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  3. (1) It is easy to forget that even the most trivial commercial transactions

(1) It is easy to forget that even the most trivial commercial transactions

游客2024-08-23  10
问题     (1) It is easy to forget that even the most trivial commercial transactions rely on small acts of trust. Laws encourage good behaviour, but states lack the resources to force everyone to be good all the time. Trust keeps society running. Just ordering a pizza requires faith that the dough will be well made, that the pizzeria will not abuse the customer’s credit-card information, and that the delivery man will not abscond with the cargo. More complex partnerships, of the sort that make long-run economic growth possible, require much higher degrees of trust. New technologies, from sharing-economy apps to the blockchain, offer routes around some of the trust deficits that stand in the way of growth. Yet whether such solutions to problems of mistrust build on or undermine social ties is no easy question to answer.
    (2) Trust in society is not just a nicety. It makes possible, as one paper on the subject has it, "the commitment of resources to an activity where the outcome depends upon the co-operative behaviour of others". Low-trust societies waste piles of time and money working out who can be counted on, defending vulnerable stores of wealth, and guarding against con men. Such places are infertile ground for long-run investment, the gains from which could be grabbed by rivals or stolen by government. Meanwhile trust is highest, and defences against chicanery lowest, within some of the world’s wealthiest countries. Studies of the relationship between measures of trust and economic growth find a close link between the two. That does not necessarily mean one causes the other. But research also suggests that trust boosts trade, participation in financial markets and investment, suggesting that greater trust spurs the activities that make a place richer.
    (3) Sadly, cultivating trust is hard. It is a sort of social capital which must be built through time and effort. Repeated positive interactions and demonstrations of trustworthiness create a foundation of mutual confidence. Within close communities, emotional cues like praise and shame effectively discourage antisocial activity. In environments rich in social capital, the return for co-operative behaviour is high; you can make more money playing by the rules and building a business, for instance, than by reneging on a contract at the first opportunity. In the same way, trustworthiness is rarely rewarded in low-trust societies; both high-trust and low-trust states of the world are sticky.
    (4) Inventive humans are good at finding ways around trust bottlenecks. Reliance on families or tribes—groups whose members’ interests are more closely aligned, presumably, than those of the population as a whole—is a common strategy. Yet by their nature, such workarounds are limited in scope, and leave many members of society isolated. New technologies offer a more promising approach. A company’s ability to use the Internet to monitor production in a factory half a world away means that firms need not establish deep relationships with foreign suppliers before opening a distant plant. Network connections between retailers and banks can help verify a customer’s ability to pay; the blockchain, a shared, public and trusted digital of transactions, eliminates the need for a central counterparty altogether.
    (5) Historically, however, technology has done more to open up society than to segregate it. New technologies make it easier to trust unfamiliar groups. Public ratings, for instance, can undercut discrimination. Taxi drivers who might normally speed past members of a different race may feel more comfortable picking up a diverse set of riders given good ratings on Uber. A survey conducted by BlaBlaCar, a popular ridesharing service, found that 88％ of its members reported a high level of trust in fellow users—higher than that reported for colleagues or neighbours. In a study in America, Alberto Alesina, of Harvard University, and Eliana La Ferrara, of Bocconi University in Milan, found that places with higher levels of racial and income diversity have lower levels of trust. By arranging interactions across such boundaries, technology may widen the circle of trust.
    (6) Apps often encourage good behaviour as well. Public ratings, like the ones that Uber presents for its drivers or that Yelp collects for businesses, mean that good customer service is increasingly important in capturing new business. Firms and customers that behave badly risk a permanent stain on their reputation.
    (7) It is one thing to use Airbnb to rent a spare room from someone of a different background, and quite another to build the deep social bonds needed to support long-run investments. For big commitments, people will not suddenly let down their guard, however impressive technology becomes. Yet trust is a habit. New technologies that encourage co-operation in some spheres of life contribute to social capital rather than weaken it. (本文选自 The Economist) [br] Why does the author mention Uber and Yelp in Para. 6?
选项 A、To imply that people will not suddenly let down their guard.
B、To explain that Apps with public ratings can improve customer service.
C、To report a high level of trust in users of these two Apps.
D、To imply new technologies can build deep social bonds.
答案 D
解析 推断题。原文第六段以优步和耶普为例，说明应用程序可以促进服务质量的提高，无论是公司还是消费者，其不良行为都会留下信誉的污点。由此可见，技术可以帮助建立深层的社会关系，故D为答案。本段并没有提及A，故排除；文中指出公众评级意味着好的客户服务越来越重要，而不是指拥有公众评级的软件可以改善客户服务，故排除B，C是对本段的片面理解，故排除。
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