# High Trust Society

Nov 3, 2024

> I just want you to see, I just want you to see
> The way we drag a bunch of people into lunacy
> – mos thoser

Regardless of who wins on Tuesday, does anyone think this gets fixed? Is Kamala going to restore trust in government? Is Trump going to restore trust in government?

Despite what Western media might have you believe about how the people in China are lying cause they are scared or something, these stats reflect what I have seen. I trust the Chinese government more than I trust the US government.

It’s obvious on the streets. These aren’t scared people obeying out of fear, these are people playing their role with pride to live in a nice society. I feel the American sneer just writing those words, but it doesn’t make it less true.

GDP can be manipulated ten ways till Sunday, electricity and steel production are much harder to fake. A government delivering growth and better lives to people is one worth trusting. A government that kills squirrels that get too famous on social media, not as much. I’ll note that social issues are well handled in China too.

When Americans are asked about this, they will defend some nebulous concept of freedom, and I ask, freedom to what? Vote? Freedom from what? People taking your stuff? Here’s a guy trying to steal a bike from the comma office last week.

Guess the police were too busy killing squirrels. Of course, had I confronted the guy, the police would have been quick to come for me. Anarcho-tyranny.

When a society loses trust, it takes a lot for it to come back. Many people in America aren’t in agreement on basic things, that growth is good and crime should be illegal. What would it take to change their minds?

The answer may be nothing short of generational change or civil war. Regardless, it won’t be a quick process. As much as I might side with Elon and like what he is doing, most of the country won’t. Many of my friends are Kamala voters, and their answer to Trump voters is to perhaps to “accept their diminished place in a rapidly changing world.” The Trump voter answer to Kamala voters is something equally racist and sexist, maybe uhh, there’s sort of a reason the people who built everything are the people who built everything.

None of this fixes trust in society. None of this brings you closer with your neighbor. It will take either generational change with a new set of politics, or a civil war and the reconstruction that follows. Neither of which I really care to be around for. To me the synthesis is obvious, but it’s like the country is going through a mental health episode and you can’t just tell people what’s wrong with them in the first therapy session, they have to go through a painfully long process (billed to medicare, don’t worry lah) to discover it themselves.

So where does that leave us? Facts are easy, figuring out actions is hard. China is a society for the Chinese, and I am not Chinese. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai are nice (and multicultural), but they aren’t large markets.

I think the future is the Internet. The American empire is over, the Chinese empire is next, and the Internet is the empire after that. We build for that world.

Back to work. tiny corp is a remote first company, and we are hiring. I trust that the tools to manage remote companies will get rapidly better with AI in the next 5 years (think automated PMs and ops).

Oh and in the IRL mean time, it’s very nice to be physically in a high trust society. Still working on opening an office in Hong Kong for those who want, salaries higher in person.