December 22, 2024

Have you noticed the president has lost public trust? Not saying he does not have some supporters. Just saying even his supporters no longer take him at his word. Some leaders shrug off the lost trust as the cost of progress toward their agenda. They will learn; lost trust is a very high price to pay. Lost public trust is a crisis.

Leaders cannot lead if they are not trusted. Law enforcement cannot enforce if they are not trusted. Legal systems cannot adjudicate if they are not trusted. The list of societal functions that rely on trust is very long. Trust is the foundation of society.

Most of us do not want to be experts on healthcare or education systems or infrastructure or transportation policy or tax systems or public health or environmental science or agriculture policy or disaster relief or international relations or any one of hundreds of topics. We want to trust our leaders to gather the best minds on these topics and come to some consensus for the public good. We wanted to trust them. However, instead of gathering experts for consensus, the leaders used (what is now called) “fake news” to sway public opinion just enough to achieve the goals that favor this or that special interest group. Some of our leaders were victim to the fake news but many were complicit in the lies and deception.

Trust = Acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation

Truth is reality. The truth about reality is that it was there all along. If you look closely, reality is always in plain sight. What changes over time is our perception of reality. Looking for the truth may seem like a journey to an elusive destination. Many say the truth is a very hard thing to know. That said; in this connected world, the path to basic understanding of almost any topic is only a couple searches away.

Understanding the nuance of complicated topics may be tough but looking stuff up is easy. Truth is the enemy of fake news. A little research is the key to finding if the news is fake or real. Doing research to determine the real from the fake takes time and effort. It would be nice if we could trust some leader to tell us the truth. However, trust has been lost. It will take a long time for trust to return.

Trust is about truth and honesty. It is my opinion that the meaning of trust has evolved to be more about basic honesty. In the connected world, our understanding of “truth” often changes as new information becomes available. One day we hear X is good for you and the next week we hear that X is not good for you. Nothing has changed in reality but our perception has changed, possibly because new information became available. Because of the constant flow of new information, our understanding can evolve quickly. The concept of trust must allow for an evolving perception of reality.

Being a trustworthy source of truth in the information age is about transparency and honesty. Acknowledging what you know and do not know. Acknowledging there are other points of view. Stipulating the facts, as you know them, and then interpreting the facts acknowledging alternate interpretations. In today’s world, one of the surest signs a person is not trustworthy is if they proclaim knowing some absolute truth.

We live in the information age. A single spectacular lie can spread to millions of people within minutes. While the truth can be boring, and takes it’s time to be known. However, as quickly as the lie can spread, so can spread the truth about a liar. The truth is reality and even though it might take time to be obvious, the truth will be obvious in time. People will continue to spread lies about other people. Take the time to fact check. Call bullshit when it is bullshit. When you see evidence that something is real or false call that evidence out. Let us help each other to know real things.

There are social consequences for loss of trust. However, there are also legal consequences for those who cause this loss of trust.

Hacking e-mails = criminal activity
Creating fake news to intentionally deceive others for personal gain = fraud = criminal activity
Using the internet (wire) TV or radio to intentionally deceive others = wire fraud = criminal activity

Conclusion

Public trust is more important than party politics. Being trustworthy is more important than holding an elected position. Being trustworthy is more important than being rich. Being trustworthy is more important than being on the planning commission. Being trustworthy is inherently important.

The public trust is broken. We need to do everything possible to re-establish that trust. It will take time but it is doable. We need our leaders to be honest, transparent and inclusive. We need them to value truth. It really is about the golden rule; do onto others, as you would have them do unto you.

Nobody is perfect. It is not reasonable to have that expectation. However, basic honesty is the least we should expect from each other.

One last thing. In reality, it is very rare for any two people in any group to share the exact same beliefs or have the same characteristics. Pretending that all members of any group think the same or share the same characteristics is wrong. Individuals are individuals. Not all teenagers like the same music. Not all Democrats are like-minded. Not all republicans are like-minded. Not all Muslims are the same. Not all Christians are alike. In fact, one of the signs you are reading fake news is that it attributes the same characteristics to all members of a group. We are all members of many groups. Membership in any one group is only a single factor in a very complex set of factors that define who we are. The reality is we are as different from each other as we are the same as each other.

The crazy thing is that leaders can only lead if we trust them to lead. The president has lost the public trust. Now what?

The trick to finding the right mattress is to look for one that does at least the following:

Gently compresses when the weight and curvature of your body presses against it. While at the same time the mattress needs to push evenly (no pressure points) against every portion of your body that touches the mattress. If your body has a bulge (hips, butt, shoulders, etc.), as the bulge presses against the mattress, the mattress needs to compress to make room for the bulge without pressing any harder on that bulge than it does on a non-bulge area.
Motion separation – The motion of one person on the bed should cause little or no movement of another person on the bed.
Temperature neutrality – The mattress surface should raise to your body temperature but not accumulate heat (sleep hot) or lose heat (sleep cold) throughout the sleep period.
Edge support – Sleeping near the edge of the bed should not make you feel you are falling off.
Ease of entry and exit – Is it easy to lay down on and to get off the mattress.

Here are a couple things to keep in mind about mattresses.

Your body weight distributes over the area of mattress. You might weigh several hundred pounds but an area the size of your handprint will need to support less than a pound or two. If you want to test a mattress by pressing on it with your hand, press relatively lightly. Pressing hard is not a realistic test
To maintain proper alignment the mattress only needs to compress an inch or two (depending on your weight). Good alignment translates to a mattress on the firmer side of the scale. The diagrams and posed pictures they use to demonstrate mattress compression exaggerates the amount of compression needed. Look at the pictures of regular people laying on a mattress; they barely make a dent. Sore necks, backs, legs, etc. are about proper alignment, which is about some but not too much compression around your bulges.
A comfortable bed is about even support (lack of pressure points) and temperature neutrality. A good mattress does not have pressure points even when you shift positions. If you need to sleep in an exact position to be comfortable (absent a medical condition), your mattress does not support you evenly.

Spoiler alert. Foam mattresses have evolved and now meet the above requirements better than innerspring and air bladder mattresses do.

The nature of springs, stiffer when compressed, will always cause pressure points when you change positions. They can mitigate the problem with all sorts of tricks but in the end, they have pressure points and foam mattresses do not. Putting springs under the foam pads is a gimmick that actually reduces the life of the foam that you actually sleep on. Air bladder mattresses have the selling point that partners of different sizes / preferences can have a different firmness. Foam mattresses do not need a mechanical system to accommodate the preferences of two people on a bed. Besides, readjusting ones position on an air bladder mattress changes the pressure in the bladder and causes pressure points but changing position on a foam mattress does not cause a pressure point.

Foam has the magic property of not getting firmer as you compress it (except, of course, if you compress it to the limit). This same property means motion separation and edge support is inherent to a foam mattress.

Closed cell foam tends to sleep hot. The air in the cells heats up from your body heat over time. Open cell foam allows the air to flow through the foam. Thus, open cell foam tends to be temperature neutral (not sleep hot or cold). Open-cell foam tends to be too soft to provide proper body alignment. Natural latex foam or an open-cell synthetic that mimics natural latex foam provides temperature neutrality and the latex is stiff enough to provide proper alignment. Latex foam is firm enough to push down against when you try to get on or off the mattress. In addition, it is springy enough to give your rear-end a little push as you stand up.

I sleep on a 100% natural latex foam mattress from Ikea. My spouse and I like it a lot. I do not hesitate to recommend a 100% latex mattress. Having said that, there are other options, which can be less expensive and probably very close to as good. Several manufacturers make a mattress with several layers of different foam, the top couple of inches, of which, is an open-cell foam. By layering different foam densities these mattresses can get a slightly different feel. I have read more reviews on these mattresses than I care to admit. I have not tried any of them except the 100% natural Ikea mattress but they all seem to get similar high ratings. Most of the reviews say whatever mattress they are reviewing is better than an innerspring and air bladder mattress. However, they also say the foam mattresses in this category all perform about equally. They differentiate themselves instead by focusing on things like cost, warranties, customer service, return policies, and the like.

A foam mattress is mostly air. Which means, they can vacuum pack a queen-sized mattress and put it in a box about the size of a mini-refrigerator. Which means you can order them online and they can ship them to you via standard methods (UPS, FedEx, etc.) We went to the Ikea showroom several times to try out the mattress options. However, most foam mattresses are online purchases. The manufacturers generally offer a free return policy should you not like it. From what I understand, their return rates are generally less than 1%. The return rate for showroom bought innerspring and air bladder mattresses is much higher than that.

A couple final points to consider. A foam mattress is typically 8 to 10 inches thick. Thicker does not equal better in the foam mattress world. Foam mattresses lay on a firm surface, most often slats or a platform bed (right on the floor?). So put away the step stool to get into bed. However, think about new options when the mattress and box spring combination are not 2 feet thick. One thing getting more popular is a platform bed with storage (drawers) under the platform. You get storage without increase the footprint in the room and the mattress will still be at a reasonable height.

Conclusion

Foam technology has evolved over the past several years. An open-cell foam topped mattress or 100% latex mattress do what a good mattress is supposed to do, better than an innerspring or air bladder mattress. These foam mattresses are another example of a technology change that changes the basic assumptions (paradigm). A plain looking 10-inch foam mattress sleeps better than an 18 inch thick innerspring with an exotic looking pillow top. A plain looking foam offers more support than two air bladder mattresses in the same frame and separates motion just as well. There is a reason that so many are replacing their old fancy mattresses with new, simpler, more functional open-cell topped mattresses.

We donated our old mattress to Bridging. They put it to good use.