Trustos Diaries

January 4th, 2020

The conference commenced January 1 of 2020. The first day of a new decade. To make the coming together of all these different parties possible, including a high level delegation of Russia, Iran, Israel, Syria and the US, all the parties had put further threads and deadlines on hold... and Iran had agreed to put the blockade of the Street of Hormuz on hold.

Even a delegation from China and North and South Korea was present. China felt the pain of having to deal with a man made nuclear catastrophe which the leadership of North Korea blamed on the sanction and lack of technology embargo from the US they had to deal with.

However the lack of trust and the different positions where tangible and the expectation of some sort of positive outcome was felt as a big  burden on the shoulders of the participants aggravated by the short period of time available, since only 3 days had been reserved for the meeting.

Islamic religious leaders from Suni and Shiite faith as well as some high level religious Jewish Rabbi and even a delegation from the Vatican including Pope Frances met in a parallel meeting to find a strategy brainstorming  of ways to get out of the corner which each of the adversaries had put themselves in. These parallel meetings had been set up with some presentation from several start ups and media platforms to pitch a concept to build bridges.

Rita and Tim had arrived in Rome at New Years Eve and the entire Facebook delegation which included 5 other members of the trustos working group stayed in a hotel near the Rome Convention Center in Hotel dei Congressi.

In the public media it was quite obvious that the different positions between Iran and the US would be difficult to bridge. After the US had unilaterally withdrawn from  the Iran Nuclear Agreement the situation was complicated and Iran on the other side had deployed forces in Syria and through his proxies was able to challenge Israel in form of attacks by missiles but also kept supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen. There was basically a proxy war between forces backed by Saudi Arabia and by Iran ongoing since 2015.

At the core however seemed to be accusation and deep mistrust between all parties fueled by threads against each other but also fueled through sanctions and trade restrictions. The burning of American flags and the increasing unrest in Iraq made the situation not any easier.

The religious leaders felt the pressure of global destruction to the extend  that they started to concentrate not only on what divided their different cultures and religious believes but what was at the core which could resonate with all as a common ground to start with.

There was a group of activists started by an Israeli graphic designer  Ronny Edry who in 2012  had started facebook campaigns such as  'Israel-Loves-Iran' and a similar FB  group under the name 'Iran-Loves-Israel . Ordinary people posted pictures of mixed Iranian - Israeli marriages while posing their passport on the pictures. Later on Ronny had started the peace factory in Tel Aviv as a non profit organization.

Ronny run  at the first day of the conference into Rita in the coffee shop of the convention center. Rita found Ronny's story  so powerful that she thought that the idea of trustos could be a powerful catalyst to put the activism of Ronny 'on steroids' and make it more viral... and even convince the spiritual leaders present that this might be a strategy out of the confrontation.

Spontaneously both agreed to present the spiritual leaders of the conference a pitch to give that idea a try.

The meeting had started really clumsy. It was the first time spiritual leaders had ever met and come together from all different walks of spirituality.

When Rita had her 30 minutes presentation was coming up she showed first images of her mother who had grown up in Teheran in the 50's and how she, being a devout Shiite Muslim moved to LA to follow a career attending UCLA to become a psychologist.

Despite her different cultural background she fell in love with Rita's dad who came from a Jewish family working at a local bank. However they both met due to their voluntary work in a homeless center in LA.

That was such a strong narrative of humanity overcoming differences that Ronny could jump in and did talk about the work in the peace factory which used the slogan "Meet the Middle East ONE Person a time" and all the friendships which have been build despite being from the opposite corner of the 'front line'. The magic to find common ground based on the fact that we share more than what divides us .... our humanity.

Rita did jump in at the end of the presentation talking about the way conflicts arise by dehumanizing the opponent and how much material incentives drive these narratives intended to gain power.

Then Rita started to talk about the need to find new ways of human communication to break that cycle of destruction which seemed more urgent  in a world shared by more of 7 Billion humans and many weapons of mass destruction at hand.

She then tackled the key of the problem - morale is only worth the power backing ... and power is based on financial means and that creates its own morale.

How could we find the smallest denominator of humanity ..... and make it viral and and find ways to  to spread that 'healing' narrative ?

She stressed the value of digital means and  how facebook had created a membership of more than 2.4 billion. She then started to talk about the idea of a currency of TRUST and how to make it successful and a even talked about a new foundation for a moral force beyond religions of a United Nations not led by military superpowers.

Rita pivoted to talk about the concept of 'trustos'   the idea to measure TRUST and how they had started doing so at the facebook headquarter, the challenges but also the tangible immediate outcomes they felt . She  talked about the responsibility of the organizer of the trust algorithm who needed to mitigate tensions and conflicts but also avoid inflation of TRUST and find remedies to increase the interaction frequency at times of crisis.

You could hear a needle drop in the conference hall. All the dignitaries did listen and a sense of fascination was tangible.

Rita had exceeded the half hour time frame but kept going. She together with Ronny proposed a very practical path to ease the tensions which at the core were between Israel and the Palestine but also between Iran and USA.

They proposed a period of time to test TRUST building measurements to challenge the narratives of confrontation.

It would start first with an excuse from both sides about things which went wrong in the past ...... and then to express a willingness to find ways to focus on the common interests and solve issues peacefully.

For that purpose there ought to be activities in the media on both sides to present and discuss the other perception. Finally, TRUSTOS could be implemented with access for the population of both sides to participate .... together with channels of communications and even meetings to build and exchange TRUST. The organizer of the then necessary TRUST algorithm should be first spiritual leaders but later on the people who owned the most TRUST.

This presentation and the concept of humanity beyond cultural ethical differences had deeply moved the attending spiritual leaders and it was decided to put the meeting on hold for consultations with the political leaders and to reconvene the following day.