Re:China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour
by mc32 on Monday April 27, 2015 @11:33AM
(#9446932)
You don't have to reduce people to statistics, all you need is ideology and believe in a better future brought to you through ideology. Ideology is the real bastard.
Re:China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour
by marcosdumay on Monday April 27, 2015 @12:32PM
(#9447347)
> Ideology is the real bastard.
Careful there. Liberalism, for example, is an ideology. And as far as the meaning of that word can be formalized, pragmatism fits too.
Re:China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour
by mc32 on Tuesday April 28, 2015 @11:27AM
(#9453033)
Yes and with pragmatism you get Realpolitik, which may be a decent position to maximize some goals but can have nasty results as well if you're not careful. I dont think its possible to get away from this problem, all we can do is be aware of it as a problem and avoid the pitfalls.
Once you keep dossiers on people, it's natural to want better dossiers. This is just an extension and a centralization of technology that in the was is used to mould people's consumerist behaviour by rating their purchasing habits and credit. In the US there are reports of people being unable to access jobs if they have poor credit or healthcare if they have poor "lifestyles".
Dehumanisation is very easy: you reduce people to statistics, and then give those tasked with maintaining the system the objective of increasing certain statistics. The overall question of "is this just?" is hard to see and hard to discuss.