We discussed Truth and Trust, motivated by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales' book The Seven Rules of Trust.

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy presents several theories of Truth (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/).  The Correspondence theory relates statements to the facts as we see them.  This could (and at one time did) allow the assertion that the sun goes round the earth.  The Coherence theory requires a truth to be compatible with all the rest of our knowledge: we know now that the earth moves round the sun, ever since Newton, Copernicus and Galileo, but not before.  The Pragmatist theory says that truth is what we believe to function in the world.  That doesn’t permit just anything; we must be able to assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify claims.  There is also a Deflationary theory: saying something is true or not doesn’t add anything - the moon just isn’t made of cream cheese, whatever we say.  

A true friend means something different from a true fact; it includes our trust in that friend.  Jimmy Wales’ book offers seven rules of trust illustrated primarily by the development and success of Wikipedia, and, as the dust jacket of the book claims, "why it is today’s most essential superpower".  We watched interviews with Jimmy Wales with Shaun Ley on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct7x77 and with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mpht0YzzQ.  These give a flavour of the book, the man and his ideas, and here is a summary of those seven rules.