Building trust through scepticism
How understandable answers and verifiable commitments can help build trust.
I want to be able to trust. For me, that includes being able to ask questions and receive answers I can follow. Scepticism can help build a basis for trust rather than rule out cooperation from the start.
Caution has its place. Disappointment and experiences of broken promises cannot be resolved by saying “just trust”. That makes the conditions in which trust can grow all the more important to me: room for questions, commitments that can be checked and an honest approach to mistakes.
When I cannot follow a decision, I want to ask questions. Who made it? What assumptions went into it? What was checked, and what remains unclear? To me, that is different from assuming bad intentions on everyone’s part.
I need a useful test: how do I recognise a claim that is well supported? What answer could change my mind? To me, scepticism is helpful when there is still room for a convincing answer.
With technology, I want to know what can actually be checked. Not just whether something says “secure”, but what it is meant to protect against, under which conditions and with what limits. I prefer an understandable check to a promise whose assumptions nobody explains.
That applies to my favourite solutions, too. Openness or running a service myself should not be a free pass to skip uncomfortable questions. If I only look for confirmation, a reassuring technical label will not help me.
I do not have to work out every answer myself. But I want to be able to understand how it was reached, where I can challenge it and who deals with mistakes. Trust does not mean I stop asking questions. I want to be able to ask them without ending the cooperation.
A standalone essay on the questions behind my book project, not an extract from the manuscript. Autonomy Despite the System
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