Trust is hugely important in society. If you have to stop and verify every single thing, it's hugely expensive, which tends to make everyone worse off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...
But the author did even realize half of it. A cashier demoted here or docked pay there is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger cost is how every manager of every corporate store he scammed was put under pressure to look at all employees as insects, for fear that a few bad apples were running a side business doing favors for friends.
I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries.
The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest.
So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.
Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life is. So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anything to you until you see it yourself, firsthand, by looking at reality.
> I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
I am certain that that's not right. Lying, cheating and manipulating will never be a sustainable mode of living. It keeps you dependent on luck and the whims of others, and eventually you will get caught. It's much better to pick any one of 10,000 honest professions and actually live by your own work. It's better to trade with "all of humanity" and live in harmony with others, than to constantly be at war with others.
> Sociopaths for example.
Being a sociopath would be horrible. (They may not realize that themselves--because they don't know any different and/or would rather not face the facts.) Why? Because you'd have to completely give up on all the values you get from enjoying other people---friendships, cooperation, and all forms of romantic love. (Sociopaths may outwardly seem like they have some of these, but in reality, everyone is not only their victim, but also a potential threat when the victim catches on to the game.) Plus the more general issues I mentioned above.
> Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"
I actually agree with the statement "trust is a common good." The problem is, people often assume that esablishing a "common good" is something that requires self-sacrifice from individual people. That's not true in general, and certainly not true in this specific case. Why? Trust is _also_ an individual, personal good. Lying, cheating, and manipultaing people is not a viable way to live a sustainable, happy life.
So, if it's going to be said that "Trust is a common good," I just wanted to add, "... and also a personal good." That's why I said the person's point was a "bad way to look at it." Really, it's just an incomplete way to look at it and possibly misleading, given people's typical assumptions.
Anyway, thanks for the chat and it's nice to know that we have some common ground here.
Interesting, This is a trait that I often find myself admiring about the societies in the west (ie) the Trust that the System has in its people that they wouldn't cheat or exploit. I sometimes thought the System didn't 'go after' the people who exploit it, since it simply wasn't worth the Return on Investments to put checks in place to catch them. I recently traveled to Los Angeles and took the LAX Fly Away (a paid shuttle service) to get to union station. Passengers paid for the ticket at the destination in booth located ~100 meters away & and claimed the baggage using the receipt. But if you did not have any luggage or had only a backpack -- you could simply walk away without paying nothing. There are multiple exits at the food court in my workplace,and you could simply walk away without paying at the counter. Systems like these shocked me initially , it seemed like a glaring loophole but I quickly understood the priciple behind it - "the collective trust the society has accrued over the centuries."
The more I saw these, the principle grew on me. I became less skeptical about the intentions of people and automatically started giving "goodness" points ..even to random people. Prior to seeing this system , I would generally employ far more scrutiny about people and assume they had evil intentions by default ( this is sometimes subjective).
But I did find myself on the receiving end once: I was trying to buy tickets for a Bon Jovi concert a few months ago that was supposed to be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Since the show was sold out, I was looking for deals on CraigsList.I m not a die-hard fan of Bon Jovi and wasn't desperate for the tickets. I called a few people , a lot of them were selling tickets at the face value - I kept eliminating sellers since they were far , or didn't have the number of tickets I wanted or .. were selling 'crappy seats -20$ tickets'. I finally ran into a Lady who was selling four tickets & quoted 240$ for all of them. I asked for the seat number and I couldn't make much from the seating chart. I thought it might be a overhanging balcony or something. I blindly requested if she could drop the prices, and she offered those tickets for 200$ after quickly consulting with her husband. She kept telling thats what they paid , had receipts.. etc.,etc.,
Since these were hard tickets I had to meet them in person to collect the tickets. I said I lived in Palo Alto and.. after a quick consultation with her husband again, she mentioned I could meet her husband at Starbucks in Palo Alto the next morning. Turns out he works for facebook and it wasn't a detour for him. She handed over the phone to him , we exchanged numbers and he asked about where I worked in Palo Alto. I mention the name of my company .. a virtualization giant with 10K+ employees HQed in Palo Alto. He throws a a few names, and ..bang ..starts mentioning the name of my Manager, My director and others . He said he worked with them a few years ago , and I was convinced I was dealing with someone nice. I quickly obliged to the timing he mentioned and closed the deal.I was trying to be nice & asked if I needed to transfer money over paypal. He said it was alright. I ran into my boss after this conversation , mentioned this dude's name and he immediately recognized him. My boss has a very_common_first_name@gmail.com , and I always wonder how he got that account . Years ago , My boss had received a beta invite to create a google account from this dude who worked for Google as well. He spoke of him as a smart person , I came back to my desk and googled for him. There were videos of him explaining how "Release Management" worked in "Facebook".. and how he approves/rejects check-ins, looking at the comment traffic on the review request etc., This person was totally legit.
I got up early next day, drove to the Starbucks we had decided to meet at. I noticed this mid/late 30's person with scruffy beard meddling with his phone. I recognized and walked up to him . He looked up .. clasped my hands and gave a tight handshake , quickly took his wallet out. I took the cash out of my pocket as well .. he irreverently threw four tickets on the table. I handed over the money to him ..picked up the tickets & immediately realized those were four 20$ tickets.. which a bunch of other folks were trying to sell me at face value. I didn't protest ..and simply let him walk away in all the glory of having capitalized the situation. This was a man who has been in three Pre-IPO comapanies as a release engineer or manager : my company , google and facebook. All through I kept assuming , I was buying something for a fair price. I "trusted" he was acting with a reasonable frame of mind ; I gave him "goodness" points for he too has a part in the "accrued collective trust".. I didn't even feel bad for paying those extra dollars .. I couldn't wrap my head around why someone with so much credentials would behave this way. After all, there are people who constantly dent this "collective trust".