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audible originals what if every action
that you took in your life was recorded
in a score like it was a video game bad
actions lowered your score while good
actions raised your score your score
could easily be looked up by anybody
online and depending on how high or low
it was people may think higher or lesser
of you your scores value reflects how
everybody else in the real world Game of
Life perceives you as either a good or a
bad person
well you in turn can easily look up
anybody else's score to gauge their own
trustworthiness right when you meet them
it might seem like a weird episode of
Black Mirror but it's at some point
later this year in 2020 the largest
country in the world is set to roll out
a nationwide system very similar to this
concept that will affect the daily lives
of over 17% of the human population and
it's called the social credit system
once rolled out later this year it's
expected that every one of the 1.4
billion citizens of China will be
assigned a social credit score that will
increase or decrease depending on
actions taken that are considered by the
state to be either socially beneficial
or socially harmful it will draw upon an
unprecedented amount of data using an
individual's government financial and
criminal records as well as their online
search histories shopping habits and
social media posts the purpose of the
system is to attempt a better monitor
rate and regulate the financial social
and moral behavior of China citizens in
perhaps the most ambitious social
experiment undertaken in the 21st
century citizens with higher scores can
expect a multitude of social benefits
while citizens with lower scores can
expect a multitude of social punishments
by using a system of rewards and
punishments like this the Chinese
government hopes to influence what it
considers better social behavior from
among its citizens but the idea for the
social credit system didn't just come
out of nowhere
China essentially began beta testing the
system back in 2009 when it began
authorizing regional cities across the
country to launch their own pilot
systems over 42 of these systems are
currently in operation across China but
each one is different and unique from
every other system and
most don't even use an individual
scoring number so something you might do
that would negatively affect your
standing under the Beijing system might
have no effect under the different
system in Shanghai or vice versa the
different regional systems and operation
today have different criteria for what
are considered positive or negative
actions at different rewards and
punishments so it's really difficult to
generalize the system as it stands today
and it's difficult to predict what the
final nationwide system will look like
that Beijing finally decides upon
overall the central government of China
has been analyzing these regional pilots
for years now to see what works and what
doesn't work for when they launched the
nationwide system later which is
tentatively scheduled to be later in
2020 the nationwide system might include
everything from all the regional pilots
it might pick and choose certain parts
from different systems or it might
include almost nothing at all from any
of them we just won't know until China
reveals more details later however there
is plenty of room for some extreme
speculation so here is a potential
preview of everything that might be
included from examples across all of
China's current regional pilots so based
on the various systems already in place
activities that could supposedly
increase your Social Credit score once
the nationwide system is in place would
be things like donating blood paying
your bills on time donating to charity
signing up for volunteer work or
community service taking care of elderly
family members or being a model employee
at work along with more weird activities
like publicly praising the Chinese
government on social media or assisting
the government authorities with cracking
down on political dissenters or
religious dissidents but what I find a
lot more interesting than the activities
that can raise your score though are the
various fun activities that can lower it
under the current regional pilot in the
city of Suzhou getting caught cheating
and online video games will negatively
affect your social credit score it's
also been speculated that playing what
the government considers to be an
excessive amount of video games will
also hurt your score so here's a big F
to all the gamers in China if that ends
up finding its way into the final system
other things that can negatively affect
your score that might find their way
into the final system include things
participating in anything on this list
of groups that china considers a cult an
insincere apology in court for a crime
committed spreading false rumors or fake
news on the internet posting
anti-government messages on social media
not visiting your aging parents
frequently enough participating in
protests against the Chinese authorities
paying your bills late blasting loud
music on public transportation which to
be fair is actually kind of reasonable
but also things like ordering takeout
without picking it up or scheduling
something like a doctor's appointment or
a hotel reservation and not showing up
along with other things like not sorting
your waste properly or committing
traffic violations like jaywalking or
running a red lights currently under the
systems in Shanghai and jinan a citizen
score can be lowered for walking their
dog in public without a leash
or for not picking up their poop if
enough of these dog related
transgressions take place the city can
legally take your dog away from you and
you can get slapped with up to a
five-year ban on owning any other dogs
and this leads us into the bizarre world
of potential rewards and punishments a
higher score can potentially lead to
some pretty great benefits like priority
admissions for universities priority
resume viewings by employers cheaper
public transportation free gym access
shorter wait times and hospitals and
government agencies discounts at hotels
and potentially generous tax breaks
among other things punishments on the
other hand for lower scores can include
some pretty ridiculous things like being
placed on a flight and high-speed train
ban and potentially a ban on public
transportation in general which along
with a ban on getting an exit visa
effectively traps the recipient into
being a modern-day serf unable to leave
their lands other punishments include an
in eligibility to hold government jobs
losing access to private schools or
universities losing access for children
attending private schools or
universities being restricted to only a
low speed internet connection a ban on
renting hotels and the weirdest of all
potentially becoming the subject of
extensive public shaming campaigns lower
score citizens may have their photos and
ID numbers placed on big LED screens at
busy public intersections or displayed
on movie screens at theaters before the
movie plays like a weird
and of adware you're supposed to laugh
at real people but shiny social media
companies are also helping the
government out with this in the city of
nannying the social media app Dow yen
basically the Chinese version of tik-tok
partnered up with the local courts to
broadcast pictures of people with low
social credit scores in between videos
while China's biggest dating app called
bi he has already begun allowing users
to publish their social credit scores
inside of the app which leads to the
implication that higher sport people
will do better in online dating verses
people with lower scores China is
already preparing a massive investment
into nationwide surveillance to help
assist the system once it's finally
rolled out in 2019 it was estimated that
there were already over 200 million CCTV
cameras in operation by the Chinese
government across the country for
surveillance purposes but by the end of
2020 that number is expected to
skyrocket to well over 620 million
cameras nationwide almost enough for one
camera for every two people in the
country many of which will be equipped
with new facial recognition technology
that will potentially be able to catch
somebody doing something in public like
jaywalking and lowering their social
credit score and as of June 2019 China
has already denied twenty six point
eight million airline tickets and six
million high-speed rail tickets to
individuals in the country who have too
low of a standing under the current
regional systems and it's not just
individuals that China is potentially
planning on assigning scores to but
entire corporations might get their own
individual scores as well corporations
in good standing under the system will
receive things like tax breaks while
corporations and poor standing will get
harsher increased tax rates and as the
2020 deadline approaches for the launch
of the nationwide system it continues to
remain largely under development we know
that the system will be in place only in
mainland China the special
administrative regions of Hong Kong and
Macau will be exempt but other than that
we'll have to wait and see which ina
announced this and so far China has
remained silenced but if you're
impatient and you want to hear more
about what life could really be like
under a weird dystopian future you
should check out George Orwell's 1984
and like so many
other great books 1984 is available as
an audiobook on audible so you can
listen to it wherever and whenever I
find that listening to books helps me
fit a lot more in and it helps things
like commuting to work or cleaning my
apartment become a lot more fun
listening to more educational audio
books is a great New Year's resolution
for 2020 but no matter what your own
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best of all though is that you can sign
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start your new decade right with three
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reward for a bonus and as always thank
you for watching