3 ms·

> There is no solution. How an an explicit web of trust not a solution? Imagine a system where you can keep a local database of people/sites/pages you know an

> There is no solution. How an an explicit web of trust not a solution? Imagine a system where you can keep a local database of people/sites/pages you know and how much you trust them, selectively expose parts of that database to your immediate friends and/or the web as a whole, and lookup/query the databases exposed by contacts. "My friend F1 assigns a trust score of 0.9 to website W1, and I assign a trust score of 0.9 to F1, so I trust this site 0.81 and I'm willing to make financial transactions on it without further research (but not give it my SSN)." "My friend F2 trusts random R1 0.7, who trusts random R2 0.5, who trusts random R3 0.4, who is pushing this new cryptocurrency - maybe I should talk with F2 about R1 and R2 before doing anything with this..." "My friend F3 distrusts site W2 with a score of -0.7, I'm not going to shop there." "My friend F4 is a history expert and distrusts this Wikipedia page on history with a score of -0.5, so it's probably not reliable." What would be wrong with this system?

kube-system 4y ago
You're described a system that tells you what your friends think, not a system that necessarily comes to any objective truth. The internet is already full of echo chambers of misplaced trust -- that's much of the problem. Linking echo chambers to mutually trusted echo chambers isn't going to lead people to objective truth. It's going to introduce flat-earthers to ghost hunters.
deleted 4y ago
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ohwellhere 4y ago
You're solving for trust rather than "truth". Of course, there may be no truth, hence GP's: > > Perhaps truth was always an illusion But my interpretation of what they meant by "very concept of truth" is something like "consensus reality;" where the vast majority of people trust something is true. A network of trust is fragmented bubbles of distinct truths. > What would be wrong with this system? For starters, I don't know that it's a priori better than the current fragmented bubbles of distinct truths we have. Are more fragmented bubbles better? For some populations or people, maybe; for society? It's less clear. But I think the real thing wrong with web of trust systems is that the value is tied up in network effects and you have to solve for adoption. --- I say that as someone who generally thinks this is a useful way of approaching the problem of trust. I've brainstormed building this too many times to count. :)
nkingsy 4y ago
I won't argue the trust system presented here other than to say it sounds exhausting. I want everyone to get as close a proximity to the truth as is possible and for us as a society to achieve consensus around what are the facts and what should be done about them. What you describe, at scale, is a social credit system. It does feel like an inevitability and one that will produce unprecedented collateral damage, but may save civilization.
Dylan16807 4y ago
My ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate article truth is very low. In other words, a web of trust trying to replace Wikipedia is useless to me after a couple hops, so next to zero material will be covered by it.

kube-system 4y ago

You're described a system that tells you what your friends think, not a system that necessarily comes to any objective truth. The internet is already full of echo chambers of misplaced trust -- that's much of the problem. Linking echo chambers to mutually trusted echo chambers isn't going to lead people to objective truth. It's going to introduce flat-earthers to ghost hunters.

deleted 4y ago

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ohwellhere 4y ago

You're solving for trust rather than "truth". Of course, there may be no truth, hence GP's: > > Perhaps truth was always an illusion But my interpretation of what they meant by "very concept of truth" is something like "consensus reality;" where the vast majority of people trust something is true. A network of trust is fragmented bubbles of distinct truths. > What would be wrong with this system? For starters, I don't know that it's a priori better than the current fragmented bubbles of distinct truths we have. Are more fragmented bubbles better? For some populations or people, maybe; for society? It's less clear. But I think the real thing wrong with web of trust systems is that the value is tied up in network effects and you have to solve for adoption. --- I say that as someone who generally thinks this is a useful way of approaching the problem of trust. I've brainstormed building this too many times to count. :)

nkingsy 4y ago

I won't argue the trust system presented here other than to say it sounds exhausting. I want everyone to get as close a proximity to the truth as is possible and for us as a society to achieve consensus around what are the facts and what should be done about them. What you describe, at scale, is a social credit system. It does feel like an inevitability and one that will produce unprecedented collateral damage, but may save civilization.

Dylan16807 4y ago

My ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate people's ability to evaluate article truth is very low. In other words, a web of trust trying to replace Wikipedia is useless to me after a couple hops, so next to zero material will be covered by it.