All knowledge depends on fiduciary trust in some community, including conspiracist belief

Evidence

The fiduciary basis of knowledge makes us vulnerable; if the community in which we place our trust gets it wrong or is corrupt, then what we take to be knowledge may be unjustified and erroneous. Some put their trust in a community of scientists and public health officials who affirm that vaccines do not cause autism; others put their trust in an internet community of anonymous conspiracists who affirm that Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman is running an international child sex-trafficking ring out of a pizzeria. What is the difference? — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 282

Categorization

• XREF: Frames the trust/knowledge question the reader has explored in Milgrom and the Trust reader discussions - fiduciary basis of knowledge as community placement. — connects to: Conspiracy worldviews corrode the shared trust reality depends on. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 137; Most of what people believe is taken on trust, not direct observation — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 280; Conspiracy beliefs follow source identification, so only rival trusted figures can dislodge them — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 327 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: The author poses ‘What is the difference?’ between trusting scientists and trusting anonymous conspiracists - worth carrying forward to see the book’s answer about epistemic communities.

Broader Connections

• Conspiracy worldviews corrode the shared trust reality depends on. #expands (0.85) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 137
• Most of what people believe is taken on trust, not direct observation #corroborates (0.85) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 280
• Trust is a kind of knowledge grounded in trustworthy evidence #corroborates (0.85) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 682
• Source-trusting alone can split a community into stable opposing epistemic camps #expands (0.80) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 249
• Conspiracy beliefs follow source identification, so only rival trusted figures can dislodge them #qualifies (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 327
• Global erosion of institutional trust sustains conspiracy belief beyond any single political era #qualifies (0.75) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 112
• Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification #expands (0.75)