In the fall of 2024, in a Central Oregon county on the dividing line of the Greater Idaho movement, thirty strangers chosen by lottery spent two weekends deciding what their community should do about youth homelessness. Matt Abrams watched people who walked in afraid of one another produce 22 supermajority recommendations, and measured the trust between them six months later. Part I is how he got there: a lumber town childhood between loggers and environmentalists, a courtroom experiment in decency, and the case that civic assemblies are not efficient, "but holy hell are they effective."
Disclosure: Matt is a friend of Keiron's, and his $1 Billion for Trust organization and this show are fellow travelers. Keiron has sat in on their working calls; they often compare notes.
Reach Keiron directly: keiron@sparkoftrust.com
Spark of Trust — Igniting the Trust Revolution.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Fear of not being heard opens the show
00:28 A Spark With Matt Abrams, Part I
01:00 Welcoming Matt Abrams, the venture capitalist turned trust builder
02:43 The fake 9/11 Quran emails that started Matt's hunt for trustworthy information, and the humility it took him decades to learn
08:06 Growing up in a divided Oregon logging town
10:20 The Decency Project, and how one courtroom experiment scaled into civic assemblies
19:32 What a civic assembly actually is
21:32 How Central Oregon used one to tackle youth homelessness
27:13 Why trust, not truth, is democracy's real foundation
31:10 Loving the rock: Sisyphus and the price of caring about trust
32:28 Is distrust ever healthy?
40:06 What most people get wrong about how divided we are
44:34 A segue into Part II
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Until next time, keep being the spark that ignites the Trust Revolution.
