The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You • Hacker News Board

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#21

Post by xethos » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #9

WalterBright wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have not lived in “the city,” meaning New York, so I cannot speak from direct experience. I agree that trust is not maintained by moral sentiment alone. But the United States is already a society with relatively harsh punishment, and yet it still has a high crime rate. So I do not think law enforcement is the whole explanation.

That's because having to pay the large fine does not deter crime, and bumping the price does not have a major affect. Increasing the odds of getting caught is much more effective. [0] shows states this outright in the abstract

[0] https://www.economicstrategygroup.org/wp-content/uploads/202...

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#22

Post by jdw64 » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #14

jdw64 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I attended Caltech in the 70s when it had an honor system. An anecdote on how it worked: A fellow student of mine, "Bob", was taking Ama95, a required class that was one of the hardest classes. All exams were take home, open book, open note, but with a time limit of 2 hours. There was no proctoring, and nobody would know if one took extra time or not. Bob took the exam to his dorm room, closed the door, and set the t…

[dead]

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#23

Post by threatofrain » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC

FloorEgg wrote: post #3

jdw64 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This is interesting because there is a cheating epidemic going on in higher education and I'm continuously wondering what happens if it isn't resolved. Students cheating with impunity breeds more students cheating, into a spiral until all students cheat and the credentials becomes meaningless. The credentials enable trust at scale. You're pointing at people leaning on reputations for trust. What happens when the most…

The more people lose trust in your work history and other credentials, the more metaphorical leetcode becomes relevant.

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#24

Post by WalterBright » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:47 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #14

jdw64 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I attended Caltech in the 70s when it had an honor system. An anecdote on how it worked: A fellow student of mine, "Bob", was taking Ama95, a required class that was one of the hardest classes. All exams were take home, open book, open note, but with a time limit of 2 hours. There was no proctoring, and nobody would know if one took extra time or not. Bob took the exam to his dorm room, closed the door, and set the t…

Some evidence that there wasn't rampant cheating:

On a sophomore physics midterm, 60% of the students failed the test (including yours truly). The professor was rather angry about that in the next lecture. Said we needed to work harder.

(Grading on a curve was against institute policy.)

Another unusual oddity: there were no "honors" courses or "weeder" course tracks. No remedial classes, either. (Sadly, Harvard now offers remedial math for their incoming students. Given the intense competition for admission to Harvard, one wonders what their criteria is. The Prof Kingsley days must be long gone.)

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#25

Post by esseph » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

afpx wrote: post #19

two_handfuls wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I spent decades foolishly believing people didn’t cheat because I grew up around a bunch of Christians. I will just say this: "Christians" is not a wholly uniform population.

Good point. Presbyterians specifically

That's... Not what they are saying.

They are saying, ironically, that claimed membership of that group or belief isn't actually a high trust signal.

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#26

Post by throwup238 » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #14

jdw64 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I attended Caltech in the 70s when it had an honor system. An anecdote on how it worked: A fellow student of mine, "Bob", was taking Ama95, a required class that was one of the hardest classes. All exams were take home, open book, open note, but with a time limit of 2 hours. There was no proctoring, and nobody would know if one took extra time or not. Bob took the exam to his dorm room, closed the door, and set the t…

Caltech still has the honor system and it was in full effect when I was there in the 2000s-2010s. According to a family member attending as undergrad now, it hasn’t changed.

(Was PCC the local college? That also hasn’t changed except for higher fees and a nicer engineering building)

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#27

Post by WalterBright » Sat, May 09, 2026, 1:54 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #26

WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attended Caltech in the 70s when it had an honor system. An anecdote on how it worked: A fellow student of mine, "Bob", was taking Ama95, a required class that was one of the hardest classes. All exams were take home, open book, open note, but with a time limit of 2 hours. There was no proctoring, and nobody would know if one took extra time or not. Bob took the exam to his dorm room, closed the door, and set the t…

Caltech still has the honor system and it was in full effect when I was there in the 2000s-2010s. According to a family member attending as undergrad now, it hasn’t changed. (Was PCC the local college? That also hasn’t changed except for higher fees and a nicer engineering building)

No, the local college was in Kansas where my parents lived.

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#28

Post by surgical_fire » Sat, May 09, 2026, 2:04 AM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> but I do not think the problem is capitalism itself as much as institutions and structures that force short-term rewards.

Capitalism, at least its currently flavor, seems to increasingly favor short term rewards.

Nothing is planned and built for the long term. Companies have no interest in selling you a product that lasts forever. Planned obsolescence and things built to fail are commonplace. In fact they would rather not sell you products, but that you rent them instead.

Governments operate on short term election cycles. Corporations operate in quarterly reports. If something makes sense for the long term but is bad on the short term, it is scraped.

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#29

Post by analognoise » Sat, May 09, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

afpx wrote: post #19

two_handfuls wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I spent decades foolishly believing people didn’t cheat because I grew up around a bunch of Christians. I will just say this: "Christians" is not a wholly uniform population.

Good point. Presbyterians specifically

I think they meant Christians cheat a lot (or, enough of them do so as to not be a high trust signal).

Re: The Tax of Living in a Low-Trust Society: How Collapsed Trust Costs You

#30

Post by kelipso » Sat, May 09, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

People have gotten more and more exposed to how the government and politicians have been lying to them for decades. What would you expect but a low trust society with this.