The article explores Herman Melville's final work, 'The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade,' which illustrates the spectrum of human behavior as it relates to trust and deception. It posits that humans engage in lying regularly, with an average of 30 lies a day. This practice instigates heightened awareness, known as epistemic vigilance—ways we monitor others' honesty. Philosophers suggest that while we initially assume honesty, continued dishonesty prompts us to reassess our trust in others. However, recent studies suggest that our defenses against deceit may be less reliable than previously thought, challenging the assumptions of our cognitive capabilities to discern truth from falsehood.
Humans lie all of the time. You've probably lied quite recently, considering most of us lie around 30 times a day. Lying is one of the most important tricks we have to get an advantage over each other.
We tend to be a 'truth default' species, which means we assume most people at least start out as being honest. Over time, if someone tells a lie or gets something wrong, we calibrate our epistemic vigilance.
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