[TeMPOraL]

It really isn't, per what 'pdpi wrote. What we should do is being maximally trusting (to reap the efficiency benefits), and punish hard anyone trying to take advantage of it, way out of proportion compared to the magnitude of the violation, in order to discourage people from abusing the trust of others.

The goal really is to let everyone be safe in trusting others to the point of naivete, because trust is that huge of an efficiency hack.

(I mean, think of the ridiculous amounts of energy Bitcoin wastes with its proof-of-work scheme, precisely because it tries to replace trust with computation. This energy is what trust saves you.)

[mrkstu]

I spent much of my youth in Utah, and it is probably the epitome of this.

Best state Gini coefficient [0]. Great income mobility (also best in US [1]).

It also has a rampant fraud/ponzi/mlm issue [3]. They come from the same source- There is a general level of trust that is much higher than anywhere else I've lived or experienced. Mostly rooted in a trust in others is part and parcel of the culture and dominant religion. I don't think the upsides would be achievable without the downsides that seem endemic to it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_co... [1] https://business.utah.gov/news/utah-at-top-in-nation-for-upw... [3] https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900068203/does-utah-dese...

[darkteflon]

I’ve lived in Tokyo for 14 years and think that this characterisation also applies here. Comparatively low Gini coefficient, very high level of community trust and susceptibility to endemic fraud.

[Waterluvian]

I have a great example from today of the efficiency of trust.

I went to a three storey old factory turned into an antiques store. 150 000 square feet. Three floors of booths of all kinds of stuff. Coins, cards, collectibles, toys, furniture, everything. The whole place had maybe five visible employees. It was all consignment. You'd pick up $300 worth of nicknacks from the top floor and walk it down to the first floor to buy. It's incredibly easy to steal from if you wanted.

So what I see are hundreds of individual vendors that don't need to be at their booth because of the trust between vendors, the managers, and the public.

If we were part of a culture where theft was all but guaranteed, that store just wouldn't be able to exist.

[skybrian]

Very true, trust matters, but it might help a bit that many antiques aren't useful in themselves and aren't that easy to sell. If they were selling razors or baby formula, maybe things would be different?

Do you think they have cameras?

[Waterluvian]

I don't want to get into the implementation details of this store as that's not the point of my anecdote. Either trust me that this place was an example of trust, or don't. ;)

[codedokode]

Coins are easy to sell.

[luckylion]

> What we should do is being maximally trusting (to reap the efficiency benefits), and punish hard anyone trying to take advantage of it, way out of proportion compared to the magnitude of the violation, in order to discourage people from abusing the trust of others.

Are we doing that, though? It feels like we're generally very trusting and, organized in society, very forgiving. Hell, in lots of business cases, cheating makes money, getting caught and paying a fine is just the cost of doing business - and it pays.

I understand the theory, and I agree. I don't see it being applied however.

[TeMPOraL]

We're not doing that, and that's why you see trust being continuously eroded. I'm of the belief that trust is the very fundamental building block of a society, and so crimes against public trust should be punished severely. Manslaughter-level severely, not with a slap on the wrist via a symbolic fine.

[somebodythere]

> punish hard anyone trying to take advantage of it, way out of proportion compared to the magnitude of the violation, in order to discourage people from abusing the trust of others.

I strongly disagree. This would make sense if humans were all rational actors who only took an action after performing the risk calculus of expected reward vs. potential punishment. But that's not how humans work, and thinking this way only results in a justice system that is unnecessarily cruel, ignores rehabilitation, and doesn't actually work that well at preventing crime.

Relevant sources:

Sentence Severity and Crime: Accepting the Null Hypothesis "Most reviews conclude that there is little or no consistent evidence that harsher sanctions reduce crime rates in Western populations[1]."

Do Harsher Prison Conditions Reduce Recidivism? "Inmates housed in higher security levels are no less likely to recidivate than those housed in minimum security; if anything, our estimates suggest that harsher prison conditions lead to more post-release crime.[2]"

[1] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/652230

[2] http://www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Chen_Shapiro_2007.pdf

[TeMPOraL]

I spent past 30 minutes skimming the first paper (available here[0]). Fine, so severity itself doesn't really work as a deterrent - with the caveat made by study, that it applies to "variation within the limits that are plausible in Western countries". I.e. changing the punishment of some crime from 2 years to 3 years does not create meaningful extra deterrence; changing it from 2 years to 25 years or capital punishment just might. I'd argue that changing the punishment from "a fine" to "prison sentence" may just do the trick too.

> This would make sense if humans were all rational actors who only took an action after performing the risk calculus of expected reward vs. potential punishment. But that's not how humans work

This is indeed how humans work sometimes. Not in the heat of the moment, but when coldly calculating how to make more money with less effort. Fraud is not a crime of passion, it's premeditated, evaluated in advance. More certainty of consequences, and perhaps the severity of them, may be what's needed to further reduce it.

--

[0] - http://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1086/652230

[skybrian]

There are situations when living in a trusting society can be helpful, but on the other hand, predictable consequences are probably a better idea when raising children, and also for encouraging people to trust that the system itself is fair. Rare, severe, apparently random punishment tends not to be associated with justice.

[TeMPOraL]

> Rare, severe, apparently random punishment tends not to be associated with justice.

In the dream/goal I presented I was hoping for swift, indiscriminate and - yes - severe justice. The lack of all three wrt. crimes against public or even individual trust is a problem for contemporary societies.

[jlokier]

In your presentation, the severe justice was to discourage breaches of trust.

But that doesn't work if the justice is "apparently random".

If that is how it's perceived, then trust violators will have no incentive to avoid violation. They, and everyone else, will believe that it doesn't matter whether they violate trust or not, since justice is a lottery ticket given to everyone, where the prize is punishment, and it doesn't matter what you do.

[TeMPOraL]

I appreciate the distinction between being random, and seeming random. But this is a solvable problem, one particularly benefiting from rules being applied to rule enforcers - applying justice "at random" (in particular, in a corrupt way) is a violation of public trust too.