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View Full Version : Sesame Credit: Chinese 1984?



LionofTepelenë
11th September 2016, 03:40
Recently I have come across the Sesame Credit system, which is a social credit system developed by Alibaba (China's Amazon) and Ant financial. The appearance of it makes it look similar to America's credit score for taxes and credit card payments, but it gets a whole lot more nefarious than that.

Essentially what it is gameified obedience to the Chinese state and their corporate counterparts. It will rate you according to the purchases you have made or what you have linked to on the internet. For example, if you bought Locally produced products or talked about how well China is you would increase in score. Meanwhile if you bought Japanese Manga or linked to China uncensored, your score would drop like a rock. But it isn't just that, if you are involved with someone with a low score that is made public, and there are benefits for people with high scores.

What I am getting at is that this is mass subjugation at its finest, turning despotic rule from fear to it becoming a game of who can obey the best. While it isn't mandatory for now, it will be in 2020, so that means around 1 billion people will have to be part of this system. This diverts agitation from the system to you fellow others, making you jealous of people who show off their score. The government doesn't need to oppress or show any force, it is social pressure that sets people on line.
Now I have talked to people about this, most of the responses have been "typical commies" from my more pro-American acquaintances. But I could see this also being adopted by governments and capitalist organizations other than China. Imagine the possibilities for this: Japan or Germany could offer more benefits to people who make more children to counter their lowering population, or the United States could offer benefits to people who served in a certain job or years in the military.

What are your opinions on this?

willowtooth
11th September 2016, 06:02
My first thought is that its not a big deal, credit scores are based on the state to begin with. They are a form of state control, the rich dont use them or need them. If your taking a loan for 1 million or more your relationship with the guy who works at the bank matters more than your credit score. Whether you have a felony on your record, certainly means more than a few extra points. Things like unpaid parking tickets and fines are included in your credit score as well, it's not just whether you pay your bills or not. Credit scores calculate really ridiculous things like not having credit cards for a few years or not adhering to a complex ratio of debt and payments made, that most people don't even know exist much less adhere too.

Sesame credit seems to be based on things like, a person who buys a lot of a video games will get a lower score, than someone who buys a lot of diapers. Or whether you have committed a crime or not, in addition to the normal way they measure credit scores. I dont think it will be used to the extent of monitoring web traffic. I also dont see this being implemented in the US or any other developed country, it seems more like an attempt to give access to "credit" in general, throughout China. Where more than half, dont have any credit history whatsoever

John Nada
12th September 2016, 06:56
http://qz.com/519737/all-chinese-citizens-now-have-a-score-based-on-how-well-we-live-and-mine-sucks/

Social credit seems like a credit score in the US(like social imperialist, "socialist in words, capitalist in deeds":lol: ). It's not a socialist program like the Western media and the Chinese state likes to pretend("socialist market" is an oxymoron), but a very much capitalist program to expand credit to build up the domestic market.

Sesame Credit appears to be some loyalty rewards program of Alibaba. Currently don't seem to give a fuck what you buy so long as you pay. It might be used later as a model for state credit reports.

It's hypocritical that the Chinese bourgeoisie doing the same thing the US bourgeoisie does since forever and is presented as something uniquely sinister. If you have bad credit in the US, the bourgeoisie could let you starve in the streets. The only thing that seems worse than the US's credit reports to the articles I've read is they use the word "Socialist"(followed by market and Deng Xiaoping Theory) and state involvement. Like a corporation is better than the government for some reason.