Economically, yes. Though that’s just one aspect of it. On the margin I’d expect more to go further, as you can absorb costs easier. But again, that’s just economically (although it’s very important!). There’s also a difference between society in general and people around you, e.g. can you trust a random person with your most embarrassing secrets is a different matter from whether you can trust them to not abscond with your wallet—both require trust, but of a different kind.
It’s hard to say what a minimum is. Just avoiding hunger and having a roof over your head in practice won’t be enough for lots of people as long as the Jones’ have more. And that’s also part of the problem, as then you have to invest in defenses against other people’s envy or requests.
can you trust a random person with your most embarrassing secrets is a different matter from whether you can trust them to not abscond with your wallet—both require trust, but of a different kind.
So there is one thing, which is having an institution that can send policemen after the person and retrieve the money for you. Some countries have better institutions for this than others.
If the other person can take your money and get away with it, is trusting them with money really all that different from trusting them with information? Both require studying a) are they inherently aligned with you in some way and b) can you threaten them with consequences, how will the gossip network around both of you react if you told them what had happened.
And that’s also part of the problem, as then you have to invest in defenses against other people’s envy or requests.
Money trust is a subset of general trust. Someone running away with your money has different consequences that someone ruining your reputation. Maybe its more that the resulting costs are in different dimensions? From that perspective there’s not much of a difference in the deeper mechanisms—you have to invest in defenses and that reduces your options a lot.
I think the deeper thing here is that if you have a high enough trust between members of a group, certain whole categories of danger just disappear. You don’t have to consider whether you’ll be able to recoup costs or whether you will be able to credibly threaten them with consequences. These kinds of actions just aren’t on the table. Leaving your wallet on the table is not an issue, as it’s unthinkable that someone would take it. Letting people know that you think pineapple on pizza is actually good isn’t something to worry about, as it’s unthinkable that you’d lose reputation because of it.
(unthinkable being an exaggeration here—its in the sense of not worrying about being hit by a meterorite)
If it take what you’re saying as literally true, your way of thinking is somewhat alien to me. I’m unsure how literally to take it.
There’s a difference between “this person will steal my money with probability less than 1%” and “this person is physically incapable of running the thought process that leads to them stealing my money”.
Maybe I live in a lower trust culture than yours and this influences me. I might have to see actual video or irl examples of what you talk about.
Or maybe I do see human brains as hackable machines to a greater extent than someone in your culture. I think more-or-less anyone can be motivated to turn on their neighbour with either a sufficiently large incentive (money, fear of social disapproval, safety), or a sufficiently persuasive ideology. And sure, some ideologies are extremely hard to persuade someone out of (let’s say they are religious) but hard is not the same as impossible.
I was somewhat afraid that using “unthinkable” would be too excessive. It’s more like you (hopefully!) not needing to worry about being murdered during a random shopping excursion. There are places where this is something you have to keep in the back of your mind. There are other places where the probablilty of this is so low that it just won’t occur to most people. Or how as a tall male, I don’t think I’ve ever worried about being raped (though I acknowledge it as a possibility) - it’s just too unlikely to bother thinking about it.
I’m currently in Iceland on a trip. Today I stopped at a rest area and someone had left a plastic box with jam jars and a money box, the idea being that if you want a jar, you take one and leave the appropriate amount of money. For me it’s astonishing that someone can be so trusting in other people that they’d just leave it there. But here it seems that the person who left it just… assumed that people are honest? If this assumption holds (and I’m guessing it does?) they’ve saved a whole bunch of time in that they can just drive up once a day to take the cash, where otherwise they’d have to either sit around waiting for someone to buy a jar or just forgo the opportunity.
Strictly speaking, I think it’s a matter of the brain just disregarding outcomes with a probabilty below a certain threshold (assuming correct calibration—people scared of planes or hoping to win the lottery are using other mechanisms). If you have a high enough trust in a given group of people, you can just disregard a lot of potentially negative outcomes, as the probability of them happening are below the threshold of caring. So if you think it’s 0.01% likely for a person in a given group (where group can be “one of my friends”, “a random punk”, “a fellow dane” or whatever) to take your money, and your threshold for thinking about that possibility is 0.1%, then you just won’t think twice about leaving your wallet with a person from that group.
I think this makes more sense for short rather than long periods of time. The morality of people in your village is unlikely to change in one day to the point where they will steal it, but it can change over a period of 10 years.
Speaking about my situation personally:
Random stranger I meet stealing my money is always above threshold.
Random stranger I meet beating me up is usually below threshold but sometimes above threshold depending on situation.
Friend/family stealing my money is usually below threshold for small amounts and above threshold for large amounts.
Friend/family beating me up is usually below threshold but sometimes above threshold depending on situation.
I might not wanna talk too much about it publicly but, I do have a sense of what the triggers are, for a situation I face to suddenly go above threshold. Ofcourse my triggers could be poorly calibrated to reality (or worse, become a self-fulfilling prophecy as described in the post).
Yes, this is a short term thing which is (usually?) unstable and requires actively pouring energy into maintaining. A group that has a chance of this working long term usually has specific people that act as gateways—sometimes introducing a new person, sometimes getting rid of a person who shouldn’t be there. It’s another side of keeping gardens well pruned. They also tend to be insular, as otherwise it’s too easy for the wrong person to enter.
Economically, yes. Though that’s just one aspect of it. On the margin I’d expect more to go further, as you can absorb costs easier. But again, that’s just economically (although it’s very important!). There’s also a difference between society in general and people around you, e.g. can you trust a random person with your most embarrassing secrets is a different matter from whether you can trust them to not abscond with your wallet—both require trust, but of a different kind.
It’s hard to say what a minimum is. Just avoiding hunger and having a roof over your head in practice won’t be enough for lots of people as long as the Jones’ have more. And that’s also part of the problem, as then you have to invest in defenses against other people’s envy or requests.
So there is one thing, which is having an institution that can send policemen after the person and retrieve the money for you. Some countries have better institutions for this than others.
If the other person can take your money and get away with it, is trusting them with money really all that different from trusting them with information? Both require studying a) are they inherently aligned with you in some way and b) can you threaten them with consequences, how will the gossip network around both of you react if you told them what had happened.
Yes agree!
Money trust is a subset of general trust. Someone running away with your money has different consequences that someone ruining your reputation. Maybe its more that the resulting costs are in different dimensions? From that perspective there’s not much of a difference in the deeper mechanisms—you have to invest in defenses and that reduces your options a lot.
I think the deeper thing here is that if you have a high enough trust between members of a group, certain whole categories of danger just disappear. You don’t have to consider whether you’ll be able to recoup costs or whether you will be able to credibly threaten them with consequences. These kinds of actions just aren’t on the table. Leaving your wallet on the table is not an issue, as it’s unthinkable that someone would take it. Letting people know that you think pineapple on pizza is actually good isn’t something to worry about, as it’s unthinkable that you’d lose reputation because of it.
(unthinkable being an exaggeration here—its in the sense of not worrying about being hit by a meterorite)
If it take what you’re saying as literally true, your way of thinking is somewhat alien to me. I’m unsure how literally to take it.
There’s a difference between “this person will steal my money with probability less than 1%” and “this person is physically incapable of running the thought process that leads to them stealing my money”.
Maybe I live in a lower trust culture than yours and this influences me. I might have to see actual video or irl examples of what you talk about.
Or maybe I do see human brains as hackable machines to a greater extent than someone in your culture. I think more-or-less anyone can be motivated to turn on their neighbour with either a sufficiently large incentive (money, fear of social disapproval, safety), or a sufficiently persuasive ideology. And sure, some ideologies are extremely hard to persuade someone out of (let’s say they are religious) but hard is not the same as impossible.
I was somewhat afraid that using “unthinkable” would be too excessive. It’s more like you (hopefully!) not needing to worry about being murdered during a random shopping excursion. There are places where this is something you have to keep in the back of your mind. There are other places where the probablilty of this is so low that it just won’t occur to most people. Or how as a tall male, I don’t think I’ve ever worried about being raped (though I acknowledge it as a possibility) - it’s just too unlikely to bother thinking about it.
I’m currently in Iceland on a trip. Today I stopped at a rest area and someone had left a plastic box with jam jars and a money box, the idea being that if you want a jar, you take one and leave the appropriate amount of money. For me it’s astonishing that someone can be so trusting in other people that they’d just leave it there. But here it seems that the person who left it just… assumed that people are honest? If this assumption holds (and I’m guessing it does?) they’ve saved a whole bunch of time in that they can just drive up once a day to take the cash, where otherwise they’d have to either sit around waiting for someone to buy a jar or just forgo the opportunity.
Strictly speaking, I think it’s a matter of the brain just disregarding outcomes with a probabilty below a certain threshold (assuming correct calibration—people scared of planes or hoping to win the lottery are using other mechanisms). If you have a high enough trust in a given group of people, you can just disregard a lot of potentially negative outcomes, as the probability of them happening are below the threshold of caring. So if you think it’s 0.01% likely for a person in a given group (where group can be “one of my friends”, “a random punk”, “a fellow dane” or whatever) to take your money, and your threshold for thinking about that possibility is 0.1%, then you just won’t think twice about leaving your wallet with a person from that group.
Thanks! I love this answer.
I think this makes more sense for short rather than long periods of time. The morality of people in your village is unlikely to change in one day to the point where they will steal it, but it can change over a period of 10 years.
Speaking about my situation personally:
Random stranger I meet stealing my money is always above threshold.
Random stranger I meet beating me up is usually below threshold but sometimes above threshold depending on situation.
Friend/family stealing my money is usually below threshold for small amounts and above threshold for large amounts.
Friend/family beating me up is usually below threshold but sometimes above threshold depending on situation.
I might not wanna talk too much about it publicly but, I do have a sense of what the triggers are, for a situation I face to suddenly go above threshold. Ofcourse my triggers could be poorly calibrated to reality (or worse, become a self-fulfilling prophecy as described in the post).
Yes, this is a short term thing which is (usually?) unstable and requires actively pouring energy into maintaining. A group that has a chance of this working long term usually has specific people that act as gateways—sometimes introducing a new person, sometimes getting rid of a person who shouldn’t be there. It’s another side of keeping gardens well pruned. They also tend to be insular, as otherwise it’s too easy for the wrong person to enter.
I avoid groups like the plague. My best relationships are all 1-to-1 and will be affected zero if any group or mutuals break apart.
I agree building groups long-term is hard. I don’t have very deep understanding of why.
It might be worth creating some sort of internet survey to measure this.