Posted on 11/18/2018 12:36:31 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Other governments are keenly interested in following China’s lead.
I’ve been pondering the excellent 1964 history of the Southern Song Dynasty’s capital of Hangzhou, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 by Jacques Gernet, in light of the Chinese government’s unprecedented “Social Credit Score” system, which I addressed in Kafka’s Nightmare Emerges: China’s “Social Credit Score”.
The scope of this surveillance is so broad and pervasive that it borders on science fiction: a recent Western visitor noted that train passengers hear an automated warning on certain lines, in Mandarin and English, that their compliance with regulations will be observed and may be punished via a poor social score.
In the Song Dynasty, arguably China’s high water mark in many ways (before the Mongol conquest changed China’s trajectory), social control required very little force. The power of social control rested in the cultural hierarchy of Confucian values: one obeyed the family’s patriarch, one’s local rulers and ultimately, the Emperor.
Author Edward Luttwak made the distinction between force and power in his fascinating book The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third: power is persuading people to cooperate, force is making them obey.
Power is people choosing of their own accord to comply, for reasons they find sound and that serves their self-interest; there is little need for the application of force.
Power is highly leveraged; a relatively small police/military and judiciary is all that’s needed. Force, in contrast, doesn’t scale: it’s enormously costly in capital and labor to monitor an entire populace and impose control and obedience.
(Excerpt) Read more at sgtreport.com ...
Someone stole this idea from Black Mirror.
The Left wants that so bad here, they must be having convulsions just thinking about it.
Global Socialism bump for later....
China is really going back to authoriatarianism now, my friend says.
Very different environment there for foreigners now, he says.
Only if humans do all the heavy lifting.
Otherwise, Moore's law says it gets twice as powerful and half as expensive every couple years.
Using wrong words is a good way to destroy the point you’re trying to make.
The word he should have used is “persuasion” not “power”. He could have cut the length of his article by 90% had he done so.
Churchill saw this coming:
“But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
Governments tend toward totalitarianism, unless prevented from going that way. Give bureaucrats an opening, and they will find a way to gain complete control over you.
How long before using the “wrong” pronouns means 100 demerits? At 10,000 demerits you get no pension and are expelled from your home on to the street.
Do not underestimate them! If they could do it here, they would.
And who is helping the communists do this?
Our computer technology companies.
But that is the interesting thing about the "Social Credit Score". It is not particularly costly to monitor and impose. It is done digitally, automatically, with little cost to it.
One only need monitor that the system "works" as intended, and adjust the algorithms accordingly.
Well, anyone dealing with China is aiding them against our nation, among other things. It’s a whole twisted system right now.
How long will it be before SerpentZA and LaoWhy86 wake up?
While riding a bullet train between Nanning and Lizhou this summer, I lightly brushed my fiance’s breast. Yes, on purpose.
Moments later, the message in both Mandarin and English on the train’s speakers mentioned “acting appropriately in public”.
It’s real. They watch EVERYTHING.
Exactly what I was thinking. Be sure and “SMILE”, or else.
Lawyers... Who are the bureaucrats but lawyers..! The more lawyers we send to Washington the more laws will be forced on us.. That applies to state governments as well..
” power is persuading people to cooperate, force is making them obey.”
So the choice is cooperate with the leaders, or obey them?
I think I see the problem. Our founders also saw it.
You think they haven’t?
The China Uncensored guy seems to know what's what, but I'm guessing he doesn't dare step foot on Chinese soil.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.