With so many individuals in the world whose words I hear or read, my needs for open-mindedness and for objectivity aren't met - so my need for trust in their judgment isn't met.

Sometimes the following thought runs through my mind, whatever its imperfections: such a huge proportion of those I hear in the world strike me as judging those with whom they disagree as "wrong" or even "evil" - and they end up dismissing alternative viewpoints without seriously considering them.

In my impression and opinion, in formulating their opinions, they "trust" sources with which they already sympathize and casually dismiss those that they don't. And to me it seems that they base such dismissal on their moralistic judgments. So to me it seems as if they're slipping into something that's sometimes called "confirmation bias" - seeking only that which supports what they already believe.

To the extent that it sounds to me as if they do this, I don't feel confident that I can trust their judgment.

When I consider how prevalent this practice seems to me to be, I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed not only because I need trust (in the sense of being able to trust others' judgment) but also safety - and I'm struck by how little I trust even the judgment of many individuals whom I'm convinced express themselves sincerely.

I feel keenly aware that human beings have a need for interdependence. And I'm thinking about this in connection with the benefits that a division of labor can offer. I'm thinking about such a division of labor not just in an economic or industrial sense. I'm thinking about this in an epistemological sense.

None of us can be an expert about everything. We really need to be able to rely on trustworthy sources for information. And this strikes me as a key aspect of human vulnerability - my own certainly included.

I'm feeling really sad that I'm not finding more sources of such kind as would satisfy my needs in this respect. In areas in which by my standards I'm not personally expert, I would like to find sources on which I could rely that I could feel confident had empathically connected with others who had expressed a variety of differing viewpoints before such sources settled on their own opinions.