I think you are spot on in the first paragraph that trust is critical for existence and advance of civilization. That trust somehow builds consistently in smal

I think you are spot on in the first paragraph that trust is critical for existence and advance of civilization. That trust somehow builds consistently in small groups -- humans seem good at quickly deciding, based on a few personal experiences, whether to deal with / trust another person. The major challenge is that this approach does not scale -- one does not trust strangers in a large city. Using a few trusted agents (newspapers, TV, etc.) for things you cannot personally see and assess kind-of worked 50+ years ago, but that model has now failed. IMO building a framework of trust in a larger, denser, more interconnected world, is one of the major existential issues for a modern civilization. Allowing folks to organize in smaller groups (and set their own rules) and not forcing mixing based on federal laws might be a start. It might work better that universal doctrines ("trust the state"), universal technology ("trust the app") or behavior changes ("trust a stranger"). My 2c.