Healthy and subject to a "social credits" system. I'd rather be morbidly obese than have the government force me to play a social status game.
But the government is not an institution that should be rewarding or penalizing behavior that is within the bounds of law. Obviously, you get -10000 points let's say if you commit a felony in the US. But you don't get +5xp for praising the government or being a good neighbor, or -5xp for being rude to a waiter or something. That's like, a few orders of magnitude of closer government behavioral management.
If you can escape these, you can escape other government records.
I'm not a fan of China's system either, but it's silly to act like it's something new. Nearly every citizen of any first world country has a huge set of permanent records being compiled on them, not just those in China.
As for getting on a plane, all of the above apply too, as well as the fact that you can be barred from flying simply by having a certain last name. Your personal records also affect things like how easy it is for you to get through customs and airport security. Global Entry/TSA PreCheck, for example, will be completely off-limits to you if you have 'questionable' travel records in your past.
Pretending the US/EU doesn't already have the Chinese social credit system in place is sticking your head in the sand. All China has done is formalize it.
More generally, if you're Facebook friends with or a Twitter follower of someone of interest to the state security services, like a radical Islamic preacher for example, do you really not think that is being recorded somewhere?
No, this is generally not true.
Unless you're a public figure and only then in specific circumstances.
Almost nobody holds people accountable for what their friends do.
Bill Clinton's brother was a drug dealer.
Barak Obama's father was a kind of unsavoury deadbeat dad.
I suppose both of them would have had nary enough 'social credit' to become President.
Also - it's borderline shocking to hear a casual defence of this system. Theoretically yes, I can see a rhetorical argument, but in practice it's pretty scary. In America people do have 'credit scores' but that's generally a more open thing, and you still get to vote and ride the subway if you have low credit score.
Speaking of Clinton, is "immediately and forcefully disavow" not exactly what his Sister Souljah moment was? Ditto for Obama's Jeremiah Wright moment.
It's a tremendous difference...
the US government doesn't give sufficient services that you can live just fine without a good credit score, so in essence, it is penalizing you. it's just a distributed punishment
We're talking about an institutionised score which effectively administers your social mobility.
More seriously, yes, the explicit social credit system that China seeks to establish is evil. But the west isn't much different.
Social credit score decides whether one can board a plane or a train, or whether your child can get into a school of their choice. Furthermore, your score is influenced by the people you associate with, and vice-versa.
One of those concepts is very different from the other, in practice.
They decide a lot more then that. Housing, job applications, sentencing, whether or not you can get an education...
So it's fine that one of the government's responsibilities is to track each citizens social score, instead of it being implicit in the judgement's of a person's peer-group?
Yes we all play some kind of "status" or "reputation" game, but the difference is that we can determine ourselves what is socially right by finding the right audience. In China's case, your only choice of audience is the government. You are forced to play instead of being a willing participant in your relevant social stratum.