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Robert Billyard's avatar

Actually it was Russia that won the war on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad, the greatest land battle ever fought. Russia took 27 million casualties in the war far outnumbering all Allied casualties. WW ll saw 87 million people die.

Even while the Nuremberg Tribunals were in session, the Dulles brothers and others were plotting the new Cold War.

David Talbot's, The Devil's Chessboard is essential reading for what was happening then and understanding what is happening now.

The wars being fought now are steeped in history and in too many ways a sequel to WW ll.

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DC Reade's avatar

Of yeah, PRC "social credit scoring"...who are we fooling?

As is the case with practically all of the institutional hierarchies in history, particularly those of dominant powers and empires, the US has always had its own means of social credit scoring. It's called a Credit Rating.

Nowadays it's as publicly obvious as a Visa Black credit card, a Marley Hodgson credit card wallet, Louis Vuitton handbags, Cartier sunglasses, and a thousand other markers of social capital and social status competition signifiers in this pervasively ranked society. The details have been outlined by astute social observers from Thorstein Veblen and Vance Packard to Paul Fussell, Tom Wolfe, and Gary Shteyngart.

At the top levels of government power, social credit scoring has long consisted of elite credential signifiers like Ivy League degrees, Rhodes Scholarships, etc. It's gotten much more stratified over the past 40 years, of course- https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/10/luxury/preschool-new-york-city/index.html

""You think college is bad? Try getting into preschool on the Upper East Side," said Amanda Uhry, president of Manhattan Private School Advisors, which charges between $15,000 and $35,000 to 1,500 clients each year to help their kids land a spot in private school. "Some of these preschools get 400 recommendations for 16 spots..."

Really. What is that about, if not initiation into a social credit scoring regime at a level intended to be maintained for a lifetime?

As for the increasing role of digital technology, basic access features like personal vehicle parking are increasingly foreclosed to anyone without a smartphone and credit card. I've heard that in much of northern and western Europe, businesses no longer do cash transactions.

I find this ominous. I don't mind being disdained as a country slacker hillbilly hippie nonentity based on my well-worn clothes and uncombed hair, but at least allow me to park my car on the street and pay for my lunch in cash.

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