Speaker 1: It's hard to know who to trust these days. Man.
Speaker 2: Listen, I'm sticking with my A one day ones.
Speaker 1: No one is out here telling the truth. I feel like,
Speaker 1: no matter what, it could even be something as honest
Speaker 1: looking as a charity, and you have to start questioning, well,
Speaker 1: where is this money going?
Speaker 2: Who's really going to be held accountable. There's been some
Speaker 2: conversation at least on my timeline recently, yes, about people
Speaker 2: raising money, what happens to it? And you know, I
Speaker 2: love a good juicy political thriller, So whether it's real
Speaker 2: life or it's something i'm watching on Netflix, I'm like,
Speaker 2: follow the money, what happens.
Speaker 1: He's a kid a real life House of Cards over here.
Speaker 1: She loves that stuff. Yes, she's an investigator.
Speaker 2: I know we've talked about robo calls in the past.
Speaker 2: We have now there is the GoFundMe. You got to
Speaker 2: double check and check and make sure you know someone
Speaker 2: who knows the creator of the gofund me to make
Speaker 2: sure it's real.
Speaker 1: Right. Fishing scams like where It'll be You'll see an
Speaker 1: email and it'll look like it's from Apple because they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: confirm your email address here, which is a normal email
Speaker 1: that all of us get from all types of places, right,
Speaker 1: and then next thing you know, everything is hacked. Like,
Speaker 1: next thing you know, like your own mama gonna show
Speaker 1: up to your door talk about something. Can I borrow
Speaker 1: fifty dollars? The next thing you know, it's not her,
Speaker 1: it's a hologram.
Speaker 2: It's a hologram. Hologram. Spam is next.
Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify Studios.
Speaker 1: This is dope.
Speaker 2: Last, it feels like every where you look there's a scam,
Speaker 2: or there's a you know, or somebody's trying to catch
Speaker 2: you up in something and you gotta have your guard up.
Speaker 1: We could talk about a lot of things. Actually we
Speaker 1: can talk about Takashi six y nine. Yeah, tee it
Speaker 1: up for the people as a kid, tell them what's
Speaker 1: going on with Takashi.
Speaker 2: Listen, Takashi is out here dry snitching. Okay. I got nervous.
Speaker 2: I was like, is he gonna say something about me
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 1: Feel like is a huge scam because before he became
Speaker 1: a rapper, he was just a normal kid.
Speaker 2: He was a regular guy. Then he puts on this
Speaker 2: other persona that lends him some credibility, and then he
Speaker 2: starts calling out Jim Jones and Cardi B. And Cardi B,
Speaker 2: and I know they have to feel like they've been
Speaker 2: wrapped up in a scam exactly. You imagine minding your
Speaker 2: business and then all of a sudden, somebody's bringing your
Speaker 2: name up in front of a judge and to be
Speaker 2: snitched on by somebody like Takashi six ' nine with
Speaker 2: rainbow teeth. Jim Jones and Chrissy had a whole TV show,
Speaker 2: and he managed not to snitch on himself, right, and
Speaker 2: then you come up here and be reckless.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. You know who I think is the biggest
Speaker 1: scammer right now? All of these TV moms like Aunt
Speaker 1: Becky and Felicity Huffman who are out here scam the
Speaker 1: college admissions process to get their kids into the college
Speaker 1: of their choice. And Becky was out here staging crew photos.
Speaker 2: If you need a set designer for your college application,
Speaker 2: you got to ask yourself some questions.
Speaker 1: Maybe that isn't the college for you.
Speaker 2: So I feel like we've touched on this a little
Speaker 2: bit before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in Lab three lighting me with our guest, Yamaday House,
Speaker 1: but we kind of talked more about why people lie
Speaker 1: and why people scam Today, we're flipping it on its
Speaker 1: head and we're saying, why do.
Speaker 2: You keep getting calm? Why do you keep going for
Speaker 2: these same scams?
Speaker 1: Exactly? And I think this is important for everyone. So
Speaker 1: pull up a chair, turn the volume all the.
Speaker 2: Way up, and dive in with us. Let's get into
Speaker 2: the recitation. So this really got us thinking, right, we
Speaker 2: started talking about scams and spam and catfishing.
Speaker 1: Catfishing is another huge thing, these romantic scams.
Speaker 2: Yes, and when you really think about it, I try
Speaker 2: to distill it down to like, what's the motivating factor here?
Speaker 2: What's driving the person that's doing the scamming, and what
Speaker 2: drives us to fall for the scam?
Speaker 1: Right? Is it like a specific type of person that
Speaker 1: falls for these scams or a specific type of person
Speaker 1: that is doing the scamming?
Speaker 2: How do you tell if something is a scam or not?
Speaker 2: Who falls for scam A but not scam B. Who's
Speaker 2: gonna fall for in person scam versus an online scam?
Speaker 2: I'm not falling for an in person scam.
Speaker 1: I feel like I would never fall for an in
Speaker 1: person scam. I'm too, You're skeptical of every exactly I'm
Speaker 1: like I wake up in the morning, I roll over
Speaker 1: look at my husband. I'm like, is that you for real?
Speaker 2: And like for us, I think I'm savvy on the internet,
Speaker 2: but I also know that I was on AOL chat
Speaker 2: rooms like age Sex Language. Anybody want to meet me
Speaker 2: at the carnival?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was definitely. I was what I probably like
Speaker 1: eleven and saying I was like fifteen or sixteen.
Speaker 2: So you have been a scammer for a while? Yes, wow,
Speaker 2: do you didn't even hesitate?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean because if you ever scammed me never,
Speaker 1: I could never you would tell it if.
Speaker 2: You did, and you bet not let me out.
Speaker 1: Episode.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it'll be the last episode. Lord, No, wun't.
Speaker 1: She would never let me live that down. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's get into the dissection. Our guest today is doctor
Speaker 1: Losana Harris.
Speaker 3: I'm a social neuroscientist, which means I study social behavior
Speaker 3: and brain.
Speaker 2: Doctor Harris is an Associate Professor of Experimental psychology at
Speaker 2: University College in London.
Speaker 1: His work focuses on what's called person perception or social perception,
Speaker 1: which is all about how humans process each other. And
Speaker 1: this is really important to understand, right because when it
Speaker 1: comes to scams. We need to know how we decide
Speaker 1: to trust somebody or not.
Speaker 3: You look at things like audios, so how do people's
Speaker 3: voices sound, things like smiles, the sort of chemical communication
Speaker 3: that happens between people, and measure people's responses in terms
Speaker 3: of their physiologies.
Speaker 2: And by physiology, he means things like facial muscle movements, sweat,
Speaker 2: heart rate, hormones, or brain activity. Measuring those things can
Speaker 2: indicate whether someone is anxious or nervous, for example.
Speaker 1: But doctor Harris isn't just studying how people process each other.
Speaker 1: He's also interested in how person perception affects the decisions
Speaker 1: we make.
Speaker 3: Until we look at things like moral decision making, legal
Speaker 3: decision making, financial decision making. And then the majority of
Speaker 3: those studies we use sort of classic economic games where
Speaker 3: we put people in competitive or cooperative situations with others
Speaker 3: and just look at the kinds of decisions they need.
Speaker 2: And you're probably wondering, how can we relate this back
Speaker 2: to con artists? Right, So, as we're talking about con
Speaker 2: artists and those that are being con there are some
Speaker 2: interesting context here because in essence, a con artist is
Speaker 2: using these ideas of person perception to basically con their victim.
Speaker 1: They know that their victim will be processing them and
Speaker 1: making decison visions based on that processing, and then they
Speaker 1: use that to manipulate the victim. But I don't really
Speaker 1: understand how.
Speaker 2: This brings us to social cognition, which doctor Harris studies
Speaker 2: is something you and I do every single day, and
Speaker 2: it basically allows us to interact with each other. Is
Speaker 2: the process of figuring out what's in someone else's head.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to be in your head.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of tabs open man, fifty tabs and
Speaker 1: fifty windows, and all those tabs represent my thoughts, feelings, emotions,
Speaker 1: goals or desires.
Speaker 3: Now, if you think about it, that's a very difficult
Speaker 3: thing to do, because I could never see your mind, right,
Speaker 3: I could never see your thoughts. I have to infer
Speaker 3: them from your behaviors. And in order to do that,
Speaker 3: I have to crunch a lot of information. I have
Speaker 3: to crunch a lot of numbers. I have to put
Speaker 3: together lots of statistical information. And that leads me to
Speaker 3: make a guess about your internal state, your mind, what's
Speaker 3: on your mind.
Speaker 1: And this idea of so cognition really shifted how scientists
Speaker 1: thought about decision making. Historically, economists thought that people just
Speaker 1: made decisions based off of their own self interest, so
Speaker 1: basically what they could do to get themselves ahead. So
Speaker 1: it's a situation that involves money, then you're just going
Speaker 1: to do whatever yields the most profit, and that was
Speaker 1: considered the rational line of thinking. But if the decision
Speaker 1: involves another person, it's not that straightforward.
Speaker 3: And lots of psychological and behavioral economic research has shown
Speaker 3: that people aren't rational in their decision making and social factors.
Speaker 3: And when I say social factors, I mean other people
Speaker 3: or the different motivations or goals people have really biased
Speaker 3: their decision making and directions where it appears not to
Speaker 3: be rational.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, right, because I think when I think of cons,
Speaker 2: I think of them always being about money. And when
Speaker 2: you think about cons that are about money, if it's
Speaker 2: just like are you going to pick up this extra
Speaker 2: dollar on the ground, that feels easy, Like the rational
Speaker 2: decision is yes, I'm gonna pick it up, and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have some more money in my pocket. Right, But
Speaker 2: if I have to pull the dollar out of somebody's pocket,
Speaker 2: ooh man, that's a little different.
Speaker 1: It's a little different.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And so what you've seen a lot of financial decision
Speaker 3: making involving other people or Wendy social factors are relevant
Speaker 3: is that people will often for goal money in order
Speaker 3: to do things that are consistent with social and moral rules,
Speaker 3: goals and values.
Speaker 2: My league had a podcast recently about getting your finances
Speaker 2: in order and all this stuff, and she talks about
Speaker 2: people that feel peer pressure to spend money because other
Speaker 2: people are spending money even if they know they don't
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that emotion.
Speaker 2: No, So, like if you're all out and everybody's like,
Speaker 2: well we're gonna go out, We're gonna do rounds with drinks.
Speaker 2: And she was saying, you should just say I only
Speaker 2: have fifty dollars a night. Now, that doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: shouldn't have additional rounds, but that's all I'm going to
Speaker 2: be spending, right, even that, right, the people you're around, like,
Speaker 2: you find what are the social norms around the situation? Right,
Speaker 2: So people may be like I'm having the lobster.
Speaker 1: You know, you're like, I'll have the chicken tenders, but
Speaker 1: now you can't. You feel like you can't get chicken
Speaker 1: tenders because if so and so is getting the lobster,
Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, so is that kind of nice?
Speaker 1: Is that that's what we're doing? Okay, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: having the lobster too.
Speaker 3: And what we and others have been arguing is that
Speaker 3: while those social decisions are actually rational, it's just that
Speaker 3: you care about something else. You don't care about maximizing
Speaker 3: financial profit. You care about things like maintaining social relationships,
Speaker 3: for instance, or you care things that you care about,
Speaker 3: things like your reputation.
Speaker 2: So our behaviors can be based on self interest, but
Speaker 2: if another person is involved, our decisions may be a
Speaker 2: little more socially minded. Why is that?
Speaker 1: What we learned from doctor Harris is that our decision
Speaker 1: making is really dependent on our motivations.
Speaker 2: Our motivations are the things that drive us to do
Speaker 2: what we do, and they're not always the same.
Speaker 3: And so what could be happening is that those motives
Speaker 3: become dominant or salient in those situations because those motives
Speaker 3: are primary. Right as we evolved as a species, those
Speaker 3: were the things that basically drove our evolution. So our
Speaker 3: evolution was driven because human beings are what we call
Speaker 3: a hypersocial species more than almost any other species. We
Speaker 3: depend on other people.
Speaker 1: In general, there is a range of motives about three
Speaker 1: to ten that drive human behavior, but doctor Harris uses
Speaker 1: one set of theory that talks about five of them.
Speaker 3: Belonging, understanding human beings, like to know why particular things happen. Control,
Speaker 3: You want to feel like you're not just sort of
Speaker 3: randomly going through life, but you're making decisions and you
Speaker 3: have some type of agency in your decision making what
Speaker 3: is called self enhancement. So we're motivated to feel good
Speaker 3: in general, to have this sort of positive feeling about ourselves. Right,
Speaker 3: we want to feel valued and loved and respected. And
Speaker 3: then trustworthiness is the fifth one.
Speaker 2: Let's kind of just hone in on two motives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so for this episode, we're going to focus on
Speaker 1: the need to belong and the need to trust.
Speaker 3: And so I think when you have these types of
Speaker 3: cons they usually take advantage of these motives that people have.
Speaker 3: They tap into these deficits of particular pasts might have
Speaker 3: in terms of belonging or trusting, for instance, and they
Speaker 3: exploit that for financial benefit.
Speaker 2: I thought one that doctor Harris hit on that was
Speaker 2: most interesting to me was trustworthiness, and he explained that
Speaker 2: as our need to trust others.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that falls directly in line with
Speaker 1: the GoFundMe stuff. So when we think about go fund me,
Speaker 1: it's not just oh, I'm giving money to just anybody,
Speaker 1: somebody that I don't know. The people who are putting
Speaker 1: out these gofundmes they really put like a real personal
Speaker 1: touch on it where you feel really connected to them.
Speaker 1: So then you're more likely to give because it kind
Speaker 1: of tugs at your heart's You don't want them to
Speaker 1: be lying about little Timmy needing a new heart. You
Speaker 1: want to trust them, Like I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: into that thinking that I'm being scammed. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go into that thinking I'm being a good person and
Speaker 1: donate my twenty dollars.
Speaker 3: When you go to a restaurant, you don't worry that
Speaker 3: they're putting poison in your food, right, the thought never
Speaker 3: crosses your mind because of that motivation to trust people.
Speaker 3: And so that's how we typically function.
Speaker 1: That's why I could never do that, like dining in
Speaker 1: the dark stuff, I just don't trust it. I need
Speaker 1: to be able to see who.
Speaker 4: Is dining in the dark.
Speaker 2: What is that get heard of that no.
Speaker 1: People are going to restaurants and these restaurants are like
Speaker 1: specialty restaurants and everything is pitch black. No, they tell
Speaker 1: you what's on the menu, and you order, they bring
Speaker 1: it out in front of you, and you eat in
Speaker 1: the dark.
Speaker 2: First of all, the visual component.
Speaker 1: We've already talked about this dining in the Cookout episode.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't want to lose that.
Speaker 1: I'm not eating it just because I just don't trust it.
Speaker 1: I need to be able to see. What if there's
Speaker 1: a hair in my food? What if there's a fingernail,
Speaker 1: what if there's a fly like I need.
Speaker 4: Be able to nail.
Speaker 1: You never know, You never know.
Speaker 2: The other dominant motive that's relevant to con artists is belonging.
Speaker 2: Our family, friends, relationships, clubs, churches, even Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 2: All of these foster our inherent need to belong to
Speaker 2: something bigger than ourselves.
Speaker 3: And so if, for instance, someone isn't having their belonging
Speaker 3: need match right, they're going to be highly motivated to
Speaker 3: find another person to connect to. Even if I've never
Speaker 3: met this person face to face and it's just been
Speaker 3: an online interaction, they're still fulfilling my need to belong right.
Speaker 2: So, if you want to be a part of a group,
Speaker 2: you pay this certain amount of money, or if you
Speaker 2: make friends with someone online or something, they say, well,
Speaker 2: I would love to keep talking to you, but in
Speaker 2: order for me to keep my phone on, I need
Speaker 2: thirty dollars my phone.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get into how these motivations make us vulnerable to
Speaker 1: scammers and who gets targeted the most. One of the
Speaker 1: times that I feel like I'm being scammed the most
Speaker 1: is during the election seasons.
Speaker 2: Yes, like I don't.
Speaker 1: There's just so much going on and I don't know
Speaker 1: who to believe. They're saying all these numbers, and they're
Speaker 1: saying all these things, and I'm like, are you lying
Speaker 1: just so that I can vote for you?
Speaker 2: Or how many people did you poll? How did you
Speaker 2: phrase the question? Was it leading? Is this a real poll?
Speaker 2: When you call me on the phone? Are you a telemarketer?
Speaker 2: Are you really with somebody's campaign? What is going on?
Speaker 2: And who is knocking at the door?
Speaker 1: Right, We've got a lot of questions, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you do too, So if you have questions about this,
Speaker 1: make sure that you send us an email at contact
Speaker 1: at Dope Black podcast dot com or give us a
Speaker 1: call at two zero two five six seven seven zero
Speaker 1: two eight, or y'all can slide into our DM on
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter at dope last podcasts.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get back to the lab. So are
Speaker 2: all these scams we're reading about and hearing about online
Speaker 2: happening because people are more susceptible? Or is it because
Speaker 2: con artists are just really good at taking advantage of
Speaker 2: these deficits in our motivations.
Speaker 3: I think what happens in these calms is a bit
Speaker 3: of both. You get the people who are more susceptible
Speaker 3: and you get colms developed by people who are insightful
Speaker 3: in terms of the kinds of deficits. Humans may have
Speaker 3: interims of their needs for belonging, so, for instance, the
Speaker 3: elderly get targeteds a lot, usually because their belongingness is
Speaker 3: a lot lower than the general population. We tend to
Speaker 3: isolate the elderly in Western societies.
Speaker 1: The elderly are one of the most targeted groups by
Speaker 1: con artists, and it's not just because of their need
Speaker 1: to belong and to trust. There are also neurobiological reasons
Speaker 1: why they are more susceptible.
Speaker 3: Most people think of the brain as something that's like
Speaker 3: a computer machine where it's sort of hardwired. But that's
Speaker 3: absolutely not true. The brain is very what we call elastic.
Speaker 3: It's flexible, it can adopt quite easily. As you get older,
Speaker 3: the rate of change slows quite dramatically, which is why
Speaker 3: elderly people tend to be stuck in their ways, as
Speaker 3: we see, because the brain isn't being as flexible.
Speaker 2: So as you get older, there's sort of a cocktail
Speaker 2: of factors that make you more susceptible.
Speaker 1: A greater motivation to belong and the inability to easily
Speaker 1: adapt to new social contexts, which might lead to you
Speaker 1: trusting people that others may be a little bit wary of.
Speaker 2: If someone is reaching out to you on the internet
Speaker 2: or the phone, and it's consistent with how you've always
Speaker 2: interacted with friendly, trustworthy people, your brain's going to say, yes,
Speaker 2: you can trust this person, and it fits right because
Speaker 2: for your whole life you've learned that when people approach
Speaker 2: you in a certain way, there are usually a certain
Speaker 2: type of people, which means you can trust them.
Speaker 3: But now things have changed completely on Your brain isn't
Speaker 3: catching up as quickly because it's not as elastic, and
Speaker 3: so you're still going to make decisions based on not
Speaker 3: myself learning history you've had, so.
Speaker 1: Your beliefs are set, but you're in a totally different
Speaker 1: social context. And technology has really shifted that context dramatically
Speaker 1: in the last decade. But it's not just elderly people
Speaker 1: who are the target. Technology has made us all more trusting.
Speaker 1: Think about how much you trust the internet.
Speaker 2: I really trust the Internet. I remember being so nervous
Speaker 2: the first time I entered my debit card info online girl.
Speaker 2: I got an American Express, and I was like, nervous,
Speaker 2: no more. Okay. The other day I was at work
Speaker 2: and I was typing something in and I said, why
Speaker 2: isn't my address coming up like I wanted it to
Speaker 2: auto populate save all my info.
Speaker 1: If it's an online story and it doesn't have Apple
Speaker 1: pay where I can't just put my thumb down. I'm
Speaker 1: very frustrated, and as skeptical as I feel about other things,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting, right what we decide to trust. I mean,
Speaker 1: even on Instagram. I feel like now a lot of
Speaker 1: y'all gonna try and be out here lying but buying
Speaker 1: stuff off of Instagram, honey, and sometimes that stuff don't
Speaker 1: show up the way you thought, which has happened to
Speaker 1: me a number of times.
Speaker 2: I've always been skeptical of Instagram. I was skeptical of
Speaker 2: Asos and everybody was buying stuff and loving it, and
Speaker 2: so no, that's real. Yeah, it's real, but I know.
Speaker 2: And the same thing with Fashionova, only Instagram people were
Speaker 2: wearing it. It was like Instagram clothes. I just bought.
Speaker 2: I think my first thing off of Instagram recently, I
Speaker 2: bought a background. Today. Somebody posted this digital illustrator. I'll
Speaker 2: put it on the show notes for people to check
Speaker 2: it out, and she had drawn this thing of Kicky
Speaker 2: Palmer and says, sorry to this man, I had to
Speaker 2: buy it. I had to buy it.
Speaker 1: You didn't have a choice.
Speaker 3: And I think now you have a generation of people
Speaker 3: who aren't suspicious of technology at all, right, because they
Speaker 3: feel like they have a sit in mastery over the technology.
Speaker 3: So I think because of the diminished suspicion people, in
Speaker 3: some ways, they're going to be more susceptible to these
Speaker 3: cons in these kinds.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point. But why is that?
Speaker 3: What's happened with technologies, Most of the interactions aren't face
Speaker 3: to face anymore, And I say, huge change for human beings.
Speaker 3: So think about it. For our entire evolutionary history, every
Speaker 3: time we've communicated with other people, we've sat next to them,
Speaker 3: we've stood next to them, we've seen them. So in
Speaker 3: addition to sort of making inferences about what they're thinking
Speaker 3: based on what they're seeing, we can look at their
Speaker 3: facial expression. We can get chemical information, right, because if
Speaker 3: you're anxious, you'll produce particular hormones and I might pick
Speaker 3: that up.
Speaker 2: And that blew my mind because as a fan of
Speaker 2: FaceTime and all the video chats, I'm like, I'm getting
Speaker 2: way more information than if I talk on the phone
Speaker 2: with someone. But also, anybody can have any prop behind
Speaker 2: them and say they are XYZ whoever, whoever.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at catfish. There are people who steal
Speaker 1: whole videos of other people and pretend to be that person.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of information we're not getting when we
Speaker 2: engage with people online. Do you remember all those measurements
Speaker 2: doctor Harris mentioned when he does the study he's on
Speaker 2: people processing. We're not getting any of that and it's
Speaker 2: actually affecting our decision.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but the Internet has made it
Speaker 1: possible for us to engage with way more people and
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, So we're getting less information but
Speaker 1: interacting with way more people.
Speaker 2: I talk about this all the time with my friends
Speaker 2: on the apps. Right when I say the apps, I
Speaker 2: mean bumble, okaycupe it hinge, all of that, right, And
Speaker 2: I say, they're like, oh my goodness, swipe, but these
Speaker 2: people are crazy this, this is this oh my gosh
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. And I'm like, you're just interacting with
Speaker 2: way more people than you ever would. If you were
Speaker 2: walking down the street and you passed fifty people, You're
Speaker 2: not going to talk to all fifty of those people.
Speaker 2: Now you're on an app, sitting in your living room
Speaker 2: and you're about to swipe two hundred people. I mean
Speaker 2: not really, but you know what I mean. It's different.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just different.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It also makes me think about texting.
Speaker 1: A lot could be lost in a text message, yes night.
Speaker 1: I think we've all been guilty of that when somebody
Speaker 1: like you send a text message or you receive a
Speaker 1: text message and you're like, what's that supposed to me?
Speaker 1: You're missing out on all of these other real person
Speaker 1: to person interactions that give you all the contexts that
Speaker 1: you need to really know what's being said.
Speaker 3: But if you look at millennials now, right, all of
Speaker 3: their interactions are happening on the internet. I mean it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: I look at teenagers and they're standing in a group
Speaker 3: and they're talking to each other sort of, but they're
Speaker 3: also talking on their devices, and so the way they're
Speaker 3: interacting has changed completely. And that's just the way of
Speaker 3: human beings. Right. We are continually evolving and changing.
Speaker 2: So we're less suspicious, but maybe we're also developing more
Speaker 2: rigorous detectors to compensate for that loss of information.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we've evolved to this point, maybe we can
Speaker 1: keep evolving.
Speaker 2: I think we're developing all these tools right to know
Speaker 2: what's a real email, you know, all those some of
Speaker 2: the websites will say, have a question click here. I
Speaker 2: can tell that's a bot or a real person.
Speaker 1: Me too.
Speaker 2: First thing I do when they say how are you today?
Speaker 2: I say terrible? Now what are you gonna say? Bot?
Speaker 2: Will you show some empathy?
Speaker 1: Right? If it's about it's not, it's gonna say what
Speaker 1: can I help you with today?
Speaker 2: We're getting better at it. I think we're getting better
Speaker 2: at it. To bake up for that missing information online.
Speaker 3: For people in my generation, I think we're always going
Speaker 3: to be suspicious because the Internet came when we knew
Speaker 3: there was no such internet, and we had a lot
Speaker 3: of those early teething experiences that really solidified how we
Speaker 3: think about this technology. So even though we mean you
Speaker 3: that as much as the millennials do, maybe not as much,
Speaker 3: we have a different relationship to it.
Speaker 1: So as humans evolved, can the con artists evolve too?
Speaker 2: And are we going to go backwards where everybody's so
Speaker 2: comfortable with technology that now we're all going to fall
Speaker 2: for like Frank abagneil catch me if you can type
Speaker 2: scams frite, somebody's gonna send you a piece of mail. Yes,
Speaker 2: you're going to sign away your whole life exactly.
Speaker 3: Artists can take advantage of that by targeting specific demographics
Speaker 3: of people, people who have more or less experience with
Speaker 3: the Internet, people who use the Internet in particular ways.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where you see it.
Speaker 2: But that might not actually be a bad thing. Doctor
Speaker 2: Harris told us about this theory that links back to
Speaker 2: humans being hypersocial. Remember we were talking about that earlier
Speaker 2: in the different human motivations.
Speaker 3: In the seventies, there was a theory that said, well,
Speaker 3: the reason we got this additional intelligence is because we're
Speaker 3: hyper social, and solving social problems is the hardest kind
Speaker 3: of problem you can solve, because you have to solve
Speaker 3: things like deception where somebody is telling you something about
Speaker 3: how they feel, but there's no way of verifying that
Speaker 3: information at all. And so the idea is that things
Speaker 3: like deception pushed us to become smarter people. So if
Speaker 3: you believe that, then what's going to happen is we're
Speaker 3: always going to be good at detecting deception. So even
Speaker 3: though we may be more or less trusting in different situations,
Speaker 3: when a new technology comes in with usually it takes
Speaker 3: us a while to adjust, well, particularly a tune towards
Speaker 3: detecting deception, arguably because it's what drove our evolution.
Speaker 1: So solving social problems like deception has helped us evolve.
Speaker 1: So when you think about it this way, cons and
Speaker 1: scams are kind of cyclical. Yeah, we get deceived, we
Speaker 1: learn and adapt, social context changes, the deception becomes something else,
Speaker 1: we learn and adapt, and the cycle continues. And this
Speaker 1: theory says that's what's driven our evolution.
Speaker 2: I guess we're developing a new set of skills that
Speaker 2: we're adding to our interpersonal decepticon type toolbox. Right, but
Speaker 2: then I just like, what is it going to look
Speaker 2: like later?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Is there going to be a special shimmer to holograms
Speaker 2: so we can know your bootleg hologram this is a
Speaker 2: real hologram?
Speaker 1: Like is the next step like voice simulation? So like
Speaker 1: if you've ever recorded a video of yourself like they
Speaker 1: have that now on a Snapchat or on Instagram, then
Speaker 1: somebody can take your voice and make it sound like you.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're clipping up, you know, for in the
Speaker 2: public eye. They're clipping up people's speeches from various different
Speaker 2: events and making it seem like they're saying something else.
Speaker 1: And we already know that all of the stuff that
Speaker 1: we put on social media is kept and archived, and
Speaker 1: so essentially somebody could take all those things and string
Speaker 1: a sentence together.
Speaker 2: That's like something you never said, Hey Zekiah.
Speaker 1: I need your help, can you please send me one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars?
Speaker 2: I would send it. I know you would, Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I would be like, hey, gird I want to help you.
Speaker 4: But that's it for Lab fourteen.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to check out our website for the cheat
Speaker 1: sheet on today's episode.
Speaker 2: You can find it and sign up for our newsletter
Speaker 2: at Dope Labs podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Also, we love hearing from you. What do you think
Speaker 1: about today's lab? What are your ideas for labs? Our
Speaker 1: number is two zero two five six seven seven zero
Speaker 1: two eight.
Speaker 2: You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs Podcast. T T is on Twitter at d
Speaker 2: R Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 1: And you can find Zakia at z said So.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our guest doctor Losana Harris. He has
Speaker 1: a beautiful website, go check it out at ltdash Harris
Speaker 1: dot info. We'll also link to some of his other
Speaker 1: work in our show notes.
Speaker 2: Our producer is Jimmy Radlet Mass of Wave Runner Studios.
Speaker 2: Mixing and sound design by Hanns Brown and special thanks
Speaker 2: to Tyler Adams.
Speaker 1: Original theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Elijah Lex Harvey. Dope Labs is
Speaker 1: a production of Spotify Studios and Mega Owned Media Group
Speaker 1: and is executive.
Speaker 2: Produced by US T. T. Shadia and Zakiah Wattley. I'm
Speaker 2: motivated to trust other people.
Speaker 1: I know you are. My friend's a kid talks to
Speaker 1: all the strangers and I'm like, hey, hey, we don't
Speaker 1: know them. They're like, oh no, they're great. They're going
Speaker 1: to another they're going to another establishment to continue their night.
Speaker 1: We should go with them. And I'm like, we don't
Speaker 1: know these clowns.
Speaker 2: But that also is because I don't have any deficits
Speaker 2: in control. I feel like, I, if this goes lift,
Speaker 2: I'm getting ready to turn turn this night very differently
Speaker 2: for these folks.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Sorry to that man, sorry to this man.
Speaker 1: I don't know