Re:Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
by snovv_crash on Sunday June 09, 2019 @05:49PM
(#20142164)
IMO: it has to do with the number of repeat interactions you will have with people.
When you interact more than twice with the same people, Game Theory says it is better to act honorably. At 2 interactions it is roughly balanced, and with a single interaction it is better (as an individual) to cheat. These assume balanced payoff/penalty, but changing the penalty only works to a certain extent and humans are very bad at evaluating the payoff of low-risk high-penalty actions, essentially becoming used to the risk after a while as they learn from repeated actions that they don't get caught (until they do).
So, the question is why repeat interactions have gone down. I guess larger communities, and better transport means just in terms of regular day-to-day you don't have many repeat interactions, and this changes mindsets of people inclined to crime in terms of what they think they can get away with, at least to start with.
It also explains to some extent the distrust small communities have to strangers, where they are not used to living with that regular stranger-danger that people in cities constantly deal with.
When you interact more than twice with the same people, Game Theory says it is better to act honorably. At 2 interactions it is roughly balanced, and with a single interaction it is better (as an individual) to cheat. These assume balanced payoff/penalty, but changing the penalty only works to a certain extent and humans are very bad at evaluating the payoff of low-risk high-penalty actions, essentially becoming used to the risk after a while as they learn from repeated actions that they don't get caught (until they do).
So, the question is why repeat interactions have gone down. I guess larger communities, and better transport means just in terms of regular day-to-day you don't have many repeat interactions, and this changes mindsets of people inclined to crime in terms of what they think they can get away with, at least to start with.
It also explains to some extent the distrust small communities have to strangers, where they are not used to living with that regular stranger-danger that people in cities constantly deal with.