Design from Mistrust

Alas, Design from Mistrust is everywhere. It is the default setting of the 20th Century, and has continued into the 21st, which might even have started with lower trust.

What does this mean? It means that most of the systems and institutions we take for granted are designed to treat every person as a threat, rather than an opportunity. The small chance that bad actors will act badly so scared our system architects that they built systems to contain and constrain the bad actors, ignoring (and in many cases, stamping out) systems that started with trust.

The easiest exemplar of Design from Mistrust is the educational system. tktktk

We have so normalized and accepted Design from Mistrust that it doesn't shock or surprise us. Worse, we are so accustomed to it that when we meet its opposite, Design from Trust, our defense mechanisms go on full alert.

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