Australia is planning to have a social credit system

submitted by casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter from self.debatealtright

https://twitter.com/BLCKD_COM_PILLD/status/1433440534027194375

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[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (20 children)

A social credit system isn't inherently bad, it's only bad because its basis is objectively evil, anti-social, and dystopian.

A modern technological state could use a social credit system to reward people for pro-social behaviours and discourage anti-social ones. Rather than this simply punishing people for not being sufficiently up to date with elite fashion trends.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

A modern technological state could use a social credit system to reward people for pro-social behaviors and discourage anti-social ones

I prefer a society where men are able to live with dignity so long as they live an honest life. Not one in which they are herded like animals by fat bureaucrats. I don't give a shit if it's a national socialist state or a communist one.

Modern society and all its factions lack a sense of balance that was common in the pre-industrial age. Yes, you shouldn't have a do as thou wilt society as libertarians envision where it's okay for women to whore themselves on the internet or do coke in the middle of the road. But you also shouldn't have a society where an over-arching state is dictating what you must do with every aspect of your life and determines your ability to travel, work or marry based on your behavior.

Sadly, a lot of people don't understand this. Its either you have to be a hardcore libertarian with legal child prostitutes or you have to simp for North Korea.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This isn't feasible in a modern technological society. Community is not needed due to the complexity, rationalisation etc of society so something needs to fill the role that community did.

People are fat, adulterous etc because there's no social consequence for anti-social or self destructive behaviours. Technology made it so social pressure no longer exists, so it is the responsibility of the state to use technology to reintroduce social guidelines and barriers. Without the reintroduction of normalcy through technological methods people will continue acting in anti-social, self destructive etc ways and the the only other alternative is technological decomplexification which is a pipedream.

It's either a pro-social social credit system, along with attempting to reintroduce community into people's lives through city planning and such. Or people continue being shitty and get worse as technique progresses.

[–]Dippy_Dipshizzle 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Although I think I understand where you are coming from, it is quite clear that you haven't thought it through.

The point is: who gets to set the "social credit" guidelines. If everyone agreed on the same values, then it might work. That will never be the case! Instead, a simple majority would be able dictate its morals onto the rest, with zero protection for minorities. Not my understanding of a vibrant democracy. The only "social credit" system that works is having a set of laws (as we do) and that already has many issues. To broaden that to include general behaviour is the ultimate dystopia which I will fight against in any way I can.

[–]NeoRail 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I do not think that attempting to quantify pro-social behaviour with technology would be very effective. I think there would be more problems than benefits with something like that.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

How so?

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I think technology and social media can be used for tribalist loyalty tests ("virtue signalling etc") and organisation, but they can't really provide any useful information about a person's moral character. Moral character is a subtle thing, it is not easy to transparently examine it, even if the observer is very perceptive and has extensive knowledge of the person in question.

I think rather than measuring pro-social behaviour in the genuine sense of the term, a social credit system would instead measure conformism and opportunism. Even if a social credit system could offer semi-reliable results, they would be significantly distorted by social climbers and oversocialised people who will obtain unfair advantages in the long run and may compromise the integrity of the ruling ideology if they can rely on their social credit score to get ahead.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I think we're talking about different things, mine would just pretty much be social programs tied to an app that is gathering information and using algorithms and whatever to increase its effectiveness.

It wouldn't be based on ideology or attempting to analyse people's morality, rather it would incentivise participation in associations and healthy personal choices.

It doesn't need to be some big brother thing, it can simply be an updated (dis)incentivisation scheme that encourages people to live better lives. When it's combined with an urban planning revolution, an education revolution, a cultural revival etc it'll be useful to have these incentives to push people back into having a social life rather than a socially atomised one.

As for things like measuring people paying their bills on time and that kind of thing I don't think implementing that sort of thing is necessary and I'm not advocating that. Although I think that has some potential merits unlike literally 1984 style ideological shit testing social credit systems.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

So you mean a system that can encourage participation in different organisations, say, for example, something like the old scout movement? Or martial arts and fitness clubs? Something like that?

What incentives would be linked to raising social score?

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes, any kind of local group. Religious, sports, hobby, leisure, community, labour, political etc. Also attending specific cultural events like heritage festivals would be rewarded.

For individuals I wouldn't have a scoring system. I'd rather just have a rolling monthly tally of stuff they've done, let's say someone attended 10 hours total of various groups. This would give them some discounts to local businesses, 10 entries into the monthly raffle for their district etc. I think incorporating disincentives on the individual level with this wouldn't work though. So maybe that could just be dealt with through regular taxing type stuff like it already is.

In order to have like a scoring system I think the best method would be to do it through the local councils/districts rather than individuals. The rate of obesity would bring the area's score down, attendance rate of associations per capita (Social Capital) would increase it. It would just be used so the government can determine where they need to do more stuff to help get the people in to a better situation.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

That sounds very sensible. Referring to this as a social credit system might lead to misunderstandings, though. I thought you were referring to something like credit score but tied to pro-social behaviour rather than financial situation.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah, Social Credit System is an MK Ultra trigger word lol. I'm not sure what else to call something like that though.

[–]NeoRail 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's some form of community engagement, but I don't think there's a clear name to refer to it with. Social credit probably comes closest, but it's not the best term, in my opinion.

[–]proc0 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Of course it's inherently bad. If you have to reward people for "pro-social" behaviors, first, someone has to define those behaviors, and second, it will social-engineer society because people will optimize for those behaviors.

How about let's not engineer society? How about we just let the world live their lives, and if there is some adjacent problem to fix because of over-population or whatever, we fix that directly by expanding into the vast lands of unpopulated areas around the globe? WTF are you smoking lol.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

There doesn't exist such a thing as a non-engineered society. This is childish liberal/anarchist fairytales completely detached from reality.

[–]proc0 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Besides the point. Even if governments are doing it now, they shouldn't be. A social credit system takes it to the next level. One thing is incentivizing people through taxes or laws, and another is a direct, game-like, personal application that rewards people on an personal action level. It would literally be like playing a game, except the consequences are real. Imagine playing Mario but if your score is too low you go to jail.

It's the nightmare scenario, and not even that long ago (about 6-8 years?) there were sci-fi dystopia shows on this, like Black Mirror. Obviously, they won't role out the punishments or "bad features" on version 1.0... but I honestly can't believe we're living through this.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Besides the point. Even if governments are doing it now, they shouldn't be.

The problem is the capitalists are the ones doing it, and they're engineering people to be unhealthy and unhappy intentionally. Plus they use propaganda techniques to brainwash people like you into being as stupid as you are.

[–]proc0 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Sounds like you agree with me? WTF are you talking about? Do you want social engineering or not? If you don't, then why would you support it going to the next level?

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Social engineering always exists and has forever. Yes I want social engineering, I want it set up to make people healthy and have strong communities.

I want to get rid of socially atomised suburbs and replace them with genuine liveable community spaces for example. I want to revolutionise urbanism so cities aren't planned around cars, but they're walkable and cyclable as another example. This is social engineering and it's good, they've been engineered currently intentionally to eliminate community from people's lives to make them unhealthy and unhappy so they consume more.

Social engineering, like everything, isn't something that is a priori bad. Just because the current capitalist dystopia is engineering our society and ourselves into a terrible mould that benefits them and ruins us it doesn't mean that social engineering is bad on principle.

There's no such thing as a society without social engineering, the only way to oppose social engineering is by opposing society, and thus all states/politics existing at all. That idea is a total absurdity.

[–]proc0 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I want it set up to make people healthy and have strong communities.

This is called being authoritarian. How about leave people alone?

I want to get rid of socially atomised suburbs and replace them with genuine liveable community spaces for example

This is not social engineering, that is just regular engineering. In fact, it's called civil engineering, and it's about building structures and city planning. That is not about controlling thoughts and behavior in a direct manipulative way.

There's no such thing as a society without social engineering, the only way to oppose social engineering is by opposing society, and thus all states/politics existing at all.

Are you so used to government controlling you and your life, that you can't imagine a town where people just live their lives without external controls? They do exist. What you're describing is a kind of totalitarian, authoritarian control. A society were a few handful of people are telling the rest how to behave and live their lives.

You are confusing social engineering with simple governance of people. You are confusing social engineering with regular engineering and city planning. Please reconsider. These kinds of confusion opens the door wide open for dystopias and dictators that kill millions of people who won't comply. I hope you are not in favor of killing millions of people who disagree with you.

[–]MarkimusNational Socialist 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

This is called being authoritarian. How about leave people alone?

I am an authoritarian, liberalism has brought humanity nothing but misery. I will leave people alone once I've liberated them from their slavery.

This is not social engineering, that is just regular engineering. In fact, it's called civil engineering, and it's about building structures and city planning. That is not about controlling thoughts and behavior in a direct manipulative way.

Your physical environment is obviously intimately tied to your psychology. Obviously a town with a church, only small local businesses, a park and everyone living within walking distance of each other is going to have vastly different social outcomes to a suburb that only has houses and roads. This point is beyond retarded and you should feel extremely embarrassed for thinking this was smart.

I hope you are not in favor of killing millions of people who disagree with you.

Nobody would disagree with me once I was in power because everyone would be happy and grateful that I gave them exactly what you're arguing for but have no idea how to get there. You would realise how ridiculously stupid you were as a lolbert and repent and beg me to forgive you for how lacking in vision you were. I would of course be merciful because I'm a benevolent God.

[–]IkeConn 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

First they took their guns. Then they took everything else.