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> Why do you think the only way forward is thru trust-less systems? <hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust> I don't think we _can_ restore trust as yo

> Why do you think the only way forward is thru trust-less systems? <hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust> I don't think we _can_ restore trust as you suggested. I think that social media and the "modern internet" has broken humans. Humans, in my opinion, are incompatible with trust outside of a very small circle of people. So, we need to move to a system where no one trusts anyone or anything, data is either strictly controlled by an individual person (the biological person, not a corporation or any other legal funny business) or is freely open for everyone to see. I think that Fake News is largely only able to propagate because there has been a failure in trust. It's not (entirely) an educational problem, it's a problem that the system is opaque, the participants are opaque and the distributed trust the world was built on no longer works because we are no longer dealing with a disconnected population that only build strong forms of trust within themselves across generations. We are still working on the assumption of trust or using biological signals to determine trustworthiness of a person or fact. That's _really_ bad when people don't know what or who to trust because society assumed implicit trust would work. We have to move past a web of webs trust-wise where each web has only a few edges to other webs ("I trust this individual to speak for me") and move to a single web of each node (person) having to reach consensus with other nodes using transparent, consensus-reached facts. I think we _could_ do make our gov't and officials completely transparent but that still relies on trust & honesty to report what's happening without bias (which, imo, isn't possible for humans). </hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust> > Why do you think the only way forward is thru trust-less systems? Trust is easily broken or exploited. We are better off if each node, either biological or not, determines from provable and transparent facts ("this was agreed upon by 51%+ of trusted nodes") rather than being expected to implicitly trust opaque facts ("trust us... the money is definitely there. ;)")

jimkleiber 5y ago
> We are better off if each node, either biological or not, determines from provable and transparent facts ("this was agreed upon by 51%+ of trusted nodes") In this hypothetical, what if the 51% of 'trusted' nodes conspired to lie? Also, I'm confused how the nodes would be 'trusted' if the system were truly 'trustless'—trusted by whom? Do you not think that we would have to trust things that we don't understand? Even if I had in front of me all the transparent data about how a SpaceX rocket worked, I wouldn't be able to tell if it were true without relying on someone else I trusted to have more knowledge. > I think we _could_ do make our gov't and officials completely transparent Maybe I just see it differently, if something is completely transparent and I have all of the knowledge (and understand it), I wouldn't define that as 'trust' but rather 'knowledge' or something alike. For me, 'trust' has an inherent uncertainty to it, a doubt, where I choose to believe in spite of that doubt. I trust that this message arrives to you the way that I send it, because I trust that Firefox is not tweaking the input, I trust my ISP is not injecting/removing text that I send, I trust that HN is showing you what I typed, etc. I have some idea based on how you're replying that those things happened, and yet I'm still trusting that it will work each time I send something, despite having not much idea how it works at each level. > I think that Fake News is largely only able to propagate because there has been a failure in trust. I agree that many people are trusting certain people/institutions less than in the past. I disagree that opaqueness is causing distrust, as I again believe that there is little if no 'trust' when things are completely transparent and known. <counter hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust :-D> Personally, I think this has more to do with the cause: > Trust is easily broken or exploited. I think many of us have felt betrayed, ignored, cheated, lied to, abandoned, etc. Things have happened to us that have hurt us and made us feel afraid that people don't really care about us or actively are trying to hurt us. I do think this part can be changed. I think we can get better at apologizing, at forgiving, at mending our relationships. I say this because I don't think truth is that connected to trust. I think if you tell me the truth (let's say truth = >99% of people believe it's true, as 'objective truth' can be really hard to pin down), and yet I don't trust you, then it doesn't matter if you tell me the truth or not, I will believe it's a falsehood. Conversely, if you tell me a falsehood and yet I trust you, then it doesn't matter if you tell me a falsehood or not, I will believe it's the truth. From this perspective, trust is less about an 'objective truth' and more about one's personal subjective experience, often colored by the emotions one experiences based on different stimuli. </counter hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust> Yes, I believe is easily broken or exploited. Do you believe it cannot be rebuilt?

jimkleiber 5y ago

> We are better off if each node, either biological or not, determines from provable and transparent facts ("this was agreed upon by 51%+ of trusted nodes") In this hypothetical, what if the 51% of 'trusted' nodes conspired to lie? Also, I'm confused how the nodes would be 'trusted' if the system were truly 'trustless'—trusted by whom? Do you not think that we would have to trust things that we don't understand? Even if I had in front of me all the transparent data about how a SpaceX rocket worked, I wouldn't be able to tell if it were true without relying on someone else I trusted to have more knowledge. > I think we _could_ do make our gov't and officials completely transparent Maybe I just see it differently, if something is completely transparent and I have all of the knowledge (and understand it), I wouldn't define that as 'trust' but rather 'knowledge' or something alike. For me, 'trust' has an inherent uncertainty to it, a doubt, where I choose to believe in spite of that doubt. I trust that this message arrives to you the way that I send it, because I trust that Firefox is not tweaking the input, I trust my ISP is not injecting/removing text that I send, I trust that HN is showing you what I typed, etc. I have some idea based on how you're replying that those things happened, and yet I'm still trusting that it will work each time I send something, despite having not much idea how it works at each level. > I think that Fake News is largely only able to propagate because there has been a failure in trust. I agree that many people are trusting certain people/institutions less than in the past. I disagree that opaqueness is causing distrust, as I again believe that there is little if no 'trust' when things are completely transparent and known. <counter hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust :-D> Personally, I think this has more to do with the cause: > Trust is easily broken or exploited. I think many of us have felt betrayed, ignored, cheated, lied to, abandoned, etc. Things have happened to us that have hurt us and made us feel afraid that people don't really care about us or actively are trying to hurt us. I do think this part can be changed. I think we can get better at apologizing, at forgiving, at mending our relationships. I say this because I don't think truth is that connected to trust. I think if you tell me the truth (let's say truth = >99% of people believe it's true, as 'objective truth' can be really hard to pin down), and yet I don't trust you, then it doesn't matter if you tell me the truth or not, I will believe it's a falsehood. Conversely, if you tell me a falsehood and yet I trust you, then it doesn't matter if you tell me a falsehood or not, I will believe it's the truth. From this perspective, trust is less about an 'objective truth' and more about one's personal subjective experience, often colored by the emotions one experiences based on different stimuli. </counter hand-wave-y weirdo ranting about social trust> Yes, I believe is easily broken or exploited. Do you believe it cannot be rebuilt?