Benjamin Franklin, famous for his ability to forge vast networks of trust (consisting of mentors, business partners, fraternities, voluntary associations…) was equally famous for his bad judgment in choosing friends.
Maybe he had a lot of friends, so people got to see a lot more of the distribution than was normal? (There’s also a joke about antifragile in here.)
The cost of these experiments is capped, but the upside is unknown and may well be priceless. If you lend your neighbor a motor saw, you can’t lose more than a motor saw. (In the US, I guess you could get sued as well if your neighbor had watched too much Evil Dead and decided to saw of their hand.) But the upside of motor saw loans can be enormous – high trust transactions for the rest of your life or your neighbors. Whichever is shortest.
And that’s assuming the transactions end there.
When you get people to extend help, they sometimes continue to help just to live up to their self-identity of being someone that helps you. I’m not sure about the psychology here.
Would it make more sense if it was reciprocated? (i.e., when you give people opportunities to help you, they give you more opportunities to do the same? With regard to say, ‘babysitting’, maybe there’s something to be said for efficiency if there’s enough trust.)
If he does, God forbid, I’m going to take a page from the Islamic merchant’s playbook: I’ll slander him in verse. And then I’ll email it to all the connections we share.
This part wasn’t clear. If the neighbor moves? Defects? - then you’ll curse his name?
Or if he continues to be an amazing neighbor but moves, you’ll write songs about how he’s such an amazing neighbor?
… it’s possible that most people just aren’t interested in [tools that help them leverage their trust networks], and that the whole network would devolve into a network of banks that abstract the trust of their account holders, just like today.
It’s also possible to imagine a network which may or may not be about making money off loans, but instead provides members with something like liquidity (like an insurance company), but it’s just a cooperative network.
On Franklin: in Walter Isaacson’s biography, he makes a fairly convincing case that Franklin approached building trust networks deliberately and with great success, but choose friends based on more romantic notions that repeatedly ended in disasters. So I don’t think its a variance thing, but to separate categories of people in his life.
“This part wasn’t clear. If the neighbor moves? Defects? - then you’ll curse his name?” – Sorry for being unclear. I was trying to be funny. What I meant was that one of the things that keeps my neighbor from defecting is the fact that it would cause other people to lose trust in him, which would be costly. (At the moment though, I want to sing his praise. If you ever live close, I can’t recommend him enough.)
Franklin approached building trust networks deliberately and with great success, but choose friends based on more romantic notions that repeatedly ended in disasters.
That’s interesting. I should study Franklin. (The stories sound entertaining, if nothing else.)
The humor came through alright. (Even if the part about that being a merchant tactic didn’t—that’s context the reader is missing, though can pick up on well enough.)
Franklin has a lot to teach. Isaacson’s biography is not detailed enough to be super useful, though. I’d want something more in line with what Robert Caro does for LBJ. If anyone has a suggestion, let me know.
Maybe he had a lot of friends, so people got to see a lot more of the distribution than was normal? (There’s also a joke about antifragile in here.)
And that’s assuming the transactions end there.
Would it make more sense if it was reciprocated? (i.e., when you give people opportunities to help you, they give you more opportunities to do the same? With regard to say, ‘babysitting’, maybe there’s something to be said for efficiency if there’s enough trust.)
This part wasn’t clear. If the neighbor moves? Defects? - then you’ll curse his name?
Or if he continues to be an amazing neighbor but moves, you’ll write songs about how he’s such an amazing neighbor?
It’s also possible to imagine a network which may or may not be about making money off loans, but instead provides members with something like liquidity (like an insurance company), but it’s just a cooperative network.
On Franklin: in Walter Isaacson’s biography, he makes a fairly convincing case that Franklin approached building trust networks deliberately and with great success, but choose friends based on more romantic notions that repeatedly ended in disasters. So I don’t think its a variance thing, but to separate categories of people in his life.
“This part wasn’t clear. If the neighbor moves? Defects? - then you’ll curse his name?” – Sorry for being unclear. I was trying to be funny. What I meant was that one of the things that keeps my neighbor from defecting is the fact that it would cause other people to lose trust in him, which would be costly. (At the moment though, I want to sing his praise. If you ever live close, I can’t recommend him enough.)
That’s interesting. I should study Franklin. (The stories sound entertaining, if nothing else.)
The humor came through alright. (Even if the part about that being a merchant tactic didn’t—that’s context the reader is missing, though can pick up on well enough.)
Franklin has a lot to teach. Isaacson’s biography is not detailed enough to be super useful, though. I’d want something more in line with what Robert Caro does for LBJ. If anyone has a suggestion, let me know.