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Musings Report 2018-22 6-2-18 Social Scoring: Kafka and Kierkegaard
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Social Scoring: Kafka and Kierkegaard
In Musings Report #17, I wrote about Kafka's vision of a bureaucratic nightmare emerging in China's "Social Credit Score." As you recall, the idea here is the central state sets up a vast, pervasive surveillance system to monitor all its citizens, and assigns a social score to each citizen based on his/her compliance with regulations and social norms as defined by the state.
In Kakfa's nightmarish novels, an opaque, impenetrable and impersonalized bureaucracy controls the social and economic structures of everyday life.
China's system is based on a social score, but one's social score has enormous economic consequences: the citizen with a low score can be denied rights to travel, his/her children can be denied access to educational opportunities and so on.
As I noted, there doesn't appear to be a legal process for challenging one's low social score, or much transparency on the various violations and weighting of violations that go into calculating each individual's score.
I've often written about the difference between force and power: force (coercion) is costly and clumsy, while power works via persuasion, grudging or otherwise.
China is attempting to create a system that is extremely coercive (a low score generates severe punishments) but also seeks to internalize the social scoring system: no authority figure is required to force individuals to comply; each individual internalizes the rules and modifies their own behavior accordingly.
This aligns with China's historic reliance on internalized social norms to control its vast populace. Even in the Song Dynasty (960 AD to 1279 AD), the central state relied on the internalized social norms of Confucian values to "order society" with minimal coercion. A judiciary system handled gross violations of the legal rules and petitions for redress, but in effect the state ruled through the family and community hierarchies created by Confucianism.
I bring up Kierkegaard in this context as one of the first "modern" philosophers to question state control of the church and religion (the Western analog of Confucianism) and propose the primacy of the individual's relationship with God and inner moral compass -- what he termed "the knight of hidden inwardness."
The primacy of the individual is the core of Modernism, as each individual discovers the mysteries of God in their own way and time, and creates their own identity via their own choices and commitments. This is the essence of Existentialism and Modernism, which rejects the ultimate authority of centrally controlled norms.
In art and literature, Modernism frees individuals to work outside of established genres and flout traditional rules governing art and literature, and indeed, the creative process.
We seem to be heading into a confrontation between the twin forces of Modernism: the primacy of the individual versus the increasing technological and economic might of the central state. This conflict is largely beneath the surface of everyday life and the "news," but it may play a key role in the coming Great Crisis that's due by 2025.
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
Burrito Index Update: Burrito Cost Triples, Official Inflation Up 43% from 2001 (5/31/18)
Why the Eurozone and the Euro Are Both Doomed (5/30/18)
How Systems Collapse (5/28/18)
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Had a wonderful 2-day holiday in SFO (San Francisco International Airport): highlights included waiting around for 5 hours for our flight to be cancelled, an airline that provided zero information, dining at an overpriced airport restaurant, trying to find an overpriced hotel room at midnight, and spending most of Day 2 standing in line, only to be refused boarding (bumped) at 4:30 pm for a 5:30 pm flight.
OK, this wasn't the best thing that happened, but it was certainly memorable.
Market Musings: S&P 500
The 10-year Bull Market has been very resilient this year, overcoming a spot of bother back in early February and climbing every wall of worry.
But beneath the resilience, I notice the SPX has notched a series of lower highs all year, not exactly a bullish-momentum indicator.
Then there's the bearish rising wedge that presaged a sharp decline, and the current Bear Flag. Bear flags presage a major decline.
After a month of going nowhere, the Bollinger bands are tightening, indicating a big move up or down is approaching. Many analysts expect a rally, far fewer anticipate a serious decline.
Place your bets....
From Left Field
Facebook accused of conducting mass surveillance through its apps -- yawn... nobody cares...
College May Not Be Worth It Anymore -- the mainstream finally notices?
Visualizing U.S. Energy Consumption in One Chart -- notice the tiny size of all alt. energy sources...
Financial despair, addiction and the rise of suicide in white America -- expectations dashed...
The Simulation of Democracy -- and the simulation of prosperity...
Ignore the hype over big tech. Its products are mostly useless -- heresy!
Fiscal 50: State Trends and Analysis -- worth a glance, reveals which states have recovered and which are still struggling... North Dakota's tax revenues soared as the state became a global tax-avoidance center...
Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage --
In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything --
New Data Reveal the Hidden Mechanisms of the Collapse of the Roman Empire (via John D.) -- debauch your currency, destroy your economy and society...
Most of Your Vitamin Supplements Really Are Useless, Says Huge New Study -- anathema to the supplements industry...
1963 Citroen 2CV -- the classic Deux Chevaux....
"Once you label me you negate me." Soren Kierkegaard
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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