Comment by nathanaldensr
7 hours ago
In high-trust societies these things work, yes. Not all societies are high-trust. Often, they once were high-trust but are no longer thanks to sociopathic, non-empathetic actors.
7 hours ago
In high-trust societies these things work, yes. Not all societies are high-trust. Often, they once were high-trust but are no longer thanks to sociopathic, non-empathetic actors.
Funny, how the unreasonable cycle of alternating votes for establishment parties is broken by voting for even more untrustworthy right wing parties.
We all need something like ranked/list voting and incorporate invalid votes into the result so urgently.
I do think people put too much stock in how many things RCV would fix in the US, but I am a big fan of it and it would certainly be a big first step improving representation in this country. Unfortunately, multiple states (all Republican dominated) have already outlawed RCV as an option. So in order to do it you would have to overturn the existing ban as well. It’s ridiculous.
High trust societies generally don't need centralisation to provide positive outcomes.
> Often, they once were high-trust but are no longer thanks to sociopathic, non-empathetic actors.
Citation needed.
Trump rode to the White House pitching that the government is broken/corrupt and as an outsider he would fix it. A significant part of his appeal is that he was a big middle finger to the establishment and current system writ large. This is well studied, documented, and easy to see in our daily lives. How many campaign ads begin with “the system is broken” or “Washington is out of touch”? Nobody ever lost voters for saying the government isn’t doing enough for them and isn’t trustworthy.
You can look at any Gallup or Pew poll or whatever sources you prefer and you will likely see that Americans have been steadily losing trust in their government. It has been in steady decline since the post-war era with some notable brief increases, but they don’t last.
>citation needed
I disagree as it is incredibly easy information to track down. But here you go anyway:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust...
Obviously social trust in the US has declined and Trump benefited from that. But this is not evidence that the primary cause is sociopathic, non-empathetic actors. Theoretically it could also be things such as increased diversity, loss of shared identity, people acting in good faith but failing to adapt to social media.
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Go and look around in former high-trust societies where this trust has broken down or is breaking down - my points of reference are the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and to a lesser extent the UK - and you'll get your citations. What you'll probably find is that in 'marginalised areas' people have trust in governmental institutions - those which provide social welfare, healthcare, schools and such - while they have little trust in 'other (groups of) people'. In other words they trust the state but distrust their neighbours, especially those from different ethnic groups. If you look in more well-to-do areas you'll find the opposite: people mostly trust their neighbours but they have lost trust in the higher echelons of the state which in their eyes has been instrumental in the dissolution of their former high-trust society. They'll still mostly trust their local police and fire brigade but they see academia and the social workers and soft-on-crime judicial institutions it produces as part of the problem. Any articles produced by academia which claim to provide proof of the opposite are seen in the light of the severe political bias in those institutions - sociology as a discipline has lost nearly all trust due to this - so citing those only feeds the fire.
Sweden is not a society were trust has broken down. Neither is Germany. Maybe the Netherlands can be argued to have a breaking down of trust. Go look at actual data, and don't rely on racist internet memes to form your arguments.
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