“Yes, man is mortal, but that would be half the trouble. The bad news is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that’s the trick!”

— The Devil, aka Voland, in “Master in Margarita”, by M.A.Bulgakov

A trick indeed.

Trust is an essential part of our lives, as it allows the individual to plan, despite the great uncertainties involved in the future. Take for instance poor Berlioz, who was navigating his day with certainty that he will be able to go to a meeting. In a way, Berlioz implicitly trusted his surroundings, his experience, and the system that nothing extraordinarily will ever happen to him. When Voland told him that this very evening his head will be cut off by a pretty woman, he scoffed at the thought.

Or, for those less acquainted with Bulgakov’s writings, you can look at Taleb’s “Black Swan”, as the science of statistics is another way of getting hold on the future. We trust our previous experiences (data) and extrapolate it in our thoughts, trusting that nothing that bad is not going to happen. When such Black Swan happens, then it is going to be a “whoops” moment, and trust in the future is lost, as the pundits we have been listening to, proved to be less wise than a corner hugging drunk wearing a sign “The End is Coming”.

Despite supposedly being “rare” events, such “Black Swans” happen with high enough frequency. Therefore, trust is not only essential for planning, but also for the ability to deal with tail risks. When a tail risk happens (for instance a global pandemic or a serious car accident) the average layman has few personal resources to draw upon, and must trust the system, as well as his social circles to assist him in mitigating the damage.

If the system fails to adequately respond to the tail risk, which is by definition a rare event, then the person will experience a severe shock, as one of the pillars of his existence will prove to be just a smoke, without even somewhat tangible mirror.

Sudden lack of trust may leave the person in a terrible shape to deal with his surroundings and the troubling present. Your resources are few and clearly insufficient, and you simply do not know from where you will be able to get more. Panic may set in, which will lead to suboptimal choices, exacerbating the already difficult situation.
This blog’s aim is to deal with the phenomenon of trust, it’s gradual erosion, sudden evaporation, and preparations one makes to fill the vacuum left by trust’s disappearance.

When dealing with the phenomenon of trust, I find that it is very hard not to mention gold, which is the tangible, and one can say the modern ultimate express of distrust, tightly packed into (usually) an ounce of shiny metal.

Hence, blog’s name.