There’s a wonderful interactive online game (for lack of a better work) that lets you explore and experience a game theoretic analysis of that tension. Very instructive. When trust collapses, everyone is much worse off.
"Reflections on Trusting Trust"[1] (Ken Thompson, 1984) is up there - it's a brief read, with high information density, and fairly profound implications.
From the title, I thought it was a reference to the book Lying for Money by Dan Davis. Anyways, the book is an brilliant exploration of this premise and also makes the case for why trust is necessary.
"Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson is one of my favorites.
Most papers by Jon Bentley (e.g. A Sample of Brilliance) are also great reads.
I'm a frequent contributor to Fermat's Library, which posts an annotated paper (CS, Math and Physics mainly) every week. If you are looking for interesting papers to read, I would strongly recommend checking it out - http://fermatslibrary.com/
It's only partially true. There's a reason people hide their cards in competitive games (like poker or bell curve-fitted tests) – it can put you a higher relative rating.
However, humans are complex and if you have a trust codex like "i am open to sharing openly only with others who respect this codex", it'll benefit the participants – iff the game is non-zero sum and has repeated interactions (such as most careers, especially in creative professions).
Such a meta-game is more fragile (trust can be eroded quickly), but can benefit everyone in an absolute sense. This game theoretical fundamental truth can be found in animals with symbiotic relationships, as well as codified in moral frameworks (eg the Christian golden rule).
Search for "evolution of trust" if you want to see interactively how it plays out, it's fascinating and highly applicable to social behavior and cultures.
Trust (2010) because it addressed a common issue with a new angle (at least for me) that I find very interesting, and troubling even though I have no doubt it exists.
It's kinda interesting (although probably more of a simple slippery slope) to consider the intersection of this and the classic Reflections On Trusting Trust[1].
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