Tess Wilkinson-Ryan (on the sucker narrative)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dak Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Padman.

[3] Hello.

[4] We have an incredible guest on today.

[5] Tess Wilkinson, Ryan, who is the University of Pennsylvania law professor and moral psychologist.

[6] She has a really cool book out right now called Foolproof, how fear of playing the sucker shapes ourselves in the social order and what we can do about it.

[7] I love this topic.

[8] Yeah.

[9] I have a big sucker trigger.

[10] I'm a victim of this all the time.

[11] I think the person that just gave me the bid thinks I'm stupid and weak.

[12] They're trying to play me a fool.

[13] And then I'll fight to the death over it.

[14] And it's a biased thinking that is illogical and against our better interest a lot of the time.

[15] I know.

[16] She tells us about it.

[17] I think everyone will relate.

[18] Yeah.

[19] Even if you aren't on your side of the scale, everyone can relate.

[20] Everyone has it.

[21] Yes.

[22] And in fact, she talks about how the sucker narrative, Weaves its way into almost any issue we have, political, gender, race, all of it.

[23] Motherhood.

[24] Motherhood.

[25] It's pretty crazy.

[26] Dang, ding, ding.

[27] Motherhood.

[28] You have an announcement.

[29] I'm not pregnant still.

[30] Still not pregnant.

[31] All right.

[32] Well, please enjoy Tess Wilkinson, Ryan.

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[36] He's an object.

[37] My hair is wild this morning.

[38] I put it in a ponytail last night and I woke up.

[39] Oh, yes.

[40] And it was unruly.

[41] That will happen.

[42] He slept in a pony?

[43] Uh -huh.

[44] Oh, yeah.

[45] Yeah.

[46] And at some point, the pony holder came out, freed itself from the entanglement of my hair.

[47] And then I went to.

[48] to take the kids to school, and I looked at myself in the mirror, and I said, this isn't going to cut it.

[49] That'll look like a mad scientist.

[50] It's not great.

[51] That's why I brought this hat.

[52] It's a just -in -case hat.

[53] Yeah, that's just to make some effort to test that she thinks I care.

[54] I should tell you, since you're growing your hair out, sleeping with a ponytail can cause breakage.

[55] Test, can you confirm or deny this?

[56] Is this urban legend?

[57] It's so uncomfortable that I'm impressed you could do it at all.

[58] That's very uncomfortable.

[59] Whatever my daughter, who has very long hair, goes to sleep in a ponytail, I'm like, that's going to be too uncomfortable for you and I like tug it out of her hair.

[60] Will she ever put it in braids so that when she wakes up curls, world of curls?

[61] Obviously.

[62] Come on.

[63] That's the whole thing.

[64] I'm just mourning the fact that we're kind of getting on the other side of that.

[65] She's getting almost too old for the good mom, 11.

[66] Oh, yeah.

[67] Because I read an article of yours, but now it must have been two years old because the children were eight and 13 at the time.

[68] Was it about the pandemic?

[69] It was about driving in the car and then going to.

[70] Oh, in the book.

[71] Yeah, that's in the book.

[72] Oh, in the book.

[73] That's the book.

[74] Yeah, it's a very beginning of the pandemic.

[75] Yes.

[76] Yes.

[77] Now she's 11.

[78] And the boys, what, 14, 15?

[79] 15, sophomore in high school.

[80] Wow.

[81] I've got kids who are very hard to impress at this point.

[82] You can't take out your old, like, hey, I've got a surprise for you.

[83] What if we put your hair in four braids?

[84] No. She's going to be like, okay, mom.

[85] She offered me some makeup to take with me to come out here.

[86] Oh, that was thoughtful.

[87] It was thoughtful.

[88] And I brought it.

[89] I was like, you know what?

[90] Fair point.

[91] I'll take it.

[92] And the 15 -year -old, are his shoulders broadening?

[93] Is he, like, turning into a man in front of you?

[94] Yeah, it's terrifying.

[95] He is six foot two.

[96] Oh, my goodness.

[97] Oh, yeah.

[98] It's a whole different world.

[99] I was trying to tell him something about how I was going to pick him up from something.

[100] And I was like, I just don't want you walking late at night back that way.

[101] And he was like, mom, no offense.

[102] But like, you're in more danger in that situation than I am.

[103] And I was like, excuse me. And I was like, I have better judgment, though.

[104] Yeah.

[105] That's true.

[106] I have street smarts.

[107] I've honed my street smarts.

[108] First in Maine, then Philadelphia.

[109] Like many law professors, I really have a good sense of it.

[110] Now, you are originally from Maine.

[111] Small town or moderate town or big town?

[112] Small town.

[113] The biggest city is Portland, Maine, which is about two hours north of Boston.

[114] So it's in southern Maine.

[115] And I grew up like 45 minutes southwest of Portland.

[116] So I was like between the ocean and the White Mountains.

[117] In some ways, a relatively unremarkable forested area.

[118] Okay.

[119] Town of how many people?

[120] I believe the answer is 4 ,000.

[121] That's pretty small.

[122] Very.

[123] Because I'm from a small town, it was about 10 ,000, I think.

[124] Did you have a main street?

[125] No, just a store, your country store.

[126] A Burger King?

[127] What, no. No. No, no, no place you could go.

[128] You wouldn't go anywhere.

[129] The only thing, there was your country store, it's literally called that, your country store.

[130] And there was a truck stop that we didn't go to.

[131] Okay, well, for good reasons.

[132] Back to you weren't in your child.

[133] Yeah.

[134] A small town, but also large land -wise, so you really didn't see people.

[135] Mm -hmm.

[136] Did you know you wanted to be a lawyer?

[137] Had you seen a movie or something where you, like, did you have a fantasy of what a lawyer was?

[138] And when did it start?

[139] Okay.

[140] I should also just come very clean and say that I have never been a lawyer.

[141] So my dad was a lawyer when I was really, really little.

[142] And he did not like it.

[143] No one likes it, right?

[144] I guess I'm sort of committed to thinking some of my students have good lives after they graduate from law school.

[145] Yeah.

[146] I think that there are a lot of different law jobs.

[147] Sure.

[148] That can be pretty amazing and rewarding.

[149] My dad is really introverted and he had a job as a trial lawyer.

[150] And I think that was an incredibly bad fit.

[151] That's stressful.

[152] You always have to be an actor on top of an academic.

[153] Exactly, exactly.

[154] And he ultimately became a third grade teacher.

[155] Okay.

[156] So I think that he was probably not a fit for the profession in the first place.

[157] I mean, to be honest, I went to law school on like a, I'm not sure what to do next whim.

[158] I was living in New York after college.

[159] I had a bunch of jobs, but I kept having these jobs where I did not want my boss's job.

[160] What was your BA in?

[161] Psychology.

[162] And I went to law school on like a whim of thinking, I don't know what to do next.

[163] It gives you a lot of options.

[164] Gives you some options.

[165] I'll do this.

[166] I got incredibly lucky.

[167] I got to law school and I looked at my professors and I was like, oh, I do want your job.

[168] That's a great job.

[169] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[170] In the few classes I had in college, there's something very appealing to me about law.

[171] In the most generic sense, it's a format for everything.

[172] Like, if you desire control as I do, you know, it's a well -worded set of guidelines.

[173] and ways of handling every single conceivable situation, it seems like it's a blueprint through proceeding through life.

[174] So it has the appeal or the advertisement of order.

[175] Yeah, I teach first year contracts.

[176] Basically, in a given year, a third of the class is stuck in my course.

[177] They don't choose it and they can't unchoose it.

[178] It's required.

[179] Organic chemistry.

[180] Yeah, exactly.

[181] You have to take it to go to medical school, right?

[182] So you have to take contracts and you don't even get to choose who teaches it to you.

[183] So you're stuck in my class.

[184] So I get people who are super fresh into law school.

[185] It's the most incredible teaching gig in the world.

[186] They do the reading, they're super game, they're up for stuff.

[187] It's really fun.

[188] So they come and they think, like, I'm really looking forward to this blueprint that we're going to get.

[189] And then they feel really disappointed by what I have to tell them about actually how most of the answers are good question.

[190] It depends.

[191] It lures you in with this notion that we have a protocol for everything.

[192] And then you find out, no, it's as a nuance as anything else.

[193] It may be worse.

[194] Almost worse, exactly.

[195] Exactly.

[196] Because usually by the time you're disputing, everyone has a pretty good set of reasons for why their view is sensible.

[197] Contracts in particular, they're literally a blueprint, right?

[198] They give you like a bunch of instructions of how to act, what you're supposed to do.

[199] And I had this terrible news for students that basically contracts almost always underspecify what the thing is that you need.

[200] Because you write the contract at time one and you think I'm all over this, I know just what's going on.

[201] And then a year later.

[202] Everything's changed.

[203] Things have changed.

[204] Evolved.

[205] And you didn't say anything about what you would do if they didn't have any lumber.

[206] Things are going to pop up that the contract doesn't account for.

[207] And then we will end up still in court with someone trying to figure out.

[208] And even if you go to court, most of the time, what the court is doing is giving somebody money, not making somebody do something.

[209] That's the only real recourse.

[210] That's the only real recourse.

[211] So let's say you were going to buy a used car and it was like a very normal used car.

[212] just like a 2015 Toyota.

[213] We know.

[214] We know.

[215] 2015 Toyota and you were trying to buy it and the person who was going to sell it to you, you had made the contract and the person says, oh, actually, I've got a better offer from somebody else.

[216] I'm breaching my contract with you.

[217] It wouldn't be that hard for the court to say to the seller.

[218] Like, no, you have to just sell it to her, you promise.

[219] But they don't.

[220] You just get money.

[221] You get the difference between what do it cost to buy a new car and the car you already contracted for.

[222] You introduced this in the book, which is law in and of itself is a paradigm of thinking.

[223] In that, when you teach it or you're learning about it, you're learning all these mechanisms in place.

[224] You'll have a theoretical dispute.

[225] Morality's never entered into it.

[226] It's not part of the equation.

[227] It's not part of the practice.

[228] When I first started research on contracts, this is when I was in graduate school.

[229] I just had the sense that most people think contracts matter morally.

[230] They think their contracts are promises.

[231] And promises have like a sacredness to them.

[232] And in law school, you really get a lot of indoctrination sort of, which is like, all contracts in American law schools, at least, or American legal system, all contracts are really about is money.

[233] It's just a financial instrument.

[234] I, like, sort of sent out this survey when I was in graduate school to say, what do you think?

[235] You do a flooring exercise, right?

[236] When I was in graduate school, someone asked my husband what my research was about, and he was like, it's about flooring and fumes from flooring.

[237] I was like, what?

[238] I was like, Caleb.

[239] He is not paying attention to.

[240] But yes.

[241] So it would be questions about, like, someone has made a contract to come and refinish the floor of your condo.

[242] And I would try to make the stakes feel as neutral as possible.

[243] So I would say, listen, this is a property that you own, but you're not living there anymore.

[244] And actually, you're only getting the floors refinished because your realtor told you, listen, with the floor is refinished, we can get about $10 ,000 more in the asking price.

[245] And the refinishing the floors, if it's only going to cost a couple thousand dollars, it's worth it for you to do.

[246] Buy backs.

[247] Exactly.

[248] Yeah.

[249] So you say, great.

[250] So you contract with this firm who's going to refinish the floors for you.

[251] And then the firm says, oh, actually, sorry, I've got a better deal.

[252] I'm not going to make it in time.

[253] I know your open house is scheduled.

[254] Nothing I can do.

[255] And the question is, how much should they have to pay in damages?

[256] And also, I think one of the stipulations was felt relevant to me is no, money's exchanged hands yet.

[257] Yes, that's right.

[258] So they've not paid the firm.

[259] That's right.

[260] I think once money is exchanged hands, people start getting like a whole bunch of different intuitions about refunds.

[261] I do.

[262] It's like, no, no, I already pay.

[263] You can't change your mind after I pay.

[264] Yeah.

[265] But in some weird version of it's like, hey, you'll do my followers next Monday.

[266] Yes, I will.

[267] How much is it?

[268] Five grand?

[269] I agree to that.

[270] And then he calls me back to hours later and he's like, I can't do it.

[271] I got an offer for 75 grand.

[272] In some weird way, I feel like I just lost a biddy.

[273] Weirdly, I can accept that.

[274] That might make you a little bit unusual.

[275] At one point, I really tried to convince people that they should go along with that thinking.

[276] To lead the witness a little bit.

[277] And was it not even possible?

[278] No. In fact, I tried to do it.

[279] I'm at Penn. And so the Wharton School runs an incredible behavioral lab.

[280] And so they basically can run studies, plus they attract a lot of Wharton students.

[281] I was like, oh, perfect.

[282] I'm going to try to convince Wharton students who are business students to get on board with my idea that all contracts are is basically just financial instruments.

[283] They should think about a breach as kind of you just lost the bid.

[284] And I made up a worksheet basically tried to lead them through.

[285] And at the end of it, I was like, so is it still wrong to breach the contract?

[286] And they were all like, yes.

[287] Right.

[288] Still very wrong.

[289] And so I thought, okay.

[290] I mean, I think it is.

[291] If you've committed to a job or a task, two people have committed to then say, I'm not going to do that.

[292] As Ma Na, Sheila would say tough titties.

[293] She would say that.

[294] She would say that.

[295] What's confusing to me is you're not out of pocket.

[296] What are they refunding?

[297] So what do we talk?

[298] We're talking about pain and suffering.

[299] Distress.

[300] No, but you don't get any of that.

[301] What you get is the benefit of the bargain.

[302] What was the profit for you going to be on this contract?

[303] Oh.

[304] Oh, so you'd be arguing for $8 ,000.

[305] In a world in which you were going to pay $2 ,000.

[306] With the expectation of making $10, what you get is to $8 ,000.

[307] That's interesting.

[308] Okay, this is not what your book is about at all.

[309] Well, I mean, it is, it is.

[310] But this is kind of relevant -ish.

[311] So I have a situation.

[312] I own the house across the street.

[313] I'm renovating it.

[314] I bought it in 2020, January.

[315] I've owned it for three years.

[316] And I have not been able to start my renovation, mainly because it's just really hard in California permits, blah, blah, blah.

[317] The city primarily, yeah.

[318] But everything is signed off now by the city, except they're requiring one last piece, which is there's an easement situation.

[319] And they want to update the easement because it's 100 years old.

[320] So they just want to all re -sign it.

[321] And one of the participants is refusing to do that in hopes to get some other stuff out of this.

[322] And I have the right to this easement.

[323] There's no getting around that.

[324] But he's just like, I'm not going to sign that.

[325] He wants to redrawn.

[326] He wants her to commit to no guests can park back there.

[327] Some crazy stuff.

[328] Yeah.

[329] And it has been dragging and dragging and dragging.

[330] I did have to ultimately send an email saying I intend to be a great neighbor.

[331] I know you do too.

[332] But I feel backed against a wall at this point.

[333] And if this doesn't get resolved in the next week or so, I'm going to have to seek legal recourse.

[334] But even when I said it, I was like, what does that even mean?

[335] What am I going to get?

[336] Like, what does it mean?

[337] Ethley Bailey is going to knock on a door.

[338] Johnny Cox.

[339] It's costing me money.

[340] Yeah, because the delay is a big deal.

[341] Yes, and I'm paying rent also.

[342] Yeah, that's a tough position too, because presumably you're not in a contractual relationship with him.

[343] It's a city document.

[344] Yeah, okay.

[345] So then it's like, does he own, but he's the one slowing down the process.

[346] It's weird.

[347] The easement is across his property, which is relevant, yeah.

[348] I have an easement on his.

[349] And then he then has an easement on mine, which is also weird.

[350] Like it switches over, but the part that's in contention is his.

[351] Yeah, no, you have a particular idea.

[352] difficult thing because he basically doesn't owe you some sort of duty.

[353] You two are not sort of counter parties in an existing contract.

[354] Exactly.

[355] So you're kind of negotiating with somebody.

[356] And negotiating over a thing that I am owed.

[357] It's crazy.

[358] Okay, this actually ties beautifully into your book.

[359] Oh, yes.

[360] Some of the principles are being triggered.

[361] The other man, presumably, doesn't want to be a fool.

[362] He doesn't want to be a sucker.

[363] He's got an opportunity of fool.

[364] Yeah, he doesn't want to let it go.

[365] He's never loved how this Eastman traveled through his yard, and now he's got an opportunity to not be an idiot again.

[366] or not to have assumed someone else's bad choice.

[367] And then Monica, she too doesn't want to be made a fool.

[368] She doesn't want to be taken advantage of somebody.

[369] She doesn't want to be manipulated.

[370] It kind of works a little bit in concert.

[371] No, and you're kind of in a funny situation that's a little bit of a zero -sum.

[372] I mean, which is almost sucker -wise, the worst place to be, which is where it looks like most deals at this point make at least one of the parties feel like they've lost and the other ones is sort of hustling them or whatever.

[373] Yes.

[374] Right.

[375] And that there's no place where everybody would feel like, oh, this is actually the right thing.

[376] You can get so far down to sort of rabbit hole that you feel like, well, if my counterparty is happy, then obviously I've been scammed.

[377] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[378] Okay, so we were briefly talking about you were originally pretty intrigued by the notion that this survey you were doing differed somehow in how we would think of a promise and how we would think we would feel guilty.

[379] You became interested long ago in this dichotomy and started pursuing it.

[380] Can you tell us how you entered into that?

[381] I was in graduate school, after law school, and basically was trying to figure out how to get a PhD in psychology by doing this sort of experimental work.

[382] The thing I was interested in, like, broadly speaking, was when do people's regular common sense moral intuitions, but up against what the actual legal rules are.

[383] I was running these studies to find out what people thought about breach of contract.

[384] And first of all, I was getting people saying, well, actually, if you breach a contract, you should have to pay $100 ,000 for breaching the contract.

[385] And I was like, okay, well, that seems like over the top.

[386] At the end of the survey, I'd put a little, please let us know if you have any comments or questions about the survey.

[387] And they would write instead, like, I can't believe this.

[388] This is what's the matter with America today.

[389] And I was to be like, this is what's the matter of America today?

[390] Like, this is a fake person who, like, didn't refinish some floors.

[391] That seems like a very low -stakes situation to be, like, real amped up about.

[392] It felt like it was really easy to get people emotionally engaged in these scenarios that I was trying to, like, dial down the emotional engagement as much as I possibly could.

[393] Yes.

[394] So I just started getting interested in this idea that people are super tuned in to the possibility that they are the fool.

[395] Yeah.

[396] So I was in graduate school and so I'm also having to read papers.

[397] A lot of the stuff I was reading about was what we would call it behavioral economics studies.

[398] So it was like financial studies.

[399] Game theory type stuff.

[400] Exactly.

[401] One of the big studies in this is called the ultimatum game.

[402] And the ultimatum game is you have two players.

[403] One player is the proposer.

[404] One player is the responder.

[405] The proposer has $10.

[406] The responder has no dollars.

[407] And the proposer is told, just offer the responder something.

[408] You can offer anything between zero and ten.

[409] If they take your offer, then you guys both get to go away with that money.

[410] If they don't take your offer, you guys both get nothing.

[411] Mm -hmm.

[412] I feel like it's easy to predict the outcome.

[413] Anything shy of $5, the person would penalize the giver.

[414] Exactly.

[415] If I'm not getting at least half, I reject.

[416] Is that what happened?

[417] Oh, my God.

[418] Even though you have $0.

[419] But why.

[420] Yes, yes.

[421] Really quick, and that's what's so fun about psychology and so fun about the work of many of the people we have on in love is when we find a hiccup in our thinking, when we think of ourselves as logical creatures, any logical creature would say $3 is better than $0 .1 is better than $0.

[422] Exactly.

[423] But our framing and our bias and our aversions and our loss of versions, all these little triggers make us illogical.

[424] And it's so fascinating to uncover when we act against our better interest.

[425] Exactly.

[426] So first of all, of course, the results are just what you think.

[427] People will take four.

[428] Okay.

[429] Three, now you're getting down to to like half people are saying no to three.

[430] Yeah.

[431] Two, you can forget it.

[432] Fuck off.

[433] Like, absolutely.

[434] Stick that $10.

[435] There was a woman who was doing a postdoc when I was a grad student named Artejao.

[436] I think she's a psychology professor now.

[437] But she had done this study where she had let the responders send back little notes to the proposers.

[438] And the notes were incredible.

[439] They were like, you think you're better than me. Oh, sure.

[440] Right, right.

[441] Less than immediately.

[442] Keeping in mind that people can't see each other.

[443] They're never going to know they were paired up.

[444] There's truly nothing personal.

[445] happening.

[446] No, not at all.

[447] Like the idea that you think you're better than me and that's the only explanation for this is just really intense.

[448] Right.

[449] Yes.

[450] And I felt like one thing that we weren't talking about when we talked about this experiment was the idea that one of the reasons you reject the two out of ten is because keeping it makes you feel like I'm the chump.

[451] Whereas if you refuse it, then nobody wins and no one's the sucker.

[452] Well, and also I think if you take the $2, it's not you think you're better than me. It's all of a sudden that becomes solidified.

[453] It's they're better than me. They have $8 and I have two.

[454] Whereas you have control in the other scenario because you get to decide yes or no. I would argue that refusing that $2 is counterproductive.

[455] Yeah.

[456] What do you care?

[457] You could get a sandwich from one of the carts for $2.

[458] It's objectively against your best interest, especially if you know if you rejected, everyone gets nothing.

[459] You are penalizing yourself.

[460] I'm immediately interested in the cultural implications, right?

[461] Yes.

[462] I forget who we had on it.

[463] It was like one of these mountains of psychology, but they were telling us that those results are very predictable in the Western world.

[464] And they differ dramatically when you get into cultures where reciprocity is more the currency of the culture.

[465] So those change.

[466] That's interesting.

[467] And then Russians, the psychologist, was running a flag up saying, just remember when you're trying to predict what Russia is going to do in this Ukrainian dispute, know that they're one of the only groups we study in these game theories.

[468] Well, they'll actually pay to hurt somebody.

[469] Like, forget that I'll take zero to hurt them.

[470] They'll actually suffer to make you suffer.

[471] Yes.

[472] It can really depend on the cultural milieu.

[473] I think it also depends on the person.

[474] So my wife and I are on opposite ends of this spectrum.

[475] I'm kind of punitive.

[476] I'm going to kill anyone that tries to take advantage of me. She accepts she'll be taking advantage of, but overall she'll have a positive open arms view of the world.

[477] And ultimately, cumulatively, she'll have ended up somewhere better.

[478] So we track differently on that spectrum, but I can so relate to all of these.

[479] When you isolate it to the notion of being a fool, I'll definitely damage myself to not be bested by somebody.

[480] Yes.

[481] One of the personal reasons that I became interested in this set of questions is that I don't care too much.

[482] Or my hackles are not up about the sucker stuff, typically.

[483] Every once in a while, of course, everyone stops and it's like, okay, wait a minute, if I missed something here, when I first started writing this book, I had an eight.

[484] agent and editor, and I periodically Googled them to make sure I really had an agent and editor.

[485] Sure, of course, that you weren't being swindled.

[486] People who I had spoken to at great length, and I was like, well, let's just check.

[487] Yeah.

[488] Now, how do we track in America relative to other countries?

[489] Because just generically thinking, I feel like we have two great engines for this bias against being the fool, which would be a capitalism.

[490] It's innately zero -sum in some cases.

[491] You know, there's all these competitive forces.

[492] It's very hierarchical.

[493] And then just America in general, I'm obsessed with all these biographies from the 1800s.

[494] And to learn about what New York City was in the 1800s, when people arrived here, it was accepted and expected that this is dog eat dog, watch your pocket, don't be outsmarted.

[495] That's life.

[496] No one's even bothered by that.

[497] There's this kind of broad acceptance that everyone's out to get you here.

[498] So be aware.

[499] And no one's lamenting that, which I found curious.

[500] So the most honest answer is that the international perspective I don't know that much about.

[501] It's a part of the book where I thought, this is a really big question, and I'm going to have to leave it be.

[502] It's really interesting what you're saying about the evolution of the sense of what the marketplace is.

[503] I was recently doing work in my contracts scholarship that was a little bit about how we think about consumer protection as being kind of a gendered enterprise in the United States.

[504] So the thesis of this project, which actually came out of the book, was it seems like consumer protection efforts really ramp up.

[505] when products are aimed at women.

[506] Interesting.

[507] And so I was working with this co -author, and he was like, oh, my gosh, I have this thing to show you, which is a book about the 18th century marketplace and the sense that there were certain marketplaces where it was not just expected but required that everyone be fully in caveat emptor mode.

[508] It's every man for himself, like horse trading.

[509] You're supposed to be trying to take the most possible advantage, trying to win.

[510] And so you're allowed to say any old thing.

[511] And the ends justify the means at all times.

[512] Exactly, exactly.

[513] One line of thought out there is that consumer protection as an idea actually came up as women entered more markets.

[514] Interesting.

[515] So that's pretty interesting.

[516] They were demanding the protection.

[517] I mean, part of my argument is that it's more palatable to regulate women's access.

[518] Societally, we think that in the patriarchy, our job is still to protect women and children.

[519] They need protection.

[520] Yes.

[521] They're infants.

[522] They're frail and weak.

[523] Or like they can't take care of themselves.

[524] And also that it's more okay to limit their choices.

[525] Because, you know, any kind of regulation is a slight reduction of your choices, which as a person who's basically pro -consumer protection, it's fine by me. But I get the argument that is limiting of your autonomy in some sense.

[526] Yeah, if I want to buy bathtub gin, fuck you government.

[527] I'll take the risk.

[528] I know it.

[529] I'm smart enough.

[530] So I think that there's like a swaggering male marketplace ideal.

[531] Yes.

[532] And then there's something different once when you have women and children involved.

[533] Yes.

[534] I was teaching this course on consumer law last year, and I made the student through the case, about a facial cream.

[535] It was in the 1940s, and the facial cream was called rejuvenessence.

[536] Right?

[537] It's very good.

[538] It does sound fancy, right?

[539] The FTC said you can't name it rejuvenessence anymore because women are going to think that they're literally going to have their skin getting younger.

[540] And the opinion was wild because it was like, what are you going to do about these women?

[541] They're listening to the radio.

[542] They're going to believe who knows what.

[543] Their head's full of nonsense.

[544] It was exactly that.

[545] Whereas that is not what it sounds like when they talk about tractors.

[546] Right.

[547] Which are also making bullshit promises.

[548] We read these cases as a pair.

[549] Some farmers had complained that when some brand of tractor, when you opened the fuel cap, if the tractor was hot, the fuel would geyser out.

[550] Okay.

[551] That's bad because of the danger of hot fuel in your face.

[552] I'm not trying to be overly.

[553] Yeah.

[554] It's not ideal.

[555] And the court was like, I mean, what are you going to do?

[556] These guys know what they're getting into.

[557] They know how to deal with their tractors.

[558] Therefore, but I stick the label on the thing that says, like, hot.

[559] Right, hot fumes, expulsive fuel.

[560] But we have to change the name of her face cream.

[561] So women don't expect a new younger face.

[562] Yes, I think it became revenscence that they just lost the...

[563] Oh, no, that's way worse.

[564] I think it would be really fun just to go over how ubiquitous this kind of thought is.

[565] Even sains we have, right, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. The Trojan horse, this is like a historical.

[566] I know.

[567] We remember it because people were duped.

[568] They were made a fool.

[569] Hiding inside the gift.

[570] Yes.

[571] There's an added layer of maybe vanity.

[572] The vanity part adds a real layer of shame.

[573] When I get the sense like, oh my gosh, did I sign up for something because I felt flattered?

[574] And then saw that the whole thing was a sham and I feel so bad.

[575] Yeah.

[576] It feels so embarrassing.

[577] It's so embarrassing.

[578] When someone prays on your vanity and then succeeds in duping you.

[579] Well, because it's so vulnerable.

[580] It's like you've bought in to feeling good.

[581] For no reason.

[582] And then you're like, not only don't I feel good, I feel extra bad.

[583] Well, like you've made a cardinal sin.

[584] You've succumbed to some inflated sense of self.

[585] Exactly.

[586] So much of this, and it's interesting, I was thinking of a parallel.

[587] It's like, A, we're all so susceptible to this.

[588] Like, do you let someone in in traffic?

[589] Is that being kind?

[590] Are you being taken advantage of, you know?

[591] It's so common.

[592] And we victim blame in this.

[593] category more than we ever would.

[594] I know.

[595] It's interesting because if someone overpowers you physically and takes your shit, you're a victim.

[596] We want the death penalty for that person.

[597] We're very punitive.

[598] If someone has outfoxed you intellectually, that's on you.

[599] Although intellectual variants are as genetic as the physical ones that would have put the other person at risk.

[600] If someone prays on your emotions, they emotionally outwit you, that's on you.

[601] It's just a curious distinction that there are ways that we could get overpower.

[602] that we accept and others ones we blame you it's a hard question to ask like what do you do about the case of this person who's been a fool so one of the cases i like to sort of turn over as i talk about a little bit in the book about the case of this woman who ended up buying like 30 ,000 hours of dance lessons that she couldn't possibly use that's too many hours of dance yeah if you do break it up really really really into dancing yeah that's too much that's 40 hours in a week let's see it was 40 ,000 right okay great so that's a thousand weeks of dance and there's 52 weeks in year if she did it full time yeah Yeah, no vacation, eight hours a day.

[603] Yeah, it's years and years of dancing eight hours a day.

[604] Yeah, and I think that the cost of buying those lessons was over $200 ,000 in today's money.

[605] What happened?

[606] I have to know what happened.

[607] Well, the court was like, what am I going to do with this case?

[608] Yeah.

[609] Because Mrs. Vogue said, all I'm asking is for you to just undo this contract.

[610] I'm not trying to ask you for a refund for the lessons I took.

[611] I'm asking to undo the contract for all these other lessons because she'd basically bought these lessons the way you would buy.

[612] like airline miles to get the next status up.

[613] And she said, they have lied to me. And they said, what did they lie about?

[614] And then she said, they lied that I was good at dancing.

[615] Oh, no. And the court was like, oh, no. Like, if I am selling my house and someone says, is this a fun neighborhood?

[616] And I'm like, it's super fun.

[617] And then they move in.

[618] And I thought you said it was fun.

[619] And I'm like, I'm a middle -aged mom.

[620] I think it's fun to me. Subjective.

[621] What did you think it was going to be, right?

[622] Okay, so the court basically said, her claim can survive a motion to dismiss.

[623] So they said, there's something there.

[624] The court was incredibly mean about it.

[625] They insulted her just for pages and ways that are really deeply sexist.

[626] And he was talking to his wife, who he was mad at.

[627] Yeah, exactly.

[628] He was projecting.

[629] Oh, he's by too many candles.

[630] So this question about what to think of her as a victim, obviously the thing you want to say is, what were you thinking?

[631] Stop buying all these lessons.

[632] Yeah.

[633] Whatever else is true, why would they have seemed trustworthy to you?

[634] It's really tricky because we need a certain level of personal accountability.

[635] or we can't really have anything, then no one can enter into any contract, because everyone's so stupid and failable.

[636] And then where do you draw the line?

[637] Also, like, let's say I have a car I want to sell.

[638] And market value of that car is $10 ,000, but I somehow asked 15, the guy comes over and I sell it in a manner.

[639] You know, does that guy drive away and find out market value is 10 have a right again?

[640] Absolutely not.

[641] We would say no. No, no way.

[642] Right.

[643] No way.

[644] I'm convincing you you might be able to use 40 ,000 hours of dance.

[645] That's so bad, whoever let her do that.

[646] That guy got a bonus and a trip to Daytona beach or something.

[647] Like, Mark, come up.

[648] Mark.

[649] Mark sold 40 ,000 hours.

[650] It's impossible.

[651] Everyone clapped.

[652] No, Mr. Davenport.

[653] Like, morally, that is so fucked.

[654] Yeah.

[655] Maybe not legally wrong, but morally, it's so wrong.

[656] So the argument that I try to make in class that I try to make a little bit in the book is you can make your judgments about the victim here.

[657] But don't forget about your judgments about the guy.

[658] guy.

[659] There's this instinctive pull to want to explain away harm.

[660] She agreed to this, she shouldn't be such a sucker, but in fact, there was no question that they were going way out of their way to mislead this person, to have her transfer money to them, that there was no way was linked to something good out there in the world.

[661] The implicit argument of the book is that you get so nervous about the idea that people should not be suckers or being a sucker as something sort of so embarrassing or shameful that it means that you don't focus your attention on the actual bad behavior.

[662] Who's doing the exploiting here?

[663] It's so parallel to like how were you dressed, how drunk were you?

[664] Exactly.

[665] Exactly.

[666] No, the dude.

[667] You're not the problem.

[668] The dude's the problem.

[669] Exactly.

[670] No, it's just like victim blaming.

[671] And especially when someone has explicitly consented to a piece of the deal, you did buy the lessons.

[672] Then it's like, yeah, this problem can go away for us because there's consent involved.

[673] Do you take a minute to, I guess, inquire on the causality psychologically?

[674] Because as I hear all this, what I think To me would be the foundation of this is humans are fearful.

[675] The world's a scary place.

[676] There are going to be things that you can't control, but you had better be on top of the things you can control.

[677] If you're not that way, I'm scared for you.

[678] It's almost how we raise kids.

[679] It's like your kid gets hurt the same way a third time.

[680] And you as a parent, me as a parent, I will speak for anyone else.

[681] When they come and hurt, my first reaction is to go, what did I tell you about blank?

[682] No, I know, I know.

[683] Because I don't want you to suffer.

[684] Keep hurting yourself.

[685] And I know the solution to this suffering is you accepting you can't walk on the eve of the roof.

[686] There is something sweet under it.

[687] No, I know.

[688] Which is like, these are the things we can control for.

[689] Please do.

[690] You can't fuck this up.

[691] I remember my kids were little being like, why would you just keep biting that chalk?

[692] Like, it didn't taste good the first seven times.

[693] Those big chocks that you right way.

[694] I was like, why isn't this like self -determined?

[695] So what you're describing is sort of the core account of this.

[696] phenomenon.

[697] And I want to tweak the premise and say, of course, you think you have control about whether or not you're going to get taken advantage of.

[698] But it's actually just not true.

[699] Yeah.

[700] We're all swimming in a sea of maybe it's a grift, maybe it's a hustle.

[701] It's a percentage of benefit and cost.

[702] Some of them are real stark.

[703] Like, oh, that was 90 % benefit, 10 % cost.

[704] Some are like 50, 50.

[705] Exactly.

[706] Also, think about the way that you could recharacterize your core most important relationships as having an advantage taking part of them.

[707] You know what I mean?

[708] Think about the life of a marriage or the life of a parent where you trade back and forth who's doing what, luckily, we often don't resort to sort of that like stark sucker framing in these parts of our lives, the ones where you trust somebody or you know you're in it for the long haul.

[709] And so like, what does it really matter?

[710] Or I'd argue you've rightly or wrongly determined the person is good and is going to fuck up and make mistakes and harm you.

[711] but you have a verdict on them.

[712] I want it no matter what the thing is that happens next, right?

[713] The other place besides aphorisms that suckers come up, it actually is in like love songs.

[714] Fools rush in, suspicious minds.

[715] I don't know, I'm only doing all this right now.

[716] But Sucker for you.

[717] Yeah, that's the song.

[718] Yeah, that one's, yes.

[719] I had a lot of carpool in the year that came out.

[720] And it's a place where people are like, no, I get it.

[721] This is good in this context.

[722] Yes.

[723] If you were super vigilant all the time about the sucker stuff, you just couldn't get through your day.

[724] Well, you run into this.

[725] Oh, nonstop.

[726] Yeah.

[727] I'll tell you, it's like one of my biggest triggers.

[728] It happens all the time with this housing project.

[729] Well, construction.

[730] That is the, yes.

[731] For four years.

[732] And you're regularly presented a bid.

[733] I can afford the bid.

[734] But I determine, oh, they think I'm a fucking actor who didn't live in Detroit and wasn't a roofer.

[735] And I don't know shit.

[736] It gets real personal real quick.

[737] When I determine that a bid is 2X what it should be, I'm personally insulted.

[738] And my male, you think I'm weak.

[739] You think I'm not masculine.

[740] that you could pull this over on me. I'm so susceptible.

[741] And I have to walk through that for like four days before I get to.

[742] The reality of, do I want this thing?

[743] Can I afford it?

[744] Do I care?

[745] Yes, which is a great place to get to, though.

[746] Yeah, you give a great example in the book.

[747] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[748] We've all been there.

[749] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers and strange rashes.

[750] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[751] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[752] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[753] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[754] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[755] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[756] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[757] What's up, guys?

[758] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good, and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[759] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[760] And I don't mean just friends.

[761] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[762] The list goes on.

[763] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[764] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[765] So my sister lives in Vermont, and she is an oncologist.

[766] She's also super athletic.

[767] And she and her husband are both super into bike riding.

[768] They had gone out with friends on like a long ride.

[769] And they had glided into a town where there was a country store.

[770] And Vermont can kind of be one thing or the other.

[771] Vermont can either feel super rural and relatively country, or it can feel like New Yorkers who are visiting there.

[772] Yes, servicing these tourists.

[773] So she had gone to get Gatorade, biking is super hot.

[774] And, you know, she was riding people who bike like for a living.

[775] Right.

[776] And she was like, okay.

[777] And so she said she got in the store and the store selling Gatorade.

[778] And she was like, and the Gatorade was so expensive.

[779] I thought to myself, I'm not going to pay $6 for Gatorade.

[780] What do I look like?

[781] Yes, I'm a mark.

[782] Exactly.

[783] And she was like getting lightheaded.

[784] And she stopped herself and she claims to have thought of me and was like, what am I doing?

[785] This gatorade is worth $100 to me right now.

[786] I would sell them the bike in return for this gatorade.

[787] And so what am I doing?

[788] So she drinks the gatorade and goes on.

[789] It's so funny though.

[790] Yeah, you get caught in the, in my paying 3X what I should and I'm a fool and a mark.

[791] And these people have won.

[792] They know they can pray on me. Or $6 is a fucking bargain because they could have got me for $100.

[793] I would have done anything.

[794] Yeah, the principle.

[795] We get so hung up on the quote, the principle.

[796] And it's wild to think about biking away thirsty and having that vindicate some important principle.

[797] Right.

[798] We're talking kind of personal, tiny examples.

[799] And I think everyone will relate to these little events in their life.

[800] They scale up, unfortunately, and they have some real huge societal implications.

[801] One that I think is worth setting up is how we frame differently when we are duped by, high status people and when we're dup by low status people.

[802] I think this is fascinating that wouldn't have even occurred to me. You give a great example of Bezos, exponential growth for him in COVID, and you go, he's a genius.

[803] Yeah, exactly.

[804] Now, when you find out someone selling toilet paper out of their fucking truck for 3X the cost of the toilet paper, you're like, they need to put that fucker in prison.

[805] Price gouging.

[806] That's a very bizarre principle that we applaud one person from profiting greatly on a tragedy.

[807] And yet the other guy on the side of the road who's trying to profit from it is a piece of shit.

[808] And if anything, it should definitely be swapped.

[809] Part of the thing I'm arguing about these sucker dynamics is that if you interrogated your response a bit, I'm not willing to stick with my first instinct.

[810] Because I'm like, wait, this is not actually my real value.

[811] I'm not deeply connected to this principle.

[812] Right.

[813] Or it would span across all compartments of it.

[814] That's right.

[815] I think there's two things going on for why you have this asymmetry for where you're perceiving skin.

[816] and where you're not perceiving scams.

[817] One thing is con games, psychodynamics, they're about status and power.

[818] And having one put over on you by someone who you thought was on your same level or someone who you thought you might be above, then you're like, well, I got kicked even further down the ladder.

[819] Yeah.

[820] Lowers your status.

[821] It's a bigger deal.

[822] Whereas I've already kind of acclimated to Jeff Bezos.

[823] That's not such a threat to me. The other thing is that one of those things you can do something about and the other one's much harder to do something about.

[824] I can retaliate at the country store about how much this Apple or Seltzer or Gatorade is.

[825] I mean, I'm not doing anything about capitalism.

[826] Certainly it feels implacable.

[827] Yeah, and this personal shame, yeah, you say you have debased yourself and cooperated in your own social demotion.

[828] Yeah, put the kick me sound in your own back.

[829] I think Paul Bloom talks about betrayal bias.

[830] Yes, yes.

[831] And I feel like that's in the mix here.

[832] When it's like someone who's working for you that there's a betrayal, there was this contract unspoken or spoken, that you owe each other something.

[833] Yeah, that's right.

[834] You thought you had one kind of a deal, and now it's been betrayed.

[835] And this is where I am on the soapbox, nonstop.

[836] Status sounds absolutely superficial.

[837] Until you remember, we're a social primate, and status was existence.

[838] Status was access to food, access to mates, access to everything.

[839] We are so hardwired.

[840] It is so life or death.

[841] It's not imagined.

[842] it's in us.

[843] All social animals have this.

[844] So it's not trivial when you feel your status being lowered.

[845] It's existential.

[846] I completely agree.

[847] And it's really underappreciated the power of it.

[848] I think in part it's so embarrassing to talk about and take seriously.

[849] Well, no one would say I want to be high status.

[850] It sounds gross.

[851] What kind of a jerk do I sound like if I'm like, well, my goal is just to be high status here.

[852] Right.

[853] That sounds terrible.

[854] Yeah.

[855] Or to be explicit about my view of the social hierarchy.

[856] in any situation, it would be horrifying.

[857] On the other hand, if you're unwilling to be forthright about what the status stakes mean to yourself or to the culture, then it makes it very hard to talk about what's going on with these sucker threats.

[858] What this person is doing is threatening your status, and that's why you're overreacting.

[859] Yes, and then, of course, they would get so defensive.

[860] I'm not, that's not like I think I'm fucking better.

[861] That would be its own trigger.

[862] You've got to be able to say what the thing is.

[863] I know.

[864] I have that great frustration about this.

[865] there are vestigial evolutionary components of humans we're not ashamed of.

[866] We know we were designed to eat as much as humanly possible when we found food because it was so scarce.

[867] And so we are pretty comfortable with the notion like, oh yeah, our nature is to want to eat way more food than we should.

[868] We accept that.

[869] No one has shame about that.

[870] Maybe your body type ultimately, but we recognize our evolution is working against us.

[871] It's not the same ubiquitous acceptance that, no, our drive for status is survival and it's okay.

[872] It's not that you should indulge it, but you have to first acknowledge, oh, right, I'm designed to eat more than I need to.

[873] I've got to be aware of that at all times.

[874] Similarly, I'm evolved to really pay attention to my status and think there are life and death consequences based on it when, in fact, this modern society, they're not.

[875] That's right.

[876] And we don't think about all the minor cues that we're always responding to that basically are implicating status all the time.

[877] Yeah, you point out you'll know in a room whether or not someone's going to remember your name pretty quickly.

[878] that's easy to assess for anyone.

[879] Oh, that person's not going to remember.

[880] That person will.

[881] Or whether I will have to beg that person for their attention or if that person will be begging me for my attention, that's just felt.

[882] You can just figure it out really quick.

[883] I mean, the same way my kids can in like a middle school cafeteria.

[884] You'll hear that a lot most highlighted with celebrity.

[885] Like if somebody says, oh, my God, I met Dax and he was so nice because he remembered my name.

[886] And it's like there's 400 ,000 other people you've met who know your name.

[887] and remember it, but you think because he's, quote, higher status, that that means more.

[888] The flip side is, oh, that guy's so self -involved and thinks he's hot shit.

[889] He doesn't even know my name.

[890] It's like, well, nor did the eight other people I was with knew your name, but you're not drawing a character conclusion based on that.

[891] Yes.

[892] Okay, so how does this materialize in our society?

[893] One of the ways that we kind of box groups of people in is by subjecting them to a bunch of stereotypes that have to do with suckers and schemers.

[894] One of the signs that a group is subject to a set of stereotypes and prejudices is that there's very little daylight for them between being condescended to as poor suckers or retaliated against as dangerous schemers, line jumpers.

[895] In probably the most fraught chapter of the book, I'm trying to basically identify this throughout a series of racial and ethnic stereotypes and to say, look, these things are not unfamiliar in trying the best I can not to just repeat vicious garbage, but to try to say you should see what the goal is of this vicious garbage.

[896] The goal is to have it be that you're either like dismissed or patronized as dupes or that you deserve for some reason some retaliatory surveillance or something because you're a threat.

[897] I think that this also has real implications, implications for how we think about what sexism means in the American cultural conversation.

[898] One of the things that first made me start thinking about suckers in terms of these broader cultural patterns was actually just pondering the expression that so -and -so doesn't suffer fools gladly.

[899] I was thinking about this at work one day because someone had said it of somebody else.

[900] And that was definitely a compliment.

[901] Like maybe kind of a hard ass.

[902] Like I heard they were bristly, only to people that deserve it.

[903] Exactly.

[904] I think at the time I was doing some obnoxious administrative work.

[905] and I was like, must be nice not to have to suffer fools gladly whereas I am sitting in this dumb chair suffering fools with a smile on my face this particular thing feels pretty gendered it feels to me like I've got a job here and at least part of my job is to smile and nod I gave the example in the book of a situation where I was at a job interview and the interviewer introduced himself to me as Abraham Lincoln and I was like okay what do I do now?

[906] now.

[907] I couldn't tell what the joke was.

[908] It's not that this is a thing that was particularly targeted at me. It was just that I really understood my job in a way that felt to me like a particular thing that we often ask of women and girls, frankly, like just go ahead, just not along.

[909] Do you think the pain of being a fool is equal across genders, or do you think one gender is taking it worse than others?

[910] I feel like the male pride and embarrassment and males biggest fear is to be embarrassed and women is to be killed by a man. Yeah, no, that's the Margaret, that would quote.

[911] Like, I think men kill over being embarrassed or made a fool.

[912] In terms of the subjective pain at the individual level, I think that you are right.

[913] It's just more of a norm violation for men.

[914] And maybe more of a status demotion for men.

[915] That's right.

[916] That's right.

[917] I was already living down here.

[918] But also, if you're a very ambitious woman who is trying to climb up on a ladder, you're very susceptible.

[919] It's a lot because your eyes are so wide.

[920] open to this exact thing, like, well, if I get taken advantage of, they're going to think I'm a weak woman.

[921] So I really have to be on top of my game.

[922] Which creates this absolutely impassable tightrope because you can't go on the other side either.

[923] You can't be like, great, what I'm going to do is just start being like, listen everybody, we're going my way.

[924] What a female presidential candidate has to overcome is I don't think there's broad stereotypical fear that the women won't be good administrators of the government.

[925] I think it's definitely the fear that they will be duped by other leaders, specifically militarily.

[926] Well, shit, what happens when a guy like Putin starts flexing to Hillary Clinton?

[927] How will she have the bravado to go dick to dick with this guy if she doesn't have a dick?

[928] So then she swings the other way and is very on top of it and is so extra you won't take advantage of me that then she's unlikable.

[929] Exactly.

[930] Triggers males of inadequacy.

[931] No. It's like so hard.

[932] Yeah.

[933] This is this sort of of double bind situation.

[934] There's this research paper that's called something like what men and women should be, shouldn't be, have to be, don't have to be.

[935] And this really interesting taxonomy of using all this survey data, not just sort of the basic women are supposed to be X and men are supposed to be Y, like women are supposed to be cheerful, nurturing, attractive, and men are supposed to be rational.

[936] But actually, it's a whole bunch of intensified and relaxed prescriptions and proscriptions, where the idea is like, look, you don't really want anybody to be domineering.

[937] Like, that's a bad adjective for anybody.

[938] But women really can't be that.

[939] And it's more like, okay if men are sometimes that.

[940] Exactly.

[941] No one's supposed to be gullible.

[942] That's not a thing anyone's aspiring to.

[943] But it's way more okay for women to be gullible than it is okay for men to be gullible.

[944] And I came back to this Mrs. Vokes who bought all the dance lessons.

[945] Example when I was thinking this, because it was this exact thing.

[946] where on the one hand, she's made terrible choices.

[947] In the other hand, there is a certain like, oh, ladies, what are they going to do?

[948] Do we really have to force her to be more assertive in her negotiations?

[949] Maybe not.

[950] Maybe she's going to get this consumer protective attitude from the court because of this thing.

[951] It's a little bit of a tough spot to be in because I do think that there's another side of the coin.

[952] If you start to push back and say, you know, I'm actually going to sort of make demands for my rights, that then there's an accusation that actually what you're doing is trying to exploit everybody else.

[953] Increase your rights at the expense of mine.

[954] At the expense of mine, exactly.

[955] Do me, fool me. Yeah, zero sum.

[956] Exactly.

[957] You know, though, as you go round and round in this kind of debate, I do think potentially something bigger is missing, which is the current model would either expect women to act more male, generically speaking, because the system is a patriarchy and that's how in its negotiations and this is how it works.

[958] So women have to now either act more male or men have to act more female as opposed to maybe challenging the much bigger paradigm of you'll lose if you behave this way, that the ultimate cumulative outcome will be worse.

[959] That almost is more interesting to challenge in my opinion.

[960] I would love that.

[961] I just think we see things so gendered in this country that it's hard to separate.

[962] Yeah, it's just a curious situation where the ask seems to be Hillary Clinton, you're going to have to act like Donald Trump when talking to Kim Jong -un.

[963] That's how geopolitics works, as opposed to zooming out and going, well, really all we know is we know what the one version has gotten us.

[964] And on some account, you can say quite successfully.

[965] We are the hegemonic culture, so there's some proof to say that is what's been working.

[966] But instead of trying to make everyone, everyone else, or even homogenizing all approaches or character types, it almost feels like we have to more accept that the outcome might be equally as good with a whole different approach.

[967] With a whole different paradigm.

[968] Yes.

[969] Oh, no. I think that that's for sure true.

[970] And I think that the thing that you're describing is a common conversation, definitely in psychology and law, which is that you have some descriptive account.

[971] Like the following things are well described in our culture.

[972] as norm violations.

[973] But there's no reason that that ought to be the case.

[974] If I was going to actually create some like normative vision of the good, we would think surely there's a whole bunch of other ways to think about what like a successful negotiation would look like or whatever the thing is.

[975] Yes.

[976] The system in place that determines what people make might be worth examining.

[977] My intention is to actually have that be the real takeaway of the book, is that you get focused on certain kinds of exploitation that are actually relatively small scale.

[978] And you You want to be like, wait, the whole system is not set up right.

[979] Right.

[980] It's like if you're at work and you feel like annoyed that you keep having to take somebody else's shifts.

[981] And you get annoyed and so you're trying to get mad at them.

[982] This comes up a bit when people are debating things like parental leaves.

[983] Why do I have to work more just because you have chosen to have a child?

[984] When actually, of course, the bigger question is about like, why is it set up this way?

[985] Why can we not have a better system for, for example, making it so that people can take leave without their coworkers having to pick up this lack?

[986] And again, it goes to the earlier point you were making, which is we're more likely to feel the fool from a peer or someone lower status than us.

[987] I can't imagine the person's mad at the employer.

[988] Exactly.

[989] Who made the decision.

[990] The employer has to have a floater to come help, but you have some solution that's not hitting the two employees against one another.

[991] Exactly.

[992] Not seeing your child or doing 2X the work.

[993] The system's really great at shifting the focus off.

[994] As shifting the focus, exactly.

[995] This is my absolute credic current contracts.

[996] So if you think about contracts that you sign, not so much the ones you would negotiate for, like, construction, but more like the ones you're just not reading and signing every day.

[997] Click, I agree all the time.

[998] Oh, uh -huh, okay.

[999] And I assume that you're not reading them.

[1000] No one can.

[1001] How could you?

[1002] They're like financial instruments.

[1003] Even the person that wrote them doesn't understand what they said.

[1004] This turned out to be true.

[1005] Like, actually, yes.

[1006] They're just cutting and pacing from old documents.

[1007] No one knows.

[1008] We've done it.

[1009] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1010] It drives me up the wall when I read opinions from courts that are about when some person who didn't click through is saying, I want to sue because you've breached, maybe a privacy interest.

[1011] And the company says, no, no, no, you can't sue me in court.

[1012] You have to sue me in arbitration.

[1013] The person says, I didn't agree to that.

[1014] And the company says, oh, you did agree to that.

[1015] You agree when you clicked, I agree.

[1016] And then the court spends all this time asking about whether or not the individual should have seen the link that was next to the place with the box that they checked and how big the font was.

[1017] And I'm like, these just don't seem like the relevant inquiries.

[1018] The system is set up to discourage reading.

[1019] And so if we could be a little bit more forthright about that, then we could talk about the broader issue, but it's not.

[1020] And so now we here we are stuck arguing about these little fussy things about did you or did you not.

[1021] This is just a personal grievance and it feels adjacent to that, which is we get this great thing.

[1022] I don't know if it's national or in California or whatever, but that you're going to have to warn me about the cookies that are on or off.

[1023] Oh, yes.

[1024] And you're like, great, breakthrough.

[1025] I don't want them to sell my information.

[1026] But then, of course, they construct it in a way that you're going to have to spend seven minutes.

[1027] to say don't sell my shit.

[1028] Go to this page, save my settings.

[1029] And it's like, these motherfuckers figured out how to completely get out of the rule again.

[1030] I find myself sometimes hitting accept all because I don't have the time.

[1031] I just thought about this yesterday.

[1032] I was like, God, I'm just accepting all these cookies.

[1033] Because no one has time.

[1034] It's like, God, they fucking want, even though we got a law and they still figured out to make it so inconvenient that it's virtually not being adhered to.

[1035] Yes.

[1036] There's a real appeal to rules that force disclosures or choice because it feels like it gives us autonomy to the individual, but you can't actually negotiate all of the cookies in your day -to -day on the internet.

[1037] No. I don't think.

[1038] No, it's like going back to dial -up by the time I just want to read one little article on my research and I've got to go through the whole thing.

[1039] I do think it's really relevant to talk about how foundational this sucker phobia was to Trump's pretty much overall platform.

[1040] When you think about the fact that he came in and he's talking about getting duped by NATO, we're suckers in NATO, we're paying for all this and they're not paying their share.

[1041] We're suckers.

[1042] That's triggering as fuck.

[1043] The Paris climate, that was a bad deal.

[1044] We were suckers.

[1045] We were paying inordinate amounts.

[1046] The Iran nuclear deal, we were suckers.

[1047] The tariffs of China, almost every message, the immigrants coming in, again, triggering this getting duped.

[1048] And it's such a powerful emotion.

[1049] you're going to react.

[1050] I mean, that's literally what Make America Great Again was.

[1051] We're not great anymore and all these other, we're getting taken advantage of.

[1052] We've become the great sucker of the world.

[1053] Yeah.

[1054] Sometimes it was really explicit.

[1055] We are the fools in this agreement.

[1056] And other times I think it was more implicit.

[1057] This was true, especially in immigration.

[1058] Some of the messages were sort of, listen, I know what you think you're doing, Americans, is doing something compassionate, humanitarian asylum.

[1059] And I'm here to tell you that you're actually.

[1060] being fooled.

[1061] You should rethink what you understood as our role.

[1062] Yeah, conflating compassion, naivete, which by the way, I'm susceptible, like, if I could take a la carte his things, there were a couple that I bought into, or that maybe I still buy into, which is like, yeah, how are we going to compete with China if they're subsidizing the growth of this?

[1063] If we're as a country are not subsidizing this industry, we can't compete.

[1064] Okay, that's an issue.

[1065] In my laissez -faire capitalist belief system, I think the competition should be equal.

[1066] So that one got me. Now, the immigration one was more interesting.

[1067] I didn't respond in that way, but there is some part of me, probably this male version.

[1068] I don't know what it is, but I go, forget whether it's compassionate or not, or they're good or bad people.

[1069] Mind you, the net positive is pretty objectively observable for the economy, especially we live in California.

[1070] Like, this country doesn't work without lots of immigrants.

[1071] Let's get all that aside.

[1072] If we say we don't want an uncontrolled amount of people entering, which policy creates more incentive and which decreases incentive.

[1073] I think in some ways the way that you're responding to the rhetoric is sort of optimal.

[1074] In some cases, what you were describing is that he was pointing out a set of consequences of certain kinds of policies that you thought were genuinely troubling because of economic competition or because of the feasibility of running an immigration system, right?

[1075] Something like this.

[1076] Okay.

[1077] And I think that that seems actually best case scenario, which is that you are thinking about actual exchanges or the actual cost and benefits of the thing.

[1078] And it's something a little bit different about more implicitly pushing the button.

[1079] Well, one's emotional.

[1080] Exactly.

[1081] That makes you feel like, oh, now I feel stupid because I had thought that this was good and now I think it's bad.

[1082] I mean, the irony, it's almost poetic that he used this taking advantage of suckers.

[1083] He used this verbiage, and he was the one taking advantage.

[1084] They were getting taken advantage of by him.

[1085] But that's what's so powerful about this bias is even when he said, yeah, I don't pay any fucking taxes.

[1086] I'd be an idiot to pay more than the federal tax code requires me to.

[1087] That's so powerful.

[1088] Now you're not looking at the fact that a billionaire is paying less taxes than a That on its surface, you go, whoa, something's dramatically broken if my waitress pays more taxes than a billionaire does.

[1089] Everyone would agree.

[1090] But when you label it is, I'd be stupid to pay more than I have to change the fucking tax code if you're mad.

[1091] It's not me you're mad at you're mad at the tax code.

[1092] It's brilliant.

[1093] The difference between the scammer and the sucker is actually like paper thin because the argument is if you're not paying your taxes, you are taking advantage of everybody else.

[1094] Right?

[1095] You're living.

[1096] You're scamming the system.

[1097] And then the switch is, no, if I paid, I'd be a sucker.

[1098] Yes.

[1099] It's a quick flip of the narrative.

[1100] Among other things, you can see how it puts everyone in their back foot because then everyone doesn't want to have to argue.

[1101] Well, actually, I think paying your taxes is good.

[1102] The tentacles of that could like really reach out into other kinds of cooperative ventures or generosity or altruism that you would think you get to give money to a cause and not feel like a sucker.

[1103] Well, that you can actually see out your window when you travel around and the roads are good and it's safe.

[1104] Like you're actually benefiting from the investment.

[1105] It's not even abstract.

[1106] That's right.

[1107] So there's this great hiccup, which is we're monitoring people our status and below.

[1108] We think low status people who really don't have any cultural capital to impact our lives.

[1109] We must monitor them all the time.

[1110] You point out to in the book, which is great.

[1111] It's like, I can't tell you how many bits of footage I've seen on the news of warehouse employees.

[1112] We all know the footage of the warehouse employees that might not be.

[1113] working the whole time they're there and then maybe they're complaining about the situation inside the Amazon shipping center.

[1114] I'm never seeing footage of a bunch of white collar lawyers on the 26th floor.

[1115] We're not even monitoring them.

[1116] No. I know.

[1117] There's never a story about what those assholes are doing with their day.

[1118] If you think of surveillance as making sure they're not taking advantage, right, making sure people aren't like loafing on the company dime, quote unquote.

[1119] One thing you can tell from how surveillance actually works is that the people who's loafing we appear to be most fussy about are the people who are making the lowest wages, which means, I mean, among other things, which I'm sure the employees themselves do report, is that it's also insulting.

[1120] If you were the boss, you would not be getting reported.

[1121] The status just gets highlighted.

[1122] So my question is, why is it that we're good at kind of inoculating business against that or higher status things, yet the government's wide open for that attack?

[1123] There's some great magic trick happening where we're like, we're impressed with Bezos's genius for profiting greatly in COVID.

[1124] We're mad at the person who got the stimulus check.

[1125] We are critical of the government.

[1126] The government doesn't fly under the same force field that big business does when they're somehow, in some ways, powerful and higher status.

[1127] And maybe that's a part of the political divide.

[1128] The right in particular seems to be most suspicious of the government.

[1129] I wonder why they're not getting the cover fire.

[1130] I think you're right that that's a political belief that's most often associated with, the right.

[1131] Although there are a bunch of things that people on the left are also concerned about.

[1132] Yeah, the left thinks the FDA is on the take.

[1133] Yeah.

[1134] We just have different people.

[1135] Or like the IRS is targeting the wrong people.

[1136] Also psychologically, we don't consider the government high status because it's ubiquitous.

[1137] Like it's something that exists.

[1138] There's something about Bezos or Elon Musk or whatever where they feel special.

[1139] They did something that I couldn't do.

[1140] It's something, quote, rare.

[1141] Well, they're winners.

[1142] I don't think we perceive the government like that.

[1143] It's like, that's a thing that's been going on forever.

[1144] That's going to keep going on.

[1145] You kind of eye roll at it a little bit.

[1146] I don't think we consider them.

[1147] Right.

[1148] How does it rare it said in motherhood?

[1149] There's like a cultural bait and switch about motherhood.

[1150] There's a set of cultural promises.

[1151] Achieve motherhood.

[1152] Get your gold star.

[1153] In practice, actually, we have very little support for parents generally and for mothers in particular.

[1154] So many parents, including myself, would say when I expect, to have kids.

[1155] The big thing I had in mind, obviously, was like this deep relationship with another human.

[1156] Intrinsic rewards of having a child.

[1157] It really delivers on that count.

[1158] Yeah.

[1159] In the day to day, that's true.

[1160] But also at this like real existential level, I see my kids like interacting with my parents or taking care of like their little nephew.

[1161] I really feel a sense of the future's going to go on.

[1162] All these values are going to live through these people.

[1163] And it really feels like being part of the arc. And the solution.

[1164] And it is.

[1165] So I realize it like, seems like a little petulant to be like, well, yeah, I got that part.

[1166] But I also wanted platinum status, my credit card or whatever the thing is.

[1167] But motherhood has actually quite a marketing apparatus, right?

[1168] There's a whole like Mother's Day.

[1169] That's sort of whole hallmarks up about it, like Supermom, like there's all this cultural veneration for mothers.

[1170] But then in practice, there's just no support.

[1171] And it's also the case that at least if you trust some of the psychology, which having lived as I sort of do, that being a mother actually kind of makes you lower status in the eyes of your peers, which is a funny thing because, of course, the promise is higher status.

[1172] The pandemic, I think, raised this for a lot of people.

[1173] There was this article in the New York Times.

[1174] It was something like America turns to its usual backup plan, moms.

[1175] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1176] A particular trigger for me is placating.

[1177] And so I think there's three really pernicious examples of this one is mothers you know they are god's gift to this planet they are sacred all these things no support everything we know about that all the judgment teachers we act like we love teachers but we don't do one thing to actually demonstrate that heroes we love calling soldiers heroes but we're paying them nothing that's miserable we probably have them in a conflict that morally we probably shouldn't have them in most of the time and so we throw them this bone of adoration without any accompanying capital.

[1178] It's such horseship.

[1179] In the mothers, a example of particular, it's gratitude, but actually not that much core respect and the ways that respect matters.

[1180] Yes.

[1181] And for the class of mothers who basically say, hey, I don't want to take this exact shitty deal, the response is, what scam are you running?

[1182] Are you some kind of a gold digger?

[1183] Are you having children in order to get state benefits?

[1184] Oh, you hear it all the time.

[1185] Oh, yeah, she stay at home on, but she has a housekeeper twice a week.

[1186] She has an assistant.

[1187] She has full -time help.

[1188] that receiving help would then say you're a scammer.

[1189] Yes.

[1190] And, I mean, you can think about all these little ways that people talk about this.

[1191] She's going to, like, say she has to get home for the babysitter and that she'll have to leave early from work and then other people can have to take over her shifts or that you might use motherhood to get access to child support or alimony type benefits.

[1192] Or you might have children explicitly in order to get state benefits.

[1193] Yeah.

[1194] Which is like this really pernicious rhetoric from like the late 90s, I think, persists.

[1195] Well, I did it when I was.

[1196] editing a movie, I said to everyone, I won't be working past six because I'm not going to miss bedtime for my kids.

[1197] It wasn't the easiest thing to an act.

[1198] There was certainly pushback from the studio.

[1199] Like, no, editing goes to, you know, whatever.

[1200] But I was like, that's great.

[1201] I won't be here.

[1202] But the follow -out from it was, I'm certain, oh, that guy's a great dad.

[1203] Like, everyone I worked with, I think, A, they liked getting off at six.

[1204] But B, I think, like, I got to leave with this great feather in my cap.

[1205] Well, that's interesting.

[1206] Whereas if I were a female, Ellen did that, we would most definitely be seen as something else.

[1207] Yes, it would prompt some eye rolling.

[1208] If you want to be with your kids, then you should have chose to be with your kids.

[1209] Yes.

[1210] But you can't direct a movie and be with your kids.

[1211] Make a choice.

[1212] You know, I was a great dad.

[1213] No. But then that kind of goes back to what you were talking about with just the whole paradigm should shift.

[1214] Right.

[1215] Because I see it on the other end as a single person.

[1216] If somebody is taking care of their kid, it's like, well, they're taking care of their kids.

[1217] So they obviously can't be on top of their email or this or this.

[1218] But you aren't.

[1219] So you kind of have no excuse.

[1220] and you should be on top of it and it's like maybe the whole thing needs to shift so that everyone can take off at six yeah yes yeah overall the narratives about motherhood are actually weaponized against women without children again what scam are you running like why aren't you participating in this?

[1221] Why can't you contribute to the right when my kids were little my husband could do anything and people would be like oh he is so involved I'd be like yeah he's their dad one of the other parents I heard through the grapevine that they mistook him for the babysitter Because he was picking up every day.

[1222] Uh -huh, yeah.

[1223] I was like, you think that this guy who looks just like these children and is here every day?

[1224] You think it's that unlikely that their dad would pick them up from school every day?

[1225] So we've well established.

[1226] We see how it's pervasive in all these different societal structures.

[1227] What would be the prescriptive element to be able to, A, recognize when you're caught in this bias and then what your actions are to counter for that?

[1228] Yeah.

[1229] One is to be pretty explicit about what the actual goal.

[1230] are to be pushing on that thing and reminding yourself of what the thing is.

[1231] And in a lot of the dilemmas of the kinds that I'm raising in this book, my actual overarching goal is something that looks like integrity.

[1232] I would like to be a person with integrity.

[1233] I would like to participate in a system that acts with integrity.

[1234] Oftentimes, in my case, especially as those things come closer to home, integrity is reflecting something I think of as being close to love, especially where these kinds of things crop up as cases that are relational or that have to do with compassion for other humans.

[1235] Yeah, I think implicit integrity, I think all definitions would probably include some level of personal sacrifice for the greater good.

[1236] Yeah.

[1237] I'm going to do something that's inconvenient.

[1238] I'm going to do something where I might lose a little.

[1239] I'm going to do something because my overall principle has that value.

[1240] I've given it that value and I can suffer along the way to adhere to that.

[1241] Exactly.

[1242] Even if there are things I can't control, I'm doing my part for this enterprise, right?

[1243] So there's something about the integrity.

[1244] And then the other thing is, is to be, ruthlessly honest about what the fears are.

[1245] Yeah, it's really hard for people.

[1246] It's hard for me. It's terrible.

[1247] If you've ever been in like a cognitive behavioral therapy setting, it's very unpleasant.

[1248] Because the whole time you're having to just say out loud things that are true that you just deeply don't want to say out loud.

[1249] And you haven't named the thing you're scared of.

[1250] It's working when you feel incredibly uncomfortable slash crying.

[1251] Yes, exposed.

[1252] Inside out.

[1253] And you've said the real thing that's making you scared.

[1254] Anyone who's in a relationship?

[1255] It's like you're fighting over all these inane details.

[1256] And the crux of it is never addressed.

[1257] Yes.

[1258] And once you get the crux of it.

[1259] I'm afraid you don't love me. Exactly.

[1260] I'm afraid I'm not worthy of you.

[1261] Exactly.

[1262] In the sucker context, there's being willing to be frank about it.

[1263] Like, to be honest, I think people might think I'm a sucker in this situation.

[1264] Then you can ask yourself, is that a big deal to me or not?

[1265] Oftentimes, if I'm asking that question, like, it's already answered.

[1266] Sometimes I'm like, hey, listen, in an organization, it's not good for me as a woman in this situation to, like, take on this role.

[1267] Long term.

[1268] It might be establishing precedent.

[1269] Exactly.

[1270] I think this isn't good for me. Or sometimes what I'm realizing is, oh my gosh, I'm getting paid less than somebody else.

[1271] I'm being exploited.

[1272] In that case, the issue is I should just get paid more.

[1273] I don't need to like get into a whole thing about whether I've been duped.

[1274] It's helpful to realize it.

[1275] I use this example all the time.

[1276] And I was only smart enough to do it one time in my whole career, which was I was on a TV show for six years.

[1277] And I entered it going, I'm not going to find out what anyone else makes.

[1278] Normally I'm good at figuring out what everyone makes.

[1279] And I was like, I'm only going to question.

[1280] whether or not I think I'm getting enough money to come to this job.

[1281] And it was the most liberating experience.

[1282] And certainly if I had all the data, I would have felt foolish.

[1283] But if I just asked a more objective question, is this a lot of money to go say lines in front of the camera?

[1284] Yeah, it's too much.

[1285] And this is how I feel about my job.

[1286] It's a dangerous thing to suggest for obvious reasons.

[1287] One is we don't ever want to give up the battle between, say, pay equality.

[1288] Yes, exactly.

[1289] Genders or races.

[1290] No, exactly.

[1291] So we need kind of a global view of it.

[1292] In your own personal life, if you want contentment and peace, you probably shouldn't be being relative to anything but your own output in what you're getting if that's enough or not.

[1293] What can be a little hard about the sucker stuff that doesn't quite come up in some of the other contexts is that it's actually sometimes hard to spot.

[1294] And so my suggestion is like you really want to name it and you almost want to name it like aggressively.

[1295] Be looking out for the thing and be like, hey, wait a minute.

[1296] I think the thing he's saying to me right now is you're going to look weak if you do this.

[1297] You're going to look like the fool because people aren't.

[1298] typically saying that to you out loud, not being like you're such a sucker.

[1299] And you think to yourself, I'm recoiling for some reason.

[1300] Oh, wait, I've picked up this like little sucker insult embedded in whatever this conversation is.

[1301] And now my hackles are up.

[1302] And I need to be able to say that's what's actually going on here.

[1303] I don't want to be a part of this dynamic.

[1304] That goes back to the game theory thing.

[1305] It's like, do I want to walk with $2 or do I want to punish this person?

[1306] Exactly.

[1307] And you get really hung up.

[1308] That can be your modus operandi.

[1309] That's fine.

[1310] But ultimately, if you a little more faith.

[1311] I think if you take the contrary view, it's just helpful.

[1312] And ultimately, I think you do better at the end of it all.

[1313] I think that that's right.

[1314] Because there are times when you're going to say, actually, it's okay with me. Compared to somebody else here, I get it.

[1315] I'm kind of the loser here.

[1316] But given what I actually want big picture, this is good.

[1317] And even better, I take my $2 and enjoy them.

[1318] There's some question here about, like, what's better, like not being a sucker or not feeling like a sucker?

[1319] Exactly.

[1320] So I basically suggest in the book.

[1321] We can sort of all be technocrats of our own lives.

[1322] You can try to make everything into a cost -benefit analysis and put numbers on things.

[1323] You can take your own values seriously enough to like try to say which of them am I achieving.

[1324] And sometimes one of your own values is I don't want to be the fool here.

[1325] Sometimes one of your own values is I don't want to take advantage of anybody else.

[1326] The real goal in a lot of these cases is to have it be that being a sucker isn't even on the table.

[1327] My kids, even my students, they can't really take advantage of me. It's not really possible.

[1328] Yes.

[1329] Earlier what I said, I think that's kind of what my wife somehow magically achieve in our own is that you can be big enough to be the sucker and it really takes no hit on you because you have your esteem in all these other ways and i do think we're never going to get people to stop being status conscious what would be interesting is to reevaluate what should have status and the idea of being a big enough person to let someone low have a win would actually be the thing that would give you great status which i think exists I think there are examples of people that we look at that have great integrity.

[1330] They've still achieved things.

[1331] They didn't get the most out of the deal, but they got plenty.

[1332] We do value that.

[1333] And I just think it's not really terribly present in our media or anything else, these archetypes of someone who's big enough to give someone small the victory.

[1334] Because that's pretty gangster.

[1335] That's kind of the ultimate.

[1336] If you're like confident enough to not get ensnared in that, I do think you can observe that and want that.

[1337] And that can be a status.

[1338] source.

[1339] I think that that's what people are talking about.

[1340] And they talk about grace.

[1341] I like to hope that that's the real goal.

[1342] We were interviewing Seth Rogan years ago.

[1343] And I was asking him something about in the world of how much money do you have.

[1344] Not that question specifically.

[1345] But somehow at some point, he said, I don't fucking know.

[1346] I don't know what I have.

[1347] And I go, maybe the people managing your money have stolen.

[1348] He goes, I hope they have.

[1349] I've got plenty.

[1350] The way he said, I hope they have was like, whoa.

[1351] No one would say that.

[1352] where I'm from in Michigan.

[1353] That would immediately make you the sucker.

[1354] But really in that moment, I was like, oh, he's the most gangster.

[1355] He's like, I got a ton.

[1356] I don't know.

[1357] People stole from me. Good for them.

[1358] There was something I admired about it.

[1359] Like, it actually did read to me as ultimate confidence as opposed to suckerdom or dupory.

[1360] That's right.

[1361] Like, what are we even doing here?

[1362] My mom used to say to my sister and I, when we were like having, you know, I'd be like, you got her three shirts at Marshalls and you got me, two shirts at Marshalls.

[1363] And my mom would be like, we're not keeping score.

[1364] I'd be like, what?

[1365] Not keeping score.

[1366] Of course we are.

[1367] What the heck?

[1368] Of course we're keeping score.

[1369] But of course the goal is where you can.

[1370] I mean, not everywhere.

[1371] Not when I'm buying a car or whatever, but as much as possible, there's this idea in humanitarian psychotherapy.

[1372] It's called unconditional positive regard.

[1373] This is by a psychotherapist in the 50s who basically was like, when I go to my patients, what I'm doing is I'm being a gullible listener.

[1374] My job is to take them on their own terms.

[1375] Oh, wow.

[1376] I'm not judging, it's not that I don't have views about some behavioral patterns.

[1377] Basically, I'm trying to get on board with their project.

[1378] Where are you going and how can I help get you there on your own terms?

[1379] And the idea was I don't take their sort of various reports of bad things that they've done as reports of them being a bad person.

[1380] We all have possibility of a trajectory toward some like ideal of self -actualization.

[1381] So I bring this unconditional positive regard for them as.

[1382] as other humans on this planet with me. Right.

[1383] That's beautiful.

[1384] Well, your book is called Foolproof.

[1385] How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Ourselves and the Social Order and what we can do about it.

[1386] I think it's such a primal, carnal emotion.

[1387] I don't think anyone listening could possibly have not felt that feeling of, I'm an idiot.

[1388] I got taken advantage of all these things.

[1389] Tess, this was so fun.

[1390] I really enjoyed it.

[1391] Thank you so much.

[1392] This is super fun.

[1393] Good.

[1394] Would you go so far as to say this was chill?

[1395] Do you know how many pen law students and my kids are going to be listening to this and laughing as hard as they can possibly laugh and picturing my face trying to answer the question, is this chill?

[1396] The whole thing is going to be incredible.

[1397] It's a gift you've given them, and I appreciate that.

[1398] And I hope it was chill for you.

[1399] It is definitely super fun for me. Good.

[1400] I think fun is synonymous with chills.

[1401] Great, great, yes.

[1402] Such a pleasure.

[1403] I'm jealous of all your students.

[1404] I would love to take your law classes.

[1405] I'm so intrigued by all that.

[1406] Oh, we have such a good time.

[1407] I'm attracted to the Jonathan Haidt thought experiments.

[1408] I love living in the world of the philosophic.

[1409] The law discourse is a little bit that, but they're actual cases.

[1410] I know.

[1411] It's incredible because students think that they're not going to like contracts.

[1412] They love it.

[1413] It's much more interesting than you think because it's all these moral dilemmas that they get to reason through.

[1414] Yes.

[1415] It's very philosophical.

[1416] Well, a lot of people who go to law school are undergrad.

[1417] philosophy majors it's a common one yep any major with a ton of reading seems to get there is a lot of reading in law school yes is what i've been told i've heard anthra's as a good transfer too just because the volume of reading required and papers that have to be written you can come from any major in succeed in law school i do think it's hard if you come from a discipline that has more answers and you get to law and you're like hey so i went ahead and applied that equation and i got maybe you know and that's i think frustrating that's my other soapboxes just people need to get a lot more with things are most often 53 % correct.

[1418] I mean, you're not going to get this eureka moment of clarity.

[1419] It's kind of like, it's just marginally a better decision.

[1420] The whole point of a law exam is that you have students telling you why the answer is hard, which is like a really hard switch to get your head around.

[1421] Yeah.

[1422] All right.

[1423] Tess, thank you so much for coming.

[1424] It was a blast.

[1425] Everyone by foolproof.

[1426] Thank you.

[1427] All right.

[1428] Arm yourself.

[1429] Exactly.

[1430] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1431] Are we on now?

[1432] Yeah, I'm ready.

[1433] Okay, I'm going to start cleaning it up now.

[1434] Please.

[1435] We were talking while we were eating.

[1436] No, I'm not going to say anything I said, but we were talking while we were eating and I was being a loosey -goosey.

[1437] Yeah, sometimes you - Mostly just to poke at you, of course.

[1438] You're a child.

[1439] This is what happens.

[1440] Sometimes you try to rein it in and then you like, let it all out.

[1441] I feel constrained by my own reins.

[1442] Yeah.

[1443] And then I burst out.

[1444] And then you go, DAG, stop.

[1445] Yeah.

[1446] It's funny if you had a different disposition, like if you said naughty things, I really, then I wouldn't ever.

[1447] It's mostly just the fun of being able to trigger you.

[1448] Wait, what?

[1449] I say, what are you talking about?

[1450] I'm playful.

[1451] No, I know you are.

[1452] Okay.

[1453] But the things that you yell at me about are not things you do.

[1454] Correct.

[1455] Right.

[1456] Yeah.

[1457] If you did those, I probably wouldn't even do them because they'd get no reaction.

[1458] I think we're both smart enough to know.

[1459] I'm just trying to get a reaction.

[1460] I'm trying to get to, I want to be sparring with you.

[1461] I know you do.

[1462] I know you do, little boy.

[1463] I know my son.

[1464] Yeah, you know me. Always playful.

[1465] AV