Argues society requires trust in order to function, describes how society creates and maintains that trust through societal pressures, and discusses what happens when those pressures fail.
Very worth reading for anyone interested in policy and politics. It seems that trust is in decline as liars can gain high office without even needing to cover up many of their lies, they can say one thing one day and the opposite on another. This is a very useful book showing how trust is more important than money in building any form of community, from local to global scale. In fact, the value of money is itself founded on our degree of trust in the institutions that stand behind it.
It took me so long to read because somehow it got pushed down my reading stack :)
I'm a fan of Bruce Schneier, I've followed his blog for years, and I enjoy his moderate and practical approach to various security issues. So when he offered signed copies of his latest book at a discounted price in exchange for a review, I jumped at the opportunity.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. Perhaps because I'm already familiar, and agree, with many of his ideas, I didn't find too many surprising ideas here. Nonetheless, Schneier does a great job of laying out a broad, fairly consistent framework for looking at how people cooperate and, if the title is meant to indicate a theme, "defect" from various forms of pressure meant to induce that cooperation.
From a wide-angle view, the only book-wide criticism I have is with terminology. For example, Schneier uses the word "defect" (and its variants) to indicate someone who goes against a particular type of pressure meant …
I'm a fan of Bruce Schneier, I've followed his blog for years, and I enjoy his moderate and practical approach to various security issues. So when he offered signed copies of his latest book at a discounted price in exchange for a review, I jumped at the opportunity.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. Perhaps because I'm already familiar, and agree, with many of his ideas, I didn't find too many surprising ideas here. Nonetheless, Schneier does a great job of laying out a broad, fairly consistent framework for looking at how people cooperate and, if the title is meant to indicate a theme, "defect" from various forms of pressure meant to induce that cooperation.
From a wide-angle view, the only book-wide criticism I have is with terminology. For example, Schneier uses the word "defect" (and its variants) to indicate someone who goes against a particular type of pressure meant to induce cooperation. In this taxonomy, both airplane hijackers and people who hid their Jewish neighbors from Nazi soldiers are considered "defectors." I don't think it's a major detraction from the ideas he presents, but in a few cases it requires a moment to suss out how the actor is defecting. Schneier even makes a few comments about the oddity of the terminology, such as in Chapter 14 where he writes, "The police...implement societal pressures against a broad array of competing norms. (Okay, I admit it. That's an odd way to describe arresting people who commit crimes against people and propety.)" That said, Schneier is certainly no [a:James Carse|54828|James P. Carse|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66-e07624dc012f2cce49c7d9aa6500c6c0.jpg], whose propensity to redefine terms is distracting at best.
Actually, not to contradict the paragraph above, where I think Schneier excels is in his ability to simplify concepts and demonstrate their applicability without stripping away too much of their complexity. He shows common links across a broad range of topics — from interpersonal interactions to business transactions to governmental regulation to the spread of religious ideas. He examines each of these by look at each idea from a host of angles, relying on everything from the evolution, psychology, economics, game theory and, of course, his own background as a security expert.
It's relatively quick read (I read it in three sittings), and certainly worth taking the time for anyone who spends any time thinking critically about how and why people choose whether to cooperate.
It feels slightly disturbing to read this book so soon after Fukuyama's [b:Trust|57980|Trust The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity|Francis Fukuyama|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298428611s/57980.jpg|56475] and even more so the same week that This American Life aired episode 459, What Kind of Country, in which they chronicle disturbing societal breakdowns. Schneier covers trust, tradeoffs, more (and more interesting!) Prisoner's Dilemma discussion than any three books on Game Theory, evolutionary theory, economics, politics, current affairs.
What I found most interesting was his frank discussion of scaling problems: Trust and security models that work at a tribal level do not work at a multinational level. I also appreciate his reinforcement that defection can be good and is necessary for a society to work: the people who helped slaves escape the American South in the nineteenth century were defectors.
Solutions? No clean ones. Just lots of material to think about. Unfortunately, policymakers are probably not …
It feels slightly disturbing to read this book so soon after Fukuyama's [b:Trust|57980|Trust The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity|Francis Fukuyama|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298428611s/57980.jpg|56475] and even more so the same week that This American Life aired episode 459, What Kind of Country, in which they chronicle disturbing societal breakdowns. Schneier covers trust, tradeoffs, more (and more interesting!) Prisoner's Dilemma discussion than any three books on Game Theory, evolutionary theory, economics, politics, current affairs.
What I found most interesting was his frank discussion of scaling problems: Trust and security models that work at a tribal level do not work at a multinational level. I also appreciate his reinforcement that defection can be good and is necessary for a society to work: the people who helped slaves escape the American South in the nineteenth century were defectors.
Solutions? No clean ones. Just lots of material to think about. Unfortunately, policymakers are probably not the kind of people who read Schneier; or, for that matter, who think. So the final few chapters were doubly depressing: because they call for difficult analysis and thinking, and because we know that this thinking will not take place in the current U.S. political climate.
A note about the format: this book does not work on Kindle. Too many tables and diagrams that just don't render well.
