During the discussion of Pranknet on Slashdot about a month ago, I saw this comment. It reminded me of our discussions about Newcomb’s problem and superrationality.
I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise.
That’s called selection/observation bias. You’re looking at only one side of the coin.
I’ve lived in countries where there’s a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there’s a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers [and the retailers their customers—SB], but the system works overall). In some countries I’ve been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer.
When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I’ve always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it’s because they’re worried about cops. It’s about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I’ve lived in.
I’ve had neighbors whom I don’t know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don’t think they’re afraid of me beating them up.
There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust.
Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person.
Yeah, looking over his blog, he never has arguments, only shouting matches. Considering his rampaging contempt for everyone who is not himself, I wonder why he even bothers to publish anything at all.
The first theory is diversity, but trust here doesn’t seem to correspond to diversity at all—Norway and Austria are homogenous and on opposite ends. Canada and Belgium are diverse and on opposite ends.
As for other theories, socialist countries are also on both top (Scandinavia) and bottom (Austria, France). Catholic countries seem to be lower than Protestant countries, but Ireland is pretty high, and it might just be Scandinavia making this impression.
So I’m not really sure what trust correlates much with.
socialist countries...Scandinavia...Austria, France
Which countries on that list do you call not socialist? English-speaking ones? Switzerland?
Where can we get objective information about whether people are trusting or trust-worthy, rather than what they say? The Japanese claim to be less trusting than Americans, but they are trustworthy with wallets, if not with umbrellas and bicycles.
and the angry dude argues that Americans should not trust institutions which is completely different from whether they do trust people, which is the topic of the survey and the slashdot entry.
During the discussion of Pranknet on Slashdot about a month ago, I saw this comment. It reminded me of our discussions about Newcomb’s problem and superrationality.
Perpetually angry dude makes the opposite case. Never get an argument with that guy, by the way.
Yeah, looking over his blog, he never has arguments, only shouting matches. Considering his rampaging contempt for everyone who is not himself, I wonder why he even bothers to publish anything at all.
US is higher than most of non-Northern Europe when it comes to trust.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_tru_peo-lifestyle-trust-people
The first theory is diversity, but trust here doesn’t seem to correspond to diversity at all—Norway and Austria are homogenous and on opposite ends. Canada and Belgium are diverse and on opposite ends.
As for other theories, socialist countries are also on both top (Scandinavia) and bottom (Austria, France). Catholic countries seem to be lower than Protestant countries, but Ireland is pretty high, and it might just be Scandinavia making this impression.
So I’m not really sure what trust correlates much with.
Which countries on that list do you call not socialist? English-speaking ones? Switzerland?
Where can we get objective information about whether people are trusting or trust-worthy, rather than what they say? The Japanese claim to be less trusting than Americans, but they are trustworthy with wallets, if not with umbrellas and bicycles.
and the angry dude argues that Americans should not trust institutions which is completely different from whether they do trust people, which is the topic of the survey and the slashdot entry.
US, Japan, and Switzerland seem less socialist than Scandinavia, Austria, and France by standard measures, right?
Questionnaire is a proxy measure, but it’s better proxy than some random blog rant.
Here are some obvious things that might reasonably correlate with trust, but don’t seem to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality