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Comment by dinkumthinkum | Hacker News Reader

Well a real argument people have is concerns about being in a situation of having a Chinese style “social credit system”. Now, iou might say “cash won’t save you” and you might be right but that’s a case for using cash. I think in the US it can be a bigger concern because of rise in punishment (social and otherwise) for wrongthink. We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

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We (west) already have a credit system that cash hedges against — a charity my parents look after woke up one day with no bank account, because the bank had not received a reply to a letter they'd sent to who knows where.

If I were a coffee shop I'd take cash just as an operational hedge against that kind of thing, let alone "the government has banned coffee shops" tail risk.

There was a multi hour outage for one of the phone providers in Australia which ended up impacting a lot of card readers. Businesses still accept cash, but the problem is that almost no one carries cash in Australia so it’s no use here.

The real backup seems to be having two card readers on different networks.

We already have social credit for banking in the US as the poor don't get to have bank accounts. In a twisted way this helps maintain support for cash and non-app card payments for businesses and public services that can't shut out the poor.

Poor people have bank accounts. That sounds like how some people think 15% of the population is not smart enough to know how to get drivers licenses. Now, some people choose not to have bank accounts because they worry about overdraft fees. But show me any significant amount of poor people that go to the bank for a free checking account and the banks say “No go away you poor, get out of here.” It’s not a thing.

We don’t have anything like a Chinese social credit system yet.

> Having a ChexSystems record could make it difficult to get approved for new bank accounts.

https://www.investopedia.com/what-to-know-and-do-if-you-re-l...

Ok, go back and reread that. Where does it say “poor people” or people with low income will not get a bank account? It doesn’t say that. Despite what some people, being poor doesn’t mean you don’t have any kind of sense of responsibility. Also, linking to some article doesn’t negate the weight of reality, poor people all over the US have bank accounts and get them every day. Does that mean there’s not a single bank in the YA that turns away customers? No but if it was really so bad that poor people can’t get bank account, direct deposit systems wouldn’t exist in such prevalence and iy would be major news.

This is just like how many people in major news outlets now claim people are hijacking others and stealing their cars because of the high price of automobile and they need to steal the cars to get to their jobs and to the bread store. It’s a leftist caricature but now how the world actually is.

I mean, it's why the poor people I know can't get bank accounts; in fact, it's the only reason I know why the system exists. Ever wonder why so many places advertise check cashing services (for a fee obviously), a service that your bank gives you for free? Those payday lender places don't just do predatory loans, they also have things like prepaid debit cards (also for a fee) that those who aren't able to use the banking system (usually because a few overdraft fees get out of hand) can use to interface with modern society. As I said, I've had to navigate friends/family through this, so I've got a pretty practical grasp of the system.

If the American Social Credit system (which would already be largely redundant with the private credit system) would give demerits to people with loud exhausts, I'd welcome it in a heartbeat. I can't rightthink or wrongthink with the idiots who do that coming and going all the time.

Why would it do that, if the legal system is not already fining them for noise violations?

This is why US is in danger of having a Chinese style social credit systems, because many Americans would welcome the punishment of wrongthink.

> We have already imported Mao struggle sessions, essentially.

What? I haven't had to go publicly shame my neighbors for not being revolutionary enough, at least that I remember.

“Learn.” “Do the work.” “Educate yourself on my unreality.” These are becoming mantra now, even institutionalized. I did say “essentially” and literally the same but such distinctions are quaint until they no longer exist.

Credit cards are very literally a social credit system.

OH did you play by the rules, well then you get "cash back" on your purchase. Oh you didn't play by the rules, well the 3 percent markup that is on everything purchased with credit is going in the pocket of someone else. You should do better and we will give you some of that money back. Thanks for playing and do remember dont be poor.

Im a very pro capitalism type of person, but our credit, and credit card/transaction system is fucked up on a lot of levels.

Credit cards are not cash and you are not forced to use them. Nevertheless, I welcome you to research the Chinese social credit system and tell me if that is really the same thing as FICO. FICO is simply about paying debt; I know dirt poor people with fantastic credit scores. This is not the same thing. This is why we are in danger of a social credit system because our culture now equivocate the two already.

>>> This is why we are in danger of a social credit system because our culture now equivocate the two already.

Oddly this is actually NOT true: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2024.2...

For the Chinese, and their recent introduction to capitalism the social credit score is a way of enforcing some Chinese cultural things and a lot of "communist" things (ala "little pinks").

In America social stratification and fiscal stratification are linked. Poor people don't get to go to an ivy without brains, rich kids don't really end up at community colleges do they? If you don't think merchants giving %3 to cc companies and not being able to pass that cost on to customers isn't a bite on everyone who isn't using credit I don't know what to tell you.

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