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Notes -
The obvious need is for the advancement and maintenance of first world societies. You need first world people to stave of stagnation, deterioration and corruption.
On a social level the proportions that make up a population are very important if you care about first world living standards. This is why populations like Iceland can create a better living environment than populations in various eastern European countries despite the total number of high trust, high IQ people being higher in eastern Europe.
It has to pay off to be high trust. Otherwise the people predisposed to trusting will learn to do the opposite. This creates a drastic division within a society where people, most often the smartest who are very capable of forming collectives of trust, close themselves off from wider society because engaging with it fairly is not worth it since it has too many trust breakers.
This effectively makes nepotism and corruption a winning move, which is obviously awful for anyone who idealizes any modern conception of a first world society.
Interesting. Are there documented examples of this happening in real life?
Also, why is high IQ and not, say, high pro-social values so important for establishing trust?
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