That's 'evil super genius' level *terrible
YIKES.

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It'll never work. The US watches it's citizens all the time, records their phone data, their social messaging, who they hang out with, where they travel, what they buy and yet so much stuff falls through the cracks.

Now try doing that and more in a county with nearly 5 times as many people in it!

I think it could be based solely on social network interaction and still have the desired effect. They don't need to monitor your real-life interactions necessarily, it could all be easily automated based on ratings of messages/purchases and an individual's social network connectedness.

And maybe there'll be a bonus for signing up your phone to be monitored. Then they'd have access to all your text messages. Of course, only people who speak well of the gov't in their text messages would sign up, but then they'd get a higher score.

Scary, scary shit.

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this is horrifying,and i think what creates the most dread-sense for me is that this has the capacity to become highly effective,because it does have a benign quality that most people will be wholly unaware of....
until it is too late.

It doesn't have to, and is actually just as frightening that it won't work. In its failure or success it's going to absolutely crush the citizens and civil rights, and make peoples lives hell for years and years before it's finally overturned or the country implodes.

Since it's already clearly a bad idea, but it's too late to avoid it, we should be focused on minimizing the amount of time people have to live under such a system.

@Xaielao - you probably would have said the same about the cultural revolution before it happened... oh it'll never work. And then it did and got completely out of control and caused immense suffering.

I know this is a generalisation of the Chinese, but i found them to be ... um... acquiescent? When i visited.

Pitting people against each other, empowering those who are most 'patriotic' and effectively encouraging them to castigate those who are not. It will almost certainly affect the educated, the intelligentsia first and foremost, painting them as enemies to the overwhelming poorly educated majority. Did they learn nothing during the cultural revolution, or is it an intentional purge? I hope to god nothing like that can happen again, but i feel this has the potential to get out of hand.

I really really hope that China sees protest and change in my lifetime. I loved their country and their people, but they are so badly oppressed.

O_O

Holy fucking shit.

I'm teaching a unit on 1984 in my honors lit classes right now and this is making me appropriately paranoid.

Saving and will *promote until the end of time. Thank you for sharing.

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Yeah, this really is beyond horrifying.

"PC is more scary that open totalitarianism"? Nope, here's your real villain: stealth totalitarianism. Fuck over your fellow man in the name of a higher score.

"Chairman, oppressing the citizenry is hard work!"
"Fear not! I have a cunning plan to make them oppress each other"

And by god will it work.... put a number beside a name and people will do anything to make that number go up.

As an example: my wife got a new car recently that shows your average fuel consumption in l/100km. I didn't pay any attention to it until I was playing in the settings and found I could switch the units to km/l. A completely innocuous change, right? Except now it's a number that can go up, and I am obsessed with making it go up everything I drive her car.

I set cruise control at the speed limit and brake as little as possible.

A/C? Not unless I am actually melting!

Corners? You'd be amazed at how fast you can round them if you let a machine control your speed!

Red lights? Er, yeah, I suppose I should stop, but then I'll have to accelerate again!

And that number doesn't even matter! FSM only knows what I'd do if it affected my mortgage rate or something....

How is this different to any other social pressure pushing bullshit in other countries (US, Aus, UK).

Vocal people apply pressure to change the status quo. Look at the treatment of integrated and peaceful Muslims around the world at the moment...

It's not the Chinese gov. you have to worry about, it's Facebook, Google etc... Where the fuck do people think this evil ass data mining and social pressure started? Monetising your preferences and forcing people to bow to social (peer) pressure or face shaming. Tencent and Ali Baba are the real motivators behind this and even if China went full capitalist tomorrow, those companies would continue to promote this system and it would still work in exactly the same way.

The real horror is that we look at China and think that they are getting the short end of the stick. We need to look at ourselves. We're not free, we're consumers. We accumulate stuff and we think that equates to having choice. China is just following the sterling example set by others...

@Asmo

Precisely, which is why I'm at a bit of a loss why everyone is /shockhorror over China catching up... = \

@Asmo
i get what you are saying but i think you are missing the insidious implications that this new system of indoctrination represents.

i think @ChaosEngine's term 'stealth totalitarianism" is rather clever..and apt.

i agree with you on the points of peer pressure and how people can easily be manipulated.we are all,to varying degrees,subjected to a plethora of propaganda and targeted rhetoric,all meant to mold and shape our opinions in order to sustain the status quo while giving the impression that somehow our conclusions are an organic and natural response,when in reality we have been duped.

on that point we agree that this is not actually something new or novel but an old,tried and true method of social control.

what is new about this 'gaming" system,is that it is not taking the more subtle and passive approach of what current and supposedly "free" societies now implement to control public opinions and attitudes in order to either remain in power,sway the public into policies against their own interest,or create an atmosphere of fear to foment opposition.

this new system is actually aggressive.
this system will actively use its own population to do the oppressing,manipulating and controlling FOR them.

it is brilliant in it's simplicity.
it will use very human attributes we all possess in order to enact a better system of control,all the while having the appearance of being a harmless and innocuous social media competition.

but it is anything but harmless.
nor innocuous.
it will and can affect every facet of someones life.from their job to where they will be able to live,to even HOW they live.

think back to the times of east germany and the stasi,or the weimar republic,or even the soviet union of the 80's.

all used elements this new gaming system is representing,but those systems of control,while relying on the public to do much of its surveilling,all had one thing in common that they ALL relied heavily on:fear.

fear of reprisal.
fear of exposure.
fear and suspicion were the driving forces that kept those systems in power and the people in a perpetual state of paranoia.

the dread of the midnight knock.
of jackboots and black bags.

but those systems of control were fragile and once even a little resistance was exerted those systems crumbled incredibly fast.

this new system is far more subtle and devious in my opinion,because it removes the spectre of an imposing and oppressive government that will respond with violence and replaces it with the citizen to do the work for them.

the government does not have to do anything.
your neighbor will,and not because of some fear-based reason but rather for points to propel their own ambitions.their own selfish desires.

the wholesale implications are absolutely terrifying if you really think about it.

i would speculate that within a very short amount of time dissent and criticism of the chinese government will all but have vanished.replaced by a obedient and compliant population.

not because they are afraid of reprisal from the government but rather fueled by their own selfish desires for a better job,better living quarters,more privileges etc etc.

so a seemingly benign system utilizing social media will become of a self-propelled system,where those who do not tow the party line soon face joblessness,homelessness and ostracization.

not because the government strong armed them into submission,but rather their own neighbors.

so you are right.
there is nothing new here,but this system has taken the old forms of social control and brilliantly utilized one of humanities greatest weaknesses:selfishness.

it is the simplicity that makes this so brilliant and yet so horrifying at the same time.

*controversy

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Oh I'm fully cognisant of the nature of the system, but it's telling that it originates from an entertainment company and a retailer rather than the Chinese gov...

It's capitalist totalitarianism. Using your customers as your advertising/enforcement, and as you said, playing on peoples selfishness. A viral promotion of obedience and conformity (because viral marketing started in China right? \= )

One of the most repressive regimes on the planet got schooled on invasive social engineering for better control by a couple of exploitative companies. Speaks volumes.

@enoch @Asmo

I don't fully agree that the new system is as fear-free as the video suggests. One could easily argue that there is a valid fear of losing privileges.

I'm honestly wondering if it will create a two party system of haves vs have-nots at different levels where association with lower numbered people becomes something to avoid but all the plebeians will associate with each other.

Think of it like this:

I wonder further if the people at the bottom of the heap would end up saying "fuck this" because they're being stuck with a bad lot in life and now have companions (the only people who will associate with them) who feel similar. It's not THAT dire in as much as I think it has a very real potential to backfire.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that this kind of system is far BEYOND amoral. Lets discuss some realistic things that we can do here in the states to help our fellow Earthicans.

@Asmo
capitalist totalitarianism.
nice man,i like that one!

Capitalist totalitarianism is a term I'll have to remember, nice.

Being China, the exploitative companies and the repressive regimes are the same people, are they not? Even Hong Kong is no longer free of total government control, is it? I was under the impression that everything is 'owned' by the state in China, although some entities are given more autonomy than others to give an illusion of capitalism.

*worldaffairs

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Kinda sorta, but it's pretty safe to assume that the gov has a finger in every pie somehow. I do think, however, that the inspiration for this latest move has come from the companies though, not the gov. China has never been shy with the stick over the years, I reckon it's the money makers that talked them around to letting the sheep herd themselves.

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if you outlaw or overly control variance/divergence/difference in thought, you'll end up with a nation of copycats instead of innovators.
uh oh, ... wait....

To be fair to Zizek, he has said quite a lot about China and its new model of "Totalitarian Capitalism" as mentioned in other comments here - this idea that free markets don't necessarily go hand in hand with free people, and that actually totalitarian capitalism is probably a more "efficient" form of capitalism. One can perhaps foresee a world where it is the West learning from China in order to stay competitive...

ps. Bananas.

But again, are not the people running the companies also the people running the government...or their friends and family? I feel like you're making a distinction between privately and 'publicly' owned that doesn't exist in China.

I feel like you're splitting hairs to promote a "discussion"...

My point is not blame the corps rather than the Chinese gov. My point is, the confected outrage about this 'disturbing turn of events' in China are ignoring the fact the corporations long since did the same thing, albeit in a far more circumspect fashion, years ago in the west.

This is not a sudden turn of events. How often do you see corps getting laws put in place in the US that actively work against the taxpayers but shelter the corps? Invasive use of personal data? Exploitation of social pressure. The death of privacy?

My point is, China learned what it's doing, no matter who you point the finger at, from the west... We should only be surprised it took them so long...

I'm not intending to split hairs at all. I think it's an important distinction when in one case the corporations are individual corporations working for their own financial gain, and in the other they are all state sponsored/owned and are all working for a singular state goal of controlling the internet speech and actions of it's citizens.

I don't disagree that the tools were created by the 'west', but the impact of what they are doing is exponentially greater, as it's being done by the government, not an individual company, with real life consequences, not levels of benefits in a rewards plan.

There's little chance of someone not getting a job because they haven't posted enough pro-government (or, for example, pro Apple) statements, posts, tweets, pictures, and links in the west...only if they've posted negative things that might hurt the company image. Here, however, if they aren't pro-china enough, they just won't have enough 'points', and probably will have serious consequences. I think that's where the outrage is coming from, not about the points program itself, but about the way they intend to use it. If your >700 points only got you 5% off at Alibaba, I would not see a big problem, since <700 will likely keep you from a good job, apartment, etc., there is a big problem.
Your examples do not seem to be on topic except for the exploitation of social pressure, which have been exceedingly few and minor in the west compared to this program, which is new in it's scope, design, designers, and intent. The west only wishes it was that good at manipulation.

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I wonder if it raises and lowers your score based upon your porn searches. You're looking for an anonymous terminal just so you can watch your panty sniffers porn, which would lower your score. Maybe I should just sniff panties in real life?

Oh no, the secret police tracked your anonymous login, which is illegal btw, so now the entire country knows you like sniffing panties. Ha ha ha!

It could be filmed like a television program, sort of a I don't know a To Catch a Predator vibe. Lure these men into anonymous login booths and watch them search for porn and then get caught by the government.

Not only does this web search constitute the lowering of your credit score, but it was an anonymous search not tied to your social media account, therefore illegal. Prepare to be shamed Pee Wee style. Paging Mr. Herman. We have a pervert. China no rikey.