One of my favorite passages from Atlas Shrugged is this one, when Cherryl is beginning to have second thoughts about her marriage to James Taggart:

It was his sudden, angry "so you don't trust me?" snapped in answer to her first, innocent questions that made her realize she did not—when the doubt had not yet formed in her mind and she had fully expected that the answers would reassure her. She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.

The logic here might be worth explaining in case it's not obvious. One might object: if you're honest (and therefore deserve to be trusted), shouldn't you be touchy about people incorrectly not trusting you? Not trusting you is a mistake that harms your interests and the other's. That's terrible! Why wouldn't you be touchy about it?

The problem is that in order to be trusted, it's not enough to be trustworthy; the other needs to know that you're trustworthy. You could try telling them, "Hey, you can trust me," but that doesn't work if a dishonest person could just as easily say the same thing.

[...]

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First published:
August 26th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zjgJ9gcMKATFdN48K/so-you-don-t-trust-me

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

″“So You Don’t Trust Me?”” by Zack_M_Davis

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

″“So You Don’t Trust Me?”” by Zack_M_Davis