About book Liars And Outliers: Enabling The Trust That Society Needs To Thrive (2012)
The blurb inside the back cover explains that "Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist who studies the human side of security...prolific author...has testified before Congress...frequent guest on TV and radio...regularly quoted in the press." The subtitle of the book called out to me, but the book was not exactly a page turner for me. I reckon I plodded through it because I felt it is an important subject and I was hoping for some hope. My sense was that it was a rather length philosophical essay,supported by tons of examples and commentary--not to mention literally 100 pages of notes and references. I like to have a good table of contents and index, which he has, but my use of the index to go back to his introduction of specific terms met with mixed success--that was a bit disappointing.Schneier makes the case that we will always have "defectors" but that we must keep the ratio acceptable--what is society willing to tolerate? That's something to think about!He expounded on lots of topics and examples; probably what caught my attention the most was his discussion along the way of corporations...how corporations "are not people." "Citizens United" anyone? Near the end, he writes: "The lesson of this book isn't that defectors will inevitably ruin everything for everyone, but that we need to manage societal pressures to ensure they don't. We've seen how our prehistoric tool box of social pressure--moral and reputational systems--does that on a small scale, how institutions enhance that on a larger scale, and how technology helps all three systems scale even more. "Over a decade ago, I wrote that 'security is a process, not a product.' That's true for all societal pressures. The interplay of all the feedback loops means that both the scope of defection and the scope of defection society is willing to tolerate are constantly moving targets. There is no 'getting it right'; this process never ends." p.242 Lucid and thought-provoking discussion of the roles of cooperators and defectors in creating a functioning society. (Spoiler: both are needed, but we need a proper balance between the two.) Schneier discusses different forms of social and societal pressures that incentivize cooperation - moral pressure, reputational pressure, institutional pressure, and security systems. This book really shines when Schneier explores the differences between how social and societal pressures promoting cooperation effect individuals as opposed to organizations, and specifically corporations. The structure of the societal incentives that allow us to cooperate are crucial to our thriving, but they become much more difficult to manage when they are meant to constrain the behavior of very large organizations.
Do You like book Liars And Outliers: Enabling The Trust That Society Needs To Thrive (2012)?
Everything you wanted to know about trust but were afraid to ask.
—Jasmine
This was a tough one. Not your typical infosec book.
—shay
