Latest / UK Column Radio / Social Credit Scores are a Western Invention | Jerm Warfare

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Social Credit Scores are a Western Invention | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: My name is Jim. This is germ Warfare, the Battle
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of Ideas. Cynthia Chang, thank you for joining me in
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the trenches. I loved this massive sub stack piece of yours.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's it's ginormous. It takes a long time to get through. Uh.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And the short story, quote unquote, social credit scoring in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: China is actually a Western invention. I was in China
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for almost a month last year, as you know, and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I've been through I mean, I've been to a bunch
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of cities, and I didn't notice any of this totalitarian
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: hellhole social credits scoring that I constantly hear about, however,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and it's it's a little bit ambiguous. So social credit
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: scoring does exist in China and it also doesn't. So
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that nuance is something I think we need to clarify
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: just before we go any further.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm exactly. Well, there's there's the social credit system,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: which is what I'm going to focus on talking about today,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: which is really from the big tech fintech companies such
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: as Ali Baba in particular is a lot more notorious
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: in China, but ten Cent also is a part of this.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: People who don't know Ali pay is through Ali Baba
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: we Chat. We pay is through ten Cent, and they
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: basically have a monopoly on like everything shopping, entertainment, film,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: video games, all of the stuff that you could possibly
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: find online. People are pretty much using Ali Baba or
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: ten Cent platforms in China, and especially for like communication,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: pretty much everybody uses we Chat from what I've heard,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So that is the social credits system that I kind
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: of justified giving China a bad rap. As we're gonna
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: see in our discussion. China actually clamped down on this
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, but it was an Anglo American construct
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: to begin with. Then there's this other element which you
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: could say is within the legal system, and that's for
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: like a whole other conversation. But Matt actually did a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: really good overview of it. If people want to refer
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to that, I'm going to be going because this is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: actually part one of a four part series. So even
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: though you said it was very long, it's going to
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: be like massive, it's probably going to be a book
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: by the end of all of this. We're definitely going
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: to make films a few films from this. But Matt
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: did do an overview on the legal system within China,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: which turns out to also be a lot of hot
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: air in terms of like removing your rights if you
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: do something wrong sort of thing. But there's a lot
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: of cheap shots with China and with the big tech
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: social credit thing that was all right, that was also
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: like overly dramatized because even with that with Ali Baba
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and Tencent, it was basically just a reward and punishment
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: system that they have like an algorithm on how to
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: judge these sorts of things. And because they started to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: also give out loans and so people were getting penalties
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: if they were late or if they were not paying
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: the loan or whatever, and so you weren't getting certain
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: kinds of deals on these platforms, like because there's like
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: you can say discounts or you can even have like
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: discounts on an apartment for rent that's like being offered.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: There are some like pretty good deals, it seems, on
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: these platforms, or you would be banned from using the platforms.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: But these are not like essential things, right, These are
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: again entertainment shopping, you know, social media type stuff, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: China clamp down on them doing that. But that was
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: really what the social credit system is. As we're going
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to see, though it does it did start out sort
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: of innocently, but as these companies because in the West
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: we have Google Pay and we have Apple Pay that
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: have really taken over as well. In the United States,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: unlike Ali Baba and tencentch as a FinTechs, they were
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: they don't have the right to give out loans just yet,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: and in the case of ali Baba and Tencent, they
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: were acting as quasi banks, which again is what China
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: clamped down on in twenty twenty. But you can see
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: where the direction is headed. That if Google Pay and
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Google Pay and Apple Pay are controlling so much and
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: other types of entities are controlling so much of how
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: we're paying for things and the kind of platforms of
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: shopping and so forth, everything is becoming a lot more online,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: especially since COVID that when you start or like how
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you order food or you know, things like this, if
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: you were starting to get banned from these platforms based
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: on a reward punishment system of a social credit, which
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: we actually do have in the West, which I will
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: also go through, then that's the level of hypocrisy of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: this whole thing. Is that big tech, it's the social
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: credits them started but was started by these Western fintech
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: companies and they continue in the West, whereas Chrya climbed
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: down on it in twenty twenty.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean that's a good distinction. As I said,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: when I was in China, I used we Chat and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Ali Pay, and I found Ali pay to be easier
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to work with. But I mean it didn't bother me
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: because outside of China it doesn't matter. I just dedted
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the app and you know, life goes on and all
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that all that I had to do was connect my
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: cord to it. There was no other process involved. It's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: no different to using Apple Pay or Google Pay. And
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: when I speak about social credit, for example, Cynthia, when
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I was in Australia in the early two thousands, I
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was driving on a highway with my friend and he
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: was explaining to me that they had a demerit system.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: You would lose points if you broke the road rules
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and if you lost more than a certain amount of points,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you would use your driver's license. That is a social
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: created school. Now I point that out because we don't
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: have that here in South Africa. We do have other
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: social credit scoring. I suppose, like if you are a criminal,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to get a home
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: loan that's also a social credit school. These things are everywhere,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: but suddenly it's China that's the target.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, when you really look into it, the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: level of accusations that are are spearheaded at China that
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: they've somehow created an Orwellian state are really unfair and unfounded,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: and a very good example of I guess a form
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: of social credit that China also has is I forgot
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: now the name of this I think he was a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Muay Thai fighter fighter, but I maybe not maybe as
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: a UFC fighter, but that was had actually brought this
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: case up when he did his show on China's social
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: credit and this guy was a Westerner.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: In China shields.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and he was challenging a bunch of Chinese
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know where they kung fu or tai Chi
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: people and he was like beating the crap out of them,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: and then he slandered this one of the tai Chi
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: or kung fu masters, and I forgot what the slander was,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: but the guy uh sued him and he won in court.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: So this you know, westerner UFC or what was he
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: a UFC fighter.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: If it's the person I'm thinking of it would be UFC,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: but I check cont remember.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, he uh, he was, he was sued and
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: he didn't want to pay the feet even though he
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: was really in a very good position financially, like he
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: could have he could have paid it. So he's continuing
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: to live in China and doing this kind of stuff,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: which is really you know, it's it's very uh, he's
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: clearly trying to be very provocative. He's kind of aggressive
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: already towards the Chinese culture and not very respectful, and
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: then he doesn't want to pay this fine, and so
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: he was not able to book a flight ticket or
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: stay at a five star hotel or eat at a
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: five star restaurant, like he had certain kinds of bands
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: on him for for this reason, because he was judged
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: to be able to pay the fine, and he refused
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: to pay the fine. So he was acting like, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: his civil liberties were being totally infringed upon, and he's
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: like being treated like you know, some kind of you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: third class citizen or whatever, when the reality was that
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: this guy was like incredibly disrespectful and didn't want to
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: pay the the lawsuit feet. So that kind of stuff
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: can happen in China, and otherwise it's really a system
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: that's more reserved for if you're a member of the
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Communist Party, which even though there are millions of members,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: most of China's population are not part of the Communist Party,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: so like the rules don't apply to you as well. Anyway,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that's a whole other conversation, but for this one, I
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: wanted to just focus on the fintech companies Ali, Baba
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and Tencent and to go over this crazy story that
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: is the financial crisis also that hit China with these
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: fintech loans P two P loans has a lot of
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: overlap and similarity to the Western two thousand and eight
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: financial crisis, and the fact that this was clearlyeered as
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: an attack on not just China's banking system, it's any
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: country that these predatory loans are operating in, including the
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: United States. So what I've seen in the research that
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I've done is that these P TWOP loans, which started
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: out in two thousand and five, and it started in
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the UK with Zopa, which actually had it's earned a
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: banking regular banking license as well. So that's another problem
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: is that these fintech companies are actually especially in Europe,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: they're called like neo banks, and they can get banking
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: licenses even though they're not really a bank, and obviously
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: that's going to make it really hard for small to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: medium size banks to operate. And these fintech loans lenders
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: were caught several times, you know, giving out predatory loans basically,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: and they didn't have what we call skin in the game,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: where you're giving a huge amount of loans, but if
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: there is a mass default on these loans, you don't
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: actually hold any responsibility. So obviously this isn't a great situation.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And ZOPA ultimately is an arm of Prudential, which is
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: an old bank. You have HSBC Standard Charter Prudential, who
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: are all British opium banks that were started during the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Opium War era. And that's a really important part of
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: the story as well. Like Hong Kong, for instance, was
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: a British colony for ninety nine years. It only was
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: returned to China in nineteen ninety seven. Taiwan is a
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: separate government as well because of the civil war between
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Mao and Shanghai Czech and you know, Shanghai check started
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: a different government in Taiwan, but we have like these
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: different systems, and in the case of Hong Kong, to
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: this day we have two British opium banks HSBC and
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Standard Chartered that controlled two thirds of the Hong Kong
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Hong Kong money supply, like for printing Hong Kong money.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: So that just tells you how much you know power
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and influence these British banks still have. So Prudential is
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: another opium bank and they started SOPA. They are focusing
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: mostly on African Anesian markets, so you can see the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: P two P loans they started in two thousand and
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: five in the UK. That year in San Francisco you
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: had Prosper and then in two thousand and six you
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: had Lending Club. They both were started in San Francisco,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: and this was perfect timing because then you had the
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: two thousand and six to two thousand and eight explosion
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: of the US financial crisis, and these kinds of predatory
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: lenders were actually riding that wave and were not only
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: making it worse, but they were praying off of people
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: who were going to be in an extra vulnerable situation
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: because of the financial crisis. It was going to be
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: harder for them to have money for whatever reasons, but
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: especially for businesses, but individuals as well were caught, you know,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: having no choice but to go to these kinds of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: lenders because they couldn't get approved by banks. And we
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: see it happening again right now because there is a
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: private credit bubble in the US that's ready to explode.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And again you have predatory lenders like Blackstone and stuff
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: that are once again involved in this, that were the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: same players during the two thousand and eight financial.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Do you said Blackstone, that you mean black Rock?
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Blackstone is like the largest landlord in the world, buying
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: up a whole bunch of assets, but especially like houses.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So they made a killing off of the two thousand
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: and eight crash, and black Rock was born out of Blackstone,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: and Blackrock also plays a role in the story. But
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: it really seems the timing of all of this seems
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: highly suspect. And Goldman Sachs also plays a really big
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: role in the two thousand and eight financial crash, where
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: the more you look into it, there does seem to
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: have been an engineering, an engineered blowout that it blew
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: out the way it did so that certain people were
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: going to collect and so in the United States, the
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: cost was small to medium sized banks, and you had
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: these predatory p twop lenders that are in this gray
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: area of as functioning as quasi banks. So we don't
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: have yet like Google or Amazon or Apple are not
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: allowed to have their own banks. But for instance lending Club,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: actually both Lending Club and Prosper have worked very closely
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: with Google and particular, but also eBay is involved, like
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: so you can see that they're moving in a direction
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: where they want to have these kinds of fintech companies,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: financial technology companies who are going to give out loans
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: and they're going to act like banks, and they're gonna
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: they're they're going to outcompete whatever is left of small
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: to medium sized banks. So then you only have the
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: bigger banks. And ironically it's the bigger banks like Goldman
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Sachs or Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan who are actually
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: backing up these uh predatory fintech companies like Prosper and
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: a London Club. And the other important note on this
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: is that especially Prosper, the found the co founder Chris Larsen,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: is known as a social credit pioneer, so some people
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: might have been annoyed that I'm saying social credit system,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: and they're like, it's not really a social credit system,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: it's a social credit score. And it's like eight is
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: actually like this is the direction what people are fearful
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: of for a social and orwelly and social credit system
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: is exactly what the social credit score is of these
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: predatory lenders, because they're making up their own algorithms so
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: that these p twop lenders don't use the standard algorithm
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: of social credit. They're making their own algorithm. And now
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: they're working with and they're working with companies like Google directly.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: So it is already a system whereas these kinds of
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: big companies like Google start to take over more and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: more of how any kind of transactions are occurring, it's
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: going to be very easy to have a reward or
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: punishment system where you're just banning someone off of the platform.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And you can't really say that it's infringing on civil liberties,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: right because it's like it's it's their privilege. It's a
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: privilege to use their service. It's not, you can say,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: an essential service. But as it takes over more and more,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: it's it's harder to function, you know, without it. And
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: also it's just easier, I think, to nudge people in
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: a certain way. So it is actually a social creditism,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: the very thing that is being that China is being
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: accused of. And as I was looking into this, I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: found out that Ali Baba and Tencent are pretty much
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs creations, amongst other things. But it's Goldman Sachs
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: is very much behind the scenes in a massive way
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: on this, and that these this all ties into Project
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Stargate directly Open Ai and but most importantly when it
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: was brought into China in two thousand and seven. So
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: this is all happening so you know, so tightly together.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: It was clear that these to these Chinese P two
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: P lenders would not have existed if it had hadn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: been for the British American algorithms that started with these
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: P twop loans, because these algorithms are algorithms are actually
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: quite complex. So there's I find that the timing is
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: again it's it's it's very clear that these algorithms were
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: brought into China but also other places, and it was
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: a kind of trojan horse because they also were acting
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: as quasi banks, and it was to attack the banking system,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: the financial system, as it did also within the United
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: States and Britain. So it's a form of a big
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: tech takeover, but they're working with the big banks, certain
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: you know, big banks, and you know, it's a takeover
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: to take it away from a kind of you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: more people oriented system of banking, which the United States
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: did have more of a system like that once upon
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: a time before everything continued to be deregulated in Wall Street,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: you know, was like the economy just became more and
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: more just a speculative, casino gambling economy. But it wasn't
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: always like that. In the United States. They had banks
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: that actually were doing essential services, which is the whole
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: point of a bank, right is to give out loans
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: so that the economy can thrive and grow, businesses can
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: develop and grow. So this, I find is a whole
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: engineered operation for big tech to actually take over these
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: kinds of essential services. It's like COVID too, where like
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the small businesses and medium sized businesses suffered the most.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: It was a form of centralizing it into certain hands.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And the two thousand and eight is the same thing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And we're now in the midst of another financial crisis,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: and the CEO of Goldman Sachs back into eight Larry
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Finkine or something like that. He's saying that he smells
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: another crash coming, which I think is again an engineered one.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Not that the system is doing well, but they're engineering
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: it in a certain way so that it's it's going
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to again go into certain hands to collect and the
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: people are going to have less and less with this,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you know outcome.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, uh, ten Cent one of its major one of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: its biggest shareholders is a South African company, Well, which
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: is Afrikaans for Nationale Paris which means national Press.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Huge, huge shareholder.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're they're about twenty six percent. The other thing
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to to to note is that when you're looking, for instance,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the biggest P twop lender that was caught committing fraud
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: in China and was shut down and it went up
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to like a lot, like over ten billion dollars was
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: implicated in fraud with this, they were registered in the
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: British Virgin Islands. You look at Ali Baba, it's registered
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: in the Cayman Islands. Ten Cent is registered in the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Cayman Islands. And you have black Rock and Vanguard that
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: are also having a significant amount of steak in these companies.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's when you actually look at it. The
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: people who have steak in Ali Baba and ten Cent,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: they're all Western oriented and they all pretty much overlap
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: with Project Stargate. You actually don't don't have any major
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Chinese steak in these companies. You just have what's called
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: the golden share, which is one percent, which is relative
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: a newer thing that happened because these Ali Baba Intense
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: were also acting as P twop lenders. China had to
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: rein it in in twenty twenty and they basically said,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: if you want to act like a bank, you need
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to be regulated like a bank, like I don't you
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: know that shouldn't be controversial. And they also had a
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: stake of one percent golden share, where they were now
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: in a position where they could agree, they could approve
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: or veto what these companies decide to do, because you know,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: when you're that big now like they're still huge in China,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: but they don't they're not able to do PTP lending
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: anymore because it wasn't going to be financially profitable for them.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Because they also didn't have skin in the game and
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: they were like in huge amounts, And there was a
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: crisis that hit China between twenty thirteen and twenty and eighteen.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Their two thousand and eight type situation happened between those years,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: and it was because of the P twop loans, which
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: again was a foreign entry into China. So when Jackma
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: was taken down a few pegs in twenty twenty, it
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: was totally around this as well as the fact that
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: they were they were also doing the social credits scoring
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: that was coming in from these P twop algorithm algorithms,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and they were doing a reward punishment system and China
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: actually intervened on that. So yeah, it's quite striking that
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: it was a foreign thing when you look at out.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned Stargate a few times. I remember when Trump
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: proudly announced Stargate in conjunction with pharmaceutical companies open AIH Oracle.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I'm forgetting some of the names. Uh. And I think
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Startling even is going to be part of it as part,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of its mass surveillance data collection.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is not Chinese.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It's yeah, and it's it's weird because people who tend
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: to support Trump, they tend to not like Peter feel
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: and they tend to not like you know, the Project
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Stargate you know concept, but you know they they they're
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: of the view that somehow Trump is going to be
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: able to ring this in. But Project Stargate was started
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: during Trump's administration and the two big co founders of
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: this are Open Ai, which holds forty percent, and soft
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Japan's soft Bank, which owns forty percent. And again interestingly,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the biggest tech fund or technocracy fund you can say,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: is owned by Soft Bank. It's called the Vision Fund,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: which is again totally all about the Project Stargate stuff,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: but it's headquartered in London, England. And again interestingly, Ali
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Baba Winch have gotten its start, which was twenty five
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: million for jack Ma's concept. That was totally because Goldman
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Sex gave it its blessing through Joseph Sai, who's I
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: don't think we'll have time, but I go through how
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Joseph Size is really the person behind the Ali Baba
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: growth and you know success and ten Cents, it's really
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Martin Lau. And both of these people are tied to
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Goldman Sex who built up these companies. And so Golden
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and Sex is there at the very beginning for Ali
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Baba and soft Bank pretty much invests twenty million into
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Ali Baba at the very beginning because Goldman Sachs gave
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: the blessing. And when you look at what soft Bank
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: is investing in, it's everything to do with Project Stargate,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: including Uber door Dash. There's things like open homes where
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: now you're even they're buying and purchasing and selling homes online,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: like everything is being moved to an online platform, and
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Project Stargate is very much behind us, but you can
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: see it's clearly being advised through Goldman Sacks and again
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: very telling that the fund for all of us is
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: headquartered in London, England. What's interesting is that when China
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: clamped down on jack Ma and basically Ali Baba not
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: only could not function as a bank anymore, which was
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: a huge blow to what the agenda is, but that
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: you know, China was going to reserve the right to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: clap down and say no to whatever direction if they
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: thought it was going to be a threat to society.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: That year, Jack Ma is removed from the board of
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: soft Bank. He was on that board for thirteen years,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: and soft Bank dropped all investment within two years of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: that decision. So that's very for me. That shows that
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: the fact that Goldman Sachs, which is also very much
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: behind Project Stargate, basically most of its investment at this
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: point is tied into Project Stargate. And people can look
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: at my paper the True Origins of China's Social Credits
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: system on my sub stack through glass Darkly for the
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: details because as you mentioned, it's a crazy long paper.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: There's just no way I can say all of the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: details here. But Golden Secs is basically the advisor, manager,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: shaper of Project Stargate through all of the financial avenues
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and so forth and fund So it's very interesting that
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: that soft bank is there at the very beginning for
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Ali Baba and then when China intervenes they drop Ali
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Baba in twenty twenty. It shows you that Ali Baba
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: was always contingent on the Project Stargate thing and that
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: they were a foreign entry into China and then they
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: gave up on that project when China, you know, blocked it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, anyway, if I'm rambling, it's a lot of information.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, what's so funny to me is in Trump's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: first term, he proudly announced warp speed and his second
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: term he proadly announced the Stargate, which is basically social
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: credits scoring on steroids, and his supporters have a huge
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: blind spot when it comes to this.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I they it's they don't wanna, they don't want
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: to look at it. And then what's what's all also
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: very concerning and you can see the connection between block
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: rock and Stargate through the board of open AI. Also
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: on a quick side note, the people the banks who
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: formed the Ali Baba i PO were all Western Banks, Credit, Swiss,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Georgia Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP, Morgan Morgan Stanley and City
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Group for Ali Baba's IPO and for ten cents IPO
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: it was UBS and Merrill Lynch so and again they're
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: registered in the Cayman Islands, both of them, which is
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: you know, not anyone can just get registered in the
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: offshore tax haven of the City of London like you
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: basically have to be a part of the club to
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: get that arrangement. But if you look at the who
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: was on the board of open AI. Oh and also
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Goldman Sacks is handling open Ais IPO as we see speak.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: But who's on the board of open A A I
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: is Adabayo ogul Masi, who's the chairman of g I P.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: He's actually a huge player. But the g I P
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: is purchased by block Rock, and that's pretty much working
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: for for black Rock, and you have Microsoft and so
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: an important part of UH this other uh part of
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the story where you know, to to counter China's Belton
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Road initiative, the G seven started an initiative called Global
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: partners uh G g I I g I P P,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I think Global Investment partners partnership whatever, and they they
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: tasked Blackrock and Microsoft as leaders to basically buy up
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: infrastructure around the world to counter China's Belton Road initiative.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: First of all, China is investing in other countries to
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: build up infrastructure that those countries ultimately own, whereas these
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: entities like Blackrock, which is the largest asset manager in
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the world managing over eleven trillion of billionaire money, they're
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: buying up infrastructure so that it's privately owned, including London airports,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Malaysian airports. So they're not building things, they're trying to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: acquire them. And that was part of the Panama controversy
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: because Blackrock wanted to buy forty three out of the
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: fifty three ports of C. K. Hutchison around the world,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: and China blocked that, and Panama has recently seized those
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: two ports and given it to the Mediterranean Shipping Company,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: which was the company also working with Blackrock on that deal,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: and that company has been found trafficking cocaine several times. Actually,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of overlap with a lot of this
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and the opium situation. Again, it's too much to go over,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: but these are the kinds of people who are also
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: on the board of open Ai, who is a forty
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: percent stakeholder of Project Stargate. So you see, like what
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: I was just going over with the whole acquiring everything
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: onto through fintech, you know, requirement and quasi banks, but
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: then you have also the purchase or seizure of strategic
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: essential infrastructure around the world, so that increasingly you can
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: even say that the airports are going to be privately owned,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: they're not going to be publicly owned, and so they
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: can decide whether you have the right to use it
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: or not sort of arrangement. So these are very concerning
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: and I you know, people have to really start looking
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: at this and addressing it. It's amazing that Project Ctircuate
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: was announced in such an open way, like you you say,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: and there hasn't been really any discussion about, you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: what this is and what's what its intention is from
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Trump supporters.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: It seems like a very typical case of look over there.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: It's not that while it's happening under their noses, they're
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: not seeing it.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: For blaming China, right, and blaming China the whole time
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: while it's like happening under their nurses.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Now, what's interesting is the term itself and you cover
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: this also in your in your paper social Credit. We
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: constantly get told that China's social credit is the example
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: that the West wants to follow. Yet the phrase itself
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: comes out of the British Empire in the early nineteen hundreds.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that that is something that Matt is going to
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: be more adept at. I'm going to be going over
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that in part three, and I haven't done too much
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: work on it, but yeah, it starts out of the
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: British Empire. And there's also a lot of connection with
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: South Africa and this which again is interesting because as
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, one of the like the major stakeholder of
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: tencent twenty six to twenty nine percent ownership of tencent
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: is this South African Process Nesper, which is actually two
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: entities that kind of own each other, and one of them,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I think it was Process was involved in the apartheid
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: so and again South Africa has a British Empire history,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: so you see a lot of British connection throughout this
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: whole thing. But yeah, social credit also played a role
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: in South Africa as a sort of experiment for that.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk's grandfather is also tied to this who comes
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: from South Africa and has uh you know, the his
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: technocracy inc. Concept. So Elon Musk's uh you know view,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I think is is very much in line and continue
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: He's continuing what his grandfather was was was working on.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: So these are these are clear avenues that you know,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: people have to look into more. Yeah, I don't know.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: You have Catherine Catherine Awesome Fitts actually talked about Elon's
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Starling and how Daughta is going to be the massively
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: foughto of a currency in the coming years. Now Starlink
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: is not Chinese.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and Starlink also has like again a crazy
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: amount of of power and control and it's amazing how
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: many people are are actually purchasing into this and and
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: want to be users of that system, thinking it's somehow
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: you know, going to like increase your your freedom in
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the world when there's a lot to be concerned and
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: suspicious about. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: to say. It's like, you keep looking into this stuff
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and China is really not spearheading anything. And if you
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: even look at the whole AI thing, there's a huge
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: cultural difference of like how China is handling AI versus
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: the West. And you you know what an interesting point too,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: is that people in China they're they're not so concerned
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: about AI because there is more trust and there's actually
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: you know, I know this might be shocking to some people,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: but there's actually more trust and optimism of like where
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: things are going in China that they don't see AI
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: as you know, some kind of scary thing because and
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: I'm also of that viewpoint. You know, AI is a tool,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and if you use that tool, you know, responsibly, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: you don't worship it like a god, then there, you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: there's no problem. There's not that much difference even in
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: like doing a Google search where you're you're asking certain
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: kinds of questions. You're using it as a tool. The
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Internet as a tool is a very useful thing, you know,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: but it can also be a really bad thing. AI
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: is just another extension of that. But in the US
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of cynicism, or in the West
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: in more in more general, we have a lot of
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: cynicism around AI. But then ironically, we also have this
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: massive uh flux of you know, asking chat GPT these
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: major questions of meaning and like very general questions of
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: purpose and intention, which you shouldn't be asking AI. You
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: can ask AI thing like things for like what was
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the date that this treaty was signed? Or what's the
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: population of this or blah blah blah, right like, you
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: ask it very direct questions. You don't ask AI to
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: explain to you the meaning of things or or like
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: the purpose of life. Where people are asking AI, Hey,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I'm depressed, you know, what should I do? I broke
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: up with my girlfriend or whatever, like they're they're treating
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: it like it's some kind of counselor or in a
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: lot of cases too, people are even treating it like
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: it's omnipot omniscient, And you know, perfectly objective in how
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: it's going to answer your questions. And so it's funny.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: It strikes me that we have this kind of phenomenon
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: that happened very quickly since the beginning of twenty twenty five,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Like people have changed quite a bit in how they're
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: even forming they're thinking. Especially young people are getting scary
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: dependent on asking things like chatchbt questions to everything that
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: they're thinking. And yet we have the cynicism of AI
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: and we've been brainwashed by Hollywood to only think negatively
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: about any kind of technological advancement. Meanwhile, in China, the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: living standard is actually increasing. The age now the average
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: life expectancy in China is than in the United States,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: which is insane thinking where China was like twenty years ago,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Like that is a real measure of a boost in
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: quality of living that you really can't you know, deny
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: or if you've actually visited China you would also see,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: like there is a crazy amount of development in a
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: really positive direction and also beautiful. The cities are beautiful.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: They're not just these concrete jungles. There are parks, and
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: there's the way that they're even formatted and everything. It's
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: it's very nice looking.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can confirm. Shanghai itself is stunning. It's this
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: massive city and in the center it is beautiful.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Well like when the TikTok, when TikTok was like temporarily
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: banned for Americans and they went on to Red Not
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: and they saw how like the average Chinese person was living,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: which is actually better than a lot of Americans. I know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: shocking and surprising. But if you went onto Red Note
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: you would have seen these things. Or you can even
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: go onto YouTube and ask like hey, Red Note reactions,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and yeah, the price of food is way cheaper too,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: like food inflation is like crazy right now. In the West,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: the living standard, the rent, everything, it's way more affordable
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: compared to the salary that you're earning. And the taxes
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: are are way lower. And also they don't tax you
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: in certain things that you're taxed here in the West,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: like once you own your apartment or your house, you
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: own it. They can't take it from you. It's insane
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: that in the West that can happen if you technically
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: own your home or no, if someone passes away and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: they want to leave their house to their children, you
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: get taxed like an insane amount. I forgot how much,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: but it's like over fifty percent. Is clear why they're
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: doing that because most people are not going to be
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: able to afford that, and they're going to have to
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: sell that house. Who's going to buy that house? Chances
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: are something like Blackstone, which is what's happening in the
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: United States. Like most people now in their middle ages
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: or younger, they can't afford to buy a house. Who's
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: buying up all of these houses as the older generation
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: is passing away. It's companies like Blackstone. So that's not
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: happening in China. When someone owns something, they own it.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: So people have to really, I think, do a little
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: bit more work to actually look at like what is
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: actually happening in China and what is actually happening in
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: your own country, and maybe you know, direct your attention accordingly, I.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Think, Cynthia. That is also a huge disconnect in language
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: usage in the West. The term social credit has a
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: very different meaning like many other words and phrases in China.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I noticed that when I was there, things
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: don't mean the same thing because of the fact that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: it's a whole different society, culture, history, everything. Listen to this.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I found this this online. What the term social credit
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: means in China. Not one national quote unquote black mirror score.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Independent China analysts, including the West's own Mericks think tank,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: called the single citizen school idea more boogieman than reality.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: It's slowly digitized, highly fragmented, and primarily focuses on businesses.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: It's really an umbrella term for several separate things. Corporate
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: compliance databases in other words, a to D company risk
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: ratings to decide how hard to inspect business, a judicial
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: blacklist of court debt dodgers which has blocked people from
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: buying flights and high speed trained tickets. And local city pilots.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: And there are a few cities that tried scoring, jaywalking, littering,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: and even online game shooting. But these personal scoring pilots
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: were criticized inside China itself and largely walked back by
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteenth. Central authorities explicitly stated scores could not be
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: used to penalize citizens, and surviving schemes are now basically
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: voluntary loyalty points programs with no teeth. And lastly, it
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: was openly modeled on Western systems explicitly inspired by FICO
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: in the US and SCUFA in Germany.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thats useful run through.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I mean that is that is exactly the problem that
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: there's a this a there's a there's a disconnect in
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the way in which language is used because if you
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: do something wrong in your company, it goes without saying
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: that you're going to get penalized.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean again, like what you were
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: using the example of someone driving. Obviously, and we we
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: do have like a sort of a point not a
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: point system, but like you can have like a three
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: strikes sort of thing on your license and then you
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: lose your license, and I mean that that's not a
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: bad thing. Obviously these things can be abused. Anything can
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: be abused. But at the same time, like you need
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: to have some accountability of responsibility when you're when you're driving,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: and there has to be the right to remove someone's
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: license if they're not responsible. So again, like it would
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: be great to live in a world where we don't
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: have we don't need to have laws and we and
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: you know, I know that some people who are are
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: you know, a bit more extreme in thinking that government
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have play any role in anything, but I haven't
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: heard anyone who who thinks that lay out a detailed
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: explanation of how things are supposed to function properly without
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: some kind of overseeing Like people have never been able
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: to just self manage or self regulate. And if you
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: have problems with crime, who's going to deal with it? Right?
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: I do think that if there's a responsibility, like a
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: responsible level of dealing with things, which the United States
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: all so was like they were not in a bad place.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: There has been a lot of infiltration within the United
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: States from bad players, and especially since you know, the
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: assassination of Kennedy, there has been a lot of what
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: you could say a deep state takeover. And the CIA,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: for instance too, just like you know, moving from what
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: was originally supposed to be a desk job positioned to
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: increasingly like basically controlling the US military in a very
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: large way, like for instance, Vietnam War that was basically
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: a CIA run operation. A lot of this kind of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: stuff has been happening over decades, and the big tech
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: phenomenon is not separate from this. It's actually an arm
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: of Gladio. For people who don't know Gladio, it's it's
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: like the paramilitary operations NATO's secret army type stuff. People
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: can find out more about that on my subject as well.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Largest it's the largest COVID operation in history.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like all of these operations are still their black ops.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: I know that's a scary thing. I just said. I
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: hate to break it to you, but it's like Operation
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Phoenix for everybody, and we have to realize what this is.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: It's it's very serious. But the thing that I always
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: try to get people to to think of, because I
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: know that's a lot to handle, is it matters what
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: you think. That's why there's still so much effort to
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: have so much disinformation, to have so many, so many,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: so many influencers right now, whether it's in the alternative
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: media space or semi alternative mainstream like Tucker Carlson for instance,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: it's all too uh channel who you're going to blame
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: because things are going to get worse and worse, and
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: people are going to get really pissed off and they're
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: going to try to direct that energy at anything but
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: what it should be directed at. So you have to
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: be aware of that, and I mean, don't take my
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: word for it, but like you have to do a
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: little bit of work and figure out, like who who
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: is behind these things, Like in the paper that I
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: that I just did on China social China social credit,
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: the true origins of China social credit. Just look at
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: this is like, I think, something that everyone agrees on
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: who is funding what and when you when you look
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: at who is funding these projects, they're all the same players.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And again Goldman Sax plays a huge le soft soft
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Bank which is working for this and is a co
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: founder of Project Stargate along with open Ai. This is
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: all like so consistently tied together with a nice ribbon,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Like it's pretty clear where the direction is in all
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: of this. And I'm sorry, but like Trump is the
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: one who who brought this online with Project Startgate. He's
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: the one who is working closely with Peter Thiel. And
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: you know, not really counter to Evan Musk either.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: A few minutes ago, I was telling you what social
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: credit means in China. Now from that same piece that
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I found, yes, what social credit looks like in the West.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Credit scores such a from FICO Experience Equifax for example,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: already gate your access to housing loans, jobs and insurance
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and numerical trustworthiness rating. Most people didn't consent to ESG
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: scores are increasingly used in corporate credit ratings, and even
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a FICO analyst predicted ESG data would get more granular
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: at the individual level. Critics, including Fox Business, have openly
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: called ESG quote a social credit system designed to transform
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: society unquote de banking payment process of blacklisting, for example,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: being cut off by your bank or PayPal or visa
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: for political or reputational reasons, which is arguably a more
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: immediate and less accountable punishment than anything in a Chinese pilot. Now, yes,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: what's interesting. During COVID, PayPal was killing loads of accounts.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, for going for going
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: against vaccine mandates for example, I was I was using
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: paper at the time, and I was thinking, no, no, no, no,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: hang on, hang on, I've gotta I gotta stop using PayPal.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm yeah, well actual credit exactly, and uh, you
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: know stripe as well as like it's it's it's a
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: scary how much we rely on just a few entities
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: for transactions unless you can do like a director bank
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: to bank transfer. It's it's quite a monopoly on like
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: how these kinds of things happen, and it affected a
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: lot of people including US. Matt had his PayPal shutdown
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and they still don't allow him to have a PayPal account.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: And another note I want to really make clear to
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: people is that this P two P predatory lending where
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: they're acting as quasi banks, they're working with entities like Google,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: and they're having their own social credit algorithms working with Google.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: They're still functioning in the West China. They didn't ban it,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: but they basically they said that you need to be
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: regulated like a bank such that it wasn't financially viable
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: for these entities to do it anymore. And so there
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: is no more P two P lending at all happening
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: in China since twenty twenty. And Ali Baba and Tencent again,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: they were doing P two P loans and then that
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: part of their business, which was actually the largest part
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: of Ali Baba's business, and I think even Tencent because
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: it was that lucrative, they had to shut it down
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: because they were forced, you know, to have skin in
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: the game. And so obviously, if you're going to give
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: out predatory loans that are going to have a high
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: chance of defaulting, you don't want to have skin in
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: the game with that. So That's another big thing for
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: people to realize, like this is it's not this like, oh,
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: China's you know, people constantly are just saying but they
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: just say it, right, They're not actually proving or bringing
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: up a point. It's like whatever, Obviously China is in
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: on it. Obviously China is benefiting on it. Obviously the
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: government was making money off of this. The government shut
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: it down. It's not shut down in the West. It's
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: still functioning and growing in the West.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: M hm. And I think Cynthia's something also that has
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: just struck me is that the quote unquote social credits
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: scoring in China is effectively run by the state, while
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: in the US, and I guess Western countries as a whole,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: it's run by as you say, fintech, private private companies.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: The difference is that in China you can see what,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: you know, what the government is wanting to do in
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: many ways. With private companies, it's it's hard because it's decentralized,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: and in some aspects decentralized decentralization is a good thing.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: In this instance, it's not because they are incredibly powerful,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: as you pointed out.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: And they haven't been operating in good faith because I mean.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Well, no, sorry, sorry for interrupting, but you're right, they
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: haven't been operating good faith because they're working together with
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the US government. For example, Trump announced Stargate.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like they're a huge part of their their
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: platform was predatory lending to begin with. For instance, door
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Dash partnered with the Swedish fintech company called Klarna, and
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: it's this buy now, pay later model, right, and you
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: can see like they're not going to be the only
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: ones to use this where they're they're encouraging people to
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: get into debt and they want the population to be
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: in debt because then there's a certain amount of control
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: that they can have over you once they you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: once you owe them money. It's like owing money to
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: the mafia kind of thing. You know. It's like it's
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: not really that different. And by the way, Trump was
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: like mentored by Roy Combe, who was a big mafia guy,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: American mafia guy. These are mafia techniques and uh, yeah,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, I guess it could be argued that
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: the West actually runs a more pervasive social credit scoring system.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that the China again intervened because they're
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: there are people still that have debt owed. But I
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: think China was also investigating and they're they were looking
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: into trying to clear up some of these things. But
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: in the US, the economy, and you know this is
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: for the West in general as well, but the US especially,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: it's a debtor economy. But the thing is is that
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: when you're a big bank or you're a big business,
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: you get right offs, you have all of these loopholes.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: If you're the average joe, whether it's a small business
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: or a small bank or an individual, you get stuck
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: largely with the debt of these other entities on top
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: of it. Because it's a trickle down effect, everything is
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: getting poorer except for within a few hands.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: So Cynthia, how can I follow your work?
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: You can follow my work on my substack through glass
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Darkly And yeah, the paper that we're discussing is the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: true origins of China's social credit system. Again, it's four parts.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: In the second part, I'm going to be going over
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: in more detail what China actually did to clamp down
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: on this. I will also be going over throughout the
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: series the origins of social credit. As you mentioned, it
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: has a British South African tie to it, but China,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: how China views AI, and how AI is far functioning
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: in in China versus the United States, and then also
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: on China's a digital banking system and how this is
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: actually countering the big tech attempt to take over banking.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: All right, Cynthia Chiang, thank you for joining me in
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the stranges.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: H