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Build systems that obviate the need for trusted authorities.

• crusso 13y ago
  Exactly. Why question whether or not our suspicion is greater or less than it was in some bygone era? It's like saying, "Cancer survival rates are much better now than they were a hundred years ago, so let's question peoples' motivation for continuing to battle cancer."
• jjoonathan 13y ago
  Systems that obviate the need for authorities can be just as corrupt* and stupid as the authorities themselves. Systems should be treated with the same level of skepticism as powerful individuals. It's a shame that they usually aren't. * By "corrupt" I mean that a system arbitrarily facilitates the self-interest of a small group of people over others. Symmetric starting conditions aren't enough; instability breaks initial symmetries faster than a kid breaks toys.
• im3w1l 13y ago
  Interestingly, twitter sort of does this, in that it sort of works like a web of trust. One difference is that the main mechanism of trust propagation is endorsement of statements (retweet) rather than endorsement of people (follow).
• ars 13y ago
  You still have to trust whoever built the system. And don't think you can check it yourself - for 99.9% of people that's impossible. And don't say "so trust that 0.1% of people" because you did nothing except add a layer of indirection.
  • marcosdumay 13y ago
    Well, once the system works it's easy to trust, and it tends to stay that way. The problem, as jjoonathan said, is when it does not work. I'd say that it's worse than a corrupt politician, because the politician is much easier to replace (if you are not under a system that makes all of them equally corrupt).