I caught a bit of the Netflix series Beast Games (gameshow hosted by Mr. Beast) and there was one segment where 10 contestants took turns taking "their share" from a $1,000,000 pile. The "fair" thing to do is to take $100,000 each. 1 player ended up taking $600k, but many players that came after continued to do the "fair" thing and split what was left evenly. One even took $0.

I was thinking today about Conservative fascination with trans folks. They certainly aren't segregating their bathrooms at home, but have some weird hangup with doing so in public.

I think some % of the population are "low trust" (most people won't do the right thing, therefore it's OK if I do not do the right thing/I need to protect myself) and some are "high trust" (most people will do the right thing, so I should do the right thing/I'm safe).

The US has been teetering towards a "low trust" cultural and political landscape and the way to drive this even further is to take away safety nets and create general economic chaos, effectively destroying social trust. Even the whole RTO debate is really a question of high/low trust; executives have low trust in the workers they hire so they want them in office, even if it's less productive, yields higher turnover, and leads to lower morale.

The reason Taiwan and New Zealand did so well during the pandemic is perhaps partially because they are both "high trust" societies; your fellow citizens generally did the right thing and followed the rules.