Venkatesh Rao

Most cheating is homeostatic. It is on the margins of default non-cheating behavior, and self-regulates. Few people get addicted to a cancerously expanding behaviors of ”let me see just how much I can get away with.” For most, the behavior stops where risk of shame mounts.

A good example is Gavin Newsom vs Donald Trump. Newsom is an ordinary, mediocre politician who cheats in small-to-medium ways (cheating in marriage, the French Laundry incident), but is essentially a socially controllable cheater. Par for the course for politician behavior.

Trump has been such a disaster for trust because he’s a lifelong addict of what-I-can-get-away-with. It’s actually kinda a positive that the system wasn’t designed with people like him in mind. For most, like Newsom, threat of shaming and visible-norms-based checks are enough.

A society designed to prevent Trump-like behaviors would be over-engineered against cheaters. It’s actually fine I think to have someone like him show up, hack the system, and provide a resentment-steam outlet every generation or so.

In any attempt to get to a “new normal” it would be a mistake to lower reliance on norms. When you trust norms, you risk the occasional metastasized cheater mega-event, but your average trust stays high and the average cost of governance stays low.

Norms-based trust, as opposed to trustless verification, catalyzes positive-sum relationships. It’s like free weights over machine. How are you going to learn to trust others and not overreact to cheaters if you never give yourself the chance to learn positive trust patterns?

It’s actually analogous to the core of religious faith. To demand proof of god is to lack faith. To verify everything in society is to trust nothing in society. It’s healthy to have a sort of religious faith in society, where you risk the occasional Trump by trusting by default.

There’s better ways to signal your lack of gullibility and exploitability than bringing a hostile suspicion to all situations where there’s uncertainty and giving yourself all the benefit of doubt because “everybody is out to get you.”