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I don't see this problem of trust evidencing itself anywhere in my daily life. I do not commonly consider that my bank will become corrupt and take my money, or

I don't see this problem of trust evidencing itself anywhere in my daily life. I do not commonly consider that my bank will become corrupt and take my money, or that the county land manager will take my property because of nepotism. 90% of the websites I have accounts with haven't abused my trust in any significant way, other than data breaches. I understand that these things are possible. But it doesn't seem worth any level of effort to a resolve a problem that doesn't occur and doesn't seem likely

anonporridge 5y ago
You're on this site, so you're probably an economically valuable human with social connections to other economically valuable humans. If that's the case, then you're not the ideal target for corrupt people abusing their power. You would create too much of a ruckus if people in power started unfairly abusing you. Privilege creates a bubble that can easily blind you to the abuses that are actively happening all around you. You and I often don't hear about those abuses because we humans can only really keep track of a couple hundred other humans, and there are over 300 million in the US alone. There could absolutely be millions of people getting abused by people in power who don't have the education to understand that they're being abused or the social connections push their stories out to people who could do something about it. As a simple example, white Americans see videos emerging of innocent black Americans getting violently abused by police in a way we can't even fathom in our privilege, and black Americans are completely unsurprised, saying "yeah, this is totally normal. We've been trying to tell you about it for decades but you never believed us." Trevor Noah has a good dialog on this, https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/877533496515989506 https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/877533496515989506 There's also an element of "everyone hates the violent young men in their community until the barbarians are pounding down the city gates". Or like Fauci said early in the pandemic, something to the effect of "if we do a good job, everyone will wonder why we overreacted about nothing." More often than not, bad things don't happen precisely because of the efforts of people assuming they're definitely going to happen, which then leads to the next generation that never experienced the bad things wondering why we're wasting effort on this thing that doesn't happen.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  That is a fair point (but I'd point to the Australian Banking Royal Commission over and above Police racism if you're looking to show how financial institutions violate the trust of undereducated/underprivileged people). I don't think crypto is the right solution, though. If anything, it requires _more_ trust from vulnerable people than traditional finance, and without any central authority it's difficult to regulate.
- hooande 5y ago
  I agree with what you're saying. But I think there is a certain level of risk where the "average person" can experience negative effects. Society, by definition, is comprised of average people. Until something is likely affect them, they don't care much about it. In my personal experience this applies to politics, climate change, trust in institutions and many other "big" concepts. People I know tend to be fully focused on their families, their careers and their hobbies. Anything that won't materially impact one of those things is trivia. This seems to be true of most humans, throughout history. I don't see mass adoption of any system that solves the problem of trust until regular violations of that trust impact the median citizen.
rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
You don't see it because you are not looking for it. It is real, and you are, for example, being robbed of value in fiat currencies in your bank account every year due to inflation. How much you are aware and want to do something about it is the trick. Ive had banks steal from me. Ive had companies steal from me. Ive had governments steal from me. Eventually you say, enough is enough, and find concrete solutions. Theft? of my property? Its more likely than you think.
- RuggedPineapple 5y ago
  I want to know how much kool-aid you need to drink before you get to inflation is theft.

anonporridge 5y ago

You're on this site, so you're probably an economically valuable human with social connections to other economically valuable humans. If that's the case, then you're not the ideal target for corrupt people abusing their power. You would create too much of a ruckus if people in power started unfairly abusing you. Privilege creates a bubble that can easily blind you to the abuses that are actively happening all around you. You and I often don't hear about those abuses because we humans can only really keep track of a couple hundred other humans, and there are over 300 million in the US alone. There could absolutely be millions of people getting abused by people in power who don't have the education to understand that they're being abused or the social connections push their stories out to people who could do something about it. As a simple example, white Americans see videos emerging of innocent black Americans getting violently abused by police in a way we can't even fathom in our privilege, and black Americans are completely unsurprised, saying "yeah, this is totally normal. We've been trying to tell you about it for decades but you never believed us." Trevor Noah has a good dialog on this, https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/877533496515989506 https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/877533496515989506 There's also an element of "everyone hates the violent young men in their community until the barbarians are pounding down the city gates". Or like Fauci said early in the pandemic, something to the effect of "if we do a good job, everyone will wonder why we overreacted about nothing." More often than not, bad things don't happen precisely because of the efforts of people assuming they're definitely going to happen, which then leads to the next generation that never experienced the bad things wondering why we're wasting effort on this thing that doesn't happen.

AussieWog93 5y ago
That is a fair point (but I'd point to the Australian Banking Royal Commission over and above Police racism if you're looking to show how financial institutions violate the trust of undereducated/underprivileged people). I don't think crypto is the right solution, though. If anything, it requires _more_ trust from vulnerable people than traditional finance, and without any central authority it's difficult to regulate.
hooande 5y ago
I agree with what you're saying. But I think there is a certain level of risk where the "average person" can experience negative effects. Society, by definition, is comprised of average people. Until something is likely affect them, they don't care much about it. In my personal experience this applies to politics, climate change, trust in institutions and many other "big" concepts. People I know tend to be fully focused on their families, their careers and their hobbies. Anything that won't materially impact one of those things is trivia. This seems to be true of most humans, throughout history. I don't see mass adoption of any system that solves the problem of trust until regular violations of that trust impact the median citizen.

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago

You don't see it because you are not looking for it. It is real, and you are, for example, being robbed of value in fiat currencies in your bank account every year due to inflation. How much you are aware and want to do something about it is the trick. Ive had banks steal from me. Ive had companies steal from me. Ive had governments steal from me. Eventually you say, enough is enough, and find concrete solutions. Theft? of my property? Its more likely than you think.

RuggedPineapple 5y ago
I want to know how much kool-aid you need to drink before you get to inflation is theft.