[wozmirek]

While I'm terrified by the system, I do remember watching a BBC (I think?) report on this. There was a young Chinese woman there, who felt safer.

This made me think - what would women - and women, not the young men (me being one) choose when given a choice of the social credit system or being able to walk around the city safe(r)?

Quite general question, yet I do believe they would choose the latter; and I wouldn't blame them.

[paganel]

"Feeling safer" has almost nothing to do with the Government watching you and it's almost entirely caused by the local social norms. Case in point and to partly answer your question: I have a woman colleague who has recently moved to London from Bucharest. She told me that while living in Bucharest she had no issue at all going back home alone at 2 or 3 in the morning, while in London she avoids going out all by herself after 8 PM, because she does not feel safe.

Doesn't matter that London is one of the most camera-surveilled cities in the "Western" world while Bucharest has almost no cameras, all it matters is that there are more people in London ready to physically and verbally harass a person walking on the street all by her/himself compared to a city like Bucharest. I have no idea on how one would change those social norms, I'm just saying that adding cameras hasn't solved the issue and will probably not solve it.

[wozmirek]

Oh, I agree with you m8. I'm terrified with the surveillance stuff. I'd exchange then my "safe(r)" with "more sense of "safety"" (double quote deliberate).

Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest? Just wondering if it's the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin while she feels safer in Krakow.

[paganel]

> Side note, that colleague originates from Bucharest?

Yeap, she has lived her entire life until this summer in Bucharest (she's approaching 30 now), and she hasn't grow up and live in the "posh" parts of town, so to speak.

> Just wondering if it's the same with my wife who feels unsafe in Berlin while she feels safer in Krakow.

It's funny because said colleague (and friend) has moved out to London for a Polish guy, I guess that's where the better-paid jobs are.

[wozmirek]

I'd chalk it up to the stress of moving. I used to live in US and then moved to Germany. It's normal.

[rqs]

> There was a young Chinese woman there, who felt safer.

Why wouldn't she?

If you've installed a nuclear bomb inside a person's home and tell that person the bomb will keep him safe, he will probably feel safer either. That is as long as you don't tell him about the fact that the detonator is controlled by a nasty monkey.

In China, you can only see the positive news about the system. Even when a journalist are trying to tell you the danger, on the surface the writing will eventually boil everything down to privacy protection, not the system.

So, don't be surprised.

[wozmirek]

Well, of course. It's the same as with reading any official communication from the Russian government ;)

I'm talking about the premise that may appeal to 50% of the citizens. We (as in being able-bodied men, we should take into considerations people with disabilities, weaker, older, frailer) might get outvoted.

[rqs]

The thing is, when you ask somebody for their opinion, the most important thing you'll get out of it is not about the opinion itself, instead, it's about how and why the opinion been formed.

And most people build their opinion based on the information they're exposed to, probably including that imaginary women you made up for the comment. That's why controlling information is every government's wet dream, not just China, not just Russian, and actually, not just government.

So, the real question is not about who you asking (young women or men), it's about what's the information that women or men has received. Does she or he received all the information needed in order to make rational choice, or the information is just one sided?

BTW, In China, young women already been able to walk around most the city safely, even at night. You may take that into account.

[apatters]

How do you know she was telling the truth? If she criticizes the system too much she'll lose credit and be blacklisted from booking flights etc.

[zimbatm]

It's usually the choice that society as a large is making: do we prefer Freedom or Safety? For example after 9/11 American exchanged a lot of freedom for more safety. It's a choice we all have to make.

[bytematic]

Well they had no credit system before so it was awful to get any sort of loan or expect it to be paid back. Lots of chinese people are for this policy.

[rwmj]

Did they ask someone with a negative rating whether they felt safer too?