~ SOUA-MC-MH-MA-A-F-ASOUALS-TIODSS-WHTFTSBDS ~ Some Of Us Are – More Cooperative – More Honest – More Altruistic – And – Fairer – And Some Of Us Are Less So – There Isn’t One Dominant Survival Strategy – We Have The Flexibility To Switch Between Different Strategies
~ TWABAGOPWWTTTWGB-TBWCHFITDWOBD-AWENED-KTPDTATL ~ There Will Always Be A Group Of People Who Will Try To Take Without Giving Back – The Best We Can Hope For Is To Do What Our Bodies Do – And What Every Natural Ecosystem Does – Keep Those Parasites Down To A Tolerable Level
~ WDKTAIATDBOIAM-KPAMLTR ~ We Do Know That Agreeableness Is A Trait Desired By Others In A Mate – Kind People Are More Likely To Reproduce
~ O-AHRDSB-NIIAPWPTHITBO-S-AISOLMHMT ~ Oxytocin – A Hormone Released During Social Bonding – Naturally Increases In A Person Who Perceives That He/Her Is Trusted By Others – Similarly – Artificially Increasing Someone’s Oxytocin Level Makes Her/Him More Trusting
~ MARCOPTOSP-TAIAOABCASLIOB-DTPO-W-V-A-GD-THH-ATEAODWBD-TAMARSHWAW ~ Morals And Reputation Comprise Our Prehistoric Toolbox Of Societal Pressures – They Are Informal And Operate At Both Conscious And Subconscious Levels In Our Brains – Despite The Prevalence Of – War – Violence – And – General Deceptiveness – Throughout Human History – And The Enormous Amount Of Damage Wrought By Defectors – These Ancient Moral And Reputational Systems Have Worked Amazingly Well
~ MPWBISG ~ Moral Pressure Works Best In Small Groups
~ RPWWISAMSG ~ Reputational Pressure Works Well In Small- And Medium-Sized Groups
~ IPWBILSG ~ Institutional Pressure Works Best In Larger-Sized Groups
~ ‘DUOWYWHTDUY’-DGHTOUS-IBADTCWO-IRITCTTAUMPOSH ~ “Do Unto Others What You Would Have Them Do Unto You” – Different Groups Have Their Own Unique Spin – It’s Basically An Admonition To Cooperate With Others – It Really Is The Closest Thing To A Universal Moral Principle Our Species Has
~ WDNOAOMCADORAWFTG:TGATCACADAWIMTAIATM ~ We Not Only Absorb Our Moral Codes And Definitions Of Right And Wrong From The Group: The Group Also Transmits Cues About Cooperation And Defection And What It Means To Act In A Trustworthy Manner
~ PAMLTSTSIIFOTGI-ITFTOADSAW-ATLLTDSITFTOATAOT-OISOF ~ People Are More Likely To Suppress Their Self-Interest In Favor Of The Group Interest – If They Feel That Others Are Doing So As Well – And They’re Less Likely To Do So If They Feel That Others Are Taking Advantage Of Them – Our Innate Sense Of Fairness
~ WGDMSFTG-ALAWASF ~ We Generally Don’t Mind Sacrificing For The Group – As Long As We’re All Sacrificing Fairly
~ MSB-TFASBLATMTTBTMW ~ Morals Scale Badly – They Fail As Societies Become Larger And The Moral Ties That Bind Their Members Weaken
~ TALORODD-HSNTBVGAI-TAEAPCLTBBAI-BIG-WCTLFTT ~ There’s A Lot Of Research On Detecting Deception – Humans Seem Not To Be Very Good At It – There Are Exceptions And People Can Learn To Be Better At It – But In General – We Can’t Tell Liars From Truth-Tellers
~ WRNIAPMV-WMD-AFALTPI-ISTKWWDIMITKWTT ~ We Remember Negative Information About People More Vividly – With More Detail – And For A Longer Time – Than Positive Information – It Seems That Knowing Who Will Defect Is More Important Than Knowing Whom To Trust
~ NODWGORAB-WATPTAOGR ~ Not Only Do We Guard Our Reputation Against Blemishes – We Also Take Pains To Advertise Our Good Reputation
~ TMOH-CWALP-RMIW-ARWL ~ Throughout Most Of History – Commerce Was A Local Phenomenon – Reputation Made It Work – And Reputation Was Local
~ OOTWTSRITGBOGM ~ One Of The Ways To Scale Reputation Is To Generalize Based On Group Membership
~ NEITWAMLTTPWLLU-AWNCOPOSABLTMTAU-UTTFITG ~ Numerous Experiments Indicate That We Are More Likely To Trust People Who Look Like Us – And We Naturally Change Our Patterns Of Speech And Body Language To Mimic Those Around Us – Unconsciously Trying To Fit Into The Group
~ TAASORWSIABSFJIP-AFTRSHSTGBOMBI ~ There Are All Sorts Of Reasons Why Stereotyping Is A Bad System For Judging Individual People – And For Those Reasons We Should Strive To Get Beyond Our More Base Instincts
~ RIAESPSUIHC-RCAPD ~ Reputation Isn’t An Effective Societal Pressure System Unless It Has Consequences – Reward Cooperators And Punish Defectors
~ HAASS-WR-BAOTPITG-WAPD-EITCP ~ Humans Are A Social Species – We Reward – By Allowing Others To Participate In The Group – We Also Punish Defectors – Exclusion Is The Corresponding Punishment
~ SIACRP-A-AAR-AISE ~ Shame Is A Common Reputational Punishment – And – As A Result – An Important Social Emotion
~ IPASCWCMTIWNPA ~ Informal Punishments Are So Common We Can Miss Them If We’re Not Paying Attention
~ CTSALOTMRS-TEASO-P-F-A-OA-S-TCTVTTHAGRB-AA-BC-A-ET ~ Confidence Tricksters Spend A Lot Of Time Manipulating Reputation Signals – They Employ All Sorts Of – Props – Facades – And – Other Actors – Shills – To Convince Their Victims That They Have A Good Reputation By – Appearing Authentic – Building Confidence – And – Encouraging Trust
~ SPSDCAR ~ Some People Simply Don’t Care About Reputation
~ SPEUWTWR ~ Some People End Up With The Wrong Reputation
~ TMIRRPSTFIT-GGTL ~ The Most Important Reason Reputational Pressure Starts To Fail Is That – Groups Get Too Large
~ WWKA-C-C-A-PIFP-DAMR ~ What We Know About – Celebrities – Corporations – And – People In Faraway Places – Doesn’t Always Match Reality
~ LCBAI-ILA-O-C-A-UA-TASA-U ~ Laws Can Be Applied Inconsistently – If Laws Aren’t – Objective – Common – And – Universally Applied – They Are Seen As – Unfair
~ OLATRTSACBOBT ~ Our Learned Abilities To Read Trust Signals Are Continually Being Overtaken By Technology
~ UIDS-CMIFMP-BASSIDCBUIMMP-S-A-HTF-IDIER-BIITMMPTF ~ Universal ID Systems – Can Make Impersonation Fraud More Profitable – Because A Single Stolen ID Can Be Used In Many More Places – Sometimes – A – Harder-To-Forge ID Is Even Riskier – Because It Is That Much More Profitable To Forge
~ WMALOOIWOP-FESS-IDCSTS ~ We’re Moving A Lot Of Our Interactions With Other People – From Evolved Social Systems – Into Deliberately Created Socio-Technical Systems
~ WASTLWGACWWT-ATWACBMAM-PMUTGMAAFOR ~ We Are Starting To Learn Which Genes Are Correlated With Which Traits – And This Will Almost Certainly Be Misreported And Misunderstood – People May Use These Genetic Markers As A Form Of Reputation
~ CSDRTNSOA-RITRWSTATIASSDFEE-GIAOIC-ACIONDIA ~ Competing Societal Dilemmas Represent The Normal State Of Affairs – Rarely Is The Real World So Tidy As To Isolate A Single Societal Dilemma From Everything Else – Group Interests Are Often In Conflict – And Cooperating In One Necessitates Defecting In Another