In this world, there is no money. Nobody rattles coins or checks a bank balance — they check the glow on your chest. This is your trust core: a small, luminous organ that pulses when others believe in you and dims when you deceive them.
Trust can vanish faster than Wi-Fi in an elevator. Tell a lie, and the glowing threads that connect you to others start to snap. Without threads, you can’t live, work, or even cross into the next district — here, bridges are made of light, and they only hold those who are trusted.
How This “Trust Banking” Works
Housing, work, access to information — all require a guarantor. Someone shares part of their glow with you, and you gain the right to pass.
Lose that trust, and you become an Echo Walker: a person who is seen but no longer heard. Not out of anger — simply because the system stops registering your presence.
It sounds like science fiction, but in our world, we’re already drifting the same way.
Facts That Dim the Core
- Edelman Trust Barometer 2025: 61% of people worldwide are dissatisfied and distrust major institutions — governments, businesses, media.
- UN World Social Report 2025: more than half of the world’s population has little to no trust in governments, with each new generation trusting less than the last.
- World Happiness Report 2025: in the US, the number of people who trust others has dropped from 50% in the 1970s to 30% today.
- Thales Digital Trust Index 2025: Gen Z’s trust in digital services has fallen to 32%, and trust in the media in some countries hovers at a record-low 3%.
The New Pandemic: Loneliness
In the City of Threads, losing trust inevitably means losing closeness. Without threads, people grow transparent and can no longer exchange warmth — literal or emotional.
In the real world, this phenomenon already has an official diagnosis: loneliness.
In 2023, the WHO declared chronic loneliness a public health threat, comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
The UK has a Minister for Loneliness. In the US, the Surgeon General called social isolation “one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.”
And yes, phubbing — the habit of snubbing someone in conversation to look at your phone — has firmly embedded itself in our culture. We can be online 24/7 and still feel more isolated than ever.
The Exotic Ecosystem of Trust
In the City of Threads, trust isn’t just a social resource — it’s biological.
- Lumins — tiny winged creatures that carry light from one core to another, visiting only the honest and generous.
- Guarantors — semi-transparent giants who can share part of their glow with strangers.
- Lightwardens — floating sky creatures that maintain the light-bridges between districts; if trust falls too low, the bridges vanish.
Why This Isn’t Just Fantasy
The City of Threads isn’t a utopia or a dystopia — it’s a precise mirror. Its technology is just an exaggerated version of our reputation systems, social credit scores, blockchain networks, and algorithms already deciding who deserves trust.
The problem is that, just like there, the threads are breaking — we just can’t see the light yet.
Conclusion
The crisis of trust isn’t just politics or media. It’s the silence at the kitchen table while everyone’s glued to screens. It’s a lost bridge because no one dared vouch for you. It’s the feeling of having a thousand “friends” online and not one to pick up the phone at 3 a.m.
Maybe it’s time to start paying each other not with likes, but with attention?
Also Reed: "The World Where Words Leave Traces" - Atlas of Subtle Connections
