Background: I’m Chinese by origin but grew up in the west. He’s English. He’s kind of a but in a lefty way and has been with me to China multiple times, we’ve been together for years. He has had misconceptions before but is always learning. He does go on Reddit still, mostly to talk about land value tax which is his big political obsession right now.
Anyway last night we were at dinner and talking about an idea for a project that’s like quora but with only expert/academic researchers as responders. Part of it would need a reputation rating for the researchers. We were then talking about the use cases/audience for the project and I said “this might be better suited to Asia” (because of how highly education is valued and the pressure on kids to study/achieve grades). And he immediately responded “because they’re used to social credit scores?” Like. Without missing a beat. Maybe I’m overthinking it but it really pissed me off that his first association when I mentioned Asia was… this.
We talked about it and he explained that the concept was already in his mind when he was thinking about the reputation system so it wasn’t just a reaction to Asia specifically. But he insisted that he knew social credit scores were a real thing. I think he did listen when I said these types of jokes were what made Reddit such a hostile environment to be in, though.
I’m not sure what I’m asking but I just wanted to get it off my chest. Does anyone maybe have resources on internet Sinophobia / explanation of where the social credit stuff came from I can share with him?
Thanks crew. Sorry that was so long x
He can see the cat
In all seriousness, Georgists have dogshit takes. They're basically a step away from fascists and their non-class based analysis is just waiting for fascist and nationalist exploitation. It's not too much of a jump to start equating "unproductive landlords" with like Jews, the Chinese (already happening with the people who think rent is up because of Chinese people buying American land), or any other minority group that they don't like.
This is dumb:
That is dumb. Never even heard of these guys, but they're dumb.
It's just an old weird offshoot of pre-Marxist socialist theory. Their claim to fame is the landlord's game which became Monopoly
It's becoming popular again because a bunch of anti-Communist losers want something that's different than liberalism, but also never had a real movement they have to compare themselves to
Georgists should be following George Coatanza theory. There's your philosopher king
Good bit idea
No bit, George Costanza is wise af
I mean like, if you see a Georgist in the wild, engage with them as if you are also a Georgist and just start hitting them with Costanza quotes then act confused when they mention a land value tax and ask them about mohair or something.
Ooh good call. It's also a great in to pretend to be an architect.