Something that is more than a little terrifying.

Started by Mnemaxa, January 10, 2016, 03:25:27 PM

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Mnemaxa

It's an incendiary title, but believe me, it is realistic when faced with 1984 by George Orwell in real life. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI

The Well of my Dreams is Poisoned; I draw off the Poison, which becomes the Ink of my Authorship, the Paint upon my Brush.

Ironwolf85

Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Ironwolf85 on January 10, 2016, 03:56:41 PM
it is very disturbing

Disturbing, and yet entirely unsurprising for China. Social pressure was real prominent in their (disastrous) Cultural Revolution, so it's also something they've had experience with previously.

Lustful Bride

#3
We must summon Liberty Prime to protect us! Fight this Videogame style!

Democracy, Will Never Be Defeated!


But this is indeed creepy. Though it could also backfire by letting those with unfavorable oppinions of China's government see eachother and then work offline to make contact with eachother in the old non electric ways.

Vekseid

I am always skeptical of trusting Extra Credit as a source.

Apparently, Sesame Credit is just one of eight of these programs:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186


consortium11

It's worth noting that governments have long tried to harness social pressure to get what they want... and it's not necessarily a bad thing. To take an example from the UK drink-driving used to be endemic and the government's laws and restrictions relating to it considered a bit of a joke. But after a series of government ad campaigns society's views of drink driving changed completely and it generally became socially unacceptable to drink drive.

It's also worth noting that things akin to being a "good citizen" have also gained prominence in recent times, especially online. They make lack the governmental mandate but callout culture has produced "virtue signalling" on all sides of a debate; the idea that you're posting something (be it praising someone or criticising someone else) not just because you agree/disagree but because you want to demonstrate that you're a "good" person who's on a certain side. Recent online controversies have led to blockbots (i.e. automatically blocking someone on twitter because they follow the "wrong" people, and in some cases with a database linked listing people's "sins"), "hacks" on Reddit that reveal which subreddits (basically themed forums) someone is subscribed too/has posted in and in some cases the automatic prevention of someone posting in certain subreddits because they posted in others (which generally don't take account of the content of what was posted; to give one example several subreddits automatically block anyone who's posted on the pro-Gamergate KIA subreddit even if your post on KIA was entirely critical of Gamergate and the thought process behind it). The way that there are frequently demands for someone to lose their job if they post an opinion you disagree with online, even if that opinion has no direct impact on their job, can also be seen in that context. Hell, the entire "safe space" phenomena as generally construed these days can be seen in the same light; if someone has the "wrong" opinion they should be isolated.

The latter points may not relate to being "patriotic", instead focusing on being "good" (or, not use current terminology "not problematic") and, as above, lack a direct governmental mandate but the same themes are clearly there.

Sethala

Quote from: Vekseid on January 11, 2016, 04:33:36 AM
I am always skeptical of trusting Extra Credit as a source.

Apparently, Sesame Credit is just one of eight of these programs:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

Echoing this, while EC's got a lot of good ideas and some interesting theoretical videos, their fact-checking process seems to be rather lacking.  I would always look for other confirmation before getting too worried about information in their videos.

Galactic Druid

Normally, EC doesn't need to worry about as much about properly citing sources or including their own opinions or theoretical situations, but normally they're discussing topics such as balancing issues or microtransactions in games, and topic like this requires a little more than their 'usual', if you will.

Reading the BBC article, something really jumped out at me;

QuoteSesame has promoted the consumer benefits of a good credit score, from a prominent dating profile on the Baihe matchmaking site to VIP reservations with hotels and car rental companies. A mobile phone game designed by Sesame Credit encourages users to guess whether they have higher or lower credit scores than their friends, encouraging everyone to openly share their ratings.

That seems a bit surreal to me. I understand that your Sesame Credit score is not the exact same thing as the US credit score, but still, that's not the kind of thing I could see myself openly discussing or comparing against friends.
A/As last updated 11/27 - Halfway past busy season!