full meta-trust = a relaxed ease about the possibility of sorting out any conflicts that might arise, in a way where the process feels to everybody like it’s respecting their sense of things the whole time
this enables talking about anything, synthesizing group wisdom, & learning well together
start by recognizing the trust & distrust of the current situation, & being exquisitely honest about both
so if we consider a group of people trying to:
make sense of a big hairy problem
live together or be a healthy, supportive community
“boundaries”: the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously (Prentis Hemphill)
if we get too close, we’re demanding of ourselves and each other that we trust each other more than we do, which messes with our ability to non-naively listen to our trust functions
if we’re too far away, we’re not making contact with the actual trust challenges that we have, which means we aren’t encountering the real chasm between us
either of these results in bullshit and makes the key learning harder to do
there’s a zone of proximal development edge to surf here
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” (M. Aurelius)
respecting others’ distrust of you can be hard because it can be hard to get shared reality with them while maintaining contact with your own trust of yourself
respecting your distrust of others can be hard because it can be discouraging to realize that you can’t rely on them in some way that you’d like to… and that therefore you need to:
step back from the relationship
or manage the interface more proactively yourself
however! in general, respecting distrust is a form of accepting that reality is as it is
but my distrust and your distrust are different, and so they can coexist
me trusting me doesn’t mean you should trust me, and vice versa
we have different trust systems, trust functions, and also different values/careabouts
solve via induction1 (n ➔ n+1)
consider a group of people with full meta-trust of each other: all conflicts seem workable
how do you add another person to that group, while keeping that property of full meta-trust?
it can’t happen all at once; it requires trust-dancing
it’s not just about the new person learning that they can trust the group
but also about learning whether and how to create such an interface that’s actually trustable
and the new person might need something that the existing people didn’t need with each other
eg for a woman joining a group of men: there might be aspects of trust (social or biological) that the men just haven’t had to sort out between them yet! but they do in order to include her!
solve via induction 2 (increasing trust within a group)
okay but how do you bootstrap to a full meta-trust group in the first place?
same method, except with existing group rather than between group & newcomer
own the distrusts, and respect them—particularly whatever is relevant to the group being able to speak honestly with itself about the relevant issues (whether technical problems or the dishes)
and have humility about where the possibility of a solution might lie… who has the opportunity to make what changes?
and be creative! try things, see what effects it has. make sense of it together
the meta-protocol: there are some general principles that groups/people can align with that make trust-dancing work better, including recognizing (ironically) that there’s no right way to do things, only ways that work in a given situation! also transcending shame/guilt/blame, reward/punishment
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