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Silicon Valley's Social Credit System

Honeydew

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1. So you are going to introduce fascism to prevent fascism ?

Fascism is right-wing totalitarianism, like the Third Reiche. I'm proposing left-wing authoritarianism as the only viable alternative. Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire.

2. You would give this power to the government even if this same government is full of people which you don't approve ?

No, I would not support this administration having more authoritarian control than they already do. Hopefully with the help of tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, right-wing extremism will be censored to the point where fascist propaganda will no longer be accessible to the public. Trump is only in office because Russian trolls disseminated disinformation on social media. Informed voters can only make the right decision if they are given honest and accurate information from a well-regulated media apparatus.

3. Since when are tech giants progressive ? (obsession with money isn't progressive, it is very very old school idea)

As private businesses, of course they are self-interested. But they largely support progressive ideals.

NYT - Silicon Valley’s Politics: Liberal, With One Big Exception


4. How will you insure that this system doesn't support exactly what you want to avoid ?

My country had Communism, Fascism and various endless experiments with "authoritarianism" and therefore I can't see what good can really come out of this kind of leverage. The counter to hate groups is education, common sense and perhaps some empathy, not more of the same old monumental thinking.

I agree with you that education is vitally important. Children are being taught progressive values in school which will go a long way in preventing a future president Trump. A new Gallup poll found that younger Americans are becoming increasingly optimistic about socialism. Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds Still, there needs to be other safeguards to prevent vulnerable minds from being exposed to harmful ideas in the form of right-wing propaganda.
 

The Cat

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Fighting fire with fire only serves to spread the flames.
 

Virtual ghost

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Fascism is right-wing totalitarianism, like the Third Reiche. I'm proposing left-wing authoritarianism as the only viable alternative. Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire.

My family went through both I can tell you that in practice the differences are very subtle. Authoritarianism is authoritarianism at the end of the day.


No, I would not support this administration having more authoritarian control than they already do. Hopefully with the help of tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, right-wing extremism will be censored to the point where fascist propaganda will no longer be accessible to the public. Trump is only in office because Russian trolls disseminated disinformation on social media. Informed voters can only make the right decision if they are given honest and accurate information from a well-regulated media apparatus.


But who allowed this to the Russians ? The same tech giants you are prizing, which care about nothing but money. Years have passed and we still have the same problems over and over.
Plus what they are helping China build in social control is basically unforgivable and it isn't progressive at all.




As private businesses, of course they are self-interested. But they largely support progressive ideals.

NYT - Silicon Valley’s Politics: Liberal, With One Big Exception


People need to learn critical thinking instead replacing ideology with another ideology.


I agree with you that education is vitally important. Children are being taught progressive values in school which will go a long way in preventing a future president Trump. A new Gallup poll found that younger Americans are becoming increasingly optimistic about socialism. Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds Still, there needs to be other safeguards to prevent vulnerable minds from being exposed to harmful ideas in the form of right-wing propaganda.


They are perhaps getting more optimistic about socio-democracy, not socialism. Capitalism and socialism aren't the only options on the table.
I never noticed that American youth truly wants genuine socialistic ideas like nationalizing various big companies, sending pastors into a concentration camps, police state etc. You Americans messed up some definitions from what I see. Just if you are anti-capitalist that doesn't make you automatically a Socialist there is middle ground as well as more out of the box categories.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Fascism is right-wing totalitarianism, like the Third Reiche. I'm proposing left-wing authoritarianism as the only viable alternative. Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire.

The problem here is that the tools they would put into place to fight one type of authoritarianism can then later be used by their ideological opposites to more easily establish their own authoritarian systems. It's so astonishing how the people on the left who support such measures never seem able to grasp this.


The only cure to authoritarianism is radical centrism. Everyone likes to bash centrists as wishy-washy types who don't hold strong beliefs (quite untrue, they just tend to be less inclined to viewing the world in black and white, choosing the nuanced grey area inbetween). At least they aren't willing to trade one type of authoritarianism for another. Trading freedoms away for a little peace of mind and protection from one type of boogeyman isn't worth it when the ones who would claim to protect you are likely themselves boogeymen seeking to exploit you in some form.

And regarding socialism...I've got no problem with it, in theory. But for it to work, it needs to be a libertarian form. When you get into a strong, central authority pushing it, you just end up with a lot of the same corrupt opportunists preying upon the weak, as you get in capitalist societies and with fascist governments.

Libertarian socialism - Wikipedia


A lot of people don't make the distinctions between authoritarian socialism and the libertarian variety of it, but I have a feeling if those sorts of polls specified that distinction, you'd get most of the supporters choosing the latter over the former.
 

Virtual ghost

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Oh really? Dear Virtual Ghost do go on...:wubbie:


I simply get the sense that the person wants well but isn't too educated on the details of the subject.



The problem here is that the tools they would put into place to fight one type of authoritarianism can then later be used by their ideological opposites to more easily establish their own authoritarian systems. It's so astonishing how the people on the left who support such measures never seem able to grasp this.


The only cure to authoritarianism is radical centrism. Everyone likes to bash centrists as wishy-washy types who don't hold strong beliefs (quite untrue, they just tend to be less inclined to viewing the world in black and white, choosing the nuanced grey area inbetween). At least they aren't willing to trade one type of authoritarianism for another. Trading freedoms away for a little peace of mind and protection from one type of boogeyman isn't worth it when the ones who would claim to protect you are likely themselves boogeymen seeking to exploit you in some form.

And regarding socialism...I've got no problem with it, in theory. But for it to work, it needs to be a libertarian form. When you get into a strong, central authority pushing it, you just end up with a lot of the same corrupt opportunists preying upon the weak, as you get in capitalist societies and with fascist governments.

Libertarian socialism - Wikipedia


A lot of people don't make the distinctions between authoritarian socialism and the libertarian variety of it, but I have a feeling if those sorts of polls specified that distinction, you'd get most of the supporters choosing the latter over the former.


I disagree. Plus I find "libertarian socialism" to be too much of a contradiction, or what both have to do with "centrism"?


The problem with this it is that it is also running away from something to the point that you will get exactly the opposite. Once you take out and really cut government you are basically very vulnerable to invasions by foreign authoritarian power. Native Americans in north America basically fit the profile of libertarian socialist and look what happened to them as soon as they came into the contact with "the system". Even if you make the whole world like this the first warlord that rises will take everything.


For libertarian ideas it is obvious that isolated nations invented them but pilled up expansionistic nations of the old world just wouldn't let you get away with it, especially in overcrowded globalized world. This is exactly what I am telling people on this forum for quite some time: you want to ride into tank battles on horse. I am from unstable corner of the world and to us functional and capable government is a must. However the future of the world will look more like my part of the world than some open planes of old west some 200 years ago, especially if we don't count space exploration.


Authoritarianism should be avoided but you need clear social order if you are planing to survive the 21th century or at least play a major role in it.
 

Lark

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The problem here is that the tools they would put into place to fight one type of authoritarianism can then later be used by their ideological opposites to more easily establish their own authoritarian systems. It's so astonishing how the people on the left who support such measures never seem able to grasp this.


The only cure to authoritarianism is radical centrism. Everyone likes to bash centrists as wishy-washy types who don't hold strong beliefs (quite untrue, they just tend to be less inclined to viewing the world in black and white, choosing the nuanced grey area inbetween). At least they aren't willing to trade one type of authoritarianism for another. Trading freedoms away for a little peace of mind and protection from one type of boogeyman isn't worth it when the ones who would claim to protect you are likely themselves boogeymen seeking to exploit you in some form.

And regarding socialism...I've got no problem with it, in theory. But for it to work, it needs to be a libertarian form. When you get into a strong, central authority pushing it, you just end up with a lot of the same corrupt opportunists preying upon the weak, as you get in capitalist societies and with fascist governments.

Libertarian socialism - Wikipedia


A lot of people don't make the distinctions between authoritarian socialism and the libertarian variety of it, but I have a feeling if those sorts of polls specified that distinction, you'd get most of the supporters choosing the latter over the former.

The state cant be used to introduce or further the aims of either capitalism or socialism so much. It'll only ever end up in something crap, usually something authoritarian.

Culture matters though. I dont mind people being "authoritarian" about some things but opinion beats policy. When its some sort of groupthink things always go south.

Centrism is liable just to end up privatizing tyranny (which is what authoritarianism is), rather than doing anything about it.
 

Lark

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I simply get the sense that the person wants well but isn't too educated on the details of the subject.






I disagree. Plus I find "libertarian socialism" to be too much of a contradiction, or what both have to do with "centrism"?


The problem with this it is that it is also running away from something to the point that you will get exactly the opposite. Once you take out and really cut government you are basically very vulnerable to invasions by foreign authoritarian power. Native Americans in north America basically fit the profile of libertarian socialist and look what happened to them as soon as they came into the contact with "the system". Even if you make the whole world like this the first warlord that rises will take everything.


For libertarian ideas it is obvious that isolated nations invented them but pilled up expansionistic nations of the old world just wouldn't let you get away with it, especially in overcrowded globalized world. This is exactly what I am telling people on this forum for quite some time: you want to ride into tank battles on horse. I am from unstable corner of the world and to us functional and capable government is a must. However the future of the world will look more like my part of the world than some open planes of old west some 200 years ago, especially if we don't count space exploration.


Authoritarianism should be avoided but you need clear social order if you are planing to survive the 21th century or at least play a major role in it.

Depending on your terrain or tactics tanks are a shit option, Afghanistan is a great guide in that respect, seen more than one film about the Russians out there which gave a strong verdict on that one.

Also, what about those Finns, eh? What use would tanks have been in the Winter War?

The Swiss and Swedes both have great examples of decentralized services, even defence in the Swiss example (arent they the nation that makes ownership of automatic weapons for the adult population mandatory? Gee, wonder how they avoid all the spree killings?).

Not all libertarians who are socialists are a fan of the whole disarmament or volunteer corps ideas of national defence. Characterizing that sort of thinking as something primitivistic or akin to older agrarian or itinerant communities isnt always wrong but its a more diverse scene than all that. I know you disagree and stuff so maybe its a waste of time.

Anyway, I dont think its necessary to pursue labelling or ideological purity, that's someone else's nightmare and not mine. I dont worry about some sorts of consistency or orthodoxy too much. Life is short. Avoidable suffering and all that.
 

Virtual ghost

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Depending on your terrain or tactics tanks are a shit option, Afghanistan is a great guide in that respect, seen more than one film about the Russians out there which gave a strong verdict on that one.

Also, what about those Finns, eh? What use would tanks have been in the Winter War?

The Swiss and Swedes both have great examples of decentralized services, even defence in the Swiss example (arent they the nation that makes ownership of automatic weapons for the adult population mandatory? Gee, wonder how they avoid all the spree killings?).

Not all libertarians who are socialists are a fan of the whole disarmament or volunteer corps ideas of national defence. Characterizing that sort of thinking as something primitivistic or akin to older agrarian or itinerant communities isnt always wrong but its a more diverse scene than all that. I know you disagree and stuff so maybe its a waste of time.

Anyway, I dont think its necessary to pursue labelling or ideological purity, that's someone else's nightmare and not mine. I dont worry about some sorts of consistency or orthodoxy too much. Life is short. Avoidable suffering and all that.


Well, sloppy tactics can happen but don't make a mistakes that in all those cases the invaded side didn't have loses or large suffering. Not to mention foreign aid factors and they did both have some order. Not to mention that if the Russians just started to drop nukes once invented we wouldn't be having this conversation. Libertarians in general want to remove the rules and that is exactly what would give Russians the edge in Afghanistan. In the world without any rules and influences this war would be over in one afternoon if the Russians decided like this.


Plus Swiss and Sweden are generally pretty organized countries that aren't really libertarian. I find them more to be more of examples for what I am arguing, balance between authority and libertarian ideas.



However all of this is past. Technological revolution carries some major changes and that is that specialization carries great advantages and in orderly environment it is easier to create large quantity of experts. Which need protection for a long time until they become real experts. Small group of people took control over this world exactly since they are experts and control information. I don't know how much interest you have in military robotics but that is a game changer. Russians have the whole tank brigades on the remote control and that changes everything. Especially since you need order in order to make sure that someone in hiding isn't making an army of these or that you have one such army on your own. However you will not build this without some top experts that require very strong education and stable living conditions. The era of "improvisations" is over.




Btw from what I have seen Swiss are the people with most gun death in Europe.
 

The Cat

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I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
 
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Authoritarianism is authoritarianism at the end of the day.

Any sane person wouldn’t have to think about the matter beyond this very valid point. The uniforms, flags, and slogans may differ throughout history, but the violent oppression against societies under such regimes looks exactly the same.
 

Honeydew

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If authoritarianism is trending then its got to stop, its totally ruinous, totally and utterly, whatever flag of convenience it is disguising itself with now, private, public, left, right, centre, green, it doesnt matter. You cant do a deal with the lesser devil on that score.

What are your thoughts about censorship and the deplatforming of right-wing fascists on social media? If you allow unfettered free speech then extremist propaganda will give rise to hate groups and then next thing you know, there's a racist orange president putting brown families in concentration camps.

Anyway, social credit deserves an airing, it seems strange that there's a private initiative as my understand of it is that its similar to some universal basic income ideas, which I think could only be properly developed by governments. Not because governments have the potential to be democratic and accountable in the fashion that business is not (I would say POTENTIAL though, its not certain) but because of the borrowing requirement for schemes like that, Says Law etc. etc.

I agree that the government should be in control of the social credit system rather than corporations, but I guess at the moment, private companies have more freedom to enact such measures that would otherwise be prohibited by the constitution if it were in the hands of government. That's why we need to vote for politicians who will pass the necessary legislation.

But who allowed this to the Russians ? The same tech giants you are prizing, which care about nothing but money. Years have passed and we still have the same problems over and over.
Plus what they are helping China build in social control is basically unforgivable and it isn't progressive at all.

Russian trolligarchs hacked the DNC and gave Hillary's emails to Wikileaks. That didn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley.

China is extremely left-wing so why wouldn't tech companies help them to stabilize their country? They're currently dealing with a populist uprising in Hong Kong. And Bernie Sanders just said recently that China has made tremendous strides in reducing poverty.

I can see what the person is trying to say or achieve but this just isn't thought out.

I simply get the sense that the person wants well but isn't too educated on the details of the subject.

Actually, I have given this a lot of thought. You're just brainwashed by Faux News.

And regarding socialism...I've got no problem with it, in theory. But for it to work, it needs to be a libertarian form. When you get into a strong, central authority pushing it, you just end up with a lot of the same corrupt opportunists preying upon the weak, as you get in capitalist societies and with fascist governments.

Libertarian socialism - Wikipedia


A lot of people don't make the distinctions between authoritarian socialism and the libertarian variety of it, but I have a feeling if those sorts of polls specified that distinction, you'd get most of the supporters choosing the latter over the former.

I don't see how socialism can succeed without a strong, centralized government. Can you give any examples of successful libertarian socialism?
 

Virtual ghost

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Russian trolligarchs hacked the DNC and gave Hillary's emails to Wikileaks. That didn't have anything to do with Silicon Valley.

China is extremely left-wing so why wouldn't tech companies help them to stabilize their country? They're currently dealing with a populist uprising in Hong Kong. And Bernie Sanders just said recently that China has made tremendous strides in reducing poverty.

You never heard the stories of Russian trolls on the internet and around social media ? What seems like legit and confirmed story, so the question is why this wasn't ever fully solved.

Btw Russia and China have socio-economic pact, so they can't be 100% separated at this point in global context.


Actually, I have given this a lot of thought. You're just been brainwashed by Faux News.

Never watched the station, I live very far from the nearest US border.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I don't see how socialism can succeed without a strong, centralized government. Can you give any examples of successful libertarian socialism?

Pure libertarian socialism of course would be unattainable, as some other members noted earlier, as it's basically a form of anarchy that is unachievable, but we can still apply some tenets without a strong central authority becoming involved. Instead of state-controlled means of production and distribution, we should aim for more worker-controlled means of production and distribution. I think that's closer to the original vision of socialism anyway. There are many good examples of successful employee/worker owned businesses. Technically these entities are still operating in a capitalist system, but they see overall better results, pay, quality of life, and benefits for their employees. Putting businesses under state ownership will not curb the corruption that we see in capitalist systems. Corrupt opportunists always find a way to take advantage of systems, whether in capitalist or socialist economies. That's the problem with strong central administrations.


I think the best way to achieve something close to the libertarian socialist vision is to implement socialism within a democratic model.



Participatory economics - Wikipedia
 

Lark

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Any sane person wouldn’t have to think about the matter beyond this very valid point. The uniforms, flags, and slogans may differ throughout history, but the violent oppression against societies under such regimes looks exactly the same.

This is why I found the book The Fear of Freedom and a lot of Erich Fromm's thinking about a social unconscious and social character to be so, so significant.

I discovered those books relatively late in life but I had noticed many of the things they pointed up in my experience up until then of religions, political ideologies, movements and people. I definitely had begun to believe that most of the examples of religion, ideology and movements I'd seen in the world where flags of convenience for something else.

Not, definitely not, in some sense of conspiracy theory. That's a different matter. Although not a different matter altogether because conspiracies where they exist (and I think its just straight up organised crime money more often than anything else) can be themselves a channel for the underlying social character.

The problem with this is blindspots, they exist, I've written about them on this forum before and dont especially care to go into them again but I have found huge blind spots to be exercised by individuals who believe that persecutions carried out to introduce or further their own goals are automatically justified or justifiable, kind of like it goes without saying. No one feels like taking a care about governments legislating opinion, the right to work, deliver services as a business owner etc. when it seems to be out of step with their opinions.
 

The Cat

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Any sane person wouldn’t have to think about the matter beyond this very valid point. The uniforms, flags, and slogans may differ throughout history, but the violent oppression against societies under such regimes looks exactly the same.

Any sane person? I wouldnt know what one looked like even if it did actually exist. Which it doesn't.
 

Lark

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What are your thoughts about censorship and the deplatforming of right-wing fascists on social media? If you allow unfettered free speech then extremist propaganda will give rise to hate groups and then next thing you know, there's a racist orange president putting brown families in concentration camps.

I would not restrict the policing of social media to any single political opinion, there's problems with a lot of extremist opinion on social media, in the regular media too.

A bigger problem right now I believe is the amount of disinformation, like conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, other sorts of efforts like those aimed at causing disruptions, spreading disease and discord. Its like they say about the invasion of armies being resisted and the invasion of ideas going unnoticed.

I agree that the government should be in control of the social credit system rather than corporations, but I guess at the moment, private companies have more freedom to enact such measures that would otherwise be prohibited by the constitution if it were in the hands of government. That's why we need to vote for politicians who will pass the necessary legislation.

Well the means that any social credit system is going to implemented is liable to involve privately owned firms, maybe they'll be corporations or maybe some other sort of business, state's dont often develop things like that "in house" so to speak, often if they do they are poor product for a variety of reasons.

So I think exclusive ownership by private or public agencies is just unlikely, objectively, how it operates, ie data collection, data sharing, data storage, its use in crime fighting, public projects, any other consequences, are going to have to be legally controlled and regulated, so I'd see some sort of role for an ombudsman, industry codes of conduct, even litigation but accountability is the key thing.

Its not automatically accountable if its state owned or directed any more than privately owned and directed, democratic controls of the government by the public, or even politicians, are relatively weak, as is the opposite idea of consumer sovereignty.
 

Lark

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Pure libertarian socialism of course would be unattainable, as some other members noted earlier, as it's basically a form of anarchy that is unachievable, but we can still apply some tenets without a strong central authority becoming involved. Instead of state-controlled means of production and distribution, we should aim for more worker-controlled means of production and distribution. I think that's closer to the original vision of socialism anyway. There are many good examples of successful employee/worker owned businesses. Technically these entities are still operating in a capitalist system, but they see overall better results, pay, quality of life, and benefits for their employees. Putting businesses under state ownership will not curb the corruption that we see in capitalist systems. Corrupt opportunists always find a way to take advantage of systems, whether in capitalist or socialist economies. That's the problem with strong central administrations.


I think the best way to achieve something close to the libertarian socialist vision is to implement socialism within a democratic model.



Participatory economics - Wikipedia

Never say never.

I'm sure back in its day the likelihood that the divine right of kings, witch burnings and inquisitions would pass into history seemed pretty remote.

Anyway, ParEcon is one set of ideas, which is good I think, although personally I like some of the thinking about universal basic incomes, Henry George's ideas, Robert Dell's Socialism and Personal Liberty, are better as they permit greater diversity of initiatives or experiments than ParEcon might. Like you could have a mixed economy in which a water utility is run as a balanced job complex as outlined in the ParEcon theory, the local book depository is an independent co-op, the post office is run by a mutual society etc.

I definitely dont believe that some sort of arrangement with a bunch of commissars or other officials running around ensuring that all business fits a certain straight jacket and obeys the one party in power (while the rest are in prison) would be productive, whether its labelled socialist, capitalist or other.

UBIs are the only sort of arrangement that I think would allow individuals the freedom to walk out on bad working conditions, to avoid dictatorial or tyrannical abuses simply being privatized in the shape of business management, private ownership or even some sort of devolved workers control. Its also the only sort of thing that I think would permit the kind of utopian arrangement that Marx predicted as the end of communist development, ie that you could perform three or four different jobs in a single day, I think he said fishing, writing/critiquing/building but I dont remember rightly.

Like I personally like a lot of guild socialist and council communist ideas but I can also see how they'd wind up abused or the restructuring of firms along those lines could just fail to achieve the desired ends.

I do think the best thing about GS ideas was that GDH Cole saw it all as being about a kind of life long learning of self-government, people learning by doing, in their everyday lives/workplace, instead of being restricted to casting a ballot one day a year for this or that relatively unaccountable career politician.

Also it speaks to what socialism (or capitalism for that matter) is supposed to be about, some people say its about equality, redistribution of wealth, all that sort of stuff but for me if its not about putting a final end to servility and freedom then its not about anything, its some kind of ruse.
 
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