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Comment by ConfusedDog | Hacker News Reader

The "driving point system" is very ubiquitous in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_system_(driving) It is also very common in the states and other countries. Funny thing is, in China, offenders can "buy" points from other people so that they still can drive. I wonder if that would work for this "social credit system" as well at some point...

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In the social credit system you can indeed show up to government-run booths and pay to have your points changed, the government says the cash goes to charity.

indulgences turned out to be very unpopular on the other side of eurasia

In that case, it would just be fines for violating their "code of conduct," a revenue stream for the government... nothing really changed. Bad&&poor people get poorer, might become less bad. Bad&&rich people might be "badder" because they can afford it. So, ended up with a society with really rich villains and docile peasants?

Isn't this largely how society plays out already, albeit less explicitly? From what little I know of our legal system (I'm in the US), it isn't too hard to buy yourself a great lawyer and get out of significant legal trouble.

For comparison, Finland apparently scales driving penalty fines proportionally according to your income: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

Can confirm. Typical fine for 21-29 kph speeding is 20% of your monthly income, and for 30-60 kph speeding, 40% of your monthly income.

Is that post or pre taxed income?

Post.

Wow, ouch. Are the punishments for lesser speeding more affordable?

Same in Denmark, at least for DUI. You'll get roughly 10 x BAC x monthly salary (post tax). A local footballer famously got hit hard by this, with a fine of DKK 842K (~ USD 130K).

> offenders can "buy" points from other people so that they still can drive

It's illegal, some local official already been prisonized for doing that[0]. So the argument is no longer true.

If the "social credit point" will become a reality, then I don't think it can be traded in a lawful fashion as well, as allowing it will discredit the system.

Might be a good way to destroy the system by rending it useless now that I think about it.

[0] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http...

To make it even more evil you could award points back to people that report fellow offenders. With some sort of video proof or tools to measure speeders, record jaywalkers, red lights, etc.

> Funny thing is, in China, offenders can "buy" points from other people so that they still can drive.

Sounds like a Sybil attack.

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