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Comment by chillacy | Hacker News Reader

> Chinese leaders have been increasingly focused on scientific misconduct, following ongoing reports of researchers there using fraudulent data, falsifying CVs and faking peer reviews

It sounds like a step in the right direction. It feels less gross if you think of "social punishment" as a lighter version of "legal punishment". No need to send cheaters to jail, but don't let them off the hook either.

Assuming the system won't be abused for political (I'm sure it will), the detection is accurate (I'm sure it'll be hard), the social punishment is reasonable (we'll see), it sounds reasonable in theory.

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The social score in China is even worse than in Black Mirror, it defines everything you can access from bank, education, job, health, transport , social relationships, etc.

It is not a legal score, it is a social score (both in theory and in practice)

I completely agree that it is stupid to send non-dangerous people to jail, but we should punish them with fines and possibly specific job restrictions decided on a per-case basis by a tribunal if there is a clear danger, but not by restricting their every aspect of their private, public, social and professional life.

It seems like a systemization of how a small society might shun an outcast. If you’re a rude asshole at school or work, people might intentionally make your life harder by refusing to do things for you, at a minimum they won’t be trusting you with any favors. In the extreme they won’t talk to you.

The government can’t tweak at such a fine level but wherever it can, that’s what the system feels like from my very far and biased point of view.

Fines will give you less money, which will restrict every aspect of your private, public, social and professional life.

> It feels less gross if you think of "social punishment" as a lighter version of "legal punishment".

The mental gymnastics people present for support on these policies is astounding to me.

In the states, if you're known for scientific misconduct, will you get a job at a a state school?

Probably not but you can still buy train tickets, get a mortgage, and live in Manhattan if you make some other career work out for you.

That's what's disturbing here, the link to this other system that is, in itself, nightmarish.

Right, their system seems to presuppose that if a person does something wrong once they should carry the consequences of that "misconduct" indefinitely. That's awfully pessimistic and depressing to me. Everyone has done something "wrong" at one point or another. Most people learn and grow from those mistakes.

What will a society look like where people aren't free to learn from their mistakes but are instead perpetually held back by them?

Based on a YouTube documentary I saw it seems like you can redeem your score through payments (officially to charity, but it doesn’t look like it’s transparent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw

Compare this to a prison system based on punishment instead of prevention, leading to depressing recidivism.

Thanks for sharing! That was really interesting! From your other comments it looks like you live in China? What has the reception been so far?

I didn't realize the point system so subjective until I watched that clip you shared. How do they decide who becomes an "Information Collector?" Those positions will surely be highly coveted because they come with a massive amount of power and influence over their neighbors' lives. What concerns me about the payment system is that it seems like a fast-track to massive inequality - wealth, social, and justice. If someone can simply pay to erase their "bad" behavior then there's functionally one set of "rules" for those who can afford not to follow them and another set of rules that are actually enforced, in life changing ways, for everyone else.

You really don't see any negatives to this?

See my original comment, I see plenty of negatives! But it seems most commenters here are only downsides. References to Black Mirror and 1984 everywhere. I think that’s overblown, and it seems to me like a great experiment to run and learn from. If it turns out to be terrible then we know, if it has upsides but has trade offs in privacy that the west won’t like, then we know. But shouldn’t we find out?

I have the same thought behind UBI and drug decriminalization as well: thought experiments be damned, go try it and see.

But the flip side may be that since it is lighter than « legal punishment », individuals don’t benefit from the same due process and recourses they otherwise have.

So it might be a wrong step in right direction - as the majority of regulations usually are.

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