I trust you.
What does that really mean?
From my perspective, it is about my opinion of you, which is a series of judgements based on assumptions that culminate in me making a decision; that my conclusions are correct and I can accurately predict your behaviour. Therefore, if you do something that lays outside of my expectations of how I think you will react, it breaks my trust. You didn't break my trust, rather my predictive model of your behaviour was flawed and incorrect, so it broke. You are not to blame, I am.
Trust no one?
None of us trust anyone else, but ourselves.
We might think that we trust others, but it all invariably comes down to us trusting that our predictive model is correct. We trust ourselves, even when we have had it proven to us time and again that we aren't very good at judging the behaviours of others. But, what else can we do?
Trust is sometimes confused with hope, because often enough we have no choice but to "trust" that some person or group is going to do right by us. This is essentially where we are with politicians and governments, because we all know that none of them can truly be trusted, but we hope that whoever is there making decisions is going to support good outcomes for us. Yet, how often have our hopes been met, and how often have they been dashed on the rocks and carried lifeless out to sea?
Do you trust your government?
I don't just mean the one that is in power now, I mean the government. A lot of energy is spent arguing over which party or coalition is in power, but ultimately it doesn't matter, because the system itself can't be trusted. Some are less corrupt than others, but they are all corrupt because none of them put 100% of their effort into doing what is best for citizens. None of them. It doesn't matter who is Prime Minister or President, who is taking care of foreign affairs, or healthcare, no matter how "good" someone is, the system is inherently corrupt.
Which cancer do you want to die from?
It is interesting that so much energy is put into fighting over which party is better or worse, with essentially no discussion about the system itself. The system therefore is governed by those in power who benefit from the system working for them and keeping them in power. Not just in power as a particular person in a particular position like President, but in power as a system.
The government is essentially the OS of our lives and dictates what we are able to do, how easily we can do it, and whether we benefit or not. And most of the time, it is dysfunctional and crashing, because that is how it has been designed. It is a system where all the hardware and the software it runs is in constant conflict, stealing resources in the background, and shutting down processes we need to run our lives.
Constant blue screens.
Do you trust in the system?
It is pretty obvious I don't, but the thing is that it doesn't matter what I believe, because even though democracy is fundamentally broken, it still benefits from as long as enough support it, it will keep on being the broken system of choice. It is the same with "money" right? The value is in the belief it can be used to trade with, so people keep on using it. With a government, the belief is that there is no other way to govern a large group of unknown people in any other way than how it is now. Is that really the case?
No.
But we believe it to be.
If we survive the cataclysmic event that is likely due to our inability to work together on betterment instead of competing for control, then perhaps we will look back at this period of time and laugh at how ridiculous and how stupid we were to believe in the systems we trust today. And that is a big if, because with the momentum we have and the trajectory we are heading, we are unlikely to ever get to a point to look back, because there will be no one left to reflect.
Do you trust that tomorrow will be better than today?
Will you be better tomorrow?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
Nothing is perfect, but American government is clearly better than Soviet or Ukrainian government was.
I mostly trust the system and kind of know where the shortcomings of the system are, so I am content with the American government overall.
For sure. Communist systems are even more corrupt. Absolute capital monopoly.
Would it be different if you were unable to get it to work to your advantage like most people?
I think most people are in the same position as I am. As long as you understand the system and the system functions fairly well you can work with it.
Humans, I believe, are innately corrupt. As you have said, they (the parties) all are corrupt, only the intesity varies. But, I think, it is not the mere system, the problem is us. At some level, we are being corrupt, but we just hesitate to acknowledge it. Because the intensity is quite low when compared to the higher ups. And, we are just hiding behind those hire ups. The day our long-long ancestors came into contracts system changed, but the end result is still the same - we asking for another change. It is easy to say “the system is corrupt", but systems are not somem abstract ghosts, they are reflections of collective behavior.
Tomorrow is not promised to be better, but it is open to becoming better. Through choices, effort and sometimes sheer endurance. There is hope; there is trust. But we all got a brain to think, still most will forget about the thinking part.
Politicians are surprisingly "representative" aren't they?
If enough make a shift to be better, it gets better. But when we rely on the system to do it for us, well....
They are our representatives, and once, they stop being representatives for us, we might expect a better future. Every human being is possessed with an ability to represent, but why do we even need a representative? As you said, we all have to do "enough" for a comprehensive "shift".
Even if we want representatives to lead than better go for accountability, and not follow them blindly.
Alas! All these talks of betterment, and world is still in the hands of few, who can just bomb the world anytime :)
Entire first paragraph checks out.
aside from how it's "my" fault when the trust is broken as apparently it's always the other person even when it's irrefutably "me"
One of those things is a lot more visible and infinitely easier to discuss than the other. Also
I'm guessing you have also kept getting people who either can't conceive of any other option and/or people who have done all the research and considered all the options and know this to be true so hard there is no room for any other opinion other than their completely correct one.
Yes. As they say, idiots discuss people.
Absolutely. I find that even those who have done their research, have only done it in a narrow sense to confirm their own opinion. Very few seem to have researched to change their opinion.
So despite my best efforts I probably do this a lot more than I realise but it still frustrates me a lot if I encounter it in other people, especially when they don't realise/refuse to accept/admit that they do this x_x
How do you deal with this? Is it worth dealing with? I guess it ends up being how important is the topic to you.
It’s a strange paradox, isn’t it? We spend a lot of time criticising ‘the system’, yet our daily lives are based on the assumption that it will keep running whilst we sleep. I believe the real danger lies not just in a failing system, but in the complacency of ceasing to question it. Trusting the system is often a trade-off between convenience and sovereignty.
It is a stagnancy of thought and that is why the status quo is unlikely to change. Perhaps in the past we actually had more autonomy, because less was expected to be "done" for us.
I think a lot more people realize the system is broke than we think. The problem is they just keep voting the same way and nothing ever changes. It would be nice to see a third party candidate actually win and try to get government as a while back to what it was meant to be.
The problem with ‘trusting the system’ is that it tends to erode our individual responsibility. We hand over our safety, our finances and even our thinking to these invisible structures. When the system fails, most people are left paralysed because they have forgotten how to navigate the world without a map provided by someone else. A sad reality.
But they feel okay, because they have someone else to blame.
There has to be a framework though. If everyone just did their own thing it would be chaos. It just wouldn't work. Say I think red rocks are more valuable, but the guy I am bartering with things blue rocks should be the currency. There needs to be some oversight without overreach.
Finland has several parties - it doesn't help much. A coalition government in the same system, is still broken.
Yeah, I figured.
We are often the architects of our own disappointments in relationships, and I wonder whether true trust can ever exist outside of ourselves.
I don't believe so. Religious people will say "trust in god" but that again is a personal opinion.
Trust is wht keeps humans alive. People trust it's a survival mechanism just like baby trusts after it captures your hand. It's one of the weird things hominins do to keep themselves functional despite it being dysfunctional...
The irony is, it is also what kills a lot of people.
That last question stayed with me Will you be better tomorrow?
I think that’s where real trust should start not in governments or systems, but in whether we can hold ourselves accountable to grow, even in a flawed environment.
Curious what others think though is trust something we build together, or is it always just a story we tell ourselves?
Thanks