The Chinese corporate social credit system

[morvoran]

Maybe don't since he was recently outed as a fraudster and had to quit his previous position because of it.

You are just too much (by too much, I mean ).
Oh no, he was caught on video with right wingers. Hope he didn't mention he was gay or Asian. He would have been beaten and had milkshakes thrown on him by those big meanies he is now a part of.

Wait a second, does this mean he faked the part where antifa beat him and threw milkshakes laced with quick drying cement at him, too? I guess his Nazi sympathizing doctors that said he had a concussion were liars as well? What a fraud!!! My whole life is a lie....... Give me a break.

Do yourself a favor and turn the "liberal safe" filter off your web browser when you search the web.

 

[Xzi]

Wait a second, does this mean he faked the part where antifa beat him and threw milkshakes laced with quick drying cement at him, too?

Yep, that was proven fake. Ngo and Smollett should start a support group together.

 

[morvoran]

Yep, that was proven fake. Ngo and Smollett should start a support group together.

Proven fake, huh? Were those CGI milkshakes he was hit with? Stunt men that kicked, hit, and pushed him around?
Ok, you're so full of

 

[Xzi]

Proven fake, huh? Were those CGI milkshakes he was hit with?

Nah, just staged because he was desperate for attention. He got canned from the clickbait site he worked at after admitting to it.

Ok, he's so full of

Agreed, like most conservative "journalists."

 

[Captain_N]

An episode of black mirror showcased this. When government has control these kind of things will always happen. that's why limited central government is the key to freedom. With more and more of Americans buying into the "Democratic Socialism" BS i fear America will become another large government society that has dumb shit like this. But china is great dont you know. Bernie and his crazy fucks praises governments like china's government.

 

[morvoran]

Bernie and his crazy fucks praises governments like china's government.

Yeah, Bernie really praised them for keeping poverty levels low. He just didn't mention the way they kept the levels so low, by killing their poor people.

 

[Xzi]

An episode of black mirror showcased this. When government has control these kind of things will always happen. that's why limited central government is the key to freedom.

Or it just gives corporations all the power, and you end up with an oligarchy where Facebook creates its own social credit system. You're way late to the conversation.

 

[Captain_N]

Or it just gives corporations all the power, and you end up with an oligarchy where Facebook creates its own social credit system. You're way late to the conversation.

The difference is, facebook is not forcing me to use their system. China's government forces their citizens to use social media and they have to listen. ITs funny, their was a poll about what the citizens think about chinas social credit system. more then 80% like it and thinks its good. lol the poor souls that apposed it will get destroyed. the reason it appears the citizens support it is because they have to lol. Just saying you hate it deducts points. just like in that black mirror episode.

I also dont use social media like facebook or any of the photo social media. I post on forums like gbatemp but thats about it.

 

[Xzi]

The difference is, facebook is not forcing me to use their system. China's government forces their citizens to use social media and they have to listen. ITs funny, their was a poll about what the citizens think about chinas social credit system. more then 80% like it and thinks its good. lol the poor souls that apposed it will get destroyed. the reason it appears the citizens support it is because they have to lol. Just saying you hate it deducts points. just like in that black mirror episode.

I also dont use social media like facebook or any of the photo social media. I post on forums like gbatemp but thats about it.

That's fair, though I was speaking more in a hypothetical dystopian future sense where corporations ARE the government or decide how it operates. It's not entirely unrealistic considering how intertwined lobbyists have become with our current system.

 

[Captain_N]

That's fair, though I was speaking more in a hypothetical dystopian future sense where corporations ARE the government or decide how it operates. It's not entirely unrealistic considering how intertwined lobbyists have become with our current system.

If corporations were the government, that would certainly be bad.

 

[notimp]

An important difference here still is, that corporations (in traditional free market economies/countries) - arent government.

It basically goes like this.

Corporations can buy laws, and thats 'wanted', because what benefits them will create jobs.

NGOs can lobby for laws through mass movements, and thats wanted, because they also keep their hand on the pulse on certain sections of society.

People can exchange politicians, if they are unhappy.

Politicians can chose not to act on coporation or NGO lobbying - if other interests are more pressing.


Lobbying is basically wanted. The excuse is, that 'politicians can't know everything on their own'. So the capital cities where lobbyists meet NGO staffers, meet politicians - serve as a pool to discuss interests.

If you are richer - you get more access. If you, as an NGO, have higher population numbers that you can mobilize you get more access. If you as a politician become corrupt (or too corrupt, some would say) - you get voted off by citizens. In the traditional system - media was also needed for that.

So the important part is still, that those are different entities. Which are not solely reliant on one of their 'sponsors' but on all of them.

So politicians still have to weigh interests. Even if corporations buy laws.


Corporations usually dont buy laws 'directly'. But indirectly they do. The bigger ones have the money to staff good law people 24/7 near the political headquaters, and they write law proposal texts, and they can signal wishes (see first posting) to politicians, and they can ask favours from a head of state (think Merkel), if they are so big - that they became systemic.

Its all supposed to work, even if politicians arent impartial. Because - if it gets 'too bad for citizens' they get voted off. The systems actually arent designt for politicians to be all smart - and or angels.
--

The most problematic, and thereby most interesting aspect of all this I came along, was actually international trade laws and international arbitral tribunals.

Because those are actually extranational entities, that arent bound to national laws - and facilitate in trade disputes.

And there contracts that say "your state has to surrender its independence to an international body" - or "has to follow the suggestions of the 'lender of last resort' - by law" are possible - just so that investors can get their promised return on investment.

So in those cases you can utter 'democracy' 100 times, it wont count. International law values the interests of the investor more.

You do that - so larger Investors have 'safety' on political or legal stability (which basically should allow them to get their expected return on investment) so that they are wiling to invest at all.



If you want to read up on an ultimately failed example of a corparate state being created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys

(That one is actually an important story from many different angles - so get to know it. )

(Also - CD Projekt Reds next game will be situated in the cyberpunk genre. A form of SciFi, that has thought through many concepts of 'what a corporate state would look like'. Just as trivia. )

 

[Xzi]

Lobbying is basically wanted. The excuse is, that 'politicians can't know everything on their own'. So the capital cities where lobbyists meet NGO staffers, meet politicians - serve as a pool to discuss interests.

The federal government has open and free access to experts in every field and subject. Lobbyists are not experts, and their role is not education, it's all about quid pro quo.

 

[notimp]

The federal government has open and free access to experts in every field and subject.

Correct, and important as well.

Lobbyists are not experts, and their role is not education, it's all about quid pro quo.

'Education' on their sector. Still. (Where they are seen as experts. Lobbyists are seen as experts, just not as impartial ones.)

Also its really not, that politics is supposed to make informed, impartial decisions all the time.

They are rather supposed to make informed but partial (affected by interest groups) decisions.

The point is that companies writing parts of laws (or entire laws), is actually wanted (shares cost, shares burden of coming up with solutions, "creates jobs"). Politicians are supposed do go over and rewrite, or discard entirely - after consulting independant information, and other interest brokers (f.e. NGOs). Or write their own.

And if they made a corrupt decision - its actually not 'all over', because youd still have - opposing corporations (financing), media, NGOs, ... and so on and so forth.

But lawmaking in itself is actually not supposed to be impartial of lobbying interests.

(There are f.e. several instances, where Merkel intervened directly on behalf of the german car manufacturers and got environmental legislation changed. (There are less high profile channels as well.) And that was done to 'safe jobs'. That was them 'educating' politicians, that 'they'd need it'. In this case - that they wouldnt be able to transition that fast.

And then they had NGOs, and businesses and other interests push back on the 'public opinion' side - and it kind of 'balanced out'. Imperfect - sometimes, yes.. but works.. )
-

(You don't want a system with a single point of failure - where a politician got a law wrong - because f.e. he came up with it all on his own. Or only listened to one set of experts.)

 

[RandomUser]

An episode of black mirror showcased this. When government has control these kind of things will always happen. that's why limited central government is the key to freedom. With more and more of Americans buying into the "Democratic Socialism" BS i fear America will become another large government society that has dumb shit like this. But china is great dont you know. Bernie and his crazy fucks praises governments like china's government.

It wasn't the government controlled it was social media controlled that they showcased. The episode I think you're referring to is "nosedive". As posted previously in this post

If corporations were the government, that would certainly be bad.

That idea took place in a show called Continuum. It a Canadian based show and a good watch if you like watching somewhat futuristic shows. Basically the cooperation is the government, warden, etc.

 

[notimp]

Also - the part that buys big corporations laws, mostly - is actually not corruption - but a mixture of access and having staffed offices full of actually more, and sometimes better (legal) experts than politicians have access to - they just arent impartial.

So if an issue arises - proposals on how to solve it get often drafted by them first - will be the first thing politicians see on the matter - and so on and so forth. But the process of deliberating solutions ideally should only start there - an not 'be just that'.

But again - corporations paying for all of this, is actually wanted. More people thinking about how to solve an issue, more people to throw thoughts back and forth. And if corporate proposal works - 'more jobs'. (In classical economic thinking.. )

If you take Brussels for instance, and you stripp out all the lobbying agencies, half of the city would be empty. Also you want competition amongst them - which is why Brussels arguably is better than 20 national capitals (interest pools).

But on the flipside - you have less public accountability in Brussels - f.e. because media isn't there in the same way they are in bigger national capitals (playing their 'home markets' (as media)).

edit: This is the documentary to watch on this, if you are interested:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2279313/ (It actually holds the view, that all of this might be bad - but shows the 'ecosystem' )

 

[notimp]

And here is how think tanks work. You have a bunch of them. All over the world. Financed, by all kinds of partial interests. You have them go against each other for competition, and then you pick out the best proposal that could work for any given situation.

To stick with the Europe example, the refugees deal we now have with Turkey - was basically worked out by one such thinktank.

Also there are 'culture institutes' - that are basically political thinktanks, but larger (more established, older, ..) - and attributed to a certain parties interests usually.

So you don't just have 'impartial information services' for politicians, you have those as well. So that would be purely political lobbying in the decision making process. And impartialness also isn't what wins the day here.

 

[Xzi]

They are rather supposed to make informed but partial (affected by interest groups) decisions.

Nonsense. Several countries have been very successful with outright bans on lobbying. Lobbyists are a big part of the reason that information on climate change was kept suppressed dating all the way back to the late 70s/early 80s. Their purpose is increased profits for their respective industries/corporations at any cost, consequences for average citizens be damned. The type of biased decision-making that you're describing has cost people their lives.

 

[notimp]

Nonsense. Several countries have been very successful with outright bans on lobbying.

https://www.transparency.org/news/f...for_special_interests_amid_lax_lobbying_rules
In the US there isnt much regulation either.

So which countries standards are we following - where it 'just works' without it.

Now transparency advocacy still is important - although, seldomly very effective. Journalism here is actually more of a counterbalance. But then those transparency NGOs can feed stuff to journalism, and it can move public opinion.

Also - I personally hold the opinion, that it is an imperfect system as well ('not well balanced') - but it is how its meant to work.

On the climate legislation point - from the corporations and politics view, it was an externality. Something that simply wasn't that important. And if you look at the US - still isnt. Now was that fair? No. Not at all. Babyboomers had all the cake, and have none of the consequences.

But then you have to remember, that politics usually isn't set up to think in 50-100 years timespans.

Society profited from not caring about the environment as long as they could - being the point.

No one is seriously talking about making the main perpetrators pay (not even politically). So all of it is moral furor - but still not how the system works. (Also in this case it might be well placed moral furor. Because it shouldnt have been seen just as an externality.)

edit: Here is the condensed version: Would it be a better system with lobbying 'banned'. Probably. Maybe. Would it be realistic to think that money interests would just lean back and say - well in that case, I guess its just separate from our sphere of influence then. No. So the system is actually designed to bring all parties to the table - even, when influence is always tilted in favor of moneyed interests (more access, more staffers, more perks). But if politicians become too corrupt - people are supposed to vote 'the alternative'. (To maybe also change the legal ramifications, but then they almost never do.. )

 

[notimp]

BBC Documentary (current) on the rise of China, the state sponsored 'disappearances' of booksellers in Hongkong and the Uyghur concentration camps. They have enough footage to make a good case.

China: A New World Order - Season 1 Episode 1
China: A New World Order - Season 1 Episode 2

I'm not opening a separate thread for it, but if you want to broaden your horizon, watch it.

It also goes into Chinas 'communist party movement against corruption within its party', which - was mostly show - and there to eradicate the remains of the other side of a power struggle when Xi Jinping grabbed power. Anything to get you off of the romantic notion, that corruption is there to be fought and eradicated by 'the good guys'. Not how this works.

 

[Viri]

Stop cheating in video games!

Spoiler