Comments by "Peter deWolf" (@StoneShards) on "Facebook to Adopt Chinese-Style "Trustworthiness Ratings" of Users" video.

  1. The Chinese are a bright people; the notion of "social credit" is very practical and fair, to a degree, anyway. "Financial credit", as established by reporting agencies like Experian, is familiar; the idea of "digital credentials" doesn't seem such an odd or particularly invasive extension. "Trust" is actually also a technical term used in network computing, but at levels casual users don't need to care about. Passwords function similarly to guarantee a "trusted" relationship/connection. Curiously, the only area out of bounds to this need for trust is that of individual identities. That's what this is about.
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  2. The vast majority of Chinese know they can do pretty much whatever they want to, as long as they keep it under the radar, low-profile. The general attitude of the cops there is "figure it out yourselves", just don't hurt each other.
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  3. This information control game has been around forever. Consider: the greatest threat to any ruling class is the ruled masses acting as a mass, because those numbers never favor the rulers. The problem: how to prevent the self-organization of the ruled class. Since it is supremely inefficient and expensive to physically disrupt this self-organization, the obvious alternative is to influence the information field that constitutes reality in the perception of the ruled class so that "reality" simply doesn't include knowledge of the activities of the ruling class. Craft the fact-set to convey the desired influence, and suppress the undesirable ramifications of the fact-set; this is the process of propaganda. A populace in possession of the truth is a danger to flare up at any time. Looking more deeply, things get a little tricky, though: the instant near-universal conveyance of information is the game-changer! In all times past, spacial distance essentially impeded the flow of information, not only slowing it, but also dispersing its impetus to flow. But now, potentially billions of people can become aware of a bit of information in the same instant. It's almost like human beings are learning to be the same mind. It is instant spontaneous self-organization of the entire ruled class--the ruling class's ultimate nightmare!
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