China gameifies obedience to the state

[Jubal]

This is pretty chilling.

[Clockwork]

They're liars and hypocrites but do make some good content.

[Othko97]

That is terrifying.

[Jubal]

Yes, rather :/

Do people think that this will work/be effective in practice?

[Othko97]

It's potential effectiveness is why it's so terrifying.I can easily see this working very, very well.

[Clockwork]

Nope. You have to understand that China is so completely different from the UK and putting UK sensibilities in China just doesn't work. There's like a brazillion people, keeping track of who's in the country is ridiculously hard, having a way to easily track who buys and contributes and such is necessary for what social system they have. As far as using it as a propaganda tool, yeah that's a bit more concerning but actually it's no more concerning than what they do in schools and at work...Which is bad, don't get me wrong but it's not like this is the first and most subtle way of propaganda China uses.


Also I looked into this before and they seem to be slightly misinformed, social media activity isn't...measured (I guess is the right word?) for sesame credit score, at least according to bbc (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34592186).

[Othko97]

I accept that there are cultural differences between the UK and China, however games play on psychological tendencies which are deeper than nationality, and nobody is immune to dopamine. Systems for tracking people could be automated without adding in the component of a game, which I imagine actually makes the implementation of such a system more complex. As for its effectiveness, consider how much time the average person spends on social networking sites now, then consider how this would look if doing so had incentives to save money, get loans and so on. This kind of system has serious and terrifying potential, and I think would probably be more effective at spreading propaganda than school or work.

[Clockwork]

The difference in culture is more about why relatively few people are scared about it and why it's actually (relatively again) popular than whether psychology works on them.


I'm not sure what you're saying bud. I don't think I've understood you because to me it looks like you're saying that trading your financial privacy for money is terrifying. To me it's close enough to what a lot of people do here, but without the game element. For instance, on facebook you can post what your job is, all it takes is a 2 minute search from there to find out the kind of money someone in that profession earns. All the points in your life that credit rating is relevant, it's accessed instantly by the creditors.


And I guess we can agree to disagree that work and schools contribute more or less to indoctrination than the game?