When we trust a person, we are going beyond the mere assessment of probabilities. Indeed, trust or mistrust takes its place precisely because such an assessment cannot easily be made, or because it is too costly or time-consuming to do so. It enters where more exact knowledge is not available . . . Individuals and societies are dependent on countless symbols, myths, beliefs, and institutions which function as indicators of trustworthiness or the opposite. That is why trust has been described as a means of reducing complexity and a form of social communication . . . [it] spans the problems of time and uncertainty.#Quoted in Steven Horwitz, “Monetary Exchange as an Extra-Linguistic Social Communication Process” (1992)