist jokes or just ignorant statements that you can force them to sit there and deconstruct. You do have to either have patience or a great poker-face - I’ve found that sometimes, especially when doing it to friends/relatives, that smiling and whatnot will clue someone in & make them shut down the conversation.
It’s works even better with racist jokes. Make them deconstruct how fucked up what they just said is.
Huh? Fried chicken and orange ‘drank’? What’s a ‘drank’? I don’t get it.
“You know, how black people are, like…”
I don’t get joke. Can you explain it to me?
Yeah, thanks for the advice.
As an aside, what you wrote (mostly the “huh”) made me think of this and I can’t stop laughing.
I saw Flying Lotus at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
He does go on Reddit still, mostly to talk about land value tax which is his big political obsession right now.
You managed to find a Georgist in the year of our Lord 2023…
Also Here’s the actual law translated, reading the primary source really reveals how sensational western reporting is on the subject. There’s almost nothing in the laws about individuals. It’s 90% bans on obtaining business licenses if you do financial crimes and travel bans if you have fucked over a community you’re in until you rectify the damage you did.
They also get specific with lifetime bans in participating in the dairy industry for dairy executives that don’t follow health and safety standards, bans on participation in financial investment for predatory investors/fraud, and bans on owning real-estate for predatory landlords or real-estate holding executives.
All good things in my opinion.
You managed to find a Georgist in the year of our Lord 2023…
He can see the cat
In all seriousness, Georgists have dogshit takes. They’re basically a step away from fascists and their non-class based analysis is just waiting for fascist and nationalist exploitation. It’s not too much of a jump to start equating “unproductive landlords” with like Jews, the Chinese (already happening with the people who think rent is up because of Chinese people buying American land), or any other minority group that they don’t like.
This is dumb:
He does go on Reddit still, mostly to talk about land value tax
Oh no, I’m so sorry.
Here is one of the FP articles on social credit. I believe they wrote another few about it. It’s been deeply misportrayed in pop culture.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-credit-score-isnt-real
Here is another (lmao at the fucking url tho):
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-system-authoritarian/
The subheading sums it up well:
A supposedly Orwellian system is fragmented, localized, and mostly targeted at businesses.
Thanks crew. Sorry that was so long x
You never need to apologize for giving us an opportunity to yell at the english.
FICO scores/no fly lists/hooligan lists in england especially/felons can’t vote in the usa/you may be denied entry in usa as a member of communist party/background checks in workplaces, especially government.
Even if social scores existed exactly as described, they do exist in the west, he just doesn’t perceive them as such
And credit scores aren’t even for pro-social/anti-social behavior. It’s a measure of how likely banks think they are to trap you in to a debt cycle that you can service but not escape.
Plus steam vac bans, ai plagiarism detection software, and a dozen other fragmented systems tracking you and deciding your fate.
hooligan lists in england
I have never heard of these
ASBOs would be the policy I would point to as they are a criminalisation of non criminal behaviour especially targetted at children although they have been replaced everywhere but Scotland now with a different system that seems to be less aimed at creating criminal records and unlike the ASBO system exempt children
I meant something like this, like its sensible football policies, but you can take it as “restricting freedom of movement of individuals not facing any jail time”
