Nobody likes credit scores but it’s at least marginally financial measurements that are used for financial decisions.
It’s regressive, but only because our society is regressive. A middle class person who overspends and doesn’t pay their bills on time is probably gonna get treated worse than a poor person who needs groceries and fails to pay their grocery bills on time, yes. But it’s still financial.
The poor person isn’t being stopped from buying a train ticket. They might not have money to do so, but that’s a different societal fuck up.
Societal outcomes are worse pretty much across the board for all of those groups. See my long middle paragraph about how our whole society is fucked up.
Every item listed on that page is a measurement indicating the end result which is inequality. Nothing on that page covers the why or the how. If Equifax is literally scoring people based on “how black a name sounds” (as with resume studies) then sure the actual scoring system is also broken. But it doesn’t say that, it says outcomes are worse and unequal. Just like every other outcome in this country.
I know you’re pissed at me but that was kinda weak. I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about saying our society is fucked up but a very different style of fucked up vs china.
Especially considering that china sorta looked at the most fucked up parts of the credit score system and deliberately said “I want that, but more invasive and with the government running it” something like half a century later.
From what I’ve seen Dogbert is really obsessed with the Chinese state to the point of ignoring the fundamental structural issues it has. Is the Chinese state better for the average citizen than the US, probably in a lot of metrics, but as everywhere it is heavily dependent on who you are and where you live.
I’ve done some reflashing of cellular modems and the best place for open source modem firmware I found was some Chinese language hacker communities and they didn’t seem jazzed about the hoops they had to jump through to get to the clear net just to collaborate with the rest of the world. When information is restricted to that extent it is symptomatic of an extremely adversarial relationship between the government and its citizens.
What authoritarians of any stripe don’t realize that by abdicating their autonomy to any state, no matter the color of the flag or what ideology it espouses, ends in one way repression and death. If there is an out group there is a high likely hood that even a true believer will find themselves in it at some point. There is a tendency for authoritarian structures like states and corps to justify their existence through a progress at any cost mentality. This is true for western capitalism as well as Soviet and Chinese implementations of socialism. Any cost may be Lake Karachay’s ecosystem or the cultural extinction and enslavement of native people who live on land rich in rare earth minerals, it also means any citizen who becomes inconvenient to the state.
What the fuck is this nonsense?
Nobody likes credit scores but it’s at least marginally financial measurements that are used for financial decisions.
It’s regressive, but only because our society is regressive. A middle class person who overspends and doesn’t pay their bills on time is probably gonna get treated worse than a poor person who needs groceries and fails to pay their grocery bills on time, yes. But it’s still financial.
The poor person isn’t being stopped from buying a train ticket. They might not have money to do so, but that’s a different societal fuck up.
At least compare apples to apples.
“It’s only financial I swear! Please don’t look up the countless studies on racial biases! Please!!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_credit_scoring_systems_in_the_United_States#Racism
Yikes dude…
Societal outcomes are worse pretty much across the board for all of those groups. See my long middle paragraph about how our whole society is fucked up.
Every item listed on that page is a measurement indicating the end result which is inequality. Nothing on that page covers the why or the how. If Equifax is literally scoring people based on “how black a name sounds” (as with resume studies) then sure the actual scoring system is also broken. But it doesn’t say that, it says outcomes are worse and unequal. Just like every other outcome in this country.
Wow, you should have let those scientists know about that so they wouldn’t have wasted their time with these studies.
Great analysis dude.
I know you’re pissed at me but that was kinda weak. I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about saying our society is fucked up but a very different style of fucked up vs china.
Especially considering that china sorta looked at the most fucked up parts of the credit score system and deliberately said “I want that, but more invasive and with the government running it” something like half a century later.
From what I’ve seen Dogbert is really obsessed with the Chinese state to the point of ignoring the fundamental structural issues it has. Is the Chinese state better for the average citizen than the US, probably in a lot of metrics, but as everywhere it is heavily dependent on who you are and where you live.
I’ve done some reflashing of cellular modems and the best place for open source modem firmware I found was some Chinese language hacker communities and they didn’t seem jazzed about the hoops they had to jump through to get to the clear net just to collaborate with the rest of the world. When information is restricted to that extent it is symptomatic of an extremely adversarial relationship between the government and its citizens.
What authoritarians of any stripe don’t realize that by abdicating their autonomy to any state, no matter the color of the flag or what ideology it espouses, ends in one way repression and death. If there is an out group there is a high likely hood that even a true believer will find themselves in it at some point. There is a tendency for authoritarian structures like states and corps to justify their existence through a progress at any cost mentality. This is true for western capitalism as well as Soviet and Chinese implementations of socialism. Any cost may be Lake Karachay’s ecosystem or the cultural extinction and enslavement of native people who live on land rich in rare earth minerals, it also means any citizen who becomes inconvenient to the state.
excellent write up! summarizes exactly how i feel and the issues i’ve had around here lately
You and I have disagreed on other things occasionally.
But a bunch of downvotes for someone pointing out the shitty idea behind credit scores, and an upvoted brand new account justifying them… how curious.