You can move in lockstep with the mob if you like. I will scout ahead, and tell anyone openminded enough to listen, if there's a minefield or cliff coming up.
But the commenter is right about the first part of zero trust.
Put another way, you aren't scouting ahead if no one is following you. You're homesteading. Which is a fine thing to do, but it won't get any significant bridges built. You, alone, won't be able to span the Mississippi with resources you find on your homestead.
I think we have entered a post trust era.
All that said, democracy is a team sport, so zero trust seems to be the population level consensus. So it's what should happen. Maybe it ends well? More likely it ends poorly. But either way, others will be able to learn from it and other human societies will benefit from the knowledge.
The purpose of scouting is not to be followed, but to find obstacles and hazards, that may need to be circumnavigated, or overcome.
In the course of their duties, a scout may need to travel across rougher terrain than the main group, as scouting often involves seeking higher ground to surveil the planned path from a different angle. The scout will have to retrace their steps many times to find paths suitable for the entire group, with or without equipment, or for the weakest members. The group may need to split up to outflank a threat, or to accomodate the mission parameters. It is the scout's duty to identify hazards and report them back to the group.
The fundamental assumption with scouting, however, is that there is a “group”. In a post trust society, there is no “group”. There is zero trust. There exists no one who trusts the scout, nor anyone who trusts his/her report.
To have a “group”, you need some trust somewhere. “How to function, and what happens when there is no trust anywhere?”, is the question most of us are pondering.
>The group may need to split up to outflank a threat, or to accomodate the mission parameters.
"This is getting out of hand, now there are two of them!"
–Nute Gunray
More than one group may be necessary to accomplish the mission, which may need to split into many missions, possibly even contradicting each other.
Trust is earned, not demanded. Currently people are finding other trustworthy groups, and aligning to otther mission profiles to accomplish the greater mission. All you can do is try to re-earn their trust by giving accurate reports.
