9 ms·

A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to d

A good article, but missing one very important word: trust. Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. Said society also finds it incredibly important to remove or nullify those who aren't trustworthy because "a rotten apple spoils the whole bunch". Trust is hard to earn, and easy to lose, and it only takes one person exploiting the trustworthy without consequence to ruin a good thing. So no you can't build a system that's meets all of the article's criteria because almost all of them rely on the unspoken rule of trust in civil society. Everything built for good can be abused for evil.

Johnny_Bonk 2mo ago
Yes good point and in theory that's how it should work and mostly does. The interesting thing we're seeing is how it's playing out at a societal level with regards to the manipulation, gaslighting, cheating and bullying. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in individual interpersonal relationships, it sometimes takes a while for the victim to fully understand what's being done to them because the abuser is not only doing harmful things but then they also gaslight, manipulate, lie, etc. There's usually a lag effect for first time victims to fully understand what's being done to them, and now at a societal level it's taking a while for groups to understand the same pattern. The most unfortunate part of it all though is how many people and institutions are 'in on it' perse and continously prop up horrible behavior because it also suits them or in the case of bullying, they go along with the bullying so as to shield themselves from being the target.
- salynchnew 2mo ago
  It is kind of funny and sad that in the U.S. we've gone from corporations virtue-signalling to vice signalling in just a few years.
  - pjc50 2mo ago
    Having experienced vice signalling, I'm never going to complain about virtue signalling again.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    They signal to whoever's in charge of the government. Sone people in charge respond to virtues, others respond to vices.
cwmoore 2mo ago
But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".
- jMyles 2mo ago
  I think the ideal number of _prisons_ (as distinct from jails / pretrial confinement) is zero. This whole charade in the USA of dressing up slavery (without even a single day of interruption on January 31, 1865) as "correction" is absurd. It's obviously a way to continue an economy that relies on a supply of involuntary labor, and has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. There are plenty of ways to implement restorative justice which are superior to forcing convicts to make starbucks uniforms (start here if you've never delved into this, but there are great books on the topic which you can find from here: https://harvardpolitics.com/restorative-justice-abolition/ https://harvardpolitics.com/restorative-justice-abolition/).
  - cwmoore 2mo ago
    That too. The check of "without due process" did not undo that rebranding or its many modern forms.
  - tony69 2mo ago
    Some crimes are bad enough that the perpetrators don’t deserve second chances. I’m ok with punishment for its own sake in some cases even if it would be more “cost effective” or “productive” for society to rehabilitate.
    - cwmoore 2mo ago
      Sure, again bad apples, but one size fits sentences to the same institution? They are not all of the people ever arrested, or all of the time, or even most, and still the fundamentally medieval violence we orient by.
    - 542354234235 2mo ago
Imustaskforhelp 2mo ago
Beautifully said. I feel as if the society that we are living in does have a lot of implicit trust and if I may, I would like to add onto it with a few things. Trust works in a society when incentives are aligned with trust ie. you trust the society, the society trusts you back and you do the work with these principles and you are rewarded. Even this belief is something that you must trust that the society is fair. This trust creates your beliefs which sets your base-line incentives. If your society is trustworthy and you are taught to be trustworthy and you see that the rewards are fairly distributed being trustworthy. It creates an incentives to be trustworthy yourself and a society is made by people like you and so everyone else does so too and the society becomes trustworthy and the cycle continues. You would trust the society because you think your goals are aligned. Both you and society want the same thing. BUT, the second the average individual works that the society or system is untrustworthy, that the incentives aren't aligned and I can't trust it. The thing now is that the incentives are so misaligned with the reality of trustworthiness and it has become apparently clear. The incentives have also become unpredictable and questionable sometimes within the society and yet we see society tolerate, dare I say celebrate it sometimes. This makes us question if my personal incentives are aligned with society or not and if I am getting screwed or not by being so trustworthy of society and doing things fairly. This in turns creates a vicious loop. As such, fairness, trust and incentives play a very cyclical dependency on each other. You only trust if you feel like its fair and if the incentives prefer you to be fair as well. I would sadly say that although our society is trending towards unfairness,untrustworthiness and perverse incentives. I do have a glimmer of hope that this too shall pass.
- ryandrake 2mo ago
  People have given up on the very concept of society. Everyone is racing to shred the Social Contract and revert society back to Do What You Can Get Away With lawlessness. We're replacing institutions with individualism. We're replacing "We're all in it together" with "We're in it for ourselves." We're replacing collective stewardship of shared resources with "I got mine, fuck everyone else!" One's Community has stopped being the fundamental atomic unit we organize around, in favor of their Tribe, their Family, or themselves as an individual. We no longer are capable of coordinated, collective action that benefits society.
readthenotes1 2mo ago
Trust is a Continuum. I have relatives who grew up in places where you didn't need to lock the door at night and those who have to lock the door at night but that's enough and those for who that is not enough. I am reminded of a story I read lately of a woman who was shocked when her passport and purse were stolen from the beach while she was swimming. Somehow she had the perception that she was in a high trust worthy zone even though she had been doing her doctoral thesis work in a low trust society.
- cwmoore 2mo ago
  Sounds very binary, I don’t see the continuum. More like a steep cliff of shocking betrayal.
  - 9x39 2mo ago
    In the same society, some people personally experience that others are capable of robbery & much worse within days and some learn it within decades, and everything in between. Some may never have to confront this, all within the same city/state/country. We could represent time-to-reality on a number line.
    - bombcar 2mo ago
      You can turn a low trust society into a high one by just having nothing whatsoever worth anything.
      - stirfish 2mo ago
        Maybe. There are a lot of online games where nothing is worth anything, but I don't think those are default high-trust societies. People will log in just to annoy the other players.
        cwmoore 2mo ago
        Sounds like they trust the game’s anonymity and privacy policies.
3abiton 2mo ago
> trust One interesting aspect ij academic literature about trust, it is highly reverse correlated with diversity. No matter the grouping and size, the more diverse, the less trust within the group.
- datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
  Nit: it's not objective diversity that matters, but the perception of diversity. The distinction is important because I've been in many rooms that my father would have considered diverse, but I am not even remotely phased by it. Our definition of "diversity" looks nothing like the definition of "diversity" for a tribe of 20 hunter gatherers who never left the 600 verdant acres that they called home. You can alter your own reality by convincing yourself that someone is or is not like yourself ("diverse"), especially by consuming specific types of media - perhaps media that is produced with intention of you distrusting certain people. Again, it's an important distinction to draw, lest you be drawn in to certain misanthropic theories based on flimsy "proof".
blooalien 2mo ago
> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. I was taught as a child that most people deep down genuinely want to be "good people". If only I had known what an absolute lie that really truly was, I'd have chosen a very different path for my life. Going out of my way to be a "good person" to the best of my ability was a total waste of a life that could have been spent in the pursuit of wealth and power, which I would have been very good at, had I not foolishly chosen to adhere to a "moral code" that was based on fantasy and naivety and a "reality" that just didn't exist as it was taught in schools, churches, and homes.
- williamcotton 2mo ago
  Pick up a copy of Crime and Punishment ASAP.
- nicerice 2mo ago
  Having made similar experiences, I do have to say your conclusion to not be the good person isn't in your own interest, especially, but even otherwise, if your goal is power and wealth. People like good things. They'll go out of their way to expend time, energy and money to have "good". You could be the source of that good and receive all of these if you try to truly understand others' view of what's good. Coercive systems do happen, but rarely last, because people will also spend time, energy and money to get rid of them. Just don't be fooled that there's a universal moral code. What's good for one might not be for another. You might appreciate "Science and Human Behaviour" by B.F. Skinner if you're interested in the mechanics of it.
- Waterluvian 2mo ago
  > which I would have been very good at If you indeed lived morally you probably can’t know this.
- jyunwai 2mo ago
  It's a recipe for unhappiness to believe in either extreme: either that it's a waste of life to try and live by morals, or that one should shun wealth and influence to live a good life (and give up financial security). I wasn't happy at all to end up associating with people who were zero-sum, transactional, and only valued wealth and fame. That can promote a constant sense of insecurity and lack of trust, which prevents the formation of true connections to others (which I've found to be important). I've been very happy to find myself with groups of people, in work contexts and elsewhere, who try to care for others while pursuing their personal goals. There's a sense of belonging and security.
rayiner 2mo ago
> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing The phrase "the right thing" is load-bearing, to steal a Claudeism. The Muslim Brotherhood that ran the country before El-Sisi thought they were doing "the right thing." El-Sisi also thought he was doing "the right thing." Egyptians mostly thought El-Sisi was doing “the right thing” during this time period. According to multiple independent opinion polls, his approval rating was high during this period because people were grateful to have stability. In any society, you're going to have diverse views of "the right thing." To have a functioning civil society, you actually need the opposite of what you're saying. You need a collective general trust that people will follow the rules regardless of what they think is "the right thing." Logic compels this conclusion. People who disagree on fundamental aspects of how the world and society should work cannot cooperate in a civil society if we trust that everyone will follow their vision of "the right thing." The only way we can cooperate is if we agree to neutral rules and procedures, and have a collective general trust that we'll all follow the rules regardless of our view of wrong or right. The thing I admire most about Anglo-American culture is that people will jump off a bridge if you give them a court order that complies with all required procedural formalities. That's how you create a civil society.
- edot 2mo ago
  But who decides which rules are neutral? Even this is relative and subjective. Laws are not inherently neutral. A pH of 7 is only neutral because it is bounded by 0 on the left and 14 on the right. In a different system, perhaps it would be from 10 to 30 and thus a pH of 20 would be neutral.
  - rayiner 2mo ago
    > But who decides which rules are neutral You’re correct that rules are themselves to an high degree arbitrary. They can only be imposed by a source of authority that’s beyond question: God(s), elders, founding fathers, kings, etc. In the case of the U.S. it’s historical inertia going back to 1215.
    - 2mo ago
cobbzilla 2mo ago
I dunno, trust is a good foundation, and then you need some good ole fashioned checks and balances, required transparency & record-keeping. I sense that the checks-and-balances & record-keeping around mass-force-push SMS in the US are now extremely stringent especially after the Hawaii incident. And I'm OK with the current situation here. OTOH, the checks-and-balances/transparency situation around LPR camera networks is... basically non-existent. I am not OK with the current situation here. Both of these situations in the same (relatively) high-trust US. The difference is one has some serious regulations around it, and the other is cowboying shit.
- Muromec 2mo ago
  Trust is not a foundation of it, trust is a /resource/ that is produces by checks, balances, transparency and record keeping that reliably show how feedback function reliably catches up with most of the stuff that it's supposed to. The opposite state of affairs is /corruption/.
antonvs 2mo ago
I’m curious whether you think that civil society, by your definition, still exists in the US today.

Johnny_Bonk 2mo ago

Yes good point and in theory that's how it should work and mostly does. The interesting thing we're seeing is how it's playing out at a societal level with regards to the manipulation, gaslighting, cheating and bullying. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in individual interpersonal relationships, it sometimes takes a while for the victim to fully understand what's being done to them because the abuser is not only doing harmful things but then they also gaslight, manipulate, lie, etc. There's usually a lag effect for first time victims to fully understand what's being done to them, and now at a societal level it's taking a while for groups to understand the same pattern. The most unfortunate part of it all though is how many people and institutions are 'in on it' perse and continously prop up horrible behavior because it also suits them or in the case of bullying, they go along with the bullying so as to shield themselves from being the target.

salynchnew 2mo ago
It is kind of funny and sad that in the U.S. we've gone from corporations virtue-signalling to vice signalling in just a few years.
- pjc50 2mo ago
  Having experienced vice signalling, I'm never going to complain about virtue signalling again.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  They signal to whoever's in charge of the government. Sone people in charge respond to virtues, others respond to vices.

cwmoore 2mo ago

But we have built so many enduring systems that rely on bad apples to function the way the do. See "insurance pricing", "private prisons", and "justice enforcement". In the real world, the ideal number of jails or homeless people is neither zero nor "all of them".

jMyles 2mo ago
I think the ideal number of _prisons_ (as distinct from jails / pretrial confinement) is zero. This whole charade in the USA of dressing up slavery (without even a single day of interruption on January 31, 1865) as "correction" is absurd. It's obviously a way to continue an economy that relies on a supply of involuntary labor, and has nothing whatsoever to do with public safety. There are plenty of ways to implement restorative justice which are superior to forcing convicts to make starbucks uniforms (start here if you've never delved into this, but there are great books on the topic which you can find from here: https://harvardpolitics.com/restorative-justice-abolition/ https://harvardpolitics.com/restorative-justice-abolition/).
- cwmoore 2mo ago
  That too. The check of "without due process" did not undo that rebranding or its many modern forms.
- tony69 2mo ago
  Some crimes are bad enough that the perpetrators don’t deserve second chances. I’m ok with punishment for its own sake in some cases even if it would be more “cost effective” or “productive” for society to rehabilitate.
  - cwmoore 2mo ago
    Sure, again bad apples, but one size fits sentences to the same institution? They are not all of the people ever arrested, or all of the time, or even most, and still the fundamentally medieval violence we orient by.
  - 542354234235 2mo ago

Imustaskforhelp 2mo ago

Beautifully said. I feel as if the society that we are living in does have a lot of implicit trust and if I may, I would like to add onto it with a few things. Trust works in a society when incentives are aligned with trust ie. you trust the society, the society trusts you back and you do the work with these principles and you are rewarded. Even this belief is something that you must trust that the society is fair. This trust creates your beliefs which sets your base-line incentives. If your society is trustworthy and you are taught to be trustworthy and you see that the rewards are fairly distributed being trustworthy. It creates an incentives to be trustworthy yourself and a society is made by people like you and so everyone else does so too and the society becomes trustworthy and the cycle continues. You would trust the society because you think your goals are aligned. Both you and society want the same thing. BUT, the second the average individual works that the society or system is untrustworthy, that the incentives aren't aligned and I can't trust it. The thing now is that the incentives are so misaligned with the reality of trustworthiness and it has become apparently clear. The incentives have also become unpredictable and questionable sometimes within the society and yet we see society tolerate, dare I say celebrate it sometimes. This makes us question if my personal incentives are aligned with society or not and if I am getting screwed or not by being so trustworthy of society and doing things fairly. This in turns creates a vicious loop. As such, fairness, trust and incentives play a very cyclical dependency on each other. You only trust if you feel like its fair and if the incentives prefer you to be fair as well. I would sadly say that although our society is trending towards unfairness,untrustworthiness and perverse incentives. I do have a glimmer of hope that this too shall pass.

ryandrake 2mo ago
People have given up on the very concept of society. Everyone is racing to shred the Social Contract and revert society back to Do What You Can Get Away With lawlessness. We're replacing institutions with individualism. We're replacing "We're all in it together" with "We're in it for ourselves." We're replacing collective stewardship of shared resources with "I got mine, fuck everyone else!" One's Community has stopped being the fundamental atomic unit we organize around, in favor of their Tribe, their Family, or themselves as an individual. We no longer are capable of coordinated, collective action that benefits society.

readthenotes1 2mo ago

Trust is a Continuum. I have relatives who grew up in places where you didn't need to lock the door at night and those who have to lock the door at night but that's enough and those for who that is not enough. I am reminded of a story I read lately of a woman who was shocked when her passport and purse were stolen from the beach while she was swimming. Somehow she had the perception that she was in a high trust worthy zone even though she had been doing her doctoral thesis work in a low trust society.

cwmoore 2mo ago
Sounds very binary, I don’t see the continuum. More like a steep cliff of shocking betrayal.
- 9x39 2mo ago
  In the same society, some people personally experience that others are capable of robbery & much worse within days and some learn it within decades, and everything in between. Some may never have to confront this, all within the same city/state/country. We could represent time-to-reality on a number line.
  - bombcar 2mo ago
    You can turn a low trust society into a high one by just having nothing whatsoever worth anything.
    - stirfish 2mo ago
      Maybe. There are a lot of online games where nothing is worth anything, but I don't think those are default high-trust societies. People will log in just to annoy the other players.
      - cwmoore 2mo ago
        Sounds like they trust the game’s anonymity and privacy policies.

3abiton 2mo ago

> trust One interesting aspect ij academic literature about trust, it is highly reverse correlated with diversity. No matter the grouping and size, the more diverse, the less trust within the group.

datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
Nit: it's not objective diversity that matters, but the perception of diversity. The distinction is important because I've been in many rooms that my father would have considered diverse, but I am not even remotely phased by it. Our definition of "diversity" looks nothing like the definition of "diversity" for a tribe of 20 hunter gatherers who never left the 600 verdant acres that they called home. You can alter your own reality by convincing yourself that someone is or is not like yourself ("diverse"), especially by consuming specific types of media - perhaps media that is produced with intention of you distrusting certain people. Again, it's an important distinction to draw, lest you be drawn in to certain misanthropic theories based on flimsy "proof".

blooalien 2mo ago

> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing. I was taught as a child that most people deep down genuinely want to be "good people". If only I had known what an absolute lie that really truly was, I'd have chosen a very different path for my life. Going out of my way to be a "good person" to the best of my ability was a total waste of a life that could have been spent in the pursuit of wealth and power, which I would have been very good at, had I not foolishly chosen to adhere to a "moral code" that was based on fantasy and naivety and a "reality" that just didn't exist as it was taught in schools, churches, and homes.

williamcotton 2mo ago
Pick up a copy of Crime and Punishment ASAP.
nicerice 2mo ago
Having made similar experiences, I do have to say your conclusion to not be the good person isn't in your own interest, especially, but even otherwise, if your goal is power and wealth. People like good things. They'll go out of their way to expend time, energy and money to have "good". You could be the source of that good and receive all of these if you try to truly understand others' view of what's good. Coercive systems do happen, but rarely last, because people will also spend time, energy and money to get rid of them. Just don't be fooled that there's a universal moral code. What's good for one might not be for another. You might appreciate "Science and Human Behaviour" by B.F. Skinner if you're interested in the mechanics of it.
Waterluvian 2mo ago
> which I would have been very good at If you indeed lived morally you probably can’t know this.
jyunwai 2mo ago
It's a recipe for unhappiness to believe in either extreme: either that it's a waste of life to try and live by morals, or that one should shun wealth and influence to live a good life (and give up financial security). I wasn't happy at all to end up associating with people who were zero-sum, transactional, and only valued wealth and fame. That can promote a constant sense of insecurity and lack of trust, which prevents the formation of true connections to others (which I've found to be important). I've been very happy to find myself with groups of people, in work contexts and elsewhere, who try to care for others while pursuing their personal goals. There's a sense of belonging and security.

rayiner 2mo ago

> Civil society only exists when there is a collective general trust that most people are trying to do the right thing The phrase "the right thing" is load-bearing, to steal a Claudeism. The Muslim Brotherhood that ran the country before El-Sisi thought they were doing "the right thing." El-Sisi also thought he was doing "the right thing." Egyptians mostly thought El-Sisi was doing “the right thing” during this time period. According to multiple independent opinion polls, his approval rating was high during this period because people were grateful to have stability. In any society, you're going to have diverse views of "the right thing." To have a functioning civil society, you actually need the opposite of what you're saying. You need a collective general trust that people will follow the rules regardless of what they think is "the right thing." Logic compels this conclusion. People who disagree on fundamental aspects of how the world and society should work cannot cooperate in a civil society if we trust that everyone will follow their vision of "the right thing." The only way we can cooperate is if we agree to neutral rules and procedures, and have a collective general trust that we'll all follow the rules regardless of our view of wrong or right. The thing I admire most about Anglo-American culture is that people will jump off a bridge if you give them a court order that complies with all required procedural formalities. That's how you create a civil society.

edot 2mo ago
But who decides which rules are neutral? Even this is relative and subjective. Laws are not inherently neutral. A pH of 7 is only neutral because it is bounded by 0 on the left and 14 on the right. In a different system, perhaps it would be from 10 to 30 and thus a pH of 20 would be neutral.
- rayiner 2mo ago
  > But who decides which rules are neutral You’re correct that rules are themselves to an high degree arbitrary. They can only be imposed by a source of authority that’s beyond question: God(s), elders, founding fathers, kings, etc. In the case of the U.S. it’s historical inertia going back to 1215.
  - 2mo ago

cobbzilla 2mo ago

I dunno, trust is a good foundation, and then you need some good ole fashioned checks and balances, required transparency & record-keeping. I sense that the checks-and-balances & record-keeping around mass-force-push SMS in the US are now extremely stringent especially after the Hawaii incident. And I'm OK with the current situation here. OTOH, the checks-and-balances/transparency situation around LPR camera networks is... basically non-existent. I am not OK with the current situation here. Both of these situations in the same (relatively) high-trust US. The difference is one has some serious regulations around it, and the other is cowboying shit.

Muromec 2mo ago
Trust is not a foundation of it, trust is a /resource/ that is produces by checks, balances, transparency and record keeping that reliably show how feedback function reliably catches up with most of the stuff that it's supposed to. The opposite state of affairs is /corruption/.

antonvs 2mo ago

I’m curious whether you think that civil society, by your definition, still exists in the US today.