The trade-off between presence and trust

YUTPA provides a conscious description of the Time, Space, Action and You configuration of a certain product or process, in which natural presence, mediated presence and witnessed presence all play a role. The specific configuration, the specific YUTPA permits certain forms of trust and excludes others. In the development of judicial systems and in the evolution of humans living together, we have developed formats, methodologies and structures upon which we base the manner in which we deal with trust and truth. The specific configuration of a YUTPA is distinct in these processes. Because we are physically mortal beings bound to time and place we need a more conscious awareness of these formats and methodologies for living together when transcending the boundaries of time and place.

Every YUTPA has distinct features of trustworthiness. Social and legal systems base their rules on certain YUTPA's. Giddens shows how 'rules' in certain time/space configurations underlie our social activities (Giddens 1984). The YUTPA that is genuinely used as a reference point is 'the being physically present at a certain place at a certain time and being witnessed by another person'. Another YUTPA that is very common is the YUTPA of text written on a piece of paper. When it is dated and signed, sometimes before a trusted party like a notary, written text on paper has executive power in other places at other times for other people.

The YUTPA of a local radio show is different from the YUTPA of national radio show. The YUTPA of a credit card is different from the YUTPA of money. The YUTPA of an armed soldier in war is different from the YUTPA of a gang member in a poor neighbourhood. Based on a variety of factors, every YUTPA is attributed with a certain condition of trust in certain contexts. It is the trust that has to be designed for societies to work.

YUTPA's are deeply influenced by technology. Because of the development of mechanical, electrical, electronic and digital technologies, we can act with other people over time and distances other than dictated by the YUTPA that is determined by our physical presence.

A variety of new YUTPA's has evolved over the last few decades because of digital technology. Internet, mobile communication, GIS, and databases have created new YUTPA's of communication. Tracking and tracing, collecting and distributing, presence (being switched on) and absence (being switched off) have changed the scale and patterns of communication.

What we do, makes us who we are. Being alive is enacting our being, acting out our being. Our acts feed back into our brain, into our being. With our proto, core and extended consciousness we have presence in this world. Technology interferes in our presences on all levels. Because trust and truth is limited in any YUTPA, we have to analyse in which YUTPA we are operating. The limits of a YUTPA are defined by the radius and relationship between the dimensions of time, place, action and the other. It is the specific time/space configuration in which we meet others in action that distinguishes one set of possibilities and liabilities from another.

CN