Rapacious systems can only last so long before collective trust dissipates.
Americans don't trust each other anymore
21–30 of 73 posts
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#22There has been over a decade of propaganda telling people not to trust each other... all post-9/11 messaging intended to create insecurity in the population.
WW2 had a ton of propaganda about distrusting people, yet according to this article that was a very trusting time.
>WW2 had a ton of propaganda about distrusting people
Yes, but that propaganda was nothing compared to the much more advanced and sophisticated level of indoctrination techniques we have in more modern history via mainstream television and radio.
And, don't forget WWII had wonderful internment camps and plenty of racism towards blacks in America. So it wasn't the most trusting place for everyone.
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
That point raises, I believe, the question of what exactly is motivating these digital currencies' adoption, assuming that the strongest economic power has a growing rate of social distrust.
Because bitcoin is an algorithmic solution to exactly that problem - trust in a distributed system, casually known as the Byzantine Generals Problem, or Two Generals problem [1]. The innovators and early adopters were motivated by their understanding of the utility in finally achieving a solution to that problem in the context of digital currency (not historically possible for digital currencies till the invention of…
Just to nitpick a bit, the Two Generals problem is actually different than the Byzantine Generals Problem. 2GP deals with the (simpler) case of achieving consensus in a distributed system with unreliable communications. That is, messages can be reordered, lost or arbitrarily delayed, but end hosts are assumed to be trustworthy. BGP deals with the aforementioned scenario where nodes can be malicious as well.
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#24This article, if not the study itself, is a hash of influences and results.
It seems as if the government makes larger, and riskier mistakes, but it's not as if Vietnam wasn't a similarly large disaster for its time.
The large prison population makes this "African-Americans consistently have expressed far less faith in 'most people' than the white majority does. Racism, discrimination and a high rate of poverty destroy trust." no surprise. But it seems like discrimination and institutionalized hostility toward blacks was at least as bad in the past.
So is it distrust of government? Commerce? One's neighbors? Hard to tell from the article. Some parts of society deserve less trust and we are more aware why this is so.
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#25The stuff we are going through right now might seem scary, but McCarthyism was not exactly the golden age of trust. It was not so long ago that "mainstream" society did not trust blacks, working women, the japanese, or jews. We (royal "we" here, emphasis on the royalty) still don't seem to trust gays, atheists, or many other groups. Mistrust is what keeps humanity sharp, but it is also what has been holding us since the beginning.
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#26[deleted]
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#27Americans also live in a much more diverse and accepting society than they did 40 years ago. Let's give it some time, hmmm? Articles like this make me peevish. I really dislike articles that glorify the 1950s-1990s, in anyway, without acknowledging what a strange time it was. Post-war America deserves far more criticism than it ever receives; I often think this is because boomers have a hard time criticizing the era…
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Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#28And who could blame them. As an outsider who didn't grow up in the U.S. but has spent the past year living here, people are generally amiable and friendly but will take advantage of you for a mile if you give an inch. Rabid consumerism, shows of status, workaholism and an overwhelming feeling of fuck you got mine seems to pervade the collective psyche because you can't really lean on others (save for a few nonconform…
You can't generalize across 300 million people based on one year of personal experiences.
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#29A lot of this is covered in the excellent book "The Cheating Culture", which I recommend. "Bowling Alone", as the article mentions, covers the "stay home and do your own thing" part of it, but the economic system we've set up, I believe, is far a far stronger influence. We've set up a system that's dog-eat-dog, every man for himself, "everything that happens to you is your own fault", "lift yourself up by your bootstraps" and approaching hypercompetition. When it feels like you're one medical emergency, job loss, or bad debt away from homelessness, and have only pathetic (and painted as only for life's losers) safety nets there for you, you're out of necessity going to have to trust less. Add in the fact that many areas in this country have to deal with the daily threat of violence, and you get a toxic brew of distrust.
This is sad for more than sentimental reasons, as the article mentions. The "Economics of Trust" is important for easy dealmaking, credit, and other things. More here:
http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/software-programming-...
Re: Americans don't trust each other anymore
#30And who could blame them. As an outsider who didn't grow up in the U.S. but has spent the past year living here, people are generally amiable and friendly but will take advantage of you for a mile if you give an inch. Rabid consumerism, shows of status, workaholism and an overwhelming feeling of fuck you got mine seems to pervade the collective psyche because you can't really lean on others (save for a few nonconform…
I think you're experiencing some culture shock. Even if you can trust people to be decent, you still have to share norms as to what the other guy considers "decent". Americans tend to have a fairly individualist/independent view of ethical behavior that can be jarring to someone not used to it but it doesn't prevent social cohesion or a trusting society.