Posted 9:09 AM

Identity and trust

A Fascinating tidbit from New Scientist illustrates the issue that trust and identity are co-dependent. It seems that elephants (at least, African elephants) take warning alarms much more seriously when they appear to emanate from herds that live in close proximity to them (which might, presumably, be related) than from distant, unknown herds. Much as humans find information from known sources to be more believable than that from unknown sources. There might even be an element of reputation involved, but we'd probably need more investigation to determine that. Still, it does open up new possibilities for identity experimentation...