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Comment by nox101 | Hacker News Reader

what is your definition of "high trust society". I don't consider the USA a high trust society having lived in Japan and Singapore. In Japan and Singapore, I trust that others won't steal my stuff. I trust that I won't be mugged. I trust that my packages won't be stolen. I trust that my car will not be broken into.

In the USA and Europe I trust none of that. I've had cars broken into 5 times, bikes stolen 5 times, car stolen once. Reports of people stealing packages. I know I can't trust people at a coffee shop not to steal my laptop while I go to the restroom. Friend have had wallets stolen stopping to take a picture. etc.....

This means I trust no one in the USA or Europe. So to me, the USA an Europe are low trust societies.

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The USA is a large place. I've had bikes stolen (last case 40 years ago - the bikes were left outside unlocked for 5 years and only once were any stolen), but that is all from your list. In every place I've lived some of my neighbors never locked their doors when they left. I have always known people who just leave their keys in their car when they leave it. I lock my front door, but the garage doesn't have a lock and there are some expensive things in there.

Which is to say I find the US is a high trust society where I live. I know there are other places where things are much worse.

The US is slowly (rapidly?) devolving into a low-trust society. What used to be pockets of low-trust are spreading rapidly by my estimation.

It's been sad to watch it slowly get worse every year.

It goes for all things, not just petty/street crime though. Everything from business owners not prioritizing doing good work and building local reputation, employees slacking off as much as possible, investors demanding extreme profits at the expense of everyone else, corporations shipping out entire towns worth of industry to foreign countries, on down to actual crime itself.

It certainly wasn't all roses in the past - but it's a marked change from even my youth. Civic engagement is easy for anyone to see, and that would also be such a symptom.

The U.S. is an extremely litigious society. Even when Lincoln was a young professional, he had the frontier job of… attorney. So there’s something to that which bares examining when discussing how trust gets built and reinforced in American culture. (Probably something about settler culture and property rights and the only way to resolve disagreements about it via the law.)

One wonders how much of the high trust was a product of the immense prosperity unlocked by industrialization, some ameliorating reforms during the Progressive Era that mitigated the excesses of the Gilded Era, the New Deal, and postwar victory.

Have you also noticed all the recalls on pretty much everything we eat? Huge sign that people are not working.

People not working? WTF? It's the direct result of deregulation/self-regulation of the food chain. When the inspectors work for the food processing company, they don't have an incentive to find problems.

You'd think companies would value not killing their customers and market forces would take care of the problem, but, empirically, that's not how it has turned out. Customers are too far from the source; the incentives for fucking off are too high, and too frequently the food processors get away with it. Big-L Libertarianism is not compatible with safe food and medication.

America has always been a low trust society when it came to “others”. Jim Crow was the law when my still living parents were growing up.

They literally didn’t trust people to drink from the same water fountain

My also still living father born in 1945 in the south didn’t live under this after the 60s or so. So how do you explain the gap for the last 65 years?

Having lived in Asia I disagree it's a "high trust" society. I also see it described as "less individualistic and more concerned about the group".

What I observed was a deference to authority. Harsh government punishment for anti-social behavior is accepted and seen as the "role" of the government. While people in Anglo countries might protest against unfair government action, in Asian countries it's much more rare. People in Singapore grumble about how the government might punish behavior, but they keep those conversation to their family and close friends.

In terms of trust or concern, it doesn't extend much beyond the immediate family unit in Asia. I would say respect or concern for strangers is higher in Western countries Many people in Asia are happy to rip off others in Asia (if they think they can get away with it), but even the deadbeat cousin gets money from the family because "it's the right thing to do".

Yeh Japan surprised me in that trust survey, perhaps the question didn't translate well. On a general basis they seem to trust each other even less than most western nations.

Very hard thing to measure.

Just have a look at https://ourworldindata.org/trust. The Anglo countries are all well above the global average (but admittedly East Asia and the Scandinavians have us beat). I'm super impressed by how high trust China is tbh. Apparently, since the recent increase in surveillance (and ability to police petty crime), a lot of folks don't even bother locking up bikes etc.

FWIW the only Anglo country left in the EU is Ireland.

I don't trust that data (haha, trust). how do they ascertain trust? By asking? It might be true that Scandinavians claim they trust their neighbors but those are places where your stuff will get stolen, packages get stolen, you don't leave stuff on a public table to use the restroom if you don't want it stolen. In other words, you can't actually trust people. They list Japan as less trusting, even less trusting than that USA. But, actions speak louder than words. You can trust others in Japan. You can't trust others in LA, NYC, SF Bay Area, Seattle, Chicago, and other major metropolitan areas of the USA (the places where everyone lives.)

So, it seems like their methodology doesn't actually match reality and is why I don't trust their results.

Trust is not just petty crime. It's everything from crime to business transactions and more.

I might leave my laptop on a table while I use a public restroom in China, but I sure as hell trust a business partner far less than I would one in the US on average.

Cultures differ greatly in how trust is assigned and expectations. There are areas in Eastern Europe I would walk through a dark alley at 3am in the 'bad' part of town and not think twice about it. But I sure wouldn't trust their police force to not be corrupt and expect a bribe if they hassled me. The reverse holding true in a major city in the US.

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