Trusting action increases one’s vulnerability to another whose behavior is uncontrolled

Evidence

The consolidation of trust therefore constitutes an advantageous, but also a heavily presuppositional reformulation for the primordial problem of social order, the existence of a free alter ego. Instead of arming oneself against the unpredictability of the other person in the full complexity of all possibilities, one can seek to reduce complexity by concentrating on the creation and maintenance of mutual trust, and engage in more meaningful action in respect of a problem now more narrowly defined. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 247 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reliability with strangers requires self-exposure to unrelated harm; Relationships that must escalate invite trust disruptions that mimic endgame effects; Communal trustworthiness often turns outsiders into targets of abuse (+7 more)

Related

• Trust reduces the complexity of a free alter ego’s unpredictability (similarity 0.85)
• Trust operates within already-reduced forms of an anonymously generated lifeworld (similarity 0.85)
• Trust requires genuine vulnerability and the partner’s real interest in betraying it (similarity 0.85)
• Building mutual trust requires confronting risk rather than avoiding it (similarity 0.84)
• Trust cannot be demanded but only offered through vulnerability (similarity 0.84)
• Trust only arises where opportunistic behavior is genuinely possible (similarity 0.84)
• Trust forms sequentially by reducing social complexity over discrete steps (similarity 0.84)
• Trust requires both freedom to defect and constraints that make cooperation attractive (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is not chosen, a gamble, or an investment; only actions are (similarity 0.83)
• Testing trust requires a concrete setting and visible relation to one’s own risk decisions (similarity 0.83)
• Trust requires controlling one’s own readiness to accept risk (similarity 0.83)
• Failed trust is answered with still more trust, not less. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is rational action taken despite uncontrolled exposure to loss (similarity 0.82)
• Being trustworthy carries no risk while being trusting exposes one to exploitation (similarity 0.82)
• Relationships that must escalate invite trust disruptions that mimic endgame effects (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Trust requires genuine vulnerability and the partner’s real interest in betraying it #expands (0.92)
• Trust and trustworthiness are asymmetrical because only trusting carries significant risk of exploitation #expands (0.80)
• Trust reduces the complexity of a free alter ego’s unpredictability #qualifies (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 247