Trust

Excellent book.

This was fantastic. A hyper-relevant read right now, during COVID and whilst trust in the US election system is under attack.

Buttigeg dives into why trust is so important across many different contexts: democracy, voting systems, COVID, climate change, and society in general. Great examples, great data points, pro-active suggestions for solutions, and super well written.

Surprised at the high quality of this given how fast it was published.

I only heard about this book a few weeks ago and I wasn't sure if I was gonna read it, but when I found the audiobook narrated by Mayor Pete himself and realized it's pretty short as well, I picked it up because I wasn't really in the mood to read a new fantasy anyways.

This turned out to be a good one. As you can see from the title, it's about trust, mistrust and misplaced trust and the consequences of it all. The information that the Mayor presents here isn't something new or what we've unheard of, but seeing it all put together, with historical as well as contemporary contexts and his own personal anecdotes, it makes for a thought provoking read. In his well spoken words, he emphasizes the importance of having trust in facts, in science, in our fellow human beings - to have a successful and well functioning society. And how decades of being lied to, presented with endless amounts of sensational misinformation, politicization of important issues like climate change etc have all now come to head in an election year ravaged by the pandemic, where both the government's incompetence and unscientific ideology driven inaction and a significant amount of the population's mistrust in basic facts and misplaced trust in a lying authoritarian leader - have led to more than 200K+ deaths with no clear end in sight.

As I said above, this is nothing new. But in these very cynical times where it feels like every fight for equal rights and protections, just basic healthcare and some competence from the government is too much of an ask - it's important to remember that we need trusted sources to move forward, and people who believe in the same inclusive and equitable future should trust each other, and fight together for the solutions. All in all, it's a well written, engaging and incisive read and I would definitely recommend the audiobook.