Social Credit

   Ever since I was a young man, I desired to see a better overall system when it came to politics. One that couldn’t be abuse, didn’t impact the lives of innocents because of low information voters and were we didn’t have to argue for the better part of a decade to see gay marriage legalized. I envision a world of objective value placed on an individual’s actions and where saying “Yee-Haw” like Howard Dean did during the 2004 election, didn’t disqualify you, because of your passion on stage. Fast forward to 2018 and China is implementing a system that is roughly what I had conceived in my own mind, a social credit score. While a lot of people are visible upset, siting its Orwellian nature, I submit to you that it isn’t a fascist system, but just typical human nature, now give a quantified score, objectively, instead of being based in subjective criteria. While some tweaks would be needed, since I don’t think someone’s Twitter account should destroy them or bar them, I know for a fact that it would be a far greater system overall as it has been the American system for decades. Consider this, a felony wrap makes it harder to get jobs, because most felonies are harden and horrible crimes, think rape or murder. Someone is put into prison and serves out their sentence and then is, sometimes, allowed back into the general populace. In school, when you did something bad, you got detention, same thing as doing time, but on a lesser scale. People choose not to fraternize with people they don’t like, we all do it, on both sides, as we’re just not going to get along with everyone we meet and that is ok.

   Now, while I don’t think a prisoner that has served his time should be able to kick back and collect a government check by being unemployable, I do think they should be restricted to the jobs they’re ultimately allowed to have. Who wants a rapist serving food, when they could be doing blue collar labor?

    The sex offender registry is already similar to the social currency that China is using as well. Any candidate for a school job is background checked to ensure you’re not hiring felons. Woman even choose the mates they want to breed with through a social desirability system. So why not have a social credit score that could do the same thing for politics?

    Here is how it would look, we phase out voting and institute a credit ranking. The ranking is reflective on hard work you’ve put into your community. You send evidence into an objective body, like if you posted a pic of helping the homeless at a soup kitchen on Facebook. Instead of likes, you get points and those points give you access to further help your community by becoming a politician. The position you gained is based on what you do, local, nationally, federally. So let’s say you’re like Corey Booker and you ran into a fire to save a civilian, risking your life would garner you something like a million points. Who does that in today’s day and age? That is deserving of representing our country at a higher stage. Now, if you just picked up litter and helped the homeless in your municipal, which at best, would allow you to be city councilor. No different from work, school or life, you’re going to get out what effort you put in and rewarded, justly for your effort. Aggressive pursuit of the goals of helping, genuinely, benefits more involved than just straight politicking. No more minor scandals would matter, just Twitter is just that, Twitter. Anyone of any background could be elected.

    Imagine how this could work in other fields, where a porn star could retire and work a quiet job without being chided for his or her past. The objectivity of such could revolutionize the world and strengthen our country.

    Now, my idea isn’t without flaws, as there would have to be new safe guards in place to protect citizens. There would have to be a better way to create and remove law. Social conservatism would need to be prevented, so no rouges could jack the system and prevent things like Roe v Wade, Gay marriage or anything else for that matter from being overturned.

    Life could get on and we could all start living our lives. No more political bickering, no more stupid boycott hashtags, no more human bias against people of color, sexuality or otherwise. No victim-hood about being kept down by fake archys of any kind. Truly the best candidates would shine through and be able to get out of life what they put in. While not perfect at the moment,a world steeped in objectivity, fact and most importantly, merit, is in my mind, to borrow from TED talks, and idea worth sharing.