Famous quote from Dark Helmet in the Mel Brooks comedy/sci-fi Spaceballs.

"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb."



As funny as it sounds, there's some truth in it. It's not so much that good is dumb, it's that good is trusting. Good gives the suspicious the benefit of the doubt. It's this trust that makes good vulnerable to evil.

Some my devils advocate argument #3 is: Trust is always vulnerable, so nobody can be trusted.

There were no takers on DAA#2. Anyone care to joust me on this?

There's an old saying; "Be wise as Serpents, and harmless as Doves!" Good doesn't necessarily mean wisdom other than that it is wise to be good. But if one is "dumb" also then one is vulnerable to evil.

So perhaps the answer is to be wise enough to be good and survive it.

So, the harmful serpent is not as wise as the harmless serpent?

I don't quite think that's what it means. Perhaps the focus should be on wisdom. Surely there can be a "natural" goodness. Let's say that means a kind and well meaning heart. That doesn't necessarily mean that in the rigors of interaction with others that that person would always be the best "Champion" for "Good" to fight the "Evil" Champion".

Put another way. In the movie Tombstone, Johnny Ringo the Killer Hitman Gunslinger for the Clanton Gang, challenges Wyatt Earp. Ringo and Earp both know that Ringo is faster on the draw. But who steps up to interfere in the obviously unfair fight? Doc Holiday. Doc is no saint. But he is fast, and he is Earp's friend. Holiday acts out of "goodness" in protecting his friend Wyatt. In fact he kills Ringo in the end to do just that. Holiday acting out of friendship (a form of Love) is the "good" force in that particular encounter with the evil force represented by Ringo.

What I'm getting at here is that it would have been brave, and honorable for Wyatt to insist that Doc step aside. That it was his fight. In fact he tried to step up to the plate in spite of his knowledge that he would lose. But it would not have been wise if the goal is to win. Doc knew this and acted with both "goodness" and "wisdom".

Trusting does make us vulnerable. Trust requires courage and faith. And sometimes when we trust people to do the right thing they become better than they thought they could be because of our positive expectation of

There's a couple of dynamics here at work in the Tombstone example. One is the power of evil and the other is the amount of evil.

First, pound-for-pound, the power of evil is more powerful than good because it has the element of surprise. It doesn't even have to be faster. It just has to be sooner. Evil strikes sooner because it has a reason to attack sooner than good does. Evil is quicker on the draw because evil always starts drawing the gun sooner than good.

Secondly, the amount of evil in the Tombstone example is out numbered. The sum of Wyatt's good most of the time and Doc's good some of the time is what overwhelmed Ringo's evil. This doesn't mean evil is always outnumbered. It just means that evil needs to be outnumbered before it will loose.

Given an equal amount of evil and good, evil wins every time.

I really vacillate between being amused and nonplused at this topic.

I do not trust (LOL) the proposition as being a legitimately termed argument.

There seems to be an assertion" A" from which a conclusion is formed. A conclusion that does not follow. Statement A is about a value, and the B conclusion statement is a generalization about all persons, this fits somewhere in the fallacy constructs of boolean logic but been too long since my classes more than sixty years ago, but just intuitively I cannot assign it legitimacy as a valid argument.

There are tutorials on reasoning online, maybe using those would improve the composition of "argument". Broc or some other member on here can probably illuminate this better than I.

Maybe it is harder to place our trust in a culture that is encased in so much superficiality. If you can't learn to trust anyone, then IMHO it may be caused by not developing the in-depth relationships that warrant it, instead , what one sees is risk.


lenal

What was it that Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying? "Trust but Verify!" Again an act of "Wisdom".

True as far as it goes. But it is important to trust the "right" people. Long time association helps if one is seeing clearly. But blind trust out of "goodness", is not "wise". No matter how "good" you are, it doesn't substitute for wisdom.

While a positive outcome for trust in a particular instance can never be guaranteed, it can be demonstrated in many context that a trusting strategy
gets better results than a non-trusting one. I have observed this in experimental
evaluations of counselors in training.

I won't answer for Bill. But for myself, it depends on what is at stake. Trusting may be preferable in many situations. But if a great deal is at stake, that trust needs to be mixed with quite a bit of thinking, verification, and vigilence. However, all else being equal, trusting is a characteristic of "goodness".

This is one of my favorite mottos, TRoU! I say this all the time to people.

All of the comparatively new Wiki sites are signs of trust IMO. Sort of a counter to the extreme attack methods of the right wing politicos that do just the opposite.We often remark about "building trust" - I think any politician worth his salt has that as a high priority.


What other hopeful signs can you think of?

lenal

I should have known better than to go with the Tombstone example. I don't remember much from the movie since I heard the latest popular historical account of the real characters and events. It's quite different. But since the real Wyatt got to tell Hollywood his side of the story, he's seen being more on the side of good than the crook with a badge that historians now believe he was.

My point about Ringo's evil (not Ringo's person) being outnumbered was taking into consideration that he was working against two minds. Wyatt was the reason he was in a showdown. Doc was the reason he lost the showdown.

Anyway, my statement about evil always needing to being outnumbered was more of a general statement that just one example from an near-fictional movie couldn't prove. What we see on the news every day is a much better example of my point.

How so?

Even with the wisdom of good, there's only a couple of ways hostile evil can be overcome.

One is with a strategy of preemption, which one could argue is just as evil. One could even make a case that preemption is the seed of evil aggression

The other is with constant avoidance, which is much more tiring than being a constant threat. This is why in football, defense gets tired before offense, and scoring gets easier near the end of the game. This is why the homeland security to avoid the next attack is costing us way more than al Qaeda's last attack and any future attacks would ever cost combined. The one whose life is threatened doesn't sleep as well as the one who's threatening his/her life.

If you have to verify, then how can you call it trust?

Well to me "trust" has to be earned. "Blind trust" is a sign of niavetee, or just blindness. If you are extending trust to someone who hasn't earned it by past encounters, then you must verify the extension of the minimum amount of "trust" necessary to agree or co-operate in some endevor, where you are aware of conflicting self-interests otherwise.

But one could be just earning trust in order to betray it at the optimal time. That's what a sleeper agent does.

I'll bet the Bush loyalist are not people he trust, but people that have more to lose by betray ing him than they could ever gain. He either has enough dirt on them or their loved ones, or he knows that their truth will be harder to believe than the lie once it gets out.

True pre-emption is legitimate for good to use. It's when premption is a fraud for aggression that it is at least a seed of evil, if not evil itself. Once again when goodness (honesty, well meaning, integrity, etc) is combined with wisdom (vigilence, capability, effective planning, etc) it can be the match of evil's advantage, or even the overmatch of evil. I say this partly because while evil has it's stipulated advantage it also has a deadly flaw. The longer evil exists and operates, the more it tends to destroy itself. Since there is no integrity among evil, alliances among evil tend to break down. So an aspect of wisdom good can use, is this knowledge.

Tom T. Hall wrote
the only thing you can always rely on is---
Old dogs, and children and watermelon wine

...
How old do you think I am he said I said well I didn't know
He said I turned sixty five about eleven months ago
I was sittin' in Miami pourin' blended whiskey down
When this old grey black gentleman was cleanin' up the lounge
There wasn't anyone around 'cept this old man and me
The guy who ran the bar was watching Ironsides on TV
Uninvited he sat down and opened up his mind
On old dogs and children and watermelon wine
Ever had a drink of watermelon wine he asked
He told me all about it though I didn't answer back
Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine
He said women think about theyselves when menfolk ain't around
And friends are hard to find when they discover that you're down
He said I tried it all when I was young and in my natural prime
Now it's old dogs and children and watermelon wine
Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes
God bless little children while they're still too young to hate
When he moved away I found my pen and copied down that line
'Bout old dogs and children and watermelon wine

[ harmonica ]

I had to catch a plane up to Atlanta that next day
As I left for my room I saw him pickin' up my change
That night I dreamed in peaceful sleep of shady summertime
Of old dogs and children and watermelon wine

The case of good not using enough wisdom is more likely than not. Think about how difficult it is to know your opponent better than your opponent knows him/herself, how much more work it would require than just a person taking advantage of another persons trust. And if you do know your opponent that well, then you've gone beyond the need for trusting him/her.

You are doing good so far. You've got the devil on the ropes, but the devil is not defeated yet. You've given good reason not to be evil, but you still haven't given good reason to trust anyone.

Having allies is a good reason to be trust worthy, but not necessarily a reason to trust.

Earned Trust gives an advantage to good. It is a two way street. If one is good and extends the earned and due trust to allies. Both allies can concentrate more of their energy towards the opponent. The opponent if he is evil, has to worry about the trustworthiness of his ally.

Graham, are you implying that my argument is not sound because old dogs, children and watermelon wine can, in fact, be trusted?

And as I've said before, you can go beyond the need for trusting in this case. You don't have to trust your opponent/ally when you know your opponent/ally couldn't harm you if they wanted to.

Again, verification is not trust, especially if security measures are put in place for the "just in case." Verification is just one of many ways of going beyond the need for trust. And you are right, there is a price either way. The question is, is it less expensive to betray trust than it is to trust or go beyond the need for trusting, at least for the individual?

You mean ally/opponent. Who ever knows for sure. Bwuhuhuhahaha-ha-ha!!!!!

Again, earning trust isn't the same as trusting. You are correct, it is a two-way street. However you could be earning trust for the sake of betrayal in one direction, and going beyond the need for trust (in the guise of "trusting") in the other direction.

Hey!!! Not so fast buddy!!!!!

You are talking about wisdom, not trust. I could say it's wiser to distrust. You have the burden to disprove.

You've talked about prices. You've shown how evil could be more expensive. But you still haven't shown how it can be less expensive to trust. Show me the math!!!

Energywise. The earned trust among allies allows more energy to be directed at fighting the opponent. Inability to trust due to evil intentions diverts energy to one's "allies" because they can't be trusted. So if good is allied with good, and is facing evil allied with evil the "math" is thus;

+ = 2

+ = 1

Checkmate again!

Not quite checkmate. You are making the mistake of equating evil with distrust.

But we will just go with your logic and assign values to the symbols:

= Trusting and Wise Good left vulnerable to betrayal from trustees.
= Untrusting and Wise Good spending more energy than necessary to watch back.
= Untrusting and Evil who earns then betrays trust, and then has a hard time finding allies.

Then the logic truth table is as follows:

+ + = 3 (perfect world)
+ + = 2 (the streets)
+ + = 1 (hell)
+ + = 1.25 (happy devil at church)
+ + = 1.75 (2 live untrusting souls and 1 dead devil on the streets)

Your move.

Bill your math grade for this pop quiz is "F"

You assigned the wrong values.
= Trusting and Wise Good left vulnerable to betrayal from trustees.

Wrong. The investment in EARNED TRUST pays off and makes good and wise not vulnerable to betrayal by trustee, and not diverting unecessary energy to monitor trustees. You also devalue the scope of "Wise". Therefore your calculations are likewise distorted. Wise means taking all variables into account. Also evil mistrusts others because it knows it's own nature.

A Checkmate and an "F"

No "F". No checkmate. Trustees can change.

Can we agree that theoretically any amount of trust can be betrayed?

All things are possible. In the real world it's all a matter of likelihood. If we speak in absolutes in a world of greys, we might as well go through the looking glass.

until the child grows up and learns to decieve of course.

a person's old dog is always faithful.

Everyone else though, can turn. (a divorcing wife, a fired employee, co worker, anyone these days can be bought it seems.)

So grab some watermelon wine play with your child and old dog

I am naive myself. I have been taken a time or two.
I am a handshake person. Most times it works. But when times are tough, the other person I guess needed to do more than honor a handshake.

So if any amount of trust can be betrayed, then wisdom is never a full proof defense against evil.

Although the likelihood of betrayal decreases with the more trust earned, the cost of betrayal increases at an equal rate, which cancels out the full benefit of trust. The benefit of trust is inversely proportionate to the cost of betrayal.

So:

+ + + + = 5 (bigger perfect world)
+ + + + = 4 (bigger streets)
+ + + + = 3 (one dead devil)
+ + + + = 1.5 (one rich devil)

Nothing is Foolproof! Sorry, it just doesn't add up! Gotcha Bill! No trying to squirm out of it! Pay up!

I personally think

IF you have something the other party wants, and needs, you could trust they will keep coming back
Until you no longer serve them what they want

Then they will or could stab you in the back if the new person who gives them what they want says to stab you in the back

There is no loyalty anymore
This applies to any part of life it seems

I don't think there are many situations where trust will not be betrayed, sorry to say, especially in today's world

Even your kid
They trust you when you tell them about Santa Claus
They are hurt when they find out you lied

You yell at your kid because you are mad at business that day, or they spilled a drink on your important papers and it hurts them, the same way your parents hurt you doing that

Any friend remarries, and the spouse no longer wants the old friends around

Neighbors move

Ulterior motives.

Is it cynical? It's how things seem to be today

So I can't see without having the biggest gun to keep people in line, how to beat your question this time

Well there wasn't enough space to title this thread "Never Trust Anyone but Yourself, Old Dogs, Your Child and Watermelon Wine."

BTW, my 4-year-old is already lying, and my 2-year-old can only be trusted to disobey.

You're right, nothing is foolproof. That's why you can't trust anyone.

I'll write you a check. Trust me, it's covered.

I will "trust" you. But I won't hold my breath!

the 4 year old is fibbing. They grow up quick these days.

I'm going out so can continue this later if you wish but let me leave with this question...

As said, I am a handshake person
If we had business together...no contract I shook your hands...would I be sorry?

later.

It depends on the success or failure of the business, and the names on the accounts.

If the business was a failure and neither of us were paid for our time, we would both be sorry.

If the business was a success, but the income accounts were not in your name, you may be sorry.

If the business was a success, but only the overhead accounts (the bills) were in your name, you may be sorry.

If the business was a failure, but none of the accounts were in your name, and you got paid for your time, you shouldn't be sorry.

If the business was a failure, but you were George Bush, you would never be sorry.

Face it Bill your premises; "Never trust anyone but yourself". and; "The reason Good will never triumph over Evil is because Good is Dumb!" have been debunked.

Your never trust anyone philosophy will only result in your isolation. And Good doesn't have to be dumb.

Gotcha, and I want cash!

Has not.

Only the part about good always triumphing over evil has been debunked.

Wrong. I explained how one could go beyond the need for trust. You even supported that point by advocating for verification.

Good plus Trust equals Dumb. Good plus suspicion does not equal Dumb. Isn't that what science is all about, science man?

I'll send it to you in the mail.

You still haven't proven that trust can work better than suspicion or verification. If you can't, then there is no good reason to trust.

[quote=billfmsd,Aug 10 2006, 05:49 PM]
Has not.

Only the part about good always triumphing over evil has been debunked.

Wrong. I explained how one could go beyond the need for trust. You even supported that point by advocating for verification.

How many times do I have to repeat it. Trust isn't free! "Trust" but Verify". Once one has verified enough, then you can extend that earned trust!

[/quote]Good plus Trust equals Dumb. Good plus suspicion does not equal Dumb. Isn't that what science is all about, science man?

Nothing wrong with suspicion as long as it's warranted by wisdom. You still have'nt got that?

I'll send it to you in the mail.

You still haven't proven that trust can work better than suspicion or verification. If you can't, then there is no good reason to trust.

I gave the reasons earned trust is an advantage. Now we are just into repeating. Nuff said. I'll come over and get the cash personally!

[/quote]

You have to sort of be childlike, or a Forrest Gump type where you don't get hurt because you don't know any better

(the reverse of George Bush's mantra I always say...how they told you he was a man of integrity, therefore he didn't lie, he told the truth as he sees it, but he is not the smartest of all, so he will mispeak, maybe even (as they used to say, retarded), but you can't not like a stupid person, and because he is stupid, he doesn't lie because he wouldn't know he wasn't telling the truth, because he is a man of integrity.)

That whole lie is George Bush. And people repeat parts of that, therefore he gained trust, but it was all a mirage.

So only if you are childlike forever can you be happy and trusting.

Nothing wrong with preemptive suspicion either.

Yes, there are benefits to being trusted. It's like credit. With credit, you can live in a house sooner than it would take you to save for that house. And even though economist say that you don't really need credit considering the losses in interest, the net is more years spent living in a house. Since time is more valuable than money, you still win compared to living on the streets. And if the value of the house goes up at a faster rate than inflation, you could even make the difference of what you would have saved by paying rent. But the key word here is if. IF = Risk.

And there are benefits to trusting, like return on investment and interest. If it's a secured loan, you can even collect from a person declaring bankruptcy if they don't die. Again, IF = Risk.

So you can reduce the amount of risk by forfeiting a proportionate amount of potential gain. The net is usually zero when you look at statistics. The only gains are from productivity. The rest is just money changing hands.

With productivity in business, you could trust your partner, or you could get a contract. You could even make it so there would be no net benefit to betrayal, even without a contract, depending on the type of service and agreement.

The same goes for productivity in the home. Even though there are gains, there is no reason to trust. You can trust that if you go to work and bring home the bacon, your spouse will cook it, and take care of the house. Your spouse could betray you and not take care of the house, but it wouldn't be beneficial to either of you. So you really don't have to trust your spouse to do anything but remain monogamous. And if you are in an open marriage, you don't have to do that either.

What you've done is given reason to trust with more risk. I've given reason not to trust with less risk. It's not checkmate. It's stalemate at best.

BTW, when you come over to get the cash, bring some secret service men to make sure it's not counterfeit.

This conversation should go down as a CGCS classic!

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell you all are talking about but here's my two cents prior to figuring out what the conversation is about.

Trust is necessary to build relationships which are necessary for survival and evolution and meaning in life. Trust is not an absolute. We all have varying degrees of trust that change constantly depending on new information. And we have trust that comes easy and trust that comes hard. Trusting my grandmother is easy. Trusting politicians is difficult.

Because of the division of labor, however, trust is a necessary risk or a necessary evil, if you will. I can't be everywhere at once and I don't understand 90% of what is happening on the planet. Politics, economics, accounting, finance, childrearing, etc. I have to rely on other people and trust them in at least limited ways in order to survive.

Trust that is blind (in an adult of normal intelligence and with free access to sources of information) is also a form of evil. It is a form of laziness, mental slothfulness. To say this is Good isn't true. The people down at the local church who implicitly Trust the priest because he wears a robe and thus give him unfettered access to their children under some idea that it is Good are in denial and their Trust is a form of mental decay and escapism that is not Good at all. People who Trust politicians without looking deeper into what is really going on in the world are doing so out of necessity partially and partially because it hurts to much and makes them uncomfortable and partially because it takes too much work when they just want to relax. And partially because they can't see the effects of the policies in their own back yard and therefore they dissociate or never acknowledge what's really going on and fall back on Trust. That's not Good. I think that's a form of Evil. I see it in myself sometimes. And I don't like it.

What I find good about trust is faith that by trusting others who are falliable there is a possibility the other will do the right thing. Faith that sometimes even people who betray us are capable of coming through for the common good in the end. The faith and courage behind trust has the power to transform Evil. To neutralize it temporarily and lead to a better outcome. The other thing I find good about trust is that we can sometimes extend limited trust even when people have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. This is a form of love that can be healing to both the one who trusts and the one who has broken the trust. Again leading to a better outcome.

And trust often involves forgiveness.

Whew sure some weird tit-tatting on this DAA#3 - my suggestion would be to not bother with DAA#4.

Gabby, if you figure out some of these exchanges let me know.

I haven't a clue but would suggest Bill join a debate club and learn the ropes.


lenal

Give me a good reason not to.

CGCS is a debate club. What better way to learn the ropes than to participate.

This takes the debate in a new direction by suggesting that one has no choice but to trust. Then it becomes a question of who and how much we should trust instead of if one should trust. You've already given some good examples of how much we should trust. TROU also gave examples of where trust with acceptible risks could be as equally benificial as distrust. I will let Graham tell you who you should trust.

As far as if one should trust, or if one has a choice. I'm treating it like Wall Street vs Las Vegas. On Wall Street the benefits of trusting are obvious to the point that it is perceived as a method of survival in todays economy. In Vegas, if one should trust is not as obvious. Yes, you can get rich if you are lucky, but the odds are against you.

But gambling against the odds could eventually become a means of survival just as our economy depends on stock trading. At one time, there was no stock exchange, and yet the worlds survived. What if the world were run by Casinos? Your choice would be to either own them, work for them, or play in them despite your odds. You wouldn't have much choice then, but you do have a choice now.

Now look at todays world. Most of us are living from pay check to pay check. A large percentage of the world is suffering. But enough of us are winning at the risks we take (trusting people) that we are content with the system. Sort of like a Casino huh? Many more people losing than winning, but more people feeling like they are winning than losing. Some even trusting the cards or the slot machine, even when they know that the odds are against them. They feel lucky. Like they have a special connection to the dealers, the dice or the machines. Do they need to gamble to survive?

Which brings us back to the question of do we need to trust. We can all agree that not trusting is difficult. But I've shown cases of where it's possible where most people think it's impossible.

But since our interdependency has evolved to the level of not being able to function in todays society without trusting a government at least to the level of not trying to overthrow it on a daily basis or live on a deserted island (if there are any), I will gladly give you the checkmate in the debate for pointing out that not trusting is not an option, and give TROU the credit for cornering the devil for you. Two heads are better than one.

But the devil leaves with this point. We still don't know if trusting people to the extent that we do, leaves the odds in our favor or not. So the argument is not completely defeated. It's just gone to the point where I can't take it any further, not that I wish to. TKO

I cede the game to Gabrielle!

Now try to collect from Bill Gabby!