Wednesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables!

Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system

Via Fast Company

In China, scoring citizens’ behavior is official government policy. U.S. companies are increasingly doing something similar, outside the law.

Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.

In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.

It can also award points for charitable donations or even taking one’s own parents to the doctor.

Punishments can be harsh, including bans on leaving the country, using public transportation, checking into hotels, hiring for high-visibility jobs, or acceptance of children to private schools. It can also result in slower internet connections and social stigmatization in the form of registration on a public blacklist.

IT CAN HAPPEN HERE

Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

Here are some of the elements of America’s growing social credit system.

Read the entire article HERE.

Former Army Captain Describes How SJW Policies Harm Military Readiness

Via American Greatness

A former Army officer says former President Barack Obama’s social engineering policies did great harm to the U.S. military and the nation is still “paying a price” for it.

Former U.S. Army Captain James Hasson—a decorated Afghanistan veteran and now a contributor to the Washington Examiner—appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday evening to talk about his new book, Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America’s Military.

“The Army that I joined during Barack Obama’s first term was nothing like the Army that I left at the end of his second, Hasson said. “Social justice warriors imposed a progressive agenda on the military with no regard for the harm they caused to military readiness or national security. We’re still paying the price and the American people deserve to know.”

“Traditionally conservatives believe that the left goes after the military by inadequately funding it—just not giving it enough money,” Carlson noted. “You describe in this book something that is far more sinister and effective where they basically try to rot it from the inside.”

Hasson replied that the Left just has “a fundamentally different view of what the military is about.”

As an example, he cited Barack Obama’s undersecretary of defense Brad Carson, who once said his goal was to make the Department of Defense “the nation’s most progressive employer.”

“But the job of the military isn’t to be more woke than Apple or Google,” Hasson argued. “It’s to defend us all by preparing to fight and win the nation’s wars.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Bernie Sanders: China has done more to address extreme poverty “than any country in the history of civilization”

Via The Hill

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered praise for China while stating in an interview that he believed the U.S. could have a positive relationship with the country, saying it had made “more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization.”

The Democratic presidential candidate offered a nuanced view of Beijing, criticizing it for a move toward authoritarianism and stating that it looked out for its own interests first, but also saying it had made progress in helping its own people over the last several decades.

“China is a country that is moving unfortunately in a more authoritarian way in a number of directions,” Sanders told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball. “But what we have to say about China in fairness to China and it’s leadership is if I’m not mistaken they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization, so they’ve done a lot of things for their people.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Hillary Is Lurking

Via The American Thinker

Hillary Clinton, the Ma Barker of American politics, is still out hustling, still staying one step ahead of the law as she tries to weasel her way into the presidential sweepstakes. She says she isn’t running in 2020, but, as we know too well, truth is a fungible commodity to a Clinton.

The signs don’t look good. She just announced a fundraiser for the DNC at her Washington D.C. mansion with tickets as high as $50,000 (scraps for the homeless in the dumpster out back).

A couple of weekends ago she was at de Rothschild’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard — go socialism! — to celebrate Bill’s birthday, which included “quite an A-list cast of characters, including many Democratic party stalwarts.”

Recently she and Chelsea announced they were publishing a book in October about “gutsy women,” no doubt the tale of some courageous women in Arkansas who stood up to privilege and power even before the #MeToo movement. At least that’s my guess.

In any case, the subject is irrelevant. It’s the timing that matters. A book tour in the middle of the primary race? Just a not-so-subtle reminder from Madam Secretary: The air in the room belongs to me, bitches.

Hearing Hillary announce a third presidential bid would be like hearing your dentist say he has to go ahead with that third root canal, and he just ran out of Novocaine.

No sane person wants her in the race, which doesn’t stop her from getting the party’s full support

Read the entire article HERE.

‘Monopoly: Socialism’ Game Disappears From Target’s Website

Via PJ Media

Earlier this year, Hasbro released a parody version of the classic board game “Monopoly.” The parody “Monopoly: Socialism” pokes fun at the flaws of command-and-control economies and also mocks health food and veganism. The game was released with little fanfare, but last week a college professor tweeted his displeasure at the game, creating a firestorm of controversy. Amid this controversy, “Monopoly: Socialism” disappeared from the Target website, and the company did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the game’s availability.

Nick Kapur, an historian of Japan and East Asia who teaches at Rutgers University, first drew attention to the game on Twitter.

“I bought a copy of Hasbro’s mean-spirited and woefully ill-informed ‘MONOPOLY: SOCIALISM’ board game so you don’t have to – a thread,” he began.

Conservatives have rightly mocked the confused Kapur on this. “Wah, wah, wah. Maybe they’re making fun of socialism because it’s bad,” National Review’s Kat Timpf — and my fellow Hillsdale College grad — said on Fox & Friends Friday morning. “We’ve seen [socialism] kind of not work in the past, so I feel like it might be fair game to make fun of it. … I also don’t understand how people are getting so upset about a game.”

Read the entire article HERE.

NOTE: I will be on vacation over the long Labor Day weekend and will be taking a break from everything including writing. Enjoy yourselves folks and I’ll see you on the other side!

Be sure to subscribe to Def-Con News to get Breakfast For The Brain in your morning mailbox.