120: "Can Trust Be Digitized—and How?" (lessons from Tony Camero)
🧠 Erik’s Take
Trust isn’t abstract—it’s already being calculated all around us. The problem is that most of the systems we rely on are crude proxies: resumes, credit scores, follower counts, and credentials that signal legitimacy without actually proving reliability. In this reflection, Erik unpacks Tony Camero’s vision for TrustMesh as a platform—not a prescription—that challenges how trust, value, and currency might be redesigned in a digital-first world.
At its core, this episode isn’t about blockchain or technology. It’s about whether communities can reclaim trust from gated, profit-driven systems and define it for themselves.
🎯 Top Insights from the Interview
- Trust already functions as a currency—money just formalizes it after the fact
- Most modern trust signals are proxies, not proof
- Digitizing trust requires context, not just data
- Communities—not platforms—should define what “trustworthy” means
- The hardest unsolved problem is redemption, not verification
🧩 The Personal Layer
Erik reflects on how intuitively we already navigate trust in real life—excusing past failures, contextualizing behavior, and allowing people to grow. Translating that nuance into a digital system is where things get uncomfortable. A permanent ledger sounds objective, but human trust has always included forgiveness, narrative, and change over time.
The tension is clear: transparency creates accountability, but without a path to redemption, it risks becoming another rigid gatekeeping system.
🧰 From Insight to Action
- Question the proxies you use to judge people’s reliability
- Notice where monetization distorts trust signals in your world
- Separate “credibility” from “trustworthiness” in decision-making
- Design accountability systems that allow recovery, not just scoring
- Ask what currency really moves value in your communities
🗣️ Notable Quotes
- “Before currency changes hands, trust is exchanged.”
- “These systems don’t tell us who someone is—just how they rank.”
- “Trust without context is just another algorithm.”
- “Redemption exists in real life. The question is whether we’ll allow it digitally.”
🔗 Links & Resources
