We use trust when we mean need or dependence. As we look at money, which is a social construct around trust, need, necessity for the cogs of society to work etc. As we talk about trust we will bend the word and its definition into many different types of interpretations. But they are indeed different versions of the same concept and the concept is the core we need to discuss. — Christoffer

Yes. I have been a bit loose with the term, and my ideas develop in discussion. So the core is the trust of a child that relaxes completely into the arms of an adult, with no consideration of negative consequences - being crushed or being dropped.

We want to trust Google. Nobody is asking if we can trust The Onion. Obviously we cannot, and obviously we don't want to. We want to laugh.

And that the question arises indicates that we don't altogether trust Google, at least not in that childlike unquestioning way that I think most people did maybe 10 or 20 years ago. "Google is your friend" we used to say when someone asked a straightforward factual question, that it was beneath our dignity to answer. No one has said that for a while. We used to believe in the freedom of the web, until the pedophiles spoilt it for us.

I'm still not sure — Hanover

That is the correct position. Scientists agree with you and so do I.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/we-still-dont-know-how-the-coronavirus-is-killing-us.html?utm_source=fb&fbclid=IwAR01zrImaGC9JDuO8Wr-ZhQWLyFnp86z-mBjNtitFDVN39kXHh_cyXD9uqA

I want to restrict "trust" to a higher level, reserving it only for use in cases of proven reliability. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I understand. It's a legitimate way of talking.

What you describe is exactly that sophisticated measured provisional trust. 'I'll put some cash on the table and turn my back and see if it goes missing', and that's an investment in finding out if I can trust you a bit further. I think you can see that in business situations such as you describe there is an element of trust and an element of distrust. And when one knows the builder well, one can give him the keys and let him get on with it. One reaches 'proven reliability'. I do not deny this to be the norm of many relationships. I just want to talk about the trust element and not the distrust element. If I don't altogether trust, I hope and I am cautious.

I don't look at this as a matter of trust. I do business with a lot of different people, many of whom I don't particularly trust, the question of whether I trust them or not just doesn't come up in my mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you have hit upon the stumbling block for many here. This is the naivety of trust, that it does not occur to one to do otherwise. The veteran of Afghanistan who has a panic attack whenever he see[s a curtain twitch has lost his trust in the benignity of strangers. To those of us who have not experienced the constant danger of snipers, it seems a bit mad - we call it PTSD. Why would you think a moving curtain is dangerous?

Trust being a firm belief, hope being a less than firm belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I don't want to get into a mere terminological dispute, but trust is not a firm belief. I have to remind myself that I am sometimes talking to the chronically anxious or mildly paranoid, who are always doubting, like the veteran, the stability of the environment and the safety of their persons. If you say that you conduct your life in a state of hope, not trust, I have to believe you, knowing you are an honest and thoughtful person. And I have to say that I feel sorry for you. But by trust I really mean the absence of doubt, not even wondering if there is a sniper somewhere across the road. This is totally different to hoping there isn't one.

https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/ideologies/resources/marvin-ingle-blood-sacrifice-totem/

I find it exhausting and rather not expose myself. — Shawn

Yes, if you have been betrayed by those you needed to trust, then the fact that you keep having to trust people causes anxiety.

Should God be trusted if not Google? — Shawn

I don't say you should or shouldn't trust either of them. I say you have to trust the world and the people who make your dinners and fill your prescriptions . Or starve in unmedicated isolation.

I'm saying we all depend for our lives on the decency of strangers and neighbours. The really extraordinary thing is that there should be any debate whatsoever about this; that I have come to an age, and the world has come to a state where this needs to be mentioned at all. The age of the rational self-interested man, and his trophy wife.

Well, sure, total trust has not been lost — Hanover

Excellent. This is where I want to start, with our inescapable mutual dependence. I switch the light on trusting that it has been wired up so it doesn't give me a shock or set fire to the house. We need to trust. therefore we need to be honest. We need to communicate, therefore we need to be honest.

All this mistrust is macho posing, and chronic anxiety. But at the same time it is being normalised by the media and by politics - and alas, by philosophy.

It's subjective. — Harry Hindu

What is subjective? That I buy milk? That I drink it without testing it? that I doesn't kill me?

How much power someone is willing to give up is subjective, — Harry Hindu

Well no Harry, the whole premise of this thread is that it is not subjective and there is no choice. Every aspect of modern live relies on other people behaving responsibly, as a matter of life and death and this is inescapable. I have already given many examples of everyday life that require trust, because everyday folks have each other's life in their hands giving injections, footing ladders, driving vehicles, building houses. The government merely conducts this orchestra of mutual trust. These are facts, not subjective at all.

We only know if someone is honest if we are able to otherwise find the truth. — Hanover

I know if I am honest. If I can otherwise find the truth, I don't have to care about your honesty.

Maybe we've lost trust, but we've found truth. — Hanover

I don't know who you think has found truth and lost trust, or how or when this happened. I ask you the same question - do you walk down the street and buy stuff in the shops, travel on public transport, fire bullets made in a factory, let the dentist near your face with his needles and drills? Then you haven't lost trust.

Trust is a universal force analogous to gravity. Without trust people would literally fall apart, one from another. I walk down the street trusting that no one will start attacking me with a machete. I go into a shop to buy milk trusting that I will not be given bleach, and pay with money that I trust is not counterfeit or a card that I trust will register in some place I trust without the least clue where it is, the correct amount of money. — unenlightened

Do you guys not walk down streets or buy stuff in shops? Of course you all do. So at every point you put your trust in others. You are playing at the sophistication of mistrust for rhetorical or egotistic purposes. Stop it now, because this a is rather serious matter that requires some thought and a rigorous honesty.

I don't trust completely in anything, because in doing so I lose my freedom. — Professor Death

If you don't trust your dentist, you gonna suffer some pain.

too much power — Harry Hindu

How much is too much? My milk provider has the power of life and death over me, because I drink the stuff without testing it. Think bus driver rather than supreme leader.

In a perfect world...
— Shawn

I don't believe you know whereof you speak.

I just go through the motions. — neonspectraltoast

I don't believe this. I think you care.

People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can’t trust people. — Professor Death

You are wrong. And you know you are wrong because you take the trouble to say something. So your trust is being displayed even as you deny it. It is terrible and true that people voted for the Nazis, and we are so fortunate to understand that without having lived it. I trust that understanding in us.

It's literally going to take a miracle to get people to stop being dicks — neonspectraltoast

If you wait for everybody else to be perfect, you will indeed be waiting a good while.

I don't trust Google any more than I trust the lot of you, which isn't very much. — neonspectraltoast

I applaud your honesty, and trust your expression of distrust. But alas, you probably do not trust my expressions of approval. So where can we go from here?

It seems to me that we cannot communicate without trust, so I start to wonder why you participate in this process if you do not trust the participants?

I'd submit that we haven't degenerated from a trusting bunch to a skeptical bunch, but that we've simply shaken away some amount of naivete and that we're now more sophisticated. — Hanover

Your point about bias is a good one, and the judicial tradition is well versed in maximising the potential for trust. Indeed when it comes to matters close to the heart or wallet, one should perhaps not trust oneself.

I suggest that the invention of advertising - an offshoot of psychology has caused some degeneration in trust over the last century, but sure it is nothing new in essence. Still it perhaps offers a third strand of failure of relationship, bias, manipulation, and dishonesty.

But here I want to hold the line that trust is always naive, by definition, and sophistication is always mistrustful. The justice system is sophisticated, because its business is to deal with the failure and collapse of relationships of trust. And the queen of justice systems is restorative justice, because it is in the business of restoring relationships of trust.

I put this in ethics, not politics, because I think trust is the ground of relationships and institutions of all kinds. A lot of the responses so far have been suggestions for remedies in this or that situation, or defences of their overall honesty.

When trust is lost, there are laws and punishments and hierarchies of watchdogs watching each other. But trust is not restored, except by honesty.

Anarchy depends upon it absolutely.
— unenlightened

Anarchy depends on trust of the government? — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

I believe that a Google-branded trust-marking system is possible, because Google wants to be the most trustworthy search engine. And if they start to mark pages as trustworthy because they pay Google for it, that would be a blow to their brand of trust that is hard to recover from. — Christoffer

Yes, just like the milk seller depends on trust. Government, business, everyone in a society depends on trust for every interaction. And if we do not trust google, do we trust the independent body supervising them?

I propose that the sickness of the age is that blows to trust have proliferated and they are indeed hard to recover from. But we cannot function without trust, and we cannot function without a search engine. I don't think there is another answer. Trust comes from honour, and so without honour we die. Thus the unreality of morality is seen to be somewhat exaggerated.

This fragmentation is the goal for anarchism, being composed of people who have no trust in government. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nonsense. I have already outlined the obvious, that trust is destroyed by untruth and deliberate betrayal such as terrorism. Do not buy into the myth of the bomb-carrying anarchist. It is the fascist, the fanatic and the totalitarian who seek to destroy trust. Anarchy depends upon it absolutely.

Covid deaths yesterday 4/25/20:

United States - 2,425
South Korea - 0 — 180 Proof

In the machismo world of great leaders leading their troops to battle the US wins.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Not at all a defense, — tim wood

My first defence that you put words into my mouth was fairly successful though. That was more an attack than a defence, just a rather gentle one. But have you seen the horrible things I say about my own country?

As to your list, they were all convicted of crimes. — tim wood

Ah dude, will you extend you naive faith in justice to another jurisdiction, or is only American justice unfailing in its righteousness?

But you said Americans, — tim wood

Did I? I think the post in question was this:

China actively imprisons people for their religious beliefs and political ideas.
— Chester

So does Israel. So does the US.

But perhaps you have something else in mind?

Alas, I fear you must not like America to defend it so strongly; for my part I am always most critical of my closest friends. I expect less of strangers.

Is that your way of saying every political, muslim or gay imprisoned in China is — Chester

When I want to talk about China, I'll let you know by saying "China". I'm fairly conventional about things like that. Let me show you.

China is not a place I would like to live. I don't like a good deal of the government policies, and the corruption and authoritarianism of the society as exemplified by treatment of gays, Muslims Tibetans and other minorities is horrible. They are also not too hot on justice, reneging on the agreements about Hong Kong, and mistreating dissidents and protestors there and on the mainland. Having said that, it is hard to see how a more liberal approach could have brought the country from its state of total collapse and occupation by the Japanese, from a famine ridden medieval peasant condition in the space of just about 2 generations to the status of modern industrial superpower.

Physics currently has two theories. The theory of the very small is Quantum Mechanics, and the theory of the very large is General Relativity. A putative Theory of Everything would be a single theory from which these two naturally fall out in the conditions and realms in which they succeed so well as descriptions. It is difficult, because they are incompatible, so at least one of them is wrong in some very subtle way.

Whether or not the possibility or necessity of life would also fall out of such a theory is also unknowable but unlikely. But the colloquialism "Theory of Everything" should not fool anyone into thinking that if we only had the formula, there would be no more problems or mysteries in the world.

— tim wood

Have you heard of Guantanamo?

Google gave me this list when I asked, but I haven't checked them all and of course there may be more...

I'm English — Chester

My deepest sympathy.

for some strange reason — Chester

Yeah. I am a leftist, and I just gave you my reason. So don't blame me because you greedy Yanks are addicted to American crap made for you by China. It's not like the US is dominated by the left.

To equate the US and Israel with China is outrageous — Chester

According to your religion mate, but not mine. You asked a question, and as it happens I am qualified to answer. You don't like my answer, but the world isn't always what we like. What you expose is that you are of the liberal right, and wanting us lefties to do your dirty work for you while you continue to benefit from massive trade with China. Ain't gonna happen.

The US broadcasts a lot and associates, we mean good by our contracts and can rule out debt by some higher ground than what's on paper. — ztaziz

OH just fuck off with the bullshit already. I mean good with my sarcasm too. It's simple; The S.African government had an overt, declared racist policy. It wasn't an aberration, it was the way politics was conducted from top to bottom. Such a situation does not apply to China, and that's why people of the left like me, who participated in the boycott of S. Africa, would not participate in a boycott of China. I do. however, participate in a boycott of Israel though as it happens, because they also have an overt declared racist policy. China is just another venal dictatorship, not much different from America or Europe or Russia.

Just saying I'm not so sure who the good guys are right now. You think you get unclouded information from The US? Go get that disinfectant fix then. you have it on the highest authority from a very stable genius.

China actively imprisons people for their religious beliefs and political ideas. — Chester

So does Israel. So does the US.

I would have thought it more likely to be the chronic irritation of the lungs that might dampen the severity of the Cytosine storm than a benefit of nicotine. Have you considered inhaling a disinfectant spray instead?

I remember the SA boycott, and had a veg shop that joined in. But these days I find it hard to find a government or regime that is substantially worse than our own. If China then certainly Brazil, Israel, Sri Lanka Russia, Saudi Arabia... the shelves would be very empty.

So you think the unemployment is nonsense? — ssu

Yes. That's why we invent labour saving devices - because employment stinks. I bet you thought it was so we could do more work. :roll:

Do you think that to satisfy his ambitions in terms of experimentation the scientist ignores ethics. — Mathias

Yes, that happens. The twins case was a very sad case, and of course some horrific cases came from the German concentration camps.Scientists are humans too.

Some postmen are unethical and may steal your post or deliver it wrongly. But that does not invalidate the postal system. Most postmen and most scientists are fairly honourable.

Is this accurate? — Banno

It doesn't have any axes - so it doesn't have any scale, so it doesn't even count as a mental map. Is philosophy of science like religion or politics, a spectrum of dogmatic beliefs and positions?

What position would be required to judge the accuracy? Would such a judgement be scientific, philosophical? It has all the validity of a facebook what kind of cooking utensil are you? post.

My interest was more taken by the news that political advisers are sitting on the scientific advisory group. So when the government claims to be following scientific advice, they actually mean political advice.

source

This really really bad news, because the inevitable result will be that science becomes discredited. Lies destroy trust, therefore they undermine communication and community. This is where the high price will be paid; not in economics but in the possibility of rational discourse and the fragmentation of society. Leaders are unbelievable, then they are unfollow-able, and directionless panic is lethal. It's not the disinfectant that is dangerous to us all, it's the lies.

I'm sorry to show weakness but I am getting ready to give in on giving up hope. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Panic not. The economic thing is largely nonsense. Some stuff is important, growing food and distributing it, mending the roof, you know the sort of thing. But if no one plays sport, no one goes on holiday, no one gets a professional haircut, no one pays or charges interest or rent, no one makes a film, and no one installs a new kitchen, then no one will need suffer anything worse than boredom.

you're gonna get up for that bag of chips — schopenhauer1

I am reasonably considerate and polite most of the time, but there's no way I'll get up for a bag of chips.

but you have fallen, as people often do, into a little circle of your own, along these lines:

All human action is motivated.
All motives are goals.
Humans are always active.
Humans always have goals.

Utterly reasonable nonsense that comes from the philosopher-child's constant demand for reasons.

"Why do you eat chips Mummy?"
" Well dear, it's so I get fat and ugly, and Daddy doesn't make me have more irritating children like you."

The sad truth is that Mummy doesn't want to get fat at all, she just likes eating chips and has no goal, she's not even hungry.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-hospital-cuts-covid-19-death-rates-with-black-boxes-for-sleep-disorder-11977789?fbclid=IwAR07WZ7g5AIUHwBsnVGW58e5EI9DjEQDeqFt1O39NP9_lYyUBB51QR-wTt0

Well there is no science of a new disease until one does the science, which one does by experimenting. That means trying out things that work for things a bit like the thing and seeing what dies. And maybe ventilators are not the answer they were expected to be. But you can't not treat anyone until the science is done, because the science is done by treating people.

Humans always have goals. — Athena

That actually makes no sense. I don't eat to attain the goal of satiation. 'Often' I can accept, but not 'always'. I am not always future oriented, which is when goals have to be achieved if they are achieved. Believe it or not, sometimes my mere presence suffices me.

production and consumption) — schopenhauer1

We eat, we shit. Our food grows in the shit.

thus simply reiterating the cycle. — schopenhauer1

What's the point, what's the goal?

Why do you think there ought to be a goal? We have established what your personal goal is, and that you would like the rest of life to adopt the same goal, but it looks to me that life in general has no goal, any more than the moon has a goal. A lot of humans like to set goals and achieve them and then set more goals... if you are dissatisfied with the goals you have set yourself, you can abandon them and choose a new goal or no goal. A plant grows towards the light, but it does not have the light as a goal. It produces flower and seed in season, but does not have a goal to reproduce, it does not complain if it doesn't.

The moon is absurd, going round and round like that and never getting anywhere. This is the absurdity of absurdity.