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We, along with Europe, had "social points" system for a long time. If you smoked weed, were associated with communist/socialist circles, etc, you were or could be barred from certain jobs (public and private), banks, voting, etc. The idea that it's bad when china does it is just hypocrisy or borderline jealousy. > Today, in the West, we call that "fake news", and limit its spread too. We say/use "civility" or "western values" to censor, attack, etc. The chinese use "harmony", "chinese characteristics", etc to censor, attack, etc. We shame the chinese and demand they treat muslims better while killing millions of muslims and destroying a few muslim countries. The chinese shame the west and demand we treat muslims better while interning millions of muslims. Too bad hypocrisy isn't a currency or we'd all be rich and living large. |
The highly decentralized, mostly non-computerized western social shaming that existed for decades for certain social beliefs and practices, which to some extent still exists in certain limited contexts was in no meaningful way comparable to a systematic, almost entirely centralized government-directed formal social credit scoring system that dictates one's "worthiness" and so many aspects of their social life, economic life and literal freedom to move around based on what political opinions they publish, who they're friends with, what things they read, share on social media or even what things they buy. Comparing the two is ridiculous. It's either blatantly blind or you're trolling for some other reason. No western state has anything like this. No notable number of people in the west are literally ruined economically or banned from travel, or the victims of their friends being nudged by the government into abandoning them because they posted something against Trump, or against Obama or in any other context. Very public, very open debate and protest against numerous government policies is still very much alive and well in the west. In China this is blatantly not the case.