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Here Be Sermons | Melting Asphalt
Religion is a powerful synchronizer of minds. Any protocol has network effects, cultural ones no less than others — agreement on behavioral and moral conventions allows for more efficient cooperation between human beings. Religion helps us to help each other flourish. That is not a coincidence.
Sonya Mann • What is God?
Religion is a particularly scalable form of culture, which was arguably the thing thatmade it possible to interact and transact with (i.e. trust) other people far beyond your local community. When you can presuppose that a stranger shares your basic understanding of the world and a foundational moral code, trust is much easier.
Baz • You should design trust infrastructure
Here’s one way to understand the mechanism of action: compared to society-at-large, the people at a gathering have less variance between them. Less variance makes strangers more predictable to each other. If I can make more accurate guesses about your behaviour, I can be more generous with you even if I don’t yet know you personally, because... See more