as a by the by, these days in tech they often talk of something called “zero trust”. they never even broach the concept of “total openness”.
why …?
mil williams, johan & nyström coffee shop, stockholm sweden, 7th April 2023
a) i accept you are good
ok.
you’re right.
but you sometimes act using fascist tools, without really realising you are.
not taking ownership is a fascist tool.
pretending you’re something you’re not: this is fascist.
so fascists, then, can be right sometimes? is that what you prefer me to conclude? (btw, i don’t think you are fascists at all. but you’re so used to the right an admin has to admin a system that you can’t see why i should sincerely object.
why it could be in good faith, too.)
b) the nub of the issue
you feel i should trust you absolutely as if i were a catholic and you were the church. i don’t want that relationship with anyone. look what it brought us.
i want a trust built on a right to get it. and that means information-sharing.
look.
if you believe i am less able to comprehend what you already all comprehend, why work with me in the first place? why want to work with people less able than you?
one reason. just one.
but evidenced … not on trust.
c) what i mean by “not on trust”
i don’t want to take such important things on trust. i’ve done things on trust and they’ve just not worked out. i did when i got married. i did in 2002 in open source; and then in late 2002 in my mother’s homeland, and in the uk re my father’s wretched establishment’s prejudices from 2003 to the current day.
i also foolishly and stupidly used the tool of trusting in others in 2004 in both cases then given: i) media-related in respect of the new labour government at the time; and ii) a horribly personal example, as well.
d) what i mean by an “open society”
we shouldn’t have to build a democracy and society on trust. an open society, yes. of course. but a society where a person does what they do without evidencing to another it’s cool … no … not that. it inevitably leads to corruption. it inevitably leads to abuse of all kinds of powers. in all contexts, public and private. it enables rape. it enables the police force we now have in london.
we need openness precisely so we DON’T need trust. let’s get rid of trust and your demand for it. why? simple: it’s a lazy euphemism for faith. and faith comes from a time before gutenberg. and gutenberg brought science to us all. and now it’s time we gave arationality its place, and by so doing facilitated openness to the very maximum.
now it is. it really is.
e) my preferred timeline
first, do away with faith.
then, do away with trust.
and then make of our world a magnificent, peer-to-peer society of an EVERYTHING that it is to be UTTERLY egalitarian.
openness is beautiful. trust, meantime, is a tool to be turned against you by the powerful (at home and outwith, tbh). and faith is rarely more than what blinds you to what’s really out there. this being what faith always has been throughout human history: the bedrock of religions’ abuses. (not only that. good too, yes it’s true. but what i have seen in most of my life is that the good do good whenever they can, whilst the bad rise to the heights that serve almost inevitably TO CAN the striven good of the good. over and over.)
f) conclusion
anyways.
just that.
just this.
not much more to say today.
just as a by the by, though: these days in tech they often talk of something called “zero trust”. they never even broach the concept of “total openness”. why …?
and so to one final final thought, as i walk the streets of stockholm after posting: if i’m right in what i write here today, trust is a component of faith but not of openness. those of us who want open societies should, therefore, ensure we take note.
if you’d like to contact me, try email: we can start there … yeah?
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