From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 16 2002 - 11:15:02 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
In rigorous security analysis, it turns out that trust is a bad thing.
### I think you are right, however, dealing with trustworthy agents is
vastly more economically productive and safer than dealing with deceptive
ones, even if you are capable of verifying their behavior. Strong security
tends to be expensive, in terms of the transaction costs, and the ability to
reduce the expense without incurring losses from deceptive behavior is
clearly a boon. Instead of having to minutely check every detail of your
dealings, you can afford to do only spot checks, and ruthlessly remove
cheaters. So in a more general and long-term analysis of the society as a
whole, trustworthiness (and by extension, well-placed trust) are a good
thing.
Rafal
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