Self-interest is the only thing you can really trust… | binary-chaos

The thing about humans as an irrational species is that there is only one thing you can ultimately trust in them, and that is that they will act in their own self-interest. It makes trust an easy thing really, if not quite a bit frustrating.

The important variable here is not the human-animal when considering how to have “better” people, but the social context within which they live.

In an alienating culture like most of the developed world, this effectively means we can trust each other very little, as the individualist mantra allows for endless disposability and no real fundamental connection seems to benefit enough to be worth the cost. This model is one of division and disempowerment, and does not offer real value in the connection.

When you change the context to one of deep interdependence, trusting another’s self-interest is trusting that these things are in everyone’s interest, by default; and the cost is worth the payback for the time invested as all of the efforts benefit the whole.

It really isn’t more complicated than this. Humans will not be “better” and more trustworthy people for the sake of itself, nor are they fundamentally untrustworthy. The problem is the context where the trust manifests. We were built by evolution to be connected and cooperative, yet live in societies defined by extracting value without giving it, as a virtue. No amount of legislation or will can make this better. Unless you change the paradigm, the human-animal is a shithead of desire that will only cost others. When you connect them and define value based on that connection, that trust means something far more beneficial. And when you use your will to act “better” in a shit context, you end up used, abused, anxiety-ridden, and full of mental and physical health detriments.

So people are always at the same level of trustworthiness regardless of the context. This has always been the case. We just happened to have created a context that is disconnected from the nature that built us, thereby leading us down a path where things are only as valuable as the next high or exploitation opportunity.

Being trustworthy isn’t the problem, it never was. Creating a value system based on property and accumulation is the problem. You don’t even need laws and rules to govern when value comes from interdependent connections. Without it we wreck everything.

Originally published at https://www.binary-chaos.net.