[richmarr]

Can you be more specific about these ways you imagine it backfiring?

Brooker tackled this kind of thing in Black Mirror, and while his vision of it was pretty bleak, it actually seemed a lot more open to social mobility than our current system in which inequality is becoming more deeply entrenched.

Presumably there's no way to live off your parents 'social credit' trust fund.

The Black Mirror version of this system would be deeply affected by attractiveness, for example, which would be one possible failing, but there's no indication that the Chinese version is as susceptible to that.

[nothrabannosir]

Social mobility at the cost of honest expression of personal beliefs, though. Essentially, lack of personal freedom through rigorous self-censorship.

In that episode, Nosedive, the higher up you got, the more "fake" it got. The lower you got, the more "real". Culminating with the archteypical "likeable truck lady".

Loss of freedom, no matter if through oppression or through more insiduous means like reverse psychology, is a very heavy price to pay.

[free652]

>Presumably there's no way to live off your parents 'social credit' trust fund.

LOL. Doesn't matter what the system is - the people with power will always find a way around it. USSR - check, China - check.

[sgt101]

The big issue is that our society faces massive challenges wrt. population growth, climate change, environmental stress, technical change and population crashes over the next two centuries. To make it through these it will need a lot of its members to do a lot of creating and experimenting. The complete loss of privacy will chill these efforts and prevent the rapid adaptions that I believe are necessary.

[wallace_f]

>Can you be more specific about these ways you imagine it backfiring?

>[credit can be awarded for] doing exemplary business

Some examples of exemplary businessmen who are justly rewarded under our wonderful system are Mr Trump, Mr Zuckerburg, and the Kochs, who have been awarded outstanding sums of social credit from their efforts in reputable, important businesses.

>allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step

Horatio Alger has had trouble moving beyond his job at the local Zhongwen-Mart. He isn't able to attend university, or even take public transport to get there, if he were. Due to several traffic fines, a minor drug conviction, and a bad credit score, he has never escaped poverty.

Mr Trump has been the subject of numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, and Mr Obama admitted to drug use--the same substance as Horatio Alger; but since neither convicted, their social credit remains extremely high.

Government is not the solution to every problem.