Last week was dedicated to quite a positive note in terms of utopic ecologic architecture.

This week a rather controversial and potentially quite dystopic issue will be presented.

This is the Social Credit system which was established in China in 2014 and since 2020 it has been applied nationwide there.

A credit system that rates citizen behaviour offering various benefits but also punishing them quite harshly by forbidding access to restaurants, fast trains and airplanes among other things.

In 2017 Black Mirror had a great episode called “Nosedive” where a woman is totally addicted to her rating and her life collapses with it. Felt extremely futuristic and bleak at the time…

Funny enough a much more widespread version of it was already been applied in China with CCTV cameras and government monitoring already in place.

>>NBC news on China Credit System

At the same time when one thinks about giving positive benefits to citizens to reward good behaviour, it sounds like a great gamified process to create a better and safer society…

This is a seemingly positive review from a Chinese Reporter in the Chinese Global Network. Worth checking how they are promoting the benefits.

>>CGTN reporter on the Credit System

And this positive edge is what makes it even more controversial and difficult to control, and it is why many people will opt for losing their privacy and certain freedoms in order to gain safety and bonuses. It can be a very addictive, dopamine indusive and very competitive game in a society that already thrives on separating “winners” from “losers”. This is a more critical view from WIRED UK

>>The complicated truth about China’s social credit system Wired

and this is a video review from VICE

>>VICE How China Tracks everyone

No matter what one feels about such a system, current big data collection and crediting mechanisms are already in place and speculating on what this will do to everyday life is a very critical issue to tackle to make a futuristic world realistic.