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34c3 intro
Herald: Okay, so ladies and gentlemen
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Katika Kühnreich. So did you all
thank the angels today? No, yes, maybe?
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[Applause]
Herald: Did you all took your prosĂm two
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today? No? Okay, see, Katika will tell you
about the social credit system from China,
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and will tell you a little bit more about
how a human being can be valued. She is
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the magista in political science and
modern and ancient Chinese science. She
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not only has her theoretical knowledge
from books, but she always also combines
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it with the street study. So please
welcome, with a very warm hand of
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applause, Katika!
[Applause]
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Katika: Hey guys, I'm happy to be here,
and first I want to thank all the people
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who made that possible. This conference
and this talk; so thanks to all you, and a
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special thanks to all the people
translating.
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[Applause]
Katika: Before we start, I like to say a
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few points. The first was the thank you,
we already have. The second is I have to
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apologize: English is not my mother tongue
so you will have some funny mistakes that
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I make, so the Internet has a bit more
fun. Because the world can be (nice). The
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second thing, is I will take you on a
journey through China's social credit
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system - its current state. And because we
only have half an hour, more or less,
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because I'd really like to spend a lot of
time with you guys on talks, on discussion
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and QA, we have to leave a lot of
interesting sites out. So there were some
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excellent talks on the CCC about
technological aspects of Internet and
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Internet usage in China. I will
concentrate really hard on this social
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credit system. But if you have questions,
please ask in the Q&A. The Q&A will not be
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recorded, so you can feel free. And if you
have more questions, just contact me after
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the talk. And, it's a China topic and
often when you talk about China, people
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say "oh yeah, oh yeah: that's China." This
is no China bashing session - I'm sorry
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for anyone who expected that. China has a
government, and a government wants to
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control something. So this talk is about
social credit systems in China but it is
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about a tendency I see internationally.
It's the tendency to answer social
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problems with technological solutions, or
at least it's the try. So please keep in
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mind: it's happening in China, but it's
not that we are safe in the West or cozy
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or anything else. So it's meant as an
example of an international tendency. And
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I prepared some cards, so I will stick to
the topic. I have to look at them from
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time to time. This talk presents my
current state of research; it's not the
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truth. And this talked sadly represents my
current state of my cold as well, so I'm
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not totally fed please apologized that as
well. For a little journey I prepared a
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couple of stops. The first one will be a
video from 2015 made by Extra Credit on
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social credit systems in China. So if you
don't like the talk, you have seven and a
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half minutes to just vanish - nobody will
notice. The next point will be "Updates
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and Corrections" - it's a video from
2015, and there's some faulty information
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in it. And to do that, I will give you a
quick look at the Chinese Internet
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landscape. The next point will be the
current state of social credit systems. If
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I say SCS: it's the same - I'm just lazy.
And there's one question often not
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answered when talking about the Chinese
credit system - it's why is it happening.
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And again it's not because it's an evil
government. It's a government. So we'll
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dive in some ideological aspects of
Chinese politics today. And in the end,
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I'm really looking forward to that point
because I can shut a bit up and listen to
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your thoughts and we're really interested
in that. So, everyone ready? Cozy? That's
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wonderful, thanks! Then we can start with
the video; that isn't it shown right now.
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Now we need some technical support. It's
much more fun when you see the pictures.
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But we have time, so.
Herald: Do we have the (tv guys) here?
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Katika: We got free water!
Herald: Gentlemen, I think we have a
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technical problem here, so while the VOC
and my stage manager is trying to get some
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people from there. Yes he will do this -
he's a good guy. He's the best guy!
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Gentlemen, ladies, applause for the VOC!
[Applause]
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Herald: So while we're waiting to have the
video; and trust me it looked really good
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from here. Let's play a little game -
later we will have a Q&A session but
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unfortunately we are not allowed or we we
can't record the Q&A session, and we will
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also not video stream the Q&A session. So
I would like you to have a quick hand of
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applause for all of you, because you will
have a great discussion with this nice
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lady and therefore we try to make applause
- we test the applause.
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Katika: Okay
[Applause]
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Herald: No no no, that should be louder -
come on!
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[Applause]
Herald: Okay we still have no video, but I
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think over there I did not hear any
applause. Could you, could you please try
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it again?
[Applause]
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Herald: Yeah, better, better. I think
these guys are way better. Are they? Come
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on!
[Applause]
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Katika: Otherwise I can use the time to
give you some information I'd present you
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after the video. Thank you. The
information you get in the video is based
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on a press release of the American Civil
Liberties Union, and that contains some
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mistakes. One thing - when you want to
know something about China, the government
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is really open in publishing what they're
doing, and what they're planning to do.
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And it's seems to be much more comfortable
to just copy, but maybe have a look into
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what the government says because it's a
good way to find out what they are doing
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and they're scaring the open. It works
with a lot of governments. And I realized
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that because this video had a lot of
impact, and there was a lot of news report
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on that scary system in China but when you
looked at the news report and you had the
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video before, you found out that it was
more or less the same, the very same, as
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in the video even years later. So please
if you want to find something out - check
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for facts. They might be online too. So
that's the picture, and that's my break.
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Video: Okay, so one you recently brought
this to our attention, and when we first
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started looking into it, we couldn't
believe it. Even now looking at this I
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keep thinking that there's got to be
something about this that I just don't
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understand, like, I must be reading this
wrong. It's just so clearly something out
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of dystopian science fiction. And yet,
here it is in our world, and people are
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actually embracing it. Apparently China
has gamified being an obedient citizen.
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[Music]
Video: Going under the innocuous name of
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Sesame Credit, China has created a score
for how good a citizen you are, and that's
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one of the scariest things I've heard in
quite a while. It's jointly run by
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Tencent, yes that Tencent - the one that
owns Riot Games and has a significant
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share in Epic and Activision-Blizzard, and
also the ascendant Chinese competitor to
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Amazon, Alibaba, hence the name Sesame. So
the owners of China's largest social
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networks have partnered with the
governments to create something akin to
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the US credit score. But instead of
measuring how regularly you pay your
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bills, it measures how obediently you
follow the party line. They dredge data
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from your social network, so if you post
pictures of Tiananmen Square, or share a
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link about the recent stock market
collapse, your Sesame Credit score goes
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down. Share a link from the state-
sponsored news agency about how good the
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economy is doing and your score goes up.
The Alibaba and Tencent are also the
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largest online retailers in China so
Sesame Credit is also able to pull data
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from your purchases. If you're making
purchases the state deems valuable like
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work shoes or local agricultural products,
your score goes up. If you import anime
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from Japan, though, down the score goes.
And this score has real-world
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consequences. Like many games, Sesame
Credit has tiers and levels, and having a
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high score gives you special benefits -
like making it easier to get the paperwork
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you need to travel. Or making it easier to
get a loan. Now currently, there are no
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consequences for having a low score but
there's been talk about implementing
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penalties once the system becomes
mandatory in 2020. Penalties like slower
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Internet speeds for low scoring citizens.
Or even restricting the jobs that a low
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scoring person's allowed to hold. But
there's one more layer to Sesame Credit,
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and here's where this goes from being
repulsive to downright insidious. Because
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this is all part of a social network it
also scans your friends -
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so you will lose points for having friends
with low obedience scores. And it tells
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you this. At any point, anybody can check
anyone elses score. And when you check
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your own score, Sesame Credit provides a
handy map of your friends to show you who
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is dragging your score down. Have you ever
had that thing where you play a game with
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somebody who wasn't doing very well and
you've tried to change their behavior to
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make them do better? Or maybe after a
while you just sort of stopped playing
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with the people who are holding you back.
That's at the heart of how this system
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works, and it's also what makes this one
of the most terrifying tools of
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authoritarian oppression I've ever read
about. Because like mass censorship, jail
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time, assassinations - those are all big
messy implements for keeping a population
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in line. That messiness and severity
foster resentment - eventually rebellion.
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They're expensive, they're unwieldy - in
the end, those tools are impossible to
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maintain. But social pressure?
Ostracization? Those things are free -
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they happen on their own. And as a
government tool they don't have nearly the
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same potential for going embarrassingly
disastrously wrong. With a system like
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this in place, a government doesn't even
have to tell neighbor to spy on neighbor;
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to rat each other out. Because that's all
built into a seemingly innocuous game
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system. The government need not step in.
Re-education will be handled for them by
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friends, classmates, and relatives who
want to maintain a high score. And if that
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doesn't work then potentially dangerous
ideas still end up quarantined by the
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social isolation this game system causes.
Express or help to spread to many radical
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ideas, and people will stop associating
with you. And not because some jackbooted
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thugs showed up at the door with threats,
but simply because associating with
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somebody with those ideas will lose them
all the privileges they've worked so hard
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to obtain. It recontextualizes obedience
to an authoritarian regime.
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In the past, you obeyed such powers
because you were afraid. Fear kept you
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motivated. But fear is negative. It
fosters resentment. The world we're
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stepping into instead uses positive
reinforcement to promote being subservient
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to the will of the regime. It's Big
Brother's kinder, gentler hand. And the
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things that make this scary is that we've
seen the efficacy of this only too well in
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games. You may not actually know this, but
when World of Warcraft was in its early
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stages of development, it had an unrested
penalty mechanic that started limiting
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experienced gains for players who had
played too much. And players hated it -
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they resented it they complained about it
every day. So after brainstorming on this
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for a while, Blizzard had the idea to
simply change how the mechanic was
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presented. Without changing any of the
existing numbers or systems, they started
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referring to the unrested experience state
as normal, and made it the default. And
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they started calling the original normal
experience gained state as rested. That's
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all they changed, and everybody loved it.
People would log on every day just to get
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that bonus. Positive reinforcement works
wonders. But unlike World of Warcraft,
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which built a system just to get people to
embrace meaningless grinding, Sesame
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Credit has built a system to get people to
enjoy falling into line. Now the system's
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not mandatory yet - it's opt-in right now.
But it's going to be mandatory in 2020,
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and there's a terrible brilliance to
phasing that in. The early adopters are
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going to be people excited about this
system. People who are already patriotic
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and are eager for anything that'll help
display that patriotism to the world. And,
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as early adopters they're gonna talk it
up. They're gonna give it an air of being
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positive and fun.
Then it'll be foisted on the society as a
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whole. More than that though, the early
adopters are gonna compete. Already you
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can see hundreds of thousands of tweets
displaying people's high scores or showing
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off the new milestones they've hit. Giving
a hard numbers to their patriotism and
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giving them bragging rights for being the
most patriotic, most right-thinking person
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they know. And that's gonna set the tone
for how Sesame Credit is intended to be
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used - as a competition to see who can
agree with the government the most. We've
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talked about propaganda games on this
channel before but for all the time we've
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spent examining and deconstructing
terrible games that espouse hate and for
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all the studies on propaganda games James
has done, this is the use of game systems
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that frightens me the most. Because to
most people Sesame Credit will seem
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benign. Perhaps even fun - it's a
conversation starter, something to share
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with your friends. But it's making heavy
use of all the psychological motivators
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that we Gamemakers deploy in scoring
systems, and ladders and levels. Systems
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that we built to shape play habits and to
keep people coming back. Like I said, I'm
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still kind of in a state of disbelief
looking at this. If any of you are
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watching this from China, please tell me
if I'm misunderstanding this thing,
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because I would love to be wrong about it.
If not, well, I hope this episode can do
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some small amount to help the fight to
keep such a system from becoming
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mandatory. For everyone in the rest of the
world, I hope this helps remind us all how
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important it is to be aware and to be
vigilant. All of these gamification
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techniques we've learned through making
games offer incredible opportunities for
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making this world a better more engaging
place. But every great tool carries with
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it the potential for misuse. And it's on
us as a community who understands this
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amazing new medium, to do what we can to
stop that. We'll see you next week.
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[Applause]
Katika: So, we had the shedule, and thank
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you to Extra Credit for this video, and
thank you for concentrating on
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gamification. Because a lot of time, when
I talk to social scientists, without a lot
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of technological knowledge, it was like
okay - it's a new system. And the whole
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gamification thing triggered me, and I
wondered about a lot of people who didn't
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seem too interested in it. Because I said
that the video contains some faulty
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information. First, I'd like to
concentrate on key aspects they told us in
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with this video. There is a social rating
system in China now. The system will
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become mandatory in 2020. That's all
right. It works on Big Data algorithms,
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artificial intelligence, and your online
and offline data. And it uses technologies
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like gamification and nudging. And if you
hear it's an Orwellian system - no it's
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not. 1984 was about force. Gamification is
about feeling good and cozy. So, in the
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updates and corrections, I promise you a
quick look at the end Chinese internet
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landscape. What most people already know.
From the beginning the Chinese government
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started to control the internet as much as
it could and its users. So some
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vocabularies you might have heard are the
Great Firewall, or its new extra the
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Golden Shield, the Great Cannon, which is
a DDoS weapon. It would be really
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fascinating to dive in there, but we have
to watch from far. Another point that's
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really interesting for us looking Social
Credit System is true name or real name
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registration. Which means you can't use a
lot of services if you don't give them
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your ID number. And the mandatory system
in 2020 will work on ID numbers as far as
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we know. So, we watched the other side:
the users, their millions of users - it's
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one more than 1.4 billion people in China.
And ICTs are really popular. Much more
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than in Germany, for example. And another
thing that please keep in mind - cash is
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vanishing in China.
A couple of years ago, for example, when I
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lived in China 2004: I paid my rent in
cash half a year in advance. When I paid
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for anything I paid cash. You could
couldn't find a lot of places accepting
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cards. But now China didn't have this
development of cards - they just jumped
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right through paying with mobile apps. And
you can buy noodles or snack or magazine
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with your mobile phone. And the Chinese
users found multiple ways to deal with
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censorship, and to trespass it. It's a
wonderful thing to look up.
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And now, the big players of the Chinese
Internet, because we learned some names in
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the film. I made something very Chinese -
I made something colorful. Okay, you have
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three big players: its Alibaba and Tencent
- we heard about them, and Baidu is the
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third biggest player. Each millions of
users, or billions. So to explain this, I
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will use some American companies names to
help understanding. And Baidu is known for
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that; was the wrong; yeah, Baidu is known
for Baidu Barker - this is like the
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Chinese Wikipedia, it's just a bit much
controlled. And a have Baidu Pay, and
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Baidu is huge in artificial intelligence.
So the next one is Tencent - we learned
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about the gaming thing. And developed QQ -
this is a messenger than some of you might
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remember: ICQ. Yeah, it's just a bit
bigger. Another app a lot of people don't
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think it's Chinese, it is Chinese, it's
called WeChat. It's I can say they even
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mmm WhatsApp, right? And guess what WeChat
developed - WeChat Pay. And there's
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another little company Tencent holds some
parts in its SnapChat - it's twelve
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percent owned by Tencent. Alibaba has
Alipay which is one of the biggest payment
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apps. And you can even use it in Germany
now I think, in some shops. It's running
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Taobao Wang, which is like eBay just a bit
bigger. And Sina Weibo. Weibo mains micro
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blogging or twittering. And Sina is the
biggest company in China, and they hold
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more or less a third. Now we come to
something really interesting - it's Ant
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Financials. Because Ant Financials created
something called Sesame Credit. Sesame
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Credit is Ali Baba's child, not Tencent,
and Ali Baba's. Tencent developed their
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own system. So, updates and corrections
without colors. 2014 was the year the
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Chinese state council released a planning
outline on the construction of social
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credit systems in China. And it gave us a
lot of information but only very few
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specific information. So, they started,
and in 2020 it will be managed mandatory.
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But they worked on for as long as at least
2005.
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It allows governmental and private SCS. So
you have both. And eight companies are
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allowed to form their own private social
credit systems. We learned Tencent and
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Alibaba are two of them. In different
regions, Hainan for example, it's an
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island - you have social credit systems
run by the government. So you see you have
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a lot of different systems running at the
same time in different regions and
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sometimes you can choose between different
social credit systems at the same place.
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And Sesame Credit we have learned is the
biggest and run by Alibaba. And Sesame
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Credit is not the one who will be
mandatory. I have one other point that I
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forgot it might come back later. So, to
give you a bit more information, let's
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have a quick look at recent developments
that I thought of would be really
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interesting for you when you have that
scenario of a society that is formed by a
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writing system. In 2016 there were some
new guidelines on the SCS. New
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cybersecurity laws and you might expect it
they are getting a bit harder and harder
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every time. And there was a police robot -
I don't know if you heard about it I was
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going to write an article but then we had
a really nice conference that made us a
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lot of work and my article died in the
way. So you might have watched Wall-E -
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what was the movie couple of years ago.
You might remember Eve - there was a
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little cute white robot that had a
specialty - it could taser. Someone in
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China must have watched that movie too,
because guess what - it looks like Eve and
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it can tazer. You find pictures and
clips online. And the People's Bank of
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China announced its own digital currency
to come soon. They are working on it for
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years. And the real name registrations for
online comments. So no real name
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registrations, no online comments. And in
2020 - the mandatory Social Credit System.
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The next question is usually: how does the
social criticism work? And we take a quick
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look at Sesame Credit because they added
more and more services that Extra Credit
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guys could know about. So we learned a lot
of data mining they do.
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For example, when you use AliPay it goes
to your scores. So your score gets higher
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and higher the more you shop with AliPay.
Then other Alibaba services - we know
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there are different and millions of
services. And now it's getting special
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because it draws information from
officials as well. So we have information
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from courts, debtors registries, and
because love always makes everything
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better, you get your data from the biggest
dating app in China - it's Baihe. So you
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can see if the person you want to fall in
love with have a good score. And of
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course, they're including more and more
services. And there are penalties now. If
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you forgot to pay your child support for a
couple of month or years or; I have heard
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people can forget that for quite a long
time. There are penalties: for example,
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you can't take high-speed trains or first-
class flight tickets. Which is a very
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intelligent way. Again, it's a very
intelligent way to add penalties because
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if you start with people nobody likes,
nobody likes openly, it's clever. And of
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course, the companies do not tell you a
lot about the technologies like they use
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in the systems. So and then people want to
know about the mandatory system, what it
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can do, how will it look and so on, and
there's a very simple answer - we don't
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know. The Chinese government doesn't give
you a lot of information on how it will
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look. But we can guess. In having a look
on how the government worked in the last
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20-30 years. So, we can have a look how
they prepare the mandatory system. Like I
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said, different systems at the same time,
and they will learn from this. And my
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guess is they will have like a little
medley of the best features of the
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existing systems and get rid of the faulty
ones. So, by best, I mean best from the
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point of view of the government of course.
So now we are bit later because of our
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technological difficulties, thanks again
for solving. Why do you have a Social
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Credit System?
Let's dive a bit back in history. Some
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people might remember the year 1989.
Before you had a lot of countries that
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called themselves socialists. But after,
you had only a few and China is one of
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them. And how did they make it? In the 80s
they had something called the era of
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reform and opening-up, where they opened
up to the West mostly, and to capitalism.
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And you might know what that means.
China's called the transformation society.
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And with some people getting rich quickly,
and a lot of people getting poorer and
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poorer and watching the rich - you have a
lot of social tension. And remember, China
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is a huge country. A vast amount on
people, and know people are really good in
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getting on each other's nerves. So you
have problems. I give you one number that
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I really like - in 2014, the official
count of mass incidents everyday was
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nearly 250. And the number is rising, so
it will be much more today. And a mass
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incident can be anything from pensioners
holding up banners demanding more money
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because they worked their whole lives, I'm
sorry, I really have to concentrate on not
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swearing, to like, riots, full-grown
riots, petrol bombs, burning buildings.
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For example, G20 in Hamburg, you might
have heard. That's a mass incident. That's
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nothing to get crazy about, that's just a
little thing that happened. Hamburg is
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still standing. And, thank you, hello
Hamburg.
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[Applause]
And keep in mind organized societies are
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controlled on different levels. That's not
only China. And social control is usually
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done by groups, so it's much easier if we
control each other. And it has the long
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history in China too, and a lot of
socialist countries develop new forms of
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social control. So in China, you have a
Hukou - that means you can only get social
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services where you're permitted to live.
I just give you a really really short
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version of everything it's not it's a bit
more complex as you know. The Tang on
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which you can say it's an analog version a
lot of your stuff what you've done goes in
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00:31:52,919 --> 00:31:58,210
there. You needed a marriage permit if you
wanted to get married and it wasn't easy
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to live without a married permit and as
China became more and more digitized you
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might know what comes next. Oh too anyone
control became digitized as well and as
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00:32:13,519 --> 00:32:19,949
people are using ICTs more and more they
create a huge amount of data. And the
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bloody thing with data is you don't feel,
smell or see anything vanishing, do you?
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And people it's helpful as humans to
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00:32:33,390 --> 00:32:42,970
develop something towards something we
can't see smell or fear. And more and more
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00:32:42,970 --> 00:32:49,889
technologies are used in civilians and
social control. But that still leaves the
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00:32:49,889 --> 00:32:58,960
question: why is China doing it? Let's
go to another point I'd really interested
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00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:06,409
in: ideological influences the way we see
the world and the way we think about it
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00:33:06,409 --> 00:33:15,039
is formed by theories, by ideologies and
what's the Chinese flag ? You see it
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again, maybe you remember, some of you,
it's red with yellow stars - that usually
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00:33:19,850 --> 00:33:32,759
is a code for socialists and this is Mao
Zedong. He was kind of big in China. And
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00:33:32,759 --> 00:33:39,710
so you have - here you have three
socialist symbols. It really helps to
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know a bit about Marxism in researching
China and especially in Mao Zedong
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00:33:47,559 --> 00:33:52,490
thought it's not called maoism it's
called more Zedong thought it's about what
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00:33:52,490 --> 00:33:58,583
he thought and in this reform of opening
up - I'm trying to feed you a bit of
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00:33:58,583 --> 00:34:05,639
Chinese history - the Chinese government
opened up to more. For example they opened
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00:34:05,639 --> 00:34:10,810
up to nationalism. And if you know a bit
about socialism, usually you wouldn't
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00:34:10,810 --> 00:34:16,190
put socialism and nationalism in one room,
because they didn't like each other. The
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00:34:16,190 --> 00:34:24,840
Chinese government found a way they like
each other. They got really interested
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00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:32,020
in PR and they really research other
countries how governments there stood in
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power. And some are not so well known to
most of us this is Confucius.
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Confucianism shaped and molded the
Chinese societies for more than 2,000
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years. And if you have that big
influence, you can't just get rid of it.
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It's in people's memories. It's in the
whole society, and Confusianism came back
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00:34:58,580 --> 00:35:07,080
as an ideology, where some parts of the
Socialists ideology vanished. Confucianism
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came back and Confucianism is about a
society where everyone is on her or his
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place and her place is always below. And
with all these new ideological
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00:35:22,970 --> 00:35:29,430
influences, the way of communication
changed as well.
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Before it was the masses and now it's the
public. All campaigns and programs had
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revolutionary names or poetic forms like
hundred flowers yet the Great Leap
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Forward, and all these campaigns molded
our picture of China, or the picture
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00:35:49,990 --> 00:35:57,680
most people have in their hearts people in
bloom, red flags. But now it's changed you
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have new campaigns and programs and they
have other names as well. You have
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00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:10,360
socialist harmonious society as a goal for
the society and a couple of years ago
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before, you couldn't put socialism and
harmony in one room either. And you have
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the Chinese dream. Yes, it sounds a bit
like American dream, yeah. And we learned
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that all governments are interested in
control and feedback because you can't
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00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:36,140
control something, if you don't pay
attention and can't blow up anyway. So
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like we have an autonomous nervous system
that tells every part what's going on, you
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00:36:43,330 --> 00:36:48,350
have one electronic autonomous nervous
system now in many societies not only
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China.
People using ICTs and a social credit
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system just creates a wonderful
opportunity of feedback and on the same
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00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:18,700
time on influence. So, we come to the end
of this talk and to the summary. So, again
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this I think is really important: it's an
international tendency to solve social
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00:37:24,530 --> 00:37:32,890
problems with technological solutions. And
as far as I am concerned this is not the
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00:37:32,890 --> 00:37:42,300
best way maybe. And the Chinese government
- they do not count and think in years,
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00:37:42,300 --> 00:37:48,570
they think in decades at least. And they
looked at the internet and found out
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that this is a good tool and they're using
it. Successfully. But we know at least
368
00:37:58,170 --> 00:38:02,860
since Edward Snowden, that other
governments are capable of using the
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00:38:02,860 --> 00:38:09,210
Internet as a tool as well. A social
credit system exists of the use of big
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data, algorithm, ICTs and gamification.
And it will become mandatory. And this
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00:38:20,981 --> 00:38:28,460
game, when it becomes mandatory, will
define your life. And not only your life,
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it will define the life of the people
surrounding you as well. The schools your
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children for example will go to will be
chosen on your rate. And there's the
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opportunity to put this together with a
national cryptocurrency. So, thank you
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00:38:53,250 --> 00:38:56,960
all for listening that what's my current
state of research and my current state of
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00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:03,340
my code, we both presented to you this
talk and I'm really looking forward to QA
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00:39:03,340 --> 00:39:13,210
and discussing. Thanks.
34c3 outro
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00:39:13,210 --> 00:39:30,000
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