Hebei, a Northern Chinese Province, Unveils an App That Triggers a Notification When You're Near Someone in Debt (standard.co.uk) 182
China is gearing up to launch a social credit system in 2020, giving all citizens an identity number that will be linked to a permanent record. Like a financial score, everything from paying back loans to behaviour on public transport will be included. One aspect of this social credit system is a new app in the northern province of Hebei. From a report: According to the state-run newspaper China Daily, the Hebei-based app will alert people if there are in 500 metres of someone in debt. It's like being on Oxford Street and being able to work out everyone around you who was in debt. According to the financial charity, the Money Charity, the average UK household debt (including mortgages) was $76,000, in June last year. That's a lot of notifications.
neat (Score:1)
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In the USA, people would be bragging about having the most debt. High debt means you have a high enough income to get lots of credit and you're living the idealized high flying risk-taking capitalist lifestyle and/or own a business.
He/she who dies with the most debt wins! (Score:2)
but you can fool most of the people most of the time.
- D. H. Trump
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Re: neat (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or it means you had an emergency (such as a trip to the ER) where you accepted the debt while bent over a barrel. In some cases, you might not have accepted the debt at all but had it thrust upon you. As in you feel kind of dizzy and then you wake up as the new proud owner of a few thousand or a million dollars worth of debt.
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Why is debt necessarily shameful? Sometimes, it's better to risk the banksters' money than your own.
That indicates impatience, and a willingness to take what you have not yet earned.
Open heart surgery put me $160k in debt, and it was not impatience so much as urgency to remain living.
But you are damn right I was willing to take what I had not yet earned. I would still have taken it even if I knew for certain there was no possible way I ever would have earned it. No question about it.
As well as indicates a certain lack of ingenuity because why didn't you find actions directly solve your problem instead of resorting the last ditch efforts like economics.
Because lacking $160,000 in my pocket, all other options would have resulted in my death.
Not being dead was the very problem I was wanting to avoid.
Generally taken as an indicator that a person is not wise enough to self sacrifice.
So my wisdom is now in question because I didn't self sa
Re: neat (Score:2)
Fly to Cuba, India or China, and have a cheaper surgery
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So let's hear those alternatives solutions, I'm all ears.
In China and other Asian countries people are obsessive about saving. I remember reading it's common for people to save 50% of their income. Besides, healthcare costs in the US are much higher than basically everywhere else due to the insane way American laws on this area are structured. Combine both things and you get a much more reasonable outcome.
So, googling a little I found that in China a surgery as the one you had costs about 7.5 times less than you paid, ~$21k (no idea whether that's up to date thou
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Business debt is very different from personal debt. And even then: debt for capex is fine, but debt for opex is shameful.
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Capitalizing opex is a great plan. It makes the company look profitable and makes it look like it's holding a valuable software system asset, not an unsupportable money pit.
Then you get yourself acquired and _RUN_.
Tricky part is getting it past due diligence. I've seen auditors sign off on mature software development efforts that call 100% of dev costs systems development (capitalized), 0% as maintenance (expensed). Think of it as a MBA idiocy bene, the flip side of all the pain they cause.
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It's very hard to buy a house without going in to debt unless you're rich,
I didn't buy a house until I could afford to pay cash. This comes before retirement: owning your house outright is the best and first step towards the financial security needed in retirement. But then, I've lived mostly in places with real estate bubbles, where renting was much cheaper than crazy impossible house prices, and that's not generally true.
Most financial advisors will say "no debt except a mortgage", and I think that's fair.
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Why is debt necessarily shameful?
Because the point of children in China is to support their elderly parents in retirement. How can they do that if instead of saving, they are taking on debt? That is selfish and disloyal to their family.
Chinese culture takes family loyalty very seriously. On a Chinese law exam [independent.co.uk], one question asked if both your mother and GF were drowning, which would you save? If you chose your GF, that was the objective legally WRONG answer, and you lost points.
So in China or the US (Score:2)
That could get noisy fast.
Renounce and repudiate! (Score:2)
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But it's only about $2500 to renounce one's citizenship, and nothing else due for net worth under $600k or so. So renouncing one's citizenship has a positive return on investment for many people.
While I get where you are coming from, such as no more US tax on all income, you can still face a tax liability upon exits. Further complicating the issue is if you've been a dual citizen by birth but never paid US taxes because yo never lived in the US or only recently found out you are a dual citizen; you could face tax compliance issues. Finally, returning to the US can be more difficult as yo uno longer are a citizen and thus must meet visa requirements, etc.
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The smart time to renounce citizenship is as soon as you graduate from college. You have near zero net worth, and likely are in debt. But you have plenty of earning potential.
Returning to the US is not a big problem if you establish your new citizenship in a country with a visa agreement. Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, chose Singapore, which has a visa waiver agreement with America. He can travel back-and-forth at will.
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Dual citizen!
Neener neener.
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That's less than year's income for me... while it would cause some amount of hardship for a few months, does that mean that if I can afford to pay that share of the debt all at once, does that mean I don't have to pay taxes anymore? Because that would be totally worth it.
I know you're joking... but say everyone who COULD pay back their share of the debt decided to do so by living frugally for a year buying only actual necessities to put aside $62k to pay back their share of the debt... what that would do is... cause more debt.
If people stopped buying goods and using services to pay back the national debt, the national economy would slow down because the taxes from those goods and services would not go to the government, so they would have to borrow even more money to finan
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The US does this already ... (Score:2)
... but they don't let the peasants know about it.
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I've heard it.
It's a suppressed sneer.
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Comfy restraint chair?
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Like Trump is in yours?
Just constantly sound the air raid sirens... (Score:2)
... since everyone is in debt.
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Not in China, nor most of the world. The idea of bank-financed mortgage and consumer credit card debt hasn't really spread outside a few select countries of the West.
Most places use family financing for major purchases and debit/cash for consumer items. Personal debt being what it is in the West is largely absent in developing world for a wide variety of reasons.
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Since always. The better question is "when did debt become a positive factor". Which is very recently, and in a very few countries that represent but a tiny fraction of planet's population.
We slashdot visitors just happen to overwhelmingly live in those countries.
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You seem to forget that a major part of home pricing is the availability of mortgage. When most people can't afford to pay 200.000 in whatever currency outright, homes in that place aren't priced that high.
Which is why it's "financially not foolish" to put most of the nation into debt. You increase the size of economy via home price inflation, and you ensure that your population is severely punished for ineffective economic status by loss of their home. It's a massive stick for the population and massive ca
Notification tone... (Score:5, Funny)
Notification tone...
"You are within zero meters of someone in debt..."
Notification tone...
"You are within zero meters of someone in debt..."
[Throws phone off bridge]
Fading notification tone...
"You are within thirty meters of someone in..."
Re:Notification tone... (Score:4, Informative)
I think what the summary misses - is that this is referring to social credit debt, not just any debt in general. This whole discussion is off the rails.
Social experiments (Score:5, Insightful)
I am hoping China taking a leap forward so the rest of us could watch from distance. However, last time they tried Social Engineering on a massive scale (i.e. Great Leap Forward) it didn't end well.
Something tells me the way society operates is hard-coded to a large degree, and trying to patch any of it drastically has a great chance to cause kernel panic.
Re:Social experiments (Score:5, Insightful)
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And exactly how would that happen?
They don't allow the populous to have guns over there....
A civil war, or at least one against the tyranny of government doesn't work if the govt has guns, and all you have are "pointy sticks".
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There's no meaningful difference difference between a pointy stick and a man-portable gun to a modern military with killer robots.
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There's no meaningful difference difference between a pointy stick and a man-portable gun to a modern military with killer robots.
Indeed. A modern military with missiles, bombs, mines, guns, tanks, planes, drones, helicopters, satellites, ships, etc... would make mincemeat out of any rebellion with guns. Guns alone will get you nowhere these days. To overthrow a tyrannical government you need access to heavier weaponry and higher technology.
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Hmm...I seem to recall several hot spots in the world, where under armed (but armed) guerrilla groups/armies have held off super power countries for years and years.
And if you consider it happeni
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There's no meaningful difference difference between a pointy stick and a man-portable gun to a modern military with killer robots.
Indeed. A modern military with missiles, bombs, mines, guns, tanks, planes, drones, helicopters, satellites, ships, etc... would make mincemeat out of any rebellion with guns. Guns alone will get you nowhere these days. To overthrow a tyrannical government you need access to heavier weaponry and higher technology.
Your quote is like something teachers in the future will point to as the flawed thinking of governments after citing various guerrilla insurgencies.
Re:Social experiments (Score:4, Interesting)
China is not a modern military with killer robots.
And lets not forget that the US revolution started with weapons far below the standard for the military at the time. However, before the shooting started, people had been quietly "stealing" (always an inside job) rifles and artillery from armories. Heck, the war started when the British tried to confiscate guns - not hunting rifles, but actual artillery. The only cannon they found were the ones too big to move with small teams of horses.
The arms you currently have in hand are a small factor compared to people willing to fight, and veteran leadership who knows how. US nationalists made British armories their first targets, and a lot of troops were armed with then-modern military weapons that way.
Most revolutions start with military units themselves opposing the government, but armed civilians hitting military bases before they quite know that a war has begun is the other way it plays out.
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Well, somehow the Soviet block (E. Europe) seems to have successfully changed their repressive governments without guns while in the middle east where guns are common, it seems to be a shit show.
Re:Social experiments (Score:4, Informative)
In fairness, whenever the Middle East starts getting their shit together, Western powers overthrow their democratically elected governments and install puppet dictators in their place. Ditto when the puppets stop doing what they're told. Can't have a government that answers to the populace and their own interests interfering with the cheap flow of that sweet, sweet crude.
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Mostly true, though there is a lot of hatred between the various sects. There's also parts of Africa where the armed population seems more interested in killing their neighbours then overthrowing their repressive governments.
While there are lots of reasons to allow people to be armed, overthrowing better armed governments doesn't seem like one of them in today's world, and even in the past it has seldom helped.
Part of the well armed population usually likes the government, and the government, besides being
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Not much better there - again, it's European colonialism that caused most of Africa's problems. The U.S. got a bit of an "advantage" there, since instead of exploiting the natives we massacred them and recolonized, so that the fight for independence was between Europeans and European emigrants, and once we won our independence we built a new government explicitly to avoid the worst problems we saw with Monarchies.
Europe learned their lesson from that, and afterwards the colonial powers mostly loosened thei
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Hey, it can happen occasionally....but it happens faster with guns if it has too....and, having guns helps PREVENT the govt from becoming tyrannical to begin with....
Our US founding fathers knew this, and hence were often quoted, even outside of the constitution, etc.....as saying how important it was for the populace to be armed and stay armed as a last resort protection against the ve
Re:Social experiments (Score:4, Insightful)
Unluckily, starting with the whiskey rebellion, having a well armed population doesn't seemed to have helped. Even the one success I can think of in Athens Georgia, they actually broke into the government armory rather then use their own guns.
Has there ever been a success story of the people overthrowing a repressive government? The American Revolution was (colonial) government vs (overseas) government and still needed help from one of the major powers of the day.
It has also failed in one other way, mainly removing the need for a standing army, which at the time was considered a major enabler of tyranny.
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Without guns? What are you talking about? Army caches were almost immediately plundered. How do you think the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan got so bloody? The conflicts in Transnistria, Georgia and several -stans were similar, but not quite on the same scale. Besides, don't underestimate the amount of firearms available to the general population - hunting licenses were common and easily obtained.
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As the AC above you says,
East Germany, Poland, and a good chunk of Europe all revolted with little to no bloodshed
Which is more what I was thinking of.
But you are right, often lots of hunting rifles, which are generally better in an armed revolt and government caches to raid, so some restrictions on firearm ownership don't matter when it comes to a revolt. Hand guns and such are more important for personal protection.
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Poland has been under martial law for several years, and as for us in the GDR, we were lucky because the Soviets essentially sold us to West Germany so it wasn't quite a real revolt in the first place.
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Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Revolts often don't result in improvements and some people seem to like totalitarianism, as long as it is their totalitarianism.
I guess with the GDR, it was fallout from what was happening in the USSR.
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I'd argue that China collapsing into civil war might be a good ending for the rest of the world...
Maybe long term it would... but... short term it would mean a global recession; scarcity for many products and technologies. Also... the uncertainty of a nuclear power being at war with itself and potential detonation by unknown activists.
I'd much prefer a bloodless revolution and I suspect that would be more likely too (and more likely to succeed). What we need is someone with modern ideals and human rights in mind to take ascendancy in China and guide them down a better path.
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I do worry about that. A revolution where power changes hands completely may wind up making things worse. For example, Iran went from a Shah who was trying to get the country modernized into a theocracy.
The problem with violent revolutions is that the most brutal, bloodthirsty tyrants rise to the top. We saw that in the Iraqi power vacuum earlier this decade when the US pulled out. If the existing Chinese government completely collapses, there is a good chance we may get another Mao... who would not hes
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Re: Social experiments (Score:2, Funny)
... and even Pope at some point watched porn.
Yeah but I'd to actually find out what kind... but think of the possibilities: Opus Dei pedo/snuff... Knights of Columbus 'Cops & Firefighters Undressed' 2019 pin-up calendar..."Irish Nuns Volume 3: Low Squats in the Cucumber Patch"
What would be the point? (Score:1)
So, there is someone, half a kilometer away from me, with a loan to their name.
Now that I know this, what am I supposed to do with this information?
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Over here in the U.S., my dad is literally the only person I know who has zero debt.
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Over here in the U.S., my dad is literally the only person I know who has zero debt.
I had zero debt until I got married. I lived completely within my means. I saved for a car before needing a new car and then bought with cash... I was saving up for a house whilst living in an apartment. Over half my income went into savings. Didn't last long into marriage... 20 years later I look at my bills and weep.
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The house does it. Without my home, I'd be totally debt free. The tax credit alone are enough to push you down that road.
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Most of the people I know who are debt-free and live below their means tend to be pretty low-profile.
How does this work? (Score:2)
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It probably comes pre-bundled.
What a great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
So, any thieves can and will use it to find people who *aren't* in debt, and mug or burgle them, since they'll have more money.
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But they could be in debt because they bought the latest iteration of a smartphone from any manufacturer and that would be worth stealing.
Re:What a great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
If properly managed, debt isn't a bad thing, and can in fact be good. It allows you to buy things sooner than you would be able to otherwise. In my case if I had waited to save up enough to buy my house for cash, during the time I waited its price would've increased by more than the amount of debt I took on buying it immediately with a mortgage. So I actually saved money by going into debt. I only retain the debt because shedding it wold require me to liquidate the house, leaving me with no place to live, forcing me to buy a new house at today's prices and interest rates, which would actually be more expensive than keeping my current house.
In fact, the way credit ratings work, I would say the people with more debt are more likely to have more money. Banks won't lend to people with poor financial management skills and thus poor credit. So those people who tend to live paycheck-to-paycheck with little cash on hand end up having less debt. OTOH if someone has $10 million in debt, then his house is probably chock full of expensive items worth burgling. On the flip side, he is more likely to have security cameras and can hire a good lawyer to prosecute you if you're caught. So maybe the small fish with little debt are indeed better targets for a thief.
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Reminds me of this saying: If you owe the bank $10,000 and can't repay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $10 million dollars and can't repay, the bank has a problem.
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It really depends what the debt is for, buying an asset that appreciates in value like a house sure, invest in a business that is going fine, education that is going to earn you more money in the long run why not. Buying the latest shinny gadget, taking a holiday, getting a car, (take public transport usually cheaper than maintaining a car). Even buying a house that is excessive to your needs.
Net worth is not everything either, if you are living paycheck to paycheck because you are paying of your mortgage
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How can you be so sure of yourself and so wrong?
Foreclosure is a shitty way to cash out your equity, you're much better off selling. But you're just wrong about it being gone, by definition.
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Wrong! Your net worth is still negative. You don't own your house! Your net value will jump up when you pay your house in full, but at the moment you don't own it, if you have a mortgage. Only if you have enough liquid money to pay your remaining mortgage in full you can claim that your net value is non-zero. Don't believe me - stop making payments, the bank will take your house away, and all the money you have paid until this moment are gone, like you have paid rent.
The bank may foreclose and sell the house, and any excess money after paying down the mortgage is your to keep - the bank can't keep it as they are creditors to only a certain amount.
Now, since the bank doesn't care about getting any excess and just wants its debt paid off, they'll do a quick sale that recovers as much of the debt as possible. If you lose out a chunk of equity then it's too bad for you.
Of course, you might live in a backwards country where you don't receive the excess, but I can't do any
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Unclean! (Score:3)
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I see a need. Different alerts for vegans, sociopaths, violent alcoholics, people with eleven twitter or facebook accounts, people who post to 4chan's /pol/ forum, PETA members, religious fundamentalists of any stripe, emacs users, vi users.. the hard part would be coming up with different audio alerts for each one.
Cool! (Score:2)
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This is part of a larger game (Score:5, Interesting)
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China has seemingly made a policy of enforcing social shaming and isolation by using surveillance
Seems expensive. They use just use Twitter and Facebook to do that, like we do in the west.
Could this end the new housing bubble? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Blackmail opportunities (Score:2)
So the app triggers on someone, you go to them, you threaten to report that they were spending money on frivolous things...
I've seen this Doctor Who episode... (Score:2)
...this season! It was a pretty good one too.
#WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong
Black Mirror (Score:2)
Soviet Russia and Gulag (Score:2)
Not fiction, not history.
This has happened before and probably many times.
I am currently reading "The Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitsyn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
It describes the regime and atmosphere in Soviet Russia before and after World War II. The setting is eerily similar. People are afraid to talk to each other from the fear that they might get wrong "connections". Anybody can be working for the secret police, your best friends or closest relatives cannot be trusted, you must assume at all
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This also has echos of East Germany and the fear of winding up on the wrong side of the Stasi. Guilt by association, and know too many "guilty" parties, and there would be a knock on the door.
Won't people just borrow from loan sharks? (Score:2)
Social Credit derivatives market? (Score:3)
I hope they find a loophole where social credit can be bought, sold, leased...then you can have derivatives, then you can speculate on a person, a group, a whole region of people. That would make The Chicago Merc look tame.
Control of the masses (Score:2)
All the comments on here debating whether debt is 'good' or 'bad' or not, are totally missing the point. The point is that this system allows the Chinese government to set social norms, 'moral goals' and whatever else they want remotely - across the whole population - very easily.
Sure this example is about debt. But if this is 'successful' (however the hell they measure that), why don't we trigger notifications when you're passing a homosexual, an immigrant, or ... I don't know ... an actual Muslim [independent.co.uk], if yo
Re:1984? (Score:5, Funny)
My friend, if furries have a direct and measurable impact on your life, that's far more on you than them.
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Nudge? Oy. (Score:2)
I consider it one of the modern versions of stocks. [wikipedia.org]
And to be clear, I don't think this is a good thing at all.
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Personal debt is much less common in China than in America or the UK, and it is considered more shameful. People usually pay cash for cars, and many own their houses out-right, with no mortgage. It is even harder to get a mortgage for a 2nd home.
Most Chinese don't even have credit card debt. Their mobile payments system, which is nearly universally used, is based on direct debit, not credit.
Before you can marry a Chinese girl, her family will run a credit check. If you are in debt, you are going to be a
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Suicide rates in China jump to 6 out of 10 people
They're developing an app to notify you when you come with 100ft of someone who attempted suicide.
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Or someone who, according to their phone's accelerometer, is currently in the process of committing suicide. The alert is the Wilhelm Scream.
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"The social credit system has parsed your posting, and determined that it's detrimental to the general well-being of society.
Your social score has been lowered ten points, and will continue to drop should you persist in unhelpful actions. See https://www.socialcredit.com/s... [socialcredit.com] for assistance on how to avoid this in the future.
Please try to be more kind and attentive int he future. This is an automated message"