Rachel Botsman, visiting academic at Oxford University, thinks it’s strange when organizations say they want to rebuild trust after a crisis. Why? Because trust is given to someone after they’ve proven themselves trustworthy. For Botsman, trust requires a continual process of proving trustworthiness. It’s not an attribute that one can assign to themselves without first having earned it.

If trust is, as Botsman defines it, a confident relationship to the unknown, then why is society so obsessed with transparency? Transparency and trust are often seen as symbiotic traits, but Botsman thinks we should think of them exactly the opposite. Transparency becomes important when there is a lack of trust, not an excess of it. If we as a society truly trusted Facebook, for example, no one would be calling for an increase in transparency around user consent and data sharing. Instead, according to Bostman, we would inherently trust Facebook with our data.

Tech is moving at such a breakneck pace that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with discussions about what’s appropriate and desirable — in relation to both society and our daily lives. Listen as Botsman makes the case for slowing down in response to rapid advancement: