Can Humans be trusted overall?

This is a bit of a issue when it comes to politics at least in my mind. I've been thinking about this recently and about how most people who trust humans overall believe in democracy and that humans overall will know what's best of them. Whereas if humans believe humans can't overall be trusted then they are more pro dictatorships. I personally believe that humans overall can't be trusted .

You live in the US, yes?
Its called the 'credibilty gap' and though it has been around to some degree since the dawn of civilization [and probably before], the modern 'crediblity gap' is noted for having started during Johnson's Administration.

One thing is that the US populous tends to project their own uncomfortability with their government onto all others, even if those people are perfectly content with their government.

As for the actual OP:
Humans are sentient and seek two things mostly: survival and reproduction. The perception of 'trustworthiness' is totally artificial. People will do what is in their best interests most of the time. Whether or not they can be 'trusted' largely falls on the person asking the question 'Do they share my interest?' than anything else.
Simply put: if they person does what you like, you think them trustworthy. If they do not, you believe that they are untrustworthy.

So the real question may be: Do you think that the majority of humans hold your same interests?

I suppose that one could also input humanistic psychology here, but I think that I'll leave that to someone else.

Well, I trust mankind as a whole.

That would depend on what you trust it to do.

I think so, and I think if we had more equality then trust would be less of a problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw#t=336s

can you trust your mom or dad? brothers or sisters or cousings...or your teachers...people dying in god forskaen countries so you don't have to...the invention of electricity...your own damn computer....bla bla bla bla...So can you trust ANY thing human or human made?
even one thing?

I can trust ideas.

One of the most important factors of my Philosophy is egoism, the idea that Humans ultimately work for their own benefit. This is not the bad thing people seem to think it is however, since modern societies, laws & 'ethics' are all born out of this.

The question is then "what is this benefit they are working towards" & this is of course modal. Essentially you will tend towards those things which help you achieve your goals. Societies work because people realise the benefit of limiting other peoples ability to get in the way of you achieving your own personal goals, so essentially Social Contract Theory.

So to answer your question: Humans can be consider trustworthy if being trustworthy is overall in their own interest. One key interest is emotion, for example one reason people may find being trustworthy central to their goals is the fear resulting from getting caught which will usually end up working against your goals, or the guilt involved in being found out. I would argue that being seen as trustworthy at the very least is always part of a humans goals (or an essential way to allow you to achieve your goals) & one of the most effective ways of generating the effect is being trustworthy. Of course people cheat & such because they think they can get away with it so the best way to ensure a trustworthy society is to ensure breaches of trust can be discover & publicised to the appropriate degree whilst obviously not breaking trust by hiring people to tail everyone or whatever, which itself would fall to the same issue.

This question is easily answered.

Get a human, Get a cupcake.

Place the cupcake next to human. Tell human not to eat, while you are away.

Come back with cupcake mysteriously gone.

Logic'd.

Does your egoism philosophy account for the idea of people giving to strangers to their personal detriment?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rFAdlU2ETjU#t=178s

Define their own detriment? I don't see how the experiment you link poses any problems, as I said, interests are not as bleak as just financial or social gain. So we have the molecule "Oxytosen" which causes or is party responsible for empathy & generosity. That's fine but as he said it can be impacted on by bad nurturing. Oxytosen is apparently released when you get into situations where you need to feel empathy or trust, it is released because your interacting with your girlfriend & is not the cause of said interaction. In the experiment they are acting out of a sense of duty, no doubt brought on by the way society works with deals. 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch mine' or just general societal deals such as when you are shopping. As soon as your in a situation where you simply cannot afford to give back, if you are in huge amounts of debt the chance of you returning any money I am willing to wager would be incredibly low.

In any case, I wouldn't say the person in these experiments.

This experiment I find harder to reconcile. This is a social experiment & thus I would eat the cookies because I have no reason not to, no one would be upset because it's simply a study.

Honestly, I was halfway through this post before I realized that it was not a mirror of the marrshmellow experiment and had little to nothing to do with it.

I'd just view it as a challenge and eat ALLLL the radishes!

Was it possible they thought they would be punished for eating or possibly even shamed by others if they did so? Or even if they thought there might be a reward if they did follow the orders of the "authority" figure as many times it's shown when you're growing up. Listen to the adult or any quasi-authority figure and you get something for it. Also how did they know for certain no one ate anytthing?

Trust is given when trust is earned.

yeah seriously guys this isn't a black and white question. At all. Generalizing this does it no justice.

Oh I shouldve specified. I meant how were they sure that no on ate anything before going to the experiment? Also I was wondering if you would answer my question on whether or not the subjects of the test believed there would be reprecussions for their actions.

Btw when are you doing more Shogun Total War 2: Fall of the Samurai Let's Play? I greatly enjoy your RTS and Grand Strategy Let's Plays. Mass Effect became boring to me.

Did the study account for the fact that the participants might really like radishes?