This phrase is one of the known mottos of the Web3 space, often used by Web3 Foundation. It is important to add more context to this statement: Trust is not inherently bad.
Human-based Trust might be deemed bad, but trusting a verifiable system through irrefutable rules of science and battle-tested game theoretic reasons is not necessarily bad.
I believe the authors of this statement meant “Trust” as Human-based Trust, and “Truth” as Science-based Trust. I would rephrase it as:
Less human-based trust, more science-based trust.
Or, we can replace human-based and science-based with one of their corresponding properties.
Trust
The property of us believing an Authority behaves according to some known rules.
Science-based Trust is also called Trustless, as it relies on no Human-based Trust. See Less Trust, More Truth.
Trust can be categorized into the following:
Human-based Trust
- Corruptible: What is expected to happen might not happen at all, or something else might happen.
- Not auditable: Records of what was done in the past may or may not be available.
- Limited or Permissioned: People might get excluded from the system with arbitrary rules
Science-based Trust
Link to original
- Verifiable: What is expected will always happen and will do so correctly, and anyone can verify this.
- Auditable: What has happened in the past, and its correct order is known, and can be re-verified by anyone.
- Accessible or Permissionless: Anyone can participate in the system to the extent that its rules allow.
For example:
Less corruptible trust, more verifiable trust.
Or,
Less permissioned trust, more permissionless trust.
Therefore, there is no reason to always frown upon the use of “We are trusting …”, and no need to be excited about “We are removing trust from …“. It all depends on the context.
End of the day, we cannot deny that we trust the rules of math and science that lead to the credibility of a system like Bitcoin as well.