Trust is broken. Here’s how we rebuild it

Trust is what makes collective action possible. Without it, people don’t just disagree on solutions, they stop agreeing on what’s real. One of the first things I noticed when I went to live in former Eastern Bloc countries was how often conspiracy theories came up in everyday conversation. The institutions of society had lost trust long ago, so the official version of anything was always in doubt. People formed their own narratives to explain nearly everything.