21: Ashley Mathews (aka Riley Reid) - The mogul and brains behind America's Sweetheart: Difference between revisions

'''Eric:'''  Well I think that the issue of deniability now, I mean we were talking— I should say this is the first day we've ever met. We've talked on the phone a bunch of times. One of the people I've sort of pointed you towards is this evolutionary theorist Bob Trivers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Trivers). And he wrote this book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folly_of_Fools). I mean, it's really, you know, one of the most prominent theorists of our time. And he wrote this book called the folly of fools that talks about the evolutionary basis of self-deception as the precursor to being able to manipulate others. And if you think about, for example, I had Bret Easton Ellis in the studio who wrote American Psycho and Less Than Zero. And we were talking about the issue of seduction. And he said that he wants to be seduced all the time. He doesn't want everything to be explicit. He doesn't want everything, you know, as a mutually agreed upon decision, that in part what is wonderful and delicious to him about life has to do with seduction, and that selection involves manipulation. But in a world where I think many more people are colliding without a common understanding of each other, not coming from the same backgrounds, there's really an increased propensity for humans to get these signals wildly wrong. It's probably always been there, but maybe there's an increased ability. So weirdly, the way I see it, the civilian world has always been based on sort of self deception, and then there have been both the problems that come from that and the really much more exciting aspects that come from that. But when it works, probably there's an extra magic to it. Any thoughts on that between like what, what translates to mystique? Do you see that when you're looking at your civilian friends, that they're kind of saying, well, I wonder if he likes me? I got a message. I don't know how to interpret it.