[Just_Smith]

I'm a bit surprised that people in this thread don't seem to understand the parallels between social and economic status. It's not some grand revelation either - it's pretty much common knowledge. There's obviously a distinct difference between these two systems, but to say "China's social credit system has nothing in common with America's financial credit system" is pretty ignorant to how important having good credit is to being successful in America.

[lifeformed]

Yes they're related, but think of the differences:

US credit score = 35% payment history + 30% debt burden + 15% credit history + 10% credit types + 10% recent credit searches. Used for lending, and sometimes for leasing and employment.

Social credit system = a black box of metrics that can change at any time, relating to your speech, browsing history, political ideas, entertainment choices, shopping history, dating behavior, etc. Used to limit options in travel, education, dating, purchasing, internet speed, etc.

If the US credit system starts becoming more like the latter, then yes, that's cause for concern. But so far its problems are of a very different scale than a social credit system.

[will_brown]

And I tried to acknowledge the difference in my original post, by saying it’s “just a different way to skin the cat.”

But that’s why I added the edit, because I had to acknowledge people in the US love the credit system like people in China will love the social credit system. That’s unfortunately probably the most important parallel the people welcome the systems.

[Just_Smith]

I agree - so long as financial credit comes with perks, people are going to be apologists for its flaws. Now that I work in software, keeping good credit is a non-issue. However, when I was making less than $10k/yr, it was the bane of my existence.