Trust Became Liability

Everyone is competing. Everyone is transactional. Trust anyone and you lose.

Colleague smiles, asks about your project, listens intently. Reports your doubts to manager next day. You're flagged as "not aligned." Passed over for promotion. She gets it instead. You thought it was conversation. Was intelligence gathering.

Neighbor borrows tools, never returns them. You ask politely. He claims you never lent them. No proof. No witnesses. Small claims court costs more than tools' value. You absorb loss. Stop lending. Stop trusting. Stop interacting.

Friend asks for loan. Emergency supposedly. You give it. He ghosts you. Blocks your number. Mutual friends say they haven't seen him. You're out $2,000. Learn expensive lesson, friendship dissolves at transaction.

Every interaction now weighted. Every favor calculated. Every kindness evaluated for exploitation risk. You help someone move, expect reciprocation, receive nothing. You share professional contact, they leverage it without credit, advance their career on your network. You mentor junior colleague, they undermine you to take your position.

Trust eroded because trusting became costly. Betrayal profitable. System rewards defection, punishes cooperation. You cooperate, you lose. You defect first, you survive.

Schools collapsed pedagogically. Teachers leaving, underpaid, overworked, legally constrained from discipline. Classrooms chaotic. Students illiterate at graduation. Eighth graders reading at fourth-grade level. Math scores plummeting. Science scores worse. But everyone graduates. Standards lowered yearly. Diploma worthless. Signals nothing except attendance.

Universities worse. Tuition $60,000 yearly. Four years costs $240,000 with living expenses. Debt incurred. For what? Professors don't teach, graduate students do. Classes are lectures recorded years ago. Discussion sections led by overworked TAs who don't care. Grades inflated, average GPA 3.4 now versus 2.7 in 1980. Everyone gets A's. Degree signals nothing except debt tolerance.

Students learn nothing useful. Graduate unemployable. Debt survives bankruptcy. They're 22, $100,000 in debt, working coffee shop. Degree in communications or sociology or political science. No skills. No prospects. No future. Spent four years partying on borrowed money. Now paying for decades.

Meanwhile elite universities still matter. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, these signal access, not education. You're not learning better material. You're meeting future elites. Making connections. Joining networks. Education is pretext. Networking is product. Your state university degree can't compete. You're credentialed but not connected. Credential without connection is worthless.

Community dissolved. No one knows neighbors. No one attends local events. No one joins organizations. Churches empty, attendance down 60% since 1990. Social clubs defunct. Civic organizations disbanded. Community centers closed, budget cuts. Everyone isolated. Atomized. Alone.

Why? Trust required for community. Trust doesn't exist. Neighbor might report you for code violation, increases his property value if you're forced to renovate. Community member might sue you for injury at event you organized. Church elder might exploit your confession for social leverage. Every interaction is risk. Minimize risk by minimizing interaction.

You're mediated through screens. All relationships digital. Friends are followers. Conversations are comments. Community is platform. Platform surveils everything. Records everything. Sells data to advertisers, provides to government when requested. Your entire social life monitored, monetized, archived.

Surveillance normalized. You accept it because no alternative. Want to participate socially? Must use platform. Platform requires real name, location, contacts access, behavioral data. You give it. Everyone does. Refusing means isolation.

Children internalize this. Born into surveillance. Never knew privacy. Don't expect it. Don't miss it. Perform constantly for cameras. Optimize for metrics. Followers, likes, views. These determine status. Real relationships irrelevant. Digital metrics everything.

They trust no one instinctively. Grew up watching parents betrayed by employers, friends, institutions. Learned early, everyone defects eventually. Defect first or lose. They're fifteen and already transactional. Already calculating. Already isolated despite constant digital connection.

Social fabric tore because fabric required trust. Trust required stability. Stability required functioning institutions. Institutions failed. Schools fail to educate. Universities fail to prepare. Communities fail to connect. Churches fail to provide meaning. Government fails to govern. Media fails to inform. Every institution revealed corrupt or incompetent or both.

You trust nothing now. Verify everything. Record conversations. Document agreements. Assume betrayal. Minimize exposure. Protect yourself because no one else will.

Marriage rates collapsing. Why marry? Divorce destroys you financially. Partner might defect anytime. No-fault divorce means no recourse. She leaves, takes half your assets plus alimony plus child support. You're impoverished for her choices. Men avoid marriage rationally. Women can't find partners willing to risk it. Birth rates collapse. Population declines.

This is social fabric collapse. From cooperation to competition. From trust to suspicion. From community to atomization. From connection to isolation.

Everyone competing. Everyone transactional. Everyone alone. You included.