thegreatresoot: Today, I want to share an article titled “COVID-19 as a Case for Social Scoring Systems” by Jesse Hirsh from September 15, 2020 at cigionline.org. This is the official website for the Centre for International Governance Innovation headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The article is centered around the concept and need for developing “social scoring system” to reduce risk during the “pandemic” by informing the public of up-to-date medical information and avoid “superspreading” risk factors.
If this sounds familiar, this is the same type of system that China has developed known as the “social credit system”. This system assigns each citizen a “social credit score” that can rise or fall depending on if their behavior adheres to the wishes of the People's Republic of China’s ruling class. If their behavioral does not fall inline with what’s expected, their lowered social credit score may result in being blocked from services necessary for day-to-day survival; this can be anything from being denied access to schools or transportation to being bared from certain job opportunities. Essentially, however, the punishments can range from whatever their government decides on any particular day and punishable offenses can change on a whim as well. I don’t think I should need to tell you how dangerous such a system poses to individual liberty, especially when combined with modern surveillance states.
Hirsh briefly mentions the similarity between the “social scoring system” and the Chinese “social credit system” and refers to the Chinese system as “misunderstood”. Hirsh mentions how the Chinese social credit system punishes polluters with bad environmental track records, whether individuals or companies, as a way to point out the supposed good such a system promotes in terms of regulating behavior. However, Hirsch completely glosses over concerns citizens may have regarding how the Chinese social credit system regularly abuses the human rights of their citizens or any totalitarian government may act in the future. In fact, Hirsch has no moral qualms with the unprecedented legal and social power of these systems and believed that the “debate around their efficacy and morality remain unresolved”.
Additionally, Hirsch openly admits that such a system is designed not just to inform individuals of health risks but to modify people’s behaviors through punishments and rewards, “The main objection people have to a social credit system, versus other kinds of scoring systems, is that it is a technology of social control designed to influence and shape behaviour. Whether a specific system is in China or North America, this depiction is accurate”.
Furthermore, Hirsh attempts to correlate the social scoring system its proposing with other systems such as financial credit scores or online business reviews as though they were equivalent. This is clearly an attempt to downplay the radical amalgamation and transformation of power with no discernable checks and balances, as if such a system could ever be compatible with human liberty in the first place.
Now, I’ll briefly talk about the Centre for International Governance Innovation which published this article on its website. Jim Balsillie, who founded the Centre for International Governance Innovation in 2001, also oversaw the coordinating partnership between the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Centre for International Governance Innovation in which the merger was reborn as the Canadian International Council. The Canadian Institute of International Affairs, today renamed as the Canadian International Council, is the Canadian branch of the Round Table Groups that I’ve written posts about in the past which originated from Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Rhodes Trust, Nathan Rothschild and the Milner Group (to name a few). So, this organization belongs to the same network of globalist organizations I’ve written about in the past which openly advocate their commitment and labor towards the creation of a world government.
This “pandemic” has been used to usher in the greatest centralization of state and corporate power in the history of the world. This centralization of power is occurring on a global scale and is absolutely circumventing the rights and national sovereignty citizens of every nation state. I’ll try to write more about this in the future, but I felt it was imperative to share this article to anybody who might actually care. If these measures are adopted by western governments, especially America, eventually there will be no more freedom left in the world. Normal people will be completely dependent on the approval of the governments, corporations and organizations running these social credit systems just to be able to secure the goods and services necessary to survive. All forms of speech that are ruled politically or socially “dissident” will result in brutal reprisals which will serve as examples to keep the rest of the people inline through fear. I could on forever about this, but I at least tried to make my point somewhat coherently. It’s just something that’s worth thinking about because thousands of think tanks, tax-exempt foundations, governments and corporations are working on programs like this around the clock that very few people are even aware of. Is this the kind of society you want to live in?
COVID-19 as a Case for Social Scoring Systems. What if there was a scoring system or app that provided people with information on the likelihood of a superspreading situation? by Jesse Hirsh on September 15, 2020 at cigionline.org: https://www.cigionline.org/articles/covid-19-case-social-scoring-systems/
While scoring systems are widely criticized and often discussed in dystopian contexts, the current global need to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 provides a decent case for considering social scoring systems.
Digital economies and societies already depend upon scoring systems to navigate and manage information. Algorithms are employed widely to sort, rank and file information that is in abundance, and make it possible to find, choose and understand that data through a vast array of possible options. In this context, algorithms are both the cause of and the solution to information overload.
Examples include:
rating and recommendation systems that help people choose where to eat or who to buy from; social media metrics that help people choose who to trust or follow; human resource systems that measure productivity or indicate which employees need support or attention; and credit scores that determine our trustworthiness and fiscal responsibility. All of these systems are designed to make it easy for others to make judgments and assess risk or trust, by aggregating and synthesizing various sources and values to come up with a symbolic (and often powerful) score.
Perhaps the most notorious and misunderstood scoring system is the Chinese social credit system. Developed over the past decade, the primary goal of the Chinese scoring system is to act as a tool for regulatory compliance, making it easier for regulating agencies to pursue their mandates, while also making it possible for others to understand the regulatory process. For example, an environmental regulator can use such a system to reward and punish companies who comply with or disobey environmental regulations. In creating a score, it makes it easier for people to assess the environmental track record of a corporation.
Popular perception of these systems in western societies has focused on their potential role for individual social control, as an extension of an authoritarian surveillance society. However researchers have noted that similar systems exist elsewhere, and the debate around their efficacy and morality remain unresolved.
The main objection people have to a social credit system, versus other kinds of scoring systems, is that it is a technology of social control designed to influence and shape behaviour. Whether a specific system is in China or North America, this depiction is accurate.
A social scoring system’s goal may indeed be the modification of behaviour, but if its campaign is carried out transparently and offered with clear public health benefit and justification, how would it differ in its substance from broader public health campaigns?
After more than half a year of living in a pandemic, it is clear that we have to make it easier and more rewarding for people to comply with public health advisories and guidelines. Using scoring systems are one means by which that could happen.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_International_Council “In October 2007, Jim Balsillie (the former co-CEO of the Canadian information technology company Research In Motion ('BlackBerry' initiated the formation of the CIC as a partnership between the CIIA and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a think tank based in Waterloo, Ontario, that works on global issues, in order to create a research base on Canadian foreign policy similar to the American Council on Foreign Relations and the United Kingdom's Royal Institute of International Affairs.[4] In making the announcement, Balsillie wrote, "CIC will be a research-based, non-partisan vehicle. Applying expert and fact-based research to complex issues is the essential foundation for creating effective policy."[4] In November 2007, members of the CIIA voted to become the Canadian International Council.”
If this sounds familiar, this is the same type of system that China has developed known as the “social credit system”. This system assigns each citizen a “social credit score” that can rise or fall depending on if their behavior adheres to the wishes of the People's Republic of China’s ruling class. If their behavioral does not fall inline with what’s expected, their lowered social credit score may result in being blocked from services necessary for day-to-day survival; this can be anything from being denied access to schools or transportation to being bared from certain job opportunities. Essentially, however, the punishments can range from whatever their government decides on any particular day and punishable offenses can change on a whim as well. I don’t think I should need to tell you how dangerous such a system poses to individual liberty, especially when combined with modern surveillance states.
Hirsh briefly mentions the similarity between the “social scoring system” and the Chinese “social credit system” and refers to the Chinese system as “misunderstood”. Hirsh mentions how the Chinese social credit system punishes polluters with bad environmental track records, whether individuals or companies, as a way to point out the supposed good such a system promotes in terms of regulating behavior. However, Hirsch completely glosses over concerns citizens may have regarding how the Chinese social credit system regularly abuses the human rights of their citizens or any totalitarian government may act in the future. In fact, Hirsch has no moral qualms with the unprecedented legal and social power of these systems and believed that the “debate around their efficacy and morality remain unresolved”.
Additionally, Hirsch openly admits that such a system is designed not just to inform individuals of health risks but to modify people’s behaviors through punishments and rewards, “The main objection people have to a social credit system, versus other kinds of scoring systems, is that it is a technology of social control designed to influence and shape behaviour. Whether a specific system is in China or North America, this depiction is accurate”.
Furthermore, Hirsh attempts to correlate the social scoring system its proposing with other systems such as financial credit scores or online business reviews as though they were equivalent. This is clearly an attempt to downplay the radical amalgamation and transformation of power with no discernable checks and balances, as if such a system could ever be compatible with human liberty in the first place.
Now, I’ll briefly talk about the Centre for International Governance Innovation which published this article on its website. Jim Balsillie, who founded the Centre for International Governance Innovation in 2001, also oversaw the coordinating partnership between the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and the Centre for International Governance Innovation in which the merger was reborn as the Canadian International Council. The Canadian Institute of International Affairs, today renamed as the Canadian International Council, is the Canadian branch of the Round Table Groups that I’ve written posts about in the past which originated from Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Rhodes Trust, Nathan Rothschild and the Milner Group (to name a few). So, this organization belongs to the same network of globalist organizations I’ve written about in the past which openly advocate their commitment and labor towards the creation of a world government.
This “pandemic” has been used to usher in the greatest centralization of state and corporate power in the history of the world. This centralization of power is occurring on a global scale and is absolutely circumventing the rights and national sovereignty citizens of every nation state. I’ll try to write more about this in the future, but I felt it was imperative to share this article to anybody who might actually care. If these measures are adopted by western governments, especially America, eventually there will be no more freedom left in the world. Normal people will be completely dependent on the approval of the governments, corporations and organizations running these social credit systems just to be able to secure the goods and services necessary to survive. All forms of speech that are ruled politically or socially “dissident” will result in brutal reprisals which will serve as examples to keep the rest of the people inline through fear. I could on forever about this, but I at least tried to make my point somewhat coherently. It’s just something that’s worth thinking about because thousands of think tanks, tax-exempt foundations, governments and corporations are working on programs like this around the clock that very few people are even aware of. Is this the kind of society you want to live in?
COVID-19 as a Case for Social Scoring Systems. What if there was a scoring system or app that provided people with information on the likelihood of a superspreading situation? by Jesse Hirsh on September 15, 2020 at cigionline.org:
https://www.cigionline.org/articles/covid-19-case-social-scoring-systems/
While scoring systems are widely criticized and often discussed in dystopian contexts, the current global need to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 provides a decent case for considering social scoring systems.
Digital economies and societies already depend upon scoring systems to navigate and manage information. Algorithms are employed widely to sort, rank and file information that is in abundance, and make it possible to find, choose and understand that data through a vast array of possible options. In this context, algorithms are both the cause of and the solution to information overload.
Examples include:
rating and recommendation systems that help people choose where to eat or who to buy from;
social media metrics that help people choose who to trust or follow;
human resource systems that measure productivity or indicate which employees need support or attention; and
credit scores that determine our trustworthiness and fiscal responsibility.
All of these systems are designed to make it easy for others to make judgments and assess risk or trust, by aggregating and synthesizing various sources and values to come up with a symbolic (and often powerful) score.
Perhaps the most notorious and misunderstood scoring system is the Chinese social credit system. Developed over the past decade, the primary goal of the Chinese scoring system is to act as a tool for regulatory compliance, making it easier for regulating agencies to pursue their mandates, while also making it possible for others to understand the regulatory process. For example, an environmental regulator can use such a system to reward and punish companies who comply with or disobey environmental regulations. In creating a score, it makes it easier for people to assess the environmental track record of a corporation.
Popular perception of these systems in western societies has focused on their potential role for individual social control, as an extension of an authoritarian surveillance society. However researchers have noted that similar systems exist elsewhere, and the debate around their efficacy and morality remain unresolved.
The main objection people have to a social credit system, versus other kinds of scoring systems, is that it is a technology of social control designed to influence and shape behaviour. Whether a specific system is in China or North America, this depiction is accurate.
A social scoring system’s goal may indeed be the modification of behaviour, but if its campaign is carried out transparently and offered with clear public health benefit and justification, how would it differ in its substance from broader public health campaigns?
After more than half a year of living in a pandemic, it is clear that we have to make it easier and more rewarding for people to comply with public health advisories and guidelines. Using scoring systems are one means by which that could happen.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_International_Council
“In October 2007, Jim Balsillie (the former co-CEO of the Canadian information technology company Research In Motion ('BlackBerry' initiated the formation of the CIC as a partnership between the CIIA and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a think tank based in Waterloo, Ontario, that works on global issues, in order to create a research base on Canadian foreign policy similar to the American Council on Foreign Relations and the United Kingdom's Royal Institute of International Affairs.[4] In making the announcement, Balsillie wrote, "CIC will be a research-based, non-partisan vehicle. Applying expert and fact-based research to complex issues is the essential foundation for creating effective policy."[4] In November 2007, members of the CIIA voted to become the Canadian International Council.”
there so much to unpack here
most of it is on the money though both metaphorically and literally