People will ALWAYS cheat others given the chance, and especially when facing very little online repercussions. I am not sure who you were replying to here. I do live in a small community, I have relied on a few others for survival, and I have been both stolen from, and price gouged due to others who would try to make skin off my back. I assume you've got less real life experience in these matters. I live on the basis of trusting nobody else but a very select few and being very self sufficient and reliant. I grow hundreds of pounds of my own vegetables, for instance, and I would seldom ever buy vegetables from a store throughout the season. Least of all, my trust in government. Most who initially got into bitcoin very early on did so for libertarian values towards government and monetary systems. I can really assure you that most of us who got into Bitcoin in 2010 did NOT do so because we initially thought we were getting lucratively rich or having thoughts we were selling assets to folks for a higher price just to get out. No, we got into Bitcoin because we see USD fiat paper as trash cash that is ever losing value and is backed by nothing but a phony government system. Used to keep people poor, used for financial control.
Think why you decided to write you only trust "select few"? Aren't these the people you plan on interacting with for a long time like family, friends or coworkers?
That's because when you plan to work with somebody for a long time, your game changes from finite to infinite. It suddenly makes other than altruistic sense to invest actual resources into fostering the relationship and avoid damaging this relationship by cheating.
This is neither projection, nor a deflection due to myself not being trustworthy and I find it strange that one would jump first to this. No, it's situational due to life experience lived. People can and do take advantage of systems, which is more to the point of what drew libertarians to Bitcoin. Now move along.
