In China by 2020 all of it's citizens will be participants in a social credit system. This is one of the first implementations of cyberocracy. Many articles have discussed the dystopian vision by this system but in this post I will take on another angle and present a thought experiment.
What if the government scores us all in secret?
As much as many Americans or other citizens may look in horror at the overt social credit system implemented in China there is at least the benefit that the Chinese know what they have to do and who they have to be to stay on the good side of the Chinese government. The score exists and allows for a feedback loop if you can see how your behavior influences your score just as being graded provides a feedback loop where over time you can learn to get better grades
In the United States or under any government how can we know how our government thinks about us? How can we know for sure there isn't a classified score applied to every citizen where each of us are rated between "good" and "evil" on a secret spectrum and then organized according to secret criteria? We simply don't have a way to know whether or not this is already happening but we do know that these governments of ours collect enough data to easily create a classified citizen rating system.
Being disliked in secret is in many ways worse because you have no way to understand any negative treatment you receive. With a score then your status (how the government views you) is quantified and you can at least know that. Which is worse? Being ranked in secret on a secret classified scoring system or being ranked in public on a public scoring system?
I would say you can make an argument that it is better for the scoring to be public and the criteria known than for it all to be secret and the criteria unknown. I will post more on this topic in the future but for now what are your thoughts?