Bounded distrust or Bounded trust?

post by M. Y. Zuo · 2022-10-15T16:41:22.085Z · LW · GW · 12 comments

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There seems to be an upper limit to how much any randomly selected individual would trust another randomly selected individual. Real world observation of society shows that this upper limit varies between different societies and social/environmental conditions.

When the potential pool is narrowed down to the immediate family and closest friends, it becomes normal to claim the capacity for unlimited trust, however this does not seem credible when looking at the revealed preferences of large groups of middle aged individuals.

Therefore it stands to reason that the degree of mutual trust, between individuals, is bounded by some practical upper limit.

Conversely, there appears to be no lower limit, other than zero, for the degree of lack of trust.  In fact this lower limit of zero is practically demonstrated in the real world via prisons that maintain solitary confinement in padded cells for their most troublesome prisoners.

Does this then imply that instead of speaking of a bounded distrust, which appears to not have any meaningful lower bound other than zero, we should speak of bounded trust?

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For real world examples, the most useful would be those demonstrated in monetary terms, as other types of expression of trust are difficult to measure or  compare on a YoY or cross-cultural basis.

For example,

There's the widely recognized notion of a 'handshake-deal' where significant transactions, in monetary terms, are settled via simple handshakes and word of mouth, as opposed to contracts. So among certain members of the population, the upper limit of trust can be quite high. The most extreme example would be of one famous individual, Warren Buffett, who regularly boasts of having conducted multi-billion dollar deals on a handshake. 

However there are no cases, that I know of, for deals worth multiple tens-of-billions done on a handshake basis, even Warren Buffet gets lawyers and relies on contracts when his deals get that large. Which implies that the present upper limit of trust in human society, as valued in revealed monetary terms, would be <$10 billion USD.

Prenups are also very common among engaged couples, even of quite modest means, at least in the U.S., which suggests that the practical limit of mutual trust to be in range of a few millions of USD for the majority of the population, at least going by revealed preferences. (As it's unlikely that the average person would trust anyone even more than their soon-to-be spouse, except maybe their parents. Though there is also the similar notion of the 'Bank of Mom-and-Dad', which implies an upper limit to creditworthiness.).

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For those situations where trust can't be measured in monetary terms, stated or revealed, the most widely recognized across cultures is likely the bond between soldiers in a platoon on the frontlines of battle. There is quite a high degree of trust for the vast majority of trained soldiers, excluding deserters and such. 

Being willing to risk one's life in pursuit of some highly desirable common objective implies that they would also be willing to risk a smaller amount in pursuit of some less desirable objective in civilian life, though the relationship may not be linear.

However, I do not know of any retired soldiers who feels confident enough in any platoon mate to entrust with billion dollar handshake-deals, which implies that this upper limit is not significantly higher than mentioned above. (Though there might not have been any platoon-mates turned separate large business owners for this to have occurred so far, .)

This phenomena of camaraderie seems broadly similar in every country that has an organized military, and has been the case for most of recorded history, so this type of mutual trust does seem relatively stable across time and across cultures.

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Other types, such as the mutual trust between parent and child, in terms of obedience, fidelity, etc., seems to fluctuate according to cultural norms and changing time periods, or at least that's what is commonly alleged. In any case, the upper bound seems to practically exist within any given society. 

For example, no parent, that I know of in the U.S. trusts their teenager with a top-fuel dragster, or stunt plane,  even though there are likely thousands of teenagers who have desire to operate such vehicles and who belong to families capable of affording one. 

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In short, there are many plausible reasons to believe in the existence of a practical upper bound to mutual trust between individuals, while real world evidence suggests that the practical lower bound is indeed zero. 

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