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August 5, 2006

“it’s all about trust”

7 Comments

[The story behind this car­toon is here.]
A very impor­tant article by JP Ran­gas­wami:

Pretty much every serious argu­ment we’re having, every con­ver­sa­tion we need to con­ti­nue, is about some form of Big ver­sus some form of Small. Ble­fuscu ver­sus Lilli­put. And we use con­cepts like exper­tise and authen­ti­city and relia­bi­lity and affor­da­bi­lity and free­dom and choice to try and win the argu­ments. And the con­cepts we use land up pola­ri­sing the deba­tes. Which made me think….
…..It’s all about trust.
[…]
Trust used to be something that bound small groups together. Over time we tried to scale trust. It didn’t scale. And what hap­pe­ned ins­tead was Big Everything. In an Assembly-Line meets Broad­cast world.
Big Everything broke trust. Big Media lied. Big Con­tent Pro­du­cer redu­ced our choi­ces. Big Pipe and Big Device redu­ced it further. Big Firm wrong­si­zed away. And Big Govern­ment did what it liked.

[JP is very much on my “must read” list these days.]

7 Responses to ““it’s all about trust””

1. Eric the Red says:

   August 5, 2006 at 1:37 PM

   Oh, boo hoo and cry me a river.
   We never ‘tried to scale trust’. If anything, we tried to sell it. If nothing, we let them des­troy it while we stood idly by.
   There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’. It’s just us on this planet.
2. James Thomson says:

   August 5, 2006 at 2:06 PM

   or ‘Big’ power wine Hugh? Trust comes with Loca­li­sa­tion which is so much safer than Glo­ba­li­sa­tion as there is less hiding and more balance via com­mu­nity. Perhaps glo­bal net­wor­ked com­mu­ni­ties dis­play the human side of loca­li­sa­tion (I made this word up just now..) I like the follo­wing com­ment for the friendship you engen­der via your Stormhoek Geek Din­ners
   “Wine is an act of friendship, an act of love; Wine is also an act of power, of peo­ple using wine for rea­sons of snob­bery and pres­tige.“
   (Jonathan Nos­si­ter, Som­me­lier & Filmmaker)
3. hugh macleod says:

   August 5, 2006 at 2:46 PM

   Hmmm.… love, friendship and power. What else does a man truly need?
4. Dennis Howlett says:

   August 7, 2006 at 1:01 AM

   Ever it was so — but not many peo­ple lis­te­ned and then acc­ted upon what was sta­ring them in the face
5. kevin says:

   August 7, 2006 at 9:00 PM

   Can we get a high-res link for this one? Thank you!
6. allan says:

   August 12, 2006 at 8:44 AM

   With the death of the indus­trial age perhaps the eco­nomy of scale that ena­bled “too big,” will finally pass.
   Tech­no­logy is the indi­vi­dually empo­we­ring tool that may libe­rate trust and repu­ta­tion once more.
7. Leah Maclean says:

   November 2, 2006 at 11:12 PM

   I second the request for a high-re link for this one. Please )