• 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        what? how is it dystopian and how is it related to social constructs? my god it must be tiring thinking like this.

        • Hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          Chinese social credit scores are a myth. The sesame credit thing was a study run by one company temporarily and then stopped. It was never implemented widely and does not exist now.

          Every country seems bad if you cherry pick the single worst thing you can find and attribute it to the entire country. Which is where the idea of chinese social credit came from. Its a myth.

          American social credit scores encourage engagement with capitalism. They lower your score for not having debt or paying it off. The goal is to shape behavior. If you want to own a home or rent an apartment you have to buy things you don’t need.

          • 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            well that’s an American issue. I’m not American so don’t know. also yes China does have social credit scores and if you talk against the party you will be punished for it. Cant wait till Taiwan frees china from the commies.

            • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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              1 day ago

              We have American-style credit ratings in Canada generated by Equifax and TransUnion, American corporations. Maintaining these ratings produces the same behaviour modifications. One of the first things I was told when I landed in Canada in 2005 was that if I wanted to be able to buy a home, I had to get a credit card and put all my monthly transactions on it so that I build my credit score. I’ve been lucky to have never incurred credit card debt but I still put most of my payments through a set of credit cards. I have to specifically watch how much I put, (too much is bad, too little is bad), make sure I don’t forget to pay in time and so on. I have to not switch mobile operators too often because that tanks my credit score (learned that the hard way). These days credit scores in Canada are used to screen tenants by landlords. I know a few landlords and they do rate tenant candidates by credit score. Every employer I’ve worked for (apart from retail) has requested and screened my credit scored before hiring me. If a Canadian has their identity stolen (like when Equifax gets hacked), their credit score is often trashed via new loans in their name, which puts them at significant risk of losing the roof over their head and curtailing their job opportunities, not to mention the direct losses as banks don’t always rule in the victim’s favour. Think about what the function of the credit rating in Canada is. It’s clearly used for more than bank lending purposes.