Americans don't trust each other anymore

I told everyone I picked up a guy hitch hiking leaving town and everyone said I was crazy.

People are crazy for living in fear.

That guy was thrilled I gave him a ride.

Would you pick up a hitchhiker?

Trust is gone but I don't mind helping people out.

Fear is instilled in the masses.

Be affraid.

reply to post by liejunkie01


I wouldn't pick up a hitchhiker but that's only because I've had run ins with various life experiences that not all people have.

I had a family member that worked for a trucking company that would get and deliver loads to Mexico. Their policy was that if you were in country or elsewhere in Mexico and someone got in road and tried to flag you down to honk your horn and if they didn't move, run them over.

Also in response to this topic, I don't believe it. Statistics are a very fickle science, especially when studying vast amounts of time. For example: What methods were they using years ago that allowed them to arrive at their numbers? Who were they polling? Etc. Etc.

I don't think people trust or distrust each other any more or less than they did. I think people distrust government more. Since more people now work in government jobs or corporations(basically same thing) I can see how people have lost some trust.

reply to post by ColCurious


I don't trust democrats - they are the biggest lying, thieving bunches of people I have ever had to be around -

And I work in maximum security mental hospital for the state of wisconsin - Yeah, the recall state of union thugs - thieves - liars - I have ever seen in my life.

It's not just the little guys - it's management, also -

The lies they tell about eachother to try to destroy someone else's life is almost unbelievable - it's like working with employees and management that are perpetually stuck in junior high school.

Our inmates/patient are less stressful to deal with than management.

Democrats that are employed here are soooo into lying, stealing time and money from the taxpayers - it really isn't funny.

Yeah, there's idiots who truly believe the socialist propaganda - but there's more that just are trying to screw over the taxpayers and get their bit (money) out of it.

The people I work around are vicious, greedy, mean, and ungodly.

Then there's the patients.

Of course we don't trust each other anymore, trust has to be earned not blindly given. Mix in the internet and technology which has permeated every aspect of our lives and you have a prime recipe for fear, loathing and distrust. The stakes for miss-placed trust have risen dramatically, in years past it would been hurt feeling or perhaps embarrassment, now misplaced trust can make the evening news or the top trends on Twitter and Youtube, so naturally we are all more guarded as there is every reason to be. At almost every turn there are real reasons why we must be cautious now: identity theft, scammers, pc-brigade shock troops (the busy-bodies who love to call authorities for everything) and a whole host of others who generally have contributed to a much more closed society.

reply to post by redoubt

Ya know, I get into afternoon traffic and my blood-pressure pops my eardrums... not because I think they are all idiots but because of the stresses that are built into our social system.

I am sorry to do this to you, but you provide ammo for my response.

no, I do not trust people. not anyone. its because of the driving.

I refuse to believe it is my imagination or observer bias that the roads out there are getting more dangerous by the day. road safety is such a critical situation in which we must implicitly trust those drivers around us. I believe that you can discern a person's deepest character by how they drive.

I have increased my safety zone on the road to the point where I now purposefully accelerate rather slowly so that i can get all of "them" ahead of me. and my primary aim on the road is to remain as far away from you (the over-stressed and otherwise distracted) as possible.


the road is a microcosm of the state of society .... and it is bad out there.

The original story is just more propaganda to get the population to keep thinking not to trust anyone, that's what "they" want, a nation/world of people not trusting each other.
I moved to the States five years ago and so far have lived in Philly, South Jersey and Florida and the vast majority of people I've met have been kind and helpful. I've felt far safer here than I ever did in the UK.
Don't let the government controlled media lead you into thinking that everyone is deceitful and distrustful 'cos that's just what they want.

reply to post by tgidkp

I refuse to believe it is my imagination or observer bias that the roads out there are getting more dangerous by the day. road safety is such a critical situation in which we must implicitly trust those drivers around us. I believe that you can discern a person's deepest character by how they drive.

Okee dokee. The way a person drives... defines them in other ways... like, are they good parents? Are they criminals? Do they eat the right foods? Are they smokers? Are they chuirch goers? Are they atheists? Would they stop to help me on the side of the same road????

Do they even vote for the right folks?!

I call that cheap stereotyping. It is easy to judge complete strangers based on the shallow issues because they don't get the chance to defend themselves. They blow by in traffic or pass by in a store... or you see them on a porch each day as you pass by.

We are a world of almost 9 billion individuals... each as unique as their fingerprints. Are we smart enough... good enough to judge them based on how they drive>? One step on, do we know them because how their state votes in an election?

If you or anyone thinks they have the stones to judge the mass of humanity by those standards... we are not evolving. We are devolving.

reply to post by redoubt


i believe my words were: "person's deepest character". NOT: "everything about them."

when a person drives, they temporarily assume the car as an extension of their person. however, the rules on the road are much much simpler than the rules which govern more complex social circumstances.

in the case of the "digital Ego", it is very interesting to see who people choose to be when they no longer fall under the constraints of face-to-face interaction.

similarly, it is incredible to observe who people become in the very simple system of the road, as the persona of a car rather than the persona of their usual social personality. who people choose to become when they are their car can say a great deal about what drives them as individuals in the rest of their normal life.


i cant believe i had to explain that to you. do you really believe yourself to be a qualified arbiter of evolution vs. devolution? no. it was just you being rude on the internet because you can. i wonder if you are so rude to people in face-to-face interaction? probably not. that says a great deal about who you are at a fundamental level....

.... and you have now given me (and everyone reading this exchange) reason to not trust you.

well done.

badgerprints
I sure don't.
Most Americans are brainwashed zombies who'd give up all of their rights for a few government paychecks.

I sure don't.
Some Americans are brainwashed zombies...

who'd pay good money to see the "cowards" (nod to Beezer) shot in the face rather than rub two brain cells together and realize that what has failed society the most is unfettered Capitalism and trickle down economics. If trickle down economics worked fast food workers and wal mart workers would be the highest paid workers in the country, instead people like you who no doubt espouse the trickle down theory also want to scream that "those" people have no right to a higher wage.