That all sounded reasonable until the last one. Textbook "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking".
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJa...
That being said, a fine is probably a punishment that would make much more sense. More revenue for the government too.
"But why was it instituted in the first place?" Good question. People do things they aren't suppose to do in the first place all the time! But we can do something about it.
[1] recent sources are hard to find, and the list apparently grows rather fast - I'm going off https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/20/fbi-no-fly-...
Your mindset is part of the problem. It's not about "them" or "us", about "American" or "Chinese", it's about the list itself and using systems like that.
China just seems to be more ruthless about using things like this, but in the end, there are enough more or less totalitarian systems which would love to have lists and procedures like this.
Similar positions have in the past been held e.g. by the German supreme court: In a landmark ruling, it barred authorities from shooting down planes with terrorists. The department of defense argued that shooting down a plane that is headed e.g. towards a stadium would save many more people compared to the number of civilians killed. The court dismissed that opinion, arguging that killing civilians is just something you ought not do.
I think it's the same here: When you deny even just one person a fair trail, you're setting a dangerous precedent that can and will be expanded upon.
The Chinese system has already applied draconian restrictions to about 2% of the Chinese population. The no fly lists affect roughly four ten thousandths of a percent of the US citizenry. These are not equivalent.
Just seems like something a civil society can deal with quite easily without resorting to black marks on people's "permanent record" (which in this case seems to be functioning as a kind of parallel judicial system).
Exactly. I never had issues that could not have been easily resolved. Most people where I live is very careful about not being a douche, despite not having to fear that the Government will punish them.
When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry.
So it's not a conspiracy of the government to "tame" the people. Perhaps you can say the people were "silly" to summon such rules unto themselves. Just like how the American people voted Trump onto the throne.
I am not saying it did not happen in China. I was talking about my country. I cannot remember anyone not giving me my reserved seat, nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening here to anyone, where "here" is not China. This is my experience, and I believe we are sharing experiences.
> Secondly, the punishment is not by the government, but by the train company.
Train companies are owned by the state, but private businesses also have to have a CCP committee and respond to the instructions of the party, so either directly or indirectly, yes, it is coming from the Government, the government that developed the Social Credit System.
> When videos of people refusing to leave reserved seats went viral on the web, most people wanted them to be punished by not being able to take trains, at least for some period of time. So the punishment is actually a populist opinion, rather than designated by the government. The government didn't want to step in before the people's outcry.
Are you talking about Chinese people? Because this certainly does not hold true for the people in my country. Even if it does, it is not indicative of anything. People say all sorts of crap over the Internet that they do not mean, do not do or say in real life. Take a look at the comment section of videos where someone is handling an animal improperly due to sheer ignorance. Most of the commentators will say they want to kill that person in the video and so on and so on.
Anyway, the point is that my country has very different values or culture. China goes so much further with the human search engine, where they will post images of people publicly and people will go out of their way to identify them, hunt them down, etc. It is not about public shaming anymore like it is the case here.
I think the whole point of this system is to "encourage" good behavior and to punish "bad" behavior, while the definition of bad can be a very broad one, so people start to change behavior.
I'm not even sure if I would count this to a parallel judicial system or just "controlling the masses".
There was a famous case few years ago that one famous football player paid half a million euro fee for driving without a license.
I guess introducing similar system would be more fair than going to this drastic measure like not allowing to ride a train forever and ever more.
Yes, but it would be up to him for that to decide (to have that person punished), not someone else on his behalf. Which I believe is very important.
A lot of these punishments seem targeted at the middle class and business people by forcing them to go down a peg or two if they don't abide by the rules. It's making them lose face, which is something very important in China.
All bullet trains sell some tickets without seats. The price is the same as normal seat ticket but only for busy time like holiday season. Most time trains are not fully loaded so usually there are no dispute for seat being occupied.
There were a couple of incidents video uploaded on to Chinese social media that some bullet train travellers sat on the seat belong to others who purchased seat tickets. In both cases the owners of the seats asked the train attendants to arbitrate.However train attendants are all females with no law enforcement authority. Both bullies (one male, the other female in separate incidents) finally ended up with no consequences at the time. The videos got viral and caused public outrage. Under the pressure, the train company announced the the punishment of half year ban . That means within 6 months these 2 people have to travel with bus services like greyhound, or maybe with unpopular normal green trains like those in US and Canada. (I don't believe US and Canada have bullet trains)
I'm sure there are many such incidents happened in busy time but those 2 were captured by smart phone then uploaded to social media. Then the identities of bullies were discovered by those who recognized them and spread to public along with all other information which cause much more trouble than half year ban of bullet train. Where were the policemen? Bullet train don't have police. Victims have to wait to next station if they really want police involved. Nobody bother to waste time for those small civil dispute. Only thing they want to do is put the video on internet.
That's why there's a ban on not following the rule that yield the seats belonging to others
For example, this incident, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-social-credit-system-kee...
from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci...
"The public blacklist has been incorporated by another incarnation of the social credit system — Zhima Credit, a service of the mobile payment provider Alipay. China has a huge mobile payment market, with transactions totaling $5.5 trillion in 2016, compared with $112 billion in the United States. Alipay, owned by Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay dominate the still-growing Chinese market.
Zhima Credit is an optional service embedded in Alipay that calculates users’ personal credit based on data such as spending history, friends on Alipay’s social network, and other types of consumer behavior. Zhima Credit’s technology director controversially told the Chinese magazine Caixin in 2015 that buying diapers, for example, would be considered “responsible” behavior, while playing video games for hours could be counted against you.
Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."
It is a big deal because people in China are fed up with such behaviours. Yes the woman would be able to use his seat but why should people give in to such behaviour?
Generally police in China avoid using force. There have been videos that police were attacked by drunks / speeding drivers. Some people think police in China are far too soft.
Now imagine the power of cops in such a state. They can destroy your life with little effort, espacially since restrictions of your life will probably snowball into more offences. E.G: how do you pay your taxe if you can't move to get a job ?
I don't doubt corruption is part of the program, but nobody is going to take down a cop at the risk of having 10 of his friends following every one of your step for the next month.
Anyway, this is the background information for the last one.
IIRC the travel ban doesn't last forever. It expires after some time or after you have taken remedy. But I haven't checked.
That's before we get into the whole lack of due process..
Yeah it's weird because I think the one about reserved seat is more reasonable than the others ones. It's bad, but at least it's related to your capacity to take the train. Just like it's reasonable for someone with unpaid loan to be unable to takes more loans.
It's when you bring unrelated things than it become punishment instead.
"Those freeloaders don't know how to behave and they ruin it for the rest of us so I'm going to make them pay!"