I think the point is you have a nation-state adversary with millions of dollars and many teams of people working around the clock for years to figure out how to make you say yes. Including not crafting a persona who is too perfect, because that would obviously arouse suspicions.
replyObviously the target has agency, I don't deny that, but it seems blindingly shortsighted to think it's as simple as "be suspicious of supermodels who are into you".
I don’t even know that suspicion needs to come into it. Don’t have affairs that are connected to your job as a billion dollar CEO. She wasn’t a barista he met at a coffee shop one morning, she was a professional connection with ties to the industry. It’s not too much to ask people earning insane amounts of money to avoid mixing work and pleasure.
replyMaybe I'm just weird, but I love my wife and wouldn't cheat on her, even if a nation state tried to craft some kind of "ideal woman." It's a bit alarming so many people on this thread are treating it like a foregone conclusion that all men are doomed to cheat on their wives if given the right hair color and conversation topics.
replyWell to be fair, you haven't been put in that situation so it's hard to say how you would act. I'm sure many people who have affairs believed, 3 months prior, that they would never be the type to have an affair.
reply> Maybe I'm just weird, but I love my wife and wouldn't cheat on her
replyI agree with you, but, brain chemistry is weird, and "wouldn't cheat on them" is easier said than done and requires a lot of discipline in the heat of the moment when the situation arises and your own hind-brain and hormones are fighting you. A blasé attitude won't prepare you foe the sucker-punch.
I've seen grown people with multi-decade relationships throw it away because they got a tiny bit of extra-marital romantic attention, and the thrill regressed them to teenagers. In the majority if cases the cheaters' amors weren't interested in a long-term relationships.
It could be a matter of personality. Some people are happy with what they have, while others are fundamentally unhappy. Unusually successful people tend to be of the latter type.
replyIt's not a forgone conclusion, but from a defensive perspective the threat model is more sophisticated than you're assuming.
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