Arrendis, there’s nothing I can say that is likely to, or should, improve your opinion of my integrity.
Also, I really kind of can’t be bothered. You seem to be taking a pretty binary, even mechanical view of a pretty complicated area of human interaction. It’s … not only simplistic and unfair, it seems simple-minded in a way I’m pretty sure you’re not.
As for myself … I trust you to find joy in prying at the cracks in the world, which makes you fun to talk with. Some of the time I think you do this for the same reasons I do: to see how things work, and to see if people can shore up and defend their positions.
I don’t trust you to know when to stop, though-- even if the situation’s been screaming “STOP!” for hours or days. I don’t trust you not to enjoy others’ misery, which might be related. I don’t trust you to argue only what you really think, and not to try weird positions just because it seems like fun at the time.
Even so, I also trust that you don’t really mean me harm. I trust that you don’t mean this stuff personally-- that no matter how hurtful what you say might be, I’m not supposed to carry lasting wounds from it.
So I try not to hold it against you, either. (Not like I’m good at holding grudges anyway.)
I trust you to be rationalistic-- to believe, in the end, in reason. Even if I don’t think you have as many of the answers as you sometimes seem to credit yourself.
I’ll trust you at my back against the Drifters; I’ll trust you not to hurt Ali; I’ll trust you to take sharp words better than most.
I don’t trust you to say what you really think. I don’t trust that you’re really very skeptical right now.
I do trust that you actually value me at least a little as a friend.
I could be wrong about any of this, but I haven’t bet all that much on most of it.
The world’s not simple. Neither are people. You don’t do complicated things favors by trying to reduce them to something simple and … well. Really kind of arbitrary.
Nobody’s completely trustworthy. Probably not even Chribba (and imagine what kind of damage he could do if he decided to cash in his reputation! WOW!). Some are more trustworthy than others, though.
Who can you trust, and how far? … Place your bets. You inevitably are doing just that, pretty much all the time.