“Words Misunderstood”, which once discussed learning, value, money, nation, and virtual, is making a comeback. I would like to invite everyone to participate and select the most misunderstood and most discussed concepts in the blockchain lifestyle.
- Wallet
- Privacy
- Piracy
- NFT
- Metaverse
Voting will take place on Substack for 7 days, and the results will be announced in the 87th issue of the “Blockchain Sociology” newsletter.
Today, let’s discuss a long-standing concept at the heart of the blockchain: trust.
Don’t Trust. Verify.
If I were an English-Chinese dictionary from the 80s that took words out of context and simply paired them with their Chinese translations, I would probably explain “trust” and a few synonyms and antonyms as follows:
- trust：信任
- doubt：懷疑
- lack of trust：缺乏信任
- no doubt：不容置疑
Finally, there is a concept that does not fit into any of the above categories, and my linguistic abilities are not sufficient to translate it well: trustless.
Trustless is not trust, but it doesn’t deliberately doubt either. Trustless does not lack trust in individuals, but it doesn’t consider any organization to be beyond doubt. In simple terms, it does not make any assumptions and avoids arguments like “because it’s so-and-so, it must be trustworthy.” Instead, it adopts a “Don’t Trust. Verify” attitude. To satisfy this attitude, a verifiable mechanism is needed.
I often spend half a day at a tea restaurant, and more than once, I’ve heard people at the neighboring table talking about trust and discussing blockchain. “Didn’t the blockchain solve the trust issue? Why do things like xxx still happen? That’s why I don’t believe in these things”. xxx can be replaced with FTX, a certain cryptocurrency, or a particular NFT project, it’s up to you to choose. The implication is that since the blockchain “solved the trust issue”, we should be able to trust services that (claim to) use blockchain technology.
This is a beautiful misunderstanding, a completely opposite misinterpretation.
When people say that blockchain solves the “trust issue,” or, in my words, blockchain is trustless, the real meaning is that it provides an open, transparent, and verifiable mechanism, so people don’t have to blindly trust individuals or organizations and can satisfy the “Don’t trust. Verify.” attitude.
Blindly trusting authorities and large corporations is the easiest and most convenient, but it’s a sugar-coated poison. On the contrary, blockchain does not help the public save time and effort in deciding what to trust; it demands users learn to judge, spend mental energy discerning truth from falsehood, and raises the bar for human requirements. However, if you can maintain a trustless attitude in your daily life, it’s like exercising every day to strengthen your body. Over time, you’ll improve yourself and gain a deeper understanding of how the world operates.
Open source is the best way for software to gain trust
I heard that thought in your mind: I am a computer idiot, so I can only give up and choose to trust traditional systems and large corporations.
Hold on. Being able to read code is certainly good, but even for those of us who don’t know how to write or read code, a trustless attitude still holds significant meaning in daily life. After all, who can understand all programming languages? Besides, even if such a genius exists, they wouldn’t have the time to review the code of every tool they use, unless they’re a human in the Matrix who swallowed the blue pill and can see the code as an image.
Therefore, even when trustless, most of the time, it’s still about “speaking a word of trust.” Isn’t this self-contradictory? No. What I mentioned earlier is not to blindly trust individuals or organizations, submit to authority-based arguments like “the government wouldn’t deceive you” without evidence, but rather to trust a group of people and organizations, their collective ability, and believe that regional and other levels of decentralization can prevent the incentive to cheat together.
Here’s a specific example. We believe that software like Linux, Android, and Signal have a minimal chance of having backdoors, not because we have the ability or time to read all the related code and confirm that the version we use is compiled from the same code, but because in the open-source ecosystem, programmers from around the world participate, and the more widely used a piece of software is, the less likely it is to be tampered with and have backdoors added without exposure.
In comparison, I am cautious about closed software like “Safe Travel,” not because I have a bias against the Hong Kong Chinese government, but because it’s a black box. The community has no effective way to check and verify its security, and even when professional security test results come out, the government brushes them aside and glosses over them, citing code confidentiality as an excuse.
Furthermore, trust has different layers. Even if you have 100% trust in a government’s integrity, to err is human, and software will inevitably have bugs, which may lead to security vulnerabilities. The ability to verify is the foundation of trust; you cannot reverse cause and effect, demanding unconditional trust from people, and therefore not disclosing the source code.
Don’t use doubtful people, don’t doubt those you use
If even the logic mentioned above seems too geeky and difficult to understand, we can completely set aside technology to discuss the practical implementation of the “Don’t trust. Verify.” attitude in daily life.
Traditional wisdom says, “Doubt those you don’t employ; trust those you employ.” It’s wisdom, but also nonsense, typically used by managers to hide their doubts deep down and make subordinates believe they have no guard up, making management easier. Some managers especially boast about their accuracy in judging people; if true, they might as well change careers and become fortune tellers.
What managers really need to do is establish trustless workflows as much as possible, on one hand eliminating the need for subjective judgments about who is suspicious or trustworthy, and on the other hand, preventing employees from being exposed to situations that could compromise their integrity and leaving them with nothing but their word to prove their honesty.
I’ve heard of cunning employers who deliberately set traps, placing domestic helpers in environments where it’s easy to steal money during their initial employment. Later, they count the money, and if there are no losses, it means the helper is trustworthy. This is an extremely malicious practice, not only deceitful but also logically stupid.
Unless you can honestly say that even if only you and the helper are at home and money disappears, you would think you threw it away while sleepwalking, please do not claim to have “absolute trust” in others. Management policies must be as trustless as possible. Whether it’s the first day on the job or a long-time employee of ten years, don’t leave valuables lying around or fail to count the money in transactions due to trust. This is not only for your own protection but also a responsibility to others, preventing them from being caught in an embarrassing situation where they have no defense when errors occur.
Trustlessless
I’ve talked myself up above as if I’m incredibly wise and never get deceived. That’s another beautiful misunderstanding.
The truth is, I am very gullible in my daily life, especially easy to deceive. Products that I would never buy or even look at in a store can easily touch my sense of compassion when they appear on crowdfunding platforms seeking funding, and I willingly offer my credit card, paying again and again for products I never receive. An old colleague sold me mining contracts and I bought them without a second thought, and a year later, he disappeared. Time after time, I lent money to support a fellow, fully expecting not to get it back, but never expecting that even the fellowship itself was fake.
But there are exceptions. One such exception filled me with deep regret.
Once, a long-lost friend contacted me on Facebook. I, who usually never read Facebook messages, happened to see it. The message said he just wanted to tell me that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Having spent years in a country where trust between people was utterly destroyed by the Cultural Revolution, and then experiencing the trustless baptism of blockchain, my reflexes activated my defense mechanism, even suspecting that the account had been hacked. I responded with my regards, thinking I would find a way to verify the information later. As life went on and I had yet to start the verification process, I received news of my friend’s death. My friend had tried to share his final moments with me, but I missed the opportunity to visit him in his final hours due to suspicion. Attending the funeral was of no use, and all I could do was despise myself.
Despite the risk of being hurt badly, sometimes we can only stay foolish and choose to believe.
Extended reading
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