Jesus christ, this number that determines whether we can rent, buy a car, or buy a house is only 30 years old? What the fuck?
Wasn't it only like $10 and it was first come first serve on like $10million?
I remember they kept reneging and most people got $0 lol. I applied and they just said I could get the credit monitoring and nothing else
yeah but before that credit was just based on skin tone and skull shape so I'm not sure FICO score is any worse
Its kind of worse in the way that now you don't have proof of discrimination, its all data, and no reasonable person could argue with data, its not racist, see, its just data!
That fun little "I got swindled as a young poor person and holy shit I can't even give you minimum payments now and have to go to collections which crashes my score for years" bit is a cool call back.
in communist china blah blah social credit etc etc etc [puts gun to head]
in capitalist murica blah blah capital credit etc etc etc [puts gun to head]
But China also has a credit score and that's really bad and authoritarian.
I get the comparison, but let’s be honest people thought the social credit thing sounded spooky cuz it brought up images of that one black mirror episode. Having your worth calculated by some faceless corporation based on your financial activity is scary, having it based on something as nebulous and ever present as your social behavior is extra spooky.
Researching what the social credit system actual was made it seem not that bad, and also it looked like it never took off, and also the guy who made it fell out of the good graces of the CCP and got disappeared. But yeah we shouldn’t act like it was a totes cool thing.
Bit of a side note, I think as leftist we focus a lot on economic oppression, which is good cuz it’s the most insidious form of oppression in our era, but it kinda of leads us to assuming it’s the worst. I’ve seen people, more on the old sub than here, argue that like, say a bunch of companies not wanting to hire you due to a social media algorithm is actually worse than the government reading your mail and sending you to prison for what you wrote cuz... idk one is more straightforward than the other so easier to avoid? No seriously that seemed to be people’s logic. I mean ideally shouldn’t we not have both?
AFAIK a version of Chinese "social credit" started being implemented recently after experimentation. Although it's basically the same as western credit systems but it seems to include crime and stuff which could be good? Also it seems that you can earn it back without access to capital, ie by just not doing crime anymore or contributing to your community. Maybe I'm remembering wrong or read a bad source or smth.
I do remember arguing with someone on reddit who claimed that people had been stopped from buying train tickets for "lying" and it turned out they google translated a phrase that actually implied that had committed large-scale fraud lol
That still sounds bad to me. If someone commits a crime there punishment should be handed down by a court and carried out, now by some system that follows you around and doesn’t let you buy movie tickets or whatever.
The fact you can improve it by doing community service makes it sound better than the system we have in the States, but I’d still say it bad and dumb. A socialist nation should provide for its citizens so that you don’t have to have some weird system that bullies them into volunteer work, and social infrastructure should be available to all even if they’ve been a bit of a dickhead to people lately.
True. It's just funny how the spooky "social credit" that does exist is just a not as bad version of credit
Also, the Chinese system is very importantly NOT opaque you can just go to your local courthouse and ask them what you need to do to raise it. Usually stuff like some community service or volunteer work.
It was also used as an alternative to prison for low level offenses. So like shoplifting just dings your credit instead of getting you put in jail.
Credit systems still suck, but if you're going to have one, at least have it controlled democratically and make it transparent and use it as an alternative to prison whenever you can.
I mean, ideally you just don't have business executives, or first class seating.
Using some weird ass system that makes them live like the proles if their behave like NAUGHTY bourgeois just seems like a attempt to bully the rich into being "responsible rulers" like liberals want.
Bad credit score? Get a credit card so you can pay it off and build debt. Want education? Be prepared to take out thousands maybe hundreds of thousands in debt to enter the job market. Here you need a car to get around, better take out a loan to get a good one. And up keep. Etc etc etc.
All the shit our boomer parents told us was financially irresponsible for years (accumulating debt, multiple credit cards, huge house/car loans) are considered basic for building credit.
Gee, imagine that. It's like entrapment on a societal level. :jokah:
Now you just take that test, but they're behind closed doors using their patented secret methods.
no actually please tell me what happened, was there some sort of anti discrimination legislation or something?
awesome how the system ostensibly meant to prevent people taking on debt they can never afford to pay back failed to avert the economic crisis caused by exactly that.
