Some events are so widely experienced that, regardless of how one interprets them, no one denies that something happened. Take the COVID-19 pandemic: even among those who question the mainstream narrative or the virus itself, there is broad agreement that a global disruption occurred. Lockdowns, economic shifts, hospital surges, and policy changes touched nearly everyone. The specific interpretation may differ, but the event’s existence as a major societal occurrence is not in dispute.
These kinds of events serve as anchor points—shared reference moments that are deeply embedded in the historical record. They allow us to trace who saw what coming and when. For example, before the pandemic unfolded, public figures like Trump and Elon Musk claimed it would quickly disappear. That didn’t happen. The disruption persisted. Meanwhile, some people made early, unpopular predictions that the situation would escalate. They were right, even if many didn't want to hear it at the time.
Anchor points like this help establish a foundation of Ŧrust. They give us a way to evaluate foresight by comparing what was predicted to what ultimately unfolded. While interpretations of such events will always vary, the reality that they happened provides a kind of checksum—a way to correct for collective error. Those who saw clearly before consensus formed staked their reputations in advance. Recognizing those signals and backpropagating the societal error that ignored them is core to how the system learns and improves.