The credit card companies have trained me very well to be really, really concerned about my credit score at all times. I check my credit score about once per week, even though it has always been in the “excellent” range and I have no real reason to check it. I have no reason to care about my credit score (I guess I am fortunate in that way) but I obsess about it nonetheless. It has been drilled into me that it is what responsible, ethical people do. I have internalized that logic as “it’s what people like me do.”

I think about China’s “social credit score” being implemented here in the United States somehow, what with the rise of authoritarianism and all, and marvel at how easy it would be to implement, and how much of it is already in place.