Dominique Pahud

Trust Is Not Binary

I used to think of trust as a binary thing.

I trust you.
I don’t trust you.

It was convenient. It made it easier to think about people, relationships, and groups. But it didn’t reflect the reality of my experience. And sometimes it led to decisions that were suboptimal — even dangerous.

“I trust you” could become: here are the keys to my kingdom.
“I don’t trust you” could become: I won’t let you near me at all — even if a specific interaction in a specific context might be beneficial.

Binary trust is simple. It is also often rooted in fear. And it is not particularly helpful when interacting with the world.

This applies to my work as well — especially when developing trusted open systems.

In both my personal relationships and my professional work, trust has become more nuanced. I have moved away from an all-in or all-out definition toward something more precise:

I rely on this person, this tool, or this process for that, in this context.

“Rely on” is the phrase that feels more accurate.

For me, what we casually call trust spans several dimensions:

I trust my friends’ moral compass — otherwise they wouldn’t be my friends.
I may trust their area of expertise if they choose to apply themselves.
I may or may not trust that they will show up at 3PM on Wednesday as agreed — based on lived experience.

Across contexts, what I rely on depends on what I have observed.

Trust, then, is not a blanket endorsement. It is a pattern recognition exercise informed by experience.

Precision in trust protects relationships. Vagueness strains them. The same principle applies to teams, institutions, and the systems we build.

Now I am experimenting with how to translate the visceral way I choose the people in my life — and differentially rely on them — into something more systematic. Something that allows larger groups of people and institutions to work together and build things that make healthcare more accessible, more sustainable, and even more enjoyable to engage with.

How do we design systems that reflect nuanced trust rather than binary allegiance?

In the next post, I will explore play — and how games help surface the rules that make people want to participate.