WEEKLY WHINE

Beyond the original regulations

Whom can you trust? A few people would tell you that you can trust anyone who correctly uses the interrogative pronouns "who" and "whom". However, it must be a fair generalisation to say that these people are very very odd. In the first place, we really need to ask what exactly it means to trust someone.

Trust is a link between people that allows them to shorten their interactions by giving each the ability to skip over some of the more tedious parts of people's lives. Most will rightly say that you really can't trust just any person on the street. On the other hand, you may not be able to trust someone you've known for a very long time, and there are certainly a large number of "just any people on the street" who can be trusted. Something, then, must differentiate between the types of people whom you can trust and the types of people whom you can't trust.

The aforementioned just anyone on the street is a frequent target for distrust simply because the same two people are unlikely to meet at any later time. There are hundreds of cases in fiction, film, and other such media in which one person took an unfair advantage over another, failing to recognise that another encounter between the two was possible. In such scenarios, of course, the second encounter is so possible that it is in fact inevitable. Comic-book superheroes such as Batman operate upon this principle. Regardless, many people still take advantage of others whom they've never seen before, failing to realise that in itself, this will increase the probability of a second encounter that will frequently result in a nullification of the unfair advantage taken during the first encounter. For instance, when the first encounter is a mugging, this frequently leads to a second encounter in a lineup down at the precinct.

This is one thing that prevents us from trusting new people. But if that's the case, how do people learn to trust one another? When the lack of trust is a default, something obviously overrides this default and establishes a level of trust, one that, presumably, is shared by both parties. When this level of trust is reached, it may even be able to survive apparent breaches, up to a certain maximum size. It resembles a bit of Silly Putty. If you pull it one way, it stretches. If you pull it another way, it snaps. We must use our instincts to determine exactly how our pulls will affect the trust levels. Sometimes, though, we can get to a point at which there are no breaches at all. One way to look at trust is in terms of the expectation that there will be no breaches. Any breach would prove this expectation wrong and would harm the total trust. So, when the people involved are sufficiently trusting of one another, they can reach the level of 100% confidence and 0% breaches. They expect that their trust be maintained, and it is this expectation itself that maintains the trust. I know that everyone whom I trust will be betrayed by any violation of our trust, and that is what keeps me within the bounds of the trust.

However, we still have not been able to answer the fundamental question: From where does trust actually originate? When is trust the default and when is distrust the default? Are there remarkable differences in these answers among people? These questions must be answered, but they may be addressed later. In the meantime, have fun and trust yourself. Soon, I'll tell you whom else you can trust.