Comment by pjc50

Low trust societies are poorer because everyone has to spend much more effort on verifying everything. People give up business opportunities because they can't trust their partners. It becomes more nepotistic because people trust family over strangers.

Low information trust societies get destroyed by pandemics of both physical viruses (due to anti-vax and medical distrust; we can see this happening again with Ebola) and destructive memetic lies (see 20th century fascism).