Liars and Outliers
Ratings5
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.6
In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is crucial. Issues of trust are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and the political system. In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows the unique role of trust in facilitating and stabilizing human society. He discusses why and how trust has evolved, why it works the way it does, and the ways the information society is changing everything.
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This is an interesting look at trust as the foundation of society and social interactions. Bruce is a very interesting person, I'd like to read more from him.
It feels slightly disturbing to read this book so soon after Fukuyama's [b:Trust 57980 Trust The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity Francis Fukuyama http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298428611s/57980.jpg 56475] and even more so the same week that This American Life aired episode 459, What Kind of Country, in which they chronicle disturbing societal breakdowns. Schneier covers trust, tradeoffs, more (and more interesting!) Prisoner's Dilemma discussion than any three books on Game Theory, evolutionary theory, economics, politics, current affairs.What I found most interesting was his frank discussion of scaling problems: Trust and security models that work at a tribal level do not work at a multinational level. I also appreciate his reinforcement that defection can be good and is necessary for a society to work: the people who helped slaves escape the American South in the nineteenth century were defectors.Solutions? No clean ones. Just lots of material to think about. Unfortunately, policymakers are probably not the kind of people who read Schneier; or, for that matter, who think. So the final few chapters were doubly depressing: because they call for difficult analysis and thinking, and because we know that this thinking will not take place in the current U.S. political climate.A note about the format: this book does not work on Kindle. Too many tables and diagrams that just don't render well.
