What is the best reason to trust someone?

[WogglebugLovingFilms]

What is the best reason you can think of to know whether or not someone is a nice person and, or is really trustworthy? I mean, if you were to see a person tipping a waitress, or petting a dog, or showing kindness to children or the elderly in some way, then what is your next best judgement of what they would be capable of that would qualify as making them someone you would really admire and, or want to know?

[Asmodean]

I do not equate niceness with trustworthiness. For instance, some of the most loyal people I know cannot be described as "nice" even on their best days. Trustworthy, however? Yes.

I offer limited trust to every one I meet, from there, it goes up or down based on those of their actions, which affect me.

Generally, I do not attempt to decide "beforehand" whether or not I want to know and/or admire somebody, but once I do know them, their standing with me is a product of realtime evaluation.

[xSilverPhinx]

I agree with Asmo, nice or charismatic does not equal trustworthy.

Generally if the person strikes me as interesting in any way then I feel like I want to get to know them better. What is interesting varies from person to person.

[Dragonia]

How I have judged it many times in the past, being a woman and previously a girl, is I pay attention to how they talk about their other friends to me. I have known people that will talk trash about their supposed best friend, when they didn't know me very well yet. I figure if a person can bash her best friend to a relative stranger, she's not somebody that I want to have much to do with. And of course therefore, I wouldn't really consider her trustworthy, as she (or he) is obviously deficient in the Integrity Department.
Honestly, there are only a couple people that I really fully trust in my life. And one is my dad. I guess I'm kind of along the line of "trust no one". I feel like, given the right circumstances, almost anybody can let you down.

[Recusant]

When I was very young, I thought I was a good judge of people's character. Though my opinions were often borne out I was also proven wrong, rather drastically, more than once. Decades later, I think I've learned enough to be better at it than I was, but I also know that people can be very devious. Even knowing somebody for years is no guarantee that your opinion of them is correct, though usually they'll eventually provide some telling indications. I don't believe that things like tipping, being friendly to animals, or even showing kindness to other people are reliable indicators, though the last one is better than the other two.

Over the years, I've had friends who were, to put it plainly, assholes. There are assholes with redeeming qualities after all, and if you don't hold any illusions about them you can generally keep clear of their negative side. That doesn't always work. 

[No one]

Because they are a dog. Humans are untrustworthy!

[Asmodean]

That depends on the degree of trust though, does it not?

[No one]

I don't trust anyone.

[Davin]

I don't think there is one good reason to trust someone, I think it's something that is subjective to the person.

So at work, I couldn't get by without trusting other people. The basic assumption at work, is that a co-worker will be able to accomplish their tasks. I trust that they will (or at least let me know that they don't have the time or time to develop the skill to), do their tasks.

Had one guy a while ago who was supposed to write up a script to install an application remotely on several different computers. After a month, I had to ask how it was going, so he set up a meeting to discuss it. Turns out that he hadn't done much at all, and during the "meeting" I was back seat coding to get the script to work. Then all he had to do after that, was to test it out and refine it, so I went back to working on my many tasks. Another month later, after not getting any feedback from the guy, I asked how the testing was going... another "meeting" where I end up doing his job for him... repeat a few more times and I start to get a little upset. All trust gone. So I start out trusting this guy, but shit needs to get done, so I make sure things are moving even if I have to do it myself.

Now with my fellow developers, it's much nicer. They mostly get things done on their own, and the few times they don't it's because they just forgot or got more important tasks thrown at them. There is a lot of trust there, but I still need to make sure things get done. So I do trust my fellow devs by default, but I still have to check if they don't update me.

Then there are people I work on my hobbies with. We are all not professionals at what we do, so while I trust that a few of them will do their best, I can't trust that they (or even me for that matter), can accomplish the tasks. But I think that given time, we have proven to be able to figure out how to do everything we have wanted to do. So there is trust there.

Even so, there are other people where my trust level is more like, "sure, you can help if you want, here is the task list that I update regularly, just pick any from there and let me know that you're working on it." So that they can help if they want, but I don't trust that they will do anything. Their contributions are appreciated but not expected.

As for money, I don't trust anyone with money that I cannot afford to lose if they cannot or will not pay me back. That is a pretty solid rule for me. I haven't had a problem with lending money, but just in case, I don't want to hurt when the first time it fails happens.

With personal information, I tend to not share many personal details with people until I get to know them, and then I share what I find relevant. I don't have any secrets that will hurt me if they went public (sans passwords and account numbers), I just like to keep to myself mostly. With friends though, that's different, I feel that you have to risk a little trust and accept responsibility for their trust if you want to develop a friendship.

As I said before, I don't see a unique reason to trust, but there are a lot of reasons to trust based on the context and the people. I think of it more as a process, test the waters and on success their trust points go up, on failure it either stays the same or they lose some trust points.

[Asmodean]

Yes.

Personally, I "trust" in several of the aboivementioned situations by simply not caring until things show a tendency of not going in the agreed-upon or otherwise "right" direction, but yes.

This also touches on the abovementioned degrees of trust; there are people I will happily trust to do their job in a satisfasctory and timely-ish manner, but that's not to say I'll trust them with my coin or with the well-being of my precious ratties... When they were alive, that is. Then there are people I would not trust to do their job properly if its outcome affected my job in any way, but I would trust them with my safety by getting in a car with them.

EDIT: May we swap our terms, I wonder? You take my degrees and I get your levels? More precise, I think, since your comment seems to relate to the amount of trust, while I concentrate on what kind of trust it is.

[Davin]

I think combining them would work better than swapping. There are kinds of trust, along with levels of trust. It think that would help describe the two examples I gave to the different kinds of trust. My fellow devs, I trust to a higher level than the guy that wouldn't do anything without me watching him directly, but I wouldn't put the same level of trust with borrowing money or items.

And for driving a car, I would trust very few people to drive my car, while I trust a large amount of people when riding along when they drive their own car. Different levels of trust between different kinds of trust for that.

[Asmodean]

 

Levels are leapy and good for "quantized" phenomena. Degrees are continuous and are good for... The rest. Trust... Involves both. Sensible. Almost quantum-mechanical, in fact.

This evening's semantic excersise was a success, methink.

[xSilverPhinx]

Levels are leapy and good for "quantized" phenomena. Degrees are continuous and are good for... The rest. Trust... Involves both. Sensible. Almost quantum-mechanical, in fact.

This evening's semantic excersise was a success, methink.

Are you saying that trust can be digital and analog at the same time?

[xSilverPhinx]

I don't trust anyone.

You trust no one?

Me neither, though as mentioned there are varying levels (or degrees) of trust. I don't fully trust anyone, not even my parents. Past events (that have nothing to do with my parents) have shaped this aspect of my personality.

[Arturo]

I've trusted a person who showed me they could be trust worthy. But turns out, that trust was broken. I haven't found a reason to trust anyone since. I do still trust people though. It's just that it's more intuitive now than before. More instinctual, rather than sensual.